Larcher and the landlady stood gazing at each other in silence. Larcher spoke first.
“He's always prompt to the minute. He may be coming now.”
The young man went out to the stoop and looked up and down the street. But no familiar figure was in sight. He turned back to the landlady.
“Perhaps he left a note for me on the table,” said Larcher. “I have the freedom of his room, you know.”
“Go up and see, then. I'll go with you.”
The landlady, in climbing the stairs, used a haste very creditable in a person of her amplitude. Davenport's room appeared the same as ever. None of his belongings that were usually visible had been packed away or covered up. Books and manuscript lay on his table. But there was nothing addressed to Larcher or anybody else.
“It certainly looks as if he'd meant to come back soon,” remarked the landlady.
“It certainly does.” Larcher's puzzled eyes alighted on the table drawer. He gave an inward start, reminded of the money in Davenport's possession at their last meeting. Davenport had surely taken that money with him on leaving the house the next morning. Larcher opened his lips, but something checked him. He had come by the knowledge of that money in a way that seemed to warrant his ignoring it. Davenport had manifestly wished to keep it a secret. It was not yet time to tell everything.
“Of course,” said Larcher, “he might have met with an accident.”
“I've looked through the newspapers yesterday, and to-day, but there's nothing about him, or anybody like him. There was an unknown man knocked down by a street-car, but he was middle-aged, and had a black mustache.”
“And you're positively sure Mr. Davenport would have let you know if he'd meant to stay away so long?”
“Yes, sir, I am. Especially that morning he'd have spoke of it, for he met me in the hall and paid me the next four weeks' room rent in advance.”
“But that very fact looks as if he thought he mightn't see you for some time.”
“No, because he's often done that. He'll come and say, 'I've got a little money ahead, Mrs. Haze, and I might as well make sure of a roof over me for another month.' He knew I gener'ly—had use for money whenever it happened along. He was a kind-hearted—I mean he is a kind-hearted man. Hear me speakin' of him as if—What's that?”
It was a man's step on the stairs. With a sudden gladness, Larcher turned to the door of the room. The two waited, with smiles ready. The step came almost to the threshold, receded along the passage, and mounted the flight above.
“It's Mr. Wigfall; he rooms higher up,” said Mrs. Haze, in a dejected whisper.
The young man's heart sank; for some reason, at this disappointment, the hope of Davenport's return fled, the possibility of his disappearance became certainty. The dying footsteps left Larcher with a sense of chill and desertion; and he could see this feeling reflected in the face of the landlady.
“Do you think the matter had better be reported to the police?” said she, still in a lowered voice.
“I don't think so just yet. I can't say whether they'd send out a general alarm on my report. The request must come from a near relation, I believe. There have been hoaxes played, you know, and people frightened without sufficient cause.”
“I never heard that Mr. Davenport had any relations. I guess they'd send out an alarm on my statement. A hard-workin' landlady ain't goin' to make a fuss and get her house into the papers just for fun.”
“That's true. I'm sure they'd take your report seriously. But we'd better wait a little while yet. I'll stay here an hour or two, and then, if he hasn't appeared, I'll begin a quiet search myself. Use your own judgment, though; it's for you to see the police if you like. Only remember, if a fuss is made, and Mr. Davenport turns up all right with his own reasons for this, how we shall all feel.”
“He'd be annoyed, I guess. Well, I'll wait till you say. You're the only friend that calls here regular to see him. Of course I know how a good many single men are,—that lives in rooms. They'll stay away for days at a time, and never notify anybody, and nobody thinks anything about it. But Mr. Davenport, as I told you, isn't like that. I'll wait, anyhow, till you think it's time. But you'll keep coming here, of course?”
“Yes, indeed, several times a day. He might turn up at any moment. I'll give him an hour and a half to keep this one o'clock engagement. Then, if he's still missing, I'll go to a place where there's a bare chance he might be. I've only just now thought of it.”
The place he had thought of was the room of old Mr. Bud. Davenport had spoken of going there often to sketch. Such a queer, snug old place might have an attraction of its own for the man. There was, indeed, a chance—a bare chance—of his having, upon a whim, prolonged a stay in that place or its neighborhood. Or, at least, Mr. Bud might have later news of him than Mrs. Haze had.
That good woman went back to her work, and Larcher waited alone in the very chair where Davenport had sat at their last meeting. He recalled Davenport's odd look at parting, and wondered if it had meant anything in connection with this strange absence. And the money? The doubt and the solitude weighed heavily on Larcher's mind. And what should he say to the girls when he met them at tea?
At two o'clock his impatience got the better of him. He went down-stairs, and after a few words with Mrs. Haze, to whom he promised to return about four, he hastened away. He was no sooner seated in an elevated car, and out of sight of the lodging-house, than he began to imagine his friend had by that time arrived home. This feeling remained with him all the way down-town. When he left the train, he hurried to the house on the water-front. He dashed up the narrow stairs, and knocked at Mr. Bud's door. No answer coming, he knocked louder. It was so silent in the ill-lighted passage where he stood, that he fancied he could hear the thump of his heart. At last he tried the door; it was locked.
“Evidently nobody at home,” said Larcher, and made his way down-stairs again. He went into the saloon, where he found the same barkeeper he had seen on his first visit to the place.
“I thought I might find a friend of mine here,” he said, after ordering a drink. “Perhaps you remember—we were here together five or six weeks ago.”
“I remember all right enough,” said the bar-keeper. “He ain't here now.”
“He's been here lately, though, hasn't he?”
“Depends on what yuh call lately. He was in here the other day with old man Bud.”
“What day was that?”
“Let's see, I guess it was—naw, it was Monday, because it was the day before Mr. Bud went back to his chickens. He went home Toosdy, Bud did.”
It was on Tuesday night that Larcher had last beheld Davenport. “And so you haven't seen my friend since Monday?” he asked, insistently.
“That's what I said.”
“And you're sure Mr. Bud hasn't been here since Tuesday?”
“That's what I said.”
“When is Mr. Bud coming back, do you know?”
“You can search me,” was the barkeeper's subtle way of disavowing all knowledge of Mr. Bud's future intentions.
Back to the elevated railway, and so up-town, sped Larcher. The feeling that his friend must be now at home continued strong within him until he was again upon the steps of the lodging-house. Then it weakened somewhat. It died altogether at sight of the questioning eyes of the negro. The telegram was still on the hat-stand.
“Any news?” asked the landlady, appearing from the rear.
“No. I was hoping you might have some.”
After saying he would return in the evening, he rushed off to keep his engagement for tea. He was late in arriving at the flat.
“Here he is!” cried Edna, eagerly. Her eyes sparkled; she was in high spirits. Florence, too, was smiling. The girls seemed to have been in great merriment, and in possession of some cause of felicitation as yet unknown to Larcher. He stood hesitating.
“Well? Well? Well?” said Edna. “How did he take it? Speak. Tell us your good news, and then we'll tell you ours.” Florence only watched his face, but there was a more poignant inquiry in her silence than in her friend's noise.
“Well, the fact is,” began Larcher, embarrassed, “I can't tell you any good news just yet. Davenport couldn't keep his engagement with me to-day, and I haven't been able to see him.”
“Not able to see him?” Edna exclaimed, hotly. “Why didn't you go and find him? As if anything could be more important! That's the way with men—always afraid of intruding. Such a disappointment! Oh, what an unreliable, helpless, futile creature you are, Tom!”
Stung to self-defence, the helpless, futile creature replied:
“I wasn't at all afraid of intruding. I did go trying to find him; I've spent the afternoon doing that.”
“A woman would have managed to find out where he was,” retorted Edna.
“His landlady's a woman,” rejoined Larcher, doggedly, “and she hasn't managed to find out.”
“Has she been trying to?”
“Well—no,” stammered Larcher, repenting.
“Yes, she has!” said Edna, with a changed manner. “But what for? Why is she concerned? There's something behind this, Tom—I can tell by your looks. Speak out, for heaven's sake! What's wrong?”
A glance at Florence Kenby's pale face did not make Larcher's task easier or pleasanter.
“I don't think there's anything seriously wrong. Davenport has been away from home for a day or two without saying anything about it to his landlady, as he usually does in such cases. That's all.”
“And didn't he send you word about breaking the engagement with you?” persisted Edna.
“No. I suppose it slipped his mind.”
“And neither you nor the landlady has any idea where he is?”
“Not when I saw her last—about half an hour ago.”
“Well!” ejaculated Edna. “That is a mysterious disappearance!”
The landlady had used the same expression. Such was Larcher's mental observation in the moment's silence that followed,—a silence broken by a low cry from Florence Kenby.
“Oh, if anything has happened to him!”
The intensity of feeling in her voice and look was something for which Larcher had not been prepared. It struck him to the heart, and for a time he was without speech for a reassuring word. Edna, though manifestly awed by this first full revelation of her friend's concern for Davenport, undertook promptly the office of banishing the alarm she had helped to raise.
“Oh, don't be frightened, dear. There's nothing serious, after all. Men often go where business calls them, without accounting to anybody. He's quite able to take care of himself. I'm sure it isn't as bad as Tom says.”
“As I say!” exclaimed Larcher. “I don't say it's bad at all. It's your own imagination, Edna,—your sudden and sensational imagination. There's no occasion for alarm, Miss Kenby. Men often, as Edna says—”
“But I must make sure,” interrupted Florence. “If anything is wrong, we're losing time. He must be sought for—the police must be notified.”
“His landlady—a very good woman, her name is Mrs. Haze—spoke of that, and she's the proper one to do it. But we decided, she and I, to wait awhile longer. You see, if the police took up the matter, and it got noised about, and Davenport reappeared in the natural order of things—as of course he will—why, how foolish we should all feel!”
“What do feelings of that sort matter, when deeper ones are concerned?”
“Nothing at all; but I'm thinking of Davenport's feelings. You know how he would hate that sort of publicity.”
“That must be risked. It's a small thing compared with his safety. Oh, if you knew my anxiety!”
“I understand, Miss Kenby. I'll have Mrs. Haze go to police headquarters at once. I'll go with her. And then, if there's still no news, I'll go around to the—to other places where people inquire in such cases.”
“And you'll let me know immediately—as soon as you find out anything?”
“Immediately. I'll telegraph. Where to? Your Fifth Avenue address?”
“Stay here to-night, Florence,” put in Edna. “It will be all right, now.”
“Very well. Thank you, dear. Then you can telegraph here, Mr. Larcher.”
Her instant compliance with Edna's suggestion puzzled Larcher a little.
“She's had an understanding with her father,” said Edna, having noted his look. “She's a bit more her own mistress to-day than she was yesterday.”
“Yes,” said Florence, “I—I had a talk with him—I spoke to him about those letters, and he finally—explained the matter. We settled many things. He released me from the promise we were talking about yesterday.”
“Good! That's excellent news!”
“It's the news we had ready for you when you brought us such a disappointment,” bemoaned Edna.
“It's news that will change the world for Davenport,” replied Larcher. “I must find him now. If he only knew what was waiting for him, he wouldn't be long missing.”
“It would be too cruel if any harm befell him”—Florence's voice quivered as she spoke—“at this time, of all times. It would be the crowning misfortune.”
“I don't think destiny means to play any such vile trick, Miss Kenby.”
“I don't see how Heaven could allow it,” said Florence, earnestly.
“Well, he's simply got to be found. So I'm off to Mrs. Haze. I can go tea-less this time, thank you. Is there anything I can do for you on the way?”
“I'll have to send father a message about my staying here. If you would stop at a telegraph-office—”
“Oh, that's all right,” broke in Edna. “There's a call-box down-stairs. I'll have the hall-boy attend to it. You mustn't lose a minute, Tom.”
Miss Hill sped him on his way by going with him to the elevator. While they waited for that, she asked, cautiously:
“Is there anything about this affair that you were afraid to say before Florence?”
A thought of the twenty thousand dollars came into his head; but again he felt that the circumstance of the money was his friend's secret, and should be treated by him—for the present, at least—as non-existent.
“No,” he replied. “I wouldn't call it a disappearance, if I were you. So far, it's just a non-appearance. We shall soon be laughing at ourselves, probably, for having been at all worked up over it.—She's a lovely girl, isn't she? I'm half in love with her myself.”
“She's proof against your charms,” said Edna, coolly.
“I know it. What a lot she must think of him! The possibility of harm brings out her feelings, I suppose. I wonder if you'd show such concern if I were missing?”
“I give it up. Here's the elevator. Good-by! And don't keep us in suspense. You're a dear boy! Au revoir!”
With the hope of Edna's approval to spur him, besides the more unselfish motives he already possessed, Larcher made haste upon the business. This time he tried to conquer the expectation of finding Davenport at home; yet it would struggle up as he approached the house of Mrs. Haze. The same deadening disappointment met him as before, however; and was mirrored in the landlady's face when she saw by his that he brought no news.
Mrs. Haze had come up from preparations for dinner. Hers was a house in which, the choice being “optional,” sundry of the lodgers took their rooms “with board.” Important as was her occupation, at the moment, of “helping out” the cook by inducing a mass of stale bread to fancy itself disguised as a pudding, she flung that occupation aside at once, and threw on her things to accompany Larcher to police headquarters. There she told all that was necessary, to an official at a desk,—a big, comfortable man with a plenitude of neck and mustache. This gentleman, after briefly questioning her and Larcher, and taking a few illegible notes, and setting a subordinate to looking through the latest entries in a large record, dismissed the subject by saying that whatever was proper to be done would be done. He had a blandly incredulous way with him, as if he doubted, not only that Murray Davenport was missing, but that any such person as Murray Davenport existed to be missing; as if he merely indulged his visitors in their delusion out of politeness; as if in any case the matter was of no earthly consequence. The subordinate reported that nothing in the record for the past two days showed any such man, or the body of any such man, to have come under the all-seeing eye of the police. Nevertheless, Mrs. Haze wanted the assurance that an investigation should be started forthwith. The big man reminded her that no dead body had been found, and repeated that all proper steps would be taken. With this grain of comfort as her sole satisfaction, she returned to her bread pudding, for which her boarders were by that time waiting.
When the big man had asked the question whether Davenport was accustomed to carry much money about with him, or was known to have had any considerable sum on his person when last seen, Larcher had silently allowed Mrs. Haze to answer. “Not as far as I know; I shouldn't think so,” she had said. He felt that, as Davenport's absence was still so short, and might soon be ended and accounted for, the situation did not yet warrant the disclosure of a fact which Davenport himself had wished to keep private. He perceived the two opposite inferences which might be made from that fact, and he knew that the police would probably jump at the inference unfavorable to his friend. For the present, he would guard his friend from that.
Larcher's work on the case had just begun. For what was to come he required the fortification of dinner. Mrs. Haze had invited him to dine at her board, but he chose to lose that golden opportunity, and to eat at one of those clean little places which for cheapness and good cooking together are not to be matched, or half-matched, in any other city in the world. He soon blessed himself for having done so; he had scarcely given his order when in sauntered Barry Tompkins.
“Stop right here,” cried Larcher, grasping the spectacled lawyer and pulling him into a seat. “You are commandeered.”
“What for?” asked Tompkins, with his expansive smile.
“Dinner first, and then—”
“All right. Do you give me carte blanche with the bill of fare? May I roam over it at my own sweet will? Is there no limit?”
“None, except a time limit. I want you to steer me around the hospitals, station-houses, morgue, et cetera. There's a man missing. You've made those rounds before.”
“Yes, twice. When poor Bill Southford jumped from the ferry-boat; and again when a country cousin of mine had knockout drops administered to him in a Bowery dance-hall. It's a dismal quest.”
“I know it, but if you have nothing else on your hands this evening—”
“Oh, I'll pilot you. We never know when we're likely to have search-parties out after ourselves, in this abounding metropolis. Who's the latest victim of the strenuous life?”
“Murray Davenport!”
“What! is he occurring again?”
Larcher imparted what it was needful that Tompkins should know. The two made an expeditious dinner, and started on their long and fatiguing inquiry. It was, as Tompkins had said, a dismal quest. Those who have ever made this cheerless tour will not desire to be reminded of the experience, and those who have not would derive more pain than pleasure from a recital of it. The long distances from point to point, the rebuffs from petty officials, the difficulty in wringing harmless information from fools clad in a little brief authority, the mingled hope and dread of coming upon the object of the search at the next place, the recurring feeling that the whole fatiguing pursuit is a wild goose chase and that the missing person is now safe at home, are a few features of the disheartening business. The labors of Larcher and Tompkins elicited nothing; lightened though they were by the impecunious lawyer's tact, knowledge, and good humor, they left the young men dispirited and dead tired. Larcher had nothing to telegraph Miss Kenby. He thought of her passing a sleepless night, waiting for news, the dupe and victim of every sound that might herald a messenger. He slept ill himself, the short time he had left for sleep. In the morning he made a swift breakfast, and was off to Mrs. Haze's. Davenport's room was still untenanted, his bed untouched; the telegram still lay unclaimed in the hall below.
Florence and Edna were prepared, by the absence of news during the night, for Larcher's discouraged face when he appeared at the flat in the morning. Miss Kenby seemed already to have fortified her mind for an indefinite season of anxiety. She maintained an outward calm, but it was the forced calm of a resolution to bear torture heroically. She had her lapses, her moments of weakness and outcry, her periods of despair, during the ensuing days,—for days did ensue, and nothing was seen or heard of the missing one,—but of these Larcher was not often a witness. Edna Hill developed new resources as an encourager, a diverter, and an unfailing optimist in regard to the outcome. The girls divided their time between the flat and the Kenby lodgings down Fifth Avenue. Mr. Kenby was subdued and self-effacing when they were about. He wore a somewhat meek, cowed air nowadays, which was not without a touch of martyrdom. He volunteered none but the most casual remarks on the subject of Davenport's disappearance, and was not asked even for those. His diminution spoke volumes for the unexpected force of personality Florence must have shown in that unrelated interview about the letters, in which she had got back her promise.
The burden of action during those ensuing days fell on Larcher. Besides regular semi-diurnal calls on the young ladies and at Mrs. Haze's house, and regular consultations of police records, he made visits to every place he had ever known Davenport to frequent, and to every person he had ever known Davenport to be acquainted with. Only, for a time Mr. Bagley had to be excepted, he not having yet returned from Chicago.
It appeared that the big man at police headquarters had really caused the proper thing to be done. Detectives came to Mrs. Haze's house and searched the absent man's possessions, but found no clue; and most of the newspapers had a short paragraph to the effect that Murray Davenport, “a song-writer,” was missing from his lodging-house. Larcher hoped that this, if it came to Davenport's eye, though it might annoy him, would certainly bring word from him. But the man remained as silent as unseen. Was there, indeed, what the newspapers call “foul play”? And was Larcher called upon yet to speak of the twenty thousand dollars? The knowledge of that would give the case an importance in the eyes of the police, but would it, even if the worst had happened, do any good to Davenport? Larcher thought not; and held his tongue.
One afternoon, in the week following the disappearance,—or, as Larcher preferred to call it, non-appearance,—that gentleman, having just sat down in a north-bound Sixth Avenue car, glanced over the first page of an evening paper—one of the yellow brand—which he had bought a minute before. All at once he was struck in the face, metaphorically speaking, by a particular set of headlines. He held his breath, and read the following opening paragraph:
“The return of George A. Bagley from Chicago last night puts a new phase on the disappearance of Murray Davenport, the song-writer, who has not been seen since Wednesday of last week at his lodging-house,—East——th Street. Mr. Bagley would like to know what became of a large amount of cash which he left with the missing man for certain purposes the previous night on leaving suddenly for Chicago. He says that when he called this morning on brokers, bankers, and others to whom the money should have been handed over, he found that not a cent of it had been disposed of according to orders. Davenport had for some years frequently acted as a secretary or agent for Bagley, and had handled many thousands of dollars for the latter in such a manner as to gain the highest confidence.”
There was a half-column of details, which Larcher read several times over on the way up-town. When he entered Edna's drawing-room the two girls were sitting before the fire. At the first sight of his face, Edna sprang to her feet, and Florence's lips parted.
“What is it?” cried Edna. “You've got news! What is it?”
“No. Not any news of his whereabouts.”
“What of, then? It's in that paper.”
She seized the yellow journal, and threw her glance from headline to headline. She found the story, and read it through, aloud, at a rate of utterance that would have staggered the swiftest shorthand writer.
“Well! What do you think of that?” she said, and stopped to take breath.
“Do you think it is true?” asked Florence.
“There is some reason to believe it is!” replied Larcher, awkwardly.
Florence rose, in great excitement. “Then this affair must be cleared up!” she cried. “For don't you see? He may have been robbed—waylaid for the money—made away with! God knows what else can have happened! The newspaper hints that he ran away with the money. I'll never believe that. It must be cleared up—I tell you it must!”
Edna tried to soothe the agitated girl, and looked sorrowfully at Larcher, who could only deplore in silence his inability to solve the mystery.
A month passed, and it was not cleared up. Larcher became hopeless of ever having sight or word of Murray Davenport again. For himself, he missed the man; for the man, assuming a tragic fate behind the mystery, he had pity; but his sorrow was keenest for Miss Kenby. No description, nothing but experience, can inform the reader what was her torment of mind: to be so impatient of suspense as to cry out as she had done, and yet perforce to wait hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in the same unrelieved anxiety,—this prolonged torture is not to be told in words. She schooled herself against further outcries, but the evidence of her suffering was no less in her settled look of baffled expectancy, her fits of mute abstraction, the start of her eyes at any sound of bell or knock. She clutched back hope as it was slipping away, and would not surrender uncertainty for its less harrowing follower, despair. She had resumed, as the probability of immediate news decreased, her former way of existence, living with her father at the house in lower Fifth Avenue, where Miss Hill saw her every day except when she went to see Miss Hill, who denied herself the Horse Show, the football games, and the opera for the sake of her friend. Larcher called on the Kenbys twice or thrice a week, sometimes with Edna, sometimes alone.
There was one possibility which Larcher never mentioned to Miss Kenby in discussing the case. He feared it might fit too well her own secret thought. That was the possibility of suicide. What could be more consistent with Davenport's outspoken distaste for life, as he found it, or with his listless endurance of it, than a voluntary departure from it? He had never talked suicide, but this, in his state of mind, was rather an argument in favor of his having acted it. No threatened men live longer, as a class, than those who have themselves as threateners. It was true, Larcher had seen in Davenport's copy of Keats, this passage marked:
“... for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death.”
But an unhappy man might endorse that saying without a thought of possible self-destruction. So, for Davenport's very silence on that way of escape from his tasteless life, Larcher thought he might have taken it.
He confided this thought to no less a person than Bagley, some weeks after the return of that capitalist from Chicago. Two or three times, meeting by chance, they had briefly discussed the disappearance, each being more than willing to obtain whatever light the other might be able to throw on the case. Finally Bagley, to whom Larcher had given his address, had sent for him to call at the former's rooms on a certain evening. These rooms proved to be a luxurious set of bachelor apartments in one of the new tall buildings just off Broadway. Hard wood, stamped leather, costly rugs, carved furniture, the richest upholstery, the art of the old world and the inventiveness of the new, had made this a handsome abode at any time, and a particularly inviting one on a cold December night. Larcher, therefore, was not sorry he had responded to the summons. He found Bagley sharing cigars and brandy with another man, a squat, burly, middle-aged stranger, with a dyed mustache and the dress and general appearance of a retired hotel-porter, cheap restaurant proprietor, theatre doorkeeper, or some such useful but not interesting member of society. This person, for a time, fulfilled the promise of his looks, of being uninteresting. On being introduced to Larcher as Mr. Lafferty, he uttered a quick “Howdy,” with a jerk of the head, and lapsed into a mute regard of tobacco smoke and brandy bottle, which he maintained while Bagley and Larcher went more fully into the Davenport case than they had before gone together. Larcher felt that he was being sounded, but he saw no reason to withhold anything except what related to Miss Kenby. It was now that he mentioned possible suicide.
“Suicide? Not much,” said Bagley. “A man would be a chump to turn on the gas with all that money about him. No, sir; it wasn't suicide. We know that much.”
“You know it?” exclaimed Larcher.
“Yes, we know it. A man don't make the preparations he did, when he's got suicide on his mind. I guess we might as well put Mr. Larcher on, Lafferty, do you think?”
“Jess' you say,” replied Mr. Lafferty, briefly.
“You see,” continued Bagley to Larcher, “I sent for you, so's I could pump you in front of Lafferty here. I'm satisfied you've told all you know, and though that's absolutely nothing at all—ain't that so, Lafferty?”
“Yep,—nothin' 'tall.”
“Though it's nothing at all, a fair exchange is no robbery, and I'm willing for you to know as much as I do. The knowledge won't do you any good—it hasn't done me any good—but it'll give you an insight into your friend Davenport. Then you and his other friends, if he's got any, won't roast me because I claim that he flew the coop and not that somebody did him for the money. See?”
“Not exactly.”
“All right; then we'll open your eyes. I guess you don't happen to know who Mr. Lafferty here is, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, he's a central office detective.” (Mr. Lafferty bore Larcher's look of increased interest with becoming modesty.) “He's been on this case ever since I came back from Chicago, and by a piece of dumb luck, he got next to Davenport's trail for part of the day he was last seen. He'll tell you how far he traced him. It's up to you now, Lafferty. Speak out.”
Mr. Lafferty, pretending to take as a good joke the attribution of his discoveries to “dumb luck,” promptly discoursed in a somewhat thick but rapid voice.
“On the Wednesday morning he was las' seen, he left the house about nine o'clock, with a package wrapt in brown paper. I lose sight of'm f'r a couple 'f hours, but I pick'm up again a little before twelve. He's still got the same package. He goes into a certain department store, and buys a suit o' clothes in the clothin' department; shirts, socks, an' underclothes in the gents' furnishin' department; a pair o' shoes in the shoe department, an' s'mother things in other departments. These he has all done up in wrappin'-paper, pays fur 'em, and leaves 'em to be called fur later. He then goes an' has his lunch.”
“Where does he have his lunch?” asked Bagley.
“Never mind where he has his lunch,” said Mr. Lafferty, annoyed. “That's got no bearin' on the case. After he has his lunch, he goes to a certain big grocer's and provision dealer's, an' buys a lot o' canned meats and various provisions,—I can give you a complete list if you want it.”
This last offer, accompanied by a movement of a hand to an inner pocket, was addressed to Bagley, who declined with the words, “That's all right. I've seen it before.”
“He has these things all done up in heavy paper, so's to make a dozen'r so big packages. Then he pays fur 'em, an' leaves 'em to be called fur. It's late in the afternoon by this time, and comin' on dark. Understand, he's still got the 'riginal brown paper package with him. The next thing he does is, he hires a cab, and has himself druv around to the department store he was at before. He gets the things he bought there, an' puts 'em on the cab, an' has himself druv on to the grocer's an' provision dealer's, an' gets the packages he bought there, an' has them put in the cab. The cab's so full o' his parcels now, he's only got just room fur himself on the back seat. An' then he has the hackman drive to a place away down-town.”
Mr. Lafferty paused for a moment to wet his throat with brandy and water. Larcher, who had admired the professional mysteriousness shown in withholding the names of the stores for the mere sake of reserving something to secrecy, was now wondering how the detective knew that the man he had traced was Murray Davenport. He gave voice to his wonder.
“By the description, of course,” replied Mr. Lafferty, with disgust at Larcher's inferiority of intelligence. “D'yuh s'pose I'd foller a man's trail as fur as that, if everything didn't tally—face, eyes, nose, height, build, clo'es, hat, brown paper parcel, everything?”
“Then it's simply marvellous,” said Larcher, with genuine astonishment, “how you managed to get on his track, and to follow it from place to place.”
“Oh, it's my business to know how to do them things,” replied Mr. Lafferty, deprecatingly.
“Your business!” said Bagley. “Dumb luck, I tell you. Can't you see how it was?” He had turned to Larcher. “The cabman read of Davenport's disappearance, and putting together the day, and the description in the papers, and the queer load of parcels, goes and tells the police. Lafferty is put on the case, pumps the cabman dry, then goes to the stores where the cab stopped to collect the goods, and finds out the rest. Only, when he comes to tell the story, he tells the facts not in their order as he found them out, but in their order as they occurred.”
“You know all about it, Mr. Bagley,” said Lafferty, taking refuge in jocular irony. “You'd ought 'a' worked up the case yourself.”
“You left Davenport being driven down-town,” Larcher reminded the detective.
“Yes, an' that about lets me out. The cabman druv 'im to somewhere on South Street, by the wharves. It was dark by that time, and the driver didn't notice the exact spot—he just druv along the street till the man told him to stop, that was his orders,—an' then the man got out, took out his parcels, an' carried them across the sidewalk into a dark hallway. Then he paid the cabman, an' the cabman druv off. The last the cabman seen of 'im, he was goin' into the hallway where his goods were, an' that's the last any one seen of 'im in New York, as fur as known. Prob'ly you've got enough imagination to give a guess what became of him after that.”
“No, I haven't,” said Larcher.
“Jes' think it over. You can put two and two together, can't you? A new outfit o' clo'es, first of all. Then a stock o' provisions. To make it easier, I'll tell yuh this much: they was the kind o' provisions people take on yachts, an' he even admitted to the salesman they was for that purpose. And then South Street—the wharves; does that mean ships? Does the whole business mean a voyage? But a man don't have to stock up extry food if he's goin' by any regular steamer line, does he? What fur, then? And what kind o' ships lays off South Street? Sailin' ships; them that goes to South America, an' Asia, and the South Seas, and God knows where all. Now do you think you can guess?”
“But why would he put his things in a hallway?” queried Larcher.
“To wait fur the boat that was to take 'em out to the vessel late at night. Why did he wait fur dark to be druv down there? You bet, he was makin' his flittin' as silent as possible. He'd prob'ly squared it with a skipper to take 'im aboard on the dead quiet. That's why there ain't much use our knowin' what vessels sailed about that time. I do know, but much good we'll get out o' that. What port he gets off at, who'll ever tell? It'll be sure to be in a country where we ain't got no extradition treaty. And when this particular captain shows up again at this port, innocent enough he'll be; he never took no passenger aboard in the night, an' put 'im off somewheres below the 'quator. I guess Mr. Bagley can about consider his twenty thousand to the bad, unless his young friend takes a notion to return to his native land before he's got it all spent.”
“And that's your belief?” said Larcher to Bagley, “—that he went to some other country with the money?”
“Absconded,” replied the ready-money man. “Yes; there's nothing else to believe. At first I thought you might have some notion where he was; that's what made me send for you. But I see he left you out of his confidence. So I thought you might as well know his real character. Lafferty's going to give the result of his investigation to the newspaper men, anyhow. The only satisfaction I can get is to show the fellow up.”
When Larcher left the presence of Bagley, he carried away no definite conclusion except that Bagley was an even more detestable animal than he had before supposed. If the man whom Lafferty had traced was really Davenport, then indeed the theory of suicide was shaken. There remained the possibility of murder or flight. The purchases indeed seemed to indicate flight, especially when viewed in association with South Street. South Street? Why, that was Mr. Bud's street. And a hallway? Mr. Bud's room was approached through a hallway. Mr. Bud had left town the day before that Wednesday; but if Davenport had made frequent visits there for sketching, was it not certain that he had had access to the room in Mr. Bud's absence? Larcher had knocked at that room two days after the Wednesday, and had got no answer, but this was no evidence that Davenport might not have made some use of the room in the meanwhile. If he had made use of it, he might have left some trace, some possible clew to his subsequent movements. Larcher, thinking thus on his way from Bagley's apartment-house, resolved to pay another visit to Mr. Bud's quarters before saying anything about Bagley's theory to any one.
He was busy the next day until the afternoon was well advanced. As soon as he got free, he took himself to South Street; ascended the dark stairs from the hallway, and knocked loudly at Mr. Bud's door. There was no more answer than there had been six weeks before; nothing to do but repair to the saloon below. The same bartender was on duty.
“Is Mr. Bud in town, do you know?” inquired Larcher, having observed the usual preliminaries to interrogation.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“When was he here last?”
“Not for a long time. 'Most two months, I guess.”
“But I was here five or six weeks ago, and he'd been gone only three days then.”
“Then you know more about it than I do; so don't ast me.”
“He hasn't been here since I was?”
“He hasn't.”
“And my friend who was here with me the first time—has he been here since?”
“Not while I've been.”
“When is Mr. Bud likely to be here again?”
“Give it up. I ain't his private secretary.”
Just as Larcher was turning away, the street door opened, and in walked a man with a large hand-bag, who proved to be none other than Mr. Bud himself.
“I was just looking for you,” cried Larcher.
“That so?” replied Mr. Bud, cheerily, grasping Larcher's hand. “I just got into town. It's blame cold out.” He set his hand-bag on the bar, saying to the bartender, “Keep my gripsack back there awhile, Mick, will yuh? I got to git somethin' into me 'fore I go up-stairs. Gimme a plate o' soup on that table, an' the whisky bottle. Will you join me, sir? Two plates o' soup, an' two glasses with the whisky bottle. Set down, set down, sir. Make yourself at home.”
Larcher obeyed, and as soon as the old man's overcoat was off, and the old man ready for conversation, plunged into his subject.
“Do you know what's become of my friend Davenport?” he asked, in a low tone.
“No. Hope he's well and all right. What makes you ask like that?”
“Haven't you read of his disappearance?”
“Disappearance? The devil! Not a word! I been too busy to read the papers. When was it?”
“Several weeks ago.” Larcher recited the main facts, and finished thus: “So if there isn't a mistake, he was last seen going into your hallway. Did he have a key to your room?”
“Yes, so's he could draw pictures while I was away. My hallway? Let's go and see.”
In some excitement, without waiting for partiallars, the farmer rose and led the way out. It was already quite dark.
“Oh, I don't expect to find him in your room,” said Larcher, at his heels. “But he may have left some trace there.”
Mr. Bud turned into the hallway, of which the door was never locked till late at night. The hallway was not lighted, save as far as the rays of a street-lamp went across the threshold. Plunging into the darkness with haste, closely followed by Larcher, the old man suddenly brushed against some one coming from the stairs.
“Excuse me” said Mr. Bud. “I didn't see anybody. It's all-fired dark in here.”
“It is dark,” replied the stranger, and passed out to the street. Larcher, at the words of the other two, had stepped back into a corner to make way. Mr. Bud turned to look at the stranger; and the stranger, just outside the doorway, turned to look at Mr. Bud. Then both went their different directions, Mr. Bud's direction being up the stairs.
“Must be a new lodger,” said Mr. Bud. “He was comin' from these stairs when I run agin 'im. I never seen 'im before.”
“You can't truly say you saw him even then,” replied Larcher, guiding himself by the stair wall.
“Oh, he turned around outside, an' I got the street-light on him. A good-lookin' young chap, to be roomin' on these premises.”
“I didn't see his face,” replied Larcher, stumbling.
“Look out fur yur feet. Here we are at the top.”
Mr. Bud groped to his door, and fumblingly unlocked it. Once inside his room, he struck a match, and lighted one of the two gas-burners.
“Everything same as ever,” said Mr. Bud, looking around from the centre of the room. “Books, table, chairs, stove, bed made up same's I left it—”
“Hello, what's this?” exclaimed Larcher, having backed against a hollow metallic object on the floor and knocked his head against a ropey, rubbery something in the air.
“That's a gas-heater—Mr. Davenport made me a present of it. It's convenienter than the old stove. He wanted to pay me fur the gas it burned when he was here sketchin', but I wouldn't stand fur that.”
The ropey, rubbery something was the tube connecting the heater with the gas-fixture.
“I move we light 'er up, and make the place comfortable; then we can talk this matter over,” continued Mr. Bud. “Shet the door, an' siddown.”
Seated in the waves of warmth from the gas-stove, the two went into the details of the case.
Larcher not withholding the theory of Mr. Lafferty, and even touching briefly on Davenport's misunderstanding as to Florence Kenby.
“Well,” said Mr. Bud, thoughtfully, “if he reely went into a hallway in these parts, it would prob'ly be the hallway he was acquainted with. But he wouldn't stay in the hallway. He'd prob'ly come to this room. An' he'd no doubt bring his parcels here. But one thing's certain: if he did that, he took 'em all away again. He might 'a' left somethin' in the closet, or under the bed, or somewheres.”
A search was made of the places named, as well as of drawers and wash-stand, but Mr. Bud found no additions to his property. He even looked in the coal-box,—and stooped and fished something out, which he held up to the light. “Hello, I don't reco'nize this!”
Larcher uttered an exclamation. “He has been here! That's the note-book cover the money was in. He had it the night before he was last seen. I could swear to it.”
“It's all dirty with coal-dust,” cautioned Mr. Bud, as Larcher seized it for closer examination.
“It proves he's been here, at least. We've got him traced further than the detective, anyhow.”
“But not so very fur, at that. What if he was here? Mind, I ain't a-sayin' one thing ur another,—but if he was contemplatin' a voyage, an' had fixed to be took aboard late at night, what better place to wait fur the ship's boat than just this here?”
“But the money must have been handled here—taken out of this cover, and the cover thrown away. Suppose somebody had seen him display that money during the day; had shadowed him here, followed him to this room, taken him by surprise?”
“No signs of a struggle, fur as I c'n see.”
“But a single blow with a black-jack, from behind, would do the business.”
“An' what about the—remains?”
“The river is just across the street. This would occur at night, remember.”
Mr. Bud shook his head. “An' the load o' parcels—what 'ud become o' them?”
“The criminal might convey them away, too, at his leisure during the night. They would be worth something.”
Evidently to test the resourcefulness of the young man's imagination, Mr. Bud continued, “But why should the criminal go to the trouble o' removin' the body from here?”
“To delay its discovery, or create an impression of suicide if it were found,” ventured Larcher, rather lamely. “The criminal would naturally suppose that a chambermaid visited the room every day.”
“The criminal 'ud risk less by leavin' the body right here; an' it don't stand to reason that, after makin' such a haul o' money, he'd take any chances f'r the sake o' the parcels. No; your the'ry's got as much agin' it, as the detective's has fur it. It's built on nothin' but random guesswork. As fur me, I'd rather the young man did get away with the money,—you say the other fellow'd done him out o' that much, anyhow. I'd rather that than somebody else got away with him.”
“So would I—in the circumstances,” confessed Larcher.
Mr. Bud proposed that they should go down to the saloon and “tackle the soup.” Larcher could offer no reason for remaining where they were. As they rose to go, the young man looked at his fingers, soiled from the coal-dust on the covers.
“There's a bath-room on this floor; we c'n wash our hands there,” said Mr. Bud, and, after closing up his own apartment, led the way, by the light of matches, to a small cubicle at the rear of the passage, wherein were an ancient wood-encased bathtub, two reluctant water-taps, and other products of a primitive age of plumbing. From this place, discarding the aid of light, Mr. Bud and his visitor felt their way down-stairs.
“Yes,” spoke Mr. Bud, as they descended in the darkness, “one 'ud almost imagine it was true about his bein' pursued with bad luck. To think of the young lady turnin' out staunch after all, an' his disappearin' just in time to miss the news! That beats me!”
“And how do you suppose the young lady feels about it?” said Larcher. “It breaks my heart to have nothing to report, when I see her. She's really an angel of a girl.”
They emerged to the street, and Mr. Bud's mind recurred to the stranger he had run against in the hallway. When they had reseated themselves in the saloon, and the soup had been brought, the old man said to the bartender:
“I see there's a new roomer, Mick?”
“Where?” asked Mick.
“In the house here. Somewheres up-stairs.”
“If there is, he's a new one on me,” said Mick, decidedly.
“What? Ain't there a new roomer come in since I was here last?”
“No, sir, there ain't there.”
“Well, that's funny,” said Mr. Bud, looking to Larcher for comment. But Larcher had no thought just then for any subject but Davenport, and to that he kept the farmer's attention during the rest of their talk. When the talk was finished, simultaneously with the soup, it had been agreed that Mr. Bud should “nose around” thereabouts for any confirmation of Lafferty's theory, or any trace of Davenport, and should send for Larcher if any such turned up.
“I'll be in town a week ur two,” said the old man, at parting. “I been kep' so long up-country this time, 'count o' the turkey trade—Thanksgivin' and Chris'mas, y'know. I do considerable in poultry.”
But some days passed, and Larcher heard nothing from Mr. Bud. A few of the newspapers published Detective Lafferty's unearthings, before Larcher had time to prepare Miss Kenby for them. She hailed them with gladness as pointing to a likelihood that Davenport was alive; but she ignored all implications of probable guilt on his part. That the amount of Bagley's loss through Davenport was no more than Bagley's rightful debt to Davenport, Larcher had already taken it on himself delicately to inform her. She had not seemed to think that fact, or any fact, necessary to her lover's justification.