The Black Eagle Mystery Part 35

"We were that way for a moment, so still you could hear the clock ticking, then, without a word or look at me, he turned and went out of the room.

"I was so paralyzed by the scene that for a s.p.a.ce I stood where he'd left me, squeezed into the angle behind the mantelpiece, stunned and senseless. Then the sound of his feet on the stairs called me back to life. He was going, he was running away. I did not know myself then who the men outside were and thought he could easily make his escape.

"I ran out into the hall, calling to the French woman. She came, out of a door somewhere in the back part of the house, and I have a queer impression of her face by the light of a bracket lamp, almost ludicrous in its expression of fright. As I ran up the stairs I screamed to her to come, to follow me, and heard her steps racing along the pa.s.sage and her panting exclamations of terror. At the stair head my ear caught the snap of a closing door and the click of a key turned in a lock. It came from the darkened end of the hall and as I ran down I cried to the woman, 'Get someone. Call. Get help.' Then and there she threw up a window and thrusting out her head screamed into the darkness, '_Au secours! Au secours!_'

"A man's voice, close under the window, answered her and she flew past me to another staircase beyond in the darkness down which I could hear her clattering rush. Then there were the sound of steps, and the breaking of wood, sharp tearing noises mixed with the shouts of men. It all came together, for as I stood outside that locked door, listening to the woman's cries and the smashing of the wood below, sharp as a flash came the report of a pistol from the closed room.

"That's all. I didn't see him again, I couldn't. The police inspector-they've all been very kind, have done everything for me they could-let me see the statement. When you've read that you'll know everything-it'll be the last chapter. I can't tell it to you-it's more than I can bear."

She glanced at me and then suddenly looked away for tears, quick and unexpected, welled into her eyes. She put up one hand, pressing it against her eyelids, while the other lay still on the table. I leaned forward and laid mine over it. As she sat speechless, struggling with her moment of weakness, I looked at the two hands-mine big and hard and brown, almost hid hers, closing round it, sheltering and guarding it, as my life, if G.o.d willed it, would close round and shelter and guard hers.

I am coming to the end of my part of the story and it's only up to me now to give the final explanation-furnished by Harland's statement-of the strangest crime that had ever come within the ken of the Whitney office.

We all read the statement that day and that night in our sitting-room at the Frontenac, O'Mally, Babbitts and I talked it over. A good deal had to be supplemented by our own inside information. For anyone who had not our fuller knowledge there would have been many broken links in the chain. But to us it read as a clear, consecutive sequence of events. One thing I drew from it-almost as if Harland had told me himself-its unconscious revelation of the development in him of sinister possibilities that had lain dormant during the struggle of his early years. In middle life, his world conquered, two master pa.s.sions, love of gain and love of a woman, had seized him, and swept him to his ruin.

I won't give it in his words, but in as plain and short a narrative as I can.

Harland had been the welcher in the Copper Pool and Barker had suspected him. This was the immediate cause of the murder. Back of that, the root from which the whole intricate crime grew, was his love of Carol Whitehall and determination to make her his wife.

Briefly outlined, his position with regard to her was as follows. His pa.s.sion for her had started with the inauguration of the land company, but while she was grateful and friendly, he soon saw that she was nothing more. So he kept his counsel, making no attempt by word or look to disturb the harmony of their relations. But while he maintained the pose of a business partner he studied her and saw that she was ambitious, large in her aims, and aspiring. This side of her character was the one he decided to lay siege to. If he could not win her heart, he would ama.s.s a fortune and tempt her with its vast possibilities. His membership in the Copper Pool gave him the opportunity, and he saw himself able to lay millions at her feet.

On January fifth, he met Barker on the street and in the course of a short conversation learned that the head of the pool suspected his treachery. That half-expressed suspicion, with its veiled hint of publicity, planted the seed of murder in his mind.

It was not, however, till two days later that the seed sprouted. How his idea came to him indicated the condition of morbidly acute perception and wild recklessness he had reached. Walking up Fifth Avenue after dark he had seen a man standing under a lamp, lighting a pipe. The man, Joseph Sammis, was so like Barker, that he moved nearer to address him.

A closer view showed him his mistake, but also showed him that Sammis, feeble in health, shabby and impoverished, was sufficiently like Barker to pa.s.s for him.

From that resemblance his idea expanded still further. He followed Sammis to his lodgings, had a conference with him, and told him he had work in Philadelphia which he wanted Sammis to undertake. The man, down to his last dollar, flattered and amazed at his good fortune, agreed at once. Though the work had not developed, it was necessary for Sammis to be on the ground and stay there awaiting instructions. Money was given him for proper clothes and an advance of salary. The date when he was to leave would be communicated to him within a few days. It would appear that Sammis never knew his benefactor's real name, but accepted the luck that came to him eagerly and without question. In _his_ case the chief had guessed right-he was a "plant."

From this point the plot mushroomed out into its full dimensions.

Harland and Barker were of a size, small, light and wiry, both men had gray hair and dark eyes. The features obliterated, clothes, personal papers and jewelry would be the only means of identification. The back office with its one egress through the other rooms was selected as the scene of the crime. Barker's body could be lowered from the cleat-tried and tested-to the floor below. Through his acquaintance with Ford and Miss Whitehall, Harland was familiar with the hours of the Azalea Woods Estates people. They would be gone when he went down, entered their office with the pa.s.s key he had procured, and made the change of clothing with his victim. His own disguise was a very simple matter.

Through an acquaintance with actors in his youth he had learned their method of building up the nose by means of an adhesive paste-that and the white mustache were all he needed. He took one chance and one only-a gambler's risk-that the body might not be sufficiently crushed to escape recognition. This chance, as we know, went his way.

Gone thus far he had only to wait his opportunity. Against that he bought and concealed the rope, the blackjack for the blow, and the articles for his own transformation-all the properties of the grisly drama he was about to stage.

Meantime his scheme to win Carol was working out less successfully and the strain was wearing on him. On January fifteenth, his nerves stretched to the breaking point, he went to her determined to find out how she stood with Barker. Her answer satisfied him. He knew her to be truthful and when she told him she had no other than a filial affection for the magnate he believed her. The information she gave about Barker's intention of helping her, of having plans afoot for her future welfare, he seized upon and subsequently used.

He also, in that interview, learned that she had had a phone message from the magnate saying he was coming to her office that afternoon and would later go to the floor above to see Mr. Harland. When he heard this he knew that his time had come.

From her he went straight to a telephone booth, called up Barker's garage and gave Heney the instructions to meet him that night and take him to the Elizabeth Depot. That done he returned to the Black Eagle Building, saw that his stenographer and clerk were disposed to his satisfaction, and made ready for the final event.

The quarrel with Barker was genuine. The head of the Copper Pool burst into accusations of treachery and threatened immediate exposure. Sitting at the desk, engrossed in his anger, he did not notice Harland slip behind him. One blow of the blackjack delivered below the temple resulted in death, as instantaneous as it was noiseless. Fastening the rope about the body, Harland swung it from the cleat to the floor below, where in the darkness it would have been invisible at a distance of ten feet.

He then pa.s.sed through the outer offices and went downstairs. He must have missed Carol by a few seconds. His knock being unanswered, he let himself in with his pa.s.s key, and walked through to the back room. Here he drew in the body, then curtaining the window, turned on the lights and effected the change of clothes, shaving off the mustache, and looking for the scarf pin which he couldn't find. He had just completed this when Ford entered-a terrible moment for him.

When Ford left his nerve was shaken and he realized he must finish the job at once. After he had done so he went back to the private office, carefully arranged his own disguise, and after waiting for over an hour, put on Barker's hat and coat and went down the service stairs.

He met no person or obstacle, skirted the back of the block and picked up Heney at the place designated. At the Elizabeth Station he bought a ticket to Philadelphia, but when he saw his chance, crossed the lines to the Jersey Central platform and boarded a local for Jersey City, from which by a devious route he made his way to Canada. It was in the waiting-room at the Jersey City depot that he removed his disguise.

In Toronto he sublet a small apartment, only going out at night, and keeping a close watch on the developments in New York which he followed through the papers. By these he learned that everything had worked out as he hoped, that the crime was unsuspected, and the public interest centered on the chase for Barker. All that now remained to complete his enterprise was to get Carol.

That his continued success must have given him an almost insane confidence is proved by the way he went about this last and most difficult step. Criminals all slip up somewhere. He had attended to the details of the murder with amazing skill and thoroughness. It was in his estimate of the character of Carol that he showed that blind spot in the brain they all have.

The only way to explain it is that he was so sure of his own powers, so confident that she was heart whole and would be unable to resist the temptation of his enormous wealth, that he took the final risk-sent for her in Barker's name. Her response to his first summons encouraged him.

When she didn't come he had many reasons with which to buoy himself up-fears, illness, the impossibility of leaving her mother.

But it made him more cautious and he didn't venture again till the hue and cry for Barker had subsided and he had made a move to the last port of call on the St. Lawrence. That he had expected to take her by storm, win her consent and leave her no time to deliberate was proved by the fact that "Henry Santley" had engaged accommodations for himself and "sister" on the _Megantic_, sailing from Quebec at ten the next morning.

What had he intended to say to her, how was he going to explain? If he had not mentioned it in his statement we never would have known, for Carol did not give him time to tell. The story was simple and in the face of her supposed ignorance of the murder, might have satisfied her.

He was going to admit his duplicity in the Copper Pool-his excuse being he had done it for her. In his last interview with Barker he saw that discovery was imminent, and decided to drop out of sight. When he pa.s.sed through his own office he was on his way out of the building, descending unseen by the stairs, and going immediately to Canada. When he read in the papers of the suicide, identified as Hollings Harland, no one was more surprised than he was.

How the mistake had been made he readily guessed. Some months before he had discharged one of his clerks for intemperance. The man, unable to get another job and in the clutch of his vice, had gone to the dogs, applying frequently to Harland for help. The lawyer, moved to pity, had given this in the form of clothing and money. On the afternoon of January fifteenth he had visited the Harland offices, in a suit of Harland's clothes, begging for money and threatening suicide. He was sunk to the lowest depths of degradation, for, during a few moments when he was alone in the private office, he had evidently searched among his employer's papers and taken a watch and chain which was lying on the desk, to be sent to a jeweler's for repairs. Startled in his hunt among the papers he had had no time to replace them and had put them in his pocket. After the man had gone Harland noticed the missing doc.u.ments and jewelry but in the stress of his own affairs paid no attention to the theft. The next day when he read of the suicide, he remembered the man's threat to kill himself and realized he had done it later that afternoon.

That the body, crushed beyond recognition, had been identified through the clothes, papers and watch as himself, he regarded as a lucky chance.

Without his intervention a thing had occurred which forever severed him from the life he wished to be done with.

Such was Harland's crime as explained in Harland's statement. How we talked it over! How we mused on the slight happening that had brought it to light-a child at a window! Strange and wonderful! The hotel noises, the traffic in the street, faded into the silence of the night as we sat there, pondering, speculating, and awed too by this modern fall of Lucifer.

CHAPTER XXI

MOLLY ENDS THE STORY

They all came back on Wednesday night, late, in the small hours. I had a wire from Babbitts-and Gosh, as I sat up waiting for him I thought I'd die right there on my own parlor carpet! For, of course, I supposed she'd tell them what I'd done and he was coming straight home to divorce me.

First off when he came in I was afraid to move, then, when I got a good look at his face, I saw he didn't know. He was so crazy with joy and triumph he didn't notice how I acted-trembly and excited about the things that didn't matter. How did she get there-what made her go-were the questions I was keen to have answered. Did it off her own bat-recognized the voice on the phone-instinct-knew all along something was wrong-and just rushed off without thinking of anything. She was a tip-topper-wonderful girl-seemed almost as if she was clairvoyant, didn't I think so? Yes, I did, but maybe when it was your father you felt that way, and I sank back against the cushions of the davenport, weak in the knees and swallowing down a lump in my throat as big as a new potato.

The next day I had a letter from her that made me sick-grat.i.tude bubbling out of every line-and saying she'd told Jack and how never, as long as either of them lived, would they reveal it to a soul. That made me sicker-the two of them down on their bended knees! I've lied in my life, and though it's come back on me like a bad dream, I've been able to bear it. But having two people like that ready to worship you because you did something that you didn't do would take the spirit out of Theodore Roosevelt.

Then came the great excitement, the case going to the public, and Babbitts' getting his Big Story. It made a worse uproar than the suicide and disappearance, the city was stunned and thrilled and everything else it could be, and not a man, woman or child but was reading the _Dispatch_ and asking you if you'd ever heard of such an awful thing and enjoying every word of it. Babbitts' picture was in all the papers-and a _raise_, well, I guess so!

It would have been the proudest moment of my life, but who can be proud when they're full up with nothing but guilty conscience? Not me, anyway.

Even when Babbitts came home Friday night with a set of black lynx furs, carrying them himself and putting them on me, I felt no joy. Can you understand it-having a secret from the one you love best, and not knowing if he knew that secret whether he wouldn't drop you out of his arms like a live coal and you'd see the love dying from his face? Oh, it was awful. I had to turn away from him to the mirror-getting up the right smile for a fur set when a rope of pearls wouldn't have lifted the misery off me.

Sunday Jack asked us to his place for dinner-just us two and Miss Whitehall. All the way downtown Babbitts was wondering why it was only Miss Whitehall-sort of funny he didn't include Mr. George, who was often there, and even the old man, seeing it was to be a dinner of the Harland case outfit. I had my own ideas on the subject, and they made me limp, sitting small and peaked beside Babbitts, with my hands damp and clammy in my new white gloves.

It was a swell dinner, the finest things to eat I ever had, even there.

Miss Whitehall, all in black with her neck bare, and Jack in his dress suit, were such a grand pair I'd have enjoyed the mere sight of them, only for that terrible secret.

It wasn't till the end of dinner-old David gone off into the kitchen-that the thing I'd been waiting for came out. Jack's face told me it was coming-happiness and pride were shining from it like a light.

He'd asked us there-his best and truest friends-to tell us before anyone else, that he and Miss Whitehall were going to be married.

They looked across the table at each other-a beautiful beaming look-and Babbitts with his mouth open looked at them, and I looked down at my plate where the ice cream was melting in a pink pool. Then Jack poured champagne into our gla.s.ses and raising them high we drank their healths, and then clinked the rims together and laughed, and wished them joy. It ought to have been perfectly lovely and it _would_ have been if that fiendish guilty conscience of mine could only have gone to sleep for a few minutes.