CHAPTER XIX. WITHIN THE TOILS.
The going of Garson left the room deathly still. Dick stared for amoment at the space of window left uncovered by the draperies now, sincethe man had hurried past them, without pausing to draw them after him.Then, presently, the young man turned again to Mary, and took her handin his. The shock of the event had somehow steadied him, since it haddrawn his thoughts from that other more engrossing mood of concern overthe crisis in his own life. After all, what mattered the death of thiscrook? his fancy ran. The one thing of real worth in all the worldwas the life that remained to be lived between him and her.... Then,violently, the selfishness of his mood was made plain to him. For thehand he held was shaking like some slender-stalked lily in the clutchof the sirocco. Even as he first perceived the fact, he saw the girlstagger. His arm swept about her in a virile protecting embrace--just intime, or she would have fallen.
A whisper came from her quivering lips. Her face was close to his, elsehe could not have caught the uncertain murmuring. That face now wasbecome ghastly pale. The violet eyes were widened and dull. The musclesof her face twitched. She rested supinely against him, as if bereft ofany strength of body or of soul. Yet, in the intensity of her utterance,the feeble whisper struck like a shriek of horror.
"I--I--never saw any one killed before!"
The simple, grisly truth of the words--words that he might have spokenas well--stirred the man to the deeps of his being. He shuddered, ashe turned his eyes to avoid seeing the thing that lay so very near,mercifully merged within the shadows beyond the gentle radiance from thesingle lamp. With a pang of infinite pity for the woman in his arms, heapprehended in some degree the torture this event must have inflictedon her. Frightful to him, it must in truth be vastly worse to her. Therewas her womanly sensitiveness to enhance the innate hideousness of thething that had been done here before their eyes. There was, too, thefact that the murderer himself had been the man to whom she owed herlife. Yes, for him, Dick realized with poignant sympathy, the happeningthat night was terrible indeed: for her, as he guessed now at last,the torture must be something easily to overwhelm all her strength. Histouch on her grew tender beyond the ordinary tenderness of love, madegentler by a great underlying compassion for her misery.
Dick drew Mary toward the couch, there let her sink down in a huddledattitude of despair.
"I never saw a man--killed before!" she said again. There was a note ofhalf-hysterical, almost childish complaint in her voice. She movedher head a little, as if to look into the shadows where _it_ lay,then checked herself violently, and looked up at her husband with thepathetic simplicity of terror.
"You know, Dick," she repeated dully, "I never saw a man killed before."
Before he could utter the soothing words that rose to his lips, Dick wasinterrupted by a slight sound at the door. Instantly, he was all alertto meet the exigencies of the situation. He stood by the couch, bendingforward a little, as if in a posture of intimate fondness. Then, witha new thought, he got out his cigarette-case and lighted a cigarette,after which he resumed his former leaning over the woman as would theardent lover. He heard the noise again presently, now so near thathe made sure of being overheard, so at once he spoke with a forcedcheerfulness in his inflection.
"I tell you, Mary," he declared, "everything's going to be all right foryou and me. It was bully of you to come here to me like this."
The girl made no response. She lived still in the nightmare ofmurder--that nightmare wherein she had seen Griggs fall dead to thefloor.
Dick, in nervous apprehension as to the issue, sought to bring her torealization of the new need that had come upon them.
"Talk to me," he commanded, very softly. "They'll be here in a minute.When they come in, pretend you just came here in order to meet me. Try,Mary. You must, dearest!" Then, again, his voice rose to loudness, as hecontinued. "Why, I've been trying all day to see you. And, now, here weare together, just as I was beginning to get really discouraged.... Iknow my father will eventually----"
He was interrupted by the swift swinging open of the hallway door. Burkestood just within the library, a revolver pointed menacingly.
"Hands up!--all of you!" The Inspector's voice fairly roared thecommand.
The belligerent expression of his face vanished abruptly, as his eyesfell on Dick standing by the couch and Mary reclining there in limphelplessness. His surprise would have been ludicrous but for theseriousness of the situation to all concerned. Burke's glance roved theroom sharply, and he was quickly convinced that these two were in factthe only present spoil of his careful plotting. His face set grimly, forthe disappointment of this minute surged fiercely within him. He startedto speak, his eyes lowering as he regarded the two before him.
But Dick forestalled him. He spoke in a voice coldly repellent.
"What are you doing in this house at this time of night?" he demanded.His manner was one of stern disapproval. "I recognize you, InspectorBurke. But you must understand that there are limits even to what youcan do. It seems to me, sir, that you exceed your authority by such anintrusion as this."
Burke, however, was not a whit dismayed by the rebuke and the air ofrather contemptuous disdain with which it was uttered. He waved hisrevolver toward Mary, merely as a gesture of inquisitiveness, withoutany threat.
"What's she doing here?" he asked. There was wrath in his rough voice,for he could not avoid the surmise that his shrewdly concocted scheme toentrap this woman had somehow been set awry. "What's she doing here, Isay?" he repeated heavily. His keen eyes were darting once more aboutthe room, questing some clue to this disturbing mystery, so hateful tohis pride.
Dick's manner became that of the devoted husband offended by impertinentobtrusion.
"You forget yourself, Inspector," he said, icily. "This is my wife. Shehas the right to be with me--her husband!"
The Inspector grinned sceptically. He was moved no more effectively byMary's almost hysterical effort to respond to her husband's leading.
"Why shouldn't I be here? Why? Why? I----"
Burke broke in on the girl's pitiful histrionics ruthlessly. He wasnot in the least deceived. He was aware that something untoward, as hedeemed it, had occurred. It seemed to him, in fact, that his finicalmechanisms for the undoing of Mary Turner were in a fair way to bethwarted. But he would not give up the cause without a struggle. Again,he addressed himself to Dick, disregarding completely the aloof mannerof the young man.
"Where's your father?" he questioned roughly.
"In bed, naturally," was the answer. "I ask you again: What are youdoing here at this time of night?"
Burke shook his shoulders ponderously in a movement of impatience overthis prolonging of the farce.
"Oh, call your father," he directed disgustedly.
Dick remonstrated with an excellent show of dignity.
"It's late," he objected. "I'd rather not disturb him, if you don'tmind. Really, the idea is absurd, you know." Suddenly, he smiled verywinningly, and spoke with a good assumption of ingenuousness.
"Inspector," he said briskly, "I see, I'll have to tell you the truth.It's this: I've persuaded my wife to go away with me. She's going togive all that other sort of thing up. Yes, we're going away together."There was genuine triumph in his voice now. "So, you see, we've gotto talk it over. Now, then, Inspector, if you'll come back in themorning----"
The official grinned sardonically. He could not in the least guess justwhat had in very deed happened, but he was far too clever a man to bebamboozled by Dick's maunderings.
"Oh, that's it!" he exclaimed, with obvious incredulity.
"Of course," Dick replied bravely, though he knew that the Inspectordisbelieved his pretenses. Still, for his own part, he was inclinedas yet to be angry rather than alarmed by this failure to impress theofficer. "You see, I didn't know----"
And even in the moment of his saying, the white beam of the flashingsearchlight from the Tower fell between the undrawn draperies of theoctagonal window. The light startle
d the Inspector again, as it had doneonce before that same night. His gaze followed it instinctively. So,within the second, he saw the still form lying there on the floor--lyingwhere had been shadows, where now, for the passing of an instant, wasbrilliant radiance.
There was no mistaking that awful, motionless, crumpled posture. TheInspector knew in this single instant of view that murder had been donehere. Even as the beam of light from the Tower shifted and vanished fromthe room, he leaped to the switch by the door, and turned on the lightsof the chandelier. In the next moment, he had reached the door of thepassage across the room, and his whistle sounded shrill. His voicebellowed reinforcement to the blast.
"Cassidy! Cassidy!"
As Dick made a step toward his wife, from whom he had withdrawn a littlein his colloquy with the official, Burke voiced his command viciously:
"Stay where you are--both of you!"
Cassidy came rushing in, with the other detectives. He was plainlysurprised to find the room so nearly empty, where he had expected tobehold a gang of robbers.
"Why, what's it all mean, Chief?" he questioned. His peering eyes fellon Dick, standing beside Mary, and they rounded in amazement.
"They've got Griggs!" Burke answered. There was exceeding rage in hisvoice, as he spoke from his kneeling posture beside the body, to whichhe had hurried after the summons to his aides. He glowered up into thebewildered face of the detective. "I'll break you for this, Cassidy,"he declared fiercely. "Why didn't you get here on the run when you heardthe shot?"
"But there wasn't any shot," the perplexed and alarmed detectiveexpostulated. He fairly stuttered in the earnestness of hisself-defense. "I tell you, Chief, there hasn't been a sound."
Burke rose to his feet. His heavy face was set in its sternest mold.
"You could drive a hearse through the hole they've made in him," herumbled. He wheeled on Mary and Dick. "So!" he shouted, "now it'smurder!... Well, hand it over. Where's the gun?"
Followed a moment's pause. Then the Inspector spoke harshly to Cassidy.He still felt himself somewhat dazed by this extraordinary event, buthe was able to cope with the situation. He nodded toward Dick as he gavehis order: "Search him!"
Before the detective could obey the direction, Dick took the revolverfrom his pocket where he had bestowed it, and held it out.
And it so chanced that at this incriminating crisis for the son, thefather hastily strode within the library. He had been aroused by theInspector's shouting, and was evidently greatly perturbed. His usualdignified air was marred by a patent alarm.
"What's all this?" he exclaimed, as he halted and stared doubtfully onthe scene before him.
Burke, in a moment like this, was no respecter of persons, for all hisjudicious attentions on other occasions to those whose influence mightserve him well for benefits received.
"You can see for yourself," he said grimly to the dumfounded magnate.Then, he fixed sinister eyes on the son. "So," he went on, with sombermenace in his voice, "you did it, young man." He nodded toward thedetective. "Well, Cassidy, you can take 'em both down-town.... That'sall."
The command aroused Dick to remonstrance against such indignity towardthe woman whom he loved.
"Not her!" he cried, imploringly. "You don't want her, Inspector! Thisis all wrong!"
Now, at last, Mary interposed with a new spirit. She had regained,in some measure at least, her poise. She was speaking again with thatmental clarity which was distinctive in her.
"Dick," she advised quietly, but with underlying urgency in her gentlyspoken words, "don't talk, please."
Burke laughed harshly.
"What do you expect?" he inquired truculently. "As a matter of fact, thething's simple enough, young man. Either you killed Griggs, or she did."
The Inspector, with his charge, made a careless gesture toward thecorpse of the murdered stool-pigeon. For the first time, Edward Gilder,as his glance unconsciously followed the officer's movement, looked andsaw the ghastly inanimate heap of flesh and bone that had once been aman. He fairly reeled at the gruesome spectacle, then fumbled with anoutstretched hand as he moved stumblingly until he laid hold on a chair,into which he sank helplessly. It suddenly smote upon his consciousnessthat he felt very old and broken. He marveled dully over thesensation--it was wholly new to him. Then, soon, from a long way off,he heard the strident voice of the Inspector remorselessly continuingin the vile, the impossible accusation.... And that grotesque accusationwas hurled against his only son--the boy whom he so loved. The thingwas monstrous, a thing incredible. This whole seeming was no more thana chimera of the night, a phantom of bad dreams, with no truth underit.... Yet, the stern voice of the official came with a strangesemblance of reality.
"Either you killed him," the voice repeated gratingly, "or she did.Well, then, young man, did she kill him?"
"Good God, no!" Dick shouted, aghast.
"Then, it was you!" Such was the Inspector's summary of the case.
Mary's words came frantically. Once again, she was become desperate overthe course of events in this night of fearful happenings.
"No, no! He didn't!"
Burke's rasping voice reiterated the accusation with a certaincomplacency in the inevitability of the dilemma.
"One of you killed Griggs. Which one of you did it?" He scowled at Dick."Did she kill him?"
Again, the husband's cry came with the fierceness of despair over thefate of the woman.
"I told you, no!"
The Inspector, always savagely impressive now in voice and look andgesture, faced the girl with saturnine persistence.
"Well, then," he blustered, "did he kill him?"
The nod of his head was toward Dick. Then, as she remained silent: "I'mtalking to you!" he snapped. "Did he kill him?"
The reply came with a soft distinctness that was like a crash ofdestiny.
"Yes."
Dick turned to his wife in reproachful amazement.
"Mary!" he cried, incredulously. This betrayal was somethinginconceivable from her, since he believed that now at last he knew herheart.
Burke, however, as usual, paid no heed to the niceties of sentiment.They had small place in his concerns as an official of police. His soleambition just now was to fix the crime definitely on the perpetrator.
"You'll swear he killed him?" he asked, briskly, well content with thisconcrete result of the entanglement.
Mary subtly evaded the question, while seeming to give unqualifiedassent.
"Why not?" she responded listlessly.
At this intolerable assertion as he deemed it, Edward Gilder wasreanimated. He sat rigidly erect in his, chair. In that frightfulmoment, it came to him anew that here was in verity the last detail in aconsummate scheme by this woman for revenge against himself.
"God!" he cried, despairingly. "And that's your vengeance!"
Mary heard, and understood. There came an inscrutable smile on hercurving lips, but there was no satisfaction in that smile, as of one whorealized the fruition of long-cherished schemes of retribution. Instead,there was only an infinite sadness, while she spoke very gently.
"I don't want vengeance--now!" she said.
"But they'll try my boy for murder," the magnate remonstrated,distraught.
"Oh, no, they can't!" came the rejoinder. And now, once again, therewas a hint of the quizzical creeping in the smile. "No, they can't!"she repeated firmly, and there was profound relief in her tones sinceat last her ingenuity had found a way out of this outrageous situationthrust on her and on her husband.
Burke glared at the speaker in a rage that was abruptly grown suspiciousin some vague way.
"What's the reason we can't?" he stormed.
Mary sprang to her feet. She was radiant with a new serenity, now thather quick-wittedness had discovered a method for baffling the mesh ofevidence that had been woven about her and Dick through no faultof their own. Her eyes were glowing with even more than their usuallusters. Her voice came softly modulated, almost mocking.
"Beca
use you couldn't convict him," she said succinctly. A contentedsmile bent the red graces of her lips.
Burke sneered an indignation that was, nevertheless, somewhat fearful ofwhat might lie behind the woman's assurance.
"What's the reason?" he demanded, scornfully. "There's the body." Hepointed to the rigid form of the dead man, lying there so very nearthem. "And the gun was found on him. And then, you're willing to swearthat he killed him.... Well, I guess we'll convict him, all right. Whynot?"
Mary's answer was given quietly, but, none the less, with an assurancethat could not be gainsaid.
"Because," she said, "my husband merely killed a burglar." In her turn,she pointed toward the body of the dead man. "That man," she continuedevenly, "was the burglar. You know that! My husband shot him in defenseof his home!" There was a brief silence. Then, she added, with awonderful mildness in the music of her voice. "And so, Inspector, as youknow of course, he was within the law!"