Chapter 16

At a window of the Cosmos Club, overlooking Fifth avenue, two men were seated. It was dusk, and thick shadows filled the unlighted clubroom, concealing the faces of the men from the countless eyes of the men and women passing in parade beneath the window.

From where they sat the two men could observe the endless procession in the street, while keeping an eye on the door leading from the room into the main corridor of the big clubhouse. One of the men--the younger of the two--appeared uneasy over something, even rebellious at times. His sallow complexion had taken on a muddy hue in the semi-darkness of the room, giving his face the appearance of a compact shadow outlined against the heavy brown leather chair in which he sat. From beneath a slightly receding forehead two lusterless eyes peered apprehensively about the room, and each time the door opened the man started violently in his seat.

The occupant of the second chair was a middle-aged man of somewhat ruddy complexion, smooth-shaven, with an expression habitually alert, yet concealed by a free-and-easy manner and an ingratiating smile that seemed to stamp him as one of those genial souls in whom no harm can reside. Yet the younger man appeared to regard him with sullen fear.

"It's a sort of dirty, underhand thing to do, Fanwell," he was protesting to his companion. "Not a bit clubby."

Fanwell remained entirely unabashed beneath this surly reproof.

"Look here, Cooper!" He moved his chair a trifle closer. "You don't have to do it--I can't make you. But you know the consequences. You know as well as I that the chief isn't doing favors for nothing. He let you stay out of jail because he figured on using you some day. Your day of usefulness has arrived. If I could rope Collins without you I'd do it. But I can't play a waiting game. You've got to introduce me and stand by until I tip you off to go!"

Cooper squirmed in his seat. He might revolt at the other's assumption of authority over him, but he was aware that in the end he would surrender. He was not in a position to incur the displeasure of the police.

Thomas Taylor Cooper was one of those men-about-town, without visible means of support, who always manage to maintain an outward show of wealth. No club is so exclusive that it does not contain one or more members of the Cooper type. Their pedigrees are without blemish. Their social position is secure through a long line of honorable ancestors. But their means of livelihood are precarious. Friends and fellow club members may wonder where they obtain the money for their dues, but somehow their curiosity seldom inspires them to investigate.

The Coopers of society and club life have many invisible means of support. There are the climbers, who are easy prey. Then the tailors and haberdashers are glad to furnish free wearing apparel in return for the custom which these men are able to recommend. Caterers, decorators, florists do not balk at paying commissions on contracts. The society papers pay liberally for society scandal. And occasionally, as in every other station of life, there is to be found in the upper circles of society, an idle and discontented woman with more money than prudence.

Cooper had attached himself to one of these women; and, as their relations grew more intimate, he succeeded in attaching himself to some of her rings. Subsequently he met more promising prey and began to neglect the woman whose confidence he had betrayed. At first her jealous rage expended itself in futile appeals to his manhood, his honor, his sense of obligation. Then it occupied itself with plans for revenge. She demanded the return of the jewelry which he had borrowed on one pretense or another. But it had passed long ago to the pawnshops and could not be reclaimed. Seeing an opportunity to humiliate and punish the man, she discarded discretion, and appealed to the police.

As invariably happens in such cases, the woman came to her senses eventually. Cooper found the climate elsewhere more inviting and remained away until the woman realized that she was plunging into a colossal scandal and withdrew her complaint.

But Cooper had placed himself in the power of the police, and now Fanwell did not hesitate to exert that power over him.

"Collins didn't leave the house until to-day," the detective explained. "But he broke loose this afternoon when he learned that his brother-in-law's bank had busted and that all his money is tied up in the failure. He was drunk when he left the house and the chances are he'll be more intoxicated when he drops in here."

"But if it ever gets out that I acted as police agent I'd be shunned by everybody I know," growled Cooper.

"It will never get out," the other promised. "You needn't have a bit of fear."

The shadows in the room lengthened until it was difficult to distinguish the various objects scattered about the place. The few members that had dropped into the club faded into dark images barely discernible in their broad leather chairs. Then, of a sudden, the lights were switched on. The sharp rays that spread from the clusters of electric lamps revealed a man's figure outlined in the doorway. His eyes traveled about the room as if imploring a nod of recognition, but none was vouchsafed him.

"Collins!" exclaimed Cooper in an undertone.

"Get him!" commanded Fanwell. "Remember, I'm a relation of yours--from the West!"

Hiding his reluctancy, Cooper left his seat and advanced toward the doorway.

"Hello, George!" He extended a hand in greeting.

An expression of drunken amazement overspread Collins's dissipated face. He came forward, almost falling on the other man's shoulders.

"Hello, Tom!" he returned the greeting. "Glad there's one man that ain't ashamed to talk to me. Just look at 'em around here! They act as if they didn't know me. That's a hell of a way to treat a good fellow like me, now ain't it? Just because my name's been in the newspapers!"

Cooper led his friend toward the window.

"Glad to have you join me," he said. "I've got a distant relation here--just in from the West. Wants to see the town."

"Rotten town!" growled Collins. "And the people in it--worse! You're the only good fellow, Tom, I've met all afternoon. Everybody else looked at me like I had a knife out for 'em. Had to drink alone every place I went."

Mr. Fanwell greeted the newcomer cordially, bestowing on him a smile so ingratiating as to put Collins immediately at ease.

"You've probably read a bit about Collins in the papers lately," remarked Cooper.

"Not the Mr. Collins mentioned in connection with the Whitmore case?" asked the detective innocently.

"Yes, that's me!" mumbled Collins. Then, in a burst of drunken unconcern,--"And if you want to turn your back on me too, why, you and Tom may do so!"

"Not at all, not at all!" Fanwell hastened to assure him. "I'm glad to know you. Won't you join us in a drink?"

The invitation seemed to mollify Collins. He smiled foolishly and dropped into a chair. But the cold shrugs, the averted faces which he had met all afternoon still preyed on his mind, and, under the stimulus of a fresh drink, he opened the floodgates of his wrath.

"They're a lot of spineless jellyfish in this town," he drawled. "They all believe I killed Whitmore. Well, I'm not saying whether I did or not. But suppose I did kill him? Ain't a man got the right to defend his home? What's this country coming to when a viper can sneak into another man's house and steal his wife? The papers say that I went around threatening to kill him. Well, I did. And I meant it, too. Why, that yellow cur was sending letters to my wife urging her to leave me. What do you think of that?"

Fanwell and Cooper shook their heads gravely, as if in sympathy with him.

"He dishonored my home!" Collins exclaimed with added vehemence. "He stole my wife--he tried to steal her," he corrected with a sly grin. "And that thieving brother of hers was in sympathy with him! Ever heard of anything like that before? A brother approving the liaison between 'em? And now Ward's bank has busted and I'm ruined! Fine state of affairs--what?"

Collins looked musingly out of the window. He was in a talkative mood, yet Fanwell dared not prompt him into further revelations. To manage a drunken man, or one half-drunk, requires exceptional tact. Once his suspicions are aroused, it is impossible to allay them.

Even now it was evident to the detective that Collins wasn't talking as freely as he pretended to be. He still retained a sufficient amount of caution not to plunge into the details of the murder itself. What he said of his wife's relations with Whitmore was simply a repetition of statements he had made at the club and elsewhere before Whitmore's death. Plenty of witnesses could be obtained who would testify to having heard Collins threaten to kill the merchant. But whether he had actually carried out his threat remained to be proved.

Fanwell was aware that at Police Headquarters opinion as to Collins's guilt was divided. Britz did not believe him guilty, Greig seemed hopelessly befuddled by the conflicting evidence, while Chief Manning dared not venture an opinion. But a majority of the other detectives engaged on the case seemed confident that Collins was the man. Fanwell wondered whether Britz had been led into an error of judgment.

Over Collins a slow transformation was creeping. His eyes, which had blazed indignantly while he was talking, now clouded with a dull mist. The tense expression of his face relaxed and his head sank on his shoulders. He was quickly passing into a state of sodden stupefaction.

Being unfamiliar with Collins's habits and his capacity for drink, Fanwell was trying desperately to think of some means of restoring the drunken man to a condition in which his perverted sense of injuries suffered would inspire his tongue to further revelations.

"Is he a chronic drunk or an occasional drinker?" the detective whispered to Cooper.

"Chronic," came the whispered reply.

"Then he'll recover in a few minutes."

They waited while Collins surrendered completely to the conquering stupor, which seemed more like a heavy sleep brought on by physical exhaustion than the overpowering effect of whisky fumes. His heavy eyelids closed, his jaw hung, he breathed through his mouth. After a time Fanwell shook the unconscious Collins until all the drowsiness left him.

"We're going to dinner," he said. "Come and join!"

Collins waved a repudiating hand.

"Don't want any food," he growled. "Give me a drink."

He was induced to accompany his friends into the dining-room. The smell of food provoked his appetite and he ordered an elaborate meal. When it came he could not eat it. But two or three glasses of champagne revived him temporarily, long enough for him to note the chilling contempt with which the other diners in the room regarded him. After indulging in a long volley of profanity, his mood underwent another change. He grew morose, introspective, self-pitying.

"Nobody cares for me!" he whined. "They've all turned against me. But there's one that would have stood by me--she's dead!"

His memory of her grew suddenly tender and tears filled his bleary eyes.

"She was all right--a good girl but stubborn," he proceeded in a maudlin way. "Got the marriage craze! Wanted me to let my wife get a divorce and marry her! She didn't want to live dishonored all her life. And she killed herself--poor Julia!"

As the name dropped from his lips, Collins bolted upright in his chair.

"I'm going to the flat," he said. "That's where I was happy."

"Wait and we'll go with you," suggested Cooper on a nudge from the detective.

"All right," assented Collins. "You're the only friend I've got left."

They hurried through the rest of the meal, then descended to the lobby of the club. While Cooper and Collins waited for their hats and coats, Fanwell darted into the telephone booth and called up Police Headquarters.

"I've got him roped," he said. "If Britz calls up tell him he's on the way to Julia Strong's apartment."

The bracing night air did not dispel Collins's melancholy. He walked with head bent, a woe-begone expression engraved on his face. At the door of the apartment house in which Julia Strong had killed herself, he hesitated an instant. But, observing that his companions had already entered the vestibule, he overcame his hesitancy and followed them within.

The elevator boy eyed the three men curiously as he took them to the floor on which the apartment was situated. And he lingered inquisitively while Collins inserted the key in the lock and opened the door.

They entered with a vague feeling of gloom, as if about to step into a death chamber. Nor did they regain their spirits on perceiving the disordered condition of the place, with the many mementos of her who had killed herself in fear that she had betrayed Collins, scattered about.

"I wish she was here now," said Collins, tenderly picking up a white glove that had been thrown to the floor. "I might have married her at that!"

The others disposed themselves in chairs while Collins wandered aimlessly about the apartment. Grief-stricken though he was, he showed no appreciation of the significance of the tragedy for which he was in large measure responsible. For an hour he tired his companions with stories of Julia Strong's beauty, of her faithfulness and of her remorse when she realized the full import of her surrender to him.

"But I'm glad they made me stay at home," he declared. "I'd have broken down over her body."

The thought of her cold, lifeless form, recalled to his rum-soaked brain the funeral arrangements that had been made for her.

"That man Luckstone is a great lawyer," he said. "He looked after it all. Had the body shipped home to her parents! They thought she was earning a living here--never knew I was supporting her. Wonderful man--Luckstone! Did it all so quietly, too!"

"Saved you a lot of trouble, didn't he?" Cooper encouraged him to proceed.

The word trouble jarred Collins's train of thought out of its remorseful channel.

"Trouble!" he echoed, raising his voice to a high pitch. "I've certainly got trouble on my hands. But I'm glad she's not here to share it. She wanted luxuries--I gave 'em to her. We'd both be in a fine predicament now, wouldn't we? All my money gone--sunk in Ward's schemes! Oh, they're a fine combination--Ward and my wife!" he declared bitterly. "She thought herself too good for me, too virtuous to remain my wife! You've read of Ward's failure--the papers must be full of it! Well, I'm the one that's hit. All my money, every cent I've got is in his bank. Oh, just wait till I see him!"

He paused, turning an agonized countenance on his friends. The loss of the girl for whom he had provided the apartment had touched his sense of remorse; the loss of his money swept him with an anguish so keen that for the time it excluded all other emotions from his mind.

"We're all paupers!" he exclaimed. "Made paupers by Ward. Ward--yes, damn him! Ward--the thief! My respectable brother-in-law! Ward--the--"

Collins stopped short, amazement written across his features. He stood mute, lips pendent, his eyes bulging forward as if gazing at an apparition. Cooper and Fanwell, following his gaze, beheld the door standing ajar and revealing a man's form with one hand on the knob, the other braced against the jamb. Evidently the newcomer had changed his mind after opening the door, and was about to close it softly, without revealing himself. On being discovered, however, he came forward boldly, shutting the door after him.

With his back against the portal he surveyed the three men in the room, but without a gleam of recognition in his eyes.

"Well--who are you?" brusquely demanded Collins.

"I am Detective-Lieutenant Britz," the visitor said in even tones. "Sit down, Collins!"