The Black Eagle Mystery Part 21

_Dear Ford_,

Excellent. If possible, I'll try to see you tomorrow. I'll be going down to lunch about one. Yours,

H. H.

As a doc.u.ment in the case it had no especial value, beyond confirming the fact that Ford was-as he had told Molly-on friendly terms with the lawyer.

The others were of vital significance. They were on small oblongs of white paper, the finely nicked upper edge indicating they had been attached to a writing tablet. Both were in ink, and in the same hand, rapid and scratchy, the words trailing off in unfinished scrawls.

Neither had any address, but both bore dates: one December 27 and the other January 10.

Here is the first:

_December 27._

_Dear Girl_,

Thanks for your note. Things begin to look more encouraging.

That I must stand back and let you do so much-win our way by your cleverness and persuasion-is a trial to my patience. But my time will come later.

J. W. B.

The signature was a hurried scratch. Babbitts said the police had glanced at the letter, set it down as the copy of a note Ford had written to some girl, and thrown it aside. Those half-formed initials might have been anything to the casual, uninterested eye.

The second, dated January 10, was a little longer:

_Dearest_,

I hoped to see you today but couldn't make it. So our end seems to be in sight-at last approaching after our planning and waiting. What a sensation we're going to make! But it won't touch us. We're strong enough to dare anything when our happiness is the stake.

J. W. B.

We agreed with O'Mally when he sized these letters up as copies in Ford's hand-he had samples of it-of notes written by Barker to Carol Whitehall. The reason for Ford's taking them was not hard to guess with our knowledge of the gunman's character.

"It shows him up as a pretty tough specimen," said the detective, astride on a chair with a big black cigar in the corner of his mouth.

"He wasn't going to lose a trick. While he was working for Barker he was gathering all the evidence against his employer that his position in the Whitehall office gave him access to."

"Laying his plans for blackmail," said George.

"That's it. He had his eagle eye trained on the future. When Barker and his girl were feeling safe in some secluded corner, these letters-doc.u.mentary testimony to the plot-could be used as levers to extort more money."

"Do you suppose Barker was on to it and decided to get him out of the way before he had a chance to use them?" said Babbitts.

"No-I don't see it that way. There was no indication in the room of a search. I guess Barker acted on the principle that the fewer people share a secret the easier it is to keep."

"Looks to me," said George, "as if Ford _had_ made some move that scared the old man. Coming back that way into a house full of people!

Considering the circ.u.mstances he took a mighty big risk."

"Not as big a one as having Ford at large," answered O'Mally. "You've got to remember that not one of the three knows the murder has been discovered. They think they're as safe as bugs in a rug. With Ford out of it the only menace to Barker's safety is removed. I look at this as a last perfecting touch, the coping stone on the edifice."

The chief, who had been silently pacing back and forth across the end of the room, came slouching to the table and picked up the longer of the two letters. Holding it to the light he read it over murmuringly, then dropped it and said:

"Curious that a man who had conceived such a plot would allude to it in writing."

I spoke up. What seemed to me the first rational words of the meeting gave me my cue.

"What makes you so sure the thing alluded to in those letters _is_ the murder?"

I was standing back between the window and the table. They all squared round in their chairs to stare at me, O'Mally bending his head to level a scornful glance below the shade of the electric standard.

"What else _could_ they allude to?" he said.

"I don't know. n.o.body, not a person here, knows all that existed between Barker and Miss Whitehall. There's no reason to take for granted that the plan, scheme, whatever you like to call it those letters indicate, was the killing of Harland."

O'Mally gave an exasperated grunt and cast an eye of derisive question at the chief. It enraged me and my hands gripped together.

"Oh, Lord, Jack, you're nutty," said George. "We know Barker and Miss Whitehall were in love, and we know Barker committed the murder, and we know she helped. That was enough to occupy their minds without going off on side mysteries."

Nature has cursed me with a violent temper. During the last two years-since the dark days of the Hesketh tragedy-I've thought it was conquered-a leashed beast of which I was the master. Now suddenly it rose, pulling at its chain. I felt the old forgotten stir of it, the rush of boiling blood that in the end made me blind. I had sense enough left to know I'd got to keep it down and I did it. But if there'd been no need for restraint, for dissimulation, it would have burst out as it has in the past, burst against O'Mally with a fist in the middle of his c.o.c.k-sure, sneering face. I heard my voice, husky, but steady, as I said,

"That's all very well, but how about what the chief has just said? Why should Barker _write_ when he could say what he wanted? Why did he, so cautious in every other way, do a thing a green boy would have known the danger of? You're building up your whole case on the vaguest surmises."

O'Mally took his cigar out of his mouth, his eyes narrowed and full of an ugly fire.

"I suppose the initial fact that a murder's been committed is surmise?"

"No," I came nearer the table, the blood singing in my ears, "it's your evidence against the woman, that you're twisting and coloring to match your preconceived theories. There's not an attempt been made to reconcile her previous record with the villainous act of which you accuse her. There's a gulf there you can't bridge. Why don't you go down into the foundations of the thing instead of putting your attention on surface indications? Why don't you go into the psychology of it, build on that, not the material facts that a child could see?"

I don't believe one of them guessed the state I was in-took my vehemence as an enthusiasm for impartial justice. But a few minutes more of it and the old fury would have broken loose. I saw O'Mally's face, red through a red mist, saw he was mad, mad straight through, enraged at the aspersions on his ability. He got up, ready to answer, and Lord knows what would have happened-a rough and tumble round the room probably-if the door hadn't opened and a clerk put in his head with the announcement:

"A gentleman on the phone wants Mr. O'Mally."

The words transformed the detective; his anger vanished as if it never had been. Quick as a wink he made for the door, flinging back over his shoulder:

"I told them at the office if anything turned up I'd be here. There's something doing."

A hush fell on the rest of us, the tense quiet of expectancy. The fire in me died like a flame when a bellows is dropped. News-any news-might bring help for her, exonerate her, wipe away the stain of the suspicions that no one but we six would ever know.

The door opened and O'Mally entered. His face was illuminated, s.h.i.+ning with an irrepressible triumph, his movements quick and instinctively stealthy. Pus.h.i.+ng the door to behind him he said as softly as if the walls had ears:

"They've got Barker in Philadelphia."

CHAPTER XII

JACK TELLS THE STORY