Rich Crooks/Chapter 8
VIII
MY JUSTIFICATION increased almost immediately. Somebody nearly killed Cora Ellis. She was, in spite of all that Jack could do, still living in that cheap rooming-house. Somebody entered the room at night and nearly fractured her skull with a blow. Her mother had been killed in the same way—a blow on the head while she lay in bed. But Cora was not killed, though her condition was serious—concussion of the brain, I believe the doctors said. She was carried to the hospital dangerously near death. Her name got into the papers. More than that, pretty much the whole story eventually got there.
Jack could then use his money to give her comfort and help. If there had been anything she needed that money could not buy I suppose he would have gone out and stolen it. He got in a regiment of doctors and special nurses, had her put into a private room. and made a fuss because it wasn't good enough. Also he ordered that nobody should be permitted to see her and had somebody on watch outside of her door as well as in. He was excited and thorough.
She had evidently been assaulted by some one intent upon recovering the little black steel box. Her whereabouts had probably been discovered by the simple method of shadowing Jack, who had visited her on an average of something like twice a day—perhaps only on an average of once, but had stayed the rest of the day, had gone out with her, carried her off to shows and cafés and succeeded a little in distracting her attention from the need of a job.
The room was ransacked but the little box was not found. She did not have it. She had given it to Jack to return to the Cornwalls. He had brought it home to wrap for a messenger, and I, with deceptive consideration, had told him I would attend to it for him.
It was a heavy little thing, being solidly built, and without a key one would have had trouble getting it open. Daniel Cornwall had evidently known that. I counted on his knowing. As he also knew very well what papers it had and as he could tell whether or not the lock had been tampered with, he had apparently had no occasion to look them over. Perhaps he had been too much of a miser to have a new key made. Anyway, I didn't get into it. I did not try.
I stowed it away with care in my own room. As a matter of principle—or lack of it, as you perfer—it is always well to have the joker up one's sleeve. That little box to me represented most emphatically the joker. I did rather wish that I could peep inside of it again, but it was too much trouble to have the sturdy little lock forced. Besides, not even Daniel Cornwall or Walsh knew better than I what it contained.
I wished very much to get in touch with Steve Ellis. For one thing, that blow intended for his daughter's head had a deadly similiarity to the other which had sent him to prison. There was only circumstantial evidence, it was true, but there seemed to be other reasons than inadequate evidence that had decided Walsh to sign his pardon.
Jack came home one evening with an air of excitement.
“Say, what'd you know about it? A gink showed up to-day and tried to raise a rumpus 'cause they wouldn't let 'im in. Said he was her father. No, it wasn't the Cornwall dyspeptic. He telephoned. I didn't see the fellow—told 'em if he showed up again to hold him and yell for the police. Cora's getting along fine, but no excitement, say the doctors. They've got to say something to make me think they're earning their money. But when they try to limit me to fifteen minutes—say, I'd like to know what business a doctor I'm payin' has got telling me how long I can talk to my girl! Oh, the father person? They told him to drop around tomorrow and see me.”
Ellis did come around the next day, but the hospital people, in trying to follow Jack's advice about holding him and calling in the police, aroused his suspicions and he got away.