A Husband by Proxy Part 32

By the time they came to the house near Washington Square, Dorothy was all but asleep from exhaustion. The strain, both physical and mental, to which she had been subjected during some time past, and more particularly during the past two days, told quickly now when at last she felt ready to place all dependence on Garrison and give up to much-needed rest.

The meeting of Miss Ellis and Dorothy was but slightly embarra.s.sing to Garrison, when it presently took place. Explaining to the woman of the house that his "wife" desired to stop all night in town, rather than go on to Long Island, while he himself must be absent from the city, he readily procured accommodations without exciting the least suspicion.

Garrison merely waited long enough to make Dorothy promise she would take a rest without delay, and then he went himself to a hotel restaurant, near by in Fifth Avenue, devoured a most substantial meal, and was five minutes late at his office.

Tuttle had not yet appeared. The hall before the door was deserted.

The sign on his gla.s.s had been finished.

Garrison went in. There were letters all over the floor, together with Dorothy's duplicate telegram, a number of cards, and some advertising circulars. One of the cards bore the name of one J. P. Wilder, and the legend, "Representing the New York _Evening Star_." There was nothing, however, in all the stuff that appeared to be important.

Garrison read the various letters hastily, till he came to one from the insurance company, his employers, requesting haste in the matter of the Hardy case, and reminding him that he had reported but once. This he filed away.

Aware at last that more than half an hour had gone, without a sign from his man, he was on the point of going to the door to look out in the hall when Tuttle's shadow fell upon the gla.s.s.

"I stayed away a little too long, I know," he said. "I was trying to get a line on old man Robinson, to see if he'd give anything away, but I guess he's got instructions from his son, who's gone away from town."

"Gone away from town?" repeated Garrison. "Where has he gone?"

"I don't know. The old man wouldn't say."

"You haven't seen Theodore?"

"No. He left about five this afternoon. The old man and his wife are stopping in Sixty-fifth Street, where they used to live some months ago."

"What did you report about me?"

"Nothing, except I hadn't seen you again," said Tuttle. "The old man leaves it all to his son. He didn't seem to care where you had gone."

Garrison pondered the matter carefully. He made almost nothing out of Theodore's departure from the scene. It might mean much or little.

That Theodore had something up his sleeve he entertained no doubt.

"It's important to find out where he has gone," he said. "See old Robinson again. Tell him you have vital information on a special point that Theodore instructed you to deliver to no one but himself, and the old man may tell you where you should go. I am going out of town to-night. Leave your address in case I wish to write."

"I'll do my best," said Tuttle, writing the address on a card. "Is there anything more?"

"Yes. You know who the two men were who knocked me down in Central Park and left a bomb in my pocket. Get around them in any way you can, ascertain what agreement they had with young Robinson, or what instructions, and find out why it was they did not rob me. Come here at least once a day, right along, whether you find me in or not."

Once more Tuttle stated he would do his best. He left, and Garrison, puzzling over Theodore's latest movement, presently locked up his office and departed from the building.

He was no more than out on the street than he came upon Theodore's tracks in a most unexpected direction. A newsboy came by, loudly calling out his wares. An _Evening Star_, beneath his arm, stared at Garrison with type fully three inches high with this announcement:

MYSTERY OF MURDER AND A WILL!!

_John Hardy May Have Been Slain! Beautiful Beneficiary Married Just in Time!_

Garrison bought the paper.

With excitement and chagrin in all his being he glanced through the story of himself and Dorothy--all that young Robinson could possibly know, or guess, dished up with all the sensational garnishments of which the New York yellow press is capable.

Sick and indignant with the knowledge that Dorothy must be apprised of this at once, and instructed to remain in hiding, to induce all about her to guard her from intrusion and to refuse to see all reporters who might pursue the story, he hastened at once towards Washington Square, and encountered his "wife," almost upon entering the house.

She was white with alarm.

He thought she had already seen the evening sheet.

"Jerold!" she said, "something terrible has happened. When I got up, half an hour ago to dress--my wedding certificate was gone!"

CHAPTER XXIV

A NEW ALARM

Without, for a moment, comprehending the drift of Dorothy's fears, Garrison led her to a parlor of the house, looking at her in a manner so fixed that she realized their troubles were not confined to the loss of her certificate.

"What do you think? What do you fear? There isn't anything else?" she said, as he still remained dumb for a moment. "What shall we do?"

"Theodore threatened that something might occur," he said. "He has evidently done his worst, all at once."

"Why--but I thought perhaps my certificate was stolen here," whispered Dorothy in agitation. "How could Theodore----"

"No one in this house could have known you had such a doc.u.ment about you," interrupted Garrison. "While you were drugged, or chloroformed, in the Robinsons' house, the old woman, doubtless, searched you thoroughly. You told me your certificate was sewed inside----"

"Inside--yes, inside," she interrupted. "I thought it was safe, for they put a blank paper in its place, and I might not have thought of anything wrong if I had not discovered a black thread used instead of the white silk I had been so careful to employ."

"There is ample proof that Theodore has utilized his wits to good advantage," he said. "Your marriage-certificate episode is only a part of what he has achieved. This paper contains all the story--suggesting that your uncle may have been murdered, and telling the conditions of the will."

He held up the paper before her startled eyes, and saw the look of alarm that came upon her.

"Printed--in the paper!" she exclaimed in astonishment and utter dismay. "Why, how could such a thing happen?"

She took the paper and scanned the story hurriedly, making exclamations as she read.

"Theodore--more of Theodore," said Garrison. "From his point of view, and with all his suspicions concerning our relationship, it is a master-stroke. It renders our position exceedingly difficult."

"But--how could he have found out all these things?" gasped Dorothy.

"How could he know?"

"He has guessed very shrewdly, and he has doubtless pumped your stepbrother of all that he happened to know."

"What shall we do?" she repeated hopelessly. "We can't prove anything--just now--and what will happen when the will comes up for probate?"

"I'll land him in prison, if he doesn't pull out of it now," said Garrison, angered as much by Theodore's diabolical cleverness as he was by this premature publicity given to the story. "He has carried it all with a mighty high hand, a.s.sured of our fear to take the business into court. He has stirred up a fight that I don't propose to lose!--a fight that has roused all the red-hot Crusader of my being!"

"But--what shall we do? All the newspaper people will be digging at the case and doing their best to hunt up everyone concerned!"