The Seventh Noon Part 40

"Remember where you were at that time?"

"Why--that was the morning I went out with you!"

"Just so," answered Donaldson, his eyes leveled over Saul's head. "I hate to tell you, but--but it was necessary to do that in order to keep you away from headquarters."

Saul reached for his throat, pus.h.i.+ng him back a step.

"You played me traitor like that?" he demanded.

"It was part of the game," answered Donaldson indifferently. Saul, fearful of himself, drew back.

The latter tried to reason it out. A man can change a good deal in a year, but even with opium it seemed impossible for Donaldson so to abuse a friends.h.i.+p. But he was checked in his recollection of the man as he had known him by the memory of that very morning. He had been suspicious even then that something was wrong. Donaldson had appeared nervous and altered.

"Donaldson," he burst out, "I 'd give up my rank to be out of this mess."

He added impulsively,

"Tell me it's all a d.a.m.ned lie, Don!"

"No," replied Donaldson, "the sooner it's over the better. I 'm all through now."

Still Saul hesitated. But there seemed nothing left.

"Come on," he growled.

Donaldson followed him to the cab. He was like a man too tired to care.

"Had n't you better make up some sort of a story for them in there?"

asked Saul, with a jerk of his head towards the house.

"That's so," answered Donaldson. "Will you trust me for a few minutes?"

"Take your time," said Saul.

Donaldson went back up the path and found both Arsdale and his sister in the library.

"I 'll have to ask you to excuse me for to-night," he said. "I 've just had word from a friend who wishes me to spend the night with him."

They both looked disappointed.

"He 's waiting out there for me now."

"Perhaps you will come back later," suggested Arsdale.

"Not to-night. Perhaps in the morning. I 'll drop you a word if I 'm kept longer."

He spoke lightly, with no trace of anything abnormal in his bearing.

"All right, but we 'll miss you," answered Arsdale.

The girl said nothing but her face grew suddenly sober.

They went to the door with him and watched him step into the cab.

Saul had prayed that he would not return, and now looked more as though it were he that was being led off. He chewed his unlighted cigar in silence while the other sat back in his corner with his eyes closed.

Once on his way to headquarters he leaned forward, and clutching Donaldson's knee, repeated his cry,

"Tell me it's all a lie," he begged. "There's time yet. I 'll hustle you to the train and stake you to Canada. Just give me your word for it."

Donaldson shook his head.

"It would only come back on Arsdale, and that is n't square."

"Then G.o.d help you," murmured Saul.

The cab stopped before headquarters and Saul, with lagging steps, led his man in. The Chief listened to the story he told with his keen eyes kindling like a fire through shavings. He saw the end to the bitter invective heaped upon him during the last three weeks by the press.

Then he began his gruelling cross-examination.

The story Donaldson told was simple and convincing. He had come to New York full of hope, had waited month after month, and had finally become discouraged. In this extremity he had taken to a drug. His relations with the Arsdales began less than a week ago and they knew nothing of him save that he had been of some a.s.sistance in helping young Arsdale straighten out. Arsdale had borrowed money of him, although doubtless he could not remember it, and had taken it to go down to Tung's.

Feeling a sense of responsibility for the use the boy had made of this money and out of regard to the sister, he had done his best to help him pull out.

When pressed for further details of the crimes themselves, Donaldson admitted that his memory was very much clouded. He had committed the a.s.saults when in a mental condition that left them in his memory only as evil dreams. The substantiation of this must come through his identification by the witnesses. He could remember nothing of what he had done with the purses, or the jewels and papers which they contained. He had used only the money.

An officer was sent to search his rooms at the hotel, and in the meanwhile men were sent out to bring in the victims of the a.s.saults.

It was for this test that Donaldson held in check all the reserve power he had within him. If his story was weak up to this point, he realized that this identification would substantiate it beyond the shadow of a doubt. This he knew must be done in order to offset Arsdale's possible attempt to give himself up when he should hear of this. As a student he had been impressed with the unreliability of direct evidence, and here would be an opportunity to test his theory that much of the evidence to the senses is worthless. From the moment he had determined upon this course he had based his hopes upon this test. Saul had made it clear that the descriptions given by the witnesses were vague, and now in the excitement of confronting their a.s.sailant they were apt to be still more unsubstantial. If he could succeed in terrifying them, he could convince them to a point where they would make all their excited visions fit him to a hair.

And so as each man was brought before him, Donaldson looked at him from beneath lowering brows with his mind fixed so fiercely upon the determination to force them to see him as the shadowy brute who had attacked them that he in reality looked the part. Two of the men withdrew, wiping their foreheads, after making the identification absolute.

The third witness, a woman, promptly fainted. When she revived she said she was willing to take her oath that this was the man. Not only was she sure of his height, weight, and complexion, but she recognized the same malicious gleam which flashed from the demon's eyes as he had stood over her. She s.h.i.+vered in fright.

The fourth victim was a man of fifty. He was slower to decide, but the longer he stood in front of Donaldson, the surer he became. Donaldson, with his arms folded, never allowed his eyes to move from the honest eyes of this other. And as he looked he made a mental picture of the act of creeping up behind this man, of lifting his weapon, finally of striking. With the act of striking, his shoulders lifted, so intense was his determination.

The man drew back from him.

"Yes," he said, "I am sure. This is the brute."

It was two hours later before Donaldson was finally handed over to the officers of the Tombs, and Saul turned back reluctantly to give to the eager reporters as meagre an outline of the story as he could.

CHAPTER XXIII

_When the Dead Awake_

Donaldson, without removing his clothes, tumbled across his bunk and fell into a merciful stupor which lasted until morning. He was aroused by a rough shaking and staggered to his feet to find Saul again confronting him. The latter had evidently been some time at his task, for he exclaimed,

"I thought you were dead! You certainly sleep like an honest man."