Chapter 8

Although Britz permitted his assistant to find welcome rest after the crowded activities of the day, he did not allow himself the same pleasant relaxation. He felt no craving for sleep. His faculties were too tensely alert for slumber, an inexhaustible spring of energy kept him fresh and active. There were certain channels in this mysterious case which had thus far been entirely neglected. It was necessary to explore them at once, lest they vanish overnight.

Britz proceeded to the Night Court, where he found the Magistrate dispensing justice with the bored impatience of one grown tired of hearing the monotonous repetition of trite excuses.

Accustomed as he had grown to contact with vice and crime, Britz invariably entered this courtroom with a feeling of depression. There is little enough romance attached to crime. In the Night Court, where vice is on continuous parade and crime only an occasional visitor, the spectacle one beholds is repulsive to the last degree.

Passing down the long aisle between the spectators' seats, Britz entered the railed enclosure reserved for those having business with the court. He held a long whispered consultation with the Magistrate, and when he left he was in possession of a search warrant, duly signed and sealed. With the document securely hidden in his pocket, he proceeded uptown again, eventually pausing before a three-story, brown-stone house, two blocks from the Whitmore Iron Works.

An automobile was waiting at the curb. Britz made mental note of the number of the machine, and, in the vestibule of the house transferred the number to the back of an envelope.

It was past midnight, yet the drawing-room was aglow with light. Britz rang the bell, and after a short wait, the door was slowly opened by a servant.

"This is Mr. Beard's home, I believe?" the detective inquired.

"Yes, but Mr. Beard is not at home," answered the servant.

"I shall wait for him," decided Britz, thrusting a broad toe into the narrow crack through which the servant was surveying him.

"It is rather late to call," protested the servant. "Besides, I don't know you."

"I am an officer of the law," announced Britz. "I have come to search the premises."

In his astonishment the servant insensibly relinquished his hold of the door knob and Britz stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

"You can't come in here!" exclaimed the servant, recovering from his surprise. "Get out!"

Britz displayed the search warrant.

"If you attempt to interfere with me I shall place you under arrest," he threatened.

The perturbation of the servant increased. Being a dutiful and watchful employé, his first impulse was to repel this nocturnal invasion of the house. But something in Britz's stern attitude convinced him that the unwelcome visitor would forcibly resent any interference.

"Can't you wait until Mr. Beard comes?" the servant appealed.

"Mr. Beard will not be here to-night," Britz informed him.

The detective's voice had penetrated to the lighted sitting-room, for it was answered with a painful gasp, followed by the swish of skirts. A moment later the heavy curtains which overhung the doorway parted, revealing a woman's form sharply outlined against the background of light. She was dressed in a dark suit and, as she faced the two men in the hallway she lifted a heavy black veil.

Britz noted that her beautiful face was haggard from fatigue and long agitation, but the excitement in her eyes bespoke an energy not to be conquered by physical weariness.

"You say Mr. Beard will not be here to-night?" she spoke, and her voice disclosed the fear that had suddenly gripped her heart.

"No," answered Britz.

"Then it is useless for me to wait." She moved toward the door but the detective interposed.

"I shall detain you only a few minutes," he said; "but having found you here it is necessary that I should ascertain your identity and the reason for this late visit."

A shock passed through her, as though he had offered her an indignity.

"I must go," she declared. "You have no right to detain me or to question me."

"Would you prefer being questioned at Police Headquarters?" he inquired.

The implied threat had an immediate effect on her. She recoiled as from a blow and moved slowly into the sitting-room. The detective followed her, after directing the servant not to leave the house.

"Madam, what is your name?" he demanded brusquely.

It was not Britz's habit to be gruff with women. By nature courteous, considerate of the weaker sex, he nevertheless realized that soft phrases will not prop a witness who, through sheer desperation of will, has been staving off physical collapse. On the contrary, harshness in the inquisitor, by arousing antagonism or fear, will frequently serve to carry the witness through a most desperate ordeal. In this case, however, the woman showed neither fear nor resentment. Evidently she had suffered so much as to have exhausted her capability for further suffering. She submitted to the other's will like a tired child, dropping into a chair and eyeing him with a vacuous expression.

"I am Mrs. George Collins," she answered his question in a weak, listless voice.

Britz's gaze narrowed on her as if questioning her statement. But the very haggardness of her features accentuated her incapacity for deceit. Gradually the detective's eyes cleared with belief and his calloused nature yielded to an impulse of pity.

"I did not expect to find you here, Mrs. Collins," he said more gently. "I can understand your suffering--I do not wish to add a hair's weight to it. But the conclusion is inevitable that your visit at such a late hour has something to do with Mr. Whitmore's death, so I must ask you to explain your presence."

She leaned back in her chair, a look of meek resignation in her face.

"I came to obtain a letter addressed to Mr. Whitmore," she said frankly.

"A letter which you wrote?"

"No."

"By whom was it written?"

"My brother--Mr. Ward."

Britz tried to guess the hidden significance of the note which had impelled this woman to a midnight visit to Beard's house. She must have known, just as Britz had ascertained earlier in the day, that Beard was a bachelor, occupying the private dwelling with a lone servant. Surely she would not have been guilty of so unconventional an act except through desperate necessity.

"That letter--will it throw any light on Mr. Whitmore's death?" asked Britz eagerly.

"Not the slightest," was her disappointing reply. "It has absolutely nothing to do with it."

"Then you won't mind identifying it if I find it in my search of the premises?"

"Not in the least--that is, on one condition," said she.

"And that condition--what is it?"

"Your promise that the letter will not be made public."

It was a condition to which the detective could readily agree. It was no part of his duty to supply the newspapers with the intimate details associated with every crime. He was habitually reticent toward reporters, yet he was not unpopular with them. For, besides recognizing and admiring his unbending honesty, his courage and resourcefulness, they were aware that on the rare occasions when he took them into his confidence, they could rely upon his statements as upon a mathematical certainty. Not in all his career had he ever been known to discuss in print his theories, or deductions, or half-baked conclusion. In that respect he differed radically from most of the detective force. Whenever he had a statement to make, it embodied the solution of the mystery on which he had been working. It meant that the guilty man was safely behind the bars and that the evidence against him was complete.

"Confidential communications obtained by me are never made public except in a courtroom," he informed the woman. "If the letter has no bearing on Mr. Whitmore's death it will be returned to Mr. Beard."

"But I want it--that's what I came for," she pleaded. "Can't you give it to me?"

"Not without Mr. Beard's consent," he replied in a tone of finality. "And then only after I have assured myself of its lack of bearing on the Whitmore case."

She bestowed on him a glance of such keen disappointment as to provoke a doubt of the innocence of the missive. But he did not betray what was in his mind. Instead, he rose to his feet, and, with a polite bow, said:

"I may trust you to wait until I have completed my search. In the meantime, kindly pardon me."

His form vanished through the curtains and she could hear him ascending the steps. To her ears there came a short colloquy between the detective and the servant, but the words were indistinct and she was unable to gather their meaning. Huddled in the chair, she waited while the minutes dragged wearily, until at the end of three-quarters of an hour the detective's welcome footsteps were heard on the stairs.

Britz entered the room carrying a huge pile of papers which he deposited on a chair. From the top of the pile he took a letter, and, advancing toward her, asked:

"Is this the note?"

At sight of the letter her exhaustion vanished and she held out a trembling hand.

"It isn't that I don't trust you," said Britz, withdrawing the missive, "but under the circumstances I prefer to retain possession of it."

It required no formal acknowledgment from her to assure him that he held the right note. Her face, her eyes, her very aspect proclaimed her anxiety concerning it. Retreating to a position directly beneath the cluster of electric lights, Britz read the letter. It was dated the previous day and was as follows:

"_Dear Whitmore_: Mr. Beard has informed me that I may communicate with you through him. For nearly six weeks I have waited anxiously for your return, but I am in such sore straits that I can no longer delay communicating with you.

"I require for use in my business the sum of one million, two hundred thousand dollars. Unless I am able to obtain the money at once, I am ruined. Were I the only one to suffer by the crash I should not mind. But it means the loss of my sister's fortune, as well as that of her husband. Grace, too, could bear the loss. But the thought of plunging Collins into poverty, under the present circumstances, is what impels me to appeal to you.

"To avert this catastrophe my sister joins in the appeal I am making. I hope, in the course of the next six months, to be able to repay the loan. But it is absolutely necessary to obtain the money at once, for my creditors are threatening immediate bankruptcy proceedings. And that means the end.

"Sincerely, LESTER WARD."

"So your brother is in a bad way financially?" said Britz, more in the way of an audible comment than as a question.

Evidently the subject was too painful for discussion, for she averted her face as if to hide the emotions written thereon.

"Your brother expected Mr. Whitmore to rescue him?" persisted Britz.

"Yes," she acknowledged.

"And Mr. Whitmore's death leaves him in a sad predicament?"

"Ruin is inevitable," she admitted.

"Which makes it clear that it was to Mr. Ward's interest as well as your own to find Mr. Whitmore alive?"

"Precisely," replied she. "His death was a terrible blow to us."

Britz saw the situation clearly. Ward, rendered desperate by the impending ruin, had hoped that Whitmore would come to his rescue. But the latter's death had destroyed all hope of aid from that direction. The letter, far from furnishing incriminating evidence against anyone, clearly established Ward's and Mrs. Collins's interest in keeping Whitmore alive. Nevertheless Britz decided to retain the note on the bare chance that subsequent developments might give it a changed aspect.

Mrs. Collins, divining with the sure instinct of a woman, the obvious conclusion which the detective had drawn from the letter, ventured another attempt to gain possession of it.

"Now that you are convinced that it has no bearing on Mr. Whitmore's death, may I have it?" she asked.

"Why are you so anxious to obtain it?" retorted Britz.

"Because its possession by someone would be an endless source of embarrassment to me," answered she.

She spoke as one engaged in a controversy of minor significance. But it was plain that exhaustion was swiftly overtaking her, that her bruised senses were near the end of their endurance.

"You need fear no uneasiness from the letter while it is in my possession," the detective said reassuringly.

She accepted the statement as a final refusal to surrender the missive, and, consulting the small watch set in her black leather purse, noted with a frightened gasp that it was two o'clock.

"Where is Mr. Beard?" she asked, as if suddenly recalling his absence.

"He is under arrest," answered Britz in even voice.

Despite the soothing quality which he tried to inject into his tone, she started like a frightened deer.

"Arrest!" she echoed. "Then he didn't deliver--the woman, Julia Strong, didn't get the message?"

She shivered, as the chill breath of a new fear stole over her.

"Julia Strong is dead," said Britz, in the same calm, matter-of-fact voice.

But to the woman the words came like a destructive avalanche. She buried her face in her hands, while her frame shook with successive sobs. The last shreds of her outward composure vanished as before the wind, and she surrendered unresistingly to the turbulent emotions struggling within her. Several minutes passed before the inward tumult subsided. Then, lifting herself to her feet, she said with bitter emphasis:

"Four lives wrecked! Two dead!... Mr. Beard and I alive--but what a future! What a dastardly thing to bring all this about!"

Britz, eagerly drinking in her words, watched her in a fever of expectancy. But she checked her outburst before the fatal revelation for which he hoped, received utterance. With a new shock she recalled his presence, and, as if afraid of having incriminated herself, or someone whom she wanted to shield, walked hastily toward the door.

"Please escort me to the automobile," she pleaded.

Britz recognized the futility of trying to obtain further admissions from a woman in her distressful state of mind. The fear that had seized her would prove a padlock on her lips. So he permitted her to lean heavily on his arm while she passed through the door and descended the steps to the street. Then, helping her into the machine, he waited until the car vanished around the corner.

With a self-satisfied smile Britz slowly ascended the steps, intent on obtaining the documents which he had left in the sitting-room.

"With those papers we'll soon wring admissions from somebody," he said to himself. "It's a good night's work--a most profitable night's work."

To his consternation he found that the servant had closed the door. Nor did his insistent pressure of the electric door-bell produce any effect on the butler. Then, for the first time, Britz realized that the lights in the sitting-room had been extinguished.

Consumed with sudden anger he climbed the low iron hand-rail that protected the stoop, and the next instant the broad toe of his boot had shattered the window leading to the front room. Reaching forward, he found it easy to displace sufficient glass to permit him to step safely into the room. Near the curtained doorway he found the electric switch which regulated the light. As the cluster of lamps flashed up, he looked for the documents. They were gone.

His jaw snapped viciously as he leaped out of the room and groped his way to the head of the basement stairs. By the aid of matches he achieved a safe passage down the narrow steps, at the bottom of which he found the button which switched on the basement lights.

In the rear room he found precisely what he had expected. The door opening into the yard was unlatched. Through this door the butler had escaped with the papers.