THE NUMBERS OF THE MISSING NOTES
Loide got off the boat safely. On the wharf at Queenstown he secured a
position where, concealed himself, he could watch the liner.
Hours seemed to drag by which were in reality minutes. At last the
tender put off with the mails and reached the steamer's side.
With his glasses he could see everything that was going on. There was no
excitement.
The bags were handed on board, and presently he made out a wake of foam
from the blades of the steamer's screw. The tender had turned and was
coming back; the steamer was going on.
Loide breathed a deep sigh of relief. So far nothing had been
discovered.
Ultimately he reached London, and let himself into his office after
dark--as he had left it.
He made shirt, clothing, and wig, and all the coal he had in his office
scuttle into a parcel, and a short while after that parcel was making a
hole for itself in the soft mud under London Bridge.
The disguise was disposed of--and Richard was himself again.
An aggravated, very much upset Richard. He had committed actual murder,
and was not a penny the richer for it.
The heinousness of the crime did not present itself to him; he rather
looked at it from the standpoint of its barren financial result.
He had so counted on a large profit in connection with his quick return.
He had food for thought, sufficient to last an ordinary man many meals.
But Mr. Richard Loide was not an ordinary man. He no longer imagined
those crisp Bank of England notes to be in the steamer's strong-room.
He did not believe they were even on the ship. That towel removed and a
tragic story stared him in the face.
What did it mean?
That he could not fathom. One solid fact was existent--there had been
foul play.
Some one had the notes. The man in whose possession they were had a hand
in the murder. And that is where Mr. Loide hoped to step in and take a
part in the drama.
The hand of death had lowered the curtain on the first act, and the
lawyer just hankered after getting behind the scenes.
He formed an idea of his own that, for some reason, Depew was lurking in
England; had bargained with the man Loide had killed to personate him on
the boat, and so destroy a clue to his existence in London.
What then did the other, the cut up body mean? Who could that have been?
He regretted now that his horror had prevented his looking at the head.
That was another puzzle, and he could not in any way solve it.
But he was bent on one thing--the finding of Mr. Depew, and the bleeding
of him for all he was worth.
Being a city lawyer, and moving in city financial circles, blackmailing
had not for him the horrid appearance it presented to most people.
One gets used to the atmosphere one breathes daily, and the atmosphere
of London city reeks of blackmail.
Suddenly a thought came to him which sent all the blood to his heart,
and caused him to start to his feet in alarm.
Suppose he had been deceived? Suppose he had not handed the money over
to the real George Depew?
He broke into a cold sweat at the mere idea!
He remembered how exceedingly lax he had been because Depew had
frightened him.
The American had seen through the frauds on his aunt, and practically
taxed the lawyer with them. Had he chosen, he could have made him
disgorge all those gains of years.
Why had he not? If the real, genuine nephew, cute and sharp as he had
been in getting the full value of the estate from the sale, why had he
not, with his suspicions aroused, insisted on an inspection of the back
accounts?
Why had he not? And once more the sweat of fear beaded on Loide's brow.
He was poor enough as it was. What if a real George Depew appeared on
the scene and demanded that which was his?
The perspiration beads grew in size.
The lawyer called to mind how meagre had been the identification. He
remembered that, frightened as he had been he had accepted a certificate
of birth, and some envelopes directed to Depew in America, as
confirmation that he was the real man.
For that the lawyer would never forgive himself. In ordinary
circumstances he would have probed much more deeply.
That fright--that was what did it--unmanned him, and made him behave
like a perfect ass. He could have kicked himself for an hour and
rejoiced in the resultant pain.
He told himself that he needed punishment--badly.
He thought of his own disguise; how he had so changed his own appearance
that he had not known himself in the mirror.
Why should not Mr. Depew have done a similar thing?
Then another thought. Did disguise account for the different appearance
of the man who was now crossing the Atlantic with a gaping wound in his
throat?
No; he felt that was not so. Depew was a head shorter than the man he
had killed.
He was glad he remembered that, because it removed the slightest doubt.
It convinced him that Depew was in London, and it must be
his--Loide's--business to find him.
Find him, and put pertinent questions to him; make him do a sum in
arithmetic--two into nineteen--and hand over the quotient.
He did not fear an interview. The unexpected always happens, and the
unexpectant one is generally at a disadvantage.
Loide felt that. Felt that, in the language of Depew's country, he
would be "upper dog" in the interview.
And then he set his wits to work--how to discover George Depew's
whereabouts.
And meanwhile, in the same compass, within the radius of the city of
London, another man was thinking--thinking with the same strained look
on his face, too.
He was standing looking out of the window of a room in Finsbury Circus,
standing there gnawing what was left of the nails of his hand, and
watching but for one man's advent--the postman.
He was not looking for the telegraph boy--he knew it was too late for
that--but a letter from his brother.
It had been arranged between them that the moment Arthur reached
Queenstown in safety he should despatch a wire with the two words "All
serene" if things were so.
And in case he should be asleep when the boat was off Queenstown, he had
asked the purser to give him a call.
No such wire reached the dentist, hence his own disturbed serenity.
He waited and waited for it till he worked himself into such a state of
nervousness--he had not his brother's iron will--that he shook from head
to foot.
That no one in need of dental attention visited him that day was
fortunate for the man with the aching tooth.
A trembling hand is not the best kind with which to grip forceps.
As the day passed by and nothing came, the dentist became positively
ill. He drank all that was left of the bottle of brandy, and for the
first time in his life went home the worse for it.
His wife was surprised, amazed, shocked. That was, perhaps, as well.
In her offended dignity she stood aloof from him. It was better so.
Long before breakfast in the morning he had left the house. He wanted to
be in Finsbury Circus before the postman, and he was.
The first delivery--no letter. He staggered back, fell into a chair, and
buried his face in his hands. What could it mean?
It did not occur to him that a letter from Queenstown could not reach so
quickly.
His brain was pregnant with but two ideas. His brother had promised to
telegraph--he had not. His brother had promised to write--he had not.
And he seemed to see that one question standing out in fiery letters on
the wall: "What did it mean?"
He had the notes. He had instructions what to do with them, but he dared
not carry out those instructions.
Suppose his brother had been arrested--arrested with the terrible
contents of those two portmanteaus in his possession!
As each edition of the evening papers came out, he sent Sawyer for
copies, but he gleaned nothing from them, no arrest was reported,
nothing in any way bearing on the matter.
The purchase of the papers did no good--save sending him up in the
estimation of his satellite.
Sawyer imagined that "the guv'nor had been putting a bit on the four
legged 'uns," and was anxious to peruse the column captioned "All the
Winners."
His own sporting instincts made him look up to his employer for the
first time.
And the lawyer?
Made up his mind. It was risky what he proposed doing, because, as a man
innocent of any knowledge of what had occurred, he was clearly, legally
wrong in doing it.
Still he had to find Mr. Depew, and there was only one way to do it.
Fraught with risk--but he risked it. Desperate diseases need desperate
remedies.
He sat down and pulled a sheet of his headed office paper towards him.
Then--as a lawyer--he wrote a letter.
It was to the Bank of England stopping the numbers of the nineteen notes
he had obtained from that institution, and paid over to Mr. Depew.
Bold, daring, but must necessarily be successful.