He shrugged his shoulders and unwrapped the bundle of out-of-town papers.
Recalling how late he had received the albino message the night before, he concluded that Braceway had filed it in Washington during the afternoon, with instructions that it be sent as a night message. His resentment for Braceway flared up again.
“‘Amazing disclosure,’” he mentally quoted the headlines. “Well, we shall see what we shall see. Perhaps, it will come as an amazing disclosure to him that I’ve been on the sound side of this question all along.”
He began the work of cutting from the papers the accounts of the Loutois kidnapping. As he read them, he built up a tentative outline showing who the kidnappers were and where they probably had secreted the boy. He grew absorbed, whistling in a low key.
So far as he was concerned, the Withers case was a closed incident.
Early in the afternoon he called Greenleaf on the telephone, and announced:
“I’m leaving town for a few days tomorrow morning.”
“Again! What for?” the chief asked.
“They’ve asked me to work out that kidnapping case in New Orleans—the Loutois child.”
“Good! I’m glad to hear it; I congratulate you.”
Greenleaf was sincerely pleased. He felt that he had sponsored and developed the lame man as a detective.
“Thanks. Before I go, I want to have a talk with you. We might as well go over everything once more and—”
“That reminds me. I was just about to call you up, but your news made me forget. I’ve a wire from Braceway, just got it. He filed it at Salisbury, on his way here. Let me read it to you:
“‘Have all the stuff I can get on Withers case. Can not go further before conferring with you, Bristow, Fulton, and Abrahamson. Please arrange meeting of all these Bristow’s bungalow eight tonight. Withers not with me.’”
“That fits in,” Bristow commented; “lets me start for New Orleans on the late night train.”
“Wonder what he’s got,” the chief questioned. “Do you know?”
“No. And I don’t believe it amounts to anything. Still, if he wants to talk, we might as well hear it.”
“Sure! You can count on me. I’ll be there.”
“All right,” said Bristow. “I’ll see you at eight, then.”
He went to the sleeping porch and lay down.
“‘Withers not with me,’” the last words of the telegram lingered in his mind. “Why did he add that? What’s that to do with a conference here tonight?”
Suddenly the answer occurred to him.
“It’s Withers!” he thought, at first only half-credulous. “He’s going to put it on Withers; he’s going to try to put it on Withers.”
He paused, thinking “wild” for a moment, so great was his surprise.
“It was Withers he was after from the start,—was it?”
CHAPTER XXVII
THE REVELATION
Braceway and Maria Fulton had upon their faces that expression which announces a happy understanding between lovers. The light of surrender was in her eyes, contented surrender to the man who, because of his love, had asserted his mastery of her. And his voice, as he spoke to her, was all a vibrant tenderness. He realized that he had found and finally made certain his happiness, had done so at the very moment of making public his greatest professional triumph.
For his visit to her he had stolen a half-hour from the rush of work that had devolved upon him since reaching Furmville a few hours ago. He found her as he had expected; she fulfilled his prophecy that, in following her own ideals, she would take her place in the world as a fascinating personality, a lovable woman.
But, while he studied and praised her new charm, he was conscious, more keenly so than ever before, that his success would affect her greatly, would challenge all her strength and courage. And yet, even if it hurt her, it had to be done. It was his duty, and the consequences would have to take care of themselves.
Although, in her turn, she regarded him with the fine intuition of the woman who loves, she got no intimation of his worry. He had determined not to burden her with the details in advance. If what he was about to do should link her dead sister with a pitiless scandal, she would meet it bravely.
Unless he had been confident of that, he could not have loved her. His task was to hand over to justice the guilty man, and not even his concern for the woman he would marry could interfere with his seeing the thing through.
After it was all over, he would come back to comfort her. Their new happiness would counter-balance all. So he thought, with confidence.
A glance through the window showed him Greenleaf and Abrahamson coming slowly up Manniston Road. It was eight o’clock. A few moments later he and Mr. Fulton joined them on the sidewalk. They went at once to No. 9.
Bristow received them in his living room, the table still littered with newspaper clippings on the Loutois kidnapping.
“If the rest of you don’t mind,” Braceway suggested, “we’d better close the windows. We’ve a lot of talking to do, and we might as well keep things to ourselves.”
The effect of alertness which he always produced was more evident now than ever. He kept his cane and himself in continual motion. While the four other men seated themselves, he remained standing, facing them, his back to the empty fire-place.
“Each of you,” he said, “is vitally interested in what I’ve come here to say. I asked you to have this conference because it affects each of us directly.”
His eyes shone, his chin was thrust forward, every ligament in his body was strung taut. And yet, there was nothing of the theatric about him. If he felt excitement, it was suppressed. Determination was the only emotion of which he gave any sign.
“First, however,” he supplemented in his light, conversational tone, “how about you?” He indicated with a look Greenleaf and Bristow. “Have you anything new, anything additional?”
With the windows shut, it was noticeably warm and close in the room. Taking off his coat, he tossed it to the chair which had been placed for him. In his white shirt, with dark trousers belted tightly over slender hips, he looked almost boyish.
“No,” Bristow answered. “The chief and I went over everything yesterday. We couldn’t find a single reason for changing our minds.”
“About Carpenter?”
“Yes.”
“You mean that’s your position, yours and the chiefs,” Braceway said seriously. “As a matter of fact, the negro’s not guilty.”
“You mean that’s your position,” Bristow quoted back to him, his smile indulgent.
“Yes. Carpenter’s not guilty, and Morley’s not guilty.”
Mr. Fulton, who had the chair immediately on the lame man’s left, was frankly curious and anxious.
“Before you go any further, Braceway,” he interrupted testily, “can you tell us where George Withers is?”
“I can say this much,” replied Braceway after a pause: “for reasons best known to himself, Withers refused to join us here. He could have done so if he had wished.”
What he said sounded like a direct accusation of Withers. Fulton eyed him incredulously. Bristow took off his coat and settled himself more comfortably in his chair; he was in for a long story, he thought, and, as he had expected last night, the dead woman’s husband, not Morley, was to be incriminated.
Greenleaf, lolling back in a rocker near the folding doors of the dining room, gazed at the ceiling, making a show of lack of interest.
Abrahamson, nearest the porch door, was the only auditor thoroughly absorbed in the detective’s story and at the same time unreservedly credulous.
“But you know where he is?” Fulton persisted.
“Yes; approximately.”
The Jew’s sparkling eyes darted from the speaker to the faces of the others. A pleased smile lift
ed the corners of his mouth toward the great, hooked nose. He anticipated unusually pleasant entertainment.
“But I don’t want to waste your time,” Braceway continued, taking peculiar care in his choice of words. “When I began work on this case, I thought either the negro or Morley might be the murderer. I changed my mind when I came to think about the mysterious fellow, the man with the brown beard and the gold tooth, the individual who was clever enough to appear and disappear at will, to vanish without leaving a trace so long as he operated at night or in the dusk of early evening.
“I agreed with Mr. Fulton that he was the murderer. Not only that, but he had remarkable ability which he employed for the lowest and most criminal purposes. I first suspected his identity right after my interviews last Wednesday with Roddy, the coloured bellboy, and Mr. Abrahamson, the pawn broker.”
“Excuse me,” Bristow interposed; “but wasn’t it Abrahamson who told you the bearded man looked like Withers?”
Greenleaf grinned, appreciating the lame man’s intention to take the wind out of Braceway’s sails by giving credit to Abrahamson for the information.
“Yes, he told me that,” Braceway answered, as if nettled by the interruption; and added: “Let me finish my statement, Bristow. You can discuss it all you please later on. But I’d prefer to get through with it now.
“Having suspected the identity of the disguised man, I was confronted with two jobs. One was to prove the identity beyond question; the other was to show, by irrefutable evidence, that the disguised man committed the murder. As I said, my theory took shape in my mind that afternoon in my room in the Brevord Hotel. Everything I’ve done since then, has been for the purpose of getting the necessary facts.
“I have those facts now.”
He looked at Greenleaf and Bristow, making it plain that he expected their hostility to anything he had to say.
“My suspicion grew out of my belief that I must find the man who had blackmailed Mrs. Withers in Atlantic City and Washington, and, for the third time, here in Furmville. The blackmailer was the only one who had had access to the victim on the three different occasions of which we know; the work was all by the same hand. Find the blackmailer, and I had the murderer.
“I know now who he is.
“Five years ago there was a striking sort of individuality that had impressed itself on the minds of a good many men in Wall Street, New York City. Although penniless at the outset of his career, and in fact never really rich, he had made a good deal of money now and then; and had spent it as fast as he got it.
“He was brilliant, thoroughly unscrupulous, absolutely without honour. He did the ‘Great White Way’ stunt—the restaurants, the roof gardens, a pretty actress at times, jewels and champagne. Because of his uncertain habits, he never had an office of his own. He always operated through others. His earning power was a gift of judging the market and knowing when to ‘bear’ and when to ‘bull.’
“This gift was no fabulous thing. It was real in a majority of the times he tried to use it, and because of it he was able to live high and put up a good front. This was the situation up to five years ago. Observe the man’s character and the pleasure he took in running crooked.
“With a little study and the usual amount of industry and concentration, he could have been a power in the financial world. That, however, did not appeal to him. He liked the excitement of crime, the perverted pleasure of playing the crook.
“Early in nineteen-thirteen, a little more than five years ago, the crash came. He was arrested, charged with the embezzlement of thirty-three hundred dollars from the firm which employed him. The name of the firm was Blanchard and Sebastian. He had stolen more than the amount mentioned, but the specific charge on which action was taken was the theft of the thirty-three hundred.
“This man’s name was Splain.
“There was a delay of a few hours in arranging for his bail so that he wouldn’t have to spend the night in prison. While in his cell, he remarked:
“‘This kind of a place doesn’t suit me. It’s as cold as charity. I’ll be out of here in an hour or so, and, if they ever get me into a cell again, they’ll have to kill me first. Once is enough.’
“He made good his boast. They didn’t get him into one again. He jumped his bail ten days before the date set for his trial. Since then the police have, so far as they know, never laid eyes on him. They had a photograph of him, of course, an adequate description: high aquiline nose; firm, compressed mouth; black and unusually piercing eyes; black hair; all his features sharp-cut; broad shoulders, and slender, athletic figure. Those are some of the details I recall. In—”
Fulton cried out. It was like the shrill, indefinite protest of a child against pain. He put the fingers of his right hand to his forehead, shielding his face. The description of the fugitive had brought instantly to his mind the face of George Withers.
“Indulge me for just a few moments more, Mr. Fulton,” Braceway said. “Splain eluded the pursuit. His flight and disappearance were perfectly planned and carried out, and—”
Bristow again interrupted the recital. On his face was a smile which did not reach to his eyes. For the past few minutes he had been thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life, and had made a decision.
“What you’ve told us,” he said calmly, his gaze taking knowledge of no one but the detective, “is, in effect, a rather flattering sketch of a part of my own life.”
Greenleaf, with jaw dropped and thinking powers paralyzed, stared at him. Fulton leaned forward as if to spring.
Only Abrahamson, his smile broadening, his cavernous eyes alight, was free from surprise. He had now the air of greatly enjoying the performance he had been invited to see.
Braceway, his shoulders flung back, his figure straight as a poplar, watching Bristow with intense caution, grew suddenly into heroic mould. The red glow from the setting sun streamed through the window to his face, emphasizing the ardour in his eyes. He took a step forward, became dominant, menacing.
His white-clad arm shot out so that he pointed with accusing finger to the imperturbable Bristow.
“That man there,” he declared, a crawling contempt in his voice, “is the thief and the murderer!”
For a heavy moment the incredible accusation stunned the entire group.
“Mr. Braceway,” said Bristow, looking now at Fulton and Greenleaf, “is suffering a delusion.”
The two men, however, afforded him no support. They kept their eyes on Braceway. They gave the effect of falling away from some evil contagion.
“Because,” Bristow continued, “I have been the innocent victim of trumped up charges of embezzlement by the crookedest man in a crooked business, he accuses me of murder when—”
“Shut up!” commanded Braceway, dropping his hand to his side.
He flashed the pawn broker a quick glance.
Abrahamson leaned over and rapped with his knuckles on the door to the porch. It opened, admitting two policemen in uniform.
“I took the liberty, chief,” Braceway apologized, “of requesting them to be here. I knew you’d want them to do the right thing, and promptly.”
Greenleaf gulped, nodded acquiescence. Stunned as he was, the detective’s manner forced him into believing the charge.
Bristow’s smile had faded. But, save for a pallor that wiped from his checks their usual flush, there was no evidence of the conflict within him. So far as any notice from him went, the policemen did not exist.
One of them stepped forward and laid a hand on his shoulder.
He ignored it
“Perhaps,” he said, sarcasm in his voice, his eyes again on Braceway, “it will occur to you that I’ve a right to know why this outrage is committed.”
Once more he commanded Greenleaf with his eyes.
“The chief of police will hardly sanction it without some excuse, without
a shadow of evidence.”
“Yes,” Greenleaf complied waveringly. “Er—, that is—er—I suppose you’re certain about this, Mr. Braceway?”
“Let’s have it! Let’s have it all!” demanded Fulton, articulate at last, his clenched hands shaken by the palsy of rage.
Bristow, with a careless motion, brushed away the policeman’s hand.
“By all means,” he said, imperturbable still; “I demand it. I’m not guilty of murder. Not by the wildest flight of the craziest fancy can any such charge be substantiated.”
Greenleaf, noting his iron nerve, his freedom from the slightest sign of panic, was dumbfounded, and believed in his innocence again.
“I have the proofs,” Braceway said to the chief. “Do you want them here, and now?”
“It might be—er—as well, and—and fair, you know. Yes.”
Abrahamson swung the porch door shut. The two policemen stood back of Bristow’s chair. Greenleaf, still bewildered, laid a calming hand on Fulton’s shoulder. The old man was shaking like a leaf.
“All right,” agreed Braceway. “I can give you the important points in a very few minutes; the high lights.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
CONFESSION VOLUNTARY
Braceway leaned against the mantel, relaxed, swinging his cane slowly in his right hand, a careless, easy grace in his attitude. He addressed himself to Fulton and Greenleaf, an occasional glance including Abrahamson in the circle of those for whose benefit he spoke.
Bristow listened now in unfeigned absorption, estimating every statement, weighing each detail. The tenseness of his pale face showed how he forced his brain to concentration.
“Having decided that the bearded man and the murderer were the same,” Braceway began, “I asked myself this question: ‘Who, of all those in Furmville, is so connected with the case now that I am warranted in thinking he did the previous blackmailing and this murder?’ And I eliminated in my own mind everybody but Lawrence Bristow. He was the one, the only one, who could have annoyed Mrs. Withers one and four years ago, respectively, and also could have murdered her.
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