THE $1,000 CHECK.
A few minutes after eight o'clock that morning Mr. Illington, president
of the Furmville National Bank, had called at the Brevord to see Mr.
Withers, who, still holding his room there, was waiting for the delayed
morning train.
Mr. Illington was of the true banker type, fifty years old, immaculately
dressed, thin of lip, hard of eye, slow and precise in his enunciation.
He had, apparently, estranged himself from any deep, human feeling. The
long handling of money had hardened him. His fingers were long and
grasping, and his voice was quite as metallic as the clink of gold coins
one upon the other.
At Mr. Withers' invitation he took a chair in Mr. Withers' room. He
rubbed his dry, slender hands together and cleared his throat, after
which he spoke his little set speech of condolence.
Mr. Withers, haggard from grief and lack of sleep, waved aside these
preliminary remarks.
The banker put his hand into his breast pocket and drew forth a bulky
envelope, from which he produced a long, rectangular piece of paper.
"I knew you would prefer to learn of this at first hand from the bank;
indeed, from me, its president. Yesterday, Mr. Withers, a promissory
note, a sixty-day note, for a thousand dollars fell due in the Furmville
National Bank. You might like to see it. Here it is."
He handed the piece of paper to Withers, who saw that the note had been
signed by Maria Fulton and endorsed by Enid Fulton Withers. The husband
of the dead woman was too astonished to comment.
"We acted as--as leniently in the matter as we could, perhaps more
leniently than was strictly proper in banking circles," Mr. Illington was
pleased to explain. "I myself called up Miss Fulton on the telephone
yesterday, but naturally she was so agitated that she seemed unable to
give me any information as to what she intended to do regarding
the--er--liquidation of this indebtedness."
"And," concluded Withers, passing the note back to him, "since my wife
was the endorser, it's up to me to make the note good, to pay the bank
the thousand dollars."
Mr. Illington was glad to see how thoroughly the bereaved husband
appreciated the situation.
"Quite right, entirely so," he said. "And will you?"
"Of course."
"Ahem--When?" inquired the banker, assuming an expression of casual
interest.
"I haven't that much money on deposit in Atlanta, but I can get it. I
return to Atlanta this afternoon. I can send the money to you tomorrow.
Will that answer?"
"Oh, perfectly, perfectly," assented Mr. Illington, much reassured. "We
are always glad, at the Furmville National, to do the reasonable and
accommodating thing. Yes; that will be thoroughly satisfactory.--Ahem!
I have a new note here. You might sign it? To keep things regular, in
order."
Withers signed the new note. It was for five days.
Illington got to his feet with stiff dignity.
"Glad to accommodate you, Mr. Withers; very glad. I wish you good
morning," he concluded, going toward the door.
"Good-bye," replied Withers absently, but looked up suddenly. "By the
way, I might like to know something about the disposition of that
thousand dollars. Could you tell me anything concerning it?"
Mr. Illington came back to his chair and reseated himself, again
producing the bulky envelope.
"I was prepared for just such a request, a perfectly natural request," he
answered Withers question, plainly approving of his own forehandedness.
He took from the envelope and passed to Withers a canceled check.
"This," he said, "gives you the information you desire. You see, I
gathered from the newspaper reports this morning and from the gossip of
the street yesterday afternoon that there might be more or less of--er--a
mystery in this--ah--distressing situation. Consequently, I brought along
this check which, curiously enough, had not been called for by the maker
of it."
Withers, disregarding the banker's remarks, was studying the check. It
had been signed by Enid Fulton Withers, to whom the $1,000 loan had
evidently been credited at the Furmville National. It was for $1,000, and
it was made payable to Maria Fulton. Maria Fulton had indorsed it, and,
below her endorsement, appeared that of Henry Morley, showing that the
money had passed directly into the hands of Morley.
"That's all I wanted to know," Withers said quietly, giving the check
back to Illington. "I'm much obliged."
This time Illington departed, taking himself off with a feeling of having
done his duty with promptitude and according to the best business ethics.
His visit had prevented Withers' meeting the train, and Fulton had gone
directly to Manniston Road.
Braceway, going to the hotel on the banker's heels, was admitted by
Withers, who broke into a storm of futile, highly coloured profanity.
"Brace," he said, "you'll get the devil who's caused all this, won't you?
You know what my life has been! You'll get him if you have to tear up
heaven and earth."
"Sure! Sure!" Braceway declared. "Keep yourself together. Let me do the
worrying. I'll get him if he's above the sod."
* * * * *
"So, you see," Braceway said, in reciting the incident to Bristow, "we're
getting a little warm on the scent. This Morley, this wooer of Maria,
seems to have his head within stinging range of the hornets, doesn't he?"
"Undoubtedly."
"What do you make of it?" pressed Braceway.
Bristow thought a little while.
"It might be this," he advanced: "Morley is in trouble with his bank,
short in his accounts--probably has been for several months. Two months
ago, sixty-one days ago, he confided to Miss Fulton that he stood in
great danger of arrest, pointed out that he had made a mistake, asked
assistance from her, told her a thousand dollars would arrange things.
"But, instead of paying the thousand into the bank, he went to gambling
with it in the hope of trebling or quadrupling it and--lost it. In other
words, he's been afraid to tell his financee how much he really owed the
bank and then played the thousand to win enough to enable him to square
himself."
"Once more," observed the Atlanta man, "you speak in mouthfuls."
"Again and further--of course, all this is on the theory that Morley is a
pusillanimous kind of man; but he would have to be just that to be taking
money from a woman, any woman, much less the one to whom he is engaged to
be married--again and further, when he had lost the thousand and saw ruin
just ahead of him again, he ran down here and asked for more money.
"Perhaps, Mrs. Withers, at her sister's tearful request, had previously
raised more than a thousand for him, had added to that thousand other
money obtained from pawning some of her jewelry; and he now insisted that
Maria make Mrs. Withers go the limit and pawn _all_ her jewelry.
"By George!" Bristow concluded. "That may explain the quarrel which Miss
Rutgers, the trained nurse in Number Seven, heard the two sisters engaged
in the day before the murder. Yes; it might. Evidently, Mrs. Withers
refused to be bled further. After that, what? What would you say?"
"It's plain enough," Braceway answered. "There was Morley, crazed by the
fear of arrest and conviction for embezzlement. There was Mrs. Withers,
still possessing and holding enough jewelry to get him out of trouble, if
he had time to convert the jewels into cash and to get back to his bank
with the money.
"What was the result of that situation? Evidently, he never intended to
catch that midnight train. He did what he had planned to do, came back to
Number Five, confronted Mrs. Withers soon after her escort had left her
at the door, demanded the jewels, was refused; and then, in a blind rage
or a panic, killed her and stole the jewels."
"There's no use blinking the fact," said Bristow in a quiet, calculating
way, trying to keep in his mind all the other peculiar circumstances
surrounding this crime. "From the way we've put it, the thing reads as
plainly as a primer. Now, what are we to do? Even now, we haven't the
proof on him--any real proof."
"Suppose," said Braceway, "we let him leave Furmville, let him go back
to Washington, with the hope that he does pawn the stuff he's stolen?"
"And suppose," Bristow added, "we get a detailed description of all the
jewelry Mrs. Withers owned, and wire that description to the police of
the principal towns between here and Washington and between here and
Atlanta. We'll make the request, of course, that they watch the pawnshops
and nab anybody who shows up with any of the Withers stuff?"
"That's it! That's it as sure as you're born!" Braceway struck the arm of
his chair and catapulted himself into a standing position. "That will get
him--provided, of course, he's desperate enough to take the chance of
pawning any of it."
"One other thing," Bristow supplemented. "You said Withers said something
to you this morning about your knowing what his life had been. Just what
did he mean?"
Braceway reflected a moment,
"There's no reason for your not knowing it," he confided. "Withers
had rather a trying life with his wife. It was a baffling sort of a
situation. She was in love with him. I haven't a doubt of that. And he
was in love with her.
"She was one of the most fascinating women I ever saw. They used to say
in Atlanta that all the women liked her, and that any man who had once
shaken hands with her and looked her in the eye was, forever after, her
obedient servant.
"But she was never entirely frank with Withers. Naturally, that at first
made him regretful, and later it made him jealous. You know his type.
I'm not sure that I have the whole story, but that's the foundation of
it, and it led to bitter disagreements and fierce quarrels.
"Some of their acquaintances got on to it, and couldn't understand why a
woman like her and a good fellow like Withers couldn't hit it off. Things
got worse and worse. I don't believe Withers minded her being up here
with her sister. The temporary separation came, probably, as a great
relief to both of them."
"I see," Bristow said. "Naturally, when, on top of all that, the money
began to fly and the jewels went into pawn, he came to the end of his
rope--determined to put a stop to the thing."
"Probably," said Braceway, looking at his watch. "But how about our
little job--getting the description of the jewelry and having Greenleaf
wire it out? I'll go down to Number Five and get it from Withers and his
father-in-law."
"You don't mind seeing Miss Fulton?" Bristow asked interestedly.
"Oh, no," he answered, embarrassment again in his manner. "But I don't
feel like cross-questioning her. You can understand that. You'll have to
take on that end, really."
Bristow thought: "He's still in love with her. I was right about her.
There's a lot to her if she can hold a live wire like this." Aloud he
said:
"All right. You get the list. In the meantime, I'll telephone Greenleaf
to tell Morley he can go to Washington tomorrow if he wants to--but not
today."
"Why not today?"
"Because there are some things here you and I had better go over, and I
think we'd do well to follow Morley, don't you? That is, if we want to
get the goods on him without fail."
"Now that I think of it, yes. Perhaps, both of us needn't go, but one
will have to."
He went down the steps, saying Withers had by this time arrived at No. 5
and would be waiting there with Mr. Fulton. Both the father and the
husband would accompany the body of Mrs. Withers to Atlanta on the four
o'clock train that afternoon.
Bristow, having caught Greenleaf by telephone at the inquest, gave him
their decision about Morley's departure the next day, and announced that
he and Braceway would like him to send out by wire the description of the
Withers jewels. To both of these propositions Greenleaf agreed. Bristow
returned to his porch.
"So," he thought, "it's got to be Morley or the negro."
And yet, he decided, in spite of the theorizing he and Braceway had
indulged in, there was small chance now of fixing the crime definitely on
Morley. He had none of the jewelry, apparently. The police had searched
his baggage and his room at the hotel, without success. Indubitably, it
would be more likely that a jury would convict Perry. All the direct
evidence was against the negro.
Bristow did not deceive himself. It would be a great satisfaction and a
morsel to his vanity to prove the negro guilty. He foresaw that the
papers sooner or later would get hold of the fact that Braceway was after
Morley.
And, although they had hinted at mystery and uncertainty this morning,
they had printed their stories so as to show that Greenleaf, backed by
Bristow, would try to get Perry. The duel between himself and Braceway
was on. He remembered he had discounted at the beginning the idea of the
negro's guilt, but that had been before the discovery of the fragment of
the lavalliere chain.
Now, he was disposed, determined even, to treat everything as if Perry
were the guilty man. He would work with that idea always in mind. In
the meantime he would go with Braceway as long as the Braceway theories
seemed to have any foundation at all. He did not want to run the risk of
being shown up as a bungler. He was anxious to be "in on" anything that
might happen.
"So," he concluded, "if Perry is finally convicted, I get the credit. If
Morley is sent up, I'll get some of the credit for that also. I won't
lose either way.
"Now, about Withers? I've got to handle him by myself. If I were
analyzing this case from the newspaper accounts of it, I'd say at first
blush that either Withers did the thing or Perry did it. That's what the
public's saying now.
"But Braceway stands as a fence between Withers and me. He's a friend of
Withers and in love with Withers' sister-in-law. And he believes Withers
innocent. That's patent. For the present, I can't do anything in that
direction. I've got to dig up everything possible on Morley and the
negro--and, in spite of the check business, the chances are against the
negro."
He called to Mattie whom he heard moving about in the dining room.
"Lucy Thomas," he said, "is out of jail now. I wish you'd go look for her
right away. The inquest is over by this time, and she'll be at home by
the time you get there. Bring her back here with you. Tell her it's by
order of the police, and I only want to talk to her a few minutes."
"Yas, suh," said Mattie.
"I'm not going to hurt her, Mattie," he said. "Be sure to tell her so."
"Yas, suh, Mistuh Bristow; I sho' will tell her. I 'spec' dat po' nigger
is done had de bre'f skeered outen her already."
His eye was caught by the figures of Braceway and Mr. Fulton leaving No.
5. They turned and started up the walk toward No. 9.
"Mr. Fulton," Braceway explained, after the introduction to Bristow,
"wants to tell you something about his--about Mrs. Withers. It brings in
further complications--hard ones for us."