Part 4

Pemmican gulped. After a second he answered:--

"Challoner."

"Laurie Challoner? You don't say!" ejaculated Broderick. That was all the surprise manifested. Challoner's proclivities were too well known to everybody in the room; besides, Cradlebaugh's was always expecting the unexpected to happen.

"Challoner," exclaimed Thorne with a show of satisfaction, "is a client of mine!"

Broderick's eyes brightened.

"Great! That simplifies matters. You'll defend him?"

"I shall," admitted Thorne, "if he be apprehended."

"But we must fix it so that he won't be," remarked Broderick.

"Or, if apprehended," continued Thorne, "so that he won't be brought to trial." And turning again to Pemmican: "Where is Challoner?"

Pemmican spread his hands apart, shrugged his shoulders and finally answered:--

"Gone--nobody knows where."

Just then the telephone bell rang. Pemmican answered it, listened for an instant and then resigned the receiver as he called:--

"Captain, it's for you."

The captain with some trepidation seized the instrument, and talked in low tones while the rest remained silent. Finally he hung up the receiver and announced:--

"It's my office. Murgatroyd is there now." The captain looked worried as he declared: "He wants to talk to me."

"Let him wait!" Broderick blustered out. Nevertheless a shadowy gloom settled down upon them all. Thorne was the first to break the silence.

"If Murgatroyd drags Cradlebaugh's into this murder case there'll be the devil to pay."

"He's got to keep it out," insisted Broderick. "Confound it! If he drags Cradlebaugh's into it, he'll drag into it his own organisation! He doesn't know the men who are behind it--its party affiliations, its patrons. If he makes this case a handle for his confounded investigations--well----"

"He will!" interrupted the captain of police. "See if he don't..."

"What if he does?" protested Broderick. "There isn't a grand jury ever been picked that would indict Cradlebaugh's! And there you are!"

"So long as public opinion don't get to work," ventured the captain.

Broderick started.

"You've hit the nail upon the head, captain," he assented, as he smote the table with his clenched fist. "That's why I'm worried. If public opinion gets to work, why say, it will----"

"Keep cool now, keep cool," counselled Thorne. "I'll see Murgatroyd," he went on; "this is the time of all times that he's got to do what we tell him to do; and if he don't--we'll break him on the wheel!"

Thorne smiled and jerked his head toward Pemmican.

"We even have the sole witness to this tragedy in the hollow of our hands."

There was a gentle tap on the door. Pemmican opened it and held a whispered conversation with one of the attendants of the house. Then he came back into the room and looking at the captain, he said:--

"They say down-stairs that two of the prosecutor's men were seen leaving the 'Elevated' a few minutes ago, and that they were working their way over to the West."

"Jumpin' Jerusalem!" exclaimed the captain, leaping to his feet. "They're coming here. That ends me--I'm off!" He caught up his cap and disappeared.

Pemmican once more locked the door; then Broderick resumed the conversation.

"By George, that's so!" he said to Thorne. "Pemmican is _the_ witness; we can keep him muzzled."

Pemmican edged forward from his position near the wall. Advancing to the table he placed both hands upon it and looked at the two men belligerently.

"But you won't keep me muzzled!" he exclaimed.

Broderick gasped:

"W--what?"

Pemmican drew himself together. Hitherto his attitude had been one of fearful deference toward Thorne; now he was defiant.

"You can't keep me muzzled!" he repeated.

Broderick took a long breath and rose as though to throttle Pemmican. Thorne waved him to his seat.

"Pemmican," said Thorne, "you need some sleep."

"I don't need sleep nor coaching either," retorted Pemmican. "I'm going to tell the truth about this murder."

"Well," said Broderick soothingly; "you've told it--to us."

Thorne fastened Pemmican with his cold, penetrating glance of displeasure. Pemmican shivered, but was game.

"This murder," Pemmican maintained desperately, "was committed by Challoner in Room A of this gambling house! I don't care if the house does pay me my salary, I don't care if I am in charge here, the house can't make me lie!" He paused for a moment and then went on:--

"This killing followed a row over a game of cards. I heard the row; I saw the shooting; and it's up to me to lay my cards down on the table. I'll give up what I know!"

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" said Thorne threateningly.

"I'll do nothing else!" retorted Pemmican hotly.

"If Murgatroyd comes here," suggested Broderick, "or sends for you, you keep mum--do you understand? That's your game! We'll take care of you the same as we are going to take care of the captain. He's true blue; and you've got to be true blue." And pointing toward Thorne, he added:--

"There's Thorne--he's your counsel, too. You do as he says, and he'll take care of you."

"I can take care of myself," returned Pemmican, doggedly, "and I'm going to do it. I'm going to tell the truth about this thing to Murgatroyd!"

There was another knock upon the door--a short, sharp, curt, commanding knock. Pemmican sprang to the door, unlocked it and threw it open.

Three men entered: One was Mixley; another McGrath--both detectives in the employ of the prosecutor's office in the court-house; and the third man was William Murgatroyd, the newly elected prosecutor of the pleas.

V

The yellow light of the early June afternoon grew softer as it sank into, and was absorbed by, the deepening dusk; but to Miriam Challoner, propped up with red silk cushions in a strange attitude of expectancy, these things had ceased to matter; for out of her life a living presence had gone, leaving a void more harsh than death. For weeks now she had patiently waited, her ear strained at every sound, trying to associate it somehow with her husband's return; the servants seemed to tread on tiptoe, as they went about their duties; the house was curiously hushed as though listening, always listening.

The room that she was in was beautifully proportioned and panelled in dull red; there were numerous divans well furnished with cushions and upholstered in the same hue as the walls; and as her eyes wandered over its rare pictures, bronzes and costly knick-knacks, she was reminded of the early days of her married life, when it had been her purpose to make this--Lawrence's room--as attractive and pleasing to him as money could make it. Fate, indeed, had played havoc with their lives; nothing was left but the memory of the happiness that once had been hers.

"Oh, why doesn't he come!" she cried, an agony of despair in her voice, and began to pace the room in nervous agitation.

At that moment a man noiselessly entered the room. She did not hear him until, suddenly looking round, she saw Stevens, the butler, advancing respectfully toward her. For an instant it startled her; disappointment and embarrassment struggled within her; finally she asked somewhat fretfully:--

"What are you doing here, Stevens--I did not ring--I----"

Stevens held the silver salver before her, on which were several letters. Taking them apathetically from him, she sank back limp among the cushions, her nerves on edge as she proceeded to scan each in turn. There were nine in all--the last of which she quickly tore open as the sole missive fraught with possibility. But she was doomed to disappointment; and handing them back to him, she told him to put them on the desk.

The man complied, and then stood quietly at attention.

"And, Stevens," she added falteringly, "send Foster to me at once."

Stevens turned on the instant and found Foster in a passage-way, shuddering.

"What's the matter with you?" he whispered, at the same time placing his arm about her.

"What are you doing?" exclaimed Foster with indignation, but made no attempt to release herself from his embrace. "Don't you hear the newsboys? What are they saying?" she went on, nestling closer to him. "Listen!"

They did not have long to wait, for just then the hoarse, raucous voices of the newsboys calling early specials reached their ears; but such words as were at first distinguishable seemed of no importance to them. Then like a bolt from the blue rang out the words:

CHALLONER CAUGHT IN CHICAGO!

"They've caught him!" the maid almost shrieked, pushing Stevens violently away from her; and starting in obedience to her mistress' commands, she added sympathetically:--

"I hope she hasn't heard----"

And as fortune would have it Mrs. Challoner had not heard, but went on to inform the maid that she was going to her room to lie down for a while, ending with:--

"There are some things which I wish you to attend to first, Foster."

On reaching her room, however, Mrs. Challoner abandoned her intention to lie down; apparently calm and collected, she took a seat near the light and started mentally to place her house once more in order. Item after item she checked off from her memorandum upon her household pad until at last, with her finger upon one hasty entry, she looked up and said:--

"Foster, ask Stevens if the stone masons have finished patching up the cellar wall; and then you may fetch me those letters I left on Mr. Challoner's desk."

Meanwhile, the French window looking on the rear porch in Challoner's room slowly opened, and a man quickly but stealthily entered, directed his steps to the table-desk, switched on the green-shaded light there, picked up several letters and proceeded to scan each carefully in turn--just as Mrs. Challoner had done a few moments previous. Suddenly the sound of footsteps reached his ears, and with the same movement that characterised his entrance he retreated to the balcony and disappeared, leaving the French window open behind him. The night was cool, there was a strong breeze from the east, and the chill, spring air poured into the room.

When Foster came into the room a little while later, she saw at once that the green-shaded light on the table-desk had been switched on, and that the letters that her mistress sent for were not there. Then all of a sudden she noticed that the window was open and there was a general air of mystery about the room. She fled into the hall and called:--

"Stevens! Stevens!"

Stevens, who dogged the maid's footsteps and who was generally to be found in her vicinity, was soon on the scene.

"See! The window's open!" she whispered tremblingly.

Stevens shook his head.

"I locked it myself," he said, going over to it to examine the lock.

"It has been forced," he informed her, and beckoned to her to come and look at it.

With the gloom which the newsboys' cry had cast over them, the sight of the broken fastening filled them with horror.

"Who did it?" wailed Foster.

Stevens stepped out upon the porch; there was no one there. He glanced into the restricted space below; he saw nothing, heard nothing. So he stepped back into the room and closed the window, and looked at Foster with significance. Finally he answered:--

"One of those stone masons must have done it. He looked queer, acted queer; that is, to me."

Foster caught him by the arm.

"Could he have anything to do--with the case?" she gulped.

Stevens pointed hastily about the room at various objects of value easily appropriated.

"Just like as not," he answered. "If it was a thief, he'd have taken that an' that an' that----"

"Isn't it terrible!" gasped Foster; "and isn't it shivery and cold!" She seized a match, crossed over to the fireplace and lit the fire.

"What's that?" she started suddenly.

There was an almost unheard tinkle of an altogether unseen bell; and before its sound died away Stevens had stolen from the room and plunged almost headlong down the stairs. Foster quickly followed him to the door, where she encountered Mrs. Challoner coming down the hall.

"I thought I heard the door-bell just now?" she asked; for while oblivious to the noises of the street, there was little that occurred indoors these days that escaped her notice.

"Yes, ma'am," Foster stammered; "Stevens is answering it."

One glance at the maid's face, however, had sufficed to convince her mistress that something had happened; and for a moment it took all the courage she could summon to her aid to keep her from breaking down completely.

"What is it? Speak!" she exclaimed in a tremulous voice; and then without waiting for an answer, for the sound of voices in the hall below reached her ears: "If that's somebody to see me, I don't want to see them--I don't want to see anybody--I can't see anybody--I won't!..." she ended almost hysterically; and gathering her trailing skirts in her hands, she fled to her room.

But no sooner had she reached the door than Shirley Bloodgood followed on her heels.

"It's I, Miriam," she began; "and how are you, dear?" And without further ceremony she pulled off her gloves, tossed off her hat and planted herself in a chair.

"I just simply couldn't stay away from you any longer," she declared. "I know you don't want me here, but I can't leave you."

Miriam Challoner sank weakly at a table and covered her face with her hands. Alone with the servants, she had borne up, but in the presence of the strong, sympathetic girl, Mrs. Challoner's courage vanished. Finally she leaned toward her visitor, and asked, a world of pathos in the question:--

"Is--is there any news outside?"

Shirley glanced at the fire sputtering in the grate; she hesitated imperceptibly, then she answered:--

"None--I--I haven't seen the papers--no, there's nothing new."

Mrs. Challoner rose, staggered across the room to the girl and threw her arms about her.

"Shirley, Shirley, I'd have gone mad, I think, if you hadn't come!" she cried, and fell to sobbing; but after a moment she straightened up again. There was a defiant look in her face now, a tremor in the voice that said: "I don't care what he's done--I want Laurie to come back, do you understand? I want him back--I want him...."

Shirley Bloodgood bit her lips.

"I know, I know, Miriam--I do understand----"

"Oh, but you can't understand," she persisted; "you haven't a husband and you don't know ..."

"Yes, yes, Miriam, I know," were the only words that rose to the girl's lips to comfort her, for at that moment the faint sound of the insistent door-bell broke in upon them.

Mrs. Challoner's slight frame shook with sudden agitation as she exclaimed:--

"That door-bell will drive me crazy!" And almost instantly recovering her composure she gasped:--

"If it should be Laurie!"

The girl glanced at the smouldering fire in the grate, where to her excited fancy in all their hideousness rose before her the headlines she had read in the evening papers: "Challoner Caught In Chicago!"

"It isn't Laurie," Miriam went on; "no, of course not; but whoever it is, Shirley, you must see them for me--unless it should be--" she faltered. "Then come back, but don't leave me to-night--you'll stay, won't you?"

"Yes," the girl assured her. "But you must promise me that you'll rest for a little while--there--on that sofa. Then we'll have a bite together, and----"

Without a word Miriam Challoner went over to the sofa, and soon gave way to the first sleep she had had in many days.

"How are we ever going to break the news to her," sighed Shirley, as she noiselessly crept from the room. Just outside of the door she encountered Stevens, and quickly placing her finger on her lips, she motioned him to be silent. When they were well out of hearing he announced in a confidential tone:--

"Mr. Murgatroyd, Miss Bloodgood."

"Mr. Murgatroyd! William Murgatroyd? What does he want, Stevens?" She was plainly excited.

"Sh-h-h!" warned Stevens gently; "he's the prosecutor of the pleas."

"Oh, then it _is_ Mr. William Murgatroyd. But what does he want?"

Stevens shook his head, for they were now well in hearing. The next moment Shirley Bloodgood had entered the drawing-room and stood gazing into the face of William Murgatroyd.

For an instant the man started back; he could not believe his own eyes.

"Shirley Bloodgood!" The name fell incredulously from his lips. "You here?"

Shirley held out her hand.

"And you--what are you doing here?" she asked quickly. "I didn't know that you were a friend of the family?"

Tall, well-built, with a smooth-shaven face, a square chin and a nose that stood well out into the air, Murgatroyd was a man who appeared to be without enthusiasm; but although sharp and business-like, his manner was easy. Turning to Shirley, he came to the point at once.

"I want to see Mrs. Challoner," he announced. "But I'm glad you're here, for I don't know her very well, and----"

"You can't very well see her now," Shirley interrupted, shaking her head. "She's frightfully unstrung--she's ill. You know it's almost three weeks now since Laurie first went away, and----"

"I know," he broke in just a bit impatiently.

"What?" Shirley gasped, the truth at last dawning upon her; "you don't mean to say that you're here in--in your official capacity?"

Murgatroyd smiled grimly.

"It's the only capacity in which I'm likely to be here, Shirley," he reminded her.

"But," she protested, "I thought they left these things to----"

"The police," he finished; and again smiled grimly. "They do, but there are reasons--You see," he went on to explain, "since I was appointed prosecutor of the pleas, I've turned up a thing or two in the Police Department, and, well, the Police Department and I are somewhat out of tune. This case they have put up to me and my men----"

"Surely you can't mean to imply that you have to do this kind of thing yourself?" The girl looked askance.

Murgatroyd raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, it's up to me...."

Shirley shifted her position. She didn't like Murgatroyd in this new role, and yet there was something in the grim determination of the man that pleased her.

"I am sorry to remind you," he went on, the full responsibility of his office upon him, "that I am here to see Mrs. Challoner; to find out where Challoner is; to persuade her to persuade him to come back." Murgatroyd chopped out the sentences as though he were a machine.

"Then he wasn't caught in Chicago!" Shirley exclaimed almost jubilantly; and then touching him on the arm a bit familiarly, she added:--

"Billy, you don't really believe that Laurie murdered Colonel Hargraves?"

Murgatroyd laughed a short laugh.

"If I didn't know you, Shirley, I should imagine you were sparring for time.... If I didn't know you I wouldn't answer your questions. As it is, I must answer them in the same way that I would do anything you asked of me--short of crime."

"If you put it that way," returned Shirley, drawing away from him, her tone growing cold, "you needn't answer me at all."

Murgatroyd did not heed her.

"I don't know," he went on evasively, "whether Challoner murdered Hargraves or not."

"You don't know ..."

"No," returned the prosecutor; "so far the evidence is purely circumstantial."

Shirley Bloodgood had been hanging on his words. She drew a long breath and echoed excitedly: "Circumstantial--" There was a flicker of a smile on her face as she added:--

"Then the newspapers were wrong when they said it was a certainty!..."

Murgatroyd held up his hand and went on to explain:--

"What I tell you is confidential--you understand?"

"Yes, yes," she said impatiently; "but tell me about it--the real facts--that is, if you can."

"There's no reason why I shouldn't, I suppose," said the prosecutor of the pleas. "The real facts as we have them ... as we have them, mind, are simple. Challoner quarrelled with Colonel Hargraves----"

"What about?" asked Shirley impulsively.

Murgatroyd flushed.

"That makes no difference," he answered with some confusion; "the point is that they were enemies. It was a quarrel in which the passions of each were roused to the utmost. To make a long story short, Colonel Hargraves won ten thousand dollars at Gravesend--the men met in Cradlebaugh's--another quarrel followed----"

"And then?"

"Then," went on the prosecutor, "they parted. That was all--save at two o'clock next morning Hargraves was found in the street back of Cradlebaugh's with a bullet through his heart."

Shirley was quivering with suppressed excitement; nevertheless, she managed to ask:--

"What does that prove?"

"Nothing--only a man named Pemmican of Cradlebaugh's witnessed both quarrels--and Challoner has run away. Looks bad for Challoner, I should say."

"But," persisted Shirley, "surely that evidence is not conclusive...."

"One moment, please," went on the prosecutor calmly; "Hargraves had the ten thousand dollars in cash with him, and----"

"That is conclusive," she commented. "Surely you don't think Lawrence would steal?"

Prosecutor Murgatroyd paused for an instant and placed finger-tip against finger-tip, then he answered slowly:--

"Frankly speaking, I do. I believe," he went on, speaking as though with conviction, "that Challoner would do anything."

Shirley shook her head.

"It's impossible! Why, the Challoners have any amount of money!"

Murgatroyd shrugged his shoulders.

"Challoner's wife has, but----"

"It's the same thing," Shirley protested; "and she just adores him--you do not know how much she adores him, Billy!"

Again Murgatroyd shrugged his shoulders.

"But how about him?"

The girl shook her head and answered somewhat sadly:--

"I know, I know, she's blind to everything, Miriam is ..."

Once more she placed her hand on Murgatroyd's arm, unconsciously, impersonally but impulsively.

"Oh, it's perfectly dreadful, the whole thing!"

Unwittingly, Murgatroyd changed his mood to meet hers.

"Yes," he said, "to have ruined himself like this! It's a tragedy to see a man like Challoner go down hill. In the old days he was such a decent chap."

"You were a friend of his, weren't you?"

"Yes, before he married, when he was poor and decent like the rest of us--yes, I was a friend of his."

Shirley Bloodgood drew her brows together.

"Indeed! You must have been a good friend to let him take his downward course."

For an instant this imputation seemed to rest heavily on Murgatroyd's shoulders; but he cast it from him quickly with a sigh, and answered:--

"A man's best friends are like a man's good wife; they do not desert him, whatever happens; he deserts them. And so it was with Challoner."

"And so at the last he has no friends?"

"Evidently not, save a flock of vampires that feed upon his purse and will continue to feed so long as he has a purse." He pulled out his watch. "But," he protested, "I am wasting time--I--Oh, pardon me," he quickly corrected, flushing with embarrassment, "I did not mean my time, exactly; but frankly, I must see Mrs. Challoner."

Shirley shook her head.

"Miriam Challoner is ill, much too ill to see any one. She gave orders----"

"Excuse me, but Mrs. Challoner is not too ill," persisted Murgatroyd, "to walk from room to room. My men have seen her through the windows. I wish you would say to her, please, that I must see her."

Seeing the futility of resisting further, Shirley made a movement to go.

"Oh, I can't tell her!" she cried. "I'll ring for Stevens." She rang. "Stevens," she said, as he came into the room, "will you tell your mistress--Oh, I can't--I can't," she faltered.

Murgatroyd stepped into the breach.

"I am the prosecutor of the pleas," he said to Stevens, "tell her that, and that I'm sorry to disturb her, but I must see her."

The servant left the room. Shirley sank into a chair and half covered her face with her hands.

"I don't believe--I never will believe that Lawrence did these things!"

There was a pause. After a moment Murgatroyd remarked half aloud:--

"There is but one way to reform a man like that----"