The Window at the White Cat Part 18

A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME

I had a tearful message from Hawes late that afternoon, and a little after five I went to the office. I found him offering late editions of the evening paper to a couple of clients, who were edging toward the door. His expression when he saw me was pure relief, the clients', relief strongly mixed with irritation.

I put the best face on the matter that I could, saw my visitors, and left alone, prepared to explain to Hawes what I could hardly explain to myself.

"I've been unavoidably detained, Hawes," I said, "Miss Jane Maitland has disappeared from her home."

"So I understood you over the telephone." He had brought my mail and stood by impa.s.sive.

"Also, her brother-in-law is dead."

"The papers are full of it."

"There was no one to do anything, Hawes. I was obliged to stay," I apologized. I was ostentatiously examining my letters and Hawes said nothing. I looked up at him sideways, and he looked down at me. Not a muscle of his face quivered, save one eye, which has a peculiar twitching of the lid when he is excited. It gave him a sardonic appearance of winking. He winked at me then.

"Don't wait, Hawes," I said guiltily, and he took his hat and went out.

Every line of his back was accusation. The sag of his shoulders told me I had let my biggest case go by default that day; the forward tilt of his head, that I was probably insane; the very grip with which he seized the door-k.n.o.b, his "good night" from around the door, that he knew there was a woman at the bottom of it all. As he closed the door behind him I put down my letters and dropped my face in my hands. Hawes was right. No amount of professional zeal could account for the interest I had taken.

Partly through force of circ.u.mstances, partly of my own volition, I had placed myself in the position of first friend to a family with which I had had only professional relations; I had even enlisted Edith, when my acquaintance with Margery Fleming was only three days old! And at the thought of the girl, of Wardrop's inefficiency and my own hopelessness, I groaned aloud.

I had not heard the door open.

"I forgot to tell you that a gentleman was here half a dozen times to-day to see you. He didn't give any name."

I dropped my hands. From around the door Hawes' nervous eye was winking wildly.

"You're not sick, Mr. Knox?"

"Never felt better."

"I thought I heard--"

"I was singing," I lied, looking him straight in the eye.

He backed nervously to the door.

"I have a little sherry in my office, Mr. Knox--twenty-six years in the wood. If you--"

"For G.o.d's sake, Hawes, there's nothing the matter with me!" I exclaimed, and he went. But I heard him stand a perceptible time outside the door before he tiptoed away.

Almost immediately after, some one entered the waiting-room, and the next moment I was facing, in the doorway, a man I had never seen before.

He was a tall man, with thin, colorless beard trimmed to a Vand.y.k.e point, and pale eyes blinking behind gla.s.ses. He had a soft hat crushed in his hand, and his whole manner was one of subdued excitement.

"Mr. Knox?" he asked, from the doorway.

"Yes. Come in."

"I have been here six times since noon," he said, dropping rather than sitting in a chair. "My name is Lightfoot. I am--was--Mr. Fleming's cas.h.i.+er."

"Yes?"

"I was terribly shocked at the news of his death," he stumbled on, getting no help from me. "I was in town and if I had known in time I could have kept some of the details out of the papers. Poor Fleming--to think he would end it that way."

"End it?"

"Shoot himself." He watched me closely.

"But he didn't," I protested. "It was not suicide, Mr. Lightfoot.

According to the police, it was murder."

His cold eyes narrowed like a cat's. "Murder is an ugly word, Mr. Knox.

Don't let us be sensational. Mr. Fleming had threatened to kill himself more than once; ask young Wardrop. He was sick and despondent; he left his home without a word, which points strongly to emotional insanity. He could have gone to any one of a half dozen large clubs here, or at the capital. Instead, he goes to a little third-rate political club, where, presumably, he does his own cooking and hides in a dingy room. Is that sane? Murder! It was suicide, and that puppy Wardrop knows it well enough. I--I wish I had him by the throat!"

He had worked himself into quite a respectable rage, but now he calmed himself.

"I have seen the police," he went on. "They agree with me that it was suicide, and the party newspapers will straighten it out to-morrow. It is only unfortunate that the murder theory was given so much publicity.

The _Times-Post_, which is Democratic, of course, I can not handle."

I sat stupefied.

"Suicide!" I said finally. "With no weapon, no powder marks, and with a half-finished letter at his elbow."

He brushed my interruption aside.

"Mr. Fleming had been--careless," he said. "I can tell you in confidence, that some of the state funds had been deposited in the Borough Bank of Manchester, and--the Borough Bank closed its doors at ten o'clock to-day."

I was hardly surprised at that, but the whole trend of events was amazing.

"I arrived here last night," he said, "and I searched the city for Mr.

Fleming. This morning I heard the news. I have just come from the house: his daughter referred me to you. After all, what I want is a small matter. Some papers--state doc.u.ments--are missing, and no doubt are among Mr. Fleming's private effects. I would like to go through his papers, and leave to-night for the capital."

"I have hardly the authority," I replied doubtfully. "Miss Fleming, I suppose, would have no objection. His private secretary, Wardrop, would be the one to superintend such a search."

"Can you find Wardrop--at once?"

Something in his eagerness put me on my guard.

"I will make an attempt," I said. "Let me have the name of your hotel, and I will telephone you if it can be arranged for to-night."

He had to be satisfied with that, but his eagerness seemed to me to be almost desperation. Oddly enough, I could not locate Wardrop after all.

I got the Maitland house by telephone, to learn that he had left there about three o'clock, and had not come back.

I went to the Fleming house for dinner. Edith was still there, and we both tried to cheer Margery, a sad little figure in her black clothes.

After the meal, I called Lightfoot at his hotel, and told him that I could not find Wardrop; that there were no papers at the house, and that the office safe would have to wait until Wardrop was found to open it.

He was disappointed and furious; like a good many men who are physical cowards, he said a great deal over the telephone that he would not have dared to say to my face, and I cut him off by hanging up the receiver.

From that minute, in the struggle that was coming, like Fred, I was "forninst" the government.