Marked!
They finished packing the trunk, made and devoured the rarebit, and
still George lingered. His mind had been jarred from its placid
routine by the tragic death of their former classmate, and he dwelt
upon the reminiscences which were an added torture to Storm’s
perturbed mental state.
The bag had been discovered, but did the porter remember checking it?
Did he remember the face of the man who had given it into his charge?
That was a paramount question. He had not noticed that the papers he
brought home with him were not the final edition, and now it was too
late to procure one even if he could get rid of George. He felt that
he could not wait till morning; he must know! Dare he ask his
companion for particulars? Surely it would be only natural for him to
show as much casual interest as that in the mystery surrounding an old
friend’s death!
“What do you think about the case yourself?” he queried at last,
abruptly cutting off the flow of reminiscence. “What is your theory as
to how Jack came to his death?”
“Well,” George helped himself to a cigar. “He may not have been killed
on the Drive, you know. His body may have been brought there by
automobile and thrown over the wall, and a high-powered car travels
fast; the murder may have taken place miles away. I’m going down and
have a look at old Jack to-morrow if they will let me—I have a theory
about the whole thing that I would like to try out for my own
satisfaction.”
“And what is that?” Storm inquired with a jarring note of sarcasm in
his tones.
“Oh, I don’t pretend to be any amateur detective,” George returned
mildly. “But I knew old Jack! They’re all taking it for granted that
he wasn’t killed in New York because he had no business to be here; at
least, he was supposed to have gone right on through. Now, his
character may have steadied down and grown more dependable with the
years—it must have, since he has been so uniformly trusted in such
responsible positions—but you can’t change a person’s natural
propensities, and Jack was always keen for a good time. Understand,
I’m not casting any aspersions on him; I don’t say he would have taken
a chance of trouble with that money in his care, but what if he didn’t
think he was taking chances? What if he ran into some people he knew
and trusted as he would himself, was persuaded to stop over and then
taken unawares?”
“But what grounds are there for such a supposition?” The sarcasm had
gone from Storm’s tones and they were muffled and oddly constrained.
“Didn’t the papers speak of a struggle? That doesn’t look as if Horton
were caught off guard by people he might have been chumming with.”
“That’s why I want to see the body,” responded George. “It could have
been banged about and the clothes torn by that fall over the wall and
down that steep, rocky incline.”
“Of course,” Storm commented; “but ordinary footpads could have set
upon him from behind——”
“Ordinary footpads would not have known the contents of that bag,”
objected the other. “Now, if he really boarded that train alive in
broad daylight, he must have left it willingly, and therefore he must
have done so at the terminal in New York, for no amount of persuasion
or coercion would have made him get off at an intermediate station
with that bag in his possession.”
“And since the bag was found at the terminal, you think he was
murdered there?” Storm laughed shortly.
“No, but I do think he was murdered somewhere within the city limits;
you couldn’t get a dead or drugged or resisting man off a train in
broad daylight without attracting attention, and as a matter of fact
the autopsy shows that Jack wasn’t drugged. He may have met some old
pal on the train or in the station and decided to wait over for an
hour or so in town before continuing on his journey, and it must have
been someone he knew well. If he left Poughkeepsie on that
four-something train, he must have reached New York in time for
dinner, and it has been established that he wasn’t killed until around
midnight. It seems to me that if the police would look up what friends
of his were in New York that night, they might learn something to
their advantage.”
“You are getting to be quite an analyst, George; I should never have
suspected it.” Storm yawned openly and tossed away his cigarette.
“What about the bag? You said that when they found the man who checked
it they would have Horton’s murderer. It has been established, then,
that a man did check it? They have a description of him, perhaps?”
He waited breathlessly for the answer, but George merely shrugged.
“No. It was checked some time on Thursday; that’s all they know. The
hat and pistol were in it, wadded out with newspapers, but not another
scrap of evidence.” George rose. “Guess I’ll be getting on downtown.
If I can get Abbott’s car to-morrow afternoon, do you want to run out
somewhere for dinner? You’re not looking up to the mark lately, old
man; too much brooding and sticking around by yourself. The air will
do you good.”
Storm assented absently, and after he had shown his visitor out he
sprung the light in the bathroom and examined his face in the mirror.
It bore a grayish, unhealthy pallor, and there were lines about his
mouth which certainly had not been there a month before. His eyes,
too: there was a look in them which Storm himself did not care to
meet, and for the first time he noted a faint touch of gray in the
dark hair at his temples. He shrugged and turned away.
Ah, well, a few days now and he would be on his way to new fields. A
few gray hairs: what did they matter? It was this ceaseless strain of
being on guard, the constant rankling torture of memory! Let him once
start afresh, with the past behind him, and he would soon regain his
own old snap and vigor.
Since that memorable Wednesday evening his rooms had become as hateful
to him as the house at Greenlea. Horton had only passed a few hours
there, yet he had left a vivid impression behind him as disturbing as
the effect of Leila’s influence in the home. Every time Storm entered
the living-room he seemed to see Horton’s figure seated in that heavy
armchair, his legs stretched out luxuriously, and the smoke curling up
from his cigar. The empty walls echoed with his loud, self-satisfied
voice, his coarse, good-natured laugh.
Storm felt that the end must come soon; he must get away, come what
might, from these surroundings.
The next day when he and George were bowling along the Long Island
roads in Abbott’s car, he broached the subject.
“Do you remember that I said some time ago I would like to chuck the
trust company job and get away somewhere for a time? I’ve just about
made up my mind to do it.”
“Don’t be a fool, Norman!” George advised with the roughness of sudden
feeling in his tones. “I know you are dragging your anchor just now,
but you’ll come up in the wind all right. We all get over things in
time; we have to. You would never get such a position as you have with
the Mammoth Trust, and you haven’t the temperament to start out for
yourself.”
“I’m not dependent on that position, as it happens,” Storm remarked
coldly, but his pulses leaped at the inward significance of the
statement. What was fifteen thousand a year in a treadmill of
precedent and prejudice to a hundred and twelve thousand and the world
before him?
“I know you are not, but the remains of your father’s estate won’t
last you long.” George spoke with dogged patience. “You are not the
sort to tie yourself down later to an inferior position where you
would feel galled and embittered by the driving methods of the average
commercial concern. You’ve got it pretty easy there, Norman, with the
Mammoth people.”
“I don’t care! I have enough for myself if I never do another stroke
of work and I have no one else to consider. I want to be my own
master! I want to be free!”
The cry was wrung from him in an unguarded upward surge of
exasperation, but George shook his head.
“We are none of us that, ever,” he said slowly. “We think that we can
fly from our memories, but we can’t old man. It is only from within us
that resignation comes, and peace, and finally, if we are strong and
patient enough, something that passes for happiness.”
“How do you know all this?” Storm demanded. “Where did you get your
philosophy?”
“From sticking it out.” George stared straight ahead of him, and his
tone was a trifle grim. “Don’t think you are the only one who has had
to make the best of things and go on; I tell you, you can get used to
anything in time.”
“I don’t propose to!” Storm cried recklessly. “I’ve had enough of
this, I tell you; I’ve got to get away!—Not permanently, you
understand, but for a good long trip.”
He added the latter as a sense of caution returned to him, and George
retorted:
“What at the end of it? You’ve got luxurious habits; there is no sense
in blinking the truth. After you’ve wandered around the world lonelier
than you are now and spent all your capital, you’ll come home to find
your position gone and nothing in store for you. You’ve been through
the worst of it; stick it out now and try to work all the harder.”
“I tell you I’ve come to the end!” Storm cried desperately. “I don’t
mean to be violent, old man, but I’ve got to have a change or I shall
go mad! I thought if I left Greenlea and moved into town things would
adjust themselves, that I should feel better; but I don’t. I haven’t
the least intention of beggaring myself as you seem to think; why, I
shan’t be away more than a few months at most, and I have other things
in view for my return. I’ve been sticking too long at the trust
company, practically rusting. I need fresh interests, a new impetus.
This whole damned town stifles me!”
“Then why not ask for a month’s vacation and come upstate on a fishing
trip with me?” George asked after a moment. “Abbott can look after my
affairs, and it isn’t too late for the trout. You used to be fond of
fishing——”
Storm moved impatiently in his seat.
“I don’t want to do any thing I’m used to!” he declared. “I want
complete change, new scenes, everything! Can’t you understand?”
“I think I can.” George kept his eyes carefully trained ahead, and he
seemed to be choosing his words with unusual deliberation. “But you
can’t fight anything, you can’t forget anything, by running away from
it, Norman.”
“I’m not running away!” The denial came hotly from the other’s lips,
and he eyed his companion in swift, furtive alarm. “I’m worn out and
my nerves are gone; that is all there is to it! You are so
confoundedly phlegmatic, George, that you could keep on in the same
old rut if the heavens fell! This isn’t a wild impulse; I’ve had it in
mind ever since—since Leila left me. Don’t be surprised if you hear of
my pulling up stakes any day.”
George had no more to say, but Storm felt uneasily that his
announcement had not been received quite as he had hoped it would be.
To his own mind his proposed trip seemed natural enough on the face of
it, but it was evident that to his conservative friend the deliberate
relinquishment of a life-long sinecure was not justified by his mere
desire for a change of scene. George was not proving as easy to
handle, after all, as he had anticipated; and if he thought the
proposed departure strange, how would the rest of their world look
upon it?
But what did it matter what any of them thought? Leila’s death had
been declared accidental, and that incident was closed forever, while
no possible link remained to connect him with the murder of Horton.
Storm told himself angrily that this utterly unwarranted apprehension
showed the state his nerves were in. He must get away!
That night, obsessed with the idea, he looked up sailing dates. This
was the tenth of June; if he left New York on the following Saturday,
the sixteenth, he could journey by rail across the continent, allow a
day or two in which to look about San Francisco and catch the
_Chikamatzu_ from that port for Yokohama. It would be a simple matter
to make his way from there to the China coast when Japan palled, and
from there to India, to Egypt . . . .
Six days more! He could possess his soul in patience for that brief
period, and it would be none too long to enable him to put his affairs
in final order. The investigation into Horton’s death and the
disappearance of the money had reached the point which he had
anticipated; now it would remain at a standstill until finally dropped
for lack of further evidence. As far as he personally was concerned,
the affair was over.
With his decision made and the date of departure fixed in his mind,
all nervous misgivings fell from him, and the news of the two
succeeding days contained nothing to reawaken any disquietude.
The police were noncommittal, but it was evident that they had nothing
to offer in response to the clamor of the press for a report of
progress in the case. The private detectives working at the behest of
‘Big Jim’ Saulsbury’s daughter and those of the Mid-Eastern
Corporation were assiduously following chimerical clues. The
investigation appeared to be indeed at a standstill, and Storm’s
spirits soared.
He even anticipated with a certain sly amusement the dinner on Tuesday
evening when the wager with Millard was to be ratified in George’s
presence. Those two wiseacres, with their convention-bound souls and
orthodox respect for the majesty of the law, should dine calmly within
arm’s length of the money the disappearance of which they would so
solemnly discuss! How he would draw them out, listen to their fatuous
exposition of their theories and laugh in his sleeve at them both!
Homachi was eager to exhibit his culinary ability, and master and man
planned a perfectly appointed little repast, the former with a nice
discrimination as to wines. His guest must be in a mellow, receptive
mood, for he meant to take this occasion to announce his imminent
departure definitely; he could depend on Millard to spread the news
about Greenlea, and the attitude in which he received it would
indicate the spirit in which he would disseminate it.
George was the first to appear on the scene, and his good-natured face
wore a little, worried frown as he shook hands.
“I heard downtown today that you had closed out your account at the
bank, Norman,” he began. “You are not actually preparing to go away,
are you?”
“I told you on Sunday,” Storm reminded him grimly.
“I know, but I—I really hoped you would think better of it.” George
shook his head. “I can’t stand by without a remonstrance and see my
best friend throw his whole future away on a mere restless whim. You
know you are fixed for life with the Mammoth people, and no man in his
senses would turn his back on an assured and ample income to gratify
such a suddenly aroused desire for travel. What is it, Norman? What is
on your mind?”
“What do you mean?” Storm’s eyes narrowed and his voice was ominously
calm. “What should be on my mind, George?”
“I don’t know! Hang it, I wish I did!” the other retorted. “It just
isn’t reasonable, that’s all. I don’t want to—to touch on anything
that will add to your sorrow, Norman, but I can’t help feeling that
there is something more in this than just an attempt to forget your
grief over Leila’s death. A man might naturally hanker for new scenes,
but he wouldn’t sacrifice his whole future for a few months’ change.
Tell me what is at the bottom of this crazy move of yours, won’t you?
I know you think I’m just a stodgy old fool, but maybe I can help.”
His tone was pleading, his affectionate concern so evident, that Storm
felt a twinge of compunction even as his annoyance at the other’s
persistence arose.
“Your attitude is not very flattering, George,” he responded coldly.
“You talk as though I were an hereditary pensioner of the Mammoth
Trust, as though I would not be worth my salt in any other capacity. I
do not owe you or any one else an explanation of my conduct——”
“Norman!” George’s face flushed with pain and mortification, and he
half rose from the chair.
“Sit down, old man. I know you mean this in pure friendship, but I’m
not in the mood for advice.” Storm controlled himself with an effort
and went on carefully. “The fact is that even if I did not contemplate
this trip I should sever my connection with the trust company. There
you have it straight. I’m not getting the right deal there, and I mean
to branch out for myself; I should have done so long ago, but I did
not want to take a chance on Leila’s account. You will forgive me if I
do not discuss my future plans with you at the moment. They are not
sufficiently matured, and incidentally I mean to travel for a few
months. That is the whole thing in a nutshell.”
“I am sorry,” George said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to butt in. I shall
miss you.”
The constrained tone, the wounded expression in his faithful, faded
eyes only fanned his host’s dull anger; but the entrance of Millard,
pompous and radiating a spirit of self-satisfied elation, brought an
end to the situation.
“Aha! How are you both?” the newcomer asked breezily. “Had to finesse
to get off this evening; bridge party on at the house and a devil of a
row over it, but it was worth it, I assure you! Great old diggings you
have here, Storm! How is the real estate game, Holworthy?”
The latter responded while Storm went out to the pantry to perform
certain functions with a cocktail shaker. When he returned he found
that the irrepressible Millard had already plunged into the subject of
the wager.
“Really, you know, in the interests of law and order you should drink
to my victory, Storm!” the latter declared jovially.
“By all means!” Storm smiled. “For the good of the commonwealth as
well as to avenge the memory of the man I knew at college, I hope that
Horton’s murderers will be brought to justice; but as a mere matter of
personal opinion, backed by fifty dollars, I do not believe that the
authorities are equal to the task.”
Millard drank with a consciously superior air and then produced his
wallet.
“Here’s my fifty to declare that they are!” he said.
“The murderers _and_ the money?” Storm laughed.
“_And_ the money!” retorted his guest.
“I say, I don’t like this transaction a little bit, at least as far as
my part in it is concerned,” George objected. “Holding the stakes on a
bet of this sort seems scarcely decent, to me. Jack Horton was my
friend.”
Jokingly they overruled his scruples and went in to dinner; but from
time to time Storm found himself eying Millard askance. The latter
bore himself with an air of ill-concealed mystery which augmented his
natural self-importance, and his knowing smile was irritating to a
degree. More than once as the meal progressed he seemed on the point
of volunteering a statement, but each time he checked himself, though
Storm plied him assiduously with the contents of the cob-webbed
bottles.
Storm himself drank more than was his wont, but his brain remained
clear and became if anything more coolly, keenly critical. It was
evident that Millard had something which he was eager to impart, but
an unusual caution weighed upon him. Was it merely a theory of his own
concerning the murder, or had he really succeeded in learning anything
at Headquarters which had been withheld from the public despite the
taunts of the press?
After the wager had been settled, Millard had sedulously avoided all
reference to the crime, and Storm’s efforts to reopen the subject met
with no response from him. At length the latter desisted and allowed
the conversation to drift to other topics, although he kept his
guests’ glasses constantly filled.
George left his almost untouched, and his face grew graver as
Millard’s became more flushed. Storm knew that he was brooding in his
dull, ruminative fashion over the situation which Millard’s entrance
had interrupted, and as the meal drew to a close he decided to make
his announcement and have it over with.
“I am especially glad to have you two good friends here with me
to-night——” he began.
“Hear! Hear!” Millard interjected.
“No; this is no speech, but it is probably the last occasion on which
we three shall meet for some time,” Storm pursued. “I’m leaving town
in a few days—making quite an extended trip, in fact,—and I doubt if I
shall be back much before it is time for George to hand me your fifty
dollars, Millard.”
“Going away!” Millard exclaimed blankly. “Where, old chap? What’s the
idea?”
“I’m not very well; nerves gone to pieces. I need a long sea voyage to
buck me up, the doctor says, and I’m planning a trip to the East,”
Storm explained. “When I come back I am thinking of going into
something new. The Mammoth Trust is all very well, but it doesn’t
offer a wide enough scope for the future. I am out after something
big, but I want a rest first, and change.”
Millard nodded solemnly.
“Best thing for you,” he said. “Change, and all that, and then strike
out for yourself. Dry rot in most of those old, conservative
institutions. Hope you’ll come back to Greenlea in time for the
election of the club officers in the Fall. Here’s luck, but don’t
count on that fifty of mine! If you knew what I do, you’d kiss your
own good-bye!”
As he spoke he knocked the ash from the cigar which he had just
lighted and a few flecks fell upon his host’s knee. Storm brushed them
off with a quick gesture of loathing. Ashes! God, could there be
something prophetic in Millard’s words?
He leaned forward in his chair.
“Look here, what have you got up your sleeve?” he demanded. “The bet
goes as it lays, but I hope you haven’t been letting them jolly you at
Headquarters into believing that you are coming out an easy winner.
They always pretend secret progress when they are stalled on a case,
and they are at a deadlock now.”
“Deadlock, nothing!” Millard crowed, his caution forgotten at the
jibe. “That’s what the chaps who did for Horton are thinking right
now, but just wait till they try to pass one of those bills from the
wad they stole!”
“Why?” Storm was not conscious that he had spoken, that he was
clutching the table edge in a grip that embedded his nails in the
cloth.
“Why? Because their numbers have been flashed all over the United
States; the Chief of Police in every big city has been warned to be on
the lookout for them, and long before the scoundrels can reach another
country, provided they succeed in getting out of this one, the news
will have preceded them!” Millard waved his pudgy hands excitedly.
“You didn’t suppose they would give the bills out to Horton at the
trust company without jotting down the numbers in case of error or
accident, did you? It really wasn’t sporting of me to bet on a sure
thing; but do you think now that your man has a chance of getting away
with the money?”
“Millard, you’re going to win!” It was George who spoke, and firm
conviction rang in his tones.
“Win? Hah!” Millard sat back in his chair. “The minute one of those
bills makes its appearance, the man who offers it will be held for
murder!”