The President Part 44

Richard adopted the counsel of Inspector Val, and did not accompany that gentleman of secrets to Grant Place. It was the half hour after midnight when Inspector Val climbed the Warmdollar steps, and strenuously pulled the bell. The latter appurtenance was one of those old-fashioned k.n.o.b-and-wire tocsins, and its clangorous voice was calculated to arouse, not only the house whereof it was a fixture, but the neighborhood round about. Inspector Val's second pull at this ancient engine brought Mr. Warmdollar, something bleary and stupid to be sure, but wide awake for Mr. Warmdollar. Once inside the hallway, Inspector Val told Mr. Warmdollar that he was a police agent, showed that ex-representative the gold badge glimmering beneath his coat, and concluded by informing him that all might not be well in the San Reve's room. Inspector Val did what he could to frighten Mr. Warmdollar. It was necessary to tame that householder to docility, and what should achieve this sooner than a great fright? At the fearful hints of Inspector Val--they were in his manner more than in his words--the purple nose of Mr. Warmdollar became a disastrous gray. Beholding this encouraging symptom, Inspector Val delayed no longer, but bid him beat upon the San Reve's door. This Mr. Warmdollar, nervous and shaken, did with earnestness, not once but twice. n.o.body responded; after each visitation of the panel the silence that prevailed was sinister.

"There's no one in," faltered Mr. Warmdollar.

Inspector Val pointed ominously to the hall-rack on which were hanging Storri's hat and waterproof coat. Mr. Warmdollar wrung his hands; his imagination, fretted into fever by the remoteness of his latest whisky toddy,--whisky toddy being Mr. Warmdollar's favorite tipple,--began to give him pictures of what dread things lay hidden in the silence beyond that unresponsive door.

Inspector Val took from his pocket three pieces of steel, each about the size of a lead pencil, and began s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g them together, end for end.

The instrument produced was a foot in length and looked like a screwdriver. As a matter of burglarious fact it was a jimmy of fineness and finish. It had been the property of a gentlemanly "flat-worker," who made rich hauls before he fell into the fingers of Inspector Val and went to Sing Sing. Inspector Val applied the absent gentleman's jimmy to the San Reve's door, squarely over the lock. He gave it a twitch and the door flew inward, the bolt tearing out a mouthful of the casing.

"Stand back!" said Inspector Val to Mr. Warmdollar, who having already retired to the lower step of the stair, where he sat with his face buried in his hands, hardly required the warning.

One gas jet was burning in the San Reve's room; being turned down to lowest ebb, it was about as illuminative as a glow-worm. Inspector Val stretched forth his hand and instantly the room was flooded of light.

Inspector Val was neither shocked nor surprised at the spectacle before him; he was case-hardened by a mult.i.tude of professional experiences, and besides, for full a fortnight he had read murder in the San Reve's face.

Storri was lying upon the lounge, dead--stone-dead. A trifling hole in the back of the head showed where the bullet entered in search of his life. There was a minimum of blood; the few dried drops upon a curling lock of the black hair were all there was to tell how death came. Storri had been dead for hours; the small thirty-two caliber revolver--being that one which Storri had seen on a memorable night in mid-winter--lay on the floor where it fell from the San Reve's jealous fingers. It was a diminutive machine, blue steel and mother of pearl, more like a plaything than a pistol.

The San Reve was on her knees beside the dead Storri, her left arm beneath his head and her face buried in the silken cushion that served as pillow. There was a looseness of att.i.tude that instantly struck Inspector Val; he stepped to the San Reve and lifted the free hand which hung by her side. The hand was clammy and cold as ice. The San Reve had died when Storri died, but there was none of the rigidity of death, the body was relaxed and limp. Inspector Val sniffed the air inquisitively, and got just the faintest odor of bitter almonds. That, and the relaxed limbs, enlightened him.

"Prussic acid," said he.

As Inspector Val replaced the San Reve's hand by her side, a tiny vial--that with a prayer-book--was dislodged from a fold of her dress.

The vial showed a few drops of a yellow-green fluid in the bottom.

Inspector Val picked it up, and the bitter breath of the almond was more p.r.o.nounced than ever.

"Exactly!" murmured Inspector Val; "prussic acid! She died as though by lightning;--which is a proper way to die if one's mind is made up. Now why couldn't she have sent Storri by the same route? A drop of this"--here he surveyed the tiny vial with interest, almost with approval--"a drop of this in the corner of his eye, or on his lip, would have beaten the pistol. Ah, yes, the pistol!" mused Inspector Val, taking the baby weapon in his hand; "I suppose the storm drowned the report. Well, they're gone! Storri was asleep, and never knew what hit him; which, considering his record,--and I'm something of a judge,--was an easier fate than he had earned."

Inspector Val made a close examination of the room, rather from habit than any thought more deep, and straightway discovered the sleepy whisky. He put it to his nose as he had the tiny vial.

"Laudanum!" he muttered; "she had mapped it out in every detail. It was the sight of the _Zulu Queen_; she saw that he was about to desert her."

Inspector Val heaved a half-sigh, as even men most like chilled steel will when in the near company of death, and then, stiffening professionally, he called in Mr. Warmdollar, still weeping drunken tears at the stair's foot.

"I want, for your own sake," explained Inspector Val, "to impress upon you the propriety of silence. These deaths will produce a sensation in both the State Department and the Russian legation. If word get abroad through you, it might be resented in the quarters I've named. I shall give the Russians notice, and you must not let a word creep into the papers until after they have been here. If news of this leak out, it may cost Mrs. Warmdollar her situation."

Inspector Val was aware that in Washington the hinted loss of one's position as the penalty of loquacity has ever been the way of ways to lock fast the garrulous tongue. Mr. Warmdollar became a prodigal of promises; neither sign nor sound should escape him of the tragedy. Mrs.

Warmdollar, as head scrubwoman, must not be put in jeopardy!

Inspector Val visited the Secret Service Chief, and the two were as brothers of one mind. To lapse into the rustic figures of the farms, on that subject of secrecy they fell together like a shock of oats. Why should the world know of the splendid gopher work of London Bill? The gold had been saved; to publish the dangers it had grazed might inspire other bandits. No, secrecy was the word; that question Inspector Val and the Secret Service Chief answered as one man. And so no word crept forth. When the vault must be restored, it was said that those tons upon tons of gold it sheltered had broken down the steel floor. As bricks by the wagon load went into the drain through the manhole nearest the scene of London Bill's exploits, a pavement idler asked their purpose. They were to repair the drain where the water had eaten into and undermined the walls. Yes, it was a secret stubbornly protected; the tunnel was stopped up, the vault restored to what had been a former strength or weakness, and never a dozen souls to hear the tale.

With the Russians, Inspector Val met views which ran counter to his own.

An attache of the Bear accompanied Inspector Val to the San Reve's rooms in Grant Place. The Attache was for sending Storri's body to St.

Petersburg. Inspector Val objected.

"Why should you care?" said the Attache to Inspector Val. "I do not understand your interest."

"She cares," returned Inspector Val, pointing to the dead San Reve. "I have made her interest mine. She died to keep this Storri by her side; I will not see her cheated."

The Attache looked curiously at Inspector Val; a sentimental lunatic was not a common sight. The Attache, however, was no one to yield. Storri's remains must go to Russia.

"Will you send home then the body of a thief overtaken in the crime?"

asked Inspector Val. "This Storri schemed to rob the Treasury. I do not think the representatives of the Czar should oppose me in my whim."

"Who are you?" asked the Attache. Inspector Val's disclosures were alarming; trained in caution, he did not care to defy them until he was sure of his foothold of fact. "The news you brought so affected me that I failed of politeness and never asked your name."

"I am Inspector Val of the New York police."

"And you declare Count Storri a thief engaged in robbing your Treasury?"

"I say it word for word. More; he had it in train to burn a house and abduct a girl."

The Attache surveyed Inspector Val with his sharp black eyes. Clearly, here was a man whom it would not be wise--for the honor of the Bear--to oppose!

"And this poor woman loved Count Storri," said the Attache, shifting his glance to the dead San Reve. "She died, you say, to keep him by her.

Yes, you are right; they should not be parted now."

The San Reve, no longer jealous, and Storri, no longer false, were given one grave, and the Attache of the Czar and Inspector Val alone attended, as though representing rival interests. The San Reve's prayer of pa.s.sion had been granted; her Storri would be her own and hers alone throughout eternity.

CHAPTER XXIII

HOW RICHARD AND DOROTHY SAILED AWAY

There came but the one name before the convention, and Governor Obstinate was nominated for the Presidency by acclamation. Senator Hanway wired his warm congratulations, and to such earnest length did they extend themselves that it reduced the book of franks conferred upon Senator Hanway by the telegraph company by five stamps. Governor Obstinate thanked Senator Hanway through the eye-gla.s.sed Mazarin, who seized upon the occasion to say that Governor Obstinate was more than ever resolved in event of his election--which was among things sure--to avail himself of Senator Hanway's known abilities touching public finance in the role of Secretary of the Treasury.

Senator Hanway and Mr. Harley, the Georgian Bay-Ontario Ca.n.a.l still rankling in the popular regard, did not attend the convention. This permitted those gentlemen to be present at the nuptials of Dorothy and Richard, a negative advantage which otherwise might have been denied.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, basing it on grounds of duty, a.s.sumed formal charge of the marriage arrangements in the later hours. She asked Richard to name those among his friends whom he desired as guests at the wedding.

Richard gave her Mr. Bayard, Mr. Sands, and Inspector Val. Mrs.

Hanway-Harley pursed her lips. Mr. Bayard? yes; but why ask Mr. Sands, printer, and Inspector Val of the police?

"They are my friends," said Richard.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley shook her head in proud dejection as she meditated on the strangeness of things. Her daughter's wedding; and a detective and a journeyman printer among the honored guests! The homely disgrace of it quite bowed the heart of Mrs. Hanway-Harley. She was taken doubly aback when she learned that Mr. Gwynn was on his way to England, and therefore not to attend.

"It would have pleased me," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley mournfully, "had Mr.

Gwynn been present. His absence is peculiarly a blow."

"I'm sure," said Richard, putting on a look of innocent slyness, like a lamb engaged in intrigue, "had I known that you might feel Mr. Gwynn's going away, I would have kept him with us."

Mrs. Hanway-Harley elevated her polite brows. Richard would have kept Mr. Gwynn with them! What manner of mystery was this?

Richard's present to Dorothy was a superb, nay a matchless set of rubies, the like of which did not dwell in the caskets of Queen or Empress. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, herself no apprentice in the art of gems, could not estimate their value. They lay in her hands like red fire--jewels above price! Mrs. Hanway-Harley could only gaze and gaze, while Richard's look of slyness gained in lamblike intensity.

Mr. Bayard came down from New York the day before; he must have a business talk with Richard. It would be impossible, in releasing Mr.

Harley and Senator Hanway from their obligations as members of the osprey pool, to avoid an explanation. In running over the affair in his mind, Mr. Bayard was convinced that the reprieved pair must be told the truth of their capture and release.

Richard, whose powers of original judgment had diminished in exact proportion as he neared the wedding day, and who now, with the ceremony only hours away, owned no judgment at all, gave Mr. Bayard leave to do as he would. He was to tell Mr. Harley and Senator Hanway, Mr. Sands and Inspector Val, as much or as little as he chose. Richard drew relief from the reflection that, whatever the disclosures, he, Richard, at the time they were made would be safe on the wide Atlantic.