FOSTER DURGIN
Confusion reigned in the office presently, for more of the officers
came upon the scene, and people from adjoining rooms helped to swell
the numbers. Everyone was talking at once.
The form of Wicks, motionless and broken, lay far below the window, on
the pavement of an air and light shaft, formed like a niche in the
building. Garrison sent Dorothy to her lodgings, promising to visit
her soon. There was nothing she could do in such a place, and he felt
there was much she should be spared.
Pike, young Barnes, and Foster Durgin remained, the two former as
witnesses of what had occurred, Durgin by Garrison's request. All
others were presently closed out of the office, and the body of Wicks
was removed.
The hour that followed, an hour of answering questions, making
statements, proving who he was and what, was a time that Garrison
disliked exceedingly, but it could not be escaped. Reporters had
speedily gathered; the story would make a highly sensational sequel to
the one already printed.
The guilt of Wicks had been confessed. Corroborative testimony being
quite abundant, and every link in the chain complete, the affair left
no possible suspicion resting upon either Scott or any of Hardy's
relatives; and Garrison and Durgin refused to talk of Dorothy's
marriage or anything concerning the will.
The story used before was, of course, reviewed at length. Despite the
delays of the investigation immediately undertaken, Garrison managed at
last to secure the freedom of Pike and Will Barnes, in addition to that
of himself and Foster Durgin. As good as his word, he took the
disciple of Walton to a first-class dealer in sportsmen's articles and
bought him a five-dollar rod. Barnes and the coroner of Branchville
started somewhat late for their town.
The evening was fairly well advanced when at length young Durgin and
Garrison found themselves enabled to escape officials, reporters, and
the merely curious, to retire to a quiet restaurant for something to
eat and a chat.
Durgin, as he sat there confronting his host, presented a picture to
Garrison of virtues mixed with hurtful tendencies. A certain look of
melancholy lingered about his eyes. His mouth was of the sensitive
description. His gaze was steady, but a boyish expression of defiance
somewhat marred an otherwise pleasant countenance.
He showed both the effects of early spoiling and the subsequent
intolerance of altered conditions. On the whole, however, he seemed a
manly young fellow in whom regeneration was more than merely promised.
Garrison ordered the dinner--and his taste was both excellent and
generous.
"Mr. Durgin," he said at last with startling candor, "it looked for a
time as if you yourself were concerned in the death of Mr. Hardy. More
than half the pleasure that Dorothy will experience in the outcome of
to-day's affairs will arise from her knowledge of your innocence."
Foster met his gaze steadily.
"I am sorry for many of the worries I have caused," he said, in a
quiet, unresentful manner, free alike from surprise or anger. "I've
been trying to do better. You knew I'd been away?"
"That was one of the features of the case that looked a little
suspicious," answered Garrison.
"I didn't care to tell where I was going, in case my mission should
fail," the young fellow imparted. "I went after work--good, clean,
well-paying work--and I got it. I can hold up my head at last."
A look of pride had come upon his face, but his lip was trembling.
That the fight he had waged with himself was manly, and worthily won,
to some considerable extent, was a thing that Garrison felt. He had no
intention of preaching and no inclination for the task.
"'Nuff said," he answered. "Shake. Here comes the soup."
They shook hands over the table. No further reference was made to a
personal subject. Some way Garrison felt that a man had come to take
the place of a boy, and while he reflected that the fight was not yet
absolutely finished, and the bitterness of it might remain for some
time yet to come, nevertheless he was thoroughly convinced that through
some great lesson, or some awakening influence, Foster had come to his
manhood and could henceforth be trusted to merit respect and the trust
of all his fellow-beings.
Garrison, alone, at nine o'clock, had an impulse to hasten off to
Branchville. In the brief time of lying unconscious on the floor when
Wicks struck him down, he had felt some strange psychic sense take
possession of his being, long enough for the room that Hardy had
occupied in Hickwood to come into vision, as if through walls made
transparent.
He had merely a dim, fading memory that when he awoke he had spoken to
Dorothy, telling her to help him to go, that the hiding-place of
Hardy's will had been at last revealed. As he thought of it now, on
his way to Dorothy's abiding place, he shook his head in doubt. It was
probably all an idle dream.