Crime?
Entering, the Owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment had been justifiably
annoyed. Twenty seconds after entering, Mary's obvious excitement had
caused the annoyance to give place to not very interested wonder; but
now Mary had claimed all his attention and the annoyance was all gone.
Indeed, as a quantity to claim one's whole attention Mary had been a
success from the very beginning.
Anthony Fry, then, scowled flitting incredulity at her; and the
absurdity of being incredulous of one who panted and shook as did Mary
becoming at once apparent, Anthony paled somewhat.
"I cannot--believe that such an astonishing coincidence----" he began.
"What you believe or don't believe doesn't interest me!" Mary said
swiftly. "Did I hear him talking about that wretched fight last night?"
"Er--yes."
"He was there?"
"Of course."
"Well, it's the same Robert Vining!" Mary whispered. "Get him out of
here!"
"But----"
"Don't argue about it! Get him out of here!" said Mary. "Do you suppose
I want him to come wandering down this way and _find me_?"
"He will not do that, because----"
"How do you know whether he will or not?" Mary demanded hotly. "Why did
he have to come here? It's all his fault--the whole thing's his fault!
If he hadn't refused to take me to that beastly old fight and made such
a time about it, I'd never have made up my mind to go, anyway!"
"So that's what happened?" Anthony muttered.
"That is what happened. Now get him out of here!" Mary directed. "And do
it quickly!"
After all, the unlucky little coincidence was not nearly so serious as
she seemed to think. Anthony smiled quite calmly.
"He will not stay very long," said he, "and when he is ready to go I
will not detain him, of course. But I can't very well go in and order
him out, you know."
Mary, bosom heaving still, looked straight at him with burning eyes.
"Mr. Fry," she said solemnly, "I've always lived too much out doors and
boxed and shot and paddled and ridden too much to be given to hysterics.
The only time I ever had hysterics was the night they thought dad had
been killed--but _that_ night, once I started, the neighbors came out on
the street two blocks away to see what was the matter!"
"I don't understand?"
"You will," Mary said, controlling herself with visible difficulty.
"You've made me stand enough since last night, and there are some things
I cannot--some things I will not even try to stand! I tell you honestly
that if Bob isn't out of this flat in two minutes, I'm going into a fit
of hysterics that will have the reserves piling into this sanctified
hotel just as surely as the sun is shining!"
"Miss Mary----" faltered Anthony Fry.
Mary's hands clenched in the most peculiar manner.
"Hadn't you better make the best of those two minutes?" she asked
breathlessly.
His quiet smile was gone now; lines appeared in Anthony's countenance as
he looked at her--and then, wasting no further time in aimless comment,
he turned and tottered into the corridor. Mary meant just what she said.
Robert Vining and Johnson Boller were sprawling in the deep chairs,
opposite one another, smoking comfortably and giving every evidence of
having settled down for a considerable session. Young Mr. Vining grinned
through the smoke at his older friend.
"Sit down, Anthony," said he. "We're just going over the thing round by
round, to see if either of us can remember a worse fight for the money.
We're working on round two, just now."
Anthony smiled strangely and laid a dramatic hand upon his brow.
"I will not join the discussion," he said.
"Eh? What's the matter?" Robert asked, sitting up.
"Headache! One of the--er--headaches that make my life a burden!"
Anthony groaned.
"I never knew you had 'em," young Vining said with a mystified smile.
"Neither did I," Johnson Boller contributed healthfully.
"Did you have it before you talked to Wilkins, there?" pursued Robert,
who owned a really keen mind.
"Er--it was just coming on."
"No bad news, old chap?" Vining said, crossing his legs the other way.
Anthony shook his head and smiled again, indicating suffering that was
not all simulated.
"No, just the--er--headache," he said. "Comes on suddenly, you know, and
settled in the back of my head and neck. There is only one thing that
can be done for it and that is a steady massage. Perhaps you'd do that
for me, Johnson?"
"Sure," said Johnson Boller, whose eyes shot two questions to the
second. "Sit down and we can go on talking while I rub."
"Well, I have to lie down for this," Anthony explained. "On the bed, you
know, and it's--well, it is likely to take an hour or more. You wouldn't
care to wait around, Bob?"
Mr. Vining gazed steadily at him. No refined intuition was necessary to
tell Anthony that it was not his morning for tactful dismissals. This
effort, evidently, had carried the delicate touch of a blow from a
baseball bat, for Robert, flushing slightly, spoke with unpleasant
crispness:
"No, I couldn't wait, I'm sure. And while I don't understand it, of
course, I'm sure I'm sorry to have intruded. Good-by."
"You--haven't intruded," Anthony cried. "Only----"
"Well, don't bother explaining," said young Mr. Vining. "I beg your
pardon for breaking in and--good morning."
Wherewith he stalked out to the corridor, removed his hat from the rack
without the assistance of Wilkins and, opening the door himself, closed
it after him with a careful lack of force that was more expressive than
any slam.
"Gone off mad!" Johnson Boller said.
"I can't help it!" Anthony said miserably.
"Nice chap, too! Too bad to offend him that way," Mr. Boller pursued
meditatively. "Friends are few and far between in this sad old world,
Anthony, and a queer dick like you--rich or poor--has trouble hanging on
to the few he makes. Oh, I don't mean to be nasty, you know; I'm just
telling you. Well, come and have your head rubbed."
Anthony collapsed into his chair.
"There's nothing wrong with my head," he said. "That was the first lie I
could think of, Johnson, to get him out of here. He had to go!"
"Why?"
"She said so," Anthony informed him, with a ghastly little smile. "She's
engaged to him!"
"To Bob Vining?"
"Yes!"
Johnson Boller whistled softly and, elevating his eyebrows, thrust his
hands into his trousers pockets and looked at Anthony with new
commiseration.
"Too bad, that!" said he. "Too bad for you that it should have been a
chap of the Vining type."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, sooner or later, he may find out. The chances are that he _will_
find out just what you've done to that girl," Boller went on
contemplatively. "It's just about as she says, too. If he was a fool,
you could fool him, one way or another. Or if he was a little snide,
Anthony, you could talk him off or bribe him off--but it'll never be
like that with Bob. He'll never take any account of the circumstances;
he'll just snatch out the gun and let fly!"
"Rot!" Anthony said thinly.
Johnson Boller's face grew grave and more grave. He sighed and looked
over Anthony's head for a little and then, reaching a decision, he
looked at him suddenly.
"Old chap," he said kindly.
"Well?"
"I don't want to worry you, but perhaps it is better for you to
know--now. And I wish you wouldn't mention it, because Bob told me once,
two years ago, and showed it to me in a sort of burst of confidence."
"Showed you what?"
"Down at the base of his thumb, Bob Vining's got _the murderer's
cross_!" Johnson Boller said huskily.
"Nonsense!" Anthony said sharply.
"It's a fact! The little mark is there, clear as if it had been drawn in
with a knife!" said Mr. Boller. "And for another fact--I don't know
whether you know this or not, but virtually every murderer who has been
executed in the last twenty years in this State, has shown that cross in
some form and----"
He stayed the pleasant flow abruptly. From the direction of David's
doorway a rustle was coming, very softly and cautiously, yet quite
distinctly. It paused in the corridor while Mary drew aside a corner of
the curtain and looked in--and then Mary was with them and asking:
"Is he gone?"
"Yes," Anthony sighed.
"Was he excited while he was here?"
"Not at all, apparently."
"Then he doesn't know yet that I've disappeared," Mary said calmly,
returning to her place at the cleared table. "Isn't he a darling?"
"He is--a very charming fellow," Anthony muttered, thinking of the
murderer's cross.
"Did your man take my coffee away?" Mary pursued.
Silently, Anthony rang for his servitor. Silently, Wilkins brought back
pot and cup and the little plate of toast; and Mary, a very pleasing
little figure indeed, sipped and munched and asked:
"Well, have you determined how I'm to leave?"
Anthony merely stared moodily at her at first. Johnson Boller, though,
found his sense of humor overcoming him again. He gazed at Anthony, hair
rumpled, eyes fogged with anxiety such as he rarely knew, and presently
Johnson Boller was vibrating again. One merry little wheeze escaped and
earned a glare from Anthony, another followed it--and after that Johnson
Boller sat back and haw-hawed frankly until Anthony spoke.
"So far, I have been thinking of the ways in which you cannot leave," he
admitted tartly. "If you'd consent to try my clothes and----"
"Umum," said Mary, shaking her head. "No, no!"
"Then frankly, I don't know what to suggest," said the master of the
apartment. "You are not invisible. You cannot walk through the office
without being seen, Miss Mary--and once you have done that be sure that
your face will be registered in the memory of the employees. You have no
idea of moving from New York, I take it?"
"Hardly."
"Then since you will be about town for years, may I point out that each
man who sees you will remember, also for years, that you left one of
these apartments and----"
He paused, partly in distress and partly because it seemed to him that
Wilkins was whispering to somebody. He sat up then, because Wilkins
_was_ talking and there was another voice he could not at first place.
He had heard it before, many times, and it was very calm, very clear,
very determined; and now Wilkins' tone came distinctly and resignedly.
"Well, of course, if he's expecting you, sir----"
The door closed. Steps approached the living-room. And with Mary sitting
at the table, coffee-cup in hand, furnishing just the homelike touch a
bachelor apartment must normally lack, Hobart Hitchin was with them!
One glance settled the fact that the amateur detective had attained a
high state of nervous tension. Behind his spectacles, the keen eyes
flashed about like a pair of illuminated steel points; his face seemed
tired, but the rest of him was as alive as a steel spring, and his right
hand held a fat brief-case.
Had he been more intimately acquainted with Hobart Hitchin, Anthony Fry
would have trembled. As it was, he felt merely keen annoyance--and then
utter consternation, because Hitchin had stopped with a jerk and was
looking straight at Mary.
"I--er--didn't know," he said.
Poor little Mary, be she who she might, was in a decidedly ticklish
position, however perfectly her outward calm was preserved. Everything
that was chivalrous in Anthony surged up and told him to protect her;
and coming out of the nowhere at the very last second, merciful
inspiration reached his brain and he stared so fixedly, so warningly at
Johnson Boller that that gentleman's chronic quiver ceased.
"Only--ah--Mrs. Boller!" Anthony said quietly. "My dear Mrs. Boller--Mr.
Hitchin, one of our neighbors here."
Johnson Boller himself started out of his chair, gripping its arms; and
then, the general sense penetrating his cranium, dropped back with a
puff. His mouth opened, as if to protest; his eye caught the eye of
Anthony Fry. With a gasp and a flush, Mr. Johnson Boller subsided for
the time, and Anthony was saying suavely:
"Mr. and Mrs. Boller were with me overnight, you know--decorators have
captured their place and they were good enough to take the edge off my
loneliness for a little."
"I never knew you minded it; I've heard you say you liked it," Hobart
Hitchin smiled as he took Mary's hand and favored her with his
drill-point stare. "But when you are alone again I'm quite sure that
you'll know how lonely you are! My dear Mrs. Boller, I am honored!"
Mary, after one startled and one thankful glance at Anthony, dimpled
charmingly. Mr. Hitchin dropped her hand and ceased his inspection, and
immediately he turned more tensely solemn than upon his entrance.
"Ah--Fry," said he. "I suppose we can have a few minutes' chat?"
"An hour if you like," Anthony smiled, quite happily, too, because he
was rather proud of his quick-wittedness.
Hobart Hitchin gazed straight at Mary.
"And Mr. Boller will remain with us?"
"What's the mystery?" Johnson Boller asked.
"There is not, I fear, much mystery," Hitchin said, looking straight at
Anthony. "But there is a little matter I'd like to discuss with--er--you
two gentlemen."
Mary rose hastily.
"I'd better go?" she smiled.
"If it would not inconvenience you, dear lady," Hitchin said unsmilingly
and with a stiff bow.
Chin squared, he stood in silence until she had vanished down the
corridor. He crossed the room and listened intently, dramatically; he
held up the curtains and looked for the sliding doors which had been
taken out five years before.
"No way of shutting up this room, Fry?" he asked crisply.
"No need of shutting it up, either," said Anthony. "There is no one to
listen. What seems to be the trouble, Hitchin?"
Hitchin wheeled suddenly and turned his remarkable eyes upon Anthony.
"_You_ don't know, eh?" he shot at him.
"I'm sure I do not."
"And whether he does or not, what do you think you're doing?" Johnson
Boller asked impatiently. "Acting a moving picture or----"
"Mr. Boller, may I trouble you to keep out of this for a little?" the
crime student asked amazingly. "Later on I may wish to ask you a
question or two, and if you will answer them it will serve me and--Mr.
Fry. Just now, suppose we draw up around the table here, so that it will
not be necessary to shout?"
Anthony was there already, scowling. Johnson Boller, with a grunt,
shuffled over and took a chair; because this Hitchin creature, on the
face of him, was the morning's latest full-blown freak, and Johnson
Boller did not wish to miss anything.
Also, if the chance came, he meant to inform Hitchin that Mary was not
Mrs. Boller at all, if it could be contrived without casting too much of
a slur on Mary--although that could wait until they learned the cause of
Hitchin's pale cheek and his keen, excited eye.
Hitchin, however, had relaxed in the most curious fashion; he was
smiling whimsically at Anthony now and, although his eye was across the
room, one felt that it could turn with one one-thousandth of a second's
warning and peer through Anthony's soul.
"Fry," he said thoughtfully, "I have been interested in crime for a good
many years. I have, as it were, dabbled in it partly for the love of the
thing and partly because, on one occasion or another, it has been
possible for me to extend help that would not otherwise have been
extended."
"That's a mysterious statement," Anthony said.
"Crime--some of it--is mysterious," smiled Mr. Hitchin. "Motives are
usually more mysterious. Mistaken motives--motives formed under
misapprehension--are most mysterious of all. But the consequences of
crime," said Mr. Hitchin, whirling suddenly on Anthony, "are inevitable,
inescapable as the rising of the sun."
Johnson Boller shook his head. The man had always been queer; now,
overnight, he, too, had gone crazy! Anthony, who was largely nerves this
morning, asked:
"What the devil are you talking about, anyway? I'm not trying to be
unpleasant, Hitchin, but I'm not myself this morning and this rambling
discourse about crime is rather trying."
"You are not yourself this morning?" Hitchin repeated slowly, with a
very keen smile at Anthony.
"No."
"Why are you not yourself this morning, Fry?"
"What? Because I lost some sleep last night, I suppose."
"Ah!" Hitchin cried softly. "And why did you lose some sleep last
night?"
Anthony's patience snapped.
"See here, Hitchin!" he cried. "I like to be polite and hospitable as
possible, but why on earth I should sit here and answer your ridiculous
questions I cannot see."
Hobart Hitchin laughed, a low, rippling, sinister laugh that chilled the
hearer without giving a clue to the reason for the chill.
"Shall I show you why it were better for you to answer, Fry?" he purred.
"No!"
"Oh, but I'd better," insisted the crime student. "Fry, let us go back a
few hours. You returned home last night about midnight, I think--fifteen
or twenty minutes before the hour?"
"Yes."
"There was with you a young man named David Prentiss?"
"Of course."
"Then here is the reason for my questions!" cried Hobart Hitchin, and
his whole personality seemed aflame. "Anthony Fry, _where is David
Prentiss_?"