Blindfolded, Earle Ashley Walcott [non fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

document that could bear on the mystery was at that moment fast in my inside pocket. I was inclined to scout the idea that Henry Wilton had hidden anything under the carpet, or in the mattress, or in any secret place. The threads of the mystery were carried in his head, and the correspondence, if there had been any, was destroyed.

As I was engaged in putting the room to rights, the door swung back, and I jumped to my feet to face a man who stood on the threshold.

"Hello!" he cried. "House-cleaning again?"

It was Dicky Nahl, and he paused with a smile on his face.

"Ah, Dicky!" I said with an effort to keep out of my face and voice the suspicions I had gained from the incidents of the visit to the Borton place. "Entirely unpremeditated, I assure you."

"Well, you're making a thorough job of it," he said with a laugh.

"Fact is," said I ruefully, "I've been entertaining angels--of the black kind--unawares. I was from home last night, and I find that somebody has made himself free with my property while I was away."

"Whew!" whistled Dicky. "Guess they were after you."

I gave Dicky a sidelong glance in a vain effort to catch more of his meaning than was conveyed by his words.

"Shouldn't be surprised," I replied dryly, picking up an armful of books. "I'd expect them to be looking for me in the book-shelf, or inside the mattress-cover, or under the carpet."

Dicky laughed joyously.

"Well, they did rather turn things upside down," he chuckled. "Did they get anything?" And he fell to helping me zealously.

"Not that I can find out," I replied. "Nothing of value, anyhow."

"Not any papers, or anything of that sort?" asked Dicky anxiously.

"Dicky, my boy," said I; "there are two kinds of fools. The other is the man who writes his business on a sheet of paper and forgets to burn it."

Dicky grinned merrily.

"Gad, you're getting a turn for epigram! You'll be writing for the _Argonaut_, first we know."

"Well, you'll allow me a shade of common sense, won't you?"

"I don't know," said Dicky, considering the proposition doubtfully. "It might have been awkward if you had left anything lying about. But if you had real good sense you'd have had the guards here. What are you paying them for, anyhow?"

I saw difficulties in the way of explaining to Dicky why I had not ordered the guards on duty.

"Oh, by the way," said Dicky suddenly, before a suitable reply had come to me; "how about the scads--spondulicks--you know? Yesterday was pay- day, but you didn't show up."

I don't know whether my jaw dropped or not. My spirits certainly did.

"By Jove, Dicky!" I exclaimed, catching my breath. "It slipped my mind, clean. I haven't got at our--ahem--banker, either."

I saw now what that mysterious money was for--or a part of it, at all events. What I did not see was how I was to get it, and how to pay it to my men.

"That's rough," said Dicky sympathetically. "I'm dead broke."

It would appear then that Dicky looked to me for pay, whether or not he felt bound to me in service.

"There's one thing I'd like explained before a settlement," said I grimly, as I straightened out the carpet; "and that is the little performance for my benefit the other night."

Dicky cocked his head on one side, and gave me an uneasy glance.

"Explanation?" he said in affected surprise.

"Yes," said I sternly. "It looked like a plant. I was within one of getting a knife in me."

"What became of you?" inquired Dicky. "We looked around for you for an hour, and were afraid you had been carried off."

"That's all right, Dicky," I said. "I know how I got out. What I want to know is how I got in--taken in."

"I don't know," said Dicky anxiously. "I was regularly fooled, myself. I thought they were fishermen, all right enough, and I never thought that Terrill had the nerve to come in there. I was fooled by his disguise, and he gave the word, and I thought sure that Richmond had sent him." Dicky had dropped all banter, and was speaking with the tone of sincerity.

"Well, it's all right now, but I don't want any more slips of that sort. Who was hurt?"

"Trent got a bad cut in the side. One of the Terrill gang was shot. I heard it was only through the arm or leg, I forget which."

I was consumed with the desire to ask what had become of Borton's, but I suspected that I was supposed to know, and prudently kept the question to myself.

"Well, come along," said I. "The room will do well enough now. Oh, here's a ten, and I'll let you know as soon as I get the rest. Where can I find you?"

"At the old place," said Dicky; "three twenty-six."

"Clay?" I asked in desperation. Dicky gave me a wondering look as though he suspected my mind was going.

"No--Geary. What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, to be sure. Geary Street, of course. Well, let me know if anything turns up. Keep a close watch on things."

Dicky looked at me in some apparent perplexity as I walked up the stair to my Clay Street office, but gave only some laughing answer as he turned back.

But I was in far from a laughing humor myself. The problem of paying the men raised fresh prospects of trouble, and I reflected grimly that if the money was not found I might be in more danger from my unpaid mercenaries than from the enemy.

Ten o'clock passed, and eleven, with no sign from Doddridge Knapp, and I wondered if the news I had carried him of the activities of Terrill and of Decker had disarranged his plans.

I tried the door into Room 16. It was locked, and no sound came to my ears from behind it.

"I should really like to know," I thought to myself, "whether Mr. Doddridge Knapp has left any papers in his desk that might bear on the Wilton mystery."

I tried my keys, but none of them fitted the lock. I gave up the attempt--indeed, my mind shrank from the idea of going through my employer's papers--but the desire of getting a key that would open the door was planted in my brain.

Twelve o'clock came. No Doddridge Knapp had appeared, and I sauntered down to the Exchange to pick up any items of news. It behooved me to be looking out for Doddridge Knapp's movements. If he had got another agent to carry out his schemes, I should have to prepare my lines for attack from another direction.

Wallbridge was just coming rapidly out of the Exchange.

"No," said the little man, mopping the perspiration from his shining head, "quiet as lambs to-day. Their own mothers wouldn't have known the Board from a Sunday-school."

I inquired about Omega.

"Flat as a pancake," said the little man. "Nothing doing."

"What! Is it down?" I exclaimed with some astonishment.

"Lord bless you, no!" said Wallbridge, surprised in his turn. "Strong and steady at eighty, but we didn't sell a hundred shares to-day. Well, I'm in a rush. Good-by, if you don't want to buy or sell." And he hurried off without waiting for a reply.

So I was now assured that Doddridge Knapp had not displaced me in the Omega deal. It was a recess to prepare another surprise for the Street, and I had time to attend to a neglected duty.

The undertaker's shop that held the morgue looked hardly less gloomy in the afternoon sun than in the light of breaking day in which I had left it when I parted from Detective Coogan. The office was decorated mournfully to accord with the grief of friends who ordered the coffins, or the feelings of the surviving relatives on settling the bills.

"I am Henry Wilton," I explained to the man in charge. "There was a body left here by Detective Coogan to my order, I believe."

"Oh, yes," he said: "What do you want done with it?"

I explained that I wished to arrange to have it deposited in a vault for a time, as I might carry it East.

"That's easy done," he said; and he explained the details. "Would you like to see the body?" he concluded. "We embalmed it on the strength of Coogan's order."

I shrank from another look at the battered form. The awfulness of the tragedy came upon me with hardly less force than in the moment when I had first faced the mangled and bleeding body on the slab in the dead- room. Again I saw the scene in the alley; again his last cry for help rang in my ears; again I retraced the dreadful experiences of the night, and stood in the dim horror of the morgue with the questioning voice of the detective echoing beside me; and again did that wolf-face rise out of the lantern-flash over the body of the man whose death it had caused.

The undertaker was talking, but I knew not what he said. I was shaking with the horror and grief of the situation, and in that moment I renewed my vow to have blood for blood and life for life, if law and justice were to be had.

"We'll take it out any time," said the undertaker, with a decorous reflection of my grief upon his face. "Would you like to accompany the remains?"

I decided that I would.

"Well, there's nothing doing now. We can start as soon as we have sealed the casket."

"As soon as you can. There's nothing to wait for."

The ride to the cemetery took me through a part of San Francisco that I had not yet seen. Flying battalions of fog advanced swiftly upon us as we faced the West, and the day grew pale and ghostlike. The gray masses were pouring fast over the hills toward which we struggled, and the ranks thickened as we drew near the burial-place.

I paid little attention to the streets through which we passed. My mind was on the friend whose name I had taken, whose work I was to do. I was back with him in our boyhood days, and lived again for the fleeting minutes the life we had lived in common; and the resolve grew stronger on me that his fate should be avenged.

And yet a face came between me and the dead--a proud face, with varying moods reflected upon it, now gay, now scornful, now lighted with intelligence and mirth, now blazing with anger. But it was powerless to shake my resolve. Not even Luella Knapp should stand between me and vengeance.

"There's the place," said the undertaker, pointing to the vault. "I'll have it opened directly."

The scene was in accord with my feelings. The gray day gave a somber air to the trees and flowers that grew about. The white tombstones and occasional monuments to be seen were sad reminders of mortality.

Below me stretched the city, half-concealed by the magic drapery of the fog that streamed through it, turning it from a place of wood and stone into a fantastic illusion, heavy with gloom and sorrow.

It was soon over. The body of Henry Wilton was committed to the vault with the single mourner looking on, and