Part 14 (1/2)

”Why, he never even _seen_ the man,” replied Mrs. Wilson. ”It seems Mr. Fairfax was mixin' up business with his honeymoon, and him and his bride was goin' off again, or was on their way, and she had a chance to run up and see her uncle for an hour, and none of us so much as got a look at Mr. Fairfax.”

The mystery darkened rather than otherwise. There was nothing yet to establish whether or not a real Mr. Fairfax existed. It appeared to Garrison that Dorothy had purposely arranged the scheme of her alleged marriage and honeymoon in such a way that her uncle should not meet her husband.

He tried another query:

”Did Mr. Hardy say that he had never seen Mr. Fairfax?”

”Never laid eyes on the man in his life, but expected to meet him in a month.”

Garrison thought of the nephew who had come to claim the body. His name had been given as Durgin. At the most, he could be no more than Dorothy's cousin, and not the one he had recently met at her house.

”I don't suppose you saw Mr. Durgin, the nephew of Mr. Hardy?” he inquired. ”The man who claimed the body?”

”No, sir. I heard about Mr. Durgin, but I didn't see him.”

Garrison once more changed the topic.

”Which was the room that Mr. Hardy occupied? Perhaps you'll let me see it.”

”It ain't been swept or dusted recent,” Mrs. Wilson informed him, rising to lead him from the room, ”but you're welcome to see it, if you don't mind how it looks.”

The apartment was a good-sized room, at the rear of the house. It was situated on a corner, with windows at the side and rear. Against the front part.i.tion an old-fas.h.i.+oned fireplace had been closed with a decorated cover. The neat bed, the hair-cloth chairs, and a table that stood on three of its four legs only, supplied the furnis.h.i.+ngs. The coroner had taken every sc.r.a.p he could find of the few things possessed by Mr. Hardy.

”Nice, cheerful room,” commented Garrison. ”Did he keep the windows closed and locked?”

”Oh, no! He was a wonderful hand to want the air,” said the landlady.

”And he loved the view.”

The view of the shed and hen-coops at the rear was duly exhibited.

Garrison did his best to formulate a theory to exonerate Dorothy from knowledge of the crime; but his mind had received a blow at these new disclosures, and nothing seemed to aid him in the least. He could only feel that some dark deed lay either at the door of the girl who had paid him to masquerade as her husband, or the half-crazed inventor down the street.

And the toils lay closer to Dorothy, he felt, than they did to Scott.

”You have been very helpful, I am sure,” he said to Mrs. Wilson.

He bade her good-by and left the house, feeling thoroughly depressed in all his being.

CHAPTER IX

A SUMMONS

Once in the open air again, with the suns.h.i.+ne streaming upon him, Garrison felt a rebound in his thoughts. He started slowly up the road to Branchville, thinking of the murder as he went.

The major requisite, he was thoroughly aware, was motive. Men were never slain, except by lunatics, without a deeply grounded reason. It disturbed him greatly to realize that Dorothy might have possessed such a motive in the danger of losing an inheritance, depending upon her immediate marriage. He could not dismiss the thought that she had suddenly found herself in need of a husband, probably to satisfy conditions in her uncle's will; that she had paid Mr. Hardy a visit as a bride, but _without her husband_, and had since been obliged to come to himself and procure his professional services _as such husband_, presumably for a short time only.

She was cheating the Robinsons now through him.

Of this much there could be no denial. She was stubbornly withholding important information from himself as the masquerading husband. She was, therefore, capable of craft and scheming. The jewel mystery was equally suspicious and unexplainable.