A Husband by Proxy Part 47

Garrison went to the door and she walked at his side.

He merely said: "Good-night--and Heaven bless you, Dorothy."

She answered: "Good-night, Jerold," and gave him her hand.

He held it for a moment--the riches of the world. And when he had gone they felt they had divided, equally, a happiness too great for terrestrial measurement.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

JOHN HARDY'S WILL

Garrison slept the sleep of physical exhaustion that night in Branchville. The escape from New York's noise and turmoil was welcome to his weary body. He had been on a strain day after day, and much of it still remained. Yet, having cleared away the mystery concerning Hardy's death, he felt ent.i.tled to a let-down of the tension.

In the morning he was early on the road to Hickwood--his faculties all eagerly focused on the missing will. He felt it might all prove the merest vagary of his mind--his theory of his respecting old Hardy and this testament. But stubbornly his mind clung fast to a few important facts.

Old Hardy had always been secretive, for Dorothy had so reported. He had carried his will away with him on leaving Albany. It had not been stolen--so far as anyone could know. Coupled with all this was the fact that the dead man's hands' had been stained upon the knuckles--stained black, with a grimy something hard to wash away--perhaps the soot, the greasy, moldy old soot of a chimney, encountered in the act of secreting the will, and later only partially removed. It seemed as clear as crystal to the reasoning mind of Garrison as he hastened along on the road.

He pa.s.sed the home of Scott, the inventor, and mentally jotted down a reminder that the man, being innocent, must be paid his insurance now without delay.

Mrs. Wilson was working in her garden, at the rear of the house, when Garrison arrived. She was wonderfully pleased to see him. She had read the papers--which Garrison had not--and discovered what a truly remarkable personage he was.

The credit of more than ordinarily clever work had been meted out by the columnful, and his name glared boldly from the vivid account of all he had done in the case. All this and more he found himself obliged to face at the hands of Mrs. Wilson, before he could manage to enter the house and go as before to Hardy's room.

It was just precisely as he had seen it on his former visit. It had not been rented since, partially on account of the fact that Hardy's fate had cast an evil shadow upon it.

Garrison lost no time in his search. He followed his theory. It led him straight to the fireplace, with its crudely painted board, built to occupy its opening. Behind this, he felt, should be the will.

The board was stuck. Mrs. Wilson hastened to her sitting-room to fetch a screwdriver back to pry it out. Garrison gave it a kick, at the bottom, in her absence, thus jarring it loose, and the top fell forward in his hand.

He put his hand far up, inside the chimney--and on a ledge of brick, where his knuckles picked up a coating of moldy, greasy soot, his fingers encountered an envelope and knocked it from its lodgment. It fell on the fender at the bottom of the place. He caught it up, only taking time to note a line, "Will of John Hardy," written upon it--and, cramming it into his pocket, thrust the board back into place as Mrs.

Wilson entered at the door.

It was not with intent to deceive the good woman that he had thus abruptly decided to deny her the knowledge of his find, but rather as a sensible precaution against mere idle gossip, which could achieve no particular advantage.

Therefore when she pried the board from place, and nothing was discovered behind it, he thanked her profusely, made a wholly perfunctory examination of the room, and presently escaped.

Not until he found himself far from any house, on the road he was treading to Branchville, did he think of removing the package from his pocket. He found it then to be a plain white envelope indorsed with this inscription:

Last will of John Hardy. To be opened after my death, and then by my niece, Dorothy Fairfax, only.

Denied the knowledge whether it might mean fortune or poverty to the girl he loved, and feeling that, after all, his labors might heap great unearned rewards on Fairfax, bestowing on himself the mere hollow consciousness that his work had been well performed, he was presently seated once more in a train that roared its way down to New York.

There was still an hour left of the morning when he alighted at the Grand Central Station. He went at once to Dorothy's latest abode.

She was out. The landlady knew nothing whatever of her whereabouts.

Impatient of every delay, and eager to know not only the contents of the will, but what it might mean to have Dorothy gone in this manner, he felt himself baffled and helpless. He could only leave a note and proceed to his office.

Tuttle was there when he arrived. He had nothing to report of Fairfax--of whom Garrison himself had heard no word in Branchville--but concerning the house in Ninety-third Street there was just a mite of news.

He had been delayed in entering by the temporary absence of the caretaker. He had finally succeeded in making his way to the closet in Theodore's room--and the telephone was gone. Theodore had evidently found a means to enter by the stairs at the rear, perhaps through the house next door. The caretaker felt quite certain he had not set foot inside the door since Garrison issued his orders.

Garrison wrote a note to Theodore, in reply to the one received the day before, suggesting a meeting here at this office at noon, or as soon as convenient.

"Take that out," he said to Tuttle, "and send it by messenger. Then return to the house where Fairfax had his room and see if there's any news of him."

Tuttle opened the door to go just as Dorothy, who had arrived outside, was about to knock. Garrison beheld her as she stepped slightly back.

He rose from his seat and hastened towards her.

"Excuse me," said Tuttle, and he went his way.

"Come in," said Garrison. "Come in, Dorothy. I've been at your house and missed you."

She was somewhat pale.

"Yes, I couldn't stay--I wanted to see you the moment you returned,"

she told him. "Theodore has found my address, I don't know how, and sent me a note in which he says he has something new--some dreadful surprise----"

"Never mind Theodore," Garrison interrupted. "Sit down and get your breath. He couldn't have come upon much in all his hunting--much, I mean, that we do not already know. In the meantime, get ready for news--I can't tell what sort of news, but--I've found your uncle's latest will!"

Dorothy made no attempt to speak for a moment. Her face became almost ashen. Then it brightened. Alarm went from her eyes and she even mustered a smile.

"It doesn't make a great deal of difference now, whatever Uncle John may have done," she said. "Foster and Alice will be all right--but, where did you find it? Where has it been?"

"I found it at the room he occupied in Hickwood--and fetched it along."

He produced it from his pocket and placed it in her hand.

Despite her most courageous efforts she was weak and nervously excited.

Her hands fairly trembled as she tore the envelope across.

"Take it calmly," said Garrison. "Don't be hurried."

She could make no reply. She drew the will from its sheath and, spreading it open, glanced through it rapidly.

"Dear Uncle John!" she presently said, in a voice that all but broke.

"He has willed it all to me, with no conditions--all except a nice little sum for Foster--poor Foster, I'm so glad!"

She broke down and cried.

Garrison said nothing. He went to the window and let her cry it out.

She was drying her eyes, in an effort to regain her self-control, when someone knocked and immediately opened the door.