A Husband by Proxy Part 14

"Why, he never even _seen_ the man," replied Mrs. Wilson. "It seems Mr. Fairfax was mixin' up business with his honeymoon, and him and his bride was goin' off again, or was on their way, and she had a chance to run up and see her uncle for an hour, and none of us so much as got a look at Mr. Fairfax."

The mystery darkened rather than otherwise. There was nothing yet to establish whether or not a real Mr. Fairfax existed. It appeared to Garrison that Dorothy had purposely arranged the scheme of her alleged marriage and honeymoon in such a way that her uncle should not meet her husband.

He tried another query:

"Did Mr. Hardy say that he had never seen Mr. Fairfax?"

"Never laid eyes on the man in his life, but expected to meet him in a month."

Garrison thought of the nephew who had come to claim the body. His name had been given as Durgin. At the most, he could be no more than Dorothy's cousin, and not the one he had recently met at her house.

"I don't suppose you saw Mr. Durgin, the nephew of Mr. Hardy?" he inquired. "The man who claimed the body?"

"No, sir. I heard about Mr. Durgin, but I didn't see him."

Garrison once more changed the topic.

"Which was the room that Mr. Hardy occupied? Perhaps you'll let me see it."

"It ain't been swept or dusted recent," Mrs. Wilson informed him, rising to lead him from the room, "but you're welcome to see it, if you don't mind how it looks."

The apartment was a good-sized room, at the rear of the house. It was situated on a corner, with windows at the side and rear. Against the front part.i.tion an old-fashioned fireplace had been closed with a decorated cover. The neat bed, the hair-cloth chairs, and a table that stood on three of its four legs only, supplied the furnishings. The coroner had taken every sc.r.a.p he could find of the few things possessed by Mr. Hardy.

"Nice, cheerful room," commented Garrison. "Did he keep the windows closed and locked?"

"Oh, no! He was a wonderful hand to want the air," said the landlady.

"And he loved the view."

The view of the shed and hen-coops at the rear was duly exhibited.

Garrison did his best to formulate a theory to exonerate Dorothy from knowledge of the crime; but his mind had received a blow at these new disclosures, and nothing seemed to aid him in the least. He could only feel that some dark deed lay either at the door of the girl who had paid him to masquerade as her husband, or the half-crazed inventor down the street.

And the toils lay closer to Dorothy, he felt, than they did to Scott.

"You have been very helpful, I am sure," he said to Mrs. Wilson.

He bade her good-by and left the house, feeling thoroughly depressed in all his being.

CHAPTER IX

A SUMMONS

Once in the open air again, with the sunshine streaming upon him, Garrison felt a rebound in his thoughts. He started slowly up the road to Branchville, thinking of the murder as he went.

The major requisite, he was thoroughly aware, was motive. Men were never slain, except by lunatics, without a deeply grounded reason. It disturbed him greatly to realize that Dorothy might have possessed such a motive in the danger of losing an inheritance, depending upon her immediate marriage. He could not dismiss the thought that she had suddenly found herself in need of a husband, probably to satisfy conditions in her uncle's will; that she had paid Mr. Hardy a visit as a bride, but _without her husband_, and had since been obliged to come to himself and procure his professional services _as such husband_, presumably for a short time only.

She was cheating the Robinsons now through him.

Of this much there could be no denial. She was stubbornly withholding important information from himself as the masquerading husband. She was, therefore, capable of craft and scheming. The jewel mystery was equally suspicious and unexplainable.

And yet, when his memory flew to the hour in which he had met her for the very first time, his faith in her goodness and honesty swept upon him with a force that banished all doubt from his being. Every word she had uttered, every look from her eyes, had borne her sincerity in upon him indelibly.

This was his argument, brought to bear upon himself. He did not confess the element of love had entered the matter in the least.

And now, as he walked and began to try to show himself that she could not have done this awful crime, the uppermost thought that tortured his mind was a fear that she might have a _genuine_ husband.

He forced his thoughts back to the box of cigars, through the medium of which John Hardy's death had been accomplished. What a diabolically clever device it had been! What scheme could be more complete to place the deadly poison on the tongue of the helpless victim! The cigar is bitten--the stuff is in the mouth, and before its taste can manifest itself above the strong flavor of tobacco, the deadly work is done!

And who would think, in ordinary circ.u.mstances, of looking in a cigar for such a poison, and how could such a crime be traced?

The very diabolism of the device acquitted Dorothy, according to Garrison's judgment. He doubted if any clever woman, perhaps excepting the famous and infamous Lucrezia Borgia, could have fashioned a plan so utterly fiendish and cunning.

He began to reflect what the thing involved. In the first place, many smokers cut the end from every cigar, preliminary to lighting up to smoke. The person who had loaded this cigar must have known it was John Hardy's habit to bite his cigars in the old-fashioned manner. He hated this thought, for Dorothy would certainly be one to know of this habit in her uncle.

On the other hand, however, the task of placing the poison was one requiring nicety, for clumsy work would of course betray itself at the cigar-end thus prepared. To tamper with a well-made cigar like this required that one should deftly remove or unroll the wrapper, hollow out a cavity, stuff in the poison, and then rewrap the whole with almost the skill and art of a well-trained maker of cigars. To Garrison's way of thinking, this rendered the task impossible for such a girl as Dorothy.

He had felt from the first that any man of the inventive, mechanical attributes doubtless possessed by Scott could be guilty of working out this scheme.

Scott, too, possessed a motive. He wanted money. The victim was insured in his favor for a snug little fortune. And Scott had returned to Hardy's room, according to Mrs. Wilson, while Hardy was away, and could readily have opened the box, extracted one or two cigars, and prepared them for Hardy to smoke. He, too, would have known of Hardy's habit of biting the end from his weed.

There was still the third possibility that even before Dorothy's visit to her uncle the cigars could have been prepared. Anyone supplied with the knowledge that she had purchased the present, with intention to take it to her uncle, might readily have conceived and executed the plan and be doubly hidden from detection, since suspicion would fall upon Dorothy.

Aware of the great importance of once more examining the dead man's effects at the coroner's office, Garrison hastened his pace. It still lacked nearly an hour of noon when he re-entered Branchville. The office he sought was a long block away from his hotel; nevertheless, before he reached the door a hotel bell-boy discerned him, waved his arm, then abruptly disappeared inside the hostelry.

The coroner was emerging from his place of business up the street.

Garrison accosted him.

"Oh, Mr. Pike," he said, "I've returned, you see. I've nearly concluded my work on the Hardy case; but I'd like, as a matter of form, to look again through the few trifling articles in your custody."

"Why, certainly," said Mr. Pike. "Come right in. I've got to be away for fifteen minutes, but I guess I can trust you in the shop."

He grinned good-naturedly, opened the drawer, and hurriedly departed.

Garrison drew up a chair before the desk.

At the door the hotel-boy appeared abruptly.

"Telegram for you, Mr. Garrison," he said. "Been at the office about an hour, but n.o.body knew where you was."

Garrison took it and tore it open. It read:

"Return as soon as possible. Important.

"DOROTHY."

"Any answer?" inquired the boy.