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diff --git a/29877.txt b/29877.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffca0e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/29877.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10777 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Million-Dollar Suitcase, by +Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry + +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: The Million-Dollar Suitcase + +Author: Alice MacGowan + Perry Newberry + +Release Date: August 31, 2009 [EBook #29877] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE *** + + + + +Produced by David Clarke, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE + + BY + + ALICE MacGOWAN + AND + PERRY NEWBERRY + + NEW YORK + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + _Copyright, 1922, by_ + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + + _Copyright, 1921, by_ + THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + _under the title "Two and Two"_ + + + _Printed in the United States of America_ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I WORTH GILBERT 1 + + II SIGHT UNSEEN 16 + + III A WEDDING PARTY 27 + + IV AN APPARITION 45 + + V AT THE ST. DUNSTAN 57 + + VI ON THE ROOF 65 + + VII THE GOLD NUGGET 75 + + VIII A TIN-HORN GAMBLER 87 + + IX SANTA YSOBEL 101 + + X A SHADOW IN THE FOG 110 + + XI THE MISSING DIARY 124 + + XII A MURDER 137 + + XIII DR. BOWMAN 147 + + XIV SEVEN LOST DAYS 155 + + XV AT DYKEMAN'S OFFICE 164 + + XVI A LUNCHEON 171 + + XVII CLEANSING FIRES 181 + + XVIII THE TORN PAGE 188 + + XIX ON THE HILL-TOP 196 + + XX AT THE COUNTRY CLUB 209 + + XXI A MATTER OF TASTE 214 + + XXII A DINNER INVITATION 225 + + XXIII A BIT OF SILK 231 + + XXIV THE MAGNET 240 + + XXV AN ARREST 250 + + XXVI MRS. BOWMAN SPEAKS 261 + + XXVII THE BLOSSOM FESTIVAL 273 + + XXVIII THE COUNTRY CLUB BALL 293 + + XXIX UNMASKED 303 + + XXX A CONFESSION 311 + + XXXI THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE 320 + + + + +THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WORTH GILBERT + + +On the blank silence that followed my last words, there in the big, +dignified room with its Circassian walnut and sound-softening rugs, +Dykeman, the oldest director, squalled out as though he had been bitten, + +"All there is to tell! But it can't be! It isn't possib--" His voice +cracked, split on the word, and the rest came in an agonized squeak, "A +man can't just vanish into thin air!" + +"A man!" Knapp, the cashier, echoed. "A suitcase full of money--our +money--can't vanish into thin air in the course of a few hours." + +Feverishly they passed the timeworn phrase back and forth; it would have +been ludicrous if it hadn't been so deadly serious. Well, money when you +come to think of it, is its very existence to such an institution; it +was not to be wondered at that the twelve men around the long table in +the directors' room of the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank found this a +life or death matter. + +"How much--?" began heavy-set, heavy-voiced old Anson, down at the lower +end, but stuck and got no further. There was a smitten look on every +face at the contemplation--a suitcase could hold so unguessably great a +sum expressed in terms of cash and securities. + +"We'll have the exact amount in a few moments--I've just set them to +verifying," President Whipple indicated with a slight backward nod the +second and smaller table in the room, where two clerks delved mole-like +among piles of securities, among greenbacks and yellowbacks bound round +with paper collars, and stacks of coin. + +The blinds were down, only the table lamps on, and a gooseneck over +where the men counted. It put the place all in shadow, and threw out +into bolder relief the faces around that board, gray-white, denatured, +all with the financier's curiously unhuman look. The one fairly cheerful +countenance in sight was that of A. G. Cummings, the bank's attorney. + +For myself, I was only waiting to hear what results those clerks would +bring us. So far, Whipple had been quite noncommittal: the extraordinary +state of the market--everything so upset that a bank couldn't afford +even the suspicion of a loss or irregularity--hinting at something in +his mind not evident to the rest of us. I was just rising to go round +and ask him quietly if, having reported, I might not be excused to get +on the actual work, when the door opened. + +I can't say why the young fellow who stood in it should have seemed so +foreign to the business in hand; perhaps the carriage of his tall +figure, the military abruptness of his movements, the way he swung the +door far back against the wall and halted there, looking us over. But I +do know that no sooner had Worth Gilbert, lately home from France, +crossed the threshold, meeting Whipple's outstretched hand, nodding +carelessly to the others, than suddenly every man in the room seemed +older, less a man. We were dead ones; he the only live wire in the +place. + +"Boyne," the president turned quickly to me, "would you mind going over +for Captain Gilbert's benefit what you've just said?" + +The newcomer had, so far, not made any movement to join the circle at +the table. He stood there, chin up, looking straight at us all, but +quite through us. At the back of the gaze was a something between weary +and fierce that I have noticed in the eyes of so many of our boys home +from what they'd witnessed and gone through over there, when forced to +bring their attention to the stale, bloodless affairs of civil life. +Used to the instant, conclusive fortunes of war, they can hardly handle +themselves when matters hitch and halt upon customs and legalities; the +only thing that appeals to them is the big chance, win or lose, and have +it over. Such a man doesn't speak the language of the group that was +there gathered. Just looking at him, old Dykeman rasped, without further +provocation, + +"What's Captain Gilbert got to do with the private concerns of this +bank?" + +As though the words--and their tone--had been a cordial invitation, +rather than an offensive challenge, the young man, who had still shown +no sign of an intention to come into the meeting at all, walked to the +table, drew out a chair and sat down. + +"Pardon me, Mr. Dykeman," Cummings' voice had a wire edge on it, "the +Hanford block of stock in this bank has, as I think you very well know, +passed fully into Gilbert hands to-day." + +"Thomas A. Gilbert," Dykeman was sparing of words. + +"Captain Worth Gilbert's father," Whipple attempted pacification. "Mr. +Gilbert senior was with me till nearly noon, closing up the transfer. He +had hardly left when we discovered the shortage. After consultation, +Knapp and I got hold of Cummings. We wanted to get you gentlemen +here--have the capital of the bank represented, as nearly as we +could--and found that Mr. Gilbert had taken the twelve-forty-five train +for Santa Ysobel; so, as Captain Gilbert was to be found, we felt that +if we got him it would be practically--er--quite the same thing--" + +Worth Gilbert had sat in the chair he selected, absolutely indifferent. +It was only when Dykeman, hanging to his point, spoke again, that I saw +a quick gleam of blue fire come into those hawk eyes under the slant +brow. He gave a sort of detached attention as Dykeman sputtered +indecently. + +"Not the same thing at all! Sons can't always speak for fathers, any +more than fathers can always speak for sons. In this case--" + +He broke off with his ugly old mouth open. Worth Gilbert, the son of +divorced parents, with a childhood that had divided time between a +mother in the East and a California father, surveyed the parchment-like +countenance leisurely after the crackling old voice was hushed. Finally +he grunted inarticulately (I'm sorry I can't find a more imposing word +for a returned hero); and answered all objections with, + +"I'm here now--and here I stay. What's the excitement?" + +"I was just asking Mr. Boyne to tell you," Whipple came in smoothly. + +No one else offered any objections. What I repeated, briefly, amounted +to this: + +Directly after closing time to-day--which was noon, as this was +Saturday--Knapp, the cashier of the bank, had discovered a heavy +shortage, and it was decided on a quick investigation that Edward +Clayte, one of the paying tellers, had walked out with the money in a +suitcase. I was immediately called in on what appeared a wide-open +trail, with me so close behind Clayte that you'd have said there was +nothing to it. I followed him--and the suitcase--to his apartment at the +St. Dunstan, found he'd got there at twenty-five minutes to one, and I +barely three quarters of an hour after. + +"How do you get the exact minute Clayte arrived?" Anson stopped me at +this point, "and the positive knowledge that he had the suitcase with +him?" + +"Clayte asked the time--from the clerk at the desk--as he came in. He +put the suitcase down while he set his watch. The clerk saw him pick it +up and go into the elevator; Mrs. Griggsby, a woman at work mending +carpet on the seventh floor--which is his--saw him come out of the +elevator carrying it, and let himself into his room. There the trail +ends." + +"Ends?" As my voice halted young Gilbert's word came like a bullet. "The +trail can't end unless the man was there." + +"Or the suitcase," little old Sillsbee quavered, and Worth Gilbert gave +him a swift, half-humorous glance. + +"Bath and bedroom," I said, "that suite has three windows, seven +stories above the ground. I found them all locked--not mere latches--the +St. Dunstan has burglar-proof locks. No disturbance in the room; all +neat, in place, the door closed with the usual spring lock; and I had to +get Mrs. Griggsby to move, since she was tacking the carpet right at the +threshold. Everything was in that room that should have been +there--except Clayte and the suitcase." + +The babel of complaint and suggestion broke out as I finished, exactly +as it had done when I got to this point before: "The Griggsby woman +ought to be kept under surveillance"; "The clerk, the house servants +ought to be watched,"--and so on, and so on. I curtly reiterated my +assurance that such routine matters had been promptly and thoroughly +attended to. My nerves were getting raw. I'm not so young as I was. This +promised to be one of those grinding cases where the detective agency is +run through the rollers so many times that it comes out pretty slim in +the end, whether that end is failure or success. + +The only thing in sight that it didn't make me sick to look at was that +silent young fellow sitting there, never opening his trap, giving things +a chance to develop, not rushing in on them with the forceps. It was a +crazy thing for Whipple to call this meeting--have all these old, scared +men on my back before I could take the measure of what I was up against. +What, exactly, had the Van Ness Avenue Bank lost? That, and not anything +else, was the key for my first moves. And at last a clerk crossed to our +table, touched Whipple's arm and presented a sheet of paper. + +"I'll read the total, gentlemen." The president stared at the sheet he +held, moistened his lips, gulped, gasped, "I--I'd no idea it was so +much!" and finished in a changed voice, "nine hundred and eighty seven +thousand, two hundred and thirty four dollars." + +A deathlike hush. Dykeman's mere look was a call for the ambulance; +Anson slumped in his chair; little old Sillsbee sat twisted away so that +his face was in shadow, but the knuckles showed bone white where his +hand gripped the table top. None of them seemed able to speak; the young +voice that broke startlingly on the stillness had the effect of scaring +the others, with its tone of nonchalance, rather than reassuring them. +Worth Gilbert leaned forward and looked round in my direction with, + +"This is beginning to be interesting. What do the police say of it?" + +"We've not thought well to notify them yet." Whipple's eye consulted +that of his cashier and he broke off. Quietly the clerks got out with +the last load of securities; Knapp closed the door carefully behind +them, and as he returned to us, Whipple repeated, "I had no idea it was +so big," his tone almost pleading as he looked from one to the other. +"But I felt from the first that we'd better keep this thing to +ourselves. We don't want a run on the bank, and under present financial +conditions, almost anything might start one. But--almost a million +dollars!" + +He seemed unable to go on; none of the other men at the table had +anything to offer. It was the silent youngster, the outsider, who spoke +again. + +"I suppose Clayte was bonded--for what that's worth?" + +"Fifteen thousand dollars," Knapp, the cashier, gave the information +dully. The sum sounded pitiful beside that which, we were to +understand, had traveled out of the bank as currency and unregistered +securities in Clayte's suitcase. + +"Bonding company will hound him, won't they?" young Gilbert put it +bluntly. "Will the Clearing House help you out?" in the tone of one +discussing a lost umbrella. + +"Not much chance--now." Whipple's face was sickly. "You know as well as +I do that we are going to get little help from outside. I want you to +all stand by me now--keep this quiet--among ourselves--" + +"Among ourselves!" rapped out Kirkpatrick. "Then it leaks--we have a +run--and where are you?" + +"No, no. Just long enough to give Boyne here a chance to recover our +money without publicity--try it out, anyhow." + +"Well," said Anson sullenly, "that's what he's paid for. How long is it +going to take him?" + +I made no attempt to answer that fool question; Cummings spoke for me, +lawyer fashion, straddling the question, bringing up the arguments pro +and con. + +"Your detective asks for publicity to assist his search. You refuse it. +Then you've got to be indulgent with him in the matter of time. +Understand me, you may be right; I'm not questioning the wisdom of +secrecy, though as a lawyer I generally think the sooner you get to the +police with a crime the better. You all can see how publicity and a +sizable reward offered would give Mr. Boyne a hundred thousand +assistants--conscious and unconscious--to help nab Clayte." + +"And we'd be a busted bank before you found him," groaned Knapp. "We've +got to keep this thing to ourselves. I agree with Whipple." + +"It's all we can do," the president repeated. + +"Suppose a State bank examiner walks in on you Monday?" demanded the +attorney. + +"We take that chance--that serious chance," replied Whipple solemnly. + +Silence after that again till Cummings spoke. + +"Gentlemen, there are here present twelve of the principal stockholders +of the bank." He paused a moment to estimate. "The capital is +practically represented. Speaking as your legal advisor, I am obliged to +say that you should not let the bank take such a risk as Mr. Whipple +suggests. You are threatened with a staggering loss, but, after all, a +high percent of money lost by defalcations is recovered--made +good--wholly or in part." + +"Nearly a million dollars!" croaked old Sillsbee. + +"Yes, yes, of course," Cummings agreed hastily; "the larger amount's +against you. The men who can engineer such a theft are almost as strong +as you are. You've got to make every edge cut--use every weapon that's +at hand. And most of all, gentlemen, you've got to stand together. No +dissensions. As a temporary expedient--to keep the bank sufficiently +under cover and still allow Boyne the publicity he needs--replace this +money pro rata among yourselves. That wouldn't clean any of you. +Announce a small defalcation, such as Clayte's bond would cover, so you +could collect there; use all the machinery of the police. Then when +Clayte's found, the money recovered, you reimburse yourselves." + +"But if he's never found! If it's never recovered?" Knapp asked huskily; +he was least able of any man in the room to stand the loss. + +"What do you say, Gilbert?" The attorney looked toward the young man, +who, all through the discussion, had been staring straight ahead of him. +He came round to the lawyer's question like one roused from other +thoughts, and agreed shortly. + +"Not a bad bet." + +"Well--Boyne--" Whipple was giving way an inch at a time. + +"It's a peculiar case," I began, then caught myself up with, "All cases +are peculiar. The big point here is to get our man before he can get rid +of the money. We were close after Clayte; even that locked room in the +St. Dunstan needn't have stopped us. If he wasn't in it, he was +somewhere not far outside it. He'd had no time to make a real getaway. +All I needed to lay hands on him was a good description." + +"Description?" echoed Whipple. "Your agency's got descriptions on +file--thumb prints--photographs--of every employee of this bank." + +"Every one of 'em but Clayte," I said. "When I came to look up the +files, there wasn't a thing on him. Don't think I ever laid eyes on the +man myself." + +A description of Edward Clayte? Every man at the table--even old +Sillsbee--sat up and opened his mouth to give one; but Knapp beat them +to it, with, + +"Clayte's worked in this bank eight years. We all know him. You can get +just as many good descriptions as there are people on our payroll or +directors in this room--and plenty more at the St. Dunstan, I'll be +bound." + +"You think so?" I said wearily. "I have not been idle, gentlemen; I have +interviewed his associates. Listen to this; it is a composite of the +best I've been able to get." I read: "Edward Clayte; height about five +feet seven or eight; weight between one hundred and forty and one +hundred and fifty pounds; age somewhere around forty; smooth face; +medium complexion, fairish; brown hair; light eyes; apparently +commonplace features; dressed neatly in blue business suit, black shoes, +black derby hat--" + +"Wait a minute," interposed Knapp. "Is that what they gave you at the +St. Dunstan--what he was wearing when he came in?" + +I nodded. + +"Well, I'd have said he had on tan shoes and a fedora. He _did_--or was +that yesterday? But aside from that, it's a perfect description; brings +the man right up before me." + +I heard a chuckle from Worth Gilbert. + +"That description," I said, "is gibberish; mere words. Would it bring +Clayte up before any one who had never seen him? Ask Captain Gilbert, +who doesn't know the man. I say that's a list of the points at which he +resembles every third office man you meet on the street. What I want is +the points at which he'd differ. You have all known Clayte for years; +forget his regularities, and tell me his peculiarities--looks, manners, +dress or habits." + +There was a long pause, broken finally by Whipple. + +"He never smoked," said the bank president. + +"Occasionally he did," contradicted Knapp, and the pause continued till +I asked, + +"Any peculiarities of clothing?" + +"Oh, yes," said Whipple. "Very neat. Usually blue serge." + +"But sometimes gray," added Knapp, heavily, and old Sillsbee piped in, + +"I've seen that feller wear pin-check; I know I have." + +I was fed up on clothes. + +"How did he brush his hair?" I questioned. + +"Smoothed down from a part high on the left," Knapp came back promptly. + +"On the right," boomed old Anson from the foot of the table. + +"Sometimes--yes--I guess he did," Knapp conceded hesitantly. + +"Oh, well then, what color was it? Maybe you can agree better on that." + +"Sort of mousy color," Knapp thought. + +"O Lord! Mousy colored!" groaned Dykeman under his breath. "Listen to +'em!" + +"Well, isn't it?" Knapp was a bit stung. + +"House mousy, or field mousy?" Cummings wanted to know. + +"Knapp's right enough," Whipple said with dignity. "The man's hair is a +medium brown--indeterminate brown." He glanced around the table at the +heads of hair under the electric lights. "Something the color of +Merrill's," and a director began stroking his hair nervously. + +"No, no; darker than Merrill's," broke in Kirkpatrick. "Isn't it, +Knapp?" + +"Why, I was going to say lighter," admitted the cashier, discouragedly. + +"Never mind," I sighed. "Forget the hair. Come on--what color are his +eyes?" + +"Blue," said Whipple. + +"Gray," said Knapp. + +"Brown," said Kirkpatrick. + +They all spoke in one breath. And as I despairingly laid down my pencil, +the last man repeated firmly, + +"Brown. But--they might be light brown--or hazel, y'know." + +"But, after all, Boyne," Whipple appealed to me, "you've got a fairly +accurate description of the man, one that fits him all right." + +"Does it? Then he's description proof. No moles, scars or visible +marks?" I suggested desperately. + +"None." There was a negative shaking of heads. + +"No mannerisms? No little tricks, such as a twist of the mouth, a +mincing step, or a head carried on one side?" + +More shakes of negation from the men who knew Clayte. + +"Well, at least you can tell me who are his friends--his intimates?" + +Nobody answered. + +"He must have friends?" I urged. + +"He hasn't," maintained Whipple. "Knapp is as close to him as any man in +San Francisco." + +The cashier squirmed, but said nothing. + +"But outside the bank. Who were his associates?" + +"Don't think he had any," from Knapp. + +"Relatives?" + +"None--I know he hadn't." + +"Girls? Lord! Didn't he have a girl?" + +"Not a girl." + +"No associates--no girl? For the love of Mike, what could such a man +intend to do with all that money?" I gasped. "Where did he spend his +time when he wasn't in the bank?" + +Whipple looked at his cashier for an answer. But Knapp was sitting, head +down, in a painful brown study, and the president himself began +haltingly. + +"Why, he was perhaps the one man in the bank that I knew least about. +The truth is he was so unobjectionable in every way, personally +unobtrusive, quite unimportant and uninteresting; really--er-- +un-everything, such a--a--" + +"Shadow," Cummings suggested. + +"That's the word--shadow--I never thought to inquire where he went till +he walked out of here this noon with the bank's money crammed in that +suitcase." + +"Was the Saturday suitcase a regular thing?" I asked, and Whipple looked +bewildered. But Knapp woke up with, + +"Oh, yes. For years. Studious fellow. Books to be exchanged at the +public library, I think. No--" Knapp spoke heavily. "Come to think of +it, guess that was special work. He told me once he was taking some sort +of correspondence course." + +"Special work!" chuckled Worth Gilbert. "I'll tell the world!" + +"Oh, well, give me a description of the suitcase," I hurried. + +"Brown. Sole-leather. That's all I ever noticed," from Whipple, a bit +stiffly. + +"Brass rings and lock, I suppose?" + +"Brass or nickel; I don't remember. What'd you say, Knapp?" + +"I wouldn't know now, if it was canvas and tin," replied the harried +cashier. + +"Gentlemen," I said, looking across at the clock, "since half-past two +my men have been watching docks, ferries, railroad stations, every +garage near the St. Dunstan, the main highways out of town. Seven of +them on the job, and in the first hour they made ten arrests, on that +description; and every time, sure they had their man. They thought, just +as you seem to think, that the bunch of words described something. We're +getting nowhere, gentlemen, and time means money here." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SIGHT UNSEEN + + +In the squabble and snatch of argument, given dignity only because it +concerned the recovery of near a million dollars, we seemed to have lost +Worth Gilbert entirely. He kept his seat, that chair he had taken +instantly when old Dykeman seemed to wish to have it denied him; but he +sat on it as though it were a lone rock by the sea. I didn't suppose he +was hearing what we said any more than he would have heard the mewing of +a lot of gulls, when, on a sudden silence, he burst out, + +"For heaven's sake, if you men can't decide on anything, sell me the +suitcase! I'll buy it, as it is, and clean up the job." + +"Sell you--the suitcase--Clayte's suitcase?" They sat up on the edge of +their chairs; bewildered, incredulous, hostile. Such a bunch is very +like a herd of cattle; anything they don't understand scares them. Even +the attorney studied young Gilbert with curious interest. I was mortal +glad I hadn't said what was the fact, that with the naming of the +enormous sum lost I was certain this was a sizable conspiracy with +long-laid plans. They were mistrustful enough as Whipple finally +questioned, + +"Is this a bona-fide offer, Captain Gilbert?" and Dykeman came in after +him. + +"A gambler's chance at stolen money--is that what you figure on buying, +sir? Is that it?" And heavy-faced Anson asked bluntly, + +"Who's to set the price on it? You or us? There's practically a million +dollars in that suitcase. It belongs to the bank. If you've got an idea +that you can buy up the chance of it for about fifty percent--you're +mistaken. We have too much faith in Mr. Boyne and his agency for that. +Why, at this moment, one of his men may have laid hands on Clayte, or +found the man who planned--" + +He stopped with his mouth open. I saw the same suspicion that had taken +his breath away grip momentarily every man at the table. A hint of it +was in Whipple's voice as he asked, gravely: + +"Do you bind yourself to pursue Clayte and bring him, if possible, to +justice?" + +"Bind myself to nothing. I'll give eight hundred thousand dollars for +that suitcase." + +He fumbled in his pocket with an interrogative look at Whipple, and, +"May I smoke in here?" and lit a cigarette without waiting a reply. + +Banking institutions take some pains to keep in their employ no young +men who are known to play poker; but a poker face at that board would +have acquired more than its share of dignity. As it was, you could see, +almost as though written there, the agonizing doubt running riot in +their faces as to whether Worth Gilbert was a young hero coming to the +bank's rescue, or a con man playing them for suckers. It was Knapp who +said at last, huskily, + +"I think we should close with Captain Gilbert's offer." The cashier had +a considerable family, and I knew his recently bought Pacific Avenue +home was not all paid for. + +"We might consider it," Whipple glanced doubtfully at his associates. +"If everything else fails, this might be a way out of the difficulty for +us." + +If everything else failed! President Whipple was certainly no poker +player. Worth Gilbert gave one swift look about the ring of faces, +pushed a brown, muscular left hand out on the table top, glancing at the +wrist watch there, and suggested brusquely, + +"Think it over. My offer holds for fifteen minutes. Time to get at all +the angles of the case. Huh! Gentlemen! I seem to have started +something!" + +For the directors and stockholders of the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank +were at that moment almost as yappy and snappy as a wolf pack. Dykeman +wanted to know about the one hundred and eighty seven thousand odd +dollars not covered by Worth's offer--did they lose that? Knapp was +urging that Clayte's bond, when they'd collected, would shade the loss; +Whipple reminding them that they'd have to spend a good deal--maybe a +great deal--on the recovery of the suitcase; money that Worth Gilbert +would have to spend instead if they sold to him; and finally an ugly +mutter from somewhere that maybe young Gilbert wouldn't have to spend so +very much to recover that suitcase--maybe he wouldn't! + +The tall young fellow looked thoughtfully at his watch now and again. +Cummings and I chipped into the thickest of the row and convinced them +that he meant what he said, not only by his offer, but by its time +limit. + +"How about publicity, if this goes?" Whipple suddenly interrogated, +raising his voice to top the pack-yell. "Even with eight hundred +thousand dollars in our vaults, a run's not a thing that does a bank any +good. I suppose," stretching up his head to see across his noisy +associates, "I suppose, Captain Gilbert, you'll be retaining Boyne's +agency? In that case, do you give him the publicity he wants?" + +"Course he does!" Dykeman hissed. "Can't you see? Damn fool wants his +name in the papers! Rotten story like this--about some lunatic buying a +suitcase with a million in it--would ruin any bank if it got into +print." Dykeman's breath gave out. "And--it's--it's--just the kind of +story the accursed yellow press would eat up. Let it alone, Whipple. Let +his damned offer alone. There's a joker in it somewhere." + +"There won't be any offer in about three minutes," Cummings quietly +reminded them. "If you'd asked my opinion--and giving you opinions is +what you pay me a salary for--I'd have said close with him while you +can." + +Whipple gave me an agonized glance. I nodded affirmatively. He put the +question to vote in a breath; the ayes had it, old Dykeman shouting +after them in an angry squeak. + +"No! No!" and adding as he glared about him, "I'd like to be able to +look a newspaper in the face; but never again! Never again!" + +I made my way over to Gilbert and stood in front of him. + +"You've bought something, boy," I said. "If you mean to keep me on as +your detective, you can assure these people that I'll do my darndest to +give information to the police and keep it out of the papers. What's +happened here won't get any further than this room--through me." + +"You're hired, Jerry Boyne." Gilbert slapped me on the back +affectionately. After all, he hadn't changed so much in his four years +over there; I began to see more than traces of the enthusiastic +youngster to whom I used to spin detective yarns in the grill at the St. +Francis or on the rocks by the Cliff House. "Sure, we'll keep it out of +the papers. Suits me. I'd rather not pose as the fool soon parted from +his money." + +The remark was apropos; Knapp had feverishly beckoned the lawyer over to +a little side desk; they were down at it, the light snapped on, writing, +trying to frame up an agreement that would hold water. One by one the +others went and looked on nervously as they worked; by the time they'd +finished something, everybody'd seen it but Worth; and when it was +finally put in his hands, all he seemed to notice was the one point of +the time they'd set for payment. + +"It'll be quite some stunt to get the amount together by ten o'clock +Monday," he said slowly. "There are securities to be converted--" + +He paused, and looked up on a queer hush. + +"Securities?" croaked Dykeman. "To be converted--? Oh!" + +"Yes," in some surprise. "Or would the bank prefer to have them turned +over in their present form?" + +Again a strained moment, broken by Whipple's nervous, + +"Maybe that would be better," and a quickly suppressed chuckle from +Cummings. + +The agreement was in duplicate. It gave Worth Gilbert complete ownership +of a described sole-leather suitcase and its listed contents, and, as he +had demanded, it bound him to nothing save the payment. Cummings said +frankly that the transaction was illegal from end to end, and that any +assurance as to the bank's ceasing to pursue Clayte would amount to +compounding a felony. Yet we all signed solemnly, the lawyer and I as +witnesses. A financier's idea of indecency is something about money +which hasn't formerly been done. The directors got sorer and sorer as +Worth Gilbert's cheerfulness increased. + +"Acts as though it were a damn' crap game," I heard Dykeman muttering to +Sillsbee, who came back vacuously. + +"Craps?--they say our boys did shoot craps a good deal over there. +Well--uh--they were risking their lives." + +And that's as near as any of them came, I suppose, to understanding how +a weariness of the little interweaving plans of tamed men had pushed +Worth Gilbert into carelessly staking his birthright on a chance that +might lend interest to life, a hazard big enough to breeze the staleness +out of things for him. + +We were leaving the bank, Gilbert and I ahead, Cummings right at my +boy's shoulder, the others holding back to speak together, (bitterly +enough, if I am any guesser) when Worth said suddenly, + +"You mentioned in there it's being illegal for the bank to give up the +pursuit of Clayte. Seems funny to me, but I suppose you know what +you're talking about. Anyhow"--he was lighting another cigarette and he +glanced sharply at Cummings across it--"anyhow, they won't waste their +money hunting Clayte now, should you say? That's my job. That's where I +get my cash back." + +"Oh, that's where, is it?" The lawyer's dry tone might have been +regarded as humorous. We stood in the deep doorway, hunching coat +collars, looking into the foggy street. Worth's interest in life seemed +to be freshening moment by moment. + +"Yes," he agreed briskly. "I'm going to keep you and Boyne busy for a +while. You'll have to show me how to hustle the payment for those +Shylocks, and Jerry's got to find the suitcase, so I can eat. But I'll +help him." + +Cummings stared at the boy. + +"Gilbert," he said, "where are you going?--right now, I mean." + +"To Boyne's office." + +We stepped out to the street where the line of limousines waited for the +old fellows inside, my own battleship-gray roadster, pretty well +hammered but still a mighty capable machine, far down at the end. As +Worth moved with me toward it, the lawyer walked at his elbow. + +"Seat for me?" he glanced at the car. "I've a few words of one syllable +to say to this young man--council that I ought to get in as early as +possible." + +I looked at little Pete dozing behind the wheel, and answered, + +"Take you all right, if I could drive. But I sprained my thumb on a +window lock looking over that room at the St. Dunstan." + +"I'll drive." Worth had circled the car with surprising quickness for so +large a man. I saw him on the other side, waiting for Pete to get out so +he could get in. Curious the intimate, understanding look he gave the +monkey as he flipped a coin at him with, "Buy something to burn, kid." +Pete's idea of Worth Gilbert would be quite different from that of the +directors in there. After all, human beings are only what we see them +from our varying angles. Pete slid down, looking back to the last at the +tall young fellow who was taking his place at the wheel. Cummings and I +got in and we were off. + +There in the machine, my new boss driving, Cummings sitting next him, I +at the further side, began the keen, cool probe after a truth which to +me lay very evidently on the surface. Any one, I would have said, might +see with half an eye that Worth Gilbert had bought Clayte's suitcase so +that he could get a thrill out of hunting for it. Cummings I knew had in +charge all the boy's Pacific Coast holdings; and since his mother's +death during the first year of the war, these were large. Worth +manifested toward them and the man who spoke to him of them the +indifference, almost contempt, of an impatient young soul who in the +years just behind him, had often wagered his chance of his morning's +coffee against some other fellow's month's pay feeling that he was +putting up double. + +It seemed the sense of ownership was dulled in one who had seen +magnificent properties masterless, or apparently belonging to some limp, +bloodstained bundle of flesh that lay in one of the rooms. In vain +Cummings urged the state of the market, repeating with more +particularity and force what Whipple had said. The mines were tied up by +strike; their stock, while perfectly good, was down to twenty cents on +the dollar; to sell now would be madness. Worth only repeated doggedly. + +"I've got to have the money--Monday morning--ten o'clock. I don't care +what you sell--or hock. Get it." + +"See here," the lawyer was puzzled, and therefore unprofessionally out +of temper. "Even sacrificing your stuff in the most outrageous manner, I +couldn't realize enough--not by ten o'clock Monday. You'll have to go to +your father. You can catch the five-five for Santa Ysobel." + +I could see Worth choke back a hot-tempered refusal of the suggestion. +The funds he'd got to have, even if he went through some humiliation to +get them. + +"At that," he said slowly, "father wouldn't have any great amount of +cash on hand. Say I went to him with the story--and took the cat-hauling +he'll give me--should I be much better off?" + +"Sure you would." Cummings leaned back. I saw he considered his point +made. "Whipple would rather take their own bank stock than anything +else. Your father has just acquired a big block of it. Act while there's +time. Better go out there and see him now--at once." + +"I'll think about it," Worth nodded. "You dig for me what you can and +never quit." And he applied himself to the demands of the down-town +traffic. + +"Well," Cummings said, "drop me at the next corner, please. I've got an +engagement with a man here." + +Worth swung in and stopped. Cummings left us. As we began to worm a slow +way toward my office, I suggested, + +"You'll come upstairs with me, and--er--sort of outline a policy? I +ought to have any possible information you can give me, so's not to make +any more wrong moves than we have to." + +"Information?" he echoed, and I hastened to amend, + +"I mean whatever notion you've got. Your theory, you know--" + +"Not a notion. Not a theory." He shook his head, eyes on the traffic +cop. "That's your part." + +I sat there somewhat flabbergasted. After all, I hadn't fully believed +that the boy had absolutely nothing to go on, that he had bought purely +at a whim, put up eight hundred thousand dollars on my skill at running +down a criminal. It sort of crumpled me up. I said so. He laughed a +little, ran up to the curb at the Phelan building, cut out the engine, +set the brake and turned to me with, + +"Don't worry. I'm getting what I paid for--or what I'm going to pay for. +And I've got to go right after the money. Suppose I meet you, say, at +ten o'clock to-night?" + +"Suits me." + +"At Tait's. Reserve a table, will you, and we'll have supper." + +"You're on," I said. "And plenty to do myself meantime." I hopped out on +my side. + +Worth sat in the roadster, not hurrying himself to follow up Cummings' +suggestion--the big boy, non-communicative, incurious, the question of +fortune lost or won seeming not to trouble him at all. I skirted the +machine and came round to him, demanding, + +"With whom do you suppose Cummings' engagement was?" + +"Don't know, Jerry, and don't care," looking down at me serenely. "Why +should I?" He swung one long leg free and stopped idly, half in the car, +half out. + +"What if I told you Cummings' engagement was with our friend +Dykeman--only Dykeman doesn't know it yet?" + +Slowly he brought that dangling foot down to the pavement, followed it +with the other, and faced me. Across the blankness of his features shot +a joyous gleam; it spread, brightening till he was radiant. + +"I get you!" he chortled. "Collusion! They think I'm standing in with +Clayte--Oh, boy!" + +He threw back his head and roared. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A WEDDING PARTY + + +I looked at my watch; quarter of ten; a little ahead of my appointment. +I ordered a telephone extension brought to this corner table I had +reserved at Tait's and got in touch with my office; then with the +knowledge that any new kink in the case would be reported immediately to +me, I relaxed to watch the early supper crowd arrive: Women in picture +hats and bare or half-bare shoulders with rich wraps slipping off them; +hum of voices; the clatter of silver and china; waiters beginning to +wake up and dart about settling new arrivals. And I wondered idly what +sort of party would come to sit around one long table across from me +specially decorated with pale tinted flowers. + +There was a sense of warmth and comfort at my heart. I am a lonely man; +the people I take to seem to have a way of passing on in the stream of +life--or death--leaving me with a few well-thumbed volumes on a shelf in +my rooms for consolation. Walt Whitman, Montaigne, The Bard, two or +three other lesser poets, and you've the friends that have stayed by me +for thirty years. And so, having met up with Worth Gilbert when he was a +youngster, at the time his mother was living in San Francisco to get a +residence for her divorce proceedings, having loved the boy and got I am +sure some measure of affection in return, it seemed almost too much to +ask of fate that he should come back into my days, plunge into such a +proposition as this bank robbery, right at my elbow as it were, and +make himself my employer--my boss. + +I was a subordinate in the agency in those old times when he and I used +to chin about the business, and his idea (I always discussed it gravely +and respectfully with him) was to grow up and go into partnership with +me. Well, we were partners now. + +Past ten, nearly five minutes. Where was he? What up to? Would he miss +his appointment? No, I caught a glimpse of him at the door getting rid +of hat and overcoat, pausing a moment with tall bent head to banter +Rose, the little Chinese girl who usually drifted from table to table +with cigars and cigarettes. Then he was coming down the room. + +A man who takes his own path in life, and will walk it though hell bar +the way, never explaining, never extenuating, never excusing his +course--something seems to emanate from such a chap that draws all eyes +after him in a public place in a look between fear and desire. Sitting +there in Tait's, my view of Worth cut off now by a waiter with a +high-carried tray, again by people passing to tables for whom he halted, +I had a good chance to see the turning of eyeballs that followed him, +the furtive glances that snatched at him, or fondled him, or would have +probed him; the admiration of the women, the envy of the men, curiously +alike in that it was sometimes veiled and half wistful, sometimes very +open. Drifters--you see so many of the sort in a restaurant--why +wouldn't they hanker after the strength and ruthlessness of a man like +Worth? And the poor prunes, how little they knew him! As my friend Walt +would say, he wasn't out after any of the old, smooth prizes they cared +for. And win or lose he would still be a victor, for all he and his +sort demand is freedom, and the joy of the game. So he came on to me. + +I noticed, a little startled, as he slumped into his chair with a grunt +of greeting, that his cheek was somehow gaunt and pale under the tan; +the blue fire of his eyes only smoldered, and I pulled back his chair +with, + +"You look as if you hadn't had any dinner." + +"I haven't." He gave a man-size order for food and turned back from it +to listen to me. "I'll be nearer human when I get some grub under my +belt." + +My report of what had been done on the case since we separated was +interrupted by the arrival of our orders, and Worth sailed into a thick, +juicy steak while I was still explaining details. The orchestra whanged +and blared and jazzed away; the people at the other tables noticed us or +busied themselves noisily with affairs of their own; Worth sat and +enjoyed his meal with the air of a man feeding at a solitary country +tavern. When he had finished--and he took his time about it--the worn, +punished look was gone from his face; his eye was bright, his tone +nonchalant, as he lighted a cigarette, remarking, + +"I've had one more good dinner. Food's a thing you can depend on; it +doesn't rake up your entire past record from the time you squirmed into +this world, and tell you what a fool you've always been." + +I turned that over in my mind. Did it mean that he'd seen his father and +got a calling down? I wanted to know--and was afraid to ask. The fact is +I was beginning to wake up to a good many things about my young boss. I +was intensely interested in his reactions on people. So far, I'd seen +him with strangers. I wished that I might have a chance to observe him +among intimates. Old Richardson who founded our agency (and would never +knowingly have left me at the head of it, though he did take me in as +partner, finally) used to say that the main trouble with me was I +studied people instead of cases. Richardson held that all men are equal +before the detective, and must be regarded only as queer shaped pieces +to be fitted together so as to make out a case. Richardson would have +gone as coolly about easing the salt of the earth into the chink labeled +"murder" or "embezzlement," as though neither had been human. With me +the personal equation always looms big, and of course he was quite right +in saying that it's likely to get you all gummed up. + +The telephone on the table before me rang. It was Roberts, my secretary, +with the word that Foster had lifted the watch from Ocean View, the +little town at the neck of the peninsula, where bay and ocean narrow the +passageway to one thoroughfare, over which every machine must pass that +goes by land from San Francisco. With two operatives, he had been on +guard there since three o'clock of the afternoon, holding up blond men +in cars, asking questions, taking notes and numbers. Now he reported it +was a useless waste of time. + +"Order him in," I instructed Roberts. + +A far-too-fat entertainer out on the floor was writhing in the pangs of +an Hawaiian dance. It took the attention of the crowd. I watched the +face of my companion for a moment, then, + +"Worth," I said a bit nervously--after all, I nearly had to know--"is +your father going to come through?" + +"Eh?" He looked at me startled, then put it aside negligently. "Oh, the +money? No. I'll leave that up to Cummings." A brief pause. "We'll get a +wiggle on us and dig up the suitcase." He lifted his tumbler, stared at +it, then unseeingly out across the room, and his lip twitched in a half +smile. "I'm sure glad I bought it." + +Looking at him, I had no reason to doubt his word. His enjoyment of the +situation seemed to grow with every detail I brought up. + +It was near eleven when the party came in to take the long, +flower-trimmed table. Worth's back was to the room; I saw them over his +shoulder, in the lead a tall blonde, very smartly dressed, but not in +evening clothes; in severe, exclusive street wear. The man with her, +good looking, almost her own type, had that possessive air which seems +somehow unmistakable--and there was a look about the half dozen +companions after them, as they settled themselves in a great flurry of +scraping chairs, that made me murmur with a grin, + +"Bet that's a wedding party." + +Worth gave them one quick glance, then came round to me with a smile. + +"You win. Married at Santa Ysobel this afternoon. Local society event. +Whole place standing on its hind legs, taking notice." + +So he had been down to the little town to see his father after all. And +he wasn't going to talk about it. Oh, well. + +"Friends of yours?" I asked perfunctorily, and he gave me a queer look +out of the corners of those wicked eyes, repeating in an enjoying drawl. + +"Friends? Oh, hardly that. The girl I was to have married, and Bronson +Vandeman--the man she has married." + +I had wanted to get a more intimate line on the kid--it seemed that here +was a chance with a vengeance! + +"The rest of the bunch?" I suggested. He took a leisurely survey, and +gave them three words: + +"Family and accomplices." + +"Santa Ysobel people, too, then. Folks you know well?" + +"Used to." + +"The lady changed her mind while you were across?" I risked the query. + +"While I was shedding my blood for my country." He nodded. "Gave me the +butt while the Huns were using the bayonet on me." + +In the careless jeer, as much at himself as at her, no hint what his +present feeling might be toward the fashion plate young female across +there. With some fellows, in such a situation, I should have looked for +a disposition to duck the encounter; let his old sweetheart's wedding +party leave without seeing him; with others I should have discounted a +dramatic moment when he would court the meeting. It was impossible to +suppose either thing of Worth Gilbert; plain that he simply sat there +because he sat there, and would make no move toward the other table +unless something in that direction interested him--pleasantly or +unpleasantly--which at present nothing seemed to do. + +So we smoked, Worth indifferent, I giving all the attention to the +people over there: bride and groom; a couple of fair haired girls so +like the bride that I guessed them to be sisters; a freckled, impudent +looking little flapper I wasn't so sure of; two older men, and an older +woman. Then a shifting of figures gave me sight of a face that I hadn't +seen before, and I drew in my breath with a whistle. + +"Whew! Who's the dark girl? She's a beauty!" + +"Dark girl?" Worth had interest enough to lean into the place where I +got my view; after he did so he remained to stare. I sat and grinned +while he muttered, + +"Can't be.... I believe it is!" + +Something to make him sit up and take notice now. I didn't wonder at his +fixed study of the young creature. Not so dressed up as the others--I +think she wore what ladies call an evening blouse with a street suit; a +brunette, but of a tinting so delicate that she fairly sparkled, she +took the shine off those blonde girls. Her small beautifully formed, +uncovered head had the living jet of the crow's wing; her great eyes, +long-lashed and sumptuously set, showed ebon irises almost obliterating +the white. Dark, shining, she was a night with stars, that girl. + +"Funny thing," Worth spoke, moving his head to keep in line with that +face. "How could she grow up to be like this--a child that wasn't +allowed any childhood? Lord, she never even had a doll!" + +"Some doll herself now," I smiled. + +"Yeh," he assented absently, "she's good looking--but where did she +learn to dress like that--and play the game?" + +"Where they all learn it." I enjoyed very much seeing him interested. +"From her mother, and her sisters, or the other girls." + +"Not." He was positive. "Her mother died when she was a baby. Her father +wouldn't let her be with other children--treated her like one of the +instruments in his laboratory; trained her in her high chair; problems +in concentration dumped down into its tray, punishment if she made a +failure; God knows what kind of a reward if she succeeded; maybe no more +than her bowl of bread and milk. That's the kind of a deal she got when +she was a kid. And will you look at her now!" + +If he kept up his open staring at the girl, it would be only a matter of +time when the wedding party discovered him. I leaned back in my chair to +watch, while Worth, full of his subject, spilled over in words. + +"Never played with anybody in her life--but me," he said unexpectedly. +"They lived next house but one to us; the professor had the rest of the +Santa Ysobel youngsters terrorized, backed off the boards; but I wasn't +a steady resident of the burg. I came and went, and when I came, it was +playtime for the little girl." + +"What was her father? Crank on education?" + +"Psychology," Worth said briefly. "International reputation. But he +ought to have been hung for the way he brought Bobs up. Listen to this, +Jerry. I got off the train one time at Santa Ysobel--can't remember just +when, but the kid over there was all shanks and eyes--'bout ten or +eleven, I'd say. Her father had her down at the station doing a stunt +for a bunch of professors. That was his notion of a nice, normal +development for a small child. There she sat poked up cross-legged on a +baggage truck. He'd trained her to sit in that self balanced position so +she could make her mind blank without going to sleep. A freight train +was hitting a twenty mile clip past the station, and she was adding the +numbers on the sides of the box cars, in her mind. It kept those +professors on the jump to get the figures down in their notebooks, but +she told them the total as the caboose was passing." + +"Some stunt," I agreed. "Freight car numbers run up into the +ten-thousands." Worth didn't hear me, he was still deep in the past. + +"Poor little white-faced kid," he muttered. "I dumped my valises, horned +into that bunch, picked her off the truck and carried her away on my +shoulder, while the professor yelled at me, and the other ginks were +tabbing up their additions. And I damned every one of them, to hell and +through it." + +"You must have been a popular youth in your home town," I suggested. + +"I was," he grinned. "My reason for telling you that story, though, is +that I've got an idea about the girl over there--if she hasn't changed +too much. I think maybe we might--" + +He stood up calmly to study her, and his tall figure instantly drew the +attention of everybody in the room. Over at the long table it was the +sharp, roving eye of the snub-nosed flapper that spied him first. I saw +her give the alarm and begin pushing back her chair to bolt right across +and nab him. The sister sitting next stopped her. Judging from the +glimpses I had as the party spoke together and leaned to look, it was +quite a sensation. But apparently by common consent they left whatever +move was to be made to the bride; and to my surprise this move was most +unconventional. She got up with an abrupt gesture and started over to +our table--alone. This, for a girl of her sort, was going some. I +glanced doubtfully at Worth. He shrugged a little. + +"Might as well have it over. Her family lives on one side of us, and +Brons Vandeman on the other." + +And then the bride was with us. She didn't overdo the thing--much; only +held out her hand with a slightly pleading air as though half afraid it +would be refused. And it was a curious thing to see that pretty, +delicate featured, schooled face of hers naively drawn in lines of +emotion--like a bisque doll registering grief. + +Gilbert took the hand, shook it, and looked around with the evident +intention of presenting me. I saw by the way the lady gave me her +shoulder, pushing in, speaking low, that she didn't want anything of the +sort, and quietly dropped back. I barely got a side view of Worth's +face, but plainly his calmness was a disappointment to her. + +"After these years!" I caught the fringes of what she was saying. "It +seems like a dream. To-night--of all times. But you will come over to +our table--for a minute anyhow? They're just going to--to drink our +health--Oh, Worth!" That last in a sort of impassioned whisper. And all +he answered was, + +"If I might bring Mr. Boyne with me, Mrs. Vandeman." At her protesting +expression, he finished, "Or do I call you Ina, still?" + +She gave him a second look of reproach, acknowledging my introduction in +that way some women have which assures you they don't intend to know you +in the least the next time. We crossed to the table and met the others. + +If anybody had asked my opinion, I should have said it was a mistake to +go. Our advent in that party--or rather Worth Gilbert's advent--was +bound to throw the affair into a sort of consternation. No mistake about +that. The bridegroom at the head of the table seemed the only one able +to keep a grip on the situation. He welcomed Worth as though he wanted +him, took hold of me with a glad hand, and presented me in such rapid +succession to everybody there that I was dizzy. And through it all I had +an eye for Worth as he met and disposed of the effusive welcome of the +younger Thornhill girls. Either of the twins, as I found them to be, +would, I judged, have been more than willing to fill out sister Ina's +unexpired term, and the little snub-nosed one, also a sister it seemed, +plainly adored him as a hero, sexlessly, as they sometimes can at that +age. + +While yet he shook hands with the girls, and swapped short replies for +long questions, I became conscious of something odd in the air. Plain +enough sailing with the young ladies; all the noise with them echoed the +bride's, "After all these years." They clattered about whether he looked +like his last photograph, and how perfectly delightful it was going to +be to have him back in Santa Ysobel again. + +But when it came to the chaperone, a Mrs. Dr. Bowman, things were +different. No longer young, though still beautiful in what I might call +a sort of wasted fashion, with slim wrists and fragile fingers, and a +splendid mass of rich, auburn hair, I had been startled, even looking +across from our table, by the extreme nervous tension of her face. She +looked a neurasthenic; but that was not all; surely her nerves were +almost from under control as she sat there, her rich cloak dropped back +over her chair, the corners caught up again and fumbled in a twisting, +restless hold. + +Now, when Worth stood before her appealing eyes, she reached up and +clutched his hand in both of hers, staring at him through quick tears, +saying something in a low, choking tone, something that I couldn't for +the life of me make into the greeting you give even a beloved youngster +you haven't seen for several years. + +At the moment, I was myself being presented to the lady's husband, a +typical top-grade, small town medical man, with a fine bedside manner. +His nice, smooth white hands, with which I had watched him feeling the +pulse of his supper as though it had been a wealthy patient, released +mine; those cold eyes of his, that hid a lot of meaning under heavy +lids, came around on his wife. His, + +"Laura, control yourself. Where do you think you are?" was like a lash. + +It worked perfectly. Of course she would be his patient as well as his +wife. Yet I hated the man for it. To me it seemed like the cut of the +whip that punishes a sensitive, over excited Irish setter for a fault in +the hunting field. Mrs. Bowman quivered, pulled herself together and sat +down, but her gaze followed the boy. + +She sat there stilled, but not quieted, under her husband's eye, and +watched Worth's meeting with the other man, whom I heard the boy call +Jim Edwards, and with whom he shook hands, but who met him, as Mrs. +Bowman had, as though there had been something recent between them; not +like people bridging a long gap of absence. + +And this man, tall, thin, the power in his features contradicted by a +pair of soft dark eyes, deep-set, looking out at you with an expression +of bafflement, defeat--why did he face Worth with the stare of one +drenched, drowned in woe? It wasn't his wedding. He hadn't done Worth +any dirt in the matter. + +And I was wedged in beside the beautiful dark girl, without having been +presented to her, without even having had the luck to hear what name +Worth used when he spoke to her. At last the flurry of our coming +settled down (though I still felt that we were stuck like a sliver into +the wedding party, that the whole thing ached from us) and Dr. Bowman +proposed the health of the happy couple, his bedside manner going over +pretty well, as he informed Vandeman and the rest of us that the +bridegroom was a social leader in Santa Ysobel, and that the hope of its +best people was to place him and his bride at the head of things there, +leading off with the annual Blossom Festival, due in about a fortnight. + +Vandeman responded for himself and his bride, appropriately, with what +I'd call a sort of acceptable, fabricated geniality. You could see he +was the kind that takes such things seriously, one who would go to work +to make a success of any social doings he got into, would give what his +set called good parties; and he spoke feelingly of the Blossom Festival, +which was the great annual event of a little town. If by putting his +shoulder to the wheel he could boost that affair into nation-wide fame +and place a garland of rich bloom upon the brow of his fair city, he was +willing to take off his neatly tailored coat, roll up his immaculate +shirtsleeves and go to it. + +There was no time for speech making. The girls wanted to dance; bride +and groom were taking the one o'clock train for the south and Coronado. +The orchestra swung into "I'll Say She Does." + +"Just time for one." Vandeman guided his bride neatly out between the +chairs, and they moved away. I turned from watching them to find Worth +asking Mrs. Bowman to dance. + +"Oh, Worth, _dearest_! I ought to let one of the girls have you, but--" + +She looked helplessly up at him; he smiled down into her tense, +suffering face, and paid no attention to her objections. As soon as he +carried her off, Jim Edwards glumly took out that one of the twins I had +at first supposed to be the elder, the remaining Thornhill girls moved +on Dr. Bowman and began nagging him to hunt partners for them. + +"Drag something up here," prompted the freckled tomboy, "or I'll make +you dance with me yourself." She grabbed a coat lapel, and started away +with him. + +I turned and laughed into the laughing face of the dark girl. I had no +idea of her name, yet a haunting resemblance, a something somehow +familiar came across to me which I thought for a moment was only the +sweet approachableness of her young femininity. + +Bowman had found and collared a partner for Ernestine Thornhill, but +that was as far as it went. The little one forebore her threat of making +him dance with her, came back to her chair and tucked herself in, +snuggling up to the girl beside me, getting hold of a hand and looking +at me across it. She rejoiced, it seems, in the nickname of Skeet, for +by that the other now spoke to her whisperingly, saying it was too bad +about the dance. + +"That's nothing," Skeet answered promptly. "I'd a lot rather sit here +and talk to you--and your gentleman friend--" with a large wink for +me--"if you don't mind." + +At the humorous, intimate glance which again passed between me and the +dark girl, sudden remembrance came to me, and I ejaculated, + +"I know you now!" + +"Only now?" smiling. + +"You've changed a good deal in seven years," I defended myself. + +"And you so very little," she was still smiling, "that I had almost a +mind to come and shake hands with you when Ina went to speak to Worth." + +I remembered then that it was Worth's recognition of her which had +brought him to his feet. I told her of it, and the glowing, vivid face +was suddenly all rosy. Skeet regarded the manifestation askance, asking +jealously, + +"When did you see Worth last, Barbie? You weren't still living in Santa +Ysobel when he left, were you?" + +I sat thinking while the girlish voices talked on. Barbie--the nickname +for Barbara. Barbara Wallace; the name jumped at me from a poster; +that's where I first saw it. It linked itself up with what Worth had +said over there about the forlorn childhood of this beguiling young +charmer. Why hadn't I remembered then? I, too, had my recollections of +Barbara Wallace. About seven years before, I had first seen her, a +slim, dark little thing of twelve or fourteen, very badly dressed in +slinky, too-long skirts that whipped around preposterously thin ankles, +blue-black hair dragged away from a forehead almost too fine, made into +a bundle of some fashion that belonged neither to childhood nor +womanhood, her little, pointed face redeemed by a pair of big black eyes +with a wonderful inner light, the eyes of this girl glowing here at my +left hand. + +The father Worth spoke of brusquely as "the professor" was Elman +Wallace, to whom all students of advanced psychology are heavily +indebted. The year I heard him, and saw the girl, his course of lectures +at Stanford University was making quite a stir. I had been one of a +bunch of criminologists, detectives and police chiefs who, during a +state convention were given a demonstration of the little girl's powers, +closing with a sort of rapid pantomime in which I was asked to take +part. A half dozen of us from the audience planned exactly what we were +to do. I rushed into the room through one door, holding my straw hat in +my left hand, and wiping my brow with a handkerchief with the right. +From an opposite door, came two men; one of them fired at me twice with +a revolver held in his left hand. I fell, and the second man--the one +who wasn't armed--ran to me as I staggered, grabbed my hat, and the two +of them went out the door I had entered, while I stumbled through the +one by which they had come in. It lasted all told, not half a minute, +the idea being for those who looked on to write down what had happened. + +Those trained criminologists, supposed to have eyes in their heads, +didn't see half that really took place, and saw a-plenty that did not. +Most of 'em would have hung the man who snatched my hat. Only one, I +remember, noticed that I was shot by a left-handed man. Then the little +girl told us what really had occurred, every detail, just as though she +had planned it instead of being merely an observer. + +"Pardon me," I broke in on the girls. "Miss Wallace, you don't mean to +say that you really know me again after seeing me once, seven years ago, +in a group of other men at a public performance?" + +"Why shouldn't I? You saw me then. You knew me again." + +"But you were doing wonderful things. We remember what strikes us as +that did me." + +She looked at me with a little fading of that glow her face seemed +always to hold. + +"Most memories are like that," she agreed listlessly. "Mine isn't. It +works like a cinema camera; I've only to turn the crank the other way to +be looking at any past record." + +"But can you--?" I was beginning, when Skeet stopped me, leaning around +her companion, bristling at me like a snub-nosed terrier. + +"If you want to make a hit with Barbie, cut out the reminiscences. She +does loathe being reminded that she was once an infant phenom." + +I glanced at my dark eyed girl; she bent her head affirmatively. She +wouldn't have been capable of Skeet's rudeness, but plainly Skeet had +not overstated her real feeling. I had hardly begun an apology when the +dancers rushed back to the table with the information that there was no +more than time to make the Los Angeles train; there was an instant +grasping of wraps, hasty good-bys, and the party began breaking up with +a bang. Worth went out to the sidewalk with them; I sat tight waiting +for him to return, and to my surprise, when he finally did appear, +Barbara Wallace was with him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +AN APPARITION + + +"Don't look so scared!" she said smilingly to me. "I'm only on your +hands a few minutes; a package left to be called for." + +I had watched them coming back to me at our old table, with its +telephone extension, the girl with eyes for no one but Worth, who helped +her out of her wrap now with a preoccupied air and, + +"Shed the coat, Bobs," adding as he seated her beside him, "The luck of +luck that I chanced on you here this evening." + +That brought the color into her face; the delicate rose shifted under +her translucent skin almost with the effect of light, until that +lustrous midnight beauty of hers was as richly glowing as one of those +marvellous dark opals of the antipodes. + +"Yes," she said softly, with a smile that set two dimples deep in the +pink of her cheeks, "wasn't it strange our meeting this way?" Worth +wasn't looking at her. He'd signaled a waiter, ordered a pot of black +coffee, and was watching its approach. "I didn't go down to the wedding, +but Ina herself invited me to come here to-night. I had half a mind not +to; then at the last minute I decided I would--and I met you!" + +Worth nodded, sat there humped in a brown study while the waiter poured +our coffee. The minute the man left us alone, he turned to her with, + +"I've got a stunt for you." + +"A--a stunt?" + +The light failed abruptly in her face; her mouth with its soft, firm +molding, its vivid, floral red, like the lips of a child, went down a +bit at the clean-cut corners. A small hand fumbled the trimming of her +blouse; it was almost as if she laid it over a wounded heart. + +"Yes," he nodded. "Jerry's got something in his pocket that'll be pie +for you." + +She turned to me a look between angry and piteous--the resentment she +would not vent on him. + +"Is--is Mr. Boyne interested in stunts--such as I used to do?" + +"Sure," Worth agreed. "We both are. We--" + +"Oh, that was why you wanted me to come back with you?" She had got hold +of herself now. She was more poised, but still resentful. + +"Bobs," he cut straight across her mood to what he wanted, "Jerry Boyne +is going to read you something it took about 'steen blind people to +see--and you'll give us the answer." I didn't share his confidence, but +I rather admired it as he finished, poising the tongs, "One lump, or +two?" + +Of course I knew what he meant. My hand was already fumbling in my +pocket for the description of Clayte. The girl looked as though she +wasn't going to answer him; she moved to shove back her chair. Worth's +only recognition of her attitude was to put out a hand quietly, touch +her arm, not once looking at her, and say in a lowered tone, + +"Steady, Bobs." And then, "Did you say one lump or two?" + +"None." Her voice was scarcely audible, but I saw she was going to stay; +that Worth was to have his way, to get from her the opinion he +wanted--whatever that might amount to. And I passed the paper to him, +suggesting, + +"Let her read it. This is too public a place to be declaiming a thing of +the sort." + +She hesitated a minute then gave it such a mere flirt of a glance that I +hardly thought she'd seen what it was, before she raised inquiring eyes +to mine and asked coldly, + +"Why shouldn't that be read--shouted every ten minutes by the traffic +officer at Market and Kearny? They'd only think he was paging every +other man in the Palace Hotel." + +I leaned back and chuckled. After a bare glance, this sharp witted girl +had hit on exactly what I'd thought of the Clayte description. + +"Is that all? May I go now, Worth?" she said, still with that dashed, +disappointed look from one of us to the other. "If you'll just put me on +a Haight Street car--I won't wait for--" And now she made a definite +movement to rise; but again Worth held her by the mere touch of his +fingers on her sleeve. + +"Wait, Bobs," he said. "There's more." + +"More?" Her eyes on Worth's face talked louder than her tongue, but that +also gained fluency as he looked back at her and nodded. "Stunts!" she +repeated his word bitterly. "I didn't expect you to come back asking me +to do stunts. I hated it all so--working out things like a calculating +machine!" Her voice sank to a vehement undertone. "Nobody thinking of +me as human, with human feelings. I have never--done--one stunt--since +my father died." + +She didn't weaken. She sat there and looked Worth squarely in the eye, +yet there was a kind of big gentleness in her refusal, a freedom from +petty resentment, that had in it not so much a girl's hurt vanity as the +outspoken complaint of a really grieved heart. + +"But, Bobs," Worth smiled at her trouble, about the same careless, +good-natured smile he had given little Pete when he flipped him the +quarter, "suppose you could possibly save me a hundred thousand dollars +a minute?" + +"Then it's not just a stunt?" She settled slowly back in her chair. + +"Certainly not," I said. "This is business--with me, anyhow. Miss +Wallace, why do you think a description like that could be shouted on +the street without any one being the wiser?" + +"Was it supposed to be a description?" she asked, raising her brows a +bit. + +"The best we could get from sixteen or eighteen people, most of whom +have known the man a long time; some of them for eight years." + +"And no one--not one of all these people could differentiate him?" + +"I've done my best at questioning them." + +She gave me one straight, level look, and I wondered a little at the way +those velvety black eyes could saw into a fellow. But she put no query, +and I had the cheap satisfaction of knowing that she was convinced I'd +overlooked no details in the quiz that went to make up that +description. Then she turned to Worth. + +"You said I might save you a lot of money. Has the man you're trying +here to describe anything to do with money--in large amounts--financial +affairs of importance?" + +Again the little girl had unconsciously scored with me. To imagine a +rabbit like Clayte, alone, swinging such an enormous job was ridiculous. +From the first, my mind had been reaching after the others--the +big-brained criminals, the planners whose instrument he was. She +evidently saw this, but Worth answered her. + +"He's quite a financier, Bobs. He walked off with nearly a million cash +to-day." + +"From you?" with a quick breath. + +"I'm the main loser if he gets away with it." + +"Tell me about it." + +And Worth gave her a concise account of the theft and his own share in +the affair. She listened eagerly now, those innocent great eyes growing +big with the interest of it. With her there was no blind stumbling over +Worth's motive in buying a suitcase sight unseen. I had guessed, but she +understood completely and unquestioningly. When he had finished, she +said solemnly, + +"You know, don't you, that, if you've got your facts right--if these +things you've told me are square, even cubes of fact--they prove Clayte +among the wonderful men of the world?" + +Worth's big brown paw went out and covered her little hand that lay on +the table's edge. + +"Now we're getting somewhere," he encouraged her. As for me, I merely +snorted. + +"Wonderful man, my eye! He's got a wonderful gang behind him." + +"Oh, you should have told me that you know there is a gang, Mr. Boyne," +she said simply. "Of course, then, the result is different." + +"Well," I hedged, "there's a gang all right. But suppose there wasn't, +how would you find any wonderfulness in a creature as near nothing as +this Clayte?" + +She sat and thought for a moment, drawing imaginary lines on the table +top, finally looking up at me with a narrowing of the lids, a tightening +of the lips, which gave an extraordinary look of power to her young +feminine face. + +"In that case, Clayte would inevitably be one of the wonderful men of +the world," she repeated her characterization with the placid, soft +obstinacy of falling, snow. "Didn't you stop a minute--one little +minute, Mr. Boyne--to think it wonderful that a man so devoid of +personality as that--" she slanted a slim finger across the description +of Clayte--"Didn't you add up in your mind all that you told me about +the men disagreeing as to which side he parted his hair on, whether he +wore tan shoes or black, a fedora or derby, smoked or didn't,-- +absolutely nothing left as to peculiarities of face, figure, movement, +expression, manner or habit to catch the eye of one single +observer among the sixteen or eighteen you questioned--surely you added +that up, Mr. Boyne? What result did you get?" + +"Nothing," I admitted. "To hear you repeat it, of course it sounds as if +the man was a freak. But he wasn't. He was just one of those fellows +that are born utterly commonplace, and slide through life without +getting any marks put on 'em." + +"And is it nothing that this man became a teller in a bank without +infringing at all on the circle of his nothingness? Remained so shadowy +that neither the president nor cashier can, after eight years' +association, tell the color of his hair and eyes? Then add the fact that +he is the one clerk in the bank without a filed photograph and +description on record with your agency--what result now, Mr. Boyne?" + +"A coincidence," I said, rather hastily. + +"Don't, please, Mr. Boyne!" her eyes glowed softly as she smiled her +mild sarcasm. "Admit that he has ceased to be a freak and becomes a +marvel." + +"As you put it--" I began, but she cut in on me with, + +"I haven't put it yet. Listen." She was smiling still, but it was plain +she was thoroughly in earnest. "When this cipher--this nought--this +zero--manages to annex to himself a million dollars that doesn't belong +to him, his nothingness gains a specific meaning. The zero is an +important factor in mathematics. I think we have placed a digit before +the long string of ciphers of Clayte's nothingness." + +"Nothing and nothing--make nothing." I spoke more brusquely because I +was irritated by her logic. "You called the turn when you spoke of him +as a zero. There are digits to be added, but they're the gang that +planned and helped--and used zero Clayte as their tool. You're talking +of those digits, not Clayte." + +"I believe Bobs'll find them for you, Jerry--if you'll let her," said +Worth. + +"Oh, I'll let anybody do anything"--a bit nettled. "I'm ready to have +our friend Clayte take his place, with the pyramids and the hanging +gardens of Babylon, among the earth's wonders; but you've got to show +me." + +"All right." Worth gave the girl a look that brought something of that +wonderful rose flush fluttering back into her cheeks. "I'm betting on +her. Go to it, Bobsie--let him in on your mathematical logic." + +"You used the word 'coincidence,' Mr. Boyne." She leaned across toward +me, eyes bright, little finger tip marking her points. "Allow one +coincidence--that the only description, the only photograph missing from +your files are those of the self-effacing Clayte. To-day Clayte has +proved to be a thief--" + +"In seven figures," Worth threw in, and she smiled at him. + +"You would call that another coincidence, Mr. Boyne?" + +I nodded, rather unable at the moment to think of a better word to use. + +"Two coincidences," she went on,--"we are still in mathematics--you +can't add. They run by geometrical progression into the impossible." + +The phone rang. While I turned to answer it, my mind was still hunting a +comeback to this. The call was from Foster, just in from Ocean View and +reporting for instructions. Covering the transmitter with my hand, I +told Worth the situation and asked, + +"Any suggestions?" + +"Not I," he shook his head. I added, a bit sarcastically, + +"Or you, Miss Wallace?" + +"Yes," she surprised me. "Have your man Foster find three women who have +seen Edward Clayte; get from them the color of his hair and eyes; tell +him to have them be exact about it." + +"Fine! But you know they'll not agree, any more than the other people +agreed." + +"Oh, yes they will," she laughed at me a little. "Don't you notice that +a girl always says a blue-eyed man or a brown-eyed man? That's what she +sees when she first meets him, and it sticks in her mind. Girls and +women sort out people by types; small differences in color mean +something to them." + +I didn't keep Foster waiting any longer. + +"Hello," I spoke quickly into the transmitter. "Get busy and dig out any +women clerks of the bank, stenographers, scrub-women there, or whatever, +and ask them particularly as to the exact shade of Clayte's hair and +eyes. Get Mrs. Griggsby again at the St. Dunstan. I want at least three +women who can give these points exactly. Exactly, understand?" + +He did, and I thanked Miss Wallace for her suggestion. + +"Now that," I said, "is what I want; a good, practical idea--" + +"And it won't be a bit of use in the world to you," she laughed across +the table into my eyes. "Why, Mr. Boyne, you've found out already that +there are too many Edward Claytes, speaking in physical terms, for you +to run one down by description. There are three of him here, within +sight of our table right now--and the place isn't crowded." + +I grinned in half grudging agreement, and found nothing to say. It was +Worth who spoke. + +"Like to have you go a step further in this, if you would," and when she +shook her head, he went on a bit sharply. "See here, Bobs; you and I +used to be pals, didn't we?" She nodded, her look brightening. "Well +then, here's the biggest game I've been up against since I crawled out +of the trenches and shucked my uniform. I come to you and give you the +high-sign--and you throw me down. You don't want to play with me--is +that it?" + +"Oh, Worth! I do. I do want to play with you," she was almost in tears +now. "But you see, I didn't quite understand. I felt as though you were +sort of putting me through my paces." + +"Sure not," Worth drove it at her like a turbulent urchin. "I'm having +the time of my young life with this thing, and I want to take you in on +it." + +"If--if you fail you lose a lot of money; wasn't that what you said?" +she questioned. + +"Oh, yes," he nodded, "Nothing in it if there weren't a gamble." + +"And if he wins out, he makes quite a respectable pile," I added. + +"What I want of you now," he explained, "is to go with us to Clayte's +room at the St. Dunstan--the room he disappeared from--look it over and +tell us how he got out and where he went." + +He made his request light-heartedly; she considered it after the same +fashion; it seemed to me all absurdity. + +"To-morrow morning--Sunday," she said. "No office to-morrow," she sipped +the last of her black coffee slowly. "All the rest of the facts there +ever will be about Edward Clayte are in that room--aren't they?" Her +voice was musing; she looked straight ahead of her as she finished +softly, "What time do we go?" + +"Early. Does nine o'clock suit you?" Worth didn't even glance at me as +he made this arrangement for us both. "We'd scoot up there now if it +wasn't so late." + +"I've no doubt you'll find the place carpeted with zeros and hung with +noughts and ciphers." I couldn't refrain from joshing her a little. She +took it with a smile glanced across the room, looked a little surprised, +and half rose with, + +"Why, there they are for me now." + +I couldn't see anybody that she might mean, except a man who had walked +the length of the place talking to the head waiter, and now stood +arguing at the corner of what had been Bronson Vandeman's supper table. +This man evidently had his attention directed to us, turned, looked, and +in the moment of his crossing I saw that it was Cummings. There was not +even the usual tight-lipped half smile under that cropped mustache of +his. + +"Good evening." He looked at our faces, uttering none of the surprise he +plainly felt, letting the two words do for greeting to us all, and, as +it seemed, to me, an expression of disapproval as well. The young lady +replied first. + +"Oh, Mr. Cummings, did they send you for me? Where are the others?" + +She had come to her feet, and reached for the coat which Worth was +holding more as if he meant to keep it than put it on her. + +"I left your chaperone waiting in the machine," Cumming's tone and look +carried a plain hurry-up. Worth took his time about the coat, and spoke +low to the girl while he helped her into it. + +"You'll go with us to-morrow morning?" + +She gave me one of those adorable smiles that brought the dimples +momentarily in her cheeks. + +"If Mr. Boyne wants me. He hasn't said yet." + +"Do I need to?" I asked. The question seemed reasonable. There she +stood, such a very pretty girl, between her two cavaliers who looked at +each other with all the traditional hostility that belonged to the +situation. She smiled on both, and didn't neglect me. I settled the +matter with, + +"Worth has your address; we'll call for you in my machine." And I got +the idea that Cummings was asking questions about it as he went away +holding her arm. + +"Do you think the little girl will really be of any use?" I spoke to the +back of Worth's head as he continued to stare after them. + +"Sure. I know she will." He shoved his crumpled napkin in among the +coffee service, and we moved toward the desk. "Sure she will," he +repeated. "Wonder where she met Cummings." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AT THE ST. DUNSTAN + + +At the Palace Hotel Sunday morning where I went to pick up Worth before +we should call for little Miss Wallace, he met me in high spirits and +with an enthusiasm that demanded immediate physical action. + +"Heh," I said, "you look fine. Must have slept well." + +"Make it rested, and I'll go you," he came back cheerfully. + +He'd already been out, going down to the Grant Avenue corner for an +assortment of Bay cities papers not to be had at the hotel news-stands, +so that he could see whether our canny announcement of Clayte's fifteen +thousand dollar defalcation had received discreet attention from the +Associated Press. + +For my part, our agency had been able to get hold of three women who had +seen Clayte and remembered the event; Mrs. Griggsby; a stenographer at +the bank; and the woman who sold newspapers at the St. Dunstan corner. +Miss Wallace's suggestion had proven itself, for these three agreed with +fair exactness, and the description run in the late editions of the city +papers was less vague than the others. It gave Clayte's eyes as a pale +gray-blue, and his hair as dull brown, eliminating at least all +brown-eyed men. Worth asserted warmly, + +"That girl's going to be useful to us, Boyne." I couldn't well disagree +with him, after using her hint. We were getting out of the elevator on +the office floor when he looked at me, grinned boyishly, and added, +"What would you say if I told you I was being shadowed?" + +"That I thought it very likely," I nodded. "Also I might hazard a guess +at whose money is paying for it." + +He gave me a quick glance, but asked no questions. I could see he was +enjoying his position, up to the hilt, considered the attentions of a +trailer as one of its perquisites. + +"Keep your eyes open and you'll spot him as we go out," he said as he +left the key at the desk. + +It was hardly necessary to keep my eyes open to see the lurking figure +over beyond the easy-chairs, which started galvanically as we passed +through the court, and a moment later came sidling after us. Little Pete +had left my machine at the Market Street entrance--Worth was to drive +me--and we wheeled away from a disappointed man racing for the taxi line +around the corner. + +"More power to his legs," Worth said. + +"Oh, I don't know," I grunted as we cut into Montgomery, negotiated the +corner onto Bush Street's clear way, striking a fair clip at once. "That +end of him already works better than the other. How did you get wise?" + +"Barbara Wallace telephoned me to look out for him," he smiled, and let +my car out another notch once we'd passed the traffic cop at Kearny. + +I myself had foreseen the possibility--but only as a possibility--that +Dykeman would put a man on Worth's coat-tails, since I knew Dykeman and +had been at that bank meeting; yet I had not regarded it as likely +enough to warn Worth; and here was this girl phoning him to look out for +a trailer. Was this some more of her deductive reasoning, or had +Cummings dropped a hint? + +She was waiting for us in front of the Haight Street boarding house that +served her for a home, and we tucked her between us on the roadster's +wide seat. At the St. Dunstan we found my man, left there since the hour +of the alarm the day before, and everybody belonging to the management +surly and glum. The clerk handed me Clayte's key across the morning +papers spread out on his desk. Apartment houses dislike notoriety of +this sort, and the St. Dunstan set up to be as rabidly respectable, as +chemically pure as any in the city. Well, no use their blaming me; +Clayte was their misfortune; they couldn't expect me to keep the matter +out of print entirely. + +The three of us crowded into the automatic elevator, and I pressed the +seventh floor button. The girl's eyes shone under the wisp of veil +twisted around a knowing little turban. She liked the taste of the +adventure. + +"That man came this way--with that suitcase," she breathed, "--maybe set +it down right there when he pressed the button--just as Mr. Boyne did +now!" + +It was a fine morning; the shades had been left up, and Clayte's room +when I opened the door was ablaze with sunlight. + +"How delightful!" Barbara Wallace stopped on the threshold and looked +about her. I expected the scientific investigating to begin; but no--she +was all taken up with the beauty of sunlight and view. + +The seventh was the top floor. The St. Dunstan stood almost at the +summit where Nob Hill slants obliquely to north and east, and Powell +Street dizzies down the steep descent to North Beach and the Bay. The +girl had run to a window, and was looking out toward the marvelous show +of blue-green water and distant Berkeley hills. + +"Will you open this window for me, please?" she asked. I stepped to her +side, forestalling Worth who was eyeing the room's interior with +curiosity. + +"You'll notice the burglar-proof sash locks," I said as I manipulated +this one. She gave only casual interest, her attention still on the view +beyond. The steel latch, fastened to the upper sash, locked into the +socket on the lower sash by a lever-catch. "See? I must pull out this +little lever before I can push the hasp back with my thumb--so. Now the +window may be shoved up," and I illustrated. + +"Yes," she nodded; then, "Look at the wisps of fog around Tamalpais's +top. Worth, come here and see the violet shadows of the clouds on the +bay." + +"North wind coming up," agreed Worth, stepping to the farther window. + +"It's bringing in the fog," she said; then abruptly, giving me the first +hint that little Miss Wallace considered herself on the job, "Will it +not latch by itself if you jam it shut hard?" + +"It will not." I illustrated with a bang. The latch still remained open. +"I must close it by hand." I pushed the hasp into the keeper, and, +snap--the lever shot back and it was fast. + +"But a window like that couldn't be opened from outside, even without +the locking lever," she remarked, gazing again toward the Marin shore. + +"A man with the know--a burglar--can open the ordinary window latch in +less than a minute," I told her. "With a jimmy pinched between the sash +and the sill, a recurring pressure starts the latch back; nothing to +hold it. This--unless he cuts the glass--is burglar-proof." + +Worth, at her shoulder, now looked down the sheer descent which +exaggerated the seven stories of the St. Dunstan; because of its +crowning position on the hill and the intersection of streets, we looked +over the roofs of the houses before us, far above their chimney tops. I +caught his eye and grinned across the girl's head, suggesting, + +"Besides, we weren't trying to find how some one could break into this +room, but how they could break out. Even if the latches had not been +locked, there wouldn't be an answer in these windows--unless Clayte +could fly." + +"Might have climbed from one window ledge to the next and so made his +way to the fire-escape," Worth said, but I shook my head. + +"He'd be seen from the windows by the tenants on six floors--and nobody +saw him. Might as well take the elevator or the stairs--which he +didn't." + +But the girl wasn't listening to any of this. Her expression attentive, +alert, she was passing her hand around the edge of the glass of either +sash, as though she still dwelt on my suggestion of cutting the pane; +and as we watched her, she murmured to herself, + +"Yes, flying would be a good way." It made me laugh. + +And then she turned away from the windows and had no more interest in +any of them, going with me all over the rest of the room with rather the +air of a person who thought of renting it than a high-brow criminal +investigator hunting clews. + +"He lived here--years, you say?" I nodded. She slid her hand over the +plush cushions of a morris chair, threw back the covers of an iron bed +in one corner and felt of the mattress, then went and stood before the +bare little dresser. "Why, the place expresses no more personality than +a room in a transient hotel!" + +"He hadn't any personality," I growled, and got the flicker of a smile +from her eye. + +"What about those library books he carried in the suitcase?" Worth came +in with an echo from the bank meeting. + +"Some more bunk," I said morosely. "So far we've not been able to locate +him as a patron of any public or private library, and the hotel clerk's +sure his mail never contained a correspondence course--in fact, neither +here nor at the bank can any one remember his getting any mail. If he +ever carried books in that suitcase as Knapp believed, it was several +years back." + +"Several years back," Miss Wallace repeated low. + +"Myself, I've given up the idea of his studying. This crime doesn't look +to me like any sudden temptation of a model bank clerk, spending his +spare hours over correspondence courses. I rather expect to find him +just plain crook." + +"Oh, no," the girl objected. "It's too big and too well done to have +been planned by a dull, commonplace crook." + +"Right you are," I agreed, with restored good humor. "A keen brain +planned this, but not Clayte's. There had to be an instrument--and that +was Clayte--also, likely, one or more to help in the getaway." + +The getaway! That brought us back with a thump to the present moment. +Our pretty girl had been all over the shop now, glanced into bathroom, +closet and cupboard, noted abandoned hats, clothing and shoes, the +electric plate where Clayte got his breakfast coffee and toast, asked +without much interest where he ate his other meals, and nodded +agreeingly when she found that he'd been only an occasional customer at +the neighboring restaurants, never regular, apparently eating here and +there down-town. She seemed to get something out of that; what I didn't +know. + +"You speak of this crime not being committed on impulse," she turned to +me at length. "How long ahead should you say he planned it?" + +"Or had it planned and prepared for him," I reminded her. + +"Well, that, then," she conceded with slight impatience. "How long do +you think it might have been planned or prepared for? Years?" + +"Hardly that. Not more than a year probably. A gang like this wouldn't +hold together on a proposition for many months." + +The black brows over those clear, childlike eyes, puckered a bit. I saw +she wasn't at all satisfied with what I had said. + +"Made all the observations you want to, Bobs?" Worth asked. + +"All here. I want to see the roof." She gave us rather a mechanical +smile as she silently ticked her points off on her fingers, appealing +to me with, "I'm depending upon you for such facts as I have been unable +to observe for myself, so if you give me wrong facts--make +mistakes--I'll make mistakes in deduction." + +There was such confidence in her deductive abilities that a tinge of +irony crept into my tones as I replied, + +"I'll be very careful what opinions I hold." + +"I don't mind the opinions," this astounding young woman took me up +gaily. "I never have any of my own, so I don't pay attention to anybody +else's. But _do_ be careful of your facts!" + +"I'll try to," was all I said. Worth cut in with, + +"Do you consider the roof another fact, Bobs?" + +"I hope to find facts there," she answered promptly. + +"Remember," I said, "your theory means another man up there, and you +haven't yet--" + +"Please, Mr. Boyne, don't take two and two and make five of them at this +stage of the game," she checked me hastily, and I left them together +while I made a hurried survey of the hall ceilings, looking for the +scuttle. There was no hatchway in view, so I started down to the clerk +to make inquiry. As I passed Clayte's open door, Miss Wallace seemed to +be adjusting her turban before the dresser mirror, while Worth waited +impatiently. + +"Just a minute," I called. "I'll be right back," and I ducked into the +elevator. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ON THE ROOF + + +When I returned with a key and the information that the way to the roof +ran through the janitor's tool-room at the far end of the hall, I found +my young people already out there. Worth was trying the tool-room door. + +"Got the key?" he called. "It's locked." + +"Yes." I took my time fitting and turning it. "How did you know this was +the room?" + +"I didn't," briefly. "Bobs walked out here, and I followed her. She said +we'd want into this one." + +She'd guessed right again! I wheeled on her, ejaculating, + +"For the love of Mike! Tell a mere man how you deduced this stairway. +Feminine intuition, I suppose." + +I hadn't meant to be offensive with that last, but her firm little chin +was in the air as she countered, + +"Is it a stairway? It might be a ladder, you know." + +It was a ladder, an iron ladder, as I found when I ushered them in. My +eyes snapped inquiry at her. + +"Very simple," she said. Worth was pushing aside pails and boxes to make +a better way for her to the ladder's foot. "There wouldn't be a roof +scuttle in the rented rooms, so I knew when you called in to tell us +there was none in the halls." + +"I didn't. I said nothing of the sort." Where was the girl's fine memory +that she couldn't recollect a man's words for the little time I'd been +gone! "All I said was, 'Just a minute and I'll be back.'" + +"Yes, that's all you said to Worth." She glanced at the boy serenely as +he waited for her at the ladder's foot. "He's not a trained observer; he +doesn't deduce even from what he does observe." There were twinkling +lights in her black eyes. "But what your hurried trip to the office said +to me was that you'd gone for the key of the room that led to the +roof scuttle." + +Well, that was reasonable--simple enough, too; but, + +"This room? How did you find it?" + +She stepped to the open door and placed the tip of a gloved finger on +the nickeled naught that marked the panels. + +"The significant zero again, Mr. Boyne," she laughed. "Here it means the +room is not a tenanted one, and is therefore the way to the roof. Shall +we go there?" + +"Well, young lady," I said as I led her along the trail Worth had +cleared, "it must be almost as bad to see everything that way--in minute +detail--as to be blind." + +"Carry on!" Worth called from the top of the ladder, reaching down to +aid the girl. She laughed back at me as she started the short climb. + +"Not at all bad! You others seem to me only half awake to what is about +you--only half living," and she placed her hand in the strong one held +down to her. As Worth passed her through the scuttle to the roof, I saw +her glance carelessly at the hooks and staples, the clumsy but adequate +arrangement for locking the hatch, and, following her, gave them more +careful attention, wondering what she had seen--plenty that I did not, +no doubt. They had no tale to tell my eyes. + +Once outside, she stopped a minute with Worth to adjust herself to the +sharp wind which swept across from the north. Here was a rectangular +space surrounded by walls which ran around its four sides to form the +coping, unbroken in any spot; a gravel-and-tar roof, almost flat, with +the scuttle and a few small, dust covered skylights its only openings, +four chimney-tops its sole projections. It was bare of any hiding-place, +almost as clear as a tennis court. + +We made a solemn tour of inspection; I wasn't greatly interested--how +could I be, knowing that between this roof and my fugitive there had +been locked windows, and a locked door under reliable human eyes? Still, +the lifelong training of the detective kept me estimating the +possibilities of a getaway from the roof--if Clayte could have reached +it. Worth crossed to where the St. Dunstan fire escape came up from the +ground to end below us at a top floor window. I joined him, explaining +as we looked down, + +"Couldn't have made it that way; not by daylight. In open view all +around." + +"Think he stayed up here till dark?" Worth suggested, quite as though +the possibility of Clayte's coming here at all was settled. + +"My men were all over this building--roof to cellar--within the hour. +They'd not have overlooked a crack big enough for him to hide in. Put +yourself in Clayte's place. Time was the most valuable thing in the +world with him right then. If ever he got up to this roof, he'd not +waste a minute longer on it than he had to." + +"Let's see what's beyond, then," and Worth led the way to the farther +end. + +The girl didn't come with us. Having been once around the roof coping, +looking, it seemed to me, as much at the view as anything else, she now +seemed content to settle herself on a little square of planking, a +disused scuttle top or something of the sort, in against one of the +chimneys where she was sheltered from the wind. Rather to my surprise, I +saw her thoughtfully pulling off her gloves, removing her turban, all +the time with a curiously disinterested air. I was reminded of what +Worth had said the night before about the way her father trained her. +Probably she regarded the facts I'd furnished her, or that she'd picked +up for herself, much as she used to the problems in concentration her +father spread in the high chair tray of her infancy. I turned and left +her with them, for Worth was calling me to announce a fact I already +knew, that the adjoining building had a roof some fifteen feet below +where we stood, and that the man, admitting good gymnastic ability, +might have reached it. + +"Sure," I said. "But come on. We're wasting time here." + +We turned to go, and then stopped, both of us checked instantly by what +we saw. The girl was sitting in a strange pose, her feet drawn in to +cross beneath her body, slender hands at the length of the arms meeting +with interlaced finger-tips before her, the thumbs just touching; +shoulders back, chin up, eyes--big enough at any time, now dilated to +look twice their size--velvet circles in a white face. Like a Buddha; +I'd seen her sit so, years before, an undersized girl doing stunts for +her father in a public hall; and even then she'd been in a way +impressive. But now, in the fullness of young beauty, her fine head +relieved against the empty blue of the sky, the free winds whipping +loose flying ends of her dark hair, she held the eye like a miracle. + +Sitting here so immovably, she looked to me as though life had slid away +from her for the moment, the mechanical action of lungs and heart +temporarily suspended, so that mind might work unhindered in that +beautiful shell. No, I was wrong. She was breathing; her bosom rose and +fell in slow but deep, placid inhalations and exhalations. And the pale +face might be from the slower heart-beat, or only because the surface +blood had receded to give more of strength to the brain. + +The position of head of a Bankers' Security Agency carries with it a +certain amount of dignity--a dignity which, since Richardson's death, I +have maintained better than I have handled other requirements of the +business he left with me. I stood now feeling like a fool. I'd grown +gray in the work, and here in my prosperous middle life, a boy's whim +and a girl's pretty face had put me in the position of consulting a +clairvoyant. Worse, for this was a wild-cat affair, without even the +professional standing of establishments to which I knew some of the weak +brothers in my line sometimes sneaked for ghostly counsel. If it should +leak out, I was done for. + +I suppose I sort of groaned, for I felt Worth put a restraining hand on +my arm, and heard his soft, + +"Psst!" + +The two of us stood, how long I can't say, something besides the beauty +of the young creature, even the dignity of her in this outre situation +getting hold of me, so that I was almost reverent when at last the +rigidity of her image-like figure began to relax, the pretty feet in +their silk stockings and smart pumps appeared where they belonged, side +by side on the edge of the planking, and she looked at us with eyes that +slowly gathered their normal expression, and a smile of rare human +sweetness. + +"It _is_ horrid to see--and I loathe doing it!" She shook her curly dark +head like a punished child, and stayed a minute longer, eyes downcast, +groping after gloves and hat. "I thought maybe I'd get the answer before +you saw me--sitting up like a trained seal!" + +"Like a mighty pretty little heathen idol, Bobs," Worth amended. + +"Well, it's the only way I can really concentrate--effectively. But this +is the first time I've done it since--since father died." + +"And never again for me, if that's the way you feel about it." Worth +crossed quickly and stood beside her, looking down. She reached a hand +to him; her eyes thanked him; but as he helped her to her feet I was +struck by a something poised and confident that she seemed to have +brought with her out of that strange state in which she had just been. + +"Doesn't either of you want to hear the answer?" she asked. Then, +without waiting for reply, she started for the scuttle and the ladder, +bare headed, carrying her hat. We found her once more adjusting turban +and veil before the mirror of Clayte's dresser. She faced around, and +announced, smiling steadily across at me, + +"Your man Clayte left this room while Mrs. Griggsby was kneeling almost +on its threshold--left it by that window over there. He got to the roof +by means of a rope and grappling hook. He tied the suitcase to the lower +end of the rope, swung it out of the window, went up hand over hand, and +pulled the suitcase up after him. That's the answer I got." + +It was? Well, it was a beaut! Only Worth Gilbert, standing there giving +the proceeding respectability by careful attention and a grave face, +brought me down to asking with mild jocularity, + +"He did? He did all that? Well, please ma'am, who locked the window +after him?" + +"He locked the window after himself." + +"Oh, say!" I began in exasperation--hadn't I just shown the impractical +little creature that those locks couldn't be manipulated from outside? + +"Wait. Examine carefully the wooden part of the upper sash, at the +lock--again," she urged, but without making any movement to help. +"You'll find what we overlooked before; the way he locked the sash from +the outside." + +I turned to the window and looked where she had said; nothing. I ran my +fingers over the painted surface of the wood, outside, opposite the +latch, and a queer, chilly feeling went down my spine. I jerked out my +knife, opened it and scraped at a tiny inequality. + +"There is--is something--" I was beginning, when Worth crowded in at my +side and pushed his broad shoulders out the window to get a better view +of my operations, then commanded, + +"Let me have that knife." He took it from my fingers, dug with its +blade, and suddenly from the inside I saw a tiny hole appear in the +frame of the sash beside the lock hasp. "Here we are!" He brought his +upper half back into the room and held up a wooden plug, painted--dipped +in paint--the exact color of the sash. It had concealed a hole; pierced +the wood from out to in. + +"And she saw that in her trance," I murmured, gaping in amazement at the +plug. + +I heard her catch her breath, and Worth scowled at me, + +"Trance? What do you mean, Boyne? She doesn't go into a trance." + +"That--that--whatever she does," I corrected rather helplessly. + +"Never mind, Mr. Boyne," said the girl. "It isn't clairvoyance or +anything like that, however it looks." + +"But I wouldn't have believed any human eyes could have found that +thing. I discovered it only by sense of touch--and that after you told +me to hunt for it. You saw it when I was showing you the latch, did +you?" + +"Oh, I didn't see it." She shook her head. "I found it when I was +sitting up there on the roof." + +"Guessed at it?" + +"I never guess." Indignantly. "When I'd cleared my mind of everything +else--had concentrated on just the facts that bore on what I wanted to +know--how that man with the suitcase got out of the room and left it +locked behind him--I deduced the hole in the sash by elimination." + +"By elimination?" I echoed. "Show me." + +"Simple as two and two," she assented. "Out of the door? No; Mrs. +Griggsby; so out of the window. Down? No; you told why; he would be +seen; so, up. Ladder? No; too big for one man to handle or to hide; so a +rope." + +"But the hole in the sash?" + +"You showed me the only way to close that lock from the outside. There +was no hole in the glass, so there must be in the sash. It was not +visible--you had been all over it, and a man of your profession isn't a +totally untrained observer--so the hole was plugged. I hadn't seen the +plug, so it was concealed by paint--" + +I was trying to work a toothpick through the plughole. She offered me a +wire hairpin, straightened out, and with it I pushed the hasp into place +from outside, saw the lever snap in to hold it fast. I had worked the +catch as Clayte had worked it--from outside. + +"How did you know it was _this_ window?" I asked, forced to agree that +she had guessed right as to the sash lock. "There are two more here, +either of which--" + +"No, please, Mr. Boyne. Look at the angle of the roof that cuts from +view any one climbing from this window--not from the others." + +We were all leaning in the window now, sticking our heads out, looking +down, looking up. + +"I can't yet see how you get the rope and hook," I said. "Still seems to +me that an outside man posted on the roof to help in the getaway is more +likely." + +"Maybe. I can't deal with things that are merely likely. It has to be a +fact--or nothing--for my use. I know that there wasn't any second man +because of the nicks Clayte's grappling hook has left in the cornice up +there." + +"Nicks!" I said, and stood like a bound boy at a husking, without a word +to say for myself. Of course, in this impasse of the locked windows, my +men and I had had some excuse for our superficial examination of the +roof. Yet that she should have seen what we had passed over--seen it out +of the corner of her eye, and be laughing at me--was rather a dose to +swallow. She'd got her hair and her hat and veil to her liking, and she +prompted us, + +"So now you want to get right down stairs--don't you--and go up through +that other building to its roof?" + +I stared. She had my plan almost before I had made it. + +At the St. Dunstan desk where I returned the keys, little Miss Wallace +had a question of her own to put to the clerk. + +"How long ago was this building reroofed?" she asked with one of her +dark, softly glowing smiles. + +"Reroofed?" repeated the puzzled clerk, much more civil to her than he +had been to me. "I don't know that it ever was. Certainly not in my +time, and I've been here all of four years." + +"Not in four years? You're sure?" + +"Sure of that, yes, miss. But I can find exactly." The fellow behind the +desk was rising with an eagerness to be of service to her, when she cut +him short with, + +"Thank you. Four years would be exact enough for my purpose." And she +followed a puzzled detective and, if I may guess, an equally wondering +Worth Gilbert out into the street. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE GOLD NUGGET + + +The neighbor to the south of the St. Dunstan was the Gold Nugget Hotel, +a five story brick building and not at all pretentious as a hostelry. I +knew the place mildly, and my police training, even better than such +acquaintance as I had with this particular dump, told me what it was. +Through the windows we could see guests, Sunday papers littered about +them, half smoked cigars in their faces, and hats which had a general +tendency to tilt over the right eye. And here suddenly I realized the +difference between Miss Barbara Wallace, a scientist's daughter, and +some feminine sleuth we might have had with us. + +"Take her back to the St. Dunstan, Worth," I suggested. Then, as I saw +they were both going to resist, "She can't go in here. I'll wait for you +if you like." + +"Don't know why we shouldn't let Bobs in on the fun, same as you and me, +Jerry." That was the way Worth put it. I took a side glance at his +attitude in this affair--that he'd bought and was enjoying an eight +hundred thousand dollar frolic, offering to share it with a friend; and +saying no more, I wheeled and swung open the door for them. The man at +the desk looked at me, calling a quick, + +"Hello, Jerry--what's up?" + +"Hello, Kite. How'd you come here?" + +The Kite as a hotelman was a new one on me. Last I knew of him, he was +in the business of making book at the Emeryville track; and I +supposed--if I ever thought of him--that he'd followed the ponies south +across the border. As I stepped close to the counter, he spoke low, his +look one of puzzled and somewhat anxious inquiry. + +"Running straight, Jerry. You may ask the Chief. What can I do for you?" + +Rather glad of the luck that gave me an old acquaintance to deal with, I +told him, described Clayte, Worth and Miss Wallace standing by +listening; then asked if Kite had seen him pass through the hotel going +out the previous day at some time around one o'clock, carrying a brown, +sole leather suitcase. + +The readers of the Sunday papers who had been lured from their known +standards of good manners into the sending of sundry interested glances +in the direction of our sparkling girl, took the cue from the Kite's +scowl to bury themselves for good in the voluminous sheets they held, +each attending strictly to his own business, as is the etiquette of +places like the Gold Nugget. + +"About one o'clock, you say?" Kite muttered, frowning, twisted his head +around and called down a back passage, "Louie--Oh, Louie!" and when an +overalled porter, rather messy, shuffled to the desk, put the low toned +query, "D'you see any stranger guy gripping a sole leather shirt-box +snoop by out yestiddy, after one, thereabouts?" And I added the +information, + +"Medium height and weight, blue eyes, light brown hair, smooth face." + +Louie looked at me dubiously. + +"How big a guy?" he asked. + +"Five feet seven or eight; weighs about hundred and forty." + +"Blue eyes you say?" + +"Light blue--gray blue." + +"How was he tucked up?" + +"Blue serge suit, black shoes, black derby. Neat, quiet dresser." + +Louie's eyes wandered over the guests in the office questioningly. I +began to feel impatient. If there was any place in the city where my +description of Clayte would differentiate him, make him noticeable by +comparison, it was here. Neat, quiet dressers were not dotting this +lobby. + +"Might be Tim Foley?" he appealed to the Kite, who nodded gravely and +chewed his short mustache. "Would he have a big scar on his left cheek?" + +"He would not," I said shortly. "He wasn't a guest here, and you don't +know him. Get this straight now: a stranger, going through here, out; +about one o'clock; carried a suitcase." + +"Bulls after him?" Louie asked, and I turned away from him wearily. + +"Kite," I said, "let me up to your roof." + +"Sure, Jerry." Released, the porter went on to gather up a pile of +discarded papers. + +"Could he--the man I've described--come through here--through this +office and neither you nor Louie see him?" I asked. The Kite brought a +box of cigars from under the counter with, + +"My treat, gentlemen. Naw, Jerry; sure not--not that kind of a guy. +Louie'd 'a' spotted him. Most observing cuss I ever seen." + +Miss Wallace, taking all this in, seemed amused. As I turned to lead to +the elevator I found that again she wanted a question of her own +answered. + +"Mr. Kite," she began and I grinned; Kite wasn't the Kite's surname or +any part of his name; "Who is the guest here with the upstairs room--on +the top floor--has had the same room right along--for five or six +years--but doesn't--" + +"Go easy, ma'am, please!" Kite's little eyes were popping; he dragged +out a handkerchief and fumbled it around his forehead. "I've not been +here for any five or six years--no, nor half that time. Since I've been +here most of our custom is transient. Nobody don't keep no room five or +six years in the Gold Nugget." + +"Back up," I smiled at his excitement. "To my certain knowledge Steve +Skeels has had a room here longer than that. Hasn't he been with you +ever since the place was rebuilt after the earthquake?" + +"Steve?" the Kite repeated. "I forgot him. Yeah--he keeps a little room +up under the roof." + +"Has he had it for as long as four years?" the young lady asked. + +"Search me," the Kite shook his head. + +But Louie the overalled, piloting us the first stage of our journey in a +racketty old elevator that he seemed to pull up by a cable, so slow it +was, grumbled an assent to the same question when it was put to him, and +confirmed my belief that Skeels came into the hotel as soon as it was +rebuilt, and had kept the same room ever since. + +Miss Wallace seemed interested in this; but all the time we were making +the last lap, by an iron stairway, to that roof-house we had seen from +the top of the St. Dunstan; all the time Louie was unlocking the door +there to let us out, instructing us to be sure to relock it and bring +him the key, and to yell for him down the elevator shaft because the +bell was busted, the quiet smile of Miss Barbara Wallace disturbed me. +She followed where I led, but I had the irritating impression that she +looked on at my movements, and Worth's as well, with the indulgent eye +of a grown-up observing children at play. + +On the roof of the Gold Nugget we picked up the possible trail easily; +Clayte hadn't needed to go through the building, or have a confederate +staked out in a room here, to make a downward getaway. For here the fire +escape came all the way up, curving over the coping to anchor into the +wall, and it was a good iron stairway, with landings at each floor, and +a handrail the entire length, its lower end in the alley between Powell +and Mason Streets. Looking at it I didn't doubt that it was used by the +guests of the Gold Nugget at least half as much as the easier but more +conspicuous front entrance. Therefore a man seen on it would be no more +likely to attract attention than he would in the elevator. I explained +this to the others, but Worth had attacked a rack of old truck piled in +the corner of the roof-house, and paid little attention to me, while +Miss Wallace nodded with her provoking smile and said, + +"Once--yes; no doubt you are exactly right. I wasn't looking for a way +that a man might take once, under pressure of great necessity." + +"Why not?" I countered. "If Clayte got away by this means +yesterday--that'll do me." + +"It might," she nodded, "if you could see it as a fact, without seeing a +lot more. Such a man as Clayte was--a really wonderful man, you know--" +the dimples were deep in the pink of her cheeks as she flashed a +laughing look at me with this clawful--"a really wonderful man like +Clayte," she repeated, "wouldn't have trusted to a route he hadn't known +and proved for a long time." + +"That's theory," I smiled. "I take my hat off to you, Miss Wallace, when +it comes to observing and deducing, but I'm afraid your theorizing is +weak." + +"I never theorize," she reminded me. "All I deal with is facts." + +She had perched herself on an overturned box, and was watching Worth +sort junk. I leaned against the roof-house, pushed Kite's donated cigar +unlighted into a corner of my mouth and stared at her. + +"Miss Wallace," I said sharply, "what's this Steve Skeels stuff? What's +this reroofing stuff? What's the dope you think you have, and you think +I haven't? Tell us, and we'll not waste time. Tell us, and we'll get +ahead on this case. Worth, let that rubbish alone. Nothing there for us. +Come here and listen." + +For all answer he straightened up, looked at us without a word--and went +to it again. I turned to the girl. + +"Worth doesn't need to listen to me, Mr. Boyne," she said serenely. "He +already has full faith in me and my methods." + +"Methods be--be blowed!" I exploded. "It's results that count, and +you've produced. I'm willing to hand it to you. All we know now, we got +from you. Beside you I'm a thick-headed blunderer. Let me in on how you +get things and I won't be so hard to convince." + +"Indeed, you aren't a blunderer," she said warmly. "You do a lot better +than most people at observing." (High praise that, for a detective more +than twenty years in the business; but she meant to be complimentary.) +"I'm glad to tell you my processes. How much time do you want to give to +it?" + +"Not a minute longer than will get what you know." And she began with a +rush. + +"Those dents in the coping at the St. Dunstan, above Clayte's window--I +asked the clerk there how long since the building had been reroofed, +because there were nicks made by that hook and half filled with tar that +had been slushed up against the coping and into the lowest dents. You +see what that means?" + +"That Clayte--or some accomplice of his--had been using the route more +than four years ago. Yes." + +"And the other scars were made at varying times, showing me that coming +over here from there was quite a regular thing." + +"At that rate he would have nicked the coping until it would have looked +like a huck towel," I objected. + +"A huck towel," she gravely adopted my word. "But he was a man that did +everything he did several different ways. That was his habit--a sort of +disguise. That's why he was shadowy and hard to describe. Sometimes he +came up to the St. Dunstan roof just as we did; and once, a good while +ago, there were cleats on that wall there so he could climb down here +without the rope. They have been taken away some time, and the places +where they were are weathered over so you would hardly notice them." + +"Right you are," I said feelingly. "I'd hardly notice them. If I could +notice things as you do--fame and fortune for me!" I thought the matter +over for a minute. "That lodger on the top floor, Steve Skeels," I +debated. "A poor bet. Yet--after all, he might have been a member of the +gang, though somehow I don't get the hunch--" + +"What sort of looking person was this man Skeels?" she asked. + +"Quiet fellow. Dressed like a church deacon. 'Silent Steve' they call +him. I'll send for him down stairs and let you give him the once-over if +you like." + +"Oh, that's not the kind of man I'm looking for." She shook her head. +"My man would be more like those down there in the easy chairs--so he +wasn't noticed in the elevator or when he passed out through the +office." + +"Wasn't it cute of him?" I grinned. "But you see we've just heard that +he didn't take the elevator and go through the office--Saturday anyhow, +which is the only time that really counts for us, the time when he +carried that suitcase with a fortune in it." + +"But he did," she persisted. "He went that way. He walked out the front +door and carried away the suitcase--" + +"_He didn't!_" Worth shouted, and began throwing things behind him like +a terrier in a wood-rat's burrow. + +Derelict stuff of all sorts; empty boxes, pasteboard cartons, part of an +old trunk, he hurtled them into a heap, and dragged out a square +something in a gunny sack. As he jerked to clear it from the sacking, I +glanced at little Miss Wallace. She wasn't getting any pleasureable kick +out of the situation. Her eyes seemed to go wider open with a sort of +horror, her face paled as she drooped in on herself, sitting there on +the box. Then Worth held up his find in triumph, assuming a famous +attitude. + +"The world is mine!" he cried. + +"Maybe 'tis, maybe 'tisn't," I said as I ran across to look at the thing +close. Sure enough, he'd dug up a respectable brown, sole leather +suitcase with brass trimmings such as a bank clerk might have carried, +suspiciously much too good to have been thrown out here. Could it be +that the thieves had indeed met in one of the Gold Nugget's rooms or in +the roof-house up here, made their divvy, split the swag, and thus +clumsily disposed of the container? At the moment, Worth tore buckles +and latches free, yanked the thing open, reversed it in air--and out +fell a coiled rope that curved itself like a snake--a three-headed +snake; the triple grappling iron at its end standing up as though to +hiss. + +We all stood staring; I was too stunned to be triumphant. What a pat +confirmation of Miss Wallace's deductions! I turned to congratulate her +and at the same instant Worth cried, + +"What's the matter, Bobs?" for the girl was sitting, staring dejectedly, +her chin cupped in her palms, her lips quivering. Nonplussed, I stooped +over the suitcase and rope, coiling up the one, putting it in the +other--this first bit of tangible, palpable evidence we'd lighted on. + +"Let's get out of this," I said quickly. "We've done all we can +here--and good and plenty it is, too." + +Worth took the suitcase out of my hands and carried it, so that I had to +help Miss Wallace down the ladder. She still looked as though she'd lost +her last friend. I couldn't make her out. Never a word from her while we +were getting down, or while they waited and I shouted for Louie. It was +in the elevator, with the porter looking at everything on earth but this +suitcase we hadn't brought in and we were taking out, that she said, +hardly above her breath, + +"Shall you ask at the desk if this ever belonged to any one in the +house?" + +"Find out here--right now," and I turned to the man in overalls with, +"How about it?" + +"Not that your answer will make any difference," Worth cut in joyously. +"Nobody need get the idea that they can take this suitcase away from +me--'cause they can't. It's mine. I paid eight hundred thousand dollars +for this box; and I've got a use for it." He chuckled. Louie regarded +him with uncomprehending toleration--queer doings were the order of the +day at the Gold Nugget--and allowed negligently. + +"You'll get to keep it. It don't belong here." Then, as a coin changed +hands, "Thank _you_." + +"But didn't it ever belong here?" our girl persisted forlornly, and when +Louie failed her, jingling Worth's tip in his calloused palm, she wanted +the women asked, and we had a frowsy chambermaid called who denied any +acquaintance with our sole leather discovery, insisting, upon definite +inquiry, that she had never seen it in Skeels' room, or any other room +of her domain. Little Miss Wallace sighed and dropped the subject. + +As we stepped out of the elevator, I behind the others, Kite caught my +attention with a low whistle, and in response to a furtive, beckoning, +backward jerk of his head, I moved over to the desk. The reading +gentlemen in the easy chairs, most consciously unconscious of us, sent +blue smoke circles above their papers. Kite leaned far over to get his +mustache closer to my ear. + +"You ast me about Steve," he whispered. + +"Yeah," I agreed, and looked around for Barbara, to tell her here was +her chance to meet the gentleman she had so cleverly deduced. But she +and Worth were already getting through the door, he still clinging to +the suitcase, she trailing along with that expression of defeat. "I'm +sort of looking up Steve. And you don't want to tip him off--see?" + +"Couldn't if I wanted to, Jerry," the Kite came down on his heels, but +continued to whisper hoarsely. "Steve's bolted." + +"What?" + +"Bolted," the Kite repeated. "Hopped the twig. Jumped the town." + +"You mean he's not in his room?" I reached for a match in the metal +holder, scratched it, and lit my cigar. + +"I mean he's jumped the town," Kite repeated. "You got me nervous asking +for him that way. While you was on the roof, I took a squint around and +found he was gone--with his hand baggage. That means he's gone outa +town." + +"Not if the suitcase you squinted for was a brown sole leather--" I was +beginning, but the Kite cut in on me. + +"I seen that one you had. That wasn't it. His was a brand new one, black +and shiny." + +Suddenly I couldn't taste my cigar at all. + +"Know what time to-day he left here?" I asked. + +"It wasn't to-day. 'Twas yestiddy. About one o'clock." + +As I plunged for the door I was conscious of his hoarse whisper +following me, + +"What's Steve done, Jerry? What d'ye want him for?" + +I catapulted across the sidewalk and into the machine. + +"Get me to my office as fast as you can, Worth," I exclaimed. "Hit Bush +Street--and rush it." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A TIN-HORN GAMBLER + + +After we were in the machine, my head was so full of the matter in hand +that Worth had driven some little distance before I realized that the +young people were debating across me as to which place we went first, +Barbara complaining that she was hungry, while Worth ungallantly eager +to give his own affairs immediate attention, argued, + +"You said the dining-room out at your diggings would be closed by this +time. Why not let me take you down to the Palace, along with Jerry, have +this suitcase safely locked up, and we can all lunch together and get +ahead with our talk." + +"Drive to the office, Worth," I cut in ahead of Barbara's objections to +this plan. "I ought to be there this minute. We'll have a tray in from a +little joint that feeds me when I'm too busy to go out for grub." + +I took them straight into my private office at the end of the suite. + +"Make yourself comfortable," I said to Miss Wallace. "Better let me lock +up that suitcase, Worth; stick it in the vault. That's evidence." + +"I'll hang on to it." He grinned. "You can keep the rope and hook. This +has got another use before it can be evidence." + +Not even delaying to remove my coat, I laid a heavy finger on the +buzzer button for Roberts, my secretary; then as nothing resulted, I +played music on the other signal tips beneath the desk lid. It was +Sunday, also luncheon hour, but there must be some one about the place. +It never was left entirely empty. + +My fugue work brought little Pete, and Murray, one of the men from the +operatives' room. + +"Where's Roberts?" I asked the latter. + +"He went to lunch, Mr. Boyne." + +"Where's Foster?" Foster was chief operative. + +"He telephoned in from Redwood City half an hour ago. Chasing a Clayte +clue down the peninsula." + +"If he calls up again, tell him to report in at once. Is there a +stenographer about?" + +"Not a one; Sunday, you know." + +"Can you take dictation?" + +"Me? Why, no, sir." + +"Then dig me somebody who can. And rush it. I've--" + +"Perhaps I might help." It was little Miss Wallace who spoke; about the +first cheerful word I'd heard out of her since we found that suitcase on +the roof of the Gold Nugget. "I can take on the machine fairly." + +"Fine!" I tossed my coat on the big center table. "Murray, send Roberts +to me as soon as he comes in. You take number two trunk line, and find +two of the staff--quick; any two. Shoot them to the Gold Nugget Hotel." +I explained the situation in a word. Then, as he was closing the door, +"Keep off Number One trunk, Murray; I'll be using that line," and I +turned to little Pete. + +"Get lunch for three," I said, handing him a bill. From his first glance +at Barbara one could have seen that the monkey was hers truly, as they +say at the end of letters. I knew as he bolted out that he felt +something very special ought to be dug up for such a visitor. + +The girl had shed coat and hat and was already fingering the keys of the +typewriter, trying their touch. I saw at once she knew her business, and +I turned to the work at hand with satisfaction. + +"You'll find telegram blanks there somewhere," I instructed. "Get as +many in for manifold copies as you can make readable. The long form. +Worth--" + +I looked around to find that my other amateur assistant was following my +advice, stowing his precious suitcase in the vault; and it struck me +that he couldn't have been more tickled with the find if the thing had +contained all the money and securities instead of that rope and hook. He +had made the latter into a separate package, and now looked up at me +with, + +"Want this in here, too, Jerry?" + +"I do. Lock them both up, and come take the telephone at the table +there. Press down Number One button. Then call every taxi stand in the +city (find their numbers at the back of the telephone directory) and ask +if they picked up Silent Steve at or near the Gold Nugget yesterday +afternoon about one; Steve Skeels--or any other man. If so, where'd they +take him? Get me?" + +"All hunk, Jerry." He came briskly to the job. I returned to Miss +Wallace, with, + +"Ready, Barbara?" + +"Yes, Mr. Boyne." + +"Take dictation: + +"'We offer five hundred dollars--' You authorize that, Worth?" + +"Sure. What's it for?" + +"Never mind. You keep at your job. 'Five hundred dollars for the arrest +of Silent Steve Skeels--' Wait. Make that 'arrest or detention,' Got +it?" + +"All right, Mr. Boyne." + +--"'Skeels, gambler, who left San Francisco about one in the afternoon +yesterday March sixth. Presumed he went by train; maybe by auto. He is +man thirty-eight to forty; five feet seven or eight; weighs about one +hundred forty. Hair, light brown; eyes light blue--' Make it gray-blue, +Barbara." + +Worth glanced up from where he was jotting down telephone numbers to +drawl, + +"You know who you're describing there?" + +"Yes--Steve Skeels." + +I saw Miss Wallace give him a quick look, a little shake of her head, as +she said to me. + +"Go on--please, Mr. Boyne." + +"'Hair parted high, smoothed down; appears of slight build but is well +muscled. Neat dresser, quiet, usually wears blue serge suit, black derby +hat, black shoes.'" + +"By Golly--you see it now yourself, don't you, Jerry?" + +"I see that you're holding up work," I said impatiently. And now it was +the quiet girl who came in with. + +"Who gave you this description of Steve Skeels? I mean, how many +people's observation of the man does this represent?" + +"One. My own," I jerked out. "I know Skeels; have known him for years." + +"Years? How many?" It was still the girl asking. + +"Since 1907--or thereabouts." + +"Was he always a gambler?" she wanted to know. + +"Always. Ran a joint on Fillmore Street after the big earthquake, and +before San Francisco came back down-town." + +"A gambler," she spoke the word just above her breath, as though trying +it out with herself. "A man who took big chances--risks." + +"Not Steve," I smiled at her earnestness. "Steve was a piker always--a +tin-horn gambler. Hid away from the police instead of doing business +with them. Take a chance? Not Steve." + +Worth had left the telephone and was leaning over her shoulder to read +what she had typed. + +"Exactly and precisely," he said, "the same words you had in that other +fool description of him." + +"Of whom?" + +"Clayte." + +Worth let me have the one word straight between the eyes, and I leaned +back in my chair, the breath almost knocked out of me by it. By an +effort I pulled myself together and turned to the girl: + +"Take dictation, please: Skeel's eyes are wide apart, rather small but +keen--" + +And for the next few minutes I was making words mean something, drawing +a picture of the Skeels I knew, so that others could visualize him. And +it brought me a word of commendation from Miss Wallace, and made Worth +exclaim, + +"Sounds more like Clayte than Clayte himself. You've put flesh on those +bones, Jerry." + +"You keep busy at that phone and help land him," I growled. "Finish, +please: 'Wire information to me. I hold warrant. Jeremiah Boyne, +Bankers' Security Agency,' That's all." + +The girl pulled the sheets from the machine and sorted them while I was +stabbing the buzzer. Roberts answered, breezing in with an apology which +I nipped. + +"Never mind that. Get this telegram on the wires to each of our +corresponding agencies as far east as Spokane, Ogden and Denver. Has +Murray got in touch with Foster?" + +"Not yet. Young and Stroud are outside." + +"Send them to bring in Steve Skeels," I ordered. "Description on the +telegram there. Any word, Worth?" + +"Nothing yet." Worth was calling one after another of the taxi offices. +Little Pete came in with a tray. + +"All right, Worth," I said. "Turn that job over to Roberts. Here's where +we eat." + +The kid's idea of catering for Barbara was club sandwiches and pie a la +mode. It wouldn't have been mine; but I was glad to note that he'd +guessed right. The youngsters fell to with appetite. For myself, I ate, +the receiver at my ear, talking between bites. San Jose, Stockton, Santa +Rosa--in all the nearby towns of size, I placed the drag-net out for +Silent Steve, tin-horn gambler. + +They talked as they lunched. I didn't pay any attention to what they +said now; my mind was racing at the new idea Worth had given me. So far, +I had been running Skeels down as one of the same gang with Clayte; the +man on the roof; the go-between for the getaway. My supposition was that +when the suitcase was emptied for division, Skeels, being left to +dispose of the container, had stuck it where we found it. But what if +the thing worked another way? What if all the money--almost a round +million--which came to the Gold Nugget roof in the brown sole-leather +case, walked out of its front door in the new black shiny carrier of +Skeels the gambler? + +Could that be worked? A gambler at night, a bank employee by day? Why +not? Improbable. But not impossible. + +"I believe you said a mouthful, Worth," I broke in on the two at their +lunch. "And tell me, girl, how did you get the idea of walking up to the +desk at the Gold Nugget and demanding Steve Skeels from the Kite?" + +"I didn't demand Steve Skeels," she reminded me rather plaintively. "I +didn't want--him." + +"What did you want?" + +"A room that had been lived in." + +She didn't need to add a word to that. I got her in the instant. That +examination of hers in Clayte's room at the St. Dunstan; the crisp, +new-looking bedding, the unworn velvet of the chair cushions; the faded +nap of the carpet, quite perfect, while that in the hall had just been +renewed. Even had the room been done over recently--and I knew it had +not--there was no getting around the total absence of photographs, +pictures, books, magazines, newspapers, old letters, the lack of all +the half worn stuff that collects about an occupied apartment. No +pinholes or defacements on the walls, none of the litter that +accumulates. The girl was right; that room hadn't been lived in. + +"Beautiful," I said in honest admiration. "It's a pleasure to see a mind +like yours, and such powers of observation, in action, clicking out +results like a perfectly adjusted machine. Clayte didn't live in his +room because he lived with the gang all his glorious outside hours. +There was where the poor rabbit of a bank clerk got his fling." + +"Oh, yes, it works logically. He held himself down to Clayte at the St. +Dunstan and in the bank, and he let himself go to--what?--outside of it, +beyond it, where he really lived." + +"He let himself go to Steve Skeels--won't that do you?" + +"No," she said so positively that it was annoying. "That won't do me at +all." + +"But it's what you got," I reminded her rather unkindly, and then was +sorry I'd done it. "It's what you got for me--and I thank you for it." + +"You needn't," she came back at me--spunky little thing. "It isn't worth +thanking anybody for. It's only a partial fact." + +"And you think half truths are dangerous?" I smiled at her. + +"There isn't any such thing," she instructed me. "Even _facts_ can +hardly be split into fractions; while the truth is always whole and +complete." + +"As far as you see it," I amended. "For instance, you insist on keeping +the gang all under Clayte's hat--or you did at first. Now you're +refusing to believe, as both Worth and I believe, that Steve Skeels is +Clayte himself. I should think you'd jump at the idea. Here's your +Wonder Man." + +She leaned back in her chair and laughed. I was glad to hear the sound +again, see the dimples flicker in her cheeks, even if she was laughing +at me. + +"A wonderful Wonder Man, Mr. Boyne," she said. "One who does things so +bunglingly that you can follow him right up and put your hand on him." + +"Not so I could," I reminded her gaily. "So you could. Quite a different +matter." She took my compliment sweetly, but she said with smiling +reluctance, + +"I'm not in this, of course, except that your kindness allowed me to be +for this day only. But if I were, I shouldn't be following Skeels as you +are. I'd still be after Clayte." + +"It foots up to the same thing," I said rather tartly. + +"Oh, does it?" she laughed at me. "Two and two are making about three +and a half this afternoon, are they?" + +"What we've got to-day ought to land something," I maintained. "You've +been fine help, Barbara--" and I broke off suddenly with the knowledge +that I'd been calling her that all through the rush of the work. + +"Thank you." She smiled inclusively. I knew she meant my use of her name +as well as my commendation. I began clearing my desk preparatory to +leaving. Worth was going to take her home and as he brought her coat, he +spoke again of the suitcase. + +"Hey, there!" I remonstrated, "You don't want to be lugging that thing +with you everywhere, like a three-year-old kid that's found a dead cat. +Leave it where it is." + +"Give me an order for it then," he said. And when I looked surprised, +"Might need that box, and you not be in the office." + +"Need it?" I grumbled. "I'd like to know what for." + +But I scribbled the order. Over by the window the young people were +talking together earnestly; they made a picture against the light, +standing close, the girl's vivid dark face raised, the lad's tall head +bent, attentive. + +"But, Bobs, you must get some time to play about," I heard Worth say. + +"Awfully little," Her look up at him was like that of a wistful child. + +"You said you were in the accounting department," he urged impatiently. +"A lightning calculator like you could put that stuff through in about +one tenth of the usual time." + +"I use an adding machine," she half whispered, and it made me chuckle. + +"An adding machine!" Worth exploded in a peal of laughter. "For Barbara +Wallace! What's their idea?" + +"It isn't their idea; it's mine," with dignity. "They don't know that I +used to be a freak mathematician. I don't want them to. Father used to +say that all children could be trained to do all that I did--if you took +them young enough. But till they are, I'd rather not be. It's horrid to +be different; and I'm keeping it to myself--in the office anyhow--and +living my past down the best I can." + +As though her words had suggested it, Worth spoke again, + +"Where did you meet Cummings? Seems you find time to go out with him." + +"I've known Mr. Cummings for years," Barbara spoke quietly, but she +looked self-conscious. "I knew he was with those friends of mine at the +Orpheum last night, but I didn't expect him to call for me at Tait's--or +rather I thought they'd all come in after me. There wasn't anything +special about it--no special appointment with him, I mean." + +I had forgotten them for a minute or two, closing my desk, finding my +coat, when I heard some one come into the outer office, a visitor, for +little Pete's voice went up to a shrill yap with the information that I +was busy. Then the knob turned, the door opened, and there stood +Cummings. At first he saw only me at the desk. + +"Your friend calling for you again, Bobs--by appointment?" Worth's +question drew the lawyer's glance, and he stared at them apparently a +good deal taken aback, while Worth added, "Seems to keep pretty close +tab on your movements." The low tone might have been considered joking, +but there was war in the boy's eye. + +It was as though Cummings answered the challenge, rather than opened +with what he had intended. + +"My business is with you, Gilbert." He came in and shut the door behind +him, leaving his hand on the knob. "And I've been some time finding +you." He stopped there, and was so long about getting anything else out +that Worth finally suggested, + +"The money?" And when there was no reply but a surprised look, "How do +you stand now?" + +"Still seventy-two thousand to raise." Cummings spoke vaguely. This was +not what had brought him to the office. He finished with the abrupt +question, "Were you at Santa Ysobel last night?" + +"Hold on, Cummings," I broke in. "What you got? Let us--" + +I was shut off there by Worth's, + +"It's Sunday afternoon. I want that money to-morrow morning. You've not +come through? You've not dug up what I sent you after?" + +I could see that the lawyer was absolutely nonplussed. Again he gave +Worth one of those queer, probing looks before he said doggedly, + +"The question of that money can wait." + +"It can't wait." Worth's eyes began to light up. "What you talking, +Cummings--an extension?" And when the lawyer made no answer to this, +"I'll not crawl in with a broken leg asking favors of that bank crowd. +Are you quitting on me? If so, say it--and I'll find a way to raise the +sum, myself." + +"I've raised all but seventy-two thousand of the necessary amount," said +Cummings slowly. "What I want to know is--how much have you raised?" + +"See here, Cummings," again I mixed in. "I was present when that +arrangement was made. Nothing was said about Worth raising any money." + +Cummings barely glanced around at me as he said, "I made a suggestion to +him; in your presence, as you say, Boyne. I want to know if he carried +it out." Then, giving his full attention to Worth, "Did you see your +father last night?" + +On instinct I blurted, + +"For heaven's sake, keep your mouth shut, Worth!" + +For a detective that certainly was an incautious speech. Cummings' eye +flared suspicion at me, and his voice was a menace. + +"You keep out of this, Boyne." + +"You tell what's up your sleeve, Cummings," I countered. "This is no +witness-stand cross-examination. What you got?" + +But Worth answered for him, hotly, + +"If Cummings hasn't seventy-two thousand dollars I commissioned him to +raise for me, I don't care what he's got." + +"And you didn't go to your father for it last night?" Cummings returned +to his question. He had moved close to the boy. Barbara stood just where +she was when the door opened. Neither paid any attention to her. But she +looked at the two men, drawn up with glances clinched, and spoke out +suddenly in her clear young voice, as though there was no row on hand, + +"Worth was with me last night, you know, Mr. Cummings." + +"I seem to have noticed something of the sort," Cummings said with +labored sarcasm. "And he'd been with that wedding party earlier in the +evening, I suppose." + +"With me till Miss Wallace came in." Worth's natural disposition to +disoblige the lawyer could be depended on to keep from Cummings whatever +information he wanted before giving us his own news. "What you got, +Cummings?" I prompted again, impatiently. "Come through." + +His eyes never shifted an instant from Worth Gilbert's face. + +"A telegram--from Santa Ysobel," he said slowly. + +Worth shrugged and half turned away. + +"I'm not interested in your telegram, Cummings." + +Instantly I saw what the boy thought: that the other had taken it on +himself to apply for the money to Thomas Gilbert, and had been turned +down. + +"Not interested?" Cummings repeated in that dry, lawyer voice that +speaks from the teeth out; on the mere tone, I braced for something +nasty. "I think you are. My telegram's from the coroner." + +Silence after that; Worth obstinately mute; Barbara and I afraid to ask. +There was a little tremor of Cummings' nostril, he couldn't keep the +flicker out of his eye, as he said, staring straight at Worth, + +"It states that your father shot himself last night. The body wasn't +discovered till late this morning, in his study." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SANTA YSOBEL + + +Of all unexpected things. I went down to Santa Ysobel with Worth +Gilbert. It happened this way: Cummings, one of those individuals on +whose tombstone may truthfully be put, "Born a man--and died a lawyer," +seemed rather taken aback at the effect of the blow he'd launched. If he +was after information, I can't think he learned much in the moment while +Worth stood regarding him with an unreadable eye. + +There was only a little grimmer tightening of the jaw muscle, something +bleak and robbed in the glance of the eye; the face of one, it seemed to +me, who grieved the more because he was denied real sorrow for his loss, +and Worth had tramped to the window and stood with his back to us, +putting the thing over in his silent, fighting fashion, speaking to none +of us. It was when Barbara followed, took hold of his sleeve and began +half whispering up into his face that Cummings jerked his hat from the +table where he had thrown it, and snapped, + +"Boyne--can I have a few minutes of your time?" + +"Jerry," Worth's voice halted me at the door, "Leave that card--an +order--for me. For the suitcase." + +Cummings was ahead of me, and he turned back to listen, but I crowded +him along and was pretty hot when I faced him in the outer office to +demand, + +"What kind of a deal do you call this--ripping in here to throw this +thing at the boy in such a way? What is your idea? What you trying to +put over?" + +"Go easy, Boyne." Cummings chewed his words a little before he let them +out. "There's something queer in this business. I intend to know what it +is." + +"Queer," I repeated his word. "If the lawyers and the detectives get to +running down all the queer things--that don't concern them a little +bit--the world won't have any more peace." + +"All right, if you say it doesn't concern you," Cummings threw me +overboard with relief I thought. "It does concern me. When I couldn't +get--him"--a jerk of the head indicated that the pronoun stood for +Worth--"at the Palace, found he'd been out all day and left no word at +the desk when he expected to be in, I took my telegram to Knapp, and +then to Whipple. They were flabbergasted." + +"The bank crowd," I said. "Now why did you run to them? On account of +Worth's engagement with them to-morrow morning? Wasn't that exceeding +your orders? You saw that he intends to meet it, in spite of this." + +"Why not because of this?" Cummings demanded sharply. "He's in better +shape to meet it now his father's dead. He's the only heir. That's the +first thing Knapp and Whipple spoke of--and I saw them separately." + +"Can that stuff. What do you think you're hinting at?" + +"Something queer," he repeated his phrase. "Wake up, Boyne. Knapp and +Whipple both saw Thomas Gilbert a little before noon yesterday. He was +in the bank for the final transfer of the Hanford interests. They'd as +soon have thought of my committing suicide that night--or you doing it. +They swear there was nothing in his manner or bearing to suggest such a +state of mind, and everything in the business he was engaged on to +suggest that he expected to live out his days like any man." + +I thought very little of this; it is common in cases of suicide for +family, friends or business associates to talk in exactly this way, to +believe it, and yet for the deep-seated moving cause to be easily +discovered by an unprejudiced outsider. I said as much to Cummings. And +while I spoke, we could hear a murmur of young voices from the inner +room. + +"Damn it all," the lawyer's irritation spurted out suddenly, "With a cub +like that for a son, I'd say the reason wasn't far to seek. Better keep +your eye peeled round that young man, Boyne." + +"I will," I agreed, and he took his departure. I turned back into the +private room. + +"Worth"--I put it quietly--"what say I go to Santa Ysobel with you? You +could bring me back Monday morning." + +He agreed at once, silently, but thankfully I thought. + +Barbara, listening, proposed half timidly to go with us, staying the +night at the Thornhill place, being brought back before work time +Monday, and was accepted simply. So it came that when we had a blow-out +as the crown of a dozen other petty disasters which had delayed our +progress toward Santa Ysobel, and found our spare tire flat, Barbara +jumped down beside Worth where he stood dragging out the pump, and +stopped him, suggesting that we save time by running the last few miles +on the rim and getting fixed up at Capehart's garage. He climbed in +without a word, and drove on toward where Santa Ysobel lies at the head +of its broad valley, surrounded by the apricot, peach and prune orchards +that are its wealth. + +We came into the fringes of the town in the obscurity of approaching +night; a thick tulle fog had blown down on the north wind. The little +foot-hill city was all drowned in it; tree-tops, roofs, the gable ends +of houses, the illuminated dial of the town clock on the city hall, +sticking up from the blur like things seen in a dream. As we headed for +a garage with the name Capehart on it, we heard, soft, muffled, seven +strokes from the tower. + +"Getting in late," Worth said absently. "Bill still keeps the old +place?" + +"Yes. Just the same," Barbara said. "He married our Sarah, you know--was +that before you went away? Of course not," and added for my +enlightenment, "Sarah Gibbs was father's housekeeper for years. She +brought me up." + +We drove into the big, dimly lighted building; there came to us from its +corner office what might have been described as a wide man, not +especially imposing in breadth, but with a sort of loose-jointed +effectiveness to his movements, and a pair of roving, yellowish-hazel +eyes in his broad, good-humored face, mighty observing I'd say, in spite +of the lazy roll of his glance. + +"Been stepping on tacks, Mister?" he hailed, having looked at the tires +before he took stock of the human freight. + +"Hello, Bill," Worth was singing out. "Give me another machine--or get +our spare filled and on--whichever's quickest. I want to make it to the +house as soon as I can." + +"Lord, boy!" The wide man began wiping a big paw before offering it. +"I'm glad to see you." + +They shook hands. Worth repeated his request, but the garage man was +already unbuckling the spare, going to the work with a brisk efficiency +that contradicted his appearance. + +Barbara sitting quietly beside me, we heard them talking at the back of +the machine, as the jack quickly lifted us and Worth went to it with +Capehart to unbolt the rim; a low-toned steady stream from the wide man, +punctuated now and then by a word from Worth. + +"Yeh," Capehart grunted, prying off the tire. "Heard it m'self 'bout +noon--or a little after. Yeh, Ward's Undertaking Parlors." + +"Undertaking parlors!" Worth echoed. Capehart, hammering on the spare, +agreed. + +"Nobody in town that knowed what to do about it; so the coroner took +a-holt, I guess, and kinda fixed it to suit hisself. Did you phone ahead +to see how things was out to the house?" + +"Tried to," Worth said. "The operator couldn't raise it." + +"Course not." Capehart was coupling on the air. "Your chink's off every +Sunday--has the whole day--and the Devil only could guess where a +Chinaman'd go when he ain't working. Eddie Hughes ought to be on the job +out there--but would he?" + +"Father still kept Eddie?" + +"Yeh." The click of the jack and the car was lowering. "Eddie's lasted +longer than I looked to see him. Due to be fired any time this past +year. Been chasing over 'crost the tracks. Got him a girl there, one of +these cannery girls. Well, she's sort of married, I guess, but that +don't stop Eddie. 'F I see him, I'll tell him you want him." + +They came to the front of the machine; Worth thrust his hand in his +pocket. Capehart checked him with, + +"Let it go on the bill." Then, as Worth swung into his seat, Barbara +bent forward from behind my shoulder, the careless yellowish eyes that +saw everything got a fair view of her, and with a sort of subdued crow, +"Look who's here!" Capehart took hold of the upright to lean his square +form in and say earnestly, "While you're in Santa Ysobel, don't forget +that we got a spare room at our house." + +"Next time," Barbara raised her voice to top the hum of the engine. "I'm +only here for over night, now, and I'm going down to Mrs. Thornhill's." + +We were out in the street once more, leaving the cannery district on our +right, tucked away to itself across the railroad tracks, running on Main +Street to City Hall Square, where we struck into Broad, followed it out +past the churches and to that length of it that held the fine homes in +their beautiful grounds, getting close at last to where town melts again +into orchards. The road between its rows of fernlike pepper trees was a +wet gleam before us, all black and silver; the arc lights made big misty +blurs without much illumination as we came to the Thornhill place. Worth +got down and, though she told him he needn't bother, took her in to the +gate. For a minute I waited, getting the bulk of the big frame house +back among the trees, with a single light twinkling from an upper story +window; then Worth flung into the car and we speeded on, skirting a long +frontage of lawns, beautifully kept, pearly with the fog, set off with +artfully grouped shrubbery and winding walks. There was no barrier but a +low stone coping; the drive to the Gilbert place went in on the side +farthest from the Thornhill's. We ran in under a carriage porch. The +house was black. + +"See if I can raise anybody," said Worth as he jumped to the ground. +"Let you in, and then I'll run the roadster around to the garage." + +But the house was so tightly locked up that he had finally to break in +through a pantry window. I was out in front when he made it, and saw the +lights begin to flash up, the porch lamp flooding me with a sudden glare +before he threw the door open. + +"Cold as a vault in here." + +He twisted his broad shoulders in a shudder, and I looked about me. It +was a big entrance hall, with a wide stairway. There on the hat tree +hung a man's light overcoat, a gray fedora hat; a stick leaned below. +When the master of the house went out of it this time, he hadn't needed +these. Abruptly Worth turned and led the way into what I knew was the +living room, with a big open fireplace in it. + +"Make yourself as comfortable as you can, Jerry. I'll get a blaze here +in two shakes. I suppose you're hungry as a wolf--I am. This is a hell +of a place I've brought you into." + +"Forget it," I returned. "I can look after myself. I'm used to rustling. +Let me make that fire." + +"All right." He gave up his place on the hearth to me, straightened +himself and stood a minute, saying, "I'll raid the kitchen. Chung's sure +to have plenty of food cooked. He may not be back here before midnight." + +"Midnight?" I echoed. "Is that usual?" + +"Used to be. Chung's been with father a long time. Good chink. Always +given his whole Sunday, and if he was on hand to get Monday's +breakfast--no questions." + +"Left last night, you think?" + +Worth shot me a glance of understanding. + +"Sometimes he would--after cleaning up from dinner. But he wouldn't have +heard the shot, if that's what you're driving at." + +He left me, going out through the hall. My fire burned. I thawed out the +kinks the long, chill ride had put in me. Then Worth hailed; I went out +and found him with a coffee-pot boiling on the gas range, a loaf and a +cold roast set out. He had sand, that boy; in this wretched home-coming, +his manner was neither stricken nor defiant. He seemed only a little +graver than usual as he waited on me, hunting up stuff in places he knew +of to put some variety into our supper. + +Where I sat I faced a back window, and my eye was caught by the +appearance of a strange light, quite a little distance from the house, +apparently in another building, but showing as a vague glow on the fog. + +"What's down there?" I asked. Worth answered without taking the trouble +to lean forward and look, + +"The garage--and the study." + +"Huh? The study's separate from the house?" I had been thinking of the +suicide as a thing of this dwelling, an affair in some room within its +walls. Of course Chung would not hear the shot. "Who's down there?" + +"Eddie Hughes has a room off the garage." + +"He's in it now." + +"How do you know?" he asked quickly. + +"There's a light--or there was. It's gone now." + +"That wouldn't have been Eddie," Worth said. "His room's on the other +side, toward the back street. What you saw was the light from these +windows shining on the fog. Makes queer effects sometimes." + +I knew that wasn't it, but I didn't argue with him, only remarked, + +"I'd like to have a look at that place, Worth, if you don't mind." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A SHADOW IN THE FOG + + +Again I saw that glow from the Gilbert garage, hanging on the fog; a +luminosity of the fog; saw it disappear as the mist deepened and +shrouded it. But Worth was answering me, and somehow his words seemed +forced; + +"Sit tight a minute, Jerry. Have another cup of coffee while I +telephone, then I'll put the roadster in and open up down there. I'll +call you--or you can see my lights." + +He left me. I heard him at the instrument in the hall get his number, +talk to some one in a low voice, and then go out the front door; next +thing was the sound of the motor, the glare of its lamps as it rounded +into the driveway and started down back, illuminating everything. In the +general glare thrown on the fog, the fainter light was invisible, but +across a plot of kitchen garden I saw where it had been; a square, squat +building of concrete, flat roofed, vining plants in boxes drooping over +its cornice; the typical garage of such an establishment, but nearly +double the usual size. The light had come from there, but how? In the +short time that the lamps of the machine were showing it up to me, there +seemed no windows on this side; only the double doors for the car's +entrance--closed now--and a single door which was crossed by two heavy, +barricading planks nailed in the form of a great X. + +Worth ran the machine close up against the doors, jumped down, and I +could see his tall form, blurred by the mist, moving about to slide them +open. The lamps of the roadster made little showing now as he rolled it +in. Then these were switched off and everything down there was dark as a +pocket. For a time I sat and waited for him to light up and call me, +then started down. The fog was making the kind of dimness that has a +curious, illusory character. I suppose I had gone half the distance of +the garden walk, when, thrown up startlingly on the obscurity, I saw a +square of white, and across that shining screen, moved the silhouette of +a human head. The whole thing danced before my eyes for a bare second, +then blackness. + +With Cummings' queer hints in my mind, I started running across the +garden toward it. About the first thing I did was step into a cold +frame, plunging my foot through the glass, all but going to my knees in +it; and when I got up, swearing, I was turned around, ran into bushes, +tripped over obstructions, and traveled, I think, in a circle. + +Then I began to go more cautiously. No use getting excited. That was +only Worth I had seen. And still I was unwilling to call, ask him to +show a light. I groped along until my outstretched fingers came across +the corner of a building, rough, stonelike--the concrete garage and +study. I felt along, seeing a bit now, and was soon passing my hands +over the barricading planks of that door. + +I might have lit a match, but I preferred to find out what I could by +feeling around, and that cautiously. I discovered that the door had been +broken in, the top panels shattered to kindling wood, the force of the +assault having burst a hinge, so that the whole thing sagged drunkenly +behind the heavy planks that propped it, while a strong bolt, quite +useless, was still clamped into a socket which had been torn, screws and +all, from the inside casing. + +Sliding my hands over the broken top panel I found that it had been +covered on its inner side by a piece of canvas; the screen on which that +shadow had been thrown--from within the room. There was no light there +now; there was no sound of motion within. The drip of the fog from the +eaves was the only break in the stillness. + +"Worth?" I shouted, at last, and he answered me instantly, hallooing +from behind me, and to one side of the house. I could hear him running +and when he spoke it was close to my shoulder. + +"Where are you, Jerry?" + +"Where are you," I countered. "Or rather, where have you been?" + +"Getting a bar to pry off these boards." + +"A bar?" I echoed stupidly. + +"A crowbar from the shed. These planks will have to come off to let us +in." + +"The devil you say!" I was exasperated. "There's some one in here +now--or was a minute back. Show me the other way in." + +I heard the ring of the steel bar as its end hit the hard graveled path. + +"Some one in there? Jerry, you're seeing things." + +"Sure I am," I agreed drily. "But you get me to that other door quick!" + +"The only other door is locked. I tried it from the garage. You're +dreaming." + +For reply, I ran up to the door and thrust my fist through the canvas, +ripping it away from its clumsy tacking. + +"Who's in there?" I cried. "Answer me!" + +Dead silence; then a click as Worth snapped on a flood of light from his +pocket torch, saying tolerantly, tiredly, + +"I told you there was no one. There couldn't be." + +"I tell you, Worth, there was. I saw the shadow on the square of that +canvas. Give me the torch." + +I pushed the flashlight through the opening and played the light cone +about the room in a quick survey; then brought the circle of white glow +to rest upon one of the side walls; and my hand went down and back to +grip fingers about the butt of my revolver. There was, as Worth had +said, but one other door to this room; but more, there was apparently no +other exit; no windows, no breaks in the walls. My circle of light was +on this second door; and the very heart of that circle was a heavy steel +bolt on the door, the bar of which was firmly shot into the socket on +the frame. The only exit from that room, other than the door through +which I now leaned with pistol raised, was locked--bolted from the +inside! + +Worth was crowding his big frame into the opening beside me. + +"Keep back," I growled. "Some one's inside," and I sent the light shaft +into corners to drive out the shadows, to cut in under the desk and +chairs. Worth's reply was a laugh, and his arm went by me to reach +inside the door. Then, as his fingers found the button, a light sprang +out from a lamp upon the center desk. + +"You're letting your nerves play the deuce with you, Jerry," he said +lightly. "Make way for my crowbar and we'll get in out of the wet." + +I made no answer, but for a long moment more I searched that room with +my eyes; but it was the kind you see all over at a glance. Big, square, +plain, it hadn't a window in it; the walls, lined with book shelves, +floor to ceiling; a fireplace; a library table with drawers; a few +chairs. No chance for a hideout. I glanced at the ceiling and confirmed +the evidence of my eyes. There was a skylight, and through it had come +that curious glow that first attracted my attention to the place. + +Then I gave Worth room to wield his tools on the barred door, while I +ran quickly back to the house, into the kitchen, and plumped down in the +chair where I had sat before. The light showed on the fog, brightened +and dimmed as the mist drifted past. There was no possibility of a +mistake: some one had been in the study, had turned on the table lamp, +had projected his shadow against the patched panel of the door, and had +somehow left the room, one door bolted, the only other exit barred and +nailed. + +I went back and rejoined Worth who was standing where a brownish stain +on the rug marked a spot a little nearer the corner of the table than it +was to the outer door. A curious place for a suicide to fall. Behind the +table was the library chair in which Thomas Gilbert worked when at his +desk; beside it a small cabinet with a humidor on its top and the open +door below revealing several decanters and bottles, whisky and wine +glasses, a tray; between the desk and the fireplace were two other +chairs, large and comfortable; but in front of the table--between it and +the door--was barren floor. + +It is a fact that most men who shoot themselves do so while sitting; +some lying in a bed; few standing. The psychology of this I must leave +to others, but experience has taught me to question the suicide of one +who has seemingly placed the muzzle of a revolver against him while on +his feet. Thomas Gilbert had stood; had chosen to take his life as he +was walking from door to desk, or from desk to door. + +"Worth," I said. "There was somebody in here just now." + +"Couldn't have been, Jerry," he answered absently; then added, his eyes +on that stain, "I never could calculate what my father would do. But +when I talked to him last night, right here in this room, he didn't seem +to me a man ready to take his own life." + +"You quarreled?" + +"We always quarreled, whenever we met." + +"But this quarrel was more bitter than usual?" + +"The last quarrel would seem the bitterest, wouldn't it, Jerry?" he +asked. Then, after a moment, "Poor Jim Edwards!" + +I caught my tongue to hold back the question. Worth went on, + +"When I phoned him just now, he hadn't heard a word about it. Seemed +terribly upset." + +"Hadn't heard?" I echoed. "How was that?" + +"You know we saw him at Tait's last night. He took the Pacheco Pass road +from San Francisco; drove straight to his ranch without hitting Santa +Ysobel." + +I wanted another look at that man Edwards. I was to have it. Worth went +on absently, + +"He'll be along presently to stay here while I'm away Monday. Told me it +would be the first time he'd put foot in the house for four years. As +boys up in Sonoma county, he and father always disagreed, but sometime +these last years there was a big split over something. They were barely +on speaking terms--and good old Jim took my news harder than as though +I'd been telling him the death of a near friend." + +"Works like that with us humans," I nodded. "Let some one die that +you've disagreed with, and you remember every row you ever had with +them; remember it and regret it--which is foolish." + +"Which is foolish," Worth repeated, and seemed for the first time able +to get away from the spot at which he had stopped. + +He went over to the empty, fireless hearth and stood there, his back to +the room, elbows on the mantel propping his head, face bent, oblivious +to anything that I might do. It oughtn't to be hard to find the way this +place could be entered and left by a man solid enough to cast a shadow, +with quick fingers to snap the light on and off. But when I made a +painstaking examination of a corner grate with a flue too small for +anything but a chimney swallow to go up and down, a ceiling solidly +beamed and paneled, the glass that formed the skylight set in firmly as +part of the roof, when I'd turned up rugs and inspected an unbroken +floor, even tried the corners of book cases to see if they masked a +false entrance, I owned myself, for the moment, beaten there. + +"Give me your torch--or go with me, Worth," I said. "I'd like to take a +scoot around outside." + +He didn't speak, only indicated the flashlight by a motion, where it lay +on the shelf beside his hand. I took it, unbolted the door, and stepped +into the garage. + +Everything all right here. My roadster; a much handsomer small machine +beyond it; a bench, portable forge and drill made a repair shop of one +corner, and as my light flashed over these, I checked and stared. Why +had Worth gone to the shed hunting a crowbar to open the door? Here were +tools that would have served as well. I put from me the hateful thought, +and damned Cummings and his suspicions. The shadow didn't have to be +Worth. Certainly he had not first lit that lamp, for I had seen it from +the kitchen with him beside me. Some one other than Worth had been in +there when Worth put up the roadster. I'd find the man it really was. +But even as I crossed to Eddie Hughes's door, something at the back of +my head was saying to me that Worth could have been in that room--that +there was time for it to be, if he had taken the crowbar from the garage +and not from the shed as he said he did. + +At this I took myself in hand. The lie would have been so clumsy a one +that there was no way but to accept this statement for the truth; and +some one else had made that shadow on the canvas. + +I tried the chauffeur's door and found it locked; called, shook it, and +had set my shoulder against it to burst it in, when the rolling door on +the street side moved a little, and a voice said, + +"H-y-ah! What you doin' there?" + +I turned and flashed my light on the six-inch crack of the sliding door. +It gave me a strip of man, a long drab face at top, solid, meaty +looking, yet somehow slightly cadaverous, a half shut eye, a crooked +mouth--if I'd met that mug in San Francisco, I'd have labeled it +"tough," and located it South of Market Street. + +Slowly, it seemed rather reluctantly, Eddie Hughes worked the six-inch +crack wider by working himself through it. + +"What the hell do you want in my room for?" he demanded. The form of the +words was truculent, but the words themselves slid in a sort of +spiritless fashion from the corner of that crooked mouth of his, and he +added in the next breath, "I'll open up for you, when I've lit the +blinks." + +There was a central lamp that made the whole place as bright as day. +Eddie fumbled a key out of his pocket, threw the door of his room open, +and stepped back to let me pass him. + +"Capehart tells me Worth's here," he said as we went in. + +"When?" I gave him a sharp look. He seemed not to notice it. + +"Just now. I came straight from there." + +He came straight from there? Did he supply an alibi so neatly because of +that shadowy head on the door panel? For a long minute we each took +measure of the other, but Eddie's nerves were less reliable than mine; +he spoke first. + +"Well?" he grunted, scarcely above his breath. And when I continued to +stare silently at him, he writhed a shoulder with, "What's doing? What +d'yuh want of me?" + +Still silently, I pulled out with my thumb through the armhole of my +vest the police badge pinned to the suspender. His ill-colored face went +a shade nearer the yellow white of tallow. + +"What for?" he asked huskily. "You haven't got nothin' on me. It was +suicide--cor'ner's jury says so. Lord! It has to be, him layin' there, +all hunched up on the floor, his gun so tight in his mitt that they had +to pry the fingers off it!" + +"So you found the body?" + +He nodded and gulped. + +"I told all I knowed at the inquest," he said doggedly. + +"Tell it again," I commanded. + +Standing there, working his hands together as though he held some small, +accustomed tool that he was turning, shifting from foot to foot, with +long breaks in his speech, the chauffeur finally put me into possession +of what he knew--or what he wished me to know. He had been out all +night. That was usual with him Saturdays. Where? Over around the +canneries. Had friends that lived there. He got into this place about +dawn, and went straight to bed. + +"Hold on, Hughes," I stopped him there. "You never went to bed--that +night, or any other night--until you'd had a jolt from the bottle +inside." + +He gave me a surly, half frightened glance, then said quickly, + +"Not a chance. Bolts on the doors, locks everywhere; all tight as a +jail. Take it from me, he wasn't the kind you want to have a run-in +with--any time. Always just as cool as ice himself; try to make you +believe he could tell what you were up to, clear across town. Hold it +over you as if he was God almighty that stuck folks together and set 'em +walkin' around and thinkin' things." + +He broke off and looked over his shoulder in the direction of the study. +The walls were thick--concrete; the door heavy. No sound of Worth's +moving in there could be heard in this room. Apparently it was the old +terror of his employer, or the new terror of the employer's death, that +spoke when he said, + +"I got up this morning late with a throat like the back of a chimney. +Lord! I never wanted a drink so bad in my life--had to have one. The +chink leaves my breakfast for me Sundays; but I knew I couldn't eat till +I'd had one. So I--so I--" + +It was as though some recollection fairly choked off his voice. I +finished for him. + +"So you went in there--" I pointed at the study door, "and found the +body." + +"Naw! How the hell could I? I told you--locked. I crawled up on the +roof, though; huntin' a way in, and I looked through the skylight. There +he was. On the floor. His eyes weren't open much, but they was watchin' +me--sort of sneerin'. I come down off that roof like a bat outa hell, +and scuttled over to Vandeman's where his chink was on the porch, I +bellerin' at him. I telephoned from there. For the bulls; and the +cor'ner; and everybody. Gawd! I was all in." + +I caught one point in the tale. + +"So the way into the study is through the skylight, Hughes?" and he +shook his head vaguely, fumbling his lips with a trembling hand as he +replied, + +"Honest to God, Cap'n, I don't know. I never tried. I gave just one look +through it, and--" He broke off with a shudder. + +"Get a ladder," I commanded. "I want to see that skylight." + +While he was gone on his errand to the shed, I investigated the outer +walls of the study with the torch, hunting some break in their solidity. +They were concrete; a hair-crack would have been visible in the electric +glow; there was no break. Then, as he placed the ladder against the +coping, I climbed to the roof and stepped across its firmness to the +skylight. I looked down. + +Worth, kneeling on the hearth, was laying a fire in the corner grate. As +he did not glance up, I knew he had not heard me. Evidently the study +had been built to resist the disturbance of sound from without. That +meant that the report of the revolver inside had not been heard by any +one outside the walls. + +Directly below me was the library table and upon its top a blue desk +blotter; a silver filagreed inkstand stood open; penholders, pencils, +paper knife were on a tray beside it, one pen lying separate from the +others with a ruler, upon the blotting pad; books and a magazine neatly +in a pile. The walls, as I circled them with my eyes, were book-lined +everywhere except for the grate and the two doors. + +Then I inspected the skylight, frame and glass, feeling it over with my +hands. There was no entrance here. Even should a pane of glass be +removable--all seemingly solid and tight--the frame between and the sash +were of steel, and the panes were too small for the passage of a man. I +crept back to the ladder as Worth was striking a match to light the +pitch-pine kindling. + +"What about this Vandeman chink?" I asked of Hughes as I rejoined him at +the foot of the ladder. "Does he hang around here much?" + +"Him and Chung visit back and forth a bit. I hear 'em talkin' hy-lee +hy-lo sometimes when I go by the kitchen." + +"Take me over there," I said. + +The fog was beginning to blow away in threads; moonlight somewhere back +of it made a queer, gray, glimmering world around us. We circled the +garden by the path, passing a sort of gardener's tool shed where Hughes +left the ladder, and from which I judged Worth had brought the bar he +pried the door planks off with, to find a gap in a hedge between this +place and the next. + +There was a light in the rear of the house over there, and a +well-trodden path leading from the hedge gap made what I took to be a +servants' highway. + +Vandeman's house proved to be, as nearly as one could see it in the +darkness, a sprawling bungalow, with courts, pergolas and terraces +bursting out on all sides of it. I could fairly see it of a fine +afternoon, with its showy master sitting on one of the showy porches, +serving afternoon tea in his best manner to the best people of Santa +Ysobel. Just the husband for that doll-faced girl, if she only thought +so. What could she have done with a young outlaw like Worth? + +When I looked at the Chinaman in charge there, I gave up my idea of +questioning him. Civilly enough, with a precise and educated usage of +the English language, he confirmed what Eddie Hughes had already told +me about the telephoning from that place this morning; and I went no +further. I know the Chinese--if anybody not Mongolian can say they know +the race--and I have also a suitable respect for the value of time. A +week of steady questioning of Vandeman's yellow man would have brought +me nowhere. He was that kind of a chink; grave, respectful, placid and +impervious. + +On the way back I asked Eddie about the Thornhill servants at the house +on the other side of Gilbert's, and found they kept but one, "a sort of +old lady," Eddie called her, and I guessed easily at the decayed +gentlewoman kind of person. It seemed that Mrs. Thornhill was a widow, +and there wasn't much money now to keep up the handsome place. + +I left Eddie slipping eel-like through the big doors, and went into the +study to find Worth sitting before the blazing hearth. He looked up as I +entered to remark quietly, + +"Bobs said she'd be over later, and I told her to come on down here." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE MISSING DIARY + + +My experience as a detective has convinced me that the evident is +usually true; that in a great majority of cases crime leaves a straight +trail, and ambiguities are more often due to the inability of the +trailer than to the cunning of the trailed. Such reputation as I have +established is due to acceptance of and earnest adherence to the +obvious. + +In this affair of Thomas Gilbert's death, everything so far pointed one +way. The body had been found in a bolted room, revolver in hand; on the +wall over the mantel hung the empty holster; Worth assured me the gun +was kept always loaded; and there might be motive enough for suicide in +the quarrel last night between father and son. + +Because of that flitting shadow I had seen, I knew this place was not +impervious. Some one person, at least, could enter and leave the room +easily, quickly, while its doors were locked. But that might be +Hughes--or even Worth--with some reason for doing so not willingly +explained, and some means not readily seen. It probably had nothing to +do with Thomas Gilbert's sudden death, could not offset in my mind the +conviction of Thomas Gilbert's stiffened fingers about the pistol's +butt. That I made a second thorough investigation of the study interior +was not because I questioned the manner of the death. + +I began taking down books from the shelves at regular intervals, +sounding the thick dead-wall, in search of a secreted entrance. I came +on a row of volumes whose red morocco backs carried nothing but dates. + +"Account books?" I asked. + +Worth turned his head to look, and the bleakest thing that could be +called a smile twisted his lips a little, as he said, + +"My father's diaries." + +"Quite a lot of them." + +"Yes. He'd kept diaries for thirty years." + +"But he seems to have dropped the habit. There is no 1920 book." + +"Oh, yes there is," very definitely. "He never gave up setting down the +sins of his family and neighbors while his eyes had sight to see them, +and his hand the cunning to write." He spoke with extraordinary +bitterness, finishing, "He would have had it on the desk there. The +current book was always kept convenient to his hand." + +An idea occurred to me. + +"Worth," I asked, "did you see that 1920 volume when you were here last +night?" + +He looked a little startled, and I prompted, + +"Were you too excited to have noticed a detail like that?" + +"I wasn't excited; not in the sense of being confused," he spoke slowly. +"The book was there; he'd been writing in it. I remember looking at it +and thinking that as soon as I was gone, he'd sit down in his chair and +put every damn' word of our row into it. That was his way. The seamy +side of Santa Ysobel life's recorded in those books. I always +understood they amounted to a pack of neighborhood dynamite." + +"Got to find that last book," I said. + +He nodded listlessly. I went to it, giving that room such a searching as +would have turned out a bent pin, had one been mislaid in it. I even +took down from the shelves books of similar size to see if the lost +volume had been slipped into a camouflaging cover--all to no good. It +wasn't there. And when I had finished I was positive of two things; the +study had no other entrance than the apparent ones, and the diary of +1920 had been removed from the room since Worth saw it there the night +before. I reached for one of the other volumes. Worth spoke again in a +sort of dragging voice, + +"What do you want to look at them for, Jerry?" + +"It's not idle curiosity," I told him, a bit pricked. + +"I know it's not that." The old, affectionate tone went right to my +heart. "But if you're thinking you'll find in them any explanation of my +father's taking his own life, I'm here to tell you you're mistaken. +Plenty there, no doubt, to have driven a tender hearted man off the +earth.... He was different." Eyeing the book in my hand, the boy blurted +with sudden heat, "Those damn' diaries have been wife and child and meat +and drink to him. They were his reason for living--not dying!" + +"Start me right in regard to your father, Worth," I urged anxiously. +"It's important." + +The boy gave me his shoulder and continued to stare down into the fire, +as he said at last, slowly, + +"I would rather leave him alone, Jerry." + +I knew it would be useless to insist. Never then or thereafter did I +hear him say more of his father's character. At that, he could hardly +have told more in an hour's talk. + +At random, I took the volume that covered the year in which, as I +remembered, Thomas Gilbert's wife had secured her divorce from him. +Neatly and carefully written in a script as readable as type, the books, +if I am a judge, had literary style. They were much more than mere +diaries. True, each entry began with a note of the day's weather, and +certain small records of the writer's personal affairs; but these went +oddly enough with what followed; a biting analysis of the inner life, +the estimated intentions and emotions, of the beings nearest to him. It +was inhuman stuff. But Worth was right; there was no soil for suicide in +this matter written by a hand guided by a harsh, censorious mind; too +much egotism here to willingly give over the role of conscience for his +friends. Friends?--could a man have friends who regarded humanity +through such unkindly, wide open, all-seeing eyes? + +Worth, seated across from me on the other side of the fire, stared +straight into the leaping blaze; but I doubted if that was what he saw. +On his face was the look which I had come to know, of the dignified +householder who had gone in and shut the door on whatever of dismay and +confusion might be in his private affairs. I began to read his father's +version of the separation from his mother, with its ironic references to +her most intimate friend. + +"Marion would like to see Laura Bowman ship Tony and marry Jim Edwards. +I swear the modern woman has played bridge so long that her idea of the +most serious obligation in life--the marriage vow--is, 'Never mind. If +you don't like the hand you have got, shuffle, cut, and deal again!'" + +I dropped the book to my knee and looked over at Worth, asking, + +"This Mrs. Dr. Bowman that we met last night at Tait's--she was a +special friend of your mother's?" + +"They were like sisters--in more than one way." I knew without his +telling it that he alluded to their common misfortune of being both +unhappily married. His mother, a woman of more force than the other, had +gained her freedom. + +"_Femina Priores._" I came on an entry standing oddly alone. "Marion is +to secure the divorce--at my suggestion. I have demanded that our son +share his time between us." + +Again I let the book down on my knee and looked across at the silent +fellow there. And I had heard him compassionate Barbara Wallace for +having painful memories of her childhood! I believe he was at that +moment more at peace with his father than he had ever been in his +life--and that he grieved that this was so. I knew, too, that the +forgiveness and forgetting would not extend to these pitiless records. +Without disturbing him, I laid the book I held down and scouted forward +for things more recent. + +"Laura Bowman"--through one entry after another Gilbert kicked that poor +woman's name like a football. Very fine and righteous and high-minded in +what he said, but writing it out in full and calling her painful +difficulties--the writhing of a sensitive, high-strung woman, mismated +with a tyrant--an example notably stupid and unoriginal, of the eternal +matrimonial triangle. Bowman evidently kept his sympathy, so far as +such a nature can be said to entertain that gentle emotion. + +I ran through other volumes, merciless recitals, now and again, of the +shortcomings of his associates or servants; a cold blooded +misrepresentation of his son; a sneer for the affair with Ina Thornhill, +with the dictum, sound enough no doubt, that the girl herself did the +courting, and that she had no conscience--"The extreme society type of +parasite," he put it. And then the account of his break with Edwards. + +Dr. Bowman, it seems, had come to Gilbert in confidence for help, saying +that his wife had left his house in the small hours the previous night, +nothing but an evening wrap pulled over her night wear, and that he +guessed where she could be found, since she hadn't gone to her mother's. +He asked Gilbert to be his ambassador with messages of pardon. Didn't +want to go himself, because that would mean a row, and he was +determined, if possible, to keep the thing private, giving a generous +reason: that he wasn't willing to disgrace the woman. All of which, +after he'd written it down, the diarist discredited with his brief +comment to the effect that Tony Bowman shunned publicity because scandal +of the sort would hurt his practice, and his pride as well, and that he +didn't go out to Jim Edwards's ranch because, under these circumstances, +he would be afraid of Jim. + +Thomas Gilbert did the doctor's errand for him. The entry concerning it +occupied the next day. I read between the lines how much he enjoyed his +position of god from the machine, swooping down on the two he found out +there, estimating their situation and behavior in his usual +hair-splitting fashion, sitting as a court of last appeal. It was of no +use for Edwards to explain to him that Laura Bowman was practically +crazy when she walked out of her husband's house as the culmination of a +miserable scene--the sort that had been more and more frequent there of +late--carrying black-and-blue marks where he had grabbed and shaken her. +The statement that it was by mere chance she encountered Jim seemed to +have made Gilbert smile, and Jim's taking of her out to the ranch, the +assertion that it was the only thing to do, that she was sick and +delirious, had inspired Gilbert to say to him, quite neatly, "You +weren't delirious, I take it--not more than usual." + +Then he demanded that Laura go with him, at once, back to her husband, +or out to her mother's. She considered the matter and chose to go back +to Bowman, saying bitterly that her mother made the match in the first +place, and stood always against her daughter and with her son-in-law +whatever he did. Plainly it took all of Laura's persuasions to prevent +actual blows between Gilbert and Edwards. Also, she would only promise +to go back and live under Bowman's roof, but not as his wife--and the +whole situation was much aggravated. + +I followed Mr. Thomas Gilbert's observation of this affair: his amused +understanding of how much Jim Edwards and Laura hated him; his private +contempt for Bowman, to whom he continued to give countenance and moral +support; his setting down of the quarrels, intimate, disastrous, between +Bowman and his wife, as the doctor retailed them to him, the woman +dragging herself on her knees to beg for her freedom, and his callous +refusals; backed by threat of the wide publicity of a scandalous +divorce suit, with Thomas Gilbert as main witness. I turned to Worth and +asked, + +"When will Edwards be here?" + +"Any minute now." Worth looked at me queerly, but I went on, + +"You said he phoned from the ranch. Did he answer you in person--from +out there?" + +"That's what I told you, Jerry." + +My searching gaze made nothing of the boy's impassive face; I plunged +again into the diaries, running down a page, getting the heading of a +sentence, not delaying to go further unless I struck something which +seemed to me important, and each minute thinking of the strangeness of a +man like this killing himself. It was in the 1916 volume, that I made a +discovery which surprised an exclamation from me. + +"What would you call this, Worth? Your father's way of making +corrections?" + +"Corrections?" Worth spoke without looking around. "My father never made +corrections--in anything." It was said without animus--a simple +statement of fact. + +"But look here." I held toward him the book. There were three leaves +gone; that meant six pages, and the entries covered May 31 and June 1. I +had verified that before I spoke to him, noticing that the statement of +the weather for May 31 remained at the foot of the last page left, while +a run-over on the page beyond the missing ones had been marked out. It +had nothing to do with the weather. As nearly as I could make out with +the reading glass I held over it, the words were, "take the woman for no +other than she appears." + +"Worth," I urged, "give me your attention for a minute here. You say +your father did not make corrections, but one of the diaries is cut. The +records of two days are gone. Were those pages stolen?" + +"How should I know?" said Worth, and added, helpfully, "Pity they didn't +steal the whole lot. That would have been a relief." + +There were voices and the sound of steps outside. I shoved the diary +back into its place on the shelf, and turned to see Barbara at the +broken door with Jim Edwards. She came in, her clear eyes a little wide, +but the whole young personality of her quite composed. Edwards halted at +the door, a haggard eye roving over the room, until it encountered the +blood-stain on the rug, when it sheered abruptly, and fixed itself on +Worth, who crossed to shake hands, with a quiet, + +"Come in, won't you, Jim? Or would you rather go up to the house?" + +Keenly I watched the man as he stood there struggling for words. There +was color on his thin cheeks, high under the dark eyes; it made him look +wild. The chill of the drive, or pure nervousness, had him shaking. + +"Thank you--the house, I think," he said rather incoherently. Yet he +lingered. "Barbara's been telling me," he said in that deep voice of his +with the air of one who utters at random. "Worth,--had you thought that +it might have been happening down here, right at the time we all sat at +Tait's together?" + +He was in a condition to spill anything. A moment more and we should +have heard what it was that had him in such a grip of horror. But as I +glanced at Worth, I saw him reply to the older man's question with a +very slight but very perceptible shake of the head. It had nothing to do +with what had been asked him; to any eye it said more plainly than +words, "Don't talk; pull yourself together." I whirled to see how +Edwards responded to this, and found our group had a new member. In the +door stood a decent looking, round faced Chinaman. Edwards had drawn a +little inside the threshold for him, but very little, and waited, still +shaken, perturbed, hat in hand, apparently ready to leave as soon as the +Oriental got out of his way. + +"Hello," the yellow man saluted us. + +"Hello, Chung," Worth rejoined, and added, "Looks good to see you +again." + +I was relieved to hear that. It showed me that the cook, anyhow, had not +seen Worth last night in Santa Ysobel. + +"Just now I hea' 'bout Boss." Chung's eye went straight to the stain on +the rug, exactly as Edwards' had done, but it stopped there, and his +Oriental impassiveness was unmoved. "Too bad," he concluded, thrust the +fingers of one hand up the sleeve of the other and waited. + +"Where you been all day?" I said quickly. + +"My cousin' ranch." + +"His cousin's got a truck farm over by Medlow--or used to have," Worth +supplied, and Chung looked to him, instantly. + +"You sabbee," he said hopefully. "I go iss mo'ning--all same any +day--not find out 'bout Boss. Too bad. Too velly much bad." A pause, +then, looking around at the four of us, "I get dinner?" + +"We've all had something to eat, Chung," Worth said. "You go now fix +room. Make bed. To-night, I stay; Mr. Boyne here stay; Mr. Edwards +stay. Fix three rooms. Good fire." + +"All 'ite," the chink would have ducked out then, Jim Edwards after him, +but I stopped the proceedings with, + +"Hold on a minute--while we're all together--tell us about that visitor +Mr. Gilbert had last night." I was throwing a rock in the brush-pile in +the chance of scaring out a rabbit. I was shooting the question at +Chung, but my eye was on Edwards. He glared back at me for a moment, +then couldn't stand the strain and looked away. At last the Chinaman +spoke. + +"Not see um. I go fix bed now." + +"Hold on," again I stopped him. "Worth, tell him those beds can wait. +Tell him it's all right to answer my questions." + +"'S all 'ite?" Chung studied us in turn. I was keeping an inconspicuous +eye on Edwards as I reassured him. "'S all 'ite," he repeated with a +falling inflection this time, and finished placidly, "You want know +'bout lady?" + +"What's all this?" Edwards spoke low. + +"About a lady who came to see Mr. Gilbert last night," I explained +shortly; then, "Who was she, Chung?" + +"Not see um good." The Chinaman shook his head gravely. + +"Did she come here--to the study?" I asked. He nodded. Worth moved +impatiently, and the Chinaman caught it. He fixed his eyes on Worth. I +stepped between them. "Chung," I said sharply. "You knew the lady. Who +was she?" + +"Not see um good," he repeated, plainly reluctant. "She hold hand by +face--cly, I think." + +"Good God!" Edwards broke out startlingly. "If we're going to hear an +account of all the women that Tom lectured and made cry--leave me out of +it." + +"One woman will do, for this time," I said to him drily, "if it's the +right one," and he subsided, turning away. But he did not go. With +burning eyes, he stood and listened while I cross-examined the unwilling +Chung and got apparently a straight story showing that some woman had +come to the side door of his master's house shortly after dinner +Saturday night, walked to the study with that master, weeping, and that +her voice when he heard it, sounded like that of some one he knew. I +tried every way in the world to get him to be specific about this voice; +did it sound like that of a young lady? an old lady? did he think it was +some one he knew well, or only a little? had he been hearing it much +lately? All the usual tactics; but Chung's placid obstinacy was proof +against them. He kept shaking his head and saying over and over, + +"No hear um good," until Barbara, standing watchfully by, said, + +"Chung, you think that lady talk like this?" + +As she spoke, after the first word, a change had come into her voice; it +was lighter, higher, with a something in its character faintly +reminiscent to my ear. And Chung bobbed his head quickly, nodding +assent. In her mimicry he had recognized the tones of the visitor. I +glanced at Edwards: he looked positively relieved. + +"I'll go to the house, Worth," he said with more composure in his tone +than I would have thought a few moments ago he could in any way summon. +"You'll find me there." And he followed the Chinaman up the moonlit +path. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A MURDER + + +I stood at the door and watched until I saw first Chung's head come into +the light on the kitchen porch, then Jim Edwards's black poll follow it. +I waited until both had gone into the house and the door was shut, +before I went back to Barbara and Worth. They were speaking together in +low tones over at the hearth. The three of us were alone; and the +blood-stain on the rug, out of sight there in the shadow beyond the +table, would seem to cry out as a fourth. + +"Barbara," I broke in across their talk, "who was the woman who came +here to this place last night?" + +She didn't answer me. Instead, it was Worth who spoke. + +"Better come here and listen to what Bobs has been saying to me, Jerry, +before you ask any questions." + +I crossed and stood between the two young people. + +"Well," I grunted; and though Barbara's face was white, her eyes big and +black, she answered me bravely, + +"Mr. Gilbert did not kill himself. Worth doesn't think so, either." + +"What!" It was jolted out of me. After a moment's thought, I finished, +"Then I've got to know who the woman was that visited this room last +night." + +For a long while she made no reply, studying Worth's profile as he +stared steadily into the fire. No signal passed between them, but +finally she came to her decision and said, + +"Mr. Boyne, ask Worth what he thinks I ought to say to that." + +Instead, "Who was it, Worth?" I snapped, speaking to the back of the +young man's head. The red came up into the girl's face, and her eyes +flashed; but Worth merely shrugged averted shoulders. + +"You can search me," he said, and left it there. + +I looked from one to the other of these young people: Worth, whom I +loved as I might have my own son had I been so fortunate as to possess +one; this girl who had made a place of warmth for herself in my heart in +less than a day, whose loyalty to my boy I was certain I might count on. +How different this affair must look to them from the face it wore to me, +an old police detective, who had bulled through many inquiries like +this, the corpse itself, perhaps, lying in the back of the room, instead +of the blood-stain we had there on the rug; what was practically the +Third Degree being applied to relatives and friends; with the squalid +prospect of a court trial ahead of us all. If they'd seen as much of +this sort of thing as I had, they wouldn't be holding me up now, tying +my hands that were so willing to help, by this fine-spun, overstrained +notion of shielding a woman's name. + +"Barbara," I began--I knew an appeal to the unaccountable Worth would +get me nowhere--"the facts we've got to deal with here are a possible +murder, with this lad the last person known--by us, of course--to have +seen his father alive. We know, too, that they quarreled bitterly. We +know all this. Outside people, men who are interested, and more or less +hostile, were aware that Worth needed money--needs it yet, for that +matter--a large sum. I suppose it is a question of time when it will be +known that Worth came here last night; and when it is known, do you +realize what it will mean?" + +Worth had sat through this speech without the quiver of a muscle, and no +word came from him as I paused for a reply. Little Barbara, big eyes +boring into me as though to read all that was in the back of my mind, +nodded gravely but did not speak. I crossed to the shelves and took down +the diary whose leather back bore the date of 1916. As I opened it, +finding the place where its pages had been removed, I continued, + +"You and I know--we three here know--" I included Worth in my +statement--"that the crime was neither suicide nor patricide; but it is +likely we must have proof of that fact. Unless we find the murderer--" + +"But the motive--there would have to be motive." + +Barbara struck right at the core of the thing. She didn't check at the +mere material facts of how a murder could have been done, who might have +had opportunity. The fundamental question of why it should have been was +her immediate interest. + +"I believe I've the motive here," I said and thrust the mutilated volume +into her hand. "Some one stole these leaves out of Mr. Gilbert's diary. +The books are filled with intimate details of the affairs of +people--things which people prefer should not be known--names, details +and dates written out completely. It's likely murder was done last night +to get possession of those pages." + +She went to the desk and glanced over the book; not the minute +examination with the reading glass which I had given it; that mere flirt +of a glance which, when I had first noticed it the night before at +Tait's, skimming across that description of Clayte, had seemed so +inadequate. Then she turned to me. + +"Mr. Gilbert cut these out himself," she pronounced. + +That brought Worth's head up and his face around to stare at her. + +"You say my father removed something he had written?" he asked. Barbara +nodded. "He never changed a decision--and those books were his +decisions." + +"Then this wasn't a correction, but he cut it out. Can't you see, Mr. +Boyne? Those leaves were removed by a man who respected the book and was +as careful in his mutilation of it as he was in its making. It is +precisely written--I'm referring to workmanship, not its literary +quality--carefully margined, evenly indented on the paragraph +beginnings. And so, in this removal of three leaves, the cutting was +done with a sharp knife drawn along the edge of a ruler--" I picked up +from where they lay on the blotting pad, a small pearl-handled knife, +its sharp blade open, and the ruler I had seen when looking down from +the skylight, and placed them before her. She nodded and continued, + +"There is a bit of margin left so no other leaves can be loosened by +this removal. The marking out of the run-over has been neatly ruled, +done so recently that the ink is not yet black--done with that ink in +the stand. It was blotted with this." She lifted a hand-blotter to show +me the print of a line of ink. There were other markings on the face of +the soft paper, and I took it eagerly. Barbara smiled. + +"You will get little from that," she said. I had not even seen her give +it attention. "Scattered words--and parts of words, blotted frequently +as they were written. Perhaps, with care, we might learn something, but +we can turn more easily to the last pages of his diary and--" + +"There are no last pages," I interrupted. "The 1920 book is missing." + +"Gone--stolen?" she exclaimed. It brought a smile to my face. For the +first time in my experience of this pretty, little bunch of brains, she +had hazarded a guess. + +"Gone," I admitted coolly--a bit sarcastically. "I've no reason to say +stolen." + +"But--yes, you have--you have, Mr. Boyne! If it is gone, it was stolen. +Is it gone--are you sure it is gone?" Eagerly her eyes were searching +desk, cabinet, the shelf where the other diaries made their long row. I +satisfied her on that score. + +"I have searched the study thoroughly; it is not in this room." + +"Was here last night," Worth cut in. "I saw it on the desk." + +"And was stolen last night," Barbara reaffirmed, quickly. "These books +are too big to be slipped into a pocket, so we can't believe it was left +upon Mr. Gilbert's person; and he wouldn't lend it--wouldn't willingly +let it go from his possession. So it was stolen; and the man who stole +it--killed him." She shuddered. + +That was going too swift for me to follow, but I saw on Worth Gilbert's +face his acceptance of it. Either conviction of Barbara's infallibility, +or some knowledge locked up inside his own chest, made him certain the +diary had been stolen, and the thief was his father's murderer. In a +flash, I remembered his words, "putting every damn' word of our row into +it," and I shot straight at him, + +"Did you take that book, Worth?" + +He only shook his head and answered, + +"You heard what Bobs said, Jerry." + +If he took the book he killed his father; that was Barbara's inference, +Worth's acceptance. I threw back my shoulders to cast off the suspicion, +then reached across to place my fingers under the girl's hand and pull +from it the only record of that last written page, the blotter. + +"Will you read me that?" I asked her. "Every word and part of a +word--every letter?" + +Her eyes smiled into mine with a reassurance that was like balm. Worth +rose and found her a hand-glass on the mantel, passing it to her, and +with this to reverse the scrawlings, she read and I wrote down in my +memorandum book two complete words, two broken words and five single +letters picked from overlying marks that were too confused to be +decipherable. Though the three of us struggled with them, they held no +meaning. + +Worth's interest quickly ceased. + +"I'll join Jim Edwards in the house," he said, but I stopped him. + +"One minute, Worth. There was a woman visitor here last night. It would +seem she carried away with her the diary of 1920 and three leaves from +the book of 1916. I want you--you and Barbara--to tell me what you know +that happened here in Santa Ysobel on the dates of the missing pages, +May 31 and June 1, 1916." + +Barbara accepted the task, turning that wonderful cinematograph memory +back, and murmured, + +"I never tried recollecting on just a bare date this way, but--" then +glanced around at me and finished--"nothing happened to me in Santa +Ysobel then, because I wasn't in Santa Ysobel. I was in San Francisco +and--" + +"And I was in Flanders, so that lets me out," Worth broke in brusquely. +"I'll go into the house." + +"Wait, Worth." I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Go on, Barbara; you had +thought of something." + +"Yes. Father died in January of that year, and in March I had to vacate +the house. It had been sold, and they wanted to fix it over. I left +Santa Ysobel on the eighteenth of March, but they didn't get into the +house until June first." + +Again Worth interrupted. + +"Which jogs my memory for an unexciting detail." He smiled +enigmatically. "I was jilted June first." + +"In Flanders?" How many times had this lad been jilted? + +"No. Right here. I wasn't here of course, but the letter which did the +trick was written here, and bore that date--June one, 1916." + +"How do you get the date so pat?" + +"It was handed me by the mail orderly--I was on the Verdun sector +then--on the morning of the Fourth of July. Remember the date the letter +was written because of the quick time it made. Most of our mail took +from six weeks to eternity. What are you smiling at, Bobs?" + +"Just a little--you don't mind, do you?--at your saying you remember +Ina's letter by the quick time it made in reaching you." + +"Who bought your house, Barbara?" I asked her. + +"Dr. Bowman--or rather Mrs. Bowman's uncle bought it and gave it to +her." + +"And they went in on the first of June, 1916?" I was all excitement, +turning the pages of the diary to get to certain points I remembered. +"What can either one of you tell me about the state of affairs at that +time between Dr. Bowman and his wife--and that man who was just in +here--Jim Edwards?" + +Worth turned a hostile back; Barbara seemed to shrink in her chair. I +hated like a whipping to pull this sort of stuff on them, but I knew +that Barbara's knowledge of Worth's danger would reconcile her to +whatever painful thing must be done, and I had to know who was that +visitor of last night. + +"Is that--that stuff in those damnable books?" I saw the hunch of +Worth's broad shoulders. + +"Some of it is--some of it has been cut out," I replied. + +"And you connect Jim Edwards with this crime?" + +"I don't connect him--he connects himself--by them, and by his manner." + +"Burn them!" He faced me, came over and reached for the book. "Dump the +whole rotten mess into the fire, Jerry, and be done with it." + +"Easy said, but that would sure be a short cut to trouble. Tell me, I've +got to know, if you think this man Edwards--under great +provocation--capable of--well, of killing a fellow creature." + +"Jerry," Worth took the book out of my hand and laid it on the table, +"what you want to do is to forget this--dirt--that you've been reading, +and go at this thing without prejudice. If you open any trails and they +lead in my direction, don't be afraid to follow them. This thing of +trying to find a criminal in some one that my father has already deeply +injured--some one that he's made life a hell for--so that suspicion +needn't be directed to me, makes me sick. If I'd allow you to do it, I'd +be yellow clear through." + +That was about the longest speech I'd heard Worth Gilbert make since his +return from France. And he meant every word of it, too; but it didn't +suit me. This "Hew to the line" stuff is all right until the chips begin +whacking the head of your friend. In this case there wasn't a doubt in +my mind that when a breath of suspicion got out that Thomas Gilbert had +not killed himself, that minute would see the first finger point at +Thomas Gilbert's son as the murderer. So I grumbled, + +"Just the same, Edwards has something on his mind about last night." + +"He has--and it's pretty nearly tearing him to pieces," Worth admitted, +but would go no further. + +"He was here last night, I'm sure--and Mrs. Bowman was with him," I +ventured. + +Barbara, who had been sitting through this her eyes on Worth, turned +from him to me and pronounced, gently, + +"Yes, he was here, and Laura was with him." + +"Bobs!" Worth spoke so sternly that she glanced up startled. "I'll not +stand for you throwing suspicion on Jim." + +"Did I--do that?" her lip trembled. Worth's eyes were on the fire. + +"Don't quarrel with the girl," I remonstrated. Barbara had told me the +visitor; I covered my elation with, "She's only looking out for your +safety." + +"I can look out for myself," curtly. He turned hard eyes on us. It made +me feel put away from him, chucked out from his friendship. "And I never +quarreled with anybody in my life. Sometimes--" he turned from one to +the other of us, speaking slowly, "Sometimes I seem to antagonize +people, for no reason that I can see; and sometimes I fight; but I never +quarrel." + +"No offense intended--or taken," I assured him hastily. My heart was +full of his danger, and I told myself that it was his misery spoke, and +not the true Worth Gilbert. But a very pale and subdued Barbara said +tremulously, + +"I guess I'd better go home now," suggesting, after the very slightest +pause, "Mr. Boyne can take me." + +"Don't, Bobsie." Worth's voice was gentle again, but absent. It sounded +as though he had already forgotten both of us, and our possible cause of +offense. "Go to the house with Jerry. I'll bar the door and follow." + +"Can't I help with that?" I offered. + +"No. Eddie will give me a hand if I need it. Go on. I'll be with you in +a minute." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DR. BOWMAN + + +But it was considerably more than a minute before Worth followed us to +the house. We walked slowly, talking; when I looked back from the +kitchen porch, Worth had already come outside, and I thought Eddie +Hughes was with him, though I heard no voices and couldn't be sure on +account of the shrubbery between. + +Getting into the house we found that Chung had the downstairs all opened +up through, lights going, heat turned on from the basement furnace; +everywhere that tended, homelike appearance a competent servant gives a +place. On the hall table as we passed, I noticed a doctorish top coat, +with a primly folded muffler laid across it. + +"Dr. Bowman is here," Barbara said hardly above her breath. + +We listened; no sound of voices from the living room; then I got the +tramp of feet that moved back and forth in there. We opened the door, +and there were the two men; a queer proposition! + +Bowman had taken a chair pretty well in the middle of the room. It was +Jim Edwards whose feet I had heard as he roamed about. No word was going +between them; apparently they hadn't spoken to each other at all; the +looks that met or avoided were those strange looks of persons who live +in lengthened and what might be termed intimate hostility. + +"Ah--Boyne--isn't it?" Bowman greeted me; I thought our coming relieved +the situation. He shook hands, then turned to Barbara with, "Mrs. +Thornhill said you were here; I told her I would bring you back with +me." + +I rather wondered not to hear him insist on being taken at once to the +study, but his next words gave the reason. He'd reached Santa Ysobel too +late for the inquest itself, but not too late to make what he informed +us was a thorough investigation of everything it treated of. + +Barbara and I found places on the davenport; Edwards prowled up and down +the other end of the room, openly in torment. Those stormy black eyes of +his were seldom off Bowman, while the doctor's gray, heavy-lidded gaze +never got beyond the toes of the restless man's moving boots. He had +begun a grumbling tale of the coroner's incompetence and neglect to +reopen the inquest when he, the family physician, arrived, as though +that were important, when Worth came in. + +Instantly the doctor was on his feet, had paced up to the new master of +the house, and began pumping his arm in a long handshake, while he +passed out those platitudes of condolence a man of his sort deals in at +such a time. The stuff I'd been reading in those diaries had told me +what was the root and branch of his friendship with the dead man; it +made the hair at the back of my neck lift to hear him boasting of it in +Jim Edwards' presence, and know what I knew. "And, my dear boy," he +finished, "they tell me you've not been to view the body--yet. I +thought perhaps you'd like to go--with me. I can have my machine here in +a minute. No?" as Worth declined with a wordless shake of the head. + +I hoped he'd leave then; but he didn't. Instead, he turned back to his +chair, explaining, + +"If Mrs. Thornhill's cook hadn't phoned me, when Mrs. Thornhill had a +second collapse last night, I suppose I should be in San Francisco +still. The coroner seemed to think there was no necessity for having +competent medical testimony as to the time of death, and the physical +condition of the deceased. I should have been wired for. The inquest +should have been delayed until I arrived. The way the thing was managed +was disgraceful." + +"It was merciful." Jim Edwards spoke as though unwillingly, in a +muttered undertone. Evidently it was the first word he'd addressed to +Bowman--if he could be said to address him now, as he finished, "I +hadn't thought of an inquest. Yet of course there'd be one in a case of +suicide." + +Bowman only heard and wholly misconstrued him, snatching at the +concluding words, + +"Of course it was suicide. Done with his own weapon, taken from the +holster where we know it always hung, fully loaded. The muzzle had been +pressed so close against the breast when the cartridge exploded that the +woolen vest had taken fire. I should say it had smouldered for some +time; there was a considerable hole burned in the cloth. The flesh +around the wound was powder-scarred." + +Worth took it like a red Indian. I could see by the glint of his eye as +it flickered over the doctor's face, the smooth white hands, the whole +smooth personality, that the boy disliked, and had always disliked him. +Yet he listened silently. + +I rather hoped by leading questions to get Bowman to express the opinion +that Thomas Gilbert had been killed in the small hours of the morning. +Circumstances then would have fitted in with Eddie Hughes. Eddie Hughes +was to me the most acceptable murderer in sight. But no--nothing would +do him but to stick to the hour the coroner had accepted. + +"Medical science cannot determine closer than that," he was very final. +"The death took place within an hour preceding midnight." + +"You are positive it couldn't be this morning?" I asked. + +"Positive." + +Well, Dr. Bowman's testimony, if accepted at the value the doctor +himself placed upon it, would clear Worth of suspicion, for the lad was +with me at Tait's from a few minutes past ten until after one; and Jim +Edwards, now pacing the floor so restlessly, had also been there the +greater part of that time. I had had too much experience with doctor's +guesses based on _rigor mortis_ to let it affect my views. + +In the minute of silence, we could hear Chung moving about at the back +of the house. The doctor spoke querulously. + +"Never expect anything of a Chinaman, but I should think when the +chauffeur found the body he might have had sense enough to summon +friends of the family. He could have phoned me--I was only in San +Francisco." + +"He could have phoned me at the ranch," Jim Edwards' deep voice came in. + +"You? Why should he phone for you?" Bowman wheeled on him at last. "I +was the man's physician, as well as his close friend. Everybody knows +you weren't on good terms with him. Gad! You wouldn't be here in this +house to-night, if he were alive." + +In the sort of silence that comes when some one's been suddenly struck +in the face, Worth crossed to Edwards and laid an arm along his +shoulders. + +"I've asked Jim to stay in my place, here, in my house, while I'm away +over Monday--and he can do as he likes about whom he chooses to have +around." + +Bowman gradually got to his feet, his face a study. + +"I see," he said. "Then I'll not trespass on your time any longer. I +felt obliged to offer my services ... patients of mine ... for years ... +in affliction ..." a gleam of anger came into his fishy eyes. "I've been +met with damned insolence.... Claiming of the house before your father's +decently in his grave." He jerked fully erect. "Leave your affairs in +the hands of that degenerate. If he doesn't do you dirt, you'll be the +first he's let off! Come, Miss Barbara," to the girl who sat beside me, +looking on mutely observant. + +"Thank you, doctor." She answered him as tranquilly as though no voice +had been raised in anger in that room. "I think I'll stay a little +longer. Jim will take me home." + +The doctor glared and stalked out. To the last I think he was expecting +some one to stop him and apologize. I suppose this was what Worth +described naively as "antagonizing people without intending to." Well, +it might not be judicious; I certainly was glad the doctor was so sure +of the time at which his friend Gilbert had met death; yet I couldn't +but enjoy seeing him get his. As soon as the man's back was turned, +Edwards beckoned Barbara to the window. Worth and I left them talking +together there in low tones, he to get something he wanted from a case +in the hall, where he called me to the phone, saying long distance +wanted me. While I was waiting for my connection (Central, as usual, +having gotten me, now couldn't get the other party) the two came from +the living room and Barbara said "Good night" to us in passing. + +"Those two seem to have something on hand," I commented as they went +out. "The little girl gave Bowman one for himself--in the nicest +possible way. Don't wonder Edwards likes her for it." + +"Poor Laura Bowman! Her friends take turns giving that bloodless lizard +she's tied to, one for himself any time they can," Worth said. "My +mother used to handle the doctor something like that; and now it's +Barbara--little Bobsie Wallace--God bless her!" + +He went on into the dining room. I looked after his unconscious, +departing figure and thought he deserved a good licking. Why couldn't he +have spoken that way to the girl herself? Why hadn't he taken her home, +instead of leaving it to Edwards? Then I got my call and answered, + +"This is Boyne. Put them through." + +In a minute came Roberts' voice. + +"Hello, Mr. Boyne?" + +"Yes. What you got?" + +"Telegram--Hicks--Los Angeles. He's located Steve Skeels--" + +"Read me the wire," I broke in. + +"All right." A pause, then, "'Skeels arrived here from 'Frisco this +morning shall I arrest?'" + +"Good!" I exclaimed. "Wire him to keep Steve under surveillance and +await instructions. Tell him not to lose him. Get it, Roberts? Hustle +it. I'll be in by nine. Good-by," and I hung up. + +I looked around; Worth had gone into the dining room; I stepped to the +door and saw him kneeling before an open lower door of the built-in +sideboard, and noted that the compartment had been steel lined and +Yale-locked, making a sort of safe. A lamp at the end of an extension +wire stood on the floor beside him; he looked around at me over his +shoulder as I put my head in to say, + +"Stock in your old suitcase has gone up a notch, Worth. We've caught +Skeels." + +"So soon?" was all he said. But my news seemed to decide something for +him; with a sharp gesture of finality, he put into his breast pocket the +package of papers he had been looking at. + +When a little later, Edwards came in, Worth was waiting for him in the +hall. + +"Do we go now?" the older man asked, wincing. Worth nodded. + +"Take your machine, Jim," he said. "We can park it at Fuller's and walk +back from there. Boyne's roadster is in our garage." + +"Anything wrong with Eddie Hughes?" Edwards asked as he stepped in to +get his driving gloves. "I passed him out there headed for town lugging +a lot of freight, and the fellow growled like a dog when I spoke to +him." + +"I fired him. Come on, Jim--let's get out of this." + +"Hold on, Worth," I took a hand. "Fired Hughes? When?" + +"While I was fixing up that door--after you and Bobs came to the house." + +"What in God's name for?" I asked in exasperation. + +"For giving me back talk," said the youth who never quarreled with any +one. + +He and Edwards tramped out together. I realized that the hostile son and +an alienated friend had gone for a last look at the clay that had +yesterday been Thomas Gilbert. Of course Worth would do that before he +left Santa Ysobel. But would Edwards go in with him--or was he only +along to drive the machine? It might be worth my while to know. But I +could ask to-morrow; it wasn't worth a tired man's waiting up for. We +must make an early start in the morning. I went upstairs to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SEVEN LOST DAYS + + +Instead of driving up to San Francisco with Worth and Barbara, the next +morning, I was headed south at a high rate of speed. Sitting in the +Pullman smoker, going over what had happened and what I had made of it, +vainly studying a small, blue blotter with some senseless hieroglyphics +reversed upon it, I wasn't at all sure that this move of mine was +anywhere near the right one. But the thing hit me so quick, had to be +decided in a flash, and my snap judgment never was good. + +We were all at breakfast there at the Gilbert house when I got the phone +that those boobs down in Los Angeles had let Skeels slip through their +fingers. I could see no way but to go myself. When I went out to +retrieve my hand bag from the roadster, there was Barbara already in the +seat. I delayed a minute to explain to her. She was full of eager +interest; it seemed to her that Skeels ducking the detectives that way +was more than clever--almost worthy of a wonder man. + +"Slickest thing I ever knew," I grumbled. "You can gamble I wouldn't be +going south after him if Skeels hadn't shown himself too many for the +Hicks agency--and they're one of the best in the business." + +Worth came out and settled himself at the wheel; he and Edwards +exchanged a last, low-toned word; and they were ready to be off. +Barbara leaned towards me with shining eyes. + +"Perhaps," she said, "Skeels might even be Clayte!" then the roadster +whisked her away. + +The bulk of Worth Gilbert's fortune was practically tied up in this +affair. Even as the Pullman carried me Los Angeles-ward, that boy was +getting in to San Francisco, going to the bank, and turning over to them +capital that represented not only his wealth but his honor. If we failed +to trace this money, he was a discredited fool. Yes, I had done right to +come. + +So far on that side. Then apprehension began to mutter within me about +the situation at Santa Ysobel. How long would that coroner's verdict of +suicide satisfy the public? How soon would some seepage of fact indicate +that the death was murder and set the whole town to looking for a +murderer? The minute this happened, the real criminal would take alarm +and destroy evidence I might have gathered if I had stayed by the case. +I promised myself that it should be simply "there and back" with me in +the Skeels matter. + +This is the way it looked to me in the Pullman; then--once in Los +Angeles--I allowed myself to get hot telling the Hicks people what I +thought of them, explaining how I'd have run the chase, and wound up by +giving seven days to it--seven precious, irreclaimable days--while +everything lay wide open there in the north, and I couldn't get any +satisfactory word from the office, and none of any sort from Worth. + +That Skeels trail kept me to it, with my tongue hanging out; again and +again I seemed to have him; every time I missed him by an hour or so; +and that convinced me that he was straining every nerve, and that he +probably had the whole of the loot still with him. At last, I seemed to +have him in a perfect trap--Ensenada, on the Peninsula. You get into and +out of Ensenada by steamboat only, except back to the mines on foot or +donkey. The two days I had to wait over in San Diego for the boat which +would follow the one Skeels had taken were a mighty uneasy time. If I'd +imagined for a moment that he wasn't on the dodge--that he was there +openly--I'd have wired the Mexican authorities, and had him waiting for +me in jail. But the Mexican officials are a rotten lot; it seemed to me +best to go it alone. + +What I found in Ensenada was that Skeels had been there, quite publicly, +under his own name; he had come alone and departed with a companion, +Hinch Dial, a drill operator from the mines, a transient, a pick-up +laborer, seemingly as close-mouthed as Silent Steve himself. Steve had +come on one steamer and the two had left on the next. That north-bound +boat we passed two hours off Point Loma was carrying Skeels and his pal +back to San Diego! + +Again two days lost, waiting for the steamer back. And when I got to San +Diego, the trail was stone cold. I had sent Worth almost daily reports +in care of my office, not wanting them to lie around at Santa Ysobel +during the confusion of the funeral and all; but even before I went to +Ensenada, telegrams from Roberts had informed me that these reports +could not be delivered as Worth had not been at the office, and +telephone messages to Santa Ysobel and the Palace Hotel had failed to +locate him. When I believed I had Skeels firmly clasped in the jaws of +the Ensenada trap, I had sent a complete report of my doings up to that +time, and the optimistic outlook then, to Barbara with instructions for +her to get it to Worth. She would know where he was. + +But she hadn't. Her reply, waiting at San Diego for me, a delicious +little note that somehow lightened the bitterness of my disappointment +over Skeels, told me that she had seen Worth at the funeral, almost a +week ago now, but only for a minute; that she had supposed he had joined +me on the Skeels chase; and she would now try to hunt him up and deliver +my report. Roberts, too, had a line in one of his reports that Worth had +called for the suitcase on the Monday I left and had neither returned it +nor been in the office since. + +I worried not at all over Worth; if he wanted to play hide and seek with +Dykeman's spotters, he was thoroughly capable of looking after himself; +but in the Skeels matter, I did then what I should have done in the +first place, of course; turned the work over to subordinates and headed +straight home. + +I reached San Francisco pretty well used up. It was nearly the middle of +the forenoon next day when I got to my desk and found it piled high with +mail that had accumulated in my absence. Roberts had looked after what +he could, and sorted the rest, ready for me. Everything concerning the +Clayte case was in one basket. As Roberts handed it to me, he explained. + +"The Van Ness bank attorney--Cummings--has been keeping tabs on you +tight, Mr. Boyne. Here every day--sometimes twice. Wants to know the +minute you're back." + +I grunted and dived into the letters. Nothing interesting. Responses +acknowledging receipts of my early inquiries. Roberts lingered. + +"Well?" I shot at him. He moved uneasily as he asked. + +"Did you wire him when you were coming back?" + +"Cummings? No. Why?" + +"He telephoned in just before you came saying that he'd be right up to +see you. I told him you hadn't returned. He laughed and hung up." + +"All right, Roberts. Send him in when he comes." I dismissed the +secretary. Cummings was keeping tabs on me with a vengeance. What was on +his chest? + +I didn't need to wait long to find out. In another minute he was at my +door greeting me in an off-hand, "Hello, Boyne. Ready to jump into your +car and go around with me to see Dykeman?" + +"Just got down to the office, Cummings," I watched him, trying to figure +out where I stood and where he stood after this week's absence. "Haven't +seen Worth Gilbert yet. What's the rush with Dykeman?" + +"You'll find out when you get there." + +Not very friendly, seeing that Cummings had been Worth's lawyer in the +matter, and aside from that queer scene in my office, there'd been no +actual break. He stood now, not really grinning at me, but with an +amused look under that bristly mustache, and suggested, + +"So you haven't seen young Gilbert?" + +The tone was so significant that I gave him a quick glance of inquiry as +I said, + +"No. What about him?" + +"Put on your coat and come along. We can talk on the way," he replied, +and I went with him to the street, dug little Pete out of the bootblack +stand and herded him into the roadster to drive us. Cummings gave the +order for North Beach, and as we squirmed through and around congested +down-town traffic, headed for the Stockton Street tunnel, I waited for +the lawyer to begin. When it came, it was another startling question, + +"Didn't find Skeels in the south, eh?" + +I hadn't thought they'd carry their watching and trailing of us so far. +I answered that question with another, + +"When did you see or hear from Worth Gilbert last?" + +"Not since the funeral," he said promptly, "the day before the +funeral--a week ago to-day, to be exact. I ran down to make my inventory +then; as administrator, you know." + +He looked at me so significantly that I echoed, + +"Yes, I know." + +"Do you? How much?" His voice was hard and dry; it didn't sound good to +me. + +"See here," I put it to him, as my clever little driver dodged in and +out through the narrow lanes between Pagoda-like shops of Chinatown, +avoiding the steep hill streets by a diagonal through the Italian +quarter on Columbus Avenue. "If there's anything you think I ought to be +told, put me wise. I suppose you raised that money for Worth--the +seventy-two thousand that was lacking, I mean?" + +"I did not." + +I turned the situation over and over in my mind, and at last asked +cautiously, + +"Worth did get the money to make up the full amount, didn't he?" + +We had swerved again to the north, where the Powell car-line curves into +Bay Street, and were headed direct for the wharves. Cummings watched me +out of the corners of his eyes, a look that bored in most unpleasantly, +while he cross-examined, + +"So you don't know where he raised that money--or how--or when? You +don't even know that he did raise it? Is that the idea?" + +I gave him look for look, but no answer. An indecisive slackening of the +machine, and Little Pete asked, + +"Where now, sir?" + +"You can see it," Cummings pointed. "The tall building. Hit the +Embarcadero, then turn to your right; a block to Mason Street." + +So close to the dock that ships lay broadside before its doors, moored +to the piles by steel cables, the Western Cereal Company plant scattered +its mills and warehouses over two city blocks. Freight trains ran +through arcades into the buildings to fetch and carry its products; +great trucks, some gas driven, some with four- and six-horse teams, +loaded sacks or containers that shot in endless streams through well +worn chutes, or emptied raw materials that would shortly be breakfast +foods into iron conveyors that sucked it up and whined for more. It was +a place of aggressive activity among placid surroundings, this plant of +Dykeman's, for its setting was the Italian fisherman's home district; +little frame shacks, before which they mended their long, brown nets, or +stretched them on the sidewalks to dry; Fisherman's Wharf and its lateen +rigged, gayly painted hulls, was under the factory windows. + +We pulled up before the door of a building separate from any of the +mills or warehouses, and I followed Cummings through a corridor, past +many doors of private offices, to the large general office. Here a young +man at a desk against the rail lent Cummings respectful attention; the +lawyer asked something in a low tone, and was answered, + +"Yes, sir. Waiting for you. Go right through." + +Down the long room with its rattling typewriters, its buzz of clerks and +salesmen we went. Cummings was a little ahead of me, when he checked a +moment to bow to some one over at a desk. I followed his glance. The +girl he had spoken to turned her back almost instantly after she had +returned his greeting; but I couldn't be mistaken. There might be more +than one figure with that slim, half girlish grace about it, and other +hair as lustrously blue-black, but none could be wound around a small +head quite so shapely, carried with so blossomlike a toss. It was +Barbara Wallace. + +So this was where her job was. Strange I had not known this fact of +grave importance. I went on past her unconscious back, left her working +at her loose-leaf ledgers, beside her adding machine, my mind a whirl of +ugly conjecture. Dykeman's employee; that would instantly and very +painfully clear up a score of perplexing questions. Dykeman would need +no detectives on my trail to tell him of my lack of success in the +Skeels chase. Lord! I had sent her as concise a report as I could +make--to her, for Worth. I walked on stupidly. In front of the last door +in the big room, Cummings halted and spoke low. + +"Boyne, you and I are both in the employ of the Van Ness Avenue Bank. +We're somewhat similarly situated in another quarter; I'm representing +the Gilbert estate, and you've been retained by Worth Gilbert." + +I grunted some sort of assent. + +"I brought you here to listen to what the bank crowd has to say, but +when they get done, I've something to tell you about that young employer +of yours. You listen to them--then you listen to me--and you'll know +where you stand." + +"I'll talk with you as soon as I get through here, Cummings." + +"Be sure you do that little thing," significantly, and we went in. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +AT DYKEMAN'S OFFICE + + +We found Whipple with Dykeman. I had always liked the president of the +Van Ness Avenue Bank well enough; one of the large, smooth, amiable +sort, not built to withstand stress of weather, apt to be rather +helpless before it. He seemed now mighty upset and worried. Dykeman +looked at me with hard eyes that searched me, but on the whole he was +friendly in his greeting and inquiries as to my health. + +While I was getting out of my coat and stowing it, making a great deal +of the process so as to gain time, I saw Cummings was exchanging low +spoken words with the two of them. I tried to keep my mind on these men +before me and why I was with them, but all the while it would be running +back to the knock-out blow of seeing that girl in Dykeman's place. She +was double-crossing Worth! I might have grinned at the idea that I'd let +myself be fooled by a pair of big, expressive, wistful, merry black +eyes; but I had seen the look in those same eyes when they were turned +on my boy; to think she'd look at him like that, and sell him out, was +against nature. It was hurting me beyond all reason. + +Whipple asked me about my trip south as though it was the most public +thing in the world and he knew its every detail, and accepted my reply +that I couldn't take one man's pay and report to another, with, + +"Just so, Mr. Boyne. But your agency is retained--regularly, year by +year--by our bank. And our bank has given over none of its rights--I +should say duties--in regard to the Clayte case. We stand ready to +assist any one whose behavior seems to us that of a law-abiding citizen. +We don't want to advance any criminality. We can't strike hands with +outlaws--" + +"Tell him about the suitcase, Whipple," Dykeman broke in impatiently, +rather spoiling the president's oratorical effect. "Tell him about the +suitcase." + +The suitcase! Was this one of the things Barbara Wallace had let out to +her employer? She could have done so. She knew all about it. + +"One moment, please," I snapped. "I've been away for a week, Mr. +Whipple. I don't know a thing of what you're talking about. Did Captain +Gilbert fail to meet his engagement with you Monday morning?" + +Whipple shook his head. + +"Mr. Dykeman wants you told about the suitcase," he said. "I'd like to +have Knapp here when we go into that." + +Dykeman picked up the end of a speaking-tube and barked into it, + +"Send those men in." In the moment's delay, we all sat uneasily mute. +Knapp came in with Anson. As they nodded to us and settled into chairs, +two or three others joined us. Nothing was said about this filling out +of the numbers, but to me it meant serious business, with Worth Gilbert +its motive. + +"Get it over, can't you?" I said, looking about from one to the other of +the men, all directors in the bank. "I understand that Captain Gilbert +met his engagement with you; was he short of the sum agreed?" Again +Whipple shook his head. + +"Captain Gilbert walked into the bank at exactly ten o'clock Monday +morning. The uh--uh--unusual arrangement--contract, to call it so--that +we'd made with him concerning the defalcation would have expired in a +few seconds, and I think I may say," he looked around at the others, +"that we should not have been sorry to have it do so. But he brought the +sum agreed on." + +I drew a great sigh of relief. Worth's bargain was complete; he was done +with these men, anyhow. I was half out of my chair when Whipple said, +sharply for him, + +"Sit down, Mr. Boyne." And Dykeman almost drowned it in his, + +"Wait, there, Boyne! We're not through with you." + +"There's more to tell," Whipple continued. "Captain Gilbert brought that +eight hundred thousand cash and securities in a--er--in a very strange +way." + +"What d'you mean, strange way? airplane or submarine?" I growled. + +"He brought it," Whipple's words marched out of him like a solemn +procession, "in a brown, sole-leather suitcase." + +"_With_ brass trimmings," Dykeman supplemented, and leaned back in his +chair with an audible "Ah-h-h!" of satisfaction. + +If ever a poor devil was flabbergasted, it was the head of the Boyne +agency at that moment. I had a fellow feeling for that Mazeppa party who +was tied in his birthday suit to the back of a wild horse. Locoed +broncos were more amenable to rein than Worth Gilbert. So that was why +he wanted that suitcase--"had a use for it," he'd put it; insisted on an +order to be able to get it if I wasn't at my office; wanted it to shove +back at these scary bank officials, with his own money for the payment +inside. No wonder Whipple called him an "outlaw"! + +"Get the idea, do you, Boyne?" Anson lunged at me in his ponderous way. +"The rest of us thought 'twas a poor joke, but Knapp and Whipple had +both seen that suitcase before--and recognized it." + +"Yes," said Knapp quietly. "It chanced I saw it go through the door that +last day, when it had nearly a million of our money in it. And here it +was--" his voice broke off. + +"Certainly startling," Cummings spoke directly at me, "for them to see +it come back in Worth Gilbert's hands, with the same kind of filling, +less one hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars. Of course, I didn't +know the identity of the suitcase until they'd given Gilbert his receipt +and he was gone." + +"Oh, they accepted his money?" I said, and every man in the room looked +sheepish, except Cummings who didn't need to, and Dykeman who was too +mad to. He shouted at me, + +"Yes, we took it; and you're going to tell us where he got that +suitcase." + +"What have your own detectives--those you hired on the side--to say +about it?" I countered on him, and saw instantly that the Whipple end of +the crowd hadn't known of Dykeman's spotters and trailers. + +"Well, why not?" Dykeman shrilled. "Why not? Who wouldn't shadow that +crook? One hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars! Worked us like +suckers--come-ons--!" he choked up and began to cough. Cummings came in +where he left off. + +"See here, Boyne; we don't want to antagonize you. You've said from the +first that this crime was a conspiracy--a big thing--directed by brains +on the outside. Clayte was the tool. Whose tool was he? That's what we +want to know." And Anson trundled along, + +"These men who have been in the war get a contempt for law, there's no +doubt about it. Captain Gilbert might--" + +"No names!" Whipple's hand went up in protest. "No accusations, +gentlemen, please; Mr. Boyne--this is a dreadful thing. But, really, +Captain Gilbert's manner was very strange. I might say he--" + +"Swaggered," supplied Cummings coolly as the president's voice lapsed. + +"Well," Whipple accepted it, "he swaggered in and put it all over us. +There he was, a man fresh from the deathbed of a suicide father; that +father's funeral yet to occur. I, personally, hadn't the heart to +question him or raise objections. I was dazed." + +"Dazed," Dykeman snapped up the word and worried it, as a dog worries a +bone. "Of course, we were all dazed. It was so open, so +shameless--that's why he got by with it. Making use of his position as +heir, less than forty eight hours after his father was shot." + +"After his father shot himself," Whipple's lowered tone was a plea. +"After his father shot himself." + +"Huh!" snorted Dykeman. "If a man shoots himself, he's been shot, +hasn't he? Hell! What's the use of whipping the devil round the stump +that way? Boyne, you can stand with us, or you can fight us." + +"Boyne's with us--of course he's with us," Whipple broke in, his words a +good deal more confident than his tone or the look of his face. + +"Well, then," Dykeman ground out, "when our thief of a teller splits +that one hundred and eighty seven thousand with his man Gilbert--shut +up, Whipple--shut up! You can't stop me--we're going to know about it. +We'll get them both then, and send them across. And we'll recover one +hundred and eighty seven thousand dollars that belongs to the Van Ness +Avenue bank." + +"_Good_ night!" I got to my feet. "This lets me out. I can't deal with +men who make a scrap of paper of their contracts as quick as you +gentlemen do." + +"Stop, Boyne--you haven't got it all," Dykeman ordered me. + +"Yes, wait, Mr. Boyne," Whipple came in. "You haven't a full +understanding of the enormity of this young man's action. Mr. Cummings +has something to tell you which, I think, will--" + +"Nothing Mr. Cummings can say," I shut them off, "will alter the fact +that I am employed by Captain Worth Gilbert at your recommendation--at +your own recommendation--that I have been away more than a week on his +business, and have not yet had an opportunity to report to him +personally. When I've seen him, I'll be ready to talk to you." + +"You'll talk now or never--" Dykeman's shrill threat was interrupted by +the shriller bell of the telephone. He yanked the instrument to him, +and the "Hello!" he cried into it had the snap of an oath. He looked up +and shoved the thing in my direction. "Calling for you, Boyne," he +snarled. + +There was deathly stillness in the room, so that the whir of the great +stones in the mill came to us insistently. I stood there, they all +watching me, and spoke into the transmitter. + +"This is Boyne." + +"Hold the receiver close to your ear so it won't leak words." The +warning wasn't needed; I thought I knew the voice. "Press the +transmitter close to your chest. Listen--don't talk; don't say a word in +reply to me. I'm in the telephone booth outside. I must see you just as +soon as I can. I'll be at the Little Italy restaurant--you know, don't +you? on Fisherman's Wharf--in ten minutes. If you can come, and alone, +find me there. I'll wait an hour. If you can't come now, you _must_ see +me this evening after working hours." + +"I'll come now," I raised the transmitter to say, and quickly over the +wire came the answer, + +"I told you not to speak--in there! This is Barbara Wallace." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A LUNCHEON + + +I went away from there. + +Looking about me, I had guessed that pretty much every man in the room +believed that it was Worth Gilbert with whom I had been talking over the +phone. Dykeman's trailers would be right behind me. Yet to the last, +Whipple and his crowd were offering me the return trip end of my ticket +with them; if I would come back and be good, even now, all would be +forgiven. I sized up the situation briefly and took my plunge, shutting +the door after me, glancing across the long room to see that Barbara +Wallace's desk was deserted. Nobody followed me from the room I had just +left. I walked quickly to the outer door. + +Little Pete switched on his engine as I leaped into the car. My "Let her +go!" wasn't needed to make him throw in his clutch, and give me a flying +start straight ahead down the broad plank way of the Embarcadero. +Looking back as we hit the belt-line tracks, I saw a small car with two +men in it, shoot out from one of the wide doorways of the plant; but as +we rounded the cliff-like side of Telegraph Hill, my view of them was +cut off. Things had come for me thick and fast. I felt pretty well +balled up. But the girl had used secrecy in appointing this interview; +till I could see further into the thing, it was anyhow a safe bet to +drop them. + +"Pete," I said, "lose that car behind us. Only ten minutes to slip them +and land me at Fisherman's Wharf. Show me what-for." + +He grinned. Between Montgomery and the bay, north of California Street, +there are many narrow byways, crowded with the heavy traffic of +hucksters and vegetable men, a section devoted to the commission +business. Into its congestion Pete dove with a weasel instinct for +finding the right holes to slip through, the alleys that might be +navigated in safety; in less than the ten minutes I'd specified, we were +free again on Columbus Avenue, pursuit lost, and headed back for the +restaurant on the wharf. + +"Boss," Little Pete was hoarse with the excitement he loved, as he laid +the roadster alongside the Little Italy, "was it on the level, what you +fed the lawyer guy? Ain't you wise to where Captain Gilbert is? I've saw +him frequent since you've been gone." + +"How many times is 'frequent,' Pete?" I asked. "And when did the last +'frequent' happen?" + +"Twice," sulkily. I'd wounded his pride by not taking him seriously; but +he added as I jumped down from the machine. "I druv him up on the hill, +'round the place where you an' him--an' her--went that day." + +Pete didn't need to use Barbara Wallace's name. The way he salaamed to +the pronoun was enough; the swath that girl cut evidently reached from +the cradle to the grave, with this monkey grinning at one end, and me +doddering along at the other. + +I gave a moment to questioning Pete, found out all he knew, and went +into the restaurant, wondering what under heaven Barbara Wallace would +say to me or ask me. + +The Little Italy restaurant is not so bad a place for luncheon. If one +likes any eatables the western seas produce, I heartily recommend it. +Where fish are unloaded from the smacks by the ton, fish are sure to be +in evidence, but they are nice, fresh fish, and look good enough to eat. +And the Little Italy is clean, with white oil-clothed tables and a view +from its broad windows that down-town restaurants would double their +rent to get. + +Just now it was full of noisy patrons, foreigners, mostly; people too +busy eating to notice whether I carried my head on my shoulders or under +my arm. + +In a far corner, Barbara Wallace's eyes were on me from the minute I +came within her sight. She had ordered clams for two, mostly, I thought, +to defend the privacy of our talk from the interruptions of a waiter, +and I was hardly in my chair before she burst out, + +"Where's Worth? Why wasn't he in that office to defend himself against +what they're hinting?" + +"I suppose," I said dryly, "because he wasn't given an invitation to +attend. You ought to know why. You work for Dykeman." + +"I work for Dykeman?" she repeated after me in a bewildered tone. "I'm +bookkeeper in the Western Cereal Company's employ, if that's what you +mean. You understood so from the first." + +"You know I didn't," I reproached her hotly. "Do you think I'd have let +you on the inside of this case if I'd known it was a pipe line direct to +Dykeman?" + +And on the instant I spoke there came to me a remembrance of her saying +that Sunday morning as we pulled up before the St. Dunstan that she went +past the place on the street car every day getting to her work at the +Western Cereal Company. Sloppy of me not to have paid better attention; +I knew vaguely that Dykeman was in one of the North Beach mills. + +"Fifty-fifty, Barbara," I conceded. "I should have known--made it my +business to learn. And Dykeman has questioned you--" + +"He has not!" indignantly. "I don't suppose he knows Worth and I are +acquainted." I could have smiled at that. There were detectives' reports +in Dykeman's desk that recorded date, hour and duration of every meeting +this girl had had with Worth and with myself. Besides, Cummings knew. It +must have been through Cummings that she learned what was about to take +place in Dykeman's private office. What had she told Cummings? + +I was ready to blurt out the question, when she fumbled in her bag with +little, shaking hands, drew out and passed to me unopened the envelope +addressed to Worth, with my detailed report of the Skeels chase. + +"I did my best to deliver it," she steadied her voice as she spoke. "He +wasn't at the Palace. He wasn't at Santa Ysobel. He didn't communicate +with me here." + +My edifice of suspicion of Barbara Wallace crumbled. Cummings had not +learned through her that I was unsuccessful in the south; nor had she +spilled a word to him that she shouldn't, or they'd have had the dope on +where Worth had found that suitcase, and thrown it at me quick. + +"Barbara," I said, "will you accept my apologies?" + +"Oh, yes," she smiled vaguely. "I don't know what you're apologizing +for, but it doesn't matter. I hoped you would bring me news of Worth--of +where he is." + +"When did you see him last?" + +"On the day of the funeral. I hardly got to speak to him." + +Little Pete's news was slightly later. He'd taken Worth up to the Gold +Nugget and dropped him there. Thursday, Worth was at the Nugget for more +than an hour. On both occasions, Pete was told to slip the trailers, and +did. That meant that Worth was working on the Clayte case--or thought he +was. I told her of this. + +"Yes--Oh, yes," she repeated listlessly. "But where is he now? And awful +things--things like this meeting--coming up." + +"What besides this meeting?" + +"At Santa Ysobel." + +"What? Things that have happened since the boy's gone? You couldn't get +much idea of the lay of the land when you were down there Wednesday, +could you?" + +"Oh, but I could--I did," earnestly. "Of course it was a large funeral; +it seemed to me I saw everybody I'd ever known. At a time like that, +nothing would be said openly, but the drift was all in one direction. +They couldn't understand Worth, and so nearly every one who spoke of +him, picked at him, trying to understand him. Mrs. Thornhill's cook was +already telling that Worth had quarreled with his father and demanded +money. I shouldn't wonder if by now Santa Ysobel's set the exact hour of +the quarrel." + +"Me for down there as quick as I can," I muttered, and Barbara, facing +me sympathetically, offered, + +"I've a letter from Skeet Thornhill," she groped in her bag again, +mumbling as women do when they're hunting for a thing, "It came this +morning.... Mrs. Thornhill's no better--worse, I judge.... Oh, here it +is," and she pulled out a couple of closely scribbled sheets. "The child +writes a wild hand," she apologized, as she passed these over. + +The flapper dashed into her letter with a sort of incoherent squeal. The +carnival ball was only four days off. Everybody was already dead on his, +her or its feet. The decorations they'd planned were enough to kill a +horse--let alone getting up costumes. "As usual, everything seems to be +going to the devil here," she went on; "Got a cannery girl elected +festival queen this time. Ina's furious, of course. Moms had a letter +from her that singed the envelope; but I sort of enjoy seeing the +cannery district break in. They've got the money these days." + +Nothing here to my purpose. Barbara reached forward and turned the sheet +for me, and I saw Worth Gilbert's name half way down it. + +"Doctor Bowman is an old hell-cat, and I hate him." Skeet made her +points with a fine simplicity. "Since mother's sick, he comes here every +day, though what he does but sit and shoot off his mouth and get her all +worked up is more than I can see. Yesterday I was in the room when he +was there, and he got to talking about Worth--the meanest, lowest-down, +hinting talk you ever heard! Said Worth got a lot of money when his +father died, and I flared up and said what of it? Did he think Mr. +Gilbert ought to have left it to him? That hit him, because he and Mr. +Gilbert used to be good friends, and he and Worth aren't. I sassed him, +and he got so mad that just as he was leaving, he hollered at me that I +better ask Worth Gilbert where he was at the hour his father was shot. +Now, what do you know about that? That man is spreading stories. A +doctor can set them going. He's making his messy old calls on people all +day, and they, poor fish-hounds, believe everything he says. Though +mother didn't. After he was gone, she just lay there in her bed and said +over and over that it was a lie, a foolish, dangerous lie! Poor mumsie, +she's so nervous that when the grocer's truck had a blow-out down in the +drive, she nearly went into hysterics--cried and carried on, something +about it's being 'the shot.' I suppose she meant the one when Mr. +Gilbert killed himself. Wasn't that queer? Any loud noise of the sort +sets her off that way. She lies and listens, and listens and mutters to +herself. It scares me." She closed with, "Please don't break your +promise to be here through this infernal Bloss. Fes." + +"Good advice, that last," I said slowly, as I laid the letter on the +table, keeping a hand on it. "You'll do that, won't you, Barbara?" + +"I had intended to. I was given leave from this afternoon. +But--well--I'd thought it over, and almost made up my mind to go back to +my desk." + +Barbara Wallace uncertain, halting between two courses of action! What +did it mean? + +"See here, Barbara; this isn't a time for Worth Gilbert's friends to +slacken on him." + +"I hadn't slackened," she said very low. And left it for me to remember +that Worth apparently had. + +"Then you're needed at Santa Ysobel," I urged. + +"But you're going, aren't you, Mr. Boyne?" + +"Yes. As soon as I can get off. That doesn't keep you from being needed. +Worth's one of the most efficiently impossible young men I ever tried to +handle. Maybe he's not any fuller of shocks than any other live wire, +but he sure does manage to plant them where they'll do the most harm. +Cummings, Dykeman--and this Dr. Bowman down there; active enemies." + +"They can't hurt Worth Gilbert--all of them together!" + +"Wait a minute. I'm going to Santa Ysobel to find the murderer of Thomas +Gilbert. That means a stirring to the depths of that little town. This +underneath-the-surface combustion will get poked into a flame--she's +going to burst out, and somebody's going to get burned. We don't want +that to be Worth, Barbara." + +"No. But what can I do--what influence have I with him--" she was +beginning, but I broke in on her. + +"Barbara, you and I are going to find the real murderer, before the +Cummings-Dykeman bunch discover a way into and out of that bolted study. +Those people want to see Worth in jail." + +There was a long pause while she faced me, the rich color failing a +little in her cheeks. + +"I see," speaking slowly, studying each word. "And as long as we didn't +find out how to enter and leave the study, we have no way of knowing how +hard or how easy it's going to be for them to find it out. We--" her +voice still lower--"we can't tell if they already know it or not." + +"Yes we can," I leaned forward to say. "The minute they know +that--Worth Gilbert will be charged with murder." + +I hit hard enough that time to bring blood, but she bled inwardly, +sitting there staring at me, quite pale, finally faltering, + +"Well--I can't stop to think of his having followed Ina Vandeman +south--on her wedding trip--if he needs me--and I can help--I must--" +she broke down completely, and I sat there feeling big-footed and +blundering at this revelation of what it was that had put that clear, +logical mind of hers off the track, left her confused, groping, just a +girl, timid, distrustful of her own judgment where her heart was +concerned. + +"Was that it all the time?" I asked. "Well, take it from me, Worth's +done nothing of the sort. He's been playing detective, not chasing off +after some other man's bride." + +Up came the color to her cheeks, she reached that mite of a hand across +to shake on the bargain with, + +"I'll go straight down this evening. You'll find me in Santa Ysobel when +you come, Mr. Boyne." + +"At the Thornhills'?" It might be handy to have her there; but she shook +her head, looking a little self-conscious. + +"I'm taking that spare room at Sarah Capehart's. Skeet wanted me, and I +have an invitation from Laura Bowman; but if--well, seeing that this +investigation is going to cover all that neighborhood, I thought I'd +rather be with Sarah." + +The level-headed little thing! Pete and I had the pleasure of taking her +out to her home where she had her packing to attend to. On the way she +spoke of an engagement with Cummings for the theater Saturday night. + +"And instead, I suppose I shall be at the carnival ball. Shall I tell +him that in my note, Mr. Boyne? Is it all right to let him know?" + +"It's all right," I assented. "You can bet Cummings is due down there as +soon as Worth shows up; and that must be soon, now." + +"Yes," Barbara agreed. Her face clouded a little. "You noticed in +Skeet's letter that they're expecting Ina to-morrow." + +Poor child--she couldn't get away from it. I patted the hand I had taken +to say good-by and assured her again, + +"Worth Gilbert hasn't been in the south. I wonder at you, Barbara. +You're so clear headed about everything else--don't you see that that +would be impossible?" + +Then I drove back to my office, to find lying on my desk a telegram from +the young man, dated at Los Angeles, requesting me to meet him at Santa +Ysobel the following evening! + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +CLEANSING FIRES + + +Wednesday evening I pulled into a different Santa Ysobel: lanterns +strung across between the buildings, bunting and branches of bloom +everywhere, streets alive with people milling around, and cars piled +high with decorative material, crowded with the decorators. The carnival +of blossoms was only three days ahead. + +At Bill Capehart's garage they told me Barbara was out somewhere with +the crowd; and a few minutes later on Main Street, I met her in a Ford +truck. Skeet Thornhill was at the wheel, adding to the general risk of +life and limb on Santa Ysobel streets, carrying a half a dozen or more +other young things tucked away behind. Both girls shouted at me; they +were going somewhere for something and would see me later. + +Getting down toward the Gilbert place, just beyond the corner, I flushed +from the shadows of the pepper trees a bird I knew to be one of +Dykeman's operatives. Watching his carefully careless progress on past +the Gilbert lawn, then the Vandeman grounds, my eye was led to a pair +who approached across the green from the direction of the bungalow. No +mistaking the woman; even at this distance, height and the clean sweep +of her walk, told me that this was the bride, Ina Vandeman. And the man +strolling beside her--had he come with her from the house, or joined +her on the cross-cut path?--could that be Worth Gilbert? + +I sat in the roadster and gaped. The evening light--behind them, and dim +enough at best--made their countenances fairly indistinguishable. At the +gap in the hedge, they paused, and Mrs. Vandeman reached out, broke off +a flower to fasten in his buttonhole, looking up into his face, talking +quickly. Old stuff--but always good reliable old stuff. Then Worth saw +me and hailed, "Hello, Jerry!" But he did not come to me, and I swung +out of the machine to the sidewalk. + +I heard the sobbing of the Ford truck; it went by, missing my +runningboard by an inch, stopped at Vandeman's gate and Skeet discharged +her cargo of clamor to stream across the sidewalk and up toward the +bungalow. I saw Barbara, in the midst of the moving figures, suddenly +stop, knew she had seen the two over there, and crossed to her, with a +cheerful, + +"He's here all right." + +"Oh, yes," not looking toward the gap in the hedge, or at me. "He came +on the same train with--with them." + +Then some one from the porch yowled reproachfully for her to fetch those +banners _pronto_, and with a little catching of breath, she ran on up +the walk. + +I turned back. Worth and Ina had moved on. Bronson Vandeman, well +groomed, dressed as though he had just come in off the golf links, his +English shoes and loud patterned stockings differentiating him from the +crude outdoor man of the Coast, had joined them on the Gilbert lawn; his +genial greeting to me let his bride get by with a mere bow, turning at +once back to her house by the front walk. But rather to my annoyance, +Vandeman came bounding up the steps after us. I judged Worth must have +invited him. + +Chung carried my suitcase upstairs, and lingered a minute in my room. +I'll swear it wasn't merely to get the tip for which he thanked me, but +with the idea of showing me in some recondite, Oriental fashion that he +was glad I'd come. This interested me. The people who were glad to have +me in Santa Ysobel at this time belonged on the clean side of my ledger. +Then I went downstairs to find Vandeman still in the living room, +sprawled at ease beside the window, looking round with a display of his +fine teeth, reaching a hand to pull in the chair Worth set for me. + +"Well, Jerry," that young man prompted, indicating by a careless gesture +the smokers' tray on the table beside me, "there is time before dinner +for the tale of your exploits. How's my friend Steve?" + +I began to select a cigar, and said shortly, + +"It's all in reports waiting for you at my office." + +"Yes." Worth ignored my irritation. "Tell it. What'd you do down south?" + +"Just back from the south yourself, aren't you?" I countered. + +"Sure," airily. "But I wasn't there to butt in on your game. Did you +find that Skeels was Clayte?" + +I merely looked over the flame of my match at that small-town society +man, smiling back at me with a show of polite interest. + +"Go on," Worth interpreted. "Vandeman knows all about it. I tried to +sell him a few shares of stock in the suitcase, so he'll take an +interest in the game; but he's too much the tight-wad to buy." + +"Oh, no," deprecated Vandeman. "Just no gambler; hate to take a chance." +He ran his fingers through his hair, tossing it up with a gesture I had +noticed when he came back from the dance at Tait's. + +"All right--apology accepted," Worth nodded. "Anyway, you didn't. Well, +Jerry?" + +Vandeman waited a moment with natural curiosity, then, as I still said +nothing, giving my attention to my smoke, moved reluctantly to rise, +saying, + +"That means I'd better chase along and let you two talk business." + +"No. Sit tight," from Worth. + +I was mad clear through, and disturbed and apprehensive, too. I managed +a brief, dry statement of the outcome in the south. Worth hailed it +with, + +"Skeels lurks in the jungle! Life still holds a grain of interest." + +"Why the devil couldn't you keep me advised of your movements?" I +demanded. + +"Dykeman's hounds," he grinned. "Had them guessing. They'd have picked +me up if I'd gone to your office." + +"You could have written or wired. They've picked you up anyway," I +grunted. "One's on the job now. Saw him as I came in." + +"Eh? What's that?" cried Vandeman, a man snooping in the shrubbery +outside getting more attention from him than one dodging pursuit three +hundred miles away. "What do you mean, hounds?" and when he had heard +the explanation of Dykeman's trailers, "I call that intolerable!" + +"Oh, I don't know." Worth reached over my shoulder for a cigarette. +"Lose 'em whenever I like." + +I wasn't so certain. There were men in my employ he couldn't shake. +Perhaps those reports in Dykeman's desk might have offered some +surprises to this cock-sure lad. My exasperation at Worth mounted as I +listened to Vandeman talking. + +"Those bank people should do one thing or another," he gave his opinion. +"Just because you got gay with them and handed them their payment in the +suitcase it left in, they've no right to have you watched like a +criminal. In a small town like this, such a thing will ruin a man's +standing." + +"If he has any standing," Worth laughed. + +"See here," Vandeman's smile was persuasive. "Don't let what I said out +in front embitter you." + +"I'll try not to." + +"Mr. Boyne"--Vandeman missed the sarcasm--"when I got back to this town +to-day, what do you suppose I found? The story going around that a +quarrel with Worth, over money, drove his father to take his own life." + +"That's my business here," I nodded. And when he looked his surprise, +"To stop such stories." + +He stared at me, frankly puzzled for a moment, then said, + +"Well, of course you know, and I know, that they're scurrilous lies; but +just how will you stop them?" + +I had intended my remark to stand as it was; but Worth filled in the +pause after Vandeman's question with, + +"Jerry's here to get the truth of my father's murder, Bronse." + +"Murder?" The mere naked word seemed to shock Vandeman. His sort clothe +and pad everything--even their speech. "I didn't know any one +entertained the idea your father was murdered. He couldn't have +been--not the way it happened." + +"Nevertheless we think he was." + +"Oh, but Boyne--start a thing like that, and think of the talk it'll +make! They'll commence at once saying that there was nobody but Worth to +profit by his father's death." + +"Don't worry, Mr. Vandeman." He made me hot. "We know where to dig up +the motive for the crime." + +"You mean the diaries?" Worth's voice sounded unbelievably from beside +me. "Nothing doing there, Jerry. I've burned them." + +I sat and choked down the swears. Yet, looking back on it, I saw plainly +that Jerry Boyne was the man who deserved kicking. I ought never to have +left them with him. + +"You read them and burned them?" said Vandeman. + +"Burned them without reading," Worth's impatient tones corrected. + +"Without reading!" the other echoed, startled. Then, after a long pause, +"Oh--I say--pardon me, but--but ought that to have been done? Surely +not. Worth--if you'd read your father's diaries for the past few +years--I don't believe you'd have a doubt that he committed suicide--not +a doubt." + +Worth sat there mute. Myself, I was rather curious as to what Vandeman +would say; I had read much in those diaries. But when it came, it was +the same old line of talk one hears when there's a suicide: Gilbert was +a lonely man; his life hadn't been happy; he cut himself off from people +too much. Vandeman said that of late he believed he was pretty nearly +the only intimate the dead man had. This last gave him an interest in +my eyes. I broke in on his generalities to ask him bluntly why he was so +certain the death was suicide. + +"Mr. Gilbert was breaking up; had been for two years or more. Worth's +been away; he's not seen it; but I can tell you, Boyne, his father's +mind was affected." + +Worth let that pass, though I could see he wasn't convinced by +Vandeman's sentimentalities, any more than I was. After the man had +gone, I turned on Worth sharply, with, + +"Why the devil did you tell that pink-tea proposition about your +dealings with the Van Ness Avenue bank?" + +"Safety valve, I guess. I get up too heavy a load of steam, and it's +easy to blow it off to Vandeman. Told him most of it in the smoker, +coming up. You'll talk about anything in a smoker." + +"Oh, will you?" I said in exasperation. "And you'll burn anything, I +suppose, that a match'll set fire to?" + +"Go easy, Jerry Boyne." His chin dropped to his chest, he sat glowering +out through the window. "Cleansing fires for that sort of garbage," he +said finally. "I burned them on the day of his funeral." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE TORN PAGE + + +My coming had thrown dinner late; we were barely through with the meal +and back once more in the living room when the latch of the French +window rattled, the window itself was pushed open, and a high imperious +voice proclaimed, + +"The Princess of China, calling on Mr. Worth Gilbert." + +There stood Ina Vandeman in the gorgeously embroidered robes of a high +caste Chinese lady, her fair hair covered by a sleek black wig that +struck out something odd, almost ominous, in the coloring of her skin, +the very planes of her features. Outside, along the porch, sounded the +patter of many feet; Skeet wriggled through the narrow frame under her +tall sister's arm, came scooting into the room to turn and gaze back at +her. + +"Doesn't she look the vamp?" + +"Skeet!" Ina had sailed in by this time, and Ernestine followed more +soberly. "You've been told not to say that." + +"I think," the other twin backed her up virtuously, "with poor mother +sick and all, you might respect her wishes. You know what she said about +calling Ina a vamp." And Skeet drawled innocently, + +"That it hit too near the truth to be funny--wasn't that it?" + +Through the open window had followed a half dozen more of the Blossom +Festival crowd, Barbara and Bronson Vandeman among them. Ina paid no +attention to any one, standing there, her height increased by the long, +straight lines of the costume, her bisque doll features given a strange, +pallid dignity by the raw magnificence of its crusted purple and crimson +and green and gold embroidery and the dead black wig. + +"Isn't it an exquisite thing, Worth?" displaying herself before him. +"Bronse has a complete Mandarin costume; we lead the grand march as the +emperor and empress of Mongolia. Don't you think it's a good idea?" + +"First rate." Worth spoke in his usual unexcited fashion, and it was +difficult to say whether he meant the oriental idea or the appearance of +the girl who stood before him. She came close and offered the cuff of +one of her sleeves to show him the embroidery, lifting a delicate chin +to display the jade buttons at the neck. + +Barbara over on the other side of the room refused to meet my eye. Mrs. +Bowman, a big fur piece pulled up around her throat, shivered. I met +half a dozen Santa Ysobel people whose names I've forgotten. I could see +that Bronson Vandeman socially took the lead here, that everybody looked +to him. The room was a babel of talk, when a few minutes later the +doorbell rang in orthodox fashion, and Chung ushered Cummings in upon +the general confusion. Some of the bunch knew and spoke to him; others +didn't and had to be presented; it took the first of his time and +attention. He only got a chance for one swipe at me, a low-toned, +sarcastic, + +"Made a mistake to duck me, Boyne." + +I didn't think it worth while to answer that. Presently I saw him +standing with Barbara. He was evidently effecting a switch of his +theater engagement to the ball, for I heard Skeet's, + +"Mr. Cummings wants a ticket! He'll need two! Ten dollars, Mr. +Cummings--five apiece." + +"No, no--Skeet," Barbara laughed embarrassedly. "Mr. Cummings was just +joking. He'll not be here Saturday night." + +"I'll come back for it," hand in pocket. + +"It's a masquerade--" Barbara hesitated. + +"Bring my costume with me from San Francisco." + +"I'm not sure--" again Barbara hesitated; Skeet cut in on her, + +"Why, Barbie Wallace! It's what you came to Santa Ysobel for--the Bloss. +Fes. ball. And to think of your getting a perfectly good man, right at +the last minute this way, and not having to tag on to Bronse and Ina or +something like that! I think you're the lucky girl," and she clutched +Cummings' offered payment to stow it with other funds she had collected. + +At last they got themselves out of the room and left us alone with +Cummings. He had carried through his little deal with Barbara as though +it meant considerable to him, but I knew that his errand with Worth was +serious, and put in quickly, + +"I intended to write or phone you to-morrow, Cummings." + +"Well," the lawyer worked his mouth a bit under that bristly mustache +and looked at Worth, "it might have saved you some embarrassment if +you'd been warned of my errand here to-night--earlier, that is. I +suppose Captain Gilbert has told you that I phoned him, when I failed to +connect with you, that I was coming here--and what I was coming for?" + +"I didn't tell Jerry," Worth picked up a cigarette. "Couldn't very well +tell him what you were coming for. Don't know myself." + +The words were blunt; really I think there was no intention to offend, +only the simple statement of a fact; but I could see Cummings beginning +to simmer, as he inquired, + +"Does that mean you didn't understand my words on the phone, or that you +understood them and couldn't make out what I meant by them?" + +"Little of both," allowed Worth. Cummings stepped close to him and let +him have it direct: + +"I'm here to-night, Captain Gilbert, as executor of your father's +estate. I have filed the will to-day. I might have done so earlier, but +when I inventoried this place (you remember, the day before the +funeral--you were here at the time) I failed to locate a considerable +portion of your father's estate." + +"You failed to locate? All the estate's here; this house, the down-town +properties. What do you mean, failed to locate?" + +"I was not alluding to realty," said Cummings. "It's my duty to locate +and report to the court the present whereabouts of seventy-five thousand +dollars worth of stock in the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank. Can you +declare to me as executor, where it is? And, if any other person than +your father placed it in its present whereabouts, are you ready to +declare to me how and when it came into that person's possession?" + +"Quite a lot of words, Cummings; but it doesn't mean anything," Worth +said casually. "You know where that bank stock is and who put it there." + +"Officially, I do not know. Officially, I demand to be told." + +"Unofficially, answer it for yourself." Worth turned his back on the +lawyer to get a match from the mantel. + +"Very well. My answer is that I intend to find out how and when that +bank stock which formed a part of your payment to the Van Ness Avenue +bank disappeared from this house." + +I admit I was scared. Here was the first gun of the coming battle; and I +was sure this enemy, who stood now looking through half closed eyes at +the lad's back, would have poisoned gas among his weapons. He had +emphasized the "_when_." He believed that the stories of Worth's night +visit to his father were true; that the implied denial by Barbara and +myself in my office, was false; that Worth had either received the stock +from his father that Saturday night or taken it unlawfully. I was sure +that it was the stock certificates which I had seen Worth take from the +safe-compartment of the sideboard in the small hours of Monday morning; +a breach of legal form which it would be possible for a friendly +executor to pass over. + +"Cummings, Worth inherits everything under his father's will; what's the +difference about a small irregularity in taking possession? He--" + +"Never explain, Jerry," Worth shut me up. "Your friends don't need it, +and your enemies won't believe it." + +Cummings had stood where he was since the first of the interview. His +face went strangely livid. There was more in this than a legal fight. + +"Yes, Boyne's a fool to try to help your case with explanations, +Gilbert," he choked out. "I'll see that both of you get a chance to +answer questions elsewhere--under oath. Good evening." He turned and +left. + +He had the best of it all around. I endeavored for some time to get +before Worth the dangers of his high-handed defiance of law, order, +probate judges, and the court's officers, in the person of Allen G. +Cummings, attorney and his father's executor. He listened, yawned--and +suggested that it must be nearly bedtime. I gave it up, and we went--I, +at least, with a sense of danger ahead upon me--to our rooms. + +Along in the middle of the night I waked to the knowledge that a +casement window was pounding somewhere in the house. For a while I lay +and listened in that helpless, exaggerated resentment one feels at such +a time. I'd drop off, get nearly to sleep, only to be jerked broad awake +again by the thudding. Listening carefully I decided that the bothersome +window was in Worth's room, and finally I got up sense and spunk enough +to roll out of bed, stick my feet into slippers, and sneak over with the +intention of locking it. + +The room was dimly lighted from the street lamps, far away as they were; +I made my way across it. Worth's deep, regular breathing was quite +undisturbed. I had trouble with the catch, went and felt over the bureau +and found his flashlight, fixed the window by its help, and returning +it, remembering how near I came to knocking it off the bureau top, +thought to put it in a drawer which stood half open. + +As I aimed it downward, its circle of illumination showed something +projecting a corner from beneath the swirl of ties and sheaf of +collars--a book--a red morocco-bound book. Mechanically I nudged the +stuff away with the torch itself. What lay there turned me cold. It was +the 1920 diary! + +My fingers relaxed; the flashlight fell with a thump, as I let out an +exclamation of dismay. A sleepy voice inquired from the bed, + +"Hi, you Jerry! What you up to in here?" + +For answer, I dragged out the book, went over to the bed, and switched +on the reading lamp there. Worth scowled in the glare, and flung his +arms up back of his head for a pillow to raise it a bit. + +"Yeah," blinking amiably at the volume. "Meant to tell you. Found it +to-day when I was down in the repair pit at the garage. It had been +stuck in the drainpipe there." + +"And I suppose," I said savagely, "that if I hadn't come onto it now, +you'd have burned this, too." + +"Don't get sore, Jerry," he said. "I saved it," and he yawned. + +I had an uncontrollable impulse to have a look at that last entry, which +would record the bitter final quarrel between this boy and his father. +No difficulty about finding the spot; as I raised the book in my hands +it fell open of itself at the place. I looked and what I saw choked +me--got cross-wise in my throat for a moment so no words could come out. +I stuck the book under his nose, and held it there till I could whisper. + +"Worth, did you do this?" + +The last written page was numbered 49; on it was recorded the date, +March sixth; the weather, cloudy, clearing late in the afternoon; the +fact that the sun had set red in a cloudless sky; and it ended abruptly +in the middle of a phrase. The leaf that carried page 50 had been torn +out; not cut away carefully as were those leaves in the earlier book, +but ripped loose, grabbed with clutching fingers that scarred and +twisted the leaf below! + +He shoved my hand away and stared at me. For a moment I thought +everything was over. Certainly I could not be a very appealing sight, +standing there sweating with fear, my hair all stuck up on my head where +I'd clawed it, shivering in my nightclothes more from miserable +nervousness than from cold; but somehow those eyes of his softened; he +gave me one of the looks that people who care for Worth will go far to +get, and said quietly, + +"You see what you're doing? I told you I didn't steal the book, so that +clears me in your mind of being the murderer. Now you're after me about +this torn-out page. If I'd torn it out and stolen it--you and I would +know what it would mean." + +"But, boy--," I began, when he suffered a change of heart. + +"Get out of here! Take that damn book and leave." + +He heaved himself over in the bed, hunching the covers about his ears, +turning his back on me. As I crept away, I heard him finish in a sort of +mutter--as though to himself-- + +"I'm sorry for you, Jerry Boyne." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ON THE HILL-TOP + + +Morning dawned on the good ship Jerry Boyne not so dismasted and +rudderless as you might have thought. I'd carried that 1920 diary to my +room and, before I slept, read the whole of it. This was the last word +we had from the dead man; here if anywhere would be found support for +the suggestions of a weakening mind and suicide. + +Nothing of that sort here; on the contrary, Thomas Gilbert was very much +his clear-headed, unpleasant, tyrannical self to the last stroke of the +pen. But I came on something to build up a case against Eddie Hughes, +the chauffeur. + +I didn't get much sleep. As soon as I heard Chung moving around, I went +down, had him give me a cup of coffee, then stationed him on the back +porch, and walked to the study, shut myself in, and discharged my heavy +police revolver into a corner of the fireplace; then with the front door +open, fired again. + +"How many shots?" I called to Chung. + +"One time shoot." + +Worth's head poked from his upstairs window as he shouted, + +"What's the excitement down there?" + +"Trying my gun. How many times did I fire?" + +"Once, you crazy Indian!" and the question of sound-proof walls was +settled. Nobody heard the shot that killed Gilbert twenty feet away +from the study if the door was closed. Mrs. Thornhill's ravings, as +described in Skeet's letter to Barbara, were merely delirium. + +I walked out around the driveway to the early morning streets of Santa +Ysobel. The little town looked as peaceful and innocent as a pan of +milk. In an hour or so, its ways would be full of people rushing about +getting ready for the carnival, a curious contrast to my own business, +sinister, tragic. It seemed to me that two currents moved almost as one, +the hidden, dark part under--for there must be those in the town who +knew the crime was murder; the murderer himself must still be here--and +the foam of noisy gayety and blossoms riding atop. A Blossom Festival; +the boyhood of the year; and I was in the midst of it, hunting a +murderer! + +An hour later I talked to Barbara in the stuffy little front room at +Capehart's, brow-beaten by the noise of Sarah getting breakfast on the +other side of the thin board partition; more disconcerted by the girl's +manner of receiving the information of how I had found the 1920 diary +hidden in Worth's bureau drawer. There was a swift, very personal anger +at me. I had to clear myself instantly and thoroughly of any suspicion +of believing for a moment that Worth himself had stolen or mutilated the +book, protesting, + +"I don't--I don't! Listen, Barbara--be reasonable!" + +"That means 'Barbara, be scared!' And I won't. When they're scared, +people make mistakes." + +"You might see differently if you'd been there last night when Cummings +made his charge against Worth. That seventy two thousand dollars Worth +carried up to the city Monday morning, he had taken from his father's +safe the night before." + +For a minute she just looked at me, and not even Worth Gilbert's +dare-devil eyes ever held a more inclusively defiant light than those +big, soft, dark ones of hers. + +"Well--wasn't it his?" + +"All right," I said shortly. "I'm not here to talk of Worth's financial +methods; they're scheduled to get him into trouble; but let that pass. +Look through this book and you'll see who it is I'm after." + +She had already opened the volume, and began to glance along the pages. +She made a motion for me to wait. I leaned back in my chair, and it was +only a few moments later that she looked up to say, + +"Don't make the arrest, Mr. Boyne. You have nothing here against +Eddie--for murder." + +Because I doubted myself, I began to scold, winding up, + +"All the same, if that gink hasn't jumped town, I'll arrest him." + +"It would be a good deal more logical to arrest him if he had jumped the +town," Barbara reminded me. "If you really want to see him, Mr. Boyne, +you'll find him at the garage around on the highway. He's working for +Bill." + +That was a set-back. A fleeing Eddie Hughes might have been hopeful; an +Eddie Hughes who gave his employer back-talk, got himself fired, and +then settled down within hand-reach, was not so good a bet. Barbara saw +how it hit me, and offered a suggestion. + +"Mr. Boyne, Worth and I are taking a hike out to San Leandro canyon this +afternoon to get ferns for the decorating committee. Suppose you come +along--anyhow, a part of the way--and have a quiet talk, all alone with +us. Don't do anything until you have consulted Worth." + +"All right--I'll go you," I assented, and half past two saw the three of +us, Worth in corduroys and puttees, Barbara with high boots and short, +dust-brown skirt, tramping out past the homes of people toward the open +country. At the Vandeman place Skeet's truck was out in front, piled +with folding chairs, frames, light lumber, and a lot of decorative +stuff. The tall Chinaman came from the house with another load. + +"You Barbie Wallace!" the flapper howled. "Aren't you ashamed to be +walking off with Worth and Mr. Boyne both, and good men scarce as hen's +teeth in Santa Ysobel to-day!" + +"I'm not walking off with them--they're walking off with me," Barbara +laughed at her. + +"Shameless one!" Skeet drawled. "I see you let Mr. Cummings have a day +off--aren't you the kind little boss to 'em!" + +I just raised my brows at Barbara, and she explained a bit hastily, + +"Skeet thinks she has to be silly over the fact that Mr. Cummings has +gone up to town, I suppose." She added with fine indifference, "He'll be +back in the morning." + +"You bet he'll be back in the morning," Worth assured the world. + +"Now what does he mean by that, Mr. Boyne?" + +"He means Cummings is out after him." + +"I don't," Worth contradicted me personally. "I mean he's after Bobs. +She knows it. Look at her." + +She glanced up at me from under her hat-brim, all the stars out in those +shadowy pools that were her eyes. The walk had brought sumptuous color +to her cheeks, where the two extra deep dimples began to show. + +"You both may think," she began with a sobriety that belied the dimples +and shining eyes, "looking on from the outside, that Mr. Cummings has an +idea of, as Skeet would say, 'rushing' me; but when we're alone +together, about all he talks of is Worth." + +"Bad sign," Worth flung over a shoulder that he pushed a little in +advance of us. "Takes the old fellows that way. Their notion of falling +for a girl is to fight all the other Johnnies in sight. Guess you've got +him going, Bobs." + +I walked along, chewing over the matter. She'd estimated Cummings +fairly, as she did most things that she turned that clear mind of hers +on; but her lack of vanity kept her from realizing, as I did, that he +was in the way to become a dangerous personal enemy to Worth. His +self-interest, she thought, would eventually swing him to Worth's side. +She didn't as yet perceive that a motive more powerful than +self-interest had hold of him now. + +"Why, Mr. Boyne," she answered as though I'd been speaking my thoughts +aloud, "I've known Mr. Cummings for years and years. He never--" + +"You said a mouthful there, Bobs." Worth halted, grinning, to interrupt +her. "He never--none whatever. But he has now." + +"He hasn't." + +"Leave it to Jerry. Jerry saw him that first night in at Tait's; then +afterward, in the office." + +"Oh, come on!" Barbara started ahead impatiently. "What difference would +it make." + +They went on ahead of me, scrapping briskly, as a boy and girl do who +have grown up together. I stumped along after and reflected on the folly +of mankind in general, and that of Allen G. Cummings in particular. That +careful, mature bachelor had seen this lustrous young creature blossom +to her present perfection; he'd no doubt offered her safe and sane +attention, when she came to live in San Francisco where they had friends +in common. But it had needed Worth Gilbert's appearance on the scene to +wake him up to his own real feeling. Forty-five on the chase of nimble +sweet and twenty; Cummings was in for sore feet and humiliating +tumbles--and we were in for the worst he could do to us. I sighed. Worth +had more than one way of making enemies, it seemed. + +At last we came in sight of the country club upon its rise of ground +overlooking the golf links. The low, brown clubhouse, built bungalow +fashion, with a long front gallery and gravel sweep, was swarming with +people--the decorators. Motors came and went. The grounds were being +strung with paper lanterns. We skirted these, and the links itself where +there were two or three players, obstinate, defiant old men who would +have their game in spite of forty blossom festivals--climbed a fence, +and crossed the grass up to the crest of a little round hill, halting +there for the view. It wasn't high, but standing free as it did, it +commanded pretty nearly the entire Santa Ysobel district. Massed acres +of pink and white, the great orchards ran one into the other without +break for miles. The lanes between the trunks, diamonded like a +harlequin's robe in mathematical primness, were newly turned furrows of +rich, black soil, against which the gray or, sometimes, whitewashed +trunks of apricot, peach and plum trees gave contrast. Then the cap of +glorious blossoms, meeting overhead in the older orchards, with a warm +blue sky above and puffs of clouds that matched the pure white of the +plum trees' bloom. + +The spot suited me well; we had left the town behind us; here neither +Dykeman's spotter nor any one he hired to help him could get within +listening distance, I dropped down on a bank; Worth and Barbara disposed +themselves, he sprawling his length, she sitting cross-legged, just +below him. + +It wasn't easy to make a beginning. I knew it wouldn't do me any +particular good with Worth to dwell on his danger. But I finally managed +to lay fairly before them my case against Eddie Hughes, and I must say +that, as I told it, it sounded pretty strong. + +I didn't want to put too much stress on having found my evidence in the +diaries; I knew Worth was as obstinate as a mule, and having said that +he would not stand for any one being prosecuted on their evidence, he'd +stick to it till the skies fell. I called on my memory of those pages, +now unfortunately ashes and not get-atable, and explained that Worth's +father hired Hughes directly after a jail-break at San Jose had roused +the whole country. Three of the four escapes were rounded up in the +course of a few days, but the fourth--known to us as Eddie Hughes--was +safe in Thomas Gilbert's garage, working there as chauffeur, having been +employed without recommendation on the strength of what he could do. + +"And the low wages he was willing to take," Worth put in drily. "Old +stuff, Jerry. I wasn't sure till you spilled it just now that my father +was wise to it. But I knew. What you getting at?" + +"Just this. When I talked to Hughes that first night I came down here +with you, while we all supposed the death a suicide, he couldn't keep +his resentment against your father, his hatred of him, from boiling over +every time he was mentioned." + +"Get on," said Worth wearily. "Father hired a jail-bird that came cheap. +Probably put it to himself that he was giving the man a chance to go +straight." + +I glanced up. This was just about what I remembered Thomas Gilbert to +have said in the entry that told of the hiring of Eddie. Worth nodded +grimly at my startled face. + +"Eddie's gone straight since then," he filled in. "That is, he's kept +out of jail, which is going straight for Eddie. He'd certainly hate the +man who held him as he's been held for five years. Not motive enough for +murder though." + +"There's more. The 1920 diary you gave me last night tells when and why +the extra bolts were put on the study doors. Your father had been +missing liquor and cigars and believed Hughes was taking them." + +"Pilfering!" with an expression of distaste. "That doesn't--" + +"Hold on!" I stopped him. "On February twelfth your father left money, +marked coin and paper money, as if by accident, on the top of the liquor +cabinet; not exposed, but dropped in under the edge of the big ash tray +so it might look as though it were forgotten--in a sense, lost there." + +"How much?" came the quick question. + +"Fifty one dollars." He looked around at me. + +"Just one dollar above the limit of petty larceny; a hundred cents added +to put it in the felony class that meant state's prison. So he could +have sent Eddie to the pen,--eh? I guess you've got a motive there, +Boyne." + +"Well--er--" I squirmed over my statement, blurting out finally. "Hughes +didn't take the money." + +"Knew it was a trap," Worth's laugh was bitter. "And hated the man who +cold-bloodedly set it to catch him. If he didn't take it, don't you +think he counted it?" + +"Worth," I said sharply. "Your father put those bolts on--and continued +to find that he was being robbed. He was mad about it. Any man would be. +Say what you will, no one likes to find that persons in his employ are +stealing from him. The aggravating thing was that he couldn't bring it +home to Hughes, though he was sure of the fact." + +"So he went back to what he had known of Eddie when he hired him? After +profiting by it for five years, he was going to rake that up?" + +"He was,"--a bit nettled--"and well within his rights to do so. Three +weeks before he was shot, he wrote that he'd started the inquiry. There +was no further mention of the matter in the book as it stands, but don't +you see that the result of the inquiry must have been on that torn-out +last page? Eddie's Saturday night alibi won't hold water. His cannery +girl, of course, will swear he was with her; but there's no +corroborating testimony. No one saw them together from nine till +twelve." + +Dead silence dropped on us, with the white clouds standing like +witnesses in the blue above, the wind bringing now and again on its +scented wings little faint echoes of the noise down at the clubhouse. + +"What more do you want?" Both young faces were set against me, cold and +hostile. "Here was motive, opportunity, a suspect capable of the deed. +My theory is that Mr. Gilbert came in on Hughes, caught him in the act +of stealing from the cabinet. Hughes jumped for the pistol over the +fireplace, got it, fired the fatal shot, and placed the dead man's +fingers about the butt of the gun. Then he picked up the diary lying on +the table, tore out the leaf about himself, and poked the rest of the +book down the drain pipe." + +"And the shot?" Worth resisted me. "Why didn't the shot bring Chung on +the run?" + +"Because he couldn't hear it. Nobody'd hear it ten paces away. That's +what I was trying out this morning. You told me I'd fired once. Well, I +fired twice; once with the door shut, and neither you nor Chung heard +it; afterward, with the door open--the report you registered." + +"The blotter--and it had been used on that last page--showed no words to +strengthen this theory of yours," said Barbara as confidently as though +the little blue square had been clear print, instead of broken blurring. +Perhaps it was clear to her. I was glad I'd given it a thorough +reexamination the night before. + +"I think it does," I struggled against the tide, manfully, buoying +myself up with the tracing of the blotter. "Here's the word 'demanded,' +reasonably connected with the affair. The letters 'ller' may be the last +end of 'caller,' or possibly 'fuller'; I noticed Gilbert spoke in a +former entry of the bottle in the cabinet and Hughes snitching from it, +and used the word 'fuller.' Here's the word 'Avenue,' complete, and +Lizzie Watkins, Hughes' girl, lives on Myrtle Avenue." + +The silence after that was fairly derisive. Worth broke it with an +impatient, + +"And the fact of the bolted doors throws all that stuff out." + +"Well," I grunted, "Barbara deduced the slipping of some bolts to please +you once--why can't she again?" + +"Mr. Boyne," the girl spoke quickly, "it wouldn't help you a bit to be +assured that Eddie Hughes could enter the study and leave it bolted +behind him when he went out--help you to the truth, I mean. These facts +you've gathered are all wabbly; they'll never in the world fit in trim +and true. They're hardly facts at all. They're partial facts." + +"Wouldn't help me?" I ejaculated. "It would cinch a case against him. +We've got to have some one in jail, and that shortly. We're forced to." + +"Forced?" Worth had sat up a little and reached far forward for a stone +that lay among the weeds down there. He spoke to me sidewise with a +challenging flicker of the eye. Barbara kept her lips tight shut. + +"I need a prisoner," trying to correct my error; then burst out, "My +Lord, children! An arrest isn't going to hurt a man like Hughes,--even +if he proves to be innocent. It's an old story to him. Barbara, you said +yourself that the man who stole the 1920 diary was the murderer." + +"But I didn't say Eddie Hughes stole it." Her tone was significant, and +it checked me. I couldn't remember what the deuce she had said that +night. There recurred to me her mimicry of a woman's voice--Laura +Bowman's as I believed--to determine through Chung who Thomas Gilbert's +feminine visitor had been. Should that clue have been followed up before +I moved on Eddie Hughes? Even as I got to this point, I heard Worth, +punctuating his remarks with the whang of his rock on the bit of twig he +was pounding to pieces, + +"Boyne, I won't stand for any arrest being made except in all +sincerity--the person you honestly believe to be the criminal." + +"Does that mean you forbid me, in so many words, to proceed against +Hughes on what I've got?" + +"It does," Worth said. "You're not convinced yourself. Leave it alone." + +"'Nough said!" I jumped to my feet. If he wouldn't let me lay hands on +Hughes--there was nothing to do but go after the next one. "You two run +along. Get your ferns. There's a man at the club here I have to see." + +Barbara was afoot instantly; Worth lay looking at her for a moment, +then heaved himself up, shook his shoulders, and stood beside her. + +"Race you to the foot of the hill," she flashed up at him. + +"You're on," he chuckled. "I'll give you a running start--to the tree +down there--and beat you." + +They were off. She ran like a deer. Worth got away as though he was in +earnest. He caught her up just at the finish; I couldn't see which won; +but they walked a few rods hand in hand. + +Something swelled in my throat as I watched them away: life's +springtime--and the year's; boy and girl running, like kids that had +never known a fear or a mortal burden, over an earth greener than any +other, because its time of verdure is brief, dreaming already of the +golden-tan of California midsummer, under boughs where tree blooms made +all the air sweet. + +For sake of the boy and the girl who didn't know enough to take care of +their own happiness, I wheeled and galloped in the direction of the +country club. + +There is an institution known--and respected--in police circles as the +Holy Scare. I was determined to make use of it. I'd throw a holy scare +into a man I knew, and see what came out. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +AT THE COUNTRY CLUB + + +The country club, when I walked up its lawn, was noisy with the +hammering and jawing of its decoration committee. Out in the glass +belvedere, like superior goods on display, taking it easy while every +one else worked, I saw a group of young matrons of the smart set, Ina +Vandeman among them, drinking tea. The open play she was making at Worth +troubled me a little. He was the silent kind that keeps you guessing. +She'd landed him once; what was to hinder her being successful with the +same tactics--whatever they'd been--a second time? + +Then I saw Edwards' car was still out in the big, crescent driveway, +showing by the drift of twigs and petals on its running board that it +had been used to bring in tree blooms from his ranch; the man himself +crossed the veranda, and I hailed, + +"Any place inside where you and I could have a private word together?" + +"I--I think so, Boyne," he hesitated. "Come on back here." + +He led me straight across the big assembly room which was being trimmed +for the ball. From the top of a stepladder, Skeet Thornhill yelled to +us, + +"Where you two going? Come back here, and get on the job." + +She had a dozen noisy assistants. I waved at her from the further door +as we ducked. Strange that honest, sound little thing should be own +sister to the doll-faced vamp out there in the showcase. + +Edwards made for a little writing room at the end of a corridor. I +followed his long, nervous stride. If the man had been goaded to the +shooting of Thomas Gilbert, it would have been an act of passion, and by +passion he would betray himself. When I had him alone, the door shut, I +went to it, told him we knew the death was murder, not suicide, and that +the crime had been committed early Saturday night. Before I could +connect him with it, he broke in on me, + +"Is Worth suspected?" + +"Not by me," I said. "And by God, not by you, Edwards! You know better +than that." + +I held his eye, but read nothing beyond what might have been the flare +of quick anger for the boy's sake. + +"Who then?" he said. "Who's dared to lisp a word like that? That hound +Cummings--chasing around Santa Ysobel with Bowman--is that where it +comes from? I told Worth the fellow was knifing him in the back." He +began to stride up and down the room. "The boy's got other +friends--that'll go their length for him. I'm with him till hell freezes +over. You can count on me--" + +"Exactly what I wanted to find out," I cut in, so significantly that he +whirled at the end of his beat and stared. + +"Meaning?" + +"Meaning you are the one man who could clear Worth Gilbert of all +suspicion." + +"_What do you know?_" + +The big voice had come down to a mere whisper. Plenty of passion now--a +passion of terror. I spoke quickly. + +"We know you were in the study that night, with a companion," and I +piled out the worst of his affair, as I'd read it in the diaries, +winding up, + +"Plain what brought you there. Quarrel? Motive? Don't need to look any +further." + +Before I was done Jim Edwards had groped over to a chair and slumped +into it. A queer, toneless voice asked, + +"Worth sent you to me--a detective--with this?" + +"No," I said. "I'm acting on my own." + +"And against his will," it came back instantly. + +"What of it?" I demanded. "Are you the coward to take advantage of his +sense of honor?--to let his generosity cost him his life?" + +"His life." That landed. Watching, I saw the struggle that tore him. He +jumped up and started toward me; I hadn't much doubt that I was now +going to hear a plea for mercy--a confession, of sorts--as he stopped, +dropped his head, and stood scowling at the floor. + +"Talk," I said. "Spill it. Now's your time." + +He raised his eyes to mine and spoke suddenly. + +"Boyne--I have nothing to say." + +"And Worth Gilbert can hang and be damned to him--is that it?" I took +another step toward him. "No, Edwards, that 'nothing to say' stuff won't +go in a court of law. It won't get you anywhere." + +"They'll never in the world--try Worth for--that killing." + +"I'm expecting his arrest any hour." + +"A trial! Those cursed diaries of Tom's brought into court--My God! I +believe if I'd known he'd written things like that, I could have killed +him for it!" + +I stared. He had forgotten me. But at this speech I mentally dropped him +for the moment, and fastened my suspicions on the woman who went with +him to the study. + +"All right," I said brutally. "You didn't kill Thomas Gilbert. But you +took Mrs. Bowman to the study that night to have it out with him, and +get six pages from the 1916 book. She got 'em--and you know what she had +to do to get 'em." + +"Hold on, Boyne!" he said sternly. "Don't you talk like that to me." + +"Well," I said, "Mrs. Bowman was there--after those diary leaves. I +heard Barbara Wallace imitate her voice--and Chung recognized the +imitation. You know--that night at the study--the first night." + +He took a bewildered moment or two for thought, then broke out, + +"It wasn't Laura's voice Barbara imitated. Did she say so?" + +"No, but she imitated the voice of a woman who came weeping to get those +pages from the diary; and who else would that be? Who else would want +them?" + +"You're off the track, Boyne," he drew a great, shuddering sigh of +relief. "Tom was always playing the tyrant to those about him; no doubt +some woman did come crying for that stuff--but it wasn't Laura." + +"By Heaven!" I exclaimed as I looked at him. "You know who it was! You +recognized the voice that night--but the woman isn't one you're +interested in." + +"I'm interested in all women, so far as their getting a decent show in +the world is concerned," he maintained sturdily. "I'd go as far as any +man to defend the good name of a woman--whether I thought much of her or +not." + +"This other woman," I argued, not any too keen on such a job myself, +"hasn't she got some man to speak for her?" + +Edwards looked at me innocently. + +"She didn't have, then--" he began, and I finished for him, + +"But she has now. I've got it!" As I jumped up and hurried to the door, +his eyes followed me in wonder. There I turned with, "Stay right where +you are. I'll be back in a minute," ducked out into the hall and +signaled a passing messenger, then stepped quickly back into the writing +room and said, "I've sent for Bronson Vandeman." + +He settled deeper in his chair with, + +"I'll stay and see it out. If you get anything from Vandeman, I miss my +guess." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A MATTER OF TASTE + + +Upon our few moments of strained waiting, Vandeman breezed in, full of +apologies for his shirtsleeves. I remember noticing the monogram worked +on the left silken arm, the fit and swing of immaculate trousers, as +smoothly modeled to the hip as a girl's gown; his ever smiling face; the +slightly exaggerated way he wiped fingers already clean on a +handkerchief pulled from a rear pocket. He was the only unconstrained +person in the room; he hardly looked surprised; his glance was merely +inquiring. Edwards apparently couldn't stand it. He jumped up and began +his characteristic pacing of one end of the constricted place, jerking +out as he walked, + +"Bronse, it's my fault that Boyne sent for you. He's working on this +trouble of Worth's, you know. He's had me in here, grilling me, shaking +me over hell; and something I said--God knows why--sent him after you." + +"Trouble of Worth's!" Vandeman had been about to sit; his half bent +knees straightened out again; he stood beside the chair and spoke +irritably. "Told you, Boyne, if you meddled with that coroner's verdict +you'd get your employer in the devil of a tight place. Nobody had any +reason for wanting Worth's father out of the way--except Worth, himself. +Frankly, I think you're wrong. But everything that I can do--of +course--" + +"All right," I said, letting it fly at him. "Where was your wife from +seven to half past nine on the evening of Gilbert's murder?" + +Back went his head; out flashed all the fine teeth; the man laughed in +my face. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Boyne. I understand that this is serious--nothing funny +about it--but really, you know, recalling the date, what you've said is +amusing. My dear man," he went on as I stared at him, "please remember, +yourself, where Ina was on that particular evening." + +"The wedding and reception were done with by seven o'clock," I objected. +This ground was familiar with me. I'd been over it in considering what +opportunity Laura Bowman would have had for a call on Thomas Gilbert at +the required hour. If she could slip away for it, why not Ina Vandeman? +As though he read my thoughts and answered them, Vandeman filled in, + +"A bride, you know, is dead certain to have at least half a dozen +persons with her every minute of the time until she leaves the house on +her wedding trip. Ina did, I'm sure. We'll just call her in, and she'll +give you their names." + +He was up and starting to bring her; I stopped him. + +"We'll not bother with those names just now. I'd rather have you--or +Mrs. Vandeman--tell me what you suppose would be the entry in Thomas +Gilbert's diary for May 31 and June 1, 1916. I have already identified +it as the date on which the Bowmans first moved into the Wallace house. +I think Mr. Edwards knows something more, but he's not so communicative +as you promise to be." + +He looked as if he wished he hadn't been so liberal with his assurances. +I saw him glance half sulkily at Edwards, as he exclaimed, + +"But those diaries are burned--they're burned. Worth told us the other +night that he burned them without reading." + +At the words, Edwards stopped stock-still, something almost humorous at +the back of the suffering gaze he fastened on my face. I met it +steadily, then answered Vandeman, + +"Doesn't make any difference to anybody that those books are burned. I'd +read them; I know what was in them; and I know that three leaves--six +pages--covering the entries of May 31 and June 1, 1916, were cut out." + +"But what the deuce, Boyne?" Vandeman wrinkled a smooth brow. "What +would some leaves gone from Mr. Gilbert's diary four years ago have to +do with us here to-day--or even with his recent death?" + +"Pardon me," I said shortly. "The matter's not as old as that. True, the +stuff was written four years ago; it recorded happenings on those dates; +but the ink that was used in marking out a run-over on the next +following page was fresh. Anyhow, Mr. Vandeman, we know that a woman +came weeping to Mr. Gilbert on the very night of his death, only a short +time before his death--as nearly as medical science can determine +that--and we believe that she came after those leaves out of the diary, +and got them--whatever she had to do to secure them." + +I was struck with the difference in the way these two men took inquiry. +Edwards had writhed, changed color, started to speak and caught himself +back, showed all the agony of a clumsy criminal who dreads the probing +that may give him away: temperament; the rotten spot in his affairs. +Vandeman, younger, not entangled with an unhappy married woman, sat +looking me in the eye, still smiling. The blow I had to deal him would +be harder. It concerned his bride; but he'd take punishment well. I +proceeded to let him have it. + +"I can see that Mr. Edwards has an idea what the entries on those pages +covered. He has inadvertently shown me that your wife was the woman who +came and got them from Thomas Gilbert on the night he was murdered." + +At that he turned on Edwards, and Edwards answered the look with, + +"I didn't. On my honor, Bronse, I never mentioned your name or Ina's. +The Chinaman told him that--about some woman coming that evening--" + +"Mr. Vandeman," I broke in, "there's no use beating about the bush. +Chung recognized your wife's voice. She was the woman who came weeping +to get those diary leaves." + +He took that with astonishing quietness, and, + +"Suppose you were shown that she wasn't out of her mother's house?" + +"Wouldn't stop me. Allow that her alibi's perfect. Yet you men have +something. There's something here I ought to know." + +"Something you'll never find out from me," Jim Edwards' deep voice was +full of defiance. "Bronse, I owe you an apology; but you can depend on +me to keep my mouth shut." + +After a minute's consideration Vandeman said, + +"I don't know why we should any of us keep our mouths shut." + +Jim Edwards looked utterly bewildered as the man sat there, thinking the +thing over, glanced up pleasantly at me and suggested, + +"Edwards has a little different slant on this from me. I don't know why +I shouldn't state to you exactly what happened--right there in Gilbert's +study on the date you mentioned." + +"Oh, there did something unusual happen; and you've just remembered it." + +"There did something unusual happen, and I've just remembered it, aided +thereto by your questions and Edwards' queer looks. Cheer up, old man; +we haven't all got your southern chivalry. From a plain, commonsense +point of view, what I have to tell is not in the least to my wife's +discredit. In fact, I'm proud of her all the way through." + +Jim Edwards came suddenly and nervously to his feet, strode to the +further corner of the room and sat down at as great a distance from +Vandeman as its dimensions would permit. He turned his face to the small +window there, and through all that Vandeman said, kept up a steady, +maddening tattoo with his fingernails on the sill. + +"This has to do with what I told you the first night I ever talked with +you, Boyne. You threw doubt on Thomas Gilbert's death being suicide. I +gave as a reason for my belief that it was, a knowledge and conviction +that the man's mind was unhinged." + +Edwards' tattoo at the window ceased for a minute. He stared, startled, +at the speaker, then went back to it, and Vandeman proceeded, + +"I'm not telling Jim Edwards anything he doesn't know, and what I say to +you, Boyne, that's discreditable to the dead, I can't avoid. Here it is: +on the evening of June first, 1916, I had dinner alone at home. You'll +find, if you look at an old calendar, that it falls on a Sunday. Jim +Edwards had dined informally at the Thornhills'. As he told it to me +later, they were all sitting out on the side porch after dinner, and +nobody noticed that Ina wasn't with them until they heard cries coming +from somewhere over in the direction of the Gilbert place. At my house, +I'd heard it, and we both ran for the garage, where the screams were +repeated again and again. We got there about the same time, found the +disturbance was in the study, and Edwards who was ahead of me rushed up +and hammered on its door." + +Again Jim Edwards stopped the nervous drumming of his fingers on the +window-sill while he stared at the younger man as at some prodigy of +nature. Finally he seemed unable to hold in any longer. + +"Hammered on the door!" he repeated. "If you're going to turn out the +whole damn' thing to Boyne, tell it straight; door was open; we couldn't +have heard a yip out of Ina if it hadn't been. Tom there in full sight, +sitting in his desk chair, cool as a cucumber, letting her scream." + +"I'm telling this," Vandeman snapped. "Gilbert looked to me like an +insane man. Jim, you're crazy as he was, to say anything else. Never +supposed for a minute you thought otherwise--that poor girl there, dazed +with fright, backed as far away from him as she could get, hair flying, +eyes wild." + +I looked from one to the other. What Edwards had said of the cold, +contemptuous old man; what Vandeman told of the screaming girl; no +answer to such a proposition of course but an attempted frame-up. To let +the bridegroom get by would best serve my purpose. + +"All right, gentlemen," I said. "And now could you tell me what action +you took, on this state of affairs?" + +"Action?" Vandeman gave me an uneasy look. "What was there to do? Told +you I thought the man was crazy." + +"And you, Edwards?" + +"Let it go as Bronse says. I cut back to Mrs. Thornhill's, scouting to +see what the chance was for getting Ina in without the family knowing +anything." + +"That's right," Vandeman said. "I stayed to fetch her. She was fine. To +the last, she let Gilbert save his face--actually send her home as +though she were the one to blame. Right then I knew I loved her--wanted +her for my wife. On the way home, I asked her and was accepted." + +"In spite of the fact that she was engaged to Worth Gilbert?" + +"Boyne," he said impatiently, "what's the matter with you? Haven't I +made you understand what happened there at the study? She had to break +off with the son of a man like that. Ina Thornhill couldn't marry into +such a breed." + +"Slow up, Vandeman!" Edwards' tone was soft, but when I looked at him, I +saw a tawny spark in his black eyes. Vandeman fronted him with the +flamboyant embroidered monogram on his shirt sleeve, the carefully +careless tie, the utterly good clothes, and, most of all, at the moment, +the smug satisfaction in his face of social and human security. I +thought of what that Frenchman says about there being nothing so +enjoyable to us as the troubles of our friends. "Needn't think you can +put it all over the boy when he's not here to defend himself--jump on +him because he's down! Tell that your wife discarded him--cast him +off--for disgraceful reasons! Damnitall! You and I both heard Tom giving +her her orders to break with his son, she sniffling and hunting hairpins +over the floor and promising that she would." + +"Cut it out!" yelled Vandeman, as though some one had pinched him. "I +saw nothing of the sort. I heard nothing of the sort. Neither did you." + +I think they had forgotten me, and that they remembered at about the +same instant that they were talking before a detective. They both +turned, mum and startled looking, Edwards to his window, Vandeman to a +nervous brushing of his trouser edges, from which he looked up, +inquiring doubtfully, + +"What next, Boyne? Jim's excited; but you understand that there's no +animus; and my wife and I are entirely at your disposal in this matter." + +"Thank you," I said. + +"Would you like to talk to her?" + +"I would." + +"When?" + +"Now." + +"Where?" + +"Here--or let the lady say." + +Vandeman gave me a queer look and went out. When he was gone, I found +Jim Edwards scrabbling for his hat where it had dropped over behind the +desk. I put my back against the door and asked, + +"Is Bronson Vandeman a fatuous fool; or does he take me for one?" + +"Some men defend their women one way, and some another. Let me out of +this, Boyne, before that girl gets here." + +"She won't come in a hurry," I smiled. "Her husband's pretty free with +his promises; but more than likely I'll have to go after her if I want +her." + +"Well?" he looked at me uncomfortably. + +"Blackmail's a crime, you know, Edwards. A woman capable of it, might be +capable of murder." + +"You've got the wrong word there, Boyne. This wasn't exactly blackmail." + +"What, then?" + +"The girl--I never liked her--never thought she was good enough for +Worth--but she was engaged to him, and--in this I think she was fighting +for her hand." + +He searched my face and went on cautiously, + +"You read the diaries. They must have had complaints of her." + +"They had," I assented. + +"Anything about money?" + +I shook my head. + +"You said there were two entries gone; the first would have told you, I +suppose--Before we go further, Boyne, let me make a little explanation +to you--for the girl's sake." + +"Shoot," I said. + +"It was this way," he sighed. "Thornhill, Ina's father, made fifteen or +twenty thousand a year I would say, and the family lived it up. He had a +stroke and died in a week's time. Left Mrs. Thornhill with her +daughters, her big house, her fine social position--and mighty little to +keep it up on. Ina is the eldest. She got the worst of it, because at +the first of her being a young lady she was used to having all the money +she wanted to spend. The twins were right on her heels; the thing for +her to do was to make a good marriage, and make it quick. But she got +engaged to Worth; then he went to France. There you were. He might never +come back. Tom always hated her; watched her like a hawk; got onto +something she--about--" + +"Out with it," I said. "What? Come down to cases." + +"Money." He uttered the one word and stood silent. + +I made a long shot, with, + +"Mr. Gilbert found she'd been getting money from other men--" + +"Borrowing, Boyne--they used the word 'borrowed,'" Edwards put in. "It +was always Tom's way to summon people as though he had a little private +judgment bar, haul them up and lecture them; I suppose he thought he had +a special license in her case." + +"And she went prepared to frame him and bluff him to a standoff. Is that +the way you saw it?" + +"My opinion--what I might think," said Mr. James Edwards of Sunnyvale +ranch, "wouldn't be testimony in a court of law. You don't want it, +Boyne." + +"Maybe not," I grunted. "Perhaps I could make as good a guess as you +could at what young Mrs. Vandeman's capable of; a dolly face, and behind +it the courage of hell." + +"Boyne," he said, as I left the door free to him, "quit making war on +women." + +"Can't," I grinned and waved him on out. "The detective business would +be a total loss without 'em." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A DINNER INVITATION + + +"Look what's after you, man," Skeet warned me from her lofty perch as I +went out through the big room in quest of Ina Vandeman. "Better you stay +here. I gif you a yob. Lots safer--only run the risk of getting your +neck broken." + +I grinned up into her jolly, freckled face, and waited for the woman who +came toward me with that elastic, swinging movement of hers, the +well-opened eyes studying me, keeping all their secrets behind them. + +"Mr. Boyne," a hand on my arm guided me to a side door; we stepped +together out on to a small balcony that led to the lawn. "My husband +brought me your message. Nobody over by the tennis court; let's go and +walk up and down there." + +Her fingers remained on my sleeve as we moved off; she emphasized her +points from time to time by a slight pressure. + +"Such a relief to have a man like you in charge of this investigation." +She gave me an intimate smile; tall as she was, her face was almost on a +level with my own, yet I still found her eyes unreadable, none of those +quick tremors under the skin that register the emotions of excitable +humanity. She remained a handsome, perfectly groomed, and entirely +unruffled young woman. + +"Thank you," was all I said. + +"Mr. Vandeman and I understand how very, very serious this is. Of +course, now, neighbors and intimates of Mr. Gilbert are under +inspection. Everybody's private affairs are liable to be turned out. +We've all got to take our medicine. No use feeling personal resentment." + +Fine; but she'd have done better to keep her hands off me. An old police +detective knows too much of the class of women who use that lever. I +looked at them now, white, delicate, many-ringed, much more expressive +than her face, and I thought them capable of anything. + +"Here are the names you'll want," she fumbled in the girdle of her gown, +brought out a paper and passed it over. "These are the ones who stayed +after the reception, went up to my room with me, and helped me +change--or rather, hindered me." + +"The ones," I didn't open the paper yet, just looked at her across it, +"who were with you all the time from the reception till you left the +house for San Francisco?" + +"It's like this," again she smiled at me, "the five whose names are on +that paper might any one of them have been in and out of my room during +the time. I can't say as to that. But _they_ can swear that _I_ wasn't +out of the room--because I wasn't dressed. As soon as I changed from my +wedding gown to my traveling suit, I went down stairs and we were all +together till we drove to San Francisco and supper at Tait's, where I +had the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Boyne." + +"I understand," I said. "They could all speak for you--but you couldn't +speak for them." Then I opened and looked. Some list! The social and +financial elect of Santa Ysobel: bankers' ladies; prune kings' +daughters; persons you couldn't doubt, or buy. But at the top of all was +Laura Bowman's name. + +We had halted for the turn at the end of the court. I held the paper +before her. + +"How about this one? Do you think she was in the room all the time? Or +have you any recollection?" + +The bride moved a little closer and spoke low. + +"Laura and the doctor were in the middle of one of their grand rows. +She's a bunch of temperament. Mamma was ill; the girls were having to +start out with only Laura for chaperone; she said something about going +somewhere, and it wouldn't take her long--she'd be back in plenty of +time. But whether she went or not--Mr. Boyne, you don't want us to tell +you our speculations and guesses? That wouldn't be fair, would it?" + +"It wouldn't hurt anything," I countered. "I'll only make use of what +can be proven. Anything you say is safe with me." + +"Well, then, of course you know all about the situation between Laura +and Jim Edwards. Laura was determined she wouldn't go up to San +Francisco with her husband--or if she did, he must drive her back the +same night. She wouldn't even leave our house to get her things from +home; the doctor, poor man, packed some sort of bag for her and brought +it over. When he came back with it, she wasn't to be found; and she +never did appear until we were getting into the machine." + +I listened, glancing anxiously toward the skyline of that little hill +over which Worth and Barbara might be expected to appear almost any +moment now. Then we made the turn at the end of the court, and my view +of it was cut off. + +"Laura and Jim--they're the ones this is going to be hard on. I do feel +sorry for them. She's always been a problem to her family and friends. A +great deal's been overlooked. Everybody likes Jim; but--he's a +southerner; intrigue comes natural to them." + +Five minutes before I had been listening to Edwards' pitiful defense of +this girl; I recalled his "scouting" for a chance to get her home unseen +and save her standing with her family. That could be classed as +intrigue, too, I suppose. We were strolling slowly toward the clubhouse. + +"I don't give Dr. Bowman much," I said deliberately. A quick look came +my way, and, + +"Mr. Gilbert was greatly attached to him. Everybody's always believed +that only Mr. Gilbert's influence held that match together. Now he's +dead, and Laura's freed from some sort of control he seemed to have over +her, of course she hopes and expects she'll be able to divorce the +doctor in peace and marry Jim." + +"No movement of the sort yet?" + +She stopped and faced round toward me. + +"Dr. Bowman--he's our family physician, you know--is trying for a very +fine position away from here, in an exclusive sanitarium. Divorce +proceedings coming now would ruin his chances. But I don't know how long +he can persuade Laura to hold off. She's in a strange mood; I can't make +her out, myself. She disliked Gilbert; yet his death seems to have upset +her frightfully." + +"You say she didn't like Mr. Gilbert?" + +"They hated each other. But--he was so peculiar--of course that wasn't +strange. Many people detested him. Bron never did. He always forgave him +everything because he said he was insane. Bron told you my +experience--the one that made me break with Worth?" + +She looked at me, a level look; no shifting of color, no flutter of +eyelid or throat. We were at the clubhouse steps. + +"Here comes the boy himself," I warned as Worth and Barbara, their arms +full of ferns, rounded the turn from the little dip at the side of the +grounds where the stream went through. We stood and waited for them. + +"You two," Ina spoke quickly to them. "Mr. Boyne's just promised to come +over to dinner to-morrow night." Her glance asked me to accept the fib +and the invitation. "I want both of you." + +"I'm going to be at your house anyhow, Ina," Barbara said, "working with +Skeet painting those big banners they've tacked up out in your court. +You'll have to feed us; but we'll be pretty messy. I don't know about a +dinner party." + +"It isn't," Ina protested, smiling. "It's just what you said--feeding +you. Nobody there besides yourself and Skeet but Mr. Boyne and Worth--if +he'll come." + +"I have to go up to San Francisco to-morrow," said Worth. + +"But you'll be back by dinner time?" Ina added quickly. + +"If I make it at all." + +"Well, you can come just as you are, if you get in at the last minute," +she said, and he and Barbara went on to carry their ferns in. When they +were out of hearing, she turned and floored me with, + +"Mr. Vandeman has forbidden me to say this to you, but I'm going to +speak. If Worth doesn't have to be told about me--and his father--I'd be +glad." + +"If the missing leaves of the diary are ever found," I came up slowly, +"he'd probably know then." I watched her as I said it. What a strange +look of satisfaction in the little curves about her mouth as she spoke +next: + +"Those leaves will never be found, Mr. Boyne. I burned them. Mr. Gilbert +presented them to me as a wedding gift. He was insane, but, intending to +take his own life, I think even his strangely warped conscience refused +to let a lying record stand against an innocent girl who had never done +him any harm." + +We stood silent a moment, then she looked round at me brightly with, + +"You're coming to dinner to-morrow night? So glad to have you. At seven +o'clock. Well--if this is all, then?" and at my nod, she went up the +steps, turning at the side door to smile and wave at me. + +What a woman! I could but admire her nerve. If her alibi proved +copper-fastened, as something told me it would, I had no more hope of +bringing home the murder of Thomas Gilbert to Mrs. Bronson Vandeman of +Santa Ysobel than I had of readjusting the stars in their courses! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A BIT OF SILK + + +I must admit that when Worth and Barbara walked up and found me talking +to Ina Vandeman, I felt caught dead to rights. The girl gave me one +long, steady look. I was afraid of Barbara Wallace's eyes. Then and +there I relinquished all idea of having her help in this inquiry. She +could have done it much better than I, attracted less attention--but no +matter. The awkward moment went by, however; I heaved a sigh of relief +as they carried their ferns on into the clubhouse, and Mrs. Vandeman +left me with gracious good-bys. + +I had the luck to cover my first inquiry by getting a lift into town +from Mrs. Ormsby, young wife of the president of the First National. +Alone with me in her little electric, she answered every question I +cared to put, and said she would be careful to speak to no one of the +matter. Three others I caught on the wing, as it were, busy at blossom +festival affairs; the fete only one day off now, things were moving +fast. I glimpsed Dr. Bowman down town and thought he rather carefully +avoided seeing me. His wife was taking no part; the word went that she +was not able; but when I called at what had been the Wallace and was now +the Bowman home, I found the front door open and two ladies in the hall. + +One of them, Laura Bowman herself, came flying out to meet me--or +rather, it seemed, to stop me, with a face of dismay. + +"My mother's here, Mr. Boyne!" Her hand was clammy cold; she'd been +warned of me and my errand. "I don't want to take you through that way." + +I stood passive, and let her do the saying. + +"Around here," she faltered. "We can go in at the side door." + +We skirted the house by a narrow walk; she was leading the way by this +other entrance, when, spread out over its low step, blocking our +progress, I saw a small Japanese woman ripping up a satin dress. + +"Let us pass, Oomie." + +"Wait. We can talk as well here," I checked her. We moved on a few +paces, out of earshot of the girl; but before I could put my questions, +she began with a sort of shattered vehemence to protest that Thomas +Gilbert's death was suicide. + +"It was, Mr. Boyne. Anybody who knew the scourge Thomas had been to +those he must have loved in his queer, distorted way, and any one who +loved them, could believe he might take his own life." + +"You speak freely, Mrs. Bowman," I said. "Then you hated the man?" + +"Oh, I did! For years past I've never heard of a death without wondering +that God took other human beings and let him live. Now that he's killed +himself, it seems dreadful to me that suspicion should be cast on--" + +"Mrs. Bowman," I interrupted. "Thomas Gilbert's death was murder. All +persons who could have had motive or might have had opportunity to kill +him will be under suspicion till the investigation clears them of it. +I'm now ascertaining the whereabouts of Ina Vandeman that evening." + +A shudder went through her; she looked at me feelingly, twisting her +hands together in the way I remembered. Despite her distress, she was +very simple and accessible. She gave me no resistance, admitted her +absence from the Thornhill house at about the time the party was ready +to start for San Francisco--Edwards, of course. I got nothing new here. +She seemed thankful enough to go into the house when I released her. + +I lingered a moment to have a word with the little Japanese woman on the +step. + +"How long you work this place?" + +"Two hours af-noon, every day," ducking and giggling like a mechanical +toy. + +Just a piece-worker, not a regular servant. + +"Pretty dress," I touched the satin on the step. "Whose?" + +"Mine." Grinning, she spread a breadth out over her knees. "Lady no like +any more. Mine." It was a peculiar shade of peacock blue; unless I was +mistaken, the one Mrs. Bowman had worn that night at Tait's. + +"Hello--what's this?" I bent to examine a small hole in the hem of that +breadth Oomie was so delightedly smoothing. + +"O-o-o-o! I think may-may burn'm. Not like any more." + +There was a small round hole. Just so a cigarette might have seared--or +a bullet. + +"Not can use," I said to Oomie, indicating the injured bit. "Cut that +off. Give me." And I laid a silver dollar on the step. + +Giggling, the little brown woman snipped out the bit of hem and handed +it to me. I glanced up from tucking it into my pocket, and saw Laura +Bowman's white face staring at me through the glass of that side entry +door. + +A suggestive lead, certainly; but it's my way to follow one lead at a +time: I went on to the Thornhill place. + +Everybody there would know my errand; for though, with taste I could but +admire, Ina had put no name of any member of the family on her list, she +of course expected me to call on them, and would never have let her +sisters leave the country club without a warning. + +The three were just taking their hats off in the hall when I arrived. I +did my questioning there, not troubling to take them separately. Cora +and Ernestine, a well bred pair of Inas, without her pep, perhaps a +shade less good looking, made their replies with none of the usual +flutter of feminine curiosity and excitement, then went on in the living +room. Skeet of course was as practical and brief as a sensible boy. + +"I don't know whether she's fit to see you," she said when I spoke of +her mother. And on the instant, Ina Vandeman's clear, high voice called +down the stair, + +"Bring Mr. Boyne up--now." + +Skeet stepped aside for me to pass. I suppose I looked as startled as I +felt, for on my way to the house, I had seen Mrs. Vandeman drive past +toward town. I stood there at a loss, and finally said aimlessly, + +"Your sister thinks it's all right?" + +"My sister?" Skeet wrinkled her brows at me, and glanced to where the +twins were in sight in the living room. "That was mother herself who +called you." + +All the way up the stairs, Skeet following, I was trying to swing my +rather heavy wits around to take advantage of this new development. So +far, Ina Vandeman's voice, imitated by Barbara Wallace, and recognized +by Chung and Jim Edwards, possibly by Worth, had been my lead in this +direction. If more than one woman spoke in that voice--where would it +take me? + +I'd got no adjustment before I was ushered into a large dim room, and +confronted by a figure in a reclining chair by the window. Here, in +spite of years and illness, were the same good looks and thoroughbred +courage that seemed to characterize the women of this family. Mrs. +Thornhill greeted me in Ina Vandeman's very tones, a little high-pitched +for real sweetness, full of a dominating quality, and she showed a +composure I had not expected. To Skeet, standing by, watching to see +that her mother didn't overdo in talking to me, she said, + +"Dear, go down stairs. Jane's left her dinner on the range and gone to +the grocery. You look after it while she's away." + +When we were alone, she lay back in her chair, eyes closed, or seemingly +so, and made her statement. She'd been in her daughter's room only twice +between the reception and that daughter's going away. + +"But the room was full of other people," a glimmer between lashes. "I +could give you the names of those others." + +"Thank you," I said. "Mrs. Vandeman has already done that. I've seen +them all." + +"You've seen them--all?" a long, furtively drawn breath. Then her eyes +flashed open and fixed themselves on me. Relief was there, yet something +stricken, as they traveled over me from my gray thatch to my big feet. + +"Now, Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "aside from those two visits to your +daughter's room, where were you that evening?" + +A slow flush crept into her thin cheeks. The unreadable eyes that were +traveling over Jerry Boyne stopped suddenly and held him with a quiet +stare. + +"I understood it was my daughter's movements on that evening you wished +to trace, Mr. Boyne," she said slowly. "It would be difficult to trace +mine. Really, I had so much on my hands with the reception and +inefficient help--" She broke off, her eyes never leaving my own, even +as she added smoothly, "It would be very, very difficult." + +There is an effect in class almost like the distinction of race. These +women spoke a baffling language; their psychology was hard for me. If +there was something hid up amongst them that ought to be uncovered by +diplomacy and delicate indirection, it would take a smarter man than the +one who stood in my number tens to do it. + +"Mrs. Thornhill," I said, "you did leave the house. You went to Mr. +Gilbert's study. The shot that killed him left you a nervous wreck, so +that you can't hear a tire blow-out without reenacting in your mind the +scene of that murder. You'll talk now." + +"You think I will? Talk to you?" very low and quiet, eyes once more +closed. + +"Why not? It's got to come; here in your own home, with me--or I'll have +to put you where you'll be forced to answer questions." + +"Oh, you threaten me, do you?" Her eyes flashed open, and looked at me, +hard as flint. "Very well. I'll answer no questions as to what happened +on the evening of Thomas Gilbert's death, except in the presence of +Worth Gilbert, his son." + +My retirement down the Thornhill stairs, made with such dignity as I +could muster, was in fact, a panic flight. Halfway, Cora Thornhill all +but finished me by looking out from the living room, and calling in Ina +Vandeman's voice, + +"Erne, show Mr. Boyne out, won't you?" + +Ernestine completed the job when she answered--in Ina Vandeman's voice, +also-- + +"Yes, dear; I will." It was only the scraps of me that she swept out +through the front door. + +I stood on the porch and mopped my brow. Across, there at the Gilbert +place was Worth himself, charging around the grounds with Vandeman and a +lot of other decorators, pruning shears in hand, going for a thicket of +bamboos that shut off the vegetable garden. At one side Barbara stood +alone, looking, it seemed to me, rather depressed. I made for her. She +met me with, + +"I know what you've been doing. Skeet came to me about it while Ina was +phoning home from the country club." + +"Well--she should worry! I've just finished with her list. Got an +unbreakable alibi." + +"She would have," Barbara said listlessly. "She wasn't at the study that +evening." + +"Huh! I worked on your tip that she was." + +Barbara had pulled off the little stitched hat she wore; yet the deep +flush on her cheeks was neither from sun nor an afternoon's hard work. +It, and the quick straightening of her figure, the lift of her chin, had +to do with me and my activities. + +"Mr. Boyne," the black eyes came around to me with a flash, "do you +suspect me of trying to pay off a spite on Ina Vandeman?" + +"Good Lord--no!" I exploded. "And anyhow, I've just found that what you +imitated and Chung recognized, might as well have been the mother's +voice as the daughter's." + +"Yes," she assented. "Any one of the family--under stress of emotion." +Then suddenly, "And why do I tell you that? You'll not get from it what +I do. I ought never to have mixed up my kind of mental work with other +people's. I'd promised my own soul that I would never make another +deduction. Then Worth came and asked me--that night at Tait's. I might +say now that I never will any more...." She broke off, storm in her eyes +and in her voice as she finished, "But I suppose if he wanted me to +again--I'd make a little fool of myself for his amusement just as I did +this time and have done all these other times!" + +"I'll not ask anything more of you, Barbara," I said to her hastily, +confused and abashed before the glimpse she'd given me of her heart. +"Except that I beg you to stay good friends with Cummings. That man +hates Worth. If you turned him down now--say, for the ball, or anything +like that--he'd be twice as hard for us to handle. Keep him a passive +enemy instead of an active one, as long as he seems to find it necessary +to hang around Santa Ysobel." + +"You know what's holding Mr. Cummings here, don't you?" She glanced +somberly past the bamboo gatherers to where we saw a gray corner of the +study with its pink ivy geranium blossoms atop. "Mr. Cummings is held +here by two steel bolts--the bolts on those study doors. Until he finds +how they can be moved through an inch of planking--he'll not leave Santa +Ysobel." + +She'd put it in a nutshell. And I couldn't let him beat me to it. I'd +got to get the jump on him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE MAGNET + + +I had all set for next morning: my roadster at Capehart's for repair, +old Bill tipped off that I didn't want any one but Eddie Hughes to work +on it; and to add to my satisfaction, there arrived in my daily grist +from the office, the report that they had Skeels in jail at Tiajuana. + +"Well, Jerry, old socks," Worth hailed my news as I followed out to his +car where he was starting for San Francisco, and going to drop me at the +Capehart garage, "Some luck! If Skeels is in jail at Tiajuana, and what +I'm after to-day turns out right, we may have both ends of the string." + +Pink-and-white were the miles of orchards surrounding Santa Ysobel, +pink-and-white nearly all the dooryards, every tree its own little +carnival of bloom with bees for guests. Already the streets were full of +life, double the usual traffic. As we neared the Capehart cottage, on +its quiet side street about half a block from the garage, there was +Barbara under the apple boughs at the gate, talking to some man whose +back was to us. She bowed; I answered with a wave toward the garage; but +Worth scooted us past without, I thought, once glancing her way, sent +the roadster across Main where he should have stopped and let me out, +went on and into the highway at a clip which rocked us. + +"Was that Cummings?" holding my hat on. No answer that I could hear, +while we made speed toward San Francisco. And still no word was spoken +until we had outraged the sensibilities of all whose bad luck it was to +meet us, those whom we passed going at a more reasonable pace, scared a +team of work horses into the ditch, and settled down to a steady whiz. + +We were getting away from Santa Ysobel a good deal further and a good +deal faster than I felt I could afford. I took a chance and remarked, to +nobody in particular, and in a loud voice, + +"I asked Barbara not to make a break with Cummings; it would be awkward +for us now if she did." + +"Break?" Worth gave me back one of my words. + +"Yes. I was afraid she might throw him down for the carnival ball." + +Without comment or reply, he slowed gently for the big turn where the +Medlow road comes in, swept a handsome circle and headed back. Then he +remarked, + +"Thought I'd show you what the little boat could do under my management. +Eddie had her in fair shape, but I've tuned her up a notch or two +since." + +I responded with proper enthusiasm, and would have been perfectly +willing to be let out at Main Street. But he turned the corner there, +ran on to the garage, jumped out and followed me in. Bill, selling some +used tires to a customer in the office, nodded and let us go past to +where my machine stood. We heard voices back in the repair shop and a +hum of swift whirring shafts and pulleys. Worth kept with me. It +embarrassed me--made me nervous. It was as though he had some notion of +my purpose there. Hughes, at his lathe, caught sight of us and growled +over his shoulder, + +"Yer machine's ready." + +This wouldn't do. I stepped to the door, with, + +"Fixed the radiator, did you?" + +"Sure. Whaddye think?" Hughes was at work on something for a girl; she +perched at one end of his bench, swinging her feet. Worth, behind me, +touched my shoulder, and I saw that the girl over there was Barbara +Wallace. + +She looked up at us and smiled. The sun slanting through dirt covered +windows, made color effects on her silken black hair. Eddie gave us +another scowl and went on with his work. + +"Hello, Bobs," Worth's greeting was casual. "Thought I'd stop and tell +you I was on my way--you know." A glance of understanding passed between +them. "Better come along?" + +"I'd like to," she smiled. "You'll be back by dinner time. If it wasn't +the last day, and I hadn't promised--" + +Neither of them in any hurry. + +"Hughes," I said, "there's another thing needs doing on that car of +mine--" + +"Can't do nothing at all till I finish her job," he shrugged me off. + +"All right," and I stepped through into the grassy back yard, put a +smoke in my face, and began walking up and down, my glance, each time I +turned, encountering that queer bunch inside: Worth, hands in pockets; +the chauffeur he had discharged--and that I was waiting to get for +murder--bending at his vise; Barbara's shining dark head close to the +tousled unkemptness of his poll, as she explained to him the pulley +arrangement needed to raise and anchor the banner she and Skeet were +painting. + +Suddenly, at the far end of my beat, I was brought up by a little outcry +and stir. As I wheeled toward the door, I saw Bobs and Worth in it, +apparently wrestling over something. Laughing, crying, she hung to his +wrist with one hand, the other covering one of her eyes. + +"Let me look!" he demanded. "I won't touch it, if you don't want me to. +You have got something in there, Bobs." + +But when she reluctantly gave him his chance, he treacherously went for +her with a corner of his handkerchief in the traditional way, and she +backed off, uttering a cry that fetched Hughes around from the lathe, +roaring at Worth, above the noise of the machinery, + +"What's the matter with her?" + +"Steel splinter--in her eye," Worth shouted. + +With a quick oath, the belt pole was thrown to stop the lathe; down the +length of the shop to the scrap heap of odds and ends at the rear Hughes +raced, returning with a bit of metal in his hand. Barbara was backed +against the bench, her eyes shut, and tears had begun to flow from under +the lids. + +"Now, Miss Barbie," Hughes remonstrated. "You let me at that thing. +This'll pull it out and never touch you." I saw it was a horse-shoe +magnet he carried. + +"Do you think it will?" + +"Sure," and Eddie approached the magnet to her face. "It won't hurt you +a-tall. She'll begin to pull before she even touches. Now, steady. Want +to come as near contact as I can. Don't jump.... Hell!" + +Barbara had sprung away from him. But for Worth's quick arm, she would +have been into the machines. + +"No!" she said between locked teeth, tears on her cheeks, "I can't let +him." + +"Why, Barbara!" I said, astonished; and poor Eddie almost blubbered as +he begged, + +"Aw, come on, Miss Barbie. It was my fault in the first place--leavin' +that damned lathe run. Yuh got to let me--" + +"But if it doesn't work?" + +"Sure it'll work. Would I offer to use it for you if I hadn't tried it +out lots o' times--to pull splinters and--" + +"Give me that magnet," Worth reached the long arm of authority, got what +he wanted, shouldered Hughes aside, and took hold of the girl with, +"Quit being a little fool, Barbara. That thing's only caught in your +lashes now. Let it get in against the eyeball and you'll have trouble. +Hold still." + +The command was not needed. Without a word, Barbara raised her face, put +her hands behind her and waited. + +Delicately, Worth caught the dark fringe of the closed eye, turned back +the lid so that he could see just what he was at, brought the horse-shoe +almost in touch, then drew it away--and there was the tiny steel +splinter that could have cost her sight, clinging to the magnet's edge. + +"Here you are," he smiled. "Wasn't that enough to call you names for?" + +"You didn't call me names," dabbing away with a small handkerchief. "You +told me to quit being a little fool. Maybe I will. How would you like +that?" + +Apparently Hughes did not resent Barbara's refusing his help and +accepting Worth's. He went back to his vise; the two others strolled +together through the doorway into the garage, talking there for a moment +in quick, low tones; then Barbara returned to perch on the end of +Eddie's bench, play with the magnet and watch him at work. I lit up +again and stepped out. + +I could see Barbara gather some nails, screws and loose pieces of iron, +hold a bit of board over them, and trail the magnet back and forth along +its top. Though a half inch of wood intervened, the metal trash on the +bench followed the magnet to and fro. I got nothing out of that except +that Barbara was still a child, playing like a child, till I looked up +suddenly to find that she had ceased the play, brought her feet up to +curl them under her in the familiar Buddha pose, while the busy hands +were dropped and folded before her. Her rebellion of yesterday +evening--and now her taking up the concentration unasked--she wouldn't +want me to notice what she was doing; I ducked out of sight. I had +walked up and down that yard a half dozen times more, when over me with +a rush came the significance of those moving bits of iron, trailing a +magnet on the other side of a board. Three long steps took me to the +door. + +"Hughes," I shouted, "I'm taking my machine now. Be back directly." + +The man grunted without turning around. I had forgotten Barbara, but as +I was climbing into the roadster, I heard her jump to the floor and +start after me. + +"Mr. Boyne! Wait! Mr. Boyne!" + +I checked and sat grinning as she came up, the magnet in her hand. I +reached for it. + +"Give me that," I whispered. "Want to go along and see me use it?" + +"No--no--" in hushed protest. "You're making a mistake, Mr. Boyne." + +"Mistake? I saw what you did in there. Said you never would again--then +went right to it! You sure got something this time! Girl--girl! You've +turned the trick!" + +"Oh, _no_! You mustn't take it like that, Mr. Boyne. This is nothing--as +it stands. Just a single unrelated fact that I used with others to +concentrate on. Wait. Do wait--till Worth comes back, anyhow." + +"All right." I felt that our voices were getting loud, that we'd talked +here too long. No use of flushing the game before I was loaded. "First +thing to do is to verify this." I felt good all over. + +"Yes, of course," she smiled faintly. "You would want to do that." And +she climbed in beside me. + +I drove so fast that Barbara had no chance to question me, though she +did find openings for remonstrating at my speed. I dashed into the +driveway of the Gilbert place and came to an abrupt stop at the doors of +the garage. And right away I bumped up against my first check. I gripped +the magnet, raced to the study door with it, she following more slowly +to watch while I passed it along the wooden panel where the bolt ran on +the other side; and nothing doing! + +Again she followed as I ran around to the outside door, opened up and +tried it on the bare bolt itself; no stir. While she sat in the desk +chair at that central table, her elbows on its top, her hands lightly +clasped, the chin dropped in interlaced fingers, following my movements +with very little interest, I puffed and worked, opened a door and tried +to move the bolt when it wasn't in the socket, and felt like cursing in +disappointment. + +"A little oil--" I grumbled, more to myself than to her, and hurried to +the garage workbench for the can that would certainly be there. It was, +but I didn't touch it. What I did lean over and clutch from where they +lay tossed in carelessly among rubbish and old spare parts, were three +more magnets exactly the same as the one we had brought from Capehart's. +I sprinted back with them. + +"Barbara," I called in an undertone. "Come here. Look." + +Held side by side, the four, working as one, moved the bolts as well as +fingers could have done, and through more than an inch of hard wood. + +"Yes," she looked at it; "but that doesn't prove Eddie Hughes the +murderer." + +"No?" her opposition began to get on my nerves. "I'm afraid that'll be a +matter for twelve good men and true to settle." She stood silent, and I +added, "I know now whose shadow I saw on the broken panel of that door +there, the first Sunday night." + +"Oh, it was Eddie's," she agreed rather unexpectedly. + +"And he came to steal the 1920 diary," I supplied. + +"He came to get a drink from the cellaret, and a cigar from the case. +That's the use he made of his power to move these bolts." + +"Until the Saturday night when he killed his employer, the man he hated, +and left things so the crime would pass as suicide. Barbara, are you +just plain perverse?" + +Instead of answering, she went back to the table, got the contraption +Hughes had made for her, and started as if to leave me. On the +threshold, she hesitated. + +"I don't suppose there's anything I can say or do to change your mind," +her tone was inert, drained. "I know that Eddie is innocent of this. But +you don't want to listen to deductions." + +"Later," I said to her, briskly. "It'll keep. I've something to do now." + +"What? You promised Worth to make no move against Eddie Hughes until you +had his permission." She seemed to think that settled it. I let her keep +the idea. + +"Run along, Barbara," I said, "get to your paint daubing. I'll forgive +you everything for deducing--well, discovering, if you like that +better--about these bolts and magnets." + +Skeet burst from the kitchen door of the Thornhill house, caught sight +of us, shouted something unintelligible, and came racing through the +grounds toward Vandeman's. + +"Been waiting for me long, angel?" she called, as Barbara moved up with +a lagging step, then, waving two pairs of overalls, "Got pants for both +of us, honey. The paints and brushes are over there. We'll make short +work of that old banner, now." + +Promised Worth, had I? But the situation was changed since then. No man +of sense could object to my moving on what I had now. I locked the study +door, went back to my roadster, and headed her uptown. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +AN ARREST + + +It was a thankful if not a joyous Jerry Boyne who crossed the front +pergola of the Vandeman bungalow that evening in the wake of Worth +Gilbert, bound for an informal dinner. The tall, unconscious lad who +stepped ahead of me had been made safe in spite of himself. This weight +off my mind, I felt kindly to the whole world, to the man under whose +dining table we were to stretch our legs, whose embarrassing private +affairs I had uncovered. He'd taken it well--seconding his wife's dinner +invitation, meeting my eye frankly whenever we encountered. My mood was +expansive. When Vandeman himself opened the door to us, explaining that +he was his own butler for the day, I saw him quite other than he had +ever appeared to me. + +For one thing, here in his own house--and this was the first time I had +ever been in it--you got the man with his proper background, his +suitable atmosphere. The handsome living room into which he took us, +showed many old pieces of mahogany, and some of the finest oriental +stuff I ever saw; books in cases, sets of standard writers, such as +people of culture bought thirty or forty years ago, some family pictures +about. This was Vandeman; a lot behind such a fellow, after all, if he +did seem rather a lightweight. + +Ina joined us, very beautifully dressed. She also showed the ability to +sink unpleasant considerations in the present moment of hospitality. We +lingered a moment chatting, then, + +"Shall we go and look at the artists working?" she suggested, and led +the way. We followed out onto a flagged terrace at the rear. A dozen +great muslin strips were tacked over the walls there, and two small +figures, desperate, smudged, wearing the blue overalls Skeet Thornhill +had waved at us, toiled manfully smearing the blossom festival colors on +in lettering and ornamental designs. + +"Ina!" Skeet yawped at her sister, "Another dirty, low Irish trick! Get +yourself all dressed up like a sore thumb, and then show us off in this +fix!" + +Mutely Barbara revolved on the box she occupied. There was fire in her +soft eyes; her color was high as her glance came to rest on Worth. + +"Fong Ling's nearly ready to serve dinner," said Ina calmly. "Stop +fussing, and go wash up." + +"Hello, Mr. Boyne." As Skeet passed me, she wiped a paw on a paint rag +and offered it to me without another word. I got a grip and a look that +told me there was no hang-over with her from that scene yesterday in her +mother's sick-room. Vandeman was commenting on his depleted bamboo +clumps. + +"Mine suffered worse than yours, Worth. Fong Ling kicked like a bay +steer about our taking so much. He's nursed the stuff for years like a +fond mother. But we had to have it for that effect up around the +orchestra stand." + +"Then he's been with you a long time?" I caught at the chance for +information on this chink--information that I'd found it impossible to +get from the chink himself. + +"Ever since I came in here. Chinamen, you know--not like Japs. Some +loyalty. You can keep a good one for half a lifetime." + +We strolled back to the living room; the girls were there before us, +Skeet picking out bits of plum-blossoms and bunches of cherry bloom from +a great bowl on the mantel, and sticking them in Barbara's dark hair, +wreath fashion. + +"Best we could do at a splurge," she greeted us, "was to turn in our +blouses at the neck." + +"And what in the world are you doing to Barbara?" Mrs. Vandeman said +sharply. "Let her alone, Skeet. You'll make her look ridiculous." + +Skeet stuck out her tongue at her sister, and went calmly on, mumbling +as she worked, + +"Hold 'till 'ittle Barbie child. Yook up at pretty mans and hold 'till." + +Over the mantel, in front of Barbara as she stood, her back to us all, +hung an oil painting--one of those family groups--same old popper; same +old mommer, and a fat baby in a white dress and blue sash. At that, it +was good enough to show that the man had some resemblance to Vandeman as +he leaned there on the mantel below it, rather encouraging Skeet's +enterprise. From the other side, I could see Barbara's glance go from +man to picture. + +"Doesn't it look like Van, Barbie?" Skeet kept up the conversation. "Got +the same ring, and all. But it ain't Van. Him's the tootsie in there +with the blue ribbon round his tummy." + +"I say, Skeeter, lay off!" Vandeman looked self-consciously from the +painted ring in the picture to the real ring on his own well kept hand +there on the mantel edge. "People aren't interested in family +histories." + +"I am," said Barbara, unexpectedly. As the gong sounded and we all began +to move toward the dining room, they were still on the subject and kept +it up after we were seated. + +Fong Ling served us. The bride had Worth on her right, and talked to him +in lowered tones. Barbara, between Vandeman and myself, continued to +show an almost feverish attention to Vandeman. It was plain enough from +where I sat that nothing Ina Vandeman could say gave the lad any less +interest in his plate. But I suppose with a girl, the mere fact of some +other girl being allowed to show intentions counts. Did the flapper get +what was going on, as she looked proudly across at her handiwork, and +demanded of me, + +"Say, Mr. Boyne, you saw how Ina tried to do us dirt? And now, honest to +goodness, hasn't Barbie with the plum-blossoms got Ina and her +artificial flowers skun a mile?" + +I didn't wonder that young Mrs. Vandeman saved me the necessity of +answering, by taking her up. + +"Skeet, you're too outrageous!" + +There she sat, quite a beauty in a very superior fashion; and Worth at +her side, was having his attention called to this dark young creature +across the table, whose wonderful still fire, the white blossoms +crowning her hair, might well have made even a lovelier than Ina +Vandeman look insipid. And Worth did take his time admiring her; I saw +that; but all he found to say was, + +"Bobs, I suppose Jerry's told you that he's treed Clayte at Tiajuana?" + +"No," said Barbara, "he hasn't said a word. But I'm just as much +surprised at Clayte's being caught as I was at Skeels escaping capture." + +"Say that over and say it slow," Vandeman was good natured. "Or rather, +put it in plain American, so we all can understand." + +"Mr. Boyne knows what I mean." Barbara gave me a faint smile. "Mr. Boyne +and I add up Skeels and Clayte, and get a different result. That's all." + +"Bobs doesn't think that Skeels is Clayte, caught or uncaught," Worth +said briefly and went on eating his dinner. Apparently he didn't give a +hang which way the fact turned out to be. + +"Why don't you?" Vandeman gave passing attention. She shook her head and +put it. + +"Skeels, at liberty, was quite possibly Clayte; Skeels captured cannot +be Clayte. Mr. Boyne, do you call that a paradox?" + +"No--an unkind slam at a poor old man's ability in his profession. I +started out to find a gang; but Clayte and Skeels are so exactly one, +mentally, morally and physically, that I don't see why we should seek +further." + +"Back up, Jerry," Worth tossed it over at me. "Let Barbara"--he didn't +often use the girl's full name that way--"give you a description of +Clayte before you're so sure." + +"How could I?" The girl's tone was defensive. "I never saw him." + +"I want you," Worth paid no attention to her objections, "to describe +the man you thought you were asking for that day at the Gold Nugget, +when Jerry butted in, and your ideas got lost in the excitement about +Skeels. Deduce the description, I mean." + +"Deduce it?" Barbara spoke stiffly, incredulously, her glance going from +Worth to the well-gowned, well-groomed woman beside him. I remembered +her moment of rebellion yesterday evening on the lawn, when she said so +bitterly that if he asked it again, she'd do it again, as she finished, +"Deduce--here?" + +"Here and now." Worth's laconic answer sent the blood of healthy anger +into her face, made her eyes shine. And it brought from Ina Vandeman a +petulant, + +"Oh, Worth, please don't turn my dinner table into a side-show." + +"Ina, dear." Vandeman raised his eyes at her, then quite the cordial +host urging a guest to display talent, "They say you're wonderful at +that sort of thing, and I've never seen it." + +Barbara was mad for fair. + +"Oh, very well," she spoke pointedly to Vandeman, and left Worth out of +it. "If you think you'd really enjoy seeing me make a side-show of Ina's +dinner table--" + +She stopped and waited. Vandeman played up to the situation as he saw +it, with one of his ready smiles. Worth threw no life-line. Ina didn't +think it worth while to apologize for her rudeness. Skeet was openly in +a twitter of anticipation. There was nothing for me to do. A little +commotion of skirts told us that she was drawing up her feet to sit +cross-legged in her chair. + +"She's going to! Oh, golly!" Skeet chortled. "Haven't seen Bobsy do one +of those stunts since I was a che-ild!" + +Arms down, hands clasped, eyes growing bigger, face paling into snow, we +watched her. To all but Vandeman, this was a more or less familiar +performance. They took it rather as a matter of course. It was the +Chinaman, coming in with the coffee tray, who seemed most strangely +affected by it. He stopped where he was in the doorway, rigid, staring +at our girl, though with a changeful light in his eye that seemed to me +to shift between an unreasonable admiration and an unreasonable fear. +Orientals are superstitious; but what could the fellow be afraid of in +the beautiful young thing, Buddha posed, blossoms in her hair? The girl +had gone into her stunt with a sort of angry energy. He seemed to clutch +himself to stillness for the brief time that it held. Only in the moment +that she relaxed, and we knew that Barbara had concentrated, Barbara was +Barbara again, did he move quietly forward, a decent, competent servant, +stepping around the table, placing our cups. + +"Just two facts to go on," she said coldly. "My results will be pretty +general." + +"Nothing to go on in the way of a description of Clayte," I tried to +help her out. "I'd call that one we had of him as near nothing as it +well could be." + +"Yes, the nothingness of it was one of my facts," she said, and stopped. + +"Let's hear what you did get, Bobs," Worth prompted; and Skeet giggled, +half under her breath, + +"Speech! Speech!" + +"At the Gold Nugget--whatever he called himself there--Edward Clayte +was ten years younger than he had seemed at the bank; he appeared to +weigh a dozen pounds more; threw out his chest, walked with his head up, +and therefore would have been estimated quite a bit taller. This +personality was an opposite of the other. Bank clerk Clayte was demure, +unobtrusive; this man wore loud patterns. The bank clerk was silent; +this man talked to every one around him, tilted his hat over one eye, +smoked cigars just as those men were doing that day in the lobby; acted +like them, was one of them. In the Gold Nugget, Clayte was a very +average Gold Nugget guest--don't you see? Commonplace there, just as the +other Clayte had been commonplace in a bank or an office." + +Her voice ceased. On the silence it left, Worth spoke up quietly. + +"Bull's eye as usual, Bobs. Every word you say is true. And at the Gold +Nugget, his name was Henry J. Brundage. He had room thirty on the top +floor." + +Skeet clapped her hands, jumped up and came around the table to kiss +Barbara on the ear, and tell her she was the most wonderfullest girl in +the world. + +"Heh!" I flared at Worth. "Find that all out to-day in San Francisco?" + +"No." + +"Oh, it was the Brundage clew that took you south?" + +"Yep. Left Louie on the job at the hotel while I was away. To-day, I +went after Brundage's automobile. Found he'd kept one in a garage on +Jackson Street." + +"It's gone, of course--and no trace," Barbara murmured. + +"Gone since the day of the bank theft," Worth nodded. "He and the money +went in it." + +"Say," I leaned over toward him, "wouldn't it have saved wear and tear +if you'd told me at the first that you knew Skeels couldn't be Clayte?" + +"Oh, but, Jerry, you were so sure! And Skeels wasn't possible for a +minute--never in his little, piking, tin-horn life!" + +I don't believe I had seen Worth so happy since he was a boy, playing +detective. I glanced around and pulled myself up; we certainly weren't +making ourselves very entertaining for the Vandemans. There they sat, at +their own table, like handsome figureheads, smiling politely, pretending +a decent interest. + +"All this must be a bore to you people," I apologized. + +"Not at all--not at all," Vandeman assured us. + +"Well then if you don't mind--Worth, I'll go and use Vandeman's +phone--put my office wise to these Brundage clews of yours." + +Worth nodded. No social scruples were his. I had by no means given up +the belief that Skeels in jail at Tiajuana, would still turn out to be +one of the gang. + +I had just got back to the table from my phoning when the doorbell rang; +we saw the big Chinese slip noiselessly through the rear into the hall +to answer it, coming back a moment later, announcing in his weighty, +correct English, + +"Two gentlemen calling--to see Captain Gilbert." + +"Ask for me?" Worth came to his feet in surprise. "Who told them I was +here?" + +"I do not know," the Chinaman spoke unnecessarily as Worth was crossing +to the door. "I did not ask them that." + +"Use the living room, Worth," Vandeman called after him. "We'll wait +here." + +With the closing of the door, conversation languished. Even Skeet was +quiet and seemed depressed. My ears were straining for any sound from in +there. As I sat, hand dropped at my side, I suddenly felt under shelter +of the screening tablecloth, cold, nervous fingers slipped into mine. +Barbara wasn't looking at me, but I gave her a quick glance as I pressed +her gripping small hand encouragingly. + +She was turned toward Vandeman. Pale to the lips, her great eyes fixed +on the eyes of our host, I saw with wonder how he slowly stirred a spoon +about in his emptied coffee cup, and stared back at her with a face +almost as colorless as her own. The bride glanced from one to the other +of them, and spoke sharply, + +"What's the matter with you two? You're not uneasy about Worth's +callers, are you?" + +"No-no-no--" Vandeman was the first to come out of it, responding to her +voice a good deal as if she dashed cold water in his face, his eyes +breaking away from Barbara's, his lips parted in a nervous smile. He ran +a hand through his hair--an inelegant gesture for him at table--and +laughed a little. + +"We ought to be in there," Barbara said to me, a curious stress in her +voice. + +"How funny you talk, Barbie," Skeet quavered. "What do you think's +wrong?" And Ina spoke decidedly, + +"Worth is one person in the world who can certainly take care of +himself, and would rather be let alone." + +"If you think there is anything we should do--?" Vandeman began +anxiously, and Skeet took a look around at our faces and fairly wailed, + +"What is it? What's the matter? What do you think they're doing to Worth +in there, Barbie?" + +"I'd think they were arresting him," Barbara said in a low, choked tone, +"Only they don't know--" + +"Arresting him!" I broke in on her, startled, getting halfway to my +feet; then as remembrance came to me, sinking back with, "Certainly not. +The murderer of Thomas Gilbert is already in the county jail. I arrested +Eddie Hughes this morning." + +"You arrested--Eddie Hughes!" It was a cry from Barbara. The cold little +hand was jerked from mine. Twisting around in her chair, she stared at +me with a look that made me cold. "Then you've moved those two steel +bolts for Cummings." + +I jumped to my feet. On the instant the door opened, and in it stood +Worth, steady enough, but his brown tanned face was strangely bleached. + +"Jerry," he spoke briefly. "I want you. The sheriff's come for me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +MRS. BOWMAN SPEAKS + + +Midnight in the sheriff's office at San Jose. And I had to telephone +Barbara. She'd be waiting up for my message. The minute I heard her +voice on the wire, I plunged in: + +"Yes, yes, yes; done all I could. A horse can do no more. They've got +Worth. I--" The words stuck in my throat; but they had to come out--"I +left him in a cell." + +A sound came over the wire; whether speech or not, it was something I +couldn't get. + +"He's taking it like a man and a soldier, girl," I hurried. "Not a word +out of him about my having gone counter to his express orders, arrested +Hughes, and pulled this thing over on us." + +"Oh, Mr. Boyne! Of course he wouldn't blame you. Neither would I. You +acted for what you thought was his good. The others--" + +"Vandeman's already gone home. Tell you he stood by well, Barbara--that +tailor's dummy! Surprised me. No, no. Didn't let Jim Edwards come with +us; so broken up I didn't want him along--only hurt our case over here, +the way he is now." + +"Your case?" she spoke out clearly. "What is the situation?" + +"A murder charge against Worth on the secret files. Hughes is +out--Cummings got him--took him, don't know where. Can't locate him." + +"Do you need to?" + +"Perhaps not, Barbara. What I do need is some one who saw Thomas Gilbert +alive that night after Worth left to go back to San Francisco." + +"And if you had that--some one?" + +"If we could produce before Cummings one credible witness to that, it +would mean an alibi. I'd have Worth out before morning." + +"Then, Mr. Boyne, get to the Fremont House here as quickly as you can. +Mr. Cummings is there. Get him out of bed if you have to. I'll bring the +proof you need." + +"But, child!" I began. + +"Don't--waste--time--talking! How long will it take you to get here?" + +"Half an hour." + +"Oh! You may have to wait for me a little. But I'll surely come. Wait in +Mr. Cummings' room." + +Half past twelve when I reached the Fremont House, to find it all +alight, its lobby and corridors surging with the crowd of blossom +festival guests. Nobody much in the bar; soft drinks held little +interest; but in the upper halls, getting to Cummings' room, I passed +more than one open door where the hip-pocket cargoes were unloading, and +was even hailed by name, with invitations to come in and partake. +Cummings was still up. The first word he gave me was, + +"Dykeman's here." + +"Glad of it," I said. "Bring him in. I want you both." + +It took a good deal of argument before he brought the Western Cereal +man from the adjoining room where he had evidently been just getting +ready for bed. He came to the conference resentful as a soreheaded old +bear. + +"Maybe you think Worth Gilbert will sleep well to-night--in jail?" I +stopped him, and instantly differentiated the two men before me. +Cummings took it, with an ugly little half smile; Dykeman rumpled his +hair, and bolstered his anger by shouting at me, + +"This country'll go to the dogs if we make an exempt class of our +returned soldiers. Break the laws--they'll have to take the +consequences, just as a man that was too old or too sickly to fight +would have to take 'em. If I'd done what Captain Gilbert's done--I +wouldn't expect mercy." + +"You mean, if you'd done what you say he's done," I countered. "Nothing +proved yet." + +"Nothing proved?" Dykeman huddled in his chair and shivered. Cummings +shook out an overcoat and helped him into it. He settled back with a +protesting air of being about to leave us, and finished squeakily, +"Didn't need to prove that he had Clayte's suitcase." + +"Good Lord, Mr. Dykeman! You're not lending yourself to accuse a man +like Worth Gilbert of so grave a crime as murder, just because you found +his ideas irregular--maybe reckless--in a matter of money?" + +"Don't answer, Dykeman!" Cummings jumped in. "Boyne's trying to get you +to talk." + +The old chap stared at me doubtfully, then broke loose with a snort, + +"See here, Boyne, you can't get away from it; your man Gilbert has +embarked on a criminal career: mixed up in the robbery of our bank, +with Clayte to rob us; had our own attorney go through the form of +raising money to buy us off from the pursuit of Clayte--" + +"How about me?" I stuck in the question as he paused for breath. "Do you +think Worth Gilbert would put me on the track of a man he didn't want +found?" + +Cummings cut in ahead to answer for him, + +"Just the point. You've not done any good at the inquiry; never will, so +long as you stand with Worth Gilbert. He needed a detective who would +believe in him through thick and thin. And he found such a man in you." + +I could not deny it when Dykeman yipped at me, + +"Ain't that true? If it was anybody else, wouldn't you see the +connection? Captain Gilbert came here to Santa Ysobel that Saturday +night--as we've got witnesses to testify--had a row with his +father--we've got witnesses for that, too--the word money passed between +them again and again in that quarrel--and then the young man had the +nerve to walk into our bank next morning with his father's entire +holdings of our stock in Clayte's suitcase--Boyne, you're crazy!" + +"Maybe not," I said, reckoning on something human in Dykeman to appeal +to. "You see I know where Worth got that suitcase. It came out of my +office vault--evidence we'd gathered in the Clayte hunt. Getting it and +using it that way was his idea of humor, I suppose." + +"Sounds fishy." Dykeman made an uncomfortable shift in his chair. But +Cummings came close, and standing, hands rammed down in the pockets of +his coat, let me have it savagely. + +"Evidence, Boyne, is the only thing that would give you a license to +rout men out at this time of night--new evidence. Have you got it? If +not--" + +"Wait." I preferred to stop him before he told me to get out. "Wait." I +looked at my watch. In the silence we could hear the words of a yawp +from one of the noisy rooms when a passerby was hailed: + +"There she goes! There--look at the chickens!" + +A minute later, a tap sounded on the door. Cummings stood by while I +opened it to Barbara, and a slender, veiled woman, taller by half a head +in spite of bent shoulders and the droop of weakness which made the +girl's supporting arm apparently necessary. + +At sight of them, Dykeman had come to his feet, biting off an +exclamation, looking vainly around the bare room for chairs, then +suggesting, + +"Get some from my room, Boyne." + +I went through the connecting door to fetch a couple. When I came back, +Barbara was still standing, but her companion had sunk into the seat the +shivering, uncomfortable old man offered, and Cummings was bringing a +glass of water for her. She sipped it, still under the shield of her +veil. This was never Ina Vandeman. Could it be that Barbara had dragged +Mrs. Thornhill from her bed? I saw Barbara bend and whisper +reassuringly. Then the veil was swept back, it caught and carried the +hat with it from Laura Bowman's shining, copper colored hair, and the +doctor's wife sat there ghastly pale, evidently very weak, but more +composed than I had ever seen her. + +"I'm all right now," she spoke very low. + +"Miss Wallace," Dykeman demanded harshly. "Who is this--lady?" + +"Mrs. Bowman," Barbara looked her employer very straight in the eye. + +"Heh?" he barked. "Any relation to Dr. Bowman--any connection with him?" + +"His wife." Cummings bent and mumbled to the older man for a moment. + +"Laura," Barbara said gently, "this is Mr. Dykeman. You're to tell him +and Mr. Cummings." + +"Yes," breathed Mrs. Bowman. "I'll tell them. I'm ready to tell anybody. +There's nothing in dodging, and hiding, and being afraid. I'm done with +it. Now--what is it you want to know?" + +Cummings' expression said plainer than words that they didn't want to +know anything. They had their case fixed up and their man arrested, and +they didn't wish to be disturbed. She went on quickly, of herself, + +"I believe I was the last person who saw Mr. Gilbert alive. I must have +been. I'd rushed over there, just as Ina told you, Mr. Boyne, between +the reception and our getting off for San Francisco." + +"All this concerns the early part of the evening," put in Cummings. + +"Yes--but it concerns Worth, too. He was there when I came in.... It was +very painful." + +"The quarrel between Captain Gilbert and his father d'ye mean?" Dykeman +asked his first question. Mrs. Bowman nodded assent. + +"Thomas went right on, before me, just as though I hadn't been there. +Then, when it came my turn, he would have spoken out before Worth of--of +my private affairs. That was his way. But I couldn't stand it. I went +with Worth out to his machine. He had it in the back road. We talked +there a little while, and Worth drove away, going fast, headed for San +Francisco." + +"And that was the last time you saw Thomas Gilbert alive?" Cummings +summed up for her. + +"I hadn't finished," she objected mildly. "After Worth was gone, I went +back into the study and pleaded with Thomas for a long time. I pointed +out to him that if I'd sinned, I'd certainly suffered, and what I asked +was no more than the right any human being has, even if they may be so +unfortunate as to be born a woman." + +Dykeman looked exquisitely miserable; but Cummings was only the lawyer +getting rid of an unwanted witness, as he warned her, + +"Not the slightest need to go into your personal matters, Mrs. Bowman. +We know them already. We knew also of your visit to Mr. Gilbert's study +that night, and that you didn't go there alone. Had the testimony been +of any importance to us, we'd have called in both you and James +Edwards." + +I could see that her deep concern for another steadied Laura Bowman. + +"How do you know all this?" she demanded. "Who told you?" + +"Your husband, Doctor Bowman." + +Up came the red in her face, her eyes shone with anger. + +"He did follow me, then? I thought I saw him creeping through the +shrubbery on the lawn." + +"He did follow you. He has told us of your being at the study--the two +of you--when young Gilbert was there." + +"See here, Cummings," I put in, "if Bowman was around the place, then he +knows that Worth left before the crime was committed. Why hasn't he told +you so?" + +"He has," Cummings said neatly; and I felt as though something had +slipped. Barbara kept a brave front, but Mrs. Bowman moaned audibly. + +"And still you've charged Worth Gilbert? Why not Bowman himself? He was +there. As much reason to suspect him as any of the others. Do you mean +to tell me that you won't accept Mrs. Bowman's testimony--and Dr. +Bowman's--as proving an alibi for Worth Gilbert? I'm ready to swear that +he was at Tait's at five minutes past ten, was there continuously from +that time until a little after midnight, when you yourself saw him +there." + +"A little past midnight!" Cummings repeated my words half derisively. +"Not good enough, Boyne. We base our charge on the medical statement +that Mr. Gilbert met his death in the small hours of Sunday morning." + +I looked away from Barbara; I couldn't bear her eye. After a stunned +silence, I asked, + +"Whose? Who makes that statement?" + +"His own physician. Doctor Bowman swears--" + +"He?" Mrs. Bowman half rose from her chair. "He'd swear to anything. +I--" + +"Don't say any more," Cummings cut her off. And Dykeman mumbled, + +"Had the whole history of your marital infelicities all over the shop. +Too bad such things had to be dragged in. Man seems to be a worthy +person--" + +"Doctor Bowman told me positively," I broke in, "on the Sunday night +the body was found, that death must have occurred before midnight." + +"Gave that as his opinion--his opinion--then," Cummings corrected me. + +"Yes," I accepted the correction. "That was his opinion before he +quarreled with Worth. Now he--" + +"Slandering Bowman won't get you anywhere, Boyne," Cummings said. "He +wasn't here to testify at the inquest. Man alive, you know that nothing +but sworn testimony counts." + +"I wouldn't believe that man's oath," I said shortly. + +"Think you'll find a jury will," smirked Cummings, and Dykeman croaked +in, + +"A mighty credible witness--a mighty credible witness!" + +While these pleasant remarks flew back and forth, a thumping and bumping +had made itself heard in the hall. Now something came against our door, +as though a large bundle had been thrown at the panels. The knob +rattled, jerked, was turned, and a man appeared on the threshold, +swaying unsteadily. Two others, who seemed to have been holding him +back, let go all at once, and he lurched a step into the room. Doctor +Anthony Bowman. + +A minute he stood blinking, staring, then he caught sight of his wife +and bawled out, + +"She's here all right. Tol' you she was here. Can't fool me. Saw her go +past in the hall." + +I looked triumphantly at Dykeman and Cummings. Their star witness--drunk +as a lord! So far he seemed to have sensed nothing in the room but his +wife. Without turning, he reached behind him and slammed the door in the +faces of those who had brought him, then advanced weavingly on the +woman, with, + +"Get up from there. Get your hat. I'll show you. You come 'long home +with me! Ain't I your husband?" + +"Doctor Bowman," peppery little old Dykeman spoke up from the depths of +his chair. "Your wife was brought here to a--to a--" + +"Meeting," Cummings supplied hastily. + +"Huh?" Bowman wheeled and saw us. "Why-ee! Di'n' know so many gen'lemen +here." + +"Yes," the lawyer put a hand on his shoulder. "Conference--over the +evidence in the Gilbert case. No time like the present for you to say--" + +"Hol' on a minute," Bowman raised a hand with dignity. + +"Cummings," said Dykeman disgustedly, "the man's drunk!" + +"No, no," owlishly. "'m not 'ntoxicated. Overcome with 'motion." He took +a brace. "That woman there--'f I sh'd tell you--walk into hotel room, +find her with three men! Three of 'em!" + +"How much of this are these ladies to stand for?" I demanded. + +"Ladies?" Bowman roared suddenly. "She's m' wife. Where's th' other man? +Nothing 'gainst you gen'lmen. Where's he? I'll settle with him. Let that +thing go long 'nough. Too long. Bring him out. I'll settle him now!" + +He dropped heavily into the chair Cummings shoved up behind him, stared +around, drooped a bit, pulled himself together, and looked at us; then +his head went forward on his neck, a long breath sounded-- + +"And you'll keep Worth Gilbert in jail, run the risk of a suit for false +imprisonment--on that!" I wanted to know. + +"And plenty more," the lawyer held steady, but I saw his uneasiness with +every snore Bowman drew. + +Barbara crossed to speak low and earnestly to Dykeman. I heard most of +his answer--shaken, but disposed to hang on, + +"Girl like you is too much influenced by the man in the case. Hero +worship--all that sort of thing. An outlaw is an outlaw. This isn't a +personal matter. Mr. Cummings and I are merely doing our duty as good +citizens." + +At that, I think it possible that Dykeman would have listened to reason; +it was Cummings who broke in uncontrollably, + +"Barbara Wallace, I was your father's friend. I'm yours--if you'll let +me be. I can't stand by while you entangle yourself with a criminal like +Worth Gilbert. For your sake, if for no other reason, I would be +determined to show him up as what he is: a thief--and his father's +murderer." + +Silence in the room, except the irregular snoring of Bowman, a rustle +and a deeply taken breath now and again where Mrs. Bowman sat, her head +bent, quietly weeping. On this, Barbara who spoke out clearly, + +"Those were the last words you will ever say to me, Mr. Cummings, unless +you should some time be man enough to take back your aspersions and +apologize for them." + +He gave ground instantly. I had not thought that dry voice of his could +contain what now came into it. + +"Barbara, I didn't mean--you don't understand--" + +But without turning her head, she spoke to me: "Mr. Boyne, will you take +Laura and me home?" gathering up Mrs. Bowman's hat and veil, shaking the +latter out, getting her charge ready as a mother might a child. "She's +not going back to him--ever again." Her glance passed over the sleeping +lump of a man in his chair. "Sarah'll make a place for her at our house +to-night." + +"See here," Cummings got between us and the door. "I can't let you go +like this. I feel--" + +"Mr. Dykeman," Barbara turned quietly to her employer, "could we pass +out through your room?" + +"Certainly," the little man was brisk to make a way for us. "I want you +to know, Miss Wallace, that I, too, feel--I, too, feel--" + +I don't know what it was that Dykeman felt, but Cummings felt my rude +elbow in his chest as I pushed him unceremoniously aside, and opened the +door he had blocked, remarking, + +"We go out as we came in. This way, Barbara." + +It was as I parted with the two of them at the Capehart gate that I drew +out and handed Mrs. Bowman a small piece of dull blue silk, a round hole +in it, such as a bullet or a cigarette might have made, with, + +"I guess you'll just have to forgive me that." + +"I don't need to forgive it," her gaze swam. "I saw your mistake. But it +was for Worth you were fighting even then; he's been so dear to me +always--I'd have to love any one for anything they did for his sake." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE BLOSSOM FESTIVAL + + +Two hours sleep, bath, breakfast, and I started on my early morning run +for the county seat. Nobody else was going my way; but even at that +hour, the road was full of autos, buggies, farm wagons, pretty much +everything that could run on wheels, headed for the festival, all +trimmed and streaming with the blossoming branches of their orchards. +These were the country folks, coming in early to make a big day of it; +orchardists; ranchers from the cattle lands in the south end of the +county; truck and vegetable farmers; flower-seed gardeners; the Japs and +Chinese from their little, closely cultivated patches; this tide +streamed past me on my left hand, as I made my way to Worth and the +jailer's office, trying with every mile I put behind me, to bolster my +courage. Why wasn't this shift of the enemy a blessing in disguise? Let +their setting of the hour for the murder stick, and wouldn't Worth's +alibi be better than any we should have been able to dig up for him +before midnight? + +From time to time I was troubled by recollection of Barbara's crushed +look from the moment they sprung it on us, but brushed that aside with +the obvious explanation that her efforts in bringing Mrs. Bowman to +speak out had just been of no use; surely enough to depress her. + +Worth met me, fit, quiet, not over eager about anything. They let us +talk with a guard outside the door. Once alone, he listened +appreciatively while I told him of our interview with Cummings and +Dykeman as fast as I could pile the words out. + +"Nobody on earth like Bobs," was his sole comment. "Never was, never +will be." + +"And now," I reminded him nervously, "there's the question of this +alibi. You went straight from the restaurant to your room at the Palace +and to bed there?" + +"No-o," he said slowly. "No, I didn't." + +"Well--well," I broke in. "If you stopped on the way, you can remember +where. The people you spoke to will be as good as the clerks and +bell-hops at the Palace for your alibi." He sat silent, thoughtful, and +I added, "Where did you go from Tait's, Worth?" + +"To a garage--in the Tenderloin--where they keep good cars. I'd hired +machines from them before." + +"Oh, they knew you there? Then their testimony will--" + +"I don't believe you want it, Jerry. It only accounts for the half +hour--or less--right after I left you; all I did was to hire a car." + +"A car," I echoed vaguely. "What kind of a car? Hired it for when?" + +"I asked them for the fastest thing they had in the shop. Told 'em to +fill it all round, and see that it was tuned up to the last notch. I +wanted speed." + +"My God, Worth! Do you know what you're telling me?" + +"The truth, Jerry." His eye met mine unflinchingly. "That's what you +want, isn't it?" + +"Where did you go?" I groaned. "You must have seen somebody who could +identify or remember you?" + +"Not a solitary human being to identify me. Those I passed--there were +people out of course, late as it was--saw my headlights as I went by. +But I was moving fast, Jerry. I was working off a grouch; I needed +speed." + +"Where did you go?" + +"Straight down the peninsula on the main highway to Palo Alto, made the +sweep across to the sea, and then up the coast road. I ran into the +garage about dawn." + +"No stops anywhere?" + +He shook his head. + +"And that's your alibi?" + +"That's my alibi." Worth looked at me a long while before he said +finally, + +"Don't you see, Jerry, that the other side had all this before they +encouraged Bowman to change his mind about when father was shot?" + +I did see it--ought to have known from the first. This was what they had +back of them last night in Cummings' room; this explained the lawyer's +smug self-confidence, Dykeman's violent certainty that Worth was a +criminal. A realization of this had whitened Barbara's face, set her +lips in that pitiful, straight line. As to their momentary chagrin over +Bowman; no trouble to them to get other physicians to bolster any +opinion he'd given. Medical testimony on such a point is notoriously +uncertain. All the jury would want to know was that there could be such +a possibility. I sat there with bent head, and felt myself going to +pieces. Cummings was right--I was no fit man to handle this job. My +personal feelings were too deeply involved. It was Worth's voice that +recalled me. + +"Cheer up, Jerry, old man. Take it to Bobs." + +Take it to Bobs--the idea of a big, husky old police detective running +to cast his burden on such shoulders! I couldn't quite do it then. I +went and telephoned the little girl that I was doing the best I +could--and then ran circles for the rest of the day, chasing one vain +hope after another, and finally, in the late afternoon, sneaked home to +Santa Ysobel. + +Now I had the road more to myself; only an occasional handsome car, +where the wealthy were getting in to the part of the festival they'd +care for. In the orchards near town where the big picnic places had been +laid out with rough board tables and benches, seats for thousands, there +were occasional loud basket lunch parties scattered. All at once I was +hungry enough to have gone and asked for a handout. + +I went by back streets down to the house to get my mail. There seemed no +human reason that I should feel it a treachery to have Worth in jail at +San Jose, and be able to walk into his house at Santa Ysobel a free man. +The place was empty; Chung had the day off, of course. It was possible +Worth's cook, even, didn't know what had happened to his employer. Santa +Ysobel had no morning paper. In the confusion of the blossom festival, I +ventured to guess that not more than a score of people did as yet know +of the arrest. Our end of town was drained, quiet; nobody over at the +Vandeman bungalow; looking down at the Square as I made my sneak +through, I had caught a glimpse of Bronson Vandeman, a great rosette of +apricot blossoms on his coat lapel, making his speech of presentation to +the cannery girl queen, while his wife, Ina, her fair face shaded doubly +by a big flower hat and a blossom covered parasol, listened and looked +on. + +One of my pieces of mail concerned the Skeels chase. If my men down +there had Skeels, and Skeels was Clayte, it would mean everything in +handling Cummings and Dykeman. I took out the report and ran hastily +through it; a formal statement; day by day stuff: + + "_Found Skeels and Dial at Tiajuana. Negotiating to buy saloon and + gambling house. Arranged with Jefico for arrest of S. (Expense + $20.) Rurales took S. to jail. (Expense, $4.50) I interviewed S., + and he said he came here to open a business where he could sell + booze. D. was his partner in proposition. S. knew nothing of bank + affair. Would waive extradition and come back to stand trial at our + expense. Interviewed D. He says combined capital of two is $4500., + saved from S's business and D's miner's wages. D. said--_" + +Not much to show up with; but there were three photographs enclosed that +I wanted to try on Cummings and Dykeman. No telling where I'd find +either, but the Fremont House was my best bet. Getting back there +through the crowd, I saw Skeet Thornhill in a corner drugstore, waiting +at its counter. I was afoot, having been obliged to park my roadster in +one of the spaces set apart for this purpose. I noticed Vandeman's car +already there. + +I lingered a minute on that corner looking down the slope that led to +City Hall Square. Tent restaurants along the way; sandwiches; hot dogs; +coffee; milk; pies; doughnuts. Part way down a hurdy-gurdy in a tent +began to get patronage again; the school children in white dresses with +pink bows in their hair had just finished a stunt in the Square. They +and their elders were streaming our way, headed for the snake charmers, +performing dogs and Nigger-in-the-tank. In the midst of them Vandeman +and his wife came afoot. He caught sight of me, hailed, and when I +joined them, asked quickly, glancing toward the drugstore entrance, + +"Worth come with you?" + +I shook my head. He made that little clucking sound with his tongue that +people do when they want to offer sympathy, and find the matter hard to +put into words. + +A seller of toy balloons on the corner with a lot of noisy youngsters +around him; the ka-lash, ka-lam of a mechanical piano further down the +block; and young Mrs. Vandeman's staccato tones saying, + +"I tell Bron that the only thing Worth's friends can do is to go on +exactly as if nothing had happened. Don't you think so, Mr. Boyne?" + +I agreed mutely. + +"Well, I wish you'd say so to Barbie Wallace," her voice sharpened. +"She's certainly acting as though she believed the worst." + +"Now, Ina," Vandeman remonstrated. And I asked uncomfortably, + +"What's Barbie done? Where is she?" + +"Up at Mrs. Capehart's. In her room. Doesn't come out at all. Isn't +going to the ball to-night. Skeet said she refused to speak to Mr. +Cummings." + +"Is that all Skeet said? Vandeman, you've told your wife that Cummings +swore to the complaint?" + +"Yes, but--er--there's no animus. The executor of Gilbert's estate--With +all the talk going around--If Worth's proved innocent, he might in the +end be glad of Cummings' action." + +"Oh, might he?" Skeet Thornhill had hurried out from the drugstore, a +package of medicine in her hand. Her eyes looked as though she'd been +crying; they flashed a hostile glance over the new brother-in-law, +excellently groomed, the big flower favor on his coat, the tall, +beautiful sister, all frilly white and flower festival fashion. + +"_If_ Worth's proved innocent!" she flung at them. "Bronse Vandeman, +you've got a word too many in when you say that." + +"Just a tongue-slip, Skeeter," Vandeman apologized. "I hope the boy'll +come through all right--same as you do." + +"You don't do anything about it the same as I do!" Skeet came back. "I'd +be ashamed to 'hope' for a friend to be cleared of a charge like that. +If I couldn't _know_ he was clear--clear all the time--I'd try to forget +about it." + +"See here, Skeet," Ina obviously restrained herself, "that's what we're +all trying to do for Worth: forget about it--make nothing of it--act +exactly as if it'd never happened. You ought to come on out to the ball +with the other girls. You're just staying away because Barbara Wallace +is." + +"I'm not. Some damn fool went and told mother about Worth being +arrested, and made her a lot worse. She's almost crazy. I'd be afraid to +leave her alone with old Jane. You get me and this medicine up home--or +shall I go around to Capehart's and have Barbie drive me?" + +"I'll take you, Skeeter," Vandeman said. "We're through here. We're for +home to dress, then to the country club--and not leave it again till +morning. That ball out there has got to be made the biggest thing Santa +Ysobel ever saw--regardless. Come on." The crowd swallowed them up. + +Making for the Fremont House, I passed Dr. Bowman's stairway, and on +impulse turned, ran up. I found the doctor packing, very snappish, very +sorry for himself. He was leaving next day for a position in the state +hospital for the insane at Sefton. His kind have to blow off to +somebody; I was it, though he must have known I had no sympathy to +offer. The hang-over of last night's drunk made emotional the tone in +which he said, + +"After all, a man's wife makes or breaks him. Mine's broken me. I could +have had a fine position at the Mountain View Sanitarium, well paid, +among cultured people, if she'd held up her damned divorce suit a little +longer." + +"And as it is, you have to put up with what Cummings can land you with +such pull as he has." + +"I'm not complaining of Cummings," sullenly. "He did the best he could +for me, I suppose, on such short notice. But a man of my class is +practically wasted in a place of the sort." + +I had learned what I wanted; I carried more ammunition to the interview +before me. I found Dykeman in his room, propped up in bed, wheezing with +an attack of asthma. A sick man is either more merciful than usual, or +more unmerciful. Apparently it took Dykeman the former way; he accepted +me eagerly, and had me call Cummings from the adjoining room. The lawyer +was half into that costume he had brought from San Francisco. He came +quite modern as to the legs and feet, but thoroughly ancient in a shirt +of mail around the arms and chest, and carrying a Roman helmet in his +hand as though it had been an opera hat. + +"Trying 'em on?" Dykeman whispered at him. + +Cummings nodded with that self-conscious, half-tickled, half-sheepish +air that men display when it comes to costume. His greeting to me was +cool but not surly. What had happened might go as all in the day's work +between detective and lawyer. + +"Just seen Bowman," was my first pass at them. "I gather he's not very +well pleased with the position you got him; seems to think it small pay +for a dirty job." + +"What's this? What's this?" croaked Dykeman. "You been getting a place +for Bowman, Cummings?" + +"Certainly," the lawyer dodged with swift, practical neatness. "I'd +promised him my influence in the matter some little time ago." + +"Yes," I said, "mighty little time ago--the day he promised the +testimony you wanted in the Gilbert case." + +"Anything in what Boyne says, Cummings?" Dykeman asked anxiously. "You +know I wouldn't stand for that sort of stuff." + +The lawyer shook his head, but I didn't believe it was ended between +them; Dykeman was the devil to hang on to a point. This would come up +again after I was gone. Meantime I made haste to shove the photographs +before them. Cummings passed them back with an indifferent, "What's the +idea?" + +"You don't recognize him?" + +"Never saw the man in my life," and again he asked, "What's the idea?" + +"You'd recognize a picture of Clayte?" I countered with a question of my +own. + +"Yes--I think so," rather dubiously. "But Dykeman would. Show them to +him." + +Dykeman reached for the photographs, spread them out before him, then +looked up from them peevishly to say, + +"For the good Lord's sake! Don't look any more like Clayte than it does +like a horned toad. Is that what you've been wasting your time over, +Boyne? If you ask me--" + +"I don't ask you anything," retrieving the pictures, planting them deep +in an inner pocket. Then I got myself out of the room. + +Standing on the sidewalk in front of the Fremont House, I felt sort of +bewildered. This last crack had taken all the pep I had left. I suddenly +realized it was long after dinner time, and I'd had no dinner, no lunch, +nothing to eat since an early breakfast. Worth had sent me to the +girl--and I hadn't gone. I dragged myself around to Capehart's cottage +as nearly whipped as I ever was in my life. + +I found Barbara with Laura Bowman, every one else off the place, out at +the shows. Those girls sure were good to me; they fed me and didn't ask +questions till I was ready to talk. Nothing to be said really, except +that I'd failed. I told them of meeting the Vandemans, and gave them +Ina Vandeman's opinion as to how Worth's friends should conduct +themselves just now. + +"So they'll all be out there," I concluded, "Vandeman and his wife +leading the grand march, her sisters as maids of honor--except Skeet, +staying at home with her mother. Cummings goes as a Roman soldier; +Doctor Bowman as a Spanish cavalier. Edwards didn't see it as the +Vandemans do, but after I'd talked to him awhile, he agreed to be +there." + +And suddenly I noticed for the first time how the relative position of +these two women had shifted. Laura Bowman wasn't red-headed for nothing; +out from under the blight of Bowman and that hateful marriage, she had +already thrown off some of her physical frailness; the nervous tension +showed itself now in energy. She was moving swiftly about putting to +rights after my meal while she listened. But Barbara sat looking +straight ahead of her; I knew she was seeing streets full of carnival, +every friend and acquaintance out at a ball--and Worth in a murderer's +cell. It wouldn't do. I jumped to my feet with a brisk, + +"Girl, where's your hat? We'll go to the study and look over all our +points once more. Get busy--get busy. That's the medicine for you." + +She gave me a miserable look and a negative shake of the head; but I +still urged, "Worth sent me to you. The last thing he said was, 'Take it +to Bobs.'" + +Dumbly she submitted. Mrs. Bowman came running with the girl's hat, and, +"What about me, Mr. Boyne? Isn't there something I can do?" + +"I wish you'd go to the country club--to the ball--the same as all the +others. Got a costume here, haven't you?" + +"Yes, I can wear Barbara's," she glanced to where a pile of soft black +stuff, a red scarf, a scarlet poppy wreath, lay on a chair, "She was to +have gone as 'The Lady of Dreams.'" + +Barbara went with me out into the flare of carnival illumination that +paled the afterglow of a gorgeous sunset. No cars allowed on these +down-town streets; even walking, we found it best to take the long way +round. To our left the town roared and racketed as though it was afire. +Nothing said between us till I grumbled out, + +"I wish I knew where Cummings was keeping Eddie Hughes." + +Barbara's voice beside me answered unexpectedly, + +"Here. In Santa Ysobel. Eddie was at Capehart's fifteen minutes before +you got there; he came for Bill. A gasoline engine at the city hall had +broken down." + +I pulled up short for a moment, and looked back at the town. + +"Where'd he go?" + +"With Bill, to the city hall. Eddie's one of the queen's guards. They're +all to be at the country club at ten o'clock to review the grand march +that opens the ball." + +I mustn't let her dwell on that. I hurried on once more, and neither of +us spoke again till I unlocked the study door, snapped on the lights, +brought out and put on the table the 1920 diary and the little blue +blotter--the last bits of evidence that I felt hadn't been thoroughly +analysed. Barbara just dropped into a chair and looked from them to me +helplessly. + +"You've read this all--carefully?" she sighed. + +It shook me. To have Barbara, the girl I'd seen get meanings and facts +from a written page with a mere flirt of a glance, ask me that. What I +really wanted from her was an inspection of the book and blotter, and a +deduction from it. As though she guessed, she answered with a sort of +wail, + +"I can't, I can't even remember what I did see when I looked at these +before. I--can't--remember!" + +I went and knelt on the hearth with a pretext of laying a fire there, +since the shut-up room was chill. And when I glanced stealthily over my +shoulder, she had gone to work; not as I had ever seen her before, but +fumbling at the leaves, hesitating, turning to finger the blotter; +setting her lips desperately, like an over-driven school-child, but +keeping right on. I spun out my fire building to leave her to herself. +Little noises of her moving there at the table; rustle and flutter of +the leaves; now and again, a long, sobbing breath. At last something +like a groan caused me to turn my head and see her, with face pale as +death, eyes staring across into mine. + +"It was Clayte--Edward Clayte--who killed Mr. Gilbert here--in this +room." + +The hair on the back of my neck stirred; I thought the girl had gone +mad. As I ran over to the table and looked at what was under her hand, +it came again. + +"He did. He did. It was Clayte--the wonder man!" + +"Do--do you deduce that, Barbara?" + +"Did I?" she raised to mine the face of a sick child. "I must have. +See--it's here on the blotter: 'y-t-e,' that's Clayte. Double l-e-r; +that's 'teller,' 'Avenue' is part of 'Van Ness Avenue Bank.' Oh, yes; I +deduced it, I suppose. Both crimes end in a locked room and a perfect +alibi. But--but--don't you see, if it is true--and it is--it is--we're +worse off than we were before. We've the wonder man against us." + +"Barbara," I cried. "Barbara, come out of it!" + +"See? You don't believe in me any more," and her head went down on the +table. + +I let her cry, while I sat and thought. The broken sentences she'd +sobbed out to me began to fit up like a puzzle-game. By all theories of +good detective work, I should have seen from the first the similarity of +these crimes. But Clayte, slipping in here to do this murder--and why? +What mixed him up with affairs here? And then the icy pang--Dykeman had +seen a connection--Cummings had found one. With them, it was Clayte and +his gang--and his gang was Worth Gilbert. I went and touched Barbara on +the shoulder. + +"I'm going to take you home now." + +"Yes," tears running down her face as she stumbled to her feet. "I'm a +failure. I can't do anything for Worth." + +I wiped her cheeks with my own handkerchief and led her out. As I turned +from locking the door, it seemed to me I saw something move in the +shrubbery. I asked Barbara Wallace about it. She hadn't noticed +anything. Barbara Wallace hadn't noticed anything! + +I began to be scared for her. Solemn in the sky above boomed out the +town clock--two strokes. Half past nine. I must get this poor child +home. We were getting in toward the noise and the light when I felt her +shiver, and stopped to say, + +"Did I forget your coat? Why, where's your hat?" + +"The hat's back there. I had no coat. It doesn't make any difference. +Come on. I can't--can't--I must get home." + +I looked at her, saw she was about at the end of her strength, and +decided quickly, + +"We'll go straight through the Square. Save time and steps." + +She offered no objection, and we started in where the bands played for +the street dances, amid the raucous tooting of a thousand fish-horns, +the clangor of cow-bells, and the occasional snap of the forbidden +fire-cracker. As we turned from Broad Street into Main, I found that the +congestion was greater even than I had supposed. Here, several blocks +away from the city hall, progress was so difficult that I took Barbara +back a block to get the street that paralleled Main. This we could +navigate slowly. Here, also, everybody was masked. Confetti flew, +serpentines unreeled themselves out through the air, dusters spluttered +in faces, and among the Pierrettes, Pierrots, Columbines, sombrero-ed +cowboys, bandana-ed cow-girls, Indians, Sambos, Topsies and Poppy +Maidens, Barbara's little white linen slip and soft white sweater, and +my grey business suit, were more conspicuous than would have been the +Ahkoond of Swat and his Captive Slave. Even after the confetti had +sprinkled her black hair until it reminded me of Skeet's blossom wreath, +infinitely multiplied, I still saw the glances through the eye-holes of +masks follow us wonderingly. + +Opposite the city hall, where we must cross to get to the Capehart +street, we were again almost stopped by the dense crowd. The Square was +a green-turfed dancing floor; from its stand, an orchestra jazzed out +the latest and dizziest of dances; and countless couples one-stepped on +the grass, on the asphalt of the streets, even over the lawns of +adjacent houses, tree trunks and flower beds adding more things to be +dodged. At one corner, where the crowd was thick, we saw a big man being +wound to a pole by paper serpentines. Yelling and capering, the masked +dancers milled around and around him, winding the gay ribbons, while +others with confetti and the Spanish cascarones, tried to snow him +under. As we came up, a big fist wagged and Bill Capehart's voice +roared, + +"Hold on! Too much is a-plenty!" + +He tore himself loose, streaming with paper strips, bent and filled his +fists from the confetti at his feet. His tormentors howled and dropped +back as much as they could for the hemming crowd; he rushed them, +heaving paper ammunition in a hail-storm, and reached us in two or three +jumps. + +"Golly!" he roared, "Me for a cyclone cellar! This is a riot. You ain't +in costume, either. Wonder they wouldn't pick on you." + +With the words they did. I put Barbara behind me, and was conscious only +of a blinding snow of paper flakes, the punch and slap of dusters, in an +uproar of horns and bells. + +"Good deal like fighting a swarm of bees in your shirt-tail with a +willow switch," old Bill panted at my shoulder. "Gosh!" as the snapping +of firecrackers let loose beneath our feet. "Some o' these mosquito-net +skirts'll get afire next--then there'll be hell a-popping!" + +Close at hand there was a louder report, as of a giant cracker, and at +that Barbara sagged against me. I whirled and put an arm about her. +Bill grabbed her from me, and lifted her above the pressure of the +crowd. I charged ahead, shouting, + +"Gangway! Let us through!" + +Willing enough, the mob could not make room for passage until my +shoulder, lowered to strike at the breast, forced a way, that closed in +the instant Bill gained through. It was football tactics, with me +bucking the line, Bill carrying the ball. Fortunately, the bunch was a +good-natured festival gathering, or my rough work might have brought us +trouble. As it was, a short, stiff struggle took us to the outer fringe +of the mob. + +"How is she? What happened?" I grunted, coming to a stop. + +"Search me." Bill twisted around to look at the white face that lay back +on his shoulder, with closed lids. Three strokes chimed from the city +hall tower. Barbara's eyes flashed open; as the last stroke trembled in +the air, Barbara's voice came, sharp with breathless urgence, + +"A quarter of ten! Quick--get me to the country club!" + +"Take _you_ there? Now, d'ye mean?" I ejaculated; and holding her like a +baby, Bill's eyes flared into mine. "Did something happen to you back +there, girl? Or did you just faint?" + +"Never mind about me! There," that glance of hers that saw everything +indicated a parking place packed with machines half a block away up a +side street. "Carry me there. Take one of those cars. Get me to the +country club. Don't--" as I opened my mouth, "don't ask questions." + +I turned and ran. Bill galloped behind. Barbara had lifted her head to +cry after me, + +"The best one! Pick the fastest!" + +I plunged down the line of cars, looking for a good machine and one with +whose drive I was familiar. The guard rushed up to stop me; I showed him +my badge, leaped into the front seat of a speed-built Tarpon, and had it +out by the time Bill came up with the girl in his arms. I turned and +swung open the tonneau door. Almost with one movement, he lifted her in +and climbed after. I started off with braying horn, and at that I had to +use caution. Making my way toward the corner of the street that led to +Bill's house, I felt a small hand clutch the slack of my coat between +the shoulders, and Barbara's voice, faint, but with a fury of +determination in it, demanded, + +"Where are you going? I said the country club." + +"All right; I'll go. I'll look after whatever you want out there when +I've got you home." + +"Oh, oh," she moaned. "Won't you--this one time--take orders?" + +I went on past the corner. She had a right to put it just that way. I +gave the Tarpon all I dared in town streets. + +"What time is it?" I heard her whispering to Bill. "Eight minutes to +ten? I have to be there by ten, or it's no use. Can he make it? Do you +think he can make it?" + +"Yes," I growled, crouching behind the wheel. "I'll make it. May have to +kill a few--but I'll get you there." + +By this, we'd come out on the open highway, better, but not too clear, +either. There followed seven minutes of ripping through the night, of +people who ran yelling to get out of our way and hurled curses behind +us, only a few cars meeting us like the whirling of comets in terrifying +glimpses as we shot past; and, at last, the country club; strings of gay +lanterns, winking ruby tail-lights of machines parked in front of it, +the glare from its windows, and the strains of the orchestra in its +ballroom, playing "On the Beach at Waikiki." When she heard it, Barbara +thanked God with, + +"We're in time!" + +I took that machine up to the front steps over space never intended for +automobiles, at a pace not proper for lawns or even roads, and only +halted when I was half across the walk. Bill rolled from the tonneau +door and stood by it. I jumped down and came around. + +"Lift me out, and put me on my feet," Barbara ordered. "Help me--one on +each side. I can walk. I must!" + +We crossed a deserted porch; the evening's opening event--the grand +march--had drawn every one, servants and all, inside. So far, without +challenge, meeting no one. We had the place to ourselves till we stood, +the three of us alone, before the upper entrance of the assembly room. +In there, the last strains of Waikiki died away. I looked to Barbara. +She was in command. Her words back there in town had settled that for +me. + +"What do we do now?" I asked. + +White as the linen she wore, the girl's face shone with some inner fire +of passionate resolution. I saw this, too, in the determined, almost +desperate energy with which she held herself erect, one clenched hand +pressed hard against her side. + +"Take me in there, Mr. Boyne. And you," to Capehart, "find a man you can +trust to guard each door of the ballroom." + +"What you say goes." Big Bill wheeled like a well trained cart-horse and +had taken a step or two, when she called after him, + +"Arrest any one who attempts to enter." + +"Arrest 'em if they try to git in," Capehart repeated stoically. "Sure. +That goes." But I interrupted, + +"You mean if they try to get out." + +At that she gave me a look. No time or breath to waste. Bill, +unquestioning, had hurried to his part of the work. I took up mine with, +"Forgive me, Barbara. I'll not make that mistake again"; slipped my arm +under hers to support her; dragged open the big doors; shoved past the +hallman there; and we stepped into the many-colored, moving brilliance +of the ballroom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE COUNTRY CLUB BALL + + +The ballroom of the country club at Santa Ysobel is big and finely +proportioned. I don't know if anything of the sort could have registered +with me at the moment, but I remembered afterward my impression of the +great hall fairly walled and roofed with fruit blossoms, and the +gorgeousness of hundreds of costumes. The mere presence of potential +funds raises the importance of an event. The prune kings and apricot +barons down there, with their wives and daughters in real brocades, +satins and velvets, with genuine jewels flashing over them, represented +so much in the way of substantial wealth that it seemed to steady the +whole fantastic scene. + +Barbara and I entered on the level of the slightly raised orchestra +stand and only half a dozen paces from it. Nobody noticed us much; we +came in right on the turn of things--floor managers darting around, +orchestra with bows poised and horns at lips, the whole glittering +company of maskers being made ready to weave their "Figure of Eight" +across the dancing floor. My poor girl dragged on my arm; her small feet +scuffed; I lifted her along, wishing I might pick her up and carry her +as Bill had done. I made for an unoccupied musicians' bench; but once +there, she only leaned against it, not letting go her hold on me, and +stood to take in every detail of the confused, moving scene. + +The double doors had swung closed behind us; the hallman there who held +the knob, now reinforced by a uniformed policeman. The servants' way, at +the further end was shut; men in plain clothes set their backs against +it. And last, Big Bill himself in overalls, a touch of blunt blue +realism, came fogging along the side-wall to swing into place the great +wooden bar that secured the entire group of glass doors which gave on +the porch. Barbara would have seen all these arrangements while I was +getting ready for my first glance, but I prompted her nervously with a +low-toned, "All set, girl," and then as she still didn't speak, "Bill's +got every door guarded." + +She nodded. The length of the room away, in the end gallery, was the +cannery girl queen and her guard. Even at that distance, I recognized +Eddie Hughes, in his pink-and-white Beef Eater togs, a gilded wooden +spear in his hand, a flower tassel bobbing beside that long, drab, +knobby countenance of his. There he was, the man I'd jailed for Thomas +Gilbert's murder. Below on the dancing floor, were the two, Cummings and +Bowman, who had put Worth behind the bars for the same crime. At my side +was the pale, silent girl who declared that Clayte was the murderer. + +Whispered tuning and trying of instruments up here; flutter and rush +about down on the dancing floor; and Barbara, that clenched left hand of +hers still pressed in hard against her side, facing what problem? + +Crash! Boom! We were so close the music fairly deafened us, as, with a +multiplied undernote of moving feet, the march began. On came those +people toward us, wave behind wave of color and magnificence, dotted +with little black ovals of masks pierced by gleaming eye-holes. I could +sense Barbara reading the room as it bore down on her, and reading it +clearly, getting whatever it was she had come there for. Myself, I was +overwhelmed, drowned in the size and sweep of everything, struggling +along, whispering to her when I spotted Jim Edwards in his friar's robe, +noticed that the Roman soldier who must be Cummings, and Bowman, the +Spaniard, squired the Thornhill twins in their geisha girl dresses; the +crimson poppies of a Lady of Dreams looked odd against Laura Bowman's +coppery hair. + +At the head of the procession as they swung around, leading it with +splendid dignity, came a pair who might have been Emperor and Empress of +China--the Vandemans. To go on with affairs as if nothing had +happened--though Worth Gilbert was in jail--had been the laid-down +policy of both Vandeman and his wife. I'd thought it reasonable then; +foolish to get hot at it now. The great, shining, rhythmically moving +line deployed, interwove, and opened out again until at last the floor +was almost evenly occupied with the many-colored mass. I looked at +Barbara; the awful intensity with which she read her room hurt me. It +had nothing to do with that flirt of a glance she always gave a printed +page, that mere toss of attention she was apt to offer a problem. The +child was in anguish, whether merely the ache of sorrow, or actual +bodily pain; I saw how rigidly that small fist still pressed against the +knitted wool of her sweater, how her lip was drawn in and bitten. Her +physical weakness contrasted strangely with the clean cut decision, the +absolute certainty of her mental power. She raised her face and looked +straight up into mine. + +"Have the music stopped." + +I leaned over and down toward the orchestra leader to catch his eye, +holding toward him the badge. His glance caught it, and I told him what +we wanted. He nodded. For an instant the music flooded on, then at a +sharp rap of the baton, broke off in mid-motion, as though some great +singing thing had caught its breath. And all the swaying life and color +on the floor stopped as suddenly. Barbara had picked the moment that +brought Ina Vandeman and her husband squarely facing us. After the first +instant's bewilderment, Vandeman and his floor managers couldn't fail to +realize that they were being held up by an outsider; with Barbara in +full sight up here by the orchestra, they must know who was doing it. I +wondered not to have Vandeman in my hair already; but he and his consort +stood in dignified silence; it was his committee who came after me, a +Mephistopheles, a troubadour, an Indian brave, a Hercules with his club, +swarming up the step, wanting to know if I was the man responsible, why +the devil I had done it, who the devil I thought I was, anyhow. Others +were close behind. + +"Edwards," I called to the brown friar, "can you keep these fellows off +me for a minute?" + +Still not a word from Barbara. Nothing from Vandeman. Less than nothing: +I watched in astonishment how the gorgeous leader stopped dumb, while +those next him backed into the couple behind, side stepping, so that the +whole line yawed, swayed, and began to fall into disorder. + +"Cummings," as I glimpsed the lawyer's chain mail and purple feather, +"Keep them all in place if you can. All." + +In the instant, from behind my shoulder Barbara spoke. + +"Have that man--take off his mask." + +A little, shaking white hand pointed at the leader. + +"Mr. Vandeman," I said. "That's an order. It'll have to be done." + +The words froze everything. Hardly a sound or movement in the great +crowded room, except the little rustle as some one tried to see better. +And there, all eyes on him, Bronson Vandeman stood with his arms at his +sides, mute as a fish. Ina fumbled nervously at the cord of her own +mask, calling to me in a fierce undertone, + +"What do you mean, Mr. Boyne, bringing that girl here to spoil things. +This is spite-work." + +"Off--take his mask off! Do it yourself!" Barbara's voice was clear and +steady. + +I made three big jumps of the space between us and the leading couple. +Vandeman's committee-men obstructed me, the excited yip going amongst +them. + +"Vandeman--Bronse--Vannie--Who let this fool in here?--Do we throw him +out?" + +Then they took the words from Edwards; the tune changed to grumblings +of, "What's the matter with Van? Why doesn't he settle it one way or +another, and be done?" + +Why didn't he? I had but a breath of time to wonder at that, as I shoved +a way through. Darn him, like a graven image there, the only mute, +immovable thing in that turmoil! I began to feel sore. + +"You heard what she said?" I took no trouble now to be civil. "She wants +your mask off." + +No flicker of response from the man, but the Empress of China dragged +down her mask, crying, + +"Heard what she said? What she wants?" Over the shoulders of the crowd +she gave Barbara Wallace a venomous look, then came at me. + +A little too late. My hand had shot out and snatched the mask from the +face of China's monarch. A moment I glared, the bit of black stuff in my +grasp, at the alien countenance I had uncovered. Crowding and craning of +the others to see. Jabbering, exclaiming all around us. + +"Corking make-up; looks like a sure-enough Chinaman." + +"No make-up at all. The real thing." + +"What's the big idea?" + +"Why did he unmask, then?" + +"Didn't want to. They made him." + +And last, but loudest, repeated time and again, with wonder, with +distaste, with rising anger, + +"The Vandeman's Chinese cook!" + +For with the ripping away of that black oval, I had looked into the +slant, inscrutable eyes of Fong Ling. Hemmed in by the crowd, he could +but face me; he did so with a kind of unhuman passivity. + +And the committee went wild. Their own masks came off on the run. I saw +Cummings' face, Bowman's; Eddie Hughes slid from the balcony stair and +bucked the crowd, pushing through to the seat of war. The grand march +had become a jostling, gabbling chaos. + +Barbara, up there, above it all, knew what she was about. I had utter +confidence in her. But she was plainly holding back for a further +development, her eyes on the entrances; and what the devil was my next +move? + +Ina Vandeman wheeled where she stood and faced the room, both hands +thrown up, laughing. + +"It was meant to be a joke--a great, big foolish joke!" her high treble +rang out. "Bron's here somewhere. Wait. He'll tell you better than I +could. At a masquerade--people do--they do foolish things.... They--" + +"Is Bronse Vandeman here?" I questioned Fong Ling. The Chinaman's stiff +lips moved for the first time, in his formal, precise English. + +"Yes, sir. Mr. Vandeman will explain." He crossed his hands and resigned +the matter to his employer. And I demanded of Ina Vandeman, "You tell us +your husband's present--in this room? Now?" and when her answer was +drowned in the noise, I roared, + +"Vandeman! Bronson Vandeman! You're wanted here!" + +No answer. Edwards took up the call after me; the committee yelled the +name in all keys and variations. In the middle of our squawking, a minor +disturbance broke out across by the porch entrance, where Big Bill +Capehart stood. As I looked, he turned over his post to Eddie Hughes, +who came abreast of him at the moment, and started, scuffling and +struggling toward us, with a captive. + +"I had my orders!" his big voice boomed out. "Pinch any one that tried +to get in. Y'don't pass me--not if you was own cousin to God A'mighty!" + +On they came through the crowd, all mixed up; blue overalls, and a +flapping costume whose rich, many-colored silk embroideries, flashed +like jewels. A space widened about us for them. The big garage man spun +his catch to the center of it, so that he faced the room, his back to +the orchestra. + +"Wanted in, did ya? Now yer in, what about it?" + +What about it, indeed? In Bill's prisoner, as he stood there twitching +ineffectually against that obstinate hold, breathing loud, shakily +settling his clothes, we had, robe for robe, cap for cap, a duplicate +Emperor of China! + +And the next moment, this figure took off its mask and showed the face +of Bronson Vandeman. + +Dead silence all about us; Capehart loosened his grip, abashed but still +truculent. + +"Dang it all, Mr. Vandeman, if you didn't want to get mussed up, what +made you fight like that?" + +"Fight?" Vandeman found his voice. "Who wouldn't? I was late, and you--" + +"Bron!" After one desperate glance toward the girl up on the platform, +Ina ran to him and put a hand on his arm. "They stopped the march.... +Your--the--they spoiled our joke. But have them start the music again. +You're here now. Let's go on with the march ... explain afterward." + +"Good business!" Vandeman filled his chest, glanced across at Fong Ling, +and gave his social circle a rather poor version of the usual +white-toothed smile. "Jokes can wait--especially busted ones. On with +the dance; let joy be unrefined!" + +Sidelong, I saw the orchestra leader's baton go up. But no music +followed. It was at Barbara the baton had pointed, at Barbara that all +the crowded company stared. Her little white dress clung to her slender +figure. I saw that now she was in the strange Buddha pose. A few flecks +of silver paper, still in her black hair, made it sparkle. But it was +Barbara's eyes that held us all spellbound. In her colorless face those +wonderful openings of black light seemed to look through and beyond us. +For an instant there was no stir. Hundreds of faces set toward her, held +by the wonder of her. Fong Ling's yellow visage moved for the first time +from its immobility with a sort of awe, a dread. And when my gaze came +back to her, I noticed that, with the dropping of her hands to join the +finger-tips, she had left, where that little, pressing fist had been, a +blur of red on the white sweater. Over me it rushed with the force of +calamity, she had been wounded when she sank down back there in the +crowd. It was a shot--not a giant cracker--we had heard. + +"Vandeman," I whirled on him, "You shot this girl. You tried to kill +her." + +Sensation enough among the others; but I doubt if he even heard me. His +gaze had found Barbara; all the bounce, all the jauntiness was out of +the man, as he stared with the same haunted fear his eyes had held when +she concentrated last night at his own dinner table. + +She was concentrating now; could she stand the strain of it, with its +weakening of the heart action, its pumping all the blood to the brain? I +shouldered my way to her, and knelt beside her, begging, + +"Don't, Barbara. Give it up, girl. You can't stand this." + +Her hands unclasped. Her eyes grew normal. She relaxed, sighingly. I +leaned closer while she whispered to me the last addition in that +problem of two and two--the full solution. Armed, I faced Vandeman once +more. + +Something seemed to be giving way in the man; his lips were almost as +pale as his face, and that had been, from the moment he uncovered it, +like tallow. He looked withered, smaller; his hair where it had been +pressed down by mask and cap, crossed his forehead, flat, smooth, dull +brown. I saw, half consciously, that Fong Ling was gone. An accomplice? +No matter; the criminal himself was here--Barbara's wonder man. It was +to him I spoke. + +"Edward Clayte," at the name, Cummings clanked around front to stare. "I +hold a warrant for your arrest for the theft of nine hundred and eighty +seven thousand dollars from the Van Ness Avenue Savings Bank of San +Francisco." + +He made a sick effort to square his shoulders; fumbled with his hair to +toss it back from its straight-down sleekness, as Clayte, to the +pompadoured crest of Vandeman. How often I had seen that gesture, not +understanding its significance. Cummings, at my side, drew in a breath, +with, + +"Why--damn it!--he is Clayte!" + +"All right," I let the words go from the corner of my mouth at the +lawyer, in the same hushed tones he'd used. "See how you like this next +one," and finished, loud enough so all might hear, + +"And I charge you, Edward Clayte--Bronson Vandeman--with the murder of +Thomas Gilbert." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +UNMASKED + + +Disgrace was in the air; the country club had seen its vice president in +handcuffs. There was a great gathering up of petticoats and raising of +moral umbrellas to keep clear of the dirty splashings. It made me think +of a certain social occasion in Israel some thousands of years ago, when +Absalom, at his own party, put a raw one over on his brother Amnon, and +all the rest of King David's sons looked at each other with jaws +sagging, and "every man gat himself up upon his mule and fled." Here, it +was limousines; more than one noble chariot--filled with members of the +faction who'd helped to rush Vandeman into office over the claims of +older members--rolled discredited down the drive. + +Yet a ball is the hardest thing in the world to kill; like a lizard, if +you break it in two, the head and tail go right on wriggling +independently. Also, behind this masked affair at the country club was +the business proposition of a lot of blossom festival visitors from all +over the state who mustn't be disappointed. By the time I'd finished out +in front, getting my prisoner off to the lock-up, sending Eddie Hughes, +with Capehart and the other helpers he'd picked up to guard the Vandeman +bungalow, handed over to the Santa Ysobel police the matter of finding +Fong Ling, and turned back to see how Barbara was getting on, the music +sounded once more, the rhythmic movement of many feet. + +"The boys have got it started again," Jim Edwards joined me in the hall, +his tone still lowered and odd from the amazement of the thing. +"Curious, that business in there yesterday," a nod indicated the little +writing room toward which we moved. "Bronse stepping in, brisk and cool, +for you to question him; pleasant, ordinary looking chap. Would you say +he had it in his head right then to murder you--or Barbara--if you came +too hot on his trail?" + +"Me?" I echoed sheepishly. "He never paid me that compliment. He wasn't +afraid of me. I think Barbara sealed her own fate, so far as he was +concerned, when she let Worth pique her into doing a concentrating stunt +at Vandeman's dinner table last night. The man saw that nothing she +turned that light on could long stay hidden. He must have decided, then, +to put her out of the way. As for his wife--well, however much or little +she knew, she'd not defend Barbara Wallace." + +At that, Edwards gave me a look, but all he said was, + +"Cummings has suffered a complete change of heart, it seems. I left him +in the telephone booth, just now, calling up Dykeman. He'll certainly +keep the wires hot for Worth." + +"He'd better," I agreed; and only Edwards's slight, dark smile answered +me. + +"There's a side entrance here," he explained mildly, as we came to the +turn of the hall. "I'll unlock it; and when Barbara's ready to be taken +home, we can get her out without every one gaping at her." + +He was still at the lock, his back to me, when a door up front slammed, +and a Spanish Cavalier came bustling down the corridor, pulling off a +mask to show me Bowman's face, announcing, + +"I think you want me in there. That girl should have competent medical +attention." + +"She has that already," I spoke over my shoulder. "And if she hadn't, do +you think she'd let you touch her, Bowman? Man, you've got no human +feeling. If you had a shred, you'd know that to her it is as true you +tried to take Worth's life with your lying testimony as it is that +Vandeman murdered Worth's father with a gun." + +"Hah!" the doctor panted at me; he was fairly sober, but still a bit +thick in the wits. "You people ain't classing me with this crook +Vandeman, are you? You can't do that. No--of course--Laura's set you all +against me." + +Edwards straightened up from the door. With his first look at that +fierce, dark face, the doctor began to back off, finally scuttling +around the turn into the main hall at what was little less than a run. + +They had Barbara sitting in the big Morris chair while they finished +adjusting bandages and garments. Our young cub of a doctor, silver +buttoned velveteen coat off, sleeves rolled up, hailed us cheerily, + +"That bullet went where it could get the most blood for the least harm, +I'd say. Have her all right in a jiffy. At that, if it had been a little +further to one side--" + +And I knew that Edward Clayte's bullet--Bronson Vandeman's--had narrowly +missed Barbara's heart. + +"This wonderful girl!" the doctor went on with young enthusiasm, as he +bandaged and pinned. "Sitting up there, wounded as she was, and +forgetting it, she looked to me more than human. Sort of effect as +though light came from her." + +"I was ashamed of myself back there in the Square, Mr. Boyne," Barbara's +voice, good and strong, cut across his panegyric. "Never in my life did +I feel like that before. My brain wasn't functioning normally at all. I +was confused, full of indecision." She mentioned that state, so +painfully familiar to ordinary humanity, as most people would speak of +being raving crazy. "It was agonizing," she smiled a little at the +others. "Poor Mr. Boyne helping me along--we'd got somehow into a crowd. +And I was just a lump of flesh. I hardly knew where we were. Then +suddenly came the sound of the shot, the stinging, burning feeling in my +side. It knocked my body down; but my mind came clear; I could use it." + +"I'll say you could," I smiled. "From then on, Bill Capehart and I were +the lumps of flesh that you heaved around without explanation." + +"There wasn't time; and I was afraid you'd find out what had happened to +me, and wouldn't bring me here," she said simply. "I knew that the one +motive for silencing me was the work I'd been doing for Mr. Boyne." + +"Sure," I said, light breaking on me. "And every possible suspect in the +Gilbert murder case was under this roof--or supposed to be--the grand +march would be the show-down as to that. And just then the clock struck! +Poor girl!" + +"It was a race against time," Barbara agreed. "If we could get here +first, hold the door against whoever came flying to get in, we'd have +the one who shot me." + +"But, Barbara child," Laura Bowman was working at a sweater sleeve on +the bandaged side. "You did get here and caught Bronson Vandeman; it had +worked out all right. Why did you risk sitting up in that strained pose, +wounded as you were, to concentrate?" + +"For Worth. I had to relate this crime to the one for which he'd been +arrested. Within the hour, I'd gathered facts that showed me Edward +Clayte killed Worth's father. When I brought that man and his crime to +stand before me, and Bronson Vandeman and his crime to stand beside +it--as I can bring things when I concentrate on them--I found they +dove-tailed--the impossible was true--these two were one man." She +looked around at the four of us, wondering at her, and finished, "Can't +they take me home now, doctor?" + +"Sit and rest a few minutes. Have the door open," the young fellow said. +And on the instant there came a call for me from the side entrance. + +"Mr. Boyne--are you in there? May I speak to you, please?" + +It was Skeet Thornhill's voice. I went out into the entry. There, +climbing down from the old Ford truck, leaving its engine running, was +Skeet herself. Her glance went first to the door I closed behind me. + +"Yes," I answered its question. "She's in there." Then, moved by the +frank misery of her eyes, "She'll be all right. Very little hurt." + +She said something under her breath; I thought it was "Thank God!" +looked about the deserted side entrance, seemed to listen to the +flooding of music and movement from the ballroom, then lifting to mine +a face so pale that its freckles stood out on it, faltered a step +closer and studied me. + +"They phoned us," scarcely above a whisper. "Mother sent me for the +girls and--Ina. Mr. Boyne," a break in her voice, "am I going to be able +to take Ina back with me? Or is she--do they--?" + +"Wait," I said. "Here she comes now," as Cummings brought young Mrs. +Vandeman toward us. She moved haughtily, head up, a magnificent evening +wrap thrown over her costume, and saw her sister without surprise. + +"Skeet," she crossed and stood with her back to me, "there's been some +trouble here. Keep it from mother if you can. I'm leaving--but we'll get +it all fixed up. How did you get here? Can I take you back in the +limousine?" + +The big, closed car, one of Vandeman's wedding gifts to her, purred +slowly up the side drive, circling Skeet's old truck, and stopped a +little beyond. Skeet gave it one glance, then reached a twitching hand +to catch on the big silken sleeve. + +"You can't go to the bungalow, Ina. As I came past, they were placing +men around it to--to watch it." + +"_What!_" Ina wheeled on us, looking from one to the other. "Mr. +Boyne--Mr. Cummings--who had that done?" + +"Does it matter?" I countered. She made me tired. + +"Does it matter?" she snapped up my words, "Am I to be treated as if--as +though--" + +Even Ina Vandeman's effrontery wouldn't carry her to a finish on that. I +completed it for her, explicitly, + +"Mrs. Vandeman, whether you are detained as an accomplice or merely a +material witness, I'm responsible for you. I would have the authority +to allow you to go with your sister; but you'll not be permitted to even +enter the bungalow." + +"It's nearly midnight," she protested. "I have no clothes but this +costume. I must go home." + +"Oh, come on!" Skeet pleaded. "Don't you see that doesn't do any good, +Ina? You can get something at our house to wear." + +She gave me a long look, her chin still high, her eyes hard and +unreadable. Then, "For the present, I shall go to a hotel." She laid a +hand on Skeet's shoulder, but it was only to push her away. "Tell +mother," evenly, "that I'll not bring my trouble into her house. Oh--you +want Ernestine and Cora? Well, get them and go." And with firm step she +walked to her car. + +I nodded to Cummings. + +"Have one of Dykeman's men pick her up and hang tight," I said, and he +smiled back understandingly, with, + +"Already done, Boyne. I want to speak to Miss Wallace--if I may. Will +you please see for me?" + +A moment later, he marched shining and jingling, in through a door that +he left open behind him, pulled off his Roman helmet as though it had +been a hat, and stood unconsciously fumbling that shoe-brush thing they +trim those ancient lids with. + +"Barbara," he met the eyes of the girl in the chair unflinchingly, "you +told me last night that the only words I ever could speak to you would +be in the way of an apology. Will you hear one now? I'm ready to make +it. Talk doesn't count much; but I'm going the limit to put Worth +Gilbert's release through." + +There was a long silence, Barbara looking at him quite unmoved. Behind +that steady gaze lay the facts that Worth Gilbert's life and honor had +been threatened by this man's course; that she herself was only alive +because the bullet of that criminal whom his action unconsciously +shielded missed its aim by an inch: Worth's life, her life, their love +and all that might mean--and Barbara had eyes you could read--I didn't +envy Cummings as he faced her. Finally she said quietly, + +"I'll accept your apology, Mr. Cummings, when Worth is free." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +A CONFESSION + + +In the dingy office of the city prison, with its sand boxes and barrel +stove, its hacked old desks, dusty books and papers, I watched Bronson +Vandeman, and wondered to see how the man I had known played in and out +across his face with the man Edward Clayte, whom I had tried to imagine, +whom nobody could describe. + +Helping to recover Clayte's loot for Worth Gilbert looked to the +opposition their best bet for squaring themselves. Dykeman from his sick +bed, had dug us up a stenographer; Cummings had climbed out of his tin +clothes and come along with us to the jail. They wanted the screws put +on; but I intended to handle Vandeman in my own way. I had halted the +lawyer on the lock-up threshold, with, + +"Cummings, I want you to keep still in here. When I'm done with the man, +you can question him all you want--if he's left anything to be told." I +answered a doubtful look, "Did you see his face there in the ball room +as he looked up at Barbara Wallace? He thinks that girl knows +everything, like a supreme being. He's still so shaken that he'd spill +out anything--everything. He'll hardly suppose he's telling us anything +we don't know." + +And Vandeman bore out expectations. Now, provided with a raincoat to +take the place of his Mandarin robe, his trousers still the lilac satin +ones of that costume, he surveyed us and our preparations with a half +smile as we settled our stenographer and took chairs ourselves. + +"I look like hell--what?" He spoke fast as a man might with a drink +ahead. But it was not alcohol that was loosening his tongue. "Why can't +some one go up to my place and get me a decent suit of clothes? God +knows I've plenty there--closets full of them." + +"Time enough when th' Shurff gets here," Roll Winchell, the town +marshall grunted at him. "I'm not taking any chances on you, Mr. +Vandeman. You'll do me as you are." + +"Stick a smoke in my face, Cummings," came next in a voice that twanged +like a stretched string. "Damn these bracelets! Light it, can't you? +Light it." He puffed eagerly, got to his feet and began walking up and +down the room, glancing at us from time to time, raising the manacled +hands grotesquely to his cigar, drawing in a breath as though to speak, +then shaking his head, grinning a little and walking on. I knew the +mood; the moment was coming when he must talk. The necessity to reel out +the whole thing to whomever would listen was on him like a sneeze. It's +always so at this stage of the game. + +For all the hullabaloo in the streets, we were quiet enough here, since +the lock-up at Santa Ysobel lurks demurely, as such places are apt to +do, in the rear of the building whose garbage can it is. Our pacing +captive could keep silent no longer. Shooting a sidelong glance at me, +he broke out, + +"I'm not a common crook, Boyne, even if I do come of a family of them, +and my father's in Sing Sing. I put him there. They'd not have caught +him without. He was an educated man--never worked anything but big +stuff. At that, what was the best he could do--or any of them? Make a +haul, and all they got out of it was a spell of easy money that they +only had the chance to spend while they were dodging arrest. Sooner or +later every one of them I knew got put away for a longer or shorter +term. Growing up like that, getting my education in the public schools +daytimes, and having a finish put on it nights with the gang, I decided +that I was going to be, not honest, but the hundredth man--the +thousandth--who can pull off a big thing and neither have to hide nor go +to prison." + +This was promising; a little different from the ordinary brag; I +signaled inconspicuously to our stenographer to keep right on the job. + +"When I was twenty-four years old, I saw my chance to shake the gang and +try out my own idea," Clayte rattled it off feelinglessly. "It was a +lone hand for me. My father had made a stake by a forgery; checks on the +City bank. I knew where the money was hid, eight thousand and seventy +nine dollars. It would just about do me. I framed the old man--I told +you he was in Sing Sing now--took my working capital and came out here +to the Coast. That money had to make me rich for life, respected, +comfortable. I figured that my game was as safe as dummy whist." + +"Yeh," said Roll Winchell, the marshal, gloomily, "them high-toned +Eastern crooks always comin' out here thinkin' they'll find the Coast a +soft snap." + +"Two years I worked as a messenger for the San Francisco Trust Company," +Clayte's voice ran right on past Winchell's interruption, "a model +employee, straight as they come; then decided they were too big for me +to tackle, and used their recommendation to get a clerk's job with the +Van Ness Avenue concern. I was after the theft of at least a half +million dollars, with a perfect alibi; and the smaller institution +suited my plan. It took me four years to work up to paying teller, but I +wasn't hurrying things. I was using my capital now to build that perfect +alibi." + +He glanced around nervously as the stenographer turned a leaf, then went +on, + +"I'd picked out this town for the home of the man I was going to be. It +suited me, because it was on a branch line of the railway, hardly used +at all by men whose business was in the city, and off the main highway +of automobile travel; besides, I liked the place--I've always liked it." + +"Sure flattered," came the growl as Winchell stirred in his chair. + +"My bungalow and grounds cost me four thousand; at that it was a +run-down place and I got it cheap. The mahogany--old family pieces that +I was supposed to bring in from the East--came high. Yet maybe you'd be +surprised how the idea took with me. I used to scrimp and save off my +salary at the bank to buy things for the place, to keep up the right +scale of living for Bronson Vandeman, traveling agent for eastern +manufacturers, not at home much in Santa Ysobel yet, but a man of fine +family, rich prospects, and all sorts of a good fellow, settled in the +place for the rest of his days." + +He turned suddenly and grinned at me. + +"You swallowed it whole, Boyne, when you walked into my house last +night--the old family furniture I bought in Los Angeles, the second-hand +library, that family portrait, with a ring on my finger, and the same +painted in on what was supposed to be my father's hand." + +"Sure," I nodded amiably, "You had me fooled." + +"And without a bit of crude make-up or disguise," he rubbed it in. "It +was a change of manner and psychology for mine. As Edward Clayte--and +that's not my name, either, any more than Vandeman--I was +description-proof. I meant to be--and I was. It took--her--the girl," +his face darkened and he jerked at his cigar, "to deduce that a +nonentity who could get away with nearly a million dollars and leave no +trail was some man!" + +I raised my head with a start and stared at the man in his raincoat and +lilac silk pantaloons. + +"That's so," I fed it to him, "She had a name for you. She called you +the wonder man." + +"Did she!" a pleased smile. "Well, I'll give her right on that. I was +some little wonder man. Listen," his insistent over-stimulated voice +went eagerly on, "The beauty of my scheme was that up to the very last +move, there was nothing criminal in my leading this double life. You +see--as I got stronger and stronger here in Santa Ysobel, I bought a +good machine, a speedster that could burn up the road. Many's the stag +supper I've had with the boys there in my bungalow, and been back behind +the wicket as Edward Clayte in the Van Ness Avenue bank on time next +morning. I was in that room at the St. Dunstan about as much as a +fellow's in his front hall. I walked through it to Henry J. Brundage's +room at the Nugget; I stayed there more often than I did at the St. +Dunstan, unless I came on here. + +"I'd left marriage out. Then that night four years ago when Ina had her +little run-in with old Tom Gilbert and got her engagement to Worth +smashed, I saw there might be girls right in the class I was trying to +break into that would be possible for a man like me. The date for our +wedding was set, when Thomas Gilbert remarked to me one afternoon as we +were coming off the golf links together, that he was buying a block of +Van Ness Savings Bank stock. For a minute I felt like caving in his +head, then and there, with the golf club I carried. What a hell of a +thing to happen, right at the last this way! Ten chances to one I'd have +this man to silence; but it must be done right. Not much room for murder +in so full a career as mine--holding down a teller's job, running for +the vice presidency of the country club, getting married in style--but +every time I'd look up from behind my teller's grille, and see any one +near the size of old Gilbert walk in the front door, it gave me the +shivers. I'd put more than eight years of planning and hard work into +this scheme, and you'll admit, Boyne, that what I had was some alibi. A +wedding like that in a town of this size makes a big noise. I managed to +be back and forth so much that people got the idea I was hardly out of +Santa Ysobel. The Friday night before, I had a stag supper at my house, +and Saturday morning if any one had called, Fong Ling would have told +them I was sleeping late and couldn't be disturbed. On the forenoon of +my wedding day, then, I sat as Edward Clayte in my teller's cage, the +suitcase I had carried back and forth empty for so many Saturdays now +loaded with currency and securities, not one of which was traceable, and +whose amount I believed would run close to a million. It was within +three minutes of closing time, when some one rapped on the counter at my +wicket, and I looked straight up into the face of old Tom Gilbert. + +"I saw a flash of doubtful recognition in his eyes, but didn't dare to +avoid them while counting bills and silver to pay his check. If I had +done so, he would certainly have known me. As it was, I saw that I +convinced him--almost. I watched him as he went out, saw him hesitate a +little at the door of Knapp's office--he wasn't quite sure enough. I +knew the man. The instant he made certain, he would act. + +"The old devil wasn't on terms to attend the reception at the Thornhill +place, but I located him in an aisle seat, when I first came from the +vestry with my best man. All through the ceremony I felt his eyes boring +into my back. When I finally faced him, as Ina and I walked out, man and +wife, I knew he recognized me, and almost expected him to step out and +denounce me. But no--a fellow leading a double life was all he saw in +it; bigamy was the worst he'd suspect me of at the moment. He didn't +give Ina much, wouldn't lift a finger to defend her. + +"Meantime, the manner of his taking off lay easy to my hand. I'd studied +the situation through that skylight, seen Ed Hughes juggle the bolts +with his magnets, and mapped the thing out. Gilbert killed there, the +room found bolted, was a cinch for suicide. When the reception at the +Thornhill house was over, I made an excuse of something needed for the +journey, and started across to my bungalow. It was common for all of us +to cross through the lawns; I hid in the shrubbery. + +"There were people with Gilbert, no chance for me to do anything. I +stood there and nearly went out of my hide with impatience over the +delays, while he had his row with Worth, when Laura Bowman and Jim +Edwards came and braced him to let up on his persecution of them. Mrs. +Bowman finally left; he went with her toward the front. Now was my +chance; I dodged into the study, jerked his own pistol from its holster, +squeezed myself in behind the open door and waited. He came back; I let +him get into the room, past me a little, and when at some sound I made, +he turned, the muzzle of the gun was shoved against his chest and fired. + +"I'd barely finished pressing Gilbert's fingers around the pistol butt +when I heard a cry outside, jumped to the door, shut and bolted it just +as my mother-in-law ran in across the lawns. I gathered that she'd been +there earlier to get those three leaves out of the diary that you were +so interested in, Boyne; had just read them and come back to have it out +with old Tom. She hung around for five minutes, I should say, beating on +the door, calling, asking if anything was wrong. + +"My one big mistake in the study was that diary of 1920. It lay open on +the desk where he'd been writing. It did tell of his having identified +me as Clayte. I'd not expected it, and so I didn't handle it well. Time +pressed. I couldn't carry it with me; I tore out the leaf, stuck the +book into the drainpipe, and ran. + +"And after all," he summed up, "my plans would have gone through on +schedule; you never could have touched me with your clumsy, +police-detective methods, if it hadn't been for the girl." + +He dropped his head and stood brooding a moment, demanded another smoke, +got it, shrugged off some thought with a gesture, and finished, + +"I was in too deep to turn. It was her life--or mine. Things went +contrary. We couldn't get her to come out to the masquerade, where it +would have been easy. With those two Mandarin costumes, Fong Ling in my +place, I had my time from the hour we put on the masks till midnight. +Another perfect alibi. Well--it didn't work. They say you have to shoot +a witch with a silver bullet. And she's more than human." + +A siren's dry shriek as the Sheriff's gasoline buggy made its way +through the crowded street outside. Cummings raised his brows at me, got +my nod of permission, and shot his first question at the prisoner. + +"Vandeman, where's the money?" + +"Not within a hundred miles of here," instantly. + +"You took it south with you--on your wedding trip?" Cummings would +persist. But our man, so expansive a moment ago, had, as I knew he would +at direct mention of his loot, turned sullen, and he started for the San +Jose jail, mum as an oyster. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE + + +The Sheriff had gone with his prisoner; Cummings left; and then there +came to me, in the street there before the lock-up, riding with Jim +Edwards in his roadster, a Worth Gilbert I had never known. Quiet he had +been before; but never considerate like this. When I rushed up to him +with my triumph and congratulations, and he put them aside, it was with +a curious gentleness. + +"Yes, yes, Jerry; I know. Vandeman turned out to be Clayte." Then, +noticing my bewilderment, "You see, Jim let it slip that Barbara's hurt. +Where is she?" And Edwards leaned around to explain. + +"When we came past Capehart's, and she wasn't there, I--" + +"Oh, that's only a scratch," I hurried to assure the boy. "Barbara'll be +all right." + +"So Jim said," he agreed soberly. "I'm afraid you're both lying to me." + +"All right," I climbed in beside him. "We'll go and see. She's up at +your house--waiting for you." + +As we headed away for the other end of town, he spoke again, half +interrogatively, + +"Vandeman shot her?" and when I nodded. "He's on his way to jail. I'm +out. But I'm the man that's responsible for what's happened to her. +Dragged her into this thing, in the first place. She hated those +concentrating stunts; and I set her to do one at that woman's table. To +help play my game--I risked her life." + +I listened in wonder; sidelong, in the dimness, I studied the carriage +of head and shoulders: no diminution of power; but a new use of it. This +was not the crude boy who would knock everybody's plans to bits for a +whim; Worth had found himself; and what a man! + +"How does it look for recovering the money, Boyne?" Edwards questioned +as we drove along. + +I plunged into the hottest of that stuff Clayte-Vandeman had spilled, +talked fascinatingly, as I thought, for three minutes, and paused to +hear Worth say, + +"Who's with Barbara at my house?" + +"Mrs. Bowman," I said in despair, and quit right there. + +We came into Broad Street a little above the Vandeman bungalow which lay +black and silent, the lights of Worth's house showing beyond. As we +turned the corner, a man jumped up from the shadow of the hedge where +the Vandeman lawn joined the Gilbert place; there was a flash; the +report of a gun; our watchers had flushed some one. I'd barely had time +to say so to the others when there was a second sharp crack, then the +whine of a ricochetting chunk of lead as it zipped from the asphalt to +sing over our heads. + +"Beat it!" I yelled. "Stop the car and get to cover!" + +Edwards slowed. A moment Worth hung on the running board, peering in the +direction of the sounds. I started to climb out after him. There came +another shot from up ahead, and then a shout. As I tumbled to my feet in +the dark road, Worth had started away on the jump. And I saw then, what +I'd missed before, that the man who had burst from the hedge, was +running zig-zag down the open roadway toward us. He was making his legs +spin, and dodging from side to side as if to duck bullets. Worth headed +straight for him, as though it wasn't plain that some one out of sight +somewhere was making a target of the runner. + +Not the kind of a scrap I care for; in a half light you can't tell +friend from foe; but Worth went to it--and what was there to do but +follow? I shouted and blew my whistle, hoping our men would hear, heed, +and let up shooting. At the moment of my doing so, Worth closed with the +man, who dropped something he was carrying, and tackled low, lunging at +the boy's knees, aiming I could see to let Worth dive over and scrape up +the pavement with his face. + +No dodging that tackle; it caught Worth square; he even seemed to spring +up for the dive; and somehow he carried his opponent with him to soften +the fall. They came down together in the middle of the hard road with +the shock of a railway collision; rolled over and over like dogs in a +scrap, only there wasn't any growling or yelping. It was deadly quiet; +not for an instant could you tell which was which, or whether the +whirling, pelting tangle of arms and legs was man, beast or devil. +That's why, even when I got near enough, I didn't dare plant a large, +thick-soled boot in the mess. + +The fight was up to Worth; nothing else for it. Capehart came rolling +from the hedge where I had seen the pistols flash; Eddie Hughes, +inconceivable in pink puffings, bounded after; Jim Edwards chased up +from his car; but all any of us could do was to run up and down as the +struggle whirled about, and grunt when the blows landed. These sounded +like a pile-driver hitting a redwood butt. Out of the melee an arm would +jerk, the fist at the end of it come back to land with a thud--on +somebody's meat. + +"Who the devil is it?" I bellowed at Capehart, as the two grappled, +afoot, then down, no knowing who was on top, spinning around in a +struggle where neither boots nor knees were barred. + +"He sneaked out of the bungalow just now," Capehart snorted. "We'd +searched the place. Didn't think there was room for a louse to be hid in +it. Got by the boys. I stopped him at the hedge and drove him into the +open. Now Worth's got him. That is Worth, ain't it? Fights like him." + +"Yes," I said, "It's Worth." But in my own mind I wasn't sure whether +Worth had the fugitive, or the fugitive had Worth. And Jim Edwards +muttered anxiously, as we skipped and side-stepped along with the fight, + +"That fellow may have a knife or a gun." + +"Not where he can draw," I said, "or he'd have used it before now." And +Capehart sung out, + +"Sure. Leave 'em go. Worth'll fix him." + +Edging in too close, I got a kick on the shin from a flying heel, and +was dancing around on one foot nursing the other when I heard sounds of +distress issue from the tangle in the road; somebody was getting breath +in long, gaspy sighs that broke off in grunts when the thud of blows +fell, and merged in the harsh nasal of blood violently dislodged from +nose and throat. For a while they had been up, and swapping punches +face to face, lightning swift. Sounds like boxing, perhaps, but there +wasn't any science about it. Feint? Parry? Footwork? Not on your life! +Each of these two was trying to slug the other into insensibility, +working for any old kind of a knock-out. + +I began to be a little nervous for fear the boy I was bringing home from +jail as a peace offering to Barbara might arrive so defaced that she +wouldn't recognize him, when I saw one dark form pull away, leap back, +an arm shoot out like a piston-rod, and with a jar that set my own teeth +on edge, connect with the other man's chin. He went down clawing the +air, crumpled into a bunch of clothes at the side of the road. + +"You wanted the Chink, didn't you, Bill?" This was Worth, facing Jim +Edwards's torch, fumbling for his handkerchief. "I heard you, and I +thought you wanted him." + +"It's Fong Ling!" bawled Capehart. "Sure we wanted him--and whatever +that was he was carrying. Where is it? Did he drop it?" + +"Sort of think he did," Worth was dabbing off his own face with a +gingerly, respectful touch. "I know he dropped some teeth back there in +the road. Saw him spit 'em out. Maybe he left it with them. You might go +and look." + +The four of us drifted along the field of battle, Capehart's assistant +having taken charge of the unconscious Chinaman, whom he was frisking +for weapons. Halfway back to the hedge Bill stumbled on something, +picked it up, and dropped it again with a disgusted grunt. + +"Nothing but a Chinaboy's keister," he said contemptuously. "Not much +to that. Why in blazes did he run so?" + +"Because you were shooting him up, I'd say," Jim Edwards suggested. + +"Naw. Commenced to run before we turned loose on him," Bill protested. + +"Hello!" I had pounced on the unbelievable thing, and called to Edwards +for his light. "Worth, here's your eight-hundred-thousand-dollar +suitcase!" + +"That!" he followed along, dusting himself off, trying out his joints. +"Oh, yes. I left it in my closet, and it disappeared. Told you of it at +the time, didn't I, Jerry?" + +"You did not," I sputtered, down on my knees, working away at the +catches. "You never told me anything that would be of any use to us. If +this thing disappeared, I suppose Vandeman stole it to get a piece of +evidence in the Clayte case out of the way." + +"Likely." Worth turned, with no further interest, and started toward his +own gate. + +"Hi! Come back here," I yelled after him. For the lock gave at that +moment; there, under the pale circle of the electric torch, lay +Clayte-Vandeman's loot! + +"My gosh!" mumbled Capehart. "I didn't suppose there was so much money +in the known world." + +Eddie Hughes, breathing hard; Jim Edwards, bending to hold the torch; +Capehart, stooping, blunt hands spread on knees, goggle-eyed; my own +fingers shaking as I dragged out my list and attempted to sort through +the stuff--not one of us but felt the thrill of that great fortune +tumbled down there in the open road in the empty night. + +But Worth delayed reluctantly at the edge of the shadows, looking with +impatience across his shoulder, eager to be on--to get to Barbara. Yet I +wanted that suitcase to go into the house in his hand; wanted him to be +able to tell his girl that she'd made him a winner in the gamble and the +long chase. Roughly assured that only a few thousands had been used by +Vandeman, I stuck the handles into his fist and trailed along after his +quick strides. Edwards followed me. Laura Bowman opened the door to us; +she stopped Edwards on the porch. + +And then I saw my children meet. I hadn't meant to; but after all, what +matter? They didn't know I was on earth. Creation had resolved itself, +for them, into the one man, the one woman. + +The suitcase thumped unregarded on the floor. She came to him with her +hands out. He took them slowly, raised them to his shoulders, and her +arms went round his neck. + + + THE END + + + * * * * * + + +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | | + | Transcriber's notes | + | | + | Page 26, word "sowly" changed to "slowly" (Slowly he brought that) | + | | + | Page 26, duplicate "the" deleted (followed it with the other) | + | | + | Page 134, word "inconspicious" changed to "inconspicuous" | + |(inconspicuous eye on Edwards) | + | | + | Page 156, word "expaining" changed to "explaining" (explaining | + | how I'd have run) | + | | + | Page 172, word "Warf" changed to "Wharf" (land me at Fisherman's | + | Wharf) | + | | + | Page 315, word "Los Angles" changed to "Los Angeles" (I bought | + | in Los Angeles) | + | | + | Page 315, word "nonenity" changed to "nonentity" (to deduce that a | + | nonentity) | + +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Million-Dollar Suitcase, by +Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILLION-DOLLAR SUITCASE *** + +***** This file should be named 29877.txt or 29877.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/7/29877/ + +Produced by David Clarke, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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