Part 1 (2/2)
”It's blackmail!” Stockbridge snarled. ”Rank-scented blackmail of the cheapest order.”
”A threat of some kind?”
”Threat? Yes--a threat, in a way. It's clever, but it won't _work_ with me!”
Drew recrossed his legs. He touched his short-cropped mustache with the fingers of his right hand. He coughed as in suggestion. His brows lifted as he studied the envelope from a distance.
Stockbridge s.n.a.t.c.hed it up suddenly. He slapped it against the edge of the polished table. He turned and found a cigar to his liking out of many in a humidor beneath a smaller table at the right of his chair. He bit on this cigar, struck a match, and dragged in the smoke with deep inhalings before he turned and opened the envelope, exposing a letter which he rapped with the knuckles of his left hand.
”I'll beg to be excused,” he said half-apologetically. ”I'm not myself.
This letter, you know. I want you to ferret it out. I want you to find out who sent it, and make him or her pay. Make them pay in full!”
”May I see it?”
Stockbridge hesitated. His eyes ran across the paper. His lips curled in an ugly, thin-visaged smile which wrinkled his yellow face. ”See it?
Yes!” he snapped, volplaning the sheet across the table with a vicious jerk of his wrist.
”Ridgewood Cemetery,” said Drew lifting the letter. ”Heading, Ridgewood Cemetery,” he repeated softly. ”Dated yesterday,” he added with a sly glance at Stockbridge. ”Signed by the superintendent, I suppose. Yes, by the superintendent. He scrawls worse than I do. Well, it looks official and smells--ah!”
Stockbridge worked his brows up and down like a gorilla. He chewed on his cigar with savage grinding of gold-filled teeth.
”Smells graveyardy,” continued Drew. ”I get flowers and urns and new-turned earth. This seems to be the bare announcement that the grave you ordered dug in the family plot--is ready and waiting.” Drew glanced up.
”Quite so,” sneered the Magnate.
Drew stroked his upper lip. He turned the letter over. He held it to the rose-light and studied the water-mark. He raised his black brows and said sepulchrally:
”Who is dead?”
Stockbridge stiffened. ”Dead?” he exclaimed. ”Why, n.o.body is dead! d.a.m.n it, Drew, there's n.o.body dead at all!”
The detective frowned. ”Somebody in the immediate family?” he questioned. ”Somebody you are expecting to pa.s.s away soon? Some one on their sick-bed, for instance?”
Stockbridge s.n.a.t.c.hed the cigar from his mouth and threw it to the rug.
”That letter's a stab, Drew!” he exclaimed. ”It's a d.a.m.n insult to me and mine, if you want to know. I'll have the author of it, or know the reason why. I'll spend fifty thousand to catch the miscreants. They'll not monkey with me!”
”The writer of this seems to be the superintendent.”
”Yes--that part's all right. He knows nothing save what you see there.
This threat concerns Loris and I. We are the only two who will ever be buried in our family plot.”
”What does she know? Has she seen this letter?”
”Yes!”
<script>