The Substitute Prisoner Part 3

A premeditated killing wherein the murderer makes no provision to protect himself from the sure consequences of his act, requires a certain amount of perverted courage. Neither Mrs. Collins nor her brother credited Collins with the possession of even this low courage--at least not in sufficient degree to induce him to relinquish the comforts of freedom for the inconveniences of a prison. So they offered no objection to his departure, permitting him to leave without a word, as though they were entirely unconcerned in what he did.

Knowing Collins intimately as they did, it was impossible to take his a.s.sumption of the role of an outraged husband seriously. They saw, only too clearly, the ridiculous figure he made in the false light with which he had invested himself. But when he was gone, with his threat still echoing through their brains, they began to doubt their first impression of his cowardice.

"That's a fine mess you've made of it," said Ward, who had grown palpably uneasy.

"I made the mess when I married him," replied the sister. "I shall now proceed to disentangle myself from it. Until I start for Reno I shall live at your house."

"You don't think, really, that he would shoot?" The brother's face expressed incredulity, mixed with worry.

Her forehead contracted in thought.

"As he is now, I feel certain he would not dare. But should he start drinking--"

Ward was on his feet, his pale face grown paler.

"That's just it!" he exclaimed. "We must forestall him."

The same thought had flashed through her brain and she was already on the way to the telephone. She called up Whitmore's house and asked for the merchant.

"He didn't come home last night," the butler informed her.

Although burning with anxiety she made no further inquiries of the servant. Instead, she rang up Whitmore's office.

"No ma'am, he hasn't been here this morning," the office boy said.

"Then give me Mr. Beard, his secretary."

"He hasn't been here, either."

She hung up the receiver and turned a bewildered countenance to her brother.

"There is something singular about Herbert's absence from home and his failure to appear at the office," she said. "I don't know why I should think so--but I do."

"It's impossible for your husband to have reached the city," Ward answered rea.s.suringly. "He won't get there for twenty-five minutes and the chances are he'll stop in various saloons before he tries to find Whitmore. I'll have my car here in ten minutes and we'll proceed at once to Whitmore's office and wait for him. Now hurry and get dressed."

Ward paced the drawing-room while waiting for his sister to finish her toilet. He had telephoned for his automobile and heard the car draw up at the gate. In the presence of Mrs. Collins and her husband, Ward had maintained an unruffled demeanor; now that he was alone his face a.s.sumed a tense, rigid look, as though he were staring at an apparition.

Something weighed heavily on his mind and it was plain that he was beset by uncertainty. He continued to walk up and down the room with short, nervous strides, until the swish of skirts at the head of the stairs brought him to an abrupt halt at the doorway. The arm which he extended to his sister, as he escorted her to the waiting automobile trembled violently. A cold sweat moistened his face.

"Sis," he said, when the machine had started, "I'm going to tell you something. Things are headed for a great crisis and it is necessary that you should know. It's going to shock you--"

He paused, eyeing her quizzically. But her mind, occupied with the safety of the man she loved, understood but vaguely what he was saying.

The brother took advantage of her preoccupation to gather additional courage for the communication which he had to impart. He saw clearly that she was resolved to discard her husband, that it would be futile to combat her determination. Other occasions there had been, many of them, when he had averted a final parting between them. But there had never been another man involved.

"Grace, listen to me!" He placed one hand on her wrist. "We are both in a terrible predicament, out of which my marriage may lift us. If you do anything that endangers the marriage, if my engagement should be broken,--we are both ruined."

"What do you mean?" A puzzled look appeared in her face.

"I didn't tell you before, because I thought it would never be necessary to do so," he went on, growing more nervous and uneasy. "But little by little I put all our money into the South American Developing Company which I promoted, and the enterprise is a failure. Moreover, I induced most of the clients of the bank to invest--I grow sick every time I contemplate what's going to happen when they learn that their money is lost. But there was nothing dishonest, sis--nothing dishonest!"

The news appeared to have no visible effect upon her. Something more important than money, more alarming than the ruin which his words implied, distracted her with a vague foreboding of impending evil. She made no reply to her brother, but sat rigid, eyes staring vacantly ahead, her hands tightly clasped beneath the heavy fur rug that protected the lower part of her body.

The automobile sped on, smoothly as though running on steel rails. A brisk wind beat against the gla.s.s s.h.i.+eld and was deflected, leaving only light currents of air to brush the faces of the occupants of the car.

Between Ward and his sister a long silence ensued.

It was broken by the brother.

"Don't you understand the position we're in?" he inquired.

"I understand," she replied absently.

"And don't you care?"

"Nothing matters now, except Herbert."

For weeks the brother had dreaded the moment when he should be compelled to confess the loss of their fortune. Now, finding that she took it coolly, even indifferently, he decided to go through with it.

"But I haven't finished--you don't know all," he pursued desperately.

"The situation is aggravated by your resolve to leave your husband. All his money, save the small income from the trust fund established by his mother, is likewise sunk in the enterprise. I induced him to invest, I'm really responsible for the predicament in which he'll find himself.

Don't you see," he added pleadingly, "if you leave him now it will take on the aspect of desertion. People will say that your brother ruined him and then you threw him over. While if you wait until after my marriage, I shall be in a position to settle with him in full and still have enough to look after you."

For several minutes she remained mute, evidently digesting his words.

"And would you marry without letting her know that you are ruined?" she inquired in quivering tones. "Would you try to rehabilitate yourself with her fortune? Do you think it fair?"

The words cut like saber thrusts. But when a man finds the walls of his house about to fall on him he is apt to clutch blindly at anything which promises to prop the tottering structure.

"It is cowardly, I confess," he said. "But what am I to do? Besides, I love her. You know I would not marry without love, even to avert financial ruin."

"I shall not interfere between you and your intended," she answered icily. "Neither shall I permit the circ.u.mstances which you have described to alter my determination."

The car now threaded its way through the maze of traffic in the city.

Presently it drew up before a huge, ugly factory that covered a square block on the upper west side, near the river. Ward and his sister jumped out of the tonneau and entered the building. They found themselves in a busy office, consisting of a single room down the length of which a wooden rail interposed between visitors and employes.

"I wish to see Mr. Whitmore," Mrs. Collins informed one of the office boys.

"Hasn't come down yet," the boy replied.

"Is he often away as late as this?"

"No ma'am," said the boy. "He's usually here at nine o'clock."

"Has Mr. Beard been here this morning?"

"Not yet. But he telephoned he'll be here at twelve o'clock."

Ward consulted his watch. It was a quarter past ten. He questioned the boy but was unable to obtain any information as to the possible whereabouts of his employer or his secretary. So he and his sister decided to await them at the office.

The visitors looked sufficiently important to warrant the office boy ushering them into Whitmore's private office. As they pa.s.sed down the railed corridor they elicited the further information that no one answering Collins's description had called that morning.