LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
Delaying only long enough to deposit his suit-case at his lodgings, and
neglecting the luncheon which he felt he could relish, Garrison posted
off to Eighteenth Street with all possible haste.
The house he found at the number supplied by Dorothy was an old-time
residence, with sky-scrapers looming about it. A pale woman met him at
the door.
"Miss Root--is Miss Root in, please?" he said. "I'd like to see her."
"There's no such person here," said the woman.
"She's gone--she's given up her apartment?" said Garrison, at a loss to
know what this could mean. "She went to-day? Where is she now?"
"She's never been here," informed the landlady. "A number of letters
came here, addressed in her name, and I took them in, as people often
have mail sent like that when they expect to visit the city, but she
sent around a messenger and got them this morning."
Thoroughly disconcerted by this intelligence, Garrison could only ask
if the woman knew whence the messenger had come--the address to which
he had taken the letters. The woman did not know.
There was nothing to do but to hasten to the house near Washington
Square. Garrison lost no time in speeding down Fifth Avenue.
He came to the door just in time to meet Miss Ellis, dressed to go out.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Fairfax?" she said. "Mrs. Fairfax asked me to
tell you, if you came before I went, that she'd meet you at your
office. I felt so sorry when she was ill."
"I didn't know she'd been ill," said Garrison. "I was afraid of
something like that when she failed to write."
"Oh, yes, she was ill in the morning, the very day after you left,"
imparted Miss Ellis.
"I know you'll excuse me," interrupted Garrison. "I'll hurry along,
and hope to see you again."
He was off so abruptly that Miss Ellis was left there gasping on the
steps.
Ten minutes later he was stepping from the elevator and striding down
the office-building hall.
Dorothy was not yet in the corridor. He opened the office, beheld a
number of notes and letters on the floor, and was taking them up when
Dorothy came in, breathless, her eyes ablaze with excitement.
"Jerold!" she started. "Please lock the door and----" when she was
interrupted by the entrance of a man.
Dorothy gave a little cry and fled behind the desk.
Garrison faced the intruder, a tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed man with
a long mustache--a person with every mark of the gentleman upon him.
"Well, sir," said Garrison, in some indignation, "what can I do for
you?"
"We'll wait a minute and see," said the stranger. "My name is Jerold
Fairfax, and I came to claim my wife."
Garrison almost staggered. It was like a bolt from the bluest sky,
where naught but the sun of glory had been visible.
"Dorothy! What does he mean?" he said, turning at once to the girl.
She sank weakly to a chair and could not meet the question in his eyes.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" demanded the visitor. "This is my wife
and I'd like to know what it means, you or somebody else passing
yourself off in my place!"
Garrison still looked at Dorothy.
"This isn't true, what the man is saying?" he inquired.
She tried to look up. "I--I---- Forgive me, please," she said.
"He's--He followed me here----"
"Certainly I followed," interrupted the stranger. "Why wouldn't I
follow my wife? What does this mean, all this stuff they've been
printing in the papers about some man passing as your husband?" He
snatched out a newspaper abruptly, and waved it in the air.
"And if you're the man," he added, turning to Garrison, "I'll inform
you right now----"
"That will do for you," Garrison interrupted. "This lady has come to
my office on a matter of business. My services to her have nothing to
do with you or any of your claims. And let me impress upon you the
fact that her affairs with me are private in character, and that you
are here uninvited."
"The devil I am!" answered Fairfax, practically as cool as Garrison
himself. "I'll inform you that a man needs no invitation from a
stranger, lawyer, detective, or otherwise, to seek the presence of his
wife. And now that I've found her I demand that she come along with
me!"
Dorothy started to her feet and fled behind Garrison.
"Please don't let him stay!" she said. "Don't let him touch me,
please!"
Garrison faced the intruder calmly.
"I permit no one to issue orders in this office, either to me or my
clients," he said. "Unless you are a far better man than I, you will
do nothing to compel this lady to depart until she wishes to do so.
You will oblige me by leaving my office."
"I'll do nothing of the sort!" answered Fairfax. "Your bluff sounds
big, but I'm here to call it, understand? Dorothy, I command you to
come."
"I will not go with such a man as you!" she cried in a sudden burst of
anger. "You left me shamefully, half an hour after we were married!
You've been no husband to me! You have only come back because you
heard there might be money! I never wish to see you again!"
"Well, you're going to hear from me, now!" said Fairfax. "As for you,
Mr. Garrison, assuming my name and----"
He was making a movement toward his pocket, throwing back his coat.
"Drop that!" interrupted Garrison. He had drawn his revolver with a
quickness that was startling. "Up with your hand!"
Fairfax halted his impulse. His hand hung oscillating at the edge of
his coat. A ghastly pallor overspread his face. His eyes took on a
look of supernatural brightness. His mouth dropped open. He crouched
a trifle forward, staring fixedly at the table. His hand had fallen at
his side. He began to whisper:
"His brains are scattered everywhere, I see them--see
them--everywhere--everywhere!" His hand came up before his eyes, the
fingers spread like talons. He cried out brokenly, and, turning
abruptly, hastened through the door, and they heard him running down
the hall.
Dorothy had turned very white. She looked at Garrison almost wildly.
"That's exactly what he said before," she said, "when he pushed me from
the train and ran away."
"What does it mean?" said Garrison, tense with emotion. "What have you
done to me, Dorothy? He isn't your husband, after all?"
Dorothy sank once more in the chair. She looked at Garrison
appealingly.
"I married him," she moaned. "He's crazy!"
Garrison, too, sat down. His pistol he dropped in his pocket.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"I was afraid," she confessed. "I thought you wouldn't consent to
be--to be--what you have been."
"Of course I wouldn't," Garrison responded. "What have I got myself
into? Why did you do it?"
"I had to," she answered weakly. "Please don't scold me now--even if
you have to desert me." Her voice broke in one convulsive sob, but she
mastered herself sharply. "I'll go," she added, struggling to her
feet. "I didn't mean to get you into all this----"
"Dorothy, sit down," he interrupted, rising instantly and placing his
hand on her shoulder. "I didn't mean it--didn't mean what I said. I
shan't desert you. I love you--I love you, Dorothy!"
She turned one hurt look upon him, then sank on the desk to cover her
face.
"Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she said. "You haven't any right----"
"Forgive me," he pleaded. "I didn't intend to let you know. I didn't
intend to use my position for anything like that. Forgive me--forget
what I said--and let me serve you as I have before, with no thought of
anything but--earning the money, my fee."
He turned away, striking his fist in his palm, and went across to the
window.
For nearly five minutes neither spoke. Dorothy, torn by emotions too
great to be longer restrained, had controlled her sobs almost
immediately, but she had not dared to raise her eyes. She sat up at
last, and with gaze averted from the figure against the square of
light, composed herself as best she might.
"What is there we can do?" she said at last. "If you wish to be
released from your--your position----"
"We won't talk of that," he interrupted, still looking out on the roofs
below. "I'm in this to stay--till you dismiss me and bid me forget
it--forget it and you--forever. But I need your help."
"I have made it very hard, I know," she said. "If I've acted
deceitfully, it was the only way I thought I could do."
"Please tell me about this man Fairfax," he requested, keeping his back
toward her as before. "You married him, where?"
"At Rockbeach, Massachusetts."
She was businesslike again.
"To satisfy the condition in your uncle's will?"
"No," the confession came slowly, but she made it with courage. "I had
known him for quite a long time. He had--he had courted me a year. He
was always a gentleman, cultured, refined, and fascinating in many
ways. I thought I was in--I thought I was fond of him, very. He was
brilliant--and romantic--and possessed of many qualities that appealed
to me strongly. I'm quite sure now he exercised some spell upon
me--but he was kind--and I believed him--that's all."
"Who married you?"
"A justice of the peace."
"Why not a minister?"
"Mr. Fairfax preferred the justice."
Garrison remained by the window stubbornly.
"You said the man is crazy. What did you mean?"
"Didn't you see?" she answered. "That light in his eyes is insanity.
I thought it a soul-light shining through, though it worried me often,
I admit. We were married at two in the afternoon and went at once to
the station to wait there for the train. He bought the tickets and
talked in his brilliant way until the train arrived. It only stopped
for a moment.
"He put me on, then a spell came over him suddenly, I don't know what,
and he pushed me off the steps, just as the train was moving out--and
said the very thing you heard him say in here--and rode away and left
me there, deserted."
She told it all in a dry-voiced way that cost her an effort, as
Garrison felt and comprehended. He had turned about, in sheer sympathy
for her predicament.
"What happened then?"
"I saw in a paper, two days later, he had been detained in a town in
Ohio as being mentally unbalanced. In the meantime I had written to my
Uncle John, while we were waiting at the station, telling him briefly I
was married and to whom. The note was posted not five minutes before a
postman came along and took up the letters in the box. I couldn't have
stopped it had I wished to, and it never occurred to my mind to stop
it, anyway."
"What did your uncle reply?"
"He wrote at once that he was thoroughly pleased. He had long hoped I
might marry someone other than Theodore. He confessed that his will
contained a clause to the effect that I should inherit no more than
five thousand dollars, should I not have been married at least one
month prior to his death, to a healthy, respectable man who was not my
cousin.
"I dared not write that I had been deserted, or that Mr. Fairfax might
be insane. I couldn't tell what to do. I hardly knew what to expect,
or what I was, or anything. I could only pretend I was off on my
honeymoon--and wait. Then came uncle's sudden death, and my lawyer
sent me word about the will, asking when he should file it for probate.
Then--then I knew I had to have a _sane_ husband."
"And the will is not yet filed?"
"Not yet. And fortunately Mr. Trowbridge has had to be away."
Garrison pursued the topic of the will for purposes made necessary by
his recent discoveries concerning a new one.
"Mr. Trowbridge had your uncle's testament in his keeping?"
Dorothy shook her head. "No. I believe he conferred with uncle's
lawyer, just after his death, and read it there."
"Where did your uncle's lawyer live?"
"In Albany."
"Do you know his name?"
"I think it is Spikeman. Why?"
Garrison was looking at her again with professional coldness, despite
the fact that his heart was fairly burning in his breast.
"Because," he said, "I learned from your stepbrother, Paul Durgin, near
Rockdale, that your uncle made a later will, and we've got to get trace
of the document before you can know where you stand."
Dorothy looked at him with her great brown eyes as startled as a deer's.
"Another will!" she said. "I may have lost everything, after all!
What in the world would become of Foster then--and Alice?"
"And yourself?" added Garrison.
"Oh, it doesn't make the least difference about me," she answered in
her bravery--bravery that made poor Garrison love her even more than
before, "but they all depend so much upon me! Tell me, please, what
did you find out about Foster?"
"Not a great deal," Garrison confessed. "This new will business was my
most important discovery. Nevertheless, I confirmed your story of a
man whom your uncle greatly feared. His name, it seems, is Hiram
Cleave."
"That's the name! That's the man!" cried Dorothy. "I remember now!
He once pinched my face till I cried."
"You have seen him, then? What sort of a looking being is he?"
"I don't remember much--only the horrid grin upon his face. I was only
a child--and that impressed me. You didn't hear anything of Foster?"
"Not of his whereabouts--quite a bit concerning his character, none of
it particularly flattering."
"I don't know where in the world he can be," said Dorothy. "Poor
Alice! What are we going to do now, with all these new complications?"
"Do the best we can," said Garrison. "Aside from the will, and my work
on the murder of your uncle, a great deal depends upon yourself, and
your desires."
Dorothy looked at him in silence for a moment. A slight flush came to
her face.
She said: "In what respect?"
Garrison had no intention of mincing matters now. He assumed a
hardness of aspect wholly incompatible with his feelings.
"In respect to Mr. Fairfax," he answered. "He will doubtless
return--dog your footsteps--make himself known to the Robinsons, and
otherwise keep us entertained."
She met his gaze as a child might have done.
"What can I do? I've depended so much upon you. I don't like to ask
too much--after this--or ever---- You've been more than kind. I
didn't mean to be so helpless--or to wound your feelings, or----"
A knock at the door interrupted, and Tuttle entered the room.