The Crevice Part 15

Hamilton is _not_ dead," Henry Blaine said earnestly. "You do not realize, perhaps, the one salient fact that criminal experts who deal with cases of disappearance have long since recognized--the most difficult of all things to conceal or do away with in a large city is a dead body."

Anita shivered and clasped her hands convulsively, but she did not speak, and after a scarcely perceptible pause, the detective went on:

"You must not let your mind dwell on the possibilities; it will only entail useless, needless suffering on your part. My experiences have been many and varied in just such cases as this, and in not one in fifty does serious harm come to the subject of the investigation. In fact, in this instance, I think it quite probable that Mr. Hamilton has left the city of his own accord, and in your interests."

"In my interests?" Anita repeated, roused from her lethargy of sorrow by his words, as he had intended that she should be. "Left the city?

But why?"

"When he called upon me yesterday morning I told him of a commission which I wished him to execute for me in connection with your investigation. I gave him some preliminary instructions and he was to return to me in the afternoon for a letter of introduction and to learn some minor details of the matter involved. He did not appear at the hour of our appointment and I concluded that he had taken the affair into his own hands and had gone immediately upon leaving my office to fulfill his mission."

"Oh, perhaps he did!" The young girl started from her chair, her dull, tearless eyes suddenly bright with hope. "That would be like Ramon; he is so impulsive, so anxious to help me in every way! Where did you send him, Mr. Blaine? Can't we telephone, or wire and find out if he really has gone to this place? Please, please do! I cannot endure this agony of uncertainty, of suspense, much longer!"

"Unfortunately, we cannot do that!" Blaine responded, gravely. "To attempt to communicate with him where I have sent him would be to show our hand irretrievably to the men we are fighting and undo much of the work which has been accomplished. He may communicate with you or possibly with me, if he finds that he can contrive to accomplish it safely."

"Safely? Then if he has gone to this place, wherever it is, he is in danger?" Anita faltered, tremblingly.

"By no means. The only danger is that his ident.i.ty and purpose may be disclosed and our plans jeopardized," the detective rea.s.sured her smoothly. "I know it is hard to wait for news, but one must school oneself to patience under circ.u.mstances such as this. It may be several days before you hear from Mr. Hamilton and you must try not to distress yourself with idle fears in the meantime."

"But it is not certain--we have no a.s.surance that he really did go upon that mission." The light of hope died in her eyes as she spoke, and a little sob rose in her throat. "Oh, Mr. Blaine, promise me that you will leave no stone unturned to find him!"

"My dear child, you must trust in me and have faith in my long years of experience. I have already, as a precautionary measure, started a thorough investigation into Mr. Hamilton's movements yesterday, and in the event that he has not gone on the errand I spoke of, it can only be a question of hours before he will be located. You did not see him yesterday?"

"No. He promised to lunch with me, but he never came nor did he telephone or send me any word. Surely, if he had meant to leave town he would have let me know!"

"Not necessarily, Miss Lawton." Blaine's voice deepened persuasively.

"He was very much excited when he left my office, interested heart and soul in the mission I had entrusted to him. Remember, too, that it was all for you, for your sake alone."

"And I may not know where he has gone?" Anita asked, wistfully.

"I think, perhaps, that is why Mr. Hamilton did not communicate with you before leaving town," the detective replied, significantly. "He agreed with me that it would be best for you not to know, in your own interests, where he was going. You must try to believe that I am doing all in my power to help you, and that my judgment is in such matters better than yours."

"I do, Mr. Blaine. Indeed I do trust you absolutely; you must believe that." She reached out an impulsive hand toward him, and his own closed over it paternally for a moment. Then he gently released it.

Anita sighed and sank back resignedly in her chair. There was a moment's pause before she added:

"It is hard to be quiescent when one is so hedged in on all sides by falsehood and deceit and the very air breathes conspiracy and intrigue. I have no tangible reason to fear for my own life, of course, but sometimes I cannot help wondering why it has not been imperiled. Surely it would be easier for my father's enemies to do away with me altogether than to have conceived and carried out such an elaborate scheme to rob me and defame my father's memory. But I will try not to entertain such thoughts. I am nervous and overwrought, but I will regain my self-control. In the meantime, I shall do my best to be patient and wait for Ramon's return."

Henry Blaine felt a glow of pardonable elation, but his usually expressive face did not betray by a single flicker of an eyelash that he had gained his point. He knew that Ramon Hamilton had never started on that mission to Long Bay, but if the young girl's health and reason were to be spared, her anxiety must be allayed.

Courageous and self-controlled as she had been through all the grief and added trouble which besieged her on every hand, the keen insight of the detective warned him that she was nearing the breaking-point. If she fully realized the blow which threatened her in the sudden disappearance of her lover, together with the sinister events which had immediately preceded it, she would be crushed to the earth.

"You must try to rest." Blaine rose and motioned toward the window through which the cold rays of the wintry sun were stealing and putting the orange glow of the electric lights to shame. "See. It is morning and you have had no sleep."

"But you must not go just yet, Mr. Blaine! I cannot rest until I know who that man was whose voice I heard over your telephone this morning.

What did he mean? He said that his wife committed suicide; that he himself had been ruined! And all through my father and you! It cannot be true, of course; but I must know to what he referred!"

"I will tell you. It is best that you should know the truth. Your father was absolutely innocent in the matter, but his enemies and yours might find it expedient to spread fake reports which would only add to your sorrow. You know, you must remember since your earliest childhood, how every one came to your father with their perplexities and troubles and how benevolently they were received, how wisely advised, how generously aided. Not only bankers and financiers in the throes of a panic, but men and women in all walks of life came to him for counsel and relief."

"I know. I know!" Anita whispered with bowed head, the quick tears of tender memory starting in her eyes.

"Such a one who came to him for advice in her distress was the wife of Herbert Armstrong. She was a good woman, but through sheer ignorance of evil she had committed a slight indiscretion, nothing more than the best of women might be led into at any time. We need not go into details. It is enough to tell you that certain unscrupulous persons had her in their power and were blackmailing her. She fell their victim through the terror of being misunderstood, and when she could no longer accede to their demands she came to your father, her husband's friend, for advice. Herbert Armstrong was insanely jealous of his wife, and in your father's efforts to help her he unfortunately incurred the unjust suspicions of the man. Armstrong brought suit for divorce, intending to name Mr. Lawton as corespondent."

"Oh, how could he!" Anita cried, indignantly. "The man must have been mad! My father was the soul of honor. Every one--the whole world--knows that! Besides, his heart was buried, all that he did not give to me, deep, deep in the sea where Mother and my little brother and sister are lying! He never even looked at another woman, save perhaps in kindness, to help and comfort those who were in trouble. But when did you come into the case, Mr. Blaine?

That man whose voice I heard to-day must have been Herbert Armstrong himself, of course. Why did he say that you, as well as my father, were responsible for his tragedy?"

"Because when Mr. Lawton became aware of Armstrong's ungovernable jealousy and the terrible length to which he meant to go in his effort to revenge himself, he--your father--came to me to establish Mrs.

Armstrong's innocence, and his, in the eyes of the world. Armstrong's case, although totally wrong from every standpoint, was a very strong one, but fortunately I was able to verify the truth and was fully prepared to prove it. Just on the eve of the date set for the trial, however, a tragedy occurred which brought the affair to an abrupt and pathetic end."

"A tragedy? Mrs. Armstrong's suicide, you mean?" asked Anita, in hushed tones. "How awful!"

"She was deeply in love with her husband. His unjust accusations and the public shame he was so undeservedly bringing upon her broke her heart. I a.s.sured her that she would be vindicated, that Armstrong would be on his knees to her at the trial's end. Your father tried to infuse her with courage, to gird her for the coming struggle to defend her own good name, but it was all of no use. She was too broken in spirit. Life held nothing more for her. On the night before the case was to have been called, she shot herself."

"Poor thing!" Anita murmured, with a sob running through her soft voice. "Poor, persecuted woman. Why did she not wait! Knowing her own innocence and loving her husband as she did, she could have forgiven him for his cruel suspicion when it was all over! But surely Herbert Armstrong knows the truth now. How can he blame you and my father for the wreck which he made of his own life?"

"Because his mind has become unhinged. He was always excitable and erratic, and his weeks of jealous wrath, culminating in the shock of the sudden tragedy, and the realization that he had brought it all on himself, were too much for him. He was a broker and one of the most prominent financiers in the city, but with the divorce fiasco and the death of Mrs. Armstrong, he began to brood. He shunned the friends who were left to him, neglected his business and ultimately failed.

Sinking lower and lower in the scale of things, he finally disappeared from Illington. You can understand now why I thought it best when you told me of the conversation you had overheard in the library here a few hours before your father's death, and of the mention of Herbert Armstrong's name, to trace him and find out if it was he who had come in the heart of the night and attempted to blackmail Mr. Lawton."

"I understand. That was why you wanted me to hear his voice yesterday and see if I recognized it. But it was not at all like that of the man in the library on the night of my father's death. And do you know, Mr.

Blaine"--she leaned forward and spoke in still lower tones--"when I recall that voice, it seems to me, sometimes, that I have heard it before. There was a certain timbre in it which was oddly familiar. It is as if some one I knew had spoken, but in tones disguised by rage and pa.s.sion. I shall recognize that voice when I hear it again, if it holds that same note; and when I do--"

Blaine darted a swift glance at her from under narrowed brows. "But why attribute so much importance to it?" he asked. "To be sure, it may have some bearing upon our investigation, although at present I can see no connecting link. You feel, perhaps, that the violent emotions superinduced by that secret interview, added to your father's heart-trouble, indirectly caused his death?"

Anita again sank back in her chair.

"I don't know, Mr. Blaine. I cannot explain it, even to myself, but I feel instinctively that that interview was of greater significance than any one has considered, as yet."

"That we must leave to the future." The detective took her hand, and this time Anita rose and walked slowly with him toward the door.

"There are matters of greater moment to be investigated now. Remember my advice. Try to be patient. Yours is the hardest task of all, to sit idly by and wait for events to shape themselves, or for me to shape them, but it must be. If you can calm your nerves and obtain a few hours' sleep you will feel your own brave self again when I report to you, as I shall do, later to-day."

Despite his night of ceaseless work, Henry Blaine, clear-eyed and alert of brain, was seated at his desk at the stroke of nine when Suraci was ushered in--the young detective who had trailed Walter Pennold from Brooklyn to the quiet backwater where Jimmy Brunell had sought in vain for disa.s.sociation from his past shadowy environment.

"It has become necessary, through an incident which occurred yesterday, for me to change my plans," Blaine announced. "I had intended to put you on the trail of a young crook, a relative of Pennold, but I find I must send you instead to Long Bay to look up a hotel register for me and obtain some writing paper with the engraved letter-head from that hotel. You can get a train in an hour, if you look sharp. Try to get back to-night or to-morrow morning at the latest. Find out anything you can regarding the visit there two years ago last August of Pennington Lawton and his daughter and of other guests who arrived during their stay. Here are your instructions."

Twenty minutes' low-voiced conversation ensued, and Suraci took his departure. He was followed almost immediately by Guy Morrow.

"What is the dope, sir?" the latter asked eagerly, as he entered.

"There's an extra out about the Hamilton disappearance. Do you think Paddington's had a hand in that?"

"I want you to tail him," Blaine replied, non-committally. "Find out anything you can of his movements for the past few weeks, but don't lose sight of him for a minute until to-morrow morning. He's supposed to be working up the evidence now for the Snedecker divorce, so it won't be difficult for you to locate him. You know what he looks like."

"Yes, sir. I know the man himself--if you call such a little rat a man. We had a run-in once, and it isn't likely I'd forget him."

"Then be careful to keep out of his sight. He may be a rat, but he's as keen-eyed as a ferret. I'd rather put some one on him whom he didn't know, but we'll have to chance it. I wouldn't trust this to anyone but you, Guy."

The young operative flushed with pride at this tribute from his chief, and after a few more instructions he went upon his way with alacrity.

Once more alone, Henry Blaine sat for a long time lost in thought. An idea had come to him, engendered by a few vague words uttered by Anita Lawton in the early hours of that morning: an idea so startling, so tremendous in its import, that even he scarcely dared give it credence. To put it to the test, to prove or disprove it, would be irretrievably to show his hand in the game, and that would be suicidal to his investigation should his swift suspicion chance to be groundless.

The sharp ring of the telephone put an end to his cogitations. He put the receiver to his ear with a preoccupied frown, but at the first words which came to him over the wire his expression changed to one of keenest concentration.