In the city room of the _Star_, Farriss, the city editor, sat back in
his swivel chair smoking a farewell pipe preparatory to going home.
The final edition had been put to bed, the wires were quiet, and as he
sat there Farriss was thinking of plunging "muskies" in Maine streams.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a clatter of footsteps, and,
slapping his feet to the floor, he turned to confront Willis and Miss
Donovan.
"Great God!" he started, at their appearance at so late an hour.
Miss Donovan smiled at him. "No; great luck!"
"Better than that, Mr. Farriss," echoed Willis. "We've got something;
and we dug all week to get it."
"But it cost us real money--enough to make the business office moan, I
expect, too," Miss Donovan added.
"Well, for Pete's sake, shoot!" demanded Farriss. "Cavendish, I
suppose?"
The two nodded. Their eyes were alight with enthusiasm.
"In the first place," said the girl, with grave emphasis, "Frederick
Cavendish did not die intestate as supposed. He left a will."
Farriss blinked. "By God!" he exclaimed. "That's interesting. There
was no evidence of that before."
"I got that from the servants of the College Club," Willis interposed.
"The will was drawn the night before the murder. And the man that drew
it was Patrick Enright of Enright and Dougherty. Cavendish took away a
copy of it in his pocket. And, Mr. Farriss, I got something else,
too--Enright and young John Cavendish are in communication further. I
saw him leaving Enright's office all excited. Following my hunch, I
cultivated Miss Healey, Enright's stenographer, and learned that the
two had an altercation and that it was evidently over some document."
Farriss was interested.
"Enright's in this deep," he muttered thoughtfully, "but how?
Well--what else?"
Stella Donovan began speaking now:
"I fixed it with Chambers, the manager of the Fairmount, to get Josette
La Baum--she's Valois's _fiancée_, you remember--into the hotel as a
maid. Josette 'soaped the keyhole' of the drawers in John Cavendish's
rooms there. I had a key made from the soap impression, and from the
contents of the correspondence we found I learned that Celeste La Rue,
the blonde of the Revue, had got some kind of hold on him. It isn't
love, either; it's something stronger. He jumps when she holds the
hoop."
"La Rue's mixed up in this deeply, too," Willis cut in. "Neither one
of us could shadow her without uncovering ourselves, so we hired an
International operative. They cost ten dollars a day--and expenses.
What he learned was this--that while she was playing with young
Cavendish and seeing him almost daily, the lovely Celeste was also in
communication with--guess who!"
"Enright?" Farriss ventured.
"Exactly--Enright," he concluded, lighting his half-smoked cigarette.
"Well," the city editor tapped his desk; "you two have done pretty
well, so far. You've got considerable dope. Now, what do you make of
it?"
He bent an inquiring gaze on both the girl and the youth.
"You do the talking, Jerry," Miss Donovan begged Willis; "I'm very
tired."
Willis was only too eager; Willis was young, enthusiastic,
reliable--three reasons why the _Star_ kept him.
"It may be a dream," he said, smiling, "but here is the way I stack it
up. The night after he quarrelled with John, Frederick Cavendish
called in Enright and made a will, presumably, cutting John off with
practically nothing.
"Immediately after Frederick's departure, Enright calls Carbon's Café
and talks to John Cavendish, who had been dining there with Celeste La
Rue.
"It is reasonable to suppose that he told him of the will. Less than
five hours afterward Frederick Cavendish is found dead in his
apartments. Again it is reasonable to suppose that he was croaked by
John Cavendish, who wanted to destroy the will so that he could claim
the estate.
"These Broadway boys need money when they travel with chorines.
Anyhow, the dead man is buried, and John starts spending money like
water. One month later he receives a letter--Josette patched the
pieces together--asking him to call at Enright's office.
"What happened there is probably this: Young Cavendish was informed of
the existence of the will, and it was offered to him at a price which
he couldn't afford to pay--just then.
"Perhaps he was frightened into signing a promise to pay as soon as he
came into the estate--tricked by Enright. Enright, as soon as he heard
no will had been found in Frederick's effects, may have figured that
perhaps John killed him, or even if he did not, that, nevertheless, he
could use circumstances to extract money from the youngster, who, even
if innocent, would fear the trial and notoriety that would follow if
Enright publicly disclosed the existence of that will.
"John Cavendish may be innocent, or he may be guilty, but one thing is
certain--he's being badgered to death by two people, from what little
we know. One of them is the La Rue woman; the other is Enright.
"Now I wonder--Mr. Farriss, doesn't it occur to you that they may be
working together like the woman and the man in the Skittles case last
year? You remember then they got a youngster in their power and nearly
trimmed him down to his eye-teeth!"
Farriss sat reflecting deeply, chewing the stem of his dead pipe.
"There's something going on--that's as plain as a red banner-head.
You've got a peach of a start, so far, and done good pussyfooting--you,
too, Stella--but there's one thing that conflicts with your
hypothesis----"
The two leaned forward.
"Valois's statement that he was almost positive that the dead man was
not Cavendish," the city editor snapped.
"I now believe Valois is mistaken, in view of developments," said
Willis with finality. "So does Stella--Miss Donovan, I mean. Remember
the body was charred across the face and chest--and Valois was excited."
Farriss was silent a moment.
"Stick to it a while longer," he rapped out; "and get La Rue and
Cavendish together at their meeting-place, if you can discover it."
"We can!" interjected Willis. "That's something I learned less than an
hour ago. It's Steinway's Café, the place where the police picked up
Frisco Danny and Mad Mike Meighan two years ago. I followed them, but
could not get near enough to hear what they said."
"Then hop to it," Farriss rejoined. "Stick around there until you get
something deeper. As for me--I'm going home. It's two o'clock."