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Show II ! 1 1 1 II j Mil IIHIIBI IIIMI M Ml 1111 ' Sealed Mm t TRUNK A-y -l - f WEBSTER. 'r'. 'uVt'V-' ' w.n.U. Z :. ,'':;UL "' ' ' COPYRIGHT V SERVICE CHAPTER XII Continued 12 Forster was .still In Ms swivel chair Bitting almost us ho Int'l silt when Martin looked nt lilm hefore, but In the act of relaxing Imck Into It as If lie had Just mi'ant to get up and then had chunked his nilml. 'J'ho Cleveland woman had only that moment seated herself In a chair at the end of the desk which faced the fireplace and the two watchers behind the Khiss. "She's looking wicked," Martin commented. com-mented. "What do you suppose she's up to 7" Ithoda sipieoy.ed his hand hard and said, "Don't talk! Listen!" And though this struck him as absurd, her earnestness enforced obedience. The woman was wortli watching, anyhow. It was his lirst good look at her. She was dressed as she'd been when he'd seen her descend upon Mas and Babe In the station that afternoon. after-noon. She had put on her hat and coat since leaving Max Lewis' sitting room, and as she Rat down In the ehiilr she opened her wrist bag before she put It down In her lap. There was something so- Insolently and viciously feline In her look like a cat with Us ears back that Martin didn't wonder at old Forster's cringing In his chair and shooting a look at the picture pic-ture behind which he must still suppose sup-pose his spy to be on watch. However, If she had a revolver In the bag she was content to leave it there for the present. Whnt she produced pro-duced from It now was a long amber cigarette holder and a package of cigarettes, one of which, very deliberately delib-erately but with rather shaky hands, she proceeded to light. It appeared that these preliminaries Irritated Forster, for he spoke with an Impatient Impa-tient jerk of the head, telling her, no doubt, to state her business and be quick about It. Her only response to this was a theatrical laugh, not very convincing, and an elaboration of the processes of making herself comfortable In the chair. When presently she did begin to talk, It was with an effectatlon of lazy good humor, her eyes not upon him but upon the shred of blue smoke from the cigarette. Rut It was Forster's face that Martin's Mar-tin's gaze rested upon. He appeared at llrst to be genuinely, even blankly, puzzled as to wdiat the woman was getting at, and he broke in upon her two or three times with sharp Impatient Impa-tient questions to which she paid no attention whatever, continuing to eye the cigarette and to go evenly on with her narrative, If that were what It was. But it wasn't long before Forster's appearance ap-pearance changed. His body was rigid In his easy chair, and the laugh by which he attempted to dismiss something some-thing ?' said as an absurdity was a ghastly failure. Now though, Martin's attention was sharply diverted from both actors in the play to a sob from Rhoda. Turning to her In consternation he saw her trying try-ing vainly to blink away the tears that were blurring her vision. She said furiously when he asked her what the matter was, "Don't talk ! Give me a handkerchief, If you've got one." ne had a fresh one In his pocket and he was handing it over to her with' dignity, Inclined to feel a little hurt by the way she was treating him, when, with a suddenness tiiat literally almost took him off his feet, she flung herself upon him, put her head down upon his chest, nnd hugged him as hard as she could. This amazing and blissful state of things lasted while she was drawing about three long breaths nnd then, just as suddenly, she went, so to speak, Into reverse again, flung herself away from him, snatched his handkerchief, dried her eyes, and began be-gan watching the scene through the glass with the most Intense concentration. concentra-tion. The woman had abandoned her affectation af-fectation of lazy amusement and at something he must have said to her, had burst into a rage. She had sprung to her feet and was fairly pouring vituperation over him by the bucketful. bucket-ful. It was plain tiiat he was terrified of her. If she'd been less absorbed In her own passion, she must have seen that he was signaling for help, for, feebly but with no concealment at all, he was looking and waving his shaky hand straight toward where Martin nnd Khoda stood. There was a comic clement In this scene which Martin had been enjoying, but now the woman made a move which startled him. She stepped back out of the possible reach of Forster's hand and, snatching up her wristbag from the corner of the desk, jerked it open. "If she's got a gun In that bag she'll shoot him," Martin said to Khoda, and would have jumped for the little door which led Into the room If she hadn't stopped him by clutching his arm. "No, she won't," she told him. "It's u letter she's looting for. I wish she would shoot him, though. I'd like to myself. He deserves it." She had told what the woman's Intentions In-tentions were with a degree of confidence confi-dence that was almost convincing. All the same It struck Martin as rather uncanny when seconds after Ithoda had finished speaking he saw Claire actually produce a letter from her wristbag, and, still taking care to keep out of Forster's read), began rending It aloud to him. "Ithoda, darling," he cried, "how did you know she was going to do that?" She stood looking at him now, face flushed, eyes bright with tears, leaving the scene they had been watching so Intently to play Itself out unregarded. "I know all about it now." She stood wavering a moment and then came into his arms again, clinging to him, her face buried against his chest. He couldn't make out the muflled words very well, but he thought she was saying, say-ing, "Aren't you glad we know? Aren't you glad the nightmare's over?" Mystified, but none the less blissful, he said he was, and as he bent down over her she held up her face for his kiss with a simplicity that brought unexpected tears Into his own eyes. This was something settled, anyhow, for good. A raucous voice now broke In upon them Conley's! declaring with profane pro-fane elaborations that he would be d d. They'd forgotten his very existence ex-istence and had allowed him to come to. There could be no doubt of his intentions, particularly toward Martin, Mar-tin, as he came bounding up the steps toward them, but an outcry and a gesture ges-ture from Rhoda deflected his attention atten-tion toward what was happening in the big room. Forster, rummaging desperately with his half palsied hands In the shallow drawer of his desk, had pulled out a long-barreled, old-fashioned revolver, and when, directed by Rhoda's cry, they looked, they saw the old man trying try-ing to point it at Claire. She flung herself upon him and grappled with him for the possession of It. This was a clear call of professional duty for the detective and he abandoned, though with visible reluctance, the private project with Martin to go to the rescue, res-cue, springing down the steps and bursting open the door beside the fireplace fire-place just as the old-fashioned revolver, re-volver, with a prodigious bang, went off, CHAPTER XIII The Frame-Up The report of the revolver was followed fol-lowed Instantly by a scream from Claire. Rhoda and Martin, after exchanging ex-changing one horrified look, followed Conley through the door, which he'd left open behind him. Claire lay on the floor moaning, apparently ap-parently unconscious, her face so covered cov-ered with blood that It wasn't possible pos-sible to see the exact nature of the wound. The revolver, a blue filament of smoke still rising from Its barrel, lay on the carpet three of four paces away. Forster had fallen back limply limp-ly In his chair. Evidently he thought he'd killed her, for he was bleating frantically, "I didn't do it! She did it herself! She pulled the trigger !" His voice rose to a yelp as he cried to Conley, "Take her away I Don't leave her lying there! Take her where I can't see her." Conley picked her up In a matter-of-fact sort of way which led Martin to think that he'd come to the same conclusion as his own, that she was not dangerously Injured. Martin opened the door for him, but as soon as he'd gone out with his burden, closed it after him and turned back to Forster. The old man looked from ' one to the other of them In bewilderment, bewilder-ment, and at last weakly demanded of Martin, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" "I'm the reporter from the News, Martin said, "who wanted an interview inter-view from you about the disappearance disappear-ance of Rhoda McFarland. I came up to your apartment and found her here. We happened to be where we could see everything that's gone on in this room since that woman Conley just carried out came into it." "More blackmail !" Forster snarled. "It's a conspiracy, that's what It Is. You are all in it." He looked as he said that like nothing noth-ing In the world but a rat in a corner, darting helpless venomous glances this way and that; toward the picture over the fireplace, behind which he knew his bodyguard was no longer on watch ; toward the closed door through which no cry of his could be heard; even toward the revolver lying on the carpet, car-pet, hopelessly out of his reach. It was Rhoda who answered him. She was so pale Martin had feared that she might be going to faint. But the glittering timber of her voice as she spoke convinced him that she was white only with anger. "There is only-one only-one conspiracy I know about." she said. "That's the conspiracy you went Into with Claire Cleveland only she was called Clara Bowman then and the man who was your secretary I think his name was Stafford." Martin held his breath as he looked from one of their faces to the other. "You don't know what you're talking about," Forster wheezed. But the consternation con-sternation in his face proclaimed that she did know. "You had your secretary hire her," Rhoda went on. "That's why you didn't know who she was when she came back here and got a job In your office. You didu't know that Stafford Staf-ford had told her who you were. And when he died you thought you were safe. You thought you didn't have to pay the money you'd promised her for ruining my father." She turned away from him as If the sight of his goat-like face had become unendurable to her, and went on speaking to Martin. "That's what he did. They hired this woman Stafford Staf-ford found her to go west on the same train my father was going on. She was to cry and pretend she'd lost her ticket and her money, and get him to take pity on her and pay her fare. They must have known how kind he was nnd how innocent he was or they wouldn't have thought the trick would work. It did work, partly. He paid for the ticket and her berth and loaned her some money besides to buy her meals with on the train. The rest of the plan didn't work. He didn't even look at her. She said so herself to him, just now. He never even guessed what she was trying to make him do. But she went ahead just the same I suppose they'd promised her more money and made her complaint before be-fore the district attorney. And she testified tes-tified against him at the trial, only the jury didn't believe her and set father free. But enough other people believed be-lieved her so that he had to resign from the university and come out here, like a man In hiding, to go to work, without knowing It, for the very man who had ruined him." She whipped around upon Forster again, her eyes blazing with furious anger. "I wish ehe had shot you, Instead !" she told him deliberately. "I wish she'd shot you dead. You deserve it. If anyone ever did." She happened to be standing, without with-out knowing it, almost over the revolver, re-volver, where she had only to stoop to pick It up. Forster knew It, though. He was staring at the thing In a perfect per-fect nightmare of terror. Rhoda, pulled up by the look In his face, followed fol-lowed the direction of his stare and glanced down too to see what he was looking at. That glance was all It needed to demolish him completely. He flopped out of his chair and sprawled down upon his knees on the carpet, holding out his palsied hands, imploring mercy "Wait!" he pleaded. "Wait! I'll tell you all about it. It isn't what you think. It's nowhere near as bad as you think. I didn't mean him any real harm. I thought he'd thank me for It." Rhoda went a little whiter and turned her face away. "Do you mind picking him np, Martin, and putting him back In his chair?" she asked. Martin, feeling In his bewilderment like a man in a dream, tugged away and finally managed to haul the poor old ruin back into his chair again. It must have been a minute before the millionaire could find breath enough to speak with, but when he did It was strangely enough in the voice of a man with a grievance. "McFarland was wasted, where he was. He knew as much about the chemistry of petroleum as any man in the world ; more in some ways. And he was nothing but a college professor working along a line I was Interested In, and when I saw he was going to read a paper in Cleveland before the Oil Chemists' institute I went down to hear him. Luckily he hadn't got far enough with his discoveries to give anything really practical away, but he came near enough to it to make me sweat. So I saw him after the meeting meet-ing and talked to him. I had Stafford with me and we came back with him as far as Chicago. Spent most of the night trying to get him to listen to reason. Here he was on the edge of a thing that might be worth millions to him personally, to say nothing of anybody else, and he was getting ready to broadcast it. I wanted him to leave the university and let me fit him up a laboratory. I'd pay all the expenses of his research and give him a contract con-tract that would make his fortune as soon as he had the thing on a practical prac-tical basis. "I never saw anybody as stubborn as he was. He'd hardly listen. Practically Prac-tically told me to go to h 1. He said the university had financed his researches re-searches up to now and It would be disloyal to leave them. It didn't do any good to talk big figures to him. He didn't know what money was about. He was throwing away a fortune anyway that's how it looked at the time like giving a nickel to a newsboy. news-boy. I was about ready to quit, but Stafford had an idea. "I don't say It was a very nice Idea, but your father hadn't left us anything else we could do. Stafford said if there should happen to be some little scandal out at the university so that McFarland would resign, he'd probably prob-ably come back to us. "Well, that's all. He went ahead with It. I didn't know what he was going to do. He went too far; further than I meant him to. I didn't tKInk there'd be a trial. I thought McFarland McFar-land would realize there was something some-thing on him nnd get out quietly. Only, you see, he was so innocent he didn't realize there was anything on him. And when the thing really got started it was too late to stop." Khoda's set face conceded him noth- i Ing, and cringing away from the sight of it he turned to Martin. "You can see how it was, can't you? I didn't know he'd take It so hard. I didn't mean him any real harm. I meant to make him a rich man." "You didn't make his fortune, though," Martin said. "Why not? How did you trick him out of It?" "I didn't trick him out of it," Forster answered, with more assurance than he'd shown before. "I gave him a perfectly fair contract. I fitted np a laboratory for him, paid all his bills for supplies, and gave him a hundred dollars a week in cash for his personal expenses. I kept that up for four years. It must have cost me altogether alto-gether forty or fifty thousand dollars. He was always just going to find the thing he needed to make his discovery practical, but he never did." Rhoda flashed into the scene. "Then why did you offer Claire Cleveland one hundred thousand dollars Just now for the contract you made with my father?" Forster had to gulp twice before he could answer. "I didn't mean anything T 1 K el A a, "He Was Always Just Going to Find the Thing He Needed." by that. I was kidding her, you might say. I knew she hadn't got It. She hadn't either." Rhoda confirmed that with a nod before she went on. "But then you told her to send for it. You said, 'Send for whatever you've got and have it brought up here just as it Is.' That meant my trunk, I suppose, that you thought she'd stolen. You told her to send any messenger she liked ; you told her to send your nephew Max. You said he'd been doing odd jobs for her lately and that he knew his way around her flat. You were trying to make her angry, but you held your breath while you waited to see whether she would send for the trunk or not?" Forster turned to Martin as one who makes another appeal to reason. "Why would I hold my breath? I knew she hadn't any contract. I knew the man who did have it. I'd seen him just this afternoon. I told him it wasn't worth a nickel, just like I told her." There was a kink in this, Martin perceived, but he hadn't time now to try to straighten It out. He turned to Rhoda, meaning to suggest casually that there was no point in their staying stay-ing here any longer, but she looked so white and limp, now that the fire of anger had burned down, that he went and put his arm around her instead. in-stead. Her head drooped down on his chest, and he heard her say, "Take me away, Martin. I feel as if I couldn't breathe up here any longer." "All right, dearest," Martin said, and without a glance at Forster started leading her toward the door. Just before they reached It Conley opened it and came into the room. But he didn't, as Martin for an instant feared he would, offer to hinder their going out. He had something else on his mind. "The woman's all right," they heard him say to his employer as they left the room. "She's got a bullet hole through her cheek and she's lost a couple of teeth, but that's all the damage." In his excitement he neglected neg-lected to close the door, and the departing de-parting pair, before they rode down In the little private elevator, were able to hear how the old man took the news. "That means more blackmail," he wailed. "Where's Max? He'll have to get me out of this." Down in the lobby Martin and Rhoda paused. Knowing how tired she was and what a storm she'd been through, he felt that he couldn't bear to tell her she must come with him now to the railway station In the hope that they wouldn't be too late to prevent pre-vent Max from making off again with that trunk of hers. Luckily 6he spoke first. "I don't think I want to go home," she said. "We'd better telephone Babe and let her know we're all right. She won't know what has become of us." This was an obvious duty, and as five minutes wasn't likely to matter much, now, one way or the other at the railway station, Martin assented. Rhoda gave him something else to think about when she paused outside the door of a booth she'd been on the point of entering and asked him to telephone Instead. She looked awfully white. "Rhoda, are you all right?" he demanded de-manded earnestly. He must have shouted It rather, for a man turning the leaves of a directory at the desk looked up curiously at the pair of them. He went on, speaking lower, "I mean, are you faint or anything?" She said she wasn't. She just didn't feel like talking to Babe. She'd sit In that big chair over there and wait for him. She gave him their telephone tele-phone number just before she walked away In case he'd forgotten it. The promptness .with which Babe answered an-swered the call suggested that she'd been ruing within hand's reach of the in .- ''t ever since Martin had left her, and Indeed she assured him passionately that this had been the case. She'd been having a perfectly rotten evening, she said. She'd been obliged to break an awfully good date in order to stand by the telephone, and then Max Lewis had come and really acted rough. She'd had to threaten to telephone for the police in order to get rid of him. "What did he want with you" Martin Mar-tin demanded. "Naturally," said Babe, "he wanted his ticket and his trunk check." "But he had them," Martin told her. "He took the envelope out of my pocket an hour ago, after he'd knocked me cold with a crack In the jaw." "Well, he didn't think he had them fifteen minutes ago when he left here," she assured him. "Wait a minute," Martin said, and laid down the receiver for a search of his pockets. "It's all right," he told Babe a minute later. "I've got them. What he got out of my pocket was your dummy envelope, the one you fooled him with in the first place. I don't wonder he looked sick. Well, don't worry about us any more," he concluded, "and don't expect ns till we turn up." "How long Is it," he asked Rhoda when he went back to her, "since you've had anything to eat?" "I don't know," she told him absently. ab-sently. "Not since I had lunch at the Tip-Top Inn. I don't remember whether I ate anything then or not." "Well, then, that's the first thing to attend to," he announced. "I'm going to take you somewhere and get you a good dinner." "I couldn't," she said, "I know I conldn't swallow a mouthful." Then, with a flash of animation in her tear-flushed tear-flushed eyes, she looked up at him and went on, "I know what I want to do, Martin. I want you to take me to the 'morgue.' " He didn't for an instant recognize his own newspaper slang and stared at her In consternation until she added, "I want to read all it says about father; fa-ther; everything. Every horrible thing they did to him. Can we do It tonight, or will the place be all locked up?" I (TO BE CONTINUED.) |