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THE SUBSTITUTE PRISONER
by
MAX MARCIN
Author of "Are You My Wife?" "Britz of Headquarters," etc.
Copyright, 1911, by
Moffat, Yard and Company
New York
Published October, 1911
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mrs. Collins (_Frontispiece_)
He looked about him in a bewildered way
She felt herself seized with a desire to weep
She did not repel the arm
THE SUBSTITUTE PRISONER
CHAPTER I
Did she come to threaten or to plead?
The question, darting swiftly through his mind as his eyes took in the
unfamiliar outline of her figure, produced a storm of agitation which
left him gazing stupidly at her, with fixed eyes in which surprise and
terror mingled.
He had never seen her before--his first moment of survey impressed that
clearly on him. Yet her presence in his home at this compromising hour
signified that she was involved, remotely or intimately, in his own
tangled affairs. The thought impelled him to closer scrutiny of her.
She was pleasing to the eye. But whether her beauty was soft and
alluring or hard and repelling, his bewildered senses could not
determine. Her toilet, fresh and elegant, rich and clinging, harmonizing
with the velvet drapings and melting lights of the room, seemed to
invest her with an air of breeding, gave her an outward show of
refinement. Yet she betrayed certain signs of doubtful comfort, as if
all this magnificence had been borrowed for the occasion.
He came forward noiselessly, his footsteps deadened in the soft pile of
the Brussels carpet. She regarded his approach with cold, impassive
demeanor, nodding slightly as he paused near the carved rosewood table
above which hung an exquisitely wrought silver lamp, suspended by four
silver chains from the ceiling.
"Mr. Herbert Whitmore?" she asked, not without trace of anxiety in her
voice.
He observed that her skin had a warm and pearly tone, that her abundant
hair was of a dark reddish tinge, and that her eyes, of turquoise blue,
gleamed with a strange, impenetrable hue. He was still gazing vacantly
at her, but his mind was working furiously, striving to answer the
harrowing questions that presented themselves in tumultuous succession
before it.
Who was she? What motive prompted this visit at ten in the evening? Did
she come to plead a financial matter?--or was she here for purposes of
blackmail? Did she have knowledge of his incriminating conduct, and was
she sent to ensnare him into further complications? Above all, what
attitude should he adopt toward her?
"What can I do for you?" he inquired in a tone frigidly polite, yet not
devoid of an anxious note.
They regarded each other a moment.
"I hardly know how to begin," she said, lowering her eyes.
He did not credit her hesitancy. It was a deceit, he felt, a bit of
theatricalism,--the simulated modesty of a woman of experience.
"Begin by being seated," he said rather sharply, as if he meant to
convey that he penetrated her sham diffidence.
Ignoring his brusqueness, she dropped into one of the ornate rosewood
chairs near the table.
"It is such a delicate matter on which I have come," she began
timorously, eying him for a sign of encouragement. "Now that I am here I
wish I hadn't come--it's so difficult for me to begin."
His keen gray eyes narrowed on her, but she read no encouragement in his
glance. He had regained control of himself and assumed a non-committal
attitude, as of one ready to listen, but indifferent as to whether she
proceeded or withdrew.
"You haven't revealed the purpose of your visit as yet," he said,
crossing his legs. "If you regret having come, you are at liberty to go
without further explanation."
He hurled it at her as a challenge, but with a positive feeling that it
would not be accepted.
"I have come to warn you," she said with sudden resolution.
"To warn me of what?" His brow knitted in puzzled surprise.
"I have come to tell you that he knows and has worked himself into a
murderous fury."
"I don't understand." But his pretense of ignorance was too shallow not
to be seen through immediately.
"You understand perfectly," she declared. "Moreover, you recognize your
danger. It is useless to try to deceive me--an understanding between us
might work to our mutual advantage."
He imagined that he perceived the sinister import of her suggestion. An
understanding between them--that could mean only one thing. She had come
to blackmail him.
"What sort of an understanding?" he asked experimentally.
She bent forward, thrusting her head directly underneath the overhanging
lamp, revealing a face not untouched by care and suffering. He guessed
her age at twenty-four, but the set earnestness of her expression made
her seem close to thirty. She still possessed a certain girlishness, but
it was marked and marred by an unpleasant maturity, as if she had
arrived too young at a woman's understanding of the world. With physical
beauty she was amply endowed; nor had it been hardened and coarsened
beyond power to allure. There was no visible imperfection to detract
from its charm; but, gazing on her, Whitmore felt something lacking,
something spiritual, imponderable, yet immediately detected and missed.
And this impression was heightened when she spoke.
"You are interested in George Collins and so am I," she said, and
paused.
"And you've come to plead for him?" His manner signified that her errand
was useless.
"Plead for him!" she echoed, a faint smile hovering about her lips. "Why
should I plead for him with you? I came to tell you that he knows--and
has bought a pistol."
"So he knows that I have learned of his conduct!" He studied the woman
as if trying to read her inmost thoughts. "Does he suppose that by
sending you with threats he can prevent me from telling--from
telling--her?"
"He didn't send me," she retorted quickly. "I came without his
knowledge. Nor do I care about what you have discovered! The point is
that he has discovered that you have been urging his wife to divorce
him. He accuses you of trying to disrupt his home. He is aware that you
have been in correspondence with his wife and intends to intercept your
next letter."
Whitmore's brow clouded. "Why did you come to tell me this?"
"For purely personal reasons."
"And who are you, madam?"
"I am----" She hesitated, as if afraid to disclose her identity. Then,
overcoming her hesitancy, she said, "I am Julia Strong."
On hearing the name, the outward calm which he had maintained vanished,
leaving him pale, agitated, apprehensive. Presently a mounting anger
succeeded all other emotions, and he rose to his feet.
"What do you mean by coming here at this hour?" he demanded savagely.
"You came here to warn me!--really, you overestimate my credulity!"
"I did come here to warn you," she persisted.
"And to betray George Collins!" The note of irony in his voice brought
the blood to her cheeks.
"I don't want him to kill you," she said, controlling a clutch in her
voice. "I want you to live. It is necessary--all my hopes and
aspirations demand it."
He was on the point of making a sharp retort, but checked himself
suddenly and regarded her with less aversion. Perhaps she was telling
the truth! If so, the situation in which he found himself was not
without its touch of grim humor. But what motive prompted her to extend
the mantle of protection about him, and simultaneously to betray George
Collins? He pondered the question a full minute. Then the simple
solution, the only tenable one, occurred to him. She was ready to betray
Collins for the same reason that had made her accept his protection.
"Madam," he said, with an eagerness he did not mean to betray, "knowing
who you are, now I can guess at the nature of your hopes and
aspirations. And you did right in coming to me. From what my detectives
have communicated to me, I am led to believe that you are a woman with a
keen appreciation of worldly comfort and luxury. I say this, without
intending the slightest offense. You are aware, undoubtedly, that I am
able to supply you with all you crave for--far in excess of anything
that you can possibly hope to obtain from Collins. If you will consent
to appear at my lawyer's office and make an affidavit----"
The changed expression on her face made him pause. She had risen and
stood facing him, her eyes blazing resentment, her lips curled in a
disdainful smile.
"I don't care to listen to your offensive utterances," she said, gazing
at him as if to impale him with her glance. "I'm sorry I came.
Good-night."
With an angry movement she donned her rich cloak, wrapping it about her
figure and moving toward the door. He followed her with his eyes, until
he saw her pass into the vestibule. Then he hastened forward and opened
the street door.
She descended the broad steps holding herself stiffly erect, head
uptilted--a striking figure, graceful, supple, almost commanding. In
fact, so attractive was the picture she made as she stood a moment on
the sidewalk, that a passing policeman, seized by a gallant impulse,
opened the door of the waiting taxicab and held it ajar while she
entered.
Balancing himself on the edge of the curb, the bluecoat stared after her
in undisguised admiration until the cab swung around the corner; then he
bestowed a curious glance on the house whence she had come. He saw that
the door was half open and that a man's figure stood revealed in the
soft light of the hallway. One hand was on the door knob, one foot was
thrust forward as if the man were uncertain whether to plunge after her.
Evidently he decided against venturing out, for he stepped back into the
vestibule and shut the door.
"Even these people have their little scraps," the bluecoat murmured
sagely, and passed on.
Herbert Whitmore did not return to the room in which he had received the
visitor. Instead, he ascended the stairs to the library, and threw
himself into the soft embrace of a wide leather chair.
The turmoil of his brain gave him an uncomfortable feeling of
excitement, as if he were participating in something active and swift,
which he but partly understood. He was incapable of connected
thought--everything was vague and shadowy before him. In a dim way he
recognized that he was standing in the way of an approaching avalanche,
and gradually he began to discern the nature of the impending
catastrophe. Presently the vague uncertainty that hovered before his
mind resolved itself into action, and his groping forefinger pressed a
button hidden beneath the carved edge of the library table. In response
to the pressure, a liveried butler entered the room.
"Did you mail the letter I gave you?" inquired Whitmore.
"Yes, sir."
"When?"
"Immediately you gave it to me."
"That was about four hours ago?"
"Yes, sir."
"That is all."
The butler effaced himself from the room as noiselessly as he had
entered, and again Whitmore gave himself up to the alarming predicament
in which he found himself.
His reflections centered about the letter which the butler had mailed.
It was not sent in a moment of impulsiveness. The information which it
conveyed was not offered in spite, or in anger, or in envy. It was the
deliberate act of a man habituated to clear thinking and correct action.
Viewed with full knowledge of all the surrounding circumstances, that
letter must be regarded as the noble outpouring of a chivalrous love,
honest, worthy, unselfish. Regarded without the illumination of the
complex conditions which called it forth, the letter was pregnant with
possibility of mischief.
It was addressed to Mrs. George Collins. And George Collins must not be
permitted to intercept it.
With the single resolve to frustrate Collins actuating his movements,
Whitmore went to his apartment, slipped on his topcoat, and left the
house. He paused at the corner to consult his watch. It was eleven
o'clock.
He was sufficiently acquainted with the city to know that over on
Seventh Avenue certain shops kept open until midnight. He had passed
them frequently after theater and observed the industrious proprietors
and barkers noisily soliciting trade on the sidewalk.
Down Fifth Avenue Whitmore swung at a rapid pace, turning west at
Forty-second Street. Through the swirling crowds at Broadway he threaded
his way, finally entering the gloomy thoroughfare that cuts a somber,
murky streak through the illuminated area of Times Square.
Even Whitmore, engrossed as he was in his own affairs, could not help a
feeling of depression as with a single step he emerged from the
throbbing life and light of Broadway into the shabby darkness of Seventh
Avenue. For nowhere in the big city is the contrast of its extremes
brought home so sharply as at this intersection of three busy
thoroughfares.
It is worth while to pause a moment in the blatant glare of that
monstrously hideous variety house, that architectural malformation that
defaces the northwest corner; or opposite in the shadow of the gray
illumined tower that mounts undaunted, a connecting ladder between earth
and sky. Especially profitable is it to pause a moment at the hour when
the neighboring theaters are discharging their crowds, and to glance
behind and beyond the furious activity that bewilders the eye and
dazzles the senses. If you have the eye to see and the mind to
appreciate, you will behold an illuminated canvas whereon is depicted,
within the limited area of your vision, everything that a great city
holds of wealth and poverty, beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, luxury
and squalor, purity and degradation, truth and falsehood. It is all
there, in this narrow environment, with the lights and the shadows
meeting and blending, as the noise from below merges with the silence
above.
Nothing of these vivid contrasts struck the sense of Whitmore as with
nervous steps he hurried toward his destination. In the first place,
familiarity with the scene had deprived him of the faculty to read its
pitiless meaning; secondly, a feverish anxiety to have done with the
business that dominated his mind and accelerated his footsteps sent him
unheeding across Seventh Avenue and down that thoroughfare until he
stopped abruptly before one of the shabby second-hand clothing stores
with which the street abounds.
The air of prosperity with which he was invested saved him from being
seized immediately by one of the bawling salesmen and dragged into the
mothy interior of the shop. He was not of the type that submits to being
manhandled and browbeaten into purchasing cast-off garments. But, as he
stood hesitant and uncertain within the narrow radius of the gas-lit
window, one of the barkers found sufficient courage to invite him
within. And, to the utter amazement of the alert salesman, Whitmore
entered the store.
The proprietor of the place, a stooped, be-whiskered man who spoke with
a pronounced Hebraic accent, came forward to wait personally on this
elegant customer. But he found that no especial skill was required to
consummate a sale. Whitmore selected an old, dilapidated suit, a worn
coat, an old slouch hat, and a pair of heavy shoes, and almost caused
the beaming merchant to die of heart failure by paying the first price
demanded of him.
"It's for an amateur theatrical performance," Whitmore explained to the
proprietor, who was unable to hide his surprise that a customer of such
seeming prosperity should invest in these cast-off garments.
With the bundle containing the clothes under his arm, Whitmore returned
to Broadway and entered one of the hotels. He consulted a railroad time
table, after which he called for a taxicab and directed the chauffeur to
take him home.
He entered the house with his latchkey and climbed the stairs to his
room. Divesting himself of coat and vest, he stepped before the mirror
and shaved off his gray mustache. Next he produced a soft tennis shirt,
which he exchanged for the linen one he had on, and an old bow tie took
the place of the blue four-in-hand which he usually wore.
Undoing the bundle with which he had entered the house, he proceeded to
dress in the second-hand garments. When he had pulled the battered
slouch hat well down on his forehead, he surveyed himself in the glass.
The transformation was complete.
Regarding himself in this shabby disguise, he almost deteriorated in his
own estimation. It was difficult to believe that a mere change of
apparel could make such a vast difference. But one satisfaction he could
not deny himself. It was unlikely that anyone would recognize, in the
human derelict before the looking-glass, Herbert Whitmore, millionaire,
owner of the great Whitmore Iron Works. It was certain that his most
intimate friend would have failed to penetrate his disguise.
Dismissing the unpleasant reflections kindled within him, Whitmore
proceeded with characteristic assurance to execute what was in his mind.
He descended silently to the basement of the house, where he obtained a
heavy screw-driver. This he secreted in the inside pocket of his coat.
Next he went to the basement door and peered furtively through the
grating. His anxious eyes swept the street until convinced that no
inquisitive policeman was loitering in the immediate vicinity. Then,
slowly, apprehensively, he opened the door and issued, like a thief in
the night, from his own home.