A Husband by Proxy Part 43

"No. The story's a sort of a dead one with the papers. Young Robinson was gone, and you kept out of sight, and nothing came up to prove any thing."

"You must have been talking to some newspaper man yourself," was Garrison's comment. He looked at Tuttle keenly.

"I did, yes, sir. One of them saw me here two or three times and finally asked me what paper I represented. I told him the _Cable_."

Garrison paced up and down the floor somewhat restlessly.

"I think of nothing further except for you to keep an eye on the Robinsons," he said. "Wait a minute. I want you to go to the Ninety-third Street house with a note I'll give you to the housekeeper, and examine the closet, in the back room, first flight up, to see if an equipment telephone is still in place there, concealed beneath a lot of clothing."

He sat down, wrote the note, and gave it to Tuttle, who departed with instructions to return with his report as soon as possible.

The office oppressed Garrison. It seemed to confine him. He prodded himself with a hundred vague notions that there ought to be something he could do, some way to get at things more rapidly. He wondered how far he would find it possible to go with Foster Durgin, and what the fellow would say or do, if confronted with the cold-blooded facts already collated.

Up and down and up and down he paced, impatient of every minute that sped away bringing nothing to the door. Would Barnes arrive in time, or at all? Would Durgin fail to come? Did Dorothy know of his presence in the city?

Everything always swung back to Dorothy. What would she do concerning Fairfax? What would Fairfax himself attempt to do, so far baffled, but a factor with a hold upon her name and, perhaps, upon her fortune? And if the thing should all be cleared at last, and come to its end, as all things must, what would be the outcome for himself and Dorothy?

She had told him at the start that when her business ends had been completely served she would wish him to dismiss himself,--from her life and her memory forever. He smiled at the utter futility of such a behest. It had gone beyond his power to forget like this, though a century of time should elapse.

For an hour he paced his cage impatiently, and nothing happened. A dozen times he went to the door, opened it and looked out in the hall--to no avail. The moment for young Durgin to arrive was at hand.

It was almost time for young Barnes to appear.

Tuttle should have made his trip by this. The postman should have brought that photograph from Israel Snow, of Rockdale. Dorothy might at least 'phone.

It was maddening to wait and feel so impotent! His mind reverted to various phases of the case, but lingered most upon the second will--that might mean so much to Dorothy. Where had it gone? Had it been stolen--or hidden? Some way he felt it was hidden. For some reason, wholly illogical, he thought of Hardy lying dead with those grease-like stains upon his knuckles. What did they mean?

Working out a line of thought about the will, he was halted abruptly by a shadow on the gla.s.s of his door. He sat down quickly at his desk and a.s.sumed an air of calmness he was far from feeling. At the knock which came he called to the visitor to enter.

The visitor entered. It was Wicks.

"Oh, how do you do?" said Garrison, rising from his chair. "Come in.

Come in, Mr. Wicks."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A TRAGIC CULMINATION

The grin on the face of Mr. Wicks had apparently deepened and become even more sardonic. He glanced Garrison over in his sharp, penetrative manner, heightened by his nervousness, and took a chair.

"Forgotten instructions, haven't you, Garrison?" he snapped, adjusting his thin wisp of hair. "Where's your report on the case of Hardy, all these days?"

"Well, I admit I've rather neglected the office," said Garrison, eying his visitor with a new, strange interest. "I've been hard at work.

I've lost no time. The case is not at all simple."

"What's all this business in the papers? You mixing up with some niece of Hardy's, and the girl getting married to save an inheritance?"

demanded Wicks. "What the devil do you mean?"

"That part is my private affair," answered Garrison calmly. "It has nothing to do with my work for your company, nor has it interfered in the least with my prosecution of the inquiry."

"Do you mean to say it hasn't delayed your reports?"

"What if it has? I've had nothing to report--particularly."

"Yes, you have," snapped Wicks. "You know it was murder--that's something to report!"

Garrison studied the man deliberately for half a minute before replying. What a living embodiment of Durgin's description of Hiram Cleave he was! And what could he know of the facts in the case of Hardy's death that would warrant him in charging that the affair was known to be murder?

"Do I know it was murder?" he queried coldly. "Have I said so, Mr.

Wicks, to you, or to anyone else?"

Wicks glanced at him with a quick, roving dart from his eyes.

"You saw what was printed in the papers," he answered evasively. "You must have given it out."

"I gave out nothing," said Garrison, bent now on a new line of thought, and determined that he would not accuse young Durgin by name till driven to the last extremity. "But, as a matter of fact, I do know, Mr. Wicks, that Hardy was murdered."

"Then why the devil don't you report to that effect?" snapped Wicks.

"Are you trying to s.h.i.+eld that young woman?"

Garrison knew whom he meant, but he asked: "What young woman?"

"Dorothy Booth-Fairfax! You know who I mean!"

"What has she to do with it?" Garrison inquired in apparent innocence.

"Why should you think I'm s.h.i.+elding her?"

"She's the likely one--the only one who could benefit by Hardy's death!" answered Wicks, a little less aggressively. "You could see that by the accounts in the paper."

"I haven't read the papers for guidance," Garrison observed dryly.

"Have you?"

"I didn't come here to answer questions. I came to ask them. I demand your report!" said Mr. Wicks. "I want to know all that you know!"

Garrison reflected that the little man knew too much. It suddenly occurred to his mind, as the man's sharp eyes picked up every speck or fleck upon his clothing, that Wicks, in the Subway that evening when they rode together in the jostling crowd, could have filched that poisoned cigar from his pocket with the utmost ease. He determined to try a little game.

"I've been waiting for the last completing link in my chain," he said, "before accusing any man of murder. You are right in supposing that I have found out more than I've reported--but only in the last few days and hours. I told you before that I thought perhaps Hardy had been poisoned."

"Well! What more? How was it done?"

"The poison employed was crushed to a powder," and he mentioned the name of the stuff.

"Used by photographers," commented Wicks.

"Not exclusively, but at times, yes."

"How was the stuff administered?"