"The devil you did!" I exclaimed. "I"ll have to be sc.r.a.ped with a knife before I can get my clothes off."
We both felt better for the laugh; it was a sort of nervous reaction.
The detective was well behind, but after a while Wardrop stood still, while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three of us trudged on, talking of immaterial things.
At the door Wardrop turned to the detective with a faint smile. "It"s raining again," he said, "you"d better come in. You needn"t worry about me; I"m not going to run away, and there"s a couch in the library."
The detective grinned, and in the light from the hall I recognized the man I had followed to the police station two nights before.
"I guess I will," he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes.
"This thing is only a matter of form, anyhow."
But he didn"t lie down on the couch. He took a chair in the hall near the foot of the stairs, and we left him there, with the evening paper and a lamp. It was a queer situation, to say the least.
CHAPTER X
BREAKING THE NEWS
Wardrop looked so wretched that I asked him into my room, and mixed him some whisky and water. When I had given him a cigar he began to look a little less hopeless.
"You"ve been a darned sight better to me than I would have been to you, under the circ.u.mstances," he said gratefully.
"I thought we would better arrange about Miss Margery before we try to settle down," I replied. "What she has gone through in the last twenty-four hours is nothing to what is coming to-morrow. Will you tell her about her father?"
He took a turn about the room.
"I believe it would come better from you," he said finally. "I am in the peculiar position of having been suspected by her father of robbing him, by you of carrying away her aunt, and now by the police and everybody else of murdering her father."
"I do not suspect you of anything," I justified myself. "I don"t think you are entirely open, that is all, Wardrop. I think you are damaging yourself to shield some one else."
His expressive face was on its guard in a moment. He ceased his restless pacing, pausing impressively before me.
"I give you my word as a gentleman--I do not know who killed Mr.
Fleming, and that when I first saw him dead, my only thought was that he had killed himself. He had threatened to, that day. Why, if you think I killed him, you would have to think I robbed him, too, in order to find a motive."
I did not tell him that that was precisely what Hunter _did_ think. I evaded the issue.
"Mr. Wardrop, did you ever hear of the figures eleven twenty-two?" I inquired.
"Eleven twenty-two?" he repeated. "No, never in any unusual connection."
"You never heard Mr. Fleming use them?" I persisted.
He looked puzzled.
"Probably," he said. "In the very nature of Mr. Fleming"s position, we used figures all the time. Eleven twenty-two. That"s the time the theater train leaves the city for Bellwood. Not what you want, eh?"
"Not quite," I answered non-committally and began to wind my watch. He took the hint and prepared to leave.
"I"ll not keep you up any longer," he said, picking up his raincoat. He opened the door and stared ruefully down at the detective in the hall below. "The old place is queer without Miss Jane," he said irrelevantly.
"Well, good night, and thanks."
He went heavily along the hall and I closed my door, I heard him pa.s.s Margery"s room and then go back and rap lightly. She was evidently awake.
"It"s Harry," he called. "I thought you wouldn"t worry if you knew I was in the house to-night."
She asked him something, for--
"Yes, he is here," he said. He stood there for a moment, hesitating over something, but whatever it was, he decided against it.
"Good night, dear," he said gently and went away.
The little familiarity made me wince. Every unattached man has the same pang now and then. I have it sometimes when Edith sits on the arm of Fred"s chair, or one of the youngsters leaves me to run to "daddy." And one of the sanest men I ever met went to his office and proposed to his stenographer in sheer craving for domesticity, after watching the wife of one of his friends run her hand over her husband"s chin and give him a reproving slap for not having shaved!
I pulled myself up sharply and after taking off my dripping coat, I went to the window and looked out into the May night. It seemed incredible that almost the same hour the previous night little Miss Jane had disappeared, had been taken bodily away through the peace of the warm spring darkness, and that I, as wide-awake as I was at that moment, acute enough of hearing to detect Wardrop"s careful steps on the gravel walk below, had heard no struggle, had permitted this thing to happen without raising a finger in the old lady"s defense. And she was gone as completely as if she had stepped over some psychic barrier into the fourth dimension!
I found myself avoiding the more recent occurrence at the White Cat. I was still too close to it to have gained any perspective. On that subject I was able to think clearly of only one thing: that I would have to tell Margery in the morning, and that I would have given anything I possessed for a little of Edith"s diplomacy with which to break the bad news. It was Edith who broke the news to me that the moths had got into my evening clothes while I was hunting in the Rockies, by telling me that my dress-coat made me look narrow across the shoulders and persuading me to buy a new one and give the old one to Fred. Then she broke the news of the moths to Fred!
I was ready for bed when Wardrop came back and rapped at my door. He was still dressed, and he had the leather bag in his hand.
"Look here," he said excitedly, when I had closed the door, "this is not my bag at all. Fool that I was. I never examined it carefully."
He held it out to me, and I carried it to the light. It was an ordinary eighteen-inch Russia leather traveling-bag, tan in color, and with gold-plated mountings. It was empty, save for the railroad schedule that still rested in one side pocket. Wardrop pointed to the empty pocket on the other side.
"In my bag," he explained rapidly, "my name was written inside that pocket, in ink. I did it myself--my name and address."
I looked inside the pockets on both sides: nothing had been written in.
"Don"t you see?" he asked excitedly. "Whoever stole my bag had this one to subst.i.tute for it. If we can succeed in tracing the bag here to the shop it came from, and from there to the purchaser, we have the thief."
"There"s no maker"s name in it," I said, after a casual examination.
Wardrop"s face fell, and he took the bag from me despondently.
"No matter which way I turn," he said, "I run into a blind alley. If I were worth a d.a.m.n, I suppose I could find a way out. But I"m not. Well, I"ll let you sleep this time."
At the door, however, he turned around and put the bag on the floor, just inside.
"If you don"t mind, I"ll leave it here," he said. "They"ll be searching my room, I suppose, and I"d like to have the bag for future reference."
He went for good that time, and I put out the light. As an afterthought I opened my door perhaps six inches, and secured it with one of the pink conch-sh.e.l.ls which flanked either end of the stone hearth. I had failed the night before: I meant to be on hand that night.
I went to sleep immediately, I believe. I have no idea how much later it was that I roused. I wakened suddenly and sat up in bed. There had been a crash of some kind, for the shock was still vibrating along my nerves.
Dawn was close; the window showed gray against the darkness inside, and I could make out dimly the larger objects in the room. I listened intently, but the house seemed quiet. Still I was not satisfied. I got up and, lighting the candle, got into my raincoat in lieu of a dressing-gown, and prepared to investigate.
With the fatality that seemed to pursue my feet in that house, with my first step I trod squarely on top of the conch-sh.e.l.l, and I fell back on to the edge of the bed swearing softly and holding the injured member.
Only when the pain began to subside did I realize that I had left the sh.e.l.l on the door-sill, and that it had moved at least eight feet while I slept!