CHAPTER XI
JACK TELLS THE STORY
The account of Molly's dinner with Tony Ford was given Sunday morning byMolly herself to George and the chief in the Whitney home. I went therein the afternoon--dread of possible developments drew me like amagnet--and heard the news. It was more ominous than even I, steeled andprimed for ill tidings, had expected. I didn't say much. There was nouse in showing my disbelief; besides if they suspected its strengththere was a possibility of their confidence being withheld from me. Ihad to hear everything, be familiar with every strand in the net theywere weaving round the woman of whose guilt they were now certain.
George was going to call somewhere on Fifth Avenue, and I walked up withhim, for the pleasure of his company he supposed, in reality to hear indetail how he and the chief had pieced into logical sequence the brokenbits of information.
"Roughly speaking," he said, "it's this way: Barker was the brains ofthe combination, Ford and Miss Whitehall the instruments he used. Forddid the killing and was paid. Miss Whitehall's part, which was puzzlingbefore, is now clear. She takes her place as The Woman in the Case, thespider that decoyed the fly into the web."
He paused for me to answer, but I could say nothing.
"It was one of the most ingenious plots I've ever come up against. Amaster mind conceived it and must have been days perfecting it. Think ofthe skill with which every detail was developed, and those twoalibis--Ford's and Barker's. How carefully they were carried out. Thatafternoon visit of Harland to Miss Whitehall was planned. Barkerfollowed it and heard that all was ready--the trap set and the quarrycoming. Then he went up to the floor above establishing his presencethere, and knowing, when Harland left, that the girl was waiting belowto meet and hold him in the front room.
"Then comes Tony Ford, finds Harland and Miss Whitehall, apologizes andgoes through to the private office where Barker is lying low. That themurder was committed there is proved by the two blood spots. Fordestablished his alibi by leaving; Barker's is already established--he isin the room above unable to get out without being seen. Even if a crime_had_ been discovered, they were both as safe from suspicion as ifthey'd been in their own homes.
"Miss Whitehall and Barker stay in the Azalea Woods Estates office tillthe excitement in the street subsides. They're perfectly safe there; thepolice, when they come, are going to go to the floor above. When thecrowd disperses they leave by the service stairs, she first, Barker ashort while afterward. The building and the street are deserted, buteven if he _is_ seen, nobody knows enough at that time to question hismovements. After that it all goes without a hitch, even the arrest ofthe chauffeur was all to the good, as it delayed the search for twodays.
"When it's known that he has voluntarily disappeared, what's theexplanation? He's welched on his associates and found it best to take tothe tall timber. At this moment he's probably congratulating himself onhis success. There's just one thing that, so far, he hasn't been able toaccomplish--get his girl."
I walked along, not answering. It was pretty sickening to hear howstraight they had it. But there was one weak spot; at least I thought itwas weak.
"Just why do you think a girl like Miss Whitehall--a woman without aspot or stain on her--would lend herself to an affair like that?"
"Perfectly simple," he answered. "She expects to marry Barker. Whethershe loves him or his money, her actions prove that she is ready to joinhim whenever he sends for her--ready to do what he tells her. He's atremendous personality, stronger than she, and he's bent her to hiswill."
"Oh, rot!" I said. "You can't bend a perfectly straight woman to help insuch a crime unless she's bent that way by nature, and _she_ isn't."
He grinned in a complacent, maddening way.
"I guess Barker could. He's as subtle as the serpent in Eden. Besides,how can you be so sure what kind of a girl she is? Who knows anything ofthese Whitehalls? They came from the West two years ago and settled on afarm--quiet, ladylike women--but not a soul has any real informationabout them or their antecedents. And _they_ haven't given out much.They've been curiously secretive all along the line. I'm not saying thegirl's a natural born criminal--she doesn't look the part--but you'llhave to admit her speech and her actions are not those of asimple-minded rustic beauty. In my opinion she's fallen under Barker'sspell, and he's molded her to his purpose. _He's_ the one, _he's_ thebrain. She and Ford were only the two hands."
We'd reached the place he was bound for, and I was glad to break away. Iwanted to think, and the more I thought the more wild and fantastic andincredible it seemed. A week ago a girl like any other girl, and todaysuspected of complicity in a primitively savage crime. I thought of thecase they were building up against her and I thought of her in her roomthat morning, and it seemed the maddest nightmare. Then her face thatday in the Whitney office rose on my memory, the stealthily watchingeyes with their leaping fires, the equivocations, the lies! I walked forthe rest of the afternoon, miles, somewhere out in the country. My brainwas dried like a sponge in the sun as I came home--I couldn't getanywhere, couldn't get beyond that fundamental conviction that it wasn'ttrue. I think if she'd confessed it with her own lips I'd have gone onpersisting she was innocent.
Two days after that a chain of events began that put an end to allinaction and plunged the Harland case deeper than ever into sinistermystery. I will write them down in the order in which they occurred.
The first was on Tuesday--the Tuesday night following Molly's dinnerwith Tony Ford. That night an unknown man attacked Ford in his room,leaving him for dead.
For some years Ford had lived in a lodging house on the East Side nearStuyvesant Park. The place was decent and quiet, run by a widow and herdaughter, the inmates of a shabby-genteel class--rather an odd place fora man of Ford's proclivities to house himself. It was one of thoseold-fashioned, brown-stone fronts, set back from the street behind alittle square of garden, a short flagged path leading to the front door.
On the evening of the attack Ford had come in about half-past eight,and, after a few words with his landlady, who was sitting in thereception room, had gone upstairs. A little after ten, as they wereclosing up for the night, there was a ring at the bell and the door wasopened by the servant, a Swede. The widow was as economical with her gasas lodging-house keepers usually are, and the Swede said she could onlydimly see the figure of a man in the vestibule. He asked for Mr. AnthonyFord, and she told him Mr. Ford was in and directed him to a room on thethird floor back. Without more words he entered and went up the stairs.After locking the door she followed him, being on her way to bed. Whenshe reached the third floor he was standing at Ford's door, and, as sheascended to the fourth, she heard his knock and Ford's voice from theinside call out, "Hello, who's that?"
When the police asked her about the man's appearance her description wasmeager. He had worn the collar of his overcoat turned up and kept on hishat. All that she could make out in the brief moment when he crossed thehall to the stairs was that his eyes looked bright and dark, that hewore glasses, and that he had a large aquiline nose. She thought he hada white mustache, but on this point was uncertain, as the upturnedcollar hid the lower part of his face.
Babbitts, who reported the affair for the _Dispatch_ and for the Whitneyoffice on the side, questioned the girl carefully. She was stupid, notlong landed, and could only be sure of the nose and the glasses. But onething he elicited from her was an important touch in this impressionistpicture--the man was small. When he passed her in the hall she noticedthat he was not so tall as she was, and he moved quickly and lightly ashe went up the stairs.
On the third floor front were two rooms, one vacant, one occupied by aboy named Salinger, a clerk in a near-by publishing house. Salinger camein at half-past ten, and as he passed Ford's door heard in the roommen's voices, one loud, one low. A sentence in the raised voice--it didnot sound like Ford's--caught his ear. The tone denoted anger, likewisethe words: "I've come for something more than talk. I've had enough ofthat."
Knowing Ford was
out of work he supposed he was having a row with a dun,and passed on to his own room, where he went to bed and read a novel. Hewas so engrossed in this that he said he would not have heard anyonecome or go in the hall, but the landlady, who with her daughter occupiedthe parlor on the ground floor, at a little before eleven heard stepsdescending the stairs and the front door open and close.
It wasn't till nearly two in the morning that Salinger was wakened by afeeble knocking. He jumped up, and before he could reach the door hearda heavy fall in the passage. There, prostrate by the sill, lay Ford,unconscious, his head laid open by a deep wound.
Salinger dragged him back to his room, then roused the landlady, whosent for a doctor. He told Babbitts that the place gave no evidence of astruggle, the droplight was burning, a chair drawn close to it, and abook lying face down on the table as if Ford had been reading when thestranger interrupted him. On the floor near a desk standing between thetwo windows, a trickle of blood showed where Ford had fallen, suggestingthat the attack had been made from behind as he stood over the desk. Thedoctor pronounced the injury serious. The blow had been delivered on theback of the head, and Ford's condition was critical.
When the police turned up they could find nothing to give them a clue tothe assailant--no finger prints, no foot marks, no weapon or implement.Ford had been stricken down by one violent blow, falling on him suddenlyand evidently unexpectedly. He was taken to the hospital, unconscious,no one knowing whether he would die before they could get a statementout of him.
The cause of the assault was at first puzzling. Robbery seemedimprobable, as a man in Ford's position was not likely to have muchmoney and as his gold watch and chain were found in full view on thetable. But when the first excitement quieted down one of the women inthe house came forward with the story that a few days before Ford hadtold her he had recently been left a legacy by an uncle up-state, and inproof of his newly acquired wealth had shown her two fifty-dollar bills.This put a different face on the matter. If Ford had carried such sumson him, it was probable the fact had become known and burglary been themotive of the attack.
The police looked over the papers in his wallet and desk but foundnothing that threw any light on the mystery. Babbitts was present atthis search and found three letters--tossed aside by the city detectivesas having no bearing on the subject--that he knew must be seen byWhitney & Whitney. He and the precinct captain had hobnobbed togetherover many cases, and a few sentences in the hall resulted in thetransfer of the papers to Babbitts' breast pocket with a promise toreturn them the next day.
I'll give you these letters later on--when we pored over them in the oldman's private office.
In the hospital Ford came back to consciousness long enough to make anante-mortem statement. It was short and explicit, satisfying theauthorities, who didn't know that the victim himself was a criminal withmatters in his own life to hide. Here it is, copied from the eveningpaper:
I don't know who the man was. I never saw him before. He had some story that he knew me and asked for money. I tried to stand him off, but when he got threatening, not wanting him to make a row in the house, I went to the desk where I had a few loose bills in a drawer. It was while I was standing there with my back to him, that he struck me. I don't know what he did it with--something he had under his coat. When I came to myself later I got to Salinger's door. That's all I know. A week ago I'd had some money on me--part of a small legacy--but I'd banked it a few days before. He must have heard of it some way and was after it.
That settled the question as far as the police and the general publicwent. That the watch and chain were not touched nor the few dollars inthe desk drawer was pointed to as positive proof that Ford's assailantwas no common sneak thief or second-story man. He was not wasting histime on small change or articles difficult to dispose of. For a few daysthe police hunted for him, but not a trace of him was to be found. "Anold hand," they had it, "dropped back into the darkness of theunderworld."
There was not a detective or reporter in New York who connected thathalf-seen figure, stealing by night into a cheap lodging house, with thefinancier whose disappearance had been the nine days' wonder of theseason.
On Wednesday evening Babbitts brought the letters to the Whitney office(we were all there but Molly), and we sat round the table passing thepapers from hand to hand.
One was on a sheet of Harland's business stationery and was in Harland'swriting, which both George and the chief knew. It was dated Januarysecond, and ran as follows:
_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 document in the case it had no especial value, beyond confirmingthe fact that Ford was--as he had told Molly--on friendly terms with thelawyer.
The others were of vital significance. They were on small oblongs ofwhite paper, the finely nicked upper edge indicating they had beenattached 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 theother 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 hadglanced at the letter, set it down as the copy of a note Ford hadwritten to some girl, and thrown it aside. Those half-formed initialsmight 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 inFord's hand--he had samples of it--of notes written by Barker to CarolWhitehall. The reason for Ford's taking them was not hard to guess withour 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 wasgathering all the evidence against his employer that his position in theWhitehall 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 andhis girl were feeling safe in some secluded corner, theseletters--documentary testimony to the plot--could be used as levers toextort more money."
"Do you suppose Barker was on to it and decided to get him out of theway 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 asearch. I guess Barker acted on the principle that the fewer peopleshare a secret the easier it is to keep."
"Looks to me," said George, "as if Ford _had_ made some move that scaredthe old man. Coming back that way into a house full of people!Considering the circumstances he took a mighty big risk."
"Not as big a one as having Ford at large," answered O'Mally. "You'vegot to remember that not one of the three knows the murder has beendiscovered. They think they're as safe as bugs in a rug. With Ford outof it the only menace to Barker's safety is removed. I look at this as alast perfecting touch, the coping stone on the edifice."
The chief, who had been silently pacing back and forth across the end ofthe room, came slouching to the table and picked up the longer of thetwo letters. Holding it to the light he read it over murmuringly, thendropped it and said:
; "Curious that a man who had conceived such a plot would allude to it inwriting."
I spoke up. What seemed to me the first rational words of the meetinggave me my cue.
"What makes you so sure the thing alluded to in those letters _is_ themurder?"
I was standing back between the window and the table. They all squaredround in their chairs to stare at me, O'Mally bending his head to levela scornful glance below the shade of the electric standard.
"What else _could_ they allude to?" he said.
"I don't know. Nobody, not a person here, knows all that existed betweenBarker and Miss Whitehall. There's no reason to take for granted thatthe 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 questionat the chief. It enraged me and my hands gripped together.
"Oh, Lord, Jack, you're nutty," said George. "We know Barker and MissWhitehall were in love, and we know Barker committed the murder, and weknow she helped. That was enough to occupy their minds without going offon side mysteries."
Nature has cursed me with a violent temper. During the last twoyears--since the dark days of the Hesketh tragedy--I've thought it wasconquered--a leashed beast of which I was the master. Now suddenly itrose, pulling at its chain. I felt the old forgotten stir of it, therush of boiling blood that in the end made me blind. I had sense enoughleft to know I'd got to keep it down and I did it. But if there'd beenno need for restraint, for dissimulation, it would have burst out as ithas in the past, burst against O'Mally with a fist in the middle of hiscock-sure, sneering face. I heard my voice, husky, but steady, as Isaid,
"That's all very well, but how about what the chief has just said? Whyshould Barker _write_ when he could say what he wanted? Why did he, socautious in every other way, do a thing a green boy would have known thedanger 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 ofan 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 yourevidence against the woman, that you're twisting and coloring to matchyour preconceived theories. There's not an attempt been made toreconcile her previous record with the villainous act of which youaccuse her. There's a gulf there you can't bridge. Why don't you go downinto the foundations of the thing instead of putting your attention onsurface indications? Why don't you go into the psychology of it, buildon that, not the material facts that a child could see?"
I don't believe one of them guessed the state I was in--took myvehemence as an enthusiasm for impartial justice. But a few minutes moreof 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 atthe aspersions on his ability. He got up, ready to answer, and Lordknows what would have happened--a rough and tumble round the roomprobably--if the door hadn't opened and a clerk put in his head with theannouncement:
"A gentleman on the phone wants Mr. O'Mally."
The words transformed the detective; his anger vanished as if it neverhad been. Quick as a wink he made for the door, flinging back over hisshoulder:
"I told them at the office if anything turned up I'd be here. There'ssomething doing."
A hush fell on the rest of us, the tense quiet of expectancy. The firein me died like a flame when a bellows is dropped. News--any news--mightbring help for her, exonerate her, wipe away the stain of the suspicionsthat no one but we six would ever know.
The door opened and O'Mally entered. His face was illuminated, shiningwith an irrepressible triumph, his movements quick and instinctivelystealthy. Pushing the door to behind him he said as softly as if thewalls had ears:
"They've got Barker in Philadelphia."