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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Husband by Proxy, by Jack Steele
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Husband by Proxy
+
+Author: Jack Steele
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2006 [EBook #19523]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HUSBAND BY PROXY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HUSBAND BY PROXY
+
+
+By
+
+JACK STEELE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1909, by
+
+Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+      I.  THE PROPOSITION
+     II.  A SECOND EMPLOYMENT
+    III.  TWO ENCOUNTERS
+     IV.  UNSPOKEN ANTAGONISM
+      V.  THE "SHADOW"
+     VI.  THE CORONER
+    VII.  A STARTLING DISCOVERY
+   VIII.  WHERE CLEWS MAY POINT
+     IX.  A SUMMONS
+      X.  A COMPLICATION
+     XI.  THE SHOCK OF TRUTH
+    XII.  A DISTURBING LOSS
+   XIII.  A TRYST IN THE PARK
+    XIV.  A PACKAGE OF DEATH
+     XV.  SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES
+    XVI.  IN QUEST OF DOROTHY
+   XVII.  A RESCUE BY FORCE
+  XVIII.  THE RACE
+    XIX.  FRIGHT AND A DISAPPEARANCE
+     XX.  NEW HAPPENINGS
+    XXI.  REVELATIONS
+   XXII.  A MAN IN THE CASE
+  XXIII.  THE ENEMY'S TRACKS
+   XXIV.  A NEW ALARM
+    XXV.  A DEARTH OF CLEWS
+   XXVI.  STARTLING DISCLOSURES
+  XXVII.  LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
+ XXVIII.  A HELPLESS SITUATION
+   XXIX.  NIGHT-WALKERS
+    XXX.  OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY
+   XXXI.  THE FRET OF WAITING
+  XXXII.  A TRAGIC CULMINATION
+ XXXIII.  FOSTER DURGIN
+  XXXIV.  THE RICHES OF THE WORLD
+   XXXV.  JOHN HARDY'S WILL
+  XXXVI.  GARRISON'S VALUED FRIEND
+ XXXVII.  A HONEYMOON
+
+
+
+
+A Husband by Proxy
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PROPOSITION
+
+With the hum of New York above, below, and all about him, stirring his
+pulses and prodding his mental activities, Jerold Garrison, expert
+criminologist, stood at the window of his recently opened office,
+looking out upon the roofs and streets of the city with a new sense of
+pride and power in his being.
+
+New York at last!
+
+He was here--unknown and alone, it was true--but charged with an energy
+that he promised Manhattan should feel.
+
+He was almost penniless, with his office rent, his licenses, and other
+expenses paid, but he shook his fist at the city, in sheer good nature
+and confidence in his strength, despite the fact he had waited a week
+for expected employment, and nothing at present loomed upon the horizon.
+
+His past, in a small Ohio town, was behind him.  He blotted it out
+without regret--or so at least he said to himself--even as to all the
+gilded hopes which had once seemed his all upon earth.  If his heart
+was not whole, no New York eye should see its wounds--and the healing
+process had begun.
+
+He was part of the vast machine about him, the mighty brain, as it
+were, of the great American nation.
+
+He paced the length of his room, and glanced at the door.  The
+half-painted sign on the frosted glass was legible, reversed, as the
+artist had left it:
+
+    JEROLD --------
+    CRIMINOLOGIST.
+
+
+He had halted the painter himself on the name, as the lettering
+appeared too fanciful--not sufficiently plain or bold.
+
+While he stood there a shadow fell upon the glass.  Someone was
+standing outside, in the hall.  As if undecided, the owner of the
+shadow oscillated for a moment--and disappeared.  Garrison, tempted to
+open the door and gratify a natural curiosity, remained beside his
+desk.  Mechanically his hand, which lay upon a book entitled "A
+Treatise on Poisons," closed the volume.
+
+He was still watching the door.  The shadow returned, the knob was
+revolved, and there, in the oaken frame, stood a tall young woman of
+extraordinary beauty, richly though quietly dressed, and swiftly
+changing color with excitement.
+
+Pale in one second, crimson in the next, and evidently concentrating
+all her power on an effort to be calm, she presented a strangely
+appealing and enchanting figure to the man across the room.  Bravery
+was blazing in her glorious brown eyes, and firmness came upon her
+manner as she stepped inside, closed the door, and silently confronted
+the detective.
+
+The man she was studying was a fine-looking, clean-cut fellow,
+gray-eyed, smooth-shaven, with thick brown hair, and with a
+gentleman-athlete air that made him distinctly attractive.  The
+fearless, honest gaze of his eyes completed a personal charm that was
+undeniable in his entity.
+
+It seemed rather long that the two thus stood there, face to face.
+Garrison candidly admiring in his gaze, his visitor studious and
+slightly uncertain.
+
+She was the first to speak.
+
+"Are you Mr. Jerold?"
+
+"Jerold Garrison," the detective answered.  "My sign is unfinished.
+May I offer you a chair?"
+
+His caller sat down beside the desk.  She continued to study his face
+frankly, with a half-shy, half-defiant scrutiny, as if she banished a
+natural diffidence under pressure of necessity.
+
+She spoke again, abruptly.
+
+"I wish to procure peculiar services.  Are you a very well-known
+detective?"
+
+"I have never called myself a detective," said Garrison.  "I'm trying
+to occupy a higher sphere of usefulness.  I left college a year ago,
+and last week opened my office here and became a New Yorker."
+
+He might, in all modesty, have exhibited a scrap-book filled with
+accounts of his achievements, with countless references to his work as
+a "scientific criminologist" of rare mental attainments.  Of his
+attainments as a gentleman there was no need of reference.  They
+proclaimed themselves in his bearing.
+
+His visitor laid a glove and a scrap of paper on the desk.
+
+"It isn't so much detective services I require," she said; "but of
+course you are widely acquainted in New York--I mean with young men
+particularly?"
+
+"No," he replied, "I know almost none.  But I know the city fairly
+well, if that will answer your purpose."
+
+"I thought, of course--I hoped you might know some honorable----  You
+see, I have come on rather extraordinary business," she said, faltering
+a little helplessly.  "Let me ask you first--is the confidence of a
+possible client quite sacred with a man in this profession?"
+
+"Absolutely sacred!" he assured her.  "Whether you engage my services
+or not, your utterances here will be treated as confidential and as
+inviolate as if spoken to a lawyer, a doctor, or a clergyman."
+
+"Thank you," she murmured.  "I have been hunting around----"
+
+She left the sentence incomplete.
+
+"And you found my name quite by accident," he supplied, indicating the
+scrap of paper.  "I cannot help observing that you have been to other
+offices first.  You have tramped all the way down Broadway from
+Forty-second Street, for the red ink that someone spilled at the
+Forty-first Street crossing is still on your shoe, together with just a
+film of dust."
+
+She withdrew her shoe beneath the edge of her skirt, although he had
+never apparently glanced in that direction.
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "I have been to others--and they wouldn't do.  I
+came in here because of the name--Jerold.  I am sorry you are not
+better acquainted--for my business is important."
+
+"Perhaps if I knew the nature of your needs I might be able to advise
+you," said Garrison.  "I hope to be more widely acquainted soon."
+
+She cast him one look, full of things inscrutable, and lowered her
+lashes in silence.  She was evidently striving to overcome some
+indecision.
+
+Garrison looked at her steadily.  He thought he had never in his life
+beheld a woman so beautiful.  Some wild, unruly hope that she might
+become his client, perhaps even a friend, was flaring in his mind.
+
+The color came and went in her cheeks, adding fresh loveliness at every
+change.  She glanced at her list of names, from which a number had been
+scratched.
+
+"Well," she said presently, "I think perhaps you might still be able to
+attend to my requirements."
+
+He waited to hear her continue, but she needed encouragement.
+
+"I shall be glad to try," he assured her.
+
+She was silent again--and blushing.  She looked up somewhat defiantly.
+
+"I wish you to procure me a husband."
+
+Garrison stared.  He was certain he had heard incorrectly.
+
+"I do not mean an actual husband," she explained.  "I simply mean some
+honorable young man who will assume the rôle for a time, as a business
+proposition, for a fee to be paid as I would pay for anything else.
+
+"I would require that he understand the affair to be strictly
+commercial, and that when I wish the arrangement to terminate he will
+disappear from the scene and from my acquaintance at once and
+absolutely.
+
+"All I ask of you is to supply me such a person.  I will pay you
+whatever fee you may demand--in reason."
+
+Garrison looked at her as fixedly as she was looking at him.
+
+Her recital of her needs had brought to the surface a phase of
+desperation in her bearing that wrought upon him potently, he knew not
+why.
+
+"I think I understand your requirements, as far as one can in the
+circumstances," he answered.  "I hardly believe I have the ability to
+engage such a person as you need for such a mission.  I informed you at
+the start that my acquaintance with New York men is exceedingly narrow.
+I cannot think of anyone I could honestly recommend."
+
+"But don't you know any honorable young gentleman--like some college
+man, perhaps--here in New York, looking for employment; someone who
+might be glad to earn, say, five hundred dollars?" she insisted.
+"Surely if you only know a few, there must be one among them."
+
+Garrison sat back in his chair and took hold of his smooth-shaved lip
+with his thumb and finger.  He reviewed his few New York experiences
+rapidly.
+
+"No," he repeated.  "I know of no such man.  I am sorry."
+
+His visitor looked at him with a new, flashing light in her eyes.
+
+"Not one?" she said, significantly.  "Not one young _college_ man?"
+
+He was unsuspicious of her meaning.
+
+"Not one."
+
+For a moment she fingered her glove where it lay upon the desk.  Then a
+look of more pronounced determination and courage came upon her face as
+she raised her eyes once more to Garrison's.
+
+She said:
+
+"Are you married?"
+
+A flush came at once upon Garrison's face--and memories and heartaches
+possessed him for a poignant moment.  He mastered himself almost
+instantly.
+
+"No," he said with some emotion, "I am not."
+
+"Then," she said, "couldn't you undertake the task yourself?"
+
+Garrison leaned forward on the table.  Lightning from an azure sky
+could have been no more astonishing or unexpected.
+
+"Do you mean--will I play this rôle--as your husband?" he said slowly.
+"Is that what you are asking?"
+
+"Yes," she answered unflinchingly.  "Why not?  You need the money; I
+need the services.  You understand exactly what it is I require.  It is
+business, and you are a business man."
+
+"But I have no wish to be a married man, or even to masquerade as one,"
+he told her bluntly.
+
+"You have quite as much wish to be one as I have to be a married
+woman," she answered.  "We would understand each other thoroughly from
+the start.  As to masquerading, if you have no acquaintances, then who
+would be the wiser?"
+
+He acknowledged the logic of her argument; nevertheless, the thing
+seemed utterly preposterous.  He rose and walked the length of his
+office, and stood looking out of the window.  Then he returned and
+resumed his seat.  He was strangely moved by her beauty and some
+unexplained helplessness of her plight, vouchsafed to his senses, yet
+he recognized a certain need for caution.
+
+"What should I be expected to do?" he inquired.
+
+His visitor, in the mental agitation which had preceded this interview,
+had taken little if any time to think of the details likely to attend
+an alliance such as she had just proposed.  She could only think in
+generalities.
+
+"Why--there will be very little for you to do, except to permit
+yourself to be considered my lawful husband, temporarily," she replied
+after a moment of hesitation, with a hot flush mounting to her cheek.
+
+"And to whom would I play?" he queried.  "Should I be obliged, in this
+capacity, to meet your relatives and friends?"
+
+"Certainly--a few," said his visitor.  "But I have almost no relatives
+in the world.  I have no father, mother, brothers, or sisters.  There
+will be, at most, a few distant relatives and possibly my lawyer."
+
+Garrison made no response.  He was trying to think what such a game
+would mean--and what it might involve.
+
+His visitor presently added:
+
+"Do you consent--for five hundred dollars?"
+
+"I don't know," answered the man.  Again he paced the room.  When he
+halted before his client he looked at her sternly.
+
+"You haven't told me your name," he said.
+
+She gave him her card, on which appeared nothing more than just merely
+the name "Mrs. Jerold Fairfax," with an address in an uptown West Side
+street.
+
+Garrison glanced at it briefly.
+
+"This is something you have provided purposely to fit your
+requirements," he said.  "Am I not supposed to know you by any other
+name?"
+
+"If you accept the--the employment," she answered, once more blushing
+crimson, "you may be obliged at times to call me Dorothy.  My maiden
+name was Dorothy Booth."
+
+Garrison merely said: "Oh!"
+
+They were silent for a moment.  The man was pondering the
+possibilities.  His visitor was evidently anxious.
+
+"I suppose I can find someone else if you refuse the employment," she
+said.  "But you will understand that my search is one of great
+difficulty.  The person I employ must be loyal, a gentleman,
+courageous, resourceful, and very little known.  You can see yourself
+that you are particularly adapted for the work."
+
+"Thank you," said Garrison, who was aware that no particular flattery
+was intended.  He added: "I hardly suppose it could do me any harm."
+
+Mrs. Fairfax accepted this ungallant observation calmly.  She
+recognized the fact that his side of the question had its aspects.
+
+She waited for Garrison to speak again.
+
+A knock at the door startled them both.  A postman entered, dropped two
+letters on the desk, and departed down the hall.
+
+Garrison took up the letters.  One was a circular of his own, addressed
+to a lawyer over a month before, and now returned undelivered and
+marked "Not found," though three or four different addresses had been
+supplied in its peregrinations.
+
+The second letter was addressed to himself in typewritten form.  He was
+too engrossed to tear it open, and laid them both upon the table.
+
+"If I took this up," he presently resumed, "I should be obliged to know
+something more about it.  For instance, when were we supposed to have
+been married?"
+
+"On the 10th of last month," she answered promptly.
+
+"Oh!" said he.  "And, in case of necessity, how should we prove it?"
+
+"By my wedding certificate," she told him calmly.
+
+His astonishment increased.
+
+"Then you were actually married, over a month ago?"
+
+"I have the certificate.  Isn't that sufficient?" she replied evasively.
+
+"Well--I suppose it is--for this sort of an arrangement," he agreed.
+"Of course some man's name must appear in the document.  I should be
+obliged, I presume, to adopt his name as part of the arrangement?"
+
+"Certainly," she said.  "I told you I came into your office because
+your name is Jerold."
+
+"Exactly," he mused.  "The name I'd assume is Jerold Fairfax?"
+
+She nodded, watching him keenly.
+
+"It's a good enough name," said Garrison.
+
+He paced up and down the floor in silence a number of times.  Mrs.
+Fairfax watched him in apparent calm.
+
+"This is a great temptation," he admitted.  "I should like to earn the
+fee you have mentioned, Miss Booth--Mrs. Fairfax, but----"
+
+He halted.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't exactly like the look of it, to be frank," he confessed.  "I
+don't know you, and you don't know me.  I am not informed whether you
+are really married or not.  If you are, and the man----  You have no
+desire to enlighten me on these matters.  Can you tell me why you wish
+to pretend that I am your husband?"
+
+"I do not wish to discuss that aspect of the arrangement at present,"
+she said.  "It is purely a business proposition that should last no
+more than a month or two at most, and then terminate forever.  I would
+prefer to have you remain out of town as much as possible."
+
+"A great many haphazard deductions present themselves to my mind," he
+said, "but all are doubtless inaccurate.  I have no morbid curiosity
+concerning your affairs, but this thing would involve me almost as much
+as yourself, by its very nature."
+
+His brows were knitted in indecision.
+
+There was silence again between them.  His visitor presently said:
+
+"If I could offer you more than the five hundred dollars, I would
+gladly do so."
+
+"Oh, the fee is large enough, for up to date I have had no employment
+or even a prospect of work," said Garrison.  "I hope you will not be
+offended when I say that I have recently become a cautious man."
+
+"I know how strange it appears for me to come here with this
+extraordinary request," agreed Mrs. Fairfax.  "I hardly know how I have
+done so.  But there was no one to help me.  I hope you will not
+consider the matter for another moment if you feel that either of us
+cannot trust the other.  In a way, I am placing my honor in your
+keeping far more than you are placing yourself in charge of mine."
+
+Garrison looked at her steadily, and something akin to
+sympathy--something that burned like wine of romance in his blood--with
+zest of adventure and a surge of generosity toward this unknown
+girl--tingled in all his being.  Something in her helplessness appealed
+to his innate chivalry.
+
+Calmly, however, he took a new estimate of her character,
+notwithstanding the fact that his first, most reliable impression had
+been entirely in her favor.
+
+"Well," he said, after a moment, "it's a blind game for me, but I think
+I'll accept your offer.  When do you wish me to begin my services?"
+
+"I should like to notify my lawyer as soon as possible," answered Mrs.
+Fairfax, frankly relieved by his decision.  "He may regard the fact
+that he was not sooner notified as a little peculiar."
+
+"Practically you wish me to assume my rôle at once," commented
+Garrison.  "What is your lawyer's name?"
+
+"Mr. Stephen Trowbridge."
+
+Garrison took up that much-addressed letter, returned by the post, and
+passed it across the table.  The one fairly legible line on its surface
+read:
+
+    STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE, ESQ.
+
+
+"I think that must be the same individual," he said.  "I sent out
+announcements of my business and presence here to nearly every lawyer
+in the State.  This envelope has been readdressed, as you observe, but
+it has never reached its destination.  Is that your man?"
+
+Mrs. Fairfax examined the missive.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I think so.  Do you wish his present address?"
+
+"If you please," answered Garrison.  "I shall take the liberty of
+steaming this open and removing its contents, after which I will place
+an antedated letter or notification of the--our marriage--written by
+yourself--in the envelope, redirect it, and send it along.  It will
+finally land in the hands of your lawyer with its tardiness very
+naturally explained."
+
+"You mean the notification will appear as if misdirected originally,"
+said Dorothy.  "An excellent idea."
+
+"Perhaps you will compose the note at once," said Garrison, pushing
+paper, pen, and ink across the desk.  "You may leave the rest, with the
+address, to me."
+
+His visitor hesitated for a moment, as if her decision wavered in this
+vital moment of plunging into unknown fates, but she took up the pen
+and wrote the note and address with commendable brevity.
+
+Garrison was walking up and down the office.
+
+"The next step----" he started to say, but his visitor interrupted.
+
+"Isn't this the only step necessary to take until something arises
+making others expedient?"
+
+"There is one slight thing remaining," he answered, taking up her card.
+"You are in a private residence?"
+
+"Yes.  The caretaker, a woman, is always there."
+
+"Have you acquainted her with the fact of your marriage?"
+
+"Certainly.  She is an English servant.  She asks no questions.  But I
+told her my husband is away from town and will be absent almost
+constantly for the next two or three months."
+
+Garrison slightly elevated his brows, in acknowledgment of the
+thoroughness of her arrangements.
+
+"I have never attempted much acting--a little at private theatricals,"
+he told her; "but of course we shall both be obliged to play this
+little domestic comedy with some degree of art."
+
+She seemed prepared for that also, despite the sudden crimson of her
+cheeks.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"One more detail," he added.  "You have probably found it necessary to
+withhold certain facts from my knowledge.  I trust I shall not be led
+into awkward blunders.  I shall do my best, and for the rest--I beg of
+you to conduct the affair according to your own requirements and
+judgment."
+
+The slightly veiled smile in his eyes did not escape her observation.
+Nevertheless, she accepted his proposal quite as a matter of course.
+
+"Thank you.  I am glad you relieved me of the necessity of making some
+such suggestion.  I think that is all--for the present."  She stood up,
+and, fingering her glove, glanced down at the table for a moment.  "May
+I pay, say, two hundred dollars now, as a retainer?"
+
+"I shall be gratified if you will," he answered.
+
+In silence she counted out the money, which she took from a purse in a
+bag.  The bills lay there in a heap.
+
+"When you wish any more, will you please let me know?" she said.  "And
+when I require your services I will wire.  Perhaps I'd better take both
+this office and your house address."
+
+He wrote them both on a card and placed it in her hand.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured.  She closed her purse, hesitated a moment,
+then raised her eyes to his.  Quite coldly she added: "Good-afternoon."
+
+"Good-day," answered Garrison.
+
+He opened the door, bowed to her slightly as she passed--then faced
+about and stared at the money that lay upon his desk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A SECOND EMPLOYMENT
+
+For a moment, when he found himself alone, Garrison stood absolutely
+motionless beside the door.  Slowly he came to the desk again, and slowly
+he assembled the bills.  He rolled them in a neat, tight wad, and held
+them in his hand.
+
+Word for word and look for look he reviewed the recent dialogue, shaking
+his head at the end.
+
+He had never been so puzzled in his life.
+
+The situation, his visitor--all of it baffled him utterly.  Had not the
+money remained in his grasp he might have believed he was dreaming.
+
+"She was frightened, and yet she had a most remarkable amount of nerve,"
+he reflected.  "She might be an heiress, an actress, or a princess.  She
+may be actually married--and then again she may not; probably not, since
+two husbands on the scene would be embarrassing."
+
+"She may be playing at any sort of a game, financial, political, or
+domestic--therefore dangerous, safe, or commonplace, full of intrigue, or
+a mystery, or the silliest caprice.
+
+"She--oh, Lord--I don't know!  She is beautiful--that much is certain.
+She seems to be honest.  Those deep, brown eyes go with innocence--and
+also with scheming; in which respect they precisely resemble blue eyes,
+and gray, and all the other feminine colors.  And yet she seemed, well,
+helpless, worried--almost desperate.  She must be desperate and helpless."
+
+Again, in fancy, he was looking in her face, and something was stirring
+in his blood.  That was all he really knew.  She had stirred him--and he
+was glad of the meeting--glad he had entered her employment.
+
+He placed the roll of money in his pocket, then looked across his desk at
+the clean, white letter which the postman had recently delivered.
+
+He took it up, paused again to wonder at the meaning of what had
+occurred, then tore the envelope and drew forth the contents.
+
+He had barely spread the letter open when a knock on the door startled
+every thought in his brain.
+
+His first conclusion was that Mrs. Fairfax had returned to repudiate her
+bargain and ask the surrender of her money.  With a smile for any fate,
+he crossed the room and opened the door.
+
+In the hallway stood a man--a little, sharp-faced, small-eyed, thin-nosed
+person, with a very white complexion, and a large, smooth-shaved mouth,
+open as if in a smile that never ceased.
+
+"Garrison?" he said sharply.  "Wicks--I'm Wicks."
+
+"Wicks?" said Garrison.  "Come in."
+
+Mr. Wicks stepped in with a snap-like alacrity.  "Read your letter," he
+said--"read your letter."
+
+Obediently Garrison perused the missive in hand, typed on the steel-plate
+stationery of the New York Immutable Life Insurance Company:
+
+
+"DEAR SIR:
+
+"At the recommendation of our counsel, Mr. Sperry Lochlan, who is still
+abroad, we desire to secure your services in a professional capacity.
+Our Mr. Wicks will call upon you this afternoon to explain the nature of
+the employment and conclude the essential arrangements.
+
+"Respectfully yours,
+  "JOHN STEFFAS,
+    "Dep't of Special Service."
+
+
+A wave of gratitude toward Lochlan, the lawyer who had first employed
+him, and advised this New York office, surged with another, of almost
+boyish joy, through Garrison's being.  It seemed almost absurd that two
+actual clients should thus have appeared within the hour.  He looked up
+at the little man with a new, keen interest.
+
+"I am glad to meet you, Mr. Wicks," he said.  "Will you please sit down?
+I am at your service."
+
+Mr. Wicks snatched a chair and sat down.  It was quite a violent
+maneuver, especially as that sinister grin never for a moment left his
+features.  He took off his hat and made a vicious dive at a wisp of long,
+red hair that adorned the otherwise barren top of his head.  The wisp lay
+down toward his left ear when thus adjusted.  He looked up at Garrison
+almost fiercely.
+
+"Obscure, ain't you?" he demanded.
+
+"Obscure?" inquired Garrison.  "Perhaps I am--just at present--here in
+New York."
+
+"You are!" stated Mr. Wicks aggressively.
+
+Garrison was not enamored of his manner.
+
+"All right," he said--"all right."
+
+Mr. Wicks suddenly leaned forward and fetched his index finger almost up
+against the young man's nose.
+
+"Good at murder?" he demanded.
+
+Garrison began to suspect that the building might harbor lunatics,
+several of whom had escaped.
+
+"Am I good at murder?" he repeated.  "Doing murder or----"
+
+"Ferreting murder!  Ferreting murder!  Ferreting murder!" cried the
+visitor irritably.
+
+"Oh," said Garrison, "if you wish to employ me on a murder case, I'll do
+the best I can."
+
+"You worked out the Biddle robbery?" queried Mr. Wicks.
+
+Garrison replied that he had.  The Biddle robbery was the Lochlan
+case--his first adventure in criminology.
+
+"Take the case!" commanded Mr. Wicks in his truculent manner.  "Two
+hundred and fifty a month as long as you work.  One thousand dollars
+bonus if you find the murderer.  Accept the terms?"
+
+"Yes, I'll take the case," he said.  "What sort of----"
+
+Mr. Wicks made a sudden snatch at his wisp of hair, adjusted it quite to
+the other side of his head, then as abruptly drew a paper from his pocket
+and thrust it into Garrison's hand.
+
+"Statement of the case," he interrupted.  "Read it."
+
+Garrison accepted the document, spread it open, and read as follows:
+
+
+STATEMENT: Case of John Hardy.
+
+Name--John Hardy.
+
+Age--57.
+
+Occupation--Real estate dealer (retired).
+
+Residence--Unfixed, changed frequently (last, Hickwood, two days,
+boarding).
+
+Family--No immediate family (no one nearer than nephews and nieces).
+
+Rating in Bradbury's--No rating.
+
+Insured in any other companies--No.
+
+Insured with us for what amount--Twenty thousand dollars.
+
+Name of beneficiary--Charles Scott.
+
+Residence--Hickwood, New York (village).
+
+Occupation--Inventor.
+
+Date of subject's death--May 27th.
+
+Place of death--Village of Branchville (near Hickwood).
+
+Verdict of coroner--Death from natural causes (heart failure or apoplexy).
+
+Body claimed by--Paul Durgin (nephew).
+
+Body interred where--Shipped to Vermont for burial.
+
+Suspicious circumstances--Beneficiary paid once before on claim for
+similar amount, death of risk having been equally sudden and unexplained.
+
+Remarks--The body was found on the porch of an empty house (said by
+superstitious neighbors to be haunted).  It was found in sitting posture,
+leaning against post of porch.  No signs of violence except a green stain
+on one knee.  Deceased uncommonly neat.  There is no grass growing before
+the empty house, owing to heavy shade of trees.  No signs of struggle
+near house.  Details supplied by old woman, Mrs. Webber, whose son found
+deceased.  Our company not represented, either at inquest or afterward,
+as no notification of subject's death was filed until the 31st inst.
+
+
+At the bottom, written in pencil, appeared the words:
+
+"Quiet case.  Steffas."
+
+That was all.  Garrison turned the paper.  There was nothing on the
+reverse.  Placing it face upward on the table, he thrust his hands into
+his pockets and looked at Mr. Wicks.
+
+"I'm expected to fasten this crime on Scott?" he inquired.  "Is that what
+your company requires?"
+
+"Fasten the crime on the guilty man!" replied the aggressive Mr. Wicks.
+"If Scott didn't do it, we'll pay the claim.  If he did, we'll send him
+to the chair.  It may not be murder at all."
+
+"Of course," said Garrison.  "Who wrote this report?"
+
+"What's that to you?" said Wicks.
+
+"I wondered why the writer drops out of the case," answered Garrison.
+"That's all."
+
+"I wrote it," said Wicks.  "Scott knows me from the former case.  If you
+want the case, you will start this evening for Hickwood and begin your
+work.  Use your own devices.  Report everything promptly--everything.  Go
+at once to the office and present your card for expenses and typed
+instructions.  Good-day!"
+
+He had clapped on his hat.  He strode to the door, opened it,
+disappeared, and closed it again as if he worked on springs.  Garrison
+was left staring at the knob, his hand mechanically closed on the
+statement intrusted to his keeping.
+
+"Well," he said, "I'll be scalloped!  Good old New York!"
+
+He was presently out upon the street, a brisk, active figure, boarding a
+Broadway car for the downtown office of the company.
+
+At half past five he was back once more in his office with a second
+hundred dollars in his pocket, fifty of which was for expenses.
+
+He was turning away from his desk at last to leave for his lodgings,
+thence to journey to Hickwood, when a messenger-boy abruptly appeared
+with a telegram.
+
+When Garrison had signed, he opened the envelope and read the following:
+
+
+"Wire me you have arrived unexpectedly and will be here at eight, then
+come.
+
+"DOROTHY FAIRFAX."
+
+
+He almost ran from the building, bought a five-dollar bunch of the
+choicest roses, and, after wiring in accordance with instructions, sent
+them to the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TWO ENCOUNTERS
+
+Garrison roomed in Forty-fourth Street, where he occupied a small,
+second-story apartment.  His meals he procured at various restaurants
+where fancy chanced to lead.
+
+To-night a certain eagerness for adventure possessed his being.
+
+More than anything else in the world he wished to see Dorothy again; he
+hardly dared confess why, but told himself that she was charming--and
+his nature demanded excitement.
+
+He dined well and leisurely, bought a box of chocolates to present to
+his new-found "wife," dressed himself with exceptional care, and at
+length took an uptown train for his destination.
+
+All the way on the cars he was thinking of the task he had undertaken
+to perform.  Not without certain phases of amusement, he rehearsed his
+part, and made up his mind to leave nothing of the rôle neglected.
+
+Arrived in the West Side street, close to the house which should have
+been Dorothy's, he discovered that the numbering on the doors had been
+wretchedly mismanaged.  One or the other of two brownstone fronts must
+be her residence; he could not determine which.  The nearest was
+lighted from top to bottom.  In the other a single pair of windows
+only, on the second floor, showed the slightest sign of life.
+
+Resolved to be equal to anything the adventure might require, he
+mounted the steps of the lighted dwelling and rang the bell.  He was
+almost immediately admitted by a serving-man, who appeared a trifle
+surprised to behold him, but who bowed him in as if he were expected,
+with much formality and deference.
+
+"What shall I call you?" he said.
+
+Garrison was surprised, but he announced:
+
+"Just Mr. Jerold."
+
+A second door was opened; a gush of perfumed air, a chorus of gay young
+voices, and a peal of laughter greeted Garrison's ears as the servant
+called out his name.
+
+Instantly a troop of brilliantly dressed young women came running from
+the nearest room, all in fancy costume and all of them masked.
+Evidently a fancy-dress party was about to begin in the house.
+Garrison realized his blunder.
+
+Before he could move, a stunning, superbly gowned girl, with bare neck
+and shoulders that were the absolute perfection of beauty, came boldly
+up to where the visitor stood.  The others had ceased their laughter.
+
+"Jerold!--how good of you to come!" said the girl, and, boldly patting
+his face with her hand, she quickly darted from him, while the others
+laughed with glee.
+
+Garrison was sure he had never seen her before.  Indeed, he had
+scarcely had time to note anything about her, save that on her neck she
+wore two necklaces--one of diamonds, the other of pearls, and both of
+wonderful gems.
+
+Then out from the room from which she had come stepped a man appareled
+as Satan--in red from top to toe.  He, too, was in mask.  He joined in
+the laughter with the others.
+
+Garrison "found himself" with admirable presence of mind.
+
+"My one regret is that I may not remain," he said, with a bow to the
+ladies.  "I might also regret having entered the wrong house, but your
+reception renders such an emotion impossible."
+
+He bowed himself out with commendable grace, and the bold masquerader
+threw kisses as he went.  Amused, quite as much as annoyed, at his
+blunder, he made himself ready as best he might for another adventure,
+climbed the steps of the dwelling next at hand, and once more rang the
+bell.
+
+Almost immediately the dark hall was lighted by the switching on of
+lights.  Then the door was opened, and Garrison beheld a squint-eyed,
+thin-lipped old man, who scowled upon him and remained there, barring
+his way.
+
+"Good evening--is my wife at home--Mrs. Fairfax?" said Garrison,
+stepping in.  "I wired her----"
+
+"Jerold!" cried a voice, as the girl in the party-house had done.  But
+this was Dorothy, half-way down the stairs, running toward him eagerly,
+and dressed in most exquisite taste.
+
+Briskly stepping forward, ready with the rôle he had rehearsed, he
+caught her in his arms as she came to the bottom of the stairs, and she
+kissed him like a sweet young wife, obeying the impulse of her nature.
+
+"Oh, Jerold, I'm so glad!" she said.  "I don't see why you have to go
+away at nine!"
+
+She was radiant with blushes.
+
+He recognized a cue.
+
+"And how's the dearest little girl in all the world?" he said, handing
+her the box of confections.  "I didn't think I'd be able to make it,
+till I wired.  While this bit of important business lasts we must do
+the best we can."
+
+He had thrown his arm about her carelessly.  She moved away with a
+natural gesture towards the man who had opened the door.
+
+"Oh, Jerold, this is my Uncle Sykey--Mr. Robinson," she said.  "He and
+Aunt Jill have come to pay me a visit.  We must all go upstairs to the
+parlor."
+
+She was pale with excitement, but her acting was perfect.
+
+Garrison turned to the narrow-eyed old man, who was scowling darkly
+upon him.
+
+"I'm delighted to meet you," he said, extending his hand.
+
+"Um!  Thank you," said Robinson, refusing his hand.  "Extraordinary
+honeymoon you're giving my niece, Mr. Fairfax."
+
+His manner nettled Garrison, who could not possibly have gauged the
+depth of the old man's dislike, even hatred, conceived against him
+simply as Dorothy's husband.
+
+A greeting so utterly uncordial made unlooked-for demands upon his wits.
+
+"The present arrangement will not endure very long," he said
+significantly.  "In the meantime, if Dorothy is satisfied there seems
+to be no occasion for anyone else to feel distressed."
+
+"If that's intended as a fling at me----" started Robinson, but Dorothy
+interrupted.
+
+"Please come upstairs," she said, laying her hand for a moment on
+Garrison's shoulder; and then she ran up lightly, looking back with all
+the smiles of perfect art.
+
+Garrison read it as an invitation to a private confidence, much needed
+to put him properly on guard.  He bounded up as if in hot pursuit,
+leaving her uncle down there by the door.
+
+She fled to the end of the upper hall, near a door that was closed.
+Garrison had lost no space behind her.  She turned a white, tense face
+as she came to a halt.
+
+"Be careful, please," she whispered.  "Some of my relatives appeared
+here unexpectedly this afternoon.  I had to wire on that account.  Get
+away just as soon as you can.  You are merely passing through the city.
+You must write me daily letters while they are here--and--don't forget
+who you are supposed to be!"
+
+She was radiant again with blushes.  Garrison was almost dazzled by her
+beauty.  What reply he might have made was interrupted.  Dorothy caught
+him by the hand, like a fond young bride, as her uncle came rapidly up
+the stairs.  The door was opened at his elbow by a white-haired, almost
+"bearded" woman, large, sharp-sighted, and ugly, with many signs of
+both inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness upon her.
+
+"So, that's your Mr. Fairfax," she said to Dorothy.  "Come in here till
+I see what you're like."
+
+Dorothy had again taken Garrison's arm.  She led him forward.
+
+"This is Aunt Jill," she said, by way of introduction and explanation.
+"Aunty, this is my husband, Jerold."
+
+Aunt Jill had backed away from the door to let them enter.  Garrison
+realized at once that Dorothy's marriage had excited much antagonism in
+the breasts of both these relatives.  A sudden accession of boldness
+came upon him, in his plan to protect the girl.  He entered the room
+and faced the woman calmly.
+
+"I'm glad to meet you," he said, this time without extending his hand.
+"I beg to impress upon both you and Mr. Robinson that, such as I am,
+Dorothy chose me of her own free will to occupy my present position."
+
+Mrs. Robinson was momentarily speechless.  Her husband now stood in the
+door.
+
+Dorothy shot Garrison a look of gratitude, but her immediate desire was
+for peace.
+
+"Let us all sit down, and try to get better acquainted," she said.
+"I'm sure we shall all be friends."
+
+"No doubt," said her uncle somewhat offensively.
+
+Garrison felt himself decidedly uncertain of his ground.  There was
+nothing to do, however, but await developments.  He looked about the
+room in a quick, comprehensive manner.
+
+It was a large apartment, furnished handsomely, perhaps even richly,
+but in a style no longer modern, save for the installation of electric
+lights.  It contained a piano, a fireplace, a cabinet, writing-desk,
+two settees, and the customary complement of chairs.
+
+The pictures on the walls were rather above the average, even in the
+homes of the wealthy.  The objects of art, disposed in suitable places,
+were all in good taste and expensive.
+
+Quite at a loss to meet these people to advantage, uninformed as he was
+of anything vital concerning Dorothy and the game she might be playing,
+Garrison was rendered particularly alert by the feeling of constraint
+in the air.  He had instantly conceived a high appreciation for
+Dorothy's art in her difficult position, and he rose to a comprehension
+of the rôle assigned to himself.
+
+He had earlier determined to appear affectionate; he now saw the need
+of enacting the part of protector.
+
+In the full illumination of the room, the glory of Dorothy's beauty was
+startling.  His eyes sought her face with no need of acting, and the
+admiration blazing in his gaze was more than genuine; it was thoroughly
+spontaneous and involuntary.
+
+The moment was awkward and fraught with suspense for Garrison, as he
+found himself subjected to the flagrantly unfriendly appraisement of
+his newly acquired relations.
+
+Aunt Jill had been wilted for a moment only.  She looked their visitor
+over with undisguised contempt.
+
+"Well, I dare say you _look_ respectable and healthy," she said, as if
+conceding a point with no little reluctance, "but appearances are very
+deceiving."
+
+"Thank you," said Garrison.  He sat down near Dorothy, occupying a
+small settee.
+
+If Mrs. Robinson was personally pugnacious, her husband harbored far
+more vicious emotions.  Garrison felt this in his manner.  The man was
+looking at him narrowly.
+
+"How much of your time have you spent with your wife since your
+marriage?" he demanded, without the slightest preliminary introduction
+to the subject.
+
+Garrison realized at once that Dorothy might have prepared a harmless
+fiction with which his answers might not correspond.  He assumed a calm
+and deliberation he was far from feeling, as he said:
+
+"I was not aware that I should be obliged to account to anyone save
+Dorothy for my goings and comings.  Up to the present I believe she has
+been quite well satisfied with my deportment; haven't you, Dorothy?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dorothy, whose utterance was perhaps a trifle faint.
+"Can't we all be friends--and talk about----"
+
+"I prefer to talk about this for a moment," interrupted her uncle,
+still regarding Garrison with the closest scrutiny.  "What's your
+business, anyway, Mr. Fairfax?"
+
+Garrison, adhering to a policy of telling the truth with the greatest
+possible frequency, and aware that evasion would avail them nothing,
+waited the fraction of a minute for Dorothy to speak.  She was silent.
+He felt she had not committed herself or him upon the subject.
+
+"I am engaged at present in some insurance business," he said.  "It
+will take me out of town to-night, and keep me away for a somewhat
+indefinite period."
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Robinson.  "I suppose you'll quit your present
+employment pretty soon?"
+
+With no possible chance of comprehending the drift of inquiry, Garrison
+responded:
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"I thought so!" exclaimed the old man, with unconcealed asperity.
+"Marrying for money is much more remunerative, hey?"
+
+"Oh, uncle!" said Dorothy.  Her pain and surprise were quite genuine.
+
+Garrison colored instantly.
+
+He might have been hopelessly floundering in a moment had not a natural
+indignation risen in his blood.
+
+"Please remember that up to this evening you and I have been absolute
+strangers," he said, with some heat.  "I am not the kind to marry for
+money.  Had I done so I should not continue in my present calling for a
+very modest compensation."
+
+He felt that Dorothy might misunderstand or even doubt his resolution
+to go on with her requirements.  He added pointedly:
+
+"I have undertaken certain assignments for my present employers which I
+mean to put through to the end, and no one aware of my motives could
+charge me with anything sordid."
+
+Dorothy rose, crossed the space between her chair and the small settee
+where Garrison was seated, took the place at his side, and shyly laid
+her hand upon his own.  It was a natural, wifely thing to do.  Garrison
+recognized her perfect acting.  A tingle of strange, lawless joy ran
+through his veins; nevertheless, he still faced Robinson, for his anger
+had been no pretense.
+
+There was something in his bearing, when aroused, that invited caution.
+He was not a man with whom to trifle.  Mrs. Robinson, having felt it
+before, underwent the experience anew.
+
+"Let's not start off with a row," she said.  "No one means to offend
+you, Mr. Fairfax."
+
+"What do you think he'll do?" demanded her husband.  "Order us out of
+the house?  It ain't his yet, and he knows it."
+
+Garrison knew nothing concerning the ownership of the house.  Mr.
+Robinson's observation gave him a hint, however, that Dorothy's
+husband, or Dorothy herself, would presumably own this dwelling soon,
+but that something had occurred to delay the actual possession.
+
+"I came to see Dorothy, and for no other purpose," he said.  "I haven't
+the slightest desire or intention to offend her relatives."
+
+If Robinson and his wife understood the hint that he would be pleased
+to see Dorothy alone, they failed to act upon it.
+
+"We'll take your future operations as our guide," said Mr. Robinson
+significantly.  "Protestations cost nothing."
+
+Mrs. Robinson, far more shrewd than her husband, in her way, had begun
+to realize that Garrison was not a man either to be frightened or
+bullied.
+
+"I'm sure we shall all be friends," she said.  "What's the use of
+fighting?  If, as Mr. Fairfax says, he did not marry Dorothy for
+money----"
+
+Her husband interrupted.  "I don't believe it!  Will you tell me, Mr.
+Fairfax, that when you married my niece you were not aware of her
+prospects?"
+
+"I knew absolutely nothing of her prospects," said Garrison, who
+thought he foresaw some money struggle impending.  "She can tell you
+that up to the present moment I have never asked her a word concerning
+her financial status or future expectations."
+
+"Why don't you tell us you never knew she had an uncle?" demanded
+Robinson, with no abatement of acidity.
+
+"As a matter of fact," replied Garrison, "I have never known the name
+of any of Dorothy's relations till to-night."
+
+"This is absurd!" cried the aggravated Mr. Robinson.  "Do you mean to
+tell me----"
+
+Garrison cut in upon him with genuine warmth.  He was fencing blindly
+in Dorothy's behalf, and instinct was guiding him with remarkable
+precision.
+
+"I should think you might understand," he said, "that once in a while a
+young woman, with a natural desire to be esteemed for herself alone,
+might purposely avoid all mention both of her relatives and prospects."
+
+"We've all heard about these marriages for love," sneered Dorothy's
+uncle.  "Where did you suppose she got this house?"
+
+Garrison grew bolder as he felt a certain confidence that so far he had
+made no particular blunders.  His knowledge of the value of half a
+truth, or even the truth entire, was intuitive.
+
+"I have never been in this house before tonight," he said.  "Our
+'honeymoon,' as you called it earlier, has, as you know, been brief,
+and none of it was spent beneath this roof."
+
+"Then how did you know where to come?" demanded Mr. Robinson.
+
+"Dorothy supplied me the address," answered Garrison.  "It is not
+uncommon, I believe, for husband and wife to correspond."
+
+"Well, here we are, and here we'll stay," said Mr. Robinson, "till the
+will and all the business is settled.  Perhaps you'll say you didn't
+even know there was a will."
+
+Garrison was beginning to see light, dimly.  What it was that lay
+behind Dorothy's intentions and her scheme he could not know; he was
+only aware that to-night, stealing a glance at her sweet but worried
+face, and realizing faintly that she was greatly beset with troubles,
+his whole heart entered the conflict, willingly, to help her through to
+the end.
+
+"You are right for once," he answered his inquisitor.  "I have known
+absolutely nothing of any will affecting Dorothy, and I know nothing
+now.  I only know you can rely upon me to fight her battles to the full
+extent of my ability and strength."
+
+"What nonsense!  You don't know!" exclaimed Mr. Robinson.  "Why----"
+
+"It's the truth," interrupted Dorothy.  "I have told him nothing about
+it."
+
+"I don't believe it!" said her uncle.  "But whatever he knows, I'll
+tell him this, that I propose to fight that will, day and night, before
+my brother's property shall go to any scheming stranger!"
+
+Garrison felt the need for enlightenment.  It was hardly fair to expect
+him to struggle in the dark.  He looked at his watch ostentatiously.
+
+"I did not come here expecting this sort of reception," he said
+truthfully.  "I hoped at least for a few minutes' time with Dorothy,
+alone."
+
+"To cook up further stories, I presume," said Mr. Robinson, who made no
+move to depart.
+
+Garrison rose and approached Mr. Robinson precisely as he might have
+done had his right been more than a fiction.
+
+"Do you require Dorothy to go down in the hall, in her own house, to
+obtain a moment of privacy?" he demanded.  "We might as well understand
+the situation first as last."
+
+It was a half-frightened look, full of craft and hatred, that Robinson
+cast upward to his face.  He fidgeted, then rose from his seat.
+
+"Come, my dear," he said to his wife, "the persecutions have commenced."
+
+He led the way from the room to another apartment, his wife obediently
+following at his heels.  The door they left ajar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UNSPOKEN ANTAGONISM
+
+Garrison crossed the room with an active stride and closed the door
+firmly.
+
+Dorothy was pale when he turned.  She, too, was standing.
+
+"You can see that I've got to be posted a little," he said quietly.
+"To err has not ceased to be human."
+
+"You have made no mistakes," said Dorothy in a voice barely above a
+whisper.  "I didn't expect them.  When I found they had come I hardly
+knew what to do.  And when they declared I had no husband I had to
+request you to come."
+
+"Something of the sort was my conclusion," Garrison told her.  "I have
+blundered along with fact and fiction as best I might, but what am I
+supposed to have done that excites them both to insult me?"
+
+Dorothy seemed afraid that the very walls might hear and betray her
+secret.
+
+"Your supposed marriage to me is sufficient," she answered in the
+lowest of undertones.  "You must have guessed that they feel themselves
+cheated out of this house and other property left in a relative's will."
+
+"Cheated by your marriage?" said Garrison.
+
+She nodded, watching to see if a look of distrust might appear in the
+gaze he bent upon her.
+
+"I wouldn't dare attempt to inform you properly or adequately to-night,
+with my uncle in the house," she said.  "But please don't believe I've
+done anything wrong--and don't desert me now."
+
+She had hardly intended to appeal to him so helplessly, but somehow she
+had been so glad to lean upon his strength, since his meeting with her
+relatives, that the impulse was not to be resisted.  Moreover she felt,
+in some strange working of the mind, that she had come to know him as
+well within the past half-hour as she had ever known anyone in all her
+life.  Her trust had gone forth of its own volition, together with her
+gratitude and admiration, for the way he had taken up her cause.
+
+"I left the matter entirely with you this afternoon," he said.  "I only
+wish to know so much as you yourself deem essential.  I feel this man
+is vindictive, cowardly, and crafty.  Are you sure you are safe where
+he is?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm quite safe, even if it is unpleasant," she told him,
+grateful for his evident concern.  "If need be, the caretaker would
+fight a pack of wolves in my defense."
+
+"This will?" asked Garrison.  "When is it going to be settled--when
+does it come to probate?"
+
+"I don't quite know."
+
+"When is your real husband coming?" he inquired, more for her own
+protection than his own.
+
+She had not admitted, in the afternoon, that she had a husband.  She
+colored now as she tried to meet his gaze.
+
+"Did I tell you there was such a person?"
+
+"No," said Garrison, "you did not.  I thought----  Perhaps that's one
+of the many things I am not obliged to know."
+
+"Perhaps."  She hesitated a moment, adding: "If you'd rather not go
+on----"
+
+She lowered her eyes.  He felt a thrill that he could not analyze, it
+lay so close to jealousy and hope.  And whatever it was, he knew it was
+out of the bargain, and not in the least his right.
+
+"It wasn't for myself I asked," he hastened to add.  "I'll act my part
+till you dismiss me.  I only thought if another man were to come upon
+the scene----"
+
+The far-off sound of a ringing house-bell came indistinctly to his
+ears.  Dorothy looked up in his face with a startled light in her great
+brown eyes that awoke a new interest within him.
+
+"The bell," she said.  "I heard it!  Who could be coming here to-night?"
+
+She slipped to the door, drew it open an inch, and listened there
+attentively.
+
+Garrison was listening also.  The door to the outside steps, in the
+hall below, was opened, then presently closed with a slam.  The
+caretaker had admitted a caller.
+
+"Good!  I'd like to see him!" said the voice of a man.  "Upstairs?"
+
+Dorothy turned to Garrison with her face as white as chalk.
+
+"Oh, if you had only gone!" she said.
+
+"What's the trouble?" he asked.  "Who's come?"
+
+"Perhaps you can slip in my room!" she whispered.  "Please hurry!"
+
+She hastened across the apartment to a door, with Garrison following.
+The door was locked.  She remembered she had locked it herself, from
+the farther side, since the advent of her uncle in the house.
+
+She turned to lead him round, by the hall.  But the door swung open
+abruptly, and a tall, handsome young man was at the threshold.  His hat
+was on.  He was dressed, despite the season, in an overcoat of
+extraordinary length, buttoned close round his neck.  It concealed him
+from his chin to his heels.
+
+"Why, hello, Dot!" he said familiarly, advancing within the room.  "You
+and your Jerold weren't trying to run away, I hope."
+
+Dorothy struggled against her confusion and alarm.
+
+"Why, no," she faltered.  "Cousin Ted, you've never met Mr. Fairfax.
+Jerold, this is my cousin, Mr. Theodore Robinson."
+
+"How do you do?" said Garrison, nodding somewhat distantly, since none
+of the Robinson group had particularly appealed to his tastes.
+
+"How are you?" responded Dorothy's cousin, with no attempt to conceal
+an unfriendly demeanor.  Crossing to Dorothy with deliberate intent to
+make the most of his relationship, he caught her by the arms.
+
+"How's everything with you, little sweetheart?" he added in his way of
+easy intimacy.  "What's the matter with my customary kiss?"
+
+Dorothy, with every sign of fear or detestation upon her, seemed wholly
+unable to move.  He put his arm roughly about her and kissed her twice.
+
+Garrison, watching with feelings ill suppressed, beheld her shrink from
+the contact.  She appeared to push her cousin off with small effort to
+disguise her loathing, and fled to Garrison as if certain of protection.
+
+"What are you scared of?" said young Robinson, moving forward to catch
+her again, and laughing in an irritating way.  "You used not to----"
+
+Garrison blocked him promptly, subconsciously wondering where he had
+heard that laugh before.
+
+"Perhaps that day has passed," he said quietly.
+
+The visitor, still with his hat on, looked Garrison over with anger.
+
+"Jealousy already, hey?" he said.  "If you think I'll give up my rights
+as a cousin you're off, understand?"
+
+Garrison stifled an impulse to slap the fellow's face.
+
+"What are your rights as a cousin, if I may ask?" he said.
+
+"Wait and see," replied Robinson.  "Dot was mighty fond of me
+once--hey, Dot?"
+
+Garrison felt certain of his ground in suppressing the fellow.
+
+"Whatever the situation may have been in the past," he said, "it is
+very much altered at present."
+
+"Is that so?" demanded Theodore.  "Perhaps you'll find the game isn't
+quite finished yet."
+
+Dorothy, still white and overwrought, attempted to mediate between the
+two.
+
+"I can't let you men start off like this," she said.  "I--I'm fond of
+you both.  I wish you would try to be friendly."
+
+"I'm willing," said her cousin, with a sudden change of front that in
+no wise deceived Garrison, and he held forth his hand.  "Will you
+shake?"
+
+That Dorothy wished him to greet the fellow civilly, and not incur his
+ill-feeling.  Garrison was sure.  He took the proffered hand, as cold
+as a fish, and dropped it again immediately.
+
+Theodore laughed, and stepped gracefully away, his long coat swinging
+outward with his motion.  Garrison caught a gleam of red, where the
+coat was parted at the bottom--and he knew where he had heard that
+laugh before.  The man before him was no other than the one he had seen
+next door, dressed in red fleshings as Satan.
+
+It was not to be understood in a moment, and Theodore's parents had
+returned once more to the door.  Indeed, the old man had beheld the
+momentary hand-clasp of the men, and he was nettled.
+
+"Theodore!" he cried; "you're not making friends with a man who's
+sneaked off and married Dorothy, I hope!  I wouldn't have believed it!"
+
+"Why not?" said his son.  "What's done is done."
+
+His mother said: "Why have you got on an overcoat such a night as this?"
+
+"Because I like it," said Theodore.
+
+Garrison knew better.  He wondered what the whole game signified.
+
+The old man was glaring at him sharply.
+
+"I should think for a man who has to leave at nine your time is getting
+short," he said.  "Perhaps your story was invented."
+
+Garrison took out his watch.  The fiction would have to be played to
+the end.  The hour lacked twenty minutes of nine.  He must presently
+depart, yet he felt that Dorothy might need protection.  Having made up
+his mind that a marriage had doubtless been planned between Dorothy and
+Theodore--on the man's part for the purpose of acquiring valuable
+property, probably veiled to Dorothy--he felt she might not be safe if
+abandoned to their power.
+
+He had found himself plunged into complications on which it had not
+been possible to count, but notwithstanding which he meant to remain by
+Dorothy with the utmost resolution.  He had not acknowledged that the
+charm she exercised upon him lay perilously close to the tenderest of
+passions, but tried to convince himself his present desire was merely
+to see this business to the end.
+
+It certainly piqued him to find himself obliged to leave with so much
+of the evening's proceedings veiled in mystery.  He would have been
+glad to know more of what it meant to have this cousin, Theodore,
+masquerading as the devil in one house, and covering all the signs here
+at home.  He was absolutely helpless in the situation.  He knew that
+Dorothy wished him to depart.  She could not, of course, do otherwise.
+
+"Thank you," he said to the elder Robinson.  "I must leave in fifteen
+minutes."
+
+Dorothy looked at him strangely.  She could not permit him to stay, yet
+she felt the need of every possible safeguard, now that her cousin had
+appeared.  The strange trust and confidence she felt in Garrison had
+given her new hope and strength.  To know he must go in the next few
+minutes, leaving her there with the Robinsons, afflicted her abruptly
+with a sense of desolation.
+
+Yet there was nothing she could say or do to prevent his immediate
+retreat.
+
+Young Robinson, made aware that Garrison would soon be departing,
+appeared to be slightly excited.
+
+"I'll go down and 'phone for my suit-case," he said, and he left the
+room at once.
+
+Aunt Jill and old Robinson sat down.  It was quite impossible for
+Garrison to ask them again to retire.  Dorothy crossed the room and
+seated herself before the piano.  Garrison followed, and stood there at
+her side.
+
+She had no spirit for music, and no inclination to play, nevertheless
+she permitted her hands to wander up and down the keys, calling forth a
+sweetly sad bit of Hungarian song that took a potent hold on Garrison's
+emotions.
+
+"Is there anything I can do but go?" he murmured, his voice well masked
+by the melody.  "Do you think you may need me very soon?"
+
+"I do not know.  I hope not," she answered, for him alone to hear.
+"I'm sorry it's been so disagreeable.  Do you really have to go away
+from town?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To-day you said you had no employment."
+
+"It was true.  Employment came within ten minutes of your leaving.  I
+took it.  For you know you hardly expected to require my services so
+soon."
+
+She played a trifle louder, and asked him:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Branchville and Hickwood."
+
+The playing suddenly ceased.  She looked up at him swiftly.  In nervous
+haste she resumed her music.
+
+"Not on detective work?  You mentioned insurance."
+
+"It concerns insurance."
+
+She was silent for a moment.
+
+"When do you return?"
+
+"I hardly know," he answered.  "And I suppose I've got to start at once
+in order to maintain our little fiction."
+
+"Don't forget to write," she said, blushing, as she had before; and she
+added: "for appearances."  She rose from her seat.
+
+Garrison pulled out his watch and remarked, for the Robinsons to hear:
+"Well, I've got to be off."
+
+"Wait a minute, please," said Dorothy, as if possessed by a sudden
+impulse, and she ran from the room like a child.
+
+With nothing particularly pleasant to say to the Robinsons, Garrison
+approached a center-table and turned the pages of a book.
+
+Dorothy was back in a moment.
+
+"I'll go down to the door," she said.
+
+Garrison said good-night to the Robinsons, who answered curtly.  He
+closed the door upon them as he left the room.
+
+Dorothy had hastened to the stairs before him, and continued down to
+the hall.  Her face was intensely white again as she turned about,
+drawing from her dress a neat, flat parcel, wrapped in paper.
+
+"I told you to-day that I trust you absolutely," she said, in a nervous
+undertone.  "I wish you'd take care of this package."
+
+Garrison took it, finding it heavy in his hand.  "What is it?" he said.
+
+"Don't try to talk--they'll listen," she cautioned.  "Just hurry and
+go."
+
+"If you need me, write or wire," he said.
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+She retreated a little way from him, as if she felt he might exact a
+husband's right of farewell, which the absence of witnesses made quite
+unessential.
+
+"Good-night," she answered, adding wistfully; "I am very grateful,
+believe me."
+
+She gave him her hand, and his own hand trembled as he took it.
+
+A moment later he was out upon the street, a wild, sweet pleasure in
+his veins.
+
+Across the way a man's dark figure detached itself from the darkness of
+a doorstep and followed where Garrison went.
+
+Shadowed to his very door, Garrison came to his humble place of abode
+with his mind in a region of dreams.
+
+It was not until he stood in his room, and his hand lay against his
+pocket, that he thought again of Dorothy's parcel surrendered to his
+keeping.  He took it out.  He felt he had a right to know its contents.
+
+It had not been sealed.
+
+He removed the paper, disclosing a narrow, shallow box, daintily
+covered with leather.  It was merely snapped shut with a catch.
+
+He opened it, and an exclamation of astonishment escaped his lips.
+
+It contained two necklaces--one of diamonds and one of pearls, the gems
+of both marvelously fine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE "SHADOW"
+
+Nothing more disquieting than this possession of the necklaces could
+possibly have happened to Garrison.  He was filled with vague
+suspicions and alarms.  The thing was wholly baffling.
+
+What it signified he could not conjecture.  His mind went at once to
+that momentary scene at the house he had entered by mistake, and in
+which he had been confronted by the masked young woman, with the jewels
+on her throat, she who had patted his face and familiarly called him by
+name.
+
+He could not possibly doubt the two ropes of gems were the same.  The
+fact that Dorothy's cousin, in the garb of Satan, had undoubtedly
+participated in the masking party, aroused disturbing possibilities in
+Garrison's mind.
+
+What was the web in which he was entangled?
+
+To have Theodore come to the house in his long, concealing coat,
+straight from the maskers next door; to have him disappear, and then to
+have Dorothy bring forth these gems with such wholly unimaginable trust
+in his honesty, brought him face to face with a brand-new mystery from
+which he almost shrank.  Reflections on thefts, wherein women were
+accomplices, could not be driven from his brain.
+
+Here was Dorothy suddenly requiring a pseudo-husband--for what?  Here
+was a party next door to the house--a party on which he had stumbled
+accidentally--where a richly dressed young woman chanced to greet him,
+with her jewels on her neck.  Here was, apparently, a family
+disturbance, engendered by his marriage with old Robinson's niece.  And
+now--here were the necklaces, worth, at the least estimation, the sum
+of thirty thousand dollars--delivered to himself!
+
+He could not escape the thought of a "fence," in which he himself had
+possibly been impressed as a tool, by the cleverest intrigue.  The
+entire attitude of the Robinsons might, he realized, have been but a
+part of the game.  He had witnessed Dorothy's acting.  It gave him a
+vivid sense of her powers, some others of which might well lie
+concealed behind her appearance of innocence.
+
+And yet, when he thought of the beautiful girl who had begged him not
+to desert her, he could not think her guilty of the things which this
+singular outcome might suggest.  He was sure she could clear up the
+mystery, and set herself straight in his eyes.
+
+Not a little disturbed as to what he should do with these precious
+baubles, sparkling and glinting in his hand, he knitted his brow in
+perplexity.  He was due to leave New York at once, on orders from
+Wicks.  No safe deposit vault was available at such an hour.  He dared
+not leave the things behind in this room.  There was no alternative, he
+must carry them along in his pocket.
+
+Inasmuch as the problem could not possibly be solved at once, and in
+view of the fact that his mind, or his heart, refused to credit Dorothy
+with guilt, there was nothing to do but dismiss the subject, as far as
+possible, and make ready to depart.
+
+He opened a drawer to procure the few things requisite for his trip.
+On top of a number of linen garments lay a photograph--the picture of a
+sweetly pretty young woman.  He took it up, gazed at it calmly, and
+presently shook his head.
+
+He turned it over.
+
+On the back was written: "With the love of my heart--Ailsa."
+
+He had kissed this picture a thousand times, in rapture.  It had once
+represented his total of earthly happiness, and then--when the notice
+of her marriage had come so baldly, through the mail--it had symbolized
+his depths of despair.  Through all his hurt he had clung, not only to
+the picture, but also to some fond belief that Ailsa loved him still;
+that the words she had spoken and the things she had done, in the days
+of their courtship, had not been mere idle falsehoods.
+
+To-night, for the first time since his dream had been shattered, the
+photograph left him cold and unfeeling.  Something had happened, he
+hardly knew what--something he hardly dared confess to himself, with
+Dorothy only in his vision.  The lifeless picture's day was gone at
+last.
+
+He tossed it back in the drawer with a gesture of finality, drew forth
+a number of collars and ties, then went to a closet, opened the door
+and studied his two suit-cases thoughtfully.  He knew not which to
+take.  One was an ordinary, russet-leather case; the other was a
+thin-steel box, veneered with leather, but of special construction, on
+a plan which Garrison himself had invented.  Indeed, the thing was a
+trap, ingeniously contrived when the Biddle robbery had baffled far
+older men than himself, and had then been solved by a trick.
+
+On the whole, he decided he would take this case along.  It had brought
+him luck on the former occasion, and the present was, perhaps, a
+criminal case.  He lifted it out, blew off some dust, and laid it,
+open, on the bed.
+
+To all appearances the thing was innocent enough.  On the under side of
+the cover was a folding flap, fastened with a string and a button.
+Unremembered by Garrison, Ailsa's last letter still reposed in the
+pocket, its romance laid forever in the lavender of rapidly fading
+memories.
+
+Not only was the case provided with a thin false bottom, concealing its
+mechanism, but between the cover and the body proper, on either side,
+were wing-like pieces of leather, to judge from their looks, that
+seemed to possess no function more important than the ordinary canvas
+strips not infrequently employed on a trunk to restrain the cover from
+falling far backward when opened.  But encased in these wings were
+connections to powerful springs that, upon being set and suddenly
+released, would snap down the cover like the hammer of a gun and catch,
+as in the jaws of a trap, any meddling hands that might have been
+placed inside the case by a thief, at the same time ringing a bell.  To
+set it was a matter of the utmost simplicity, while to spring it one
+had barely to go at the contents of the case and touch the trigger
+lightly.
+
+The springs were left unset, as Garrison tossed in the trifles he
+should need.  Then he changed his clothes, turned off the gas, and was
+presently out once more in the open of the street, walking to the Grand
+Central Station, near at hand.
+
+The man who had followed all the way from Dorothy's residence not only
+was waiting, but remained on Garrison's trail.
+
+At a quarter of ten Garrison ensconced himself in a train for
+Branchville.  His "shadow" was there in the car.  The run required
+fifty minutes.  Hickwood, a very small village, was passed by the cars
+without a stop.  It was hardly two miles from the larger settlement.
+
+The hour was late when Garrison arrived.  He and his "shadow" alighted
+from the train and repaired to a small, one-story hotel near the
+railway depot, the only place the town afforded.  They were presently
+assigned to adjoining rooms.
+
+Garrison opened his suit-case on the bureau, removed one or two
+articles, and left the receptacle open, with the cover propped against
+the mirror.  Despite the lateness of the hour he then went out, to roam
+about the village.  His fellow traveler watched only to see him out of
+the house, and then returned in haste.
+
+In the town there was little to be seen.  The houses extended far back
+from the railroad, on considerably elevated hills.  There was one main
+thoroughfare only, and this was deserted.  The dwellings were dark.  No
+one seemed stirring in the place, though midnight had not yet struck.
+
+Garrison was out for half an hour.  When he returned his suit-case was
+closed.  He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked
+inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled.  But
+nothing was gone, so far as he could see.  Then he noticed the
+folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone.  How well he
+remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago!  A little
+surprised that he had so utterly forgotten its existence, he slipped
+his hand inside the place--and found it empty!
+
+Even then he entertained no suspicions, for a moment.  The letter, like
+the photograph, was no longer a valued possession.  Yet he wondered
+where it could have gone.  Vaguely uncertain, after all, as to whether
+he had left it here or not, his eye was suddenly caught by the
+slightest movement in the world, reflected in the mirror of the bureau.
+The movement was up at the transom, above a door that led to the next
+adjoining room.
+
+Instantly turning away, to allay any possible suspicion that he might
+be aware of the fact that someone was spying upon him, Garrison moved
+the suit-case to a chair, drew from his pocket a folded paper that
+might have appeared important--although merely a railroad
+folder--placed it carefully, as if to hide it, under various articles
+of apparel, set the springs of the vicious steel-trap, and, leaving the
+suitcase open as before, took a turn around the room.
+
+All this business was merely for the benefit of the man whom he knew to
+be watching from over the door.  Starting as if to undress, he paused,
+appeared to remember something left neglected, and hastened from his
+room, purposely leaving the door more than half-way ajar.  Down the
+hall he strode, to the office, where he looked on the register and
+discovered the name of his neighbor--John Brown--an obvious alias.
+
+He had hardly been thus engaged for two minutes when the faint, far-off
+sound of a ringing bell came distinctly to his ears.
+
+"My alarm-clock's gone off," he said to the man at the desk, and he
+fled up the hall like a sprinter.
+
+A clatter of sounds, as of someone struggling, had come before he
+reached his room.  As he bounded in he beheld his suit-case, over at
+the window, jerking against the sash and sill as if possessed of evil
+spirits.  No thief was visible.  The fellow, with the trap upon his
+fingers, had already leaped to the ground.
+
+Within a yard of his captured burglar Garrison beheld the suit-case
+drop, and his man had made good his escape.
+
+He thrust his head outside the window, but the darkness was in favor of
+the thief, who was not to be seen.
+
+Chagrined to think Mr. "Brown" had contrived to get loose, Garrison
+took up the case, carried it back to the bureau, and opened it up, by
+skillfully releasing the springs.  Three small patches of finger-skin
+were left in the bite of its jaws--cards of the visitor left as
+announcements of his visit.
+
+The room next door was not again occupied that night.  The hotel saw no
+more of Mr. Brown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CORONER
+
+Not in the least reassured, but considerably aroused in all his
+instincts by these further developments of a night already full of
+mysterious transactions, Garrison, after a futile watch for his
+neighbor, once more plunged into a study of the case in which he found
+himself involved.
+
+Vaguely he remembered to have noticed that the man who had come here to
+Branchville with him on the train carried no baggage.  He had no doubt
+the man had been close upon his trail for some considerable time; but
+why, and what he wanted, could not be so readily determined.  Certain
+the man had extracted Ailsa's letter from the pocket of the case, yet
+half convinced that the thief had been searching for the necklaces
+intrusted to his care, Garrison was puzzled.
+
+There seemed to be no possible connection between the two.  He could
+not understand what a thief who would take the one would require of the
+other.  Aside from his money, the gems were the only articles he
+possessed of the slightest value or significance.  Half persuaded that
+the diamonds and pearls afforded the booty for which his visitor had
+searched, he was once more in doubt as to whether he had lost Ailsa's
+letter or not.  He might find it still among his things, at his room in
+Forty-fourth Street.
+
+He was fully convinced the man would return no more.  Nevertheless,
+when he turned in at last, the jewels were under the pillow.
+
+Branchville, in the morning, proved an attractive place of residence.
+Half its male population went to New York as commuters.  Its housewives
+then bustled about their gardens or their chicken-coops, at the rear of
+the houses, and a dozen old men gathered slowly at the post-office
+store to resume the task of doing nothing.
+
+Garrison experienced no difficulty in searching out Mrs. Webber, the
+woman who had supplied certain details concerning the finding of the
+body of the man, John Hardy, whose death had occurred here the previous
+week.
+
+The house, at the porch of which the body had been discovered, was
+empty.  Mrs. Webber went with Garrison to the place, showed him exactly
+where the body had reclined, and left him alone at the scene.
+
+He looked the details over carefully.  The porch was low and roofed;
+its eaves projected a foot.  If, as Garrison fancied, the stricken man
+might have come here in weakness, to lean against the post, and had
+then gone down, perhaps leaving heel-marks in the earth, all signs of
+any such action had been obliterated, despite the fact that no rains
+had fallen since the date of the man's demise.  Garrison scrutinized
+the ground closely.  A piece of broken crockery, a cork, the top of a
+can, an old cigar, and some bits of glass and wire lay beside the
+baseboard--the usual signs of neglect.  The one man-made article in all
+the litter that attracted Garrison's attention was the old cigar.  He
+took it up for a more minute examination.
+
+It had never been lighted.  It was broken, as if someone had stepped
+upon the larger end; but the label, a bright red band of paper, was
+still upon it.  The wrapper had somewhat spread; but the pointed end
+had been bitten off, half an inch up on the taper.
+
+Aware that the weed might have been thrown down by anyone save Hardy,
+Garrison nevertheless placed it in an envelope and tucked it away in
+his pocket.  A visit to the local coroner presenting itself as the next
+most natural step, he proceeded at once to his office.
+
+As a dealer in real estate, a notary public, and an official in several
+directions, the coroner was a busy man.  He said so himself.
+
+Garrison introduced himself candidly as a New York detective, duly
+licensed, at present representing a State insurance company, and stated
+the nature of his business.
+
+"All right," said the coroner, inclined at once to be friendly.  "My
+name is Pike.  What'd you want to know?  Sit down and take it easy."
+
+"As much as I can learn about the case."  Garrison took a proffered
+chair.  "For instance, what did you find on the body?"
+
+"Nothing--of any importance--a bunch of keys, a fountain-pen, and--and
+just some useless trash--I believe four dollars and nineteen cents."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Oh, some scraps of paper and a picture postal-card."
+
+"Any cigars?" asked Garrison.
+
+"Yep--three, with labels on 'em--all but one, I mean."  He had taken
+one label for his son's collection.
+
+"What did you do with the stuff?"
+
+"Locked it up, waiting orders from the court," replied Mr. Pike.  "You
+bet, I know my business."
+
+Garrison was pursuing a point.  He inquired: "Do you smoke?"
+
+"No, I don't; and if I did, I wouldn't touch one of them," said the
+coroner.  "And don't you forget it."
+
+"Did anyone help you to carry off the body--anyone who might have
+thrown a cigar away, unlighted?"
+
+"No, siree!  When Billy Ford and Tom Harris git a cigar it never gits
+away," said Mr. Pike.
+
+"Did you find out where the dead man came from and what he was doing in
+the village?"
+
+"He was stopping down to Hickwood with Mrs. Wilson," answered Pike.
+"His friend there was Charlie Scott, who's making a flying-machine
+that's enough to make anybody luny.  I've told him he can't borrow no
+money from me on no such contraption, and so has Billy Dodd."
+
+Garrison mentally noted down the fact that Scott was in need of money.
+
+"What can you tell me of the man's appearance?" he added, after a
+moment of silence.  "Did his face present any signs of agony?"
+
+"Nope.  Just looked dead," said the coroner.
+
+"Were there any signs upon him of any nature?"
+
+"Grass stain on his knee--that's about all."
+
+"About all?" Garrison echoed.  "Was there anything else--any scratches
+or bruises on his hands?"
+
+"No--nary a scratch.  He had real fine hands," said the coroner.  "But
+they did have a little dirt on 'em--right on three of the knuckles of
+the left hand and on one on the right--the kind of dirt you can't rub
+off."
+
+"Did it look as if he'd tried to rub it off?"
+
+"Looked as if he'd washed it a little and it wouldn't come."
+
+"Just common black dirt?"
+
+"Yes, kind of grimy--the kind that gits in and stays."
+
+Garrison reflected that a sign of this nature might and might not prove
+important.  Everything depended on further developments.  One deduction
+was presented to his mind--the man had doubtless observed that his
+hands were soiled and had washed them in the dark, since anyone with
+the "fine" hands described by the coroner would be almost certain to
+keep them immaculate; but might, in the absence of a light, wash them
+half clean only.
+
+He was not disposed to attach a very great importance to the matter,
+however, and only paused for a moment to recall a number of the various
+"dirts" that resist an effort to remove them--printers' ink, acid
+stains, axle grease, and greasy soot.
+
+He shifted his line of questions abruptly.
+
+"What did you discover about the dead man's relatives?  The nephew who
+came to claim the body?"
+
+"Never saw him," said the coroner.  "I couldn't hang around the corpse
+all day.  I'm the busiest man in Branchville--and I had to go down to
+New York the day he come."
+
+"Did you take possession of any property that deceased might have had
+at his room in Hickwood?"
+
+"Sure," said Pike.  "Half a dozen collars, and some socks, a few old
+letters, and a box almost full of cigars."
+
+"If these things are here in your office," said Garrison, rising, "I
+should like to look them over."
+
+"You bet, I can put my hand on anything in my business in a minute,"
+boasted Mr. Pike.  He rose and crossed the room to a desk with a large,
+deep drawer, which he opened with a key.
+
+The dead man's possessions were few, indeed.  The three cigars which
+his pocket had disgorged were lying near a little pile of money.
+Garrison noted at once that the labels on two were counterparts of the
+one on the broken cigar now reposing in his pocket.  He opened the box
+beneath his hand.  The cigars inside were all precisely like the
+others.  Five only had ever been removed, of which four were accounted
+for already.  The other had doubtless been smoked.
+
+On the even row of dark-brown weeds lay a card, on which, written in
+pencil, were the words:
+
+  A BIRTHDAY GREETING--WITH LOVE.
+
+
+Garrison let fall the lid and glanced with fading interest at the few
+insignificant papers and other trifles which the drawer contained.  He
+had practically made up his mind that John Hardy had died, as the
+coroner had found, of heart disease, or apoplexy, even in the act of
+lighting up to smoke.
+
+He questioned the man further, made up his mind to visit Charles Scott
+and Mrs. Wilson, in Hickwood, and was presently out upon the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A STARTLING DISCOVERY
+
+Garrison walked along the road to Hickwood out of sheer love of being
+in the open, and also the better to think.
+
+Unfortunately for the case in hand, however, his thoughts wandered
+truantly back to New York and the mystery about the girl masquerading
+to the world as his wife.  His meditations were decidedly mixed.  He
+thought of Dorothy always with a thrill of strong emotions, despite the
+half-formed suspicions which had crossed his mind at least a dozen
+times.
+
+Her jewels were still in his pocket--a burden she had apparently found
+too heavy to carry.  How he wished he might accept her confidence in
+him freely, unreservedly--with the thrill it could bring to his heart!
+
+The distance to Hickwood seemed to slip away beneath his feet.  He
+arrived in the hamlet far too soon, for the day had charmed bright
+dreams into being, and business seemed wholly out of place.
+
+The railroad station, a store, an apothecary's shop, and a cobbler's
+little den seemed to comprise the entire commercial street.
+
+Garrison inquired his way to the home of his man--the inventor.
+
+Scott, whom he found at a workshop, back of his home, was a thin,
+stooped figure, gray as a wolf, wrinkled as a prune, and stained about
+the mouth by tobacco.  His eyes, beneath their overhanging brows of
+gray, were singularly sharp and brilliant.  Garrison made up his mind
+that the blaze in their depths was none other than the light of
+fanaticism.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Scott?" said the detective, who had determined to
+pose as an upper-air enthusiast.  "I was stopping in Branchville for a
+day or two, and heard of your fame as a fellow inventor.  I've been
+interested in aeroplanes and dirigible balloons so long that I thought
+I'd give myself the pleasure of a call."
+
+"Um!" said Scott, closing the door of his shop behind him, as if to
+guard a precious secret.  "What did you say is your name?"
+
+Garrison informed him duly.
+
+"I haven't yet made myself famous as a navigator of the air, but we all
+have our hopes."
+
+"You'll never be able to steer a balloon," said Scott, with a touch of
+asperity.  "I can tell you that."
+
+"I begin to believe you're right," assented Garrison artfully.  "It's a
+mighty discouraging and expensive business, any way you try it."
+
+"I'll do the trick!  I've got it all worked out," said Scott, betrayed
+into ardor and assurance by a nearness of the triumph that he felt to
+be approaching.  "I'll have plenty of money to complete it
+soon--plenty--plenty--but it's a long time coming, even now."
+
+"That's the trouble with most of us," Garrison observed, to draw his
+man.  "The lack of money."
+
+"Why can't they pay it, now the man is dead?" demanded Scott, as if he
+felt that everyone knew his affairs by heart and could understand his
+meaning.  "I need the money now--to-day--this minute!  It's bad enough
+when a man stays healthy so long, and looks as if he'd last for twenty
+years.  That's bad enough without me having to wait and wait and wait,
+now that he's dead and in the ground."
+
+It was clear to Garrison the man's singleness of purpose had left his
+mind impaired.  He began to see how a creature so bent on some wondrous
+solution of the flying-machine enigma could even become so obsessed in
+his mind that to murder for money, insurance benefits, or anything
+else, would seem a fair means to an end.
+
+"Some friend of yours has recently died?" he asked.  "You've been left
+some needed funds for your labors?"
+
+"Funny kind of friendship when a man goes on living so long," said the
+alert fanatic.  "And I don't get the money; that's what's delaying me
+now."
+
+"You're far more fortunate than some of us," said Garrison.  "Some
+friend, I suppose, here in town."
+
+"No, he was here two days," answered Scott.  "I saw him but little.  He
+died in the night, up to the village."  His sharp eyes swung on
+Garrison peculiarly the moment his speech was concluded.
+
+He demanded sharply; "What's all this business to you?"
+
+"Nothing--only that it shows the world's great inventors are not always
+neglected, after all," answered Garrison.  "Some of us never enjoy such
+good fortune."
+
+"The world don't know how great I am," declared the inventor, instantly
+off, on the hint supplied by his visitor.  "But just the minute that
+insurance company gives me the money, I'll be ready to startle the
+skies!  I'll blot out the stars for 'em!  I'll show New York!  I know
+what I'm doing!  And nothing on earth is going to stop me!  All these
+fool balloonists, with their big silk floating cigars!  Deadly cigars
+is what they are--deadly!  You wait!"
+
+Garrison was staring at him fixedly, fascinated by a new idea which had
+crept upon his mind with startling abruptness.  His one idea was to get
+away for a vital two minutes by himself.
+
+"Well, perhaps I'll try to get around again," he said.  "I can see
+you're very busy, and I mustn't keep you longer from your work.  Good
+luck and good-day."
+
+"The only principle," the old man answered, his gaze directed to the
+sky.
+
+Garrison looked up, beholding a bird, far off in the azure vault,
+soaring in the majesty of flight.  Then he hastened again to the quiet
+little street, and down by a fence at a vacant lot, where he paused and
+looked about.  He was quite alone.  Drawing from his pocket the
+envelope containing the old cigar that Hardy had undoubtedly let fall
+as he died at the porch of the "haunted" house, he turned up the
+raggedly bitten end.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed beneath his breath.
+
+Tucked within the tobacco folds, in a small hollow space which was
+partially closed by the filler which had once been bitten together, was
+a powdery stuff that seemed comprised of small, hard particles, as of
+crystals, roughly broken up.
+
+His breath came fast.  His heart was pumping rapidly.  He raised the
+cigar to his nostrils and smelled, but could only detect the pungent
+odor of tobacco.
+
+That the powder was a poison he had not the slightest doubt.  Aware
+that one poison only, thus administered, would have the potency to slay
+an adult human being practically on the instant, he realized at once
+that here, at the little, unimportant drug-shop of the place, the
+simple test for such a stuff could be made in a matter of two minutes.
+
+Eager and feverish to inform himself without delay, he took out his
+knife and carefully removed all the powder from its place and wrapped
+it most cautiously about in the paper of the envelope in hand.  The
+cigar he returned to his pocket.
+
+Five minutes later, at the drug-store down the street, an obliging and
+clever young chemist at the place was holding up a test-tube made of
+glass, with perhaps two thimblefuls of acidulated solution which had
+first been formed by dissolving the powder under inspection.
+
+"If this is what you suppose," he said, "a slight admixture of this
+iron will turn it Prussian blue."
+
+He poured in the iron, which was likewise in solution, and instantly
+the azure tint was created in all its deadly beauty.
+
+Garrison was watching excitedly.
+
+"No mistake about it," said the chemist triumphantly.  "Where did you
+find this poison?"
+
+"Why--in a scrap of meat," said Garrison, inventing an answer with
+ready ingenuity; "enough to have killed my dog in half a shake!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHERE CLEWS MAY POINT
+
+Startled, thus to discover that, after all, a crime of the most
+insidious and diabolical nature had been committed, Garrison wandered
+along the street, after quitting the drug-store, with his brain aglow
+with excitement and the need for steady thought.
+
+The case that had seemed but a simple affair of a man's very natural
+demise had suddenly assumed an aspect black as night.
+
+He felt the need for light--all the light procurable in Hickwood.
+
+Aware of the misleading possibilities of a theory preconceived, he was
+not prepared even now to decide that inventor Scott was necessarily
+guilty.  He found himself obliged to admit that the indications pointed
+to the half-crazed man, to whom a machine had become a god, but nothing
+as yet had been proved.
+
+To return to Scott this morning would, he felt, be indiscreet.  The one
+person now to be seen and interviewed was Mrs. Wilson, at whose home
+the man Hardy had been lodged.  He started at once to the place, his
+mind reverting by natural process to the box of cigars he had seen an
+hour before, and from which, without a doubt, this poisoned weed had
+been taken by Hardy to smoke.  He realized that one extremely important
+point must be determined by the box itself.
+
+If among the cigars still remaining untouched there were others
+similarly poisoned, the case might involve a set of facts quite
+different from those which reason would adduce if the one cigar only
+had been loaded.  It was vital also to the matter in hand to ascertain
+the identity of the person who had presented the smokes as a birthday
+remembrance to the victim.
+
+He arrived at Mrs. Wilson's home, was met at the door by the lady
+herself, and was then obliged to wait interminably while she fled to
+some private boudoir at the rear to make herself presentable for
+"company."
+
+For the second time, when she at length appeared, Garrison found
+himself obliged to invent a plausible excuse for his visit and
+curiosity.
+
+"I dropped in to ascertain a few little facts about the late Mr. Hardy,
+whose death occurred last week in Branchville," he said.  "The
+insurance company that I represent goes through this trifling formality
+before paying a claim."
+
+"He certainly was the nicest man," said Mrs. Wilson.  "And just as I
+was countin' on the money, he has to up and die.  I didn't think he was
+that kind."
+
+"Did he have many visitors?" Garrison asked, hastening at once to the
+items he felt to be important.  "I mean, from among the neighbors,
+or--anyone else?"
+
+"Well, Charlie Scott come over, that second night and actin' that queer
+I didn't know what was the matter.  He went off just about nine
+o'clock, and I went to bed, and then I heard him come back in half an
+hour, while Mr. Hardy was out, and he went again before Mr. Hardy come
+in and started off to Branchville to die."
+
+Her method of narrative was puzzling.
+
+"You mean," said Garrison, "that after Mr. Scott had called and gone,
+Mr. Hardy went out temporarily, and in his absence Mr. Scott returned
+and remained for a time in his room?"
+
+"I didn't git up to see what he wanted, or how long he stayed," said
+Mrs. Wilson.  "I hate gittin' up when once I'm abed."
+
+"And he went before Mr. Hardy's return?"
+
+"Yes, I stayed awake for that; for although Charlie Scott may be honest
+enough, he's inventin' some crazy fiddlede-dee, which has been the
+crown of thorns of that dear woman all these----"
+
+"Did they seem to be friends, Mr. Scott and Mr. Hardy?" Garrison
+interrupted mildly.  "A clever woman, you know, can always tell."
+
+"Ain't you New York men the quick ones to see!" said Mrs. Wilson.  "Of
+course they was friends.  The day he come Mr. Hardy was over to
+Charlie's all the livelong afternoon."
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy get very many letters, or anything, through the mail?"
+
+"Well, of course, I offered to go to the post-office, and bring him
+everything," said Mrs. Wilson, "but he went himself.  So I don't know
+what he got, or who it come from.  Not that I read anything but the
+postals and----"
+
+"Did he get any packages sent by express?"
+
+"Not that come to my house, for little Jimmie Vane would have brought
+'em straight to me."
+
+Garrison went directly to the mark around which he had been playing.
+
+"Who delivered his birthday present--the box of cigars?"
+
+"Oh, that was his niece, the very first evenin' he was here--and she
+the prettiest girl I ever seen."
+
+"His niece?" echoed Garrison.  "Some young lady--who brought them here
+herself?"
+
+"Well, I should say so!  My, but she was that lovely!  He took her up
+to Branchville to the train--and how I did hate to see her go!"
+
+"Of course, yes, I remember he had a niece," said Garrison, his mind
+reverting to the "statement" in his pocket.  "But, upon my word, I
+believe I've forgotten her name."
+
+"He called her Dot," said Mrs. Wilson.
+
+"But her real name?" said Garrison.
+
+"Her real name was Dorothy Booth before she was married," replied Mrs.
+Wilson, "but now, of course, it's changed."
+
+Garrison had suddenly turned ashen.  He managed to control himself by
+making a very great effort.
+
+"Perhaps you know her married name?" he said.
+
+"I never forget a thing like that," said Mrs. Wilson.  "Her married
+name is Mrs. Fairfax."
+
+It seemed to Garrison he was fighting in the toils of some astounding
+maze, where sickening mists arose to clog his brain.  He could scarcely
+believe his senses.  A tidal wave of facts and deductions, centering
+about the personality of Dorothy Booth-Fairfax, surged upon him
+relentlessly, bearing down and engulfing the faith which he strove to
+maintain in her honesty.
+
+He had felt from the first there was something deep and dark with
+mystery behind the girl who had come to his office with her most
+amazing employment.  He had entertained vague doubts upon hearing of
+wills and money inheritance at the house where she lived in New York.
+
+He recalled the start she had given, while playing at the piano, upon
+learning he was leaving for Hickwood.  Her reticence and the
+strangeness of the final affair of the necklaces, in connection with
+this present development, left him almost in despair.
+
+Despite it all, as it overwhelmed him thus abruptly, he felt himself
+struggling against it.  He could not even now accept a belief in her
+complicity in such a deed while he thought of the beauty of her nature.
+That potent something she had stirred in his heart was a fierce,
+fighting champion to defend her.
+
+He had not dared confess to himself he was certainly, fatefully falling
+in love with this girl he scarcely knew, but his heart refused to hear
+her accused and his mind was engaged in her defence.
+
+Above all else, he felt the need for calmness.  Perhaps the sky would
+clear itself, and the sun again gild her beauty.
+
+"Mrs. Fairfax," he repeated to his garrulous informant.  "She brought
+the cigars, you say, the day of Mr. Hardy's arrival?"
+
+"And went away on the six-forty-three," said Mrs. Wilson.  "I remember
+it was six minutes late, and I did think my dinner would be dry as a
+bone, for she said she couldn't stay----"
+
+"And that was his birthday," Garrison interrupted.
+
+"Oh, no.  His birthday was the day he died.  I remember, 'cause he
+wouldn't even open the box of cigars till after his dinner that day."
+
+Garrison felt his remaining ray of hope faintly flicker and expire.
+
+"You are sure the box wasn't opened?" he insisted.
+
+"I guess I am!  He borrowed my screwdriver out of the sewin'-machine
+drawer, where I always keep it, to pry up the cover."
+
+Garrison tacked to other items.
+
+"Why did she have to go so soon?" he inquired.  "Couldn't she have
+stayed here with you?"
+
+"What, a young thing like her, only just married?" demanded Mrs.
+Wilson, faintly blushing.  "I guess you don't know us women when we're
+in love."  And she blushed again.
+
+"Of course," answered Garrison, at a loss for a better reply.  "Did her
+uncle seem pleased with her marriage?"
+
+"Why, he sat where you're now settin' for one solid hour, tellin' me
+how tickled he felt," imparted the housewife.  "He said she'd git
+everything he had in the world, now that she was married happy to a
+decent man, for he'd fixed it all up in his will."
+
+"Mr. Hardy said his niece would inherit his money?"
+
+"Settin' right in that chair, and smilin' fit to kill."
+
+"Did the niece seem very fond of her uncle?"
+
+"Well, at first I thought she acted queer and nervous," answered Mrs.
+Wilson, "but I made up my mind that was the natural way for any young
+bride to feel, especial away from her husband."
+
+Garrison's hopes were slipping from him, one by one, and putting on
+their shrouds.
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy seem to be pleased with his niece's selection--with Mr.
+Fairfax?" he inquired.  "Or don't you know?"
+
+"Why, he never even _seen_ the man," replied Mrs. Wilson.  "It seems
+Mr. Fairfax was mixin' up business with his honeymoon, and him and his
+bride was goin' off again, or was on their way, and she had a chance to
+run up and see her uncle for an hour, and none of us so much as got a
+look at Mr. Fairfax."
+
+The mystery darkened rather than otherwise.  There was nothing yet to
+establish whether or not a real Mr. Fairfax existed.  It appeared to
+Garrison that Dorothy had purposely arranged the scheme of her alleged
+marriage and honeymoon in such a way that her uncle should not meet her
+husband.
+
+He tried another query:
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy say that he had never seen Mr. Fairfax?"
+
+"Never laid eyes on the man in his life, but expected to meet him in a
+month."
+
+Garrison thought of the nephew who had come to claim the body.  His
+name had been given as Durgin.  At the most, he could be no more than
+Dorothy's cousin, and not the one he had recently met at her house.
+
+"I don't suppose you saw Mr. Durgin, the nephew of Mr. Hardy?" he
+inquired.  "The man who claimed the body?"
+
+"No, sir.  I heard about Mr. Durgin, but I didn't see him."
+
+Garrison once more changed the topic.
+
+"Which was the room that Mr. Hardy occupied?  Perhaps you'll let me see
+it."
+
+"It ain't been swept or dusted recent," Mrs. Wilson informed him,
+rising to lead him from the room, "but you're welcome to see it, if you
+don't mind how it looks."
+
+The apartment was a good-sized room, at the rear of the house.  It was
+situated on a corner, with windows at the side and rear.  Against the
+front partition an old-fashioned fireplace had been closed with a
+decorated cover.  The neat bed, the hair-cloth chairs, and a table that
+stood on three of its four legs only, supplied the furnishings.  The
+coroner had taken every scrap he could find of the few things possessed
+by Mr. Hardy.
+
+"Nice, cheerful room," commented Garrison.  "Did he keep the windows
+closed and locked?"
+
+"Oh, no!  He was a wonderful hand to want the air," said the landlady.
+"And he loved the view."
+
+The view of the shed and hen-coops at the rear was duly exhibited.
+Garrison did his best to formulate a theory to exonerate Dorothy from
+knowledge of the crime; but his mind had received a blow at these new
+disclosures, and nothing seemed to aid him in the least.  He could only
+feel that some dark deed lay either at the door of the girl who had
+paid him to masquerade as her husband, or the half-crazed inventor down
+the street.
+
+And the toils lay closer to Dorothy, he felt, than they did to Scott.
+
+"You have been very helpful, I am sure," he said to Mrs. Wilson.
+
+He bade her good-by and left the house, feeling thoroughly depressed in
+all his being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SUMMONS
+
+Once in the open air again, with the sunshine streaming upon him,
+Garrison felt a rebound in his thoughts.  He started slowly up the road
+to Branchville, thinking of the murder as he went.
+
+The major requisite, he was thoroughly aware, was motive.  Men were
+never slain, except by lunatics, without a deeply grounded reason.  It
+disturbed him greatly to realize that Dorothy might have possessed such
+a motive in the danger of losing an inheritance, depending upon her
+immediate marriage.  He could not dismiss the thought that she had
+suddenly found herself in need of a husband, probably to satisfy
+conditions in her uncle's will; that she had paid Mr. Hardy a visit as
+a bride, but _without her husband_, and had since been obliged to come
+to himself and procure his professional services _as such husband_,
+presumably for a short time only.
+
+She was cheating the Robinsons now through him.
+
+Of this much there could be no denial.  She was stubbornly withholding
+important information from himself as the masquerading husband.  She
+was, therefore, capable of craft and scheming.  The jewel mystery was
+equally suspicious and unexplainable.
+
+And yet, when his memory flew to the hour in which he had met her for
+the very first time, his faith in her goodness and honesty swept upon
+him with a force that banished all doubt from his being.  Every word
+she had uttered, every look from her eyes, had borne her sincerity in
+upon him indelibly.
+
+This was his argument, brought to bear upon himself.  He did not
+confess the element of love had entered the matter in the least.
+
+And now, as he walked and began to try to show himself that she could
+not have done this awful crime, the uppermost thought that tortured his
+mind was a fear that she might have a _genuine_ husband.
+
+He forced his thoughts back to the box of cigars, through the medium of
+which John Hardy's death had been accomplished.  What a diabolically
+clever device it had been!  What scheme could be more complete to place
+the deadly poison on the tongue of the helpless victim!  The cigar is
+bitten--the stuff is in the mouth, and before its taste can manifest
+itself above the strong flavor of tobacco, the deadly work is done!
+And who would think, in ordinary circumstances, of looking in a cigar
+for such a poison, and how could such a crime be traced?
+
+The very diabolism of the device acquitted Dorothy, according to
+Garrison's judgment.  He doubted if any clever woman, perhaps excepting
+the famous and infamous Lucrezia Borgia, could have fashioned a plan so
+utterly fiendish and cunning.
+
+He began to reflect what the thing involved.  In the first place, many
+smokers cut the end from every cigar, preliminary to lighting up to
+smoke.  The person who had loaded this cigar must have known it was
+John Hardy's habit to bite his cigars in the old-fashioned manner.  He
+hated this thought, for Dorothy would certainly be one to know of this
+habit in her uncle.
+
+On the other hand, however, the task of placing the poison was one
+requiring nicety, for clumsy work would of course betray itself at the
+cigar-end thus prepared.  To tamper with a well-made cigar like this
+required that one should deftly remove or unroll the wrapper, hollow
+out a cavity, stuff in the poison, and then rewrap the whole with
+almost the skill and art of a well-trained maker of cigars.  To
+Garrison's way of thinking, this rendered the task impossible for such
+a girl as Dorothy.
+
+He had felt from the first that any man of the inventive, mechanical
+attributes doubtless possessed by Scott could be guilty of working out
+this scheme.
+
+Scott, too, possessed a motive.  He wanted money.  The victim was
+insured in his favor for a snug little fortune.  And Scott had returned
+to Hardy's room, according to Mrs. Wilson, while Hardy was away, and
+could readily have opened the box, extracted one or two cigars, and
+prepared them for Hardy to smoke.  He, too, would have known of Hardy's
+habit of biting the end from his weed.
+
+There was still the third possibility that even before Dorothy's visit
+to her uncle the cigars could have been prepared.  Anyone supplied with
+the knowledge that she had purchased the present, with intention to
+take it to her uncle, might readily have conceived and executed the
+plan and be doubly hidden from detection, since suspicion would fall
+upon Dorothy.
+
+Aware of the great importance of once more examining the dead man's
+effects at the coroner's office, Garrison hastened his pace.  It still
+lacked nearly an hour of noon when he re-entered Branchville.  The
+office he sought was a long block away from his hotel; nevertheless,
+before he reached the door a hotel bell-boy discerned him, waved his
+arm, then abruptly disappeared inside the hostelry.
+
+The coroner was emerging from his place of business up the street.
+Garrison accosted him.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pike," he said, "I've returned, you see.  I've nearly
+concluded my work on the Hardy case; but I'd like, as a matter of form,
+to look again through the few trifling articles in your custody."
+
+"Why, certainly," said Mr. Pike.  "Come right in.  I've got to be away
+for fifteen minutes, but I guess I can trust you in the shop."
+
+He grinned good-naturedly, opened the drawer, and hurriedly departed.
+
+Garrison drew up a chair before the desk.
+
+At the door the hotel-boy appeared abruptly.
+
+"Telegram for you, Mr. Garrison," he said.  "Been at the office about
+an hour, but nobody knew where you was."
+
+Garrison took it and tore it open.  It read:
+
+
+"Return as soon as possible.  Important.
+
+"DOROTHY."
+
+
+"Any answer?" inquired the boy.
+
+"No," said Garrison.  "What's the next train for New York?"
+
+"Eleven-forty-five," answered the boy.  "Goes in fifteen minutes."
+
+"All right.  Have my suit-case down at the office."
+
+He returned to his work.
+
+Ignoring the few piled-up papers in the drawer, he took up the three
+cigars beside the box, the ones which had come from Hardy's pocket, and
+scrutinized them with the most minute attention.
+
+So far as he could possibly detect, not one had been altered or
+repasted on the end.  He did not dare to cut them up, greatly as he
+longed to examine them thoroughly.  He opened the box from which they
+had come.
+
+For a moment his eye was attracted and held by the birthday
+greeting-card which Dorothy had written.  The presence of the card
+showed a somewhat important fact--the box had been opened once before
+John Hardy forced up the lid, in order that the card might be deposited
+within.
+
+His gaze went traveling from one even, nicely finished cigar-end to the
+next, in his hope to discover signs of meddling.  It was not until he
+came to the end cigar that he caught at the slightest irregularity.
+Here, at last, was a change.
+
+He took the cigar out carefully and held it up.  There could be no
+doubt it had been "mended" on the end.  The wrapper was not only
+slightly discolored, but it bulged a trifle; it was not so faultlessly
+turned as all the others, and the end was corkscrewed the merest
+trifle, whereas, none of the others had been twisted to bring them to a
+point.
+
+Garrison needed that cigar.  He was certain not another one in all the
+box was suspicious.  The perpetrator of the poisoning had evidently
+known that Hardy's habit was to take his cigars from the end of the row
+and not the center.  No chance for mistake had been permitted.  The two
+end cigars had been loaded, and no more.
+
+How to purloin this cigar without having it missed by Mr. Pike was a
+worry for a moment.
+
+Garrison managed it simply.  He took out a dozen cigars in the layer on
+top and one from the layer next the bottom; then, rearranging the
+underlying layer so as to fill in the empty space, he replaced the
+others in perfect order in the topmost row, and thus had one cigar left
+over to substitute for the one he had taken from the end.
+
+He plumped the suspicious-looking weed into his pocket and closed the
+box.
+
+Eagerly glancing at the letters found among the dead man's possessions,
+he found a note from Dorothy.  It had come from a town in
+Massachusetts.  The date was over six weeks old.
+
+It was addressed, "Dear Uncle John," and, in a girlish way, informed
+him she had recently been married to a "splendid, brilliant young man,
+named Fairfax," whom she trusted her uncle would admire.  They were off
+on their honeymoon, it added, but she hoped they would not be long
+away, for they both looked forward with pleasure to seeing him soon.
+
+It might have been part of her trickery; he could not tell.
+
+The envelope was missing.  Where Hardy had been at the time of
+receiving the note was not revealed.  The picture postal-card that Pike
+had mentioned was also there.  It, too, apparently, had come from
+Dorothy, and had been sent direct to Hickwood.
+
+Once more returning to the box of cigars, Garrison took it up and
+turned it around in his hand.  On the back, to his great delight, he
+discovered a rubber-stamp legend, which was nothing more or less than a
+cheap advertisement of the dealer who had sold the cigars.
+
+He was one Isaac Blum, of an uptown address on Amsterdam Avenue, New
+York, dealer in stationery, novelties, and smokers' articles.  Garrison
+jotted down the name and address, together with the brand of the
+cigars, and was just about to rise and close the drawer when the
+coroner returned.
+
+"I shall have to go down to New York this morning," said Garrison.  "I
+owe you many thanks."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Mr. Pike responded.  "If you're goin' to try to
+catch fifteen, you'd better git a move.  She's whistled for the station
+just above."
+
+Garrison hastened away.  He was presently whirling back to Dorothy.
+
+His "shadow," with his bruised hand gloved, was just behind him in the
+car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A COMPLICATION
+
+With ample time in which to wonder what Dorothy's summons might imply,
+Garrison naturally found himself in the dark, despite his utmost
+efforts at deduction.
+
+He welcomed the chance thus made possible to behold her again so soon,
+after what he had so recently discovered, and yet he almost dreaded the
+necessity of ferreting out all possible facts concerning her actions
+and motives for the past six weeks, the better to work up his case.
+Wherever it led him, he knew he must follow unrelentingly.
+
+Masquerading as her husband, he had involved himself in--Heaven alone
+knew what--but certainly in all her affairs, even to the murder itself,
+since he was alleged to have married her prior to John Hardy's death,
+and was now supposed to benefit, in all probability, by some will that
+Hardy had executed.
+
+The recent developments disturbed him incessantly.  He almost wished he
+had never heard of Mr. Wicks, who had come to his office with
+employment.  And yet, with Dorothy entangled as she was in all this
+business, it was better by far that he should know the worst, as well
+as the best, that there was to be discovered.
+
+He wondered if the whole affair might be charged with insidious
+fatalities--either for himself or Dorothy.  He was groping in the
+dark--and the only light was that which shone in Dorothy's eyes; there
+was nothing else to guide him.  He could not believe it was a baneful
+light, luring him on to destruction--and yet--and yet----
+
+His gaze wandered out at the window on a scene of Nature's loveliness.
+The bright June day was perfect.  In their new, vivid greens, the
+fields and the trees were enchanting.  How he wished that he and
+Dorothy might wander across the hills and meadows together!
+
+A sweet, lawless wildness possessed his rebellious nature.  His mind
+could reason, but his heart would not, despite all his efforts at
+control.
+
+Thus the time passed until New York was reached.
+
+Unobserved, the man who had shadowed Garrison so faithfully left the
+train at the Harlem station, to take the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
+Street crosstown car, in his haste to get to Ninety-third Street, where
+the Robinsons were waiting.
+
+Garrison went on to the Grand Central, carried his suit-case to his
+room, freshened his dress with new linen, and then, going forth,
+lunched at a corner café, purchased another bunch of roses, and
+proceeded on to Dorothy's.
+
+It was a quarter of two when he rang the bell.  He waited only the
+briefest time.  The door was opened, and there stood young Robinson,
+smiling.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Cousin Jerold?" he said, cordially extending his
+hand.  "Come right in.  I'm delighted to see you."
+
+Garrison had expected any reception but this.  He felt his old dislike
+of the Robinsons return at once.  There was nothing to do, however, but
+to enter.
+
+"Is Dorothy----" he started.
+
+"Won't you go right up?" interrupted Theodore.  "I believe you are not
+unexpected."
+
+Garrison was puzzled.  A certain uneasiness possessed him.  He
+proceeded quietly up the stairs, momentarily expecting Dorothy to
+appear.  But the house was silent.  He reached the landing and turned
+to look at Theodore, who waved him on to the room they had occupied
+before.
+
+When he entered he was not at all pleased to find the elder Robinson
+only awaiting his advent.  He halted just inside the threshold and
+glanced inquiringly from father to son.
+
+"How do you do?" he said stiffly.  "Is Dorothy not at home?"
+
+"She is not," said old Robinson, making no advance and giving no
+greeting.  "Will you please sit down?"
+
+Garrison remained where he was.
+
+"Do you expect her soon?" he inquired.
+
+"We shall get along very well without her.  We've got something to say
+to you--alone."
+
+Garrison said: "Indeed?"
+
+He advanced to a chair and sat down.
+
+"In the first place, perhaps you will tell us your actual name," said
+old Robinson, himself taking a seat.
+
+Garrison was annoyed.
+
+"Let me assure you, once for all, that I do not in the least recognize
+your right to meddle in my concerns, or subject me to any inquisitions."
+
+"That's another way of saying you refuse to answer!" snapped Robinson
+tartly.  "You know your name isn't Fairfax, any more than it's mine.
+Your name is Garrison."
+
+Garrison stared at him coldly.
+
+"You seem to have made up your mind very decidedly," he said.  "Is that
+all you have to say?"
+
+"You don't deny it?" cried the old man, exasperated by his calmness.
+"You don't dare deny it!"
+
+Garrison grew calmer.
+
+"I haven't the slightest reason to deny anything," he said.  "I
+frequently require a pseudonym.  Dorothy knows that I employ the name
+Garrison whenever occasion demands."
+
+The old man was wild.
+
+"Will you swear that your right name is Fairfax?" he said.  "That's
+what I demand to know!"
+
+Garrison answered: "I came here to see my wife.  I warn you I am
+growing impatient with your hidden insinuations!"
+
+"Your wife!" cried old Robinson, making a dive into one of his pockets
+with his hand.  "What have you to say to this letter, from the woman
+who is doubtless by now your _legal_ wife?"  Suddenly snatching a
+letter from his coat, he projected himself toward Garrison and held up
+the missive before him.
+
+It was the letter from Ailsa--the one that Garrison had missed--the
+letter in which she had agreed to become his wife.  He put forth his
+hand to receive it.
+
+"No, you don't!" cried the old man, snatching it out of his reach.
+"I'll keep this, if you please, to show my niece."
+
+Garrison's eyes glittered.
+
+"So, it was _your_ hired thief who stole it, up at Branchville?" he
+said.  "I don't suppose he showed you the skin that he left behind from
+his fingers."
+
+"That's got nothing to do with the point!" the old man cried at him
+triumphantly.  "I don't believe you are married to my niece.  If you
+think you can play your game on me----"
+
+Garrison interrupted.
+
+"The theft of that letter was a burglary in which you are involved.
+You are laying up trouble for yourself very rapidly.  Give that letter
+to me!"
+
+"Give it up, hey?  We'll see!" said Robinson.  "Take it to court if you
+dare!  I'm willing.  This letter shows that another woman accepted you,
+and _that's_ the point you don't dare face in the law!"
+
+Whatever else he discerned in the case.  Garrison did not understand in
+the least how Dorothy could have summoned him back here for this.
+
+"That letter is an old one," he replied to Robinson calmly.  "Look at
+the date.  It's a bit of ancient history, long since altered."
+
+"There is no date!" the old man shrilled in glee; and he was right.
+
+Garrison's reply was never uttered.  The door behind him abruptly
+opened, and there stood Dorothy, radiant with color and beauty.
+
+"Why, Jerold!" she cried.  "Why, when did you come?  I didn't even know
+you were in town."
+
+She ran to him ardently, as she had before, with her perfect art, and
+kissed him with wifely affection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SHOCK OF TRUTH
+
+For one second only Garrison was a trifle confused.  Then he gave her
+the roses he had brought.
+
+She carried them quickly to the table, hiding her face in their
+fragrant petals.
+
+"Just a moment, Dorothy," said Garrison.  "You didn't know I'd come to
+town?  You wired----"  He halted and looked at the Robinsons.  "Oh," he
+added, "I think I begin to see."
+
+Dorothy felt something in the air.
+
+"What is it, Jerold?" she said.  "I haven't wired.  What do you mean?"
+
+Garrison faced the Robinsons.
+
+"I mean that these two _gentlemen_ telegraphed me at Branchville to
+come here at once--and signed your name to the wire."
+
+"Telegraphed you?  In my name?" repeated Dorothy.  "I don't believe I
+understand."
+
+"We may as well understand things first as last," said her uncle.  "I
+don't believe this man is your husband!  I don't believe his name is
+Fairfax!  He was registered as Garrison.  Furthermore----"
+
+Garrison interrupted, addressing Dorothy:
+
+"They think they have discovered something important or vital in the
+fact that I sometimes use the name Garrison.  And they have managed to
+steal an old letter----"
+
+"I'll tell about the letter, if you please!" cried old Robinson
+shrilly.  He turned to Dorothy, who was very white.  "There you are!"
+he said, waving the letter before her face.  "There's the letter from
+his sweetheart--the woman he asked to become his wife!  Here's her
+acceptance, and her protestations of love.  She is doubtless his wife
+at this moment!  Read it for yourself!"
+
+He thrust it into Dorothy's hand with aggressive insistence.
+
+Dorothy received it obediently.  She hardly knew what she should say or
+do to confute the old man's statements, or quiet his dangerous
+suspicions.  His arrival at the truth concerning herself and Garrison
+had disconcerted her utterly.
+
+Garrison did not attempt to take the letter, but he addressed her
+promptly:
+
+"I am perfectly willing to have you read the letter.  It was written
+over a year ago.  It is Ailsa's letter.  I told you I was once engaged
+to Ailsa; that she married my friend, without the slightest warning;
+that I had not destroyed her last letter.  She never acquired the habit
+of dating her letters, and therefore this one might appear to be a bit
+of recent correspondence."
+
+"A very pretty explanation!" cried old Robinson.  "We'll see--we'll
+see!  Dorothy, read it for yourself!"
+
+Dorothy was rapidly recovering her self-possession.  She turned to her
+uncle quite calmly, with the folded bit of paper in her hand.
+
+"How did you come by this letter," she inquired.  "You didn't really
+steal it?"
+
+Garrison answered: "The letter was certainly stolen.  My suit-case was
+rifled the night of my arrival at Branchville.  These gentlemen hired a
+thief to go through my possessions."
+
+"I've been protecting my rights!" the old man answered fiercely.  "If
+you think you can cheat me out of my rightful dues you'll find out your
+mistake!"
+
+"I wouldn't have thought you could stoop to this," said Dorothy.  "You
+couldn't expect to shake my faith in Jerold."
+
+She handed Garrison the letter to show her confidence.
+
+Garrison placed it in his pocket.  He turned on the Robinsons angrily.
+
+"You are both involved in a prison offense," he said--"an ordinary,
+vulgar burglary.  I suppose you feel secure in the fact that for
+Dorothy's sake I shall do nothing about it--to-day.  But I warn you
+that I'll endure no more of this sort of thing, in your efforts to
+throw discredit on Dorothy's relationship with me!  Now then, kindly
+leave the room."
+
+Aware that Garrison held the upper hand, old Robinson was more than
+chagrined; he was furious.  His rage, however, was impotent; there was
+no immediate remedy at hand.  Theodore, equally baffled, returned to
+his attitude of friendliness.
+
+"No harm's been done, and none was intended," he said.  "There's
+nothing in family rows, anyhow.  Father, come along."
+
+His father, on the point of discharging another broadside of anger,
+altered his mind and followed his son to a room at the rear of the
+house.
+
+Garrison closed the door.
+
+Dorothy was looking at him almost wildly.
+
+"What does it mean?" she asked in a tone barely above a whisper.  "They
+haven't really found out anything?"
+
+"They suspect the truth, I'm afraid," he answered.  "I shall be obliged
+to ask you a number of questions."
+
+Her face became quite ashen.
+
+"I can see that your employment has become very trying," she said, "but
+I trust you are not contemplating retreat."
+
+The thought made her pale, for her heart, too, had found itself
+potently involved.
+
+"No; I have gone too far for that," he answered, making an effort to
+fight down the dictates of his increasing love and keep his head
+thoroughly clear.
+
+"In the first place, when you wire me in the future use another name,
+for safety--say Jeraldine.  In the next place, I am very much hampered
+by the blindness of my mission.  I can see, I think, that the Robinsons
+expected some legacy which you are now apparently about to inherit, and
+your marriage became necessary to fulfill some condition of the will.
+Is this correct?"
+
+"Yes, quite correct."  She remained very pale.
+
+"Who was it that died, leaving the will?  And when did he die?"
+
+"Another uncle, Mr. John Hardy--quite recently," she answered.
+
+"You are not in mourning."
+
+"By his special request.  He died very suddenly.  He left a condition
+in his will that I should inherit his fortune provided I should have
+been married at least one month prior to his death to a healthy,
+respectable man--who was not to be my cousin."
+
+"Theodore?"
+
+She nodded.  "You can see I had to have a husband."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Garrison thought he saw a light that cleared her as he could have
+wished.  He hastened to a question bearing directly upon it.
+
+"Did the Robinsons know of this clause in your Uncle Hardy's will--say,
+two or three weeks ago?"
+
+"No.  They knew nothing of it then."
+
+Garrison's heart sank.  "You are sure?"
+
+"Absolutely positive.  Uncle John was very secretive."
+
+The suggestion that the Robinsons, having known the condition in the
+will, had destroyed John Hardy in the belief that Dorothy, being
+unmarried, would thereby lose the inheritance, was vanishing.  Garrison
+still had hope.
+
+"You once alluded to certain obligations that--well, compelled you to
+hire a husband," he said.  "You had no urgent need of funds in a large
+amount?"
+
+She darted him a startled look.  "I shall have a pressing need--soon.
+I suppose you have a right to know."
+
+Garrison was almost in despair.  There was nothing to do but go on.
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy know anything of this need?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You feared he might not be in sympathy with your requirements?"
+
+"No, he----  Have these questions anything to do with our--case?"  She
+seemed to be frightened.
+
+"They have," he said.  "You have your diamonds and pearls.  You might
+raise quite a sum on such valuable gems."
+
+The look of fear upon her face increased.
+
+"I couldn't!" she said, as if she feared the walls might hear and
+betray.  "Please don't mention----"
+
+"You didn't tell me what they are, or why you wish to keep them," he
+said.  "What does it mean?"
+
+"Please don't ask!"  She was greatly agitated.  "Please trust me--a
+little while longer!  You probably have to return to Branchville and
+your work."
+
+He determined then and there upon the one supreme test of the situation.
+
+"That reminds me," he said, averting his gaze; "the work on which I am
+engaged in Branchville is the case of a man named Hardy.  I'm glad he
+was not your uncle."
+
+Her face took on the hue of death.  Her lips moved, but for a moment
+made no sound.  Then, with an effort, she replied:
+
+"You're glad--but--why?"
+
+"Because," he replied, with a forced smile on his lips, "the man up at
+Branchville was murdered."
+
+She made no sound.
+
+She simply closed her eyes and swayed toward him, weakly collapsing as
+she fell.  He caught her quickly against his breast, a heavy, precious
+burden that he knew he must love, though the angels of heaven accuse
+her.
+
+"Dorothy--Dorothy--forgive me," he said, but her senses were deaf to
+his voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A DISTURBING LOSS
+
+Garrison, holding the limp, helpless form in his arms, gazed quickly
+about the room and saw the couch.  He crossed the floor and placed her
+full length upon its cushions.
+
+She lay there so white and motionless that he was frightened.  He felt
+it impossible to call the Robinsons.  He needed water, quickly.  He
+knew nothing of the house.  His searching glance fell at once on the
+vase of roses, standing on the table.  He caught it up, drew out the
+flowers, and was presently kneeling at Dorothy's side, wetting his
+handkerchief with the water from the vase and pressing it closely on
+her forehead.
+
+She did not respond to his ministrations.  He tore at her dress, where
+it fastened at the neck, and laid it wide open for several inches.  On
+the creamy whiteness of her throat he sprinkled the water, then sprang
+to the window, threw it up, and was once more kneeling beside her.
+
+The fresh breeze swept in gratefully and cooled her face and neck.  She
+stirred, slightly turned, opened her eyes in a languid manner, and
+partially relapsed into coma.
+
+"Thank God!" said Garrison, who had feared for her life, and he once
+more applied his wetted handkerchief.  He spoke to her, gently:
+
+"Forgive me, Dorothy--it's all right--everything's all right," but her
+senses accepted nothing of his meaning.
+
+For another five minutes, that seemed like an age, he rubbed at her
+hands, resprinkled her throat and face, and waved a folded paper to
+waft her the zephyr of air.  When she once more opened her eyes she was
+fairly well restored.  She recovered her strength by a sheer exertion
+of will and sat up, weakly, passing her hand across her brow.
+
+"I must have fainted," she said.  She was very white.
+
+"You're all right now--the heat and unusual excitement," he answered
+reassuringly.  "Don't try to do anything but rest."
+
+She looked at him with wide, half-frightened eyes.  Her fears had
+returned with her awakened intelligence.
+
+"You mustn't stay," she told him with a firmness he was not prepared to
+expect.  "Please go as soon as you can."
+
+"But--can I leave you like this?  You may need me," he answered.  "If
+there's anything I can do----"
+
+"Nothing now.  Please don't remain," she interrupted.  "I shall go to
+my room at once."
+
+Garrison realized she was in no condition for further questioning.
+Whatsoever the status of the case or his doubts, there was nothing more
+possible, with Dorothy in this present condition.  He knew she very
+much desired to be alone.
+
+"But--when shall I see you?  What shall I----" he started.
+
+"I can't tell.  Please go," she interrupted, and she sank back once
+more on the cushions, looking at him wildly for a moment, and then
+averting her gaze.  "Please don't stay another minute."
+
+He could not stay.  His mind was confused as to his duty.  He knew that
+he loved her and wished to remain; he knew he was under orders and must
+go.  Disturbed and with worry at his heart, he took her hand for one
+brief pressure.
+
+"Don't forget I'm your friend--and protector," he said.  "Please don't
+forget."
+
+He took his hat, said good-by, saw her lips frame a brief, half-audible
+reply, then slipped from the room, to avoid giving undue notice to the
+Robinsons, went silently down the stairs to the door, and let himself
+out in the street.
+
+Aware, in a dim sort of way, that a "shadow" was once more lurking on
+his trail, as he left the house, he was almost indifferent to the
+fellow's intrusion, so much more disturbing had been the climax of his
+visit with Dorothy.
+
+The outcome of his announcement concerning her uncle's death had
+affected Dorothy so instantaneously as to leave him almost without
+hope.  The blow had reacted on himself with staggering force.  He was
+sickened by the abruptness with which the accusing circumstances had
+culminated.  And yet, despite it all, he loved her more than
+before--with a fierce, aggressive love that blindly urged him to her
+future protection and defense.
+
+His half-formed plan to visit the dealer who had sold the cigars
+departed from his mind.  He wanted no more facts or theories that
+pointed as so many were pointing.  Indeed, he knew not where he was
+going, or what he meant to do, till at length a sign on a window
+aroused him to a sense of things neglected.  The sign read simply:
+
+    BANK.  SAFE DEPOSIT VAULTS.
+
+
+He entered the building, hired a box in the vault, and placed within it
+the jewels he had carried.  Then he remembered Wicks.
+
+Instructions had been given to report, not only fully, but promptly.
+He must make a report--but what?  He knew he could not tell of the
+horrible tissue of facts and circumstances that wound like a web about
+the girl he loved.  He would far rather give up the case.  And once he
+gave it up, he knew that no man alive could ever come again upon the
+damning evidence in his possession.
+
+He would say his work was incomplete--that it looked like a natural
+death--that Scott had acted suspiciously, as indeed he had--that he
+needed more time--anything but what appeared to be the sickening truth.
+Later, should Dorothy prove to be but some artful, dangerous creature,
+masquerading as a sweet young girl behind her appearance of beauty,
+innocence, and exquisite charm--that would be time enough to move.
+
+Perfectly willing to be followed for a time by his "shadow," he walked
+to the nearest Subway station in upper Broadway and was presently borne
+downtown.
+
+He was barely in time at the big insurance office, for Wicks was
+preparing to leave.  No less nervous, snappy, or pugnacious than
+before, the little sharp-faced man appeared more smiling than ever, and
+yet with an expression even more sardonic.
+
+"Well?" he said, as he ushered Garrison into a small, private room.
+"What have you to report?"
+
+"Nothing very much to report as yet," said Garrison, slightly flushing
+at withholding the truth.  "It looks very much as if the coroner's
+verdict may have been correct--although Scott acts a little like a man
+so absorbed in his inventions that he'd stop at nothing for money."
+
+"Needs money, does he?" demanded Wicks.  "He has admitted that?"
+
+"Yes," said Garrison, "he speaks so plainly of his need and makes such
+heartless and selfish references to the money he hopes to procure on
+this insurance policy that I hardly know what to make of his character."
+
+"Capable of murder, is he?"
+
+"He's fanatical about his invention and--he needs money."
+
+"You don't think him guilty?" announced Mr. Wicks, with rare
+penetration.
+
+"There seems to be little or nothing against him as yet," said
+Garrison.  "There was nothing found on the body, so far as I have been
+able to learn, to indicate murder."
+
+"If murder at all, how could it have been done," demanded Mr. Wicks.
+
+"Only by poison."
+
+"H'm!  You saw the dead man's effects, of course.  What did they
+comprise?"
+
+Garrison detailed the dead man's possessions, as found at the coroner's
+office.  He neglected nothing, mentioning the cigars as candidly as he
+did the few insignificant papers.
+
+"In what possible manner could the man have been poisoned?" demanded
+Wicks, rising, with his watch in his hand.  "Was there anything to eat
+at his apartments--or to drink?"
+
+"Not that I can trace.  The only clew that seems important, so far, is
+that Scott spent fifteen minutes in Hardy's room, alone, on the night
+of his death."
+
+"That's something!" said Wicks, with the slightest possible show of
+approval.  "Put on your hat and go uptown with me and tell me exactly
+all about it."
+
+They left the office, proceeded to the Subway, boarded an uptown
+express that was jammed to the guards with struggling humanity, all
+deserting the small end of Gotham at once; and here, with Wicks crowded
+flat up against him, and hanging, first to a strap and then to his
+shoulder.  Garrison related the few facts that he had already briefly
+summarized.
+
+"Well--nothing to say to you but go ahead," said Wicks, as they neared
+the Grand Central Station, where he meant to take a train.  "Stick to
+the case till you clean it up.  That's all."
+
+Garrison, presently alone on the crowded street, with no particular
+objective point in view, felt thoroughly depressed and lonely.
+
+He wished he had never discovered the poisoned cigar at Branchville.
+
+Mechanically, his hand sought his pocket, where the second charged weed
+had been placed.
+
+Then he started and searched his waistcoat wildly.
+
+The deadly cigar was gone!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A TRYST IN THE PARK
+
+Unable for a moment to credit his senses, Garrison moved over against
+the wall of the building he was passing, and stood there, slowly,
+almost mechanically, searching his pockets once again, while his mind
+revolved about the lost cigar, in an effort to understand its
+disappearance.
+
+He was wholly at a loss for a tenable theory till he thought of the
+frequency with which men are robbed of scarf-pins or similar
+trifles--and then a sickening possibility possessed him.
+
+One of the commonest devices that a woman employs in such a petty theft
+is to faint on the breast of her victim.  In such a pose she may
+readily extract some coveted article from either his tie or his pocket,
+with almost absolute certainty of avoiding detection.
+
+It did not seem possible--and yet the fact remained that Dorothy had
+fainted thus against him, and the poisoned cigar was gone.  She had
+known of his visit to Branchville; his line of questions might have
+roused her suspicions; the cigar had been plainly in sight.  He had
+seen her enact her rôle so perfectly, in the presence of her relatives,
+that he could not doubt her ability in any required direction.
+
+For a moment a powerful revulsion of feeling toward the girl, who was
+undeniably involved in some exceptionally deep-laid plan, crept
+throughout his being.  Not only does a man detest being used as a tool
+and played upon like any common dunce, but he also feels an utter
+chagrin at being baffled in his labors.  Apparently he had played the
+fool, and also he had lost the vital evidence of Hardy's poisoning.
+
+Mortified and angry, he remained there, while the crowds surged by, his
+gaze dully fixed on the pavement.  For a time he saw nothing, and then
+at last he was conscious that a rose--a crushed and wilted rose, thrown
+down by some careless pedestrian--was lying almost at his feet.
+Somehow, it brought him a sense of calm and sweetness; it seemed a
+symbol, vouchsafed him here in the hot, sordid thoroughfare, where
+crime and folly, virtue and despair, stalk arm in arm eternally.
+
+He could not look upon the bit of trampled beauty, thus wasted on a
+heedless throng, and think of Dorothy as guilty.  She had seemed just
+as crushed and wilted as the rose when he left her at her home--just as
+beautiful, also, and as far from her garden of peace and fragrances as
+this rejected handful of petals.  She must be innocent.  There must be
+some other explanation for the loss of that cigar--and some good reason
+for the things she had done and said.
+
+He took up the rose, indifferent to anyone who might have observed the
+action with a smile or a sneer, and slowly proceeded down the street.
+
+The cigar, he reflected, might easily have been stolen in the Subway.
+A hundred men had crushed against him.  Any one of them so inclined
+could have taken the weed at his pleasure.  The thought was wholly
+disquieting, since if any man attempted to bite the cigar-end through,
+to smoke, he would pay a tragic penalty for his petty theft.
+
+This aspect of the affair, indeed, grew terrible, the more he thought
+upon it.  He almost felt he must run to the station, try to search out
+that particular train, and cry for all to hear that the stolen cigar
+would be fatal--but the thought was a wild, unreasoning vagary; he was
+absolutely helpless in the case.
+
+He could not be certain that the weed had thus been extracted from his
+pocket.  It might in some manner have been lost.  He did not know--he
+could not know.  He felt sure of one thing only--his hope, his demand,
+that Dorothy must be innocent and good.
+
+Despite his arguments, he was greatly depressed.  The outcome of all
+the business loomed dim and uncertain before him, a haze charged with
+mystery, involving crime as black as night.
+
+He presently came to the intersection of fashionable Fifth Avenue and
+Forty-second Street, and was halted by the flood of traffic.  Hundreds
+of vehicles were pouring up and down, in endless streams, while two
+calm policemen halted the moving processions, from time to time, to
+permit the crosstown cars and teams to move in their several directions.
+
+Across from Garrison's corner loomed the great marble library, still
+incomplete and gloomily fenced from the sidewalk.  Beyond it,
+furnishing its setting, rose the trees of Bryant Park, a green oasis in
+the tumult and unloveliness about it.  Garrison knew the benches there
+were crowded; nevertheless, he made his way the length of the block and
+found a seat.
+
+He sat there till the sun was gone and dusk closed in upon the city.
+The first faint lights began to twinkle, like the palest stars, in the
+buildings that hedged the park about.  He meant to hunt out a
+restaurant and dine presently, but what to do afterward he could not
+determine.
+
+There was nothing to be done at Branchville or Hickwood at night, and
+but little, for the matter of that, to be done by day.  Tomorrow would
+be ample time to return to that theater of uncertainty.  He longed for
+one thing only--another sight of Dorothy--enshrined within his heart.
+
+Reminded at last of the man who had followed on his trail, he purposely
+strolled from the park and circled two blocks, by streets now almost
+deserted, and was reasonably certain he had shaken off pursuit.  As a
+matter of fact, his "shadow" had lost him in the Subway, and now,
+having notified the Robinsons by telephone, was watching the house
+where he roomed.
+
+Garrison ate his dinner in a mood of ceaseless meditation concerning
+Dorothy.  He was worried to know what might have happened since his
+departure from her home.  Half inclined in one minute to go again to
+the house, in the next he was quite undecided.
+
+The thought of the telephone came like an inspiration.  Unless the
+Robinsons should interfere, he might readily learn of her condition.
+
+At a drug-store, near the restaurant, he found a quiet booth, far
+better suited to his needs than the noisier, more public boxes at the
+eating place he had quitted.  He closed himself inside the little
+cubby-hole, asked for the number, and waited.
+
+It seemed an interminable time till a faint "Hello!" came over the
+wire, and he fancied the voice was a man's.
+
+"Hello!  Is that Mrs. Fairfax?" he asked.  "I'd like to speak to Mrs.
+Fairfax."
+
+"Wait a minute, please.  Who is it?" said a voice unmistakably
+masculine.
+
+"Mr. Wallace," said Garrison, by way of precaution.  "She'll
+understand."
+
+"Hold the wire, please."
+
+He held the receiver to his ear, and waited again.  At length came a
+softer, more musical greeting.  It was Dorothy.  His heart was
+instantly leaping at the sound of her voice.
+
+"Hello!  Is that someone to speak to me?" she said.  "This is Mrs.
+Fairfax."
+
+"Yes," answered Garrison.  "This is Jerold.  I felt I must find out
+about you--how you are.  I've been distressed at the way I was obliged
+to leave."
+
+"Oh!" said the voice faintly.  "I--I'm all right--thank you.  I must
+see you--right away."  Her voice had sunk to a tone he could barely
+distinguish.  "Where are you now?"
+
+"Downtown," said Garrison.  "Where shall I meet you?"
+
+"I--hardly know," came the barely audible reply.  "Perhaps--at Central
+Park and Ninety-third Street."
+
+"I'll start at once," he assured her.  "If you leave the house in
+fifteen minutes we shall arrive about the same time.  Try to avoid
+being followed.  Good-by."
+
+He listened to hear her answer, but it did not come.  He heard the
+distant receiver clink against its hook, and then the connection was
+broken.
+
+He was happy, in a wild, lawless manner, as he left the place and
+hastened to the Elevated station.  The prospect of meeting Dorothy once
+more, in the warm, fragrant night, at a tryst like that of lovers, made
+his pulses surge and his heart beat quicken with excitement.  All
+thought of her possible connection with the Branchville crime had fled.
+
+The train could not run fast enough to satisfy his hot impatience.  He
+wished to be there beneath the trees when she should presently come.
+He alighted at last at the Ninety-third Street station, and hastened to
+the park.
+
+When he came to the appointed place, he found an entrance to the
+greenery near by.  Within were people on every bench in sight--New
+York's unhoused lovers, whose wooing is accomplished in the all but
+sylvan glades which the park affords.
+
+Here and there a bit of animated flame made a tiny meteor streak
+against the blackness of the foliage--where a firefly quested for its
+mate, switching on its marvelous little searchlight.  Beyond, on the
+smooth, broad roadways, four-eyed chariots of power shot silently
+through the avenues of trees--the autos, like living dragons, half
+tamed to man's control.
+
+It was all thrilling and exciting to Garrison, with the expectation of
+meeting Dorothy now possessing all his nature.  Then--a few great drops
+of rain began to fall.  The effect was almost instantaneous.  A dozen
+pairs of sweethearts, together with as many more unmated stragglers,
+came scuttling forth from unseen places, making a lively run for the
+nearest shelter.
+
+Garrison could not retreat.  He did not mind the rain, except in so far
+as it might discourage Dorothy.  But, thinking she might have gone
+inside the park, he walked there briskly, looking for some solitary
+figure that should by this time be in waiting.  He seemed to be
+entirely alone.  He thought she had not come--and perhaps in the rain
+she might not arrive at all.
+
+Back towards the entrance he loitered.  A lull in the traffic of the
+street had made the place singularly still.  He could hear the
+raindrops beating on the leaves.  Then they ceased as abruptly as they
+had commenced.
+
+He turned once more down the dimly lighted path.  His heart gave a
+quick, joyous leap.  Near a bench was a figure--the figure of a woman
+whose grace, he fancied, was familiar.
+
+Her back was apparently turned as he drew near.  He was about to
+whistle, if only to warn her of his coming, when the shrubbery just
+ahead and beside the path was abruptly parted and a man with a short,
+wrapped club in his hand sprang forth and struck him viciously over the
+head.
+
+He was falling, dimly conscious of a horrible blur of lights in his
+eyes, as helplessly as if he had been made of paper.  A second blow,
+before he crumpled on the pavement, blotted out the last remaining
+vestige of emotion.  He lay there in a limp, awkward heap.
+
+The female figure had turned, and now came striding to the place with a
+step too long for a woman.  There was no word spoken.  Together the two
+lifted Garrison's unconscious form, carried it quickly to the
+shrubbery, fumbled about it for a minute or two, struck a match that
+was shielded from the view of any possible passer-by, and then, still
+in silence, hastily quitted the park and vanished in one of the
+glistening side streets, where the rain was reflecting the lamps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A PACKAGE OF DEATH
+
+A low, distant rumble of thunder denoted a new gathering of storm.
+Five minutes passed, and then the lightning flashed across the
+firmament directly overhead.  A crash like the splitting of the heavens
+followed, and the rain came down as if it poured through the slit.
+
+The violence lasted hardly more than five minutes, after which the
+downpour abated a little of its fury.  But a steadier, quieter
+precipitation continued, with the swiftly moving center of disturbance
+already far across the sky.
+
+The rain in his face, and the brisk puff of newly washed ozone in his
+heavily moving lungs, aroused Garrison's struggling consciousness by
+slow degrees.  Strange, fantastic images, old memories, weird phantoms,
+and wholly impossible fancies played through his brain with the dull,
+torturing persistency of nightmares for a time that seemed to him
+endless.
+
+It was fully half an hour before he was sufficiently aroused to roll to
+an upright position and pass his hand before his eyes.
+
+He was sick and weak.  He could not recall what had happened.  He did
+not know where he was.
+
+He was all but soaked by the rain, despite the fact that a tree with
+dense foliage was spread above him, and he had lain beneath protecting
+shrubberies.  Slowly the numbness seemed to pass from his brain, like
+the mist from the surface of a lake.  He remembered things, as it were,
+in patches.
+
+Dorothy--that was it--and something had happened.
+
+He was stupidly aware that he was sitting on something uncomfortable--a
+lump, perhaps a stone--but he did not move.  He was waiting for his
+brain to clear.  When at length he hoisted his heavy weight upon his
+knees, and then staggered drunkenly to his feet, to blunder toward a
+tree and support himself by its trunk, his normal circulation began to
+be restored, and pain assailed his skull, arousing him further to his
+senses.
+
+He leaned for some time against the tree, gathering up the threads of
+the tangle.  It all came back, distinct and sharp at last, and, with
+memory, his strength was returning.  He felt of his head, on which his
+hat was jammed.
+
+The bone and the muscles at the base of the skull were sore and
+sensitive, but the hurt had not gone deep.  He felt incapable of
+thinking it out--the reasons, and all that it meant.  He wondered if
+his attacker had thought to leave him dead.
+
+Mechanically his hands sought out his pockets.  He found his watch and
+pocketbook in place.  Some weight seemed dragging at his coat.  When
+his hand went slowly to the place, he found the lump on which he had
+been lying.  He pulled it out--a cold, cylindrical affair, of metal,
+with a thick cord hanging from its end.  Then a chill crept all the
+distance down his spine.
+
+The thing was a bomb!
+
+Cold perspiration and a sense of horror came upon him together.  An
+underlying current of thought, feebly left unfocused in his brain--a
+thought of himself as a victim, lured to the park for this deed--became
+as stinging as a blow on the cheek.
+
+The cord on this metal engine of destruction was a fuse.  The rain had
+drenched it and quenched its spark of fire, doubtless at some break in
+the fiber, since fuse is supposedly water-proof.  Nothing but the
+thunder-storm had availed to save his life.  He had walked into a trap,
+like a trusting animal, and chance alone had intervened to bring him
+forth alive.
+
+His brain by now was thoroughly active.  Reactionary energy rushed in
+upon him to sharpen all his faculties.  There was nothing left of the
+joyous throbbing in his veins which thoughts of his tryst with Dorothy
+had engendered.  He felt like the wrathful dupe of a woman's wiles, for
+it seemed as plain as soot on snow that Dorothy, fearing the
+consequences of his recent discoveries in the Hardy case, had made this
+park appointment only with this treacherous intent.
+
+All his old, banished suspicions rushed pell-mell upon his mind, and
+with them came new indications of her guilt.  Her voice on the
+telephone had been weak and faltering.  She had chosen the park as
+their meeting place, as the only available spot for such a deed.  And
+then--then----
+
+It seemed too horrible to be true, but the wound was on his head, and
+death was in his hand.  It was almost impossible that anyone could have
+heard their talk over the 'phone.  He was left no alternative theory to
+work on, except that perhaps the Robinsons had managed, through some
+machination, to learn that he and Dorothy were to meet at this
+convenient place.
+
+One struggling ray of hope was thus vouchsafed him, yet he felt as if
+perhaps he had already given Dorothy the benefit of too many reasonable
+doubts.  He could be certain of one thing only--he was thoroughly
+involved in a mesh of crime and intrigue that had now assumed a new and
+personal menace.  Hereafter he must work more for Garrison and less for
+romantic ideals.
+
+Anger came to assist in restoring his strength.  Far from undergoing
+any sense of alarm which would frighten him out of further effort to
+probe to the bottom of the business, he was stubbornly determined to
+remain on the case till the whole thing was stripped of its secrets.
+
+Not without a certain weakness at the knees did he make his way back to
+the path.
+
+He had no fear of lurking enemies, since those who had placed the bomb
+in his pocket would long before have fled the scene to make an alibi
+complete.  The rain had ceased.  Wrapping the fuse about the metal
+cartridge in his hand, he came beneath a lamp-post by the walk, and
+looked the thing over in the light.
+
+There was nothing much to see.  A nipple of gas-pipe, with a cap on
+either end, one drilled through for the insertion of the fuse,
+described it completely.  The kink in the fuse where the rain had found
+entrance to dampen the powder, was plainly to be seen.
+
+Garrison placed the contrivance in his pocket.  He pulled out his
+watch.  The hour, to his amazement, was nearly ten.  He realized he
+must have lain a considerable time unconscious in the wet.  Halting to
+wonder what cleverness might suggest as the best possible thing to be
+done, he somewhat grimly determined to proceed to Dorothy's house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES
+
+Damp and uncomfortable, he kept to the farther side of the street, and
+slackened his pace as he drew near the dwelling which he realized was a
+place replete with mystery.
+
+He stood on the opposite sidewalk at length, and gazed across at the
+frowning brownstone front.  The place was utterly dark.  Not the
+slightest chink of light was visible in all its somber windows.
+
+Aware that nothing is so utterly confusing to a guilty being as to be
+confronted unexpectedly by a victim, supposed to be dispatched,
+Garrison had come this far without the slightest hesitation.  The
+aspect of the house, however, was discouraging.
+
+Despite the ache at the base of his skull, and despite the excited
+thumping of his heart, he crossed the street, climbed unhaltingly to
+the steps, and rang the bell.  He had made up his mind to act as if
+nothing unusual had occurred.  Then, should either Dorothy or the
+Robinsons exhibit astonishment at beholding him here, or otherwise
+betray a guilty knowledge of the "accident" which had befallen him, his
+doubts would be promptly cleared.
+
+A minute passed, and nothing happened.
+
+He rang the bell again.
+
+Once more he waited, in vain.
+
+His third ring was long and insistent.
+
+About to despair of gaining admission, he was gratified to note a dimly
+reflected light, as if from the rear, below stairs.  Then the hall was
+illumined, and presently a chain-lock was drawn, inside the door, the
+barrier swung open, and the serving-woman stood there before him,
+dressed with the evidences of haste that advertised the fact she had
+risen from her bed.
+
+Garrison snatched at his wits in time to act a part for which he had
+not been prepared.
+
+"I'm afraid it's pretty late," he said, "but I came to surprise my
+wife."
+
+"My word, that's too bad, sir, ain't it?" said the woman.  "Mrs.
+Fairfax has went out for the night."
+
+This was the truth.  Dorothy, together with the Robinsons, had left the
+house an hour before and gone away in an automobile, leaving no word of
+their destination, or of when they intended to return.
+
+Utterly baffled, and wholly at a loss to understand this unexpected
+maneuver.  Garrison stood for a moment staring at the woman.  After
+all, such a flight was in reasonable sequence, if Dorothy were guilty.
+The one thing to do was to avail himself of all obtainable knowledge.
+
+"Gone--for the night," he repeated.  "Did Mrs. Fairfax seem anxious to
+go?"
+
+"I didn't see her, sir.  I couldn't say, really," answered the woman.
+"Mr. Theodore said as how she was ailing, sir, and they was going away.
+That's all I know about it, sir."
+
+"I'm sorry I missed them," Garrison murmured, half to himself.  Then a
+thought occurred to him abruptly--a bold suggestion, on which he
+determined to act.
+
+"Is my room kept ready, in case of present need like this to-night?" he
+said.  "Or, if not, could you prepare it?"
+
+"It's all quite ready, sir, clean linen and all, the room next to Mrs.
+Fairfax's," said the woman.  "I always keeps it ready, sir."
+
+"Very good," said Garrison, with his mind made up to remain all night
+and explore the house for possible clews to anything connected with its
+mysteries.  "You may as well return to your apartments.  I can find my
+way upstairs."
+
+"Is there anything I could get you, sir?" inquired the woman.  "You
+look a bit pale, sir, if you'll pardon the forwardness."
+
+"Thank you, no," he answered gratefully.  "All I need is rest."  He
+slipped half a dollar in her hand.
+
+The woman switched on the lights in the hallway above.
+
+"Good-night, sir," she said.  "If you're needing anything more I hope
+you'll ring."
+
+"Good-night," said Garrison.  "I shall not disturb you, I'm sure."
+
+With ample nerve to enact the part of master, he ascended the stairs,
+proceeded to the room to which he had always gone before, and waited to
+hear the woman below retire to her quarters in the basement.
+
+The room denoted nothing unusual.  The roses, which he had taken from
+the vase to obtain the water to sprinkle on Dorothy's face, had
+disappeared.  The vase was there on the table.
+
+He crossed the floor and tried the door that led to Dorothy's boudoir.
+It was locked.  Without further ado, he began his explorations.
+
+It was not without a sense of gratitude that he presently discovered
+the bathroom at the rear of the hall.  Here he laved his face and head,
+being very much refreshed by the process.
+
+A secondary hall led away from the first, and through this he came at
+once to the rooms which had evidently been set apart for Dorothy and
+her husband.  The room which he knew was supposed to be his own
+contained nothing save comfortable furnishings.  He therefore went at
+once to Dorothy's apartments.
+
+She occupied a suite of three rooms--one of them large, the others
+small.  Exquisite order was apparent in all, combined with signs of a
+dainty, cultured taste.  It seemed a sacrilege to search her
+possessions, and he made no attempt to do so.  Indeed, he gained
+nothing from his quick, keen survey of the place, save a sense of her
+beauty and refinement as expressed in the features of her "nest."  He
+felt himself warranted in opening a closet, into which he cast a
+comprehensive glance.
+
+It seemed well filled with hanging gowns, but several hooks were empty.
+
+On a shelf high up was a suit-case, empty, since it weighed almost
+nothing as he lifted up the end.  He took it down, found marks where
+fingers had disturbed the dust upon its lid, then stood on a chair,
+examined the shelf, and became aware that a second case had been
+removed, as shown by the absence of accumulated dust, which had
+gathered all about the place it had formerly occupied.
+
+Replacing the case he had taken from the shelf, he closed the closet,
+in possession of the fact that some preparation, at least, had been
+made against some sort of a journey.  He was certain the empty hooks
+had been stripped of garments for the flight, but whether by Dorothy
+herself or by her relatives he could not, of course, determine.
+
+He repaired at once to the rooms farther back, which the Robinsons had
+occupied.  When he switched on the lights in the first one entered, he
+knew it had been the old man's place of refuge, for certain signs of
+the occupancy of Mr. Robinson were not lacking.
+
+It reeked of stale cigar-smoke, which would hang in the curtains for a
+week.  It was very untidy.  There were many indications that old
+Robinson had quitted in haste.  On the table were ash-trays, old
+cigar-stumps, matches, burned and new; magazines, hairpins, a
+tooth-brush, and two calf-bound volumes of a legal aspect.  One was a
+lawyer's treatise on wills, the other a history of broken testaments,
+statistical as well as narrative.
+
+The closet here supplied nothing of value to Garrison when he gave it a
+brief inspection.  At the end of the room was a door that stood
+slightly ajar.  It led to the next apartment--the room to which
+Theodore had been assigned.  Garrison soon discovered the electric
+button and flooded the place with light.
+
+The apartment was quite irregular.  The far end had two windows,
+overlooking the court at the rear--the hollow of the block.  These were
+both in an alcove, between two in-jutting partitions.  One partition
+was the common result of building a closet into the room.  The other
+was constructed to accommodate a staircase at the back of the house,
+leading to the quarters below.
+
+Disorder was again the rule, for a litter of papers, neckties, soiled
+collars, and ends of cigarettes, with perfumes, toilet requisites, and
+beer bottles seemed strewn promiscuously on everything capable of
+receiving a burden.
+
+Garrison tried the door that led to the staircase, and found it open.
+The closet came next for inspection.  Without expecting anything of
+particular significance, Garrison drew open the door.
+
+Like everything else in the Robinsons' realm, it was utterly
+disordered.  Glancing somewhat indifferently over its contents.
+Garrison was about to close the door when his eye caught upon a gleam
+of dull red, where a ray of light fell in upon a bit of color on the
+floor.
+
+He stopped, put his hand on the cloth, and drew forth a flimsy pair of
+tights of carmine hue--part of the Mephistophelian costume that
+Theodore had worn on the night of the party next door.  With this in
+his hand, and a clearer understanding of the house, with its staircase
+at the rear.  Garrison comprehended the ease with which Theodore had
+played his rôle and gone from one house to the other without arousing
+suspicion.
+
+Encouraged to examine the closet further, he pawed around through the
+garments hung upon the hooks, and presently struck his hand against a
+solid obstacle projecting from the wall in the darkest corner, and
+heard a hollow, resonant sound from the blow.
+
+Removing half a dozen coats that hung concealingly massed in the place,
+he almost uttered an exclamation of delight.  There on the wall was a
+small equipment telephone, one of the testing-boxes employed by the
+linemen in their labors with which to "plug in" and communicate between
+places where no regular 'phone is installed.
+
+It was Theodore's private receiver, over which he could hear every word
+that might be said to anyone using the 'phone!
+
+It tapped the wires to the regular instrument installed in the house,
+and was thoroughly concealed.
+
+Instantly aware that by this means young Robinson could have overheard
+every word between himself and Dorothy concerning their meeting in the
+park, Garrison felt his heart give a lift into realms of unreasonable
+joy.
+
+It could not entirely dissipate the doubts that hung about Dorothy, but
+it gave him a priceless hope!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN QUEST OF DOROTHY
+
+More than half ready to believe that Dorothy had been spirited away,
+Garrison examined everything available, with the intention of
+discovering, if possible, any scrap that might indicate the destination
+to which the trio had proceeded.
+
+The Robinsons had left almost nothing of the slightest value or
+importance, since what clothing remained was of no significance
+whatever.
+
+It was not until he opened up the old man's books on the subject of
+wills that Garrison found the slightest clew, and then he came upon a
+postal-card addressed to "Sykey Robinson, Esq.," from Theodore's
+mother.  It mentioned the fact that she had arrived quite safely at
+"the house," and requested that her husband forward a pair of her
+glasses, left behind when she started.
+
+The address of the place where she was stopping was given as 1600
+Myrtle Avenue.  The postmark was Woodsite, Long Island.
+
+Garrison made up his mind to go to Woodsite.  If Dorothy were found, he
+meant to steal her--if need be, even against her will.
+
+Warmed to the business by his few discoveries, he returned at once to
+Dorothy's apartments and opened her bureau and dressing-table for a
+superficial inspection.  To his complete surprise, he found that every
+drawer was in utter confusion as to its contents.  That each and all
+had been rudely overhauled there could not be a doubt for a moment.
+Not one showed the order apparent in all things else about the rooms.
+
+There could be but one conclusion.  Some one had searched them
+hurriedly, sparing not even the smallest.  The someone could not have
+been Dorothy, for many reasons--and Garrison once more rejoiced.
+
+He was thoroughly convinced that Dorothy had been taken from the house
+by force.
+
+Whatever else she might be guilty of, he felt she must be innocent of
+the dastardly attempt upon his life.  And, wherever she was, he meant
+to find her and take her away, no matter what the cost.
+
+The hour was late--too late, he was aware--for anything effective.  Not
+without a certain satisfaction in his sense of ownership, and with grim
+resolutions concerning his dealings in future with the Robinsons, he
+extinguished the lights in the rooms he had searched, and, glad of the
+much-needed rest, retired in calm for six solid hours of sleep.
+
+This brought him out, refreshed and vigorous, at a bright, early hour
+of the morning.  The housekeeper, not yet stirring in her downstairs
+quarters, failed to hear him let himself out at the door--and his way
+was clear for action.
+
+His breakfast he took at an insignificant café.  Then he went to his
+room in Forty-fourth Street.
+
+The "shadow," faithful to his charge, was waiting in the street before
+the house.  His presence was noted by Garrison, who nodded to himself
+in understanding of the fellow's persistency.
+
+Arrived upstairs, he discovered three letters, none of which he took
+the time to read.  They were thrust in his pocket--and forgotten.
+
+The metal bomb, which was still in his coat, he concealed among a lot
+of shoes in his closet.
+
+From among his possessions, accumulated months before, when the needs
+of the Biddle robbery case had arisen, he selected a thoroughly
+effective disguise, which not only grew a long, drooping mustache upon
+his lip, but aged him about the eyes, and appeared to reduce his
+stature and his width of shoulders.  With a pair of shabby gloves on
+his hands, and a book beneath his arms, he had suddenly become a
+genteel if poor old book-agent, whose appearance excited compassion.
+
+Well supplied with money, armed with a loaded revolver, fortified by
+his official badge, and more alert in all his faculties than he had
+ever felt in all his life, he passed down the stairs and out upon the
+street, under the very nose of the waiting "shadow," into whose face he
+cast a tired-looking glance, without exciting the slightest suspicion.
+
+Twenty minutes later he had hired a closed automobile, and was being
+carried toward the Williamsburg Bridge and Long Island.  The car
+selected was of a type renowned for achievements in speed.
+
+It was nearly ten o'clock when he stood at length on the sidewalk
+opposite 1600 Myrtle Avenue, Woodsite, a modest cottage standing on a
+corner.  It was one of the houses farthest from the center of the town;
+nevertheless, it had its neighbors all about, if somewhat scattered.
+
+There was no sign of life about the place.  The shades were drawn; it
+bore a look of desertion.  Only pausing for a moment, as even a
+book-agent might, after many repeated rebuffs, Garrison wended his way
+across the street, proceeded slowly up the concrete walk, ascended the
+steps, and rang the bell.
+
+There was no result.  He rang again, and out of the corner of his eye
+beheld the curtain pushed a trifle aside, in the window near at hand,
+where someone looked out from this concealment.  For the third time he
+rang--and at last the door was opened for a distance no more than six
+inches wide.  The face he saw was old man Robinson's.
+
+The chain on the door was securely fastened, otherwise Garrison would
+have pushed his way inside without further ado.  He noted this barely
+in time to save himself from committing an error.
+
+"Go away!" said old Robinson testily.  "No books wanted!"
+
+"I hope you will not refuse a tired old man," said Garrison, in a voice
+that seemed trembling with weakness.  "The books I have to offer are
+quite remarkable indeed.
+
+"Don't want them.  Good-day!" said Robinson.  He tried to close the
+door, but Garrison's foot prevented.
+
+"One of my books is particularly valuable to read to headstrong young
+women.  If you have a daughter--or any young woman in the house----"
+
+"She can't see anyone--I mean there's no such person here!" snapped
+Robinson.  "What's the matter with that door?"
+
+"My other book is of the rarest interest," insisted Garrison.  "An
+account of the breaking of the Butler will--a will drawn up by the most
+astute and crafty lawyer in America, yet broken because of its flaws.
+A book----"
+
+"Whose will was that?" demanded Robinson, his interest suddenly roused.
+"Some lawyer, did you say?"  He relaxed his pressure on the door and
+fumbled at the chain.
+
+"The will of Benjamin Butler--the famous Benjamin Butler," Garrison
+replied.  "One of the most remarkable----"
+
+"Come in," commanded old Robinson, who had slipped off the chain.  "How
+much is the book?"
+
+"I am only taking orders to-day," answered Garrison, stepping briskly
+inside and closing the door with his heel.  "If you'll take this copy
+to the light----"
+
+"Father!" interrupted an angry voice.  "Didn't I tell you not to let
+anyone enter this house?  Get out, you old nuisance!  Get out with your
+book?"
+
+Garrison looked down the oak-finished hall and saw Theodore coming
+angrily toward him.
+
+Alive to the value of the melodramatic, he threw off both his hat and
+mustache and squared up in Theodore's path.
+
+Young Robinson reeled as if struck a staggering blow.
+
+"You--you----" he gasped.
+
+Old Robinson recovered his asperity with remarkable promptness.
+
+"How dare you come into this house?" he screamed.  "You lying----"
+
+"That's enough of that," said Garrison quietly.  "I came for
+Dorothy--whom you dared to carry away."
+
+"You--you--you're mistaken," said Theodore, making a most tremendous
+effort at calmness, with his face as white as death.  "She isn't here."
+
+"Don't lie.  Your father has given the facts away," said Garrison.  "I
+want her--and I want her now."
+
+"Look here," said Theodore, rapidly regaining his rage, "if you think
+you can come to my house like this----"  He was making a move as if to
+slip upstairs--perhaps for a gun.
+
+Garrison pulled his revolver without further parley.
+
+"Stay where you are!  Up with your hands!  Don't either of you make a
+move that I don't order, understand?  I said I'd come to take my wife
+away."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't shoot!" begged old Robinson.  "Don't shoot!"
+
+"You fool--do you think I'd bring her here?" said Theodore, trying to
+grin, but putting up his hands.  "Put away your gun, and act like a man
+in his senses, or I'll have you pulled for your pains."
+
+"You've done talking enough--and perhaps _I'll_ have just a word to say
+about pulling, later on," said Garrison.  "In the meantime, don't you
+open your head again, or you'll get yourself into trouble."
+
+He raised his voice and shouted tremendously:
+
+"Dorothy!"
+
+"Jerold!" came a muffled cry, from somewhere above in a room.
+
+He heard her vainly tugging at a door.
+
+"Go up ahead of me, both of you," he commanded, making a gesture with
+the gun.  "I prefer not to break in the door."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A RESCUE BY FORCE
+
+Theodore was hesitating, though his father was eager to obey.  Garrison
+stepped a foot forward and thrust the pistol firmly against the young
+man's body, cocking the hammer.
+
+"I'm going--for the love of Heaven, look out!" cried the craven
+suddenly, and he backed toward the stairs in haste.
+
+"That's better," said Garrison coldly.  "Step lively, please, and don't
+attempt the slightest treachery unless you are prepared to pay the
+price."
+
+Theodore had no more than started when the door-bell rang--four little
+jingles.
+
+"It's mother," said old Robinson, starting for the door.
+
+"Let her remain outside for the present," ordered Garrison.  "Get on up
+the stairs."
+
+The bell rang again.  The Robinsons, resigned to defeat, ascended to
+the hall above, with the gun yawning just at the rear.
+
+Once more Garrison called out:
+
+"Dorothy--where are you?"
+
+"Here!" cried Dorothy, her voice still muffled behind a solid door.
+"The room at the back.  I can't get out!"
+
+Garrison issued another order to Theodore, whom he knew to be the
+governing spirit in the fight against himself and Dorothy:
+
+"Put down one hand and get out your keys--but don't attempt to remove
+anything else from your pocket, or I'll plug you on the spot."
+
+Theodore cast a defiant glance across the leveled gun to the steady,
+cool eyes behind it, and drew forth the keys, as directed.
+
+"If that's you, Jerold--please, please get me out--the door is locked!"
+called Dorothy, alarmed by each second of delay.  "Where are you now?"
+
+"Coming!" called Garrison.  He added, to Theodore: "Keep one hand up.
+Unlock the door."  He called out again: "Keep cool when it's opened.
+Don't confuse the situation."
+
+Young Robinson, convinced that resistance at this point was useless,
+inserted the key in the lock and opened the door, at the same time
+casting a knowing look at his father, who stood over next to the wall.
+
+In the instant that Garrison's attention was directed to the unlocked
+room, old Robinson made a quick retreat to a tiny red box that was
+screwed against the wall and twice pulled down a brass ring.
+
+Garrison beheld the action too late to interpose.  He knew the thing
+for a burglar-alarm--and realized his own position.
+
+Meantime Dorothy had not emerged.
+
+"Jerold!  Jerold!" she cried.  "My feet are chained!"
+
+"Get in there, both of you, double-quick!" commanded Garrison, and he
+herded the Robinsons inside the room, fairly pushing them before him
+with the gun.
+
+Then he saw Dorothy.
+
+White with fear, her eyes ablaze with indignation at the Robinsons, her
+beauty heightened by the look of intensity in her eyes, she stood by
+the door, her ankles bound together by a chain which was secured to the
+heavy brass bed.
+
+"Jerold!" she cried as she had before, but her voice broke and tears
+started swiftly from her eyes.
+
+"Be calm, dear, please," said Garrison, who had turned on her captors
+with an anger he could scarcely control.  "You cowards!  You infamous
+scoundrels!" he said.  "Release those chains this instant, or I'll blow
+off the top of your head!"  He demanded this of Theodore.
+
+"The key isn't here," said the latter, intent upon gaining time since
+the burglar-alarm had been sprung.  "I left it downstairs."
+
+"I think you lie," said Garrison.  "Get busy, or you'll have trouble."
+
+"It's on his ring, with the key to the door," said Dorothy.  "They've
+kept me drugged and stupid, but I saw as much as that."
+
+Once more Garrison pushed the black muzzle of the gun against
+Theodore's body.  The fellow cringed.  The sweat stood out on his
+forehead.  He dropped to his knees and, trembling with fear, fumbled
+with the keys.
+
+"To think they'd dare!" said Dorothy, who with difficulty refrained
+from sobbing, in her anger, relief, and nervous strain.
+
+Garrison made no reply.  He was fairly on edge with anxiety himself, in
+the need for haste, aware that every moment was precious, with the
+town's constabulary doubtless already on the way to respond to the old
+man's alarm.  The rights of the case would come too late, with his and
+Dorothy's story against the statements of the Robinsons, and he had no
+intention of submitting to arrest.
+
+"You're wasting time--do better!" he commanded Theodore, and he nudged
+the gun under his ribs.  "That's the key, that crooked one--use it,
+quick!"
+
+Theodore dared not disobey.  The chain fell away, and Dorothy ran
+forward, with a sob upon her lips.
+
+"Don't hamper me, dear," said Garrison, watching the Robinsons alertly.
+"Just get your hat, and we'll go."
+
+Dorothy ran to a closet, drew forth a hat, and cried that she was ready.
+
+"Throw those keys in the hall!" commanded Garrison, and young Robinson
+tossed them out as directed.  "Now, then, over in the corner with the
+pair of you!"
+
+The helpless Robinsons moved over to the corner of the room.  Dorothy
+was already in the hall.  Garrison was backing out, to lock the door,
+when Dorothy ran in again beside him.
+
+"Just a minute!" she said, and, going to the bed, despite Garrison's
+impatience, she turned down the pillow and caught up a bunch of faded
+roses--his roses--and, blushing in girlish confusion, ran out once
+more, and slammed the door, which Garrison locked on her relations.
+
+"Throw the keys under the rug," he said quietly.  "We've no time to
+lose.  The old man rang in an alarm."
+
+Dorothy quickly hid the keys as directed.  The face she turned to him
+then was blanched with worry.
+
+"What shall we do?" she said, as he led her down the stairs.  "In a
+little town like this there's no place to go."
+
+"I provided for that," he answered; and, beholding her start as a sound
+of loud knocking at the door in the rear gave new cause for fright, he
+added: "Thank goodness, the old bearded woman has gone around back to
+get in!"
+
+Half a minute more, and both were out upon the walk.  Garrison carrying
+his book, his pistol once more in his pocket.
+
+A yell, and a shrill penetrative whistle from the rear of the house,
+now told of Theodore's activities at the window of the room where he
+and his father were imprisoned.  He was doubtless making ready to let
+himself down to the ground.
+
+"We may have to make a lively run," said Garrison.  "My motor-car is
+two blocks away."
+
+They were still a block from the waiting car when, with yells and a
+furious blowing of his whistle, Theodore came running to the street
+before his house.  One minute later a big red car, with the chief of
+the town's police and the chief of the local firemen, shot around the
+corner into Myrtle Avenue, and came to a halt before the residence
+which the fugitives had just barely quitted.
+
+"Make a run for it now, we're in for a race," said Garrison, and, with
+Dorothy skipping in excitement beside him, he came to his waiting
+chauffeur.
+
+"That fellow up the street is on our trail!" he said.  "Cut loose all
+the speed you've got.  Fifty dollars bonus if you lose the bunch before
+you cross the bridge to New York!"
+
+He helped Dorothy quickly to her seat inside, and only pausing to note
+that Theodore was clambering hotly into the big red car, two long
+village blocks away, he swung in himself as the driver speeded up the
+motor.
+
+Then, with a whir and a mighty lurch as the clutch went in, the
+automobile started forward in the road.
+
+Ten seconds later they were running full speed, with the muffler cut
+out, and sharp percussions puncturing the air like a Gatling gun's
+terrific detonations.
+
+The race for New York had commenced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE RACE
+
+Some of the roads on Long Island are magnificent.  Many of the speed
+laws are strict.  The thoroughfare stretching ahead of the two cars was
+one of the best.
+
+The traffic regulations suffered absolute demolition.
+
+Like a liberated thing of flame and deviltry, happiest when rocketing
+through space, the car beneath the fugitives seemed to bound in the air
+as it whirred with a higher and higher hum of wheels and gears, and the
+air drove by in torrential force, leaving a cloud of smoke and dust in
+their wake.
+
+Dorothy clung to Jerold, half afraid.  He raised himself upon the seat
+and looked out of the tiny window set in the back.  The big car in the
+road behind, obscured in the dust that must help to blind its driver,
+had lost scarcely more than half a block in picking up its speed.
+
+It, too, was a powerful machine, and its coughing, open exhaust was
+adding to the din on the highway.  It was trailing smoke in a dense,
+bluish cloud that meant they were burning up their lubricant with
+spendthrift prodigality.  But the monster was running superbly.
+
+The houses seemed scooting by in madness.  A team that stood beside the
+road dwindled swiftly in perspective.  The whir of the gears and the
+furious discharge of the used-up gas seemed increasing momentarily.
+The whole machine was rocking as it sped, yet the big red pursuer was
+apparently gaining by degrees.
+
+Garrison nodded in acknowledgment of the fact that the car behind, with
+almost no tonneau and minus the heavy covered superstructure, offered
+less resistance to the wind.  With everything else made equal, and
+accident barred, the fellow at the wheel behind would overhaul them yet.
+
+He looked out forward.  The road was straight for at least a mile.  He
+beheld a bicycle policeman, riding ahead, to develop his speed, with
+the certain intention of calling to his driver to stop.
+
+Half a minute later the car was abreast the man on the wheel, who
+shrieked out his orders on the wind.  Garrison leaned to the tube that
+ended by the chauffeur's ear.
+
+"Go on--give her more if she's got it!" he said.  "I'll take care of
+the fines!"
+
+The driver had two notches remaining on his spark advance.  He thumbed
+the lever forward, and the car responded with a trifle more of speed.
+It was straining every bolt and nut to its utmost capacity of strength.
+
+The bicycle officer, clinging half a minute to a hope made forlorn by
+his sheer human lack of endurance, drifted to rearward with the dust.
+
+Once more Garrison peered out behind.  The big red demon, tearing down
+the road, was warming to its work.  With cylinders heating, and her
+mixture therefore going snappily as a natural result, she too had taken
+on a slight accession of speed.  Two meteors, flung from space across
+the earth's rotundity, could scarcely have been more exciting than
+these liberated chariots of power.
+
+There was no time to talk; there was scarcely time to think.  The road,
+the landscape, the very world, became a dizzying blur that destroyed
+all distinct sense of sight.  In the rush of the air, and the
+rapid-fire fusillade from the motor, all sense of hearing was benumbed.
+
+A craze for speed took possession of the three--Dorothy, Garrison, the
+driver.  The power to think on normal lines was being swept away.  Such
+mania as drives a lawless comet comes inevitably upon all who ride with
+such space-defying speed.  The one idea is more--more speed--more
+freedom--more recklessness of spirit!
+
+A village seven miles from Woodsite, calm in its half-deserted state,
+with its men all at business in New York, was cleaved, as it were, by
+the racing machines, while women and children ran and screamed to
+escape from the path of the monsters.
+
+The fellow behind was once more creeping up.  The time consumed in
+going seven miles had been barely ten minutes.  In fifteen minutes
+more, at his present rate of gain, the driver behind would be up
+alongside, and then--who knew what would happen?
+
+Dorothy had started as if to speak, at least a dozen times.  She was
+now holding on with all her strength, aware that conversation was
+wholly out of the question.
+
+Garrison was watching constantly through the glass.  The race could
+hardly last much longer.  They were rapidly approaching a larger town,
+where such speed would be practically criminal.  If only they could
+gain a lead and dart into town and around some corner, into traffic of
+sufficient density to mask his movements, he and Dorothy might perhaps
+alight and escape observation on foot, while the car led pursuit
+through the streets.
+
+About to suggest some such plan to his driver, he was suddenly sickened
+by a sharp report, like a pistol fired beneath the car.  He feared for
+a tire, but the noise came again, and then three times, quickly, in
+succession.  One of the cylinders was missing.  Not only was the power
+cut down by a fourth, but compression in the engine thus partially
+"dead" was a drag on the others of the motor.
+
+The driver leaned forward, one hand on the buzzer of his coil, and gave
+a screw a turn.  Already the car was losing speed.  The fellow behind
+was coming on like a red-headed whirlwind.  For a moment the missing
+seemed to cease, and the speed surged back to the hum of the whirring
+gears.
+
+"Bang!  Bang!" went the sharp report, as before, and Garrison groaned.
+He was looking out, all but hopeless of escape, rapidly reflecting on
+the charges that would lie against not only himself, but his chauffeur,
+when he saw the red fellow plunge through the dust on a crazy, gyrating
+course that made his heart stand still.
+
+They had blown out a tire!
+
+Like a drunken comet, suddenly robbed of all its own crazy laws, the
+red demon see-sawed the highway.  The man at the wheel, shutting off
+his power, crowding on his brakes, and clinging to his wheel with the
+skill and coolness of a master, had all he could do to keep the machine
+anywhere near the proper highway.
+
+Unaware of what had occurred at the rear the driver in charge of
+Garrison's car had once more adjusted the buzzer, and now with such
+splendid results that his motor seemed madder than before to run itself
+to shreds.
+
+Like a vanishing blot on the landscape, the red car behind, when it
+came to a halt, was deserted by its rival in the race.  Two minutes
+later, with the city ahead fast looming like a barrier before them,
+Garrison leaned to the tube.
+
+"Slow down!" he called.  "Our friend has quit--a blow-out.  Get down to
+lawful speed."
+
+Even then they ran fully half a mile before the excited creature of
+wheels and fire could be tamed to calmer behavior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FRIGHT AND A DISAPPEARANCE
+
+With the almost disappointed thing of might purring tamely along
+through the far-spread town, and then on through level ways of beauty,
+leading the way to Gotham, Dorothy found that she was still clinging
+fast to Jerold's arm, after nearly ten minutes of peace.
+
+Then she waked, as it were, and shyly withdrew her hand.
+
+Garrison had felt himself transported literally, more by the ecstasy of
+having her thus put dependence upon him than by any mere flight of the
+car.  He underwent a sense of loss when the strain subsided, and her
+trembling hold relaxed and fell from his arm.
+
+Nevertheless, she clung to the roses.  His heart had taken time to beat
+a stroke in joy during that moment of stress at the house, when she had
+caused a few seconds' added delay to gather up the crushed and faded
+flowers.
+
+Since speaking to the driver last Garrison had been content to sit
+beside the girl in silence.  There was much he must ask, and much she
+must tell, but for this little time of calm and delight he could not
+break the spell.  Once more, however, his abounding confidence in her
+goodness, her innocence, and deep-lying beauty of character rose
+triumphant over fears.  Once more the spell of a mighty love was laid
+upon his heart.  He did not know and could not know that Dorothy, too,
+was Cupid's victim--that she loved him with a strange and joyous
+intensity, but he did know that the whole vast world was no price for
+this moment of rapture.
+
+She was the first to speak.
+
+"Why did we have to run away?  Aren't you supposed to have a perfect
+right to--to take me wherever you please--especially from a place like
+that, and such outrageous treatment?"
+
+"I am only supposed to have that right," he answered.  "As a matter of
+fact, I committed a species of violence in Theodore's house, compelling
+him to act at the point of the gun.  Technically speaking, I had no
+right to proceed so far.  But, aside from that, when they sprung the
+alarm--well, the time had come for action.
+
+"Had the constable dragged me away, as a legal offender--which he would
+doubtless have done on the charge of two householding citizens--the
+delay would have been most annoying, while a too close investigation of
+my status as a husband might have proved even more embarrassing."
+
+A wave of crimson swept across her face.
+
+"Of course."  She relapsed into silence for a moment.  Then she added:
+"What does it all mean, anyway?  How dared they carry me off like this?
+How did you happen to come?  When did you find that I had gone?  What
+do you think we'd better do?"
+
+"Answer one question at a time," said Garrison, stuffing his
+handkerchief into the tube, lest the driver overhear their
+conversation.  "There is much to be explained between us.  In the first
+place, tell me, Dorothy, what happened just after I 'phoned you last
+evening, and you made an appointment to meet me in the park."
+
+"Why, I hardly know," she said, her face once more a trifle pale.  "I
+went upstairs to get ready, thinking to slip out unobserved.  In the
+act of putting on my hat, I was suddenly smothered in the folds of a
+strong-smelling towel thrown over my head, and since that time I have
+scarcely known anything till this morning, when I waked in the bed at
+Theodore's house, fully dressed, and chained as you saw me."
+
+"But--these roses?" he said, lightly placing his hand upon them.  "How
+did you happen to have them along?"
+
+It was not a question pertinent to the issues in hand, but it meant a
+great deal to his heart.
+
+"Why--I--I was wearing them--that's all," she stammered.  "No one
+stopped to take them off."
+
+He was satisfied.  He wished they might once and for all dismiss the
+world, with all its vexations, its mysteries, and pains, and ride on
+like this, through the June-created loveliness bathed in its
+sunlight--comrades and lovers, forever.
+
+The hour, however, was not for dreaming.  There were grim facts
+affecting them both, and much to be cleared between them.  Moreover he
+was merely hired to enact a rôle that, if it sometimes called for a
+show of tender love, was still but a rôle, after all.  He attacked the
+business directly.
+
+"We require an understanding on a great many topics," he said to her
+slowly.  "After I 'phoned you I went to the park, was caught in the
+rain, and attacked by two ruffians, who knocked me down, and left me to
+what they supposed would be certain destruction."
+
+"Jerold!" she said, and his name thus on her lips, with no one by to
+whom she was acting, gave him an exquisite pleasure.  There was no
+possibility of guilty knowledge on her part.  Of this he was thoroughly
+convinced.  "You?  Attacked?"
+
+"Later," he resumed, "when I recovered, I went to the house in
+Ninety-third Street, was admitted by the woman in charge, and remained
+all night, after taking the liberty of examining all the apartments."
+
+She looked at him in utter amazement.
+
+"Why--but what does it----  You, attacked in the park--these lawless
+deeds--you stayed all night----  And you found I had been carried away?"
+
+"No; I merely thought so.  The woman knew nothing.  But I presently
+discovered a number of interesting things.  Theodore has installed a
+private 'phone in his closet, and by means thereof had overheard our
+appointment.  Your bureau and dressing-case had both been searched----"
+
+"For the necklaces!" she cried.  "You have them safe?"
+
+"I thought it might have been the jewels--or your marriage
+certificate," he said, alive to numerous points in the case which, he
+felt, were about to develop.
+
+She turned a trifle pale.
+
+"I've sewn the certificate--where I'm sure they'd never find it," she
+said.  "But the jewels are safe?"
+
+"Quite safe," he said, making a mental note of her insistence on the
+topic.  "I then discovered the address of the Woodsite house, and you
+know the rest."
+
+"It's terrible!  The whole thing is terrible!" she said.  "I wouldn't
+have thought they'd dare to do such things!  I don't know what we're
+going to do.  We're neither of us safe!"
+
+"You must help me all you can," he said, laying his hand for a moment
+on her arm.  "I've been fighting in the dark.  I must find you
+apartments where you will not be discovered by the Robinsons, whose
+criminal designs on the property inheritance will halt at nothing,
+and--you must tell me all you can."
+
+"I will," she said; "only----"
+
+And there she halted, her eyes raised to his in mute appeal, a dumb
+fear expressed in their depths.
+
+They had both avoided the topic of the murder, at the news of which she
+had fainted.  Garrison almost feared it, and Dorothy evidently dreaded
+its approach.
+
+More than anything else Garrison felt he must know she was innocent.
+That was the one vital thing to him now, whether she could ever return
+his love or not.  He loved her in every conceivable manner, fondly,
+passionately, sacredly, with the tenderest wishes for her comfort and
+happiness.  He believed in her now as he always had, whensoever they
+were together.  Nevertheless, he could not abandon all his faculties
+and plunge into folly like a blind and confident fool.
+
+"I'd like to ask about the jewels first," he said.  "The night I first
+came to your home I entered the place next door by accident.  A
+fancy-dress party was in progress."
+
+"Yes--I knew it.  They used to be friends of Theodore's."
+
+"So I guessed," he added dryly.  "Theodore was there."
+
+"Theodore--there?" she echoed in surprise he felt to be genuine.  "Why,
+but--don't you remember you met him with the others in my house, soon
+after you came?"
+
+"I do, perfectly.  Nevertheless, I saw him in the other house, in mask,
+I assure you, dressed to represent _Mephistopheles_.  Last night I
+found the costume in his closet, and the stairs at the rear were his,
+of course, to employ."
+
+"I remember," said Dorothy excitedly, "that he came in a long gray
+overcoat, though the evening was distinctly warm."
+
+"Precisely.  And all of this would amount to nothing," Garrison
+resumed, "only that while I stood in the hall of the house I had
+entered, that evening, I saw a young woman, likewise in mask, wearing
+your necklaces--your pearls and diamonds."
+
+Dorothy stared at him in utter bewilderment.  Her face grew pale.  Her
+eyes dilated strangely.
+
+"You--you are sure?" she said in a tone barely audible.
+
+"Perfectly," said Garrison.
+
+"And you never mentioned this before?"
+
+"I awaited developments."
+
+"But--what did you think?  You might almost have thought that Theodore
+had stolen them, and handed them to me," she said.  "Especially after
+the way I put them in your charge!"
+
+"I told you we have much to clear between us," he said.  "Haven't I the
+right to know a little----"
+
+"But--how did they come to be there?" she interrupted, abruptly
+confronted by a phase of the facts which she had momentarily
+overlooked.  "How in the world could my jewels have been in that house
+and also in my bureau at the very same time?"
+
+"Isn't it possible that Theodore borrowed them, temporarily, and
+smuggled them back when he came?"
+
+The startled look was intensified in her eyes as she met his gaze.
+
+"He must have done it in some such way!" she said.  "I thought at the
+time, when I ran in to get them, they were not exactly as I had left
+them, earlier.  And I gave them to you for fear he'd steal them!"
+
+This was some light, at least.  Garrison needed more.
+
+"Why couldn't you have told me all about them earlier?"
+
+She looked at him beseechingly.  Some way, it seemed to them both they
+had known each other for a very long time, and much had been swept away
+that must have stood as a barrier between mere client and agent.
+
+"I felt I'd rather not," she confessed.  "Forgive me, please.  They do
+not belong to me.
+
+"Not yours?" said Garrison.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"I advanced some money on them--to some one very dear," she answered.
+"Please don't probe into that, if you can help it."
+
+His jealousy rose again, with his haunting suspicion of a man in the
+background with whom he would yet have to deal.  He knew that here he
+had no rights, but in other directions he had many.
+
+"I shall be obliged to do considerable probing," he said.  "The time
+has come when we must work much more closely together.  A maze of
+events has entangled us both, and together we must find our way out."
+
+She lowered her glance.  Her lip was trembling.  He felt she was
+striving to gain a control over her nerves, that were strung to the
+highest tension.  For fully a minute she was silent.  He waited.  She
+looked up, met his gaze for a second, and once more lowered her eyes.
+
+"You spoke of--of something--yesterday," she faltered.  "It gave me a
+terrible shock."
+
+She had broached the subject of the murder.
+
+"I was sorry--sorry for the brutal way--the thoughtless way I spoke,"
+he said.  "I hope to be forgiven."
+
+She made no reply to his hope.  Her entire stock of nerve was required
+to go on with the business in hand.
+
+"You said my uncle was--murdered," she said, in a tone he strained to
+hear.  "What makes you think of such a thing?"
+
+"You have not before made the statement that the Hardy in Hickwood was
+your uncle," he reminded her.
+
+"You must have guessed it was my uncle," she replied.  "You knew it all
+the time."
+
+"No, not at first.  Not, in fact, till some time after I began my work
+on the case.  I knew Mr. Hardy had been murdered before I knew anything
+else about him."
+
+She was intensely white, but she was resolute.
+
+"Who told you he was murdered?"
+
+"No one.  I discovered the evidence myself."
+
+He felt her weaken and grow limp beside him.
+
+"The--the evidence?" she repeated faintly.  "What kind--of evidence?"
+
+"Poison."
+
+He was watching her keenly.
+
+She swayed, as if to faint once more, but mastered herself by exerting
+the utmost of her will.
+
+"Poison?" she repeated, as before.  "But how?"
+
+"In a box of cigars--a birthday present given to your uncle."
+
+It was brutal--cruelly brutal--but he had to test it out without
+further delay.
+
+His words acted almost with galvanic effect.
+
+"Cigars!  His birthday!  My cigars!" she cried.  "Jerold, you don't
+suspect me?"
+
+The car was starting across the bridge.  It suddenly halted in the
+traffic.  Almost on the instant came a crash and a cry.  A dainty
+little brougham had been crushed against another motor car in the jam
+and impatience on the structure.  One of its wheels had lost half its
+spokes, that went like a parcel of toothpicks.
+
+Garrison leaped out at once, and Dorothy followed in alarm.  In the
+tide of vehicles, blocked by the trifling accident, a hundred persons
+craned their heads to see what the damage had been.
+
+A small knot of persons quickly gathered about the damaged carriage.
+Garrison hastened forward, intent upon offering his services, should
+help in the case be required.  He discovered, in the briefest time,
+that no great damage had been done, and that no one had been injured.
+
+Eager to be hastening onward, he turned back to his car.  Almost
+immediately he saw that the chauffeur's seat was empty.  Dorothy had
+apparently stepped once more inside, to be screened from public view.
+
+Hastily scanning the crowd about the place, Garrison failed to find his
+driver.  He searched about impatiently, but in vain.  He presently
+became aware of the fact that his man had, for some reason, fled and
+left his car.
+
+Considerably annoyed, and aware that he should have to drive the
+machine himself, he returned once more to the open door of the auto,
+intent upon informing Dorothy of their loss.
+
+He gazed inside the car in utter bewilderment.
+
+Dorothy also was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+NEW HAPPENINGS
+
+Still puzzled, unable to believe his senses, Garrison made a second
+quick search of the vicinity that was rapidly being cleared and
+restored to order by a couple of efficient police officers, but without
+avail.
+
+Neither Dorothy nor the chauffeur could be found.
+
+One of the officers ordered him to move along with his car.  There was
+nothing else to be done.  Reluctantly, and not without feelings of
+annoyance and worry, combined with those of baffled mystery and
+chagrin, Garrison was presently obliged to climb to the driver's seat
+and take the wheel in hand.
+
+The motor was running, slowly, to a rhythmic beat.  He speeded it up,
+threw off the brake, put the gears in the "low," and slipped in the
+clutch.  Over the bridge in the halted procession of traffic he steered
+his course--a man bereft of his comrade and his driver and with a
+motor-car thrust upon his charge.
+
+Through the streets of New York he was finally guiding the great
+purring creature of might, which in ordinary circumstances would have
+filled his being with delight.  Thorough master of throttle,
+spark-advance, and speed-lever, he would have asked nothing better than
+to drive all day--if Dorothy were only at his side.
+
+He had never felt more utterly disconcerted in his life.  Where had she
+gone--and why?
+
+What did it mean to have the chauffeur also disappear?
+
+Had the two gone off together?
+
+If so, why should she choose a companion of his type?
+
+If not, then what could have formed the motive for the man's abrupt
+flight from the scene?
+
+And what should be done with the motor-car, thus abandoned to his care?
+
+A quick suspicion that the car had been stolen came to Garrison's mind.
+Nevertheless it was always possible that Dorothy had urged the driver
+to convey her out of the crowd, and that the driver had finally
+returned to get his car, and found it gone; but this, for many reasons,
+seemed unlikely.
+
+Dorothy had shown her fear in her last startled question: "Jerold, you
+don't suspect me?"  She might have fled in some sort of fear after
+that.  But the driver--what was it that had caused him also to vanish
+at a time so unexpected?
+
+Garrison found himself obliged to give it up.  He could think of
+nothing to do with the car but to take it to the stand where he had
+hired it in the morning.  The chauffeur might, by chance, appear and
+claim his property.  Uneasy, with the thing thus left upon his hands,
+and quite unwilling to be "caught with the goods," Garrison was swiftly
+growing more and more exasperated.
+
+He knew he could not roll the car to the stand and simply abandon it
+there, for anyone so inclined to steal; he objected to reporting it
+"found" in this peculiar manner at any police headquarters, for he
+could not be sure it had been stolen, and he himself might be suspected.
+
+Having hired the car in crowded Times Square, near his Forty-fourth
+Street rooms, he ran it up along Broadway with the thought of awaiting
+the driver.
+
+The traffic was congested with surface cars, heavy trucks, other
+motors, and carriages.  His whole attention was riveted on the task in
+hand.  Driving a car in the streets of New York ceases to be enjoyment,
+very promptly.  The clutch was in and out continuously.  He crept here,
+he speeded up to the limit for a space of a few city blocks, and crept
+again.
+
+Past busy Fourteenth Street and Union Square he proceeded, and on to
+Twenty-third Street with Madison Square, green and inviting, lying to
+his right.  Pushed over into the Fifth Avenue traffic by the
+regulations, he contemplated returning to the Broadway stream as soon
+as possible, and was crawling along with his clutch barely rubbing,
+when a hansom cab, containing a beautiful but pale young woman, slowly
+passed.  The occupant abruptly rose from her seat and scrutinized the
+car in obvious excitement.
+
+Garrison barely caught a glimpse of her face, busied as he was with the
+driving.  He continued on.  Two minutes later he was halted by a jam of
+carriages and the hansom returned at full speed.  Once more the pale
+young woman was leaning half-way out.
+
+"Stop!" she cried at the astounded Garrison.  "You've stolen that car!
+I'll have you arrested!  You've got to return it at once!"
+
+Garrison almost smiled, the half-expected outcome had arrived so
+promptly.  He saw that half a dozen drivers of cabs and other vehicles
+were looking on in wonder and amusement.
+
+"Kindly drive into Twenty-sixth Street, out of this confusion," he
+answered.  "I shall be glad to halt there and answer all requirements."
+
+He was so obviously a thorough gentleman, and his manner was so calm
+and dignified, that the strange young lady almost felt abashed at the
+charges she had made.
+
+The jam was broken.  Garrison ran the car to the quieter side street,
+and the cab kept pace at his side.
+
+Presently he halted, got down from the seat and came to the hansom,
+lifting his hat.  How thankful he was that no policeman had overheard
+the young woman's cry, and followed, she might never suspect.
+
+"Permit me to introduce myself as a victim of another's man's wrongful
+intentions," he said.  "I hired this car this morning uptown--in fact,
+in Times Square, and was driven out to Long Island.  Returning, we were
+halted on the bridge--and the chauffeur disappeared--ran away, leaving
+me to drive for myself.
+
+"I feared at the time it might be the man was a thief, and I am greatly
+relieved to find the owner of the car so promptly.  If this or any
+other explanation, before an officer, or any court, will gratify you
+more, I shall be glad to meet every demand you may make upon my time."
+
+The young woman looked at him with widely blazing eyes.  She believed
+him, she hardly knew why.  She had alighted from the hansom.
+
+"I've been driving up and down Fifth Avenue all morning!" she said.  "I
+felt sure I could find it that way.  It isn't mine.  It was only left
+in my charge.  I was afraid that something might happen.  I didn't want
+to have it in the first place!  I knew it would cause me endless
+trouble.  I don't know what to do with it now."
+
+"I should be gratified," said Garrison, "if you will state that you do
+not consider me guilty of a theft so stupid as this would appear."
+
+"I didn't think you were the man," she answered.  "A chauffeur my
+cousin discharged undoubtedly stole it.  Policemen are after him now,
+with the man who runs the garage.  They went to Long Island City, or
+somewhere, to find him, this morning.  Perhaps he saw them on the
+bridge."
+
+She was regaining color.  She was a very fine-looking young woman,
+despite the expression of worry on her face.  She was looking Garrison
+over in a less excited manner--and he knew she held no thought of guilt
+against him.
+
+"Let me suggest that you dismiss your cab and permit me to take you at
+once to your garage," he said, adding to the man on the box: "Cabby,
+how much is your bill?"
+
+"Five dollars," said the man, adding substantially to his charge.
+
+"Take ten and get out!" said Garrison, handing him a bill.
+
+"Oh, but please----" started the pretty young woman.
+
+Garrison interrupted.
+
+"The man who stole your car did yeoman service for me.  I promised him
+five times this amount.  He may never dare appear to get his money.
+Kindly step in.  Will you drive the car yourself?"
+
+"No, thank you," she murmured, obeying because of his masterly manner.
+"But really, I hardly know----"
+
+"Please say nothing further about it," he once more interrupted.  "I am
+sorry to have been in any manner connected with an event which has
+caused you uneasiness; but I am very glad, indeed, to be instrumental
+in returning your property and relieving your worry.  Where do you keep
+your car?"
+
+She told him the place.  It was up in the neighborhood of Columbus
+Circle.  Twenty minutes later the car was "home"--where it would never
+get away on false pretenses again, and the news of its coming began to
+go hotly out by wire.
+
+Garrison heard the men call his fair companion Miss Ellis.  He called a
+cab, when she was ready to go, asked for permission to escort her home,
+and was driven in her company to an old-fashioned house downtown, near
+Washington Square.  There he left her, with a nice old motherly person,
+and bade her good-by with no expectation of ever beholding her again,
+despite the murmured thanks she gave him and the half-timid offer of
+her hand.
+
+When he left and dismissed the cabman he was face to face with the
+problem of what he should do to find his "wife."  His worry all surged
+back upon him.
+
+He wondered where Dorothy had gone--where she could go, why she had
+fled from him--and what could he do but wait with impatience some word
+of her retreat.  He had felt her innocence all but established, and
+love had come like a new great tide upon him.  He was lonely now, and
+thoroughly disturbed.
+
+He had warned her she must go to live in some other house than her own;
+nevertheless she might have proceeded to the Ninety-third Street
+residence for things she would require.  It was merely a hope.  He made
+up his mind to go to the house without delay, aware that the Robinsons
+might make all haste to get there and gain an advantage.
+
+Half an hour later he was once more in the place.  The housekeeper
+alone was in charge.  No one had been there in his absence.
+
+He had no intention of remaining long, with Dorothy to find, although
+he felt inclined to await the possible advent of Theodore and his
+father, whom he meant to eject from the place.  As yet he dared not
+attempt to order the arrest of the former, either for Dorothy's
+abduction or the crime attempted on himself in the park.  The risk was
+too great--the risk to the fictional marriage between himself and
+Dorothy.
+
+He climbed the stairs, wandered aimlessly through the rooms, sat down,
+waited, somewhat impatiently, tried to think what were best to do,
+worried himself about Dorothy again, and finally made up his mind she
+might attempt to wire him at his office address.  Calling up the
+housekeeper, he gave her strict instructions against admitting any of
+the Robinsons--an order which the woman received with apparent
+gratification.  They were merely to be referred to himself, at this
+address, should they come upon the scene.
+
+He started off.  He had barely closed the door and heard the woman put
+on the chain, and was turning to walk down the brownstone steps when
+Theodore, half-way up, panting from haste, confronted him, face to face.
+
+For a moment the two stood staring at each other in surprise.  Garrison
+was first to break the silence.
+
+"You came a little late, you see.  I have just issued orders you are
+not to be admitted to this house again, except with my special
+permission."
+
+"By Heaven, you----  We'll see about that!" said Theodore.  "I'll have
+you put under arrest!"
+
+"Try it," said Garrison, grinning in his face.  "A charge of abduction,
+plus a charge even larger, may cause you more than mere annoyance.
+You've been looking for trouble with me, and you're bound to have it.
+Let me warn you that you are up against a number of facts that you may
+have overlooked--and you may hear something drop!"
+
+"You think you've been clever, here and in Woodsite, I suppose," said
+Theodore, concealing both wrath and alarm.  "I could drop a couple of
+facts on you that would fade you a little, I reckon.  And this house
+isn't yours yet!"
+
+"I wonder how many lessons you are going to need," answered Garrison
+coldly.  "If you put so much as your hand inside this building, I'll
+have you arrested for burglary.  Now, mind what I say--and get out!"
+
+"I'll see you later, all right," said Robinson, glaring for a moment in
+impotent rage, and he turned and retreated from the place.
+
+Garrison, with his mind made up to a _coup_ of distinct importance, was
+presently headed for his room in Forty-fourth Street.  Before he left
+the Subway he went to a waiting-room, replaced the long mustache upon
+his face--the one with which he had started away in the morning--and
+walked the few short blocks from the station to his house.
+
+The street was nearly deserted, but the "shadow" he had duped in the
+morning was on watch, still undismissed from duty by young Robinson.
+
+Garrison went up to him quietly--and suddenly showing his gun, pulled
+away the false mustache.
+
+"I'm the man you've been waiting to follow," he said.  "Now, don't say
+a word, but come on."
+
+"Hell!" said the man.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and was soon up in Garrison's room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+REVELATIONS
+
+The fellow whom Garrison had taken into camp had once attempted
+detective work himself and failed.  He was not at all a clever being,
+but rather a crafty, fairly reliable employee of a somewhat shady
+"bureau" with which young Robinson was on quite familiar terms.
+
+He was far from being a coward.  It was he who had followed Garrison to
+Branchville, rifled his suit-case, and been captured by the trap.
+Despite the fact that his hand still bore the evidence of having
+tampered with Garrison's possessions, he had dared remain on the job
+because he felt convinced that Garrison had never really seen him and
+could not, therefore, pick him up.
+
+Sullen in his helplessness, aware that his captor must at last have a
+very great advantage, he complied with Garrison's command to take a
+seat in the room, and glanced about him inquiringly.
+
+"What do you want with me anyhow?" he said.  "What's your game?"
+
+"Mine is a surer game than yours," said Garrison, seating himself with
+his back to the window, and the light therefore all on his visitor's
+face.  "I'm going to tell you first what you are up against."
+
+The man shifted uneasily.
+
+"You haven't got anything to hold me on," he said.  "I've got my
+regular license to follow my trade."
+
+"I was not aware the State was issuing licenses to burglars," said
+Garrison.  "Come, now, with that hand of yours, what's the use of
+beating around the bush.  If my suit-case had nipped you by the wrist
+instead of the fingers, I'd have captured you red-handed in the act."
+
+The fellow thrust his hand in his pocket.  His face, with two days'
+growth of beard upon it, turned a trifle pale.
+
+"I'd rather work on your side than against you," he ventured.  "A man
+has to make a living."
+
+"You've come around to the point rather more promptly than I expected,"
+said Garrison.  "For fear that you may not keep your word, when it
+comes to a pinch, I'll inform you I can send you up on two separate
+charges, and I'll do so in a wink, if you try to double-cross me in the
+slightest particular."
+
+"I haven't done anything but that one job at Branchville," said the man
+in alarm.
+
+"What are you givin' me now?"
+
+"What's your name?" demanded Garrison.
+
+"Tuttle," said the fellow, after a moment of hesitation.  "Frank
+Tuttle."
+
+"All right, Tuttle.  You furnished Theodore Robinson with information
+concerning my movements and, in addition to your burglary at
+Branchville, you have made yourself accessory to a plot to commit a
+willful murder."
+
+"I didn't!  By Heaven, I didn't!" Tuttle answered.  "I didn't have
+anything to do with that."
+
+"With what?" asked Garrison.  "You see you plunge into every trap I
+lay, almost before it is set."
+
+He rose, went to his closet, never without his eye on his man, searched
+on the floor and brought forth the cold iron bomb.  This he abruptly
+placed on Tuttle's knee.
+
+Tuttle shrank in terror.
+
+"Oh, Lord!  I didn't!  I didn't know they went in to do a thing like
+that!" he said.  "I've been pretty desperate, I admit, Mr. Garrison,
+but I had no hand in this!"
+
+The sweat on his forehead advertised his fear.  He looked at Garrison
+in a stricken, ghastly manner that almost excited pity.
+
+"But you knew that two of Robinson's assassins were to meet me in the
+park," said Garrison.  "You procured their services--and expected to
+read of an accident to me in the papers the following morning."
+
+He was risking a mere conjecture, but it went very near to the truth.
+
+"So help me, I didn't go as far as that!" said Tuttle.  "I admit I
+stole the letter up at Branchville, and sent it to Robinson at once.  I
+admit I followed you back to New York and told him all I could.  But I
+only gave him the names and addresses of the dagos, and I never knew
+what they had to do!"
+
+Garrison took the bomb and placed it on his bureau.
+
+"Very good," he said.  "That makes you, as I said before, an accomplice
+to the crime attempted--in addition to the burglary, for which I could
+send you up.  To square this off you'll go to work for me, and begin by
+supplying the names and addresses of your friends."
+
+Tuttle was a picture of abject fear and defeat.  His jaw hung down; his
+eyes were bulging in their sockets.
+
+"You--you mean you'll give me a chance?" he said.  "I'll do
+anything--anything you ask, if only you will!"
+
+"Look here, Tuttle, your willingness to do anything has put you where
+you are.  But I'll give you a chance, with the thorough understanding
+that the minute you attempt the slightest treachery you'll go up in
+spite of all you can do.  First, we'll have the names of the dagos."
+
+Tuttle all but broke down.  He was not a hardened criminal.  He had
+merely learned a few of the tricks by which crime may be committed,
+and, having failed in detective employment, had no substantial calling
+and was willing to attempt even questionable jobs, if the pay were
+found sufficient.
+
+He supplied the names and addresses of the men who had done young
+Robinson's bidding in Central Park.  Garrison jotted them down.
+
+"I suppose you know that I am in the detective business myself," he
+added, as he finished the writing.
+
+"I thought so, but I wasn't sure," said Tuttle.
+
+"You told young Robinson as much?"
+
+"He hired me to tell him everything."
+
+"Exactly.  How much do you expect to tell him of what is going on
+to-day?"
+
+"Nothing that you do not instruct," said Tuttle, still feeling
+insecure.  "That is, if you meant what you said."
+
+"I meant it," said Garrison, "meant it all.  You're at work for me from
+this time on--and I expect the faithfulness of an honest man, no matter
+what you may have been before."
+
+"You'll get it," said Tuttle.  "I only want a show to start off square
+and right. . . .  What do you want me to do?"
+
+"There is nothing of great importance just at present, except to
+remember who is your boss," answered Garrison.  "You may be obliged to
+double-cross Robinson to a slight extent, when he next hunts you up for
+your report.  He deserves a little of the game, no matter how he gets
+it.  Take his instructions the same as before.  Tell him you have lost
+me for a time.  Report to me promptly concerning his instructions and
+everything else.  Do you know the address of my office?"
+
+"You have never been there since I was put on the case," said Tuttle
+with commendable candor.
+
+"All right," said Garrison.  "It's down in the----"
+
+A knock on the door interrupted.  The landlady, a middle-aged woman who
+rarely appeared at Garrison's room, was standing on the landing when he
+went to investigate, and holding a message in her hand.
+
+"A telegram for you," she said, and halting for a moment, she turned
+and retreated down the stairs.
+
+Garrison tore the envelope apart, pulled out the yellow slip and read:
+
+
+Please come over to 937 Hackatack Street, Jersey City, as soon as
+possible.
+
+JERALDINE.
+
+
+It was Dorothy, across the Hudson.  A wave of relief, to know she was
+near and wished to see him, swept over Garrison's being.
+
+"Here," he said to Tuttle, "here's the address on a card.  Report to me
+there at six o'clock to-night.  Get out now and go to young Robinson,
+but not at the house in Ninety-third Street."
+
+"Why not?" inquired Tuttle.  "Its the regular place----"
+
+"I've ordered him not to enter the house again," interrupted Garrison.
+"By the way, should he attempt to do so, or ask you to get in there for
+him, agree to his instructions apparently, and let me know without
+delay."
+
+"Thank you for giving me a chance," said Tuttle, who had risen from his
+chair.  "You'll never regret it, I'm sure."
+
+"All right," said Garrison.  "Shake!"
+
+He gave the astonished man a firm, friendly grip and bade him "So
+'long!" at the door.
+
+A few minutes later, dressed in his freshest apparel, he hastened out
+to gulp down a cup of strong coffee at an adjacent café, then headed
+downtown for the ferry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A MAN IN THE CASE
+
+The hour was just after four o'clock when Garrison stepped from a cab
+in Hackatack Street, Jersey City, and stood for a moment looking at the
+red-brick building numbered 937.
+
+It was a shabby, smoke-soiled, neglected dwelling, with signs of life
+utterly lacking.
+
+Made wary by his Central Park experience, Garrison had come there armed
+with his gun and suspiciously alert.  His cabman was instructed to wait.
+
+Without apparent hesitation Garrison ascended the chalk-marked steps
+and rang the bell.
+
+Almost immediately the door was opened, by a small and rather pretty
+young woman, dressed in good taste, in the best of materials, and
+wearing a very fine diamond ring upon her finger.
+
+Behind her, as Garrison instantly discerned, were rich and costly
+furnishings, singularly out of keeping with the shabby exterior of the
+place.
+
+"How do you do?" he said, raising his hat.  "Is my wife, Mrs.
+Fairfax----"
+
+"Oh," interrupted the lady.  "Won't you please come in?  She hardly
+expected you to come so promptly.  She's lying down to take a rest."
+
+Garrison entered and was shown to a parlor on the left.  It, too, was
+furnished in exceptional richness, but the air was close and stuffy,
+and the whole place uncomfortably dark.
+
+"If you'll please sit down I'll go and tell her you have come," said
+his hostess.  "Excuse me."
+
+The smile on her face was somewhat forced and sad, thought Garrison.
+His feeling of suspicion had departed.
+
+Left alone, he strode across the room and glanced at a number of
+pictures, hung upon the walls.  They were excellent oils, one or two by
+masters.
+
+Dorothy must have slept lightly, if at all.  Garrison's back was still
+turned toward the entrance when her footfall came to his ear.  She came
+swiftly into the apartment.
+
+"Oh, you were very good to come so soon!" she said in a tone made low
+for none but him to hear.  "I wired you, both at your house and office,
+not more than an hour ago."
+
+"I got the message sent to the house," he said.  "It came as a great
+relief."  He paused for a moment, looking in her eyes, which were
+raised to his own appealingly.  "Why did you run away?--and how did you
+do it?" he asked her.  "I didn't know what in the world to think or do."
+
+Her eyes were lowered.
+
+"I had to--I mean, I simply obeyed an impulse," she confessed.
+
+In an almost involuntary outburst she added: "I am in very great
+trouble.  There is no one in the world but you that can give me any
+help."
+
+All the pain she had caused him was forgotten in the joy of that
+instant.  How he longed to take her in his arms and fold her in
+security against his breast!  And he dared not even be tender.
+
+"I am trying to help you, Dorothy," he said, "but I was utterly
+dumfounded, there in the crush on the bridge.  Where did you go?"
+
+"I ran along and was helped to escape the traffic," she explained.
+"Then I soon got a car, with my mind made up to come over here just as
+soon as I could.  This is the home of my stepbrother's wife--Mrs.
+Foster Durgin.  I had to come over and--and warn--I mean, I had to
+come, and so I came."
+
+He had felt her disappearance had nothing to do with the vanishing of
+the chauffeur.  Her statement confirmed his belief.
+
+"Durgin?" Garrison repeated.  "Didn't some Durgin, a nephew of Hardy,
+claim the body, up at Branchville?"
+
+Dorothy was pale again, but resolute.
+
+"Yes--Paul.  He's Foster's brother."
+
+"You told me you had neither brothers nor sisters," Garrison reminded
+her a little sternly.  "These were not forgotten?"
+
+"They are stepbrothers only--by marriage.  I thought I could leave them
+out," she explained, flushing as she tried to meet his gaze.  "Please
+don't think I meant to deceive you very much."
+
+"It was a technical truth," he told her; "but isn't it time you told me
+everything?  You ran off before I could even reply to something you
+appeared to wish to know.  You----"
+
+"But you don't suspect me?" she interrupted, instantly reverting to the
+question she had put before, in that moment of her impulse to run.  "I
+couldn't bear it if I thought you did!"
+
+"If I replied professionally, I should say I don't know what to think,"
+he said.  "The whole affair is complicated.  As a matter of fact, I
+cannot seem to suspect you of anything wrong, but you've got to help me
+clear it as fast as I can."
+
+She met his gaze steadily, for half a minute, then tears abruptly
+filled her eyes, and she lowered her gaze to the floor.
+
+"Thank you, Jerold," she murmured, and a thrill went straight to his
+heart.  "I am very much worried, and very unhappy--but I haven't done
+anything wrong--and nothing like that!--not even a wicked thought like
+that!  I loved my uncle very dearly."
+
+She broke down and turned away to give vent to an outburst of grief.
+
+"There, there," said Garrison after a moment.  "We must do the best we
+can.  If you will tell me more, my help is likely to be greater."
+
+Dorothy dried her eyes and resumed her courage heroically.
+
+"I haven't asked you to be seated all this time," she said
+apologetically.  "Please do--and I'll tell you all I can."
+
+Garrison took a chair, while Dorothy sat near him.  He thought he had
+never seen her in a mood of beauty more completely enthralling than
+this one of helplessness and bravery combined.
+
+"We are quite, well--secure from being overheard?" he said.
+
+She went at once and closed the door.
+
+"Alice would never listen, greatly as she is worried," she said.  "It
+was she who met you at the door--Foster's wife."
+
+Garrison nodded.  He was happy only when she came once more to her seat.
+
+"This is your stepbrother's home?" he inquired.  "Is he here?"
+
+"This is Alice's property," Dorothy corrected.  "But that's way ahead
+of the story.  You told me my uncle was poisoned by my cigars.  How
+could that possibly have been?  How did you find it out?  How was it
+done?"
+
+"The box had been opened and two cigars had been so loaded with poison
+that when he bit off one, at the end, to light it up, he got the deadly
+stuff on his tongue--and was almost instantly stricken."
+
+Despite the dimness of the light in the room Dorothy's face showed very
+white.
+
+She asked; "What kind of poison?"
+
+He mentioned the drug.
+
+"Not the kind used by photographers?" she asked in affright.
+
+"Precisely.  Foster, then, is a photographer?"
+
+"He used to be, but----  Oh, I don't see how he--it's terrible!  It's
+terrible!"
+
+She arose and crossed the room in agitation, then presently returned.
+
+"Your suspicions may be wrong," said Garrison, who divined she had
+something on her mind.  "Why not tell me all about it, and let me
+assist, if I can?  What sort of a looking man is Foster?"
+
+"Rather small, and nearly always smiling.  But he may not have done it!
+He may be innocent!  If only you could help me now!" she said.  "I
+don't believe he could have done it!"
+
+"But you half suspect it was he?"
+
+"I've been afraid of it all along," she said, in an outburst of
+confession.  "Before I even knew that Uncle John was--murdered--before
+you told me, I mean--I felt afraid that something of the kind might
+have happened, and since that hour I've been nearly distracted by my
+thoughts!"
+
+"Let's take it slowly," said Garrison, in his soothing way.  "I imagine
+there has been either anger or hatred, spite or pique on the part of
+your stepbrother, Foster, towards John Hardy in the past."
+
+"Yes--everything!  Uncle John spoiled Foster at first, but when he
+found the boy was gambling in Wall Street, he cut him off and refused
+to supply him the means to pay off the debts he had contracted.  Foster
+threatened at the time.
+
+"The breach grew wider.  Uncle didn't know he was married to Alice.
+Foster wouldn't let me tell.  He had used up nearly all of Alice's
+money.  She refused to mortgage anything more, after I took the
+necklaces, on a loan--and if Foster doesn't get ten thousand dollars in
+August I don't know what he'll do!"
+
+Garrison was following the threads of this quickly delivered narrative
+as best he might.  It revealed a great deal, but not all.
+
+"I see," he commented quietly.  "But how could Foster hope to profit by
+the death of Mr. Hardy?"
+
+Dorothy turned very white again.
+
+"He knew of the will."
+
+"The will that was drawn in your favor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he thought that you were married, that the conditions of the will
+had been fulfilled?"
+
+Dorothy nodded assent.
+
+Garrison's impulse was to push a point in personal affairs and ask if
+she had really married some Fairfax, not yet upon the scene.  But he
+adhered strictly to business.
+
+"What you fear is that Foster, aware that you would become your uncle's
+heir, may have hastened your uncle's end, in the hope that when you
+came in for the property you would liquidate his debts?"
+
+Dorothy nodded again.
+
+She said: "It is terrible!  Do you see the slightest ray of hope?"
+
+Garrison ignored the query for a moment.
+
+"Where is Foster now?"
+
+"No one knows--he seems to have run away--that's one of the worst
+things about it."
+
+"But you came over here to warn him," said Garrison.
+
+Dorothy flushed.
+
+"That was my impulse, I admit, when you told me about the cigars.  I
+hardly knew what else I could do."
+
+"You are very fond of Foster?"
+
+"I am very fond of Alice."
+
+Garrison was glad.  He could even have been jealous of a brother.
+
+"But how could Foster have tampered with your cigars?" he inquired.
+"Was he up there at Hickwood when you left them?"
+
+"He was there all the time of uncle's visit, in hiding, and even on the
+night of his death," she confessed in a whisper.  "Alice doesn't know
+of this, but he admitted it all to me."
+
+"This is what you have been trying to conceal from me, all the time,"
+Garrison observed.  "Do the Robinsons have their suspicions?"
+
+"I can't be certain.  Perhaps they have.  Theodore has exercised a very
+bad influence on Foster's life.  He intimated once to me that perhaps
+Uncle John had been murdered."
+
+Garrison thought for a moment.
+
+"It is almost impossible for anyone to have had that suspicion who had
+no guilty knowledge," he said.  "Theodore was, and is, capable of any
+crime.  If he knew about the will and believed you had not fulfilled
+the conditions, by marrying, he would have had all the motive in the
+world to commit the crime himself."
+
+"But," said Dorothy, "he knew nothing of the will, as I told you
+before."
+
+"And he with an influence over Foster, who _did_ know all about the
+will?"
+
+Dorothy changed color once again.  She was startled.
+
+"I never thought of that," she admitted.  "Foster might have told."
+
+"There's a great deal to clear up in a case like this," said Garrison,
+"even when suspicions point your course.  I think I can land Mr.
+Theodore on the things he attempted on me, but not just yet.  He may
+reveal himself a little more.  Besides, our alleged marriage will
+hardly bear a close investigation."
+
+For the moment Dorothy was more concerned by his personal danger than
+by anything concerning the case.
+
+"You told me a little of what was attempted in the park," she said.
+"I've thought about it ever since--such a terrible attack!  If anything
+dreadful should happen to you----"
+
+She broke off suddenly, turned crimson to her hair, and dropped her
+gaze from his face.
+
+In that moment he resisted the greatest temptation of his life--the
+impulse to sink at her feet on his knees, and tell her of his love.  He
+knew she felt, as he did, the wondrous attraction between them; he knew
+that to her, as to himself, the impression was strong that they had
+known each other always; but hired as he had been to conduct an affair
+in which it had been particularly stipulated there was to be no
+sentiment, or even the slightest thought of such a development, he
+throttled his passion and held himself in check.
+
+"Some guardian angel must have hovered near," was all he permitted
+himself to reply, but she fathomed the depth of his meaning.
+
+"I hope some good spirit may continue to be helpful--to us both," she
+said.  "What are you going to do next?"
+
+"Take you back to New York," said Garrison.  "I must have you near.
+But, while I think of it, please answer one thing more.  How did it
+happen that your uncle's life was insured for that inventor in
+Hickwood, Charles Scott?"
+
+"They were lifelong friends," said Dorothy.  "They began as boys
+together.  Uncle John was saved by this Mr. Scott, when he was
+twenty-one--his life was saved, I mean.  And he was very much in love
+with Mr. Scott's sister.  But something occurred, I hardly know what.
+The Scotts never had much money, and they lost the little they had.
+Miss Scott was very shamefully treated, I believe, by some other friend
+in the group, and she died before she was thirty--I've heard as a
+result of some great unhappiness.
+
+"Uncle and Mr. Scott were always friends, though they drifted apart to
+some extent.  Mr. Scott became an inventor, and spent all his poor
+wife's money, and also funds that Uncle John supplied, on his
+inventions.  The insurance was Uncle John's last plan for befriending
+his old-time companion.  There was no one else to make it in favor of,
+for of course the estate would take care of the heirs that he wished to
+remember.  Does that answer your question?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Garrison.  "I think if you'll make ready we will
+start.  Is there any particular place in New York where you prefer to
+stay?"
+
+"No.  I'd rather leave that to you."
+
+"By the way," he said, his mind recurring to the motor-car incident and
+all that had followed, "did you know that when you deserted me so
+abruptly on the bridge, the chauffeur also disappeared--and left me
+with the auto on my hands?"
+
+"Why, no!" she said.  "What could it mean?"
+
+"It seems to have been a stolen car," he answered.  "It was left in
+charge of a strange young woman, too poor to own it--left her by a
+friend.  She found it in my possession and accepted my explanation as
+to how it was I chanced to have it in my care.  She is living in a
+house near Washington Square."
+
+"How very strange!" said Dorothy, who had suddenly conceived some queer
+feminine thought.  "If the house near Washington Square is nice,
+perhaps you might take me there.  But tell me all about it!"
+
+What could be actuating her woman's mind in this was more than he could
+tell.  But--why not take her to that house as well as to any in New
+York?
+
+"All right," he said.  "It's a very nice place.  I'll tell you the
+story as we go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE ENEMY'S TRACKS
+
+On the way returning to Gotham, Garrison learned every fact concerning
+John Hardy, his former places of residence, his former friends, his
+ways of life and habits that he deemed important to the issues and
+requirements now in hand, with Dorothy's stepbrother more than half
+suspected of the crime.
+
+Dorothy gladly supplied the information.  She had been on the verge of
+despair, harboring her fear and despair all alone, with the loyal
+desire to protect not only Foster, but Alice as well, and now she felt
+an immense relief to have a man's clear-headed aid.
+
+Garrison held out no specific hope.
+
+The case looked black for young Durgin at the best, and the fellow had
+run away.  A trip to the small Connecticut town of Rockdale, where
+Hardy had once resided, and to which it had long been his wont to
+return as often as once a month, seemed to Garrison imperative at this
+juncture.
+
+He meant to see Tuttle at six, and start for the country in the evening.
+
+He outlined his plan to Dorothy, acquainting her with the fact that he
+had captured Theodore's spy, from whom he hoped for news.
+
+By the time they came to the house near Washington Square, Dorothy was
+all but asleep from exhaustion.  The strain, both physical and mental,
+to which she had been subjected during some time past, and more
+particularly during the past two days, told quickly now when at last
+she felt ready to place all dependence on Garrison and give up to
+much-needed rest.
+
+The meeting of Miss Ellis and Dorothy was but slightly embarrassing to
+Garrison, when it presently took place.  Explaining to the woman of the
+house that his "wife" desired to stop all night in town, rather than go
+on to Long Island, while he himself must be absent from the city, he
+readily procured accommodations without exciting the least suspicion.
+
+Garrison merely waited long enough to make Dorothy promise she would
+take a rest without delay, and then he went himself to a hotel
+restaurant, near by in Fifth Avenue, devoured a most substantial meal,
+and was five minutes late at his office.
+
+Tuttle had not yet appeared.  The hall before the door was deserted.
+The sign on his glass had been finished.
+
+Garrison went in.  There were letters all over the floor, together with
+Dorothy's duplicate telegram, a number of cards, and some advertising
+circulars.  One of the cards bore the name of one J. P. Wilder, and the
+legend, "Representing the New York _Evening Star_."  There was nothing,
+however, in all the stuff that appeared to be important.
+
+Garrison read the various letters hastily, till he came to one from the
+insurance company, his employers, requesting haste in the matter of the
+Hardy case, and reminding him that he had reported but once.  This he
+filed away.
+
+Aware at last that more than half an hour had gone, without a sign from
+his man, he was on the point of going to the door to look out in the
+hall when Tuttle's shadow fell upon the glass.
+
+"I stayed away a little too long, I know," he said.  "I was trying to
+get a line on old man Robinson, to see if he'd give anything away, but
+I guess he's got instructions from his son, who's gone away from town."
+
+"Gone away from town?" repeated Garrison.  "Where has he gone?"
+
+"I don't know.  The old man wouldn't say."
+
+"You haven't seen Theodore?"
+
+"No.  He left about five this afternoon.  The old man and his wife are
+stopping in Sixty-fifth Street, where they used to live some months
+ago."
+
+"What did you report about me?"
+
+"Nothing, except I hadn't seen you again," said Tuttle.  "The old man
+leaves it all to his son.  He didn't seem to care where you had gone."
+
+Garrison pondered the matter carefully.  He made almost nothing out of
+Theodore's departure from the scene.  It might mean much or little.
+That Theodore had something up his sleeve he entertained no doubt.
+
+"It's important to find out where he has gone," he said.  "See old
+Robinson again.  Tell him you have vital information on a special point
+that Theodore instructed you to deliver to no one but himself, and the
+old man may tell you where you should go.  I am going out of town
+to-night.  Leave your address in case I wish to write."
+
+"I'll do my best," said Tuttle, writing the address on a card.  "Is
+there anything more?"
+
+"Yes.  You know who the two men were who knocked me down in Central
+Park and left a bomb in my pocket.  Get around them in any way you can,
+ascertain what agreement they had with young Robinson, or what
+instructions, and find out why it was they did not rob me.  Come here
+at least once a day, right along, whether you find me in or not."
+
+Once more Tuttle stated he would do his best.  He left, and Garrison,
+puzzling over Theodore's latest movement, presently locked up his
+office and departed from the building.
+
+He was no more than out on the street than he came upon Theodore's
+tracks in a most unexpected direction.  A newsboy came by, loudly
+calling out his wares.  An _Evening Star_, beneath his arm, stared at
+Garrison with type fully three inches high with this announcement:
+
+  MYSTERY OF MURDER AND A WILL!!
+
+  _John Hardy May Have Been Slain!  Beautiful
+  Beneficiary Married Just in Time!_
+
+
+Garrison bought the paper.
+
+With excitement and chagrin in all his being he glanced through the
+story of himself and Dorothy--all that young Robinson could possibly
+know, or guess, dished up with all the sensational garnishments of
+which the New York yellow press is capable.
+
+Sick and indignant with the knowledge that Dorothy must be apprised of
+this at once, and instructed to remain in hiding, to induce all about
+her to guard her from intrusion and to refuse to see all reporters who
+might pursue the story, he hastened at once towards Washington Square,
+and encountered his "wife," almost upon entering the house.
+
+She was white with alarm.
+
+He thought she had already seen the evening sheet.
+
+"Jerold!" she said, "something terrible has happened.  When I got up,
+half an hour ago to dress--my wedding certificate was gone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A NEW ALARM
+
+Without, for a moment, comprehending the drift of Dorothy's fears,
+Garrison led her to a parlor of the house, looking at her in a manner
+so fixed that she realized their troubles were not confined to the loss
+of her certificate.
+
+"What do you think?  What do you fear?  There isn't anything else?" she
+said, as he still remained dumb for a moment.  "What shall we do?"
+
+"Theodore threatened that something might occur," he said.  "He has
+evidently done his worst, all at once."
+
+"Why--but I thought perhaps my certificate was stolen here," whispered
+Dorothy in agitation.  "How could Theodore----"
+
+"No one in this house could have known you had such a document about
+you," interrupted Garrison.  "While you were drugged, or chloroformed,
+in the Robinsons' house, the old woman, doubtless, searched you
+thoroughly.  You told me your certificate was sewed inside----"
+
+"Inside--yes, inside," she interrupted.  "I thought it was safe, for
+they put a blank paper in its place, and I might not have thought of
+anything wrong if I had not discovered a black thread used instead of
+the white silk I had been so careful to employ."
+
+"There is ample proof that Theodore has utilized his wits to good
+advantage," he said.  "Your marriage-certificate episode is only a part
+of what he has achieved.  This paper contains all the story--suggesting
+that your uncle may have been murdered, and telling the conditions of
+the will."
+
+He held up the paper before her startled eyes, and saw the look of
+alarm that came upon her.
+
+"Printed--in the paper!" she exclaimed in astonishment and utter
+dismay.  "Why, how could such a thing happen?"
+
+She took the paper and scanned the story hurriedly, making exclamations
+as she read.
+
+"Theodore--more of Theodore," said Garrison.  "From his point of view,
+and with all his suspicions concerning our relationship, it is a
+master-stroke.  It renders our position exceedingly difficult."
+
+"But--how could he have found out all these things?" gasped Dorothy.
+"How could he know?"
+
+"He has guessed very shrewdly, and he has doubtless pumped your
+stepbrother of all that he happened to know."
+
+"What shall we do?" she repeated hopelessly.  "We can't prove
+anything--just now--and what will happen when the will comes up for
+probate?"
+
+"I'll land him in prison, if he doesn't pull out of it now," said
+Garrison, angered as much by Theodore's diabolical cleverness as he was
+by this premature publicity given to the story.  "He has carried it all
+with a mighty high hand, assured of our fear to take the business into
+court.  He has stirred up a fight that I don't propose to lose!--a
+fight that has roused all the red-hot Crusader of my being!"
+
+"But--what shall we do?  All the newspaper people will be digging at
+the case and doing their best to hunt up everyone concerned!"
+
+"No reporters can be seen.  If the fact leaks out that you are here,
+through anyone connected with the house, you must move at once, and
+change your name, letting no one but me know where you are."
+
+She looked at him blankly.  "Alone?  Can't you help me, Jerold?"
+
+"It is more important for me to hasten up country now than it was
+before," he answered.  "I must work night and day to clear things up
+about the murder."
+
+"But--if Foster should really be guilty?"
+
+"He'll be obliged to take his medicine--otherwise suspicion might
+possibly rest upon you."
+
+"Good Heavens!"
+
+She was very pale.
+
+"This story in the _Star_ has precipitated everything," he added.
+"Already it contains a hint that you and your 'husband' are the ones
+who benefit most by the possible murder of John Hardy."
+
+She sank on a chair and looked at him helplessly.
+
+"I suppose you'll have to go--but I don't know what I shall do without
+you.  How long do you think you'll be away?"
+
+"It is quite impossible to say.  I shall return as soon as
+circumstances permit.  I'll write whenever I can."
+
+"I shall need some things from the house," she said.  "I have
+absolutely nothing here."
+
+"Buy what you need, and remain indoors as much as you can," he
+instructed.  "Reporters will be sure to haunt the house in Ninety-third
+Street, hoping to see us return."
+
+"It's horrible!" said Dorothy.  "It almost makes me wish I had never
+heard of any will!"
+
+Garrison looked at her with frank adoration in his eyes.
+
+"Whatever the outcome, I shall always be glad," he said--"glad of the
+day you needed--needed assistance--glad of the chance it has given me
+to prove my--prove my--friendship."
+
+"I'll try to be worthy of your courage," she answered, returning his
+look with an answering glance in which the love-light could only at
+best be a trifle modified.  "But--I don't see how it will end."
+
+"About this marriage certificate----" he started, when the door-bell
+rang interruptingly.
+
+In fear of being overheard by the landlady, already attending a caller,
+Garrison halted, to wait.  A moment later the door was opened by the
+lady of the house herself, and a freshly-groomed, smooth-shaven young
+man was ushered in.  The room was the only one in the house for this
+semi-public use.
+
+"Excuse me," said the landlady sweetly.  "Someone to see Miss Ellis."
+
+The visitor bowed very slightly to Dorothy and Garrison, and stood
+somewhat awkwardly near the door, with his hat in his hand.  The
+landlady, having made her excuses for such an intrusion, disappeared to
+summon Miss Ellis.
+
+Garrison was annoyed.  There was nothing to do but to stand there in
+embarrassing silence.  Then Miss Ellis came shyly in at the door,
+dressed so becomingly that it seemed not at all unlikely she had hoped
+for the evening's visitor.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Hunter, this is a very pleasant surprise!" she said.  "Allow
+me to introduce my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax."  She added to
+Garrison and Dorothy, "This is Mr. Hunter, of the New York _Star_."
+
+Prepared to bow and let it go at that, Garrison started, ever so
+slightly, on learning the visitor's connection.  Mr. Hunter, on his
+part, meeting strangers unexpectedly, appeared to be diffident and
+quite conventional, but pricked up his ears, which were strung to catch
+the lightest whisper of news, at the mention of the Fairfax name.
+
+"Not the Fairfax of the Hardy case?" he said, for the moment intent on
+nothing so moving as a possible service to his paper.  "Of course
+you've seen----"
+
+Garrison sat down on the copy of the _Star_ which Dorothy had left in a
+chair.  He deftly tucked it up beneath his coat.
+
+"No, oh, no, certainly not," he said, and pulling out his watch, he
+added to Dorothy, "I shall have to be going.  Put on your hat and come
+out for a two-minute walk."
+
+Then, to the others:
+
+"Sorry to have to run off in this uncomplimentary fashion, but I trust
+we shall meet again."
+
+Hunter felt by instinct that this was the man of all men whom he ought,
+in all duty, to see.  He could not insist upon his calling in such a
+situation, however, and Garrison and Dorothy, bowing as they passed,
+were presently out in the hall with the parlor door closed behind them.
+In half a minute more they were out upon the street.
+
+"You'll be obliged to find other apartments at once," he said.  "You'd
+better not even go back to pay the bill.  I'll send the woman a couple
+of dollars and write that you made up your mind to go along home, after
+all."
+
+"But--I wanted to ask a lot of questions--of Miss Ellis," said Dorothy,
+thereby revealing the reason she had wished to come here before.  "I
+thought perhaps----"
+
+"Questions about me?" interrupted Garrison, smiling upon her in the
+light of a street-lamp they were passing.  "I can tell you far more
+about the subject than she could even guess--if we ever get the time."
+
+Dorothy blushed as she tried to meet his gaze.
+
+"Well--it wasn't that--exactly," she said.  "I only thought--thought it
+might be interesting to know her."
+
+"It's far more interesting to know where you will go," he answered.
+"Let me look at this paper for a minute."
+
+He pulled forth the _Star_, turned to the classified ads, found the
+"Furnished Rooms," and cut out half a column with his knife.
+
+"Let me go back where I was to-night," she suggested.  "I am really too
+tired to hunt a place before to-morrow.  I can slip upstairs and retire
+at once, and the first thing in the morning I can go to a place where
+Alice used to stay, with a very deaf woman who never remembers my name
+and always calls me Miss Root."
+
+"Where is the place?" said Garrison, halting as Dorothy halted.
+
+"In West Eighteenth Street."  She gave him the number.  "It will look
+so very queer if I leave like this," she added.  "I'd rather not excite
+suspicion."
+
+"All right," he replied, taking out a booklet and jotting down "Miss
+Root," and the address she had mentioned.  "I'll write to you in the
+name the deaf woman remembers, or thinks she remembers, and no one need
+know who you are.  If I hurry now I can catch the train that connects
+with the local on the Hartford division for Rockdale."
+
+They turned and went back to the house.
+
+"You don't know how long you'll be gone?" she said as they neared the
+steps.  "You cannot tell in the least?"
+
+"Long enough to do some good, I hope," he answered.  "Meantime, don't
+see anybody.  Don't answer any questions; and don't neglect to leave
+here early in the morning."
+
+She was silent for a moment, and looked at him shyly.
+
+"I shall feel a little bit lonely, I'm afraid," she confessed--"with
+none of my relatives, or friends.  I hope you'll not be very long.
+Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Garrison, who could not trust himself to approach the
+subject she had broached; and with his mind reverting to the subject of
+his personal worry in the case, he added: "By the way, the loss of your
+wedding certificate can be readily repaired if you'll tell me the name
+of the preacher, or the justice of the peace----"
+
+"I'd rather not--just at present," she interrupted, in immediate
+agitation.  "Good-night--I'll have to go in."
+
+She fled up the steps, found the door ajar, and pushing it open, stood
+framed by the light for a moment, as she turned to look back where he
+was standing.
+
+Only for a moment did she hover there, however.
+
+He could not see her face as she saw his.
+
+He could not know that a light of love and a mute appeal for
+forgiveness lay together in the momentary glance bestowed upon him.
+
+Then she closed the door; and as one in a dream he slowly walked away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A DEARTH OF CLEWS
+
+Garrison's ride on the train was a matter of several hours' duration.
+Not only did he read every line of the story in the _Star_, which he
+felt convinced had been furnished by young Robinson, but he likewise
+had time to reflect on all the phases, old and new, of the case in
+which he was involved.
+
+But wander where they would, his thoughts invariably swung around the
+troubled circle to Dorothy and the topic was she married or not, and if
+she was,--where was the man?
+
+He could not reach a decision.
+
+Heretofore he had reasoned there could be no genuine Fairfax; to-night
+he entertained many doubts of his former deductions.  He found it
+possible to construe Dorothy's actions both ways.  She was afraid to
+have him search out the man who had written her wedding certificate,
+perhaps because it was a fraud, or perhaps because there _was_ a
+Fairfax somewhere, concerning whom something must be hidden.
+
+The murder mystery, the business of the will, even the vengeance he
+promised himself he would wreak on Theodore, sank into significance in
+the light of his personal worry.  There was only one thing worth while,
+and that was love.
+
+He was rapidly approaching a frame of mind in which no sacrifice would
+be too great to be made, could he only be certain of winning Dorothy,
+heart-free, for his own.
+
+For more than an hour he sat thinking, in the car, oblivious to the
+flight of time, or to the towns through which he was passing.  He gave
+it up at last and, taking from his pocket a book he employed for
+memoranda, studied certain items there, supplied by Dorothy, concerning
+her uncle and his ways of life.  There were names of his friends and
+his enemies among the scribbled data, together with descriptive bits
+concerning Hardy's personality.
+
+Marking down additional suggestions and otherwise planning his work to
+be done at Rockdale, Garrison reflected there was little apparent hope
+of clearing young Durgin of suspicion, unless one trifling hint should
+supply the clew.  Dorothy had stated that her Uncle John had long had
+some particularly bitter and malicious enemy, a man unknown to herself,
+from whom she believed Mr. Hardy might have been fleeing, from time to
+time, in the trips which had become the habit of his life.
+
+That this constant moving from place to place had been the bane of his
+existence was a theory that Dorothy had formed a year before.  Yet, for
+all she knew, it might have been young Foster Durgin whom her uncle was
+trying to avoid!
+
+The train connection for Rockdale was wretchedly timed.  What with a
+long wait at the junction and a long delay at a way station farther
+out, it was nearly one o'clock when at length his destination was
+reached and Garrison, with his steel-trap suit-case in hand, found his
+way to a second-rate hotel, where, to his great relief, the beds were
+far better than they looked.
+
+He had taken the precaution to register as Henry Hilborn, realizing
+that Rockdale doubtless abounded in acquaintances of Hardy's who would
+probably read the published story of his will in their own local papers
+in the morning.  He wrote at once to Dorothy, under the name of Miss
+Root, apprising her of his altered name and his address.
+
+In the morning he was early at his work.  Representing himself as
+nothing more than the agent of the New York Insurance Company, for
+which he was, in fact, conducting his various investigations, at least
+in part, he rapidly searched out one after another of the persons whose
+names Dorothy had supplied, but all to little purpose.
+
+He found the town very much alive indeed to the news which the _Star_
+had blazoned to the world.  Hardy had been a well-known figure, off and
+on, for many years in Rockdale, and the names of the Durgins and of
+Dorothy were barely less familiar.
+
+Garrison's difficulty was not that the people talked too little, but
+rather that they talked too much, and said almost nothing in the
+process.  New trivialities were exceedingly abundant.
+
+He worked all day with no results of consequence.  The persons whose
+names had been supplied by Dorothy had, in turn, furnished more names
+by the dozen, alleging that this man or that knew John Hardy better
+than the proverbial brother, if possible; nevertheless, one after
+another, they revealed their ignorance of any vital facts that Garrison
+could use.
+
+On the following day he learned that Paul Durgin, the nephew credited
+with having claimed the body of the murdered man, lived ten miles out
+on a farm, amassing a fortune rearing ducks.
+
+Hiring a team, Garrison drove to Durgin's farm.  He found his man in
+the center of a vast expanse of duck-pens, where ducks by the thousand,
+all singularly white and waterless, were greeting their master with
+acclaim.
+
+Durgin came out of the duck midst to see his visitor.  He was a large,
+taciturn being, healthy, strong, independent, a trifle suspicious and
+more than a trifle indifferent as to the final disposal of John Hardy's
+fortune.
+
+Garrison, at first, found him hard to handle.  He had not yet read the
+papers.  He knew nothing at all of what was being said; and now that he
+heard it at last, from Garrison's lips, he scarcely did more than nod
+his head.
+
+Garrison was annoyed.  He determined on awakening the duck-stupored
+being, unless the task should prove hopeless.
+
+"Mr. Durgin," he said, "the reasons for supposing that Hardy was
+murdered--poisoned--are far more convincing than anyone really
+supposes--and suspicion points particularly at a person in whom you may
+and may not be interested--your younger brother, Foster Durgin."
+
+A curious white appearance crept all about the smooth-shaven mouth of
+the duck man.  He was not in the least an emotionless clod; he was not
+even cold or indifferent, but silent, slow at giving expression to
+anything but excellent business capabilities.
+
+He looked at Garrison steadily, but with dumb appeal in his eyes.  The
+blow had gone home with a force that made Garrison sorry.
+
+"How could that be?" the man inquired, "even with Foster wild?"
+
+"He may not be guilty--it's my business to discover who is," said
+Garrison, with ready sympathy.  "It looks as if he had a motive.  With
+his knowledge of photography and his dabbling in the art, he has almost
+certainly handled poison--the particular poison used to destroy John
+Hardy's life.  He was there in Hickwood at the time of the crime.  He
+has gambled in Wall Street, and lost, and now has disappeared.  You can
+see I need your help to clear the case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+STARTLING DISCLOSURES
+
+Durgin sat down on a box, picked up a sliver of wood and began to chew
+it slowly.  He was not a man of rapid thoughts; and he was stunned.
+
+"How did you find out all these things?" he said.
+
+"From Dorothy, partially, and in part from my own investigations."
+
+"Dorothy didn't go back on the boy like that?"  The man was hurt by the
+thought.
+
+"Not at all.  She tried to shield him.  I came to Rockdale on her
+account, to try to discover if there is anyone else who might have had
+a motive for the crime."
+
+Durgin pulled the sliver of wood to shreds with his teeth.
+
+"I don't think Foster would have done it," he said, concealing the pain
+in his breast.  "He's been wild.  I've lost all patience with his ways
+of livin', but Uncle John was never afraid of Foster, though he was of
+Hiram Cleave."
+
+"What's that?" said Garrison, instantly, alive to a possible factor in
+the case.  "Do you mean there was a man Mr. Hardy was afraid of--Hiram
+what?"
+
+"He never wanted me to tell of that," said Durgin in his heavy manner.
+"He wasn't a coward; he said so, and I know it's true, but he had a
+fear of Cleave."
+
+"Now that's just exactly what I've got to know!" said Garrison.  "Man
+alive, if you wish to help me clear your brother, you've got to give me
+all the facts you can think of concerning Mr. Hardy, his enemies, and
+everything else in the case!  What sort of a man is this Cleave?"
+
+"A short, middle-aged man," drawled Durgin deliberately.  "I never saw
+him but once."
+
+"What was the cause of enmity between him and Hardy, do you know?"
+
+"No, I don't.  It went far back--a woman, I guess.  But I hope you
+won't ever say I told that it was.  I promised I wouldn't, and I never
+did till now."
+
+The big fellow looked at Garrison with honest anxiety in his eyes.
+
+"It's not my business to tell things," Garrison assured him.  "This is
+a matter perhaps of life and death for your brother.  Do you think Mr.
+Hardy feared this man Cleave would take his life?"
+
+"He did, yes."
+
+"Was it ever attempted before?"
+
+Durgin looked at him oddly.
+
+"I think so, but I couldn't be sure."
+
+"You mean, Mr. Hardy told you a little about it, but, perhaps, not all?"
+
+"How did you know that?" Durgin asked, mystified by Garrison's
+swiftness of thinking.
+
+"I don't know anything.  I'm trying to find out.  How much did Hardy
+tell you of a former attempt on his life?"
+
+"He didn't really tell it.  He sort of let it out a little, and
+wouldn't say anything more."
+
+"But you knew it was this man Cleave?"
+
+"Yes, he was the one."
+
+Garrison questioned eagerly: "Where is he now?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"When was it that you saw the man?"
+
+"A year ago."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the village--Rockdale," answered Durgin.
+
+"Mr. Hardy pointed him out?"
+
+"Yes, but how did you----"
+
+"What was the color of his hair?" Garrison interrupted.
+
+"He had his hat on.  I didn't see his hair."
+
+"What did your uncle say at the time?"
+
+"Nothing much, just 'that's the man'--that's all," said the duck man.
+"And he went away that night--I guess because Cleave turned around and
+saw us in the store."
+
+"All right," said Garrison.  "Where's your brother now?"
+
+"I don't know.  We don't get on."
+
+"Do you think he knew anything about Mr. Hardy's will?"
+
+Durgin answered with a query: "Which one?"
+
+"Why, the only one, I suppose," said Garrison.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, there must have been more than one," drawled the duck man with
+exasperating slowness.  "Foster was down in the first, but that was
+burned.  I don't think he ever saw the others, but he knew he wasn't a
+favorite any more."
+
+"What about yourself?" asked Garrison.
+
+"I asked Uncle John to leave me out.  I've got enough," was the answer.
+"We're no blood kin to the Hardys.  I know I wasn't in the last."
+
+"The last?" repeated Garrison.  "You mean the last will of Mr.
+Hardy--the one in favor of Dorothy, in case she should be married?"
+
+Durgin studied his distant ducks for a moment.
+
+"No, I don't think that was the last.  I'm sure that will wasn't the
+last."
+
+Garrison stared at him fixedly.
+
+"You're sure it wasn't the last?" he echoed.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Uncle John sent a letter and said he'd made a brand-new will,"
+answered Durgin in his steady way of certainty.  "I burned up the
+letter only yesterday, clearing up my papers."
+
+"You don't mean quite recently?" insisted Garrison.
+
+"Since Dorothy got married," answered Durgin, at a loss to understand
+Garrison's interest.  "Why?"
+
+"This could make all the difference in the world to the case," Garrison
+told him.  "Did he say what he'd done with this new document?"
+
+"Just that he'd made a new will."
+
+"Who helped him?  Who was the lawyer?  Who were the witnesses?"
+
+"He didn't say."
+
+Garrison felt everything disarranged.  And Durgin's ignorance was
+baffling.  He went at him aggressively.
+
+"Where was your uncle when he wrote the letter?"
+
+"He was up to Albany."
+
+Albany!  There were thousands of lawyers and tens of thousands of men
+who would do as witnesses in Albany!
+
+"But," insisted Garrison, "perhaps he told you where it was deposited
+or who had drawn it up, or you may know his lawyer in Albany.
+
+"No.  He just mentioned it, that's all," said Durgin.  "The letter was
+most about ducks."
+
+"This is too bad," Garrison declared.  "Have you any idea in the world
+where the will may be?"
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"You found nothing of it, or anything to give you a hint, when you
+claimed the body for burial, and examined his possessions in Hickwood?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where was Dorothy then?"
+
+"I don't know.  She's always looked after Foster more than me, he being
+the weak one and most in need."
+
+Desperate for more information.  Garrison probed in every conceivable
+direction, but elicited nothing further of importance, save that an
+old-time friend of Hardy's, one Israel Snow, a resident of Rockdale,
+might perhaps be enabled to assist him.
+
+Taking leave of Durgin, who offered his hand and expressed a deep-lying
+hope that something could be done to clear all suspicion from his
+brother, Garrison returned to Rockdale.
+
+The news of a will made recently, a will concerning which Dorothy knew
+nothing,--this was so utterly disconcerting that it quite overshadowed,
+for a time, the equally important factor in the case supplied by
+Durgin's tale concerning this unknown Hiram Cleave.
+
+Where the clews pointed now it was utterly impossible to know.  If the
+fact should transpire that Dorothy did, in fact, know something of the
+new will made by her uncle, or if Foster knew, and no such will should
+ever be produced, the aspect of the case would be dark indeed.
+
+Not at all convinced that Theodore Robinson might not yet be found at
+the bottom of the mystery, Garrison wondered where the fellow had gone
+and what his departure might signify.
+
+Israel Snow was out of town.  He would not return till the morrow.
+Garrison's third night was passed in the little hotel, and no word had
+come from Dorothy.  He had written four letters to the Eighteenth
+Street address.  He was worried by her silence.
+
+On the following day Mr. Snow returned.  He proved to be a stooped old
+man, but he supplied a number of important facts.
+
+In the first place he stated that Hiram Cleave had long since assumed
+another name which no one in Rockdale knew.  No one was acquainted with
+his business or his whereabouts.  The reason of the enmity between him
+and John Hardy went deep enough to satisfy the most exacting mind.
+
+Cleave, Hardy, and Scott, the inventor, had been boys together, and, in
+young manhood, chums.  Hardy had fallen in love with Scott's sister,
+while he was still a young, romantic man.  Cleave, developing an
+utterly malicious and unscrupulous nature, had deceived his friend
+Hardy, tried to despoil Miss Scott's very life, thereby ultimately
+causing her death, and Hardy had intervened only in time to save her
+from utter shame and ruin.
+
+Then, having discovered Cleave guilty of a forgery, he had spared no
+effort or expense till he landed the creature in prison out in Indiana.
+Cleave had threatened his life at the time.  He had long since been
+liberated.  His malicious resentment had never been abated, and for the
+past two or three years, with Miss Scott a sad, sweet memory only, John
+Hardy had lived a lonely life, constantly moving to avoid his enemy.
+
+A friend of another friend of a third friend of Snow's, who might have
+moved away, had once had a photograph of Cleave.  Old Snow promised to
+procure it if possible and deliver it over to Garrison, who made eager
+offers to go and try to get it for himself, but without avail.  He
+promised to wait for the picture, and returned at last to his hotel.
+
+A telegram was waiting for him at the desk.  He almost knew what he
+should find on reading it.  The message read:
+
+
+Please return at once.  JERALDINE.
+
+
+He paid off his bill, and posting a note to Israel Snow, giving an
+address, "Care of J. Garrison," in the New York building where he had
+his office, he caught the first train going down and arrived in
+Manhattan at three.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
+
+Delaying only long enough to deposit his suit-case at his lodgings, and
+neglecting the luncheon which he felt he could relish, Garrison posted
+off to Eighteenth Street with all possible haste.
+
+The house he found at the number supplied by Dorothy was an old-time
+residence, with sky-scrapers looming about it.  A pale woman met him at
+the door.
+
+"Miss Root--is Miss Root in, please?" he said.  "I'd like to see her."
+
+"There's no such person here," said the woman.
+
+"She's gone--she's given up her apartment?" said Garrison, at a loss to
+know what this could mean.  "She went to-day?  Where is she now?"
+
+"She's never been here," informed the landlady.  "A number of letters
+came here, addressed in her name, and I took them in, as people often
+have mail sent like that when they expect to visit the city, but she
+sent around a messenger and got them this morning."
+
+Thoroughly disconcerted by this intelligence, Garrison could only ask
+if the woman knew whence the messenger had come--the address to which
+he had taken the letters.  The woman did not know.
+
+There was nothing to do but to hasten to the house near Washington
+Square.  Garrison lost no time in speeding down Fifth Avenue.
+
+He came to the door just in time to meet Miss Ellis, dressed to go out.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Fairfax?" she said.  "Mrs. Fairfax asked me to
+tell you, if you came before I went, that she'd meet you at your
+office.  I felt so sorry when she was ill."
+
+"I didn't know she'd been ill," said Garrison.  "I was afraid of
+something like that when she failed to write."
+
+"Oh, yes, she was ill in the morning, the very day after you left,"
+imparted Miss Ellis.
+
+"I know you'll excuse me," interrupted Garrison.  "I'll hurry along,
+and hope to see you again."
+
+He was off so abruptly that Miss Ellis was left there gasping on the
+steps.
+
+Ten minutes later he was stepping from the elevator and striding down
+the office-building hall.
+
+Dorothy was not yet in the corridor.  He opened the office, beheld a
+number of notes and letters on the floor, and was taking them up when
+Dorothy came in, breathless, her eyes ablaze with excitement.
+
+"Jerold!" she started.  "Please lock the door and----" when she was
+interrupted by the entrance of a man.
+
+Dorothy gave a little cry and fled behind the desk.
+
+Garrison faced the intruder, a tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed man with
+a long mustache--a person with every mark of the gentleman upon him.
+
+"Well, sir," said Garrison, in some indignation, "what can I do for
+you?"
+
+"We'll wait a minute and see," said the stranger.  "My name is Jerold
+Fairfax, and I came to claim my wife."
+
+Garrison almost staggered.  It was like a bolt from the bluest sky,
+where naught but the sun of glory had been visible.
+
+"Dorothy!  What does he mean?" he said, turning at once to the girl.
+
+She sank weakly to a chair and could not meet the question in his eyes.
+
+"Didn't you hear what I said?" demanded the visitor.  "This is my wife
+and I'd like to know what it means, you or somebody else passing
+yourself off in my place!"
+
+Garrison still looked at Dorothy.
+
+"This isn't true, what the man is saying?" he inquired.
+
+She tried to look up.  "I--I----  Forgive me, please," she said.
+"He's--He followed me here----"
+
+"Certainly I followed," interrupted the stranger.  "Why wouldn't I
+follow my wife?  What does this mean, all this stuff they've been
+printing in the papers about some man passing as your husband?"  He
+snatched out a newspaper abruptly, and waved it in the air.
+
+"And if you're the man," he added, turning to Garrison, "I'll inform
+you right now----"
+
+"That will do for you," Garrison interrupted.  "This lady has come to
+my office on a matter of business.  My services to her have nothing to
+do with you or any of your claims.  And let me impress upon you the
+fact that her affairs with me are private in character, and that you
+are here uninvited."
+
+"The devil I am!" answered Fairfax, practically as cool as Garrison
+himself.  "I'll inform you that a man needs no invitation from a
+stranger, lawyer, detective, or otherwise, to seek the presence of his
+wife.  And now that I've found her I demand that she come along with
+me!"
+
+Dorothy started to her feet and fled behind Garrison.
+
+"Please don't let him stay!" she said.  "Don't let him touch me,
+please!"
+
+Garrison faced the intruder calmly.
+
+"I permit no one to issue orders in this office, either to me or my
+clients," he said.  "Unless you are a far better man than I, you will
+do nothing to compel this lady to depart until she wishes to do so.
+You will oblige me by leaving my office."
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort!" answered Fairfax.  "Your bluff sounds
+big, but I'm here to call it, understand?  Dorothy, I command you to
+come."
+
+"I will not go with such a man as you!" she cried in a sudden burst of
+anger.  "You left me shamefully, half an hour after we were married!
+You've been no husband to me!  You have only come back because you
+heard there might be money!  I never wish to see you again!"
+
+"Well, you're going to hear from me, now!" said Fairfax.  "As for you,
+Mr. Garrison, assuming my name and----"
+
+He was making a movement toward his pocket, throwing back his coat.
+
+"Drop that!" interrupted Garrison.  He had drawn his revolver with a
+quickness that was startling.  "Up with your hand!"
+
+Fairfax halted his impulse.  His hand hung oscillating at the edge of
+his coat.  A ghastly pallor overspread his face.  His eyes took on a
+look of supernatural brightness.  His mouth dropped open.  He crouched
+a trifle forward, staring fixedly at the table.  His hand had fallen at
+his side.  He began to whisper:
+
+"His brains are scattered everywhere, I see them--see
+them--everywhere--everywhere!"  His hand came up before his eyes, the
+fingers spread like talons.  He cried out brokenly, and, turning
+abruptly, hastened through the door, and they heard him running down
+the hall.
+
+Dorothy had turned very white.  She looked at Garrison almost wildly.
+
+"That's exactly what he said before," she said, "when he pushed me from
+the train and ran away."
+
+"What does it mean?" said Garrison, tense with emotion.  "What have you
+done to me, Dorothy?  He isn't your husband, after all?"
+
+Dorothy sank once more in the chair.  She looked at Garrison
+appealingly.
+
+"I married him," she moaned.  "He's crazy!"
+
+Garrison, too, sat down.  His pistol he dropped in his pocket.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
+
+"I was afraid," she confessed.  "I thought you wouldn't consent to
+be--to be--what you have been."
+
+"Of course I wouldn't," Garrison responded.  "What have I got myself
+into?  Why did you do it?"
+
+"I had to," she answered weakly.  "Please don't scold me now--even if
+you have to desert me."  Her voice broke in one convulsive sob, but she
+mastered herself sharply.  "I'll go," she added, struggling to her
+feet.  "I didn't mean to get you into all this----"
+
+"Dorothy, sit down," he interrupted, rising instantly and placing his
+hand on her shoulder.  "I didn't mean it--didn't mean what I said.  I
+shan't desert you.  I love you--I love you, Dorothy!"
+
+She turned one hurt look upon him, then sank on the desk to cover her
+face.
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she said.  "You haven't any right----"
+
+"Forgive me," he pleaded.  "I didn't intend to let you know.  I didn't
+intend to use my position for anything like that.  Forgive me--forget
+what I said--and let me serve you as I have before, with no thought of
+anything but--earning the money, my fee."
+
+He turned away, striking his fist in his palm, and went across to the
+window.
+
+For nearly five minutes neither spoke.  Dorothy, torn by emotions too
+great to be longer restrained, had controlled her sobs almost
+immediately, but she had not dared to raise her eyes.  She sat up at
+last, and with gaze averted from the figure against the square of
+light, composed herself as best she might.
+
+"What is there we can do?" she said at last.  "If you wish to be
+released from your--your position----"
+
+"We won't talk of that," he interrupted, still looking out on the roofs
+below.  "I'm in this to stay--till you dismiss me and bid me forget
+it--forget it and you--forever.  But I need your help."
+
+"I have made it very hard, I know," she said.  "If I've acted
+deceitfully, it was the only way I thought I could do."
+
+"Please tell me about this man Fairfax," he requested, keeping his back
+toward her as before.  "You married him, where?"
+
+"At Rockbeach, Massachusetts."
+
+She was businesslike again.
+
+"To satisfy the condition in your uncle's will?"
+
+"No," the confession came slowly, but she made it with courage.  "I had
+known him for quite a long time.  He had--he had courted me a year.  He
+was always a gentleman, cultured, refined, and fascinating in many
+ways.  I thought I was in--I thought I was fond of him, very.  He was
+brilliant--and romantic--and possessed of many qualities that appealed
+to me strongly.  I'm quite sure now he exercised some spell upon
+me--but he was kind--and I believed him--that's all."
+
+"Who married you?"
+
+"A justice of the peace."
+
+"Why not a minister?"
+
+"Mr. Fairfax preferred the justice."
+
+Garrison remained by the window stubbornly.
+
+"You said the man is crazy.  What did you mean?"
+
+"Didn't you see?" she answered.  "That light in his eyes is insanity.
+I thought it a soul-light shining through, though it worried me often,
+I admit.  We were married at two in the afternoon and went at once to
+the station to wait there for the train.  He bought the tickets and
+talked in his brilliant way until the train arrived.  It only stopped
+for a moment.
+
+"He put me on, then a spell came over him suddenly, I don't know what,
+and he pushed me off the steps, just as the train was moving out--and
+said the very thing you heard him say in here--and rode away and left
+me there, deserted."
+
+She told it all in a dry-voiced way that cost her an effort, as
+Garrison felt and comprehended.  He had turned about, in sheer sympathy
+for her predicament.
+
+"What happened then?"
+
+"I saw in a paper, two days later, he had been detained in a town in
+Ohio as being mentally unbalanced.  In the meantime I had written to my
+Uncle John, while we were waiting at the station, telling him briefly I
+was married and to whom.  The note was posted not five minutes before a
+postman came along and took up the letters in the box.  I couldn't have
+stopped it had I wished to, and it never occurred to my mind to stop
+it, anyway."
+
+"What did your uncle reply?"
+
+"He wrote at once that he was thoroughly pleased.  He had long hoped I
+might marry someone other than Theodore.  He confessed that his will
+contained a clause to the effect that I should inherit no more than
+five thousand dollars, should I not have been married at least one
+month prior to his death, to a healthy, respectable man who was not my
+cousin.
+
+"I dared not write that I had been deserted, or that Mr. Fairfax might
+be insane.  I couldn't tell what to do.  I hardly knew what to expect,
+or what I was, or anything.  I could only pretend I was off on my
+honeymoon--and wait.  Then came uncle's sudden death, and my lawyer
+sent me word about the will, asking when he should file it for probate.
+Then--then I knew I had to have a _sane_ husband."
+
+"And the will is not yet filed?"
+
+"Not yet.  And fortunately Mr. Trowbridge has had to be away."
+
+Garrison pursued the topic of the will for purposes made necessary by
+his recent discoveries concerning a new one.
+
+"Mr. Trowbridge had your uncle's testament in his keeping?"
+
+Dorothy shook her head.  "No.  I believe he conferred with uncle's
+lawyer, just after his death, and read it there."
+
+"Where did your uncle's lawyer live?"
+
+"In Albany."
+
+"Do you know his name?"
+
+"I think it is Spikeman.  Why?"
+
+Garrison was looking at her again with professional coldness, despite
+the fact that his heart was fairly burning in his breast.
+
+"Because," he said, "I learned from your stepbrother, Paul Durgin, near
+Rockdale, that your uncle made a later will, and we've got to get trace
+of the document before you can know where you stand."
+
+Dorothy looked at him with her great brown eyes as startled as a deer's.
+
+"Another will!" she said.  "I may have lost everything, after all!
+What in the world would become of Foster then--and Alice?"
+
+"And yourself?" added Garrison.
+
+"Oh, it doesn't make the least difference about me," she answered in
+her bravery--bravery that made poor Garrison love her even more than
+before, "but they all depend so much upon me!  Tell me, please, what
+did you find out about Foster?"
+
+"Not a great deal," Garrison confessed.  "This new will business was my
+most important discovery.  Nevertheless, I confirmed your story of a
+man whom your uncle greatly feared.  His name, it seems, is Hiram
+Cleave."
+
+"That's the name!  That's the man!" cried Dorothy.  "I remember now!
+He once pinched my face till I cried."
+
+"You have seen him, then?  What sort of a looking being is he?"
+
+"I don't remember much--only the horrid grin upon his face.  I was only
+a child--and that impressed me.  You didn't hear anything of Foster?"
+
+"Not of his whereabouts--quite a bit concerning his character, none of
+it particularly flattering."
+
+"I don't know where in the world he can be," said Dorothy.  "Poor
+Alice!  What are we going to do now, with all these new complications?"
+
+"Do the best we can," said Garrison.  "Aside from the will, and my work
+on the murder of your uncle, a great deal depends upon yourself, and
+your desires."
+
+Dorothy looked at him in silence for a moment.  A slight flush came to
+her face.
+
+She said: "In what respect?"
+
+Garrison had no intention of mincing matters now.  He assumed a
+hardness of aspect wholly incompatible with his feelings.
+
+"In respect to Mr. Fairfax," he answered.  "He will doubtless
+return--dog your footsteps--make himself known to the Robinsons, and
+otherwise keep us entertained."
+
+She met his gaze as a child might have done.
+
+"What can I do?  I've depended so much upon you.  I don't like to ask
+too much--after this--or ever----  You've been more than kind.  I
+didn't mean to be so helpless--or to wound your feelings, or----"
+
+A knock at the door interrupted, and Tuttle entered the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A HELPLESS SITUATION
+
+Confused thus to find himself in the presence of Dorothy as well as
+Garrison, Tuttle snatched off his hat and looked about him helplessly.
+
+"How are you, Tuttle?" said Garrison.  "Glad to see you.  Come back in
+fifteen minutes, will you?  I want your report."
+
+"Fifteen minutes; yes, sir," said Tuttle, and he backed from the place.
+
+"Who was that?" said Dorothy.  "Anyone connected with the case?"
+
+"A man that Theodore hired to shadow me," said Garrison.  "I took him
+into camp and now he is shadowing Theodore.  Let me ask you one or two
+questions before he returns.  You were ill the morning after I left,
+and did not go at all to Eighteenth Street."
+
+"I couldn't go," she said.  "I tried not to give up and be so ill, but
+perhaps the effects of the drug that the Robinsons employed caused the
+trouble.  At last I thought you might have written to the Eighteenth
+Street address, so I sent around and got your letters, before I could
+even send a wire."
+
+"You wired because Fairfax had appeared?"
+
+"Yes, I thought you ought to know."
+
+"How did you know he was here in New York?  Did he call at the house
+where you were staying?"
+
+"No.  He sent a note declaring he would call.  That was this morning.
+Miss Ellis's friend, of the _Star_, had an intuition as to who we were,
+that evening when he called.  When I finally requested Miss Ellis to
+ask him not to print more stories about us, he had already spoken to
+the editor, and more of the matter had appeared.  Since you left,
+however, I haven't seen a single reporter."
+
+"Fairfax got his clew to your whereabouts from the press, of course.
+The question now is, where do you wish to go?  And what do you wish me
+to do--concerning the rôle I have filled?"
+
+Dorothy was thoroughly disturbed by the topic.
+
+"Oh, I don't know what to do," she confessed.  "I wish I could never
+see that man again!  What do you advise?"
+
+"We hardly know what the situation may require, till we discover more
+about this latest will," said Garrison.  "Things may be altered
+materially.  If you wish it, you can doubtless manage to secure a
+separation from Fairfax.  In the meantime I would strongly advise that
+you rent an apartment without delay, where no one can find you again."
+
+She looked at him wistfully.  "Not even you?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to see me, once in a while," he told her,
+suppressing the passionate outcry of his heart, "unless you wish to
+secure the services of someone who will make no mistakes."
+
+She was hurt.  She loved him.  Her nature cried out for the sure
+protection of his arms, but her womanhood forbade.  More than anything
+else in the world she wished to please him, but not by confessing her
+fondness.
+
+However much she might loathe the thought, she was the wife of Jerold
+Fairfax, with everything precious to guard.  By the token of the wound
+that Garrison had inflicted, she knew that she had wounded him.  It
+could not have been avoided--there was nothing but a chasm between them.
+
+"Please do not make me feel that I have been utterly despicable," she
+pleaded.  "You have made no mistakes--in the conduct of the case.  I
+should be so helpless without you."
+
+Garrison knew he had hurt her.  He was sorry.  He knew her position was
+the only one possible for a woman such as he could love.  He reviled
+himself for his selfishness.  He forced himself now to return her gaze
+with no hint of anything save business in his eyes.
+
+"Dorothy, I shall be honored to continue with your work," he said.  "I
+mean to see you through."
+
+"Thank you--Jerold," she said.  Her voice all but broke.  She had never
+loved him so much as now, and because of that had given herself the one
+little joy of calling him thus by his name.  She added more bravely:
+"I'll find a room and send you the address as soon as possible.
+Meantime, I hope we will soon discover about this latest will."
+
+"I shall do my best," he assured her.  "Let me take you now to the
+annex elevator, in case anyone should be waiting to see you at the
+other.  Get yourself a heavy veil, and be sure you avoid being followed
+when you hunt up your room.  Take the apartment in the name of Miss
+Root, and send me word in that name also, just for precaution.  Leave
+Fairfax and the others to me.  I may go up to Albany about the will."
+
+He opened the door, but she hesitated a moment longer.
+
+"I hope it will all end somehow, for the best," she said.  "It's very
+hard for you."
+
+He smiled, but not mirthfully.
+
+"It was here in this room I assumed my rôle," he said, "and here I drop
+it."
+
+For a moment she failed to understand.
+
+"Drop it?" she echoed.  "How?"
+
+"I'm no longer even your pseudo-husband.  I drop the name Fairfax, with
+all it might imply."
+
+She blushed crimson and could not meet his gaze.
+
+"I'm sorry if I've been the cause----" she started.
+
+Garrison interrupted.
+
+"I'm glad--glad of everything that's happened.  We'll say no more of
+that.  But--Theodore--how he will gloat over this!"
+
+"If he finds out Mr. Fairfax is crazy, he could overthrow the will,"
+suggested Dorothy.  "But--what's the use of thinking of that, if a new
+will comes to light?  It's a dreadfully mixed affair."  She stepped out
+in the hall and Garrison led the way to the elevator farther to the
+rear.  The chains of a car were descending rapidly.
+
+"Please try not to detest the hour I came to see you first," she said,
+holding out her hand, "if you can."
+
+"I'll try," said Garrison, holding the precious little fingers for a
+second over the conventional time.
+
+Glancing up at him quickly she saw a bright smile in his eye.  Joy was
+in her heart.  The car was at the floor.
+
+"Good-by," she said, "till we meet again--soon."
+
+"Good-by," he answered.
+
+She stepped in the cage and was dropped from his sight, but her last
+glance remained--and made him happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+NIGHT-WALKERS
+
+Tuttle had returned by the time Garrison came once more to his office.
+He entered the room behind his chief, and Garrison closed the door.
+
+"Well?" said Jerold, "any news?"
+
+"I got a line on young Robinson," answered Tuttle.  "He's gone to a
+small resort named Rockbeach, up on the coast of Massachusetts, but his
+father doesn't know his business, or if he does he denies it."
+
+"Rockbeach?" said Garrison, who realized at once that Theodore had gone
+there to search out the justice of the peace who had married Dorothy
+and Fairfax.  "Is he up there still?"
+
+"He hadn't come home this morning."
+
+What so long an absence on Theodore's part might signify was a matter
+purely of conjecture.  There was nothing more to be done but await
+developments.  Whatever young Robinson's scheme, it might be wholly
+disorganized by the latest will that John Hardy had drawn.
+
+"What about the two dagos--the fellows who attacked me in the park?"
+inquired Garrison.  "Have you found out anything concerning them?"
+
+Tuttle replied with a question.  "Haven't you seen it in the papers?"
+
+"Seen what?"
+
+"Why, the bomb explosion and the rest of it--all Black Hand business
+last night," answered Tuttle.  "One of our pair was killed outright,
+and the other one's dying, from a premature explosion of one of their
+gas-pipe cartridges.  They attempted to blow up a boiler, under a
+tenement belonging to a man they'd tried to bleed, and it got 'em both."
+
+He took from his pocket a two-column clipping from a morning newspaper,
+and placed it on the desk.
+
+"Out of my hands, then; no chance to help send them up," commented
+Garrison reflectively, as he glanced through the article.  "I'll keep
+this, if you don't mind," he added.  "It may be useful with
+Robinson--in helping to warm up his blood."
+
+"I tried to carry out instructions," said Tuttle, "but I couldn't find
+out where they were till this came out in print.  I hope there's
+something else I can do."
+
+Garrison thought for a moment.
+
+"How many times have you been here to report?"
+
+"Two or three times every day."
+
+"Have you noticed a tall, light-haired man, with a long mustache,
+around here at all, either to-day or yesterday?"
+
+"If he's got blue eyes and wears a brown striped suit, he was here this
+morning and asked me where he could find you," Tuttle answered.  "Is
+that your man?"
+
+"The same.  His name is Fairfax.  He's the real Fairfax.  He'll be
+likely to return.  Until Robinson appears again, you can keep your eye
+on this office, spot Fairfax, and then keep him shadowed for a time.
+Find where he lives, where he goes, and what he does."
+
+"Anything more?"
+
+"Keep track of old man Robinson, and let me know as soon as Theodore
+returns."
+
+Tuttle rose as if to go.  He hesitated, turning his hat in his hands.
+
+"Would it be asking too much if I suggested I need a little money?" he
+inquired.  "The Robinsons pay with hot air."
+
+"I can let you have twenty-five," said Garrison, pulling out his
+rapidly diminishing roll.  "That do?"
+
+"Fine," said Tuttle, receiving the bills.  "When shall I----"
+
+A messenger boy came plunging in at the door without the slightest
+formality.
+
+"Telegram for Garrison," he said.  "Sign here."
+
+"Wait half a minute, Tuttle," said Garrison, tearing open the envelope,
+as the boy was departing, and he read the wire almost at a glance.
+
+It was dated from Branchville.
+
+
+Come up here as soon as possible.  Important.
+
+JAMES PIKE.
+
+
+For a moment Garrison failed to remember the personality of James Pike.
+Then it came with a flash--the coroner!  Aware at once that the tale of
+possible murder in the Hardy case had been spread and discussed all
+over the State, he realized that Pike, and others who had been
+concerned when John Hardy's body was found in their jurisdiction, might
+have come upon new material.
+
+"Nothing to add to instructions," he said to Tuttle.  "I shall be out
+of town to-night, and perhaps a part of to-morrow."
+
+Tuttle took his leave.  Garrison paced up and down the office floor for
+half an hour.  He was very much in hopes that word might come from
+Dorothy as to where she had chosen a room.  The afternoon was gone, and
+he was famished.
+
+He left at last, went to a restaurant, ate a hearty meal, and returned
+to the office rather late.  On the floor lay a notification of a
+special delivery letter, to be had at the nearest substation.
+
+He was there in the shortest possible time.
+
+The letter was from Dorothy.  It began "Dear Jerold," but it merely
+informed him she had found apartments on Madison Avenue, not far from
+Twenty-ninth Street.
+
+He wrote her a note to acquaint her with the fact that new developments
+called him at once to Branchville, whence he might continue to Albany,
+and this, with a dozen magnificent roses, he sent by special messenger
+to Miss Jeraldine Root.
+
+He was still enabled to catch a fairly early train from Grand Central
+Station.
+
+A little after eight o'clock he arrived in Branchville, found James
+Pike's real-estate office ablaze with light, and walked in on that busy
+gentleman, who rose in excitement to grasp him by the hand.
+
+"You got my wire?" demanded Mr. Pike.  "I'm awful glad you came.  I
+turned up something in the Hardy case that I think you ought to know.
+Got a man coming 'round here in fifteen minutes who read up on the
+murder suspicions and the rest of it, and he saw a stranger, down in
+Hickwood the night of Hardy's death, get into Hardy's room at Mrs.
+Wilson's.  It just struck me you ought to know, and so I wired."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Garrison.  "I consider this highly
+important.  Who is your man?"
+
+"He ain't a man, he's a boy; young Will Barnes," amended the coroner.
+"Most people think he's just a lazy, no-account young feller, but I've
+always said he was growin'.  Goes fishin' a good deal, of course,
+but----  There he goes, now!"  He ran to the door, through the glass of
+which he had seen a tall, lanky youth across the way.
+
+"Hi, Will!" he yelled, "come over, the New York man is waiting!"
+
+Young Barnes came slowly across the highway.
+
+"I've got to git some hooks," he said.  "If I don't get 'em now the
+store'll close."
+
+"This is more important than hooks," answered Pike.  "Come in here.
+Mr. Garrison, this is Mr. Barnes.  Will, Mr. Garrison, the New York
+detective."
+
+Quite unimpressed by Garrison's personality or calling, Will advanced
+and shook his hand.
+
+Garrison looked him over quickly.
+
+"You're the man who saw a stranger going into Hardy's room, at Mrs.
+Wilson's, the night that Hardy died, I believe?" he said.  "How did you
+happen to be there?"
+
+"He lives right near," volunteered Mr. Pike.
+
+"I was gettin' night-walkers," said Will.
+
+"Night-walkers?" repeated Garrison.  "People?"
+
+"Fishin' worms," supplied Mr. Pike.  "Angleworms walk at night and Will
+gits 'em for bait.  Goes out with a dark lantern and picks 'em up."
+
+"I see," said Garrison.  "What sort of a looking person was the man who
+got into Mrs. Wilson's house?"
+
+"A little shaver, that's all I could see," said the youthful angler.
+
+The description tallied closely with all that Garrison had heard before
+of Hiram Cleave, or Foster Durgin.
+
+"Very good," he said.  "Did you see what he did in the room?"
+
+"Didn't do nuthin' but steal a couple of cigars," informed the disciple
+of Walton.  "He wasn't there more'n about a minute."
+
+"But he _did_ steal a couple of cigars?" echoed Garrison, keenly alert
+to the vital significance of this new evidence.  "Did he take them from
+the table?"
+
+"Nope.  Took 'em out of a box."
+
+"Then came out by the window and departed?"
+
+"Yep, he sneaked."
+
+"Why didn't you tell anyone of this before?"
+
+"Nobody asked me."
+
+"And he ain't got no use for Mrs. Wilson, nor she for him,"
+supplemented the coroner.  "But I thought you ought to know."
+
+"Would you know the man again if you should see him?" Garrison inquired.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Do you know where he went when he left the house, or yard?  Did you
+follow him at all?"
+
+"No, the night-walkers was too thick."
+
+Garrison knew the lay of the yard at Mrs. Wilson's.  He knew the room.
+There was no particular reason for visiting the scene again.  There was
+nothing, in fact, to do at all except to visit the dealer in New York
+who had sold the cigars to Dorothy, and hope for news of Foster Durgin
+or the speedy arrival of the photograph of Cleave, which the old man in
+Rockdale had promised.  He asked one more question.
+
+"Was he young or old?"
+
+"Don't know," said Will, grinning.  "He didn't say."
+
+Garrison rose to go.
+
+"This is all of the utmost importance.  I may be obliged to have you
+come down to New York--if I can find the man.  But when you come it
+will be at my expense."
+
+"The fishin's awful good right now," objected Will.  "I don't know
+about New York."
+
+"You can pick yourself out a five-dollar rod," added Garrison.  "I'll
+wire you when to come."
+
+Garrison left for Albany at once.  He found himself obliged to take a
+roundabout course which brought him there late in the night.
+
+In the morning he succeeded in running down a John W. Spikeman, who had
+served as Hardy's lawyer for many years.
+
+The man was ill in bed, delirious, a condition which had lasted for
+several days.  Naturally no word concerning the Hardy affair had come
+to his notice--hence his silence on the subject, a silence which
+Garrison had not heretofore understood.
+
+He could not be seen, and to see him would have been of no avail, since
+his mind was temporarily deranged.
+
+The utmost that Garrison could do was to go to the clerk at his office.
+This man, a very fleshy person, decidedly English and punctilious, was
+most reluctant to divulge what he was pleased to term the professional
+secrets of the office.
+
+Under pressure of flattery and a clever cross-examination, he at length
+admitted that Mr. Hardy had drawn a will, within a week of his death,
+that Mr. Spikeman had declared it perfect, and that he and another had
+signed it as witnesses all in proper form.  Concerning the contents of
+the document he was absolutely dumb.  No amount of questioning,
+flattery, or persuasion would induce him to divulge so much as a word
+of what he had witnessed.
+
+Garrison gave up with one more inquiry:
+
+"Was the will deposited here in Mr. Spikeman's vault?"
+
+"No, sir," said the clerk; "Mr. Hardy took it with him when he went."
+
+Garrison's hopes abruptly wilted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY
+
+Leaving Spikeman's office, Garrison walked aimlessly away, reflecting
+on the many complications so recently developed, together with the
+factors in the case, and all its possibilities.  He was shutting from
+his mind, as far as possible, the thoughts of Fairfax, Dorothy's
+husband, whose coming he had feared by intuition from the first.
+
+The actual appearance of a husband on the scene had come as a shock,
+despite his many warnings to himself.  What could develop along that
+particular line was more than he cared to conjecture.  He felt himself
+robbed, distracted, all but purposeless, yet knew he must still go on
+with Dorothy's affairs, though the other man reap the reward.
+
+Forcing his mind to the Hardy affair, he found himself standing as one
+at the edge where things ought to be patent; nevertheless a fog was
+there, obscuring all in mystery.
+
+Some man had entered Hardy's room and tampered with Dorothy's cigars.
+This did not necessarily absolve Charles Scott, the insurance
+beneficiary, from suspicion, yet was all in his favor.  The Hiram
+Cleave was an unknown quantity.  Unfortunately the general description
+of the man who had entered Hardy's room tallied closely with Dorothy's
+description of Foster Durgin, whom she herself suspected of the crime.
+He had been in Hickwood, lurking near his uncle for several days.  He
+had since run away and was apparently in hiding.
+
+Intending to make an endeavor to seek out young Durgin and confront him
+with Barnes, who had seen the intruder in Hardy's room, and intending
+also to visit the dealer in tobacco from whom Dorothy had purchased her
+cigars, Garrison made his way to the railway station to return once
+more to New York.
+
+The matter of finding Hardy's will was on his mind as a constant worry.
+It had not been found among his possessions or on his person.  It could
+have been stolen from his room.  If this should prove to be the case it
+would appear exceedingly unfavorable for Durgin.  It was not at all
+unlikely that he might have been aware of something concerning the
+testament, while Hiram Cleave, if such a person existed, would have had
+no special interest in the document, one way or another.
+
+Another possibility was that Hardy had hidden the will away, but this
+seemed rather unlikely.
+
+Comfortably installed on a train at last, Garrison recalled his first
+deductions, made when he came upon the fact of the poisoned cigars.
+The person who had prepared the weeds must have known very many of
+Hardy's personal habits--that of taking the end cigar from a box, and
+of biting the point instead of cutting it off with his knife, for
+instance.  These were things with which Foster, no doubt, would be well
+acquainted.  And in photographic work he had handled the deadly poison
+employed for Hardy's death.
+
+Again, as he had a hundred times before, Garrison accused himself of
+crass stupidity in permitting someone to abstract that cigar from his
+pocket.  It might have been lost: this he knew, but he felt convinced
+it had been stolen.  And since he was certain that Dorothy was not the
+one, he could think of no chance that a thief could have had to extract
+it without attracting his attention.
+
+When at length he arrived once more in Manhattan, he proceeded at once
+to the shop on Amsterdam Avenue where Dorothy had purchased her cigars.
+Here he found a short individual in charge of a general business,
+including stationery, candy, newspapers, and toys, in addition to the
+articles for smokers.
+
+Garrison pulled out his memorandum concerning that box of cigars still
+in possession of Pike, at Branchville.
+
+"I dropped in to see if by any chance you recall the sale of a box of
+cigars some little time ago," he said, and he read off the name of the
+brand.  "You sold them to a lady--a young lady.  Perhaps you remember."
+
+"Oh, yes," agreed the man.  "I don't sell many by the box."
+
+"Did anyone else come in while she was here, or shortly after, and buy
+some cigars of this same brand?"  He awaited the dealer's slow process
+of memory and speech with eager interest.
+
+"Y-e-s, I think so," said the man after a pause.  "Yes, sure, a small
+man.  He bought a box just the same.  Two boxes in one evening--I don't
+do that every day."
+
+"A man, you say--a small man.  Was he young?"
+
+"I don't remember very well.  He was sick, I think.  He had a
+handkerchief on his face and his hat was pulled far down."
+
+"But surely you remember whether he was young or not," insisted
+Garrison.  "Try to think."
+
+A child came in to buy a stick of candy.  The dealer attended to her
+needs while Garrison waited.  When he returned he shook his head.
+
+"So many people come," he said, "I don't remember."
+
+Garrison tried him with a score of questions, but to no avail.  He
+could add nothing to what he had supplied, and the vagueness that
+shadowed the figure of the man had not been illumined in the least.
+Beyond the fact that a small man had followed Dorothy inside the store
+and purchased the duplicate of her cigars, there was nothing of
+significance revealed.
+
+Disappointed, even accusing himself of dullness and lack of resources
+in the all-important discovery of his unknown man's identity.  Garrison
+went out upon the street.  He felt himself in a measure disloyal to
+Dorothy in his growing conviction that young Foster Durgin was guilty.
+He was sorry, but helpless.  He must follow the trail wheresoever it
+led.
+
+He ate a belated luncheon, after which he went to his office.
+
+There were two letters lying on the floor, neither one addressed in a
+hand he knew.  The first he opened was from Theodore.  It was brief:
+
+
+DEAR SIR:
+
+If you can find the time to grant me an interview, I feel confident I
+can communicate something of interest.
+
+Yours truly,
+  THEODORE ROBINSON.
+
+
+His street address was written at the top.
+
+Garrison laid the letter on the desk and opened the second.  If the
+first had occasioned a feeling of vague wonder in his breast, the other
+was far more potently stirring.  It read:
+
+
+DEAR MR. GARRISON:
+
+I called once, but you were out.  Shall return again about four-thirty.
+
+Trusting to see you,
+  FOSTER DURGIN.
+
+
+Without even halting to lock the door as he fled from the place
+Garrison hastened pell-mell to the telegraph-office, on the entrance
+floor of the building, and filed the following despatch:
+
+
+JAMES PIKE,
+  Branchville, N. Y.:
+
+Get Will Barnes on train, headed for my office, soon as possible.
+
+GARRISON.
+
+
+As he stepped in the elevator to return to his floor, he found Tuttle
+in the corner of the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE FRET OF WAITING
+
+Tuttle had performed his services fairly well.  He reported that young
+Robinson had returned to town and had lost no time in dismissing him,
+with a promise to pay for services rendered by the end of the week.
+Theodore had seemed content with the bald report which Tuttle had made
+concerning Garrison's almost total absence from his office, and had
+rather appeared to be satisfied to let the case develop for the present.
+
+Tuttle knew nothing of the note on Garrison's desk from Theodore, and
+was therefore unaware how his news affected his chief, who wondered yet
+again what might be impending.
+
+Concerning Fairfax there was news that was equally disquieting.  He had
+been here once, apparently quite sane again.  He had talked with Tuttle
+freely of a big surprise he had in store for the man who had hidden his
+wife, and then he had gone to his lodgings, near at hand, departing
+almost immediately with a suit-case in his hand and proceeding to the
+station, where he had taken a train on a ticket purchased for
+Branchville.
+
+Tuttle, uninstructed as to following in a circumstance like this, had
+there dropped the trail.
+
+"What seemed to be the nature of the big surprise he had in mind?"
+inquired Garrison.  "Could you gather anything at all?"
+
+"Nothing more than that.  He appeared to be brooding over some sort of
+revenge he had in his mind, or something he meant to do, but he was
+careful to keep it to himself."
+
+"He said nothing at all of leaving New York?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"You are positive he bought a ticket for Branchville?"
+
+"Oh, sure," said Tuttle.
+
+Garrison reflected for a moment.  "I rather wish you had followed.
+However, he may return.  Keep your eye on the place where he was
+rooming.  Have you noticed anyone else around the office
+here--reporters, for instance?"
+
+"No.  The story's a sort of a dead one with the papers.  Young Robinson
+was gone, and you kept out of sight, and nothing came up to prove any
+thing."
+
+"You must have been talking to some newspaper man yourself," was
+Garrison's comment.  He looked at Tuttle keenly.
+
+"I did, yes, sir.  One of them saw me here two or three times and
+finally asked me what paper I represented.  I told him the _Cable_."
+
+Garrison paced up and down the floor somewhat restlessly.
+
+"I think of nothing further except for you to keep an eye on the
+Robinsons," he said.  "Wait a minute.  I want you to go to the
+Ninety-third Street house with a note I'll give you to the housekeeper,
+and examine the closet, in the back room, first flight up, to see if an
+equipment telephone is still in place there, concealed beneath a lot of
+clothing."
+
+He sat down, wrote the note, and gave it to Tuttle, who departed with
+instructions to return with his report as soon as possible.
+
+The office oppressed Garrison.  It seemed to confine him.  He prodded
+himself with a hundred vague notions that there ought to be something
+he could do, some way to get at things more rapidly.  He wondered how
+far he would find it possible to go with Foster Durgin, and what the
+fellow would say or do, if confronted with the cold-blooded facts
+already collated.
+
+Up and down and up and down he paced, impatient of every minute that
+sped away bringing nothing to the door.  Would Barnes arrive in time,
+or at all?  Would Durgin fail to come?  Did Dorothy know of his
+presence in the city?
+
+Everything always swung back to Dorothy.  What would she do concerning
+Fairfax?  What would Fairfax himself attempt to do, so far baffled, but
+a factor with a hold upon her name and, perhaps, upon her fortune?  And
+if the thing should all be cleared at last, and come to its end, as all
+things must, what would be the outcome for himself and Dorothy?
+
+She had told him at the start that when her business ends had been
+completely served she would wish him to dismiss himself,--from her life
+and her memory forever.  He smiled at the utter futility of such a
+behest.  It had gone beyond his power to forget like this, though a
+century of time should elapse.
+
+For an hour he paced his cage impatiently, and nothing happened.  A
+dozen times he went to the door, opened it and looked out in the
+hall--to no avail.  The moment for young Durgin to arrive was at hand.
+It was almost time for young Barnes to appear.
+
+Tuttle should have made his trip by this.  The postman should have
+brought that photograph from Israel Snow, of Rockdale.  Dorothy might
+at least 'phone.
+
+It was maddening to wait and feel so impotent!  His mind reverted to
+various phases of the case, but lingered most upon the second
+will--that might mean so much to Dorothy.  Where had it gone?  Had it
+been stolen--or hidden?  Some way he felt it was hidden.  For some
+reason, wholly illogical, he thought of Hardy lying dead with those
+grease-like stains upon his knuckles.  What did they mean?
+
+Working out a line of thought about the will, he was halted abruptly by
+a shadow on the glass of his door.  He sat down quickly at his desk and
+assumed an air of calmness he was far from feeling.  At the knock which
+came he called to the visitor to enter.
+
+The visitor entered.  It was Wicks.
+
+"Oh, how do you do?" said Garrison, rising from his chair.  "Come in.
+Come in, Mr. Wicks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A TRAGIC CULMINATION
+
+The grin on the face of Mr. Wicks had apparently deepened and become
+even more sardonic.  He glanced Garrison over in his sharp, penetrative
+manner, heightened by his nervousness, and took a chair.
+
+"Forgotten instructions, haven't you, Garrison?" he snapped, adjusting
+his thin wisp of hair.  "Where's your report on the case of Hardy, all
+these days?"
+
+"Well, I admit I've rather neglected the office," said Garrison, eying
+his visitor with a new, strange interest.  "I've been hard at work.
+I've lost no time.  The case is not at all simple."
+
+"What's all this business in the papers?  You mixing up with some niece
+of Hardy's, and the girl getting married to save an inheritance?"
+demanded Wicks.  "What the devil do you mean?"
+
+"That part is my private affair," answered Garrison calmly.  "It has
+nothing to do with my work for your company, nor has it interfered in
+the least with my prosecution of the inquiry."
+
+"Do you mean to say it hasn't delayed your reports?"
+
+"What if it has?  I've had nothing to report--particularly."
+
+"Yes, you have," snapped Wicks.  "You know it was murder--that's
+something to report!"
+
+Garrison studied the man deliberately for half a minute before
+replying.  What a living embodiment of Durgin's description of Hiram
+Cleave he was!  And what could he know of the facts in the case of
+Hardy's death that would warrant him in charging that the affair was
+known to be murder?
+
+"Do I know it was murder?" he queried coldly.  "Have I said so, Mr.
+Wicks, to you, or to anyone else?"
+
+Wicks glanced at him with a quick, roving dart from his eyes.
+
+"You saw what was printed in the papers," he answered evasively.  "You
+must have given it out."
+
+"I gave out nothing," said Garrison, bent now on a new line of thought,
+and determined that he would not accuse young Durgin by name till
+driven to the last extremity.  "But, as a matter of fact, I do know,
+Mr. Wicks, that Hardy was murdered."
+
+"Then why the devil don't you report to that effect?" snapped Wicks.
+"Are you trying to shield that young woman?"
+
+Garrison knew whom he meant, but he asked: "What young woman?"
+
+"Dorothy Booth-Fairfax!  You know who I mean!"
+
+"What has she to do with it?" Garrison inquired in apparent innocence.
+"Why should you think I'm shielding her?"
+
+"She's the likely one--the only one who could benefit by Hardy's
+death!" answered Wicks, a little less aggressively.  "You could see
+that by the accounts in the paper."
+
+"I haven't read the papers for guidance," Garrison observed dryly.
+"Have you?"
+
+"I didn't come here to answer questions.  I came to ask them.  I demand
+your report!" said Mr. Wicks.  "I want to know all that you know!"
+
+Garrison reflected that the little man knew too much.  It suddenly
+occurred to his mind, as the man's sharp eyes picked up every speck or
+fleck upon his clothing, that Wicks, in the Subway that evening when
+they rode together in the jostling crowd, could have filched that
+poisoned cigar from his pocket with the utmost ease.  He determined to
+try a little game.
+
+"I've been waiting for the last completing link in my chain," he said,
+"before accusing any man of murder.  You are right in supposing that I
+have found out more than I've reported--but only in the last few days
+and hours.  I told you before that I thought perhaps Hardy had been
+poisoned."
+
+"Well!  What more?  How was it done?"
+
+"The poison employed was crushed to a powder," and he mentioned the
+name of the stuff.
+
+"Used by photographers," commented Wicks.
+
+"Not exclusively, but at times, yes."
+
+"How was the stuff administered?"
+
+"I think in a fifteen-cent cigar."  Garrison was watching him closely
+while apparently toying with a pen.
+
+"Very good," said Wicks with an air of satisfaction that was not
+exactly understandable.  "I presume you have something to go
+on--something by way of evidence?"
+
+"No," said Garrison, "unfortunately I have not.  I had a second cigar
+which I believe was prepared with the poison, but I committed the
+blunder of losing it somewhere--Heaven alone knows where."
+
+"That's devilish poor business!" cried Wicks in apparent exasperation.
+"But you haven't said why you believe the man got the poison in any
+such manner.  On what do you base your conclusions?"
+
+"Near where the man was found dead I discovered an unsmoked cigar,"
+answered Garrison, watching the effect of his words.  "It contained
+what little of the powder the victim had not absorbed."
+
+Wicks looked at him almost calmly.
+
+"You've done good work," he said.  "It's a pity you lost that second
+cigar.  And, by the way, where did you get it?"
+
+Garrison realized that, despite his intended precautions, he had gone
+irretrievably into disclosures that were fetching the case up to
+Dorothy or young Foster Durgin.  In his eagerness to pursue a new
+theory, he had permitted Wicks to draw him farther than he had ever
+intended to go.  There was no escape.  He decided to put it through.
+
+"I got it from a box, at the coroner's office," he admitted.
+
+"Mr. Garrison, what do you mean by withholding all these facts?"
+demanded Wicks sharply.  "Where did Hardy get the box of cigars?"
+
+Garrison would gladly have evaded this question, but he was helpless.
+
+"They were a birthday present from his niece."
+
+"This Miss Booth-Fairfax?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you're in love with her!--masquerading as her husband!  What do
+you mean by saying you've not attempted to shield her?"
+
+"Now go slow, Mr. Wicks," cautioned Garrison.  "I know what I'm doing
+in this case.  It was given to me to ferret out--and I'll go through it
+to the end--no matter who is found guilty."
+
+"That's better!" said Wicks.  "You don't believe it's this young woman.
+Who else could have as good a motive?"
+
+Garrison was fighting for time.  A sacrifice was necessary.  He
+utilized young Durgin, who might, after all, be guilty.
+
+"Miss Booth, or Mrs. Fairfax, has a step-brother, by marriage," he
+said.  "He has worked at photography.  He gambles in Wall Street.  He
+was desperate--but as yet I have no positive proof that he did this
+crime.  I am waiting for developments--and expecting things at any
+moment."
+
+"Where is the man?" said Wicks.  "What's his name?"
+
+"Foster Durgin.  I'm waiting for him now.  He's fifteen minutes
+overdue."
+
+"Arrest him when he comes!" commanded Wicks.  "Take no chances on
+letting him escape!"
+
+"Perhaps that's good advice," said Garrison slowly.  "I'll think it
+over."
+
+"He's the only one you suspect?"
+
+"Well, there's one more element, somewhat vague and unsubstantiated,"
+admitted Garrison.  "There's a man, it seems, who threatened Hardy
+years ago.  He has followed Hardy about persistently.  Hardy appeared
+to fear him greatly, which accounts for his ceaseless roving.  This man
+may and may not have accomplished some long-planned revenge at
+Branchville.  He appears to be somewhat mystical, but I felt it my
+business to investigate every possible clew."
+
+"Certainly," said Wicks, whose scrutiny of Garrison's face had grown
+once more abnormally acute.  "What's his name?"
+
+Garrison focused his eyes on the man across the desk incisively.
+
+"Hiram Cleave."
+
+So far as he could see there was not so much as a flicker to show that
+his shot had gone home.
+
+Wicks spoke up, no less aggressively than before.
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"No one seems to know.  I hope to discover--and report."
+
+Wicks rose and took his hat from the desk.
+
+"Except for your negligence in appearing at the office," he said, "you
+have done fairly well.  Shall you need any help in arresting Durgin?
+If you wish it I----"
+
+A knock on the door interrupted.  A postman entered, met Garrison as he
+was stepping across the floor, and handed him a thin, flat parcel,
+crudely wrapped and tied.  It was postmarked Rockdale.
+
+Garrison knew it for the photograph--the picture of Cleave for which he
+had hoped and waited.
+
+"Wait just a minute, Mr. Wicks," he said, backing toward the door with
+intent to keep his man from departing.  "This is a letter from a friend
+who is helping on the case.  Let me look it through.  I may have more
+to report before you go."
+
+Wicks sat down again.
+
+Garrison remained by the door.  He was cutting the string on the
+package when a second knock on the glass behind him gave him a start.
+
+He opened the door.  A small, rather smiling young man was in the hall.
+
+"Mr. Garrison?" he said.  "My name is----"
+
+"How do you do?" Garrison interrupted loudly, having instantly
+recognized Foster Durgin, from a strong resemblance to his older
+brother, and instantly calling out: "Excuse me a moment, Mr. Wicks,"
+stepped out in the hall and closed the door.
+
+"My name is Durgin," said the visitor.  "I called before----"
+
+"I know," interrupted Garrison, moving down the hall and speaking in a
+voice so low he was certain Wicks could hear nothing, from behind the
+door, even should he try.  "I've been expecting you.  I want you to do
+something quickly, before we try to have a talk.  I want you to go
+downstairs, ring up police headquarters and ask for a couple of
+officers to come as quickly as they can travel."
+
+"What for?  I don't----"
+
+"I've got to arrest the man who murdered your uncle," said Garrison,
+using the most searching and startling method at command to put young
+Durgin to the test of guilt or innocence.  "Act first and come back
+afterward!"
+
+"I'm with you!" said Durgin.  "Got him, have you?--what's his name?"
+
+He was innocent.
+
+Garrison knew it, and instantly concluded that the young man before him
+could hardly have stolen the uncle's second will.  But he had no time
+for ramifying inquiries.  He pushed his visitor toward the elevator and
+only answered with more urging for speed.
+
+He returned to the office, tearing off the wrapper from his picture as
+he went.  He glanced at it once before he opened the door.  It was
+Wicks--not so bald--not so aggressive of aspect, but Wicks beyond the
+shadow of a doubt.  On the back was written "Hiram Cleave."
+
+Wicks turned upon him as he entered.
+
+"I can't wait here all day while you conduct your business in the
+hall," he said.  "Who was the man outside?"
+
+Garrison had grown singularly calm.
+
+"That," he said, "was Foster Durgin."
+
+"And you let him get away?" cried Wicks wrathfully.  "Mr. Garrison----"
+
+Garrison interrupted curtly.
+
+"I took your advice and sent him to get the police.  Good joke, isn't
+it, to have him summon the officers to arrest the man who murdered his
+uncle?"
+
+Wicks had an intuition or a fear.  He stared at Garrison wildly.
+Garrison remained by the door.
+
+"What do you mean to do?" demanded the visitor.
+
+"Wait a few minutes and see," was Garrison's reply.  "Meantime, here is
+a photograph of the man who threatened Hardy's life.  And, by the way,"
+he added, holding the picture with its face toward himself, in attitude
+of carelessness, "I forgot to say before that a man was seen entering
+Hardy's room, in Hickwood, the night of the murder.  He extracted two
+cigars from the box presented to Hardy by his niece, and in their place
+he deposited others, precisely like them, purchased at the same little
+store in Amsterdam Avenue where she obtained hers, and bought,
+moreover, within a very few minutes of her visit to the shop.  All of
+which bears upon the case."
+
+Wicks was eying him now with a menacing, furtive glance that shifted
+with extraordinary rapidity.  He had paled a trifle about the mouth.
+
+"Mr. Garrison," he said, "you are trifling with this matter.  What do
+you mean?"
+
+"Just what I said," answered Garrison.  "The witness who saw the
+murderer leave his deadly cigars in that box should have arrived by now
+to identify the criminal.  This photograph, as I said before, is a
+picture of the man I think guilty."
+
+He advanced a step, with no intention of abandoning the door, and
+delivered the picture into his visitor's hand.
+
+Wicks glanced down at it furtively.  His face turned livid.
+
+"So!" he cried.  "You think you----  Get away from that door!"
+
+He made a swift movement forward, but Garrison blocked his way.
+
+"Not till your friends the policemen arrive!" he said.  "It was your
+own suggestion, and good."
+
+"You act like a crazy man!" Wicks declared with a sudden change of
+manner.  "I'll have you discharged--you are discharged!  The case is
+out of your hands.  You----"
+
+For the third time a knock was sounded on the door.
+
+"Come in!" called Garrison, keeping his eyes on Wicks, whose face had
+turned from the red of rage to the white of sudden fear.  "Come
+in--don't wait!"
+
+It was Pike and young Will Barnes.
+
+"That's the man!" said the youth on entering, his eyes transfixed by
+Wicks.  "Look at him laugh!"
+
+"I'd kill you all if I had a gun!" cried Wicks in an outburst of
+malignity.  "I killed Hardy, yes!  I said I'd get him, and I got him!
+It's all I lived for, but, by Heaven! you'll never take me to jail
+alive!"
+
+He caught up a chair, ran to the window, and beat out the glass with a
+blow.  Garrison ran to snatch him back, but Wicks swung the chair and
+it broke on Garrison's head and he went down abruptly in a heap.
+
+There were two sharp cries.  Wicks made one as he leaped to his death
+from the sill.
+
+The other came in a woman's utterance.
+
+It was Dorothy, at the open door.
+
+"Jerold!" she cried, and ran into the room and knelt where he lay on
+the floor.
+
+He was merely stunned.  He recovered as if by the power of
+stubbornness, with his mind strangely occupied by thoughts of Hardy's
+will--the hidden will--and the fingers stained with black.  When he
+opened his eyes he was looking up in the sweetest, most anxious face in
+all the world.
+
+"Help me up.  Let me go before everyone comes," he said.  "I believe I
+know where to find your uncle's will!"
+
+It was already too late.  Durgin and two policemen appeared at the open
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+FOSTER DURGIN
+
+Confusion reigned in the office presently, for more of the officers
+came upon the scene, and people from adjoining rooms helped to swell
+the numbers.  Everyone was talking at once.
+
+The form of Wicks, motionless and broken, lay far below the window, on
+the pavement of an air and light shaft, formed like a niche in the
+building.  Garrison sent Dorothy to her lodgings, promising to visit
+her soon.  There was nothing she could do in such a place, and he felt
+there was much she should be spared.
+
+Pike, young Barnes, and Foster Durgin remained, the two former as
+witnesses of what had occurred, Durgin by Garrison's request.  All
+others were presently closed out of the office, and the body of Wicks
+was removed.
+
+The hour that followed, an hour of answering questions, making
+statements, proving who he was and what, was a time that Garrison
+disliked exceedingly, but it could not be escaped.  Reporters had
+speedily gathered; the story would make a highly sensational sequel to
+the one already printed.
+
+The guilt of Wicks had been confessed.  Corroborative testimony being
+quite abundant, and every link in the chain complete, the affair left
+no possible suspicion resting upon either Scott or any of Hardy's
+relatives; and Garrison and Durgin refused to talk of Dorothy's
+marriage or anything concerning the will.
+
+The story used before was, of course, reviewed at length.  Despite the
+delays of the investigation immediately undertaken, Garrison managed at
+last to secure the freedom of Pike and Will Barnes, in addition to that
+of himself and Foster Durgin.  As good as his word, he took the
+disciple of Walton to a first-class dealer in sportsmen's articles and
+bought him a five-dollar rod.  Barnes and the coroner of Branchville
+started somewhat late for their town.
+
+The evening was fairly well advanced when at length young Durgin and
+Garrison found themselves enabled to escape officials, reporters, and
+the merely curious, to retire to a quiet restaurant for something to
+eat and a chat.
+
+Durgin, as he sat there confronting his host, presented a picture to
+Garrison of virtues mixed with hurtful tendencies.  A certain look of
+melancholy lingered about his eyes.  His mouth was of the sensitive
+description.  His gaze was steady, but a boyish expression of defiance
+somewhat marred an otherwise pleasant countenance.
+
+He showed both the effects of early spoiling and the subsequent
+intolerance of altered conditions.  On the whole, however, he seemed a
+manly young fellow in whom regeneration was more than merely promised.
+
+Garrison ordered the dinner--and his taste was both excellent and
+generous.
+
+"Mr. Durgin," he said at last with startling candor, "it looked for a
+time as if you yourself were concerned in the death of Mr. Hardy.  More
+than half the pleasure that Dorothy will experience in the outcome of
+to-day's affairs will arise from her knowledge of your innocence."
+
+Foster met his gaze steadily.
+
+"I am sorry for many of the worries I have caused," he said, in a
+quiet, unresentful manner, free alike from surprise or anger.  "I've
+been trying to do better.  You knew I'd been away?"
+
+"That was one of the features of the case that looked a little
+suspicious," answered Garrison.
+
+"I didn't care to tell where I was going, in case my mission should
+fail," the young fellow imparted.  "I went after work--good, clean,
+well-paying work--and I got it.  I can hold up my head at last."
+
+A look of pride had come upon his face, but his lip was trembling.
+That the fight he had waged with himself was manly, and worthily won,
+to some considerable extent, was a thing that Garrison felt.  He had no
+intention of preaching and no inclination for the task.
+
+"'Nuff said," he answered.  "Shake.  Here comes the soup."
+
+They shook hands over the table.  No further reference was made to a
+personal subject.  Some way Garrison felt that a man had come to take
+the place of a boy, and while he reflected that the fight was not yet
+absolutely finished, and the bitterness of it might remain for some
+time yet to come, nevertheless he was thoroughly convinced that through
+some great lesson, or some awakening influence, Foster had come to his
+manhood and could henceforth be trusted to merit respect and the trust
+of all his fellow-beings.
+
+Garrison, alone, at nine o'clock, had an impulse to hasten off to
+Branchville.  In the brief time of lying unconscious on the floor when
+Wicks struck him down, he had felt some strange psychic sense take
+possession of his being, long enough for the room that Hardy had
+occupied in Hickwood to come into vision, as if through walls made
+transparent.
+
+He had merely a dim, fading memory that when he awoke he had spoken to
+Dorothy, telling her to help him to go, that the hiding-place of
+Hardy's will had been at last revealed.  As he thought of it now, on
+his way to Dorothy's abiding place, he shook his head in doubt.  It was
+probably all an idle dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE RICHES OF THE WORLD
+
+Dorothy was waiting to see him.  She was still excited, still anxious
+concerning himself.  She had quite forgotten his words about the will
+in her worry lest the blow on his head had proved more serious than had
+at first appeared.
+
+He met her quietly in a large, common parlor--the duplicate of a
+thousand such rooms in New York--and was thoroughly determined to curb
+the impetuous surging of his feelings.  She was wearing a bunch of his
+carnations, and had never seemed more beautiful in all her wondrous
+moods of beauty.
+
+Just to have sat where he could look upon her all he wished, without
+restraint or conventions, would almost have satisfied his soul.  But
+she gave him her hand with a grace so compelling, and her eyes asked
+their question so tenderly--a question only of his welfare--that riot
+was loosed in his veins once more and love surged over him in billows.
+
+"I was afraid you might not come," she said.  "I have never been more
+worried or afraid.  Such a terrible moment--all of it--and that
+creature striking you down!  If you hadn't come I'd have been so sure
+you were very badly hurt.  I'd have felt so guilty for all I've done to
+jeopardize your life in my petty affairs."
+
+"It's all right.  I was ashamed for going out so easily," said
+Garrison, turning away in self-defense and seating himself in a chair.
+"He struck me so suddenly I had no time to guard.  But that part isn't
+worth another thought."
+
+"I thought it the _only_ part worth anything," said Dorothy in her
+honesty.  "It came upon me suddenly that nothing I was after was worth
+the risks you've been assuming in my behalf.  And they may not be
+ended.  I wish they were.  I wish it were all at an end!  But Foster is
+innocent.  If you knew how glad I am of that you would feel a little
+repaid."
+
+"I feel thoroughly repaid and gratified," said Garrison.  "I have told
+you before that I am glad you came into my existence with your
+need--your case.  I have no regret over anything that has happened--to
+myself.  It has been life to me--life!  And I take a certain pride in
+feeling that when you come to dismiss me, at the end, I shall not have
+been an absolute disappointment."
+
+She looked at him in a new alarm.  He had purposely spoken somewhat
+bluntly of his impending dismissal.  She had come to a realizing sense
+that she could never dismiss him from her life--that to have him near,
+to know he was well--to love him, in a word--had become the one motive
+of her life.
+
+Nevertheless she was helpless.  And he was treating the matter as if
+her fate were sealed to that of Fairfax indissolubly.  What little
+timid hopes she might have entertained of gaining her freedom, some
+time in the future, and saving herself, soul and body, for him--all
+this he had somewhat dimmed by this reference to going from her ken.
+
+"But I--I haven't said anything about dismissing--anyone," she
+faltered.  "I hadn't thought----"  She left her sentence incomplete.
+
+"I know," said Jerold.  "There has been so much to think about, the
+subject may have been neglected.  As a matter of fact, however, I am
+already out of it, supplanted by your genuine husband.  We can no
+longer maintain the pretense.
+
+"The moment Mr. Fairfax and Theodore chance to meet, our bit of
+theatricalism goes to pieces.  We would scarcely dare to face a court,
+in a will probation, with Fairfax on the scene.  So, I say, I am
+practically eliminated already."
+
+The one thing that remained in her mind at the end of his speech was
+not in the least the main concern.  She looked at him with pain in her
+eyes.
+
+"Has it been nothing but a bit of theatricalism, after all?"
+
+He dared not permit himself to answer from his heart.  He kept up his
+show of amusement, or indifference to sentiment.
+
+"We have played theatric rôles to a small but carefully selected
+audience," he said.  "I for a fee, and you--for needful ends.  We might
+as well be frank, as we were the day it all began."
+
+It was the way of a woman to be hurt.  She felt there was something of
+a sting in what he said.  She knew she had halted his impassioned
+declaration of love--but only because of the right.  She had heard it,
+despite her protest--and had treasured it since, and echoed it over in
+her heart repeatedly.
+
+She wished him to say it all again--all of it and more--but--not just
+yet.  She wanted him to let her know that he loved her more than
+anything else in the world, but not by spoken words of passion.
+
+"I am sorry if I've seemed so--so heartless in it all," she said.  "I
+hadn't the slightest intention of--of permitting you to----"
+
+"I know," he interrupted, certain he knew what she meant.  "I haven't
+accused anyone.  It was all my own fault.  We'll drop it, if you wish."
+
+"You haven't let me finish," she insisted.  "I started to say that I
+had no intention of making you feel like--like nothing more than an
+agent--toward me--I mean, I had no intention of appearing to you like a
+selfish, heartless woman, willing to sacrifice the sweetest--the
+various things of life to gain my ends.  I want you to believe that
+I--I'd rather you wouldn't call it all just mere theatrics."
+
+Garrison gripped his chair, to restrain the impulse to rise and take
+her in his arms.  He could almost have groaned, for the love in his
+heart must lie there, dumb and all but hopeless.
+
+"Dorothy," he said when he felt his mastery complete, "I have already
+made it hard enough for myself by committing a folly against which you
+gave me ample warning.  I am trying now to redeem myself and merit your
+trust and regard."
+
+Her eyes met his in a long, love-revealing look--a look that could
+bridge all the gulfs of time and the vast abyss of space itself--and
+words would have been but a jar.  Whatever the outcome, after this,
+nothing could rob them of the deep, supernal joy that flashed there
+between them for a moment.
+
+Even when her lashes fell, at last, the silence was maintained.
+
+After a time Garrison spoke again, returning to earth and the
+unfinished labor before him.
+
+"I must go," he said, consulting his watch.  "I hope to catch a train
+for Branchville in order to be there early in the morning."
+
+"On our--this business?" she inquired.
+
+He felt it quite impossible to raise her hopes--or perhaps her
+fears--by announcing he felt he should find John Hardy's latest will.
+Moreover, he had undergone a wakeful man's distrust of the "dream" he
+had experienced after falling at the hands of Wicks.  He resorted to a
+harmless deceit, which, after all, was not entirely deceitful.
+
+"Mr. Fairfax left for Branchville--he said to spring a surprise," he
+imparted.  "I thought it would do no harm to be on hand and prepare for
+his moves, as far as possible."
+
+He had risen.  Dorothy did likewise.  A slight suggestion of paleness
+overspread her face, followed at once by a faint, soft flush of color.
+
+"I hope you will try to avoid him--avoid anything that might be
+dangerous," she faltered.  "I feel already I shall never be able to
+forgive myself for the dangers into which I have sent you."
+
+"This is the surest way to avoid any possible dangers," he assured her.
+"And, by the way, there is no particular reason now why you should
+longer remain away from Ninety-third Street.  The newspaper men have
+done their worst, and the Robinsons will be entirely disarmed by the
+various events that have happened--unless Theodore should happen to
+spring a new surprise, and in any event you might be far more
+comfortable."
+
+"Perhaps I will return--some time to-morrow," she said.  "I'll see."
+
+Garrison went to the door and she walked at his side.
+
+He merely said: "Good-night--and Heaven bless you, Dorothy."
+
+She answered: "Good-night, Jerold," and gave him her hand.
+
+He held it for a moment--the riches of the world.  And when he had gone
+they felt they had divided, equally, a happiness too great for
+terrestrial measurement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+JOHN HARDY'S WILL
+
+Garrison slept the sleep of physical exhaustion that night in
+Branchville.  The escape from New York's noise and turmoil was welcome
+to his weary body.  He had been on a strain day after day, and much of
+it still remained.  Yet, having cleared away the mystery concerning
+Hardy's death, he felt entitled to a let-down of the tension.
+
+In the morning he was early on the road to Hickwood--his faculties all
+eagerly focused on the missing will.  He felt it might all prove the
+merest vagary of his mind--his theory of his respecting old Hardy and
+this testament.  But stubbornly his mind clung fast to a few important
+facts.
+
+Old Hardy had always been secretive, for Dorothy had so reported.  He
+had carried his will away with him on leaving Albany.  It had not been
+stolen--so far as anyone could know.  Coupled with all this was the
+fact that the dead man's hands' had been stained upon the
+knuckles--stained black, with a grimy something hard to wash
+away--perhaps the soot, the greasy, moldy old soot of a chimney,
+encountered in the act of secreting the will, and later only partially
+removed.  It seemed as clear as crystal to the reasoning mind of
+Garrison as he hastened along on the road.
+
+He passed the home of Scott, the inventor, and mentally jotted down a
+reminder that the man, being innocent, must be paid his insurance now
+without delay.
+
+Mrs. Wilson was working in her garden, at the rear of the house, when
+Garrison arrived.  She was wonderfully pleased to see him.  She had
+read the papers--which Garrison had not--and discovered what a truly
+remarkable personage he was.
+
+The credit of more than ordinarily clever work had been meted out by
+the columnful, and his name glared boldly from the vivid account of all
+he had done in the case.  All this and more he found himself obliged to
+face at the hands of Mrs. Wilson, before he could manage to enter the
+house and go as before to Hardy's room.
+
+It was just precisely as he had seen it on his former visit.  It had
+not been rented since, partially on account of the fact that Hardy's
+fate had cast an evil shadow upon it.
+
+Garrison lost no time in his search.  He followed his theory.  It led
+him straight to the fireplace, with its crudely painted board, built to
+occupy its opening.  Behind this, he felt, should be the will.
+
+The board was stuck.  Mrs. Wilson hastened to her sitting-room to fetch
+a screwdriver back to pry it out.  Garrison gave it a kick, at the
+bottom, in her absence, thus jarring it loose, and the top fell forward
+in his hand.
+
+He put his hand far up, inside the chimney--and on a ledge of brick,
+where his knuckles picked up a coating of moldy, greasy soot, his
+fingers encountered an envelope and knocked it from its lodgment.  It
+fell on the fender at the bottom of the place.  He caught it up, only
+taking time to note a line, "Will of John Hardy," written upon it--and,
+cramming it into his pocket, thrust the board back into place as Mrs.
+Wilson entered at the door.
+
+It was not with intent to deceive the good woman that he had thus
+abruptly decided to deny her the knowledge of his find, but rather as a
+sensible precaution against mere idle gossip, which could achieve no
+particular advantage.
+
+Therefore when she pried the board from place, and nothing was
+discovered behind it, he thanked her profusely, made a wholly
+perfunctory examination of the room, and presently escaped.
+
+Not until he found himself far from any house, on the road he was
+treading to Branchville, did he think of removing the package from his
+pocket.  He found it then to be a plain white envelope indorsed with
+this inscription:
+
+
+Last will of John Hardy.  To be opened after my death, and then by my
+niece, Dorothy Fairfax, only.
+
+
+Denied the knowledge whether it might mean fortune or poverty to the
+girl he loved, and feeling that, after all, his labors might heap great
+unearned rewards on Fairfax, bestowing on himself the mere hollow
+consciousness that his work had been well performed, he was presently
+seated once more in a train that roared its way down to New York.
+
+There was still an hour left of the morning when he alighted at the
+Grand Central Station.  He went at once to Dorothy's latest abode.
+
+She was out.  The landlady knew nothing whatever of her whereabouts.
+Impatient of every delay, and eager to know not only the contents of
+the will, but what it might mean to have Dorothy gone in this manner,
+he felt himself baffled and helpless.  He could only leave a note and
+proceed to his office.
+
+Tuttle was there when he arrived.  He had nothing to report of
+Fairfax--of whom Garrison himself had heard no word in Branchville--but
+concerning the house in Ninety-third Street there was just a mite of
+news.
+
+He had been delayed in entering by the temporary absence of the
+caretaker.  He had finally succeeded in making his way to the closet in
+Theodore's room--and the telephone was gone.  Theodore had evidently
+found a means to enter by the stairs at the rear, perhaps through the
+house next door.  The caretaker felt quite certain he had not set foot
+inside the door since Garrison issued his orders.
+
+Garrison wrote a note to Theodore, in reply to the one received the day
+before, suggesting a meeting here at this office at noon, or as soon as
+convenient.
+
+"Take that out," he said to Tuttle, "and send it by messenger.  Then
+return to the house where Fairfax had his room and see if there's any
+news of him."
+
+Tuttle opened the door to go just as Dorothy, who had arrived outside,
+was about to knock.  Garrison beheld her as she stepped slightly back.
+He rose from his seat and hastened towards her.
+
+"Excuse me," said Tuttle, and he went his way.
+
+"Come in," said Garrison.  "Come in, Dorothy.  I've been at your house
+and missed you."
+
+She was somewhat pale.
+
+"Yes, I couldn't stay--I wanted to see you the moment you returned,"
+she told him.  "Theodore has found my address, I don't know how, and
+sent me a note in which he says he has something new--some dreadful
+surprise----"
+
+"Never mind Theodore," Garrison interrupted.  "Sit down and get your
+breath.  He couldn't have come upon much in all his hunting--much, I
+mean, that we do not already know.  In the meantime, get ready for
+news--I can't tell what sort of news, but--I've found your uncle's
+latest will!"
+
+Dorothy made no attempt to speak for a moment.  Her face became almost
+ashen.  Then it brightened.  Alarm went from her eyes and she even
+mustered a smile.
+
+"It doesn't make a great deal of difference now, whatever Uncle John
+may have done," she said.  "Foster and Alice will be all right--but,
+where did you find it?  Where has it been?"
+
+"I found it at the room he occupied in Hickwood--and fetched it along."
+
+He produced it from his pocket and placed it in her hand.
+
+Despite her most courageous efforts she was weak and nervously excited.
+Her hands fairly trembled as she tore the envelope across.
+
+"Take it calmly," said Garrison.  "Don't be hurried."
+
+She could make no reply.  She drew the will from its sheath and,
+spreading it open, glanced through it rapidly.
+
+"Dear Uncle John!" she presently said, in a voice that all but broke.
+"He has willed it all to me, with no conditions--all except a nice
+little sum for Foster--poor Foster, I'm so glad!"
+
+She broke down and cried.
+
+Garrison said nothing.  He went to the window and let her cry it out.
+
+She was drying her eyes, in an effort to regain her self-control, when
+someone knocked and immediately opened the door.
+
+Garrison turned.  Dorothy had risen quickly to her feet.
+
+It was Theodore who stood in the doorway.  He had come before
+Garrison's note could be delivered.
+
+"Come in," said Garrison.  "You're just the man I wish to see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+GARRISON'S VALUED FRIEND
+
+Dorothy, catching up the precious will, had retreated from Theodore's
+advance.  She made no effort to greet him, even with so much as a nod.
+
+"I thought I might possibly find you both, and save a little time,"
+said Robinson, striding in boldly, with no sign of removing his hat.
+"Seems I hit it off about right."
+
+"Charmingly," said Garrison.  "Won't you sit down and take off your hat
+and stay a while?"
+
+"You sound cheerful," said Theodore, drawing forth a chair and seating
+himself in comfort.  "Perhaps you realize the game is up at last."
+
+"Yes," agreed Garrison.  "I think we do--but it's good of you to come
+and accept our notice, I'm sure."
+
+"I didn't come to accept notice--I came to give it," said young
+Robinson self-confidently.  "I've recently returned from Rockbeach,
+where I went to investigate your so-called marriage."
+
+He had seen or heard nothing of Fairfax; that was obvious.
+
+"Well?" said Garrison.  "Proceed."
+
+"That's about enough, ain't it?" said Theodore.  "The marriage having
+been a fraud, what's the use of beating around the bush?  If you care
+to fix it up on decent terms, I'll make no attempt to break the will
+when it comes up for probate, but otherwise I'll smash your case to
+splinters."
+
+"You've put it quite clearly," said Garrison.  "You are offering to
+compromise.  Very generous.  Let me have the floor for half a minute.
+I've had your man Tuttle on your trail, when you thought you had him on
+mine, for some little time.
+
+"I happen to know that you stole two necklaces in the keeping of Mrs.
+Fairfax, on the night I met you first, and placed them on the neck of
+some bold young woman in the house next door, where, as you may
+remember, I saw you dressed as Mephistopheles.  You----"
+
+"I stole nothing of the kind!" interrupted Theodore.  "She's got
+them----"
+
+"Never mind that," Garrison interposed.  "Let's go on.  You installed a
+'phone in your closet, at the house in Ninety-third Street, and on the
+night when you overheard an appointment I made with Mrs. Fairfax, you
+plugged in, overheard it, abducted Dorothy, under the influence of
+chloroform, stole her wedding-certificate, and delivered me over to the
+hands of a pair of hired assassins to have me murdered in Central Park.
+
+"All this, with the robbery you hired Tuttle to commit at Branchville,
+ought to keep you reflecting in prison for some little time to come--if
+you think you'd like to go to court and air your grievances publicly."
+
+Theodore was intensely white.  Yet his nerve was not entirely destroyed.
+
+"All this won't save your bacon, when I turn over all my affidavits,"
+he said.  "The property won't go to you when the will's before the
+court.  The man who married you in Rockbeach was no justice of the
+peace, and you know it, Mr. Jerold Garrison.  You assumed the name of
+Fairfax and hired a low-down political heeler, who hadn't been a
+justice for fully five years, to act the part and marry you to Dorothy.
+
+"I've got the affidavits.  If you think that's going to sound well in
+public--if you think it's pleasant to Dorothy now to know what a
+blackguard you are, why let's get on the job, both of us flinging the
+mud!"
+
+Dorothy was pale and tense with new excitement.
+
+"Wait a minute, please," said Garrison.  "You say you have legal
+affidavits that the man who performed that marriage ceremony was a
+fraud, paid to act the part?--that the marriage was a sham--no marriage
+at all?"
+
+"You know it wasn't!" Theodore shouted at him triumphantly, pulling
+legal-looking papers from his pocket.  "And you were married to another
+wretched woman at the time.  Let Dorothy try to get some joy out of
+that, if she can--and you, too!"
+
+"Thank you, I've got mine," said Garrison quietly.  "You're the very
+best friend I've seen for weeks.  Fairfax, the man who has done this
+unspeakable wrong, is a lunatic, somewhere between here and up country,
+at this moment.  He was here in town for a couple of days, and I
+thought you might have met him."
+
+"You--what do you mean?" demanded Theodore.
+
+"Just what I say," said Garrison.  "I'll pay you five hundred dollars
+for your affidavits, if they're genuine, and you may be interested to
+know, by the way of news, that a later will by your step-uncle, John
+Hardy, has come to light, willing everything to Dorothy--without
+conditions.  You wasted time by going out of town."
+
+"A new will!--I refuse to believe it!" said Robinson, weak with
+apprehension.
+
+Garrison drew open a drawer of his desk and took out a loaded revolver.
+He knew his man and meant to take no risk.  Crossing to Dorothy, he
+took the will from her hand.
+
+"This is the document," he said.  "Signed and witnessed in the best of
+legal form.  And speaking of leaving town, let me suggest that you
+might avoid a somewhat unhealthily close confinement by making your
+residence a good long way from Manhattan."
+
+Robinson aged before their very eyes.  The ghastly pallor remained on
+his face.  His shoulders lost something of their squareness.  A muscle
+was twitching about his mouth.  His eyes were dulled as he tried once
+more to meet the look of the man across the desk.
+
+He knew he was beaten--and fear had come upon him, fear of the
+consequences earned by the things he had done.  He had neither the will
+nor the means to renew the fight.  Twice his lips parted, in his effort
+to speak, before he mastered his impotent rage and regained the power
+to think.  He dropped his documents weakly on the desk.
+
+"I'll take your five hundred for the papers," he said.  "How much time
+will you give me to go?"
+
+"Two days," said Garrison.  "I'll send you a check to-morrow morning."
+
+Theodore turned to depart.  Tuttle had returned.  He knocked on the
+door and entered.  Startled thus to find himself face to face with
+Robinson, he hesitated where he stood.
+
+"So," said Theodore with one more gasp of anger, "you sold me out, did
+you, Tuttle?  I might have expected it of you!"
+
+Tuttle would have answered, and not without heat.  Garrison interposed.
+
+"It's all right, Tuttle," he said.  "Robinson knows when he's done.  I
+told him you were in a better camp.  Any news of Mr. Fairfax for us
+all?"
+
+"It's out in the papers," said Tuttle in reply, taking two copies of an
+evening edition from his pocket.  "It seems a first wife of Mr. Fairfax
+has nabbed him, up at White Plains.  But he's crazy, so she'll put him
+away."
+
+For the first time in all the scene Dorothy spoke.
+
+She merely said, "Thank Heaven!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+A HONEYMOON
+
+A month had flown to the bourne whence no summer charms return.
+
+August had laid a calming hand on all the gray Atlantic, dimpling its
+surface with invitations to the color and glory of the sky.  The world
+turned almost visibly here, in this vast expanse of waters, bringing
+its meed of joys and sorrows to the restless human creatures on its
+bosom.
+
+Jerold and Dorothy, alone at last, even among so many passengers, were
+four days deep in their honeymoon, with all the delights of Europe
+looming just ahead.
+
+There was nothing left undone in the case of Hardy.  Scott had been
+paid his insurance; the Robinsons had fled; Foster Durgin and his wife
+were united by a bond of work and happiness; the house in Ninety-third
+Street was rented, and Fairfax was almost comfortable at a "sanatorium"
+where his wife came frequently to see him.
+
+With their arms interlocked, Dorothy and Jerold watched the sun go
+down, from the taffrail of the mighty ocean liner.
+
+When the moon rose, two hours later, they were still on deck, alone.
+
+And when they came to a shadow, built for two, they paused in their
+perfect understanding.  She put her arms about his neck and gave him a
+kiss upon the lips.  His arms were both about her, folding her close to
+his breast.
+
+"It's such a rest to love you all I please," she whispered.  "It was
+very, very hard, even from the first, to keep it from telling itself."
+
+Such is the love that glorifies the world.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Husband by Proxy, by Jack Steele
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Husband by Proxy, by Jack Steele
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Husband by Proxy
+
+Author: Jack Steele
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2006 [EBook #19523]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HUSBAND BY PROXY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HUSBAND BY PROXY
+
+
+By
+
+JACK STEELE
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1909, by
+
+Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+      I.  THE PROPOSITION
+     II.  A SECOND EMPLOYMENT
+    III.  TWO ENCOUNTERS
+     IV.  UNSPOKEN ANTAGONISM
+      V.  THE "SHADOW"
+     VI.  THE CORONER
+    VII.  A STARTLING DISCOVERY
+   VIII.  WHERE CLEWS MAY POINT
+     IX.  A SUMMONS
+      X.  A COMPLICATION
+     XI.  THE SHOCK OF TRUTH
+    XII.  A DISTURBING LOSS
+   XIII.  A TRYST IN THE PARK
+    XIV.  A PACKAGE OF DEATH
+     XV.  SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES
+    XVI.  IN QUEST OF DOROTHY
+   XVII.  A RESCUE BY FORCE
+  XVIII.  THE RACE
+    XIX.  FRIGHT AND A DISAPPEARANCE
+     XX.  NEW HAPPENINGS
+    XXI.  REVELATIONS
+   XXII.  A MAN IN THE CASE
+  XXIII.  THE ENEMY'S TRACKS
+   XXIV.  A NEW ALARM
+    XXV.  A DEARTH OF CLEWS
+   XXVI.  STARTLING DISCLOSURES
+  XXVII.  LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
+ XXVIII.  A HELPLESS SITUATION
+   XXIX.  NIGHT-WALKERS
+    XXX.  OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY
+   XXXI.  THE FRET OF WAITING
+  XXXII.  A TRAGIC CULMINATION
+ XXXIII.  FOSTER DURGIN
+  XXXIV.  THE RICHES OF THE WORLD
+   XXXV.  JOHN HARDY'S WILL
+  XXXVI.  GARRISON'S VALUED FRIEND
+ XXXVII.  A HONEYMOON
+
+
+
+
+A Husband by Proxy
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PROPOSITION
+
+With the hum of New York above, below, and all about him, stirring his
+pulses and prodding his mental activities, Jerold Garrison, expert
+criminologist, stood at the window of his recently opened office,
+looking out upon the roofs and streets of the city with a new sense of
+pride and power in his being.
+
+New York at last!
+
+He was here--unknown and alone, it was true--but charged with an energy
+that he promised Manhattan should feel.
+
+He was almost penniless, with his office rent, his licenses, and other
+expenses paid, but he shook his fist at the city, in sheer good nature
+and confidence in his strength, despite the fact he had waited a week
+for expected employment, and nothing at present loomed upon the horizon.
+
+His past, in a small Ohio town, was behind him.  He blotted it out
+without regret--or so at least he said to himself--even as to all the
+gilded hopes which had once seemed his all upon earth.  If his heart
+was not whole, no New York eye should see its wounds--and the healing
+process had begun.
+
+He was part of the vast machine about him, the mighty brain, as it
+were, of the great American nation.
+
+He paced the length of his room, and glanced at the door.  The
+half-painted sign on the frosted glass was legible, reversed, as the
+artist had left it:
+
+    JEROLD --------
+    CRIMINOLOGIST.
+
+
+He had halted the painter himself on the name, as the lettering
+appeared too fanciful--not sufficiently plain or bold.
+
+While he stood there a shadow fell upon the glass.  Someone was
+standing outside, in the hall.  As if undecided, the owner of the
+shadow oscillated for a moment--and disappeared.  Garrison, tempted to
+open the door and gratify a natural curiosity, remained beside his
+desk.  Mechanically his hand, which lay upon a book entitled "A
+Treatise on Poisons," closed the volume.
+
+He was still watching the door.  The shadow returned, the knob was
+revolved, and there, in the oaken frame, stood a tall young woman of
+extraordinary beauty, richly though quietly dressed, and swiftly
+changing color with excitement.
+
+Pale in one second, crimson in the next, and evidently concentrating
+all her power on an effort to be calm, she presented a strangely
+appealing and enchanting figure to the man across the room.  Bravery
+was blazing in her glorious brown eyes, and firmness came upon her
+manner as she stepped inside, closed the door, and silently confronted
+the detective.
+
+The man she was studying was a fine-looking, clean-cut fellow,
+gray-eyed, smooth-shaven, with thick brown hair, and with a
+gentleman-athlete air that made him distinctly attractive.  The
+fearless, honest gaze of his eyes completed a personal charm that was
+undeniable in his entity.
+
+It seemed rather long that the two thus stood there, face to face.
+Garrison candidly admiring in his gaze, his visitor studious and
+slightly uncertain.
+
+She was the first to speak.
+
+"Are you Mr. Jerold?"
+
+"Jerold Garrison," the detective answered.  "My sign is unfinished.
+May I offer you a chair?"
+
+His caller sat down beside the desk.  She continued to study his face
+frankly, with a half-shy, half-defiant scrutiny, as if she banished a
+natural diffidence under pressure of necessity.
+
+She spoke again, abruptly.
+
+"I wish to procure peculiar services.  Are you a very well-known
+detective?"
+
+"I have never called myself a detective," said Garrison.  "I'm trying
+to occupy a higher sphere of usefulness.  I left college a year ago,
+and last week opened my office here and became a New Yorker."
+
+He might, in all modesty, have exhibited a scrap-book filled with
+accounts of his achievements, with countless references to his work as
+a "scientific criminologist" of rare mental attainments.  Of his
+attainments as a gentleman there was no need of reference.  They
+proclaimed themselves in his bearing.
+
+His visitor laid a glove and a scrap of paper on the desk.
+
+"It isn't so much detective services I require," she said; "but of
+course you are widely acquainted in New York--I mean with young men
+particularly?"
+
+"No," he replied, "I know almost none.  But I know the city fairly
+well, if that will answer your purpose."
+
+"I thought, of course--I hoped you might know some honorable----  You
+see, I have come on rather extraordinary business," she said, faltering
+a little helplessly.  "Let me ask you first--is the confidence of a
+possible client quite sacred with a man in this profession?"
+
+"Absolutely sacred!" he assured her.  "Whether you engage my services
+or not, your utterances here will be treated as confidential and as
+inviolate as if spoken to a lawyer, a doctor, or a clergyman."
+
+"Thank you," she murmured.  "I have been hunting around----"
+
+She left the sentence incomplete.
+
+"And you found my name quite by accident," he supplied, indicating the
+scrap of paper.  "I cannot help observing that you have been to other
+offices first.  You have tramped all the way down Broadway from
+Forty-second Street, for the red ink that someone spilled at the
+Forty-first Street crossing is still on your shoe, together with just a
+film of dust."
+
+She withdrew her shoe beneath the edge of her skirt, although he had
+never apparently glanced in that direction.
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "I have been to others--and they wouldn't do.  I
+came in here because of the name--Jerold.  I am sorry you are not
+better acquainted--for my business is important."
+
+"Perhaps if I knew the nature of your needs I might be able to advise
+you," said Garrison.  "I hope to be more widely acquainted soon."
+
+She cast him one look, full of things inscrutable, and lowered her
+lashes in silence.  She was evidently striving to overcome some
+indecision.
+
+Garrison looked at her steadily.  He thought he had never in his life
+beheld a woman so beautiful.  Some wild, unruly hope that she might
+become his client, perhaps even a friend, was flaring in his mind.
+
+The color came and went in her cheeks, adding fresh loveliness at every
+change.  She glanced at her list of names, from which a number had been
+scratched.
+
+"Well," she said presently, "I think perhaps you might still be able to
+attend to my requirements."
+
+He waited to hear her continue, but she needed encouragement.
+
+"I shall be glad to try," he assured her.
+
+She was silent again--and blushing.  She looked up somewhat defiantly.
+
+"I wish you to procure me a husband."
+
+Garrison stared.  He was certain he had heard incorrectly.
+
+"I do not mean an actual husband," she explained.  "I simply mean some
+honorable young man who will assume the role for a time, as a business
+proposition, for a fee to be paid as I would pay for anything else.
+
+"I would require that he understand the affair to be strictly
+commercial, and that when I wish the arrangement to terminate he will
+disappear from the scene and from my acquaintance at once and
+absolutely.
+
+"All I ask of you is to supply me such a person.  I will pay you
+whatever fee you may demand--in reason."
+
+Garrison looked at her as fixedly as she was looking at him.
+
+Her recital of her needs had brought to the surface a phase of
+desperation in her bearing that wrought upon him potently, he knew not
+why.
+
+"I think I understand your requirements, as far as one can in the
+circumstances," he answered.  "I hardly believe I have the ability to
+engage such a person as you need for such a mission.  I informed you at
+the start that my acquaintance with New York men is exceedingly narrow.
+I cannot think of anyone I could honestly recommend."
+
+"But don't you know any honorable young gentleman--like some college
+man, perhaps--here in New York, looking for employment; someone who
+might be glad to earn, say, five hundred dollars?" she insisted.
+"Surely if you only know a few, there must be one among them."
+
+Garrison sat back in his chair and took hold of his smooth-shaved lip
+with his thumb and finger.  He reviewed his few New York experiences
+rapidly.
+
+"No," he repeated.  "I know of no such man.  I am sorry."
+
+His visitor looked at him with a new, flashing light in her eyes.
+
+"Not one?" she said, significantly.  "Not one young _college_ man?"
+
+He was unsuspicious of her meaning.
+
+"Not one."
+
+For a moment she fingered her glove where it lay upon the desk.  Then a
+look of more pronounced determination and courage came upon her face as
+she raised her eyes once more to Garrison's.
+
+She said:
+
+"Are you married?"
+
+A flush came at once upon Garrison's face--and memories and heartaches
+possessed him for a poignant moment.  He mastered himself almost
+instantly.
+
+"No," he said with some emotion, "I am not."
+
+"Then," she said, "couldn't you undertake the task yourself?"
+
+Garrison leaned forward on the table.  Lightning from an azure sky
+could have been no more astonishing or unexpected.
+
+"Do you mean--will I play this role--as your husband?" he said slowly.
+"Is that what you are asking?"
+
+"Yes," she answered unflinchingly.  "Why not?  You need the money; I
+need the services.  You understand exactly what it is I require.  It is
+business, and you are a business man."
+
+"But I have no wish to be a married man, or even to masquerade as one,"
+he told her bluntly.
+
+"You have quite as much wish to be one as I have to be a married
+woman," she answered.  "We would understand each other thoroughly from
+the start.  As to masquerading, if you have no acquaintances, then who
+would be the wiser?"
+
+He acknowledged the logic of her argument; nevertheless, the thing
+seemed utterly preposterous.  He rose and walked the length of his
+office, and stood looking out of the window.  Then he returned and
+resumed his seat.  He was strangely moved by her beauty and some
+unexplained helplessness of her plight, vouchsafed to his senses, yet
+he recognized a certain need for caution.
+
+"What should I be expected to do?" he inquired.
+
+His visitor, in the mental agitation which had preceded this interview,
+had taken little if any time to think of the details likely to attend
+an alliance such as she had just proposed.  She could only think in
+generalities.
+
+"Why--there will be very little for you to do, except to permit
+yourself to be considered my lawful husband, temporarily," she replied
+after a moment of hesitation, with a hot flush mounting to her cheek.
+
+"And to whom would I play?" he queried.  "Should I be obliged, in this
+capacity, to meet your relatives and friends?"
+
+"Certainly--a few," said his visitor.  "But I have almost no relatives
+in the world.  I have no father, mother, brothers, or sisters.  There
+will be, at most, a few distant relatives and possibly my lawyer."
+
+Garrison made no response.  He was trying to think what such a game
+would mean--and what it might involve.
+
+His visitor presently added:
+
+"Do you consent--for five hundred dollars?"
+
+"I don't know," answered the man.  Again he paced the room.  When he
+halted before his client he looked at her sternly.
+
+"You haven't told me your name," he said.
+
+She gave him her card, on which appeared nothing more than just merely
+the name "Mrs. Jerold Fairfax," with an address in an uptown West Side
+street.
+
+Garrison glanced at it briefly.
+
+"This is something you have provided purposely to fit your
+requirements," he said.  "Am I not supposed to know you by any other
+name?"
+
+"If you accept the--the employment," she answered, once more blushing
+crimson, "you may be obliged at times to call me Dorothy.  My maiden
+name was Dorothy Booth."
+
+Garrison merely said: "Oh!"
+
+They were silent for a moment.  The man was pondering the
+possibilities.  His visitor was evidently anxious.
+
+"I suppose I can find someone else if you refuse the employment," she
+said.  "But you will understand that my search is one of great
+difficulty.  The person I employ must be loyal, a gentleman,
+courageous, resourceful, and very little known.  You can see yourself
+that you are particularly adapted for the work."
+
+"Thank you," said Garrison, who was aware that no particular flattery
+was intended.  He added: "I hardly suppose it could do me any harm."
+
+Mrs. Fairfax accepted this ungallant observation calmly.  She
+recognized the fact that his side of the question had its aspects.
+
+She waited for Garrison to speak again.
+
+A knock at the door startled them both.  A postman entered, dropped two
+letters on the desk, and departed down the hall.
+
+Garrison took up the letters.  One was a circular of his own, addressed
+to a lawyer over a month before, and now returned undelivered and
+marked "Not found," though three or four different addresses had been
+supplied in its peregrinations.
+
+The second letter was addressed to himself in typewritten form.  He was
+too engrossed to tear it open, and laid them both upon the table.
+
+"If I took this up," he presently resumed, "I should be obliged to know
+something more about it.  For instance, when were we supposed to have
+been married?"
+
+"On the 10th of last month," she answered promptly.
+
+"Oh!" said he.  "And, in case of necessity, how should we prove it?"
+
+"By my wedding certificate," she told him calmly.
+
+His astonishment increased.
+
+"Then you were actually married, over a month ago?"
+
+"I have the certificate.  Isn't that sufficient?" she replied evasively.
+
+"Well--I suppose it is--for this sort of an arrangement," he agreed.
+"Of course some man's name must appear in the document.  I should be
+obliged, I presume, to adopt his name as part of the arrangement?"
+
+"Certainly," she said.  "I told you I came into your office because
+your name is Jerold."
+
+"Exactly," he mused.  "The name I'd assume is Jerold Fairfax?"
+
+She nodded, watching him keenly.
+
+"It's a good enough name," said Garrison.
+
+He paced up and down the floor in silence a number of times.  Mrs.
+Fairfax watched him in apparent calm.
+
+"This is a great temptation," he admitted.  "I should like to earn the
+fee you have mentioned, Miss Booth--Mrs. Fairfax, but----"
+
+He halted.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't exactly like the look of it, to be frank," he confessed.  "I
+don't know you, and you don't know me.  I am not informed whether you
+are really married or not.  If you are, and the man----  You have no
+desire to enlighten me on these matters.  Can you tell me why you wish
+to pretend that I am your husband?"
+
+"I do not wish to discuss that aspect of the arrangement at present,"
+she said.  "It is purely a business proposition that should last no
+more than a month or two at most, and then terminate forever.  I would
+prefer to have you remain out of town as much as possible."
+
+"A great many haphazard deductions present themselves to my mind," he
+said, "but all are doubtless inaccurate.  I have no morbid curiosity
+concerning your affairs, but this thing would involve me almost as much
+as yourself, by its very nature."
+
+His brows were knitted in indecision.
+
+There was silence again between them.  His visitor presently said:
+
+"If I could offer you more than the five hundred dollars, I would
+gladly do so."
+
+"Oh, the fee is large enough, for up to date I have had no employment
+or even a prospect of work," said Garrison.  "I hope you will not be
+offended when I say that I have recently become a cautious man."
+
+"I know how strange it appears for me to come here with this
+extraordinary request," agreed Mrs. Fairfax.  "I hardly know how I have
+done so.  But there was no one to help me.  I hope you will not
+consider the matter for another moment if you feel that either of us
+cannot trust the other.  In a way, I am placing my honor in your
+keeping far more than you are placing yourself in charge of mine."
+
+Garrison looked at her steadily, and something akin to
+sympathy--something that burned like wine of romance in his blood--with
+zest of adventure and a surge of generosity toward this unknown
+girl--tingled in all his being.  Something in her helplessness appealed
+to his innate chivalry.
+
+Calmly, however, he took a new estimate of her character,
+notwithstanding the fact that his first, most reliable impression had
+been entirely in her favor.
+
+"Well," he said, after a moment, "it's a blind game for me, but I think
+I'll accept your offer.  When do you wish me to begin my services?"
+
+"I should like to notify my lawyer as soon as possible," answered Mrs.
+Fairfax, frankly relieved by his decision.  "He may regard the fact
+that he was not sooner notified as a little peculiar."
+
+"Practically you wish me to assume my role at once," commented
+Garrison.  "What is your lawyer's name?"
+
+"Mr. Stephen Trowbridge."
+
+Garrison took up that much-addressed letter, returned by the post, and
+passed it across the table.  The one fairly legible line on its surface
+read:
+
+    STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE, ESQ.
+
+
+"I think that must be the same individual," he said.  "I sent out
+announcements of my business and presence here to nearly every lawyer
+in the State.  This envelope has been readdressed, as you observe, but
+it has never reached its destination.  Is that your man?"
+
+Mrs. Fairfax examined the missive.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I think so.  Do you wish his present address?"
+
+"If you please," answered Garrison.  "I shall take the liberty of
+steaming this open and removing its contents, after which I will place
+an antedated letter or notification of the--our marriage--written by
+yourself--in the envelope, redirect it, and send it along.  It will
+finally land in the hands of your lawyer with its tardiness very
+naturally explained."
+
+"You mean the notification will appear as if misdirected originally,"
+said Dorothy.  "An excellent idea."
+
+"Perhaps you will compose the note at once," said Garrison, pushing
+paper, pen, and ink across the desk.  "You may leave the rest, with the
+address, to me."
+
+His visitor hesitated for a moment, as if her decision wavered in this
+vital moment of plunging into unknown fates, but she took up the pen
+and wrote the note and address with commendable brevity.
+
+Garrison was walking up and down the office.
+
+"The next step----" he started to say, but his visitor interrupted.
+
+"Isn't this the only step necessary to take until something arises
+making others expedient?"
+
+"There is one slight thing remaining," he answered, taking up her card.
+"You are in a private residence?"
+
+"Yes.  The caretaker, a woman, is always there."
+
+"Have you acquainted her with the fact of your marriage?"
+
+"Certainly.  She is an English servant.  She asks no questions.  But I
+told her my husband is away from town and will be absent almost
+constantly for the next two or three months."
+
+Garrison slightly elevated his brows, in acknowledgment of the
+thoroughness of her arrangements.
+
+"I have never attempted much acting--a little at private theatricals,"
+he told her; "but of course we shall both be obliged to play this
+little domestic comedy with some degree of art."
+
+She seemed prepared for that also, despite the sudden crimson of her
+cheeks.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"One more detail," he added.  "You have probably found it necessary to
+withhold certain facts from my knowledge.  I trust I shall not be led
+into awkward blunders.  I shall do my best, and for the rest--I beg of
+you to conduct the affair according to your own requirements and
+judgment."
+
+The slightly veiled smile in his eyes did not escape her observation.
+Nevertheless, she accepted his proposal quite as a matter of course.
+
+"Thank you.  I am glad you relieved me of the necessity of making some
+such suggestion.  I think that is all--for the present."  She stood up,
+and, fingering her glove, glanced down at the table for a moment.  "May
+I pay, say, two hundred dollars now, as a retainer?"
+
+"I shall be gratified if you will," he answered.
+
+In silence she counted out the money, which she took from a purse in a
+bag.  The bills lay there in a heap.
+
+"When you wish any more, will you please let me know?" she said.  "And
+when I require your services I will wire.  Perhaps I'd better take both
+this office and your house address."
+
+He wrote them both on a card and placed it in her hand.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured.  She closed her purse, hesitated a moment,
+then raised her eyes to his.  Quite coldly she added: "Good-afternoon."
+
+"Good-day," answered Garrison.
+
+He opened the door, bowed to her slightly as she passed--then faced
+about and stared at the money that lay upon his desk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A SECOND EMPLOYMENT
+
+For a moment, when he found himself alone, Garrison stood absolutely
+motionless beside the door.  Slowly he came to the desk again, and slowly
+he assembled the bills.  He rolled them in a neat, tight wad, and held
+them in his hand.
+
+Word for word and look for look he reviewed the recent dialogue, shaking
+his head at the end.
+
+He had never been so puzzled in his life.
+
+The situation, his visitor--all of it baffled him utterly.  Had not the
+money remained in his grasp he might have believed he was dreaming.
+
+"She was frightened, and yet she had a most remarkable amount of nerve,"
+he reflected.  "She might be an heiress, an actress, or a princess.  She
+may be actually married--and then again she may not; probably not, since
+two husbands on the scene would be embarrassing."
+
+"She may be playing at any sort of a game, financial, political, or
+domestic--therefore dangerous, safe, or commonplace, full of intrigue, or
+a mystery, or the silliest caprice.
+
+"She--oh, Lord--I don't know!  She is beautiful--that much is certain.
+She seems to be honest.  Those deep, brown eyes go with innocence--and
+also with scheming; in which respect they precisely resemble blue eyes,
+and gray, and all the other feminine colors.  And yet she seemed, well,
+helpless, worried--almost desperate.  She must be desperate and helpless."
+
+Again, in fancy, he was looking in her face, and something was stirring
+in his blood.  That was all he really knew.  She had stirred him--and he
+was glad of the meeting--glad he had entered her employment.
+
+He placed the roll of money in his pocket, then looked across his desk at
+the clean, white letter which the postman had recently delivered.
+
+He took it up, paused again to wonder at the meaning of what had
+occurred, then tore the envelope and drew forth the contents.
+
+He had barely spread the letter open when a knock on the door startled
+every thought in his brain.
+
+His first conclusion was that Mrs. Fairfax had returned to repudiate her
+bargain and ask the surrender of her money.  With a smile for any fate,
+he crossed the room and opened the door.
+
+In the hallway stood a man--a little, sharp-faced, small-eyed, thin-nosed
+person, with a very white complexion, and a large, smooth-shaved mouth,
+open as if in a smile that never ceased.
+
+"Garrison?" he said sharply.  "Wicks--I'm Wicks."
+
+"Wicks?" said Garrison.  "Come in."
+
+Mr. Wicks stepped in with a snap-like alacrity.  "Read your letter," he
+said--"read your letter."
+
+Obediently Garrison perused the missive in hand, typed on the steel-plate
+stationery of the New York Immutable Life Insurance Company:
+
+
+"DEAR SIR:
+
+"At the recommendation of our counsel, Mr. Sperry Lochlan, who is still
+abroad, we desire to secure your services in a professional capacity.
+Our Mr. Wicks will call upon you this afternoon to explain the nature of
+the employment and conclude the essential arrangements.
+
+"Respectfully yours,
+  "JOHN STEFFAS,
+    "Dep't of Special Service."
+
+
+A wave of gratitude toward Lochlan, the lawyer who had first employed
+him, and advised this New York office, surged with another, of almost
+boyish joy, through Garrison's being.  It seemed almost absurd that two
+actual clients should thus have appeared within the hour.  He looked up
+at the little man with a new, keen interest.
+
+"I am glad to meet you, Mr. Wicks," he said.  "Will you please sit down?
+I am at your service."
+
+Mr. Wicks snatched a chair and sat down.  It was quite a violent
+maneuver, especially as that sinister grin never for a moment left his
+features.  He took off his hat and made a vicious dive at a wisp of long,
+red hair that adorned the otherwise barren top of his head.  The wisp lay
+down toward his left ear when thus adjusted.  He looked up at Garrison
+almost fiercely.
+
+"Obscure, ain't you?" he demanded.
+
+"Obscure?" inquired Garrison.  "Perhaps I am--just at present--here in
+New York."
+
+"You are!" stated Mr. Wicks aggressively.
+
+Garrison was not enamored of his manner.
+
+"All right," he said--"all right."
+
+Mr. Wicks suddenly leaned forward and fetched his index finger almost up
+against the young man's nose.
+
+"Good at murder?" he demanded.
+
+Garrison began to suspect that the building might harbor lunatics,
+several of whom had escaped.
+
+"Am I good at murder?" he repeated.  "Doing murder or----"
+
+"Ferreting murder!  Ferreting murder!  Ferreting murder!" cried the
+visitor irritably.
+
+"Oh," said Garrison, "if you wish to employ me on a murder case, I'll do
+the best I can."
+
+"You worked out the Biddle robbery?" queried Mr. Wicks.
+
+Garrison replied that he had.  The Biddle robbery was the Lochlan
+case--his first adventure in criminology.
+
+"Take the case!" commanded Mr. Wicks in his truculent manner.  "Two
+hundred and fifty a month as long as you work.  One thousand dollars
+bonus if you find the murderer.  Accept the terms?"
+
+"Yes, I'll take the case," he said.  "What sort of----"
+
+Mr. Wicks made a sudden snatch at his wisp of hair, adjusted it quite to
+the other side of his head, then as abruptly drew a paper from his pocket
+and thrust it into Garrison's hand.
+
+"Statement of the case," he interrupted.  "Read it."
+
+Garrison accepted the document, spread it open, and read as follows:
+
+
+STATEMENT: Case of John Hardy.
+
+Name--John Hardy.
+
+Age--57.
+
+Occupation--Real estate dealer (retired).
+
+Residence--Unfixed, changed frequently (last, Hickwood, two days,
+boarding).
+
+Family--No immediate family (no one nearer than nephews and nieces).
+
+Rating in Bradbury's--No rating.
+
+Insured in any other companies--No.
+
+Insured with us for what amount--Twenty thousand dollars.
+
+Name of beneficiary--Charles Scott.
+
+Residence--Hickwood, New York (village).
+
+Occupation--Inventor.
+
+Date of subject's death--May 27th.
+
+Place of death--Village of Branchville (near Hickwood).
+
+Verdict of coroner--Death from natural causes (heart failure or apoplexy).
+
+Body claimed by--Paul Durgin (nephew).
+
+Body interred where--Shipped to Vermont for burial.
+
+Suspicious circumstances--Beneficiary paid once before on claim for
+similar amount, death of risk having been equally sudden and unexplained.
+
+Remarks--The body was found on the porch of an empty house (said by
+superstitious neighbors to be haunted).  It was found in sitting posture,
+leaning against post of porch.  No signs of violence except a green stain
+on one knee.  Deceased uncommonly neat.  There is no grass growing before
+the empty house, owing to heavy shade of trees.  No signs of struggle
+near house.  Details supplied by old woman, Mrs. Webber, whose son found
+deceased.  Our company not represented, either at inquest or afterward,
+as no notification of subject's death was filed until the 31st inst.
+
+
+At the bottom, written in pencil, appeared the words:
+
+"Quiet case.  Steffas."
+
+That was all.  Garrison turned the paper.  There was nothing on the
+reverse.  Placing it face upward on the table, he thrust his hands into
+his pockets and looked at Mr. Wicks.
+
+"I'm expected to fasten this crime on Scott?" he inquired.  "Is that what
+your company requires?"
+
+"Fasten the crime on the guilty man!" replied the aggressive Mr. Wicks.
+"If Scott didn't do it, we'll pay the claim.  If he did, we'll send him
+to the chair.  It may not be murder at all."
+
+"Of course," said Garrison.  "Who wrote this report?"
+
+"What's that to you?" said Wicks.
+
+"I wondered why the writer drops out of the case," answered Garrison.
+"That's all."
+
+"I wrote it," said Wicks.  "Scott knows me from the former case.  If you
+want the case, you will start this evening for Hickwood and begin your
+work.  Use your own devices.  Report everything promptly--everything.  Go
+at once to the office and present your card for expenses and typed
+instructions.  Good-day!"
+
+He had clapped on his hat.  He strode to the door, opened it,
+disappeared, and closed it again as if he worked on springs.  Garrison
+was left staring at the knob, his hand mechanically closed on the
+statement intrusted to his keeping.
+
+"Well," he said, "I'll be scalloped!  Good old New York!"
+
+He was presently out upon the street, a brisk, active figure, boarding a
+Broadway car for the downtown office of the company.
+
+At half past five he was back once more in his office with a second
+hundred dollars in his pocket, fifty of which was for expenses.
+
+He was turning away from his desk at last to leave for his lodgings,
+thence to journey to Hickwood, when a messenger-boy abruptly appeared
+with a telegram.
+
+When Garrison had signed, he opened the envelope and read the following:
+
+
+"Wire me you have arrived unexpectedly and will be here at eight, then
+come.
+
+"DOROTHY FAIRFAX."
+
+
+He almost ran from the building, bought a five-dollar bunch of the
+choicest roses, and, after wiring in accordance with instructions, sent
+them to the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TWO ENCOUNTERS
+
+Garrison roomed in Forty-fourth Street, where he occupied a small,
+second-story apartment.  His meals he procured at various restaurants
+where fancy chanced to lead.
+
+To-night a certain eagerness for adventure possessed his being.
+
+More than anything else in the world he wished to see Dorothy again; he
+hardly dared confess why, but told himself that she was charming--and
+his nature demanded excitement.
+
+He dined well and leisurely, bought a box of chocolates to present to
+his new-found "wife," dressed himself with exceptional care, and at
+length took an uptown train for his destination.
+
+All the way on the cars he was thinking of the task he had undertaken
+to perform.  Not without certain phases of amusement, he rehearsed his
+part, and made up his mind to leave nothing of the role neglected.
+
+Arrived in the West Side street, close to the house which should have
+been Dorothy's, he discovered that the numbering on the doors had been
+wretchedly mismanaged.  One or the other of two brownstone fronts must
+be her residence; he could not determine which.  The nearest was
+lighted from top to bottom.  In the other a single pair of windows
+only, on the second floor, showed the slightest sign of life.
+
+Resolved to be equal to anything the adventure might require, he
+mounted the steps of the lighted dwelling and rang the bell.  He was
+almost immediately admitted by a serving-man, who appeared a trifle
+surprised to behold him, but who bowed him in as if he were expected,
+with much formality and deference.
+
+"What shall I call you?" he said.
+
+Garrison was surprised, but he announced:
+
+"Just Mr. Jerold."
+
+A second door was opened; a gush of perfumed air, a chorus of gay young
+voices, and a peal of laughter greeted Garrison's ears as the servant
+called out his name.
+
+Instantly a troop of brilliantly dressed young women came running from
+the nearest room, all in fancy costume and all of them masked.
+Evidently a fancy-dress party was about to begin in the house.
+Garrison realized his blunder.
+
+Before he could move, a stunning, superbly gowned girl, with bare neck
+and shoulders that were the absolute perfection of beauty, came boldly
+up to where the visitor stood.  The others had ceased their laughter.
+
+"Jerold!--how good of you to come!" said the girl, and, boldly patting
+his face with her hand, she quickly darted from him, while the others
+laughed with glee.
+
+Garrison was sure he had never seen her before.  Indeed, he had
+scarcely had time to note anything about her, save that on her neck she
+wore two necklaces--one of diamonds, the other of pearls, and both of
+wonderful gems.
+
+Then out from the room from which she had come stepped a man appareled
+as Satan--in red from top to toe.  He, too, was in mask.  He joined in
+the laughter with the others.
+
+Garrison "found himself" with admirable presence of mind.
+
+"My one regret is that I may not remain," he said, with a bow to the
+ladies.  "I might also regret having entered the wrong house, but your
+reception renders such an emotion impossible."
+
+He bowed himself out with commendable grace, and the bold masquerader
+threw kisses as he went.  Amused, quite as much as annoyed, at his
+blunder, he made himself ready as best he might for another adventure,
+climbed the steps of the dwelling next at hand, and once more rang the
+bell.
+
+Almost immediately the dark hall was lighted by the switching on of
+lights.  Then the door was opened, and Garrison beheld a squint-eyed,
+thin-lipped old man, who scowled upon him and remained there, barring
+his way.
+
+"Good evening--is my wife at home--Mrs. Fairfax?" said Garrison,
+stepping in.  "I wired her----"
+
+"Jerold!" cried a voice, as the girl in the party-house had done.  But
+this was Dorothy, half-way down the stairs, running toward him eagerly,
+and dressed in most exquisite taste.
+
+Briskly stepping forward, ready with the role he had rehearsed, he
+caught her in his arms as she came to the bottom of the stairs, and she
+kissed him like a sweet young wife, obeying the impulse of her nature.
+
+"Oh, Jerold, I'm so glad!" she said.  "I don't see why you have to go
+away at nine!"
+
+She was radiant with blushes.
+
+He recognized a cue.
+
+"And how's the dearest little girl in all the world?" he said, handing
+her the box of confections.  "I didn't think I'd be able to make it,
+till I wired.  While this bit of important business lasts we must do
+the best we can."
+
+He had thrown his arm about her carelessly.  She moved away with a
+natural gesture towards the man who had opened the door.
+
+"Oh, Jerold, this is my Uncle Sykey--Mr. Robinson," she said.  "He and
+Aunt Jill have come to pay me a visit.  We must all go upstairs to the
+parlor."
+
+She was pale with excitement, but her acting was perfect.
+
+Garrison turned to the narrow-eyed old man, who was scowling darkly
+upon him.
+
+"I'm delighted to meet you," he said, extending his hand.
+
+"Um!  Thank you," said Robinson, refusing his hand.  "Extraordinary
+honeymoon you're giving my niece, Mr. Fairfax."
+
+His manner nettled Garrison, who could not possibly have gauged the
+depth of the old man's dislike, even hatred, conceived against him
+simply as Dorothy's husband.
+
+A greeting so utterly uncordial made unlooked-for demands upon his wits.
+
+"The present arrangement will not endure very long," he said
+significantly.  "In the meantime, if Dorothy is satisfied there seems
+to be no occasion for anyone else to feel distressed."
+
+"If that's intended as a fling at me----" started Robinson, but Dorothy
+interrupted.
+
+"Please come upstairs," she said, laying her hand for a moment on
+Garrison's shoulder; and then she ran up lightly, looking back with all
+the smiles of perfect art.
+
+Garrison read it as an invitation to a private confidence, much needed
+to put him properly on guard.  He bounded up as if in hot pursuit,
+leaving her uncle down there by the door.
+
+She fled to the end of the upper hall, near a door that was closed.
+Garrison had lost no space behind her.  She turned a white, tense face
+as she came to a halt.
+
+"Be careful, please," she whispered.  "Some of my relatives appeared
+here unexpectedly this afternoon.  I had to wire on that account.  Get
+away just as soon as you can.  You are merely passing through the city.
+You must write me daily letters while they are here--and--don't forget
+who you are supposed to be!"
+
+She was radiant again with blushes.  Garrison was almost dazzled by her
+beauty.  What reply he might have made was interrupted.  Dorothy caught
+him by the hand, like a fond young bride, as her uncle came rapidly up
+the stairs.  The door was opened at his elbow by a white-haired, almost
+"bearded" woman, large, sharp-sighted, and ugly, with many signs of
+both inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness upon her.
+
+"So, that's your Mr. Fairfax," she said to Dorothy.  "Come in here till
+I see what you're like."
+
+Dorothy had again taken Garrison's arm.  She led him forward.
+
+"This is Aunt Jill," she said, by way of introduction and explanation.
+"Aunty, this is my husband, Jerold."
+
+Aunt Jill had backed away from the door to let them enter.  Garrison
+realized at once that Dorothy's marriage had excited much antagonism in
+the breasts of both these relatives.  A sudden accession of boldness
+came upon him, in his plan to protect the girl.  He entered the room
+and faced the woman calmly.
+
+"I'm glad to meet you," he said, this time without extending his hand.
+"I beg to impress upon both you and Mr. Robinson that, such as I am,
+Dorothy chose me of her own free will to occupy my present position."
+
+Mrs. Robinson was momentarily speechless.  Her husband now stood in the
+door.
+
+Dorothy shot Garrison a look of gratitude, but her immediate desire was
+for peace.
+
+"Let us all sit down, and try to get better acquainted," she said.
+"I'm sure we shall all be friends."
+
+"No doubt," said her uncle somewhat offensively.
+
+Garrison felt himself decidedly uncertain of his ground.  There was
+nothing to do, however, but await developments.  He looked about the
+room in a quick, comprehensive manner.
+
+It was a large apartment, furnished handsomely, perhaps even richly,
+but in a style no longer modern, save for the installation of electric
+lights.  It contained a piano, a fireplace, a cabinet, writing-desk,
+two settees, and the customary complement of chairs.
+
+The pictures on the walls were rather above the average, even in the
+homes of the wealthy.  The objects of art, disposed in suitable places,
+were all in good taste and expensive.
+
+Quite at a loss to meet these people to advantage, uninformed as he was
+of anything vital concerning Dorothy and the game she might be playing,
+Garrison was rendered particularly alert by the feeling of constraint
+in the air.  He had instantly conceived a high appreciation for
+Dorothy's art in her difficult position, and he rose to a comprehension
+of the role assigned to himself.
+
+He had earlier determined to appear affectionate; he now saw the need
+of enacting the part of protector.
+
+In the full illumination of the room, the glory of Dorothy's beauty was
+startling.  His eyes sought her face with no need of acting, and the
+admiration blazing in his gaze was more than genuine; it was thoroughly
+spontaneous and involuntary.
+
+The moment was awkward and fraught with suspense for Garrison, as he
+found himself subjected to the flagrantly unfriendly appraisement of
+his newly acquired relations.
+
+Aunt Jill had been wilted for a moment only.  She looked their visitor
+over with undisguised contempt.
+
+"Well, I dare say you _look_ respectable and healthy," she said, as if
+conceding a point with no little reluctance, "but appearances are very
+deceiving."
+
+"Thank you," said Garrison.  He sat down near Dorothy, occupying a
+small settee.
+
+If Mrs. Robinson was personally pugnacious, her husband harbored far
+more vicious emotions.  Garrison felt this in his manner.  The man was
+looking at him narrowly.
+
+"How much of your time have you spent with your wife since your
+marriage?" he demanded, without the slightest preliminary introduction
+to the subject.
+
+Garrison realized at once that Dorothy might have prepared a harmless
+fiction with which his answers might not correspond.  He assumed a calm
+and deliberation he was far from feeling, as he said:
+
+"I was not aware that I should be obliged to account to anyone save
+Dorothy for my goings and comings.  Up to the present I believe she has
+been quite well satisfied with my deportment; haven't you, Dorothy?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Dorothy, whose utterance was perhaps a trifle faint.
+"Can't we all be friends--and talk about----"
+
+"I prefer to talk about this for a moment," interrupted her uncle,
+still regarding Garrison with the closest scrutiny.  "What's your
+business, anyway, Mr. Fairfax?"
+
+Garrison, adhering to a policy of telling the truth with the greatest
+possible frequency, and aware that evasion would avail them nothing,
+waited the fraction of a minute for Dorothy to speak.  She was silent.
+He felt she had not committed herself or him upon the subject.
+
+"I am engaged at present in some insurance business," he said.  "It
+will take me out of town to-night, and keep me away for a somewhat
+indefinite period."
+
+"H'm!" said Mr. Robinson.  "I suppose you'll quit your present
+employment pretty soon?"
+
+With no possible chance of comprehending the drift of inquiry, Garrison
+responded:
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"I thought so!" exclaimed the old man, with unconcealed asperity.
+"Marrying for money is much more remunerative, hey?"
+
+"Oh, uncle!" said Dorothy.  Her pain and surprise were quite genuine.
+
+Garrison colored instantly.
+
+He might have been hopelessly floundering in a moment had not a natural
+indignation risen in his blood.
+
+"Please remember that up to this evening you and I have been absolute
+strangers," he said, with some heat.  "I am not the kind to marry for
+money.  Had I done so I should not continue in my present calling for a
+very modest compensation."
+
+He felt that Dorothy might misunderstand or even doubt his resolution
+to go on with her requirements.  He added pointedly:
+
+"I have undertaken certain assignments for my present employers which I
+mean to put through to the end, and no one aware of my motives could
+charge me with anything sordid."
+
+Dorothy rose, crossed the space between her chair and the small settee
+where Garrison was seated, took the place at his side, and shyly laid
+her hand upon his own.  It was a natural, wifely thing to do.  Garrison
+recognized her perfect acting.  A tingle of strange, lawless joy ran
+through his veins; nevertheless, he still faced Robinson, for his anger
+had been no pretense.
+
+There was something in his bearing, when aroused, that invited caution.
+He was not a man with whom to trifle.  Mrs. Robinson, having felt it
+before, underwent the experience anew.
+
+"Let's not start off with a row," she said.  "No one means to offend
+you, Mr. Fairfax."
+
+"What do you think he'll do?" demanded her husband.  "Order us out of
+the house?  It ain't his yet, and he knows it."
+
+Garrison knew nothing concerning the ownership of the house.  Mr.
+Robinson's observation gave him a hint, however, that Dorothy's
+husband, or Dorothy herself, would presumably own this dwelling soon,
+but that something had occurred to delay the actual possession.
+
+"I came to see Dorothy, and for no other purpose," he said.  "I haven't
+the slightest desire or intention to offend her relatives."
+
+If Robinson and his wife understood the hint that he would be pleased
+to see Dorothy alone, they failed to act upon it.
+
+"We'll take your future operations as our guide," said Mr. Robinson
+significantly.  "Protestations cost nothing."
+
+Mrs. Robinson, far more shrewd than her husband, in her way, had begun
+to realize that Garrison was not a man either to be frightened or
+bullied.
+
+"I'm sure we shall all be friends," she said.  "What's the use of
+fighting?  If, as Mr. Fairfax says, he did not marry Dorothy for
+money----"
+
+Her husband interrupted.  "I don't believe it!  Will you tell me, Mr.
+Fairfax, that when you married my niece you were not aware of her
+prospects?"
+
+"I knew absolutely nothing of her prospects," said Garrison, who
+thought he foresaw some money struggle impending.  "She can tell you
+that up to the present moment I have never asked her a word concerning
+her financial status or future expectations."
+
+"Why don't you tell us you never knew she had an uncle?" demanded
+Robinson, with no abatement of acidity.
+
+"As a matter of fact," replied Garrison, "I have never known the name
+of any of Dorothy's relations till to-night."
+
+"This is absurd!" cried the aggravated Mr. Robinson.  "Do you mean to
+tell me----"
+
+Garrison cut in upon him with genuine warmth.  He was fencing blindly
+in Dorothy's behalf, and instinct was guiding him with remarkable
+precision.
+
+"I should think you might understand," he said, "that once in a while a
+young woman, with a natural desire to be esteemed for herself alone,
+might purposely avoid all mention both of her relatives and prospects."
+
+"We've all heard about these marriages for love," sneered Dorothy's
+uncle.  "Where did you suppose she got this house?"
+
+Garrison grew bolder as he felt a certain confidence that so far he had
+made no particular blunders.  His knowledge of the value of half a
+truth, or even the truth entire, was intuitive.
+
+"I have never been in this house before tonight," he said.  "Our
+'honeymoon,' as you called it earlier, has, as you know, been brief,
+and none of it was spent beneath this roof."
+
+"Then how did you know where to come?" demanded Mr. Robinson.
+
+"Dorothy supplied me the address," answered Garrison.  "It is not
+uncommon, I believe, for husband and wife to correspond."
+
+"Well, here we are, and here we'll stay," said Mr. Robinson, "till the
+will and all the business is settled.  Perhaps you'll say you didn't
+even know there was a will."
+
+Garrison was beginning to see light, dimly.  What it was that lay
+behind Dorothy's intentions and her scheme he could not know; he was
+only aware that to-night, stealing a glance at her sweet but worried
+face, and realizing faintly that she was greatly beset with troubles,
+his whole heart entered the conflict, willingly, to help her through to
+the end.
+
+"You are right for once," he answered his inquisitor.  "I have known
+absolutely nothing of any will affecting Dorothy, and I know nothing
+now.  I only know you can rely upon me to fight her battles to the full
+extent of my ability and strength."
+
+"What nonsense!  You don't know!" exclaimed Mr. Robinson.  "Why----"
+
+"It's the truth," interrupted Dorothy.  "I have told him nothing about
+it."
+
+"I don't believe it!" said her uncle.  "But whatever he knows, I'll
+tell him this, that I propose to fight that will, day and night, before
+my brother's property shall go to any scheming stranger!"
+
+Garrison felt the need for enlightenment.  It was hardly fair to expect
+him to struggle in the dark.  He looked at his watch ostentatiously.
+
+"I did not come here expecting this sort of reception," he said
+truthfully.  "I hoped at least for a few minutes' time with Dorothy,
+alone."
+
+"To cook up further stories, I presume," said Mr. Robinson, who made no
+move to depart.
+
+Garrison rose and approached Mr. Robinson precisely as he might have
+done had his right been more than a fiction.
+
+"Do you require Dorothy to go down in the hall, in her own house, to
+obtain a moment of privacy?" he demanded.  "We might as well understand
+the situation first as last."
+
+It was a half-frightened look, full of craft and hatred, that Robinson
+cast upward to his face.  He fidgeted, then rose from his seat.
+
+"Come, my dear," he said to his wife, "the persecutions have commenced."
+
+He led the way from the room to another apartment, his wife obediently
+following at his heels.  The door they left ajar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UNSPOKEN ANTAGONISM
+
+Garrison crossed the room with an active stride and closed the door
+firmly.
+
+Dorothy was pale when he turned.  She, too, was standing.
+
+"You can see that I've got to be posted a little," he said quietly.
+"To err has not ceased to be human."
+
+"You have made no mistakes," said Dorothy in a voice barely above a
+whisper.  "I didn't expect them.  When I found they had come I hardly
+knew what to do.  And when they declared I had no husband I had to
+request you to come."
+
+"Something of the sort was my conclusion," Garrison told her.  "I have
+blundered along with fact and fiction as best I might, but what am I
+supposed to have done that excites them both to insult me?"
+
+Dorothy seemed afraid that the very walls might hear and betray her
+secret.
+
+"Your supposed marriage to me is sufficient," she answered in the
+lowest of undertones.  "You must have guessed that they feel themselves
+cheated out of this house and other property left in a relative's will."
+
+"Cheated by your marriage?" said Garrison.
+
+She nodded, watching to see if a look of distrust might appear in the
+gaze he bent upon her.
+
+"I wouldn't dare attempt to inform you properly or adequately to-night,
+with my uncle in the house," she said.  "But please don't believe I've
+done anything wrong--and don't desert me now."
+
+She had hardly intended to appeal to him so helplessly, but somehow she
+had been so glad to lean upon his strength, since his meeting with her
+relatives, that the impulse was not to be resisted.  Moreover she felt,
+in some strange working of the mind, that she had come to know him as
+well within the past half-hour as she had ever known anyone in all her
+life.  Her trust had gone forth of its own volition, together with her
+gratitude and admiration, for the way he had taken up her cause.
+
+"I left the matter entirely with you this afternoon," he said.  "I only
+wish to know so much as you yourself deem essential.  I feel this man
+is vindictive, cowardly, and crafty.  Are you sure you are safe where
+he is?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm quite safe, even if it is unpleasant," she told him,
+grateful for his evident concern.  "If need be, the caretaker would
+fight a pack of wolves in my defense."
+
+"This will?" asked Garrison.  "When is it going to be settled--when
+does it come to probate?"
+
+"I don't quite know."
+
+"When is your real husband coming?" he inquired, more for her own
+protection than his own.
+
+She had not admitted, in the afternoon, that she had a husband.  She
+colored now as she tried to meet his gaze.
+
+"Did I tell you there was such a person?"
+
+"No," said Garrison, "you did not.  I thought----  Perhaps that's one
+of the many things I am not obliged to know."
+
+"Perhaps."  She hesitated a moment, adding: "If you'd rather not go
+on----"
+
+She lowered her eyes.  He felt a thrill that he could not analyze, it
+lay so close to jealousy and hope.  And whatever it was, he knew it was
+out of the bargain, and not in the least his right.
+
+"It wasn't for myself I asked," he hastened to add.  "I'll act my part
+till you dismiss me.  I only thought if another man were to come upon
+the scene----"
+
+The far-off sound of a ringing house-bell came indistinctly to his
+ears.  Dorothy looked up in his face with a startled light in her great
+brown eyes that awoke a new interest within him.
+
+"The bell," she said.  "I heard it!  Who could be coming here to-night?"
+
+She slipped to the door, drew it open an inch, and listened there
+attentively.
+
+Garrison was listening also.  The door to the outside steps, in the
+hall below, was opened, then presently closed with a slam.  The
+caretaker had admitted a caller.
+
+"Good!  I'd like to see him!" said the voice of a man.  "Upstairs?"
+
+Dorothy turned to Garrison with her face as white as chalk.
+
+"Oh, if you had only gone!" she said.
+
+"What's the trouble?" he asked.  "Who's come?"
+
+"Perhaps you can slip in my room!" she whispered.  "Please hurry!"
+
+She hastened across the apartment to a door, with Garrison following.
+The door was locked.  She remembered she had locked it herself, from
+the farther side, since the advent of her uncle in the house.
+
+She turned to lead him round, by the hall.  But the door swung open
+abruptly, and a tall, handsome young man was at the threshold.  His hat
+was on.  He was dressed, despite the season, in an overcoat of
+extraordinary length, buttoned close round his neck.  It concealed him
+from his chin to his heels.
+
+"Why, hello, Dot!" he said familiarly, advancing within the room.  "You
+and your Jerold weren't trying to run away, I hope."
+
+Dorothy struggled against her confusion and alarm.
+
+"Why, no," she faltered.  "Cousin Ted, you've never met Mr. Fairfax.
+Jerold, this is my cousin, Mr. Theodore Robinson."
+
+"How do you do?" said Garrison, nodding somewhat distantly, since none
+of the Robinson group had particularly appealed to his tastes.
+
+"How are you?" responded Dorothy's cousin, with no attempt to conceal
+an unfriendly demeanor.  Crossing to Dorothy with deliberate intent to
+make the most of his relationship, he caught her by the arms.
+
+"How's everything with you, little sweetheart?" he added in his way of
+easy intimacy.  "What's the matter with my customary kiss?"
+
+Dorothy, with every sign of fear or detestation upon her, seemed wholly
+unable to move.  He put his arm roughly about her and kissed her twice.
+
+Garrison, watching with feelings ill suppressed, beheld her shrink from
+the contact.  She appeared to push her cousin off with small effort to
+disguise her loathing, and fled to Garrison as if certain of protection.
+
+"What are you scared of?" said young Robinson, moving forward to catch
+her again, and laughing in an irritating way.  "You used not to----"
+
+Garrison blocked him promptly, subconsciously wondering where he had
+heard that laugh before.
+
+"Perhaps that day has passed," he said quietly.
+
+The visitor, still with his hat on, looked Garrison over with anger.
+
+"Jealousy already, hey?" he said.  "If you think I'll give up my rights
+as a cousin you're off, understand?"
+
+Garrison stifled an impulse to slap the fellow's face.
+
+"What are your rights as a cousin, if I may ask?" he said.
+
+"Wait and see," replied Robinson.  "Dot was mighty fond of me
+once--hey, Dot?"
+
+Garrison felt certain of his ground in suppressing the fellow.
+
+"Whatever the situation may have been in the past," he said, "it is
+very much altered at present."
+
+"Is that so?" demanded Theodore.  "Perhaps you'll find the game isn't
+quite finished yet."
+
+Dorothy, still white and overwrought, attempted to mediate between the
+two.
+
+"I can't let you men start off like this," she said.  "I--I'm fond of
+you both.  I wish you would try to be friendly."
+
+"I'm willing," said her cousin, with a sudden change of front that in
+no wise deceived Garrison, and he held forth his hand.  "Will you
+shake?"
+
+That Dorothy wished him to greet the fellow civilly, and not incur his
+ill-feeling.  Garrison was sure.  He took the proffered hand, as cold
+as a fish, and dropped it again immediately.
+
+Theodore laughed, and stepped gracefully away, his long coat swinging
+outward with his motion.  Garrison caught a gleam of red, where the
+coat was parted at the bottom--and he knew where he had heard that
+laugh before.  The man before him was no other than the one he had seen
+next door, dressed in red fleshings as Satan.
+
+It was not to be understood in a moment, and Theodore's parents had
+returned once more to the door.  Indeed, the old man had beheld the
+momentary hand-clasp of the men, and he was nettled.
+
+"Theodore!" he cried; "you're not making friends with a man who's
+sneaked off and married Dorothy, I hope!  I wouldn't have believed it!"
+
+"Why not?" said his son.  "What's done is done."
+
+His mother said: "Why have you got on an overcoat such a night as this?"
+
+"Because I like it," said Theodore.
+
+Garrison knew better.  He wondered what the whole game signified.
+
+The old man was glaring at him sharply.
+
+"I should think for a man who has to leave at nine your time is getting
+short," he said.  "Perhaps your story was invented."
+
+Garrison took out his watch.  The fiction would have to be played to
+the end.  The hour lacked twenty minutes of nine.  He must presently
+depart, yet he felt that Dorothy might need protection.  Having made up
+his mind that a marriage had doubtless been planned between Dorothy and
+Theodore--on the man's part for the purpose of acquiring valuable
+property, probably veiled to Dorothy--he felt she might not be safe if
+abandoned to their power.
+
+He had found himself plunged into complications on which it had not
+been possible to count, but notwithstanding which he meant to remain by
+Dorothy with the utmost resolution.  He had not acknowledged that the
+charm she exercised upon him lay perilously close to the tenderest of
+passions, but tried to convince himself his present desire was merely
+to see this business to the end.
+
+It certainly piqued him to find himself obliged to leave with so much
+of the evening's proceedings veiled in mystery.  He would have been
+glad to know more of what it meant to have this cousin, Theodore,
+masquerading as the devil in one house, and covering all the signs here
+at home.  He was absolutely helpless in the situation.  He knew that
+Dorothy wished him to depart.  She could not, of course, do otherwise.
+
+"Thank you," he said to the elder Robinson.  "I must leave in fifteen
+minutes."
+
+Dorothy looked at him strangely.  She could not permit him to stay, yet
+she felt the need of every possible safeguard, now that her cousin had
+appeared.  The strange trust and confidence she felt in Garrison had
+given her new hope and strength.  To know he must go in the next few
+minutes, leaving her there with the Robinsons, afflicted her abruptly
+with a sense of desolation.
+
+Yet there was nothing she could say or do to prevent his immediate
+retreat.
+
+Young Robinson, made aware that Garrison would soon be departing,
+appeared to be slightly excited.
+
+"I'll go down and 'phone for my suit-case," he said, and he left the
+room at once.
+
+Aunt Jill and old Robinson sat down.  It was quite impossible for
+Garrison to ask them again to retire.  Dorothy crossed the room and
+seated herself before the piano.  Garrison followed, and stood there at
+her side.
+
+She had no spirit for music, and no inclination to play, nevertheless
+she permitted her hands to wander up and down the keys, calling forth a
+sweetly sad bit of Hungarian song that took a potent hold on Garrison's
+emotions.
+
+"Is there anything I can do but go?" he murmured, his voice well masked
+by the melody.  "Do you think you may need me very soon?"
+
+"I do not know.  I hope not," she answered, for him alone to hear.
+"I'm sorry it's been so disagreeable.  Do you really have to go away
+from town?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"To-day you said you had no employment."
+
+"It was true.  Employment came within ten minutes of your leaving.  I
+took it.  For you know you hardly expected to require my services so
+soon."
+
+She played a trifle louder, and asked him:
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Branchville and Hickwood."
+
+The playing suddenly ceased.  She looked up at him swiftly.  In nervous
+haste she resumed her music.
+
+"Not on detective work?  You mentioned insurance."
+
+"It concerns insurance."
+
+She was silent for a moment.
+
+"When do you return?"
+
+"I hardly know," he answered.  "And I suppose I've got to start at once
+in order to maintain our little fiction."
+
+"Don't forget to write," she said, blushing, as she had before; and she
+added: "for appearances."  She rose from her seat.
+
+Garrison pulled out his watch and remarked, for the Robinsons to hear:
+"Well, I've got to be off."
+
+"Wait a minute, please," said Dorothy, as if possessed by a sudden
+impulse, and she ran from the room like a child.
+
+With nothing particularly pleasant to say to the Robinsons, Garrison
+approached a center-table and turned the pages of a book.
+
+Dorothy was back in a moment.
+
+"I'll go down to the door," she said.
+
+Garrison said good-night to the Robinsons, who answered curtly.  He
+closed the door upon them as he left the room.
+
+Dorothy had hastened to the stairs before him, and continued down to
+the hall.  Her face was intensely white again as she turned about,
+drawing from her dress a neat, flat parcel, wrapped in paper.
+
+"I told you to-day that I trust you absolutely," she said, in a nervous
+undertone.  "I wish you'd take care of this package."
+
+Garrison took it, finding it heavy in his hand.  "What is it?" he said.
+
+"Don't try to talk--they'll listen," she cautioned.  "Just hurry and
+go."
+
+"If you need me, write or wire," he said.
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+She retreated a little way from him, as if she felt he might exact a
+husband's right of farewell, which the absence of witnesses made quite
+unessential.
+
+"Good-night," she answered, adding wistfully; "I am very grateful,
+believe me."
+
+She gave him her hand, and his own hand trembled as he took it.
+
+A moment later he was out upon the street, a wild, sweet pleasure in
+his veins.
+
+Across the way a man's dark figure detached itself from the darkness of
+a doorstep and followed where Garrison went.
+
+Shadowed to his very door, Garrison came to his humble place of abode
+with his mind in a region of dreams.
+
+It was not until he stood in his room, and his hand lay against his
+pocket, that he thought again of Dorothy's parcel surrendered to his
+keeping.  He took it out.  He felt he had a right to know its contents.
+
+It had not been sealed.
+
+He removed the paper, disclosing a narrow, shallow box, daintily
+covered with leather.  It was merely snapped shut with a catch.
+
+He opened it, and an exclamation of astonishment escaped his lips.
+
+It contained two necklaces--one of diamonds and one of pearls, the gems
+of both marvelously fine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE "SHADOW"
+
+Nothing more disquieting than this possession of the necklaces could
+possibly have happened to Garrison.  He was filled with vague
+suspicions and alarms.  The thing was wholly baffling.
+
+What it signified he could not conjecture.  His mind went at once to
+that momentary scene at the house he had entered by mistake, and in
+which he had been confronted by the masked young woman, with the jewels
+on her throat, she who had patted his face and familiarly called him by
+name.
+
+He could not possibly doubt the two ropes of gems were the same.  The
+fact that Dorothy's cousin, in the garb of Satan, had undoubtedly
+participated in the masking party, aroused disturbing possibilities in
+Garrison's mind.
+
+What was the web in which he was entangled?
+
+To have Theodore come to the house in his long, concealing coat,
+straight from the maskers next door; to have him disappear, and then to
+have Dorothy bring forth these gems with such wholly unimaginable trust
+in his honesty, brought him face to face with a brand-new mystery from
+which he almost shrank.  Reflections on thefts, wherein women were
+accomplices, could not be driven from his brain.
+
+Here was Dorothy suddenly requiring a pseudo-husband--for what?  Here
+was a party next door to the house--a party on which he had stumbled
+accidentally--where a richly dressed young woman chanced to greet him,
+with her jewels on her neck.  Here was, apparently, a family
+disturbance, engendered by his marriage with old Robinson's niece.  And
+now--here were the necklaces, worth, at the least estimation, the sum
+of thirty thousand dollars--delivered to himself!
+
+He could not escape the thought of a "fence," in which he himself had
+possibly been impressed as a tool, by the cleverest intrigue.  The
+entire attitude of the Robinsons might, he realized, have been but a
+part of the game.  He had witnessed Dorothy's acting.  It gave him a
+vivid sense of her powers, some others of which might well lie
+concealed behind her appearance of innocence.
+
+And yet, when he thought of the beautiful girl who had begged him not
+to desert her, he could not think her guilty of the things which this
+singular outcome might suggest.  He was sure she could clear up the
+mystery, and set herself straight in his eyes.
+
+Not a little disturbed as to what he should do with these precious
+baubles, sparkling and glinting in his hand, he knitted his brow in
+perplexity.  He was due to leave New York at once, on orders from
+Wicks.  No safe deposit vault was available at such an hour.  He dared
+not leave the things behind in this room.  There was no alternative, he
+must carry them along in his pocket.
+
+Inasmuch as the problem could not possibly be solved at once, and in
+view of the fact that his mind, or his heart, refused to credit Dorothy
+with guilt, there was nothing to do but dismiss the subject, as far as
+possible, and make ready to depart.
+
+He opened a drawer to procure the few things requisite for his trip.
+On top of a number of linen garments lay a photograph--the picture of a
+sweetly pretty young woman.  He took it up, gazed at it calmly, and
+presently shook his head.
+
+He turned it over.
+
+On the back was written: "With the love of my heart--Ailsa."
+
+He had kissed this picture a thousand times, in rapture.  It had once
+represented his total of earthly happiness, and then--when the notice
+of her marriage had come so baldly, through the mail--it had symbolized
+his depths of despair.  Through all his hurt he had clung, not only to
+the picture, but also to some fond belief that Ailsa loved him still;
+that the words she had spoken and the things she had done, in the days
+of their courtship, had not been mere idle falsehoods.
+
+To-night, for the first time since his dream had been shattered, the
+photograph left him cold and unfeeling.  Something had happened, he
+hardly knew what--something he hardly dared confess to himself, with
+Dorothy only in his vision.  The lifeless picture's day was gone at
+last.
+
+He tossed it back in the drawer with a gesture of finality, drew forth
+a number of collars and ties, then went to a closet, opened the door
+and studied his two suit-cases thoughtfully.  He knew not which to
+take.  One was an ordinary, russet-leather case; the other was a
+thin-steel box, veneered with leather, but of special construction, on
+a plan which Garrison himself had invented.  Indeed, the thing was a
+trap, ingeniously contrived when the Biddle robbery had baffled far
+older men than himself, and had then been solved by a trick.
+
+On the whole, he decided he would take this case along.  It had brought
+him luck on the former occasion, and the present was, perhaps, a
+criminal case.  He lifted it out, blew off some dust, and laid it,
+open, on the bed.
+
+To all appearances the thing was innocent enough.  On the under side of
+the cover was a folding flap, fastened with a string and a button.
+Unremembered by Garrison, Ailsa's last letter still reposed in the
+pocket, its romance laid forever in the lavender of rapidly fading
+memories.
+
+Not only was the case provided with a thin false bottom, concealing its
+mechanism, but between the cover and the body proper, on either side,
+were wing-like pieces of leather, to judge from their looks, that
+seemed to possess no function more important than the ordinary canvas
+strips not infrequently employed on a trunk to restrain the cover from
+falling far backward when opened.  But encased in these wings were
+connections to powerful springs that, upon being set and suddenly
+released, would snap down the cover like the hammer of a gun and catch,
+as in the jaws of a trap, any meddling hands that might have been
+placed inside the case by a thief, at the same time ringing a bell.  To
+set it was a matter of the utmost simplicity, while to spring it one
+had barely to go at the contents of the case and touch the trigger
+lightly.
+
+The springs were left unset, as Garrison tossed in the trifles he
+should need.  Then he changed his clothes, turned off the gas, and was
+presently out once more in the open of the street, walking to the Grand
+Central Station, near at hand.
+
+The man who had followed all the way from Dorothy's residence not only
+was waiting, but remained on Garrison's trail.
+
+At a quarter of ten Garrison ensconced himself in a train for
+Branchville.  His "shadow" was there in the car.  The run required
+fifty minutes.  Hickwood, a very small village, was passed by the cars
+without a stop.  It was hardly two miles from the larger settlement.
+
+The hour was late when Garrison arrived.  He and his "shadow" alighted
+from the train and repaired to a small, one-story hotel near the
+railway depot, the only place the town afforded.  They were presently
+assigned to adjoining rooms.
+
+Garrison opened his suit-case on the bureau, removed one or two
+articles, and left the receptacle open, with the cover propped against
+the mirror.  Despite the lateness of the hour he then went out, to roam
+about the village.  His fellow traveler watched only to see him out of
+the house, and then returned in haste.
+
+In the town there was little to be seen.  The houses extended far back
+from the railroad, on considerably elevated hills.  There was one main
+thoroughfare only, and this was deserted.  The dwellings were dark.  No
+one seemed stirring in the place, though midnight had not yet struck.
+
+Garrison was out for half an hour.  When he returned his suit-case was
+closed.  He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked
+inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled.  But
+nothing was gone, so far as he could see.  Then he noticed the
+folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone.  How well he
+remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago!  A little
+surprised that he had so utterly forgotten its existence, he slipped
+his hand inside the place--and found it empty!
+
+Even then he entertained no suspicions, for a moment.  The letter, like
+the photograph, was no longer a valued possession.  Yet he wondered
+where it could have gone.  Vaguely uncertain, after all, as to whether
+he had left it here or not, his eye was suddenly caught by the
+slightest movement in the world, reflected in the mirror of the bureau.
+The movement was up at the transom, above a door that led to the next
+adjoining room.
+
+Instantly turning away, to allay any possible suspicion that he might
+be aware of the fact that someone was spying upon him, Garrison moved
+the suit-case to a chair, drew from his pocket a folded paper that
+might have appeared important--although merely a railroad
+folder--placed it carefully, as if to hide it, under various articles
+of apparel, set the springs of the vicious steel-trap, and, leaving the
+suitcase open as before, took a turn around the room.
+
+All this business was merely for the benefit of the man whom he knew to
+be watching from over the door.  Starting as if to undress, he paused,
+appeared to remember something left neglected, and hastened from his
+room, purposely leaving the door more than half-way ajar.  Down the
+hall he strode, to the office, where he looked on the register and
+discovered the name of his neighbor--John Brown--an obvious alias.
+
+He had hardly been thus engaged for two minutes when the faint, far-off
+sound of a ringing bell came distinctly to his ears.
+
+"My alarm-clock's gone off," he said to the man at the desk, and he
+fled up the hall like a sprinter.
+
+A clatter of sounds, as of someone struggling, had come before he
+reached his room.  As he bounded in he beheld his suit-case, over at
+the window, jerking against the sash and sill as if possessed of evil
+spirits.  No thief was visible.  The fellow, with the trap upon his
+fingers, had already leaped to the ground.
+
+Within a yard of his captured burglar Garrison beheld the suit-case
+drop, and his man had made good his escape.
+
+He thrust his head outside the window, but the darkness was in favor of
+the thief, who was not to be seen.
+
+Chagrined to think Mr. "Brown" had contrived to get loose, Garrison
+took up the case, carried it back to the bureau, and opened it up, by
+skillfully releasing the springs.  Three small patches of finger-skin
+were left in the bite of its jaws--cards of the visitor left as
+announcements of his visit.
+
+The room next door was not again occupied that night.  The hotel saw no
+more of Mr. Brown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CORONER
+
+Not in the least reassured, but considerably aroused in all his
+instincts by these further developments of a night already full of
+mysterious transactions, Garrison, after a futile watch for his
+neighbor, once more plunged into a study of the case in which he found
+himself involved.
+
+Vaguely he remembered to have noticed that the man who had come here to
+Branchville with him on the train carried no baggage.  He had no doubt
+the man had been close upon his trail for some considerable time; but
+why, and what he wanted, could not be so readily determined.  Certain
+the man had extracted Ailsa's letter from the pocket of the case, yet
+half convinced that the thief had been searching for the necklaces
+intrusted to his care, Garrison was puzzled.
+
+There seemed to be no possible connection between the two.  He could
+not understand what a thief who would take the one would require of the
+other.  Aside from his money, the gems were the only articles he
+possessed of the slightest value or significance.  Half persuaded that
+the diamonds and pearls afforded the booty for which his visitor had
+searched, he was once more in doubt as to whether he had lost Ailsa's
+letter or not.  He might find it still among his things, at his room in
+Forty-fourth Street.
+
+He was fully convinced the man would return no more.  Nevertheless,
+when he turned in at last, the jewels were under the pillow.
+
+Branchville, in the morning, proved an attractive place of residence.
+Half its male population went to New York as commuters.  Its housewives
+then bustled about their gardens or their chicken-coops, at the rear of
+the houses, and a dozen old men gathered slowly at the post-office
+store to resume the task of doing nothing.
+
+Garrison experienced no difficulty in searching out Mrs. Webber, the
+woman who had supplied certain details concerning the finding of the
+body of the man, John Hardy, whose death had occurred here the previous
+week.
+
+The house, at the porch of which the body had been discovered, was
+empty.  Mrs. Webber went with Garrison to the place, showed him exactly
+where the body had reclined, and left him alone at the scene.
+
+He looked the details over carefully.  The porch was low and roofed;
+its eaves projected a foot.  If, as Garrison fancied, the stricken man
+might have come here in weakness, to lean against the post, and had
+then gone down, perhaps leaving heel-marks in the earth, all signs of
+any such action had been obliterated, despite the fact that no rains
+had fallen since the date of the man's demise.  Garrison scrutinized
+the ground closely.  A piece of broken crockery, a cork, the top of a
+can, an old cigar, and some bits of glass and wire lay beside the
+baseboard--the usual signs of neglect.  The one man-made article in all
+the litter that attracted Garrison's attention was the old cigar.  He
+took it up for a more minute examination.
+
+It had never been lighted.  It was broken, as if someone had stepped
+upon the larger end; but the label, a bright red band of paper, was
+still upon it.  The wrapper had somewhat spread; but the pointed end
+had been bitten off, half an inch up on the taper.
+
+Aware that the weed might have been thrown down by anyone save Hardy,
+Garrison nevertheless placed it in an envelope and tucked it away in
+his pocket.  A visit to the local coroner presenting itself as the next
+most natural step, he proceeded at once to his office.
+
+As a dealer in real estate, a notary public, and an official in several
+directions, the coroner was a busy man.  He said so himself.
+
+Garrison introduced himself candidly as a New York detective, duly
+licensed, at present representing a State insurance company, and stated
+the nature of his business.
+
+"All right," said the coroner, inclined at once to be friendly.  "My
+name is Pike.  What'd you want to know?  Sit down and take it easy."
+
+"As much as I can learn about the case."  Garrison took a proffered
+chair.  "For instance, what did you find on the body?"
+
+"Nothing--of any importance--a bunch of keys, a fountain-pen, and--and
+just some useless trash--I believe four dollars and nineteen cents."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Oh, some scraps of paper and a picture postal-card."
+
+"Any cigars?" asked Garrison.
+
+"Yep--three, with labels on 'em--all but one, I mean."  He had taken
+one label for his son's collection.
+
+"What did you do with the stuff?"
+
+"Locked it up, waiting orders from the court," replied Mr. Pike.  "You
+bet, I know my business."
+
+Garrison was pursuing a point.  He inquired: "Do you smoke?"
+
+"No, I don't; and if I did, I wouldn't touch one of them," said the
+coroner.  "And don't you forget it."
+
+"Did anyone help you to carry off the body--anyone who might have
+thrown a cigar away, unlighted?"
+
+"No, siree!  When Billy Ford and Tom Harris git a cigar it never gits
+away," said Mr. Pike.
+
+"Did you find out where the dead man came from and what he was doing in
+the village?"
+
+"He was stopping down to Hickwood with Mrs. Wilson," answered Pike.
+"His friend there was Charlie Scott, who's making a flying-machine
+that's enough to make anybody luny.  I've told him he can't borrow no
+money from me on no such contraption, and so has Billy Dodd."
+
+Garrison mentally noted down the fact that Scott was in need of money.
+
+"What can you tell me of the man's appearance?" he added, after a
+moment of silence.  "Did his face present any signs of agony?"
+
+"Nope.  Just looked dead," said the coroner.
+
+"Were there any signs upon him of any nature?"
+
+"Grass stain on his knee--that's about all."
+
+"About all?" Garrison echoed.  "Was there anything else--any scratches
+or bruises on his hands?"
+
+"No--nary a scratch.  He had real fine hands," said the coroner.  "But
+they did have a little dirt on 'em--right on three of the knuckles of
+the left hand and on one on the right--the kind of dirt you can't rub
+off."
+
+"Did it look as if he'd tried to rub it off?"
+
+"Looked as if he'd washed it a little and it wouldn't come."
+
+"Just common black dirt?"
+
+"Yes, kind of grimy--the kind that gits in and stays."
+
+Garrison reflected that a sign of this nature might and might not prove
+important.  Everything depended on further developments.  One deduction
+was presented to his mind--the man had doubtless observed that his
+hands were soiled and had washed them in the dark, since anyone with
+the "fine" hands described by the coroner would be almost certain to
+keep them immaculate; but might, in the absence of a light, wash them
+half clean only.
+
+He was not disposed to attach a very great importance to the matter,
+however, and only paused for a moment to recall a number of the various
+"dirts" that resist an effort to remove them--printers' ink, acid
+stains, axle grease, and greasy soot.
+
+He shifted his line of questions abruptly.
+
+"What did you discover about the dead man's relatives?  The nephew who
+came to claim the body?"
+
+"Never saw him," said the coroner.  "I couldn't hang around the corpse
+all day.  I'm the busiest man in Branchville--and I had to go down to
+New York the day he come."
+
+"Did you take possession of any property that deceased might have had
+at his room in Hickwood?"
+
+"Sure," said Pike.  "Half a dozen collars, and some socks, a few old
+letters, and a box almost full of cigars."
+
+"If these things are here in your office," said Garrison, rising, "I
+should like to look them over."
+
+"You bet, I can put my hand on anything in my business in a minute,"
+boasted Mr. Pike.  He rose and crossed the room to a desk with a large,
+deep drawer, which he opened with a key.
+
+The dead man's possessions were few, indeed.  The three cigars which
+his pocket had disgorged were lying near a little pile of money.
+Garrison noted at once that the labels on two were counterparts of the
+one on the broken cigar now reposing in his pocket.  He opened the box
+beneath his hand.  The cigars inside were all precisely like the
+others.  Five only had ever been removed, of which four were accounted
+for already.  The other had doubtless been smoked.
+
+On the even row of dark-brown weeds lay a card, on which, written in
+pencil, were the words:
+
+  A BIRTHDAY GREETING--WITH LOVE.
+
+
+Garrison let fall the lid and glanced with fading interest at the few
+insignificant papers and other trifles which the drawer contained.  He
+had practically made up his mind that John Hardy had died, as the
+coroner had found, of heart disease, or apoplexy, even in the act of
+lighting up to smoke.
+
+He questioned the man further, made up his mind to visit Charles Scott
+and Mrs. Wilson, in Hickwood, and was presently out upon the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A STARTLING DISCOVERY
+
+Garrison walked along the road to Hickwood out of sheer love of being
+in the open, and also the better to think.
+
+Unfortunately for the case in hand, however, his thoughts wandered
+truantly back to New York and the mystery about the girl masquerading
+to the world as his wife.  His meditations were decidedly mixed.  He
+thought of Dorothy always with a thrill of strong emotions, despite the
+half-formed suspicions which had crossed his mind at least a dozen
+times.
+
+Her jewels were still in his pocket--a burden she had apparently found
+too heavy to carry.  How he wished he might accept her confidence in
+him freely, unreservedly--with the thrill it could bring to his heart!
+
+The distance to Hickwood seemed to slip away beneath his feet.  He
+arrived in the hamlet far too soon, for the day had charmed bright
+dreams into being, and business seemed wholly out of place.
+
+The railroad station, a store, an apothecary's shop, and a cobbler's
+little den seemed to comprise the entire commercial street.
+
+Garrison inquired his way to the home of his man--the inventor.
+
+Scott, whom he found at a workshop, back of his home, was a thin,
+stooped figure, gray as a wolf, wrinkled as a prune, and stained about
+the mouth by tobacco.  His eyes, beneath their overhanging brows of
+gray, were singularly sharp and brilliant.  Garrison made up his mind
+that the blaze in their depths was none other than the light of
+fanaticism.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Scott?" said the detective, who had determined to
+pose as an upper-air enthusiast.  "I was stopping in Branchville for a
+day or two, and heard of your fame as a fellow inventor.  I've been
+interested in aeroplanes and dirigible balloons so long that I thought
+I'd give myself the pleasure of a call."
+
+"Um!" said Scott, closing the door of his shop behind him, as if to
+guard a precious secret.  "What did you say is your name?"
+
+Garrison informed him duly.
+
+"I haven't yet made myself famous as a navigator of the air, but we all
+have our hopes."
+
+"You'll never be able to steer a balloon," said Scott, with a touch of
+asperity.  "I can tell you that."
+
+"I begin to believe you're right," assented Garrison artfully.  "It's a
+mighty discouraging and expensive business, any way you try it."
+
+"I'll do the trick!  I've got it all worked out," said Scott, betrayed
+into ardor and assurance by a nearness of the triumph that he felt to
+be approaching.  "I'll have plenty of money to complete it
+soon--plenty--plenty--but it's a long time coming, even now."
+
+"That's the trouble with most of us," Garrison observed, to draw his
+man.  "The lack of money."
+
+"Why can't they pay it, now the man is dead?" demanded Scott, as if he
+felt that everyone knew his affairs by heart and could understand his
+meaning.  "I need the money now--to-day--this minute!  It's bad enough
+when a man stays healthy so long, and looks as if he'd last for twenty
+years.  That's bad enough without me having to wait and wait and wait,
+now that he's dead and in the ground."
+
+It was clear to Garrison the man's singleness of purpose had left his
+mind impaired.  He began to see how a creature so bent on some wondrous
+solution of the flying-machine enigma could even become so obsessed in
+his mind that to murder for money, insurance benefits, or anything
+else, would seem a fair means to an end.
+
+"Some friend of yours has recently died?" he asked.  "You've been left
+some needed funds for your labors?"
+
+"Funny kind of friendship when a man goes on living so long," said the
+alert fanatic.  "And I don't get the money; that's what's delaying me
+now."
+
+"You're far more fortunate than some of us," said Garrison.  "Some
+friend, I suppose, here in town."
+
+"No, he was here two days," answered Scott.  "I saw him but little.  He
+died in the night, up to the village."  His sharp eyes swung on
+Garrison peculiarly the moment his speech was concluded.
+
+He demanded sharply; "What's all this business to you?"
+
+"Nothing--only that it shows the world's great inventors are not always
+neglected, after all," answered Garrison.  "Some of us never enjoy such
+good fortune."
+
+"The world don't know how great I am," declared the inventor, instantly
+off, on the hint supplied by his visitor.  "But just the minute that
+insurance company gives me the money, I'll be ready to startle the
+skies!  I'll blot out the stars for 'em!  I'll show New York!  I know
+what I'm doing!  And nothing on earth is going to stop me!  All these
+fool balloonists, with their big silk floating cigars!  Deadly cigars
+is what they are--deadly!  You wait!"
+
+Garrison was staring at him fixedly, fascinated by a new idea which had
+crept upon his mind with startling abruptness.  His one idea was to get
+away for a vital two minutes by himself.
+
+"Well, perhaps I'll try to get around again," he said.  "I can see
+you're very busy, and I mustn't keep you longer from your work.  Good
+luck and good-day."
+
+"The only principle," the old man answered, his gaze directed to the
+sky.
+
+Garrison looked up, beholding a bird, far off in the azure vault,
+soaring in the majesty of flight.  Then he hastened again to the quiet
+little street, and down by a fence at a vacant lot, where he paused and
+looked about.  He was quite alone.  Drawing from his pocket the
+envelope containing the old cigar that Hardy had undoubtedly let fall
+as he died at the porch of the "haunted" house, he turned up the
+raggedly bitten end.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed beneath his breath.
+
+Tucked within the tobacco folds, in a small hollow space which was
+partially closed by the filler which had once been bitten together, was
+a powdery stuff that seemed comprised of small, hard particles, as of
+crystals, roughly broken up.
+
+His breath came fast.  His heart was pumping rapidly.  He raised the
+cigar to his nostrils and smelled, but could only detect the pungent
+odor of tobacco.
+
+That the powder was a poison he had not the slightest doubt.  Aware
+that one poison only, thus administered, would have the potency to slay
+an adult human being practically on the instant, he realized at once
+that here, at the little, unimportant drug-shop of the place, the
+simple test for such a stuff could be made in a matter of two minutes.
+
+Eager and feverish to inform himself without delay, he took out his
+knife and carefully removed all the powder from its place and wrapped
+it most cautiously about in the paper of the envelope in hand.  The
+cigar he returned to his pocket.
+
+Five minutes later, at the drug-store down the street, an obliging and
+clever young chemist at the place was holding up a test-tube made of
+glass, with perhaps two thimblefuls of acidulated solution which had
+first been formed by dissolving the powder under inspection.
+
+"If this is what you suppose," he said, "a slight admixture of this
+iron will turn it Prussian blue."
+
+He poured in the iron, which was likewise in solution, and instantly
+the azure tint was created in all its deadly beauty.
+
+Garrison was watching excitedly.
+
+"No mistake about it," said the chemist triumphantly.  "Where did you
+find this poison?"
+
+"Why--in a scrap of meat," said Garrison, inventing an answer with
+ready ingenuity; "enough to have killed my dog in half a shake!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHERE CLEWS MAY POINT
+
+Startled, thus to discover that, after all, a crime of the most
+insidious and diabolical nature had been committed, Garrison wandered
+along the street, after quitting the drug-store, with his brain aglow
+with excitement and the need for steady thought.
+
+The case that had seemed but a simple affair of a man's very natural
+demise had suddenly assumed an aspect black as night.
+
+He felt the need for light--all the light procurable in Hickwood.
+
+Aware of the misleading possibilities of a theory preconceived, he was
+not prepared even now to decide that inventor Scott was necessarily
+guilty.  He found himself obliged to admit that the indications pointed
+to the half-crazed man, to whom a machine had become a god, but nothing
+as yet had been proved.
+
+To return to Scott this morning would, he felt, be indiscreet.  The one
+person now to be seen and interviewed was Mrs. Wilson, at whose home
+the man Hardy had been lodged.  He started at once to the place, his
+mind reverting by natural process to the box of cigars he had seen an
+hour before, and from which, without a doubt, this poisoned weed had
+been taken by Hardy to smoke.  He realized that one extremely important
+point must be determined by the box itself.
+
+If among the cigars still remaining untouched there were others
+similarly poisoned, the case might involve a set of facts quite
+different from those which reason would adduce if the one cigar only
+had been loaded.  It was vital also to the matter in hand to ascertain
+the identity of the person who had presented the smokes as a birthday
+remembrance to the victim.
+
+He arrived at Mrs. Wilson's home, was met at the door by the lady
+herself, and was then obliged to wait interminably while she fled to
+some private boudoir at the rear to make herself presentable for
+"company."
+
+For the second time, when she at length appeared, Garrison found
+himself obliged to invent a plausible excuse for his visit and
+curiosity.
+
+"I dropped in to ascertain a few little facts about the late Mr. Hardy,
+whose death occurred last week in Branchville," he said.  "The
+insurance company that I represent goes through this trifling formality
+before paying a claim."
+
+"He certainly was the nicest man," said Mrs. Wilson.  "And just as I
+was countin' on the money, he has to up and die.  I didn't think he was
+that kind."
+
+"Did he have many visitors?" Garrison asked, hastening at once to the
+items he felt to be important.  "I mean, from among the neighbors,
+or--anyone else?"
+
+"Well, Charlie Scott come over, that second night and actin' that queer
+I didn't know what was the matter.  He went off just about nine
+o'clock, and I went to bed, and then I heard him come back in half an
+hour, while Mr. Hardy was out, and he went again before Mr. Hardy come
+in and started off to Branchville to die."
+
+Her method of narrative was puzzling.
+
+"You mean," said Garrison, "that after Mr. Scott had called and gone,
+Mr. Hardy went out temporarily, and in his absence Mr. Scott returned
+and remained for a time in his room?"
+
+"I didn't git up to see what he wanted, or how long he stayed," said
+Mrs. Wilson.  "I hate gittin' up when once I'm abed."
+
+"And he went before Mr. Hardy's return?"
+
+"Yes, I stayed awake for that; for although Charlie Scott may be honest
+enough, he's inventin' some crazy fiddlede-dee, which has been the
+crown of thorns of that dear woman all these----"
+
+"Did they seem to be friends, Mr. Scott and Mr. Hardy?" Garrison
+interrupted mildly.  "A clever woman, you know, can always tell."
+
+"Ain't you New York men the quick ones to see!" said Mrs. Wilson.  "Of
+course they was friends.  The day he come Mr. Hardy was over to
+Charlie's all the livelong afternoon."
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy get very many letters, or anything, through the mail?"
+
+"Well, of course, I offered to go to the post-office, and bring him
+everything," said Mrs. Wilson, "but he went himself.  So I don't know
+what he got, or who it come from.  Not that I read anything but the
+postals and----"
+
+"Did he get any packages sent by express?"
+
+"Not that come to my house, for little Jimmie Vane would have brought
+'em straight to me."
+
+Garrison went directly to the mark around which he had been playing.
+
+"Who delivered his birthday present--the box of cigars?"
+
+"Oh, that was his niece, the very first evenin' he was here--and she
+the prettiest girl I ever seen."
+
+"His niece?" echoed Garrison.  "Some young lady--who brought them here
+herself?"
+
+"Well, I should say so!  My, but she was that lovely!  He took her up
+to Branchville to the train--and how I did hate to see her go!"
+
+"Of course, yes, I remember he had a niece," said Garrison, his mind
+reverting to the "statement" in his pocket.  "But, upon my word, I
+believe I've forgotten her name."
+
+"He called her Dot," said Mrs. Wilson.
+
+"But her real name?" said Garrison.
+
+"Her real name was Dorothy Booth before she was married," replied Mrs.
+Wilson, "but now, of course, it's changed."
+
+Garrison had suddenly turned ashen.  He managed to control himself by
+making a very great effort.
+
+"Perhaps you know her married name?" he said.
+
+"I never forget a thing like that," said Mrs. Wilson.  "Her married
+name is Mrs. Fairfax."
+
+It seemed to Garrison he was fighting in the toils of some astounding
+maze, where sickening mists arose to clog his brain.  He could scarcely
+believe his senses.  A tidal wave of facts and deductions, centering
+about the personality of Dorothy Booth-Fairfax, surged upon him
+relentlessly, bearing down and engulfing the faith which he strove to
+maintain in her honesty.
+
+He had felt from the first there was something deep and dark with
+mystery behind the girl who had come to his office with her most
+amazing employment.  He had entertained vague doubts upon hearing of
+wills and money inheritance at the house where she lived in New York.
+
+He recalled the start she had given, while playing at the piano, upon
+learning he was leaving for Hickwood.  Her reticence and the
+strangeness of the final affair of the necklaces, in connection with
+this present development, left him almost in despair.
+
+Despite it all, as it overwhelmed him thus abruptly, he felt himself
+struggling against it.  He could not even now accept a belief in her
+complicity in such a deed while he thought of the beauty of her nature.
+That potent something she had stirred in his heart was a fierce,
+fighting champion to defend her.
+
+He had not dared confess to himself he was certainly, fatefully falling
+in love with this girl he scarcely knew, but his heart refused to hear
+her accused and his mind was engaged in her defence.
+
+Above all else, he felt the need for calmness.  Perhaps the sky would
+clear itself, and the sun again gild her beauty.
+
+"Mrs. Fairfax," he repeated to his garrulous informant.  "She brought
+the cigars, you say, the day of Mr. Hardy's arrival?"
+
+"And went away on the six-forty-three," said Mrs. Wilson.  "I remember
+it was six minutes late, and I did think my dinner would be dry as a
+bone, for she said she couldn't stay----"
+
+"And that was his birthday," Garrison interrupted.
+
+"Oh, no.  His birthday was the day he died.  I remember, 'cause he
+wouldn't even open the box of cigars till after his dinner that day."
+
+Garrison felt his remaining ray of hope faintly flicker and expire.
+
+"You are sure the box wasn't opened?" he insisted.
+
+"I guess I am!  He borrowed my screwdriver out of the sewin'-machine
+drawer, where I always keep it, to pry up the cover."
+
+Garrison tacked to other items.
+
+"Why did she have to go so soon?" he inquired.  "Couldn't she have
+stayed here with you?"
+
+"What, a young thing like her, only just married?" demanded Mrs.
+Wilson, faintly blushing.  "I guess you don't know us women when we're
+in love."  And she blushed again.
+
+"Of course," answered Garrison, at a loss for a better reply.  "Did her
+uncle seem pleased with her marriage?"
+
+"Why, he sat where you're now settin' for one solid hour, tellin' me
+how tickled he felt," imparted the housewife.  "He said she'd git
+everything he had in the world, now that she was married happy to a
+decent man, for he'd fixed it all up in his will."
+
+"Mr. Hardy said his niece would inherit his money?"
+
+"Settin' right in that chair, and smilin' fit to kill."
+
+"Did the niece seem very fond of her uncle?"
+
+"Well, at first I thought she acted queer and nervous," answered Mrs.
+Wilson, "but I made up my mind that was the natural way for any young
+bride to feel, especial away from her husband."
+
+Garrison's hopes were slipping from him, one by one, and putting on
+their shrouds.
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy seem to be pleased with his niece's selection--with Mr.
+Fairfax?" he inquired.  "Or don't you know?"
+
+"Why, he never even _seen_ the man," replied Mrs. Wilson.  "It seems
+Mr. Fairfax was mixin' up business with his honeymoon, and him and his
+bride was goin' off again, or was on their way, and she had a chance to
+run up and see her uncle for an hour, and none of us so much as got a
+look at Mr. Fairfax."
+
+The mystery darkened rather than otherwise.  There was nothing yet to
+establish whether or not a real Mr. Fairfax existed.  It appeared to
+Garrison that Dorothy had purposely arranged the scheme of her alleged
+marriage and honeymoon in such a way that her uncle should not meet her
+husband.
+
+He tried another query:
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy say that he had never seen Mr. Fairfax?"
+
+"Never laid eyes on the man in his life, but expected to meet him in a
+month."
+
+Garrison thought of the nephew who had come to claim the body.  His
+name had been given as Durgin.  At the most, he could be no more than
+Dorothy's cousin, and not the one he had recently met at her house.
+
+"I don't suppose you saw Mr. Durgin, the nephew of Mr. Hardy?" he
+inquired.  "The man who claimed the body?"
+
+"No, sir.  I heard about Mr. Durgin, but I didn't see him."
+
+Garrison once more changed the topic.
+
+"Which was the room that Mr. Hardy occupied?  Perhaps you'll let me see
+it."
+
+"It ain't been swept or dusted recent," Mrs. Wilson informed him,
+rising to lead him from the room, "but you're welcome to see it, if you
+don't mind how it looks."
+
+The apartment was a good-sized room, at the rear of the house.  It was
+situated on a corner, with windows at the side and rear.  Against the
+front partition an old-fashioned fireplace had been closed with a
+decorated cover.  The neat bed, the hair-cloth chairs, and a table that
+stood on three of its four legs only, supplied the furnishings.  The
+coroner had taken every scrap he could find of the few things possessed
+by Mr. Hardy.
+
+"Nice, cheerful room," commented Garrison.  "Did he keep the windows
+closed and locked?"
+
+"Oh, no!  He was a wonderful hand to want the air," said the landlady.
+"And he loved the view."
+
+The view of the shed and hen-coops at the rear was duly exhibited.
+Garrison did his best to formulate a theory to exonerate Dorothy from
+knowledge of the crime; but his mind had received a blow at these new
+disclosures, and nothing seemed to aid him in the least.  He could only
+feel that some dark deed lay either at the door of the girl who had
+paid him to masquerade as her husband, or the half-crazed inventor down
+the street.
+
+And the toils lay closer to Dorothy, he felt, than they did to Scott.
+
+"You have been very helpful, I am sure," he said to Mrs. Wilson.
+
+He bade her good-by and left the house, feeling thoroughly depressed in
+all his being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A SUMMONS
+
+Once in the open air again, with the sunshine streaming upon him,
+Garrison felt a rebound in his thoughts.  He started slowly up the road
+to Branchville, thinking of the murder as he went.
+
+The major requisite, he was thoroughly aware, was motive.  Men were
+never slain, except by lunatics, without a deeply grounded reason.  It
+disturbed him greatly to realize that Dorothy might have possessed such
+a motive in the danger of losing an inheritance, depending upon her
+immediate marriage.  He could not dismiss the thought that she had
+suddenly found herself in need of a husband, probably to satisfy
+conditions in her uncle's will; that she had paid Mr. Hardy a visit as
+a bride, but _without her husband_, and had since been obliged to come
+to himself and procure his professional services _as such husband_,
+presumably for a short time only.
+
+She was cheating the Robinsons now through him.
+
+Of this much there could be no denial.  She was stubbornly withholding
+important information from himself as the masquerading husband.  She
+was, therefore, capable of craft and scheming.  The jewel mystery was
+equally suspicious and unexplainable.
+
+And yet, when his memory flew to the hour in which he had met her for
+the very first time, his faith in her goodness and honesty swept upon
+him with a force that banished all doubt from his being.  Every word
+she had uttered, every look from her eyes, had borne her sincerity in
+upon him indelibly.
+
+This was his argument, brought to bear upon himself.  He did not
+confess the element of love had entered the matter in the least.
+
+And now, as he walked and began to try to show himself that she could
+not have done this awful crime, the uppermost thought that tortured his
+mind was a fear that she might have a _genuine_ husband.
+
+He forced his thoughts back to the box of cigars, through the medium of
+which John Hardy's death had been accomplished.  What a diabolically
+clever device it had been!  What scheme could be more complete to place
+the deadly poison on the tongue of the helpless victim!  The cigar is
+bitten--the stuff is in the mouth, and before its taste can manifest
+itself above the strong flavor of tobacco, the deadly work is done!
+And who would think, in ordinary circumstances, of looking in a cigar
+for such a poison, and how could such a crime be traced?
+
+The very diabolism of the device acquitted Dorothy, according to
+Garrison's judgment.  He doubted if any clever woman, perhaps excepting
+the famous and infamous Lucrezia Borgia, could have fashioned a plan so
+utterly fiendish and cunning.
+
+He began to reflect what the thing involved.  In the first place, many
+smokers cut the end from every cigar, preliminary to lighting up to
+smoke.  The person who had loaded this cigar must have known it was
+John Hardy's habit to bite his cigars in the old-fashioned manner.  He
+hated this thought, for Dorothy would certainly be one to know of this
+habit in her uncle.
+
+On the other hand, however, the task of placing the poison was one
+requiring nicety, for clumsy work would of course betray itself at the
+cigar-end thus prepared.  To tamper with a well-made cigar like this
+required that one should deftly remove or unroll the wrapper, hollow
+out a cavity, stuff in the poison, and then rewrap the whole with
+almost the skill and art of a well-trained maker of cigars.  To
+Garrison's way of thinking, this rendered the task impossible for such
+a girl as Dorothy.
+
+He had felt from the first that any man of the inventive, mechanical
+attributes doubtless possessed by Scott could be guilty of working out
+this scheme.
+
+Scott, too, possessed a motive.  He wanted money.  The victim was
+insured in his favor for a snug little fortune.  And Scott had returned
+to Hardy's room, according to Mrs. Wilson, while Hardy was away, and
+could readily have opened the box, extracted one or two cigars, and
+prepared them for Hardy to smoke.  He, too, would have known of Hardy's
+habit of biting the end from his weed.
+
+There was still the third possibility that even before Dorothy's visit
+to her uncle the cigars could have been prepared.  Anyone supplied with
+the knowledge that she had purchased the present, with intention to
+take it to her uncle, might readily have conceived and executed the
+plan and be doubly hidden from detection, since suspicion would fall
+upon Dorothy.
+
+Aware of the great importance of once more examining the dead man's
+effects at the coroner's office, Garrison hastened his pace.  It still
+lacked nearly an hour of noon when he re-entered Branchville.  The
+office he sought was a long block away from his hotel; nevertheless,
+before he reached the door a hotel bell-boy discerned him, waved his
+arm, then abruptly disappeared inside the hostelry.
+
+The coroner was emerging from his place of business up the street.
+Garrison accosted him.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Pike," he said, "I've returned, you see.  I've nearly
+concluded my work on the Hardy case; but I'd like, as a matter of form,
+to look again through the few trifling articles in your custody."
+
+"Why, certainly," said Mr. Pike.  "Come right in.  I've got to be away
+for fifteen minutes, but I guess I can trust you in the shop."
+
+He grinned good-naturedly, opened the drawer, and hurriedly departed.
+
+Garrison drew up a chair before the desk.
+
+At the door the hotel-boy appeared abruptly.
+
+"Telegram for you, Mr. Garrison," he said.  "Been at the office about
+an hour, but nobody knew where you was."
+
+Garrison took it and tore it open.  It read:
+
+
+"Return as soon as possible.  Important.
+
+"DOROTHY."
+
+
+"Any answer?" inquired the boy.
+
+"No," said Garrison.  "What's the next train for New York?"
+
+"Eleven-forty-five," answered the boy.  "Goes in fifteen minutes."
+
+"All right.  Have my suit-case down at the office."
+
+He returned to his work.
+
+Ignoring the few piled-up papers in the drawer, he took up the three
+cigars beside the box, the ones which had come from Hardy's pocket, and
+scrutinized them with the most minute attention.
+
+So far as he could possibly detect, not one had been altered or
+repasted on the end.  He did not dare to cut them up, greatly as he
+longed to examine them thoroughly.  He opened the box from which they
+had come.
+
+For a moment his eye was attracted and held by the birthday
+greeting-card which Dorothy had written.  The presence of the card
+showed a somewhat important fact--the box had been opened once before
+John Hardy forced up the lid, in order that the card might be deposited
+within.
+
+His gaze went traveling from one even, nicely finished cigar-end to the
+next, in his hope to discover signs of meddling.  It was not until he
+came to the end cigar that he caught at the slightest irregularity.
+Here, at last, was a change.
+
+He took the cigar out carefully and held it up.  There could be no
+doubt it had been "mended" on the end.  The wrapper was not only
+slightly discolored, but it bulged a trifle; it was not so faultlessly
+turned as all the others, and the end was corkscrewed the merest
+trifle, whereas, none of the others had been twisted to bring them to a
+point.
+
+Garrison needed that cigar.  He was certain not another one in all the
+box was suspicious.  The perpetrator of the poisoning had evidently
+known that Hardy's habit was to take his cigars from the end of the row
+and not the center.  No chance for mistake had been permitted.  The two
+end cigars had been loaded, and no more.
+
+How to purloin this cigar without having it missed by Mr. Pike was a
+worry for a moment.
+
+Garrison managed it simply.  He took out a dozen cigars in the layer on
+top and one from the layer next the bottom; then, rearranging the
+underlying layer so as to fill in the empty space, he replaced the
+others in perfect order in the topmost row, and thus had one cigar left
+over to substitute for the one he had taken from the end.
+
+He plumped the suspicious-looking weed into his pocket and closed the
+box.
+
+Eagerly glancing at the letters found among the dead man's possessions,
+he found a note from Dorothy.  It had come from a town in
+Massachusetts.  The date was over six weeks old.
+
+It was addressed, "Dear Uncle John," and, in a girlish way, informed
+him she had recently been married to a "splendid, brilliant young man,
+named Fairfax," whom she trusted her uncle would admire.  They were off
+on their honeymoon, it added, but she hoped they would not be long
+away, for they both looked forward with pleasure to seeing him soon.
+
+It might have been part of her trickery; he could not tell.
+
+The envelope was missing.  Where Hardy had been at the time of
+receiving the note was not revealed.  The picture postal-card that Pike
+had mentioned was also there.  It, too, apparently, had come from
+Dorothy, and had been sent direct to Hickwood.
+
+Once more returning to the box of cigars, Garrison took it up and
+turned it around in his hand.  On the back, to his great delight, he
+discovered a rubber-stamp legend, which was nothing more or less than a
+cheap advertisement of the dealer who had sold the cigars.
+
+He was one Isaac Blum, of an uptown address on Amsterdam Avenue, New
+York, dealer in stationery, novelties, and smokers' articles.  Garrison
+jotted down the name and address, together with the brand of the
+cigars, and was just about to rise and close the drawer when the
+coroner returned.
+
+"I shall have to go down to New York this morning," said Garrison.  "I
+owe you many thanks."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Mr. Pike responded.  "If you're goin' to try to
+catch fifteen, you'd better git a move.  She's whistled for the station
+just above."
+
+Garrison hastened away.  He was presently whirling back to Dorothy.
+
+His "shadow," with his bruised hand gloved, was just behind him in the
+car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A COMPLICATION
+
+With ample time in which to wonder what Dorothy's summons might imply,
+Garrison naturally found himself in the dark, despite his utmost
+efforts at deduction.
+
+He welcomed the chance thus made possible to behold her again so soon,
+after what he had so recently discovered, and yet he almost dreaded the
+necessity of ferreting out all possible facts concerning her actions
+and motives for the past six weeks, the better to work up his case.
+Wherever it led him, he knew he must follow unrelentingly.
+
+Masquerading as her husband, he had involved himself in--Heaven alone
+knew what--but certainly in all her affairs, even to the murder itself,
+since he was alleged to have married her prior to John Hardy's death,
+and was now supposed to benefit, in all probability, by some will that
+Hardy had executed.
+
+The recent developments disturbed him incessantly.  He almost wished he
+had never heard of Mr. Wicks, who had come to his office with
+employment.  And yet, with Dorothy entangled as she was in all this
+business, it was better by far that he should know the worst, as well
+as the best, that there was to be discovered.
+
+He wondered if the whole affair might be charged with insidious
+fatalities--either for himself or Dorothy.  He was groping in the
+dark--and the only light was that which shone in Dorothy's eyes; there
+was nothing else to guide him.  He could not believe it was a baneful
+light, luring him on to destruction--and yet--and yet----
+
+His gaze wandered out at the window on a scene of Nature's loveliness.
+The bright June day was perfect.  In their new, vivid greens, the
+fields and the trees were enchanting.  How he wished that he and
+Dorothy might wander across the hills and meadows together!
+
+A sweet, lawless wildness possessed his rebellious nature.  His mind
+could reason, but his heart would not, despite all his efforts at
+control.
+
+Thus the time passed until New York was reached.
+
+Unobserved, the man who had shadowed Garrison so faithfully left the
+train at the Harlem station, to take the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
+Street crosstown car, in his haste to get to Ninety-third Street, where
+the Robinsons were waiting.
+
+Garrison went on to the Grand Central, carried his suit-case to his
+room, freshened his dress with new linen, and then, going forth,
+lunched at a corner cafe, purchased another bunch of roses, and
+proceeded on to Dorothy's.
+
+It was a quarter of two when he rang the bell.  He waited only the
+briefest time.  The door was opened, and there stood young Robinson,
+smiling.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Cousin Jerold?" he said, cordially extending his
+hand.  "Come right in.  I'm delighted to see you."
+
+Garrison had expected any reception but this.  He felt his old dislike
+of the Robinsons return at once.  There was nothing to do, however, but
+to enter.
+
+"Is Dorothy----" he started.
+
+"Won't you go right up?" interrupted Theodore.  "I believe you are not
+unexpected."
+
+Garrison was puzzled.  A certain uneasiness possessed him.  He
+proceeded quietly up the stairs, momentarily expecting Dorothy to
+appear.  But the house was silent.  He reached the landing and turned
+to look at Theodore, who waved him on to the room they had occupied
+before.
+
+When he entered he was not at all pleased to find the elder Robinson
+only awaiting his advent.  He halted just inside the threshold and
+glanced inquiringly from father to son.
+
+"How do you do?" he said stiffly.  "Is Dorothy not at home?"
+
+"She is not," said old Robinson, making no advance and giving no
+greeting.  "Will you please sit down?"
+
+Garrison remained where he was.
+
+"Do you expect her soon?" he inquired.
+
+"We shall get along very well without her.  We've got something to say
+to you--alone."
+
+Garrison said: "Indeed?"
+
+He advanced to a chair and sat down.
+
+"In the first place, perhaps you will tell us your actual name," said
+old Robinson, himself taking a seat.
+
+Garrison was annoyed.
+
+"Let me assure you, once for all, that I do not in the least recognize
+your right to meddle in my concerns, or subject me to any inquisitions."
+
+"That's another way of saying you refuse to answer!" snapped Robinson
+tartly.  "You know your name isn't Fairfax, any more than it's mine.
+Your name is Garrison."
+
+Garrison stared at him coldly.
+
+"You seem to have made up your mind very decidedly," he said.  "Is that
+all you have to say?"
+
+"You don't deny it?" cried the old man, exasperated by his calmness.
+"You don't dare deny it!"
+
+Garrison grew calmer.
+
+"I haven't the slightest reason to deny anything," he said.  "I
+frequently require a pseudonym.  Dorothy knows that I employ the name
+Garrison whenever occasion demands."
+
+The old man was wild.
+
+"Will you swear that your right name is Fairfax?" he said.  "That's
+what I demand to know!"
+
+Garrison answered: "I came here to see my wife.  I warn you I am
+growing impatient with your hidden insinuations!"
+
+"Your wife!" cried old Robinson, making a dive into one of his pockets
+with his hand.  "What have you to say to this letter, from the woman
+who is doubtless by now your _legal_ wife?"  Suddenly snatching a
+letter from his coat, he projected himself toward Garrison and held up
+the missive before him.
+
+It was the letter from Ailsa--the one that Garrison had missed--the
+letter in which she had agreed to become his wife.  He put forth his
+hand to receive it.
+
+"No, you don't!" cried the old man, snatching it out of his reach.
+"I'll keep this, if you please, to show my niece."
+
+Garrison's eyes glittered.
+
+"So, it was _your_ hired thief who stole it, up at Branchville?" he
+said.  "I don't suppose he showed you the skin that he left behind from
+his fingers."
+
+"That's got nothing to do with the point!" the old man cried at him
+triumphantly.  "I don't believe you are married to my niece.  If you
+think you can play your game on me----"
+
+Garrison interrupted.
+
+"The theft of that letter was a burglary in which you are involved.
+You are laying up trouble for yourself very rapidly.  Give that letter
+to me!"
+
+"Give it up, hey?  We'll see!" said Robinson.  "Take it to court if you
+dare!  I'm willing.  This letter shows that another woman accepted you,
+and _that's_ the point you don't dare face in the law!"
+
+Whatever else he discerned in the case.  Garrison did not understand in
+the least how Dorothy could have summoned him back here for this.
+
+"That letter is an old one," he replied to Robinson calmly.  "Look at
+the date.  It's a bit of ancient history, long since altered."
+
+"There is no date!" the old man shrilled in glee; and he was right.
+
+Garrison's reply was never uttered.  The door behind him abruptly
+opened, and there stood Dorothy, radiant with color and beauty.
+
+"Why, Jerold!" she cried.  "Why, when did you come?  I didn't even know
+you were in town."
+
+She ran to him ardently, as she had before, with her perfect art, and
+kissed him with wifely affection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SHOCK OF TRUTH
+
+For one second only Garrison was a trifle confused.  Then he gave her
+the roses he had brought.
+
+She carried them quickly to the table, hiding her face in their
+fragrant petals.
+
+"Just a moment, Dorothy," said Garrison.  "You didn't know I'd come to
+town?  You wired----"  He halted and looked at the Robinsons.  "Oh," he
+added, "I think I begin to see."
+
+Dorothy felt something in the air.
+
+"What is it, Jerold?" she said.  "I haven't wired.  What do you mean?"
+
+Garrison faced the Robinsons.
+
+"I mean that these two _gentlemen_ telegraphed me at Branchville to
+come here at once--and signed your name to the wire."
+
+"Telegraphed you?  In my name?" repeated Dorothy.  "I don't believe I
+understand."
+
+"We may as well understand things first as last," said her uncle.  "I
+don't believe this man is your husband!  I don't believe his name is
+Fairfax!  He was registered as Garrison.  Furthermore----"
+
+Garrison interrupted, addressing Dorothy:
+
+"They think they have discovered something important or vital in the
+fact that I sometimes use the name Garrison.  And they have managed to
+steal an old letter----"
+
+"I'll tell about the letter, if you please!" cried old Robinson
+shrilly.  He turned to Dorothy, who was very white.  "There you are!"
+he said, waving the letter before her face.  "There's the letter from
+his sweetheart--the woman he asked to become his wife!  Here's her
+acceptance, and her protestations of love.  She is doubtless his wife
+at this moment!  Read it for yourself!"
+
+He thrust it into Dorothy's hand with aggressive insistence.
+
+Dorothy received it obediently.  She hardly knew what she should say or
+do to confute the old man's statements, or quiet his dangerous
+suspicions.  His arrival at the truth concerning herself and Garrison
+had disconcerted her utterly.
+
+Garrison did not attempt to take the letter, but he addressed her
+promptly:
+
+"I am perfectly willing to have you read the letter.  It was written
+over a year ago.  It is Ailsa's letter.  I told you I was once engaged
+to Ailsa; that she married my friend, without the slightest warning;
+that I had not destroyed her last letter.  She never acquired the habit
+of dating her letters, and therefore this one might appear to be a bit
+of recent correspondence."
+
+"A very pretty explanation!" cried old Robinson.  "We'll see--we'll
+see!  Dorothy, read it for yourself!"
+
+Dorothy was rapidly recovering her self-possession.  She turned to her
+uncle quite calmly, with the folded bit of paper in her hand.
+
+"How did you come by this letter," she inquired.  "You didn't really
+steal it?"
+
+Garrison answered: "The letter was certainly stolen.  My suit-case was
+rifled the night of my arrival at Branchville.  These gentlemen hired a
+thief to go through my possessions."
+
+"I've been protecting my rights!" the old man answered fiercely.  "If
+you think you can cheat me out of my rightful dues you'll find out your
+mistake!"
+
+"I wouldn't have thought you could stoop to this," said Dorothy.  "You
+couldn't expect to shake my faith in Jerold."
+
+She handed Garrison the letter to show her confidence.
+
+Garrison placed it in his pocket.  He turned on the Robinsons angrily.
+
+"You are both involved in a prison offense," he said--"an ordinary,
+vulgar burglary.  I suppose you feel secure in the fact that for
+Dorothy's sake I shall do nothing about it--to-day.  But I warn you
+that I'll endure no more of this sort of thing, in your efforts to
+throw discredit on Dorothy's relationship with me!  Now then, kindly
+leave the room."
+
+Aware that Garrison held the upper hand, old Robinson was more than
+chagrined; he was furious.  His rage, however, was impotent; there was
+no immediate remedy at hand.  Theodore, equally baffled, returned to
+his attitude of friendliness.
+
+"No harm's been done, and none was intended," he said.  "There's
+nothing in family rows, anyhow.  Father, come along."
+
+His father, on the point of discharging another broadside of anger,
+altered his mind and followed his son to a room at the rear of the
+house.
+
+Garrison closed the door.
+
+Dorothy was looking at him almost wildly.
+
+"What does it mean?" she asked in a tone barely above a whisper.  "They
+haven't really found out anything?"
+
+"They suspect the truth, I'm afraid," he answered.  "I shall be obliged
+to ask you a number of questions."
+
+Her face became quite ashen.
+
+"I can see that your employment has become very trying," she said, "but
+I trust you are not contemplating retreat."
+
+The thought made her pale, for her heart, too, had found itself
+potently involved.
+
+"No; I have gone too far for that," he answered, making an effort to
+fight down the dictates of his increasing love and keep his head
+thoroughly clear.
+
+"In the first place, when you wire me in the future use another name,
+for safety--say Jeraldine.  In the next place, I am very much hampered
+by the blindness of my mission.  I can see, I think, that the Robinsons
+expected some legacy which you are now apparently about to inherit, and
+your marriage became necessary to fulfill some condition of the will.
+Is this correct?"
+
+"Yes, quite correct."  She remained very pale.
+
+"Who was it that died, leaving the will?  And when did he die?"
+
+"Another uncle, Mr. John Hardy--quite recently," she answered.
+
+"You are not in mourning."
+
+"By his special request.  He died very suddenly.  He left a condition
+in his will that I should inherit his fortune provided I should have
+been married at least one month prior to his death to a healthy,
+respectable man--who was not to be my cousin."
+
+"Theodore?"
+
+She nodded.  "You can see I had to have a husband."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Garrison thought he saw a light that cleared her as he could have
+wished.  He hastened to a question bearing directly upon it.
+
+"Did the Robinsons know of this clause in your Uncle Hardy's will--say,
+two or three weeks ago?"
+
+"No.  They knew nothing of it then."
+
+Garrison's heart sank.  "You are sure?"
+
+"Absolutely positive.  Uncle John was very secretive."
+
+The suggestion that the Robinsons, having known the condition in the
+will, had destroyed John Hardy in the belief that Dorothy, being
+unmarried, would thereby lose the inheritance, was vanishing.  Garrison
+still had hope.
+
+"You once alluded to certain obligations that--well, compelled you to
+hire a husband," he said.  "You had no urgent need of funds in a large
+amount?"
+
+She darted him a startled look.  "I shall have a pressing need--soon.
+I suppose you have a right to know."
+
+Garrison was almost in despair.  There was nothing to do but go on.
+
+"Did Mr. Hardy know anything of this need?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You feared he might not be in sympathy with your requirements?"
+
+"No, he----  Have these questions anything to do with our--case?"  She
+seemed to be frightened.
+
+"They have," he said.  "You have your diamonds and pearls.  You might
+raise quite a sum on such valuable gems."
+
+The look of fear upon her face increased.
+
+"I couldn't!" she said, as if she feared the walls might hear and
+betray.  "Please don't mention----"
+
+"You didn't tell me what they are, or why you wish to keep them," he
+said.  "What does it mean?"
+
+"Please don't ask!"  She was greatly agitated.  "Please trust me--a
+little while longer!  You probably have to return to Branchville and
+your work."
+
+He determined then and there upon the one supreme test of the situation.
+
+"That reminds me," he said, averting his gaze; "the work on which I am
+engaged in Branchville is the case of a man named Hardy.  I'm glad he
+was not your uncle."
+
+Her face took on the hue of death.  Her lips moved, but for a moment
+made no sound.  Then, with an effort, she replied:
+
+"You're glad--but--why?"
+
+"Because," he replied, with a forced smile on his lips, "the man up at
+Branchville was murdered."
+
+She made no sound.
+
+She simply closed her eyes and swayed toward him, weakly collapsing as
+she fell.  He caught her quickly against his breast, a heavy, precious
+burden that he knew he must love, though the angels of heaven accuse
+her.
+
+"Dorothy--Dorothy--forgive me," he said, but her senses were deaf to
+his voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A DISTURBING LOSS
+
+Garrison, holding the limp, helpless form in his arms, gazed quickly
+about the room and saw the couch.  He crossed the floor and placed her
+full length upon its cushions.
+
+She lay there so white and motionless that he was frightened.  He felt
+it impossible to call the Robinsons.  He needed water, quickly.  He
+knew nothing of the house.  His searching glance fell at once on the
+vase of roses, standing on the table.  He caught it up, drew out the
+flowers, and was presently kneeling at Dorothy's side, wetting his
+handkerchief with the water from the vase and pressing it closely on
+her forehead.
+
+She did not respond to his ministrations.  He tore at her dress, where
+it fastened at the neck, and laid it wide open for several inches.  On
+the creamy whiteness of her throat he sprinkled the water, then sprang
+to the window, threw it up, and was once more kneeling beside her.
+
+The fresh breeze swept in gratefully and cooled her face and neck.  She
+stirred, slightly turned, opened her eyes in a languid manner, and
+partially relapsed into coma.
+
+"Thank God!" said Garrison, who had feared for her life, and he once
+more applied his wetted handkerchief.  He spoke to her, gently:
+
+"Forgive me, Dorothy--it's all right--everything's all right," but her
+senses accepted nothing of his meaning.
+
+For another five minutes, that seemed like an age, he rubbed at her
+hands, resprinkled her throat and face, and waved a folded paper to
+waft her the zephyr of air.  When she once more opened her eyes she was
+fairly well restored.  She recovered her strength by a sheer exertion
+of will and sat up, weakly, passing her hand across her brow.
+
+"I must have fainted," she said.  She was very white.
+
+"You're all right now--the heat and unusual excitement," he answered
+reassuringly.  "Don't try to do anything but rest."
+
+She looked at him with wide, half-frightened eyes.  Her fears had
+returned with her awakened intelligence.
+
+"You mustn't stay," she told him with a firmness he was not prepared to
+expect.  "Please go as soon as you can."
+
+"But--can I leave you like this?  You may need me," he answered.  "If
+there's anything I can do----"
+
+"Nothing now.  Please don't remain," she interrupted.  "I shall go to
+my room at once."
+
+Garrison realized she was in no condition for further questioning.
+Whatsoever the status of the case or his doubts, there was nothing more
+possible, with Dorothy in this present condition.  He knew she very
+much desired to be alone.
+
+"But--when shall I see you?  What shall I----" he started.
+
+"I can't tell.  Please go," she interrupted, and she sank back once
+more on the cushions, looking at him wildly for a moment, and then
+averting her gaze.  "Please don't stay another minute."
+
+He could not stay.  His mind was confused as to his duty.  He knew that
+he loved her and wished to remain; he knew he was under orders and must
+go.  Disturbed and with worry at his heart, he took her hand for one
+brief pressure.
+
+"Don't forget I'm your friend--and protector," he said.  "Please don't
+forget."
+
+He took his hat, said good-by, saw her lips frame a brief, half-audible
+reply, then slipped from the room, to avoid giving undue notice to the
+Robinsons, went silently down the stairs to the door, and let himself
+out in the street.
+
+Aware, in a dim sort of way, that a "shadow" was once more lurking on
+his trail, as he left the house, he was almost indifferent to the
+fellow's intrusion, so much more disturbing had been the climax of his
+visit with Dorothy.
+
+The outcome of his announcement concerning her uncle's death had
+affected Dorothy so instantaneously as to leave him almost without
+hope.  The blow had reacted on himself with staggering force.  He was
+sickened by the abruptness with which the accusing circumstances had
+culminated.  And yet, despite it all, he loved her more than
+before--with a fierce, aggressive love that blindly urged him to her
+future protection and defense.
+
+His half-formed plan to visit the dealer who had sold the cigars
+departed from his mind.  He wanted no more facts or theories that
+pointed as so many were pointing.  Indeed, he knew not where he was
+going, or what he meant to do, till at length a sign on a window
+aroused him to a sense of things neglected.  The sign read simply:
+
+    BANK.  SAFE DEPOSIT VAULTS.
+
+
+He entered the building, hired a box in the vault, and placed within it
+the jewels he had carried.  Then he remembered Wicks.
+
+Instructions had been given to report, not only fully, but promptly.
+He must make a report--but what?  He knew he could not tell of the
+horrible tissue of facts and circumstances that wound like a web about
+the girl he loved.  He would far rather give up the case.  And once he
+gave it up, he knew that no man alive could ever come again upon the
+damning evidence in his possession.
+
+He would say his work was incomplete--that it looked like a natural
+death--that Scott had acted suspiciously, as indeed he had--that he
+needed more time--anything but what appeared to be the sickening truth.
+Later, should Dorothy prove to be but some artful, dangerous creature,
+masquerading as a sweet young girl behind her appearance of beauty,
+innocence, and exquisite charm--that would be time enough to move.
+
+Perfectly willing to be followed for a time by his "shadow," he walked
+to the nearest Subway station in upper Broadway and was presently borne
+downtown.
+
+He was barely in time at the big insurance office, for Wicks was
+preparing to leave.  No less nervous, snappy, or pugnacious than
+before, the little sharp-faced man appeared more smiling than ever, and
+yet with an expression even more sardonic.
+
+"Well?" he said, as he ushered Garrison into a small, private room.
+"What have you to report?"
+
+"Nothing very much to report as yet," said Garrison, slightly flushing
+at withholding the truth.  "It looks very much as if the coroner's
+verdict may have been correct--although Scott acts a little like a man
+so absorbed in his inventions that he'd stop at nothing for money."
+
+"Needs money, does he?" demanded Wicks.  "He has admitted that?"
+
+"Yes," said Garrison, "he speaks so plainly of his need and makes such
+heartless and selfish references to the money he hopes to procure on
+this insurance policy that I hardly know what to make of his character."
+
+"Capable of murder, is he?"
+
+"He's fanatical about his invention and--he needs money."
+
+"You don't think him guilty?" announced Mr. Wicks, with rare
+penetration.
+
+"There seems to be little or nothing against him as yet," said
+Garrison.  "There was nothing found on the body, so far as I have been
+able to learn, to indicate murder."
+
+"If murder at all, how could it have been done," demanded Mr. Wicks.
+
+"Only by poison."
+
+"H'm!  You saw the dead man's effects, of course.  What did they
+comprise?"
+
+Garrison detailed the dead man's possessions, as found at the coroner's
+office.  He neglected nothing, mentioning the cigars as candidly as he
+did the few insignificant papers.
+
+"In what possible manner could the man have been poisoned?" demanded
+Wicks, rising, with his watch in his hand.  "Was there anything to eat
+at his apartments--or to drink?"
+
+"Not that I can trace.  The only clew that seems important, so far, is
+that Scott spent fifteen minutes in Hardy's room, alone, on the night
+of his death."
+
+"That's something!" said Wicks, with the slightest possible show of
+approval.  "Put on your hat and go uptown with me and tell me exactly
+all about it."
+
+They left the office, proceeded to the Subway, boarded an uptown
+express that was jammed to the guards with struggling humanity, all
+deserting the small end of Gotham at once; and here, with Wicks crowded
+flat up against him, and hanging, first to a strap and then to his
+shoulder.  Garrison related the few facts that he had already briefly
+summarized.
+
+"Well--nothing to say to you but go ahead," said Wicks, as they neared
+the Grand Central Station, where he meant to take a train.  "Stick to
+the case till you clean it up.  That's all."
+
+Garrison, presently alone on the crowded street, with no particular
+objective point in view, felt thoroughly depressed and lonely.
+
+He wished he had never discovered the poisoned cigar at Branchville.
+
+Mechanically, his hand sought his pocket, where the second charged weed
+had been placed.
+
+Then he started and searched his waistcoat wildly.
+
+The deadly cigar was gone!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A TRYST IN THE PARK
+
+Unable for a moment to credit his senses, Garrison moved over against
+the wall of the building he was passing, and stood there, slowly,
+almost mechanically, searching his pockets once again, while his mind
+revolved about the lost cigar, in an effort to understand its
+disappearance.
+
+He was wholly at a loss for a tenable theory till he thought of the
+frequency with which men are robbed of scarf-pins or similar
+trifles--and then a sickening possibility possessed him.
+
+One of the commonest devices that a woman employs in such a petty theft
+is to faint on the breast of her victim.  In such a pose she may
+readily extract some coveted article from either his tie or his pocket,
+with almost absolute certainty of avoiding detection.
+
+It did not seem possible--and yet the fact remained that Dorothy had
+fainted thus against him, and the poisoned cigar was gone.  She had
+known of his visit to Branchville; his line of questions might have
+roused her suspicions; the cigar had been plainly in sight.  He had
+seen her enact her role so perfectly, in the presence of her relatives,
+that he could not doubt her ability in any required direction.
+
+For a moment a powerful revulsion of feeling toward the girl, who was
+undeniably involved in some exceptionally deep-laid plan, crept
+throughout his being.  Not only does a man detest being used as a tool
+and played upon like any common dunce, but he also feels an utter
+chagrin at being baffled in his labors.  Apparently he had played the
+fool, and also he had lost the vital evidence of Hardy's poisoning.
+
+Mortified and angry, he remained there, while the crowds surged by, his
+gaze dully fixed on the pavement.  For a time he saw nothing, and then
+at last he was conscious that a rose--a crushed and wilted rose, thrown
+down by some careless pedestrian--was lying almost at his feet.
+Somehow, it brought him a sense of calm and sweetness; it seemed a
+symbol, vouchsafed him here in the hot, sordid thoroughfare, where
+crime and folly, virtue and despair, stalk arm in arm eternally.
+
+He could not look upon the bit of trampled beauty, thus wasted on a
+heedless throng, and think of Dorothy as guilty.  She had seemed just
+as crushed and wilted as the rose when he left her at her home--just as
+beautiful, also, and as far from her garden of peace and fragrances as
+this rejected handful of petals.  She must be innocent.  There must be
+some other explanation for the loss of that cigar--and some good reason
+for the things she had done and said.
+
+He took up the rose, indifferent to anyone who might have observed the
+action with a smile or a sneer, and slowly proceeded down the street.
+
+The cigar, he reflected, might easily have been stolen in the Subway.
+A hundred men had crushed against him.  Any one of them so inclined
+could have taken the weed at his pleasure.  The thought was wholly
+disquieting, since if any man attempted to bite the cigar-end through,
+to smoke, he would pay a tragic penalty for his petty theft.
+
+This aspect of the affair, indeed, grew terrible, the more he thought
+upon it.  He almost felt he must run to the station, try to search out
+that particular train, and cry for all to hear that the stolen cigar
+would be fatal--but the thought was a wild, unreasoning vagary; he was
+absolutely helpless in the case.
+
+He could not be certain that the weed had thus been extracted from his
+pocket.  It might in some manner have been lost.  He did not know--he
+could not know.  He felt sure of one thing only--his hope, his demand,
+that Dorothy must be innocent and good.
+
+Despite his arguments, he was greatly depressed.  The outcome of all
+the business loomed dim and uncertain before him, a haze charged with
+mystery, involving crime as black as night.
+
+He presently came to the intersection of fashionable Fifth Avenue and
+Forty-second Street, and was halted by the flood of traffic.  Hundreds
+of vehicles were pouring up and down, in endless streams, while two
+calm policemen halted the moving processions, from time to time, to
+permit the crosstown cars and teams to move in their several directions.
+
+Across from Garrison's corner loomed the great marble library, still
+incomplete and gloomily fenced from the sidewalk.  Beyond it,
+furnishing its setting, rose the trees of Bryant Park, a green oasis in
+the tumult and unloveliness about it.  Garrison knew the benches there
+were crowded; nevertheless, he made his way the length of the block and
+found a seat.
+
+He sat there till the sun was gone and dusk closed in upon the city.
+The first faint lights began to twinkle, like the palest stars, in the
+buildings that hedged the park about.  He meant to hunt out a
+restaurant and dine presently, but what to do afterward he could not
+determine.
+
+There was nothing to be done at Branchville or Hickwood at night, and
+but little, for the matter of that, to be done by day.  Tomorrow would
+be ample time to return to that theater of uncertainty.  He longed for
+one thing only--another sight of Dorothy--enshrined within his heart.
+
+Reminded at last of the man who had followed on his trail, he purposely
+strolled from the park and circled two blocks, by streets now almost
+deserted, and was reasonably certain he had shaken off pursuit.  As a
+matter of fact, his "shadow" had lost him in the Subway, and now,
+having notified the Robinsons by telephone, was watching the house
+where he roomed.
+
+Garrison ate his dinner in a mood of ceaseless meditation concerning
+Dorothy.  He was worried to know what might have happened since his
+departure from her home.  Half inclined in one minute to go again to
+the house, in the next he was quite undecided.
+
+The thought of the telephone came like an inspiration.  Unless the
+Robinsons should interfere, he might readily learn of her condition.
+
+At a drug-store, near the restaurant, he found a quiet booth, far
+better suited to his needs than the noisier, more public boxes at the
+eating place he had quitted.  He closed himself inside the little
+cubby-hole, asked for the number, and waited.
+
+It seemed an interminable time till a faint "Hello!" came over the
+wire, and he fancied the voice was a man's.
+
+"Hello!  Is that Mrs. Fairfax?" he asked.  "I'd like to speak to Mrs.
+Fairfax."
+
+"Wait a minute, please.  Who is it?" said a voice unmistakably
+masculine.
+
+"Mr. Wallace," said Garrison, by way of precaution.  "She'll
+understand."
+
+"Hold the wire, please."
+
+He held the receiver to his ear, and waited again.  At length came a
+softer, more musical greeting.  It was Dorothy.  His heart was
+instantly leaping at the sound of her voice.
+
+"Hello!  Is that someone to speak to me?" she said.  "This is Mrs.
+Fairfax."
+
+"Yes," answered Garrison.  "This is Jerold.  I felt I must find out
+about you--how you are.  I've been distressed at the way I was obliged
+to leave."
+
+"Oh!" said the voice faintly.  "I--I'm all right--thank you.  I must
+see you--right away."  Her voice had sunk to a tone he could barely
+distinguish.  "Where are you now?"
+
+"Downtown," said Garrison.  "Where shall I meet you?"
+
+"I--hardly know," came the barely audible reply.  "Perhaps--at Central
+Park and Ninety-third Street."
+
+"I'll start at once," he assured her.  "If you leave the house in
+fifteen minutes we shall arrive about the same time.  Try to avoid
+being followed.  Good-by."
+
+He listened to hear her answer, but it did not come.  He heard the
+distant receiver clink against its hook, and then the connection was
+broken.
+
+He was happy, in a wild, lawless manner, as he left the place and
+hastened to the Elevated station.  The prospect of meeting Dorothy once
+more, in the warm, fragrant night, at a tryst like that of lovers, made
+his pulses surge and his heart beat quicken with excitement.  All
+thought of her possible connection with the Branchville crime had fled.
+
+The train could not run fast enough to satisfy his hot impatience.  He
+wished to be there beneath the trees when she should presently come.
+He alighted at last at the Ninety-third Street station, and hastened to
+the park.
+
+When he came to the appointed place, he found an entrance to the
+greenery near by.  Within were people on every bench in sight--New
+York's unhoused lovers, whose wooing is accomplished in the all but
+sylvan glades which the park affords.
+
+Here and there a bit of animated flame made a tiny meteor streak
+against the blackness of the foliage--where a firefly quested for its
+mate, switching on its marvelous little searchlight.  Beyond, on the
+smooth, broad roadways, four-eyed chariots of power shot silently
+through the avenues of trees--the autos, like living dragons, half
+tamed to man's control.
+
+It was all thrilling and exciting to Garrison, with the expectation of
+meeting Dorothy now possessing all his nature.  Then--a few great drops
+of rain began to fall.  The effect was almost instantaneous.  A dozen
+pairs of sweethearts, together with as many more unmated stragglers,
+came scuttling forth from unseen places, making a lively run for the
+nearest shelter.
+
+Garrison could not retreat.  He did not mind the rain, except in so far
+as it might discourage Dorothy.  But, thinking she might have gone
+inside the park, he walked there briskly, looking for some solitary
+figure that should by this time be in waiting.  He seemed to be
+entirely alone.  He thought she had not come--and perhaps in the rain
+she might not arrive at all.
+
+Back towards the entrance he loitered.  A lull in the traffic of the
+street had made the place singularly still.  He could hear the
+raindrops beating on the leaves.  Then they ceased as abruptly as they
+had commenced.
+
+He turned once more down the dimly lighted path.  His heart gave a
+quick, joyous leap.  Near a bench was a figure--the figure of a woman
+whose grace, he fancied, was familiar.
+
+Her back was apparently turned as he drew near.  He was about to
+whistle, if only to warn her of his coming, when the shrubbery just
+ahead and beside the path was abruptly parted and a man with a short,
+wrapped club in his hand sprang forth and struck him viciously over the
+head.
+
+He was falling, dimly conscious of a horrible blur of lights in his
+eyes, as helplessly as if he had been made of paper.  A second blow,
+before he crumpled on the pavement, blotted out the last remaining
+vestige of emotion.  He lay there in a limp, awkward heap.
+
+The female figure had turned, and now came striding to the place with a
+step too long for a woman.  There was no word spoken.  Together the two
+lifted Garrison's unconscious form, carried it quickly to the
+shrubbery, fumbled about it for a minute or two, struck a match that
+was shielded from the view of any possible passer-by, and then, still
+in silence, hastily quitted the park and vanished in one of the
+glistening side streets, where the rain was reflecting the lamps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A PACKAGE OF DEATH
+
+A low, distant rumble of thunder denoted a new gathering of storm.
+Five minutes passed, and then the lightning flashed across the
+firmament directly overhead.  A crash like the splitting of the heavens
+followed, and the rain came down as if it poured through the slit.
+
+The violence lasted hardly more than five minutes, after which the
+downpour abated a little of its fury.  But a steadier, quieter
+precipitation continued, with the swiftly moving center of disturbance
+already far across the sky.
+
+The rain in his face, and the brisk puff of newly washed ozone in his
+heavily moving lungs, aroused Garrison's struggling consciousness by
+slow degrees.  Strange, fantastic images, old memories, weird phantoms,
+and wholly impossible fancies played through his brain with the dull,
+torturing persistency of nightmares for a time that seemed to him
+endless.
+
+It was fully half an hour before he was sufficiently aroused to roll to
+an upright position and pass his hand before his eyes.
+
+He was sick and weak.  He could not recall what had happened.  He did
+not know where he was.
+
+He was all but soaked by the rain, despite the fact that a tree with
+dense foliage was spread above him, and he had lain beneath protecting
+shrubberies.  Slowly the numbness seemed to pass from his brain, like
+the mist from the surface of a lake.  He remembered things, as it were,
+in patches.
+
+Dorothy--that was it--and something had happened.
+
+He was stupidly aware that he was sitting on something uncomfortable--a
+lump, perhaps a stone--but he did not move.  He was waiting for his
+brain to clear.  When at length he hoisted his heavy weight upon his
+knees, and then staggered drunkenly to his feet, to blunder toward a
+tree and support himself by its trunk, his normal circulation began to
+be restored, and pain assailed his skull, arousing him further to his
+senses.
+
+He leaned for some time against the tree, gathering up the threads of
+the tangle.  It all came back, distinct and sharp at last, and, with
+memory, his strength was returning.  He felt of his head, on which his
+hat was jammed.
+
+The bone and the muscles at the base of the skull were sore and
+sensitive, but the hurt had not gone deep.  He felt incapable of
+thinking it out--the reasons, and all that it meant.  He wondered if
+his attacker had thought to leave him dead.
+
+Mechanically his hands sought out his pockets.  He found his watch and
+pocketbook in place.  Some weight seemed dragging at his coat.  When
+his hand went slowly to the place, he found the lump on which he had
+been lying.  He pulled it out--a cold, cylindrical affair, of metal,
+with a thick cord hanging from its end.  Then a chill crept all the
+distance down his spine.
+
+The thing was a bomb!
+
+Cold perspiration and a sense of horror came upon him together.  An
+underlying current of thought, feebly left unfocused in his brain--a
+thought of himself as a victim, lured to the park for this deed--became
+as stinging as a blow on the cheek.
+
+The cord on this metal engine of destruction was a fuse.  The rain had
+drenched it and quenched its spark of fire, doubtless at some break in
+the fiber, since fuse is supposedly water-proof.  Nothing but the
+thunder-storm had availed to save his life.  He had walked into a trap,
+like a trusting animal, and chance alone had intervened to bring him
+forth alive.
+
+His brain by now was thoroughly active.  Reactionary energy rushed in
+upon him to sharpen all his faculties.  There was nothing left of the
+joyous throbbing in his veins which thoughts of his tryst with Dorothy
+had engendered.  He felt like the wrathful dupe of a woman's wiles, for
+it seemed as plain as soot on snow that Dorothy, fearing the
+consequences of his recent discoveries in the Hardy case, had made this
+park appointment only with this treacherous intent.
+
+All his old, banished suspicions rushed pell-mell upon his mind, and
+with them came new indications of her guilt.  Her voice on the
+telephone had been weak and faltering.  She had chosen the park as
+their meeting place, as the only available spot for such a deed.  And
+then--then----
+
+It seemed too horrible to be true, but the wound was on his head, and
+death was in his hand.  It was almost impossible that anyone could have
+heard their talk over the 'phone.  He was left no alternative theory to
+work on, except that perhaps the Robinsons had managed, through some
+machination, to learn that he and Dorothy were to meet at this
+convenient place.
+
+One struggling ray of hope was thus vouchsafed him, yet he felt as if
+perhaps he had already given Dorothy the benefit of too many reasonable
+doubts.  He could be certain of one thing only--he was thoroughly
+involved in a mesh of crime and intrigue that had now assumed a new and
+personal menace.  Hereafter he must work more for Garrison and less for
+romantic ideals.
+
+Anger came to assist in restoring his strength.  Far from undergoing
+any sense of alarm which would frighten him out of further effort to
+probe to the bottom of the business, he was stubbornly determined to
+remain on the case till the whole thing was stripped of its secrets.
+
+Not without a certain weakness at the knees did he make his way back to
+the path.
+
+He had no fear of lurking enemies, since those who had placed the bomb
+in his pocket would long before have fled the scene to make an alibi
+complete.  The rain had ceased.  Wrapping the fuse about the metal
+cartridge in his hand, he came beneath a lamp-post by the walk, and
+looked the thing over in the light.
+
+There was nothing much to see.  A nipple of gas-pipe, with a cap on
+either end, one drilled through for the insertion of the fuse,
+described it completely.  The kink in the fuse where the rain had found
+entrance to dampen the powder, was plainly to be seen.
+
+Garrison placed the contrivance in his pocket.  He pulled out his
+watch.  The hour, to his amazement, was nearly ten.  He realized he
+must have lain a considerable time unconscious in the wet.  Halting to
+wonder what cleverness might suggest as the best possible thing to be
+done, he somewhat grimly determined to proceed to Dorothy's house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES
+
+Damp and uncomfortable, he kept to the farther side of the street, and
+slackened his pace as he drew near the dwelling which he realized was a
+place replete with mystery.
+
+He stood on the opposite sidewalk at length, and gazed across at the
+frowning brownstone front.  The place was utterly dark.  Not the
+slightest chink of light was visible in all its somber windows.
+
+Aware that nothing is so utterly confusing to a guilty being as to be
+confronted unexpectedly by a victim, supposed to be dispatched,
+Garrison had come this far without the slightest hesitation.  The
+aspect of the house, however, was discouraging.
+
+Despite the ache at the base of his skull, and despite the excited
+thumping of his heart, he crossed the street, climbed unhaltingly to
+the steps, and rang the bell.  He had made up his mind to act as if
+nothing unusual had occurred.  Then, should either Dorothy or the
+Robinsons exhibit astonishment at beholding him here, or otherwise
+betray a guilty knowledge of the "accident" which had befallen him, his
+doubts would be promptly cleared.
+
+A minute passed, and nothing happened.
+
+He rang the bell again.
+
+Once more he waited, in vain.
+
+His third ring was long and insistent.
+
+About to despair of gaining admission, he was gratified to note a dimly
+reflected light, as if from the rear, below stairs.  Then the hall was
+illumined, and presently a chain-lock was drawn, inside the door, the
+barrier swung open, and the serving-woman stood there before him,
+dressed with the evidences of haste that advertised the fact she had
+risen from her bed.
+
+Garrison snatched at his wits in time to act a part for which he had
+not been prepared.
+
+"I'm afraid it's pretty late," he said, "but I came to surprise my
+wife."
+
+"My word, that's too bad, sir, ain't it?" said the woman.  "Mrs.
+Fairfax has went out for the night."
+
+This was the truth.  Dorothy, together with the Robinsons, had left the
+house an hour before and gone away in an automobile, leaving no word of
+their destination, or of when they intended to return.
+
+Utterly baffled, and wholly at a loss to understand this unexpected
+maneuver.  Garrison stood for a moment staring at the woman.  After
+all, such a flight was in reasonable sequence, if Dorothy were guilty.
+The one thing to do was to avail himself of all obtainable knowledge.
+
+"Gone--for the night," he repeated.  "Did Mrs. Fairfax seem anxious to
+go?"
+
+"I didn't see her, sir.  I couldn't say, really," answered the woman.
+"Mr. Theodore said as how she was ailing, sir, and they was going away.
+That's all I know about it, sir."
+
+"I'm sorry I missed them," Garrison murmured, half to himself.  Then a
+thought occurred to him abruptly--a bold suggestion, on which he
+determined to act.
+
+"Is my room kept ready, in case of present need like this to-night?" he
+said.  "Or, if not, could you prepare it?"
+
+"It's all quite ready, sir, clean linen and all, the room next to Mrs.
+Fairfax's," said the woman.  "I always keeps it ready, sir."
+
+"Very good," said Garrison, with his mind made up to remain all night
+and explore the house for possible clews to anything connected with its
+mysteries.  "You may as well return to your apartments.  I can find my
+way upstairs."
+
+"Is there anything I could get you, sir?" inquired the woman.  "You
+look a bit pale, sir, if you'll pardon the forwardness."
+
+"Thank you, no," he answered gratefully.  "All I need is rest."  He
+slipped half a dollar in her hand.
+
+The woman switched on the lights in the hallway above.
+
+"Good-night, sir," she said.  "If you're needing anything more I hope
+you'll ring."
+
+"Good-night," said Garrison.  "I shall not disturb you, I'm sure."
+
+With ample nerve to enact the part of master, he ascended the stairs,
+proceeded to the room to which he had always gone before, and waited to
+hear the woman below retire to her quarters in the basement.
+
+The room denoted nothing unusual.  The roses, which he had taken from
+the vase to obtain the water to sprinkle on Dorothy's face, had
+disappeared.  The vase was there on the table.
+
+He crossed the floor and tried the door that led to Dorothy's boudoir.
+It was locked.  Without further ado, he began his explorations.
+
+It was not without a sense of gratitude that he presently discovered
+the bathroom at the rear of the hall.  Here he laved his face and head,
+being very much refreshed by the process.
+
+A secondary hall led away from the first, and through this he came at
+once to the rooms which had evidently been set apart for Dorothy and
+her husband.  The room which he knew was supposed to be his own
+contained nothing save comfortable furnishings.  He therefore went at
+once to Dorothy's apartments.
+
+She occupied a suite of three rooms--one of them large, the others
+small.  Exquisite order was apparent in all, combined with signs of a
+dainty, cultured taste.  It seemed a sacrilege to search her
+possessions, and he made no attempt to do so.  Indeed, he gained
+nothing from his quick, keen survey of the place, save a sense of her
+beauty and refinement as expressed in the features of her "nest."  He
+felt himself warranted in opening a closet, into which he cast a
+comprehensive glance.
+
+It seemed well filled with hanging gowns, but several hooks were empty.
+
+On a shelf high up was a suit-case, empty, since it weighed almost
+nothing as he lifted up the end.  He took it down, found marks where
+fingers had disturbed the dust upon its lid, then stood on a chair,
+examined the shelf, and became aware that a second case had been
+removed, as shown by the absence of accumulated dust, which had
+gathered all about the place it had formerly occupied.
+
+Replacing the case he had taken from the shelf, he closed the closet,
+in possession of the fact that some preparation, at least, had been
+made against some sort of a journey.  He was certain the empty hooks
+had been stripped of garments for the flight, but whether by Dorothy
+herself or by her relatives he could not, of course, determine.
+
+He repaired at once to the rooms farther back, which the Robinsons had
+occupied.  When he switched on the lights in the first one entered, he
+knew it had been the old man's place of refuge, for certain signs of
+the occupancy of Mr. Robinson were not lacking.
+
+It reeked of stale cigar-smoke, which would hang in the curtains for a
+week.  It was very untidy.  There were many indications that old
+Robinson had quitted in haste.  On the table were ash-trays, old
+cigar-stumps, matches, burned and new; magazines, hairpins, a
+tooth-brush, and two calf-bound volumes of a legal aspect.  One was a
+lawyer's treatise on wills, the other a history of broken testaments,
+statistical as well as narrative.
+
+The closet here supplied nothing of value to Garrison when he gave it a
+brief inspection.  At the end of the room was a door that stood
+slightly ajar.  It led to the next apartment--the room to which
+Theodore had been assigned.  Garrison soon discovered the electric
+button and flooded the place with light.
+
+The apartment was quite irregular.  The far end had two windows,
+overlooking the court at the rear--the hollow of the block.  These were
+both in an alcove, between two in-jutting partitions.  One partition
+was the common result of building a closet into the room.  The other
+was constructed to accommodate a staircase at the back of the house,
+leading to the quarters below.
+
+Disorder was again the rule, for a litter of papers, neckties, soiled
+collars, and ends of cigarettes, with perfumes, toilet requisites, and
+beer bottles seemed strewn promiscuously on everything capable of
+receiving a burden.
+
+Garrison tried the door that led to the staircase, and found it open.
+The closet came next for inspection.  Without expecting anything of
+particular significance, Garrison drew open the door.
+
+Like everything else in the Robinsons' realm, it was utterly
+disordered.  Glancing somewhat indifferently over its contents.
+Garrison was about to close the door when his eye caught upon a gleam
+of dull red, where a ray of light fell in upon a bit of color on the
+floor.
+
+He stopped, put his hand on the cloth, and drew forth a flimsy pair of
+tights of carmine hue--part of the Mephistophelian costume that
+Theodore had worn on the night of the party next door.  With this in
+his hand, and a clearer understanding of the house, with its staircase
+at the rear.  Garrison comprehended the ease with which Theodore had
+played his role and gone from one house to the other without arousing
+suspicion.
+
+Encouraged to examine the closet further, he pawed around through the
+garments hung upon the hooks, and presently struck his hand against a
+solid obstacle projecting from the wall in the darkest corner, and
+heard a hollow, resonant sound from the blow.
+
+Removing half a dozen coats that hung concealingly massed in the place,
+he almost uttered an exclamation of delight.  There on the wall was a
+small equipment telephone, one of the testing-boxes employed by the
+linemen in their labors with which to "plug in" and communicate between
+places where no regular 'phone is installed.
+
+It was Theodore's private receiver, over which he could hear every word
+that might be said to anyone using the 'phone!
+
+It tapped the wires to the regular instrument installed in the house,
+and was thoroughly concealed.
+
+Instantly aware that by this means young Robinson could have overheard
+every word between himself and Dorothy concerning their meeting in the
+park, Garrison felt his heart give a lift into realms of unreasonable
+joy.
+
+It could not entirely dissipate the doubts that hung about Dorothy, but
+it gave him a priceless hope!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN QUEST OF DOROTHY
+
+More than half ready to believe that Dorothy had been spirited away,
+Garrison examined everything available, with the intention of
+discovering, if possible, any scrap that might indicate the destination
+to which the trio had proceeded.
+
+The Robinsons had left almost nothing of the slightest value or
+importance, since what clothing remained was of no significance
+whatever.
+
+It was not until he opened up the old man's books on the subject of
+wills that Garrison found the slightest clew, and then he came upon a
+postal-card addressed to "Sykey Robinson, Esq.," from Theodore's
+mother.  It mentioned the fact that she had arrived quite safely at
+"the house," and requested that her husband forward a pair of her
+glasses, left behind when she started.
+
+The address of the place where she was stopping was given as 1600
+Myrtle Avenue.  The postmark was Woodsite, Long Island.
+
+Garrison made up his mind to go to Woodsite.  If Dorothy were found, he
+meant to steal her--if need be, even against her will.
+
+Warmed to the business by his few discoveries, he returned at once to
+Dorothy's apartments and opened her bureau and dressing-table for a
+superficial inspection.  To his complete surprise, he found that every
+drawer was in utter confusion as to its contents.  That each and all
+had been rudely overhauled there could not be a doubt for a moment.
+Not one showed the order apparent in all things else about the rooms.
+
+There could be but one conclusion.  Some one had searched them
+hurriedly, sparing not even the smallest.  The someone could not have
+been Dorothy, for many reasons--and Garrison once more rejoiced.
+
+He was thoroughly convinced that Dorothy had been taken from the house
+by force.
+
+Whatever else she might be guilty of, he felt she must be innocent of
+the dastardly attempt upon his life.  And, wherever she was, he meant
+to find her and take her away, no matter what the cost.
+
+The hour was late--too late, he was aware--for anything effective.  Not
+without a certain satisfaction in his sense of ownership, and with grim
+resolutions concerning his dealings in future with the Robinsons, he
+extinguished the lights in the rooms he had searched, and, glad of the
+much-needed rest, retired in calm for six solid hours of sleep.
+
+This brought him out, refreshed and vigorous, at a bright, early hour
+of the morning.  The housekeeper, not yet stirring in her downstairs
+quarters, failed to hear him let himself out at the door--and his way
+was clear for action.
+
+His breakfast he took at an insignificant cafe.  Then he went to his
+room in Forty-fourth Street.
+
+The "shadow," faithful to his charge, was waiting in the street before
+the house.  His presence was noted by Garrison, who nodded to himself
+in understanding of the fellow's persistency.
+
+Arrived upstairs, he discovered three letters, none of which he took
+the time to read.  They were thrust in his pocket--and forgotten.
+
+The metal bomb, which was still in his coat, he concealed among a lot
+of shoes in his closet.
+
+From among his possessions, accumulated months before, when the needs
+of the Biddle robbery case had arisen, he selected a thoroughly
+effective disguise, which not only grew a long, drooping mustache upon
+his lip, but aged him about the eyes, and appeared to reduce his
+stature and his width of shoulders.  With a pair of shabby gloves on
+his hands, and a book beneath his arms, he had suddenly become a
+genteel if poor old book-agent, whose appearance excited compassion.
+
+Well supplied with money, armed with a loaded revolver, fortified by
+his official badge, and more alert in all his faculties than he had
+ever felt in all his life, he passed down the stairs and out upon the
+street, under the very nose of the waiting "shadow," into whose face he
+cast a tired-looking glance, without exciting the slightest suspicion.
+
+Twenty minutes later he had hired a closed automobile, and was being
+carried toward the Williamsburg Bridge and Long Island.  The car
+selected was of a type renowned for achievements in speed.
+
+It was nearly ten o'clock when he stood at length on the sidewalk
+opposite 1600 Myrtle Avenue, Woodsite, a modest cottage standing on a
+corner.  It was one of the houses farthest from the center of the town;
+nevertheless, it had its neighbors all about, if somewhat scattered.
+
+There was no sign of life about the place.  The shades were drawn; it
+bore a look of desertion.  Only pausing for a moment, as even a
+book-agent might, after many repeated rebuffs, Garrison wended his way
+across the street, proceeded slowly up the concrete walk, ascended the
+steps, and rang the bell.
+
+There was no result.  He rang again, and out of the corner of his eye
+beheld the curtain pushed a trifle aside, in the window near at hand,
+where someone looked out from this concealment.  For the third time he
+rang--and at last the door was opened for a distance no more than six
+inches wide.  The face he saw was old man Robinson's.
+
+The chain on the door was securely fastened, otherwise Garrison would
+have pushed his way inside without further ado.  He noted this barely
+in time to save himself from committing an error.
+
+"Go away!" said old Robinson testily.  "No books wanted!"
+
+"I hope you will not refuse a tired old man," said Garrison, in a voice
+that seemed trembling with weakness.  "The books I have to offer are
+quite remarkable indeed.
+
+"Don't want them.  Good-day!" said Robinson.  He tried to close the
+door, but Garrison's foot prevented.
+
+"One of my books is particularly valuable to read to headstrong young
+women.  If you have a daughter--or any young woman in the house----"
+
+"She can't see anyone--I mean there's no such person here!" snapped
+Robinson.  "What's the matter with that door?"
+
+"My other book is of the rarest interest," insisted Garrison.  "An
+account of the breaking of the Butler will--a will drawn up by the most
+astute and crafty lawyer in America, yet broken because of its flaws.
+A book----"
+
+"Whose will was that?" demanded Robinson, his interest suddenly roused.
+"Some lawyer, did you say?"  He relaxed his pressure on the door and
+fumbled at the chain.
+
+"The will of Benjamin Butler--the famous Benjamin Butler," Garrison
+replied.  "One of the most remarkable----"
+
+"Come in," commanded old Robinson, who had slipped off the chain.  "How
+much is the book?"
+
+"I am only taking orders to-day," answered Garrison, stepping briskly
+inside and closing the door with his heel.  "If you'll take this copy
+to the light----"
+
+"Father!" interrupted an angry voice.  "Didn't I tell you not to let
+anyone enter this house?  Get out, you old nuisance!  Get out with your
+book?"
+
+Garrison looked down the oak-finished hall and saw Theodore coming
+angrily toward him.
+
+Alive to the value of the melodramatic, he threw off both his hat and
+mustache and squared up in Theodore's path.
+
+Young Robinson reeled as if struck a staggering blow.
+
+"You--you----" he gasped.
+
+Old Robinson recovered his asperity with remarkable promptness.
+
+"How dare you come into this house?" he screamed.  "You lying----"
+
+"That's enough of that," said Garrison quietly.  "I came for
+Dorothy--whom you dared to carry away."
+
+"You--you--you're mistaken," said Theodore, making a most tremendous
+effort at calmness, with his face as white as death.  "She isn't here."
+
+"Don't lie.  Your father has given the facts away," said Garrison.  "I
+want her--and I want her now."
+
+"Look here," said Theodore, rapidly regaining his rage, "if you think
+you can come to my house like this----"  He was making a move as if to
+slip upstairs--perhaps for a gun.
+
+Garrison pulled his revolver without further parley.
+
+"Stay where you are!  Up with your hands!  Don't either of you make a
+move that I don't order, understand?  I said I'd come to take my wife
+away."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, don't shoot!" begged old Robinson.  "Don't shoot!"
+
+"You fool--do you think I'd bring her here?" said Theodore, trying to
+grin, but putting up his hands.  "Put away your gun, and act like a man
+in his senses, or I'll have you pulled for your pains."
+
+"You've done talking enough--and perhaps _I'll_ have just a word to say
+about pulling, later on," said Garrison.  "In the meantime, don't you
+open your head again, or you'll get yourself into trouble."
+
+He raised his voice and shouted tremendously:
+
+"Dorothy!"
+
+"Jerold!" came a muffled cry, from somewhere above in a room.
+
+He heard her vainly tugging at a door.
+
+"Go up ahead of me, both of you," he commanded, making a gesture with
+the gun.  "I prefer not to break in the door."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A RESCUE BY FORCE
+
+Theodore was hesitating, though his father was eager to obey.  Garrison
+stepped a foot forward and thrust the pistol firmly against the young
+man's body, cocking the hammer.
+
+"I'm going--for the love of Heaven, look out!" cried the craven
+suddenly, and he backed toward the stairs in haste.
+
+"That's better," said Garrison coldly.  "Step lively, please, and don't
+attempt the slightest treachery unless you are prepared to pay the
+price."
+
+Theodore had no more than started when the door-bell rang--four little
+jingles.
+
+"It's mother," said old Robinson, starting for the door.
+
+"Let her remain outside for the present," ordered Garrison.  "Get on up
+the stairs."
+
+The bell rang again.  The Robinsons, resigned to defeat, ascended to
+the hall above, with the gun yawning just at the rear.
+
+Once more Garrison called out:
+
+"Dorothy--where are you?"
+
+"Here!" cried Dorothy, her voice still muffled behind a solid door.
+"The room at the back.  I can't get out!"
+
+Garrison issued another order to Theodore, whom he knew to be the
+governing spirit in the fight against himself and Dorothy:
+
+"Put down one hand and get out your keys--but don't attempt to remove
+anything else from your pocket, or I'll plug you on the spot."
+
+Theodore cast a defiant glance across the leveled gun to the steady,
+cool eyes behind it, and drew forth the keys, as directed.
+
+"If that's you, Jerold--please, please get me out--the door is locked!"
+called Dorothy, alarmed by each second of delay.  "Where are you now?"
+
+"Coming!" called Garrison.  He added, to Theodore: "Keep one hand up.
+Unlock the door."  He called out again: "Keep cool when it's opened.
+Don't confuse the situation."
+
+Young Robinson, convinced that resistance at this point was useless,
+inserted the key in the lock and opened the door, at the same time
+casting a knowing look at his father, who stood over next to the wall.
+
+In the instant that Garrison's attention was directed to the unlocked
+room, old Robinson made a quick retreat to a tiny red box that was
+screwed against the wall and twice pulled down a brass ring.
+
+Garrison beheld the action too late to interpose.  He knew the thing
+for a burglar-alarm--and realized his own position.
+
+Meantime Dorothy had not emerged.
+
+"Jerold!  Jerold!" she cried.  "My feet are chained!"
+
+"Get in there, both of you, double-quick!" commanded Garrison, and he
+herded the Robinsons inside the room, fairly pushing them before him
+with the gun.
+
+Then he saw Dorothy.
+
+White with fear, her eyes ablaze with indignation at the Robinsons, her
+beauty heightened by the look of intensity in her eyes, she stood by
+the door, her ankles bound together by a chain which was secured to the
+heavy brass bed.
+
+"Jerold!" she cried as she had before, but her voice broke and tears
+started swiftly from her eyes.
+
+"Be calm, dear, please," said Garrison, who had turned on her captors
+with an anger he could scarcely control.  "You cowards!  You infamous
+scoundrels!" he said.  "Release those chains this instant, or I'll blow
+off the top of your head!"  He demanded this of Theodore.
+
+"The key isn't here," said the latter, intent upon gaining time since
+the burglar-alarm had been sprung.  "I left it downstairs."
+
+"I think you lie," said Garrison.  "Get busy, or you'll have trouble."
+
+"It's on his ring, with the key to the door," said Dorothy.  "They've
+kept me drugged and stupid, but I saw as much as that."
+
+Once more Garrison pushed the black muzzle of the gun against
+Theodore's body.  The fellow cringed.  The sweat stood out on his
+forehead.  He dropped to his knees and, trembling with fear, fumbled
+with the keys.
+
+"To think they'd dare!" said Dorothy, who with difficulty refrained
+from sobbing, in her anger, relief, and nervous strain.
+
+Garrison made no reply.  He was fairly on edge with anxiety himself, in
+the need for haste, aware that every moment was precious, with the
+town's constabulary doubtless already on the way to respond to the old
+man's alarm.  The rights of the case would come too late, with his and
+Dorothy's story against the statements of the Robinsons, and he had no
+intention of submitting to arrest.
+
+"You're wasting time--do better!" he commanded Theodore, and he nudged
+the gun under his ribs.  "That's the key, that crooked one--use it,
+quick!"
+
+Theodore dared not disobey.  The chain fell away, and Dorothy ran
+forward, with a sob upon her lips.
+
+"Don't hamper me, dear," said Garrison, watching the Robinsons alertly.
+"Just get your hat, and we'll go."
+
+Dorothy ran to a closet, drew forth a hat, and cried that she was ready.
+
+"Throw those keys in the hall!" commanded Garrison, and young Robinson
+tossed them out as directed.  "Now, then, over in the corner with the
+pair of you!"
+
+The helpless Robinsons moved over to the corner of the room.  Dorothy
+was already in the hall.  Garrison was backing out, to lock the door,
+when Dorothy ran in again beside him.
+
+"Just a minute!" she said, and, going to the bed, despite Garrison's
+impatience, she turned down the pillow and caught up a bunch of faded
+roses--his roses--and, blushing in girlish confusion, ran out once
+more, and slammed the door, which Garrison locked on her relations.
+
+"Throw the keys under the rug," he said quietly.  "We've no time to
+lose.  The old man rang in an alarm."
+
+Dorothy quickly hid the keys as directed.  The face she turned to him
+then was blanched with worry.
+
+"What shall we do?" she said, as he led her down the stairs.  "In a
+little town like this there's no place to go."
+
+"I provided for that," he answered; and, beholding her start as a sound
+of loud knocking at the door in the rear gave new cause for fright, he
+added: "Thank goodness, the old bearded woman has gone around back to
+get in!"
+
+Half a minute more, and both were out upon the walk.  Garrison carrying
+his book, his pistol once more in his pocket.
+
+A yell, and a shrill penetrative whistle from the rear of the house,
+now told of Theodore's activities at the window of the room where he
+and his father were imprisoned.  He was doubtless making ready to let
+himself down to the ground.
+
+"We may have to make a lively run," said Garrison.  "My motor-car is
+two blocks away."
+
+They were still a block from the waiting car when, with yells and a
+furious blowing of his whistle, Theodore came running to the street
+before his house.  One minute later a big red car, with the chief of
+the town's police and the chief of the local firemen, shot around the
+corner into Myrtle Avenue, and came to a halt before the residence
+which the fugitives had just barely quitted.
+
+"Make a run for it now, we're in for a race," said Garrison, and, with
+Dorothy skipping in excitement beside him, he came to his waiting
+chauffeur.
+
+"That fellow up the street is on our trail!" he said.  "Cut loose all
+the speed you've got.  Fifty dollars bonus if you lose the bunch before
+you cross the bridge to New York!"
+
+He helped Dorothy quickly to her seat inside, and only pausing to note
+that Theodore was clambering hotly into the big red car, two long
+village blocks away, he swung in himself as the driver speeded up the
+motor.
+
+Then, with a whir and a mighty lurch as the clutch went in, the
+automobile started forward in the road.
+
+Ten seconds later they were running full speed, with the muffler cut
+out, and sharp percussions puncturing the air like a Gatling gun's
+terrific detonations.
+
+The race for New York had commenced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE RACE
+
+Some of the roads on Long Island are magnificent.  Many of the speed
+laws are strict.  The thoroughfare stretching ahead of the two cars was
+one of the best.
+
+The traffic regulations suffered absolute demolition.
+
+Like a liberated thing of flame and deviltry, happiest when rocketing
+through space, the car beneath the fugitives seemed to bound in the air
+as it whirred with a higher and higher hum of wheels and gears, and the
+air drove by in torrential force, leaving a cloud of smoke and dust in
+their wake.
+
+Dorothy clung to Jerold, half afraid.  He raised himself upon the seat
+and looked out of the tiny window set in the back.  The big car in the
+road behind, obscured in the dust that must help to blind its driver,
+had lost scarcely more than half a block in picking up its speed.
+
+It, too, was a powerful machine, and its coughing, open exhaust was
+adding to the din on the highway.  It was trailing smoke in a dense,
+bluish cloud that meant they were burning up their lubricant with
+spendthrift prodigality.  But the monster was running superbly.
+
+The houses seemed scooting by in madness.  A team that stood beside the
+road dwindled swiftly in perspective.  The whir of the gears and the
+furious discharge of the used-up gas seemed increasing momentarily.
+The whole machine was rocking as it sped, yet the big red pursuer was
+apparently gaining by degrees.
+
+Garrison nodded in acknowledgment of the fact that the car behind, with
+almost no tonneau and minus the heavy covered superstructure, offered
+less resistance to the wind.  With everything else made equal, and
+accident barred, the fellow at the wheel behind would overhaul them yet.
+
+He looked out forward.  The road was straight for at least a mile.  He
+beheld a bicycle policeman, riding ahead, to develop his speed, with
+the certain intention of calling to his driver to stop.
+
+Half a minute later the car was abreast the man on the wheel, who
+shrieked out his orders on the wind.  Garrison leaned to the tube that
+ended by the chauffeur's ear.
+
+"Go on--give her more if she's got it!" he said.  "I'll take care of
+the fines!"
+
+The driver had two notches remaining on his spark advance.  He thumbed
+the lever forward, and the car responded with a trifle more of speed.
+It was straining every bolt and nut to its utmost capacity of strength.
+
+The bicycle officer, clinging half a minute to a hope made forlorn by
+his sheer human lack of endurance, drifted to rearward with the dust.
+
+Once more Garrison peered out behind.  The big red demon, tearing down
+the road, was warming to its work.  With cylinders heating, and her
+mixture therefore going snappily as a natural result, she too had taken
+on a slight accession of speed.  Two meteors, flung from space across
+the earth's rotundity, could scarcely have been more exciting than
+these liberated chariots of power.
+
+There was no time to talk; there was scarcely time to think.  The road,
+the landscape, the very world, became a dizzying blur that destroyed
+all distinct sense of sight.  In the rush of the air, and the
+rapid-fire fusillade from the motor, all sense of hearing was benumbed.
+
+A craze for speed took possession of the three--Dorothy, Garrison, the
+driver.  The power to think on normal lines was being swept away.  Such
+mania as drives a lawless comet comes inevitably upon all who ride with
+such space-defying speed.  The one idea is more--more speed--more
+freedom--more recklessness of spirit!
+
+A village seven miles from Woodsite, calm in its half-deserted state,
+with its men all at business in New York, was cleaved, as it were, by
+the racing machines, while women and children ran and screamed to
+escape from the path of the monsters.
+
+The fellow behind was once more creeping up.  The time consumed in
+going seven miles had been barely ten minutes.  In fifteen minutes
+more, at his present rate of gain, the driver behind would be up
+alongside, and then--who knew what would happen?
+
+Dorothy had started as if to speak, at least a dozen times.  She was
+now holding on with all her strength, aware that conversation was
+wholly out of the question.
+
+Garrison was watching constantly through the glass.  The race could
+hardly last much longer.  They were rapidly approaching a larger town,
+where such speed would be practically criminal.  If only they could
+gain a lead and dart into town and around some corner, into traffic of
+sufficient density to mask his movements, he and Dorothy might perhaps
+alight and escape observation on foot, while the car led pursuit
+through the streets.
+
+About to suggest some such plan to his driver, he was suddenly sickened
+by a sharp report, like a pistol fired beneath the car.  He feared for
+a tire, but the noise came again, and then three times, quickly, in
+succession.  One of the cylinders was missing.  Not only was the power
+cut down by a fourth, but compression in the engine thus partially
+"dead" was a drag on the others of the motor.
+
+The driver leaned forward, one hand on the buzzer of his coil, and gave
+a screw a turn.  Already the car was losing speed.  The fellow behind
+was coming on like a red-headed whirlwind.  For a moment the missing
+seemed to cease, and the speed surged back to the hum of the whirring
+gears.
+
+"Bang!  Bang!" went the sharp report, as before, and Garrison groaned.
+He was looking out, all but hopeless of escape, rapidly reflecting on
+the charges that would lie against not only himself, but his chauffeur,
+when he saw the red fellow plunge through the dust on a crazy, gyrating
+course that made his heart stand still.
+
+They had blown out a tire!
+
+Like a drunken comet, suddenly robbed of all its own crazy laws, the
+red demon see-sawed the highway.  The man at the wheel, shutting off
+his power, crowding on his brakes, and clinging to his wheel with the
+skill and coolness of a master, had all he could do to keep the machine
+anywhere near the proper highway.
+
+Unaware of what had occurred at the rear the driver in charge of
+Garrison's car had once more adjusted the buzzer, and now with such
+splendid results that his motor seemed madder than before to run itself
+to shreds.
+
+Like a vanishing blot on the landscape, the red car behind, when it
+came to a halt, was deserted by its rival in the race.  Two minutes
+later, with the city ahead fast looming like a barrier before them,
+Garrison leaned to the tube.
+
+"Slow down!" he called.  "Our friend has quit--a blow-out.  Get down to
+lawful speed."
+
+Even then they ran fully half a mile before the excited creature of
+wheels and fire could be tamed to calmer behavior.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FRIGHT AND A DISAPPEARANCE
+
+With the almost disappointed thing of might purring tamely along
+through the far-spread town, and then on through level ways of beauty,
+leading the way to Gotham, Dorothy found that she was still clinging
+fast to Jerold's arm, after nearly ten minutes of peace.
+
+Then she waked, as it were, and shyly withdrew her hand.
+
+Garrison had felt himself transported literally, more by the ecstasy of
+having her thus put dependence upon him than by any mere flight of the
+car.  He underwent a sense of loss when the strain subsided, and her
+trembling hold relaxed and fell from his arm.
+
+Nevertheless, she clung to the roses.  His heart had taken time to beat
+a stroke in joy during that moment of stress at the house, when she had
+caused a few seconds' added delay to gather up the crushed and faded
+flowers.
+
+Since speaking to the driver last Garrison had been content to sit
+beside the girl in silence.  There was much he must ask, and much she
+must tell, but for this little time of calm and delight he could not
+break the spell.  Once more, however, his abounding confidence in her
+goodness, her innocence, and deep-lying beauty of character rose
+triumphant over fears.  Once more the spell of a mighty love was laid
+upon his heart.  He did not know and could not know that Dorothy, too,
+was Cupid's victim--that she loved him with a strange and joyous
+intensity, but he did know that the whole vast world was no price for
+this moment of rapture.
+
+She was the first to speak.
+
+"Why did we have to run away?  Aren't you supposed to have a perfect
+right to--to take me wherever you please--especially from a place like
+that, and such outrageous treatment?"
+
+"I am only supposed to have that right," he answered.  "As a matter of
+fact, I committed a species of violence in Theodore's house, compelling
+him to act at the point of the gun.  Technically speaking, I had no
+right to proceed so far.  But, aside from that, when they sprung the
+alarm--well, the time had come for action.
+
+"Had the constable dragged me away, as a legal offender--which he would
+doubtless have done on the charge of two householding citizens--the
+delay would have been most annoying, while a too close investigation of
+my status as a husband might have proved even more embarrassing."
+
+A wave of crimson swept across her face.
+
+"Of course."  She relapsed into silence for a moment.  Then she added:
+"What does it all mean, anyway?  How dared they carry me off like this?
+How did you happen to come?  When did you find that I had gone?  What
+do you think we'd better do?"
+
+"Answer one question at a time," said Garrison, stuffing his
+handkerchief into the tube, lest the driver overhear their
+conversation.  "There is much to be explained between us.  In the first
+place, tell me, Dorothy, what happened just after I 'phoned you last
+evening, and you made an appointment to meet me in the park."
+
+"Why, I hardly know," she said, her face once more a trifle pale.  "I
+went upstairs to get ready, thinking to slip out unobserved.  In the
+act of putting on my hat, I was suddenly smothered in the folds of a
+strong-smelling towel thrown over my head, and since that time I have
+scarcely known anything till this morning, when I waked in the bed at
+Theodore's house, fully dressed, and chained as you saw me."
+
+"But--these roses?" he said, lightly placing his hand upon them.  "How
+did you happen to have them along?"
+
+It was not a question pertinent to the issues in hand, but it meant a
+great deal to his heart.
+
+"Why--I--I was wearing them--that's all," she stammered.  "No one
+stopped to take them off."
+
+He was satisfied.  He wished they might once and for all dismiss the
+world, with all its vexations, its mysteries, and pains, and ride on
+like this, through the June-created loveliness bathed in its
+sunlight--comrades and lovers, forever.
+
+The hour, however, was not for dreaming.  There were grim facts
+affecting them both, and much to be cleared between them.  Moreover he
+was merely hired to enact a role that, if it sometimes called for a
+show of tender love, was still but a role, after all.  He attacked the
+business directly.
+
+"We require an understanding on a great many topics," he said to her
+slowly.  "After I 'phoned you I went to the park, was caught in the
+rain, and attacked by two ruffians, who knocked me down, and left me to
+what they supposed would be certain destruction."
+
+"Jerold!" she said, and his name thus on her lips, with no one by to
+whom she was acting, gave him an exquisite pleasure.  There was no
+possibility of guilty knowledge on her part.  Of this he was thoroughly
+convinced.  "You?  Attacked?"
+
+"Later," he resumed, "when I recovered, I went to the house in
+Ninety-third Street, was admitted by the woman in charge, and remained
+all night, after taking the liberty of examining all the apartments."
+
+She looked at him in utter amazement.
+
+"Why--but what does it----  You, attacked in the park--these lawless
+deeds--you stayed all night----  And you found I had been carried away?"
+
+"No; I merely thought so.  The woman knew nothing.  But I presently
+discovered a number of interesting things.  Theodore has installed a
+private 'phone in his closet, and by means thereof had overheard our
+appointment.  Your bureau and dressing-case had both been searched----"
+
+"For the necklaces!" she cried.  "You have them safe?"
+
+"I thought it might have been the jewels--or your marriage
+certificate," he said, alive to numerous points in the case which, he
+felt, were about to develop.
+
+She turned a trifle pale.
+
+"I've sewn the certificate--where I'm sure they'd never find it," she
+said.  "But the jewels are safe?"
+
+"Quite safe," he said, making a mental note of her insistence on the
+topic.  "I then discovered the address of the Woodsite house, and you
+know the rest."
+
+"It's terrible!  The whole thing is terrible!" she said.  "I wouldn't
+have thought they'd dare to do such things!  I don't know what we're
+going to do.  We're neither of us safe!"
+
+"You must help me all you can," he said, laying his hand for a moment
+on her arm.  "I've been fighting in the dark.  I must find you
+apartments where you will not be discovered by the Robinsons, whose
+criminal designs on the property inheritance will halt at nothing,
+and--you must tell me all you can."
+
+"I will," she said; "only----"
+
+And there she halted, her eyes raised to his in mute appeal, a dumb
+fear expressed in their depths.
+
+They had both avoided the topic of the murder, at the news of which she
+had fainted.  Garrison almost feared it, and Dorothy evidently dreaded
+its approach.
+
+More than anything else Garrison felt he must know she was innocent.
+That was the one vital thing to him now, whether she could ever return
+his love or not.  He loved her in every conceivable manner, fondly,
+passionately, sacredly, with the tenderest wishes for her comfort and
+happiness.  He believed in her now as he always had, whensoever they
+were together.  Nevertheless, he could not abandon all his faculties
+and plunge into folly like a blind and confident fool.
+
+"I'd like to ask about the jewels first," he said.  "The night I first
+came to your home I entered the place next door by accident.  A
+fancy-dress party was in progress."
+
+"Yes--I knew it.  They used to be friends of Theodore's."
+
+"So I guessed," he added dryly.  "Theodore was there."
+
+"Theodore--there?" she echoed in surprise he felt to be genuine.  "Why,
+but--don't you remember you met him with the others in my house, soon
+after you came?"
+
+"I do, perfectly.  Nevertheless, I saw him in the other house, in mask,
+I assure you, dressed to represent _Mephistopheles_.  Last night I
+found the costume in his closet, and the stairs at the rear were his,
+of course, to employ."
+
+"I remember," said Dorothy excitedly, "that he came in a long gray
+overcoat, though the evening was distinctly warm."
+
+"Precisely.  And all of this would amount to nothing," Garrison
+resumed, "only that while I stood in the hall of the house I had
+entered, that evening, I saw a young woman, likewise in mask, wearing
+your necklaces--your pearls and diamonds."
+
+Dorothy stared at him in utter bewilderment.  Her face grew pale.  Her
+eyes dilated strangely.
+
+"You--you are sure?" she said in a tone barely audible.
+
+"Perfectly," said Garrison.
+
+"And you never mentioned this before?"
+
+"I awaited developments."
+
+"But--what did you think?  You might almost have thought that Theodore
+had stolen them, and handed them to me," she said.  "Especially after
+the way I put them in your charge!"
+
+"I told you we have much to clear between us," he said.  "Haven't I the
+right to know a little----"
+
+"But--how did they come to be there?" she interrupted, abruptly
+confronted by a phase of the facts which she had momentarily
+overlooked.  "How in the world could my jewels have been in that house
+and also in my bureau at the very same time?"
+
+"Isn't it possible that Theodore borrowed them, temporarily, and
+smuggled them back when he came?"
+
+The startled look was intensified in her eyes as she met his gaze.
+
+"He must have done it in some such way!" she said.  "I thought at the
+time, when I ran in to get them, they were not exactly as I had left
+them, earlier.  And I gave them to you for fear he'd steal them!"
+
+This was some light, at least.  Garrison needed more.
+
+"Why couldn't you have told me all about them earlier?"
+
+She looked at him beseechingly.  Some way, it seemed to them both they
+had known each other for a very long time, and much had been swept away
+that must have stood as a barrier between mere client and agent.
+
+"I felt I'd rather not," she confessed.  "Forgive me, please.  They do
+not belong to me.
+
+"Not yours?" said Garrison.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"I advanced some money on them--to some one very dear," she answered.
+"Please don't probe into that, if you can help it."
+
+His jealousy rose again, with his haunting suspicion of a man in the
+background with whom he would yet have to deal.  He knew that here he
+had no rights, but in other directions he had many.
+
+"I shall be obliged to do considerable probing," he said.  "The time
+has come when we must work much more closely together.  A maze of
+events has entangled us both, and together we must find our way out."
+
+She lowered her glance.  Her lip was trembling.  He felt she was
+striving to gain a control over her nerves, that were strung to the
+highest tension.  For fully a minute she was silent.  He waited.  She
+looked up, met his gaze for a second, and once more lowered her eyes.
+
+"You spoke of--of something--yesterday," she faltered.  "It gave me a
+terrible shock."
+
+She had broached the subject of the murder.
+
+"I was sorry--sorry for the brutal way--the thoughtless way I spoke,"
+he said.  "I hope to be forgiven."
+
+She made no reply to his hope.  Her entire stock of nerve was required
+to go on with the business in hand.
+
+"You said my uncle was--murdered," she said, in a tone he strained to
+hear.  "What makes you think of such a thing?"
+
+"You have not before made the statement that the Hardy in Hickwood was
+your uncle," he reminded her.
+
+"You must have guessed it was my uncle," she replied.  "You knew it all
+the time."
+
+"No, not at first.  Not, in fact, till some time after I began my work
+on the case.  I knew Mr. Hardy had been murdered before I knew anything
+else about him."
+
+She was intensely white, but she was resolute.
+
+"Who told you he was murdered?"
+
+"No one.  I discovered the evidence myself."
+
+He felt her weaken and grow limp beside him.
+
+"The--the evidence?" she repeated faintly.  "What kind--of evidence?"
+
+"Poison."
+
+He was watching her keenly.
+
+She swayed, as if to faint once more, but mastered herself by exerting
+the utmost of her will.
+
+"Poison?" she repeated, as before.  "But how?"
+
+"In a box of cigars--a birthday present given to your uncle."
+
+It was brutal--cruelly brutal--but he had to test it out without
+further delay.
+
+His words acted almost with galvanic effect.
+
+"Cigars!  His birthday!  My cigars!" she cried.  "Jerold, you don't
+suspect me?"
+
+The car was starting across the bridge.  It suddenly halted in the
+traffic.  Almost on the instant came a crash and a cry.  A dainty
+little brougham had been crushed against another motor car in the jam
+and impatience on the structure.  One of its wheels had lost half its
+spokes, that went like a parcel of toothpicks.
+
+Garrison leaped out at once, and Dorothy followed in alarm.  In the
+tide of vehicles, blocked by the trifling accident, a hundred persons
+craned their heads to see what the damage had been.
+
+A small knot of persons quickly gathered about the damaged carriage.
+Garrison hastened forward, intent upon offering his services, should
+help in the case be required.  He discovered, in the briefest time,
+that no great damage had been done, and that no one had been injured.
+
+Eager to be hastening onward, he turned back to his car.  Almost
+immediately he saw that the chauffeur's seat was empty.  Dorothy had
+apparently stepped once more inside, to be screened from public view.
+
+Hastily scanning the crowd about the place, Garrison failed to find his
+driver.  He searched about impatiently, but in vain.  He presently
+became aware of the fact that his man had, for some reason, fled and
+left his car.
+
+Considerably annoyed, and aware that he should have to drive the
+machine himself, he returned once more to the open door of the auto,
+intent upon informing Dorothy of their loss.
+
+He gazed inside the car in utter bewilderment.
+
+Dorothy also was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+NEW HAPPENINGS
+
+Still puzzled, unable to believe his senses, Garrison made a second
+quick search of the vicinity that was rapidly being cleared and
+restored to order by a couple of efficient police officers, but without
+avail.
+
+Neither Dorothy nor the chauffeur could be found.
+
+One of the officers ordered him to move along with his car.  There was
+nothing else to be done.  Reluctantly, and not without feelings of
+annoyance and worry, combined with those of baffled mystery and
+chagrin, Garrison was presently obliged to climb to the driver's seat
+and take the wheel in hand.
+
+The motor was running, slowly, to a rhythmic beat.  He speeded it up,
+threw off the brake, put the gears in the "low," and slipped in the
+clutch.  Over the bridge in the halted procession of traffic he steered
+his course--a man bereft of his comrade and his driver and with a
+motor-car thrust upon his charge.
+
+Through the streets of New York he was finally guiding the great
+purring creature of might, which in ordinary circumstances would have
+filled his being with delight.  Thorough master of throttle,
+spark-advance, and speed-lever, he would have asked nothing better than
+to drive all day--if Dorothy were only at his side.
+
+He had never felt more utterly disconcerted in his life.  Where had she
+gone--and why?
+
+What did it mean to have the chauffeur also disappear?
+
+Had the two gone off together?
+
+If so, why should she choose a companion of his type?
+
+If not, then what could have formed the motive for the man's abrupt
+flight from the scene?
+
+And what should be done with the motor-car, thus abandoned to his care?
+
+A quick suspicion that the car had been stolen came to Garrison's mind.
+Nevertheless it was always possible that Dorothy had urged the driver
+to convey her out of the crowd, and that the driver had finally
+returned to get his car, and found it gone; but this, for many reasons,
+seemed unlikely.
+
+Dorothy had shown her fear in her last startled question: "Jerold, you
+don't suspect me?"  She might have fled in some sort of fear after
+that.  But the driver--what was it that had caused him also to vanish
+at a time so unexpected?
+
+Garrison found himself obliged to give it up.  He could think of
+nothing to do with the car but to take it to the stand where he had
+hired it in the morning.  The chauffeur might, by chance, appear and
+claim his property.  Uneasy, with the thing thus left upon his hands,
+and quite unwilling to be "caught with the goods," Garrison was swiftly
+growing more and more exasperated.
+
+He knew he could not roll the car to the stand and simply abandon it
+there, for anyone so inclined to steal; he objected to reporting it
+"found" in this peculiar manner at any police headquarters, for he
+could not be sure it had been stolen, and he himself might be suspected.
+
+Having hired the car in crowded Times Square, near his Forty-fourth
+Street rooms, he ran it up along Broadway with the thought of awaiting
+the driver.
+
+The traffic was congested with surface cars, heavy trucks, other
+motors, and carriages.  His whole attention was riveted on the task in
+hand.  Driving a car in the streets of New York ceases to be enjoyment,
+very promptly.  The clutch was in and out continuously.  He crept here,
+he speeded up to the limit for a space of a few city blocks, and crept
+again.
+
+Past busy Fourteenth Street and Union Square he proceeded, and on to
+Twenty-third Street with Madison Square, green and inviting, lying to
+his right.  Pushed over into the Fifth Avenue traffic by the
+regulations, he contemplated returning to the Broadway stream as soon
+as possible, and was crawling along with his clutch barely rubbing,
+when a hansom cab, containing a beautiful but pale young woman, slowly
+passed.  The occupant abruptly rose from her seat and scrutinized the
+car in obvious excitement.
+
+Garrison barely caught a glimpse of her face, busied as he was with the
+driving.  He continued on.  Two minutes later he was halted by a jam of
+carriages and the hansom returned at full speed.  Once more the pale
+young woman was leaning half-way out.
+
+"Stop!" she cried at the astounded Garrison.  "You've stolen that car!
+I'll have you arrested!  You've got to return it at once!"
+
+Garrison almost smiled, the half-expected outcome had arrived so
+promptly.  He saw that half a dozen drivers of cabs and other vehicles
+were looking on in wonder and amusement.
+
+"Kindly drive into Twenty-sixth Street, out of this confusion," he
+answered.  "I shall be glad to halt there and answer all requirements."
+
+He was so obviously a thorough gentleman, and his manner was so calm
+and dignified, that the strange young lady almost felt abashed at the
+charges she had made.
+
+The jam was broken.  Garrison ran the car to the quieter side street,
+and the cab kept pace at his side.
+
+Presently he halted, got down from the seat and came to the hansom,
+lifting his hat.  How thankful he was that no policeman had overheard
+the young woman's cry, and followed, she might never suspect.
+
+"Permit me to introduce myself as a victim of another's man's wrongful
+intentions," he said.  "I hired this car this morning uptown--in fact,
+in Times Square, and was driven out to Long Island.  Returning, we were
+halted on the bridge--and the chauffeur disappeared--ran away, leaving
+me to drive for myself.
+
+"I feared at the time it might be the man was a thief, and I am greatly
+relieved to find the owner of the car so promptly.  If this or any
+other explanation, before an officer, or any court, will gratify you
+more, I shall be glad to meet every demand you may make upon my time."
+
+The young woman looked at him with widely blazing eyes.  She believed
+him, she hardly knew why.  She had alighted from the hansom.
+
+"I've been driving up and down Fifth Avenue all morning!" she said.  "I
+felt sure I could find it that way.  It isn't mine.  It was only left
+in my charge.  I was afraid that something might happen.  I didn't want
+to have it in the first place!  I knew it would cause me endless
+trouble.  I don't know what to do with it now."
+
+"I should be gratified," said Garrison, "if you will state that you do
+not consider me guilty of a theft so stupid as this would appear."
+
+"I didn't think you were the man," she answered.  "A chauffeur my
+cousin discharged undoubtedly stole it.  Policemen are after him now,
+with the man who runs the garage.  They went to Long Island City, or
+somewhere, to find him, this morning.  Perhaps he saw them on the
+bridge."
+
+She was regaining color.  She was a very fine-looking young woman,
+despite the expression of worry on her face.  She was looking Garrison
+over in a less excited manner--and he knew she held no thought of guilt
+against him.
+
+"Let me suggest that you dismiss your cab and permit me to take you at
+once to your garage," he said, adding to the man on the box: "Cabby,
+how much is your bill?"
+
+"Five dollars," said the man, adding substantially to his charge.
+
+"Take ten and get out!" said Garrison, handing him a bill.
+
+"Oh, but please----" started the pretty young woman.
+
+Garrison interrupted.
+
+"The man who stole your car did yeoman service for me.  I promised him
+five times this amount.  He may never dare appear to get his money.
+Kindly step in.  Will you drive the car yourself?"
+
+"No, thank you," she murmured, obeying because of his masterly manner.
+"But really, I hardly know----"
+
+"Please say nothing further about it," he once more interrupted.  "I am
+sorry to have been in any manner connected with an event which has
+caused you uneasiness; but I am very glad, indeed, to be instrumental
+in returning your property and relieving your worry.  Where do you keep
+your car?"
+
+She told him the place.  It was up in the neighborhood of Columbus
+Circle.  Twenty minutes later the car was "home"--where it would never
+get away on false pretenses again, and the news of its coming began to
+go hotly out by wire.
+
+Garrison heard the men call his fair companion Miss Ellis.  He called a
+cab, when she was ready to go, asked for permission to escort her home,
+and was driven in her company to an old-fashioned house downtown, near
+Washington Square.  There he left her, with a nice old motherly person,
+and bade her good-by with no expectation of ever beholding her again,
+despite the murmured thanks she gave him and the half-timid offer of
+her hand.
+
+When he left and dismissed the cabman he was face to face with the
+problem of what he should do to find his "wife."  His worry all surged
+back upon him.
+
+He wondered where Dorothy had gone--where she could go, why she had
+fled from him--and what could he do but wait with impatience some word
+of her retreat.  He had felt her innocence all but established, and
+love had come like a new great tide upon him.  He was lonely now, and
+thoroughly disturbed.
+
+He had warned her she must go to live in some other house than her own;
+nevertheless she might have proceeded to the Ninety-third Street
+residence for things she would require.  It was merely a hope.  He made
+up his mind to go to the house without delay, aware that the Robinsons
+might make all haste to get there and gain an advantage.
+
+Half an hour later he was once more in the place.  The housekeeper
+alone was in charge.  No one had been there in his absence.
+
+He had no intention of remaining long, with Dorothy to find, although
+he felt inclined to await the possible advent of Theodore and his
+father, whom he meant to eject from the place.  As yet he dared not
+attempt to order the arrest of the former, either for Dorothy's
+abduction or the crime attempted on himself in the park.  The risk was
+too great--the risk to the fictional marriage between himself and
+Dorothy.
+
+He climbed the stairs, wandered aimlessly through the rooms, sat down,
+waited, somewhat impatiently, tried to think what were best to do,
+worried himself about Dorothy again, and finally made up his mind she
+might attempt to wire him at his office address.  Calling up the
+housekeeper, he gave her strict instructions against admitting any of
+the Robinsons--an order which the woman received with apparent
+gratification.  They were merely to be referred to himself, at this
+address, should they come upon the scene.
+
+He started off.  He had barely closed the door and heard the woman put
+on the chain, and was turning to walk down the brownstone steps when
+Theodore, half-way up, panting from haste, confronted him, face to face.
+
+For a moment the two stood staring at each other in surprise.  Garrison
+was first to break the silence.
+
+"You came a little late, you see.  I have just issued orders you are
+not to be admitted to this house again, except with my special
+permission."
+
+"By Heaven, you----  We'll see about that!" said Theodore.  "I'll have
+you put under arrest!"
+
+"Try it," said Garrison, grinning in his face.  "A charge of abduction,
+plus a charge even larger, may cause you more than mere annoyance.
+You've been looking for trouble with me, and you're bound to have it.
+Let me warn you that you are up against a number of facts that you may
+have overlooked--and you may hear something drop!"
+
+"You think you've been clever, here and in Woodsite, I suppose," said
+Theodore, concealing both wrath and alarm.  "I could drop a couple of
+facts on you that would fade you a little, I reckon.  And this house
+isn't yours yet!"
+
+"I wonder how many lessons you are going to need," answered Garrison
+coldly.  "If you put so much as your hand inside this building, I'll
+have you arrested for burglary.  Now, mind what I say--and get out!"
+
+"I'll see you later, all right," said Robinson, glaring for a moment in
+impotent rage, and he turned and retreated from the place.
+
+Garrison, with his mind made up to a _coup_ of distinct importance, was
+presently headed for his room in Forty-fourth Street.  Before he left
+the Subway he went to a waiting-room, replaced the long mustache upon
+his face--the one with which he had started away in the morning--and
+walked the few short blocks from the station to his house.
+
+The street was nearly deserted, but the "shadow" he had duped in the
+morning was on watch, still undismissed from duty by young Robinson.
+
+Garrison went up to him quietly--and suddenly showing his gun, pulled
+away the false mustache.
+
+"I'm the man you've been waiting to follow," he said.  "Now, don't say
+a word, but come on."
+
+"Hell!" said the man.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and was soon up in Garrison's room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+REVELATIONS
+
+The fellow whom Garrison had taken into camp had once attempted
+detective work himself and failed.  He was not at all a clever being,
+but rather a crafty, fairly reliable employee of a somewhat shady
+"bureau" with which young Robinson was on quite familiar terms.
+
+He was far from being a coward.  It was he who had followed Garrison to
+Branchville, rifled his suit-case, and been captured by the trap.
+Despite the fact that his hand still bore the evidence of having
+tampered with Garrison's possessions, he had dared remain on the job
+because he felt convinced that Garrison had never really seen him and
+could not, therefore, pick him up.
+
+Sullen in his helplessness, aware that his captor must at last have a
+very great advantage, he complied with Garrison's command to take a
+seat in the room, and glanced about him inquiringly.
+
+"What do you want with me anyhow?" he said.  "What's your game?"
+
+"Mine is a surer game than yours," said Garrison, seating himself with
+his back to the window, and the light therefore all on his visitor's
+face.  "I'm going to tell you first what you are up against."
+
+The man shifted uneasily.
+
+"You haven't got anything to hold me on," he said.  "I've got my
+regular license to follow my trade."
+
+"I was not aware the State was issuing licenses to burglars," said
+Garrison.  "Come, now, with that hand of yours, what's the use of
+beating around the bush.  If my suit-case had nipped you by the wrist
+instead of the fingers, I'd have captured you red-handed in the act."
+
+The fellow thrust his hand in his pocket.  His face, with two days'
+growth of beard upon it, turned a trifle pale.
+
+"I'd rather work on your side than against you," he ventured.  "A man
+has to make a living."
+
+"You've come around to the point rather more promptly than I expected,"
+said Garrison.  "For fear that you may not keep your word, when it
+comes to a pinch, I'll inform you I can send you up on two separate
+charges, and I'll do so in a wink, if you try to double-cross me in the
+slightest particular."
+
+"I haven't done anything but that one job at Branchville," said the man
+in alarm.
+
+"What are you givin' me now?"
+
+"What's your name?" demanded Garrison.
+
+"Tuttle," said the fellow, after a moment of hesitation.  "Frank
+Tuttle."
+
+"All right, Tuttle.  You furnished Theodore Robinson with information
+concerning my movements and, in addition to your burglary at
+Branchville, you have made yourself accessory to a plot to commit a
+willful murder."
+
+"I didn't!  By Heaven, I didn't!" Tuttle answered.  "I didn't have
+anything to do with that."
+
+"With what?" asked Garrison.  "You see you plunge into every trap I
+lay, almost before it is set."
+
+He rose, went to his closet, never without his eye on his man, searched
+on the floor and brought forth the cold iron bomb.  This he abruptly
+placed on Tuttle's knee.
+
+Tuttle shrank in terror.
+
+"Oh, Lord!  I didn't!  I didn't know they went in to do a thing like
+that!" he said.  "I've been pretty desperate, I admit, Mr. Garrison,
+but I had no hand in this!"
+
+The sweat on his forehead advertised his fear.  He looked at Garrison
+in a stricken, ghastly manner that almost excited pity.
+
+"But you knew that two of Robinson's assassins were to meet me in the
+park," said Garrison.  "You procured their services--and expected to
+read of an accident to me in the papers the following morning."
+
+He was risking a mere conjecture, but it went very near to the truth.
+
+"So help me, I didn't go as far as that!" said Tuttle.  "I admit I
+stole the letter up at Branchville, and sent it to Robinson at once.  I
+admit I followed you back to New York and told him all I could.  But I
+only gave him the names and addresses of the dagos, and I never knew
+what they had to do!"
+
+Garrison took the bomb and placed it on his bureau.
+
+"Very good," he said.  "That makes you, as I said before, an accomplice
+to the crime attempted--in addition to the burglary, for which I could
+send you up.  To square this off you'll go to work for me, and begin by
+supplying the names and addresses of your friends."
+
+Tuttle was a picture of abject fear and defeat.  His jaw hung down; his
+eyes were bulging in their sockets.
+
+"You--you mean you'll give me a chance?" he said.  "I'll do
+anything--anything you ask, if only you will!"
+
+"Look here, Tuttle, your willingness to do anything has put you where
+you are.  But I'll give you a chance, with the thorough understanding
+that the minute you attempt the slightest treachery you'll go up in
+spite of all you can do.  First, we'll have the names of the dagos."
+
+Tuttle all but broke down.  He was not a hardened criminal.  He had
+merely learned a few of the tricks by which crime may be committed,
+and, having failed in detective employment, had no substantial calling
+and was willing to attempt even questionable jobs, if the pay were
+found sufficient.
+
+He supplied the names and addresses of the men who had done young
+Robinson's bidding in Central Park.  Garrison jotted them down.
+
+"I suppose you know that I am in the detective business myself," he
+added, as he finished the writing.
+
+"I thought so, but I wasn't sure," said Tuttle.
+
+"You told young Robinson as much?"
+
+"He hired me to tell him everything."
+
+"Exactly.  How much do you expect to tell him of what is going on
+to-day?"
+
+"Nothing that you do not instruct," said Tuttle, still feeling
+insecure.  "That is, if you meant what you said."
+
+"I meant it," said Garrison, "meant it all.  You're at work for me from
+this time on--and I expect the faithfulness of an honest man, no matter
+what you may have been before."
+
+"You'll get it," said Tuttle.  "I only want a show to start off square
+and right. . . .  What do you want me to do?"
+
+"There is nothing of great importance just at present, except to
+remember who is your boss," answered Garrison.  "You may be obliged to
+double-cross Robinson to a slight extent, when he next hunts you up for
+your report.  He deserves a little of the game, no matter how he gets
+it.  Take his instructions the same as before.  Tell him you have lost
+me for a time.  Report to me promptly concerning his instructions and
+everything else.  Do you know the address of my office?"
+
+"You have never been there since I was put on the case," said Tuttle
+with commendable candor.
+
+"All right," said Garrison.  "It's down in the----"
+
+A knock on the door interrupted.  The landlady, a middle-aged woman who
+rarely appeared at Garrison's room, was standing on the landing when he
+went to investigate, and holding a message in her hand.
+
+"A telegram for you," she said, and halting for a moment, she turned
+and retreated down the stairs.
+
+Garrison tore the envelope apart, pulled out the yellow slip and read:
+
+
+Please come over to 937 Hackatack Street, Jersey City, as soon as
+possible.
+
+JERALDINE.
+
+
+It was Dorothy, across the Hudson.  A wave of relief, to know she was
+near and wished to see him, swept over Garrison's being.
+
+"Here," he said to Tuttle, "here's the address on a card.  Report to me
+there at six o'clock to-night.  Get out now and go to young Robinson,
+but not at the house in Ninety-third Street."
+
+"Why not?" inquired Tuttle.  "Its the regular place----"
+
+"I've ordered him not to enter the house again," interrupted Garrison.
+"By the way, should he attempt to do so, or ask you to get in there for
+him, agree to his instructions apparently, and let me know without
+delay."
+
+"Thank you for giving me a chance," said Tuttle, who had risen from his
+chair.  "You'll never regret it, I'm sure."
+
+"All right," said Garrison.  "Shake!"
+
+He gave the astonished man a firm, friendly grip and bade him "So
+'long!" at the door.
+
+A few minutes later, dressed in his freshest apparel, he hastened out
+to gulp down a cup of strong coffee at an adjacent cafe, then headed
+downtown for the ferry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A MAN IN THE CASE
+
+The hour was just after four o'clock when Garrison stepped from a cab
+in Hackatack Street, Jersey City, and stood for a moment looking at the
+red-brick building numbered 937.
+
+It was a shabby, smoke-soiled, neglected dwelling, with signs of life
+utterly lacking.
+
+Made wary by his Central Park experience, Garrison had come there armed
+with his gun and suspiciously alert.  His cabman was instructed to wait.
+
+Without apparent hesitation Garrison ascended the chalk-marked steps
+and rang the bell.
+
+Almost immediately the door was opened, by a small and rather pretty
+young woman, dressed in good taste, in the best of materials, and
+wearing a very fine diamond ring upon her finger.
+
+Behind her, as Garrison instantly discerned, were rich and costly
+furnishings, singularly out of keeping with the shabby exterior of the
+place.
+
+"How do you do?" he said, raising his hat.  "Is my wife, Mrs.
+Fairfax----"
+
+"Oh," interrupted the lady.  "Won't you please come in?  She hardly
+expected you to come so promptly.  She's lying down to take a rest."
+
+Garrison entered and was shown to a parlor on the left.  It, too, was
+furnished in exceptional richness, but the air was close and stuffy,
+and the whole place uncomfortably dark.
+
+"If you'll please sit down I'll go and tell her you have come," said
+his hostess.  "Excuse me."
+
+The smile on her face was somewhat forced and sad, thought Garrison.
+His feeling of suspicion had departed.
+
+Left alone, he strode across the room and glanced at a number of
+pictures, hung upon the walls.  They were excellent oils, one or two by
+masters.
+
+Dorothy must have slept lightly, if at all.  Garrison's back was still
+turned toward the entrance when her footfall came to his ear.  She came
+swiftly into the apartment.
+
+"Oh, you were very good to come so soon!" she said in a tone made low
+for none but him to hear.  "I wired you, both at your house and office,
+not more than an hour ago."
+
+"I got the message sent to the house," he said.  "It came as a great
+relief."  He paused for a moment, looking in her eyes, which were
+raised to his own appealingly.  "Why did you run away?--and how did you
+do it?" he asked her.  "I didn't know what in the world to think or do."
+
+Her eyes were lowered.
+
+"I had to--I mean, I simply obeyed an impulse," she confessed.
+
+In an almost involuntary outburst she added: "I am in very great
+trouble.  There is no one in the world but you that can give me any
+help."
+
+All the pain she had caused him was forgotten in the joy of that
+instant.  How he longed to take her in his arms and fold her in
+security against his breast!  And he dared not even be tender.
+
+"I am trying to help you, Dorothy," he said, "but I was utterly
+dumfounded, there in the crush on the bridge.  Where did you go?"
+
+"I ran along and was helped to escape the traffic," she explained.
+"Then I soon got a car, with my mind made up to come over here just as
+soon as I could.  This is the home of my stepbrother's wife--Mrs.
+Foster Durgin.  I had to come over and--and warn--I mean, I had to
+come, and so I came."
+
+He had felt her disappearance had nothing to do with the vanishing of
+the chauffeur.  Her statement confirmed his belief.
+
+"Durgin?" Garrison repeated.  "Didn't some Durgin, a nephew of Hardy,
+claim the body, up at Branchville?"
+
+Dorothy was pale again, but resolute.
+
+"Yes--Paul.  He's Foster's brother."
+
+"You told me you had neither brothers nor sisters," Garrison reminded
+her a little sternly.  "These were not forgotten?"
+
+"They are stepbrothers only--by marriage.  I thought I could leave them
+out," she explained, flushing as she tried to meet his gaze.  "Please
+don't think I meant to deceive you very much."
+
+"It was a technical truth," he told her; "but isn't it time you told me
+everything?  You ran off before I could even reply to something you
+appeared to wish to know.  You----"
+
+"But you don't suspect me?" she interrupted, instantly reverting to the
+question she had put before, in that moment of her impulse to run.  "I
+couldn't bear it if I thought you did!"
+
+"If I replied professionally, I should say I don't know what to think,"
+he said.  "The whole affair is complicated.  As a matter of fact, I
+cannot seem to suspect you of anything wrong, but you've got to help me
+clear it as fast as I can."
+
+She met his gaze steadily, for half a minute, then tears abruptly
+filled her eyes, and she lowered her gaze to the floor.
+
+"Thank you, Jerold," she murmured, and a thrill went straight to his
+heart.  "I am very much worried, and very unhappy--but I haven't done
+anything wrong--and nothing like that!--not even a wicked thought like
+that!  I loved my uncle very dearly."
+
+She broke down and turned away to give vent to an outburst of grief.
+
+"There, there," said Garrison after a moment.  "We must do the best we
+can.  If you will tell me more, my help is likely to be greater."
+
+Dorothy dried her eyes and resumed her courage heroically.
+
+"I haven't asked you to be seated all this time," she said
+apologetically.  "Please do--and I'll tell you all I can."
+
+Garrison took a chair, while Dorothy sat near him.  He thought he had
+never seen her in a mood of beauty more completely enthralling than
+this one of helplessness and bravery combined.
+
+"We are quite, well--secure from being overheard?" he said.
+
+She went at once and closed the door.
+
+"Alice would never listen, greatly as she is worried," she said.  "It
+was she who met you at the door--Foster's wife."
+
+Garrison nodded.  He was happy only when she came once more to her seat.
+
+"This is your stepbrother's home?" he inquired.  "Is he here?"
+
+"This is Alice's property," Dorothy corrected.  "But that's way ahead
+of the story.  You told me my uncle was poisoned by my cigars.  How
+could that possibly have been?  How did you find it out?  How was it
+done?"
+
+"The box had been opened and two cigars had been so loaded with poison
+that when he bit off one, at the end, to light it up, he got the deadly
+stuff on his tongue--and was almost instantly stricken."
+
+Despite the dimness of the light in the room Dorothy's face showed very
+white.
+
+She asked; "What kind of poison?"
+
+He mentioned the drug.
+
+"Not the kind used by photographers?" she asked in affright.
+
+"Precisely.  Foster, then, is a photographer?"
+
+"He used to be, but----  Oh, I don't see how he--it's terrible!  It's
+terrible!"
+
+She arose and crossed the room in agitation, then presently returned.
+
+"Your suspicions may be wrong," said Garrison, who divined she had
+something on her mind.  "Why not tell me all about it, and let me
+assist, if I can?  What sort of a looking man is Foster?"
+
+"Rather small, and nearly always smiling.  But he may not have done it!
+He may be innocent!  If only you could help me now!" she said.  "I
+don't believe he could have done it!"
+
+"But you half suspect it was he?"
+
+"I've been afraid of it all along," she said, in an outburst of
+confession.  "Before I even knew that Uncle John was--murdered--before
+you told me, I mean--I felt afraid that something of the kind might
+have happened, and since that hour I've been nearly distracted by my
+thoughts!"
+
+"Let's take it slowly," said Garrison, in his soothing way.  "I imagine
+there has been either anger or hatred, spite or pique on the part of
+your stepbrother, Foster, towards John Hardy in the past."
+
+"Yes--everything!  Uncle John spoiled Foster at first, but when he
+found the boy was gambling in Wall Street, he cut him off and refused
+to supply him the means to pay off the debts he had contracted.  Foster
+threatened at the time.
+
+"The breach grew wider.  Uncle didn't know he was married to Alice.
+Foster wouldn't let me tell.  He had used up nearly all of Alice's
+money.  She refused to mortgage anything more, after I took the
+necklaces, on a loan--and if Foster doesn't get ten thousand dollars in
+August I don't know what he'll do!"
+
+Garrison was following the threads of this quickly delivered narrative
+as best he might.  It revealed a great deal, but not all.
+
+"I see," he commented quietly.  "But how could Foster hope to profit by
+the death of Mr. Hardy?"
+
+Dorothy turned very white again.
+
+"He knew of the will."
+
+"The will that was drawn in your favor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he thought that you were married, that the conditions of the will
+had been fulfilled?"
+
+Dorothy nodded assent.
+
+Garrison's impulse was to push a point in personal affairs and ask if
+she had really married some Fairfax, not yet upon the scene.  But he
+adhered strictly to business.
+
+"What you fear is that Foster, aware that you would become your uncle's
+heir, may have hastened your uncle's end, in the hope that when you
+came in for the property you would liquidate his debts?"
+
+Dorothy nodded again.
+
+She said: "It is terrible!  Do you see the slightest ray of hope?"
+
+Garrison ignored the query for a moment.
+
+"Where is Foster now?"
+
+"No one knows--he seems to have run away--that's one of the worst
+things about it."
+
+"But you came over here to warn him," said Garrison.
+
+Dorothy flushed.
+
+"That was my impulse, I admit, when you told me about the cigars.  I
+hardly knew what else I could do."
+
+"You are very fond of Foster?"
+
+"I am very fond of Alice."
+
+Garrison was glad.  He could even have been jealous of a brother.
+
+"But how could Foster have tampered with your cigars?" he inquired.
+"Was he up there at Hickwood when you left them?"
+
+"He was there all the time of uncle's visit, in hiding, and even on the
+night of his death," she confessed in a whisper.  "Alice doesn't know
+of this, but he admitted it all to me."
+
+"This is what you have been trying to conceal from me, all the time,"
+Garrison observed.  "Do the Robinsons have their suspicions?"
+
+"I can't be certain.  Perhaps they have.  Theodore has exercised a very
+bad influence on Foster's life.  He intimated once to me that perhaps
+Uncle John had been murdered."
+
+Garrison thought for a moment.
+
+"It is almost impossible for anyone to have had that suspicion who had
+no guilty knowledge," he said.  "Theodore was, and is, capable of any
+crime.  If he knew about the will and believed you had not fulfilled
+the conditions, by marrying, he would have had all the motive in the
+world to commit the crime himself."
+
+"But," said Dorothy, "he knew nothing of the will, as I told you
+before."
+
+"And he with an influence over Foster, who _did_ know all about the
+will?"
+
+Dorothy changed color once again.  She was startled.
+
+"I never thought of that," she admitted.  "Foster might have told."
+
+"There's a great deal to clear up in a case like this," said Garrison,
+"even when suspicions point your course.  I think I can land Mr.
+Theodore on the things he attempted on me, but not just yet.  He may
+reveal himself a little more.  Besides, our alleged marriage will
+hardly bear a close investigation."
+
+For the moment Dorothy was more concerned by his personal danger than
+by anything concerning the case.
+
+"You told me a little of what was attempted in the park," she said.
+"I've thought about it ever since--such a terrible attack!  If anything
+dreadful should happen to you----"
+
+She broke off suddenly, turned crimson to her hair, and dropped her
+gaze from his face.
+
+In that moment he resisted the greatest temptation of his life--the
+impulse to sink at her feet on his knees, and tell her of his love.  He
+knew she felt, as he did, the wondrous attraction between them; he knew
+that to her, as to himself, the impression was strong that they had
+known each other always; but hired as he had been to conduct an affair
+in which it had been particularly stipulated there was to be no
+sentiment, or even the slightest thought of such a development, he
+throttled his passion and held himself in check.
+
+"Some guardian angel must have hovered near," was all he permitted
+himself to reply, but she fathomed the depth of his meaning.
+
+"I hope some good spirit may continue to be helpful--to us both," she
+said.  "What are you going to do next?"
+
+"Take you back to New York," said Garrison.  "I must have you near.
+But, while I think of it, please answer one thing more.  How did it
+happen that your uncle's life was insured for that inventor in
+Hickwood, Charles Scott?"
+
+"They were lifelong friends," said Dorothy.  "They began as boys
+together.  Uncle John was saved by this Mr. Scott, when he was
+twenty-one--his life was saved, I mean.  And he was very much in love
+with Mr. Scott's sister.  But something occurred, I hardly know what.
+The Scotts never had much money, and they lost the little they had.
+Miss Scott was very shamefully treated, I believe, by some other friend
+in the group, and she died before she was thirty--I've heard as a
+result of some great unhappiness.
+
+"Uncle and Mr. Scott were always friends, though they drifted apart to
+some extent.  Mr. Scott became an inventor, and spent all his poor
+wife's money, and also funds that Uncle John supplied, on his
+inventions.  The insurance was Uncle John's last plan for befriending
+his old-time companion.  There was no one else to make it in favor of,
+for of course the estate would take care of the heirs that he wished to
+remember.  Does that answer your question?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Garrison.  "I think if you'll make ready we will
+start.  Is there any particular place in New York where you prefer to
+stay?"
+
+"No.  I'd rather leave that to you."
+
+"By the way," he said, his mind recurring to the motor-car incident and
+all that had followed, "did you know that when you deserted me so
+abruptly on the bridge, the chauffeur also disappeared--and left me
+with the auto on my hands?"
+
+"Why, no!" she said.  "What could it mean?"
+
+"It seems to have been a stolen car," he answered.  "It was left in
+charge of a strange young woman, too poor to own it--left her by a
+friend.  She found it in my possession and accepted my explanation as
+to how it was I chanced to have it in my care.  She is living in a
+house near Washington Square."
+
+"How very strange!" said Dorothy, who had suddenly conceived some queer
+feminine thought.  "If the house near Washington Square is nice,
+perhaps you might take me there.  But tell me all about it!"
+
+What could be actuating her woman's mind in this was more than he could
+tell.  But--why not take her to that house as well as to any in New
+York?
+
+"All right," he said.  "It's a very nice place.  I'll tell you the
+story as we go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE ENEMY'S TRACKS
+
+On the way returning to Gotham, Garrison learned every fact concerning
+John Hardy, his former places of residence, his former friends, his
+ways of life and habits that he deemed important to the issues and
+requirements now in hand, with Dorothy's stepbrother more than half
+suspected of the crime.
+
+Dorothy gladly supplied the information.  She had been on the verge of
+despair, harboring her fear and despair all alone, with the loyal
+desire to protect not only Foster, but Alice as well, and now she felt
+an immense relief to have a man's clear-headed aid.
+
+Garrison held out no specific hope.
+
+The case looked black for young Durgin at the best, and the fellow had
+run away.  A trip to the small Connecticut town of Rockdale, where
+Hardy had once resided, and to which it had long been his wont to
+return as often as once a month, seemed to Garrison imperative at this
+juncture.
+
+He meant to see Tuttle at six, and start for the country in the evening.
+
+He outlined his plan to Dorothy, acquainting her with the fact that he
+had captured Theodore's spy, from whom he hoped for news.
+
+By the time they came to the house near Washington Square, Dorothy was
+all but asleep from exhaustion.  The strain, both physical and mental,
+to which she had been subjected during some time past, and more
+particularly during the past two days, told quickly now when at last
+she felt ready to place all dependence on Garrison and give up to
+much-needed rest.
+
+The meeting of Miss Ellis and Dorothy was but slightly embarrassing to
+Garrison, when it presently took place.  Explaining to the woman of the
+house that his "wife" desired to stop all night in town, rather than go
+on to Long Island, while he himself must be absent from the city, he
+readily procured accommodations without exciting the least suspicion.
+
+Garrison merely waited long enough to make Dorothy promise she would
+take a rest without delay, and then he went himself to a hotel
+restaurant, near by in Fifth Avenue, devoured a most substantial meal,
+and was five minutes late at his office.
+
+Tuttle had not yet appeared.  The hall before the door was deserted.
+The sign on his glass had been finished.
+
+Garrison went in.  There were letters all over the floor, together with
+Dorothy's duplicate telegram, a number of cards, and some advertising
+circulars.  One of the cards bore the name of one J. P. Wilder, and the
+legend, "Representing the New York _Evening Star_."  There was nothing,
+however, in all the stuff that appeared to be important.
+
+Garrison read the various letters hastily, till he came to one from the
+insurance company, his employers, requesting haste in the matter of the
+Hardy case, and reminding him that he had reported but once.  This he
+filed away.
+
+Aware at last that more than half an hour had gone, without a sign from
+his man, he was on the point of going to the door to look out in the
+hall when Tuttle's shadow fell upon the glass.
+
+"I stayed away a little too long, I know," he said.  "I was trying to
+get a line on old man Robinson, to see if he'd give anything away, but
+I guess he's got instructions from his son, who's gone away from town."
+
+"Gone away from town?" repeated Garrison.  "Where has he gone?"
+
+"I don't know.  The old man wouldn't say."
+
+"You haven't seen Theodore?"
+
+"No.  He left about five this afternoon.  The old man and his wife are
+stopping in Sixty-fifth Street, where they used to live some months
+ago."
+
+"What did you report about me?"
+
+"Nothing, except I hadn't seen you again," said Tuttle.  "The old man
+leaves it all to his son.  He didn't seem to care where you had gone."
+
+Garrison pondered the matter carefully.  He made almost nothing out of
+Theodore's departure from the scene.  It might mean much or little.
+That Theodore had something up his sleeve he entertained no doubt.
+
+"It's important to find out where he has gone," he said.  "See old
+Robinson again.  Tell him you have vital information on a special point
+that Theodore instructed you to deliver to no one but himself, and the
+old man may tell you where you should go.  I am going out of town
+to-night.  Leave your address in case I wish to write."
+
+"I'll do my best," said Tuttle, writing the address on a card.  "Is
+there anything more?"
+
+"Yes.  You know who the two men were who knocked me down in Central
+Park and left a bomb in my pocket.  Get around them in any way you can,
+ascertain what agreement they had with young Robinson, or what
+instructions, and find out why it was they did not rob me.  Come here
+at least once a day, right along, whether you find me in or not."
+
+Once more Tuttle stated he would do his best.  He left, and Garrison,
+puzzling over Theodore's latest movement, presently locked up his
+office and departed from the building.
+
+He was no more than out on the street than he came upon Theodore's
+tracks in a most unexpected direction.  A newsboy came by, loudly
+calling out his wares.  An _Evening Star_, beneath his arm, stared at
+Garrison with type fully three inches high with this announcement:
+
+  MYSTERY OF MURDER AND A WILL!!
+
+  _John Hardy May Have Been Slain!  Beautiful
+  Beneficiary Married Just in Time!_
+
+
+Garrison bought the paper.
+
+With excitement and chagrin in all his being he glanced through the
+story of himself and Dorothy--all that young Robinson could possibly
+know, or guess, dished up with all the sensational garnishments of
+which the New York yellow press is capable.
+
+Sick and indignant with the knowledge that Dorothy must be apprised of
+this at once, and instructed to remain in hiding, to induce all about
+her to guard her from intrusion and to refuse to see all reporters who
+might pursue the story, he hastened at once towards Washington Square,
+and encountered his "wife," almost upon entering the house.
+
+She was white with alarm.
+
+He thought she had already seen the evening sheet.
+
+"Jerold!" she said, "something terrible has happened.  When I got up,
+half an hour ago to dress--my wedding certificate was gone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A NEW ALARM
+
+Without, for a moment, comprehending the drift of Dorothy's fears,
+Garrison led her to a parlor of the house, looking at her in a manner
+so fixed that she realized their troubles were not confined to the loss
+of her certificate.
+
+"What do you think?  What do you fear?  There isn't anything else?" she
+said, as he still remained dumb for a moment.  "What shall we do?"
+
+"Theodore threatened that something might occur," he said.  "He has
+evidently done his worst, all at once."
+
+"Why--but I thought perhaps my certificate was stolen here," whispered
+Dorothy in agitation.  "How could Theodore----"
+
+"No one in this house could have known you had such a document about
+you," interrupted Garrison.  "While you were drugged, or chloroformed,
+in the Robinsons' house, the old woman, doubtless, searched you
+thoroughly.  You told me your certificate was sewed inside----"
+
+"Inside--yes, inside," she interrupted.  "I thought it was safe, for
+they put a blank paper in its place, and I might not have thought of
+anything wrong if I had not discovered a black thread used instead of
+the white silk I had been so careful to employ."
+
+"There is ample proof that Theodore has utilized his wits to good
+advantage," he said.  "Your marriage-certificate episode is only a part
+of what he has achieved.  This paper contains all the story--suggesting
+that your uncle may have been murdered, and telling the conditions of
+the will."
+
+He held up the paper before her startled eyes, and saw the look of
+alarm that came upon her.
+
+"Printed--in the paper!" she exclaimed in astonishment and utter
+dismay.  "Why, how could such a thing happen?"
+
+She took the paper and scanned the story hurriedly, making exclamations
+as she read.
+
+"Theodore--more of Theodore," said Garrison.  "From his point of view,
+and with all his suspicions concerning our relationship, it is a
+master-stroke.  It renders our position exceedingly difficult."
+
+"But--how could he have found out all these things?" gasped Dorothy.
+"How could he know?"
+
+"He has guessed very shrewdly, and he has doubtless pumped your
+stepbrother of all that he happened to know."
+
+"What shall we do?" she repeated hopelessly.  "We can't prove
+anything--just now--and what will happen when the will comes up for
+probate?"
+
+"I'll land him in prison, if he doesn't pull out of it now," said
+Garrison, angered as much by Theodore's diabolical cleverness as he was
+by this premature publicity given to the story.  "He has carried it all
+with a mighty high hand, assured of our fear to take the business into
+court.  He has stirred up a fight that I don't propose to lose!--a
+fight that has roused all the red-hot Crusader of my being!"
+
+"But--what shall we do?  All the newspaper people will be digging at
+the case and doing their best to hunt up everyone concerned!"
+
+"No reporters can be seen.  If the fact leaks out that you are here,
+through anyone connected with the house, you must move at once, and
+change your name, letting no one but me know where you are."
+
+She looked at him blankly.  "Alone?  Can't you help me, Jerold?"
+
+"It is more important for me to hasten up country now than it was
+before," he answered.  "I must work night and day to clear things up
+about the murder."
+
+"But--if Foster should really be guilty?"
+
+"He'll be obliged to take his medicine--otherwise suspicion might
+possibly rest upon you."
+
+"Good Heavens!"
+
+She was very pale.
+
+"This story in the _Star_ has precipitated everything," he added.
+"Already it contains a hint that you and your 'husband' are the ones
+who benefit most by the possible murder of John Hardy."
+
+She sank on a chair and looked at him helplessly.
+
+"I suppose you'll have to go--but I don't know what I shall do without
+you.  How long do you think you'll be away?"
+
+"It is quite impossible to say.  I shall return as soon as
+circumstances permit.  I'll write whenever I can."
+
+"I shall need some things from the house," she said.  "I have
+absolutely nothing here."
+
+"Buy what you need, and remain indoors as much as you can," he
+instructed.  "Reporters will be sure to haunt the house in Ninety-third
+Street, hoping to see us return."
+
+"It's horrible!" said Dorothy.  "It almost makes me wish I had never
+heard of any will!"
+
+Garrison looked at her with frank adoration in his eyes.
+
+"Whatever the outcome, I shall always be glad," he said--"glad of the
+day you needed--needed assistance--glad of the chance it has given me
+to prove my--prove my--friendship."
+
+"I'll try to be worthy of your courage," she answered, returning his
+look with an answering glance in which the love-light could only at
+best be a trifle modified.  "But--I don't see how it will end."
+
+"About this marriage certificate----" he started, when the door-bell
+rang interruptingly.
+
+In fear of being overheard by the landlady, already attending a caller,
+Garrison halted, to wait.  A moment later the door was opened by the
+lady of the house herself, and a freshly-groomed, smooth-shaven young
+man was ushered in.  The room was the only one in the house for this
+semi-public use.
+
+"Excuse me," said the landlady sweetly.  "Someone to see Miss Ellis."
+
+The visitor bowed very slightly to Dorothy and Garrison, and stood
+somewhat awkwardly near the door, with his hat in his hand.  The
+landlady, having made her excuses for such an intrusion, disappeared to
+summon Miss Ellis.
+
+Garrison was annoyed.  There was nothing to do but to stand there in
+embarrassing silence.  Then Miss Ellis came shyly in at the door,
+dressed so becomingly that it seemed not at all unlikely she had hoped
+for the evening's visitor.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Hunter, this is a very pleasant surprise!" she said.  "Allow
+me to introduce my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax."  She added to
+Garrison and Dorothy, "This is Mr. Hunter, of the New York _Star_."
+
+Prepared to bow and let it go at that, Garrison started, ever so
+slightly, on learning the visitor's connection.  Mr. Hunter, on his
+part, meeting strangers unexpectedly, appeared to be diffident and
+quite conventional, but pricked up his ears, which were strung to catch
+the lightest whisper of news, at the mention of the Fairfax name.
+
+"Not the Fairfax of the Hardy case?" he said, for the moment intent on
+nothing so moving as a possible service to his paper.  "Of course
+you've seen----"
+
+Garrison sat down on the copy of the _Star_ which Dorothy had left in a
+chair.  He deftly tucked it up beneath his coat.
+
+"No, oh, no, certainly not," he said, and pulling out his watch, he
+added to Dorothy, "I shall have to be going.  Put on your hat and come
+out for a two-minute walk."
+
+Then, to the others:
+
+"Sorry to have to run off in this uncomplimentary fashion, but I trust
+we shall meet again."
+
+Hunter felt by instinct that this was the man of all men whom he ought,
+in all duty, to see.  He could not insist upon his calling in such a
+situation, however, and Garrison and Dorothy, bowing as they passed,
+were presently out in the hall with the parlor door closed behind them.
+In half a minute more they were out upon the street.
+
+"You'll be obliged to find other apartments at once," he said.  "You'd
+better not even go back to pay the bill.  I'll send the woman a couple
+of dollars and write that you made up your mind to go along home, after
+all."
+
+"But--I wanted to ask a lot of questions--of Miss Ellis," said Dorothy,
+thereby revealing the reason she had wished to come here before.  "I
+thought perhaps----"
+
+"Questions about me?" interrupted Garrison, smiling upon her in the
+light of a street-lamp they were passing.  "I can tell you far more
+about the subject than she could even guess--if we ever get the time."
+
+Dorothy blushed as she tried to meet his gaze.
+
+"Well--it wasn't that--exactly," she said.  "I only thought--thought it
+might be interesting to know her."
+
+"It's far more interesting to know where you will go," he answered.
+"Let me look at this paper for a minute."
+
+He pulled forth the _Star_, turned to the classified ads, found the
+"Furnished Rooms," and cut out half a column with his knife.
+
+"Let me go back where I was to-night," she suggested.  "I am really too
+tired to hunt a place before to-morrow.  I can slip upstairs and retire
+at once, and the first thing in the morning I can go to a place where
+Alice used to stay, with a very deaf woman who never remembers my name
+and always calls me Miss Root."
+
+"Where is the place?" said Garrison, halting as Dorothy halted.
+
+"In West Eighteenth Street."  She gave him the number.  "It will look
+so very queer if I leave like this," she added.  "I'd rather not excite
+suspicion."
+
+"All right," he replied, taking out a booklet and jotting down "Miss
+Root," and the address she had mentioned.  "I'll write to you in the
+name the deaf woman remembers, or thinks she remembers, and no one need
+know who you are.  If I hurry now I can catch the train that connects
+with the local on the Hartford division for Rockdale."
+
+They turned and went back to the house.
+
+"You don't know how long you'll be gone?" she said as they neared the
+steps.  "You cannot tell in the least?"
+
+"Long enough to do some good, I hope," he answered.  "Meantime, don't
+see anybody.  Don't answer any questions; and don't neglect to leave
+here early in the morning."
+
+She was silent for a moment, and looked at him shyly.
+
+"I shall feel a little bit lonely, I'm afraid," she confessed--"with
+none of my relatives, or friends.  I hope you'll not be very long.
+Good-by."
+
+"Good-by," said Garrison, who could not trust himself to approach the
+subject she had broached; and with his mind reverting to the subject of
+his personal worry in the case, he added: "By the way, the loss of your
+wedding certificate can be readily repaired if you'll tell me the name
+of the preacher, or the justice of the peace----"
+
+"I'd rather not--just at present," she interrupted, in immediate
+agitation.  "Good-night--I'll have to go in."
+
+She fled up the steps, found the door ajar, and pushing it open, stood
+framed by the light for a moment, as she turned to look back where he
+was standing.
+
+Only for a moment did she hover there, however.
+
+He could not see her face as she saw his.
+
+He could not know that a light of love and a mute appeal for
+forgiveness lay together in the momentary glance bestowed upon him.
+
+Then she closed the door; and as one in a dream he slowly walked away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A DEARTH OF CLEWS
+
+Garrison's ride on the train was a matter of several hours' duration.
+Not only did he read every line of the story in the _Star_, which he
+felt convinced had been furnished by young Robinson, but he likewise
+had time to reflect on all the phases, old and new, of the case in
+which he was involved.
+
+But wander where they would, his thoughts invariably swung around the
+troubled circle to Dorothy and the topic was she married or not, and if
+she was,--where was the man?
+
+He could not reach a decision.
+
+Heretofore he had reasoned there could be no genuine Fairfax; to-night
+he entertained many doubts of his former deductions.  He found it
+possible to construe Dorothy's actions both ways.  She was afraid to
+have him search out the man who had written her wedding certificate,
+perhaps because it was a fraud, or perhaps because there _was_ a
+Fairfax somewhere, concerning whom something must be hidden.
+
+The murder mystery, the business of the will, even the vengeance he
+promised himself he would wreak on Theodore, sank into significance in
+the light of his personal worry.  There was only one thing worth while,
+and that was love.
+
+He was rapidly approaching a frame of mind in which no sacrifice would
+be too great to be made, could he only be certain of winning Dorothy,
+heart-free, for his own.
+
+For more than an hour he sat thinking, in the car, oblivious to the
+flight of time, or to the towns through which he was passing.  He gave
+it up at last and, taking from his pocket a book he employed for
+memoranda, studied certain items there, supplied by Dorothy, concerning
+her uncle and his ways of life.  There were names of his friends and
+his enemies among the scribbled data, together with descriptive bits
+concerning Hardy's personality.
+
+Marking down additional suggestions and otherwise planning his work to
+be done at Rockdale, Garrison reflected there was little apparent hope
+of clearing young Durgin of suspicion, unless one trifling hint should
+supply the clew.  Dorothy had stated that her Uncle John had long had
+some particularly bitter and malicious enemy, a man unknown to herself,
+from whom she believed Mr. Hardy might have been fleeing, from time to
+time, in the trips which had become the habit of his life.
+
+That this constant moving from place to place had been the bane of his
+existence was a theory that Dorothy had formed a year before.  Yet, for
+all she knew, it might have been young Foster Durgin whom her uncle was
+trying to avoid!
+
+The train connection for Rockdale was wretchedly timed.  What with a
+long wait at the junction and a long delay at a way station farther
+out, it was nearly one o'clock when at length his destination was
+reached and Garrison, with his steel-trap suit-case in hand, found his
+way to a second-rate hotel, where, to his great relief, the beds were
+far better than they looked.
+
+He had taken the precaution to register as Henry Hilborn, realizing
+that Rockdale doubtless abounded in acquaintances of Hardy's who would
+probably read the published story of his will in their own local papers
+in the morning.  He wrote at once to Dorothy, under the name of Miss
+Root, apprising her of his altered name and his address.
+
+In the morning he was early at his work.  Representing himself as
+nothing more than the agent of the New York Insurance Company, for
+which he was, in fact, conducting his various investigations, at least
+in part, he rapidly searched out one after another of the persons whose
+names Dorothy had supplied, but all to little purpose.
+
+He found the town very much alive indeed to the news which the _Star_
+had blazoned to the world.  Hardy had been a well-known figure, off and
+on, for many years in Rockdale, and the names of the Durgins and of
+Dorothy were barely less familiar.
+
+Garrison's difficulty was not that the people talked too little, but
+rather that they talked too much, and said almost nothing in the
+process.  New trivialities were exceedingly abundant.
+
+He worked all day with no results of consequence.  The persons whose
+names had been supplied by Dorothy had, in turn, furnished more names
+by the dozen, alleging that this man or that knew John Hardy better
+than the proverbial brother, if possible; nevertheless, one after
+another, they revealed their ignorance of any vital facts that Garrison
+could use.
+
+On the following day he learned that Paul Durgin, the nephew credited
+with having claimed the body of the murdered man, lived ten miles out
+on a farm, amassing a fortune rearing ducks.
+
+Hiring a team, Garrison drove to Durgin's farm.  He found his man in
+the center of a vast expanse of duck-pens, where ducks by the thousand,
+all singularly white and waterless, were greeting their master with
+acclaim.
+
+Durgin came out of the duck midst to see his visitor.  He was a large,
+taciturn being, healthy, strong, independent, a trifle suspicious and
+more than a trifle indifferent as to the final disposal of John Hardy's
+fortune.
+
+Garrison, at first, found him hard to handle.  He had not yet read the
+papers.  He knew nothing at all of what was being said; and now that he
+heard it at last, from Garrison's lips, he scarcely did more than nod
+his head.
+
+Garrison was annoyed.  He determined on awakening the duck-stupored
+being, unless the task should prove hopeless.
+
+"Mr. Durgin," he said, "the reasons for supposing that Hardy was
+murdered--poisoned--are far more convincing than anyone really
+supposes--and suspicion points particularly at a person in whom you may
+and may not be interested--your younger brother, Foster Durgin."
+
+A curious white appearance crept all about the smooth-shaven mouth of
+the duck man.  He was not in the least an emotionless clod; he was not
+even cold or indifferent, but silent, slow at giving expression to
+anything but excellent business capabilities.
+
+He looked at Garrison steadily, but with dumb appeal in his eyes.  The
+blow had gone home with a force that made Garrison sorry.
+
+"How could that be?" the man inquired, "even with Foster wild?"
+
+"He may not be guilty--it's my business to discover who is," said
+Garrison, with ready sympathy.  "It looks as if he had a motive.  With
+his knowledge of photography and his dabbling in the art, he has almost
+certainly handled poison--the particular poison used to destroy John
+Hardy's life.  He was there in Hickwood at the time of the crime.  He
+has gambled in Wall Street, and lost, and now has disappeared.  You can
+see I need your help to clear the case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+STARTLING DISCLOSURES
+
+Durgin sat down on a box, picked up a sliver of wood and began to chew
+it slowly.  He was not a man of rapid thoughts; and he was stunned.
+
+"How did you find out all these things?" he said.
+
+"From Dorothy, partially, and in part from my own investigations."
+
+"Dorothy didn't go back on the boy like that?"  The man was hurt by the
+thought.
+
+"Not at all.  She tried to shield him.  I came to Rockdale on her
+account, to try to discover if there is anyone else who might have had
+a motive for the crime."
+
+Durgin pulled the sliver of wood to shreds with his teeth.
+
+"I don't think Foster would have done it," he said, concealing the pain
+in his breast.  "He's been wild.  I've lost all patience with his ways
+of livin', but Uncle John was never afraid of Foster, though he was of
+Hiram Cleave."
+
+"What's that?" said Garrison, instantly, alive to a possible factor in
+the case.  "Do you mean there was a man Mr. Hardy was afraid of--Hiram
+what?"
+
+"He never wanted me to tell of that," said Durgin in his heavy manner.
+"He wasn't a coward; he said so, and I know it's true, but he had a
+fear of Cleave."
+
+"Now that's just exactly what I've got to know!" said Garrison.  "Man
+alive, if you wish to help me clear your brother, you've got to give me
+all the facts you can think of concerning Mr. Hardy, his enemies, and
+everything else in the case!  What sort of a man is this Cleave?"
+
+"A short, middle-aged man," drawled Durgin deliberately.  "I never saw
+him but once."
+
+"What was the cause of enmity between him and Hardy, do you know?"
+
+"No, I don't.  It went far back--a woman, I guess.  But I hope you
+won't ever say I told that it was.  I promised I wouldn't, and I never
+did till now."
+
+The big fellow looked at Garrison with honest anxiety in his eyes.
+
+"It's not my business to tell things," Garrison assured him.  "This is
+a matter perhaps of life and death for your brother.  Do you think Mr.
+Hardy feared this man Cleave would take his life?"
+
+"He did, yes."
+
+"Was it ever attempted before?"
+
+Durgin looked at him oddly.
+
+"I think so, but I couldn't be sure."
+
+"You mean, Mr. Hardy told you a little about it, but, perhaps, not all?"
+
+"How did you know that?" Durgin asked, mystified by Garrison's
+swiftness of thinking.
+
+"I don't know anything.  I'm trying to find out.  How much did Hardy
+tell you of a former attempt on his life?"
+
+"He didn't really tell it.  He sort of let it out a little, and
+wouldn't say anything more."
+
+"But you knew it was this man Cleave?"
+
+"Yes, he was the one."
+
+Garrison questioned eagerly: "Where is he now?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"When was it that you saw the man?"
+
+"A year ago."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the village--Rockdale," answered Durgin.
+
+"Mr. Hardy pointed him out?"
+
+"Yes, but how did you----"
+
+"What was the color of his hair?" Garrison interrupted.
+
+"He had his hat on.  I didn't see his hair."
+
+"What did your uncle say at the time?"
+
+"Nothing much, just 'that's the man'--that's all," said the duck man.
+"And he went away that night--I guess because Cleave turned around and
+saw us in the store."
+
+"All right," said Garrison.  "Where's your brother now?"
+
+"I don't know.  We don't get on."
+
+"Do you think he knew anything about Mr. Hardy's will?"
+
+Durgin answered with a query: "Which one?"
+
+"Why, the only one, I suppose," said Garrison.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, there must have been more than one," drawled the duck man with
+exasperating slowness.  "Foster was down in the first, but that was
+burned.  I don't think he ever saw the others, but he knew he wasn't a
+favorite any more."
+
+"What about yourself?" asked Garrison.
+
+"I asked Uncle John to leave me out.  I've got enough," was the answer.
+"We're no blood kin to the Hardys.  I know I wasn't in the last."
+
+"The last?" repeated Garrison.  "You mean the last will of Mr.
+Hardy--the one in favor of Dorothy, in case she should be married?"
+
+Durgin studied his distant ducks for a moment.
+
+"No, I don't think that was the last.  I'm sure that will wasn't the
+last."
+
+Garrison stared at him fixedly.
+
+"You're sure it wasn't the last?" he echoed.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Uncle John sent a letter and said he'd made a brand-new will,"
+answered Durgin in his steady way of certainty.  "I burned up the
+letter only yesterday, clearing up my papers."
+
+"You don't mean quite recently?" insisted Garrison.
+
+"Since Dorothy got married," answered Durgin, at a loss to understand
+Garrison's interest.  "Why?"
+
+"This could make all the difference in the world to the case," Garrison
+told him.  "Did he say what he'd done with this new document?"
+
+"Just that he'd made a new will."
+
+"Who helped him?  Who was the lawyer?  Who were the witnesses?"
+
+"He didn't say."
+
+Garrison felt everything disarranged.  And Durgin's ignorance was
+baffling.  He went at him aggressively.
+
+"Where was your uncle when he wrote the letter?"
+
+"He was up to Albany."
+
+Albany!  There were thousands of lawyers and tens of thousands of men
+who would do as witnesses in Albany!
+
+"But," insisted Garrison, "perhaps he told you where it was deposited
+or who had drawn it up, or you may know his lawyer in Albany.
+
+"No.  He just mentioned it, that's all," said Durgin.  "The letter was
+most about ducks."
+
+"This is too bad," Garrison declared.  "Have you any idea in the world
+where the will may be?"
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"You found nothing of it, or anything to give you a hint, when you
+claimed the body for burial, and examined his possessions in Hickwood?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Where was Dorothy then?"
+
+"I don't know.  She's always looked after Foster more than me, he being
+the weak one and most in need."
+
+Desperate for more information.  Garrison probed in every conceivable
+direction, but elicited nothing further of importance, save that an
+old-time friend of Hardy's, one Israel Snow, a resident of Rockdale,
+might perhaps be enabled to assist him.
+
+Taking leave of Durgin, who offered his hand and expressed a deep-lying
+hope that something could be done to clear all suspicion from his
+brother, Garrison returned to Rockdale.
+
+The news of a will made recently, a will concerning which Dorothy knew
+nothing,--this was so utterly disconcerting that it quite overshadowed,
+for a time, the equally important factor in the case supplied by
+Durgin's tale concerning this unknown Hiram Cleave.
+
+Where the clews pointed now it was utterly impossible to know.  If the
+fact should transpire that Dorothy did, in fact, know something of the
+new will made by her uncle, or if Foster knew, and no such will should
+ever be produced, the aspect of the case would be dark indeed.
+
+Not at all convinced that Theodore Robinson might not yet be found at
+the bottom of the mystery, Garrison wondered where the fellow had gone
+and what his departure might signify.
+
+Israel Snow was out of town.  He would not return till the morrow.
+Garrison's third night was passed in the little hotel, and no word had
+come from Dorothy.  He had written four letters to the Eighteenth
+Street address.  He was worried by her silence.
+
+On the following day Mr. Snow returned.  He proved to be a stooped old
+man, but he supplied a number of important facts.
+
+In the first place he stated that Hiram Cleave had long since assumed
+another name which no one in Rockdale knew.  No one was acquainted with
+his business or his whereabouts.  The reason of the enmity between him
+and John Hardy went deep enough to satisfy the most exacting mind.
+
+Cleave, Hardy, and Scott, the inventor, had been boys together, and, in
+young manhood, chums.  Hardy had fallen in love with Scott's sister,
+while he was still a young, romantic man.  Cleave, developing an
+utterly malicious and unscrupulous nature, had deceived his friend
+Hardy, tried to despoil Miss Scott's very life, thereby ultimately
+causing her death, and Hardy had intervened only in time to save her
+from utter shame and ruin.
+
+Then, having discovered Cleave guilty of a forgery, he had spared no
+effort or expense till he landed the creature in prison out in Indiana.
+Cleave had threatened his life at the time.  He had long since been
+liberated.  His malicious resentment had never been abated, and for the
+past two or three years, with Miss Scott a sad, sweet memory only, John
+Hardy had lived a lonely life, constantly moving to avoid his enemy.
+
+A friend of another friend of a third friend of Snow's, who might have
+moved away, had once had a photograph of Cleave.  Old Snow promised to
+procure it if possible and deliver it over to Garrison, who made eager
+offers to go and try to get it for himself, but without avail.  He
+promised to wait for the picture, and returned at last to his hotel.
+
+A telegram was waiting for him at the desk.  He almost knew what he
+should find on reading it.  The message read:
+
+
+Please return at once.  JERALDINE.
+
+
+He paid off his bill, and posting a note to Israel Snow, giving an
+address, "Care of J. Garrison," in the New York building where he had
+his office, he caught the first train going down and arrived in
+Manhattan at three.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
+
+Delaying only long enough to deposit his suit-case at his lodgings, and
+neglecting the luncheon which he felt he could relish, Garrison posted
+off to Eighteenth Street with all possible haste.
+
+The house he found at the number supplied by Dorothy was an old-time
+residence, with sky-scrapers looming about it.  A pale woman met him at
+the door.
+
+"Miss Root--is Miss Root in, please?" he said.  "I'd like to see her."
+
+"There's no such person here," said the woman.
+
+"She's gone--she's given up her apartment?" said Garrison, at a loss to
+know what this could mean.  "She went to-day?  Where is she now?"
+
+"She's never been here," informed the landlady.  "A number of letters
+came here, addressed in her name, and I took them in, as people often
+have mail sent like that when they expect to visit the city, but she
+sent around a messenger and got them this morning."
+
+Thoroughly disconcerted by this intelligence, Garrison could only ask
+if the woman knew whence the messenger had come--the address to which
+he had taken the letters.  The woman did not know.
+
+There was nothing to do but to hasten to the house near Washington
+Square.  Garrison lost no time in speeding down Fifth Avenue.
+
+He came to the door just in time to meet Miss Ellis, dressed to go out.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Fairfax?" she said.  "Mrs. Fairfax asked me to
+tell you, if you came before I went, that she'd meet you at your
+office.  I felt so sorry when she was ill."
+
+"I didn't know she'd been ill," said Garrison.  "I was afraid of
+something like that when she failed to write."
+
+"Oh, yes, she was ill in the morning, the very day after you left,"
+imparted Miss Ellis.
+
+"I know you'll excuse me," interrupted Garrison.  "I'll hurry along,
+and hope to see you again."
+
+He was off so abruptly that Miss Ellis was left there gasping on the
+steps.
+
+Ten minutes later he was stepping from the elevator and striding down
+the office-building hall.
+
+Dorothy was not yet in the corridor.  He opened the office, beheld a
+number of notes and letters on the floor, and was taking them up when
+Dorothy came in, breathless, her eyes ablaze with excitement.
+
+"Jerold!" she started.  "Please lock the door and----" when she was
+interrupted by the entrance of a man.
+
+Dorothy gave a little cry and fled behind the desk.
+
+Garrison faced the intruder, a tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed man with
+a long mustache--a person with every mark of the gentleman upon him.
+
+"Well, sir," said Garrison, in some indignation, "what can I do for
+you?"
+
+"We'll wait a minute and see," said the stranger.  "My name is Jerold
+Fairfax, and I came to claim my wife."
+
+Garrison almost staggered.  It was like a bolt from the bluest sky,
+where naught but the sun of glory had been visible.
+
+"Dorothy!  What does he mean?" he said, turning at once to the girl.
+
+She sank weakly to a chair and could not meet the question in his eyes.
+
+"Didn't you hear what I said?" demanded the visitor.  "This is my wife
+and I'd like to know what it means, you or somebody else passing
+yourself off in my place!"
+
+Garrison still looked at Dorothy.
+
+"This isn't true, what the man is saying?" he inquired.
+
+She tried to look up.  "I--I----  Forgive me, please," she said.
+"He's--He followed me here----"
+
+"Certainly I followed," interrupted the stranger.  "Why wouldn't I
+follow my wife?  What does this mean, all this stuff they've been
+printing in the papers about some man passing as your husband?"  He
+snatched out a newspaper abruptly, and waved it in the air.
+
+"And if you're the man," he added, turning to Garrison, "I'll inform
+you right now----"
+
+"That will do for you," Garrison interrupted.  "This lady has come to
+my office on a matter of business.  My services to her have nothing to
+do with you or any of your claims.  And let me impress upon you the
+fact that her affairs with me are private in character, and that you
+are here uninvited."
+
+"The devil I am!" answered Fairfax, practically as cool as Garrison
+himself.  "I'll inform you that a man needs no invitation from a
+stranger, lawyer, detective, or otherwise, to seek the presence of his
+wife.  And now that I've found her I demand that she come along with
+me!"
+
+Dorothy started to her feet and fled behind Garrison.
+
+"Please don't let him stay!" she said.  "Don't let him touch me,
+please!"
+
+Garrison faced the intruder calmly.
+
+"I permit no one to issue orders in this office, either to me or my
+clients," he said.  "Unless you are a far better man than I, you will
+do nothing to compel this lady to depart until she wishes to do so.
+You will oblige me by leaving my office."
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort!" answered Fairfax.  "Your bluff sounds
+big, but I'm here to call it, understand?  Dorothy, I command you to
+come."
+
+"I will not go with such a man as you!" she cried in a sudden burst of
+anger.  "You left me shamefully, half an hour after we were married!
+You've been no husband to me!  You have only come back because you
+heard there might be money!  I never wish to see you again!"
+
+"Well, you're going to hear from me, now!" said Fairfax.  "As for you,
+Mr. Garrison, assuming my name and----"
+
+He was making a movement toward his pocket, throwing back his coat.
+
+"Drop that!" interrupted Garrison.  He had drawn his revolver with a
+quickness that was startling.  "Up with your hand!"
+
+Fairfax halted his impulse.  His hand hung oscillating at the edge of
+his coat.  A ghastly pallor overspread his face.  His eyes took on a
+look of supernatural brightness.  His mouth dropped open.  He crouched
+a trifle forward, staring fixedly at the table.  His hand had fallen at
+his side.  He began to whisper:
+
+"His brains are scattered everywhere, I see them--see
+them--everywhere--everywhere!"  His hand came up before his eyes, the
+fingers spread like talons.  He cried out brokenly, and, turning
+abruptly, hastened through the door, and they heard him running down
+the hall.
+
+Dorothy had turned very white.  She looked at Garrison almost wildly.
+
+"That's exactly what he said before," she said, "when he pushed me from
+the train and ran away."
+
+"What does it mean?" said Garrison, tense with emotion.  "What have you
+done to me, Dorothy?  He isn't your husband, after all?"
+
+Dorothy sank once more in the chair.  She looked at Garrison
+appealingly.
+
+"I married him," she moaned.  "He's crazy!"
+
+Garrison, too, sat down.  His pistol he dropped in his pocket.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
+
+"I was afraid," she confessed.  "I thought you wouldn't consent to
+be--to be--what you have been."
+
+"Of course I wouldn't," Garrison responded.  "What have I got myself
+into?  Why did you do it?"
+
+"I had to," she answered weakly.  "Please don't scold me now--even if
+you have to desert me."  Her voice broke in one convulsive sob, but she
+mastered herself sharply.  "I'll go," she added, struggling to her
+feet.  "I didn't mean to get you into all this----"
+
+"Dorothy, sit down," he interrupted, rising instantly and placing his
+hand on her shoulder.  "I didn't mean it--didn't mean what I said.  I
+shan't desert you.  I love you--I love you, Dorothy!"
+
+She turned one hurt look upon him, then sank on the desk to cover her
+face.
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she said.  "You haven't any right----"
+
+"Forgive me," he pleaded.  "I didn't intend to let you know.  I didn't
+intend to use my position for anything like that.  Forgive me--forget
+what I said--and let me serve you as I have before, with no thought of
+anything but--earning the money, my fee."
+
+He turned away, striking his fist in his palm, and went across to the
+window.
+
+For nearly five minutes neither spoke.  Dorothy, torn by emotions too
+great to be longer restrained, had controlled her sobs almost
+immediately, but she had not dared to raise her eyes.  She sat up at
+last, and with gaze averted from the figure against the square of
+light, composed herself as best she might.
+
+"What is there we can do?" she said at last.  "If you wish to be
+released from your--your position----"
+
+"We won't talk of that," he interrupted, still looking out on the roofs
+below.  "I'm in this to stay--till you dismiss me and bid me forget
+it--forget it and you--forever.  But I need your help."
+
+"I have made it very hard, I know," she said.  "If I've acted
+deceitfully, it was the only way I thought I could do."
+
+"Please tell me about this man Fairfax," he requested, keeping his back
+toward her as before.  "You married him, where?"
+
+"At Rockbeach, Massachusetts."
+
+She was businesslike again.
+
+"To satisfy the condition in your uncle's will?"
+
+"No," the confession came slowly, but she made it with courage.  "I had
+known him for quite a long time.  He had--he had courted me a year.  He
+was always a gentleman, cultured, refined, and fascinating in many
+ways.  I thought I was in--I thought I was fond of him, very.  He was
+brilliant--and romantic--and possessed of many qualities that appealed
+to me strongly.  I'm quite sure now he exercised some spell upon
+me--but he was kind--and I believed him--that's all."
+
+"Who married you?"
+
+"A justice of the peace."
+
+"Why not a minister?"
+
+"Mr. Fairfax preferred the justice."
+
+Garrison remained by the window stubbornly.
+
+"You said the man is crazy.  What did you mean?"
+
+"Didn't you see?" she answered.  "That light in his eyes is insanity.
+I thought it a soul-light shining through, though it worried me often,
+I admit.  We were married at two in the afternoon and went at once to
+the station to wait there for the train.  He bought the tickets and
+talked in his brilliant way until the train arrived.  It only stopped
+for a moment.
+
+"He put me on, then a spell came over him suddenly, I don't know what,
+and he pushed me off the steps, just as the train was moving out--and
+said the very thing you heard him say in here--and rode away and left
+me there, deserted."
+
+She told it all in a dry-voiced way that cost her an effort, as
+Garrison felt and comprehended.  He had turned about, in sheer sympathy
+for her predicament.
+
+"What happened then?"
+
+"I saw in a paper, two days later, he had been detained in a town in
+Ohio as being mentally unbalanced.  In the meantime I had written to my
+Uncle John, while we were waiting at the station, telling him briefly I
+was married and to whom.  The note was posted not five minutes before a
+postman came along and took up the letters in the box.  I couldn't have
+stopped it had I wished to, and it never occurred to my mind to stop
+it, anyway."
+
+"What did your uncle reply?"
+
+"He wrote at once that he was thoroughly pleased.  He had long hoped I
+might marry someone other than Theodore.  He confessed that his will
+contained a clause to the effect that I should inherit no more than
+five thousand dollars, should I not have been married at least one
+month prior to his death, to a healthy, respectable man who was not my
+cousin.
+
+"I dared not write that I had been deserted, or that Mr. Fairfax might
+be insane.  I couldn't tell what to do.  I hardly knew what to expect,
+or what I was, or anything.  I could only pretend I was off on my
+honeymoon--and wait.  Then came uncle's sudden death, and my lawyer
+sent me word about the will, asking when he should file it for probate.
+Then--then I knew I had to have a _sane_ husband."
+
+"And the will is not yet filed?"
+
+"Not yet.  And fortunately Mr. Trowbridge has had to be away."
+
+Garrison pursued the topic of the will for purposes made necessary by
+his recent discoveries concerning a new one.
+
+"Mr. Trowbridge had your uncle's testament in his keeping?"
+
+Dorothy shook her head.  "No.  I believe he conferred with uncle's
+lawyer, just after his death, and read it there."
+
+"Where did your uncle's lawyer live?"
+
+"In Albany."
+
+"Do you know his name?"
+
+"I think it is Spikeman.  Why?"
+
+Garrison was looking at her again with professional coldness, despite
+the fact that his heart was fairly burning in his breast.
+
+"Because," he said, "I learned from your stepbrother, Paul Durgin, near
+Rockdale, that your uncle made a later will, and we've got to get trace
+of the document before you can know where you stand."
+
+Dorothy looked at him with her great brown eyes as startled as a deer's.
+
+"Another will!" she said.  "I may have lost everything, after all!
+What in the world would become of Foster then--and Alice?"
+
+"And yourself?" added Garrison.
+
+"Oh, it doesn't make the least difference about me," she answered in
+her bravery--bravery that made poor Garrison love her even more than
+before, "but they all depend so much upon me!  Tell me, please, what
+did you find out about Foster?"
+
+"Not a great deal," Garrison confessed.  "This new will business was my
+most important discovery.  Nevertheless, I confirmed your story of a
+man whom your uncle greatly feared.  His name, it seems, is Hiram
+Cleave."
+
+"That's the name!  That's the man!" cried Dorothy.  "I remember now!
+He once pinched my face till I cried."
+
+"You have seen him, then?  What sort of a looking being is he?"
+
+"I don't remember much--only the horrid grin upon his face.  I was only
+a child--and that impressed me.  You didn't hear anything of Foster?"
+
+"Not of his whereabouts--quite a bit concerning his character, none of
+it particularly flattering."
+
+"I don't know where in the world he can be," said Dorothy.  "Poor
+Alice!  What are we going to do now, with all these new complications?"
+
+"Do the best we can," said Garrison.  "Aside from the will, and my work
+on the murder of your uncle, a great deal depends upon yourself, and
+your desires."
+
+Dorothy looked at him in silence for a moment.  A slight flush came to
+her face.
+
+She said: "In what respect?"
+
+Garrison had no intention of mincing matters now.  He assumed a
+hardness of aspect wholly incompatible with his feelings.
+
+"In respect to Mr. Fairfax," he answered.  "He will doubtless
+return--dog your footsteps--make himself known to the Robinsons, and
+otherwise keep us entertained."
+
+She met his gaze as a child might have done.
+
+"What can I do?  I've depended so much upon you.  I don't like to ask
+too much--after this--or ever----  You've been more than kind.  I
+didn't mean to be so helpless--or to wound your feelings, or----"
+
+A knock at the door interrupted, and Tuttle entered the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A HELPLESS SITUATION
+
+Confused thus to find himself in the presence of Dorothy as well as
+Garrison, Tuttle snatched off his hat and looked about him helplessly.
+
+"How are you, Tuttle?" said Garrison.  "Glad to see you.  Come back in
+fifteen minutes, will you?  I want your report."
+
+"Fifteen minutes; yes, sir," said Tuttle, and he backed from the place.
+
+"Who was that?" said Dorothy.  "Anyone connected with the case?"
+
+"A man that Theodore hired to shadow me," said Garrison.  "I took him
+into camp and now he is shadowing Theodore.  Let me ask you one or two
+questions before he returns.  You were ill the morning after I left,
+and did not go at all to Eighteenth Street."
+
+"I couldn't go," she said.  "I tried not to give up and be so ill, but
+perhaps the effects of the drug that the Robinsons employed caused the
+trouble.  At last I thought you might have written to the Eighteenth
+Street address, so I sent around and got your letters, before I could
+even send a wire."
+
+"You wired because Fairfax had appeared?"
+
+"Yes, I thought you ought to know."
+
+"How did you know he was here in New York?  Did he call at the house
+where you were staying?"
+
+"No.  He sent a note declaring he would call.  That was this morning.
+Miss Ellis's friend, of the _Star_, had an intuition as to who we were,
+that evening when he called.  When I finally requested Miss Ellis to
+ask him not to print more stories about us, he had already spoken to
+the editor, and more of the matter had appeared.  Since you left,
+however, I haven't seen a single reporter."
+
+"Fairfax got his clew to your whereabouts from the press, of course.
+The question now is, where do you wish to go?  And what do you wish me
+to do--concerning the role I have filled?"
+
+Dorothy was thoroughly disturbed by the topic.
+
+"Oh, I don't know what to do," she confessed.  "I wish I could never
+see that man again!  What do you advise?"
+
+"We hardly know what the situation may require, till we discover more
+about this latest will," said Garrison.  "Things may be altered
+materially.  If you wish it, you can doubtless manage to secure a
+separation from Fairfax.  In the meantime I would strongly advise that
+you rent an apartment without delay, where no one can find you again."
+
+She looked at him wistfully.  "Not even you?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to see me, once in a while," he told her,
+suppressing the passionate outcry of his heart, "unless you wish to
+secure the services of someone who will make no mistakes."
+
+She was hurt.  She loved him.  Her nature cried out for the sure
+protection of his arms, but her womanhood forbade.  More than anything
+else in the world she wished to please him, but not by confessing her
+fondness.
+
+However much she might loathe the thought, she was the wife of Jerold
+Fairfax, with everything precious to guard.  By the token of the wound
+that Garrison had inflicted, she knew that she had wounded him.  It
+could not have been avoided--there was nothing but a chasm between them.
+
+"Please do not make me feel that I have been utterly despicable," she
+pleaded.  "You have made no mistakes--in the conduct of the case.  I
+should be so helpless without you."
+
+Garrison knew he had hurt her.  He was sorry.  He knew her position was
+the only one possible for a woman such as he could love.  He reviled
+himself for his selfishness.  He forced himself now to return her gaze
+with no hint of anything save business in his eyes.
+
+"Dorothy, I shall be honored to continue with your work," he said.  "I
+mean to see you through."
+
+"Thank you--Jerold," she said.  Her voice all but broke.  She had never
+loved him so much as now, and because of that had given herself the one
+little joy of calling him thus by his name.  She added more bravely:
+"I'll find a room and send you the address as soon as possible.
+Meantime, I hope we will soon discover about this latest will."
+
+"I shall do my best," he assured her.  "Let me take you now to the
+annex elevator, in case anyone should be waiting to see you at the
+other.  Get yourself a heavy veil, and be sure you avoid being followed
+when you hunt up your room.  Take the apartment in the name of Miss
+Root, and send me word in that name also, just for precaution.  Leave
+Fairfax and the others to me.  I may go up to Albany about the will."
+
+He opened the door, but she hesitated a moment longer.
+
+"I hope it will all end somehow, for the best," she said.  "It's very
+hard for you."
+
+He smiled, but not mirthfully.
+
+"It was here in this room I assumed my role," he said, "and here I drop
+it."
+
+For a moment she failed to understand.
+
+"Drop it?" she echoed.  "How?"
+
+"I'm no longer even your pseudo-husband.  I drop the name Fairfax, with
+all it might imply."
+
+She blushed crimson and could not meet his gaze.
+
+"I'm sorry if I've been the cause----" she started.
+
+Garrison interrupted.
+
+"I'm glad--glad of everything that's happened.  We'll say no more of
+that.  But--Theodore--how he will gloat over this!"
+
+"If he finds out Mr. Fairfax is crazy, he could overthrow the will,"
+suggested Dorothy.  "But--what's the use of thinking of that, if a new
+will comes to light?  It's a dreadfully mixed affair."  She stepped out
+in the hall and Garrison led the way to the elevator farther to the
+rear.  The chains of a car were descending rapidly.
+
+"Please try not to detest the hour I came to see you first," she said,
+holding out her hand, "if you can."
+
+"I'll try," said Garrison, holding the precious little fingers for a
+second over the conventional time.
+
+Glancing up at him quickly she saw a bright smile in his eye.  Joy was
+in her heart.  The car was at the floor.
+
+"Good-by," she said, "till we meet again--soon."
+
+"Good-by," he answered.
+
+She stepped in the cage and was dropped from his sight, but her last
+glance remained--and made him happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+NIGHT-WALKERS
+
+Tuttle had returned by the time Garrison came once more to his office.
+He entered the room behind his chief, and Garrison closed the door.
+
+"Well?" said Jerold, "any news?"
+
+"I got a line on young Robinson," answered Tuttle.  "He's gone to a
+small resort named Rockbeach, up on the coast of Massachusetts, but his
+father doesn't know his business, or if he does he denies it."
+
+"Rockbeach?" said Garrison, who realized at once that Theodore had gone
+there to search out the justice of the peace who had married Dorothy
+and Fairfax.  "Is he up there still?"
+
+"He hadn't come home this morning."
+
+What so long an absence on Theodore's part might signify was a matter
+purely of conjecture.  There was nothing more to be done but await
+developments.  Whatever young Robinson's scheme, it might be wholly
+disorganized by the latest will that John Hardy had drawn.
+
+"What about the two dagos--the fellows who attacked me in the park?"
+inquired Garrison.  "Have you found out anything concerning them?"
+
+Tuttle replied with a question.  "Haven't you seen it in the papers?"
+
+"Seen what?"
+
+"Why, the bomb explosion and the rest of it--all Black Hand business
+last night," answered Tuttle.  "One of our pair was killed outright,
+and the other one's dying, from a premature explosion of one of their
+gas-pipe cartridges.  They attempted to blow up a boiler, under a
+tenement belonging to a man they'd tried to bleed, and it got 'em both."
+
+He took from his pocket a two-column clipping from a morning newspaper,
+and placed it on the desk.
+
+"Out of my hands, then; no chance to help send them up," commented
+Garrison reflectively, as he glanced through the article.  "I'll keep
+this, if you don't mind," he added.  "It may be useful with
+Robinson--in helping to warm up his blood."
+
+"I tried to carry out instructions," said Tuttle, "but I couldn't find
+out where they were till this came out in print.  I hope there's
+something else I can do."
+
+Garrison thought for a moment.
+
+"How many times have you been here to report?"
+
+"Two or three times every day."
+
+"Have you noticed a tall, light-haired man, with a long mustache,
+around here at all, either to-day or yesterday?"
+
+"If he's got blue eyes and wears a brown striped suit, he was here this
+morning and asked me where he could find you," Tuttle answered.  "Is
+that your man?"
+
+"The same.  His name is Fairfax.  He's the real Fairfax.  He'll be
+likely to return.  Until Robinson appears again, you can keep your eye
+on this office, spot Fairfax, and then keep him shadowed for a time.
+Find where he lives, where he goes, and what he does."
+
+"Anything more?"
+
+"Keep track of old man Robinson, and let me know as soon as Theodore
+returns."
+
+Tuttle rose as if to go.  He hesitated, turning his hat in his hands.
+
+"Would it be asking too much if I suggested I need a little money?" he
+inquired.  "The Robinsons pay with hot air."
+
+"I can let you have twenty-five," said Garrison, pulling out his
+rapidly diminishing roll.  "That do?"
+
+"Fine," said Tuttle, receiving the bills.  "When shall I----"
+
+A messenger boy came plunging in at the door without the slightest
+formality.
+
+"Telegram for Garrison," he said.  "Sign here."
+
+"Wait half a minute, Tuttle," said Garrison, tearing open the envelope,
+as the boy was departing, and he read the wire almost at a glance.
+
+It was dated from Branchville.
+
+
+Come up here as soon as possible.  Important.
+
+JAMES PIKE.
+
+
+For a moment Garrison failed to remember the personality of James Pike.
+Then it came with a flash--the coroner!  Aware at once that the tale of
+possible murder in the Hardy case had been spread and discussed all
+over the State, he realized that Pike, and others who had been
+concerned when John Hardy's body was found in their jurisdiction, might
+have come upon new material.
+
+"Nothing to add to instructions," he said to Tuttle.  "I shall be out
+of town to-night, and perhaps a part of to-morrow."
+
+Tuttle took his leave.  Garrison paced up and down the office floor for
+half an hour.  He was very much in hopes that word might come from
+Dorothy as to where she had chosen a room.  The afternoon was gone, and
+he was famished.
+
+He left at last, went to a restaurant, ate a hearty meal, and returned
+to the office rather late.  On the floor lay a notification of a
+special delivery letter, to be had at the nearest substation.
+
+He was there in the shortest possible time.
+
+The letter was from Dorothy.  It began "Dear Jerold," but it merely
+informed him she had found apartments on Madison Avenue, not far from
+Twenty-ninth Street.
+
+He wrote her a note to acquaint her with the fact that new developments
+called him at once to Branchville, whence he might continue to Albany,
+and this, with a dozen magnificent roses, he sent by special messenger
+to Miss Jeraldine Root.
+
+He was still enabled to catch a fairly early train from Grand Central
+Station.
+
+A little after eight o'clock he arrived in Branchville, found James
+Pike's real-estate office ablaze with light, and walked in on that busy
+gentleman, who rose in excitement to grasp him by the hand.
+
+"You got my wire?" demanded Mr. Pike.  "I'm awful glad you came.  I
+turned up something in the Hardy case that I think you ought to know.
+Got a man coming 'round here in fifteen minutes who read up on the
+murder suspicions and the rest of it, and he saw a stranger, down in
+Hickwood the night of Hardy's death, get into Hardy's room at Mrs.
+Wilson's.  It just struck me you ought to know, and so I wired."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Garrison.  "I consider this highly
+important.  Who is your man?"
+
+"He ain't a man, he's a boy; young Will Barnes," amended the coroner.
+"Most people think he's just a lazy, no-account young feller, but I've
+always said he was growin'.  Goes fishin' a good deal, of course,
+but----  There he goes, now!"  He ran to the door, through the glass of
+which he had seen a tall, lanky youth across the way.
+
+"Hi, Will!" he yelled, "come over, the New York man is waiting!"
+
+Young Barnes came slowly across the highway.
+
+"I've got to git some hooks," he said.  "If I don't get 'em now the
+store'll close."
+
+"This is more important than hooks," answered Pike.  "Come in here.
+Mr. Garrison, this is Mr. Barnes.  Will, Mr. Garrison, the New York
+detective."
+
+Quite unimpressed by Garrison's personality or calling, Will advanced
+and shook his hand.
+
+Garrison looked him over quickly.
+
+"You're the man who saw a stranger going into Hardy's room, at Mrs.
+Wilson's, the night that Hardy died, I believe?" he said.  "How did you
+happen to be there?"
+
+"He lives right near," volunteered Mr. Pike.
+
+"I was gettin' night-walkers," said Will.
+
+"Night-walkers?" repeated Garrison.  "People?"
+
+"Fishin' worms," supplied Mr. Pike.  "Angleworms walk at night and Will
+gits 'em for bait.  Goes out with a dark lantern and picks 'em up."
+
+"I see," said Garrison.  "What sort of a looking person was the man who
+got into Mrs. Wilson's house?"
+
+"A little shaver, that's all I could see," said the youthful angler.
+
+The description tallied closely with all that Garrison had heard before
+of Hiram Cleave, or Foster Durgin.
+
+"Very good," he said.  "Did you see what he did in the room?"
+
+"Didn't do nuthin' but steal a couple of cigars," informed the disciple
+of Walton.  "He wasn't there more'n about a minute."
+
+"But he _did_ steal a couple of cigars?" echoed Garrison, keenly alert
+to the vital significance of this new evidence.  "Did he take them from
+the table?"
+
+"Nope.  Took 'em out of a box."
+
+"Then came out by the window and departed?"
+
+"Yep, he sneaked."
+
+"Why didn't you tell anyone of this before?"
+
+"Nobody asked me."
+
+"And he ain't got no use for Mrs. Wilson, nor she for him,"
+supplemented the coroner.  "But I thought you ought to know."
+
+"Would you know the man again if you should see him?" Garrison inquired.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Do you know where he went when he left the house, or yard?  Did you
+follow him at all?"
+
+"No, the night-walkers was too thick."
+
+Garrison knew the lay of the yard at Mrs. Wilson's.  He knew the room.
+There was no particular reason for visiting the scene again.  There was
+nothing, in fact, to do at all except to visit the dealer in New York
+who had sold the cigars to Dorothy, and hope for news of Foster Durgin
+or the speedy arrival of the photograph of Cleave, which the old man in
+Rockdale had promised.  He asked one more question.
+
+"Was he young or old?"
+
+"Don't know," said Will, grinning.  "He didn't say."
+
+Garrison rose to go.
+
+"This is all of the utmost importance.  I may be obliged to have you
+come down to New York--if I can find the man.  But when you come it
+will be at my expense."
+
+"The fishin's awful good right now," objected Will.  "I don't know
+about New York."
+
+"You can pick yourself out a five-dollar rod," added Garrison.  "I'll
+wire you when to come."
+
+Garrison left for Albany at once.  He found himself obliged to take a
+roundabout course which brought him there late in the night.
+
+In the morning he succeeded in running down a John W. Spikeman, who had
+served as Hardy's lawyer for many years.
+
+The man was ill in bed, delirious, a condition which had lasted for
+several days.  Naturally no word concerning the Hardy affair had come
+to his notice--hence his silence on the subject, a silence which
+Garrison had not heretofore understood.
+
+He could not be seen, and to see him would have been of no avail, since
+his mind was temporarily deranged.
+
+The utmost that Garrison could do was to go to the clerk at his office.
+This man, a very fleshy person, decidedly English and punctilious, was
+most reluctant to divulge what he was pleased to term the professional
+secrets of the office.
+
+Under pressure of flattery and a clever cross-examination, he at length
+admitted that Mr. Hardy had drawn a will, within a week of his death,
+that Mr. Spikeman had declared it perfect, and that he and another had
+signed it as witnesses all in proper form.  Concerning the contents of
+the document he was absolutely dumb.  No amount of questioning,
+flattery, or persuasion would induce him to divulge so much as a word
+of what he had witnessed.
+
+Garrison gave up with one more inquiry:
+
+"Was the will deposited here in Mr. Spikeman's vault?"
+
+"No, sir," said the clerk; "Mr. Hardy took it with him when he went."
+
+Garrison's hopes abruptly wilted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY
+
+Leaving Spikeman's office, Garrison walked aimlessly away, reflecting
+on the many complications so recently developed, together with the
+factors in the case, and all its possibilities.  He was shutting from
+his mind, as far as possible, the thoughts of Fairfax, Dorothy's
+husband, whose coming he had feared by intuition from the first.
+
+The actual appearance of a husband on the scene had come as a shock,
+despite his many warnings to himself.  What could develop along that
+particular line was more than he cared to conjecture.  He felt himself
+robbed, distracted, all but purposeless, yet knew he must still go on
+with Dorothy's affairs, though the other man reap the reward.
+
+Forcing his mind to the Hardy affair, he found himself standing as one
+at the edge where things ought to be patent; nevertheless a fog was
+there, obscuring all in mystery.
+
+Some man had entered Hardy's room and tampered with Dorothy's cigars.
+This did not necessarily absolve Charles Scott, the insurance
+beneficiary, from suspicion, yet was all in his favor.  The Hiram
+Cleave was an unknown quantity.  Unfortunately the general description
+of the man who had entered Hardy's room tallied closely with Dorothy's
+description of Foster Durgin, whom she herself suspected of the crime.
+He had been in Hickwood, lurking near his uncle for several days.  He
+had since run away and was apparently in hiding.
+
+Intending to make an endeavor to seek out young Durgin and confront him
+with Barnes, who had seen the intruder in Hardy's room, and intending
+also to visit the dealer in tobacco from whom Dorothy had purchased her
+cigars, Garrison made his way to the railway station to return once
+more to New York.
+
+The matter of finding Hardy's will was on his mind as a constant worry.
+It had not been found among his possessions or on his person.  It could
+have been stolen from his room.  If this should prove to be the case it
+would appear exceedingly unfavorable for Durgin.  It was not at all
+unlikely that he might have been aware of something concerning the
+testament, while Hiram Cleave, if such a person existed, would have had
+no special interest in the document, one way or another.
+
+Another possibility was that Hardy had hidden the will away, but this
+seemed rather unlikely.
+
+Comfortably installed on a train at last, Garrison recalled his first
+deductions, made when he came upon the fact of the poisoned cigars.
+The person who had prepared the weeds must have known very many of
+Hardy's personal habits--that of taking the end cigar from a box, and
+of biting the point instead of cutting it off with his knife, for
+instance.  These were things with which Foster, no doubt, would be well
+acquainted.  And in photographic work he had handled the deadly poison
+employed for Hardy's death.
+
+Again, as he had a hundred times before, Garrison accused himself of
+crass stupidity in permitting someone to abstract that cigar from his
+pocket.  It might have been lost: this he knew, but he felt convinced
+it had been stolen.  And since he was certain that Dorothy was not the
+one, he could think of no chance that a thief could have had to extract
+it without attracting his attention.
+
+When at length he arrived once more in Manhattan, he proceeded at once
+to the shop on Amsterdam Avenue where Dorothy had purchased her cigars.
+Here he found a short individual in charge of a general business,
+including stationery, candy, newspapers, and toys, in addition to the
+articles for smokers.
+
+Garrison pulled out his memorandum concerning that box of cigars still
+in possession of Pike, at Branchville.
+
+"I dropped in to see if by any chance you recall the sale of a box of
+cigars some little time ago," he said, and he read off the name of the
+brand.  "You sold them to a lady--a young lady.  Perhaps you remember."
+
+"Oh, yes," agreed the man.  "I don't sell many by the box."
+
+"Did anyone else come in while she was here, or shortly after, and buy
+some cigars of this same brand?"  He awaited the dealer's slow process
+of memory and speech with eager interest.
+
+"Y-e-s, I think so," said the man after a pause.  "Yes, sure, a small
+man.  He bought a box just the same.  Two boxes in one evening--I don't
+do that every day."
+
+"A man, you say--a small man.  Was he young?"
+
+"I don't remember very well.  He was sick, I think.  He had a
+handkerchief on his face and his hat was pulled far down."
+
+"But surely you remember whether he was young or not," insisted
+Garrison.  "Try to think."
+
+A child came in to buy a stick of candy.  The dealer attended to her
+needs while Garrison waited.  When he returned he shook his head.
+
+"So many people come," he said, "I don't remember."
+
+Garrison tried him with a score of questions, but to no avail.  He
+could add nothing to what he had supplied, and the vagueness that
+shadowed the figure of the man had not been illumined in the least.
+Beyond the fact that a small man had followed Dorothy inside the store
+and purchased the duplicate of her cigars, there was nothing of
+significance revealed.
+
+Disappointed, even accusing himself of dullness and lack of resources
+in the all-important discovery of his unknown man's identity.  Garrison
+went out upon the street.  He felt himself in a measure disloyal to
+Dorothy in his growing conviction that young Foster Durgin was guilty.
+He was sorry, but helpless.  He must follow the trail wheresoever it
+led.
+
+He ate a belated luncheon, after which he went to his office.
+
+There were two letters lying on the floor, neither one addressed in a
+hand he knew.  The first he opened was from Theodore.  It was brief:
+
+
+DEAR SIR:
+
+If you can find the time to grant me an interview, I feel confident I
+can communicate something of interest.
+
+Yours truly,
+  THEODORE ROBINSON.
+
+
+His street address was written at the top.
+
+Garrison laid the letter on the desk and opened the second.  If the
+first had occasioned a feeling of vague wonder in his breast, the other
+was far more potently stirring.  It read:
+
+
+DEAR MR. GARRISON:
+
+I called once, but you were out.  Shall return again about four-thirty.
+
+Trusting to see you,
+  FOSTER DURGIN.
+
+
+Without even halting to lock the door as he fled from the place
+Garrison hastened pell-mell to the telegraph-office, on the entrance
+floor of the building, and filed the following despatch:
+
+
+JAMES PIKE,
+  Branchville, N. Y.:
+
+Get Will Barnes on train, headed for my office, soon as possible.
+
+GARRISON.
+
+
+As he stepped in the elevator to return to his floor, he found Tuttle
+in the corner of the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE FRET OF WAITING
+
+Tuttle had performed his services fairly well.  He reported that young
+Robinson had returned to town and had lost no time in dismissing him,
+with a promise to pay for services rendered by the end of the week.
+Theodore had seemed content with the bald report which Tuttle had made
+concerning Garrison's almost total absence from his office, and had
+rather appeared to be satisfied to let the case develop for the present.
+
+Tuttle knew nothing of the note on Garrison's desk from Theodore, and
+was therefore unaware how his news affected his chief, who wondered yet
+again what might be impending.
+
+Concerning Fairfax there was news that was equally disquieting.  He had
+been here once, apparently quite sane again.  He had talked with Tuttle
+freely of a big surprise he had in store for the man who had hidden his
+wife, and then he had gone to his lodgings, near at hand, departing
+almost immediately with a suit-case in his hand and proceeding to the
+station, where he had taken a train on a ticket purchased for
+Branchville.
+
+Tuttle, uninstructed as to following in a circumstance like this, had
+there dropped the trail.
+
+"What seemed to be the nature of the big surprise he had in mind?"
+inquired Garrison.  "Could you gather anything at all?"
+
+"Nothing more than that.  He appeared to be brooding over some sort of
+revenge he had in his mind, or something he meant to do, but he was
+careful to keep it to himself."
+
+"He said nothing at all of leaving New York?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"You are positive he bought a ticket for Branchville?"
+
+"Oh, sure," said Tuttle.
+
+Garrison reflected for a moment.  "I rather wish you had followed.
+However, he may return.  Keep your eye on the place where he was
+rooming.  Have you noticed anyone else around the office
+here--reporters, for instance?"
+
+"No.  The story's a sort of a dead one with the papers.  Young Robinson
+was gone, and you kept out of sight, and nothing came up to prove any
+thing."
+
+"You must have been talking to some newspaper man yourself," was
+Garrison's comment.  He looked at Tuttle keenly.
+
+"I did, yes, sir.  One of them saw me here two or three times and
+finally asked me what paper I represented.  I told him the _Cable_."
+
+Garrison paced up and down the floor somewhat restlessly.
+
+"I think of nothing further except for you to keep an eye on the
+Robinsons," he said.  "Wait a minute.  I want you to go to the
+Ninety-third Street house with a note I'll give you to the housekeeper,
+and examine the closet, in the back room, first flight up, to see if an
+equipment telephone is still in place there, concealed beneath a lot of
+clothing."
+
+He sat down, wrote the note, and gave it to Tuttle, who departed with
+instructions to return with his report as soon as possible.
+
+The office oppressed Garrison.  It seemed to confine him.  He prodded
+himself with a hundred vague notions that there ought to be something
+he could do, some way to get at things more rapidly.  He wondered how
+far he would find it possible to go with Foster Durgin, and what the
+fellow would say or do, if confronted with the cold-blooded facts
+already collated.
+
+Up and down and up and down he paced, impatient of every minute that
+sped away bringing nothing to the door.  Would Barnes arrive in time,
+or at all?  Would Durgin fail to come?  Did Dorothy know of his
+presence in the city?
+
+Everything always swung back to Dorothy.  What would she do concerning
+Fairfax?  What would Fairfax himself attempt to do, so far baffled, but
+a factor with a hold upon her name and, perhaps, upon her fortune?  And
+if the thing should all be cleared at last, and come to its end, as all
+things must, what would be the outcome for himself and Dorothy?
+
+She had told him at the start that when her business ends had been
+completely served she would wish him to dismiss himself,--from her life
+and her memory forever.  He smiled at the utter futility of such a
+behest.  It had gone beyond his power to forget like this, though a
+century of time should elapse.
+
+For an hour he paced his cage impatiently, and nothing happened.  A
+dozen times he went to the door, opened it and looked out in the
+hall--to no avail.  The moment for young Durgin to arrive was at hand.
+It was almost time for young Barnes to appear.
+
+Tuttle should have made his trip by this.  The postman should have
+brought that photograph from Israel Snow, of Rockdale.  Dorothy might
+at least 'phone.
+
+It was maddening to wait and feel so impotent!  His mind reverted to
+various phases of the case, but lingered most upon the second
+will--that might mean so much to Dorothy.  Where had it gone?  Had it
+been stolen--or hidden?  Some way he felt it was hidden.  For some
+reason, wholly illogical, he thought of Hardy lying dead with those
+grease-like stains upon his knuckles.  What did they mean?
+
+Working out a line of thought about the will, he was halted abruptly by
+a shadow on the glass of his door.  He sat down quickly at his desk and
+assumed an air of calmness he was far from feeling.  At the knock which
+came he called to the visitor to enter.
+
+The visitor entered.  It was Wicks.
+
+"Oh, how do you do?" said Garrison, rising from his chair.  "Come in.
+Come in, Mr. Wicks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+A TRAGIC CULMINATION
+
+The grin on the face of Mr. Wicks had apparently deepened and become
+even more sardonic.  He glanced Garrison over in his sharp, penetrative
+manner, heightened by his nervousness, and took a chair.
+
+"Forgotten instructions, haven't you, Garrison?" he snapped, adjusting
+his thin wisp of hair.  "Where's your report on the case of Hardy, all
+these days?"
+
+"Well, I admit I've rather neglected the office," said Garrison, eying
+his visitor with a new, strange interest.  "I've been hard at work.
+I've lost no time.  The case is not at all simple."
+
+"What's all this business in the papers?  You mixing up with some niece
+of Hardy's, and the girl getting married to save an inheritance?"
+demanded Wicks.  "What the devil do you mean?"
+
+"That part is my private affair," answered Garrison calmly.  "It has
+nothing to do with my work for your company, nor has it interfered in
+the least with my prosecution of the inquiry."
+
+"Do you mean to say it hasn't delayed your reports?"
+
+"What if it has?  I've had nothing to report--particularly."
+
+"Yes, you have," snapped Wicks.  "You know it was murder--that's
+something to report!"
+
+Garrison studied the man deliberately for half a minute before
+replying.  What a living embodiment of Durgin's description of Hiram
+Cleave he was!  And what could he know of the facts in the case of
+Hardy's death that would warrant him in charging that the affair was
+known to be murder?
+
+"Do I know it was murder?" he queried coldly.  "Have I said so, Mr.
+Wicks, to you, or to anyone else?"
+
+Wicks glanced at him with a quick, roving dart from his eyes.
+
+"You saw what was printed in the papers," he answered evasively.  "You
+must have given it out."
+
+"I gave out nothing," said Garrison, bent now on a new line of thought,
+and determined that he would not accuse young Durgin by name till
+driven to the last extremity.  "But, as a matter of fact, I do know,
+Mr. Wicks, that Hardy was murdered."
+
+"Then why the devil don't you report to that effect?" snapped Wicks.
+"Are you trying to shield that young woman?"
+
+Garrison knew whom he meant, but he asked: "What young woman?"
+
+"Dorothy Booth-Fairfax!  You know who I mean!"
+
+"What has she to do with it?" Garrison inquired in apparent innocence.
+"Why should you think I'm shielding her?"
+
+"She's the likely one--the only one who could benefit by Hardy's
+death!" answered Wicks, a little less aggressively.  "You could see
+that by the accounts in the paper."
+
+"I haven't read the papers for guidance," Garrison observed dryly.
+"Have you?"
+
+"I didn't come here to answer questions.  I came to ask them.  I demand
+your report!" said Mr. Wicks.  "I want to know all that you know!"
+
+Garrison reflected that the little man knew too much.  It suddenly
+occurred to his mind, as the man's sharp eyes picked up every speck or
+fleck upon his clothing, that Wicks, in the Subway that evening when
+they rode together in the jostling crowd, could have filched that
+poisoned cigar from his pocket with the utmost ease.  He determined to
+try a little game.
+
+"I've been waiting for the last completing link in my chain," he said,
+"before accusing any man of murder.  You are right in supposing that I
+have found out more than I've reported--but only in the last few days
+and hours.  I told you before that I thought perhaps Hardy had been
+poisoned."
+
+"Well!  What more?  How was it done?"
+
+"The poison employed was crushed to a powder," and he mentioned the
+name of the stuff.
+
+"Used by photographers," commented Wicks.
+
+"Not exclusively, but at times, yes."
+
+"How was the stuff administered?"
+
+"I think in a fifteen-cent cigar."  Garrison was watching him closely
+while apparently toying with a pen.
+
+"Very good," said Wicks with an air of satisfaction that was not
+exactly understandable.  "I presume you have something to go
+on--something by way of evidence?"
+
+"No," said Garrison, "unfortunately I have not.  I had a second cigar
+which I believe was prepared with the poison, but I committed the
+blunder of losing it somewhere--Heaven alone knows where."
+
+"That's devilish poor business!" cried Wicks in apparent exasperation.
+"But you haven't said why you believe the man got the poison in any
+such manner.  On what do you base your conclusions?"
+
+"Near where the man was found dead I discovered an unsmoked cigar,"
+answered Garrison, watching the effect of his words.  "It contained
+what little of the powder the victim had not absorbed."
+
+Wicks looked at him almost calmly.
+
+"You've done good work," he said.  "It's a pity you lost that second
+cigar.  And, by the way, where did you get it?"
+
+Garrison realized that, despite his intended precautions, he had gone
+irretrievably into disclosures that were fetching the case up to
+Dorothy or young Foster Durgin.  In his eagerness to pursue a new
+theory, he had permitted Wicks to draw him farther than he had ever
+intended to go.  There was no escape.  He decided to put it through.
+
+"I got it from a box, at the coroner's office," he admitted.
+
+"Mr. Garrison, what do you mean by withholding all these facts?"
+demanded Wicks sharply.  "Where did Hardy get the box of cigars?"
+
+Garrison would gladly have evaded this question, but he was helpless.
+
+"They were a birthday present from his niece."
+
+"This Miss Booth-Fairfax?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you're in love with her!--masquerading as her husband!  What do
+you mean by saying you've not attempted to shield her?"
+
+"Now go slow, Mr. Wicks," cautioned Garrison.  "I know what I'm doing
+in this case.  It was given to me to ferret out--and I'll go through it
+to the end--no matter who is found guilty."
+
+"That's better!" said Wicks.  "You don't believe it's this young woman.
+Who else could have as good a motive?"
+
+Garrison was fighting for time.  A sacrifice was necessary.  He
+utilized young Durgin, who might, after all, be guilty.
+
+"Miss Booth, or Mrs. Fairfax, has a step-brother, by marriage," he
+said.  "He has worked at photography.  He gambles in Wall Street.  He
+was desperate--but as yet I have no positive proof that he did this
+crime.  I am waiting for developments--and expecting things at any
+moment."
+
+"Where is the man?" said Wicks.  "What's his name?"
+
+"Foster Durgin.  I'm waiting for him now.  He's fifteen minutes
+overdue."
+
+"Arrest him when he comes!" commanded Wicks.  "Take no chances on
+letting him escape!"
+
+"Perhaps that's good advice," said Garrison slowly.  "I'll think it
+over."
+
+"He's the only one you suspect?"
+
+"Well, there's one more element, somewhat vague and unsubstantiated,"
+admitted Garrison.  "There's a man, it seems, who threatened Hardy
+years ago.  He has followed Hardy about persistently.  Hardy appeared
+to fear him greatly, which accounts for his ceaseless roving.  This man
+may and may not have accomplished some long-planned revenge at
+Branchville.  He appears to be somewhat mystical, but I felt it my
+business to investigate every possible clew."
+
+"Certainly," said Wicks, whose scrutiny of Garrison's face had grown
+once more abnormally acute.  "What's his name?"
+
+Garrison focused his eyes on the man across the desk incisively.
+
+"Hiram Cleave."
+
+So far as he could see there was not so much as a flicker to show that
+his shot had gone home.
+
+Wicks spoke up, no less aggressively than before.
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"No one seems to know.  I hope to discover--and report."
+
+Wicks rose and took his hat from the desk.
+
+"Except for your negligence in appearing at the office," he said, "you
+have done fairly well.  Shall you need any help in arresting Durgin?
+If you wish it I----"
+
+A knock on the door interrupted.  A postman entered, met Garrison as he
+was stepping across the floor, and handed him a thin, flat parcel,
+crudely wrapped and tied.  It was postmarked Rockdale.
+
+Garrison knew it for the photograph--the picture of Cleave for which he
+had hoped and waited.
+
+"Wait just a minute, Mr. Wicks," he said, backing toward the door with
+intent to keep his man from departing.  "This is a letter from a friend
+who is helping on the case.  Let me look it through.  I may have more
+to report before you go."
+
+Wicks sat down again.
+
+Garrison remained by the door.  He was cutting the string on the
+package when a second knock on the glass behind him gave him a start.
+
+He opened the door.  A small, rather smiling young man was in the hall.
+
+"Mr. Garrison?" he said.  "My name is----"
+
+"How do you do?" Garrison interrupted loudly, having instantly
+recognized Foster Durgin, from a strong resemblance to his older
+brother, and instantly calling out: "Excuse me a moment, Mr. Wicks,"
+stepped out in the hall and closed the door.
+
+"My name is Durgin," said the visitor.  "I called before----"
+
+"I know," interrupted Garrison, moving down the hall and speaking in a
+voice so low he was certain Wicks could hear nothing, from behind the
+door, even should he try.  "I've been expecting you.  I want you to do
+something quickly, before we try to have a talk.  I want you to go
+downstairs, ring up police headquarters and ask for a couple of
+officers to come as quickly as they can travel."
+
+"What for?  I don't----"
+
+"I've got to arrest the man who murdered your uncle," said Garrison,
+using the most searching and startling method at command to put young
+Durgin to the test of guilt or innocence.  "Act first and come back
+afterward!"
+
+"I'm with you!" said Durgin.  "Got him, have you?--what's his name?"
+
+He was innocent.
+
+Garrison knew it, and instantly concluded that the young man before him
+could hardly have stolen the uncle's second will.  But he had no time
+for ramifying inquiries.  He pushed his visitor toward the elevator and
+only answered with more urging for speed.
+
+He returned to the office, tearing off the wrapper from his picture as
+he went.  He glanced at it once before he opened the door.  It was
+Wicks--not so bald--not so aggressive of aspect, but Wicks beyond the
+shadow of a doubt.  On the back was written "Hiram Cleave."
+
+Wicks turned upon him as he entered.
+
+"I can't wait here all day while you conduct your business in the
+hall," he said.  "Who was the man outside?"
+
+Garrison had grown singularly calm.
+
+"That," he said, "was Foster Durgin."
+
+"And you let him get away?" cried Wicks wrathfully.  "Mr. Garrison----"
+
+Garrison interrupted curtly.
+
+"I took your advice and sent him to get the police.  Good joke, isn't
+it, to have him summon the officers to arrest the man who murdered his
+uncle?"
+
+Wicks had an intuition or a fear.  He stared at Garrison wildly.
+Garrison remained by the door.
+
+"What do you mean to do?" demanded the visitor.
+
+"Wait a few minutes and see," was Garrison's reply.  "Meantime, here is
+a photograph of the man who threatened Hardy's life.  And, by the way,"
+he added, holding the picture with its face toward himself, in attitude
+of carelessness, "I forgot to say before that a man was seen entering
+Hardy's room, in Hickwood, the night of the murder.  He extracted two
+cigars from the box presented to Hardy by his niece, and in their place
+he deposited others, precisely like them, purchased at the same little
+store in Amsterdam Avenue where she obtained hers, and bought,
+moreover, within a very few minutes of her visit to the shop.  All of
+which bears upon the case."
+
+Wicks was eying him now with a menacing, furtive glance that shifted
+with extraordinary rapidity.  He had paled a trifle about the mouth.
+
+"Mr. Garrison," he said, "you are trifling with this matter.  What do
+you mean?"
+
+"Just what I said," answered Garrison.  "The witness who saw the
+murderer leave his deadly cigars in that box should have arrived by now
+to identify the criminal.  This photograph, as I said before, is a
+picture of the man I think guilty."
+
+He advanced a step, with no intention of abandoning the door, and
+delivered the picture into his visitor's hand.
+
+Wicks glanced down at it furtively.  His face turned livid.
+
+"So!" he cried.  "You think you----  Get away from that door!"
+
+He made a swift movement forward, but Garrison blocked his way.
+
+"Not till your friends the policemen arrive!" he said.  "It was your
+own suggestion, and good."
+
+"You act like a crazy man!" Wicks declared with a sudden change of
+manner.  "I'll have you discharged--you are discharged!  The case is
+out of your hands.  You----"
+
+For the third time a knock was sounded on the door.
+
+"Come in!" called Garrison, keeping his eyes on Wicks, whose face had
+turned from the red of rage to the white of sudden fear.  "Come
+in--don't wait!"
+
+It was Pike and young Will Barnes.
+
+"That's the man!" said the youth on entering, his eyes transfixed by
+Wicks.  "Look at him laugh!"
+
+"I'd kill you all if I had a gun!" cried Wicks in an outburst of
+malignity.  "I killed Hardy, yes!  I said I'd get him, and I got him!
+It's all I lived for, but, by Heaven! you'll never take me to jail
+alive!"
+
+He caught up a chair, ran to the window, and beat out the glass with a
+blow.  Garrison ran to snatch him back, but Wicks swung the chair and
+it broke on Garrison's head and he went down abruptly in a heap.
+
+There were two sharp cries.  Wicks made one as he leaped to his death
+from the sill.
+
+The other came in a woman's utterance.
+
+It was Dorothy, at the open door.
+
+"Jerold!" she cried, and ran into the room and knelt where he lay on
+the floor.
+
+He was merely stunned.  He recovered as if by the power of
+stubbornness, with his mind strangely occupied by thoughts of Hardy's
+will--the hidden will--and the fingers stained with black.  When he
+opened his eyes he was looking up in the sweetest, most anxious face in
+all the world.
+
+"Help me up.  Let me go before everyone comes," he said.  "I believe I
+know where to find your uncle's will!"
+
+It was already too late.  Durgin and two policemen appeared at the open
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+FOSTER DURGIN
+
+Confusion reigned in the office presently, for more of the officers
+came upon the scene, and people from adjoining rooms helped to swell
+the numbers.  Everyone was talking at once.
+
+The form of Wicks, motionless and broken, lay far below the window, on
+the pavement of an air and light shaft, formed like a niche in the
+building.  Garrison sent Dorothy to her lodgings, promising to visit
+her soon.  There was nothing she could do in such a place, and he felt
+there was much she should be spared.
+
+Pike, young Barnes, and Foster Durgin remained, the two former as
+witnesses of what had occurred, Durgin by Garrison's request.  All
+others were presently closed out of the office, and the body of Wicks
+was removed.
+
+The hour that followed, an hour of answering questions, making
+statements, proving who he was and what, was a time that Garrison
+disliked exceedingly, but it could not be escaped.  Reporters had
+speedily gathered; the story would make a highly sensational sequel to
+the one already printed.
+
+The guilt of Wicks had been confessed.  Corroborative testimony being
+quite abundant, and every link in the chain complete, the affair left
+no possible suspicion resting upon either Scott or any of Hardy's
+relatives; and Garrison and Durgin refused to talk of Dorothy's
+marriage or anything concerning the will.
+
+The story used before was, of course, reviewed at length.  Despite the
+delays of the investigation immediately undertaken, Garrison managed at
+last to secure the freedom of Pike and Will Barnes, in addition to that
+of himself and Foster Durgin.  As good as his word, he took the
+disciple of Walton to a first-class dealer in sportsmen's articles and
+bought him a five-dollar rod.  Barnes and the coroner of Branchville
+started somewhat late for their town.
+
+The evening was fairly well advanced when at length young Durgin and
+Garrison found themselves enabled to escape officials, reporters, and
+the merely curious, to retire to a quiet restaurant for something to
+eat and a chat.
+
+Durgin, as he sat there confronting his host, presented a picture to
+Garrison of virtues mixed with hurtful tendencies.  A certain look of
+melancholy lingered about his eyes.  His mouth was of the sensitive
+description.  His gaze was steady, but a boyish expression of defiance
+somewhat marred an otherwise pleasant countenance.
+
+He showed both the effects of early spoiling and the subsequent
+intolerance of altered conditions.  On the whole, however, he seemed a
+manly young fellow in whom regeneration was more than merely promised.
+
+Garrison ordered the dinner--and his taste was both excellent and
+generous.
+
+"Mr. Durgin," he said at last with startling candor, "it looked for a
+time as if you yourself were concerned in the death of Mr. Hardy.  More
+than half the pleasure that Dorothy will experience in the outcome of
+to-day's affairs will arise from her knowledge of your innocence."
+
+Foster met his gaze steadily.
+
+"I am sorry for many of the worries I have caused," he said, in a
+quiet, unresentful manner, free alike from surprise or anger.  "I've
+been trying to do better.  You knew I'd been away?"
+
+"That was one of the features of the case that looked a little
+suspicious," answered Garrison.
+
+"I didn't care to tell where I was going, in case my mission should
+fail," the young fellow imparted.  "I went after work--good, clean,
+well-paying work--and I got it.  I can hold up my head at last."
+
+A look of pride had come upon his face, but his lip was trembling.
+That the fight he had waged with himself was manly, and worthily won,
+to some considerable extent, was a thing that Garrison felt.  He had no
+intention of preaching and no inclination for the task.
+
+"'Nuff said," he answered.  "Shake.  Here comes the soup."
+
+They shook hands over the table.  No further reference was made to a
+personal subject.  Some way Garrison felt that a man had come to take
+the place of a boy, and while he reflected that the fight was not yet
+absolutely finished, and the bitterness of it might remain for some
+time yet to come, nevertheless he was thoroughly convinced that through
+some great lesson, or some awakening influence, Foster had come to his
+manhood and could henceforth be trusted to merit respect and the trust
+of all his fellow-beings.
+
+Garrison, alone, at nine o'clock, had an impulse to hasten off to
+Branchville.  In the brief time of lying unconscious on the floor when
+Wicks struck him down, he had felt some strange psychic sense take
+possession of his being, long enough for the room that Hardy had
+occupied in Hickwood to come into vision, as if through walls made
+transparent.
+
+He had merely a dim, fading memory that when he awoke he had spoken to
+Dorothy, telling her to help him to go, that the hiding-place of
+Hardy's will had been at last revealed.  As he thought of it now, on
+his way to Dorothy's abiding place, he shook his head in doubt.  It was
+probably all an idle dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE RICHES OF THE WORLD
+
+Dorothy was waiting to see him.  She was still excited, still anxious
+concerning himself.  She had quite forgotten his words about the will
+in her worry lest the blow on his head had proved more serious than had
+at first appeared.
+
+He met her quietly in a large, common parlor--the duplicate of a
+thousand such rooms in New York--and was thoroughly determined to curb
+the impetuous surging of his feelings.  She was wearing a bunch of his
+carnations, and had never seemed more beautiful in all her wondrous
+moods of beauty.
+
+Just to have sat where he could look upon her all he wished, without
+restraint or conventions, would almost have satisfied his soul.  But
+she gave him her hand with a grace so compelling, and her eyes asked
+their question so tenderly--a question only of his welfare--that riot
+was loosed in his veins once more and love surged over him in billows.
+
+"I was afraid you might not come," she said.  "I have never been more
+worried or afraid.  Such a terrible moment--all of it--and that
+creature striking you down!  If you hadn't come I'd have been so sure
+you were very badly hurt.  I'd have felt so guilty for all I've done to
+jeopardize your life in my petty affairs."
+
+"It's all right.  I was ashamed for going out so easily," said
+Garrison, turning away in self-defense and seating himself in a chair.
+"He struck me so suddenly I had no time to guard.  But that part isn't
+worth another thought."
+
+"I thought it the _only_ part worth anything," said Dorothy in her
+honesty.  "It came upon me suddenly that nothing I was after was worth
+the risks you've been assuming in my behalf.  And they may not be
+ended.  I wish they were.  I wish it were all at an end!  But Foster is
+innocent.  If you knew how glad I am of that you would feel a little
+repaid."
+
+"I feel thoroughly repaid and gratified," said Garrison.  "I have told
+you before that I am glad you came into my existence with your
+need--your case.  I have no regret over anything that has happened--to
+myself.  It has been life to me--life!  And I take a certain pride in
+feeling that when you come to dismiss me, at the end, I shall not have
+been an absolute disappointment."
+
+She looked at him in a new alarm.  He had purposely spoken somewhat
+bluntly of his impending dismissal.  She had come to a realizing sense
+that she could never dismiss him from her life--that to have him near,
+to know he was well--to love him, in a word--had become the one motive
+of her life.
+
+Nevertheless she was helpless.  And he was treating the matter as if
+her fate were sealed to that of Fairfax indissolubly.  What little
+timid hopes she might have entertained of gaining her freedom, some
+time in the future, and saving herself, soul and body, for him--all
+this he had somewhat dimmed by this reference to going from her ken.
+
+"But I--I haven't said anything about dismissing--anyone," she
+faltered.  "I hadn't thought----"  She left her sentence incomplete.
+
+"I know," said Jerold.  "There has been so much to think about, the
+subject may have been neglected.  As a matter of fact, however, I am
+already out of it, supplanted by your genuine husband.  We can no
+longer maintain the pretense.
+
+"The moment Mr. Fairfax and Theodore chance to meet, our bit of
+theatricalism goes to pieces.  We would scarcely dare to face a court,
+in a will probation, with Fairfax on the scene.  So, I say, I am
+practically eliminated already."
+
+The one thing that remained in her mind at the end of his speech was
+not in the least the main concern.  She looked at him with pain in her
+eyes.
+
+"Has it been nothing but a bit of theatricalism, after all?"
+
+He dared not permit himself to answer from his heart.  He kept up his
+show of amusement, or indifference to sentiment.
+
+"We have played theatric roles to a small but carefully selected
+audience," he said.  "I for a fee, and you--for needful ends.  We might
+as well be frank, as we were the day it all began."
+
+It was the way of a woman to be hurt.  She felt there was something of
+a sting in what he said.  She knew she had halted his impassioned
+declaration of love--but only because of the right.  She had heard it,
+despite her protest--and had treasured it since, and echoed it over in
+her heart repeatedly.
+
+She wished him to say it all again--all of it and more--but--not just
+yet.  She wanted him to let her know that he loved her more than
+anything else in the world, but not by spoken words of passion.
+
+"I am sorry if I've seemed so--so heartless in it all," she said.  "I
+hadn't the slightest intention of--of permitting you to----"
+
+"I know," he interrupted, certain he knew what she meant.  "I haven't
+accused anyone.  It was all my own fault.  We'll drop it, if you wish."
+
+"You haven't let me finish," she insisted.  "I started to say that I
+had no intention of making you feel like--like nothing more than an
+agent--toward me--I mean, I had no intention of appearing to you like a
+selfish, heartless woman, willing to sacrifice the sweetest--the
+various things of life to gain my ends.  I want you to believe that
+I--I'd rather you wouldn't call it all just mere theatrics."
+
+Garrison gripped his chair, to restrain the impulse to rise and take
+her in his arms.  He could almost have groaned, for the love in his
+heart must lie there, dumb and all but hopeless.
+
+"Dorothy," he said when he felt his mastery complete, "I have already
+made it hard enough for myself by committing a folly against which you
+gave me ample warning.  I am trying now to redeem myself and merit your
+trust and regard."
+
+Her eyes met his in a long, love-revealing look--a look that could
+bridge all the gulfs of time and the vast abyss of space itself--and
+words would have been but a jar.  Whatever the outcome, after this,
+nothing could rob them of the deep, supernal joy that flashed there
+between them for a moment.
+
+Even when her lashes fell, at last, the silence was maintained.
+
+After a time Garrison spoke again, returning to earth and the
+unfinished labor before him.
+
+"I must go," he said, consulting his watch.  "I hope to catch a train
+for Branchville in order to be there early in the morning."
+
+"On our--this business?" she inquired.
+
+He felt it quite impossible to raise her hopes--or perhaps her
+fears--by announcing he felt he should find John Hardy's latest will.
+Moreover, he had undergone a wakeful man's distrust of the "dream" he
+had experienced after falling at the hands of Wicks.  He resorted to a
+harmless deceit, which, after all, was not entirely deceitful.
+
+"Mr. Fairfax left for Branchville--he said to spring a surprise," he
+imparted.  "I thought it would do no harm to be on hand and prepare for
+his moves, as far as possible."
+
+He had risen.  Dorothy did likewise.  A slight suggestion of paleness
+overspread her face, followed at once by a faint, soft flush of color.
+
+"I hope you will try to avoid him--avoid anything that might be
+dangerous," she faltered.  "I feel already I shall never be able to
+forgive myself for the dangers into which I have sent you."
+
+"This is the surest way to avoid any possible dangers," he assured her.
+"And, by the way, there is no particular reason now why you should
+longer remain away from Ninety-third Street.  The newspaper men have
+done their worst, and the Robinsons will be entirely disarmed by the
+various events that have happened--unless Theodore should happen to
+spring a new surprise, and in any event you might be far more
+comfortable."
+
+"Perhaps I will return--some time to-morrow," she said.  "I'll see."
+
+Garrison went to the door and she walked at his side.
+
+He merely said: "Good-night--and Heaven bless you, Dorothy."
+
+She answered: "Good-night, Jerold," and gave him her hand.
+
+He held it for a moment--the riches of the world.  And when he had gone
+they felt they had divided, equally, a happiness too great for
+terrestrial measurement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+JOHN HARDY'S WILL
+
+Garrison slept the sleep of physical exhaustion that night in
+Branchville.  The escape from New York's noise and turmoil was welcome
+to his weary body.  He had been on a strain day after day, and much of
+it still remained.  Yet, having cleared away the mystery concerning
+Hardy's death, he felt entitled to a let-down of the tension.
+
+In the morning he was early on the road to Hickwood--his faculties all
+eagerly focused on the missing will.  He felt it might all prove the
+merest vagary of his mind--his theory of his respecting old Hardy and
+this testament.  But stubbornly his mind clung fast to a few important
+facts.
+
+Old Hardy had always been secretive, for Dorothy had so reported.  He
+had carried his will away with him on leaving Albany.  It had not been
+stolen--so far as anyone could know.  Coupled with all this was the
+fact that the dead man's hands' had been stained upon the
+knuckles--stained black, with a grimy something hard to wash
+away--perhaps the soot, the greasy, moldy old soot of a chimney,
+encountered in the act of secreting the will, and later only partially
+removed.  It seemed as clear as crystal to the reasoning mind of
+Garrison as he hastened along on the road.
+
+He passed the home of Scott, the inventor, and mentally jotted down a
+reminder that the man, being innocent, must be paid his insurance now
+without delay.
+
+Mrs. Wilson was working in her garden, at the rear of the house, when
+Garrison arrived.  She was wonderfully pleased to see him.  She had
+read the papers--which Garrison had not--and discovered what a truly
+remarkable personage he was.
+
+The credit of more than ordinarily clever work had been meted out by
+the columnful, and his name glared boldly from the vivid account of all
+he had done in the case.  All this and more he found himself obliged to
+face at the hands of Mrs. Wilson, before he could manage to enter the
+house and go as before to Hardy's room.
+
+It was just precisely as he had seen it on his former visit.  It had
+not been rented since, partially on account of the fact that Hardy's
+fate had cast an evil shadow upon it.
+
+Garrison lost no time in his search.  He followed his theory.  It led
+him straight to the fireplace, with its crudely painted board, built to
+occupy its opening.  Behind this, he felt, should be the will.
+
+The board was stuck.  Mrs. Wilson hastened to her sitting-room to fetch
+a screwdriver back to pry it out.  Garrison gave it a kick, at the
+bottom, in her absence, thus jarring it loose, and the top fell forward
+in his hand.
+
+He put his hand far up, inside the chimney--and on a ledge of brick,
+where his knuckles picked up a coating of moldy, greasy soot, his
+fingers encountered an envelope and knocked it from its lodgment.  It
+fell on the fender at the bottom of the place.  He caught it up, only
+taking time to note a line, "Will of John Hardy," written upon it--and,
+cramming it into his pocket, thrust the board back into place as Mrs.
+Wilson entered at the door.
+
+It was not with intent to deceive the good woman that he had thus
+abruptly decided to deny her the knowledge of his find, but rather as a
+sensible precaution against mere idle gossip, which could achieve no
+particular advantage.
+
+Therefore when she pried the board from place, and nothing was
+discovered behind it, he thanked her profusely, made a wholly
+perfunctory examination of the room, and presently escaped.
+
+Not until he found himself far from any house, on the road he was
+treading to Branchville, did he think of removing the package from his
+pocket.  He found it then to be a plain white envelope indorsed with
+this inscription:
+
+
+Last will of John Hardy.  To be opened after my death, and then by my
+niece, Dorothy Fairfax, only.
+
+
+Denied the knowledge whether it might mean fortune or poverty to the
+girl he loved, and feeling that, after all, his labors might heap great
+unearned rewards on Fairfax, bestowing on himself the mere hollow
+consciousness that his work had been well performed, he was presently
+seated once more in a train that roared its way down to New York.
+
+There was still an hour left of the morning when he alighted at the
+Grand Central Station.  He went at once to Dorothy's latest abode.
+
+She was out.  The landlady knew nothing whatever of her whereabouts.
+Impatient of every delay, and eager to know not only the contents of
+the will, but what it might mean to have Dorothy gone in this manner,
+he felt himself baffled and helpless.  He could only leave a note and
+proceed to his office.
+
+Tuttle was there when he arrived.  He had nothing to report of
+Fairfax--of whom Garrison himself had heard no word in Branchville--but
+concerning the house in Ninety-third Street there was just a mite of
+news.
+
+He had been delayed in entering by the temporary absence of the
+caretaker.  He had finally succeeded in making his way to the closet in
+Theodore's room--and the telephone was gone.  Theodore had evidently
+found a means to enter by the stairs at the rear, perhaps through the
+house next door.  The caretaker felt quite certain he had not set foot
+inside the door since Garrison issued his orders.
+
+Garrison wrote a note to Theodore, in reply to the one received the day
+before, suggesting a meeting here at this office at noon, or as soon as
+convenient.
+
+"Take that out," he said to Tuttle, "and send it by messenger.  Then
+return to the house where Fairfax had his room and see if there's any
+news of him."
+
+Tuttle opened the door to go just as Dorothy, who had arrived outside,
+was about to knock.  Garrison beheld her as she stepped slightly back.
+He rose from his seat and hastened towards her.
+
+"Excuse me," said Tuttle, and he went his way.
+
+"Come in," said Garrison.  "Come in, Dorothy.  I've been at your house
+and missed you."
+
+She was somewhat pale.
+
+"Yes, I couldn't stay--I wanted to see you the moment you returned,"
+she told him.  "Theodore has found my address, I don't know how, and
+sent me a note in which he says he has something new--some dreadful
+surprise----"
+
+"Never mind Theodore," Garrison interrupted.  "Sit down and get your
+breath.  He couldn't have come upon much in all his hunting--much, I
+mean, that we do not already know.  In the meantime, get ready for
+news--I can't tell what sort of news, but--I've found your uncle's
+latest will!"
+
+Dorothy made no attempt to speak for a moment.  Her face became almost
+ashen.  Then it brightened.  Alarm went from her eyes and she even
+mustered a smile.
+
+"It doesn't make a great deal of difference now, whatever Uncle John
+may have done," she said.  "Foster and Alice will be all right--but,
+where did you find it?  Where has it been?"
+
+"I found it at the room he occupied in Hickwood--and fetched it along."
+
+He produced it from his pocket and placed it in her hand.
+
+Despite her most courageous efforts she was weak and nervously excited.
+Her hands fairly trembled as she tore the envelope across.
+
+"Take it calmly," said Garrison.  "Don't be hurried."
+
+She could make no reply.  She drew the will from its sheath and,
+spreading it open, glanced through it rapidly.
+
+"Dear Uncle John!" she presently said, in a voice that all but broke.
+"He has willed it all to me, with no conditions--all except a nice
+little sum for Foster--poor Foster, I'm so glad!"
+
+She broke down and cried.
+
+Garrison said nothing.  He went to the window and let her cry it out.
+
+She was drying her eyes, in an effort to regain her self-control, when
+someone knocked and immediately opened the door.
+
+Garrison turned.  Dorothy had risen quickly to her feet.
+
+It was Theodore who stood in the doorway.  He had come before
+Garrison's note could be delivered.
+
+"Come in," said Garrison.  "You're just the man I wish to see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+GARRISON'S VALUED FRIEND
+
+Dorothy, catching up the precious will, had retreated from Theodore's
+advance.  She made no effort to greet him, even with so much as a nod.
+
+"I thought I might possibly find you both, and save a little time,"
+said Robinson, striding in boldly, with no sign of removing his hat.
+"Seems I hit it off about right."
+
+"Charmingly," said Garrison.  "Won't you sit down and take off your hat
+and stay a while?"
+
+"You sound cheerful," said Theodore, drawing forth a chair and seating
+himself in comfort.  "Perhaps you realize the game is up at last."
+
+"Yes," agreed Garrison.  "I think we do--but it's good of you to come
+and accept our notice, I'm sure."
+
+"I didn't come to accept notice--I came to give it," said young
+Robinson self-confidently.  "I've recently returned from Rockbeach,
+where I went to investigate your so-called marriage."
+
+He had seen or heard nothing of Fairfax; that was obvious.
+
+"Well?" said Garrison.  "Proceed."
+
+"That's about enough, ain't it?" said Theodore.  "The marriage having
+been a fraud, what's the use of beating around the bush?  If you care
+to fix it up on decent terms, I'll make no attempt to break the will
+when it comes up for probate, but otherwise I'll smash your case to
+splinters."
+
+"You've put it quite clearly," said Garrison.  "You are offering to
+compromise.  Very generous.  Let me have the floor for half a minute.
+I've had your man Tuttle on your trail, when you thought you had him on
+mine, for some little time.
+
+"I happen to know that you stole two necklaces in the keeping of Mrs.
+Fairfax, on the night I met you first, and placed them on the neck of
+some bold young woman in the house next door, where, as you may
+remember, I saw you dressed as Mephistopheles.  You----"
+
+"I stole nothing of the kind!" interrupted Theodore.  "She's got
+them----"
+
+"Never mind that," Garrison interposed.  "Let's go on.  You installed a
+'phone in your closet, at the house in Ninety-third Street, and on the
+night when you overheard an appointment I made with Mrs. Fairfax, you
+plugged in, overheard it, abducted Dorothy, under the influence of
+chloroform, stole her wedding-certificate, and delivered me over to the
+hands of a pair of hired assassins to have me murdered in Central Park.
+
+"All this, with the robbery you hired Tuttle to commit at Branchville,
+ought to keep you reflecting in prison for some little time to come--if
+you think you'd like to go to court and air your grievances publicly."
+
+Theodore was intensely white.  Yet his nerve was not entirely destroyed.
+
+"All this won't save your bacon, when I turn over all my affidavits,"
+he said.  "The property won't go to you when the will's before the
+court.  The man who married you in Rockbeach was no justice of the
+peace, and you know it, Mr. Jerold Garrison.  You assumed the name of
+Fairfax and hired a low-down political heeler, who hadn't been a
+justice for fully five years, to act the part and marry you to Dorothy.
+
+"I've got the affidavits.  If you think that's going to sound well in
+public--if you think it's pleasant to Dorothy now to know what a
+blackguard you are, why let's get on the job, both of us flinging the
+mud!"
+
+Dorothy was pale and tense with new excitement.
+
+"Wait a minute, please," said Garrison.  "You say you have legal
+affidavits that the man who performed that marriage ceremony was a
+fraud, paid to act the part?--that the marriage was a sham--no marriage
+at all?"
+
+"You know it wasn't!" Theodore shouted at him triumphantly, pulling
+legal-looking papers from his pocket.  "And you were married to another
+wretched woman at the time.  Let Dorothy try to get some joy out of
+that, if she can--and you, too!"
+
+"Thank you, I've got mine," said Garrison quietly.  "You're the very
+best friend I've seen for weeks.  Fairfax, the man who has done this
+unspeakable wrong, is a lunatic, somewhere between here and up country,
+at this moment.  He was here in town for a couple of days, and I
+thought you might have met him."
+
+"You--what do you mean?" demanded Theodore.
+
+"Just what I say," said Garrison.  "I'll pay you five hundred dollars
+for your affidavits, if they're genuine, and you may be interested to
+know, by the way of news, that a later will by your step-uncle, John
+Hardy, has come to light, willing everything to Dorothy--without
+conditions.  You wasted time by going out of town."
+
+"A new will!--I refuse to believe it!" said Robinson, weak with
+apprehension.
+
+Garrison drew open a drawer of his desk and took out a loaded revolver.
+He knew his man and meant to take no risk.  Crossing to Dorothy, he
+took the will from her hand.
+
+"This is the document," he said.  "Signed and witnessed in the best of
+legal form.  And speaking of leaving town, let me suggest that you
+might avoid a somewhat unhealthily close confinement by making your
+residence a good long way from Manhattan."
+
+Robinson aged before their very eyes.  The ghastly pallor remained on
+his face.  His shoulders lost something of their squareness.  A muscle
+was twitching about his mouth.  His eyes were dulled as he tried once
+more to meet the look of the man across the desk.
+
+He knew he was beaten--and fear had come upon him, fear of the
+consequences earned by the things he had done.  He had neither the will
+nor the means to renew the fight.  Twice his lips parted, in his effort
+to speak, before he mastered his impotent rage and regained the power
+to think.  He dropped his documents weakly on the desk.
+
+"I'll take your five hundred for the papers," he said.  "How much time
+will you give me to go?"
+
+"Two days," said Garrison.  "I'll send you a check to-morrow morning."
+
+Theodore turned to depart.  Tuttle had returned.  He knocked on the
+door and entered.  Startled thus to find himself face to face with
+Robinson, he hesitated where he stood.
+
+"So," said Theodore with one more gasp of anger, "you sold me out, did
+you, Tuttle?  I might have expected it of you!"
+
+Tuttle would have answered, and not without heat.  Garrison interposed.
+
+"It's all right, Tuttle," he said.  "Robinson knows when he's done.  I
+told him you were in a better camp.  Any news of Mr. Fairfax for us
+all?"
+
+"It's out in the papers," said Tuttle in reply, taking two copies of an
+evening edition from his pocket.  "It seems a first wife of Mr. Fairfax
+has nabbed him, up at White Plains.  But he's crazy, so she'll put him
+away."
+
+For the first time in all the scene Dorothy spoke.
+
+She merely said, "Thank Heaven!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+A HONEYMOON
+
+A month had flown to the bourne whence no summer charms return.
+
+August had laid a calming hand on all the gray Atlantic, dimpling its
+surface with invitations to the color and glory of the sky.  The world
+turned almost visibly here, in this vast expanse of waters, bringing
+its meed of joys and sorrows to the restless human creatures on its
+bosom.
+
+Jerold and Dorothy, alone at last, even among so many passengers, were
+four days deep in their honeymoon, with all the delights of Europe
+looming just ahead.
+
+There was nothing left undone in the case of Hardy.  Scott had been
+paid his insurance; the Robinsons had fled; Foster Durgin and his wife
+were united by a bond of work and happiness; the house in Ninety-third
+Street was rented, and Fairfax was almost comfortable at a "sanatorium"
+where his wife came frequently to see him.
+
+With their arms interlocked, Dorothy and Jerold watched the sun go
+down, from the taffrail of the mighty ocean liner.
+
+When the moon rose, two hours later, they were still on deck, alone.
+
+And when they came to a shadow, built for two, they paused in their
+perfect understanding.  She put her arms about his neck and gave him a
+kiss upon the lips.  His arms were both about her, folding her close to
+his breast.
+
+"It's such a rest to love you all I please," she whispered.  "It was
+very, very hard, even from the first, to keep it from telling itself."
+
+Such is the love that glorifies the world.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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