FADED ROSES
I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composing
and destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at the
doctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual.
Now and then I caught him eying me as if he had something to say, but
whatever it was he kept it to himself. Once during the week he went to
Baltimore and saw the woman in the hospital there. From the description
I had little difficulty in recognizing the young woman who had been
with the murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An
elderly aunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like
a buzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed
figure, into a damp handkerchief.
On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a case
that was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of double
solitaire with me.
“Who won the ball game?” I asked.
“We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, Bronson’s
out to-day.”
“I’m glad I’m not on his bond,” I said pessimistically. “He’ll clear
out.”
“Not he.” McKnight pounced on my ace. “He’s no fool. Don’t you suppose
he knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers were full of it.
And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from the
wreck. What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf
man on a dark night would know those notes are missing.”
“Don’t play so fast,” I remonstrated. “I have only one arm to your two.
Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?”
“I asked for him, but he had some work on hand.”
“The murder’s evidently a dead issue,” I reflected. “No, I’m not
joking. The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I’m firmly convinced
those notes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson very soon.
Johnson’s a blackguard, but he’s a good detective. He could make his
fortune as a game dog. What’s he doing?”
McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he held
the curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced.
“To tell you the truth, Lollie,” he said, “for the last two days he has
been watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence Blakeley.
He’s across the street now.”
It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant.
“Why, it’s ridiculous,” I asserted. “What would they trail me for? Go
over and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I’ll pot at him with my
revolver.”
“You can tell him that yourself.” McKnight paused and bent forward.
“Hello, here’s a visitor; little man with string halt.”
“I won’t see him,” I said firmly. “I’ve been bothered enough with
reporters.”
We listened together to Mrs. Klopton’s expostulating tones in the lower
hall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. She
had a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and
on it was the name, “Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business.”
“Oh, well, show him up,” I said resignedly. “You’d better put those
cards away, Richey. I fancy it’s the rector of the church around the
corner.”
But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man,
adjusting his glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown my
dismay.
It was the amateur detective of the Ontario!
I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of the
wrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope that
he had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, he held in
his hand the very note-book which contained them.
His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited. I
introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and who
placed him at once, mentally.
“I only learned yesterday that you had been—er—saved,” he said rapidly.
“Terrible accident—unspeakable. Dream about it all night and think
about it all day. Broken arm?”
“No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people,”
McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be
gained by antagonizing the little man.
“Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn’t as funny as it sounds.”
“Humerus—humorous! Pretty good,” he cackled. “I must say you keep up
your spirits pretty well, considering everything.”
“You seem to have escaped injury,” I parried. He was fumbling for
something in his pockets.
“Yes, I escaped,” he replied abstractedly. “Remarkable thing, too. I
haven’t a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on—you’ll
never guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was
under inspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don’t you?
Where did I put that package?”
He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with some
theatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch of
striped ticking.
“You recognize it?” he said. “The stains, you see, and the hole made by
the dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they thought I
was stealing it, and made me give it up.”
Richey touched the pieces gingerly. “By George,” he said, “and you
carry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it for
your handkerchief?”
But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward,
leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes.
“Have you seen the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?” he inquired.
I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head.
“Then I have a disagreeable task,” he said with evident relish. “Of
course, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington’s death
closed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, I
meant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least none
that I knew of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a number of
points in your favor.”
“Thank you,” I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him.
“I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered from
the shock. Also—I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariably
wore dark clothing.”
McKnight came forward threateningly. “Who are you, anyhow?” he
demanded. “And how is this any business of yours?” Mr. Hotchkiss was
entirely unruffled.
“I have a minor position here,” he said, reaching for a visiting card.
“I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir.”
McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against the
said patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was opening
the paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy.
“Here it is. Listen.” He read rapidly aloud:
“The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who are
looking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It has
transpired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that
city, was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the
night preceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, John
Flanders, the conductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the chief
of police:
“‘Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten,
Ontario, at six-thirty this morning.
JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor.’
“It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will be
found, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime.
“Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harrington
was purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matter
to the bottom.”
“So you see,” Hotchkiss concluded, “there’s trouble brewing. You and I
are the only survivors of that unfortunate car.”
I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: Alison
West, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babbling
incoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face.
“Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven,” I suggested.
“I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, of
course, unless we could establish some connection between him and the
murdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned this
much,” Hotchkiss concluded: “Lower seven was reserved from Cresson.”
Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train!
McKnight came forward and suddenly held out his hand. “Mr. Hotchkiss,”
he said, “I—I’m sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when you came
in, that, like the Irishman and the government, you were ‘forninst’ us.
If you will put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere, I should
be glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator.” (His name for his
bachelor apartment.) “Compared with Johnson, you are the great original
protoplasm.”
The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation was
clear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them get
into McKnight’s car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonball
skidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, looked after them
with his crooked smile. As he turned up his collar he saw me, and
lifted his hat.
I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant of
lower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West
and her companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield.
I went irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton.
“You may throw out those roses,” I said without looking at her. “They
are quite dead.”
“They have been quite dead for three days,” she retorted spitefully.
“Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them.”