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THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES
CONSTANCE DUNLAP
BY
ARTHUR B. REEVE
WITH FRONTISPIECE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE FORGERS II THE EMBEZZLERS III THE GUN RUNNERS IV THE GAMBLERS V THE EAVESDROPPERS VI THE CLAIRVOYANTS VII THE PLUNGERS VIII THE ABDUCTORS IX THE SHOPLIFTERS X THE BLACKMAILERS XI THE DOPE FIENDS XII THE FUGITIVES
CONSTANCE DUNLAP
CHAPTER I
THE FORGERS
There was something of the look of the hunted animal brought to bay atlast in Carlton Dunlap's face as he let himself into his apartment lateone night toward the close of the year.
On his breath was the lingering odor of whisky, yet in his eye and handnone of the effects. He entered quietly, although there was no apparentreason for such excessive caution. Then he locked the door with theutmost care, although there was no apparent reason for caution aboutthat, either.
Even when he had thus barricaded himself, he paused to listen with allthe elemental fear of the cave man who dreaded the footsteps of hispursuers. In the dim light of the studio apartment he looked anxiouslyfor the figure of his wife. Constance was not there, as she had been onother nights, uneasily awaiting his return. What was the matter? Hishand shook a trifle now as he turned the knob of the bedroom door andpushed it softly open.
She was asleep. He leaned over, not realizing that her every facultywas keenly alive to his presence, that she was acting a part.
"Throw something around yourself, Constance," he whispered hoarselyinto her ear, as she moved with a little well-feigned start at beingsuddenly wakened, "and come into the studio. There is something I musttell you tonight, my dear."
"My dear!" she exclaimed bitterly, now seeming to rouse herself with aneffort and pretending to put back a stray wisp of her dark hair inorder to hide from him the tears that still lingered on her flushedcheeks. "You can say that, Carlton, when it has been every night thesame old threadbare excuse of working at the office until midnight?"
She set her face in hard lines, but could not catch his eye.
"Carlton Dunlap," she added in a tone that rasped his very soul, "I amnobody's fool. I may not know much about bookkeeping and accounting,but I can add--and two and two, when the same man but different womencompose each two, do not make four, according to my arithmetic, butthree, from which,"--she finished almost hysterically the little speechshe had prepared, but it seemed to fall flat before the man's curiouslyaltered manner--"from which I shall subtract one."
She burst into tears.
"Listen," he urged, taking her arm gently to lead her to an easy-chair.
"No, no, no!" she cried, now thoroughly aroused, with eyes that againsnapped accusation and defiance at him, "don't touch me. Talk to me, ifyou want to, but don't, don't come near me." She was now facing him,standing in the high-ceilinged "studio," as they called the room whereshe had kept up in a desultory manner for her own amusement the artstudies which had interested her before her marriage. "What is it thatyou want to say? The other nights you said nothing at all. Have you atlast thought up an excuse? I hope it is at least a clever one."
"Constance," he remonstrated, looking fearfully about. Instinctivelyshe felt that her accusation was unjust. Not even that had dulled thehunted look in his face. "Perhaps--perhaps if it were that of which yoususpect me, we could patch it up. I don't know. But, Constance, I--Imust leave for the west on the first train in the morning." He did notpause to notice her startled look, but raced on. "I have worked everynight this week trying to straighten out those accounts of mine by thefirst of the year and--and I can't do it. An expert begins on them in acouple of days. You must call up the office to-morrow and tell themthat I am ill, tell them anything. I must get at least a day or twostart before they--"
"Carlton," she interrupted, "what is the matter? What have you--"
She checked herself in surprise. He had been fumbling in his pocket andnow laid down a pile of green and yellow banknotes on the table.
"I have scraped together every last cent I can spare," he continued,talking jerkily to suppress his emotion. "They cannot take those awayfrom you, Constance. And--when I am settled--in a new life," heswallowed hard and averted his eyes further from her startled gaze,"under a new name, somewhere, if you have just a little spot in yourheart that still responds to me, I--I--no, it is too much even to hope.Constance, the accounts will not come out right because I am--I am anembezzler."
He bit off the word viciously and then sank his head into his hands andbowed it to a depth that alone could express his shame.
Why did she not say something, do something? Some women would havefainted. Some would have denounced him. But she stood there and hedared not look up to read what was written in her face. He felt alone,all alone, with every man's hand against him, he who had never in allhis life felt so or had done anything to make him feel so before. Hegroaned as the sweat of his mental and physical agony poured coldly outon his forehead. All that he knew was that she was standing there,silent, looking him through and through, as cold as a statue. Was shethe personification of justice? Was this but a foretaste of theostracism of the world?
"When we were first married, Constance," he began sadly, "I was only aclerk for Green & Co., at two thousand a year. We talked it over. Istayed and in time became cashier at five thousand. But you know aswell as I that five thousand does not meet the social obligations laidon us by our position in the circle in which we are forced to move."
His voice had become cold and hard, but he did not allow himself to bebetrayed into adding, as he might well have done in justice to himself,that to her even a thousand dollars a month would have been only abeginning. It was not that she had been accustomed to so much in thestation of life from which he had taken her. The plain fact was thatNew York had had an over-tonic effect on her.
"You were not a nagging woman, Constance," he went on in a somewhatsoftened tone. "In fact you have been a good wife; you have neverthrown it up to me that I was unable to make good to the degree of manyof our friends in purely commercial lines. All you have ever said isthe truth. A banking house pays low for its brains. My God!" he criedstiffening out in the chair and clenching his fists, "it pays low forits temptations, too."
There had been nothing in the world Carlton would not have given tomake happy the woman who stood now, leaning on the table in coldsilence, with averted head, regarding neither him nor the pile ofgreenbacks.
"Hundreds of thousands of dollars passed through my hands every week,"he resumed. "That business owed me for my care of it. It was taking thebest in me and in return was not paying what other businesses paid forthe best in other men. When a man gets thinking that way, with a womanwhom he loves as I love you--something happens."
He paused in the bitterness of his thoughts. She moved as if to speak."No, no," he interrupted. "Hear me out first. All I asked was a chanceto employ a little of the money that I saw about me--not to take it,but to employ it for a little while, a few days, perhaps only a fewhours. Money breeds money. Why should I not use some of this idle moneyto pay me what I ought to have?
"When Mr. Green was away last summer I heard some inside news about acertain stock. So it happened that I began to juggle the accounts. Itis too long a story to tell how I did it. Anybody in my position couldhave done it--for a time. It would not interest you anyhow. But I didit. The first venture was successful. Also the spending of the moneywas very successful, in its way. That was the money that took us to thefashionable hotel in Atlantic City where we met so many people. Insteadof helping me, it got me in deeper.
"When the p
rofit from this first deal was spent there was nothing to dobut to repeat what I had done successfully before. I could not quitnow. I tried again, a little hypothecation of some bonds. Stocks wentdown. I had made a bad bet and five thousand dollars was wiped out, awhole year's salary. I tried again, and wiped out five thousand more. Iwas at my wits' end. I have borrowed under fictitious names, used namesof obscure persons as borrowers, have put up dummy security. It waspossible because I controlled the audits. But it has done no good. Thelosses have far outbalanced the winnings and to-day I am in fortwenty-five thousand dollars."
She was watching him now with dilating eyes as the horror of thesituation was burned into her soul. He raced on, afraid to pause lestshe should interrupt him.
"Mr. Green has been talked into introducing scientific management and anew system into the business by a certified public accountant, anexpert in installing systems and discovering irregularities. Here I am,faced by certain exposure," he went on, pacing the floor and lookingeverywhere but at her face. "What should I do? Borrow? It is useless. Ihave no security that anyone would accept.
"There is just one thing left." He lowered his voice until it almostsank into a hoarse whisper. "I must cut loose. I have scraped togetherwhat I can and I have borrowed on my life insurance. Here on the tableis all that I can spare.
"To-night, the last night, I have worked frantically in a vain hopethat something, some way would at last turn up. It has not. There is noother way out. In despair I have put this off until the last moment.But I have thought of nothing else for a week. Good God, Constance, Ihave reached the mental state where even intoxicants fail tointoxicate."
He dropped back again into the deep chair and sank his head again onhis hands. He groaned as he thought of the agony of packing a bag andslinking for the Western express through the crowds at the railroadterminal.
Still Constance was silent. Through her mind was running the singlethought that she had misjudged him. There had been no other woman inthe case. As he spoke, there came flooding into her heart the suddenrealization of the truth. He had done it for her.
It was a rude and bitter awakening after the past months when theincreased income, with no questions asked, had made her feel that theywere advancing. She passed her hands over her eyes, but there it wasstill, not a dream but a harsh reality. If she could only have goneback and undone it! But what was done, was done, She was amazed atherself. It was not horror of the deed that sent an icy shudder overher. It was horror of exposure.
He had done it for her. Over and over again that thought raced throughher mind. She steeled herself at last to speak. She hardly knew whatwas in her own mind, what the conflicting, surging emotions of her ownheart meant.
"And so, you are leaving me what is left, leaving me in disgrace, andyou are going to do the best you can to get away safely. You want me totell one last lie for you."
There was an unnatural hollowness in her voice which he did notunderstand, but which cut him to the quick. He had killed love. He wasalone. He knew it. With a final effort he tried to moisten his parchedlips to answer. At last, in a husky voice, he managed to say, "Yes."
But with all his power of will he could not look at her.
"Carlton Dunlap," she cried, leaning both hands for support on thetable, bending over and at last forcing him to look her in the eyes,"do you know what I think of you? I think you are a damned coward.There!"
Instead of tears and recriminations, instead of the conventional "Howcould you do it?" instead of burning denunciation of him for ruiningher life, he read something else in her face. What was it?
"Coward?" he repeated slowly. "What would you have me do--take you withme?"
She tossed her head contemptuously.
"Stay and face it?" he hazarded again.
"Is there no other way?" she asked, still leaning forward with her eyesfixed on his. "Think! Is there no way that you could avoid discoveryjust for a time? Carlton, you--we are cornered. Is there no desperatechance?"
He shook his head sadly.
Her eyes wandered momentarily about the studio, until they rested on aneasel. On it stood a water color on which she had been working, tryingto put into it some of the feeling which she would never have put intowords for him. On the walls of the apartment were pen and ink sketches,scores of little things which she had done for her own amusement. Shebit her lip as an idea flashed through her mind.
He shook his head again mournfully.
"Somewhere," she said slowly, "I have read that clever forgers usewater colors and pen and ink like regular artists. Think--think! Isthere no way that we--that I could forge a check that would give usbreathing space, perhaps rescue us?"
Carlton leaned over the table toward her, fascinated. He placed bothhis hands on hers. They were icy, but she did not withdraw them.
For an instant they looked into each other's eyes, an instant, and thenthey understood. They were partners in crime, amateurs perhaps, butpartners as they had been in honesty.
It was a new idea that she had suggested to him. Why should he not acton it? Why hesitate? Why stop at it? He was already an embezzler. Whynot add a new crime to the list? As he looked into her eyes he felt anew strength. Together they could do it. Hers was the brain that hadconceived the way out. She had the will, the compelling power to carrythe thing through. He would throw himself on her intuition, her brain,her skill, her daring.
On his desk in the corner, where often until far into the night he hadworked on the huge ruled sheets of paper covered with figures of thefirm's accounts, he saw two goose-necked vials, one of lemon-coloredliquid, the other of raspberry color. One was of tartaric acid, theother of chloride of lime. It was an ordinary ink eradicator. Near thebottles lay a rod of glass with a curious tip, an ink eraser made offinely spun glass threads which scraped away the surface of the papermore delicately than any other tool that had been devised. There werethe materials for his, their rehabilitation if they were placed in hiswife's deft artist fingers. Here was all the chemistry and artistry offorgery at hand.
"Yes," he answered eagerly, "there is a way, Constance. Together we cando it."
There was no time for tenderness between them now. It was cold, hardfact and they understood each other too well to stop for endearments.
Far into the night they sat up and discussed the way in which theywould go about the crime. They practised with erasers and with brushand water color on the protective coloring tint on some canceled checksof his own. Carlton must get a check of a firm in town, a check thatbore a genuine signature. In it they would make such trifling changesin the body as would attract no attention in passing, yet would yield asubstantial sum toward wiping out Carlton's unfortunate deficit.
Late as he had worked the night before, nervous and shaky as he feltafter the sleepless hours of planning their new life, Carlton was thefirst at the office in the morning. His hand trembled as he ran throughthe huge batch of mail already left at the first delivery. He paused ashe came to one letter with the name "W. J. REYNOLDS CO." on it.
Here was a check in payment of a small bill, he knew. It was from afirm which habitually kept hundreds of thousands on deposit at theGorham Bank. It fitted the case admirably. He slit open the letter.There, neatly folded, was the check:
No. 15711. Dec. 27, 191--.
THE GORHAM NATIONAL BANK
Pay to the order of....... Green & Co....... Twenty-five 00/100 ..................Dollars $25.00/100
W. J. REYNOLDS Co., per CHAS. M. BROWN, Treas.
It flashed over him in a moment what to do. Twenty-five thousand wouldjust about cover his shortage. The Reynolds firm was a big one, doingbig transactions. He slipped the check into his pocket. The check mighthave been stolen in the mail. Why not?
The journey uptown was most excruciatingly long, in spite of the factthat he had met no one he knew either at the office or outside. At lasthe arrived home, to find Constance waiting anxiously.
"Did you get a check?" she asked, hardly waiting for his
reply. "Let mesee it. Give it to me."
The coolness with which she went about it amazed him. "It has theamount punched on it with a check punch," she observed as she ran herquick eye over it while he explained his plan. "We'll have to fill upsome of those holes made by the punch."
"I know the kind they used," he answered. "I'll get one and a deskcheck from the Gorham. You do the artistic work, my dear. My knowledgeof check punches, watermarks, and paper will furnish the rest. I'll beback directly. Don't forget to call up the office a little before thetime I usually arrive there and tell them I am ill."
With her light-fingered touch she worked feverishly, partly with theliquid ink eradicator, but mostly with the spun-glass eraser. First sherubbed out the cents after the written figure "Twenty-five." Carefullywith a blunt instrument she smoothed down the roughened surface of thepaper so that the ink would not run in the fibers and blot. Over andover she practised writing the "Thousand" in a hand like that on thecheck. She already had the capital "T" in "Twenty" as a guide. Duringthe night in practising she had found that in raising checks only sevencapital letters were used--O in one, T in two, three, ten, andthousand, F in four and five, S in six and seven, E in eight, N in nineand H in hundred.
At last even her practice satisfied her. Then with a coolness born onlyof desperation she wrote in the words, "Thousand 00/100." When she haddone it she stopped to wonder at herself. She was amazed and perhaps alittle frightened at how readily she adapted herself to the crime offorgery. She did not know that it was one of the few crimes in whichwomen had proved themselves most proficient, though she felt her ownproficiency and native ability for copying.
Again the eraser came into play to remove the cents after the figure"25." A comma and three zeros following it were inserted, followed by anew "00/100." The signature was left untouched.
Erasing the name of "Green & Co.," presented greater difficulties, butit was accomplished with as little loss of the protective coloring onthe surface of the check as possible. Then after the "Pay to the orderof" she wrote in, as her husband had directed, "The Carlton Realty Co."
Next came the water color to restore the protective tint where theglass eraser and the acids had removed it. There was much delicatematching of tints and careful painting in with a fine camel's hairbrush, until at last the color of those parts where there had been anerasure was apparently as good as any other part.
Of course, under the microscope there could have been seen the angrycrisscrossing of the fibers of the paper due to the harsh action of theacids and the glass eraser. Still, painting the whole thing over with alittle resinous liquid somewhat restored the glaze to the paper, atleast sufficiently to satisfy a cursory glance of the naked eye.
There remained the difficulty of the protective punch marks. There theywere, a star cut out of the check itself, a dollar sign and 25 followedby another star.
She was still admiring her handiwork, giving it here and there a lightlittle fillip with the brush and comparing this check with some ofthose which had been practised on last night, to see whether she hadmade any improvement in her technique of forgery, when Carlton returnedwith the punch and the blank checks on the Gorham Bank.
From one of the blank checks he punched out a number of little starsuntil there was one which in watermark and scroll work correspondedprecisely with that punched out in the original check.
Constance, whose fingers had long been accustomed to fine work, fittedin the little star after the $25, then took it out, moistened the edgesever so lightly with glue on the end of a toothpick, and pasted it backagain. A hot iron completed the work of making the edges smooth andunless a rather powerful glass had been used no one could have seen thepasted-in insertion after the $25.
Careful not to deviate the fraction of a hair's breadth from thealignment Carlton took the punch, added three 0's, and a star after the25, making it $25,000. Finally the whole thing was again ironed to giveit the smoothness of an original. Here at last was the completed work,the first product of their combined skill in crime:
No. 15711. Dec. 27,191--. THE GORHAM NATIONAL BANK
Pay to the order of... The Carlton Realty Co. Twenty-five Thousand 00/100.........Dollars $25,000.00/100
W. J. REYNOLDS Co., per CHAS. M. BROWN, Treas.
How completely people may change, even within a few hours, was wellillustrated as they stood side by side and regarded their work with asmuch pride as if it had been the result of their honest efforts ofyears. They were now pen and brush crooks of the first caliber, hadreduced forgery to a fine art and demonstrated what an amateur mightdo. For, although they did not know it, nearly half the fifteenmillions or so lost by forgeries every year was the work of amateurssuch as they.
The next problem was presenting the check for collection. Of courseCarlton could not put it through his own bank, unless he wanted toleave a blazed trail straight to himself. Only a colossal bluff woulddo, and in a city where only colossal bluffs succeed it was not soimpossible as might have been first imagined.
Luncheon over, they sauntered casually into a high-class officebuilding on Broadway where there were offices to rent. The agent wasduly impressed by the couple who talked of their large real estatedealings. Where he might have been thoroughly suspicious of a man andmight have asked many embarrassing but perfectly proper questions, heaccepted the woman without a murmur. At her suggestion he evenconsented to take his new tenants around to the Uptown Bank andintroduce them. They made an excellent impression by a first cashdeposit of the money Carlton had thrown down on the table the nightbefore. A check for the first month's rent more than mollified theagent and talk of a big deal that was just being signed up to-day dulyimpressed the bank.
The next problem was to get the forged check certified. That, also,proved a very simple matter. Any one can walk into a bank and get acheck for $25,000 certified, while if he appears, a stranger, beforethe window of the paying teller to cash a check for twenty-five dollarshe would almost be thrown out of the bank. Banks will certify at aglance practically any check that looks right, but they pass on theresponsibility of cashing them. Thus before the close of banking hoursDunlap was able to deposit in his new bank the check certified by theGorham.
Twenty-four hours must elapse before he could draw against the checkwhich he had deposited. He did not propose to waste that time, so thatthe next day found him at Green & Co.'s, feeling much better. Really hehad come prepared now to straighten out the books, knowing that in afew hours he could make good.
The first hesitation due to the newness of the game had worn off bythis time. Nothing at all of an alarming nature had happened. The newmonth had already begun and as most firms have their accounts balancedonly once a month, he had, he reasoned, nearly the entire four weeks inwhich to operate.
Conscience was dulled in Constance, also, and she was now busy with inkeraser, the water colors, and other paraphernalia in a wholesaleraising of checks, mostly for amounts smaller than that in the firstattempt.
"We are taking big chances, anyway," she urged him. "Why quit yet? Afew days more and we may land something worth while."
The next day he excused himself from the office for a while andpresented himself at his new bank with a sheaf of new checks which shehad raised, all certified, and totaling some thousands more.
His own check for twenty-five thousand was now honored. The reliefwhich he felt was tremendous after the weeks of grueling anxiety. Atonce he hurried to a broker's and placed an order for the stocks he hadused on which to borrow. He could now replace everything in the safe,straighten out the books, could make everything look right to thesystematizer, could blame any apparent irregularity on his old system.Even ignorance was better than dishonesty.
Constance, meanwhile, had installed herself in the little office theyhad hired, as stenographer and secretary. Once having embarked on thehazardous enterprise she showed no disposition to give it up yet Anoffice boy was hired and introduced at the bank.
The myt
hical realty company prospered, at least if prosperity ismeasured merely by the bank book. In less than a week the skilful penand brush of Constance had secured them a balance, after straighteningout Carlton's debts, that came well up to a hundred thousand dollars,mostly in small checks, some with genuine signatures and amountsaltered, others complete forgeries.
As they went deeper and deeper, Constance began to feel the truth oftheir situation. It was she who was really at the helm in thisenterprise. It had been her idea; the execution of it had been mainlyher work; Carlton had furnished merely the business knowledge that shedid not possess. The more she thought of it during the hours in thelittle office while he was at work downtown, the more uneasy did shebecome.
What if he should betray himself in some way? She was sure of herself.But she was almost afraid to let him go out of her sight. She felt asinking sensation every time he mentioned any of the happenings in thebanking house. Could he be trusted alone not to betray himself when thefirst hint of discovery of something wrong came?
It was now near the middle of the month. It would not pay to wait untilthe end. Some one of the many firms whose checks they had forged mighthave its book balanced at any time now. From day to day small amountsin cash had already been withdrawn until they were twenty thousanddollars to the good. They planned to draw out thirty thousand now atone time. That would give them fifty thousand, roughly half of theirforgeries.
The check was written and the office boy was started to the bank withit. Carlton followed him at a distance, as he had on other occasions,ready to note the first sign of trouble as the boy waited at theteller's window. At last the boy was at the head of the line. He hadpassed the check in and his satchel was lying open, with voracious maw,on the ledge below the wicket for the greedy feeding of stacks ofbills. Why did the teller not raise the wicket and shove out the moneyin a coveted pile? Carlton seemed to feel that something was wrong. Theline lengthened and those at the end of the queue began to grow restiveat the delay. One of the bank's officers walked down and spoke to theboy.
Carlton waited no longer. The game was up. He rushed from his coign ofobservation, out of the bank building, and dashed into a telephonebooth.
"Quick, Constance," he shouted over the wire, "leave everything. Theyare holding up our check. They have discovered something. Take a caband drive slowly around the square. You will find me waiting for you atthe north end."
That night the newspapers were full of the story. There was the wholething, exaggerated, distorted, multiplied, until they had becomeswindlers of millions instead of thousands. But nevertheless it wastheir story. There was only one grain of consolation. It was in thelast paragraph of the news item, and read: "There seems to be no traceof the man and woman who worked this clever swindle. As if by atelepathic message they have vanished at just the time when their wholehouse of cards collapsed."
They removed every vestige of their work from the apartment. Everythingwas destroyed. Constance even began a new water color so that thatmight suggest that she had not laid aside her painting.
They had played for a big stake and lost. But the twenty thousanddollars was something. Now the great problem was to conceal it andthemselves. They had lost, yet if ever before they loved, it was asnothing to what it was now that they had tasted together the bitter andthe sweet of their mutual crime.
Carlton went down to the office the next day, just as before. Theanxious hours that his wife had previously spent thinking whether hemight betray himself by some slip were comparative safety as contrastedwith the uncertainty of the hours now. But the first day after thealarm of the discovery passed off all right. Carlton even discussed thecase, his case, with those in the office, commented on it, condemnedthe swindlers, and carried it off, he felt proud to say, as well asConstance herself might have done had she been in his place.
Another day passed. His account of the first day, reassuring as it hadbeen to her, did not lessen the anxiety. Yet never before had theyseemed to be bound together by such ties as knitted their very souls inthis crisis. She tried with a devotion that was touching to impart tohim some of her own strength to ward off detection.
It was the afternoon of the second day that a man who gave the name ofDrummond called and presented a card of the Reynolds Company.
"Have you ever been paid a little bill of twenty-five dollars by ourcompany?" he asked.
Down in his heart Carlton knew that this man was a detective. "I can'tsay without looking it up," he replied.
Carlton touched a button and an assistant appeared. Something outsidehimself seemed to nerve him up, as he asked: "Look up our account withReynolds, and see if we have been paid--what is it?--a bill fortwenty-five dollars. Do you recall it?"
"Yes, I recall it," replied the assistant. "No, Mr. Dunlap, I don'tthink it has been paid. It is a small matter, but we sent them aduplicate bill yesterday. I thought the original must have gone astray."
Carlton cursed him inwardly for sending the bill. But then, hereasoned, it was only a question of time, after all, when the forgerywould be discovered.
Drummond dropped into a half-confidential, half-quizzing tone. "Ithought not. Somewhere along the line that check has been stolen andraised to twenty-five thousand dollars," he remarked.
"Is that so?" gasped Carlton, trying hard to show just the right amountof surprise and not too much. "Is that so?"
"No doubt you have read in the papers of this clever realty companyswindle? Well, it seems to have been part of that."
"I am sure that we shall be glad to do all in our power to cooperatewith Reynolds," put in Dunlap.
"I thought you would," commented Drummond dryly. "I may as well tellyou that I fear some one has been tampering with your mail."
"Tampering with OUR mail?" repeated Dunlap, aghast. "Impossible."
"Nothing is impossible until it is proved so," answered Drummond,looking him straight in the eyes. Carlton did not flinch. He felt a newpower within himself, gained during the past few days of newassociation with Constance. For her he could face anything.
But when Drummond was gone he felt as he had on the night when he hadfinally realized that he could never cover up the deficit in his books.With an almost superhuman effort he gripped himself. Interminably thehours of the rest of the day dragged on.
That night he sank limp into a chair on his return home. "A man namedDrummond was in the office to-day, my dear," he said. "Some one in theoffice sent Reynolds a duplicate bill, and they know about the check."
"Well?"
"I wonder if they suspect me?"
"If you act like that, they won't suspect. They'll arrest," shecommented sarcastically.
He had braced up again into his new self at her words. But there wasagain that sinking sensation in her heart, as she realized that it was,after all, herself on whom he depended, that it was she who had beenthe will, even though he had been the intellect of their enterprise.She could not overcome the feeling that, if only their positions couldbe reversed, the thing might even yet be carried through.
Drummond appeared again at the office the next day. There was noconcealment about him now. He said frankly that he was from the BurrDetective Agency, whose business it was to guard the banks againstforgeries.
"The pen work, or, as we detectives call it, the penning," he remarked,"in the case of that check is especially good. It shows rare skill. Butthe pitfalls in this forgery game are so many that, in avoiding one, aforger, ever so clever, falls into another."
Carlton felt the polite third degree, as he proceeded: "Nowadays theforger has science to contend with, too. The microscope and camera maycome in a little too late to be of practical use in preventing theforger from getting his money at first, but they come in very neatlylater in catching him. What the naked eye cannot see in this check theyreveal. Besides, a little iodine vapor brings out the original 'Green &Co.' on it.
"We have found out also that the protective coloring was restored bywater color. That was easy. Where the paper was scratched an
d thesizing taken off, it has been painted with a resinous substance torestore the glaze, to the eye. Well, a little alcohol takes that off,too. Oh, the amateur forger may be the most dangerous kind, because theprofessional regularly follows the same line, leaves tracks, hasassociates, but," he concluded impressively, "all are caught sooner orlater--sooner or later."
Dunlap managed to maintain his outward composure admirably. Still thelittle lifting of the curtain on the hidden mysteries of the newdetective art produced its effect. They were getting closer, and Dunlapknew it, as Drummond intended he should. And, as in every crisis, heturned naturally to Constance. Never had she meant so much to him asnow.
That night as he entered the apartment he happened to glance behindhim. In the shadow down the street a man dodged quickly behind a tree.The thing gave him a start. He was being watched.
"There is just one thing left," he cried excitedly as he hurriedupstairs with the news. "We must both disappear this time."
Constance took it very calmly. "But we must not go together," she addedquickly, her fertile mind, as ever, hitting directly on a plan ofaction. "If we separate, they will be less likely to trace us, for theywill never think we would do that."
It was evident that the words were being forced out by the conflict ofcommon sense and deep emotion. "Perhaps it will be best for you tostick to your original idea of going west. I shall go to one of thewinter resorts. We shall communicate only through the personal columnof the Star. Sign yourself Weston. I shall sign Easton."
The words fell on Carlton with his new and deeper love for her like adeath sentence. It had never entered his mind that they were to beseparated now. Dissolve their partnership in crime? To him it seemed asif they had just begun to live since that night when they had at lastunderstood each other. And it had come to this--separation.
"A man can always shift for himself better if he has no impediments,"she said, speaking rapidly as if to bolster up her own resolution. "Awoman is always an impediment in a crisis like this."
In her face he saw what he had never seen before. There was love in itthat would sacrifice everything. She was sending him away from her, notto save herself but to save him. Vainly he attempted to protest. Sheplaced her finger on his lips. Never before had he felt suchover-powering love for her. And yet she held him in check in spite ofhimself.
"Take enough to last a few months," she added hastily. "Give me therest. I can hide it and take care of myself. Even if they trace me Ican get off. A woman can always do that more easily than a man. Don'tworry about me. Go somewhere, start a new life. If it takes years, Iwill wait. Let me know where you are. We can find some way in which Ican come back into your life. No, no,"--Carlton had caught herpassionately in his arms--"even that cannot weaken me. The die is cast.We must go."
She tore herself away from him and fled into her room, where, with setface and ashen lips, she stuffed article after article into her grip.With a heavy heart Carlton did the same. The bottom had dropped out ofeverything, yet try as he would to reason it out, he could find noother solution but hers. To stay was out of the question, if indeed itwas not already too late to run. To go together was equally out of thequestion. Constance had shown that. "Seek the woman," was the firstrule of the police.
As they left the apartment they could see a man across the streetfollowing them closely. They were shadowed. In despair Carlton turnedtoward his wife. A sudden idea had flashed over her. There were twotaxicabs at the station on the corner.
"I will take the first," she whispered. "Take the second and follow me.Then he cannot trace us."
They were off, leaving the baffled shadow only time to take the numbersof the cab. Constance had thought of that. She stopped and Carltonjoined her. After a short walk they took another cab.
He looked at her inquiringly, but she said nothing. In her eyes he sawthe same fire that blazed when she had asked him if there was no way toavoid discovery and had suggested it herself in the forgery. He reachedover and caressed her hand. She did not withdraw it, but her avertedeyes told that she could not trust even herself too far.
As they stood before the gateway to the steps that led down into thelong under-river tunnel which was to swallow them so soon and projectthem, each into a new life, hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles apart,Carlton realized as never before what it all had meant. He had lovedher through all the years, but never with the wild love of the past twoweeks. Now there was nothing but blackness and blankness. He felt asthough the hand of fate was tearing out his wildly beating heart.
She tried to smile at him bravely. She understood. For a moment shelooked at him in the old way and all the pent-up love that would have,that had done and dared everything for him struggled in her rapidlyrising and falling breast.
It was now or never. She knew it, the supreme effort. One word or looktoo many from her and all would be lost. She flung her arms about himand kissed him. "Remember--one week from to-day--a personal--in theSTAR," she panted.
She literally tore herself from his arms, gathered up her grip, and wasgone.
A week passed. The quiet little woman at the Oceanview House was stillas much a mystery to the other guests as when she arrived,travel-stained and worn with the repressed emotion of her sacrifice.She had appeared to show no interest in anything, to take her mealsmechanically, to stay most of the time in her room, never to enter intoany of the recreations of the famous winter resort.
Only once a day did she betray the slightest concern about anythingaround her. That was when the New York papers arrived. Then she wasalways first at the news-stand, and the boy handed out to her, as amatter of habit, the STAR. Yet no one ever saw her read it. Directlyafterward she would retire to her room. There she would pore over thefirst page, reading and rereading every personal in it. Sometimes shewould try reading them backward and transposing the words, as if themessage they contained might be in the form of a cryptograph.
The strain and the suspense began to show on her. Day after day passed,until it was nearly two weeks since the parting in New York. Day afterday she grew more worn by worry and fear. What had happened?
In desperation she herself wired a personal to the paper: "Weston.Write me at the Oceanview. Easton."
For three days she waited for an answer. Then she wired the personalagain. Still there was no reply and no hint of reply. Had they capturedhim? Or was he so closely pursued that he did not dare to reply even inthe cryptic manner on which they had agreed!
She took the file of papers which she kept and again ran through thepersonals, even going back to the very day after they had separated.Perhaps she had missed one, though she knew that she could not havedone so, for she had looked at them a hundred times. Where was he? Whydid he not answer her message in some way? No one had followed her.Were they centering their efforts on capturing him?
She haunted the news-stand in the lobby of the beautifully appointedhotel. Her desire to read newspapers grew. She read everything.
It was just two weeks since they had left New York on their separatejourneys when, on the evening of another newsless day, she was passingthe news-stand. From force of habit she glanced at an early edition ofan evening paper.
The big black type of the heading caught her eye:
NOTED FORGER A SUICIDE
With a little shriek, half-suppressed, she seized the paper. It wasCarlton. There was his name. He had shot himself in a room in a hotelin St. Louis. She ran her eye down the column, hardly able to read. Inheavier type than the rest was the letter they had found on him:
MY DEAREST CONSTANCE,
When you read this I, who have wronged and deceived you beyond words,will be where I can no longer hurt you. Forgive me, for by this act Iam a confessed embezzler and forger. I could not face you and tell youof the double life I was leading. So I have sent you away and have goneaway myself--and may the Lord have mercy on the soul of
Your devoted husband, CARLTON DUNLAP.
Over and over again she read the words, as she clutched at the
edge ofthe news-stand to keep from fainting--"wronged and deceived you," "thedouble life I was leading." What did he mean? Had he, after all, beenconcealing something else from her? Had there really been another woman?
Suddenly the truth flashed over her. Tracked and almost overtaken,lacking her hand which had guided him, he had seen no other way out.And in his last act he had shouldered it all on himself, had shieldedher nobly from the penalty, had opened wide for her the only door ofescape.