The Red Mouse Part 22

"Yes, yes, I know. But you don't quite understand. The man was not himself. Surely you must know that! Let him live, Mr. Murgatroyd; he's worth saving. Give him time--a chance. He'll be good--I shall make him good. I have tried, and I shall continue to try all the harder...."

Murgatroyd sat motionless. His profile was toward Mrs. Challoner. It was a clean-cut profile, and upon its contour there was no sign of yielding.

After a while he looked up and said:--

"I am very sorry for you, Mrs. Challoner, and I dislike intensely to hurt your feelings. But do you realise that your husband ... shot this man in a quarrel over----"

Mrs. Challoner quickly cut him short.

"That woman! What do I care for that! You don't know what my husband is to me! I love him no matter what he has done. Besides, it was all my fault. Let me tell you how it was. Laurie wanted money--his money was gone--he had spent it all, and----"

Murgatroyd held up his hand.

"I cannot let you speak this way. You are simply supplying me with evidence against him."

"And I refused him," continued the woman, too excited to hear what the prosecutor was saying. "I hardened my heart against him--drove him from home, and then--this dreadful thing happened."

"It would be dastardly in me to listen further. You are making your husband's guilt more evident with every word. When Hargraves was found he had been robbed of ten thousand dollars!" And with that Murgatroyd rose as if to indicate that the interview was at an end. "There is nothing I can do, Madam," he declared flatly; and then added: "There never was but one way to cure a man like Challoner; it's too late now."

Minutes pa.s.sed.... Murgatroyd watched her intently; but she did not move: she sat rigid as if preparing herself for some ordeal yet to come.

All of a sudden her att.i.tude changed. Mistrustfully she peered about her once more, then leaning far over toward Murgatroyd, she whispered:--

"We are alone?"

The lawyer regarded her with pardonable curiosity before he answered:--

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

Mrs. Challoner wrung her hands; she seemed uncertain how to proceed. In the end she said:--

"I am going to do a terrible thing. It frightens me almost to death. I don't know how to begin, but my love for Laurie is my excuse for what I have to say. I hope you won't misunderstand me. Supposing s.h.i.+rley was in Laurie's place--if she were accused of crime, what wouldn't you do for her?"

"The cases are hardly parallel," he answered indifferently.

"They are precisely parallel," she maintained. "You love s.h.i.+rley as I love Laurie--I know you do. Don't say no--women have a way of knowing those things." Her eyes sought his for confirmation. "Am I not right?"

"I would do anything to win her," he spoke up quickly; evidently she took the rest for granted, for she continued to persevere:--

"I know that you have great ambitions; and with such a girl at your side there is no reason why you should not become a great man."

This sudden interest on her part in matters concerning his future, for the moment rattled him. Nevertheless, he was conscious of a decided sensation of relief that the conversation had taken its present course; and her words: "With such a girl at your side" found a welcome in his heart. On her part, Mrs. Challoner was becoming more and more composed.

And now in a voice that seemed to him ringing with conviction, she went on:--

"You will have up-hill work, I know. Your party is against you and all that sort of thing; but if only for s.h.i.+rley's sake, I want you--you must succeed!"

For some reason which he did not attempt to explain Murgatroyd found himself actually confessing to this woman that he thought he deserved to win out.

"It's only money that you lack, I know," she ventured now. "With money they couldn't keep you down. With money of your own--" she stopped abruptly; the tension was getting too much for her. Presently she cried out: "Oh, Mr. Murgatroyd, don't you see what I mean, and won't you help me?"

But he failed to understand her meaning, and was obliged to ask her to explain herself. He was staring hard at her now.

And then at last it came out.

"Only this, Mr. Murgatroyd," she said, meeting his gaze. "I will give you one hundred thousand dollars to set my husband free!"

Murgatroyd instantly sprang to his feet.

"You mean to bribe me!"

Miriam Challoner cowered before him. She had not put the matter to him in quite the way she had intended. She was desperately afraid that she had destroyed all hope of success by blurting it out like this. "Please don't be hard on me--condemn me," she begged as one before the judgment seat. "I know it's awful!"

For a full half minute Murgatroyd fastened his gaze on her face. Then he walked to the door, stepped inside the vault and satisfied himself that there was no one there, looked into every corner of the room and underneath the table; and when at last he was convinced that he had taken every precaution, he came back and stood directly in front of the woman and told her to repeat what she had said.

In fear and trembling she reiterated her words:--

"I will give you one hundred thousand dollars to set my husband free!"

"Mrs. Challoner," the prosecutor asked, falling into his habit of putting finger-tip to finger-tip, "how much money have you?"

"In all?"

Murgatroyd nodded.

"In just a minute...."

With a hard look on his face Murgatroyd watched her pull a little book from a bag, watched her take out the stub of a pencil, waited while she busied herself in adding figures, waited until at the end of a short calculation she looked up at him and made known the result.

"In all, I have about eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars left."

"What?" exclaimed the prosecutor, unable to conceal his astonishment.

For since he had begun his investigations it had come to him that Mrs.

Challoner's affairs were in a bad way. A moment later he said: "And that eight hundred thousand dollars or so is----"

"All in negotiable securities," she promptly a.s.sured him, "payable to bearer. I get six and seven per cent. on some of them--the old ones."

"Where are these securities?"

"In the Fidelity Safe Deposit vaults."

"In addition to these," went on Murgatroyd, "you have your house on the Avenue?"

"Yes. There's a small equity in it."

He raised his eyebrows.

"It is subject to mortgage, then?"

"Of course," she answered glibly. "I get six per cent. on most of my securities, and have to pay only four and a half on my mortgage. It would have been foolish to pay it off."

Murgatroyd smiled a cold smile.