The Marathon Mystery/Part 5/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
A Gathering of Threads
"FROM me?" repeated Miss Croydon blankly. “A single word from me? I do not understand you, Mr. Godfrey.”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded Godfrey with emphasis, “that you do not know where Mr. Drysdale was Monday night; that you were not yourself the cause of his leaving the house?”
She was staring at him with distended eyes.
“I the cause!” she repeated hoarsely, after a moment. “Mr. Godfrey, I will tell you something, of which I had determined never to speak. When he left the house that evening, he deliberately broke an appointment he had made with me—an appointment which he had prayed for. He had happened to hear Mr. Tremaine make certain proposals to me—in short,”—she hesitated, and then proceeded steadily, with raised head—“I may as well tell the whole truth. Since the evening of that first tragedy, Mr. Tremaine has been persecuting me with his attentions. At the time, I thought them merely insulting—I see now that he may have been in earnest.”
“I don’t in the least doubt that he was in earnest,” agreed Godfrey. “Mr. Drysdale, then, overheard him ask you to be his wife?”
“Yes—just that.”
“But he also heard you refuse, no doubt?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling and colouring a little; “he heard me refuse in the most positive way; but my refusal provoked Mr. Tremaine to an intemperance of language which Mr. Drysdale resented and which he thought I should have resented, too. He demanded that I explain to him Mr. Tremaine’s position, and I promised to do so on the very evening he—he stayed away from the house. His staying away offended me deeply.”
Godfrey had listened with intent eyes and a quick nod from time to time.
“There is only one point lacking,” he said. “Did Tremaine know of your intention to tell Drysdale the story?”
“Yes—he even charged me with that intention.”
“Ah—he had listened at a keyhole, probably.”
“He said that Mr. Drysdale himself had told him. I might add, Mr. Godfrey, that I met Mr. Drysdale and the officers in the hall that morning, as they were going away, and I implored him to tell them where he had been. He answered me with such insult and contempt that I thought he must be mad.”
“And no wonder! You were playing at cross-purposes. I presume, then, that it was not you who wrote Mr. Drysdale this note?” and he handed her the crumpled sheet of paper he had fished from Drysdale’s waste-basket.
She took it with trembling hand; already beginning to suspect, perhaps, what it contained.
“‘Be at the pergola at nine,’” she read. “‘If I am late, wait for me. G.’ I certainly never wrote any such note as that, Mr. Godfrey. Where did it come from?”
“Is it in your handwriting?”
“Why, yes,” she answered, looking at it more closely. “That is, it is something like. Oh! I begin to see!” she cried, and I saw her seized with a sudden convulsive shuddering.
“Yes,” said Godfrey, “it was a pretty plot. This note lured him from the house, and kept him away until the storm came up and he was forced to abandon the hope of meeting you. He concluded that you were playing with him—when he returned to the house, he found that you had spent the evening with Tremaine—afterwards, in his room, he did a number of violent and foolish things. Finally, he determined to go away; he started to pack his belongings—and then, in the hall, you, as he thought, added insult to injury by asking him to tell”
She stopped him with a wild gesture.
“Oh, I must see him!” she cried. “Something must be done”
“Something shall be done,” Godfrey assured her, rising. “The real culprit shall be in custody to-night.”
“The real culprit?” The words arrested her attention.
“Who but Tremaine?”
“Tremaine? But he was in the house—as you know, I talked with him for a long time.”
“In the same vein?”
She coloured a little at the tone. “Yes,” she answered, “You will, perhaps, think me weak, Mr. Godfrey; but despite his villainy, there was a fascination, a sort of brutal power, about the man, which it was very hard to resist. And then, I believed that Mr. Drysdale had deliberately broken his engagement with me. Otherwise, I should not have given Mr. Tremaine another opportunity to”
She did not attempt to finish the sentence—there was no need that she should. I have often wondered, since, what the end would have been had Fate not interfered—had Tremaine’s plan worked itself out as he intended. Remembering both of them—man and woman—I think she must have yielded in the end; submitted; gone with him out into the world to conquer it…
“There’s no questioning Tremaine’s fascination,” agreed Godfrey, “nor his ability; yet I fancy that in spite of his precautions we’ve got him fast in the net. That is all, I think.”
“One thing more, Mr. Godfrey,” she said; “do you think we’d better tell Mr. Delroy the story?”
“Yes,” answered Godfrey decidedly. “Tell him the whole story. That’s always the best way and the safest. Remember, your lack of frankness has already cost one human life. Your sister has incurred no guilt; she has committed no fault. Her husband will have nothing to forgive.”
“And the public?”
“The public? What has the public to do with it?”
“But I thought—you see—you”
“Oh, you thought I would write it up in the Record? I have no such intention, Miss Croydon—I shall let that first tragedy rest—this second one will be enough—and, after all, Tremaine has only one life for the law to take.”
“Pardon me,” she said quickly, holding out her hand. “I see I have offended you. You must forgive me.”
“Oh, I do,” he said, taking her hand and smiling into her eyes—allowing himself a moment’s reward. “Even a yellow journalist, Miss Croydon, has his reticences. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“Not when one knows them,” she answered, and opened the door for us.
Thomas was waiting in the hall.
“Anything else, sir?” he asked.
“No,” said Godfrey. “We’ve finished here. Now let us have our trap.”
We stopped a moment in the library to say goodbye to Delroy. He came forward eagerly to meet us.
“Well?” he asked. “Can you clear Jack?”
“Yes,” said Godfrey, “we can. What’s more, we will.”
“Thank God!” and Delroy passed his hand across his forehead. “This whole thing has been a sort of terrible nightmare to me, Mr. Godfrey. I’m hoping that I may even yet wake up and find that it was all only a dream.”
Godfrey smiled a little bitterly.
“I’m afraid you won’t do that, Mr. Delroy,” he said; “but, at least, I believe you’ll find that, in the end, it will sweep a great unhappiness out of your life. And I’m sure that, with Mr. Lester’s help, I can clear Drysdale.”
Thomas came to tell us that our trap was waiting-, and Delroy went down the steps with us.
“I hope to have you here some time under more favourable circumstances,” he said, and shook us both warmly by the hand.
Evening had come, and the darkness deepened rapidly as we drove back along the road to Babylon.
“We can’t get a train till 8.42,” said Godfrey, “so we’ll have dinner at the hotel and then go around for a talk with our client. I think we have some news that will cheer him up.”
“It seemed to me,” I observed, “that it was not at all about his arrest that he was worrying.”
“It wasn’t,” agreed Godfrey. “That’s what I meant.”
The lights of Babylon gleamed out ahead, and a few minutes later we drew up before the hotel. As we entered the office, I saw the proprietor cast a quick glance at a little fat man, with a round face, who had been leaning against the cigar-stand, and who immediately came forward to meet us.
“I am Coroner Heffelbower,” he said, with an evident appreciation of his own importance. “I believe you are t’e gentlemen who represent Mr. Drysdale?”
“Mr. Lester, here, of Graham & Royce, will represent Mr. Drysdale,” explained Godfrey. “I am merely one of his friends.”
“The inquest, I believe, is set for to-morrow morning at ten o’clock?” I asked.
“Yes, sir; t’ough we shall hardly get to t’e evidence before afternoon. T’e morning will be spent in looking ofer t’e scene of t’e crime.”
“I understand,” said Godfrey, with studied artlessness, “that you have found the missing necklace.”
The coroner flushed a little; evidently that was a sore subject.
“No, sir,” he answered, “we haven’t found it. I haf about come to t’e conclusion t’at Drysdale t’rew it into t’e pay.”
“But,” I objected, “he’d hardly have committed a murder in order to gain possession of it, only to throw it away!”
“He would, if my t’eory iss right, sir,” returned the coroner, with some spirit.
“What is your theory?” I asked.
“No matter; no matter,” and he was fairly bloated with self-importance. “You will see to-morrow.”
Godfrey was looking at him, his eyes alight with mirth.
“I see,” he broke in. “Accept my compliments, Mr. Heffelbower. It is the only theory which fits the case. Don’t you understand, Lester? Here’s a young man of wealth, who deliberately goes out and kills a man, steals a necklace and throws it into the ocean. He attempts to establish no alibi; he refuses to answer any questions; after the murder he rages around in his room and breaks things; he insults the girl he’s engaged to; quarrels with his best friend. Why, it’s as plain as day! A man who would behave like that must be”
“Crazy!” cried the coroner, beaming with satisfaction. “I could not haf put t’e case petter myself, sir!”
And Godfrey gravely bowed his thanks at the compliment.