But if Lyon had fancied that Fate was doing nothing merely because he had run into a blind alley himself, he soon had reason to suspect that he was mistaken. The manner in which during the next few days he stumbled against some of her threads, and so became more than ever entangled in her weaving, was curiously casual,--but as a matter of fact, most of the happenings of life seem casual at the time. It is only looking back that their connection comes into view, like a path on a far mountain, only to be seen from a distance.
Lyon had allowed himself to jubilate a little over the curtain-code which he had established with Kittie. He felt that it had the justification of being important in itself for the purpose which he and Howell had at heart, but apart from that it was so charmingly personal. The messages might concern Mrs. Broughton, but Kittie would have to give them,--and that little fact was so interesting that if he had not been a young man of much steadiness of purpose, he might have let it eclipse the significance of the message. As it was, he felt it highly important that he should be able to see those windows very frequently. Suppose Kitty should pull down a curtain and he not know about it for hours! The idea was not to be entertained calmly. Would it be possible for him to get a room in the neighborhood? He had learned in his profession that the world belongs to him who asks for it, so, selecting a house whose back windows must, from their position, command an unobstructed view of Miss Elliott's School, he boldly rang the bell. He had no idea who might live there. The house was on a lot adjoining Miss Wolcott's and, like her house, it overlooked the back windows and the grounds of the School. It was in a position that suited his needs. For the rest, he trusted to the star which had more than once favored his quiet audacity.
His ring was answered by a servant of a peculiarly uncheerful cast of countenance.
Is your mistress at home? Lyon asked.
There ain't no mistress, the woman protested, in an aggrieved tone.
Well, your master, then. Will you take up my card? I want to see him on business.
She took it and departed, with that same querulous air of dissatisfaction with the world in general.
That there was no mistress in the house was very evident, even to Lyon's uninstructed masculine sense. The reception room where he waited was dusty and musty, bearing unmistakable signs of having been closed for the summer and since left untouched. There was an echoing hollowness about the halls that seemed to proclaim the house uninhabited, in spite of the servant. While Lyon was speculating upon the situation, a thin dark middle-aged man entered the room silently and yet with an alertness that was noticeable. He looked at Lyon with sharp inquiry--almost, it struck the intruder, with distrust.
Well? he said curtly.
I hope it won't strike you as cheeky, said Lyon, "but I called on the bare chance of your having a spare bedroom that you could rent me for a month,--or even less. I think my references would be satisfactory. They are going to paper my rooms at the Grosvenor, and I've got to clear out while they are messing around, and I like this part of town, so I just thought I'd see what luck I had if I went around and asked. I'm not exacting--"
We're not renting rooms.
I know, but as a special matter--
Couldn't think of it.
Do you happen to know anyone else in the neighborhood who does?
Don't know anyone.
I wish you would reconsider. It would be an accommodation to me.
Sorry, but it's impossible. The impatience of the man's tone suggested that the interview Had lasted long enough, and Lyon rose reluctantly. He hated to feel that his inspiration had failed him. At that moment, however, the portière which separated the reception room from what appeared to be an equally musty and dusty library in the rear was pushed aside, and another man entered,--a man of impressive bearing and appearance, in spite of the fact that he wore a skullcap and a long dressing gown and that a pair of large blue goggles hid his eyes. The lower part of his face was covered with a beard and yet Lyon felt at once that here was a man of powerful personality.
I overheard your request from the next room, he said, in a courteous but positive tone, and bowing slightly to Lyon,--who could not repress a wonder whether that position in the back room had not been taken for the express purpose of overhearing him. "I'm not sure that we cannot accommodate the young gentleman, Phillips."
Phillips looked disapproval and injury in every line of his face, but he said nothing. He had at once fallen into the attitude of a subordinate.
You are more than kind, said Lyon, eagerly. "I know it's a great deal to ask,--but it would be a great accommodation, and I'd try to make no bother."
You will have to judge for yourself whether there is a room that you could use. I don't know much about the house. We have only just moved in ourselves. It was a furnished house, closed for the summer, and the agent let us take it for the time being. I am in town temporarily, having my eyes treated, and I wanted a place where I could be more quiet than in a hotel. My name is Olden. This is my good friend Phillips, who looks after me generally, and thinks I ought not to increase my household. I sometimes venture to differ from him, however. The servant, whom you saw at the door, has undertaken to keep us from starving, and she would undoubtedly be able to care for your room. Now you know the family. Would you care to look at the rooms?
Thank you, I should like to very much, cried Lyon gayly.
It was so much better than he had had any possible grounds for expecting that his faith in his star soared up again. This was what came of venturing! And in spite of the curious sensation of talking in the dark which Mr. Olden's goggles gave him, he liked the man. There was dignity and directness in his speech, and his voice was singularly magnetic.
Olden led the way upstairs, moving with the swift confidence of a man of affairs and not at all as an invalid.
There are four bedrooms on this floor, he said. "Phillips has one of them, and I have one. This large room at the front is unoccupied."
The room was large and attractive, but Lyon was not interested in the view toward Hemlock Avenue! He barely glanced at it.
Might I see the other room?
Olden opened the door to a back bedroom which, though clean, was small and in no wise so desirable as the other. But it looked the right way, and on going to the window Lyon saw that Kittie's curtains were both high up.
This will suit me exactly, he said, eagerly. "May I have this room?"
You really haven't looked at it very carefully, said Olden, with just the barest hint of amusement in his voice.
Oh, well,--I--I can see that it will suit me. I shan't be in it very much, you know. I'm connected with the News, as you know from my card. I'll be here only at night.
Yes, it's a pleasant little room. And it has an open view. That large building is Miss Elliott's School, I am told.
Yes, I know, laughed Lyon. "Fact is, I know one of the young ladies at the school."
Indeed? There was surprise and, if it had been possible to believe it, disappointment in Mr. Olden's voice. It was as though he had said, "Oh, is that it?" The blue goggles scrutinized Lyon for a moment before he said, "Well, shall we consider it settled?"
If you please. When can I come in?
Whenever you like. I'll tell Sarah to make the room ready. And I hope, Mr. Lyon, he added, as they went back downstairs, "that you will sometimes join me in a cigar before you turn in. Shut in as I am, unable to use my eyes or to see people, you will be doing me a charity if you will come in and gossip a bit. Will you do it?"
I'll be glad to, said Lyon, heartily.
That will more than repay me, if there is any favor to you in our arrangement, the man said with a certain emphasis. He probably was lonely, Lyon reflected, with quick sympathy.
Lyon left the house much elated. When he reached the sidewalk he remembered that he had not asked for a latch-key, and that he was apt to return late. He hurried back to the door. The lock had not caught when he came out and the door stood just so much ajar that he saw Olden and Phillips in the hall, and heard Olden exclaim, with a ring of passion in his voice, "You would have thrown such a chance as that away?"
They both looked so startled, when he made his presence known, that he was swiftly aware that he was the subject of what seemed to have been a heated discussion. Evidently Phillips had protested against his admission to the household. At his suggestion about a latch-key. Olden answered,
Why, I have only one, but I'll let you in myself whenever you ring. I'll be up, never fear.
Lyon had a busy afternoon,--for in spite of his mental absorption in matters relating to Lawrence, he was still reporting for the News and had to keep his assignments! He therefore had no opportunity to see Howell that day, and it was nine o'clock at night when he arrived, with his suit-case, at his new home. Olden let him in with an alacrity that suggested he had been waiting for him. This idea was also suggested by the looks of the dining room, where a tray, with bottles and glasses and a box of cigars, had been arranged alluringly within sight.
All right, I'll be down in a minute, the new lodger said, gaily. "We'll make a night of it! Just wait till I put my suit-case in my room."
He ran upstairs to his room and looked across to Miss Elliott's School. Across the white barrenness of the snowy yard that stretched between the two houses, the light gleamed brightly from Kittie's windows. The curtain of the right window was perceptibly lower than the other. It seemed to cut off the upper third of the window. Lyon read the message with keen interest,--"Mrs. Broughton is better. She gives no signs of departure." Across the dark he blew a kiss to the unseen messenger, and hurried downstairs where his mysterious landlord was walking restlessly up and down the long dining room.
Well, what shall we gossip about? he asked gaily. Olden had shown no signs of physical feebleness, yet Lyon felt a hurt about him that prompted him to a show of cheerfulness beyond his habit with a stranger, and the success of his curtain code had put him into an elated mood.
What do people generally gossip about?
Their friends, don't they? And their enemies; and the delinquencies of both.
That's all right, said Olden, quickly. "Tell me about your friends and their delinquencies."
I haven't many here. I'm a stranger myself, comparatively. The man in Waynscott I care most for, and admire most, and am sorriest for, is Arthur Lawrence.
Olden was leaning forward in an attitude of eager listening.
That sounds like a good beginning. Will you have something--? Then have a cigar, and talk to me about Arthur Lawrence. I'm entirely a stranger in Waynscott, you know, but of course I have heard of the murder. I infer that you believe him innocent.
Yes, I do.
Yet I see that he was unable or unwilling to give a very clear account of his movements that evening.--Phillips read me the newspapers, and I thought it looked like a tight box for him, unless he could explain his movements somewhat.
But he may explain them yet. Trial by newspaper is not final. There has been no chance for the real testimony, you know.
Has gossip nothing to say on the subject? persisted Olden. He had dropped into an arm chair and was surrounding himself with smoke, but Lyon was aware that through the smoke and the goggles which he still wore he was bending an observant eye upon his visitor.
Gossip says many nothings. So far, nothing relevant. The murder seems to be one of these clueless mysteries which are the most difficult for the police to unravel.
But you,--you are behind the scenes, in a fashion. Don't you know something that the public hasn't got hold of? I--I'm interested, you see.
Lyon smoked thoughtfully. The man's interest was so marked that it struck him as going beyond the bounds of ordinary curiosity. He felt that he must probe it, and so he answered with a view to keeping the subject going.
We hear of the mysteries that are solved, but there are many more that drop from the notice of the public because they remain mysteries forever.
Is it not possible that there may be a woman connected with the mystery? asked Olden with a sudden hardening of his voice.
Lyon smoked deliberately a moment.
With nothing known and everything to guess, it is difficult to say of anything that it is not possible, he answered.
Has Lawrence's name never been connected with a woman? Is there no gossip?
Of the sort you suggest, nothing, I believe. Lyon's voice was calm, If his feelings were not.
Your Mr. Lawrence is a wonder, said Olden, drily. "I hope to meet him some day. Let us drink to his release and to the confusion of the Grand Jury. A man who can keep himself free from all feminine entanglements ought to get out of a little thing like an accusation for murder without any difficulty."
You seem to have strong feelings on the subject, said Lyon. It occurred to him that all the drawing-out need not be on Olden's side. Olden smoked a minute in silence, and then asked abruptly,
Do you believe that women as a class have any sense of truth?
Oh, they must have some!
But do they have the same sense of honor that we have?
I don't know that we have enough to hurt. But you are thinking of some specific case. Suppose you give me an outline of it.
What makes you think that?
Oh, we always are thinking of a woman when we generalize about women.
Olden smoked hard and in silence for a few minutes.
I don't know whether you are right about that or not, he said finally, "but you are right in saying that I was thinking of a specific instance, and I'll be rather glad to give you an outline of it, because I should like to ask your opinion in regard to it. I think I understand men pretty well, but I never have had much to do with women. Perhaps if I had,--this is the story of a friend of mine. He told me about it just before I came on."
Lyon nodded. Possibly that might be the truth, but he would keep an open mind on the subject.
My friend is a man past middle life,--a successful business man. He has made money and has knocked about the world a good deal, but he never fell in love until he was nearly fifty,--never had time, I suppose. Then he was hard hit. The woman was a good deal younger than he was, beautiful, and all that. He married her just as soon as he could win her consent, and was idiotically happy. For a year he thought she was happy, too. She seemed to be. Then one day she received a letter from her old home that upset her. She tried to conceal her disturbance from him, but he was too watchful of her moods to be deceived. From that moment his happiness was destroyed. His wife was concealing something from him. Other letters followed. They always had the same effect. The husband could not be blind to the fact that his wife was changed. She avoided him, withheld her confidence, and he found her more than once in tears. Perhaps it does not sound very serious, but you must remember that he was madly in love with his wife. It was serious for him.
Lyon nodded. "Did he know anything of his wife's past history,--her friends, or her--"
Her lovers? No, he didn't. There was the sting. He simply didn't know anything. He could only see that something had come out of that unknown past to ruin his happiness.
Why didn't he ask her, straight?
He did, once, and she pretended not to know what he was talking about. After that he set himself to watch. He pretended to be called away on a sudden business trip. She left, by the next train, for her old home, and went at once to the man with whom she had been corresponding.
How did you--how did her husband know who the man was?
He had once found a letter, destroyed before it was finished, which enabled him to identify the man.
Was it a love-letter?
Olden dropped his head on his hand. "Not in terms. But it showed that this man possessed a confidence which she withheld from her husband. In it she spoke of her unhappiness in her married life as of something that he would understand,--something that they had acknowledged between them. Does that seem a little thing to you?"
No, I can understand. Well, what did he do?
Nothing, yet. But I am afraid he may do something. If he should kill the man, would you say he was justified?
What would be the use? asked Lyon, lightly.
That isn't the question, when your brain is on fire. You see only one thing. The whole world is blotted out, and only that one thing burns before your eyes. I suppose that is the way one feels when going mad. Everything else blotted out, you know, except that one thing that you can't forget night or day,--awake or asleep,-- His voice was trembling with a passion that went beyond control. If Lyon had had any question that the strange man was telling his own story, he could no longer doubt it. Such sympathy is not given to the troubles of a friend.
I understand that he has not killed the man yet?
No,--not yet.
Well, then I'd advise him to wait a bit, in any event, and make sure of his facts. There's no sense in hurrying these things. Tell him to count ten. Also tell him that circumstantial evidence is the very devil. The chances are that if a thing looks so and so, that's the very reason for its turning out to be the other way. Now take this case of Lawrence's.
Yes. What of it? Olden had recovered himself, and he asked his question with an interest that seemed genuine, if somewhat cynical.
The circumstantial evidence against him is pretty bad, yet you wouldn't want to have him hanged on the strength of it, would you?
I would not, said Olden, with a sudden laugh that sounded strange after his passion of a moment before. "I can think of nothing that I should more regret than to have your friend Lawrence hung. I drink to his speedy discharge." And he poured himself a stiff drink and drained it with a fervor that made the act seem sacrificial. Certainly there was a good deal of the original Adam in this curious stranger.
The sudden ring of the telephone in the hall cut so sharply across the silence in the house that it startled them both. Olden went to answer it, and immediately returned.
It's someone to speak to you, Mr. Lyon,--name is Howell.
Oh, yes. I suppose he got my new address from the Grosvenor.
He went to the phone, and this is the conversation that ensued.
Howell: "Hello, Lyon. Changed your room?"
Lyon: "Yes. I followed your suggestion."
Howell: "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'm getting nervous about putting off that interview with Mrs. Broughton any longer. Barry tells me she is worse. I don't want to risk waiting until it is too late. If she should die, for instance,--"
Lyon: "Barry is bluffing, to protect his patient. She is better."
Howell: "How do you know?"
Lyon: "Miss Kittie tells me she is better."
Howell: "When was that?"
Lyon: "An hour ago."
Howell: "How did you hear from her?"
Lyon: "By heliograph. We have established a code."
Howell: "You seem to have been improving the time! You think I'm safe to wait, then, a day or two? I simply must see her before she gets away, you know."
Lyon: "No sign of departure, the code said."
Howell. "And will you know if she should suddenly show signs of departure?"
Lyon: "Yes. Her curtain will be lowered. Clear down means gone."
Howell: "That will be too late."
Lyon: "She isn't likely to bolt without warning, and no one would be in better position to take note than Miss Kittie."
Howell: "All right, I'll depend on that, then. But if Bede finds her first, I'll regret my humanity."
Lyon: "I think we're safe."
Howell: "Perhaps. But not sure." And he rang off.
When Lyon returned to the dining room, he found that the door was ajar, though he had thought that he closed it after him when going to the 'phone. If his host had been curious enough to listen to one side of the conversation, Lyon hoped that he might have found it interesting. Intelligible it could hardly have been.
Lyon had carefully refrained from giving Lawrence any hint as to the new turn his suspicions had taken. He had an instinctive feeling that the masterful prisoner in the county jail would have scant patience with any unauthorized efforts on his part to penetrate the mystery. That, to Lyon's mind, might be a very good reason for not talking about his activities, but he was the last man to abandon his own line merely out of deference to another man's prejudices. He was always more interested in getting results, however, than in getting credit, so he was content to work instead of talk.
But on his next visit to Lawrence, he took occasion to put a hypothetical question which went directly to the heart of his perplexity and for which he very much wanted an answer--though he didn't expect to get it.
Lawrence, he said, in a casual tone, having first carefully taken a position where he had the advantage of the light in watching the other man's face, "have you considered the possibility that Miss Wolcott may, after all, have had nothing to do with that affair?"
Lawrence turned upon him with swift amazement and anger.
What do you mean? he demanded in a threatening undertone, with an apprehensive glance at the door.
The guard couldn't hear me to save his ears. I mean simply,--are you sure of your premises? You see, I am taking for granted that your policy of silence is to protect--oh, I won't mention her name again. But what if the facts should be that she doesn't need any protection? What if it really proves that you are making a sacrifice which is not merely heroic but is unnecessary? Suppose the woman who ran across the street was someone else?
Have you dared to tell--to hint--
What I might dare to do is one thing, what I have actually done is another. As a matter of fact, I have neither told nor hinted,--nor have I knocked you down for thinking such a thing possible.
Lawrence dropped into his chair and let his head sink on his hand.
I beg your pardon. But it makes me wild to think how helpless I am. I can't keep Howell, for instance, from mousing around, and I can't keep Bede from peering and prying,--
Or me from guessing or breathing. No, you can't. Of course they may not discover anything, but even the police sometimes get hold of the right clue. You are trying to keep them from a certain clue, at a tremendous risk to yourself, and yet you don't know, you only suspect, that your silence may benefit the person I do not name.
Lawrence drummed impatiently with his fingers for a minute, and then he looked up with a direct glance into Lyon's eyes.
Lyon, you're an awfully good fellow to have any patience with what must seem sheer unreason to you, and I wish I could be quite frank with you and make you see the situation as I do. But you are certain to be put on the witness stand yourself, so I simply can't give you any facts which you don't already know. You see that?
Yes,--but are they facts?
Lawrence looked at him queerly. "What explanation do you suggest for my cane being where it was?" he asked.
You left it somewhere,--perhaps at the state library--and Fullerton picked it up, carried it off, and had it in his hand when he was attacked.
Lawrence looked surprised and then he laughed in quick amusement.
Ingenious, by Jove! I hope you've suggested that theory to Howell. It will give him something to occupy his mind. It would be difficult for him to prove it, but then. It would be difficult for the prosecution to disprove it--unless they should happen to discover where I actually did forget my cane.
You mean--?
You can probably work it out, said Lawrence drily. "Supposing that I did mean that, don't you see that the one and only person who could throw any light on how my cane came to be where it was found is the one and only person who must not be questioned?"
I see. But do you really think that the one and only person will maintain silence on such a matter at such a cost to you?
If things come to the worst, I fear the one and only person will not. My hope is that things will not come to the worst,--that there may be a disagreement or even an acquittal. Really you see, I don't feel so sure the prosecution holds a hand that leaves me no chance of coming out even. We are both bluffing, but I rather think I can bluff hardest if my flank isn't turned by my too zealous counsel.
Still,--
Still, Lyon, and yet, and nevertheless, and in spite of all, I am happier than I remember ever being before in all my life, and I shall never think of this room so long as I live without feeling again the joy of a conqueror.
May I ask why, you extraordinary man?
Because the one and only person has accepted my suggestion in regard to silence so sweetly. I have made several suggestions to that person, I don't mind telling you, which have not been accepted. They have been turned down hard. It seemed to have become a habit with her and I was getting discouraged. Now, the course which I suggested in this instance would not be agreeable to her. Nothing could be more opposed to her natural instinct than to keep silence if--well, under the circumstances. She has done what must have been a thousand times harder than to make even the most public explanation, she has done it for me,--because I asked her to. Now do you understand why I am happy? I'm in Paradise!
Lyon grasped his hand in sympathetic silence, and left him. At least he had found out why Lawrence was so convinced in his own mind that Miss Wolcott was somehow implicated. Evidently it was the cane that seemed to him conclusive. He had left his cane at Miss Wolcott's and he knew it. It could have come into evidence in connection with the murder of Fullerton only through Miss Wolcott's direct or indirect agency. That was Lawrence's conviction. To protect her in any event, he was using his influence to keep her from speaking and drawing conclusions from her compliance which might be justified if his theory of her complicity was correct, but which would fall to the ground if, as a matter of fact, she was really as ignorant of the murder (and the cane) as Lyon was now inclined to believe she might be. In that case, alas for poor Lawrence! His paradise might prove but a Fool's Paradise, after all. The primary question remained, therefore, whether she really was implicated or not.
He had promised her, at their first and only interview, to call occasionally and report as to the progress of affairs, but he had deferred carrying out his promise, partly because he had nothing decisive to tell her and partly because he was rather shy of encouraging a confidence which might possibly place him in possession of embarrassing information. He did not want to learn anything that would hamper him when he was called to the witness stand, as he undoubtedly would be. But two things happened that day to make him keep his promise without further postponement.
The first was his discovery that Bede was hovering about Miss Wolcott's neighborhood. Lyon had caught a fleeting glimpse of Miss Wolcott going into a shop. A moment later he noticed Bede across the street from the shop, busily engaged in studying a display of hosiery in a show-window. He did not connect the two events at the moment, but half an hour later he met Miss Wolcott face to face, still in the shopping district. The look of suppressed pain in her eyes as she gravely bowed disturbed him so much that he walked on rather unobservantly for a few steps.
Then he was brought back to consciousness by a keen look that pierced him like a surgeon's probe as a quiet gray little man passed him. It was Bede. The significance of that piercing scrutiny flashed upon Lyon. Bede had seen him bow to Miss Wolcott and was sorting that little fact into the proper pigeon-hole in his brain. He turned to look after the detective. Bede was pausing to turn over some second-hand books on an exposed stall, and he lingered there until Miss Wolcott came out of a shop farther down the block. As she went on, Bede, who had never glanced in her direction, finished his inspection of the books and went on also. Casually, he followed the same direction she had taken. Lyon, who had lingered to observe his action, walked on very thoughtfully. That was the first thing. The second was a special-delivery letter which was brought to him that same afternoon while he was rushing to an assignment. The urgency of the outside found no counterpart in the simple little note which it enclosed:
"Dear Mr. Lyon: Could you conveniently call this evening? I shall be at home after seven. Yours sincerely,
"Edith Wolcott.
Lyon looked at the special delivery stamp, remembered Bede, and put the note in his pocket with some anxiety. What was up now? He perceived an urgency in the request which did not appear in the words themselves, and he looked forward to the call with some anxiety. If her nerve had broken down, and she should hurl a confession at him before he could stop her, what should he do about it?
Miss Wolcott received Lyon with the same curiously cold and impersonal manner that had struck him before, but unless he deceived himself, it was a manner deliberately assumed this time to conceal some unwonted nervousness of which she was herself afraid. Her face was as Sphinx-like as ever, but there was an unevenness of tension in her voice which betrayed emotion.
I sent for you because something curious has happened, she said abruptly, "and I don't know anyone else to talk it over with. I received yesterday, by mail, this letter." And she handed him a single sheet of note paper, on which was written, in a bold hand,
"Remember, I said living or dead. Warren Fullerton.""
"Lyon looked up at her in amaze. "You received this yesterday?"
Yes.
Are you familiar with Mr. Fullerton's handwriting?
Yes. It is his.
Can you be positive about that?
He thought she suppressed a shudder, but her voice was coldly calm as she answered, "I do not think I can be deceived in it. I know it very well."
May I see the envelope?
She handed it to him silently. It corresponded with the paper, was addressed to her in the same bold, assured hand, and the postmark was particularly plain. It had been mailed the day it had been delivered. The note and envelope were both made of a thin peculiar grayish-green paper, oriental in appearance, with a faint perfume about them that would have been dizzying if more pronounced. Lyon held the paper up to the light. It vas watermarked, but so faintly that he had to study it carefully before he made out that the design was that of a coiled serpent with hooded head. As he moved the paper to bring out the outline, the coils seemed to change and move and melt into one another. Certainly it would have been a difficult paper to duplicate.
Was Mr. Fullerton in the habit of using this paper?
Yes. It was made for him. He was given to fads like that. And another thing, though a trifle. You will notice he uses two green one-cent stamps, instead of the red two. He always stamped the letters written on that paper with green stamps.
Does the message convey any special meaning to you?
Miss Wolcott waited a moment before replying, as though to gather her self-control into available form. "I was at one time engaged to be married to Mr. Fullerton. I was very young and romantic and--silly. I had not known him very long. And almost immediately I had to go east to spend three months with some friends. While I was away I wrote to Mr. Fullerton,--very silly letters. After I came back something happened that made me change my mind and my feelings towards him. I broke the engagement and sent him back his letters and presents. He refused to be released or to release me. It was a very terrible time. He said that if ever I should marry anyone else, he would send my love-letters to him to my husband,--and this whether he was alive or dead."
Ah! That explains, you think, this phrase?
I am sure of it.
Did the threat make any special impression on you at the time? I mean did it influence your actions at all?
It made me determine never to think of marrying. Then, in answer to Lyon's look of surprise, she added, impetuously, "I would rather die than have anyone read those letters. I simply could not think of it. No man's love could stand such a test. To know that his wife had said such silly, silly things to another man,--it would be intolerable."
But no gentleman would read them.
She shrugged her shoulders lightly. "In a play, no. But in real life, he would be very curious. Or, if he did not read them, he still could not forget them. He would have them in his mind, and would perhaps guess them worse than they were. Besides, you do not know Mr. Fullerton. He would have managed in some way to bring about what he wanted. I cannot guess how, but those letters would have been put where they must be read. He was not one to trip in his plans."
Did you make any attempt to recover your letters?
She did not answer at once, and glancing at her Lyon saw that the agitation which she had been holding back seemed to have swept her for a moment beyond her own control. She was trembling so violently that she could not speak, and only the forcible pressure of her slender hands upon the arms of her chair gave her steadiness enough to hold her emotions in check. He turned to the light and busied himself for a minute in a critical examination of the letter. Then he came back to his question--for he was of no mind to let it pass unanswered.
Did you ever try to recover the letters?
Once, she said, in a very low voice.
And you failed?
Worse than failed. She threw out her hand toward the note he still held. "Did he not say, living or dead? Mere death could not interfere when he had set his will upon revenge."
Then whoever wrote this note, said Lyon, thoughtfully, "must have had knowledge of his purposes as well as access to his private desk and knowledge of his personal peculiarities in regard to stamps. Now, Miss Wolcott, you must help me. Who would be likely to know of your letters?"
How can I tell? I have hardly seen him for four years until-- She broke off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Have you spoken of them yourself to anyone? Any girl friend?
No, never.
To your family?
No. I have lived alone with my grandfather since I was fifteen. You know him,--I love him, but he is no confidant for a young girl. I have always been much alone.
Then, so far as you know, no one could have learned from you of those letters?
No one.
Not Arthur Lawrence, for instance?
She started, and looked as though he had presented a new idea.
I never spoke of them, she said, slowly.
Did he know of your engagement to Fullerton?
He never referred to it, but it is probable that he had heard of it. Some one would have mentioned it, probably. I did not know Mr. Lawrence at that time.
He had no reason then to know--or to guess--the importance which you placed upon the recovery of the letters?
She looked distressed, but her glance was as searching as his own.
Why do you ask that? What bearing has it on this letter?
Perhaps none. But I was trying to narrow down the possible actors. If you on your part have kept the knowledge of these letters to yourself inviolately, then the information about them must have been given out by Fullerton if at all. Do you know anyone to whom he would be likely to confide such a matter,--any confidant or chum?
She shook her head helplessly. "I know nothing of his friends. My impression is that he had very few. He was a strange, solitary, secret man."
And yet it must be clear that either he wrote this himself, or it was written on his private paper in his handwriting, by someone who had intimate knowledge of his affairs,--not only of the fact that he had those letters of yours, but of the threat which he held over you in regard to them. Now if he wrote it himself, why wasn't it mailed until yesterday? And who did mail it yesterday, anyhow? If someone was in his confidence and is trying to play upon your fears, we must find out who it is. May I take this letter with me?
I don't want to ever see it again.
And if you receive any other letters or anything comes up in any way bearing on this, will you let me know at once? I am going to try to find out about his office help. And I will leave this letter open to the sunlight for a day. If it was written yesterday, the ink will show a change by to-morrow. If written a week ago, it probably will not. As soon as I learn anything that will interest you, I will let you know.
But as he was departing she detained him, some unspoken anxiety visibly struggling with her habit of reserve.
You spoke, when you were here before, of the possibility of my being called as a witness. If that should happen, would I have to tell about--this?
I do not see how it could come up, unless they could connect Lawrence with it in some way. Of course if they were trying to establish motive,--some reason for Lawrence's quarrel with Fullerton,--it might seem to have a bearing. But you never discussed Fullerton with Lawrence.
No, she said, but her look was still troubled. "If you are questioned," he said quietly, "you will not have to testify except so far as you have positive knowledge. You will not have to give your thoughts or theories or guesses."
I see, she murmured, dropping her strange, guarded eyes.
With that he left her. It was too late to take any active steps in the way of investigation that night, so he turned back toward his room, but his habit of keeping on his feet while thinking sent him on a long tramp before he finally turned in at his door. He fancied that he was going over the new elements which Miss Wolcott's confidence had thrown into the problem in his mind, but before he knew it he was making a comparison of the characters of Miss Wolcott and Kittie Tayntor. Of course it was natural to think of Kittie,--she was the only girl he knew in this place, and the only one he had had a chance to talk to for a long time, and she was so funny, with her transparent, theatrical make-believes, and so engaging, with her girlish petulances and revolts! She was like an April day,--a dash of cold rain in your face, a ray of sunshine dancing freakishly around the edges of things, and a white bud curled up close under the wet green leaves to call out the sudden rush of forgiving tenderness which you give only to what is near and dear and simple and your own. Miss Wolcott was, rather, a brooding, tropical day, still with the stillness of motionless heat, silent with the silence of fierce noontide. Low-lying thunder-clouds belonged to her, and the passionate stroke of the lightning, and the deluging tumult of the tempest, and the swift-falling darkness, hiding the hushed passion of Life. How had Lawrence ever dared to love her? But Lawrence was a master of men, in his own way. There was an exuberant power about him which would joy in conquest. His nature was sunny where hers was veiled, but his careless lightheartedness masked a will as unyielding, a nature as passionately strong, as her own. Lawrence, now, would never see the dear, funny charms of Kittie! And with a cheerful sense that, after all, things adjusted themselves very well in this rudderless world, Lyon swung back in his walk.
At the door Olden met him.
Well, well, well, you're late, he said testily. "What have you been doing to-day?"
Oh, all sorts of things.
I don't care about that. What have you been doing about the Lawrence case?
I don't know that I have been doing anything. Literally, he didn't know whether he had or not, and he didn't care to share his half-formed suspicions. "I have to take things as they come, you know."
Haven't you seen Lawrence to-day?
No.
Nor his lawyer, Howell?
No.
Olden tapped with his fingers impatiently on the table, for, as before, he had led his guest into the dining room, the only really habitable room in this strange Bachelor's Hall. "Where have you been this evening?"
Calling on a young lady!
Olden looked up sharply. "Miss Kittie?"
No. Then, with a half mischievous desire to play up to the other's hungry interest in the case, he added, "A young lady Lawrence knows and admires. Miss Wolcott."
The bait drew even better than he expected. Olden leaned forward with his arms on the table and his chin on his crossed arms, and Lyon felt the blaze of interest behind the goggles. The air between them tingled with it as with an electric discharge.
Lawrence admires her, does he? he said, with a curious deliberation. "Particularly?"
I think quite particularly.
How do you know?
I merely guessed it, from a look I saw on his face once.
Do people generally guess it?
I rather think not. Gossip hasn't mentioned it.
And does she believe in him?
Well, that is a point I didn't bring into the conversation. This is only the second time I have seen her.
I didn't mean believe in his innocence. I meant, believe in him,--in his interest in her?
Lyon laughed. The man's persistent interest in Lawrence's affairs was curious. "Really, I didn't ask her that either. But I fancy Lawrence is a man to make himself understood in that direction when he wants to."
You mean he makes love to every pretty woman he knows?
Oh, no, not so bad as that. Lawrence is a gentleman. Still, he is partly Irish. There's an old Irish jingle I used to know about the slow-creeping Saxon and the amorous Celt,--that's the idea. Irish eyes make love of themselves, whenever their owner is too busy about something else to keep a tight rein on them. Lyon had talked jestingly, partly with the idea of erasing the memory of a remark which he began to think had been somewhat less than discreet. He was not prepared for the effect of his words. Olden sprang to his feet and struck the table with his clenched hand.
Then damn Irish eyes, he cried. "Damn the man who thinks he has the right to make love to any woman who is tender-hearted enough to listen. Damn the man who thinks that as long as a woman will take his easy lies for truth he has a right to lie."
With all my heart. Though, for that matter, he is pretty apt to damn himself without any help from us. But Lawrence isn't that kind of a man.
Olden had dropped back in his chair and his momentary outburst had given place to a sullen gloom that Lyon guessed had more relation to his own thoughts and to the story he had told so impersonally the other evening than it had to their present conversation. There was something pathetic in the mood he showed,--a strong man bound into helplessness by the Liliputian cords of emotion. When a young man had to have it out with his own heart, it was a fair and square fight, with no odds. But at Olden's age, the thing was not decent to look upon. It was like seeing some old tennis champion going down before play that was only healthy exercise for the youngster in the game. He jumped to his feet.
Come, I'm going to bed. Good night, Mr. Olden.
Good night, said Olden, absently. Then he looked up, with an obvious effort to be civil. "Don't think that I have anything against your friend Lawrence or his Irish eyes," he said lightly. "I hope with all my heart that he may be set free,--with all my heart."
So do I. Good night.
Up in his own room, Lyon's first act was to walk to the window and look across the white expanse of snow to Kittie's windows. The cheerful light answered him, with something of the subtle mischief of Kittie's own solemn air. As he looked, all the lights went out. Miss Elliott's School was wrapped in innocent slumber. Lyon blew a kiss across the night, and then pulled down his own curtain.
He opened Fullerton's strange epistle and studied it again, but the cryptic message remained as cryptic as ever. Pulling out a number of old letters from his own writing case, he compared them with Fullerton's until he found one which corresponded closely, in the blackness of its ink, with Fullerton's. This he laid aside as a standard of comparison. Then he opened the new letter to the air, leaving it where the sun should strike it when it came into the room in the morning. The first point to determine was whether the letter had actually been written by Fullerton before his death, or whether someone still living was carrying out the dead man's sinister wishes.
Fullerton, like a number of other lawyers in Waynscott, had had his office in the Equity Building, and Lyon made it convenient, in the course of his morning's tramp for news the next day, to visit the Equity. As he expected, he found Fullerton's office locked, but he hunted up the manager of the building, and persuaded him to unlock it for him. Perhaps the fact that he was a personal friend made a difference in his willingness, though he pretended to protest at what he called the morbid sensationalism of the press.
What do you expect to get out of his empty rooms? he asked.
I'm working up a story, said Lyon carelessly. "I want to see what I can get in the way of personal idiosyncrasies."
The suite consisted of three rooms,--a large reception room, one side of which was covered with book-cases; a private office at the back; and, adjoining this, a room for the use of a stenographer, as was evident from the typewriter beside the window. There was so little furniture in this room that Lyon saw it could be dismissed in the special inquiry which he had in mind. In the private office a large flat desk occupied the center of the room.
Is this room the way Fullerton left it? Lyon asked, taking the chair which was placed before the desk, and glancing about.
Yes. No one has been here since he left.
No stenographer or clerk?
He has had no clerk for some time, and when he needed a stenographer he called one in from the agency in the building. As a matter of fact, I think his business had fallen off rather seriously in the last few years. He had lost some of his old clients, and he didn't seem to get new ones. Often his office would be locked up and he would be away for days at a time.
Bad for business, that. Was his office rent paid?
The manager shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "No. But I have a lien on his library, so I guess I'm safe."
Indeed! Then he must really have been pretty badly tied up financially?
He was pretty obviously going to pieces. You see, his personal tastes were expensive, and they incapacitated him for business. That cut both ways, in the matter of income.
How about his other creditors, if you have a lien on his library? That seems to be the only valuable property here.
The manager laughed again. "If there was one man here the day after he was killed there were nineteen. They were all ready to attach his books. There was some rather deep swearing. Funny what things come out about a man after he is dead."
It's more than funny, said Lyon, with an air of saying something worth listening to. He was automatically pulling out one drawer of the desk after another, sometimes merely glancing in, sometimes lightly turning over the contents with a careless hand. "We don't know much of the personal lives of the people about us. Things are not always what they seem." He probably could have kept up the platitudinizing longer if necessary, but he had opened all the drawers. None were locked. There was no scrap of the curious greenish gray paper anywhere, nor, indeed, anything but files of documents obviously legal, and mostly dust-covered. "But his personal belongings were rather gorgeous." He opened curiously a bronze stamp box which matched the other appointments of the desk, and examined the contents. There was a lot of red stamps, but no green. That was about all that he had hoped to discover. It had seemed probable from the first that Fullerton would have his peculiar personal belongings at his own room rather than at his office, but Lyon had wished to eliminate the other possibility.
As he came out of the room, a strange and yet familiar figure passed down the hall toward the elevator just ahead of him,--the heavy figure and white head of Mr. Olden. Lyon glanced back. Lawrence's office was farther down the hall, and Lawrence's law cleric, a young fellow named Freeman, whom Lyon knew slightly, stood in the open door looking after his departing visitor with a curious watchfulness. On the impulse, Lyon turned back.
What scrape has my most respectable landlord been getting into, that he needs legal advice? he asked.
Come in, said Freeman, with evident pleasure. "I'm mighty glad to have you give the old gentleman a character. I began to wonder if there wasn't something suspicious about him."
Why?
He came in a few days ago and asked for Lawrence. I explained why he couldn't see him. He fumed around a little, and finally said he wanted a will drawn up, and couldn't I do it? I thought I could all right, so I got him to give me the items. It involved a lot of little bequests,--he seems to be a retired merchant from somewhere down the state with an interminable family connection,--and I took a lot of notes and told him I would have the will drawn up in a few days. He has been in every day since to make changes and alterations, till I am all balled up. Either I got things badly mixed in my notes or he has forgotten just how his sisters and his cousins and his aunts are arranged. I'll swear he has mixed the babies.
Well, if he pays you for your trouble, laughed Lyon.
Yes, he made it clear that he wanted me to charge up my wasted time, but--he's queer all the same. I almost thought to-day that the whole business of the will was a blind, and that he was here for some purpose of his own.
That sounds more serious. What made you think that?
I had gone into the inner room to hunt up my original notes, because he insisted that I had made a mistake, when I heard the roll top of Lawrence's desk pushed up. Lawrence never locks it, but the old man hadn't any business in there, all the same. I came out in a hurry, and there he was, hunting around in the desk. He wasn't a bit fazed by my coming back, either. Said he wanted some paper to write a letter and fretted and fumed over the pen and ink as though the whole outfit belonged to him. I cleared a place for him, and left him writing, while I shifted my own chair so that I could keep an eye on him. He wrote two or three short letters, and tossed something into the waste basket there. Then, when he was through, he picked up the waste basket and began hunting through it. I supposed he wanted to recover what he had thrown in, until I saw him pick out a square envelope and put it with his own papers.
And you think it was not his own?
I know it wasn't, because I knew the paper he was using. As it happens, that basket hasn't been emptied since Lawrence was here. The envelope must have been something he had tossed into the basket,--but I couldn't very well demand the return of an old envelope picked up from a waste basket. Still, I couldn't help wondering whether the man was a sneak thief or a private detective or just a little touched in the upper story.
Has he been inquisitive about Lawrence's affairs? Lyon asked.
The first time he was here he asked a good many questions about him, but I thought that was natural curiosity under all the circumstances. One of his innumerable cousins had married a Lawrence and he wanted to find out if there was any connection between the families. And he really seemed to know something about him, because he insisted that Arthur Lawrence had married a Mrs. Vanderburg.
But he didn't!
No, of course not. But he was a great friend of Mrs. Vanderburg's, and no one would have been surprised if he had married her. There were many who expected that to be the outcome. And when she became engaged to Broughton, whom she afterwards did marry, Lawrence took it hard. There was a serious quarrel, and Lawrence wouldn't attend the wedding. I remember hearing my mother say that if Lawrence had had Broughton's money, Broughton would never have had any show.
But she wasn't divorced at that time, was she?
No, but she could have had a divorce whenever she wanted it. Vanderburg had been missing for ten or twelve years.
This was surprising information for Lyon, and not a little disturbing. Was there, after all, a possibility that even if he established the identity of the fleeing woman as Mrs. Broughton, Lawrence might still be entangled? Lyon felt as though he were trying to pick his way among live wires.
Did you tell Olden this story? he asked, remembering the curious interest which that inquisitive person had always seemed to take in Lawrence's affairs.
Well, he got it out of me, I guess. He knew so much that he could easily pump the balance.
What did he say?
Nothing much. He kept nodding his head, as though he knew it all beforehand. What do you make of it, anyhow?
The curiosity of an idle mind, said Lyon, lightly. "There are plenty of people who have an abnormal curiosity about anybody who is accused of crime. But I wouldn't give him too much rope."
The episode gave him something new to puzzle about. Olden's curiosity about Lawrence had been marked from the beginning, and it had not been wholly a friendly curiosity. That much had been apparent. Lyon was accustomed to the curious interest which monotonously virtuous people take in criminals, and he had set down his landlord's desire to talk about the murder mystery to that score. He had shown no curiosity about Fullerton or interest in him. And though he was curious about Lawrence, he seemed very inadequately informed concerning him.
Lyon turned the thing in his mind without being able to make it fit in with anything else. At the same time he determined to find out something more about Mr. Olden at the earliest opportunity. For the immediate present, however, the thing to do was to get into Fullerton's rooms at the Wellington again, and see what discoveries he could make there.
Lyon suspected that he might have difficulty in securing admission to Fullerton's room in the Wellington a second time, and when he made application to Hunt, the janitor who had admitted him before, he found his fears were justified. Indeed, Hunt's dismay at the suggestion struck him as extreme.
Go in? No, sir! Nobody goes in. The police are responsible for that room, now. I haven't anything to do with it, and I wouldn't have, not for a farm.
You let me in before, you know, and the police didn't take it to heart.
Eh?
I mean they didn't mind. Bede knew I was there.
Hunt shook his head. "Mr. Bede says to me that if I let anybody else in, he would have me arrested for killing Fullerton."
That's nonsense, you know. When did he say that,--when I got in before?
No farther back than yesterday he said that.
Has he been around again?
Yes, he has. There was something nervous and dogged about the man's manner that puzzled Lyon.
Well, see here. I'll make it worth your while to let me in for an hour. You can go along to see I don't steal anything, if you like. I want to make sure of something I overlooked before.
I tell you I can't, Mr. Lyon, even if I wanted to. The police have put a seal on the door. It can't be opened without their knowing.
Then pass me in through the window.
Hunt lifted his downcast eyes and gave Lyon a long, curious look.
You wouldn't want to, if you knew what I know.
What's that?
Hunt shuffled and stumbled, but perhaps at heart he was not unwilling to confess his fears in the hope of having them quenched. He looked somewhat shamefaced, however, as he asked, "Do you believe that sometimes the dead walk?"
I don't know, Lyon answered non-committally. He was more anxious to get at Hunt's ideas than to confess his own. "What makes you ask? Have you seen anything?"
Well,--not exactly,--
I'd like to hear about it.
Well, it's this way. Mr. Fullerton had a way of throwing the letters he wrote of an evening on the floor right before the door, so that I could pick them up in the morning and give them to the carrier when he came around. I always took in his breakfast tray and his paper,--
How did you get in?
He could release the lock on his door by a spring from his bedroom. There was nothing too much trouble if it was going to save him some trouble afterwards.
Go on.
The letters were always in a certain place,--just where he could toss them easily from the writing table where he sat. They would fall on a certain mat, so that I knew just what to pick up. If I didn't, he would swear to turn a nigger white. Mr. Fullerton wasn't no saint. That's what makes it worse.
Makes what worse?
Why, this that I'm going to tell you. Day before yesterday something possessed me to go in to that room. I don't know what it was,--I just was pestered to go in. I thought I would just look inside, and there, on the rug before the door where they always used to be, was a letter in Mr. Fullerton's hand, on his paper, ready stamped to be mailed.
This is interesting, said Lyon, with sparkling eyes. "What did you do with it?"
I didn't rightly know what to do with it at first, I was so took back. I had been in that room five or six times since--since Mr. Fullerton was killed, letting the police in, and you, and going in by myself once to make sure the windows was locked, and there wasn't no letter on the rug, or I'm blind. Now, what I want to know is, here did that letter come from?
That I can't tell yet. But what did you do with it?
I mailed it. It seemed that it must have been something that Mr. Fullerton wrote that last night he was home and threw down for me to mail, and that somehow, in the excitement, it must have been kicked under the edge of the rug, and then, somehow, kicked out again the last time someone was in the room. At least, I couldn't see what else it could be, so I gave it to the carrier, thinking that it ought to go to the person it was addressed to.
I think you were quite right. To whom was it addressed?
But Hunt was unexpectedly reticent. "Mr. Fullerton didn't like to have me talk about his affairs."
Oh, that's all right. But I think I know about this letter. It was for Miss Wolcott, wasn't it?
Hunt's surprised look gave confirmation, though his habit of discretion prevented a verbal assent. "That isn't all," he said, hastily, returning to his story. "That was queer enough to set me wondering about it all day, and yesterday, when I went around in the morning, I opened the door just to make myself believe that it really had happened. There on the rug was another letter, just like the one the day before." His eyes sought Lyon's nervously. He seemed to be almost afraid of his own words.
Another letter for Miss Wolcott? gasped Lyon, in utter amaze.
It was just like the first, Hunt persisted doggedly.
What did you do with it? Did you mail it?
I wouldn't touch it. Not for money, Mr. Lyon. Where did that letter come from? That's what I want to know. I wasn't going to have any truck with it.
But you didn't leave it lying on the rug?
Mr. Bede got it.
Bede! Oh, the devil! Gasped Lyon. "How did he come to get it?"
He came in in the morning and I told him what I had seen. I couldn't have stayed in the house without someone knowing. He went in and got the letter, and then he put a seal on the door, so that no one else should get in. He came here again this morning himself and looked into the room, but there wasn't anything on the rug. Do you suppose it was perhaps because the last one wasn't sent? Does he know? I know some as thinks he had truck with the devil while he was alive all right. Say, what do you think about such things, Mr. Lyon?
I think you ought to have mailed that letter to Miss Wolcott. Bede has no business with her letters.
I wasn't going to touch it, said Hunt doggedly.
Did Bede ask you anything about her?
He asked if I knew whether she ever came here to Fullerton's room. I wouldn't know. I never saw her to know her. Hunt was evidently aggrieved over the turn things had taken generally. "Then he wanted to know particularly what that lady looked like that came to see Fullerton that last night,--the one he went out with. I didn't see her, but the elevator boy told, same as Donohue told at the inquest, that she wore a veil and a dark dress and a fur coat, short. Anybody might be dressed like that."
Who has the apartment above? Lyon asked abruptly.
It's empty. The people moved out this week.
What day?
Yesterday and the day before.
Let me look at it. Perhaps I might take it. Is it furnished?
No, the furniture was moved out. Come up with me, sir.
Lyon knew the arrangement of the suites in the Wellington. They were all alike, in the corresponding positions. He already knew the arrangement of Fullerton's room, and his chief interest in the apartment above was in its relation to the wall outside. He leaned out of the window to examine it while Hunt was detained in the hall by a passing tenant, and when the man appeared Lyon's mind was made up.
I'd like to take this apartment for a week. They are making some alterations at the Grosvenor (those alterations at the Grosvenor were very opportune!) "and I want a place to stay for a few nights. You can put some furniture into the bedroom, can't you? I shan't need anything else. I may not be here more than a night or two."
Hunt looked shrewd. "You needn't think that being in the building makes any difference about the room below, Mr. Lyon!"
That's all right, laughed Lyon. "Really, what I want is to keep an eye on Bede. And if Fullerton's ghost comes to carry you off because you didn't mail that letter, I'll be here to explain things and make it easy for you."
The arrangement was made without difficulty, and Lyon went away with Hunt's assurance that the bedroom would be habitable when he returned that night. It was his "night off" at the paper, and he had a mind to make the most of the freedom which that circumstance would give him.
Several important things happened before the evening came, and these must be first recounted; but it may as well be mentioned here that when Lyon did return that evening, the bag which Hunt obligingly carried upstairs contained, with a few other trifles, a rope fire-escape and a glazier's diamond.
THE fact that Bede had put a seal on Fullerton's door indicated that the detective had not yet made the examination of the room which unquestionably it was his intention to make. That he should have deferred so important a matter for twenty-four hours could only be explained on the theory that he had some still more important project on hand which was occupying his personal attention.
Lyon intended to get into Fullerton's rooms if possible before Bede did, but the plan which he had hastily formed at the Wellington required the cover of darkness. He could do nothing along that line before night, and in the meantime he felt that he could do nothing more interesting (and possibly important) than to discover what Bede was engaged upon that was so engrossing as to make him postpone the investigation of Fullerton's rooms to another day.
Lyon figured it out like this: Bede had received from Hunt (and undoubtedly had opened and read) a letter from Fullerton addressed to Miss Wolcott. He already knew (as had appeared at their first interview) that Fullerton had at one time been engaged to Miss Wolcott. Therefore the association of her name with his was not a new idea. Yet he had been "shadowing" her yesterday afternoon. Presumably, therefore, he had suddenly come to perceive a new importance in her movements. Was his watchfulness over her the occasion of his present preoccupation? Lyon would have given much for a clairvoyant vision to tell him where Bede was at that moment. Being obliged to trust instead to his reasoning powers, he went to Hemlock Avenue, and walked past Miss Wolcott's house. The house wore its customary air of seclusion and there was no lounger in the street. He walked a block farther, and went into a drug store, where, as he happened to know, there was a public telephone and a gossiping clerk.
Has Bede been here to-day? he asked, carelessly.
Bede who?
Don't you know Bede, the detective?--little gray man with keen eyes and a voice that he keeps behind his teeth. I expected to find him here.
He was here this morning,--or a man like him, said the clerk. "A detective, you say. Gee!"
What's up?
The clerk was looking rather startled. "Well, if I had known he was a detective! He gave out that he was the credit-man for the new furniture store around the corner, and asked about several people in the neighborhood that we have accounts with. Our old man has some stock in the furniture concern, so I gave him all the information I could."
What accounts did he ask about? Do you remember?
The clerk named half a dozen. Lyon was not surprised to hear Miss Wolcott's among them. He was both surprised and startled to hear Miss Elliott's.
What did you tell him about these two? he asked thoughtfully.
I let him see their accounts in the ledger.
I wish you'd let me see those same accounts.
The clerk demurred and Lyon, who had noticed a college fraternity pin in the other's scarf, opened his coat. He wore the same pin.
Oh, all right, said the easy-going clerk, with a laugh. "If I'm going to be fired for giving anything away to a detective, I'll have the satisfaction of helping a Nota Bena anyhow. Here are the account books. Come around here."
He opened a page with Miss Edith Wolcott's name at the top. The latest entry caught Lyon's eye at once.
Nov. 25, Sulphonal, 6gr., .45.
The date was the date of Fullerton's murder. Lyon pointed to the entry.
Could you tell me what time of the day that sale was made?
That's exactly what the other man asked, the clerk exclaimed, in amaze.
And you told him--?
It was half past nine in the evening. I happened to remember because I leave at half past nine every evening and the night clerk comes on, and just as I was going out Miss Wolcott came in and asked if I could give her something to make her sleep. She said she was too nervous to sleep, and I noticed she seemed all of a tremble. Her hands were shaking when she took the packet.
Did you tell Bede all that?
I guess I did.
Did he ask you any other questions?
Not about Miss Wolcott. He looked a long time at Miss Elliott's account.
Let me see it, then.
The clerk turned the pages.
We charge everything that is prescribed for anyone at the school to Miss Elliott's account, and show on our bill who it was for, said the clerk. "That's what these names mean." He pointed to the names "Miss Jones," "Miss Beatly," etc., opposite each item. Lyon was distinctly startled to catch the name "Miss Tayntor" at frequent intervals.
Has she been ill? he asked with quick concern, and then added lamely, "She's a--sort of cousin of mine."
The clerk grinned.
Gunther's chocolates.
Oh!
Lyon studied the entries assiduously for the next few moments. Among the latest were a number of charges, "for Mrs. W. B." Had that meant anything to Bede?
Did Bede ask about any of them in particular? he inquired by way of answering his own query.
He wanted to know who Mrs. W. B. was.
What did you tell him?
Told him they were Dr. Barry's prescriptions. They were marked that way. That's all I know.
Remember anything else he asked about?
No. That's about all.
Lyon went into the telephone booth and called up Dr. Barry.
Hello, Barry. This is Lyon. I want to know how Mrs. W. B. is getting along.
Now see here, Lyon, don't you think you are crowding things a little? There really hasn't been time for any radical change since noon.
What do you mean?
I told you at noon that she was not to be disturbed for several days yet.
Told me?
Well, I told the boy who telephoned for you.
"I have not authorized anyone to telephone for me. What? Why, someone telephoned in your name, and you have been such a nuisance about the case that I thought of course it was you again.""
"Did you happen to mention the lady's name, or only her initials? asked Lyon.
Barry hesitated so long in answering that Lyon could only draw the most serious conclusion.
I can't say, Barry answered, with some constraint.
It's important I should know, Barry. You know she was very desirous of keeping her visit here unknown, and if you have been giving it away, I must at least know the facts, so as to head off trouble if possible. He threw all his earnestness into his voice and Barry yielded a reluctant reply, saying,
It is possible that I did. I thought it was your message.
Did he ask anything else in particular?
No. Excuse me, I'm very busy. And the 'phone shut off.
Lyon walked out and back up Hemlock Avenue. He was breathing quickly as though he had been running.
If I were Bede I think I should be rather proud of myself, making two such hauls as that in one morning. At this rate, Bede will soon know all that I know myself and a little more, he said to himself. "Is it possible that he will attach any significance to Miss Wolcott's purchase of a soporific on the fatal 25th? Good Lord, I wish she had stayed at home that evening! That visit to the druggist at half-past nine brings her very close to the scene of the murder. Did she go for a sleeping powder before or after the murder? Is it possible after all--" He shook his head impatiently at his own suggestion.
At any rate, I must let Howell know at once that Bede has discovered Mrs. Broughton. Something will come from that, and soon. I suspect we'll have to defy dear Dr. Barry. He deserves the limit of the law.
He was within half a block of Olden's. He determined to go there to telephone. It was the nearest place and incidentally it would enable him to get Kittie's latest report on Mrs. Broughton's condition.
As he entered the hall. Olden met him,--if indeed this wild-eyed man, whose goggles lay crushed on the floor and whose white wig sat askew upon his own black hair, could be the sedate and decorous Olden. He fairly hurled himself at Lyon, crushing his arm with an iron grasp.
The curtain is down,--have you seen? What does it mean? Where is she? Has she gone away? Can't you speak? What do you know about it? Where has she gone? His questions piled one upon another unintelligibly.
What in the world do you mean? gasped Lyon. "The curtain--" He tore himself away and rushed upstairs to his window. Kittie's curtain was down to the very bottom in the left hand window. "Gone!" he exclaimed, in blank bewilderment.
Olden had followed close.
She pulled the curtain down just now,--just before you came in. I was watching,--I have been watching all the time,--I saw her come and pull it down.
How did you know about the curtains? asked Lyon, realizing for the first time that Olden was betraying knowledge that he was not supposed to have.
I heard what you said at the 'phone. I knew what you came here for, of course,--that's why I let you come,--you were to help me watch without knowing it,--and now she has gone,--slipped away before our very eyes,--
Who are you?
Woods Broughton. He pronounced the name with careless impatience, as though he had never tried to keep it a secret. "What are you going to do? We must find her."
Come downstairs, said Lyon, adjusting himself to the new situation. "We must telephone to Howell."
Howell was not an imaginative man, and it took some time to make him grasp the double idea that Mrs. Broughton had disappeared and that Lyon's landlord had suddenly turned out to be Broughton himself. The whole thing was irregular, and he felt himself confused and embarrassed. But he agreed that he must come at once for a consultation.
I think we shall get along better if we are quite frank, said Lyon, while they were waiting for Howell. "Will you explain your object in disguising yourself, so that we may know just where we stand in relation to each other?"
To find out what her secret was, Broughton answered, passionately. He clenched his hands till the knuckles were white, and his heavy-featured face, shaped by half a century of business life into lines of impassive self-control, was wrenched by emotion that was half pitiful, half ludicrous. "To find out what hold this man Lawrence has upon her,--to kill him, perhaps,--"
Lawrence? Good heavens, what nonsense! cried Lyon. "What made you connect her with Lawrence in any way?"
I told you that it was a letter that came from Waynscott that first upset her. She had been happy before that I swear it. She was happy and content as my wife. Then his letters came--
What made you think they were from him? Did you see any of them?
I found one, partly burnt, in the fireplace in her bedroom. I could make out the signature plainly,--it was Arthur Lawrence.
You could read nothing else?
No, but I, found her unfinished answer in her writing desk.
What did she say? asked Lyon, in a calm voice.
Broughton struggled to keep his voice steady. "She said that she was the most unhappy woman in the world,--God, I had been so happy!--that he had been right in warning her against marrying me, and that she must see him. I had no chance to read more, for she was coming, and I could not let her suspect I had seen anything. But I made my plans from that moment. I told her that I was called away on a sudden business trip. As I expected, as soon as I was off, she started for Waynscott. I followed her, in this disguise. She went at once to Lawrence's office,--"
His law office, in the Equity Building?
"Yes. Then she went to Miss Elliott's. That was on a Monday. Monday night, you will remember, Lawrence killed Fullerton, and the next day he was arrested. That stopped their plans, whatever they were. She has kept her room at Miss Elliott's, and I took this house, which happened to be vacant, so that I could keep a close watch on her. She has never gone out. Dr. Barry has been to see her, as you know. I have had Phillips get a daily report from Barry, under color of wiring to me. Then you came along, Mr. Lyon. I had seen and heard enough to know that you were a friend of Lawrence's, so I took you in, because I wanted to know everything about him that I could. And I knew that for some reason you were watching Grace. Phillips had tracked you there several times, and he followed you into the florist's shop and got possession of Grace's order for unlimited flowers to be sent to Lawrence. Her flowers for him! I wonder I have kept my senses. But I could do nothing but wait until Lawrence was released,--as Grace was waiting over there for his release! You needn't pretend to be surprised,--you know yourself the connection between them,--that's why you have been keeping a watch on her,--I saw that from the room you selected,--""
"You are quite right as to that, though I think you are quite wrong as to other things.
What other things?
About Lawrence. He isn't that sort of a man. If anyone had a hold upon Mrs. Broughton, it would seem to have been Fullerton.
Fullerton!
You have been very frank, Mr. Broughton, and it is only fair that I should be equally frank. We have been very anxious to have an interview with Mrs. Broughton as soon as her health would permit, Howell and I, because we have reason to believe that she may be able to throw some light upon the Fullerton murder. She may be wanted as a witness.
You are mad,--utterly mad, gasped Broughton. "What could she possibly know about that?"
She was with Fullerton when he left the Wellington at eight o'clock.
I don't believe it!
I don't think there can be much question about that. She had obviously been to consult him on some legal matters. But, frankly, we only know enough to make it very important we should know more. And we have been very anxious to avoid publicity, if possible, for her own sake, and possibly for Lawrence's.
Poor Broughton looked dazed. "I don't understand. Fullerton was her lawyer,--"
Yes.
And you think she was with him when Lawrence killed him?
We are in hopes that she may be able to explain what did actually happen. She certainly was with Fullerton earlier in the evening. Beyond that we don't know anything, and we really haven't even a coherent theory.
But it was Lawrence with whom she was corresponding,--it was Lawrence who had wanted to marry her and who would not go to her wedding,--it was Lawrence who came to see her as soon as my back was turned!
Lyon shook his head. "You don't know what lies under all that. Fullerton may have had some hold on her, and Lawrence may have been acting as her friend merely. Ah, here is Howell. He will tell us what to do now."
Howell had had time to adjust his mind to the facts Lyon had telephoned, and when he came in he seemed more curious regarding the personality of the famous man before him than anything else. Lyon explained briefly what he had told Broughton about the situation.
Well now, Mr. Broughton, you know as much as we do, said Howell. "You see that it is highly important we should get at Mrs. Broughton's testimony. Barry has been keeping me off, so this young man evolved a somewhat fantastic plan of getting inside information as to her condition. I hope the code has missed fire, somehow, for it would be exceedingly unfortunate if the prosecution should get hold of her before we do. It is quite on the cards, Mr. Broughton, that we may want you to take your wife away,--quite out of reach as a witness. It depends on what she has to tell us,--and that we must find out as soon as possible."
How,--if she is gone?
That is the first thing for us to ascertain. Lyon, you must take me over to Miss Elliott's School at once. We want to find out all we can, and immediately. If I may make a suggestion, Mr. Broughton, you will await our return here instead of accompanying us. It may possibly prove that your disguise should not be disclosed at this juncture.
Broughton did not demur. He was obviously too much overwhelmed by the uncertainties of the situation to take the initiative in any direction.
Don't be long, he said, with a wistfulness that sat strangely on his heavy features. "If she has really gone, I must know it. I must have the police search the town for her at once."
Howell and Lyon walked away leaving him standing in the doorway, looking after them in helpless impotence.
That complicates things, said Howell.
Lyon nodded.
If there is any connection between Lawrence and Mrs. Broughton--
There isn't, of the sort he thinks.
If there is any connection, it may supply the motive for the assault on Fullerton. I'm afraid we aren't going to get much help for our side from this interview, but I'd rather know the worst than be tied up in ignorance.
If Mrs. Broughton will talk!
Well, we shall soon see, said Howell, as he rang Miss Elliott's bell.
There was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement about the place that struck Lyon as soon as they were admitted to Miss Elliott's. There was a sound of voices, of shutting doors, that was like the buzz of an excited hive. The maid who took their cards for Mrs. Broughton looked startled and hesitating, but departed on her errand without remark.
She's gone all right, murmured Lyon to his companion.
In a moment Miss Elliott appeared, severe and formal and angular as ever, but with a nervous flutter in her voice that told its own story to Lyon's quick ear.
It is impossible for Mrs. Broughton to receive visitors, she said. "The maid brought your cards to me, but I am authorized to say that Mrs. Broughton cannot see anyone."
It is a matter of some importance,--a legal matter, said Howell.
Miss Elliott shook her head. "I am sorry,--it is impossible."
Do you mean that she has not yet returned? asked Lyon, gently.
Miss Elliott turned to him with a start. "Do you mean that you have seen her? Oh, where was she? When was it? Why did she go?"
I have not seen her. I heard that she had been able to go out, and so hoped that she might be strong enough to grant us an interview. She had asked me to call in regard to a certain matter in which she was interested. Do I understand she is out this afternoon?
Miss Elliott threw out her hands with a gesture of despair. "I do not know where she is,--where she went or when. She has simply gone without a word. And she was hardly able to walk across the room alone. I am wild about it. Where could she have gone? And why should she go secretly? I think she must have wandered off in a delirium. And I dare not start an inquiry, for she may return at any moment, and she was so anxious to have nothing said about her visit here. But she has been so ill. With every moment that passes I feel more alarmed and more helpless."
When did she go? asked Lyon. "You may count on us to help you in any possible way, Miss Elliott. Give us all the information that you can about her departure."
I went out myself this afternoon at two o'clock. The maid says that a man called to see Mrs. Broughton about half an hour later. He sent a note to her, but no card. She asked to have him come to her private sitting room, and he was there perhaps fifteen minutes. Then he left. When I came home, at four o'clock, I went at once to her room, and found it empty. She has not left her room before since she came,--she has been too ill. She is not in the house. I have myself gone all through it. She must have dressed and gone out sometime during the afternoon, when no one happened to be in the hall. But I cannot understand it. And I don't know what to do.
Do nothing at present, madam. And say nothing to anyone about it. I will have a search instituted quietly, so that if she should not return of her own accord, we shall soon know, at any rate, where she is, said Howell. "Can you give us any information about the man who called?"
None.
No one saw him?
No one but the maid, and she is not observing. I have questioned her. She could give no description of him.
Well, we must do the best we can without it. I shall take pleasure in letting you know as soon as we have anything to report, said Howell, rising to depart.
Lyon had left his hat and gloves on the hat-rack in the hall. As he took up his gloves, he felt something crinkle inside one of them, and he knew instantly that Kittie had sent him a message.
That girl is a born intriguante, he laughed to himself, with a sudden thrill that was curiously tender, for all his amusement. As soon as they were outside he unfolded the little note.
The man who came to see her was small and thin, and wore an old dark blue coat. He had a bald spot on the top of his head, and a wart on his nose. He walks on tiptoe. I hate a man who walks on tiptoe. She went away in a hurry, for she didn't take her comb or brush or anything. Oh, I'm just wild to know what is happening. Is it anything mysterious?
Lyon read the note to Howell.
That man was Bede, he said, seriously.
No question about that. Now, why did she go? Because Bede persuaded her to hide, or because he frightened her into hiding on her own account? And is Bede going to produce her or isn't he? I never ran up against so many blind alleys in one case in my life. There were apparently just three people who knew what happened that night,--Fullerton, Lawrence, and Mrs. Broughton. Fullerton is dead, Mrs. Broughton is lost, and Lawrence will not talk. I wonder if this will unseal his tongue. I think I shall have to see him at once.
We'll have to report to Broughton first. That poor man is on my mind.
Very well, we'll go there first. My chief anxiety regarding him is that he'll give the whole thing away to the police. He is too accustomed to having his own way about things.
They walked around the block to Broughton's home, and found him waiting for them. He fairly went wild when he heard their report. He was for telephoning the police, printing posters, sending a town crier around to make proclamation,--anything and everything, and all at once. His wife was lost, and the resources of the universe must be requisitioned to get her back.
Go slow, said Lyon. "Mrs. Broughton is not a child. She hasn't been kidnapped and she isn't lost. She is hiding somewhere. She had money and she is accustomed to traveling. I think you may feel reasonably sure that she is safe. Speaking for Lawrence, we are anxious to find her, but speaking for her, it may be just as well that she should not be found until after the grand jury has adjourned."
What do you mean? demanded Broughton, fiercely.
She knows more about the Fullerton murder than it would be agreeable for her to tell in court.
You are mad, gasped Broughton.
Why does she disappear, as soon as she knows that Bede has connected her with the affairs of that night?
Broughton walked the floor. Then he stopped abruptly before Howell.
I wish that you would call up the county jail and find out if she has been there to see Lawrence. You can find out hypothetically, without giving names, you know.
That isn't a bad idea, said Howell. He went to the telephone and inquired whether anyone had been admitted to see Lawrence that afternoon. The answer, when he repeated it to the others, seemed significant.
A woman tried to see him a little after five, but when she found that she would have to give her name and submit to search, she went away without disclosing her identity. She wore a heavy veil, a short sealskin coat, and a dark dress. General appearance of a lady.
Broughton dropped his eyes to the floor and a look of sullen anger displaced the anxiety that had racked his features.
I shall have an account to settle with Mr. Lawrence when he is out of jail, he muttered, savagely.
In the meantime, our efforts are all directed to getting him out, said Howell. "And since I cannot use Mrs. Broughton as a witness, I am as well content that she is out of Bede's reach, also. I will go down to see Lawrence at once, and if I can get any information from him that will interest you in this connection, I shall let you know. I think that is all that we can do to-night."
I'd like to go with you, when you visit Lawrence, said Lyon, quietly.
Howell considered a moment, and then nodded. Perhaps he thought that another influence might be more successful than his own in unlocking the confidence of his client.
Lawrence tossed aside the book which he had been reading, and rose to greet them with all of his old light-hearted self-possession.
Delighted to see you! I've been reading Persian love-poems till my brains are whirling around like the song of a tipsy bulbul, so I am particularly in need of some intelligent conversation. Howell, you look as glum as though you were attorney for a wretched fellow who had no chance of escaping the gallows. I'm glad you have Lyon associated with you. I've more faith in his abilities than in yours. And he shot a dancing glance at Lyon which was not wholly mockery.
My abilities are at least equal to the facts that have been given them to work up, said Howell, drily. "I came to ask you what you can tell me about Mrs. Broughton's visit to Waynscott."
Lawrence's eyes widened with surprise. "Mrs. Broughton! What in the name of wonder are you bringing her name in for?"
She visited your office that day.
Yes.
What for?
Lawrence shook his head. "It was a professional visit. I can't discuss the matter."
I rather expected you to say that. But the matter comes up in this way. Lyon, here, has identified Mrs. Broughton with the woman who was seen with Fullerton that evening. He may be wrong, of course. But if he is right, it may be helpful to know what she wanted, first from you and then from him.
Lawrence did not look at Lyon this time. His eyes, swept clear of all expression, were fixed upon Howell in calm attention.
Why not ask her? he said.
She has been ill,--too ill to be disturbed. Dr. Barry has insisted. This afternoon she disappeared. Bede had been to see her a short time before. Now, what bearing, so far as you know, does this have upon the case?
Lawrence dropped his eyes, which had been fixed intently upon the speaker, and remained silent for some moments. Lyon, watching him, felt perfectly satisfied that the facts presented were all new to him, and that his mind was now trying to fit them into the theory of the crime which he had before entertained, and that his hesitation in answering was due to his caution. At last he said,
I cannot throw any light on the subject. I did not see Mrs. Broughton after she left my office in the morning.
Was her business of such a nature that she would have been likely to consult Fullerton about it?
Lawrence frowned. "She might have done so. Women never keep to the rules of the game."
You had warned her not to consult him personally?
Lawrence smiled satirically into Howell's eyes. "What are you trying to find out?"
Whether her business with Fullerton was of a nature to rouse her to desperation, if she failed.
Nonsense! Lawrence exclaimed. Then, more slowly and thoughtfully, "Out of the question. Mrs. Broughton is a shy and timid woman, and anything like desperation in her case would react upon herself, not on anyone else. You are clear off the track, Howell."
You admit, however, that she might have been made desperate?
I admit nothing whatsoever. If I knew anything I wouldn't admit it. Or I'll admit that I don't know anything, if that will pacify you.
Where would she be likely to go? You know her friends.
Lawrence shook his head. "If she was bent on hiding herself, she would not be likely to go to the likely places."
And with that Howell had to depart. As usual, his client had given him no information that would be of the slightest value in conducting the defense.
Lyon lingered when Howell had departed.
There is another matter I want to tell you about, he said. "I had an interview with Miss Wolcott yesterday."
The flash of Lawrence's eyes was electric. "Out with it, you tongue-tied wretch," he cried. "Lord, that such privileges should fall to a man who doesn't know better than to waste time in wordy preambles. Tell me every syllable she said, every look that she didn't put into syllables. To think that you have been sitting here for half an hour with all that treasure locked up inside of you! Confound you, why don't you begin? Begin at the beginning, and omit nothing."
Lyon began, and told all of his tale. Lawrence listened with an attentiveness that seemed to meet the words half way and drag them out into expression. He had forgotten himself entirely, and his anger at her distress, his rage at Fullerton, his amazed and awed wonder when he heard that shame over her girlish folly in writing her heart out to a man unworthy of it had made her deaf to all other wooing, were as plainly revealed as though he had put them into his most voluble English. At the end he dropped his face upon his folded arms on the table.
The poor child, he murmured to himself. "The poor child! As though that--or anything--would have made any difference!" Suddenly he wheeled upon Lyon, with dancing eyes. "Maybe you are thinking that this is an upper room in the county jail, and that I am a forlorn wretch with a good prospect of being hung! Never think it, my boy! There is nothing in all the universe so heaven-wide and free as this room. I know now how a man feels when his reprieve comes."
But your reprieve hasn't come yet, said Lyon quietly. "That is exactly the point. Do you see any way yet in which I can help it to come?"
Lawrence looked at him silently, smilingly, and shook his head.
Then it makes no difference in your attitude, pursued Lyon, "that Mrs. Broughton--and not anyone else--is shown to be the woman who was with Fullerton that evening?"
It makes no difference, said Lawrence, quietly.
Not even if she should prove to be the woman who ran across the street?
Is that your idea? exclaimed Lawrence, in frank surprise. "Oh, you are on the wrong track. It was not she."
But--if it was?
Lawrence walked back and forth thoughtfully. Then he stopped again before Lyon.
It would make no difference, he said. Then with a smile he placed his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Believe me, Lyon, I appreciate your interest and your earnestness, but--beware of letting it carry you too far. There are times, you know, when the best service a friend can render is simply to keep hands off. If you start in with an idea of proving things you may possibly--prove too much! There are matters that simply must not be brought into question." He shook Lyon in friendly roughness and let him go. When Lyon came out, the early night had already fallen and shadows lay heavy in the corners beyond the reach of the street lamps. Lyon glanced at the sky, and then, instead of going to Hemlock Avenue, he took his way to the Wellington.
Lyon's first intention had been to wait until the house was quiet that night before attempting to carry out his plan of burglarizing Fullerton's apartment, but after the developments of the afternoon he felt that it was unwise to risk even an hour's delay. Bede was too active to be allowed much headway. As he made his preparations, he could not help reflecting with amusement on the way in which fate was using him. Here was he, a newspaper man, bending every energy to keep this affair out of the papers; a law-abiding man, working to frustrate the efforts of the officers of the law; an averagely moral man, deliberately planning to commit technical burglary. If he should be caught in his efforts, he might find himself in jail beside Lawrence. And to be arrested for attempted burglary was somehow less dignified than to be arrested for murder! There are delicate shades in crime that appeal to the sensibilities of the artist. However, he was in for it, and though the situation might appeal to his philosophical nature as full of paradox, he had no intention of modifying his plans.
It was eight o'clock when he got into the room which he had taken in the Wellington. He had got his keys from Hunt and mentioned casually that he was going out later in the evening. It was a cloudy, moonless night, and though the street lamps spread a diffused light through the air everywhere, the rear of the Wellington was as much in the shadow as it was possible for any place in the city to be. A jutting angle of the wall, in which there were no windows, gave him further protection in his venture.
He fastened one end of his rope ladder securely on the inside ledge of his window, and then dropped it down. It reached just to Fullerton's window on the floor below. Cautiously Lyon went down the frail support. It was a windy night and the gusts that came around the corner tossed the free end of the ladder wildly, but his weight steadied it, and though he swayed dizzily for a few minutes, he soon swung down to a point where he could get a footing on the broad window ledge of Fullerton's room. He had come prepared to cut out a piece of glass opposite the window catch, but as he put his hand upon it he felt it yield, and to his surprise and very much to his relief he found that he could push the sash up. This not only would save time, but it would enable him to cover his trail more effectively. Curiosity made him pause, even in his hurry, to examine the catch, and he found that, through a shrinkage of the wood, the snap on the lower sash did not reach to lock into the upper. It looked locked, but it did not catch. It would be possible, therefore, for him to leave it still apparently locked from the inside when leaving.
He fastened the end of his ladder so that it would not blow out of his reach, and then pulled down the window and drew the curtains to exclude the light. Only then did he venture to strike a match and to turn on the nearest gas-jet. He remembered the general arrangement of the room very well from his former visit. Here was the large square writing table in the middle of the room, and there, to the right of it on the floor, was the rug Hunt had spoken of, where the letters lay. Lyon sat down before the table and studied the arrangement quietly. A man sitting here could toss the letters to the rug easily with a careless flip of his right hand, but a letter would not of itself fall from the table to the rug. Even if blown from the table by a strong gust from the open window,--an idea that he had had in his mind as a possibility,--it would not be apt to fall upon the rug. The direct line would carry it to one side. For the present he would eliminate the table.
Where else could the letters have been placed, so as to fall upon the rug? Assuming that Fullerton had written them the last evening he was in the room, and had either forgotten to leave them for mailing, or had laid them aside for some reason when his caller arrived, where would he have been apt to leave them? Lyon took his position on the rug and studied the various pieces of furniture which lay in unobstructed lines from that point. There was a small table against the wall, and on it a circular pipe tray with an array of pipes. Above it, fastened against the wall at a height which a man could reach only if standing, was a small Chinese cabinet, carved in the semblance of a dragon, and gleaming with scarlet and gold. Like the serpent-marked note paper, it bore witness to Fullerton's fantastic taste. It would be quite in keeping with his habits for him to use this as a repository for his letters. Lyon walked over to examine it. It opened readily at his touch. The inside of the cabinet was filled with tobacco-jars. He tried to lift it from the wall, but it was too securely fastened to make this easy. But the idea that this was and must be the place where Fullerton had deposited Miss Wolcott's letters had now taken possession of him, and stepping up on a chair he examined the cabinet closely on all sides. From that point he at once saw what he had not noticed before, that on one side, near the bottom, was a crack, and the white corner of an envelope was plainly visible. With the help of his penknife he pulled it out. It was addressed to Fullerton in a delicate hand. There was at least no more mystery as to how the letters had reached the rug. Evidently Fullerton had placed them, at some time, for some purpose, in this cabinet, and they had been shaken loose at the dramatically opportune moment when Hunt found them. Probably the jarring of the wall when the furniture in this upper apartment had been moved out had helped to dislodge them, or perhaps they occasionally slipped out even when Fullerton was there, without exciting suspicions of supernatural agency. The letters he wanted were probably inside.
He again examined the cabinet within and without, and though he could find no secret drawer, he saw, by the shallowness of the space within as compared with the depth on the outside, that there must be a drawer beneath the compartment where the tobacco jars reposed. Well, if needs must--He inserted the strongest blade of his knife and pried open the whole side,--not so difficult a task as one might have supposed, for the delicate wood of the cabinet had not been expected to resist the dry heat of a modern apartment house, and it was badly cracked at several points. As the side came loose in his hands, he saw that under the ostensible interior was a shallow drawer filled with packages of letters, longer documents, and note books. He gathered the whole mass together, and tied it hastily into a bundle in his silk neckerchief. Then, with a view to Bede's possible explorations, he carefully pressed the loose side back into place.
At that moment he heard through the silence the metallic rattle of the elevator. Someone was stopping at this floor. Hastily concluding that it was wiser to make his escape unseen, if possible, with the booty which he had already secured than to risk discovery by lingering on the chance of finding more, Lyon softly turned out the gas, and made his escape by the window, carrying his knotted kerchief like an emigrant's bundle in his hand. He pulled the window down behind him and climbed up his ladder to his own room. As he leaned out to pull up his rope ladder, a sudden gleam of light shot out into the night from the window below. Bede was in Fullerton's room.
Lyon's heart was jumping, partly from the unusual physical exertion, partly from the excitement. He stood still for a moment, considering whether he should examine his find here and now, or try to make his escape from the building with it before he opened the bundle. He had suddenly a panicky feeling that Bede might appear at any moment and demand his papers. Had he really covered his tracks, or had he left some perfectly obvious clue for the detective to follow? His rope ladder lay in a heap at his feet. He rolled it up and poked it into the bottom of his bag, and then, taking courage, he opened up his bundle. The first thing that fell out was a good-sized package, neatly wrapped and sealed, and superscribed,
"This package is to be delivered to Edith Wolcott's husband on his wedding day, with the compliments and congratulations of Warren Fullerton.""
"Lyon smiled grimly as he slipped the package into his pocket. There was little doubt as to the contents of the sealed packet, and with the recovery of those unhappy love-letters, his immediate object had been most perfectly accomplished. He glanced at his watch. It was not yet nine. He might be so fortunate as to be admitted yet, and to save her even one night of the oppression which he had witnessed would be worth much. He hastily packed the balance of his trophy into his bag without examining it, and made his way out of the apartment and out of the building. Taking the staircase instead of the elevator, he felt reasonably sure that his departure had been unobserved, and so indeed it proved.
When he reached Hemlock Avenue the lights were still burning in Miss Wolcott's house, and it was Miss Wolcott herself who, after a little delay, opened the door in answer to his ring. It struck him that she looked less mistress of herself than usual. She had a startled, not to say nervous, air.
I hoped It might be you, she said. "Come to the library." And she led the way into the room where a dancing fire blazed upon the hearth.
I only stopped for a moment, to bring you this package, said Lyon. "If you wouldn't mind, I wish that you would open it, so that you can tell me whether or not it contains the letters you spoke of the other evening."
She took the package from him with a startled look but without a word,--a characteristic of hers which he was coming to understand. He turned away and picked up a book on the table, to withdraw his presence from her as much as possible, as she tore open the wrappings. Then he heard her give a gasping sigh, and he turned quickly toward her. She had sunk into the chair before the fire, and with her hands before her face she was sobbing with a childish abandon that was so poignant It brought a catch into Lyon's throat, even though he saw that her tears were tears of relief and joy. Scattered on the floor at her feet, where they had slipped from her trembling fingers, were dozens of little letters,--the dainty little notes of a young girl's inscribing. Like the fallen petals of blossoms that had been torn down by a harsh wind, they lay In pathetic disorder, witnessing to a beauty that had been and was no more. Lyon reached for his hat and moved silently to the door, but at his movement she rose, crushing back her tears with that self-control which had become second nature with her.
Oh, wait! she cried, breathlessly. "Don't go yet! Don't leave me alone--with them."
Lyon laughed. "Poor little letters! They look so forlorn. The power to hurt was never in them,--only in a man's wicked mind."
She drew a long, sobbing breath. "Still,--I don't want to touch them! Oh, I have so hated the thought of them all these years,--it seems as though all the world had been lying under the oppression of the fact that they were lurking in the dark, waiting a chance to spring out upon me. Would you mind--would you put them on the fire for me?"
Certainly, said Lyon, with perfect gravity. He knelt down by the fireplace and gathered the white handfuls up and laid them upon the coals. When the last little envelope had curled up into filmy ash, he rose. She was standing erect before the fire, with a vitality and radiance in every line of her figure that made her like a different being. "Truly, women are beyond all understanding," thought Lyon, as he waited for her next word.
Thank you, she said, and the simple phrase on her lips seemed like a p?an of thanksgiving. "Now,--one thing more. You know everything,--you are the only one who does. Will you tell Mr. Lawrence about these letters? He has always been a good friend, and--I should like to have him know!"
I am sure he will be glad to learn that you will be free from further annoyance and anxiety, he said, cheerfully. "But as for my telling him,--suppose instead, I arrange for you to see him yourself to-morrow. It could be done without any publicity, you know, and it would be a godsend to him to have a visit from you. You can't imagine how stupid it is to be in prison. A visit from anyone would be a welcome diversion!"
She looked thoughtful and abstracted.
To-morrow? she hesitated. "I don't know. I may not be at home to-morrow."
Well,--the day after, if you must postpone it.
I'll send you word, she said, after a moment. He thought a shadow had crossed her face, but it might only have been a shadow of thought. When he again reached for his hat, she put out both hands impulsively.
However things turn out,--other things, she said, somewhat incoherently, "I shall never, never forget what you have done for me. You have given me back myself."
Lyon smiled to himself as he left her. How long would she keep possession of that gift, if Lawrence were only free?
The radiance of Miss Wolcott's face was still lingering in Lyon's mind and diffusing a glow over his imagination when he crossed the few steps that separated her house from Broughton's. Broughton opened the door for him, as he had formed the habit of doing. The anguished and despairing inquiry in his eyes pulled Lyon up sharply. He had come from the morning to night, from the hope of youth to the sorrow of age, from those whose story was to end happily to those who knew in their own hearts the tragedy of life.
You have nothing to tell me? Broughton asked, though his tone showed he expected nothing.
Lyon shook his head, "No. You have heard nothing?"
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
From habit he led Lyon into the dining room, where they had always sat to smoke before retiring, but the room showed no preparations for an evening of good cheer. It was as blank and forlorn as Broughton's face.
Where can she be? he demanded, stopping in his restless walk to face Lyon imperiously. "Ill as she was, with God knows what trouble on her mind and conscience, where can she have gone? Did she feel that it was impossible to live? Did she go to her death,--or to hide and wait for him?"
If you mean Lawrence, that's all nonsense, said Lyon, calmly. "I may tell you now--there were reasons why I couldn't before--that Lawrence is deeply in love with Miss Wolcott, who lives next door, and she returns his sentiment. I am satisfied that their formal engagement will be announced as soon as he is cleared of this accusation."
What of that? said Broughton dully. "He may be playing with a dozen women for all I know."
He isn't that sort.
He is the sort that keeps up a secret correspondence with another man's wife, and lures her from her home and her husband. That I know, and knowing that I can't believe very much good of him in other ways. He knows where my wife is now.
I don't believe it.
Well, he will know before I do, said Broughton, sullenly. "She has fled because she was connected with that affair in some way. It is even possible that she discovered I was watching. And if she hasn't destroyed herself, she has gone where she can wait for him."
Lyon felt helpless. The unreason of jealousy comes so near to insanity that argument and common sense are helpless before it. It can only be mastered by authority or by an appeal to the emotions, and Lyon did not feel himself in position to offer either to a man of Woods Broughton's age and personal force.
Well, good night, he said lamely. "I'm going to bed."
Go, said Broughton. "There is no reason why you should not sleep. I shall not sleep until I know where she is. Good God, this very minute she may be a helpless prisoner in some terrible den of infamy. She may be suffering,--though she cannot suffer as I do."
Lyon got away from him and went up to the little back bedroom which had come to seem so homelike in the short week he had been there. Kittie's curtains were both down--of course. Her faithfulness to their code even to this disastrous end struck him as pathetic.
Dear little girl, he murmured, and blew a kiss across the night to her. One can venture so much more in the night than in the unsympathetic blaze of common day.
How much farther he might have gone on his excursion into sentiment can only be guessed, for just then his eye was caught and his mind diverted by something which, in a moment, took on more than a momentary importance. It was nothing more portentous than a lighted window in Miss Wolcott's home. The curious thing about it was that he had never seen a light in that second-story window before. Every evening when he had looked for Kittie's signal. Miss Wolcott's house had presented a perfectly blank and unobservant side to his view. Now some one was occupying a room which corresponded with his own room in this neighboring house. While his eye lingered on the light in idle speculation, he saw and distinctly recognized Miss Wolcott as she passed between the window and the light in the room. The sight was not in itself startling and yet he started and metaphorically rubbed his eyes. Miss Wolcott wore a hat. Instinctively he looked at his watch. It lacked a few minutes of eleven. Eleven o'clock in Waynscott was an hour when respectable householders went to bed, unless they went on a journey. Was it possible that Miss Wolcott was going out, alone and unattended, at this hour? He had the greatest confidence in the innocence of her intentions, whatever they were, but the story which she had told had not given him the same prejudice in favor of her discretion. What foolish plan might she have in her mind now? Why had she said nothing of her intention when he left her an hour ago? Distinctly worried, he reached for the overcoat and hat which he had thrown down on a chair in his room, and then went back to the window. If she was really bent on a midnight errand, he would escort her, whether she liked it or not. He would quietly watch for the moment of her departure, and then join her at her own front door.
But while he waited, another head crossed the lighted field of the window,--not Miss Wolcott's. She was not going alone, then, for this woman also wore a hat, and about her neck was the graceful line of an upturned fur collar. He did not know Miss Wolcott's friends,--he knew, indeed, very few women in Waynscott,--and yet something teasingly familiar about the lift of the head, the turn of the neck, puzzled him. Did he know her?
And then suddenly, the solution of it all flashed upon him. That delicately turned head belonged to Mrs. Broughton. Dolt, idiot, that he was, not to have reasoned it out before!
Mrs. Broughton, fleeing from Miss Elliott's by way of the secret panel in the fence, had taken shelter at Miss Wolcott's. What more natural? What more simple? And now, under cover of the night, she was preparing to continue her flight. In a flash, without waiting for logical processes, Lyon saw what he must do.
He hurled himself downstairs three steps at a time and out of the front hall. As he had expected, a carriage was waiting before Miss Wolcott's door. He went up to the driver, ostentatiously looking at his watch.
When does the train leave? he asked.
Eleven forty-five, the man answered.
Oh, then there is time enough, he said easily, and ran back to the house.
Broughton, who had been startled by Lyon's noisy run through the hall, was awaiting him at the front door.
What's up? he asked.
Lyon realized that the moment had come for the autocratic dominance of the sane mind. He put his hand impressively on Broughton's shoulder and faced him sternly, imperiously.
Mr. Broughton, if I could put you at this moment face to face with your wife, what would be your attitude toward her?
What do you mean? gasped Broughton, too bewildered by this new manner to really grasp Lyon's words.
Would you meet her with accusation, doubt, and coldness? Or will you hide that unworthy side of your thought and let her see the love that you really feel?
Broughton's face darkened.
If she can satisfy my doubts--
She must never know them! And this for your sake more than hers. Think, man. How will you go through the years that lie before you if you must spend them with the constant knowledge that you once failed her, that she knows it, and that she can nevermore be proud of you or sure of you? You will have made it necessary for her to forgive you. Can you stand the humiliation of that knowledge?
She to forgive me? stammered Broughton. "For what?"
For doubting her. You should have believed in her against every appearance. If you want to hold your head up before her, never let her know what traitorous doubts you have harbored.
How do you know that they are traitorous? asked Broughton, struggling for a grip on his past passions.
Because--now listen and understand exactly what this means,--because your wife, when she fled from Miss Elliott's, took refuge with Miss Wolcott, who is Lawrence's fiancée. Can you believe for the thousandth part of an instant that she would have gone to that girl if there was anything between her and Lawrence? It is unthinkable. Now hold that one fact firmly,--do not forget it for a moment,--and come with me to your wife.
He crushed Broughton's hat upon the bewildered man's head and dragged him out and across the dividing yards to Miss Wolcott's door. The whole episode had only taken a few moments, but he breathed more freely when he had actually got Broughton to the steps of the other house before the women came out. There was no time to spare, however. The doorknob turned softly. The door opened noiselessly and the two women stood there, cloaked and veiled, ready to set forth. Instead, Lyon drew Broughton inside, as though the door had been opened for the purpose of admitting them.
I must beg that you give me a few moments, Miss Wolcott, Lyon began.
But the need of making any explanation was taken from him. The lady who at their first appearance had shrunk back of Miss Wolcott, suddenly gave a little inarticulate cry and threw herself upon Broughton's breast.
Woods! Oh, Woods! Where did you come from? she cried and burst into tears.
Lyon held his breath in suspense, but it is not in masculine nature to thrust away a beautiful sobbing woman. Broughton's arms lifted to enclose her, and his voice murmured, not ungently: "There, there, Grace! Control yourself!"
Lyon turned to Miss Wolcott, trying to leave the reunited husband and wife in as much privacy as the situation admitted.
What was your plan? Where were you going? he asked, urgently.
She had thrown back her veil, and her face was pale, but resolute.
We were trying to escape, she said.
From whom?
That terrible detective. He had found Mrs. Broughton. He went to see her yesterday and told her-- She stopped abruptly, and a shudder shook her visibly.
What did he tell her? In charity, let me know.
"He told her she would have to appear as a witness at the trial and give testimony against me. Against you!"" The room reeled before Lyon's eyes, but he pulled himself together. ""Let me dismiss your carriage and then you must tell me what you mean. It was wild of you to try to run away. In the first place, you would not be able to take any train without being stopped. The police know of Mrs. Broughton's disappearance and are watching all outgoing trains, of course. Besides,--but let us dispose of the carriage, first.""
"He went to' the door and dismissed the coachman. As he came back, he saw that Broughton had disengaged his wife's arms and was facing her with that jealous sternness in his eyes that Lyon had dreaded.
But to leave my home secretly, at the urging of--of--of anyone, was not what I have a right to expect of my wife. I have reason to demand an explanation.
The tears were still sparkling on Mrs. Broughton's lashes, but she looked up at him with a steady glance.
I am not your wife, she said quietly.
THE surprising statement made by Mrs. Broughton was in fact so surprising that it was difficult for her hearers to grasp at once what was involved in it.
What do you mean? asked Broughton. But already the sternness of the righteous judge began to drain away from his face, leaving instead the uneasiness of the lover who has no ground on which to make a claim of rights. "You say--what do you mean?"
That she meant something was very clear, and Lyon, glancing swiftly at Miss Wolcott, saw that to her, at least, the meaning was quite plain. She was troubled, anxious, but not surprised. Indeed, it was she who now took the situation in hand.
If you will come into the library, we can talk without arousing my grandfather, she said, in guarded tones. "If he hears voices he will come down, and then--"
It was unnecessary to complete the sentence. They followed her into the library, and she closed the great doors softly. Broughton was still looking dazed. Mrs. Broughton, who had not spoken since she made the startling declaration that she was not his wife, sank into a low chair. Her eyes were lowered and her hands were pressed hard together, but there was steadiness and self-control in her attitude. Lyon drew a little apart where he could observe them both.
Are you strong enough to tell them your story, or shall I? asked Edith Wolcott, quietly.
No, no, I must tell him. That at least is his right--and mine, Mrs. Broughton answered quickly. She freed herself from her wraps, and turned toward Woods Broughton. During all that followed she looked straight at him, talked to him. The others in the room did not seem to enter her consciousness. It was obvious that her one concern was to be understood by the man she loved.
When you first met me, she said, "you knew that though I was not living with my husband, there was no legal separation. He had been away from me so long that I did not think of him very often, and had long ceased to consider that I had any wifely obligations to him. But legally I was his wife."
You got a divorce before we were married, said Broughton, staring at her.
She went on with her story as though he had not spoken.
The only ground on which I could obtain a divorce under the laws of this state was that of desertion. Do you understand? I could make no other charge against him. Unless I could secure a separation on that ground, I could not get one at all. I could not marry again.
Yes, but he had been away twelve years. That surely was sufficient.
He had been away twelve years, but--he did not wish to give me an opportunity to get my freedom. So--he wrote to me from time to time.
He wrote to you! What of that?
It was enough to defeat the claim of desertion. He would always offer to provide a home for me if I would come and live with him. He did not expect me to consider it, or, I am sure, wish me to, but he took the attitude of willingness, so as to forestall any attempt I might make to set myself free. He made the same offer, ironically as I well knew, when he first went away. He renewed it whenever he wrote. I did not understand at the time what his object was. I thought it only a petty form of annoyance. But when I went to Arthur Lawrence to ask him to take up the matter of my divorce, I found out what William's purpose had been. His letters made it technically impossible for me to assert that he had deserted me.
Wait a moment. You say you went to Arthur Lawrence. It was Warren Fullerton who conducted your suit.
After Arthur had refused to take it. He told me that under the circumstances I could not sustain the charge of desertion without--without perjury. He tried to persuade me to follow some other course, and when I persisted he refused to act for me.
Broughton was leaning forward, following every word with absorbed attention. His eyes never left her face.
How did Lawrence know about these letters? he asked.
William always sent them under cover to Arthur. He wanted to make sure, not only that I received them, but that Arthur should know I received them, so that he could call upon him to testify to the fact if he should ever wish to. All this I have learned since. Then I only knew that Arthur saw a legal difficulty and refused to prepare the papers.
Was that his only reason for opposing your divorce? There was no--personal feeling?
Personal feeling? Why, no, how could there be? He would have been glad to help me. He always disliked William. But he foresaw trouble, and advised me earnestly to wait until some other plan could be considered. I would not, and went to Mr. Fullerton.
She shuddered involuntarily as she mentioned the name, but after only an instant's pause went on.
From what I had learned from Arthur about the law of the case, I determined to say nothing to him about the letters. I told him that William had left me twelve years before and never been heard from, and on that statement the divorce was granted without difficulty. Then you and I were married.
She paused, but they all felt that it was only to gather strength to go on, and no one spoke.
The first intimation I had that there was going to be trouble came a year ago last summer. Mr. Fullerton was in New York and he came to see me. He wanted money. I could not understand at first, but he soon made it unmistakably clear. He had found out about the letters, and he said that the divorce was therefore fraudulent and without effect, and my marriage void.
Her voice fluttered as though, in spite of her will, it was slipping away from her control. Broughton groaned.
Why didn't you tell me, Grace? Good heavens, that was a matter for a man to deal with.
I didn't dare. I was afraid to have you know, I was afraid of the scandal,--of your scorn,--of everything. I was simply terrified out of my senses. I couldn't think straight. I only wanted to keep it from ever coming out,--to hush it up and keep it unknown. So--I sold some jewels and paid him the money he wanted and he went away. But I was sick for a month,--do you remember?
If you had only told me!
But what could you have done? There would have been nothing possible but to put me away,--and the thought of that was worst of all. Or I thought so then.
Broughton stared. He was just beginning to see the far-reaching effects involved in the situation.
I hoped the matter was settled, Mrs. Broughton resumed, "but a few months later I received a letter from him, asking for more money. That was the beginning. They came after that every few months, and I lived in constant dread. He always wrote very politely, very guardedly, but I knew what he meant and I did not dare refuse him."
One moment. How had he learned about those letters? From Lawrence?
No. William had seen the newspaper reports and had written to him, giving him the facts. So Mr. Fullerton said, and I don't know how else he could have found out. Arthur would never have spoken of it. I got so desperate that finally I wrote to Arthur.
Ah!
He was the only one who knew the whole case. He knew about the letters, had known William, and had warned me that William would make trouble, and that I was going to build up unhappiness for myself. I wrote him what had happened. He urged me to tell you frankly the whole situation and to pay Fullerton nothing more. But I could not bring myself to the point of telling you. Perhaps I would if--if you had been as kind as you were at first, but I thought you were growing cold and distant, and--I could not speak. Then you went away on that sudden trip. I thought it would be a good chance to see Arthur and have a talk with him, and perhaps to appeal to Mr. Fullerton's mercy. So I came out here the moment you had gone. Were you surprised to find me gone when you returned?
Never mind that now, said Broughton. "Let me get your story straight first, and then I'll give you mine. When you came to Waynscott you went to Lawrence's office first, didn't you? That was Monday forenoon?"
Yes, she said, looking a little surprised at the form of his question. "I went there, and he was very positive that I must not see Mr. Fullerton. He said he would see him for me and 'settle' him, but I was afraid to let him meet him,--Arthur has a quick temper and he was very angry,--you can't think how angry. You know I have known Arthur Lawrence since a boy. He has really been the best friend a woman ever could have, and now-- Oh, I can't go on. It is so terrible."
But you must, Grace. It is very important. Tell me exactly what happened and where you went.
When I left Arthur I went to Miss Elliott's. I knew she would be glad to have me stay with her a few days, and that was all I intended, at that time. I had promised Arthur not to see Mr. Fullerton, but after I left him, it seemed to me that I simply had to have it out with him. I couldn't believe that it would be impossible for me to move him in a personal interview. I found out he lived at the Wellington and went there. He was not in, but the boy said he would be there in the evening, so I went again.
That was a mad thing to do.
I was mad. I could think of nothing but my own troubles. And I had so firmly persuaded myself that in a personal interview I could somehow move him to mercy that I took the chances without considering anything else.
It was perhaps an accident, but she glanced at Lyon. He had not moved. Intensely interested as he was in reaching certain points, he knew that to get the story they must let her tell it in her own way, without interruption.
I did find him. I had a terrible half hour with him. Oh, he was a man to fear. He was polite and smiling,--and hard as ice. He was not even sarcastic. He did not show any feeling. It was merely a question of money. He said it wasn't pleasant to get money from a woman in this way, but a woman's money was as good as a man's, and since I had money, and since I had put myself in a box where my whole life and reputation were at his mercy, it would be sheer foolishness on his part not to use his opportunity. Those were his very words. Oh, it was right to kill him,--it was right!
Grace! gasped Broughton, half rising. "You don't mean--Good heavens!"
I didn't kill him, she said, steadily. "But I want you to understand that--that whoever killed him was removing from the earth a cruel, wicked man. I saw I was making no impression on him and I left the Wellington. He was going out that evening, and he accompanied me for a block or two. I told him to leave me, and finally he did. I returned to Miss Elliott's,--"
Do you know at what hour? asked Lyon, quickly.
It was half past eight when I got into my room.
Lyon unconsciously sighed. That statement. If it accorded with the facts, would completely knock out the theory he had cherished so long, based on the assumption that the woman who had fled across the street at ten o'clock was Mrs. Broughton. There was something so convincing in her manner of telling the details of her story that it was very hard to believe she was not presenting the facts truthfully. Yet certainly it was a curious tangle that had mixed her movements on that evening so confusingly with those of Fullerton and of the other woman who had also been entangled with his murder.
The next morning, she resumed, "I saw the news of his--death in the papers. You cannot imagine my relief. It was as though a terrible weight had been lifted. I wanted to fly. I was wild with joy. Then, just as I was on the point of returning home, came the news of the arrest of Arthur Lawrence. It was a terrible blow. I felt that he had done it for me--because of what I had told him in the morning,--and that I was really guilty not only of Fullerton's death,--I don't think I should have minded that much,--but of Arthur's. My nerves collapsed under the shock and I could not be moved. Gradually, as I saw how little actual proof there was against him, some composure returned. Perhaps, after all, he might not be convicted. No one but myself knew how angry he had been with Mr. Fullerton that day. I was trying, oh, so hard, to get enough of my strength back to get away, to go somewhere, anywhere, when yesterday a man came to see me,--a Mr. Bede."
What did he come for?
What did he want?
Lyon and Broughton asked their questions simultaneously, as she paused in her speech.
Mrs. Broughton glanced irresolutely at Edith Wolcott. That self-controlled young woman had been sitting silent, with her chin in her palm, listening to Mrs. Broughton's story with sympathetic attention. It was obvious the story was already well known to her. Now she answered the men's questions.
Mr. Bede had discovered that Mrs. Broughton was at Fullerton's rooms that evening. It seems he had also discovered or guessed that I was there. He trapped her into admitting that she had seen me in the hall when she left the building with Fullerton. He told her that he would have to have her subp?naed as a witness, to tell about seeing me. He didn't know that we were old friends, or he would not have said that, perhaps. As soon as he left she came to me, secretly, and told me the whole thing. We decided that the best thing would be to get away from Waynscott, away from the country, until this thing was settled. Now that you have spoiled our plan, what are you going to do with us instead? The responsibility is with you, now!
I will take the responsibility of caring for my wife, Broughton said, in a ringing voice. He rose and shook himself, as if throwing off some intolerable burden. "Oh, Grace, Grace, if you had only told me the whole in the beginning! But I will not blame you now. You have had a terrible time. Now I will try to make it all up to you. We will do anything you like,--go anywhere you like,--"
You forget, she said, quietly, "I cannot go back to you at all. I am not your wife."
She put her hands up and pressed her fingers hard against her closed eyes.
All the trouble has come from that,--all the trouble for me first, and now for you, and for poor Arthur in prison and for Edith here. I tried to take what I had no right to and I lied to get it. Oh, do you think I could have laid my whole heart bare to you as I have done tonight if I were not through with all that false claim? I have told you everything as though I were on my deathbed, because I can never see you again. Somewhere in the world, watching his chance to strike, William Vanderburg is waiting. I will never go back to him,--never, so help me God,--but while he lives, I will never dare to take any happiness that may offer. He is biding his time. Oh, I did wrong, but I have paid for it. I am paying now, and will pay over and over every year that I live.
Dear Mrs. Broughton, said Lyon, gently, "I can at least relieve you of that uncertainty. William Vanderburg is dead. I was with him when he died."
She stared at him for a moment as though she had not understood his words. Then, with a sighing breath, she sank back in a dead faint. This astonishing statement, following the long strain of her confession, was too much for her nerves.