A Husband by Proxy Part 45

"I'm with you!" said Durgin. "Got him, have you?--what's his name?"

He was innocent.

Garrison knew it, and instantly concluded that the young man before him could hardly have stolen the uncle's second will. But he had no time for ramifying inquiries. He pushed his visitor toward the elevator and only answered with more urging for speed.

He returned to the office, tearing off the wrapper from his picture as he went. He glanced at it once before he opened the door. It was Wicks--not so bald--not so aggressive of aspect, but Wicks beyond the shadow of a doubt. On the back was written "Hiram Cleave."

Wicks turned upon him as he entered.

"I can't wait here all day while you conduct your business in the hall," he said. "Who was the man outside?"

Garrison had grown singularly calm.

"That," he said, "was Foster Durgin."

"And you let him get away?" cried Wicks wrathfully. "Mr. Garrison----"

Garrison interrupted curtly.

"I took your advice and sent him to get the police. Good joke, isn't it, to have him summon the officers to arrest the man who murdered his uncle?"

Wicks had an intuition or a fear. He stared at Garrison wildly.

Garrison remained by the door.

"What do you mean to do?" demanded the visitor.

"Wait a few minutes and see," was Garrison's reply. "Meantime, here is a photograph of the man who threatened Hardy's life. And, by the way,"

he added, holding the picture with its face toward himself, in att.i.tude of carelessness, "I forgot to say before that a man was seen entering Hardy's room, in Hickwood, the night of the murder. He extracted two cigars from the box presented to Hardy by his niece, and in their place he deposited others, precisely like them, purchased at the same little store in Amsterdam Avenue where she obtained hers, and bought, moreover, within a very few minutes of her visit to the shop. All of which bears upon the case."

Wicks was eying him now with a menacing, furtive glance that shifted with extraordinary rapidity. He had paled a trifle about the mouth.

"Mr. Garrison," he said, "you are trifling with this matter. What do you mean?"

"Just what I said," answered Garrison. "The witness who saw the murderer leave his deadly cigars in that box should have arrived by now to identify the criminal. This photograph, as I said before, is a picture of the man I think guilty."

He advanced a step, with no intention of abandoning the door, and delivered the picture into his visitor's hand.

Wicks glanced down at it furtively. His face turned livid.

"So!" he cried. "You think you---- Get away from that door!"

He made a swift movement forward, but Garrison blocked his way.

"Not till your friends the policemen arrive!" he said. "It was your own suggestion, and good."

"You act like a crazy man!" Wicks declared with a sudden change of manner. "I'll have you discharged--you are discharged! The case is out of your hands. You----"

For the third time a knock was sounded on the door.

"Come in!" called Garrison, keeping his eyes on Wicks, whose face had turned from the red of rage to the white of sudden fear. "Come in--don't wait!"

It was Pike and young Will Barnes.

"That's the man!" said the youth on entering, his eyes transfixed by Wicks. "Look at him laugh!"

"I'd kill you all if I had a gun!" cried Wicks in an outburst of malignity. "I killed Hardy, yes! I said I'd get him, and I got him!

It's all I lived for, but, by Heaven! you'll never take me to jail alive!"

He caught up a chair, ran to the window, and beat out the gla.s.s with a blow. Garrison ran to s.n.a.t.c.h him back, but Wicks swung the chair and it broke on Garrison's head and he went down abruptly in a heap.

There were two sharp cries. Wicks made one as he leaped to his death from the sill.

The other came in a woman's utterance.

It was Dorothy, at the open door.

"Jerold!" she cried, and ran into the room and knelt where he lay on the floor.

He was merely stunned. He recovered as if by the power of stubbornness, with his mind strangely occupied by thoughts of Hardy's will--the hidden will--and the fingers stained with black. When he opened his eyes he was looking up in the sweetest, most anxious face in all the world.

"Help me up. Let me go before everyone comes," he said. "I believe I know where to find your uncle's will!"

It was already too late. Durgin and two policemen appeared at the open door.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

FOSTER DURGIN

Confusion reigned in the office presently, for more of the officers came upon the scene, and people from adjoining rooms helped to swell the numbers. Everyone was talking at once.

The form of Wicks, motionless and broken, lay far below the window, on the pavement of an air and light shaft, formed like a niche in the building. Garrison sent Dorothy to her lodgings, promising to visit her soon. There was nothing she could do in such a place, and he felt there was much she should be spared.

Pike, young Barnes, and Foster Durgin remained, the two former as witnesses of what had occurred, Durgin by Garrison's request. All others were presently closed out of the office, and the body of Wicks was removed.

The hour that followed, an hour of answering questions, making statements, proving who he was and what, was a time that Garrison disliked exceedingly, but it could not be escaped. Reporters had speedily gathered; the story would make a highly sensational sequel to the one already printed.

The guilt of Wicks had been confessed. Corroborative testimony being quite abundant, and every link in the chain complete, the affair left no possible suspicion resting upon either Scott or any of Hardy's relatives; and Garrison and Durgin refused to talk of Dorothy's marriage or anything concerning the will.

The story used before was, of course, reviewed at length. Despite the delays of the investigation immediately undertaken, Garrison managed at last to secure the freedom of Pike and Will Barnes, in addition to that of himself and Foster Durgin. As good as his word, he took the disciple of Walton to a first-cla.s.s dealer in sportsmen's articles and bought him a five-dollar rod. Barnes and the coroner of Branchville started somewhat late for their town.

The evening was fairly well advanced when at length young Durgin and Garrison found themselves enabled to escape officials, reporters, and the merely curious, to retire to a quiet restaurant for something to eat and a chat.

Durgin, as he sat there confronting his host, presented a picture to Garrison of virtues mixed with hurtful tendencies. A certain look of melancholy lingered about his eyes. His mouth was of the sensitive description. His gaze was steady, but a boyish expression of defiance somewhat marred an otherwise pleasant countenance.

He showed both the effects of early spoiling and the subsequent intolerance of altered conditions. On the whole, however, he seemed a manly young fellow in whom regeneration was more than merely promised.