At a window of the Cosmos Club, overlooking Fifth avenue, two men were
seated. It was dusk, and thick shadows filled the unlighted clubroom,
concealing the faces of the men from the countless eyes of the men and
women passing in parade beneath the window.
From where they sat the two men could observe the endless procession in
the street, while keeping an eye on the door leading from the room into
the main corridor of the big clubhouse. One of the men--the younger of
the two--appeared uneasy over something, even rebellious at times. His
sallow complexion had taken on a muddy hue in the semi-darkness of the
room, giving his face the appearance of a compact shadow outlined
against the heavy brown leather chair in which he sat. From beneath a
slightly receding forehead two lusterless eyes peered apprehensively
about the room, and each time the door opened the man started violently
in his seat.
The occupant of the second chair was a middle-aged man of somewhat ruddy
complexion, smooth-shaven, with an expression habitually alert, yet
concealed by a free-and-easy manner and an ingratiating smile that
seemed to stamp him as one of those genial souls in whom no harm can
reside. Yet the younger man appeared to regard him with sullen fear.
"It's a sort of dirty, underhand thing to do, Fanwell," he was
protesting to his companion. "Not a bit clubby."
Fanwell remained entirely unabashed beneath this surly reproof.
"Look here, Cooper!" He moved his chair a trifle closer. "You don't have
to do it--I can't make you. But you know the consequences. You know as
well as I that the chief isn't doing favors for nothing. He let you stay
out of jail because he figured on using you some day. Your day of
usefulness has arrived. If I could rope Collins without you I'd do it.
But I can't play a waiting game. You've got to introduce me and stand by
until I tip you off to go!"
Cooper squirmed in his seat. He might revolt at the other's assumption
of authority over him, but he was aware that in the end he would
surrender. He was not in a position to incur the displeasure of the
police.
Thomas Taylor Cooper was one of those men-about-town, without visible
means of support, who always manage to maintain an outward show of
wealth. No club is so exclusive that it does not contain one or more
members of the Cooper type. Their pedigrees are without blemish. Their
social position is secure through a long line of honorable ancestors.
But their means of livelihood are precarious. Friends and fellow club
members may wonder where they obtain the money for their dues, but
somehow their curiosity seldom inspires them to investigate.
The Coopers of society and club life have many invisible means of
support. There are the climbers, who are easy prey. Then the tailors and
haberdashers are glad to furnish free wearing apparel in return for the
custom which these men are able to recommend. Caterers, decorators,
florists do not balk at paying commissions on contracts. The society
papers pay liberally for society scandal. And occasionally, as in every
other station of life, there is to be found in the upper circles of
society, an idle and discontented woman with more money than prudence.
Cooper had attached himself to one of these women; and, as their
relations grew more intimate, he succeeded in attaching himself to some
of her rings. Subsequently he met more promising prey and began to
neglect the woman whose confidence he had betrayed. At first her jealous
rage expended itself in futile appeals to his manhood, his honor, his
sense of obligation. Then it occupied itself with plans for revenge. She
demanded the return of the jewelry which he had borrowed on one pretense
or another. But it had passed long ago to the pawnshops and could not be
reclaimed. Seeing an opportunity to humiliate and punish the man, she
discarded discretion, and appealed to the police.
As invariably happens in such cases, the woman came to her senses
eventually. Cooper found the climate elsewhere more inviting and
remained away until the woman realized that she was plunging into a
colossal scandal and withdrew her complaint.
But Cooper had placed himself in the power of the police, and now
Fanwell did not hesitate to exert that power over him.
"Collins didn't leave the house until to-day," the detective explained.
"But he broke loose this afternoon when he learned that his
brother-in-law's bank had busted and that all his money is tied up in
the failure. He was drunk when he left the house and the chances are
he'll be more intoxicated when he drops in here."
"But if it ever gets out that I acted as police agent I'd be shunned by
everybody I know," growled Cooper.
"It will never get out," the other promised. "You needn't have a bit of
fear."
The shadows in the room lengthened until it was difficult to distinguish
the various objects scattered about the place. The few members that had
dropped into the club faded into dark images barely discernible in their
broad leather chairs. Then, of a sudden, the lights were switched on.
The sharp rays that spread from the clusters of electric lamps revealed
a man's figure outlined in the doorway. His eyes traveled about the room
as if imploring a nod of recognition, but none was vouchsafed him.
"Collins!" exclaimed Cooper in an undertone.
"Get him!" commanded Fanwell. "Remember, I'm a relation of yours--from
the West!"
Hiding his reluctancy, Cooper left his seat and advanced toward the
doorway.
"Hello, George!" He extended a hand in greeting.
An expression of drunken amazement overspread Collins's dissipated face.
He came forward, almost falling on the other man's shoulders.
"Hello, Tom!" he returned the greeting. "Glad there's one man that ain't
ashamed to talk to me. Just look at 'em around here! They act as if they
didn't know me. That's a hell of a way to treat a good fellow like me,
now ain't it? Just because my name's been in the newspapers!"
Cooper led his friend toward the window.
"Glad to have you join me," he said. "I've got a distant relation
here--just in from the West. Wants to see the town."
"Rotten town!" growled Collins. "And the people in it--worse! You're the
only good fellow, Tom, I've met all afternoon. Everybody else looked at
me like I had a knife out for 'em. Had to drink alone every place I
went."
Mr. Fanwell greeted the newcomer cordially, bestowing on him a smile so
ingratiating as to put Collins immediately at ease.
"You've probably read a bit about Collins in the papers lately,"
remarked Cooper.
"Not the Mr. Collins mentioned in connection with the Whitmore case?"
asked the detective innocently.
"Yes, that's me!" mumbled Collins. Then, in a burst of drunken
unconcern,--"And if you want to turn your back on me too, why, you and
Tom may do so!"
"Not at all, not at all!" Fanwell hastened to assure him. "I'm glad to
know you. Won't you join us in a drink?"
The invitation seemed to mollify Collins. He smiled foolishly and
dropped into a chair. But the cold shrugs, the averted faces which he
had met all afternoon still preyed on his mind, and, under the stimulus
of a fresh drink, he opened the floodgates of his wrath.
"They're a lot of spineless jellyfish in this town," he drawled. "They
all believe I killed Whitmore. Well, I'm not saying whether I did or
not. But suppose I did kill him? Ain't a man got the right to defend his
home? What's this country coming to when a viper can sneak into another
man's house and steal his wife? The papers say that I went around
threatening to kill him. Well, I did. And I meant it, too. Why, that
yellow cur was sending letters to my wife urging her to leave me. What
do you think of that?"
Fanwell and Cooper shook their heads gravely, as if in sympathy with
him.
"He dishonored my home!" Collins exclaimed with added vehemence. "He
stole my wife--he tried to steal her," he corrected with a sly grin.
"And that thieving brother of hers was in sympathy with him! Ever heard
of anything like that before? A brother approving the liaison between
'em? And now Ward's bank has busted and I'm ruined! Fine state of
affairs--what?"
Collins looked musingly out of the window. He was in a talkative mood,
yet Fanwell dared not prompt him into further revelations. To manage a
drunken man, or one half-drunk, requires exceptional tact. Once his
suspicions are aroused, it is impossible to allay them.
Even now it was evident to the detective that Collins wasn't talking as
freely as he pretended to be. He still retained a sufficient amount of
caution not to plunge into the details of the murder itself. What he
said of his wife's relations with Whitmore was simply a repetition of
statements he had made at the club and elsewhere before Whitmore's
death. Plenty of witnesses could be obtained who would testify to having
heard Collins threaten to kill the merchant. But whether he had actually
carried out his threat remained to be proved.
Fanwell was aware that at Police Headquarters opinion as to Collins's
guilt was divided. Britz did not believe him guilty, Greig seemed
hopelessly befuddled by the conflicting evidence, while Chief Manning
dared not venture an opinion. But a majority of the other detectives
engaged on the case seemed confident that Collins was the man. Fanwell
wondered whether Britz had been led into an error of judgment.
Over Collins a slow transformation was creeping. His eyes, which had
blazed indignantly while he was talking, now clouded with a dull mist.
The tense expression of his face relaxed and his head sank on his
shoulders. He was quickly passing into a state of sodden stupefaction.
Being unfamiliar with Collins's habits and his capacity for drink,
Fanwell was trying desperately to think of some means of restoring the
drunken man to a condition in which his perverted sense of injuries
suffered would inspire his tongue to further revelations.
"Is he a chronic drunk or an occasional drinker?" the detective
whispered to Cooper.
"Chronic," came the whispered reply.
"Then he'll recover in a few minutes."
They waited while Collins surrendered completely to the conquering
stupor, which seemed more like a heavy sleep brought on by physical
exhaustion than the overpowering effect of whisky fumes. His heavy
eyelids closed, his jaw hung, he breathed through his mouth. After a
time Fanwell shook the unconscious Collins until all the drowsiness left
him.
"We're going to dinner," he said. "Come and join!"
Collins waved a repudiating hand.
"Don't want any food," he growled. "Give me a drink."
He was induced to accompany his friends into the dining-room. The smell
of food provoked his appetite and he ordered an elaborate meal. When it
came he could not eat it. But two or three glasses of champagne revived
him temporarily, long enough for him to note the chilling contempt with
which the other diners in the room regarded him. After indulging in a
long volley of profanity, his mood underwent another change. He grew
morose, introspective, self-pitying.
"Nobody cares for me!" he whined. "They've all turned against me. But
there's one that would have stood by me--she's dead!"
His memory of her grew suddenly tender and tears filled his bleary eyes.
"She was all right--a good girl but stubborn," he proceeded in a maudlin
way. "Got the marriage craze! Wanted me to let my wife get a divorce and
marry her! She didn't want to live dishonored all her life. And she
killed herself--poor Julia!"
As the name dropped from his lips, Collins bolted upright in his chair.
"I'm going to the flat," he said. "That's where I was happy."
"Wait and we'll go with you," suggested Cooper on a nudge from the
detective.
"All right," assented Collins. "You're the only friend I've got left."
They hurried through the rest of the meal, then descended to the lobby
of the club. While Cooper and Collins waited for their hats and coats,
Fanwell darted into the telephone booth and called up Police
Headquarters.
"I've got him roped," he said. "If Britz calls up tell him he's on the
way to Julia Strong's apartment."
The bracing night air did not dispel Collins's melancholy. He walked
with head bent, a woe-begone expression engraved on his face. At the
door of the apartment house in which Julia Strong had killed herself, he
hesitated an instant. But, observing that his companions had already
entered the vestibule, he overcame his hesitancy and followed them
within.
The elevator boy eyed the three men curiously as he took them to the
floor on which the apartment was situated. And he lingered inquisitively
while Collins inserted the key in the lock and opened the door.
They entered with a vague feeling of gloom, as if about to step into a
death chamber. Nor did they regain their spirits on perceiving the
disordered condition of the place, with the many mementos of her who had
killed herself in fear that she had betrayed Collins, scattered about.
"I wish she was here now," said Collins, tenderly picking up a white
glove that had been thrown to the floor. "I might have married her at
that!"
The others disposed themselves in chairs while Collins wandered
aimlessly about the apartment. Grief-stricken though he was, he showed
no appreciation of the significance of the tragedy for which he was in
large measure responsible. For an hour he tired his companions with
stories of Julia Strong's beauty, of her faithfulness and of her remorse
when she realized the full import of her surrender to him.
"But I'm glad they made me stay at home," he declared. "I'd have broken
down over her body."
The thought of her cold, lifeless form, recalled to his rum-soaked brain
the funeral arrangements that had been made for her.
"That man Luckstone is a great lawyer," he said. "He looked after it
all. Had the body shipped home to her parents! They thought she was
earning a living here--never knew I was supporting her. Wonderful
man--Luckstone! Did it all so quietly, too!"
"Saved you a lot of trouble, didn't he?" Cooper encouraged him to
proceed.
The word trouble jarred Collins's train of thought out of its remorseful
channel.
"Trouble!" he echoed, raising his voice to a high pitch. "I've certainly
got trouble on my hands. But I'm glad she's not here to share it. She
wanted luxuries--I gave 'em to her. We'd both be in a fine predicament
now, wouldn't we? All my money gone--sunk in Ward's schemes! Oh, they're
a fine combination--Ward and my wife!" he declared bitterly. "She
thought herself too good for me, too virtuous to remain my wife! You've
read of Ward's failure--the papers must be full of it! Well, I'm the one
that's hit. All my money, every cent I've got is in his bank. Oh, just
wait till I see him!"
He paused, turning an agonized countenance on his friends. The loss of
the girl for whom he had provided the apartment had touched his sense of
remorse; the loss of his money swept him with an anguish so keen that
for the time it excluded all other emotions from his mind.
"We're all paupers!" he exclaimed. "Made paupers by Ward. Ward--yes,
damn him! Ward--the thief! My respectable brother-in-law! Ward--the--"
Collins stopped short, amazement written across his features. He stood
mute, lips pendent, his eyes bulging forward as if gazing at an
apparition. Cooper and Fanwell, following his gaze, beheld the door
standing ajar and revealing a man's form with one hand on the knob, the
other braced against the jamb. Evidently the newcomer had changed his
mind after opening the door, and was about to close it softly, without
revealing himself. On being discovered, however, he came forward boldly,
shutting the door after him.
With his back against the portal he surveyed the three men in the room,
but without a gleam of recognition in his eyes.
"Well--who are you?" brusquely demanded Collins.
"I am Detective-Lieutenant Britz," the visitor said in even tones. "Sit
down, Collins!"