The Red Seal Part 4

"What's Philip's opinion worth?" The young girl smiled disdainfully.

"Philip seems to think that having shared an apartment with Jimmie, gives him intimate knowledge of Jimmie's health. Philip is not a medical man."

"No," acknowledged her father. "But here is a medical man who was on the spot when Jimmie died. What's your opinion, Stone?"

Stone, suddenly conscious of the keen attention of his companions, spoke slowly as was his wont when making a serious statement.

"Rochester's contention that Jimmie died from angina pectoris would seem borne out by what transpired," he said. "Undoubtedly Jimmie felt an attack coming on and used the customary remedy to relieve it--"

"And what was that remedy?" questioned Mrs. Brewster swiftly.

"Amyl nitrite." Stone spoke with decision. "I could detect its presence by the fruity, pleasant odor which always accompanies the drug's use."

"Ah!" The exclamation slipped from Mrs. Brewster. "Is the drug administered in water?"

"No, it is inhaled--take care, you have dropped your handkerchief."

Stone pulled himself up short in his speech, and bent over but the young girl was too quick for him, and stooped first to pick up her handkerchief.

As she raised her head Stone caught sight of the tiny mole under the lobe of her left ear. It was the one mark which distinguished Barbara from her twin sister. Colonel McIntyre had addressed his daughter as Helen, and she had not undeceived him--Why? The perplexed physician gave up the problem.

"The drug," he went on to explain, "amyl nitrite comes in pearl capsules and is crushed in a handkerchief and the fumes inhaled."

Mrs. Brewster leaned forward suddenly. "Would that cause death?" she asked.

Stone shook his head in denial. "Not the customary dose of three minims," he answered, and turning, found that Barbara had stolen from the room.

CHAPTER IV. BARBARA ENGAGES COUNSEL

Bidding a hasty good morning to the elevator girl, Harry Kent, suit-case in hand, entered the cage and was carried up to the fourth floor of the Wilkins Building. Several business acquaintances stopped to chat with him as he walked down the corridor to his office, and it was fully fifteen minutes before he turned the k.n.o.b of the door bearing the firm name--ROCHESTER AND KENT, ATTORNEYS--on its gla.s.s panel. As he stepped inside the anteroom which separated the two offices occupied respectively by him and his senior partner, Philip Rochester, a stranger rose from the clerk's desk.

"Yes, sir?" he asked interrogatively.

Kent eyed him in surprise. "Mr. Rochester here?" he inquired.

"No, sir. It am in charge of the office."

"You are!" Kent's surprise increased. "I happen to be Mr. Kent, junior partner in this firm."

"I beg your pardon, sir." The dapper clerk bowed and hurrying to his desk took up a letter. "Mr. Rochester left this for you, Mr. Kent, before his departure last night."

"His departure!" Kent deposited his suit-case on one of the chairs and tore open the envelope. The note was a scrawl, which he had some difficulty in deciphering.

"Dear Kent," it ran. "Am called out of town; will be back Sat.u.r.day.

Saunders gave me some of his cheek this afternoon, so I fired him. I engaged John Sylvester to fill his place, who comes highly recommended.

He will report for work to-morrow. Ta-ta--PHIL."

Kent thrust the note into his pocket and picked up his suit-case.

"Mr. Rochester states that he has engaged you," he said. "Your references--?"

"Here, sir." The clerk handed him a folded paper, and Kent ran his eyes down the sheet from the sentence: "To whom it may concern" to the signature, Clark Hildebrand. The statement spoke in high terms of John Sylvester, confidential clerk.

"I can refer you to my other employers, Mr. Kent," Sylvester volunteered as the young lawyer stood regarding the paper. "If you, desire further information there is Mr. Clymer and--"

"No, Judge Hildebrand's recommendation is sufficient." And at Kent's smile the clerk's anxious expression vanished. "Did Mr. Rochester give you any outline of the work?"

"Yes, sir; he told me to file the papers in the Hitchc.o.c.k case, and attend to the morning correspondence."

"Very good. Has any one called this morning?"

"No, sir. These letters were addressed to you personally, and I have not opened them," Sylvester handed a neatly arranged package to Kent.

"These," indicating several letters lying open on his desk, "are to the firm."

"Bring them to me in half an hour," and Kent walked into his private office, carefully closing the door behind him. Opening his suit-case he took out his brief bag and laid it on the desk in front of him together with the package of letters. Instead of opening the letters immediately, he tilted back in his chair and regarded the opposite wall in deep thought. Philip Rochester could not have selected a worse time to absent himself; three important cases were on the calendar for immediate trial and much depended on the firm's successful handling of them. Kent swore softly under his breath; his last warning to Rochester, that he would dissolve their partnership if the older man continued to neglect his practice, had been given only a month before and upon Kent's return from eight months' service in the Judge Advocate General's Department in France. Apparently his warning had fallen on deaf ears and Rochester was indulging in another periodic spree, for so Kent concluded, recalling the unsteady penmanship of the note handed to him by the new clerk, John Sylvester.

Kent was still frowning at the opposite wall when a faint knock sounded, and at his call Sylvester entered.

"Here are the letters received this morning, sir, and type-written copies of the answers to yesterday's correspondence which Mr. Rochester dictated before leaving," Sylvester explained as he placed the papers on Kent's desk. "If you will o.k. them, I will mail them at once."

Kent went through the letters with care, and the new clerk rose in his estimation as he read the excellent dictation of the clearly typed answers.

"These will do admirably," he announced. "Sit down and I will reply to the other letters."

At the end of an hour Sylvester closed his stenographic note book and collected the correspondence, by that time scattered over Kent's desk.

"I'll have these notes ready for your signature before lunch," he said as he picked up a newspaper from the floor where it had tumbled during Kent's search for some particular letter heads. "I brought in the morning paper, sir; thought perhaps you had not seen it."

"Thanks." Kent swung his chair nearer the window and opened the newspaper. He had purchased a copy when walking through Union Station on his arrival, but had left it in the cafeteria where he had s.n.a.t.c.hed a cup of coffee and hot rolls before hurrying to his office.

He read a column devoted to international affairs, scanned an account of a senatorial wrangle, and was about to turn to the second page, whistling cheerily, when his attention was arrested by the headings:

BANK CASHIER DIES IN POLICE COURT JAMES TURNBULL, MISTAKEN FOR BURGLAR, SUFFERS FATAL ATTACK OF ANGINA PECTORIS

Kent's whistle stopped abruptly, and clutching the paper in both hands, he devoured the short account printed under the scare heads:

"While masquerading as a burglar on a wager, James Turnbull, cashier of the Metropolis Trust Company, was arrested by Officer O'Ryan at an early hour yesterday morning in the residence of Colonel Charles McIntyre.

"Officer O'Ryan conducted his prisoner to the 8th Precinct Police Station, and later he was arraigned in the police court. The Misses McIntyre appeared in person to prefer the charges against the supposed burglar, who, on being sworn, gave the name of John Smith.

"Philip Rochester, the well known criminal lawyer, was a.s.signed by the court to defend the prisoner. Upon the evidence submitted Judge Mackall held the prisoner for trial by the grand jury.

"It was just after the Judge's announcement that 'John Smith,' then sitting in the prisoners cage, was seized with the attack of angina pectoris which ended so fatally a few minutes later.

It was not until after he had expired that those rendering him medical a.s.sistance became aware that he was James Turnbull in disguise.

"James Turnbull was a native of Washington, his father, the late Hon Josiah Turnbull of Connecticut, having made this city his permanent home in the early '90s. Mr. Turnbull was looked upon as one of the rising young men in banking circles; he was also prominent socially, was a member of the Alibi, Metropolitan, and Country Clubs, and until recently was active in all forms of athletics, when his ill-health precluded active exercise.

"Officer O'Ryan, who was greatly shocked by the fatal termination to Mr. Turnbull's rash wager, stated to the representatives of the press that Mr. Turnbull gave no hint of his ident.i.ty while being interrogated at the 8th Precinct Station. Friends attribute Mr. Turnbull's disinclination to reveal himself to the court, to his enjoyment of a practical joke, not realizing that the resultant excitement of the scene would react on his weak heart.