A Husband by Proxy Part 36

Albany! There were thousands of lawyers and tens of thousands of men who would do as witnesses in Albany!

"But," insisted Garrison, "perhaps he told you where it was deposited or who had drawn it up, or you may know his lawyer in Albany.

"No. He just mentioned it, that's all," said Durgin. "The letter was most about ducks."

"This is too bad," Garrison declared. "Have you any idea in the world where the will may be?"

"No, I haven't."

"You found nothing of it, or anything to give you a hint, when you claimed the body for burial, and examined his possessions in Hickwood?"

"No."

"Where was Dorothy then?"

"I don't know. She's always looked after Foster more than me, he being the weak one and most in need."

Desperate for more information. Garrison probed in every conceivable direction, but elicited nothing further of importance, save that an old-time friend of Hardy's, one Israel Snow, a resident of Rockdale, might perhaps be enabled to a.s.sist him.

Taking leave of Durgin, who offered his hand and expressed a deep-lying hope that something could be done to clear all suspicion from his brother, Garrison returned to Rockdale.

The news of a will made recently, a will concerning which Dorothy knew nothing,--this was so utterly disconcerting that it quite overshadowed, for a time, the equally important factor in the case supplied by Durgin's tale concerning this unknown Hiram Cleave.

Where the clews pointed now it was utterly impossible to know. If the fact should transpire that Dorothy did, in fact, know something of the new will made by her uncle, or if Foster knew, and no such will should ever be produced, the aspect of the case would be dark indeed.

Not at all convinced that Theodore Robinson might not yet be found at the bottom of the mystery, Garrison wondered where the fellow had gone and what his departure might signify.

Israel Snow was out of town. He would not return till the morrow.

Garrison's third night was pa.s.sed in the little hotel, and no word had come from Dorothy. He had written four letters to the Eighteenth Street address. He was worried by her silence.

On the following day Mr. Snow returned. He proved to be a stooped old man, but he supplied a number of important facts.

In the first place he stated that Hiram Cleave had long since a.s.sumed another name which no one in Rockdale knew. No one was acquainted with his business or his whereabouts. The reason of the enmity between him and John Hardy went deep enough to satisfy the most exacting mind.

Cleave, Hardy, and Scott, the inventor, had been boys together, and, in young manhood, chums. Hardy had fallen in love with Scott's sister, while he was still a young, romantic man. Cleave, developing an utterly malicious and unscrupulous nature, had deceived his friend Hardy, tried to despoil Miss Scott's very life, thereby ultimately causing her death, and Hardy had intervened only in time to save her from utter shame and ruin.

Then, having discovered Cleave guilty of a forgery, he had spared no effort or expense till he landed the creature in prison out in Indiana.

Cleave had threatened his life at the time. He had long since been liberated. His malicious resentment had never been abated, and for the past two or three years, with Miss Scott a sad, sweet memory only, John Hardy had lived a lonely life, constantly moving to avoid his enemy.

A friend of another friend of a third friend of Snow's, who might have moved away, had once had a photograph of Cleave. Old Snow promised to procure it if possible and deliver it over to Garrison, who made eager offers to go and try to get it for himself, but without avail. He promised to wait for the picture, and returned at last to his hotel.

A telegram was waiting for him at the desk. He almost knew what he should find on reading it. The message read:

Please return at once. JERALDINE.

He paid off his bill, and posting a note to Israel Snow, giving an address, "Care of J. Garrison," in the New York building where he had his office, he caught the first train going down and arrived in Manhattan at three.

CHAPTER XXVII

LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

Delaying only long enough to deposit his suit-case at his lodgings, and neglecting the luncheon which he felt he could relish, Garrison posted off to Eighteenth Street with all possible haste.

The house he found at the number supplied by Dorothy was an old-time residence, with sky-sc.r.a.pers looming about it. A pale woman met him at the door.

"Miss Root--is Miss Root in, please?" he said. "I'd like to see her."

"There's no such person here," said the woman.

"She's gone--she's given up her apartment?" said Garrison, at a loss to know what this could mean. "She went to-day? Where is she now?"

"She's never been here," informed the landlady. "A number of letters came here, addressed in her name, and I took them in, as people often have mail sent like that when they expect to visit the city, but she sent around a messenger and got them this morning."

Thoroughly disconcerted by this intelligence, Garrison could only ask if the woman knew whence the messenger had come--the address to which he had taken the letters. The woman did not know.

There was nothing to do but to hasten to the house near Washington Square. Garrison lost no time in speeding down Fifth Avenue.

He came to the door just in time to meet Miss Ellis, dressed to go out.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Fairfax?" she said. "Mrs. Fairfax asked me to tell you, if you came before I went, that she'd meet you at your office. I felt so sorry when she was ill."

"I didn't know she'd been ill," said Garrison. "I was afraid of something like that when she failed to write."

"Oh, yes, she was ill in the morning, the very day after you left,"

imparted Miss Ellis.

"I know you'll excuse me," interrupted Garrison. "I'll hurry along, and hope to see you again."

He was off so abruptly that Miss Ellis was left there gasping on the steps.

Ten minutes later he was stepping from the elevator and striding down the office-building hall.

Dorothy was not yet in the corridor. He opened the office, beheld a number of notes and letters on the floor, and was taking them up when Dorothy came in, breathless, her eyes ablaze with excitement.

"Jerold!" she started. "Please lock the door and----" when she was interrupted by the entrance of a man.

Dorothy gave a little cry and fled behind the desk.

Garrison faced the intruder, a tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed man with a long mustache--a person with every mark of the gentleman upon him.

"Well, sir," said Garrison, in some indignation, "what can I do for you?"

"We'll wait a minute and see," said the stranger. "My name is Jerold Fairfax, and I came to claim my wife."