STILL MERE MYSTERY
Meiklejohn pushed his chair back so quickly that it caught the fender
and brought down some fire-irons with a crash.
"More nerves!" croaked his grim-visaged relative, but the revolver
disappeared.
"Tell me," said the tortured Meiklejohn; "why have you returned to New
York? Above all, why did you straightway commit a crime that cannot fail
to stir the whole country?"
"That's better. You are showing some sort of brotherly interest. I came
back because I was sick of mining camps and boundless sierras. I had a
hankering after the old life--the theaters, dinners, race-meetings, wine
and women. As to 'the crime,' I thought that fool was you. He called for
the cops."
"For the police! Why?"
"Because my line of talk was a trifle too rough, I suppose."
"Did he know you were there to meet me?"
"Can't say. The whole thing was over like a flash. I am quick on the
trigger."
"But if you had killed me what other goose would lay golden eggs?"
"You forget that the goose was unwilling to lay any more eggs. I only
meant scaring you. To haul you neck and crop into the river was a good
scheme. You see, we haven't met for some years."
"Then why--why murder Ronald Tower?"
"There you go again. Murder! How you chew on the word. I never touched
the man, only to haul him into the boat and go through his pockets. I
guess he had a weak heart, due to over-eating, and the cold water upset
him."
"But you left him in the river?"
"Wrong every time. I chucked him into a barge and covered him tenderly
with a tarpaulin."
Meiklejohn sprang upright. "Good God," he cried, "he may be alive!"
"Sit down, William, sit down," was the cool response. "If he's alive,
he'll turn up. In any case, he'll be found sooner or later. Shout the
glad news now and you go straight to the Tombs."
This was obviously so true that the Senator collapsed into his chair
again, and in so doing disturbed the fire-irons a second time.
The incident amused the unbidden guest. "I see you won't be happy till I
leave you," he laughed, "so let's go on with the knitting. That
girl--she is becoming a woman--what is to be done with her?"
"Rachel takes every care--"
"Rachel is excellent in her way. But she is growing old. She may die.
The girl is the living image of her mother. It's a queer world, and a
small one at times. For instance, who would have expected your double to
walk onto the terrace at the landing-stage at nine o'clock precisely
last night? Well, some one may recognize the likeness. Inquiries might
be instituted. That would be very awkward for you."
"Far more awkward for you."
"Not a bit of it. I've lived with my neck in the loop for eighteen
years. I'm getting used to it. But you, William, with your Senatorship
and high record in Wall Street--really the downfall would be terrible!"
"What can we do with her? Murder her, as you--"
"The devil take you and your parrotlike repetition of one word!" roared
brother Ralph, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a bang.
"I never laid violent hands on a woman yet, whatever I may have done to
men. Who has reaped the reward of my misdeeds, I'd like to know--I, an
outcast and a wanderer, or you, living here like Lord Tomnoddy? None of
your preaching to me, you smug Pharisee! We're six of one and half a
dozen of the other."
When this self-proclaimed adventurer was really aroused he dropped the
rough argot of the plains. His diction showed even some measure of
culture.
Meiklejohn walked unsteadily to the door. He opened it. There was no one
in the passage without.
"I'm sorry," he said in a strangely subdued voice. "What do you want?
What do you suggest?"
"This," came the instant reply. "It was a piece of folly on Rachel's
part to educate the girl the way she did. You stopped the process too
late. In a year or two Miss Winifred will begin to think and ask
questions, if she hasn't done so already. She must leave the
East--better quit America altogether."
"Very well. When this affair of Tower's blows over I'll arrange it."
The other man seemed to be somewhat mollified. He lighted a cigarette.
"That rope play was sure a mad trick," he conceded sullenly, "but I
thought you were putting the cops on my trail."
A bell rang and the Senator started. Many callers, mostly reporters, had
been turned away by Phillips already that day, but brother Ralph's
untimely visit had made the position peculiarly dangerous. Moreover,
the valet's protests had proved unavailing this time. The two heard his
approaching footsteps.
Meiklejohn's care-worn face turned almost green with fright, and even
his hardier companion yielded to a sense of peril. He leaped up, moving
catlike on his toes.
"Where does that door lead to?" he hissed, pointing.
"A bedroom. But I've given orders--"
"You dough-faced dub, don't you see you create suspicion by refusing to
meet people? And, listen! If this is a cop, bluff hard! I'll shoot up
the whole Bureau before they get me!"
He vanished, moving with a silence and celerity that were almost uncanny
in so huge a man. Phillips knocked and thrust his head in. He looked
scared yet profoundly relieved.
"Mr. Tower to see you, sir," he said breathlessly.
"What?" shrieked the Senator in a shrill falsetto.
"Yes, sir. It's Mr. Tower himself, sir."
"H'lo, Bill!" came a familiar voice. "Here I am! No spook yet, thank
goodness!"
Meiklejohn literally staggered to the door and nearly fell into Ronald
Tower's arms. Of the two men, the Senator seemed nearer death at that
moment. He blubbered something incoherent, and had to be assisted to a
chair. Even Tower was astonished at the evident depth of his friend's
emotion.
"Cheer up, old sport!" he cried affectionately. "I had no notion you
felt so badly about my untimely end, as the newspapers call it. I tried
to get you on the phone, but you were closed down, the exchange said, so
Helen packed me off here when she was able to sit up and take
nourishment. Gad! Even my wife seems to have missed me!"
Many minutes elapsed before Senator Meiklejohn's benumbed brain could
assimilate the facts of a truly extraordinary story. Tower, after being
whisked so unceremoniously into the Hudson, remembered nothing further
until he opened his eyes in numb semi-consciousness in the cubbyhole of
a tug plodding through the long Atlantic rollers off the New Jersey
coast.
When able to talk he learned that the captain of the tug _Cygnet_,
having received orders to tow three loaded barges from a Weehawken pier
to Barnegat City, picked up his "job" at nine-thirty the previous night,
and dropped down the river with the tide. In the early morning he was
amazed by the sight of a man crawling from under the heavy tarpaulin
that sheeted one of the barges--a man so dazed and weak that he nearly
fell into the sea.
"Cap' Rickards slowed up and took me aboard," explained Tower volubly.
"Then he filled me with rock and rye and packed me in blankets. Gee, how
they smelt, but how grateful they were! What between prime old whiskey
inside and greasy wool outside I dodged a probable attack of pneumonia.
When the _Cygnet_ tied up at Barnegat at noon to-day I was fit as a
fiddle. Cap' Rickards rigged me out in his shore-going suit and lent me
twenty dollars, as that pair of blackguards in the launch had robbed me
of every cent. They even took a crooked sixpence I found in London
twenty years ago, darn 'em! I phoned Helen, of course, but didn't
realize what a hubbub my sad fate had created until I read a newspaper
in the train. When I reached home poor Helen was so out of gear that she
hadn't told a soul of my escape. I do believe she hardly accepted my own
assurance that I was still on the map. However, when I got her calmed
down a bit, she remembered you and the rest of the excitement, so I
phoned the detective bureau and the club, and came straight here."
"That is very good of you, Tower," murmured Meiklejohn brokenly. He
looked in far worse plight than the man who had survived such a
desperate adventure.
"Well, my dear chap, I was naturally anxious to see you, because--but
perhaps you don't know that those scoundrels meant to attack you, not
me?"
Meiklejohn smiled wanly. "Oh, yes," he said. "The police found that out
by some means. I believe the authorities actually suspected me of being
concerned in the affair."
Tower laughed boisterously. "That's the limit!" he roared. "Come with me
to the club. We'll soon spoil that yarn. What a fuss the papers made!
I'm quite a celebrity."
"I'll follow you in half an hour. And, look here, Tower, this matter did
really affect me. There was a woman in the case. I butted into an old
feud merely as a friend. I think matters will now be settled amicably.
Allow me to make good your loss in every way. If you can persuade the
police that the whole thing was a hoax--"
For the first time Tower looked non-plussed. He was enjoying the
notoriety thrust on him so unexpectedly.
"Well, I can hardly do that," he said. "But if I can get them to drop
further inquiries I'll do it, Meiklejohn, for your sake. Gee! Come to
look at you, you must have had a bad time.... Well, good-by, old top!
See you later. Suppose we dine together? That will help dissipate this
queer story as to you being mixed up in an attack on me. Now, I must be
off and play ghost in the club smoking-room."
Meiklejohn heard his fluttering man-servant let Tower out. He tottered
to a chair, and Ralph Voles came in noiselessly.
"Well, what about it?" chuckled the reprobate. "We seem to have struck
it lucky."
"Go away!" snarled the Senator, goaded to a sudden rage by the other
man's cynical humor. "I can stand no more to-day."
"Oh, take a pull at this!" And the decanter was pushed across the table.
"Didn't Dr. Johnson once say that claret is the liquor for boys, port
for men, but he who aspires to be a hero should drink brandy? And you
must be a hero to-night. Get onto the Bureau and use the soft pedal.
Then beat it to the club. You and Tower ought to be well soused in an
hour. He's a good sport, all right. I'll mail him that sixpence if it's
still in my pants."
"Do nothing of the sort!" snapped Meiklejohn. "You're--"
"Ah, cut it out! Tower wants plenty to talk about. His crooked sixpence
will fill many an eye, and the more he spiels the better it is for you.
Gee, but you're yellow for a two-hundred pounder! Now, listen! Make
those cops drop all charges against Rachel. Then, in a week or less,
I'll come along and fix things about the girl. She's the fly in the
amber now. Mind she doesn't get out, or the howl about Mr. Ronald
Tower's trip to Barnegat won't amount to a row of beans against the
trouble pretty Winifred can give you. _Dios!_ It's a pity. She's a real
beauty, and that's more than any one can say for you, Brother William."
"You go to--"
"That's better! You're reviving. Well, good-by, Senator! _Au revoir sans
adieux!_"
The big man swaggered out. Meiklejohn drank no spirits. He needed a
clear brain that evening. After deep self-communing he rang up police
headquarters and inquired for Mr. Clancy.
"Mr. Clancy is out," he was told by some one with a strong, resonant
voice. "Anything we can do, Senator?"
"About that poor woman, Rachel Craik--"
"Oh, she's all right! She gave us a farewell smile two hours ago."
"You mean she is at liberty?"
"Certainly, Senator."
"May I ask to whom I am speaking?"
"Steingall, Chief of the Bureau."
"This wretched affair--it's merely a family squabble between Miss Craik
and a relative--might well end now, Mr. Steingall."
"That is for Mr. Tower and Mr. Van Hofen to decide."
"Yes, I quite understand. I have seen Mr. Tower, and he shares my
opinion."
"Just so, Senator. At any rate, the yacht mystery is almost cleared up."
"I agree with you most heartily."
For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours Senator Meiklejohn looked
contented with life when he hung up the receiver. Therefore, it was well
for his peace of mind that he could not hear Steingall's silent comment
as he, in turn, disconnected the phone.
"That old fox agreed with me too heartily," he thought. "The yacht
mystery is only just beginning--or I'm a Dutchman!"