"Why, I hardly know," she said, her face once more a trifle pale. "I went upstairs to get ready, thinking to slip out unobserved. In the act of putting on my hat, I was suddenly smothered in the folds of a strong-smelling towel thrown over my head, and since that time I have scarcely known anything till this morning, when I waked in the bed at Theodore's house, fully dressed, and chained as you saw me."

"But—these roses?" he said, lightly placing his hand upon them. "How did you happen to have them along?"

It was not a question pertinent to the issues in hand, but it meant a great deal to his heart.

"Why—I—I was wearing them—that's all," she stammered. "No one stopped to take them off."

He was satisfied. He wished they might once and for all dismiss the world, with all its vexations, its mysteries, and pains, and ride on like this, through the June-created loveliness bathed in its sunlight—comrades and lovers, forever.

The hour, however, was not for dreaming. There were grim facts affecting them both, and much to be cleared between them. Moreover he was merely hired to enact a role that, if it sometimes called for a show of tender love, was still but a role, after all. He attacked the business directly.

"We require an understanding on a great many topics," he said to her slowly. "After I 'phoned you I went to the park, was caught in the rain, and attacked by two ruffians, who knocked me down, and left me to what they supposed would be certain destruction."

"Jerold!" she said, and his name thus on her lips, with no one by to whom she was acting, gave him an exquisite pleasure. There was no possibility of guilty knowledge on her part. Of this he was thoroughly convinced. "You? Attacked?"

"Later," he resumed, "when I recovered, I went to the house in Ninety-third Street, was admitted by the woman in charge, and remained all night, after taking the liberty of examining all the apartments."

She looked at him in utter amazement.

"Why—but what does it—— You, attacked in the park—these lawless deeds—you stayed all night—— And you found I had been carried away?"

"No; I merely thought so. The woman knew nothing. But I presently discovered a number of interesting things. Theodore has installed a private 'phone in his closet, and by means thereof had overheard our appointment. Your bureau and dressing-case had both been searched——"

"For the necklaces!" she cried. "You have them safe?"

"I thought it might have been the jewels—or your marriage certificate," he said, alive to numerous points in the case which, he felt, were about to develop.

She turned a trifle pale.

"I've sewn the certificate—where I'm sure they'd never find it," she said. "But the jewels are safe?"

"Quite safe," he said, making a mental note of her insistence on the topic. "I then discovered the address of the Woodsite house, and you know the rest."

"It's terrible! The whole thing is terrible!" she said. "I wouldn't have thought they'd dare to do such things! I don't know what we're going to do. We're neither of us safe!"

"You must help me all you can," he said, laying his hand for a moment on her arm. "I've been fighting in the dark. I must find you apartments where you will not be discovered by the Robinsons, whose criminal designs on the property inheritance will halt at nothing, and—you must tell me all you can."

"I will," she said; "only——"

And there she halted, her eyes raised to his in mute appeal, a dumb fear expressed in their depths.

They had both avoided the topic of the murder, at the news of which she had fainted. Garrison almost feared it, and Dorothy evidently dreaded its approach.

More than anything else Garrison felt he must know she was innocent. That was the one vital thing to him now, whether she could ever return his love or not. He loved her in every conceivable manner, fondly, passionately, sacredly, with the tenderest wishes for her comfort and happiness. He believed in her now as he always had, whensoever they were together. Nevertheless, he could not abandon all his faculties and plunge into folly like a blind and confident fool.

"I'd like to ask about the jewels first," he said. "The night I first came to your home I entered the place next door by accident. A fancy-dress party was in progress."

"Yes—I knew it. They used to be friends of Theodore's."

"So I guessed," he added dryly. "Theodore was there."

"Theodore—there?" she echoed in surprise he felt to be genuine. "Why, but—don't you remember you met him with the others in my house, soon after you came?"

"I do, perfectly. Nevertheless, I saw him in the other house, in mask, I assure you, dressed to represent Mephistopheles. Last night I found the costume in his closet, and the stairs at the rear were his, of course, to employ."

"I remember," said Dorothy excitedly, "that he came in a long gray overcoat, though the evening was distinctly warm."

"Precisely. And all of this would amount to nothing," Garrison resumed, "only that while I stood in the hall of the house I had entered, that evening, I saw a young woman, likewise in mask, wearing your necklaces—your pearls and diamonds."

Dorothy stared at him in utter bewilderment. Her face grew pale. Her eyes dilated strangely.

"You—you are sure?" she said in a tone barely audible.

"Perfectly," said Garrison.

"And you never mentioned this before?"

"I awaited developments."

"But—what did you think? You might almost have thought that Theodore had stolen them, and handed them to me," she said. "Especially after the way I put them in your charge!"

"I told you we have much to clear between us," he said. "Haven't I the right to know a little——"

"But—how did they come to be there?" she interrupted, abruptly confronted by a phase of the facts which she had momentarily overlooked. "How in the world could my jewels have been in that house and also in my bureau at the very same time?"

"Isn't it possible that Theodore borrowed them, temporarily, and smuggled them back when he came?"

The startled look was intensified in her eyes as she met his gaze.

"He must have done it in some such way!" she said. "I thought at the time, when I ran in to get them, they were not exactly as I had left them, earlier. And I gave them to you for fear he'd steal them!"

This was some light, at least. Garrison needed more.

"Why couldn't you have told me all about them earlier?"

She looked at him beseechingly. Some way, it seemed to them both they had known each other for a very long time, and much had been swept away that must have stood as a barrier between mere client and agent.

"I felt I'd rather not," she confessed. "Forgive me, please. They do not belong to me.

"Not yours?" said Garrison. "What do you mean?"

"I advanced some money on them—to some one very dear," she answered. "Please don't probe into that, if you can help it."

His jealousy rose again, with his haunting suspicion of a man in the background with whom he would yet have to deal. He knew that here he had no rights, but in other directions he had many.

"I shall be obliged to do considerable probing," he said. "The time has come when we must work much more closely together. A maze of events has entangled us both, and together we must find our way out."

She lowered her glance. Her lip was trembling. He felt she was striving to gain a control over her nerves, that were strung to the highest tension. For fully a minute she was silent. He waited. She looked up, met his gaze for a second, and once more lowered her eyes.

"You spoke of—of something—yesterday," she faltered. "It gave me a terrible shock."

She had broached the subject of the murder.

"I was sorry—sorry for the brutal way—the thoughtless way I spoke," he said. "I hope to be forgiven."

She made no reply to his hope. Her entire stock of nerve was required to go on with the business in hand.

"You said my uncle was—murdered," she said, in a tone he strained to hear. "What makes you think of such a thing?"

"You have not before made the statement that the Hardy in Hickwood was your uncle," he reminded her.

"You must have guessed it was my uncle," she replied. "You knew it all the time."

"No, not at first. Not, in fact, till some time after I began my work on the case. I knew Mr. Hardy had been murdered before I knew anything else about him."

She was intensely white, but she was resolute.

"Who told you he was murdered?"

"No one. I discovered the evidence myself."

He felt her weaken and grow limp beside him.

"The—the evidence?" she repeated faintly. "What kind—of evidence?"

"Poison."

He was watching her keenly.

She swayed, as if to faint once more, but mastered herself by exerting the utmost of her will.

"Poison?" she repeated, as before. "But how?"

"In a box of cigars—a birthday present given to your uncle."

It was brutal—cruelly brutal—but he had to test it out without further delay.

His words acted almost with galvanic effect.

"Cigars! His birthday! My cigars!" she cried. "Jerold, you don't suspect me?"

The car was starting across the bridge. It suddenly halted in the traffic. Almost on the instant came a crash and a cry. A dainty little brougham had been crushed against another motor car in the jam and impatience on the structure. One of its wheels had lost half its spokes, that went like a parcel of toothpicks.

Garrison leaped out at once, and Dorothy followed in alarm. In the tide of vehicles, blocked by the trifling accident, a hundred persons craned their heads to see what the damage had been.

A small knot of persons quickly gathered about the damaged carriage. Garrison hastened forward, intent upon offering his services, should help in the case be required. He discovered, in the briefest time, that no great damage had been done, and that no one had been injured.

Eager to be hastening onward, he turned back to his car. Almost immediately he saw that the chauffeur's seat was empty. Dorothy had apparently stepped once more inside, to be screened from public view.

Hastily scanning the crowd about the place, Garrison failed to find his driver. He searched about impatiently, but in vain. He presently became aware of the fact that his man had, for some reason, fled and left his car.

Considerably annoyed, and aware that he should have to drive the machine himself, he returned once more to the open door of the auto, intent upon informing Dorothy of their loss.

He gazed inside the car in utter bewilderment.

Dorothy also was gone.



CHAPTER XX

NEW HAPPENINGS

Still puzzled, unable to believe his senses, Garrison made a second quick search of the vicinity that was rapidly being cleared and restored to order by a couple of efficient police officers, but without avail.

Neither Dorothy nor the chauffeur could be found.

One of the officers ordered him to move along with his car. There was nothing else to be done. Reluctantly, and not without feelings of annoyance and worry, combined with those of baffled mystery and chagrin, Garrison was presently obliged to climb to the driver's seat and take the wheel in hand.

The motor was running, slowly, to a rhythmic beat. He speeded it up, threw off the brake, put the gears in the "low," and slipped in the clutch. Over the bridge in the halted procession of traffic he steered his course—a man bereft of his comrade and his driver and with a motor-car thrust upon his charge.

Through the streets of New York he was finally guiding the great purring creature of might, which in ordinary circumstances would have filled his being with delight. Thorough master of throttle, spark-advance, and speed-lever, he would have asked nothing better than to drive all day—if Dorothy were only at his side.

He had never felt more utterly disconcerted in his life. Where had she gone—and why?

What did it mean to have the chauffeur also disappear?

Had the two gone off together?

If so, why should she choose a companion of his type?

If not, then what could have formed the motive for the man's abrupt flight from the scene?

And what should be done with the motor-car, thus abandoned to his care?

A quick suspicion that the car had been stolen came to Garrison's mind. Nevertheless it was always possible that Dorothy had urged the driver to convey her out of the crowd, and that the driver had finally returned to get his car, and found it gone; but this, for many reasons, seemed unlikely.

Dorothy had shown her fear in her last startled question: "Jerold, you don't suspect me?" She might have fled in some sort of fear after that. But the driver—what was it that had caused him also to vanish at a time so unexpected?

Garrison found himself obliged to give it up. He could think of nothing to do with the car but to take it to the stand where he had hired it in the morning. The chauffeur might, by chance, appear and claim his property. Uneasy, with the thing thus left upon his hands, and quite unwilling to be "caught with the goods," Garrison was swiftly growing more and more exasperated.

He knew he could not roll the car to the stand and simply abandon it there, for anyone so inclined to steal; he objected to reporting it "found" in this peculiar manner at any police headquarters, for he could not be sure it had been stolen, and he himself might be suspected.

Having hired the car in crowded Times Square, near his Forty-fourth Street rooms, he ran it up along Broadway with the thought of awaiting the driver.

The traffic was congested with surface cars, heavy trucks, other motors, and carriages. His whole attention was riveted on the task in hand. Driving a car in the streets of New York ceases to be enjoyment, very promptly. The clutch was in and out continuously. He crept here, he speeded up to the limit for a space of a few city blocks, and crept again.

Past busy Fourteenth Street and Union Square he proceeded, and on to Twenty-third Street with Madison Square, green and inviting, lying to his right. Pushed over into the Fifth Avenue traffic by the regulations, he contemplated returning to the Broadway stream as soon as possible, and was crawling along with his clutch barely rubbing, when a hansom cab, containing a beautiful but pale young woman, slowly passed. The occupant abruptly rose from her seat and scrutinized the car in obvious excitement.

Garrison barely caught a glimpse of her face, busied as he was with the driving. He continued on. Two minutes later he was halted by a jam of carriages and the hansom returned at full speed. Once more the pale young woman was leaning half-way out.

"Stop!" she cried at the astounded Garrison. "You've stolen that car! I'll have you arrested! You've got to return it at once!"

Garrison almost smiled, the half-expected outcome had arrived so promptly. He saw that half a dozen drivers of cabs and other vehicles were looking on in wonder and amusement.

"Kindly drive into Twenty-sixth Street, out of this confusion," he answered. "I shall be glad to halt there and answer all requirements."

He was so obviously a thorough gentleman, and his manner was so calm and dignified, that the strange young lady almost felt abashed at the charges she had made.

The jam was broken. Garrison ran the car to the quieter side street, and the cab kept pace at his side.

Presently he halted, got down from the seat and came to the hansom, lifting his hat. How thankful he was that no policeman had overheard the young woman's cry, and followed, she might never suspect.

"Permit me to introduce myself as a victim of another's man's wrongful intentions," he said. "I hired this car this morning uptown—in fact, in Times Square, and was driven out to Long Island. Returning, we were halted on the bridge—and the chauffeur disappeared—ran away, leaving me to drive for myself.

"I feared at the time it might be the man was a thief, and I am greatly relieved to find the owner of the car so promptly. If this or any other explanation, before an officer, or any court, will gratify you more, I shall be glad to meet every demand you may make upon my time."

The young woman looked at him with widely blazing eyes. She believed him, she hardly knew why. She had alighted from the hansom.

"I've been driving up and down Fifth Avenue all morning!" she said. "I felt sure I could find it that way. It isn't mine. It was only left in my charge. I was afraid that something might happen. I didn't want to have it in the first place! I knew it would cause me endless trouble. I don't know what to do with it now."

"I should be gratified," said Garrison, "if you will state that you do not consider me guilty of a theft so stupid as this would appear."

"I didn't think you were the man," she answered. "A chauffeur my cousin discharged undoubtedly stole it. Policemen are after him now, with the man who runs the garage. They went to Long Island City, or somewhere, to find him, this morning. Perhaps he saw them on the bridge."

She was regaining color. She was a very fine-looking young woman, despite the expression of worry on her face. She was looking Garrison over in a less excited manner—and he knew she held no thought of guilt against him.

"Let me suggest that you dismiss your cab and permit me to take you at once to your garage," he said, adding to the man on the box: "Cabby, how much is your bill?"

"Five dollars," said the man, adding substantially to his charge.

"Take ten and get out!" said Garrison, handing him a bill.

"Oh, but please——" started the pretty young woman.

Garrison interrupted.

"The man who stole your car did yeoman service for me. I promised him five times this amount. He may never dare appear to get his money. Kindly step in. Will you drive the car yourself?"

"No, thank you," she murmured, obeying because of his masterly manner. "But really, I hardly know——"

"Please say nothing further about it," he once more interrupted. "I am sorry to have been in any manner connected with an event which has caused you uneasiness; but I am very glad, indeed, to be instrumental in returning your property and relieving your worry. Where do you keep your car?"

She told him the place. It was up in the neighborhood of Columbus Circle. Twenty minutes later the car was "home"—where it would never get away on false pretenses again, and the news of its coming began to go hotly out by wire.

Garrison heard the men call his fair companion Miss Ellis. He called a cab, when she was ready to go, asked for permission to escort her home, and was driven in her company to an old-fashioned house downtown, near Washington Square. There he left her, with a nice old motherly person, and bade her good-by with no expectation of ever beholding her again, despite the murmured thanks she gave him and the half-timid offer of her hand.

When he left and dismissed the cabman he was face to face with the problem of what he should do to find his "wife." His worry all surged back upon him.

He wondered where Dorothy had gone—where she could go, why she had fled from him—and what could he do but wait with impatience some word of her retreat. He had felt her innocence all but established, and love had come like a new great tide upon him. He was lonely now, and thoroughly disturbed.

He had warned her she must go to live in some other house than her own; nevertheless she might have proceeded to the Ninety-third Street residence for things she would require. It was merely a hope. He made up his mind to go to the house without delay, aware that the Robinsons might make all haste to get there and gain an advantage.

Half an hour later he was once more in the place. The housekeeper alone was in charge. No one had been there in his absence.

He had no intention of remaining long, with Dorothy to find, although he felt inclined to await the possible advent of Theodore and his father, whom he meant to eject from the place. As yet he dared not attempt to order the arrest of the former, either for Dorothy's abduction or the crime attempted on himself in the park. The risk was too great—the risk to the fictional marriage between himself and Dorothy.

He climbed the stairs, wandered aimlessly through the rooms, sat down, waited, somewhat impatiently, tried to think what were best to do, worried himself about Dorothy again, and finally made up his mind she might attempt to wire him at his office address. Calling up the housekeeper, he gave her strict instructions against admitting any of the Robinsons—an order which the woman received with apparent gratification. They were merely to be referred to himself, at this address, should they come upon the scene.

He started off. He had barely closed the door and heard the woman put on the chain, and was turning to walk down the brownstone steps when Theodore, half-way up, panting from haste, confronted him, face to face.

For a moment the two stood staring at each other in surprise. Garrison was first to break the silence.

"You came a little late, you see. I have just issued orders you are not to be admitted to this house again, except with my special permission."

"By Heaven, you—— We'll see about that!" said Theodore. "I'll have you put under arrest!"

"Try it," said Garrison, grinning in his face. "A charge of abduction, plus a charge even larger, may cause you more than mere annoyance. You've been looking for trouble with me, and you're bound to have it. Let me warn you that you are up against a number of facts that you may have overlooked—and you may hear something drop!"

"You think you've been clever, here and in Woodsite, I suppose," said Theodore, concealing both wrath and alarm. "I could drop a couple of facts on you that would fade you a little, I reckon. And this house isn't yours yet!"

"I wonder how many lessons you are going to need," answered Garrison coldly. "If you put so much as your hand inside this building, I'll have you arrested for burglary. Now, mind what I say—and get out!"

"I'll see you later, all right," said Robinson, glaring for a moment in impotent rage, and he turned and retreated from the place.

Garrison, with his mind made up to a coup of distinct importance, was presently headed for his room in Forty-fourth Street. Before he left the Subway he went to a waiting-room, replaced the long mustache upon his face—the one with which he had started away in the morning—and walked the few short blocks from the station to his house.

The street was nearly deserted, but the "shadow" he had duped in the morning was on watch, still undismissed from duty by young Robinson.

Garrison went up to him quietly—and suddenly showing his gun, pulled away the false mustache.

"I'm the man you've been waiting to follow," he said. "Now, don't say a word, but come on."

"Hell!" said the man.

He shrugged his shoulders and was soon up in Garrison's room.



CHAPTER XXI

REVELATIONS

The fellow whom Garrison had taken into camp had once attempted detective work himself and failed. He was not at all a clever being, but rather a crafty, fairly reliable employee of a somewhat shady "bureau" with which young Robinson was on quite familiar terms.

He was far from being a coward. It was he who had followed Garrison to Branchville, rifled his suit-case, and been captured by the trap. Despite the fact that his hand still bore the evidence of having tampered with Garrison's possessions, he had dared remain on the job because he felt convinced that Garrison had never really seen him and could not, therefore, pick him up.

Sullen in his helplessness, aware that his captor must at last have a very great advantage, he complied with Garrison's command to take a seat in the room, and glanced about him inquiringly.

"What do you want with me anyhow?" he said. "What's your game?"

"Mine is a surer game than yours," said Garrison, seating himself with his back to the window, and the light therefore all on his visitor's face. "I'm going to tell you first what you are up against."

The man shifted uneasily.

"You haven't got anything to hold me on," he said. "I've got my regular license to follow my trade."

"I was not aware the State was issuing licenses to burglars," said Garrison. "Come, now, with that hand of yours, what's the use of beating around the bush. If my suit-case had nipped you by the wrist instead of the fingers, I'd have captured you red-handed in the act."

The fellow thrust his hand in his pocket. His face, with two days' growth of beard upon it, turned a trifle pale.

"I'd rather work on your side than against you," he ventured. "A man has to make a living."

"You've come around to the point rather more promptly than I expected," said Garrison. "For fear that you may not keep your word, when it comes to a pinch, I'll inform you I can send you up on two separate charges, and I'll do so in a wink, if you try to double-cross me in the slightest particular."

"I haven't done anything but that one job at Branchville," said the man in alarm.

"What are you givin' me now?"

"What's your name?" demanded Garrison.

"Tuttle," said the fellow, after a moment of hesitation. "Frank Tuttle."

"All right, Tuttle. You furnished Theodore Robinson with information concerning my movements and, in addition to your burglary at Branchville, you have made yourself accessory to a plot to commit a willful murder."

"I didn't! By Heaven, I didn't!" Tuttle answered. "I didn't have anything to do with that."

"With what?" asked Garrison. "You see you plunge into every trap I lay, almost before it is set."

He rose, went to his closet, never without his eye on his man, searched on the floor and brought forth the cold iron bomb. This he abruptly placed on Tuttle's knee.

Tuttle shrank in terror.

"Oh, Lord! I didn't! I didn't know they went in to do a thing like that!" he said. "I've been pretty desperate, I admit, Mr. Garrison, but I had no hand in this!"

The sweat on his forehead advertised his fear. He looked at Garrison in a stricken, ghastly manner that almost excited pity.

"But you knew that two of Robinson's assassins were to meet me in the park," said Garrison. "You procured their services—and expected to read of an accident to me in the papers the following morning."

He was risking a mere conjecture, but it went very near to the truth.

"So help me, I didn't go as far as that!" said Tuttle. "I admit I stole the letter up at Branchville, and sent it to Robinson at once. I admit I followed you back to New York and told him all I could. But I only gave him the names and addresses of the dagos, and I never knew what they had to do!"

Garrison took the bomb and placed it on his bureau.

"Very good," he said. "That makes you, as I said before, an accomplice to the crime attempted—in addition to the burglary, for which I could send you up. To square this off you'll go to work for me, and begin by supplying the names and addresses of your friends."

Tuttle was a picture of abject fear and defeat. His jaw hung down; his eyes were bulging in their sockets.

"You—you mean you'll give me a chance?" he said. "I'll do anything—anything you ask, if only you will!"

"Look here, Tuttle, your willingness to do anything has put you where you are. But I'll give you a chance, with the thorough understanding that the minute you attempt the slightest treachery you'll go up in spite of all you can do. First, we'll have the names of the dagos."

Tuttle all but broke down. He was not a hardened criminal. He had merely learned a few of the tricks by which crime may be committed, and, having failed in detective employment, had no substantial calling and was willing to attempt even questionable jobs, if the pay were found sufficient.

He supplied the names and addresses of the men who had done young Robinson's bidding in Central Park. Garrison jotted them down.

"I suppose you know that I am in the detective business myself," he added, as he finished the writing.

"I thought so, but I wasn't sure," said Tuttle.

"You told young Robinson as much?"

"He hired me to tell him everything."

"Exactly. How much do you expect to tell him of what is going on to-day?"

"Nothing that you do not instruct," said Tuttle, still feeling insecure. "That is, if you meant what you said."

"I meant it," said Garrison, "meant it all. You're at work for me from this time on—and I expect the faithfulness of an honest man, no matter what you may have been before."

"You'll get it," said Tuttle. "I only want a show to start off square and right. . . . What do you want me to do?"

"There is nothing of great importance just at present, except to remember who is your boss," answered Garrison. "You may be obliged to double-cross Robinson to a slight extent, when he next hunts you up for your report. He deserves a little of the game, no matter how he gets it. Take his instructions the same as before. Tell him you have lost me for a time. Report to me promptly concerning his instructions and everything else. Do you know the address of my office?"

"You have never been there since I was put on the case," said Tuttle with commendable candor.

"All right," said Garrison. "It's down in the——"

A knock on the door interrupted. The landlady, a middle-aged woman who rarely appeared at Garrison's room, was standing on the landing when he went to investigate, and holding a message in her hand.

"A telegram for you," she said, and halting for a moment, she turned and retreated down the stairs.

Garrison tore the envelope apart, pulled out the yellow slip and read:

Please come over to 937 Hackatack Street, Jersey City, as soon as possible.

JERALDINE.

It was Dorothy, across the Hudson. A wave of relief, to know she was near and wished to see him, swept over Garrison's being.

"Here," he said to Tuttle, "here's the address on a card. Report to me there at six o'clock to-night. Get out now and go to young Robinson, but not at the house in Ninety-third Street."

"Why not?" inquired Tuttle. "Its the regular place——"

"I've ordered him not to enter the house again," interrupted Garrison. "By the way, should he attempt to do so, or ask you to get in there for him, agree to his instructions apparently, and let me know without delay."

"Thank you for giving me a chance," said Tuttle, who had risen from his chair. "You'll never regret it, I'm sure."

"All right," said Garrison. "Shake!"

He gave the astonished man a firm, friendly grip and bade him "So 'long!" at the door.

A few minutes later, dressed in his freshest apparel, he hastened out to gulp down a cup of strong coffee at an adjacent cafe, then headed downtown for the ferry.



CHAPTER XXII

A MAN IN THE CASE

The hour was just after four o'clock when Garrison stepped from a cab in Hackatack Street, Jersey City, and stood for a moment looking at the red-brick building numbered 937.

It was a shabby, smoke-soiled, neglected dwelling, with signs of life utterly lacking.

Made wary by his Central Park experience, Garrison had come there armed with his gun and suspiciously alert. His cabman was instructed to wait.

Without apparent hesitation Garrison ascended the chalk-marked steps and rang the bell.

Almost immediately the door was opened, by a small and rather pretty young woman, dressed in good taste, in the best of materials, and wearing a very fine diamond ring upon her finger.

Behind her, as Garrison instantly discerned, were rich and costly furnishings, singularly out of keeping with the shabby exterior of the place.

"How do you do?" he said, raising his hat. "Is my wife, Mrs. Fairfax——"

"Oh," interrupted the lady. "Won't you please come in? She hardly expected you to come so promptly. She's lying down to take a rest."

Garrison entered and was shown to a parlor on the left. It, too, was furnished in exceptional richness, but the air was close and stuffy, and the whole place uncomfortably dark.

"If you'll please sit down I'll go and tell her you have come," said his hostess. "Excuse me."

The smile on her face was somewhat forced and sad, thought Garrison. His feeling of suspicion had departed.

Left alone, he strode across the room and glanced at a number of pictures, hung upon the walls. They were excellent oils, one or two by masters.

Dorothy must have slept lightly, if at all. Garrison's back was still turned toward the entrance when her footfall came to his ear. She came swiftly into the apartment.

"Oh, you were very good to come so soon!" she said in a tone made low for none but him to hear. "I wired you, both at your house and office, not more than an hour ago."

"I got the message sent to the house," he said. "It came as a great relief." He paused for a moment, looking in her eyes, which were raised to his own appealingly. "Why did you run away?—and how did you do it?" he asked her. "I didn't know what in the world to think or do."

Her eyes were lowered.

"I had to—I mean, I simply obeyed an impulse," she confessed.

In an almost involuntary outburst she added: "I am in very great trouble. There is no one in the world but you that can give me any help."

All the pain she had caused him was forgotten in the joy of that instant. How he longed to take her in his arms and fold her in security against his breast! And he dared not even be tender.

"I am trying to help you, Dorothy," he said, "but I was utterly dumfounded, there in the crush on the bridge. Where did you go?"

"I ran along and was helped to escape the traffic," she explained. "Then I soon got a car, with my mind made up to come over here just as soon as I could. This is the home of my stepbrother's wife—Mrs. Foster Durgin. I had to come over and—and warn—I mean, I had to come, and so I came."

He had felt her disappearance had nothing to do with the vanishing of the chauffeur. Her statement confirmed his belief.

"Durgin?" Garrison repeated. "Didn't some Durgin, a nephew of Hardy, claim the body, up at Branchville?"

Dorothy was pale again, but resolute.

"Yes—Paul. He's Foster's brother."

"You told me you had neither brothers nor sisters," Garrison reminded her a little sternly. "These were not forgotten?"

"They are stepbrothers only—by marriage. I thought I could leave them out," she explained, flushing as she tried to meet his gaze. "Please don't think I meant to deceive you very much."

"It was a technical truth," he told her; "but isn't it time you told me everything? You ran off before I could even reply to something you appeared to wish to know. You——"

"But you don't suspect me?" she interrupted, instantly reverting to the question she had put before, in that moment of her impulse to run. "I couldn't bear it if I thought you did!"

"If I replied professionally, I should say I don't know what to think," he said. "The whole affair is complicated. As a matter of fact, I cannot seem to suspect you of anything wrong, but you've got to help me clear it as fast as I can."

She met his gaze steadily, for half a minute, then tears abruptly filled her eyes, and she lowered her gaze to the floor.

"Thank you, Jerold," she murmured, and a thrill went straight to his heart. "I am very much worried, and very unhappy—but I haven't done anything wrong—and nothing like that!—not even a wicked thought like that! I loved my uncle very dearly."

She broke down and turned away to give vent to an outburst of grief.

"There, there," said Garrison after a moment. "We must do the best we can. If you will tell me more, my help is likely to be greater."

Dorothy dried her eyes and resumed her courage heroically.

"I haven't asked you to be seated all this time," she said apologetically. "Please do—and I'll tell you all I can."

Garrison took a chair, while Dorothy sat near him. He thought he had never seen her in a mood of beauty more completely enthralling than this one of helplessness and bravery combined.

"We are quite, well—secure from being overheard?" he said.

She went at once and closed the door.

"Alice would never listen, greatly as she is worried," she said. "It was she who met you at the door—Foster's wife."

Garrison nodded. He was happy only when she came once more to her seat.

"This is your stepbrother's home?" he inquired. "Is he here?"

"This is Alice's property," Dorothy corrected. "But that's way ahead of the story. You told me my uncle was poisoned by my cigars. How could that possibly have been? How did you find it out? How was it done?"

"The box had been opened and two cigars had been so loaded with poison that when he bit off one, at the end, to light it up, he got the deadly stuff on his tongue—and was almost instantly stricken."

Despite the dimness of the light in the room Dorothy's face showed very white.

She asked; "What kind of poison?"

He mentioned the drug.

"Not the kind used by photographers?" she asked in affright.

"Precisely. Foster, then, is a photographer?"

"He used to be, but—— Oh, I don't see how he—it's terrible! It's terrible!"

She arose and crossed the room in agitation, then presently returned.

"Your suspicions may be wrong," said Garrison, who divined she had something on her mind. "Why not tell me all about it, and let me assist, if I can? What sort of a looking man is Foster?"

"Rather small, and nearly always smiling. But he may not have done it! He may be innocent! If only you could help me now!" she said. "I don't believe he could have done it!"

"But you half suspect it was he?"

"I've been afraid of it all along," she said, in an outburst of confession. "Before I even knew that Uncle John was—murdered—before you told me, I mean—I felt afraid that something of the kind might have happened, and since that hour I've been nearly distracted by my thoughts!"

"Let's take it slowly," said Garrison, in his soothing way. "I imagine there has been either anger or hatred, spite or pique on the part of your stepbrother, Foster, towards John Hardy in the past."

"Yes—everything! Uncle John spoiled Foster at first, but when he found the boy was gambling in Wall Street, he cut him off and refused to supply him the means to pay off the debts he had contracted. Foster threatened at the time.

"The breach grew wider. Uncle didn't know he was married to Alice. Foster wouldn't let me tell. He had used up nearly all of Alice's money. She refused to mortgage anything more, after I took the necklaces, on a loan—and if Foster doesn't get ten thousand dollars in August I don't know what he'll do!"

Garrison was following the threads of this quickly delivered narrative as best he might. It revealed a great deal, but not all.

"I see," he commented quietly. "But how could Foster hope to profit by the death of Mr. Hardy?"

Dorothy turned very white again.

"He knew of the will."

"The will that was drawn in your favor?"

"Yes."

"And he thought that you were married, that the conditions of the will had been fulfilled?"

Dorothy nodded assent.

Garrison's impulse was to push a point in personal affairs and ask if she had really married some Fairfax, not yet upon the scene. But he adhered strictly to business.

"What you fear is that Foster, aware that you would become your uncle's heir, may have hastened your uncle's end, in the hope that when you came in for the property you would liquidate his debts?"

Dorothy nodded again.

She said: "It is terrible! Do you see the slightest ray of hope?"

Garrison ignored the query for a moment.

"Where is Foster now?"

"No one knows—he seems to have run away—that's one of the worst things about it."

"But you came over here to warn him," said Garrison.

Dorothy flushed.

"That was my impulse, I admit, when you told me about the cigars. I hardly knew what else I could do."

"You are very fond of Foster?"

"I am very fond of Alice."

Garrison was glad. He could even have been jealous of a brother.

"But how could Foster have tampered with your cigars?" he inquired. "Was he up there at Hickwood when you left them?"

"He was there all the time of uncle's visit, in hiding, and even on the night of his death," she confessed in a whisper. "Alice doesn't know of this, but he admitted it all to me."

"This is what you have been trying to conceal from me, all the time," Garrison observed. "Do the Robinsons have their suspicions?"

"I can't be certain. Perhaps they have. Theodore has exercised a very bad influence on Foster's life. He intimated once to me that perhaps Uncle John had been murdered."

Garrison thought for a moment.

"It is almost impossible for anyone to have had that suspicion who had no guilty knowledge," he said. "Theodore was, and is, capable of any crime. If he knew about the will and believed you had not fulfilled the conditions, by marrying, he would have had all the motive in the world to commit the crime himself."

"But," said Dorothy, "he knew nothing of the will, as I told you before."

"And he with an influence over Foster, who did know all about the will?"

Dorothy changed color once again. She was startled.

"I never thought of that," she admitted. "Foster might have told."

"There's a great deal to clear up in a case like this," said Garrison, "even when suspicions point your course. I think I can land Mr. Theodore on the things he attempted on me, but not just yet. He may reveal himself a little more. Besides, our alleged marriage will hardly bear a close investigation."

For the moment Dorothy was more concerned by his personal danger than by anything concerning the case.

"You told me a little of what was attempted in the park," she said. "I've thought about it ever since—such a terrible attack! If anything dreadful should happen to you——"

She broke off suddenly, turned crimson to her hair, and dropped her gaze from his face.

In that moment he resisted the greatest temptation of his life—the impulse to sink at her feet on his knees, and tell her of his love. He knew she felt, as he did, the wondrous attraction between them; he knew that to her, as to himself, the impression was strong that they had known each other always; but hired as he had been to conduct an affair in which it had been particularly stipulated there was to be no sentiment, or even the slightest thought of such a development, he throttled his passion and held himself in check.

"Some guardian angel must have hovered near," was all he permitted himself to reply, but she fathomed the depth of his meaning.

"I hope some good spirit may continue to be helpful—to us both," she said. "What are you going to do next?"

"Take you back to New York," said Garrison. "I must have you near. But, while I think of it, please answer one thing more. How did it happen that your uncle's life was insured for that inventor in Hickwood, Charles Scott?"

"They were lifelong friends," said Dorothy. "They began as boys together. Uncle John was saved by this Mr. Scott, when he was twenty-one—his life was saved, I mean. And he was very much in love with Mr. Scott's sister. But something occurred, I hardly know what. The Scotts never had much money, and they lost the little they had. Miss Scott was very shamefully treated, I believe, by some other friend in the group, and she died before she was thirty—I've heard as a result of some great unhappiness.

"Uncle and Mr. Scott were always friends, though they drifted apart to some extent. Mr. Scott became an inventor, and spent all his poor wife's money, and also funds that Uncle John supplied, on his inventions. The insurance was Uncle John's last plan for befriending his old-time companion. There was no one else to make it in favor of, for of course the estate would take care of the heirs that he wished to remember. Does that answer your question?"

"Perfectly," said Garrison. "I think if you'll make ready we will start. Is there any particular place in New York where you prefer to stay?"

"No. I'd rather leave that to you."

"By the way," he said, his mind recurring to the motor-car incident and all that had followed, "did you know that when you deserted me so abruptly on the bridge, the chauffeur also disappeared—and left me with the auto on my hands?"

"Why, no!" she said. "What could it mean?"

"It seems to have been a stolen car," he answered. "It was left in charge of a strange young woman, too poor to own it—left her by a friend. She found it in my possession and accepted my explanation as to how it was I chanced to have it in my care. She is living in a house near Washington Square."

"How very strange!" said Dorothy, who had suddenly conceived some queer feminine thought. "If the house near Washington Square is nice, perhaps you might take me there. But tell me all about it!"

What could be actuating her woman's mind in this was more than he could tell. But—why not take her to that house as well as to any in New York?

"All right," he said. "It's a very nice place. I'll tell you the story as we go."



CHAPTER XXIII

THE ENEMY'S TRACKS

On the way returning to Gotham, Garrison learned every fact concerning John Hardy, his former places of residence, his former friends, his ways of life and habits that he deemed important to the issues and requirements now in hand, with Dorothy's stepbrother more than half suspected of the crime.

Dorothy gladly supplied the information. She had been on the verge of despair, harboring her fear and despair all alone, with the loyal desire to protect not only Foster, but Alice as well, and now she felt an immense relief to have a man's clear-headed aid.

Garrison held out no specific hope.

The case looked black for young Durgin at the best, and the fellow had run away. A trip to the small Connecticut town of Rockdale, where Hardy had once resided, and to which it had long been his wont to return as often as once a month, seemed to Garrison imperative at this juncture.

He meant to see Tuttle at six, and start for the country in the evening.

He outlined his plan to Dorothy, acquainting her with the fact that he had captured Theodore's spy, from whom he hoped for news.

By the time they came to the house near Washington Square, Dorothy was all but asleep from exhaustion. The strain, both physical and mental, to which she had been subjected during some time past, and more particularly during the past two days, told quickly now when at last she felt ready to place all dependence on Garrison and give up to much-needed rest.

The meeting of Miss Ellis and Dorothy was but slightly embarrassing to Garrison, when it presently took place. Explaining to the woman of the house that his "wife" desired to stop all night in town, rather than go on to Long Island, while he himself must be absent from the city, he readily procured accommodations without exciting the least suspicion.

Garrison merely waited long enough to make Dorothy promise she would take a rest without delay, and then he went himself to a hotel restaurant, near by in Fifth Avenue, devoured a most substantial meal, and was five minutes late at his office.

Tuttle had not yet appeared. The hall before the door was deserted. The sign on his glass had been finished.

Garrison went in. There were letters all over the floor, together with Dorothy's duplicate telegram, a number of cards, and some advertising circulars. One of the cards bore the name of one J. P. Wilder, and the legend, "Representing the New York Evening Star." There was nothing, however, in all the stuff that appeared to be important.

Garrison read the various letters hastily, till he came to one from the insurance company, his employers, requesting haste in the matter of the Hardy case, and reminding him that he had reported but once. This he filed away.

Aware at last that more than half an hour had gone, without a sign from his man, he was on the point of going to the door to look out in the hall when Tuttle's shadow fell upon the glass.

"I stayed away a little too long, I know," he said. "I was trying to get a line on old man Robinson, to see if he'd give anything away, but I guess he's got instructions from his son, who's gone away from town."

"Gone away from town?" repeated Garrison. "Where has he gone?"

"I don't know. The old man wouldn't say."

"You haven't seen Theodore?"

"No. He left about five this afternoon. The old man and his wife are stopping in Sixty-fifth Street, where they used to live some months ago."

"What did you report about me?"

"Nothing, except I hadn't seen you again," said Tuttle. "The old man leaves it all to his son. He didn't seem to care where you had gone."

Garrison pondered the matter carefully. He made almost nothing out of Theodore's departure from the scene. It might mean much or little. That Theodore had something up his sleeve he entertained no doubt.

"It's important to find out where he has gone," he said. "See old Robinson again. Tell him you have vital information on a special point that Theodore instructed you to deliver to no one but himself, and the old man may tell you where you should go. I am going out of town to-night. Leave your address in case I wish to write."

"I'll do my best," said Tuttle, writing the address on a card. "Is there anything more?"

"Yes. You know who the two men were who knocked me down in Central Park and left a bomb in my pocket. Get around them in any way you can, ascertain what agreement they had with young Robinson, or what instructions, and find out why it was they did not rob me. Come here at least once a day, right along, whether you find me in or not."

Once more Tuttle stated he would do his best. He left, and Garrison, puzzling over Theodore's latest movement, presently locked up his office and departed from the building.

He was no more than out on the street than he came upon Theodore's tracks in a most unexpected direction. A newsboy came by, loudly calling out his wares. An Evening Star, beneath his arm, stared at Garrison with type fully three inches high with this announcement:

MYSTERY OF MURDER AND A WILL!!

John Hardy May Have Been Slain! Beautiful Beneficiary Married Just in Time!

Garrison bought the paper.

With excitement and chagrin in all his being he glanced through the story of himself and Dorothy—all that young Robinson could possibly know, or guess, dished up with all the sensational garnishments of which the New York yellow press is capable.

Sick and indignant with the knowledge that Dorothy must be apprised of this at once, and instructed to remain in hiding, to induce all about her to guard her from intrusion and to refuse to see all reporters who might pursue the story, he hastened at once towards Washington Square, and encountered his "wife," almost upon entering the house.

She was white with alarm.

He thought she had already seen the evening sheet.

"Jerold!" she said, "something terrible has happened. When I got up, half an hour ago to dress—my wedding certificate was gone!"



CHAPTER XXIV

A NEW ALARM

Without, for a moment, comprehending the drift of Dorothy's fears, Garrison led her to a parlor of the house, looking at her in a manner so fixed that she realized their troubles were not confined to the loss of her certificate.

"What do you think? What do you fear? There isn't anything else?" she said, as he still remained dumb for a moment. "What shall we do?"

"Theodore threatened that something might occur," he said. "He has evidently done his worst, all at once."

"Why—but I thought perhaps my certificate was stolen here," whispered Dorothy in agitation. "How could Theodore——"

"No one in this house could have known you had such a document about you," interrupted Garrison. "While you were drugged, or chloroformed, in the Robinsons' house, the old woman, doubtless, searched you thoroughly. You told me your certificate was sewed inside——"

"Inside—yes, inside," she interrupted. "I thought it was safe, for they put a blank paper in its place, and I might not have thought of anything wrong if I had not discovered a black thread used instead of the white silk I had been so careful to employ."

"There is ample proof that Theodore has utilized his wits to good advantage," he said. "Your marriage-certificate episode is only a part of what he has achieved. This paper contains all the story—suggesting that your uncle may have been murdered, and telling the conditions of the will."

He held up the paper before her startled eyes, and saw the look of alarm that came upon her.

"Printed—in the paper!" she exclaimed in astonishment and utter dismay. "Why, how could such a thing happen?"

She took the paper and scanned the story hurriedly, making exclamations as she read.

"Theodore—more of Theodore," said Garrison. "From his point of view, and with all his suspicions concerning our relationship, it is a master-stroke. It renders our position exceedingly difficult."

"But—how could he have found out all these things?" gasped Dorothy. "How could he know?"

"He has guessed very shrewdly, and he has doubtless pumped your stepbrother of all that he happened to know."

"What shall we do?" she repeated hopelessly. "We can't prove anything—just now—and what will happen when the will comes up for probate?"

"I'll land him in prison, if he doesn't pull out of it now," said Garrison, angered as much by Theodore's diabolical cleverness as he was by this premature publicity given to the story. "He has carried it all with a mighty high hand, assured of our fear to take the business into court. He has stirred up a fight that I don't propose to lose!—a fight that has roused all the red-hot Crusader of my being!"

"But—what shall we do? All the newspaper people will be digging at the case and doing their best to hunt up everyone concerned!"

"No reporters can be seen. If the fact leaks out that you are here, through anyone connected with the house, you must move at once, and change your name, letting no one but me know where you are."

She looked at him blankly. "Alone? Can't you help me, Jerold?"

"It is more important for me to hasten up country now than it was before," he answered. "I must work night and day to clear things up about the murder."

"But—if Foster should really be guilty?"

"He'll be obliged to take his medicine—otherwise suspicion might possibly rest upon you."

"Good Heavens!"

She was very pale.

"This story in the Star has precipitated everything," he added. "Already it contains a hint that you and your 'husband' are the ones who benefit most by the possible murder of John Hardy."

She sank on a chair and looked at him helplessly.

"I suppose you'll have to go—but I don't know what I shall do without you. How long do you think you'll be away?"

"It is quite impossible to say. I shall return as soon as circumstances permit. I'll write whenever I can."

"I shall need some things from the house," she said. "I have absolutely nothing here."

"Buy what you need, and remain indoors as much as you can," he instructed. "Reporters will be sure to haunt the house in Ninety-third Street, hoping to see us return."

"It's horrible!" said Dorothy. "It almost makes me wish I had never heard of any will!"

Garrison looked at her with frank adoration in his eyes.

"Whatever the outcome, I shall always be glad," he said—"glad of the day you needed—needed assistance—glad of the chance it has given me to prove my—prove my—friendship."

"I'll try to be worthy of your courage," she answered, returning his look with an answering glance in which the love-light could only at best be a trifle modified. "But—I don't see how it will end."

"About this marriage certificate——" he started, when the door-bell rang interruptingly.

In fear of being overheard by the landlady, already attending a caller, Garrison halted, to wait. A moment later the door was opened by the lady of the house herself, and a freshly-groomed, smooth-shaven young man was ushered in. The room was the only one in the house for this semi-public use.

"Excuse me," said the landlady sweetly. "Someone to see Miss Ellis."

The visitor bowed very slightly to Dorothy and Garrison, and stood somewhat awkwardly near the door, with his hat in his hand. The landlady, having made her excuses for such an intrusion, disappeared to summon Miss Ellis.

Garrison was annoyed. There was nothing to do but to stand there in embarrassing silence. Then Miss Ellis came shyly in at the door, dressed so becomingly that it seemed not at all unlikely she had hoped for the evening's visitor.

"Oh, Mr. Hunter, this is a very pleasant surprise!" she said. "Allow me to introduce my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax." She added to Garrison and Dorothy, "This is Mr. Hunter, of the New York Star."

Prepared to bow and let it go at that, Garrison started, ever so slightly, on learning the visitor's connection. Mr. Hunter, on his part, meeting strangers unexpectedly, appeared to be diffident and quite conventional, but pricked up his ears, which were strung to catch the lightest whisper of news, at the mention of the Fairfax name.

"Not the Fairfax of the Hardy case?" he said, for the moment intent on nothing so moving as a possible service to his paper. "Of course you've seen——"

Garrison sat down on the copy of the Star which Dorothy had left in a chair. He deftly tucked it up beneath his coat.

"No, oh, no, certainly not," he said, and pulling out his watch, he added to Dorothy, "I shall have to be going. Put on your hat and come out for a two-minute walk."

Then, to the others:

"Sorry to have to run off in this uncomplimentary fashion, but I trust we shall meet again."

Hunter felt by instinct that this was the man of all men whom he ought, in all duty, to see. He could not insist upon his calling in such a situation, however, and Garrison and Dorothy, bowing as they passed, were presently out in the hall with the parlor door closed behind them. In half a minute more they were out upon the street.

"You'll be obliged to find other apartments at once," he said. "You'd better not even go back to pay the bill. I'll send the woman a couple of dollars and write that you made up your mind to go along home, after all."

"But—I wanted to ask a lot of questions—of Miss Ellis," said Dorothy, thereby revealing the reason she had wished to come here before. "I thought perhaps——"

"Questions about me?" interrupted Garrison, smiling upon her in the light of a street-lamp they were passing. "I can tell you far more about the subject than she could even guess—if we ever get the time."

Dorothy blushed as she tried to meet his gaze.

"Well—it wasn't that—exactly," she said. "I only thought—thought it might be interesting to know her."

"It's far more interesting to know where you will go," he answered. "Let me look at this paper for a minute."

He pulled forth the Star, turned to the classified ads, found the "Furnished Rooms," and cut out half a column with his knife.

"Let me go back where I was to-night," she suggested. "I am really too tired to hunt a place before to-morrow. I can slip upstairs and retire at once, and the first thing in the morning I can go to a place where Alice used to stay, with a very deaf woman who never remembers my name and always calls me Miss Root."

"Where is the place?" said Garrison, halting as Dorothy halted.

"In West Eighteenth Street." She gave him the number. "It will look so very queer if I leave like this," she added. "I'd rather not excite suspicion."

"All right," he replied, taking out a booklet and jotting down "Miss Root," and the address she had mentioned. "I'll write to you in the name the deaf woman remembers, or thinks she remembers, and no one need know who you are. If I hurry now I can catch the train that connects with the local on the Hartford division for Rockdale."

They turned and went back to the house.

"You don't know how long you'll be gone?" she said as they neared the steps. "You cannot tell in the least?"

"Long enough to do some good, I hope," he answered. "Meantime, don't see anybody. Don't answer any questions; and don't neglect to leave here early in the morning."

She was silent for a moment, and looked at him shyly.

"I shall feel a little bit lonely, I'm afraid," she confessed—"with none of my relatives, or friends. I hope you'll not be very long. Good-by."

"Good-by," said Garrison, who could not trust himself to approach the subject she had broached; and with his mind reverting to the subject of his personal worry in the case, he added: "By the way, the loss of your wedding certificate can be readily repaired if you'll tell me the name of the preacher, or the justice of the peace——"

"I'd rather not—just at present," she interrupted, in immediate agitation. "Good-night—I'll have to go in."

She fled up the steps, found the door ajar, and pushing it open, stood framed by the light for a moment, as she turned to look back where he was standing.

Only for a moment did she hover there, however.

He could not see her face as she saw his.

He could not know that a light of love and a mute appeal for forgiveness lay together in the momentary glance bestowed upon him.

Then she closed the door; and as one in a dream he slowly walked away.



CHAPTER XXV

A DEARTH OF CLEWS

Garrison's ride on the train was a matter of several hours' duration. Not only did he read every line of the story in the Star, which he felt convinced had been furnished by young Robinson, but he likewise had time to reflect on all the phases, old and new, of the case in which he was involved.

But wander where they would, his thoughts invariably swung around the troubled circle to Dorothy and the topic was she married or not, and if she was,—where was the man?

He could not reach a decision.

Heretofore he had reasoned there could be no genuine Fairfax; to-night he entertained many doubts of his former deductions. He found it possible to construe Dorothy's actions both ways. She was afraid to have him search out the man who had written her wedding certificate, perhaps because it was a fraud, or perhaps because there was a Fairfax somewhere, concerning whom something must be hidden.

The murder mystery, the business of the will, even the vengeance he promised himself he would wreak on Theodore, sank into significance in the light of his personal worry. There was only one thing worth while, and that was love.

He was rapidly approaching a frame of mind in which no sacrifice would be too great to be made, could he only be certain of winning Dorothy, heart-free, for his own.

For more than an hour he sat thinking, in the car, oblivious to the flight of time, or to the towns through which he was passing. He gave it up at last and, taking from his pocket a book he employed for memoranda, studied certain items there, supplied by Dorothy, concerning her uncle and his ways of life. There were names of his friends and his enemies among the scribbled data, together with descriptive bits concerning Hardy's personality.

Marking down additional suggestions and otherwise planning his work to be done at Rockdale, Garrison reflected there was little apparent hope of clearing young Durgin of suspicion, unless one trifling hint should supply the clew. Dorothy had stated that her Uncle John had long had some particularly bitter and malicious enemy, a man unknown to herself, from whom she believed Mr. Hardy might have been fleeing, from time to time, in the trips which had become the habit of his life.

That this constant moving from place to place had been the bane of his existence was a theory that Dorothy had formed a year before. Yet, for all she knew, it might have been young Foster Durgin whom her uncle was trying to avoid!

The train connection for Rockdale was wretchedly timed. What with a long wait at the junction and a long delay at a way station farther out, it was nearly one o'clock when at length his destination was reached and Garrison, with his steel-trap suit-case in hand, found his way to a second-rate hotel, where, to his great relief, the beds were far better than they looked.

He had taken the precaution to register as Henry Hilborn, realizing that Rockdale doubtless abounded in acquaintances of Hardy's who would probably read the published story of his will in their own local papers in the morning. He wrote at once to Dorothy, under the name of Miss Root, apprising her of his altered name and his address.

In the morning he was early at his work. Representing himself as nothing more than the agent of the New York Insurance Company, for which he was, in fact, conducting his various investigations, at least in part, he rapidly searched out one after another of the persons whose names Dorothy had supplied, but all to little purpose.

He found the town very much alive indeed to the news which the Star had blazoned to the world. Hardy had been a well-known figure, off and on, for many years in Rockdale, and the names of the Durgins and of Dorothy were barely less familiar.

Garrison's difficulty was not that the people talked too little, but rather that they talked too much, and said almost nothing in the process. New trivialities were exceedingly abundant.

He worked all day with no results of consequence. The persons whose names had been supplied by Dorothy had, in turn, furnished more names by the dozen, alleging that this man or that knew John Hardy better than the proverbial brother, if possible; nevertheless, one after another, they revealed their ignorance of any vital facts that Garrison could use.

On the following day he learned that Paul Durgin, the nephew credited with having claimed the body of the murdered man, lived ten miles out on a farm, amassing a fortune rearing ducks.

Hiring a team, Garrison drove to Durgin's farm. He found his man in the center of a vast expanse of duck-pens, where ducks by the thousand, all singularly white and waterless, were greeting their master with acclaim.

Durgin came out of the duck midst to see his visitor. He was a large, taciturn being, healthy, strong, independent, a trifle suspicious and more than a trifle indifferent as to the final disposal of John Hardy's fortune.

Garrison, at first, found him hard to handle. He had not yet read the papers. He knew nothing at all of what was being said; and now that he heard it at last, from Garrison's lips, he scarcely did more than nod his head.

Garrison was annoyed. He determined on awakening the duck-stupored being, unless the task should prove hopeless.

"Mr. Durgin," he said, "the reasons for supposing that Hardy was murdered—poisoned—are far more convincing than anyone really supposes—and suspicion points particularly at a person in whom you may and may not be interested—your younger brother, Foster Durgin."

A curious white appearance crept all about the smooth-shaven mouth of the duck man. He was not in the least an emotionless clod; he was not even cold or indifferent, but silent, slow at giving expression to anything but excellent business capabilities.

He looked at Garrison steadily, but with dumb appeal in his eyes. The blow had gone home with a force that made Garrison sorry.

"How could that be?" the man inquired, "even with Foster wild?"

"He may not be guilty—it's my business to discover who is," said Garrison, with ready sympathy. "It looks as if he had a motive. With his knowledge of photography and his dabbling in the art, he has almost certainly handled poison—the particular poison used to destroy John Hardy's life. He was there in Hickwood at the time of the crime. He has gambled in Wall Street, and lost, and now has disappeared. You can see I need your help to clear the case."



CHAPTER XXVI

STARTLING DISCLOSURES

Durgin sat down on a box, picked up a sliver of wood and began to chew it slowly. He was not a man of rapid thoughts; and he was stunned.

"How did you find out all these things?" he said.

"From Dorothy, partially, and in part from my own investigations."

"Dorothy didn't go back on the boy like that?" The man was hurt by the thought.

"Not at all. She tried to shield him. I came to Rockdale on her account, to try to discover if there is anyone else who might have had a motive for the crime."

Durgin pulled the sliver of wood to shreds with his teeth.

"I don't think Foster would have done it," he said, concealing the pain in his breast. "He's been wild. I've lost all patience with his ways of livin', but Uncle John was never afraid of Foster, though he was of Hiram Cleave."

"What's that?" said Garrison, instantly, alive to a possible factor in the case. "Do you mean there was a man Mr. Hardy was afraid of—Hiram what?"

"He never wanted me to tell of that," said Durgin in his heavy manner. "He wasn't a coward; he said so, and I know it's true, but he had a fear of Cleave."

"Now that's just exactly what I've got to know!" said Garrison. "Man alive, if you wish to help me clear your brother, you've got to give me all the facts you can think of concerning Mr. Hardy, his enemies, and everything else in the case! What sort of a man is this Cleave?"

"A short, middle-aged man," drawled Durgin deliberately. "I never saw him but once."

"What was the cause of enmity between him and Hardy, do you know?"

"No, I don't. It went far back—a woman, I guess. But I hope you won't ever say I told that it was. I promised I wouldn't, and I never did till now."

The big fellow looked at Garrison with honest anxiety in his eyes.

"It's not my business to tell things," Garrison assured him. "This is a matter perhaps of life and death for your brother. Do you think Mr. Hardy feared this man Cleave would take his life?"

"He did, yes."

"Was it ever attempted before?"

Durgin looked at him oddly.

"I think so, but I couldn't be sure."

"You mean, Mr. Hardy told you a little about it, but, perhaps, not all?"

"How did you know that?" Durgin asked, mystified by Garrison's swiftness of thinking.

"I don't know anything. I'm trying to find out. How much did Hardy tell you of a former attempt on his life?"

"He didn't really tell it. He sort of let it out a little, and wouldn't say anything more."

"But you knew it was this man Cleave?"

"Yes, he was the one."

Garrison questioned eagerly: "Where is he now?"

"I don't know."

"When was it that you saw the man?"

"A year ago."

"Where?"

"In the village—Rockdale," answered Durgin.

"Mr. Hardy pointed him out?"

"Yes, but how did you——"

"What was the color of his hair?" Garrison interrupted.

"He had his hat on. I didn't see his hair."

"What did your uncle say at the time?"

"Nothing much, just 'that's the man'—that's all," said the duck man. "And he went away that night—I guess because Cleave turned around and saw us in the store."

"All right," said Garrison. "Where's your brother now?"

"I don't know. We don't get on."

"Do you think he knew anything about Mr. Hardy's will?"

Durgin answered with a query: "Which one?"

"Why, the only one, I suppose," said Garrison. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there must have been more than one," drawled the duck man with exasperating slowness. "Foster was down in the first, but that was burned. I don't think he ever saw the others, but he knew he wasn't a favorite any more."

"What about yourself?" asked Garrison.

"I asked Uncle John to leave me out. I've got enough," was the answer. "We're no blood kin to the Hardys. I know I wasn't in the last."

"The last?" repeated Garrison. "You mean the last will of Mr. Hardy—the one in favor of Dorothy, in case she should be married?"

Durgin studied his distant ducks for a moment.

"No, I don't think that was the last. I'm sure that will wasn't the last."

Garrison stared at him fixedly.

"You're sure it wasn't the last?" he echoed. "What do you mean?"

"Uncle John sent a letter and said he'd made a brand-new will," answered Durgin in his steady way of certainty. "I burned up the letter only yesterday, clearing up my papers."

"You don't mean quite recently?" insisted Garrison.

"Since Dorothy got married," answered Durgin, at a loss to understand Garrison's interest. "Why?"

"This could make all the difference in the world to the case," Garrison told him. "Did he say what he'd done with this new document?"

"Just that he'd made a new will."

"Who helped him? Who was the lawyer? Who were the witnesses?"

"He didn't say."

Garrison felt everything disarranged. And Durgin's ignorance was baffling. He went at him aggressively.

"Where was your uncle when he wrote the letter?"

"He was up to Albany."

Albany! There were thousands of lawyers and tens of thousands of men who would do as witnesses in Albany!

"But," insisted Garrison, "perhaps he told you where it was deposited or who had drawn it up, or you may know his lawyer in Albany.

"No. He just mentioned it, that's all," said Durgin. "The letter was most about ducks."

"This is too bad," Garrison declared. "Have you any idea in the world where the will may be?"

"No, I haven't."

"You found nothing of it, or anything to give you a hint, when you claimed the body for burial, and examined his possessions in Hickwood?"

"No."

"Where was Dorothy then?"

"I don't know. She's always looked after Foster more than me, he being the weak one and most in need."

Desperate for more information. Garrison probed in every conceivable direction, but elicited nothing further of importance, save that an old-time friend of Hardy's, one Israel Snow, a resident of Rockdale, might perhaps be enabled to assist him.

Taking leave of Durgin, who offered his hand and expressed a deep-lying hope that something could be done to clear all suspicion from his brother, Garrison returned to Rockdale.

The news of a will made recently, a will concerning which Dorothy knew nothing,—this was so utterly disconcerting that it quite overshadowed, for a time, the equally important factor in the case supplied by Durgin's tale concerning this unknown Hiram Cleave.

Where the clews pointed now it was utterly impossible to know. If the fact should transpire that Dorothy did, in fact, know something of the new will made by her uncle, or if Foster knew, and no such will should ever be produced, the aspect of the case would be dark indeed.

Not at all convinced that Theodore Robinson might not yet be found at the bottom of the mystery, Garrison wondered where the fellow had gone and what his departure might signify.

Israel Snow was out of town. He would not return till the morrow. Garrison's third night was passed in the little hotel, and no word had come from Dorothy. He had written four letters to the Eighteenth Street address. He was worried by her silence.

On the following day Mr. Snow returned. He proved to be a stooped old man, but he supplied a number of important facts.

In the first place he stated that Hiram Cleave had long since assumed another name which no one in Rockdale knew. No one was acquainted with his business or his whereabouts. The reason of the enmity between him and John Hardy went deep enough to satisfy the most exacting mind.

Cleave, Hardy, and Scott, the inventor, had been boys together, and, in young manhood, chums. Hardy had fallen in love with Scott's sister, while he was still a young, romantic man. Cleave, developing an utterly malicious and unscrupulous nature, had deceived his friend Hardy, tried to despoil Miss Scott's very life, thereby ultimately causing her death, and Hardy had intervened only in time to save her from utter shame and ruin.

Then, having discovered Cleave guilty of a forgery, he had spared no effort or expense till he landed the creature in prison out in Indiana. Cleave had threatened his life at the time. He had long since been liberated. His malicious resentment had never been abated, and for the past two or three years, with Miss Scott a sad, sweet memory only, John Hardy had lived a lonely life, constantly moving to avoid his enemy.

A friend of another friend of a third friend of Snow's, who might have moved away, had once had a photograph of Cleave. Old Snow promised to procure it if possible and deliver it over to Garrison, who made eager offers to go and try to get it for himself, but without avail. He promised to wait for the picture, and returned at last to his hotel.

A telegram was waiting for him at the desk. He almost knew what he should find on reading it. The message read:

Please return at once. JERALDINE.

He paid off his bill, and posting a note to Israel Snow, giving an address, "Care of J. Garrison," in the New York building where he had his office, he caught the first train going down and arrived in Manhattan at three.



CHAPTER XXVII

LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

Delaying only long enough to deposit his suit-case at his lodgings, and neglecting the luncheon which he felt he could relish, Garrison posted off to Eighteenth Street with all possible haste.

The house he found at the number supplied by Dorothy was an old-time residence, with sky-scrapers looming about it. A pale woman met him at the door.

"Miss Root—is Miss Root in, please?" he said. "I'd like to see her."

"There's no such person here," said the woman.

"She's gone—she's given up her apartment?" said Garrison, at a loss to know what this could mean. "She went to-day? Where is she now?"

"She's never been here," informed the landlady. "A number of letters came here, addressed in her name, and I took them in, as people often have mail sent like that when they expect to visit the city, but she sent around a messenger and got them this morning."

Thoroughly disconcerted by this intelligence, Garrison could only ask if the woman knew whence the messenger had come—the address to which he had taken the letters. The woman did not know.

There was nothing to do but to hasten to the house near Washington Square. Garrison lost no time in speeding down Fifth Avenue.

He came to the door just in time to meet Miss Ellis, dressed to go out.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Fairfax?" she said. "Mrs. Fairfax asked me to tell you, if you came before I went, that she'd meet you at your office. I felt so sorry when she was ill."

"I didn't know she'd been ill," said Garrison. "I was afraid of something like that when she failed to write."

"Oh, yes, she was ill in the morning, the very day after you left," imparted Miss Ellis.

"I know you'll excuse me," interrupted Garrison. "I'll hurry along, and hope to see you again."

He was off so abruptly that Miss Ellis was left there gasping on the steps.

Ten minutes later he was stepping from the elevator and striding down the office-building hall.

Dorothy was not yet in the corridor. He opened the office, beheld a number of notes and letters on the floor, and was taking them up when Dorothy came in, breathless, her eyes ablaze with excitement.

"Jerold!" she started. "Please lock the door and——" when she was interrupted by the entrance of a man.

Dorothy gave a little cry and fled behind the desk.

Garrison faced the intruder, a tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed man with a long mustache—a person with every mark of the gentleman upon him.

"Well, sir," said Garrison, in some indignation, "what can I do for you?"

"We'll wait a minute and see," said the stranger. "My name is Jerold Fairfax, and I came to claim my wife."

Garrison almost staggered. It was like a bolt from the bluest sky, where naught but the sun of glory had been visible.

"Dorothy! What does he mean?" he said, turning at once to the girl.

She sank weakly to a chair and could not meet the question in his eyes.

"Didn't you hear what I said?" demanded the visitor. "This is my wife and I'd like to know what it means, you or somebody else passing yourself off in my place!"

Garrison still looked at Dorothy.

"This isn't true, what the man is saying?" he inquired.

She tried to look up. "I—I—— Forgive me, please," she said. "He's—He followed me here——"

"Certainly I followed," interrupted the stranger. "Why wouldn't I follow my wife? What does this mean, all this stuff they've been printing in the papers about some man passing as your husband?" He snatched out a newspaper abruptly, and waved it in the air.

"And if you're the man," he added, turning to Garrison, "I'll inform you right now——"

"That will do for you," Garrison interrupted. "This lady has come to my office on a matter of business. My services to her have nothing to do with you or any of your claims. And let me impress upon you the fact that her affairs with me are private in character, and that you are here uninvited."

"The devil I am!" answered Fairfax, practically as cool as Garrison himself. "I'll inform you that a man needs no invitation from a stranger, lawyer, detective, or otherwise, to seek the presence of his wife. And now that I've found her I demand that she come along with me!"

Dorothy started to her feet and fled behind Garrison.

"Please don't let him stay!" she said. "Don't let him touch me, please!"

Garrison faced the intruder calmly.

"I permit no one to issue orders in this office, either to me or my clients," he said. "Unless you are a far better man than I, you will do nothing to compel this lady to depart until she wishes to do so. You will oblige me by leaving my office."

"I'll do nothing of the sort!" answered Fairfax. "Your bluff sounds big, but I'm here to call it, understand? Dorothy, I command you to come."

"I will not go with such a man as you!" she cried in a sudden burst of anger. "You left me shamefully, half an hour after we were married! You've been no husband to me! You have only come back because you heard there might be money! I never wish to see you again!"

"Well, you're going to hear from me, now!" said Fairfax. "As for you, Mr. Garrison, assuming my name and——"

He was making a movement toward his pocket, throwing back his coat.

"Drop that!" interrupted Garrison. He had drawn his revolver with a quickness that was startling. "Up with your hand!"

Fairfax halted his impulse. His hand hung oscillating at the edge of his coat. A ghastly pallor overspread his face. His eyes took on a look of supernatural brightness. His mouth dropped open. He crouched a trifle forward, staring fixedly at the table. His hand had fallen at his side. He began to whisper:

"His brains are scattered everywhere, I see them—see them—everywhere—everywhere!" His hand came up before his eyes, the fingers spread like talons. He cried out brokenly, and, turning abruptly, hastened through the door, and they heard him running down the hall.

Dorothy had turned very white. She looked at Garrison almost wildly.

"That's exactly what he said before," she said, "when he pushed me from the train and ran away."

"What does it mean?" said Garrison, tense with emotion. "What have you done to me, Dorothy? He isn't your husband, after all?"

Dorothy sank once more in the chair. She looked at Garrison appealingly.

"I married him," she moaned. "He's crazy!"

Garrison, too, sat down. His pistol he dropped in his pocket.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I was afraid," she confessed. "I thought you wouldn't consent to be—to be—what you have been."

"Of course I wouldn't," Garrison responded. "What have I got myself into? Why did you do it?"

"I had to," she answered weakly. "Please don't scold me now—even if you have to desert me." Her voice broke in one convulsive sob, but she mastered herself sharply. "I'll go," she added, struggling to her feet. "I didn't mean to get you into all this——"

"Dorothy, sit down," he interrupted, rising instantly and placing his hand on her shoulder. "I didn't mean it—didn't mean what I said. I shan't desert you. I love you—I love you, Dorothy!"

She turned one hurt look upon him, then sank on the desk to cover her face.

"Oh, don't, don't, don't!" she said. "You haven't any right——"

"Forgive me," he pleaded. "I didn't intend to let you know. I didn't intend to use my position for anything like that. Forgive me—forget what I said—and let me serve you as I have before, with no thought of anything but—earning the money, my fee."

He turned away, striking his fist in his palm, and went across to the window.

For nearly five minutes neither spoke. Dorothy, torn by emotions too great to be longer restrained, had controlled her sobs almost immediately, but she had not dared to raise her eyes. She sat up at last, and with gaze averted from the figure against the square of light, composed herself as best she might.

"What is there we can do?" she said at last. "If you wish to be released from your—your position——"

"We won't talk of that," he interrupted, still looking out on the roofs below. "I'm in this to stay—till you dismiss me and bid me forget it—forget it and you—forever. But I need your help."

"I have made it very hard, I know," she said. "If I've acted deceitfully, it was the only way I thought I could do."

"Please tell me about this man Fairfax," he requested, keeping his back toward her as before. "You married him, where?"

"At Rockbeach, Massachusetts."

She was businesslike again.

"To satisfy the condition in your uncle's will?"

"No," the confession came slowly, but she made it with courage. "I had known him for quite a long time. He had—he had courted me a year. He was always a gentleman, cultured, refined, and fascinating in many ways. I thought I was in—I thought I was fond of him, very. He was brilliant—and romantic—and possessed of many qualities that appealed to me strongly. I'm quite sure now he exercised some spell upon me—but he was kind—and I believed him—that's all."