The Million-Dollar Suitcase Part 42

"Do you need to?"

"Perhaps not, Barbara. What I do need is some one who saw Thomas Gilbert alive that night after Worth left to go back to San Francisco."

"And if you had that--some one?"

"If we could produce before c.u.mmings one credible witness to that, it would mean an alibi. I'd have Worth out before morning."

"Then, Mr. Boyne, get to the Fremont House here as quickly as you can.

Mr. c.u.mmings is there. Get him out of bed if you have to. I'll bring the proof you need."

"But, child!" I began.

"Don't--waste--time--talking! How long will it take you to get here?"

"Half an hour."

"Oh! You may have to wait for me a little. But I'll surely come. Wait in Mr. c.u.mmings' room."

Half past twelve when I reached the Fremont House, to find it all alight, its lobby and corridors surging with the crowd of blossom festival guests. n.o.body much in the bar; soft drinks held little interest; but in the upper halls, getting to c.u.mmings' room, I pa.s.sed more than one open door where the hip-pocket cargoes were unloading, and was even hailed by name, with invitations to come in and partake.

c.u.mmings was still up. The first word he gave me was,

"d.y.k.eman's here."

"Glad of it," I said. "Bring him in. I want you both."

It took a good deal of argument before he brought the Western Cereal man from the adjoining room where he had evidently been just getting ready for bed. He came to the conference resentful as a soreheaded old bear.

"Maybe you think Worth Gilbert will sleep well to-night--in jail?" I stopped him, and instantly differentiated the two men before me.

c.u.mmings took it, with an ugly little half smile; d.y.k.eman rumpled his hair, and bolstered his anger by shouting at me,

"This country'll go to the dogs if we make an exempt cla.s.s of our returned soldiers. Break the laws--they'll have to take the consequences, just as a man that was too old or too sickly to fight would have to take 'em. If I'd done what Captain Gilbert's done--I wouldn't expect mercy."

"You mean, if you'd done what you say he's done," I countered. "Nothing proved yet."

"Nothing proved?" d.y.k.eman huddled in his chair and s.h.i.+vered. c.u.mmings shook out an overcoat and helped him into it. He settled back with a protesting air of being about to leave us, and finished squeakily, "Didn't need to prove that he had Clayte's suitcase."

"Good Lord, Mr. d.y.k.eman! You're not lending yourself to accuse a man like Worth Gilbert of so grave a crime as murder, just because you found his ideas irregular--maybe reckless--in a matter of money?"

"Don't answer, d.y.k.eman!" c.u.mmings jumped in. "Boyne's trying to get you to talk."

The old chap stared at me doubtfully, then broke loose with a snort,

"See here, Boyne, you can't get away from it; your man Gilbert has embarked on a criminal career: mixed up in the robbery of our bank, with Clayte to rob us; had our own attorney go through the form of raising money to buy us off from the pursuit of Clayte--"

"How about me?" I stuck in the question as he paused for breath. "Do you think Worth Gilbert would put me on the track of a man he didn't want found?"

c.u.mmings cut in ahead to answer for him,

"Just the point. You've not done any good at the inquiry; never will, so long as you stand with Worth Gilbert. He needed a detective who would believe in him through thick and thin. And he found such a man in you."

I could not deny it when d.y.k.eman yipped at me,

"Ain't that true? If it was anybody else, wouldn't you see the connection? Captain Gilbert came here to Santa Ysobel that Sat.u.r.day night--as we've got witnesses to testify--had a row with his father--we've got witnesses for that, too--the word money pa.s.sed between them again and again in that quarrel--and then the young man had the nerve to walk into our bank next morning with his father's entire holdings of our stock in Clayte's suitcase--Boyne, you're crazy!"

"Maybe not," I said, reckoning on something human in d.y.k.eman to appeal to. "You see I know where Worth got that suitcase. It came out of my office vault--evidence we'd gathered in the Clayte hunt. Getting it and using it that way was his idea of humor, I suppose."

"Sounds fishy." d.y.k.eman made an uncomfortable s.h.i.+ft in his chair. But c.u.mmings came close, and standing, hands rammed down in the pockets of his coat, let me have it savagely.

"Evidence, Boyne, is the only thing that would give you a license to rout men out at this time of night--new evidence. Have you got it? If not--"

"Wait." I preferred to stop him before he told me to get out. "Wait." I looked at my watch. In the silence we could hear the words of a yawp from one of the noisy rooms when a pa.s.serby was hailed:

"There she goes! There--look at the chickens!"

A minute later, a tap sounded on the door. c.u.mmings stood by while I opened it to Barbara, and a slender, veiled woman, taller by half a head in spite of bent shoulders and the droop of weakness which made the girl's supporting arm apparently necessary.

At sight of them, d.y.k.eman had come to his feet, biting off an exclamation, looking vainly around the bare room for chairs, then suggesting,

"Get some from my room, Boyne."

I went through the connecting door to fetch a couple. When I came back, Barbara was still standing, but her companion had sunk into the seat the s.h.i.+vering, uncomfortable old man offered, and c.u.mmings was bringing a gla.s.s of water for her. She sipped it, still under the s.h.i.+eld of her veil. This was never Ina Vandeman. Could it be that Barbara had dragged Mrs. Thornhill from her bed? I saw Barbara bend and whisper rea.s.suringly. Then the veil was swept back, it caught and carried the hat with it from Laura Bowman's s.h.i.+ning, copper colored hair, and the doctor's wife sat there ghastly pale, evidently very weak, but more composed than I had ever seen her.

"I'm all right now," she spoke very low.

"Miss Wallace," d.y.k.eman demanded harshly. "Who is this--lady?"

"Mrs. Bowman," Barbara looked her employer very straight in the eye.

"Heh?" he barked. "Any relation to Dr. Bowman--any connection with him?"

"His wife." c.u.mmings bent and mumbled to the older man for a moment.

"Laura," Barbara said gently, "this is Mr. d.y.k.eman. You're to tell him and Mr. c.u.mmings."

"Yes," breathed Mrs. Bowman. "I'll tell them. I'm ready to tell anybody.

There's nothing in dodging, and hiding, and being afraid. I'm done with it. Now--what is it you want to know?"

c.u.mmings' expression said plainer than words that they didn't want to know anything. They had their case fixed up and their man arrested, and they didn't wish to be disturbed. She went on quickly, of herself,

"I believe I was the last person who saw Mr. Gilbert alive. I must have been. I'd rushed over there, just as Ina told you, Mr. Boyne, between the reception and our getting off for San Francisco."

"All this concerns the early part of the evening," put in c.u.mmings.

"Yes--but it concerns Worth, too. He was there when I came in.... It was very painful."

"The quarrel between Captain Gilbert and his father d'ye mean?" d.y.k.eman asked his first question. Mrs. Bowman nodded a.s.sent.

"Thomas went right on, before me, just as though I hadn't been there.

Then, when it came my turn, he would have spoken out before Worth of--of my private affairs. That was his way. But I couldn't stand it. I went with Worth out to his machine. He had it in the back road. We talked there a little while, and Worth drove away, going fast, headed for San Francisco."