CHAPTER XIII. FADED ROSES
I was in the house for a week. Much of that time I spent in composingand destroying letters of thanks to Miss West, and in growling at thedoctor. McKnight dropped in daily, but he was less cheerful than usual.Now and then I caught him eying me as if he had something to say, butwhatever it was he kept it to himself. Once during the week he went toBaltimore and saw the woman in the hospital there. From the descriptionI had little difficulty in recognizing the young woman who had been withthe murdered man in Pittsburg. But she was still unconscious. An elderlyaunt had appeared, a gaunt person in black, who sat around like abuzzard on a fence, according to McKnight, and wept, in a mixed figure,into a damp handkerchief.
On the last day of my imprisonment he stopped in to thrash out a casethat was coming up in court the next day, and to play a game of doublesolitaire with me.
"Who won the ball game?" I asked.
"We were licked. Ask me something pleasant. Oh, by the way, Bronson'sout to-day."
"I'm glad I'm not on his bond," I said pessimistically. "He'll clearout."
"Not he." McKnight pounced on my ace. "He's no fool. Don't you supposehe knows you took those notes to Pittsburg? The papers were full of it.And he knows you escaped with your life and a broken arm from the wreck.What do we do next? The Commonwealth continues the case. A deaf man on adark night would know those notes are missing."
"Don't play so fast," I remonstrated. "I have only one arm to your two.Who is trailing Bronson? Did you try to get Johnson?"
"I asked for him, but he had some work on hand."
"The murder's evidently a dead issue," I reflected. "No, I'm not joking.The wreck destroyed all the evidence. But I'm firmly convinced thosenotes will be offered, either to us or to Bronson very soon. Johnson'sa blackguard, but he's a good detective. He could make his fortune as agame dog. What's he doing?"
McKnight put down his cards, and rising, went to the window. As he heldthe curtain back his customary grin looked a little forced.
"To tell you the truth, Lollie," he said, "for the last two days he hasbeen watching a well-known Washington attorney named Lawrence Blakeley.He's across the street now."
It took a moment for me to grasp what he meant.
"Why, it's ridiculous," I asserted. "What would they trail me for? Goover and tell Johnson to get out of there, or I'll pot at him with myrevolver."
"You can tell him that yourself." McKnight paused and bent forward."Hello, here's a visitor; little man with string halt."
"I won't see him," I said firmly. "I've been bothered enough withreporters."
We listened together to Mrs. Klopton's expostulating tones in the lowerhall and the creak of the boards as she came heavily up the stairs. Shehad a piece of paper in her hand torn from a pocket account-book, and onit was the name, "Mr. Wilson Budd Hotchkiss. Important business."
"Oh, well, show him up," I said resignedly. "You'd better put thosecards away, Richey. I fancy it's the rector of the church around thecorner."
But when the door opened to admit a curiously alert little man,adjusting his glasses with nervous fingers, my face must have shown mydismay.
It was the amateur detective of the Ontario!
I shook hands without enthusiasm. Here was the one survivor of thewrecked car who could do me any amount of harm. There was no hope thathe had forgotten any of the incriminating details. In fact, he held inhis hand the very note-book which contained them.
His manner was restrained, but it was evident he was highly excited.I introduced him to McKnight, who has the imagination I lack, and whoplaced him at once, mentally.
"I only learned yesterday that you had been--er--saved," he saidrapidly. "Terrible accident--unspeakable. Dream about it all night andthink about it all day. Broken arm?"
"No. He just wears the splint to be different from other people,"McKnight drawled lazily. I glared at him: there was nothing to be gainedby antagonizing the little man.
"Yes, a fractured humerus, which isn't as funny as it sounds."
"Humerus-humorous! Pretty good," he cackled. "I must say you keep upyour spirits pretty well, considering everything."
"You seem to have escaped injury," I parried. He was fumbling forsomething in his pockets.
"Yes, I escaped," he replied abstractedly. "Remarkable thing, too. Ihaven't a doubt I would have broken my neck, but I landed on--you'llnever guess what! I landed head first on the very pillow which was underinspection at the time of the wreck. You remember, don't you? Where didI put that package?"
He found it finally and opened it on a table, displaying with sometheatricalism a rectangular piece of muslin and a similar patch ofstriped ticking.
"You recognize it?" he said. "The stains, you see, and the hole made bythe dirk. I tried to bring away the entire pillow, but they thought Iwas stealing it, and made me give it up."
Richey touched the pieces gingerly. "By George," he said, "and youcarry that around in your pocket! What if you should mistake it for yourhandkerchief?"
But Mr. Hotchkiss was not listening. He stood bent somewhat forward,leaning over the table, and fixed me with his ferret-like eyes.
"Have you see the evening papers, Mr. Blakeley?" he inquired.
I glanced to where they lay unopened, and shook my head.
"Then I have a disagreeable task," he said with evident relish. "Ofcourse, you had considered the matter of the man Harrington's deathclosed, after the wreck. I did myself. As far as I was concerned, Imeant to let it remain so. There were no other survivors, at least nonethat I knew of, and in spite of circumstances, there were a number ofpoints in your favor."
"Thank you," I put in with a sarcasm that was lost on him.
"I verified your identity, for instance, as soon as I recovered fromthe shock. Also--I found on inquiring of your tailor that you invariablywore dark clothing."
McKnight came forward threateningly. "Who are you, anyhow?" he demanded."And how is this any business of yours?" Mr. Hotchkiss was entirelyunruffled.
"I have a minor position here," he said, reaching for a visiting card."I am a very small patch on the seat of government, sir."
McKnight muttered something about certain offensive designs against thesaid patch and retired grumbling to the window. Our visitor was openingthe paper with a tremendous expenditure of energy.
"Here it is. Listen." He read rapidly aloud:
"The Pittsburg police have sent to Baltimore two detectives who arelooking up the survivors of the ill-fated Washington Flier. It hastranspired that Simon Harrington, the Wood Street merchant of that city,was not killed in the wreck, but was murdered in his berth the nightpreceding the accident. Shortly before the collision, John Flanders, theconductor of the Flier, sent this telegram to the chief of police:
"'Body of Simon Harrington found stabbed in his berth, lower ten, Ontario, at six-thirty this morning. JOHN FLANDERS, Conductor.'
"It is hoped that the survivors of the wrecked car Ontario will befound, to tell what they know of the discovery of the crime.
"Mr. John Gilmore, head of the steel company for which Mr. Harringtonwas purchasing agent, has signified his intention of sifting the matterto the bottom."
"So you see," Hotchkiss concluded, "there's trouble brewing. You and Iare the only survivors of that unfortunate car."
I did not contradict him, but I knew of two others, at least: AlisonWest, and the woman we had left beside the road that morning, babblingincoherently, her black hair tumbling over her white face.
"Unless we can find the man who occupied lower seven," I suggested.
"I have already tried and failed. To find him would not clear you, ofcourse, unless we could establish some connection between him and themurdered man. It is the only thing I see, however. I have learned thismuch," Hotchkiss concluded: "Lower seven was reserved from Cresson."
Cresson! Where Alison West and Mrs. Curtis had taken the train!
McKnight came forward and suddenly held out
his hand. "Mr. Hotchkiss,"he said, "I--I'm sorry if I have been offensive. I thought when you camein, that, like the Irishman and the government, you were 'forninst' us.If you will put those cheerful relics out of sight somewhere, I shouldbe glad to have you dine with me at the Incubator." (His name for hisbachelor apartment.) "Compared with Johnson, you are the great originalprotoplasm."
The strength of this was lost on Hotchkiss, but the invitation wasclear. They went out together, and from my window I watched them getinto McKnight's car. It was raining, and at the corner the Cannonballskidded. Across the street my detective, Johnson, looked after them withhis crooked smile. As he turned up his collar he saw me, and lifted hishat.
I left the window and sat down in the growing dusk. So the occupant oflower seven had got on the car at Cresson, probably with Alison West andher companion. There was some one she cared about enough to shield. Iwent irritably to the door and summoned Mrs. Klopton.
"You may throw out those roses," I said without looking at her. "Theyare quite dead."
"They have been quite dead for three days," she retorted spitefully."Euphemia said you threatened to dismiss her if she touched them."