At One-Thirty, Isabel Ostrander [ebook reader with highlight function .TXT] 📗

that he had hit upon a method of inducing him to open his lips.

Presently, there was the patter of short, rhythmic steps behind him, and a nervously trembling voice asked:

“You are Mr. Gaunt, the detective, are you not? I have heard of you, of course. My son tells me that you have news for me. I am Rupert Hitchcock.”

“Yes, Mr. Hitchcock, I have news for you; but it may only be a confirmation of what you already know. I do not know if you have learned that I am investigating the death of Garret Appleton. In the course of my work, I came upon the fact of his conference with you, on Monday afternoon, near the Rocky Point Inn, and so, I am bound to tell you, did the police.”

“The police have done their worst to me—the law has taken its pound of flesh! As you must know, Mr. Gaunt, I have nothing to fear from them.”

“If you can prove an alibi,” the detective suggested, quietly.

The other man started nervously.

“An alibi!” he stammered.

“For the night following your interview—the night of Mr. Appleton’s murder.”

“Oh, I can do that, of course, if necessary,” Rupert Hitchcock replied, eagerly. “I understand from the newspapers that Appleton’s— murder—did not occur until after midnight. My son and I were not alone from nine o’clock in the evening until six the following morning. But, you don’t mean, Mr. Gaunt, that I am suspected of his murder?”

“Not at all. Should it become necessary, however, it’s fortunate that you are so well prepared. … Mr. Hitchcock, I know, of course, of the failure of your firm and the manner in which it was brought about from the inside; but I do not know all the details. I am afraid that both Smith and Garret Appleton turned traitors to you.”

“They did, curse them—and they are both beyond my reach! Smith has disappeared, and Appleton is dead!”

“Do you know where Smith has gone?”

“No, Mr. Gaunt. Vd give ten years of the rest of my wretched existence to find out.”

“He and his wife sailed from New York on the Saxonia, of the Blue Star Line, for Cayenne, French Guiana, on the ninth of October last.”

“ril get them!” the other man cried. “I’ll get them, if it takes my last cent!”

“But, if they’ve gone to one of the non-extradition States of Central America—” the detective asked.

“I’ll get them!” Rupert Hitchcock repeated, vehemently. “I’ll find them wherever they’ve gone, and drive them to some place where they can be reached.”

“But you cannot invoke the aid of the law to return you your share of— let us say—the profits, of your joint transaction.”

“No; but I can give him up to justice. I can put him where I was, make him endure the hell I lived through, for four terrible years.”

“Think of his wife—” the detective began, gently.

But the other man turned upon him, with long pent-up fury:

“Did he or his wife think of my son, when they made a scapegoat of me, to protect themselves, and robbed me of the money we had saved from the wreck? He’s a fine young man, Mr. Gaunt; no unworthy father ever brought a straighter, cleaner, boy into the world. He was at the university when my trouble came—a brilliant student, popular with his fellows, with a promising career opening before him. Now, his life is wrecked, because of me, and still he does not leave me, or desert me. But, if he had been their son, he would have been held blameless, as they were.”

“How did they succeed in making you the scapegoat, Mr. Hitchcock?” Gaunt asked, suddenly.

“Oh, I don’t mind telling you—I’ll tell the whole world now; I’ve done my time.

“The firm was on its last legs, although nobody knew it, and we were paying dividends out of the principal, the same old game to keep things going awhile longer. To be sure, we still had nearly two million dollars on our hands; but you know what tremendous blocks of stock we carried, how colossal our operations were. That seventeen hundred thousand dollars would be a mere drop in the bucket, when the crash came, and it was coming, inevitably—we couldn’t save ourselves. It wasn’t as if we were a snide curb firm, robbing the widows and orphans and farmers of the few pennies they had gathered together. Our customers were men who could afford to lose. We could not; for we would lose our all.

“We doctored the books for months before Smith went to Europe, and, somehow, Garret Appleton got onto the fact.”

“Yes, he was a customer of yours, wasn’t he?”

“Heaviest trader we had. I don’t know whether you know it, or not, Mr. Gaunt, but he was insane, actually insane^ on the subject of money. He spent it, of course, for appearance’s sake; but he hoarded all he could, and gloated over it, like a miser. He would have done anything, gone to any lengths, to increase his capital, simply to have It in his possession.

“When he discovered what we were doing, he offered us an alternative. He would denounce us, or—come in with us. Smith’s was the master mind; but he lost his nerve, and faked up that trip to Europe for his health. He taught me how to juggle the books; but, though I had the nerve, I didn’t have the brains to carry it through, as we had planned. I was to have half of the profits for allowing myself to be made the scapegoat; but I was assured that, if worse came to the worst, I would only be apprehended on a mere technicality, and soon absolved from all blame or suggestion of double-dealing. But, just about that time, the Socialists got in their work, and there was all that outcry against capitalism and the money trust and the iniquities of high finance, and there wasn’t a chance for me.

“Smith egged it on; but I still believed in him, and went to prison—on his promise to have me quickly released, and to guard my share of the profits of our failure, for me. You know what happened to me, Mr. Gaunt. But, after I was safely out of the way, it was a case of dog eat dog. They were afraid of each other; but Smith had more to fear, since he was a member of the firm, while nothing could be proved on Appleton.

“It stands to reason, therefore, that he mulcted Smith of the greater part of the money. In fact, Appleton admitted as much to my son and me, on Monday afternoon.”

“What occurred, when you were released from prison, Mr. Hitchcock?”

“I went after Smith, of course. It was easy enough to find out where he lived; but I found I was just too late. He had gone. Then, I got after Appleton. I wrote him, telling him where to meet me, and, when he came—cringing, the cur! just as I knew he would—I didn’t try to blackmail him for a cent. I merely told him I was going to expose him, and he voluntarily offered me half of the twelve hundred thousand dollars he had got his hands on. He was to send it to me the next day, and I believe he would have, had he lived. He was too afraid of exposure. He merited death at my hands, God knows, after the way he had treated me! But I would have been the last person in the world, for the sake of my own =interests, to put a bullet in him that night. You can see that for yourself.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Hitchcock. That is plain. … I am glad you have been so frank with me, and, if I find I can do anything for you in return, I shall do so. If Police Inspector Hanrahan should call upon you, however, at any time, about that alibi of yours, I advise you, for your own sake, to see him.”

“Oh, I don’t mind seeing him. He hasn’t got any evidence against me, and I can prove where I was every minute of Monday night…. Before you go, Mr. Gaunt, I want to thank you. You have done a lot for me—more’ than you think! YouVe told me, at least, where to start my search for Jim Smith, and, when I get him where I want him, you’ll know it before a letter from me could reach you.”

“But you’ll not be in a hurry about it, Mr. Hitchcock, will you? You’ll want time to get your strength back first. If Jim Smith has gone to a non-extradition country, you may be sure he will stay there for a time, at least, and you must recover your strength, after your long confinement.”

“Oh, I will do, all right. I’ll never be well, till I get Jim Smith in my clutches. But what made you think there was anything the matter with me?”

“Your step drags peculiarly; you had a stroke while in prison—didn’t you?—and you sit all hunched up, with your head bowed over on your chest. I can tell by the constriction of your throat, where your collar compresses it when you speak, and you want to take care of that dry, hacking cough of yours.”

“Central America is good for a cough of that sort,” Rupert Hitchcock returned, dryly, as he guided the detecrive to the door. “Good-night, Mr. Gaunt.”

Gaunt slept all the way home in the car, and arrived cramped and chilled to the bone. It was late, and he meant to retire at once. But a burly figure was sitdng in his chair before the hearth, and the odor of Inspector Hanrahan’s favorite brand of tobacco filled the library.

“Where the deuce have you been, Mr. Gaunt? IVe been waiting for you since seven o’clock.”

“Sorry, Inspector; but I have been out in the country interviewing your two friends.”

“My two—what?” asked the mystified Inspector.

“The stout, middle-aged man and the tall, young one, who were talking with Garret Appleton, near the Rocky Point Inn, on Monday afternoon.”

“Well, I’m damned!”

The Inspector seated himself again heavily, and stared at the tall, thin figure slowly divesting himself of his coat.

“I suppose you know who he is?” Gaunt pursued, with quiet amusement.

“That I don’t! I’ve not been able to find the slightest trace of them—nor of those Smiths, in New Jersey, either!”

“Well, if you are going after them, you’d better start soon to catch up with them. They are somewhere in the wilds of Central America, by now.”

Gaunt seated himself, filled his pipe, and told the Inspector all that he had learned. The official listened gravely until he had finished; then, after a long pause, he said thoughtfully:

“It’s darned funny, how you can get information out of people, Mr. Gaunt. I didn’t find out a thing from the waiter, or head waiter, at that inn, nor the old couple back in the woods, either, although I roared at them like a bull.”

Gaunt smiled, quietly, to himself.

“Our methods differ, that’s all.”

“And as for that woman, down in Jersey—that farmer’s wife! Good Lord, Mr. Gaunt, she’d talk the legs off an iron pot; but she never says anything! She thought I was a book-agent, came to collect on some of that bunch of books the Smiths had, and she chased me off the place, as if I was a stray dog.”

“I understand you called on Mrs. Appleton, Thursday afternoon,” the detective remarked, blowing smoke-wreaths in the air. “Did you get any information?”

“By George, that woman’s a Tartar!” The Inspector brought his heavy hand down with a resounding thwack on his knee. “She is the worst I ever struck in my life, and I’ve met some shedevils, in my time!… I say,