19000 Pound Part 9

The disguise was disposed of--and Richard was himself again.

An aggravated, very much upset Richard. He had committed actual murder, and was not a penny the richer for it.

The heinousness of the crime did not present itself to him; he rather looked at it from the standpoint of its barren financial result.

He had so counted on a large profit in connection with his quick return.

He had food for thought, sufficient to last an ordinary man many meals.

But Mr. Richard Loide was not an ordinary man. He no longer imagined those crisp Bank of England notes to be in the steamer's strong-room.

He did not believe they were even on the s.h.i.+p. That towel removed and a tragic story stared him in the face.

What did it mean?

That he could not fathom. One solid fact was existent--there had been foul play.

Some one had the notes. The man in whose possession they were had a hand in the murder. And that is where Mr. Loide hoped to step in and take a part in the drama.

The hand of death had lowered the curtain on the first act, and the lawyer just hankered after getting behind the scenes.

He formed an idea of his own that, for some reason, Depew was lurking in England; had bargained with the man Loide had killed to personate him on the boat, and so destroy a clue to his existence in London.

What then did the other, the cut up body mean? Who could that have been?

He regretted now that his horror had prevented his looking at the head.

That was another puzzle, and he could not in any way solve it.

But he was bent on one thing--the finding of Mr. Depew, and the bleeding of him for all he was worth.

Being a city lawyer, and moving in city financial circles, blackmailing had not for him the horrid appearance it presented to most people.

One gets used to the atmosphere one breathes daily, and the atmosphere of London city reeks of blackmail.

Suddenly a thought came to him which sent all the blood to his heart, and caused him to start to his feet in alarm.

Suppose he had been deceived? Suppose he had not handed the money over to the real George Depew?

He broke into a cold sweat at the mere idea!

He remembered how exceedingly lax he had been because Depew had frightened him.

The American had seen through the frauds on his aunt, and practically taxed the lawyer with them. Had he chosen, he could have made him disgorge all those gains of years.

Why had he not? If the real, genuine nephew, cute and sharp as he had been in getting the full value of the estate from the sale, why had he not, with his suspicions aroused, insisted on an inspection of the back accounts?

Why had he not? And once more the sweat of fear beaded on Loide's brow.

He was poor enough as it was. What if a real George Depew appeared on the scene and demanded that which was his?

The perspiration beads grew in size.

The lawyer called to mind how meagre had been the identification. He remembered that, frightened as he had been he had accepted a certificate of birth, and some envelopes directed to Depew in America, as confirmation that he was the real man.

For that the lawyer would never forgive himself. In ordinary circ.u.mstances he would have probed much more deeply.

That fright--that was what did it--unmanned him, and made him behave like a perfect a.s.s. He could have kicked himself for an hour and rejoiced in the resultant pain.

He told himself that he needed punishment--badly.

He thought of his own disguise; how he had so changed his own appearance that he had not known himself in the mirror.

Why should not Mr. Depew have done a similar thing?

Then another thought. Did disguise account for the different appearance of the man who was now crossing the Atlantic with a gaping wound in his throat?

No; he felt that was not so. Depew was a head shorter than the man he had killed.

He was glad he remembered that, because it removed the slightest doubt.

It convinced him that Depew was in London, and it must be his--Loide's--business to find him.

Find him, and put pertinent questions to him; make him do a sum in arithmetic--two into nineteen--and hand over the quotient.

He did not fear an interview. The unexpected always happens, and the unexpectant one is generally at a disadvantage.

Loide felt that. Felt that, in the language of Depew's country, he would be "upper dog" in the interview.

And then he set his wits to work--how to discover George Depew's whereabouts.

And meanwhile, in the same compa.s.s, within the radius of the city of London, another man was thinking--thinking with the same strained look on his face, too.

He was standing looking out of the window of a room in Finsbury Circus, standing there gnawing what was left of the nails of his hand, and watching but for one man's advent--the postman.

He was not looking for the telegraph boy--he knew it was too late for that--but a letter from his brother.

It had been arranged between them that the moment Arthur reached Queenstown in safety he should despatch a wire with the two words "All serene" if things were so.

And in case he should be asleep when the boat was off Queenstown, he had asked the purser to give him a call.

No such wire reached the dentist, hence his own disturbed serenity.

He waited and waited for it till he worked himself into such a state of nervousness--he had not his brother's iron will--that he shook from head to foot.

That no one in need of dental attention visited him that day was fortunate for the man with the aching tooth.

A trembling hand is not the best kind with which to grip forceps.

As the day pa.s.sed by and nothing came, the dentist became positively ill. He drank all that was left of the bottle of brandy, and for the first time in his life went home the worse for it.