"What business is that of yours?"
"I"ll go after him and see that he marries you if it takes--"
"Oh, he"d be only too glad to marry me if he could. He can"t. Poor Max has got a wife somewhere--"
"Max? It"s Veltman!" cried Hal. "The dirty scoundrel."
"Oh, don"t blame Max," said the girl wearily. "It isn"t his fault. After you threw me down"--Hal winced--"I started to run wild. It"s the Hardscrabbler in me. I took to drinking and running around, and Max pulled me out of it, and I went to live with him. I didn"t care. Nothing mattered, anyway. And I wasn"t afraid of anything like this happening, because I thought the pills made it all safe."
Here Dr. Surtaine reappeared. "I"ve got a detective coming that I can trust."
"A detective?" cried Hal. "Oh, Dad--"
"You keep out of this," retorted his father, in a tone such as his son had never heard from him before. "I guess you"ve done enough. The question is"--he continued as regardless of Milly as if she had been deaf--"how to hush her up."
"You"ve had your chance to hush me up," said the girl sullenly.
"Any money within reason--"
"I don"t want your money."
"Listen here, then. You tried to murder me. That"s ten years in State"s prison. Now, if ever I hear of you opening your mouth about this, I"ll send you up. I guess that will keep you quiet. Now, then, what"s your answer?"
"Give me a gla.s.s of whiskey, and I"ll tell you."
Hal poured her out a gla.s.s. She pa.s.sed a swift hand above it.
"Here"s peace and quiet in the proprietary medicine business," she said, and drank. "I guess that"ll--make--some--stir," she added, with an effect of carefully timing her words.
Her body lapsed quite gently back into the chair. The two men ran and bent over her as the gla.s.s tinkled and rolled on the floor. There was an acrid, bitter scent in the air. They lifted their heads, and their eyes met in a haggard realization. No longer was there any need of hushing up Milly Neal.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PARTING
The doorbell buzzed.
"That"s the detective," said Dr. Surtaine to Hal. "Stay here."
He wormed himself painfully into an overcoat which concealed his scarified shoulder, and went out. In a few moments he and the officer reappeared. The latter glanced at the body.
"Heart disease, you say?" he asked.
"Yes: valvular lesion."
"Better "phone the coroner"s office, eh?"
"Not necessary. I can give a certificate. The coroner will be all right," said Dr. Surtaine, with an a.s.surance derived from the fact that a year before he had given that functionary five hundred dollars for not finding morphine in the stomach of a baby who had been dosed to death on the "Sure Soother" powders.
"That goes," agreed the detective. "What undertaker?"
"Any. And, Murtha, while you"re at the "phone, call up the "Clarion"
office and tell McGuire Ellis to come up here on the jump, will you?"
Left to themselves, with the body between them, father and son fell into a silence, instinct with the dread of estranging speech. Hal made the first effort.
"Your shoulder?" he said.
"Nothing," declared the Doctor. "Later on will do for that." He brooded for a time. "You can trust Ellis, can you?"
"Absolutely."
"It"s the newspapers we have to look out for. Everything else is easy."
He conducted the detective, who had finished telephoning, into the library, set out drinks and cigars for him and returned. Nothing further was said until Ellis arrived. The a.s.sociate editor"s face, as he looked from the dead girl to Hal, was both sorrowful and stern. But he was there to act; not to judge or comment. He consulted his watch.
"Eleven forty-five," he said. "Better give out the story to-night."
"Why not wait till to-morrow?" asked Dr. Surtaine.
"The longer you wait, the more it will look like suppressing it."
"But we _want_ to suppress it."
"Certainly," agreed Ellis. "I"m telling you the best way. Fix the story up for the "Clarion" and the other papers will follow our lead."
"If we can arrange a story that they"ll believe--" began Hal.
"Oh, they won"t believe it! Not the kind of story we want to print. They aren"t fools. But that won"t make any difference."
"I should think it would be just the sort of possible scandal our enemies would catch at."
"You"ve still got a lot to learn about the newspaper game," replied his subordinate contemptuously. "One newspaper doesn"t print a scandal about the owner of another. It"s an unwritten law. They"ll publish just what we tell "em to--as we would if it was their dis--I mean misfortune.
Come, now," he added, in a hard, businesslike voice, "what are we going to call the cause of death?"
"Miss Neal died of heart disease."
"Call it heart disease," confirmed the other. "Circ.u.mstances?"
This was a poser. Dr. Surtaine and Hal looked at each other and looked away again.
"How would this do?" suggested Ellis briskly. "Miss Neal came here to consult Dr. Surtaine on an emergency in her department at the factory, was taken ill while waiting, and was dead when he--No; that don"t fit.
If she died without medical attendance, the coroner would have to give a permit for removal. Died shortly after Dr. Surtaine"s arrival in spite of his efforts to revive her; that"s it!"
"Just about how it happened," said Dr. Surtaine gratefully.