A Husband by Proxy Part 10

What was the web in which he was entangled?

To have Theodore come to the house in his long, concealing coat, straight from the maskers next door; to have him disappear, and then to have Dorothy bring forth these gems with such wholly unimaginable trust in his honesty, brought him face to face with a brand-new mystery from which he almost shrank. Reflections on thefts, wherein women were accomplices, could not be driven from his brain.

Here was Dorothy suddenly requiring a pseudo-husband--for what? Here was a party next door to the house--a party on which he had stumbled accidentally--where a richly dressed young woman chanced to greet him, with her jewels on her neck. Here was, apparently, a family disturbance, engendered by his marriage with old Robinson's niece. And now--here were the necklaces, worth, at the least estimation, the sum of thirty thousand dollars--delivered to himself!

He could not escape the thought of a "fence," in which he himself had possibly been impressed as a tool, by the cleverest intrigue. The entire att.i.tude of the Robinsons might, he realized, have been but a part of the game. He had witnessed Dorothy's acting. It gave him a vivid sense of her powers, some others of which might well lie concealed behind her appearance of innocence.

And yet, when he thought of the beautiful girl who had begged him not to desert her, he could not think her guilty of the things which this singular outcome might suggest. He was sure she could clear up the mystery, and set herself straight in his eyes.

Not a little disturbed as to what he should do with these precious baubles, sparkling and glinting in his hand, he knitted his brow in perplexity. He was due to leave New York at once, on orders from Wicks. No safe deposit vault was available at such an hour. He dared not leave the things behind in this room. There was no alternative, he must carry them along in his pocket.

Inasmuch as the problem could not possibly be solved at once, and in view of the fact that his mind, or his heart, refused to credit Dorothy with guilt, there was nothing to do but dismiss the subject, as far as possible, and make ready to depart.

He opened a drawer to procure the few things requisite for his trip.

On top of a number of linen garments lay a photograph--the picture of a sweetly pretty young woman. He took it up, gazed at it calmly, and presently shook his head.

He turned it over.

On the back was written: "With the love of my heart--Ailsa."

He had kissed this picture a thousand times, in rapture. It had once represented his total of earthly happiness, and then--when the notice of her marriage had come so baldly, through the mail--it had symbolized his depths of despair. Through all his hurt he had clung, not only to the picture, but also to some fond belief that Ailsa loved him still; that the words she had spoken and the things she had done, in the days of their courtship, had not been mere idle falsehoods.

To-night, for the first time since his dream had been shattered, the photograph left him cold and unfeeling. Something had happened, he hardly knew what--something he hardly dared confess to himself, with Dorothy only in his vision. The lifeless picture's day was gone at last.

He tossed it back in the drawer with a gesture of finality, drew forth a number of collars and ties, then went to a closet, opened the door and studied his two suit-cases thoughtfully. He knew not which to take. One was an ordinary, russet-leather case; the other was a thin-steel box, veneered with leather, but of special construction, on a plan which Garrison himself had invented. Indeed, the thing was a trap, ingeniously contrived when the Biddle robbery had baffled far older men than himself, and had then been solved by a trick.

On the whole, he decided he would take this case along. It had brought him luck on the former occasion, and the present was, perhaps, a criminal case. He lifted it out, blew off some dust, and laid it, open, on the bed.

To all appearances the thing was innocent enough. On the under side of the cover was a folding flap, fastened with a string and a b.u.t.ton.

Unremembered by Garrison, Ailsa's last letter still reposed in the pocket, its romance laid forever in the lavender of rapidly fading memories.

Not only was the case provided with a thin false bottom, concealing its mechanism, but between the cover and the body proper, on either side, were wing-like pieces of leather, to judge from their looks, that seemed to possess no function more important than the ordinary canvas strips not infrequently employed on a trunk to restrain the cover from falling far backward when opened. But encased in these wings were connections to powerful springs that, upon being set and suddenly released, would snap down the cover like the hammer of a gun and catch, as in the jaws of a trap, any meddling hands that might have been placed inside the case by a thief, at the same time ringing a bell. To set it was a matter of the utmost simplicity, while to spring it one had barely to go at the contents of the case and touch the trigger lightly.

The springs were left unset, as Garrison tossed in the trifles he should need. Then he changed his clothes, turned off the gas, and was presently out once more in the open of the street, walking to the Grand Central Station, near at hand.

The man who had followed all the way from Dorothy's residence not only was waiting, but remained on Garrison's trail.

At a quarter of ten Garrison ensconced himself in a train for Branchville. His "shadow" was there in the car. The run required fifty minutes. Hickwood, a very small village, was pa.s.sed by the cars without a stop. It was hardly two miles from the larger settlement.

The hour was late when Garrison arrived. He and his "shadow" alighted from the train and repaired to a small, one-story hotel near the railway depot, the only place the town afforded. They were presently a.s.signed to adjoining rooms.

Garrison opened his suit-case on the bureau, removed one or two articles, and left the receptacle open, with the cover propped against the mirror. Despite the lateness of the hour he then went out, to roam about the village. His fellow traveler watched only to see him out of the house, and then returned in haste.

In the town there was little to be seen. The houses extended far back from the railroad, on considerably elevated hills. There was one main thoroughfare only, and this was deserted. The dwellings were dark. No one seemed stirring in the place, though midnight had not yet struck.

Garrison was out for half an hour. When he returned his suit-case was closed. He thought nothing of a matter so trifling till he looked inside, and then he underwent a feeling as if it had been rifled. But nothing was gone, so far as he could see. Then he noticed the folding-pocket, for its fastening cord was undone. How well he remembered placing there the letter from Ailsa, months ago! A little surprised that he had so utterly forgotten its existence, he slipped his hand inside the place--and found it empty!

Even then he entertained no suspicions, for a moment. The letter, like the photograph, was no longer a valued possession. Yet he wondered where it could have gone. Vaguely uncertain, after all, as to whether he had left it here or not, his eye was suddenly caught by the slightest movement in the world, reflected in the mirror of the bureau.

The movement was up at the transom, above a door that led to the next adjoining room.

Instantly turning away, to allay any possible suspicion that he might be aware of the fact that someone was spying upon him, Garrison moved the suit-case to a chair, drew from his pocket a folded paper that might have appeared important--although merely a railroad folder--placed it carefully, as if to hide it, under various articles of apparel, set the springs of the vicious steel-trap, and, leaving the suitcase open as before, took a turn around the room.

All this business was merely for the benefit of the man whom he knew to be watching from over the door. Starting as if to undress, he paused, appeared to remember something left neglected, and hastened from his room, purposely leaving the door more than half-way ajar. Down the hall he strode, to the office, where he looked on the register and discovered the name of his neighbor--John Brown--an obvious alias.

He had hardly been thus engaged for two minutes when the faint, far-off sound of a ringing bell came distinctly to his ears.

"My alarm-clock's gone off," he said to the man at the desk, and he fled up the hall like a sprinter.

A clatter of sounds, as of someone struggling, had come before he reached his room. As he bounded in he beheld his suit-case, over at the window, jerking against the sash and sill as if possessed of evil spirits. No thief was visible. The fellow, with the trap upon his fingers, had already leaped to the ground.

Within a yard of his captured burglar Garrison beheld the suit-case drop, and his man had made good his escape.

He thrust his head outside the window, but the darkness was in favor of the thief, who was not to be seen.

Chagrined to think Mr. "Brown" had contrived to get loose, Garrison took up the case, carried it back to the bureau, and opened it up, by skillfully releasing the springs. Three small patches of finger-skin were left in the bite of its jaws--cards of the visitor left as announcements of his visit.

The room next door was not again occupied that night. The hotel saw no more of Mr. Brown.

CHAPTER VI

THE CORONER

Not in the least rea.s.sured, but considerably aroused in all his instincts by these further developments of a night already full of mysterious transactions, Garrison, after a futile watch for his neighbor, once more plunged into a study of the case in which he found himself involved.

Vaguely he remembered to have noticed that the man who had come here to Branchville with him on the train carried no baggage. He had no doubt the man had been close upon his trail for some considerable time; but why, and what he wanted, could not be so readily determined. Certain the man had extracted Ailsa's letter from the pocket of the case, yet half convinced that the thief had been searching for the necklaces intrusted to his care, Garrison was puzzled.

There seemed to be no possible connection between the two. He could not understand what a thief who would take the one would require of the other. Aside from his money, the gems were the only articles he possessed of the slightest value or significance. Half persuaded that the diamonds and pearls afforded the booty for which his visitor had searched, he was once more in doubt as to whether he had lost Ailsa's letter or not. He might find it still among his things, at his room in Forty-fourth Street.

He was fully convinced the man would return no more. Nevertheless, when he turned in at last, the jewels were under the pillow.

Branchville, in the morning, proved an attractive place of residence.

Half its male population went to New York as commuters. Its housewives then bustled about their gardens or their chicken-coops, at the rear of the houses, and a dozen old men gathered slowly at the post-office store to resume the task of doing nothing.

Garrison experienced no difficulty in searching out Mrs. Webber, the woman who had supplied certain details concerning the finding of the body of the man, John Hardy, whose death had occurred here the previous week.

The house, at the porch of which the body had been discovered, was empty. Mrs. Webber went with Garrison to the place, showed him exactly where the body had reclined, and left him alone at the scene.

He looked the details over carefully. The porch was low and roofed; its eaves projected a foot. If, as Garrison fancied, the stricken man might have come here in weakness, to lean against the post, and had then gone down, perhaps leaving heel-marks in the earth, all signs of any such action had been obliterated, despite the fact that no rains had fallen since the date of the man's demise. Garrison scrutinized the ground closely. A piece of broken crockery, a cork, the top of a can, an old cigar, and some bits of gla.s.s and wire lay beside the baseboard--the usual signs of neglect. The one man-made article in all the litter that attracted Garrison's attention was the old cigar. He took it up for a more minute examination.

It had never been lighted. It was broken, as if someone had stepped upon the larger end; but the label, a bright red band of paper, was still upon it. The wrapper had somewhat spread; but the pointed end had been bitten off, half an inch up on the taper.

Aware that the weed might have been thrown down by anyone save Hardy, Garrison nevertheless placed it in an envelope and tucked it away in his pocket. A visit to the local coroner presenting itself as the next most natural step, he proceeded at once to his office.

As a dealer in real estate, a notary public, and an official in several directions, the coroner was a busy man. He said so himself.

Garrison introduced himself candidly as a New York detective, duly licensed, at present representing a State insurance company, and stated the nature of his business.