Part 6

And now again the bell; and a moment later Murgatroyd, the prosecutor, stood in the doorway. The heat of much haste was on his brow; he looked neither at Mrs. Challoner nor at Shirley; it was toward Challoner and his men that he directed his gaze.

"Has he talked?" Murgatroyd asked, standing over Challoner.

"No," answered the men, "he ain't awake yet."

"Lift him to his feet," ordered the prosecutor.

The men did so.

And then it was that the women heard him say in a tone that cut into their souls:--

"Challoner, wake up! This is Murgatroyd, prosecutor of the pleas." It was a summons; Challoner obeyed it. He opened his eyes, closed them, yawned stupidly, and then, awake, stood squarely on his feet without any help.

"Hello, Murgatroyd!" he said.

"Challoner," said Murgatroyd severely, "remember that I am not here as your friend--I am the prosecutor, do you hear?"

"I understand," said Challoner.

"Very well then," went on Murgatroyd, "you know why I am here. You are charged--I charge you now, Challoner, with the murder of Colonel Richard Hargraves. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly," was Challoner's reply. "You want to take me into custody? All right--only let me sleep when I get there, will you? I----"

"Wait a minute, Challoner," persisted Murgatroyd. "It's my duty to inform you that anything you say will be used against you. You must not forget that I am the prosecutor."

Miriam came forward quickly.

"Oh, Laurie, dear, don't say anything, just yet," she cried in alarm.

Shirley seconded her warning, saying quickly:--

"Don't say a word to Mr. Murgatroyd until you have seen a lawyer."

Challoner, still sullen, looked over his shoulder at his wife.

"Who's saying all this? Only a lot of women--what do they know?" And turning back to Murgatroyd: "See here, Murgatroyd, let's get this straight, shall we?" And he looked him full in the eye. "You're the prosecutor--and anything I say will be used against me. Is that right? Well, this little matter is just as simple as A, B, C." And suddenly drawing himself up to his full height, he went on in a loud, clear voice:--

"I waited for Richard Hargraves with----"

"I warned you," cried Murgatroyd, stretching forth a hand.

Challoner scornfully refused to listen.

"... and when I found him--" he glanced about him defiantly and gave an imitation of a man taking aim and shooting. "There, now, you know the facts."

Murgatroyd turned to his two men.

"It's a case of wilful, deliberate, premeditated murder--murder in the first degree. Take him away!"

Shirley was on her feet in an instant.

"Oh, Mr. Challoner," she cried, springing forward, "why did you tell him?"

"Come on!" Challoner called out gruffly to the men. "Take me away!" He did not even glance at his wife, who clung to the girl, and sobbed on her breast.

The prosecutor nodded to his subordinates, and immediately they seized Challoner by the arm and started toward the door.

"No, no," cried Miriam, tearing herself from Shirley's hold, "don't take him away!" And again and again with all the force left in her: "No! No! No!--Oh, Laurie!----"

The doors closed behind the men. Then Miriam sank down upon the soiled sofa where he had lain, and sobbed as though her heart would break.

VII

On the morning after Challoner's arrest the prosecutor of the pleas was sitting at his desk in his private office in the court-house when Mixley and McGrath entered.

"You've done as I instructed? You've got Challoner outside?" the prosecutor asked.

The men replied in the affirmative.

"Bring him in," commanded Murgatroyd.

In a few minutes they returned with the prisoner. Challoner looked better than he had the night before. In a thoroughly impersonal way, curtly but not unpleasantly, Murgatroyd addressed him.

"Good-morning! How do you feel?"

The prisoner, still half man, growled:--

"Better. I got some sleep, but I'm still tired as thunder."

"I sent for you this morning," went on the prosecutor, "because of what you said last night. I am not sure that you meant all you said--indeed whether you remember it?"

This interrogation evidently struck Challoner as amusingly superfluous, for he laughed aloud; but the laughter had a note of aching bravado.

"Of course, I remember it," he said presently, and pointing with a steady forefinger to a weapon on the prosecutor's desk, "I shot him with that gun there."

Murgatroyd could not restrain a movement of surprise at Challoner's _Sang Froid_; neither could those trained witnesses, Mixley and McGrath, leaning well forward lest they should miss a word.

"Most decidedly, then," continued the prosecutor, "you do not recall that I told you that anything you might say would----"

"I heard all you said," the prisoner broke in, shrugging his shoulders, "but what's the use--it had to come--I knew it. I was getting tired of hiding in out-of-the-way places, and never having a wink of sleep. Besides, I knew that Pemmican--Cradlebaugh's man--saw the whole affair. There was no sense in trying to escape."

Murgatroyd's face adequately expressed his approval of the prisoner's point of view. His voice, however, was distinctly non-committal in tone when he observed easily:--

"Pemmican saw it all, then?"

"Certainly he did," Challoner volunteered.

There was a short pause, in which the prosecutor turned over some papers lying on his desk; when he spoke again he did so without looking up from the documents he was scanning.

"I haven't examined Pemmican--my men have, though," he said. "I've got him under lock and key; he's in the house of detention; and he'll have to stay there until----"

Challoner moistened his lips.

"Until my trial, I suppose," he interposed. "Poor devil! That's hard lines!"

The prosecutor ignored the comment, but he reminded the prisoner again that he must be careful not to say anything that could be used against him, concluding with:--

"You came here from the jail quite willingly this morning?"

"Don't you think we can cut all that sort of thing out, Mr. Prosecutor?" a little scornfully.

Before answering, Murgatroyd shot a glance at his men as if to sharpen their attention.

"Very well, then," he said finally, "if you're quite willing I should like to know the exact details. As I understand it, both Hargraves and you were fatally infatuated with an actress at the Frivolity--quarrelled over her--is that right?"

Challoner reddened. For an instant a wild look came into his eyes.

"Surely there is no necessity of bringing any other names into this," he answered hotly; and then little by little calming down he recounted graphically all the incidents leading to and of that memorable night, saying in conclusion:--

"... And then Room A at Cradlebaugh's and----"

A most unusual performance on the part of the prosecutor cut him short. All the time Challoner had been laying bare the facts as he remembered them, Murgatroyd had been toying silently with a pigskin wallet on which appeared in gold the initials: "R. H."; and just when his prisoner was on the point of ending his story, he tossed it over to him.

Challoner caught it "on the fly."

"Do you recognise that?" Murgatroyd demanded. The prosecutor desired, if possible, to add robbery to the motive in the case.

Challoner never winked an eyelash.

"Know it?" he replied glibly, "I should think I did! It was Hargraves's. When I saw it last there was ten thousand dollars in it." And turning it almost inside out, he asked in an offhand manner:--

"Where's the money gone?"

Murgatroyd's eyes searched the face of the man before him as if he would read his very soul.

"You took it," he asserted coldly.

Challoner passed his hand across his face, striving to clear away his muddled recollections.

"I took it? Decidedly not!" he exclaimed indignantly. But the man's dipsomaniacal doubts and fears tinged the tone of his voice and lessened the impressiveness of his denial, though he added: "Why, your witness, Pemmican, can tell you that--he saw the whole thing."

Mixley and McGrath had something to say now. In chorus they wanted particularly to know whether Challoner was positive that Pemmican saw "the whole thing." This joint interrogation seemed to have an irritating effect on the prisoner; and when Murgatroyd silenced them by inquiring of Challoner whether it was not a fact that he had tried to borrow money all over town, the "Yes" he elicited was muttered angrily.

"But I didn't touch that," Challoner resumed, the beads of perspiration standing out on his brow. "In any event, it is not one of the main facts in my memory. If I did take the money, what in the world have I done with it--tell me that? But look here, Murgatroyd, let's get down to business and have this over with. I'm tired of the whole affair. I told you that I waited for Hargraves for two nights. We had a game in Room A--there was a compact--Hargraves won out! Hang him, he always won out! We had a row then and there.... I pulled that gun and fired at him point blank!"

"And then?"

"I killed him; and I would do it over again, I assure you. I don't remember any more--but Pemmican was there--you've got his story--he knows all about it."

"His story," observed Murgatroyd, laying a forefinger on the edge of the desk, "amounts to just what you said last night--that drunk and sober, you watched your chance, and when you got it, you made good--or bad, whichever way you please."

"You've got it," returned Challoner, "now take me back."

There was a loud rap on the door. Mixley answered it, and left the room, holding a conversation in somewhat strenuous tones on the other side. He returned in an instant.

"It's Counsellor Thorne," he announced to the prosecutor. "He wants to see you."

Murgatroyd shook his head impatiently. He and Thorne did not pull well together.

"Tell him to wait," he said brusquely.

"He won't wait," persisted Mixley. "He insists...."

"You tell him that he's got to wait," returned Murgatroyd.

But Thorne did not wait. No sooner had Mixley left the room than Thorne entered and strode up to the prosecutor's desk. Mixley followed him.

Resting one hand on the table Thorne waved the other toward Challoner.

"Murgatroyd," he cried fiercely, with an injured air, "what's this? You call yourself a reputable member of the bar; you call yourself a reform prosecutor of the pleas; this is a most unfair advantage."

Murgatroyd sighed wearily.

"What now, Thorne, what now?"

"Most unfair," repeated the other counsellor-at-law. "You've got my client here--my client!"

Murgatroyd looked at Mixley and then at McGrath.

"Your client! Where is your client?"

"There he is," pointing, "James Lawrence Challoner!"

Murgatroyd rose and said suavely:--

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Thorne. Are you retained? I didn't know. Challoner said nothing of it. Why didn't you tell me, Mr. Challoner?"

"I didn't know it," Challoner told him shortly. "But it's all right--I suppose Mrs. Challoner retained him."

"Yes, she did," Thorne informed him.

"Well, I'm sorry, Thorne," said Murgatroyd. "If I had known you were in the case----"

"Sorry!" echoed Thorne. "This is outrageous! I went up to the jail this morning and my client was not there." He waved his arm as if addressing a jury. "And when they told me that you--you had the effrontery to have him brought down here--for the third degree--This is a matter for the _Morning Mail_."

Murgatroyd lolled back in his chair and lit a fresh cigar. Presently he said:--

"Thorne, my duty is to the people as well as to your client; so far I've done my duty to both. Go to the _Morning Mail_ if you want to."

"And leave my client here alone!" said Thorne, doggedly. He shook his head to let Challoner see what a determined man he was.

Murgatroyd leaned back over his desk and for a moment busied himself with his papers. Then he announced:--

"Mr. Thorne, your client is going back to jail at once;" and added jokingly: "If you wish to ride with him in the van, you may do so." And with that he ordered Challoner taken away.

Before going, Challoner stretched out his hand and said half genially:--

"I've no fault to find with you, Mr. Prosecutor; it had to come to this."

"But I won't forget this--not for a moment, Prosecutor Murgatroyd," said Thorne grandiloquently, as he stalked out of the door, followed by the prisoner and his guards.

After the men had left Murgatroyd paced the floor for a while in deep meditation. Something in the prisoner's attitude had moved him, puzzled him. "There's a discrepancy somewhere," he told himself; "and yet where the deuce is it?--Challoner killed this man as sure as fate. The motive, the opportunity, were there.... And then there's his confession.... But--" He pushed a button; and when McGrath answered the call he was ordered to have Pemmican sent down from the house of detention, his order ending with: "I wish to see him at once."

"Yes, sir." The officer then placed a card upon the prosecutor's desk and added: "That's a party who wants to see you, sir."

Murgatroyd picked up the card negligently and glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. Instantly a dull flush mounted to his face, and rising to his feet, he said:--

"Tell the lady to come in, please."

VIII

There was a flush on the face of Shirley Bloodgood as she entered the prosecutor's office, which was fully as deep as that on the face of the man eagerly awaiting her. Jauntily she held out a gloved hand and said with a breeziness that was perhaps a trifle forced:--

"You must excuse me, Mr. Prosecutor; I'm quite alone--" and she drew attention to her unconventional act by placing her finger on her lips, which were pursed into a big O--"I have no chaperone."

"Won't I answer?" suggested the prosecutor lightly, as he took her hand; and placing a chair close to his desk, "Sit here, please."

"The fact that I'm alone," went on Shirley, taking the seat indicated, but moving it a little farther away from him, "should prove conclusively that I'm not afraid to beard the lion in his den."

"Did it require so very--much courage?" he asked with mock seriousness.

Shirley made a little moue.

"After last night, seems to me you're a bear."

Murgatroyd seated himself; it was thoroughly characteristic that he should waste little time on a preliminary skirmish with any one.

"Then it _is_ about this Challoner affair that you have come to see me?" he asked tactlessly. "I warn you, Shirley--don't! Hands off!----"

At once Shirley assumed an aggressive, business-like attitude; close to his desk she drew her chair, and then leaning on both elbows looked Murgatroyd squarely in the face and said with great earnestness:--

"Billy Murgatroyd, you've got to help these people out!"

Murgatroyd flushed and answered with a smile:--

"If such a thing were possible, Shirley, you're the one person to make me do it."

His compliment found her unresponsive; she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts.

"You must do it," she persisted, and looked at him appealingly. "Of course the man could not have been himself."

"Probably not," he said coldly. "But of one thing you may be sure, Challoner had a purpose in all this."

Shirley frowned; the man changed the tone of his voice with a versatility that she declared to herself was little short of scandalous; he went on:--

"That purpose was to kill Hargraves. Last night you heard his confession to that effect; this morning he substantiated it in detail."

Shirley wrapped one hand over the other and sat looking at Murgatroyd with white drawn face.

"I suppose you realise that this thing is going to kill Miriam Challoner?"

The man shook his head vigorously.

"Bosh! If grief could kill the woman, living with Challoner would have accomplished that long ago."

"How unfeeling! How like a man! You understand women so well!" she declared, looking up at him with a mocking smile; and then went on to plead: "You must do something--you must get him free! Surely it remains for his friend to do this much for him! You will--won't you?" There was a suspicion of moisture in the girl's eyes.

Shaking his head, Murgatroyd rose and began to pace the floor, not because he wanted to think, but merely to give the girl time to regain her composure. At last he stopped directly in front of her.

"Shirley"--it was surprising how gentle his voice could be at times--"I want you to realise the circumstances of this case, which you seem to have forgotten. In the presence of several people, including yourself, this man has deliberately confessed to a premeditated murder; a man in my custody is a witness to the facts; at least five men know of the motive--his quarrel with Colonel Hargraves. No," he concluded severely, "if Challoner were my brother or my father, more than that, if you were in Challoner's place to-day, I should have to try you--convict you. There would be no escape."

"But the condition that made him do this thing was abnormal," she persisted; "bad companions and bad habits had warped his mind."

"Like other men of his kind," returned Murgatroyd, "Challoner's decent at times--conducts himself like a man; but generally speaking, he's irretrievably bad."

"But can't you delay the trial--get him off in some way--some time? There are ways--the thing is done every day, and you know it."

Murgatroyd smiled grimly.

"My dear girl, if I would do this thing, I couldn't. I shall go a step farther. If I could do it, I wouldn't. I couldn't look you in the face, guilty as I should be of gross malfeasance in my office." He waved his hand in finality. "Not another word on the subject, please."

"You're immovable! You're cruel!" she cried, rising to her feet. "I ought not to have come! However, I have done what I could for a friend," she flung back at him, looking him straight in the eye, and started toward the door.

Murgatroyd blocked her way.

"No," he said good-humouredly, not the least disconcerted by her parting shot, "it's my turn now. You have attempted to corrupt me, swerve me from my duty and----"

"And wasted your time, I suppose, as you were good enough to remind me on a previous occasion," she returned, looking up saucily at him under her lashes.

Murgatroyd was quick to detect her change of mood and took his courage in both hands, saying:--

"Won't you for the moment forget the Challoners, Shirley? Be kind--you give me little opportunity to see you alone these days. Think only of yourself and me----"

"If you're going to make love to me in that awfully serious way of yours or, for that matter, in any other way, I'll go."

"Aren't you going to marry me, Shirley?" he demanded with characteristic directness.

"Same old story," laughed the girl.

"Yes, this is the sixth time now that I've asked you. Again, will you marry me?"

"Don't be silly! This is hardly the place, Billy...."

"I quite agree with you. But one has to make the most of opportunity. As I said before, the occasions are all too rare when I find myself alone with you. And unless you want me to keep asking you, speak the word now, Shirley--make me happy. You may as well say it first as last, for I'm determined to win you--I'm going to have you!" he wound up energetically.

"Sure of that, Billy?" she asked coquettishly.

"Positive." And there was a world of determination in the way he said it.

"Then why bother about my consent?" A flicker of a smile hovered around her lips.

"Why do you persist in refusing me?"

Shirley flushed. She seemed amused and serious, in turn. Finally she looked up at him quizzically for a moment, then asked:--

"Do you really want to know?"

He did not answer the question, but ventured:--

"Is it because of Thorne? Is he my successful rival?"

Shirley looked perturbed. She was struggling for expression.

"No, it's not because of Thorne. I wish it were ..." And after a moment: "Do you still want to know?"

"Yes. I've got to know, Shirley." And he waited for her words as though his life hinged upon them.

"Will you be very quiet and stay right where you are if I tell you?"

"I promise," raising his right hand half playfully.

"Well, then, it's because--I love you," she said easily.

Murgatroyd sprang toward her, the colour rising in his face, fire flashing from his eye.

"Shirley!"

The girl quickly waved him back.

"It's because I love you or believe that I do that I shall never marry you. I mean it," she hastened to add, for the faintest shade of doubt had appeared on his face.

"But why?" he faltered, turning his eyes inquisitively on her.

Shirley sighed unconsciously.

"It is time that I made myself plain, understood to you. Not because you're entitled to an explanation, but because, well, because I like you just a bit----"

Again Murgatroyd took a step forward; but with laughter still lingering in her eyes, the girl made a pretty little movement of her wrist and motioned toward his chair. Instantly he stopped, catching his breath in sheer admiration of her beauty. He was dimly conscious of putting his hands behind his back; it seemed the only means of preventing them from touching her. But now as he gazed upon her, he saw that there was something behind those laughing eyes. A serious look was on her face. She seemed suddenly to have changed. The thousand and one little mannerisms that were so large a part of the girl's attractiveness were all there, but the voice was no longer the mirthful voice of the Shirley that he knew and loved. She spoke as though in a trance:--

"Can you understand me when I say that I have got to have something more than love? I am too practical, Billy, to fool myself--or you! Perhaps I'm cursed with the instincts of my kind--of the American girl. Oh, let me tell you how it is!" she exclaimed impulsively. "All my life I've been surrounded by men who were failures. My grandfather was a failure; my father was a failure; and my brothers are failures. They have tainted my happiness--don't misunderstand me--I love them, but I can't look up to them."

Murgatroyd nodded appreciatively. He believed that he should feel the same way about these men.

"But--you don't want money?" he protested. "You're too much the right sort of an American girl for that."

"No, not exactly money; but the man who appeals to me is one who can surmount all obstacles," she answered with grave tenderness; "who has success running in his veins." Not a shade of her former gravity now showed on the speaker's face; it lighted as if a flame of enthusiasm had escaped from the temple of her soul. She paused for a moment and lifted her head, and in the transporting gaze that seemed to pass beyond him and was lost into space, for the first time the man read and understood the girl's nature.

"Have you ever lain awake at night, Billy, ever curled up on a window-seat in the daytime and planned your future?" She did not wait for an answer, but kept on: "I have; and in these dreams of mine I would always take my place by the side of my great knight errant, helping him to become greater--the damsel riding on the pillion of my lord's war-horse as he goes to war. At times he has been a diplomatist, a jurist, a law-maker; and I have always lent him strength. When I marry, Billy, my husband's work will be my work; his struggles, my struggles; but the man must have greatness running through his veins."

Murgatroyd smiled sheepishly. He had his full proportion of conceit, and he did not quite relish this.

"Then I haven't figured often in the limelight of your dreams?"

"If only you had, Billy, but you haven't, much as I have tried my best to fit my knight's armour on you and place you on his war-horse. Now can't you see what it would mean if we tried the experiment of marriage? Marriage would not make me happy; it would be misery----"

"Misery?" he snatched the word from her lips.