A Husband by Proxy Part 33

"No reporters can be seen. If the fact leaks out that you are here, through anyone connected with the house, you must move at once, and change your name, letting no one but me know where you are."

She looked at him blankly. "Alone? Can't you help me, Jerold?"

"It is more important for me to hasten up country now than it was before," he answered. "I must work night and day to clear things up about the murder."

"But--if Foster should really be guilty?"

"He'll be obliged to take his medicine--otherwise suspicion might possibly rest upon you."

"Good Heavens!"

She was very pale.

"This story in the _Star_ has precipitated everything," he added.

"Already it contains a hint that you and your 'husband' are the ones who benefit most by the possible murder of John Hardy."

She sank on a chair and looked at him helplessly.

"I suppose you'll have to go--but I don't know what I shall do without you. How long do you think you'll be away?"

"It is quite impossible to say. I shall return as soon as circ.u.mstances permit. I'll write whenever I can."

"I shall need some things from the house," she said. "I have absolutely nothing here."

"Buy what you need, and remain indoors as much as you can," he instructed. "Reporters will be sure to haunt the house in Ninety-third Street, hoping to see us return."

"It's horrible!" said Dorothy. "It almost makes me wish I had never heard of any will!"

Garrison looked at her with frank adoration in his eyes.

"Whatever the outcome, I shall always be glad," he said--"glad of the day you needed--needed a.s.sistance--glad of the chance it has given me to prove my--prove my--friendship."

"I'll try to be worthy of your courage," she answered, returning his look with an answering glance in which the love-light could only at best be a trifle modified. "But--I don't see how it will end."

"About this marriage certificate----" he started, when the door-bell rang interruptingly.

In fear of being overheard by the landlady, already attending a caller, Garrison halted, to wait. A moment later the door was opened by the lady of the house herself, and a freshly-groomed, smooth-shaven young man was ushered in. The room was the only one in the house for this semi-public use.

"Excuse me," said the landlady sweetly. "Someone to see Miss Ellis."

The visitor bowed very slightly to Dorothy and Garrison, and stood somewhat awkwardly near the door, with his hat in his hand. The landlady, having made her excuses for such an intrusion, disappeared to summon Miss Ellis.

Garrison was annoyed. There was nothing to do but to stand there in embarra.s.sing silence. Then Miss Ellis came shyly in at the door, dressed so becomingly that it seemed not at all unlikely she had hoped for the evening's visitor.

"Oh, Mr. Hunter, this is a very pleasant surprise!" she said. "Allow me to introduce my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax." She added to Garrison and Dorothy, "This is Mr. Hunter, of the New York _Star_."

Prepared to bow and let it go at that, Garrison started, ever so slightly, on learning the visitor's connection. Mr. Hunter, on his part, meeting strangers unexpectedly, appeared to be diffident and quite conventional, but p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, which were strung to catch the lightest whisper of news, at the mention of the Fairfax name.

"Not the Fairfax of the Hardy case?" he said, for the moment intent on nothing so moving as a possible service to his paper. "Of course you've seen----"

Garrison sat down on the copy of the _Star_ which Dorothy had left in a chair. He deftly tucked it up beneath his coat.

"No, oh, no, certainly not," he said, and pulling out his watch, he added to Dorothy, "I shall have to be going. Put on your hat and come out for a two-minute walk."

Then, to the others:

"Sorry to have to run off in this uncomplimentary fashion, but I trust we shall meet again."

Hunter felt by instinct that this was the man of all men whom he ought, in all duty, to see. He could not insist upon his calling in such a situation, however, and Garrison and Dorothy, bowing as they pa.s.sed, were presently out in the hall with the parlor door closed behind them.

In half a minute more they were out upon the street.

"You'll be obliged to find other apartments at once," he said. "You'd better not even go back to pay the bill. I'll send the woman a couple of dollars and write that you made up your mind to go along home, after all."

"But--I wanted to ask a lot of questions--of Miss Ellis," said Dorothy, thereby revealing the reason she had wished to come here before. "I thought perhaps----"

"Questions about me?" interrupted Garrison, smiling upon her in the light of a street-lamp they were pa.s.sing. "I can tell you far more about the subject than she could even guess--if we ever get the time."

Dorothy blushed as she tried to meet his gaze.

"Well--it wasn't that--exactly," she said. "I only thought--thought it might be interesting to know her."

"It's far more interesting to know where you will go," he answered.

"Let me look at this paper for a minute."

He pulled forth the _Star_, turned to the cla.s.sified ads, found the "Furnished Rooms," and cut out half a column with his knife.

"Let me go back where I was to-night," she suggested. "I am really too tired to hunt a place before to-morrow. I can slip upstairs and retire at once, and the first thing in the morning I can go to a place where Alice used to stay, with a very deaf woman who never remembers my name and always calls me Miss Root."

"Where is the place?" said Garrison, halting as Dorothy halted.

"In West Eighteenth Street." She gave him the number. "It will look so very queer if I leave like this," she added. "I'd rather not excite suspicion."

"All right," he replied, taking out a booklet and jotting down "Miss Root," and the address she had mentioned. "I'll write to you in the name the deaf woman remembers, or thinks she remembers, and no one need know who you are. If I hurry now I can catch the train that connects with the local on the Hartford division for Rockdale."

They turned and went back to the house.

"You don't know how long you'll be gone?" she said as they neared the steps. "You cannot tell in the least?"

"Long enough to do some good, I hope," he answered. "Meantime, don't see anybody. Don't answer any questions; and don't neglect to leave here early in the morning."

She was silent for a moment, and looked at him shyly.

"I shall feel a little bit lonely, I'm afraid," she confessed--"with none of my relatives, or friends. I hope you'll not be very long.

Good-by."

"Good-by," said Garrison, who could not trust himself to approach the subject she had broached; and with his mind reverting to the subject of his personal worry in the case, he added: "By the way, the loss of your wedding certificate can be readily repaired if you'll tell me the name of the preacher, or the justice of the peace----"

"I'd rather not--just at present," she interrupted, in immediate agitation. "Good-night--I'll have to go in."