The Million-Dollar Suitcase Part 24

"Thank you, doctor." She answered him as tranquilly as though no voice had been raised in anger in that room. "I think I'll stay a little longer. Jim will take me home."

The doctor glared and stalked out. To the last I think he was expecting some one to stop him and apologize. I suppose this was what Worth described navely as "antagonizing people without intending to." Well, it might not be judicious; I certainly was glad the doctor was so sure of the time at which his friend Gilbert had met death; yet I couldn't but enjoy seeing him get his. As soon as the man's back was turned, Edwards beckoned Barbara to the window. Worth and I left them talking together there in low tones, he to get something he wanted from a case in the hall, where he called me to the phone, saying long distance wanted me. While I was waiting for my connection (Central, as usual, having gotten me, now couldn't get the other party) the two came from the living room and Barbara said "Good night" to us in pa.s.sing.

"Those two seem to have something on hand," I commented as they went out. "The little girl gave Bowman one for himself--in the nicest possible way. Don't wonder Edwards likes her for it."

"Poor Laura Bowman! Her friends take turns giving that bloodless lizard she's tied to, one for himself any time they can," Worth said. "My mother used to handle the doctor something like that; and now it's Barbara--little Bobsie Wallace--G.o.d bless her!"

He went on into the dining room. I looked after his unconscious, departing figure and thought he deserved a good licking. Why couldn't he have spoken that way to the girl herself? Why hadn't he taken her home, instead of leaving it to Edwards? Then I got my call and answered,

"This is Boyne. Put them through."

In a minute came Roberts' voice.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Boyne?"

"Yes. What you got?"

"Telegram--Hicks--Los Angeles. He's located Steve Skeels--"

"Read me the wire," I broke in.

"All right." A pause, then, "'Skeels arrived here from 'Frisco this morning shall I arrest?'"

"Good!" I exclaimed. "Wire him to keep Steve under surveillance and await instructions. Tell him not to lose him. Get it, Roberts? Hustle it. I'll be in by nine. Good-by," and I hung up.

I looked around; Worth had gone into the dining room; I stepped to the door and saw him kneeling before an open lower door of the built-in sideboard, and noted that the compartment had been steel lined and Yale-locked, making a sort of safe. A lamp at the end of an extension wire stood on the floor beside him; he looked around at me over his shoulder as I put my head in to say,

"Stock in your old suitcase has gone up a notch, Worth. We've caught Skeels."

"So soon?" was all he said. But my news seemed to decide something for him; with a sharp gesture of finality, he put into his breast pocket the package of papers he had been looking at.

When a little later, Edwards came in, Worth was waiting for him in the hall.

"Do we go now?" the older man asked, wincing. Worth nodded.

"Take your machine, Jim," he said. "We can park it at Fuller's and walk back from there. Boyne's roadster is in our garage."

"Anything wrong with Eddie Hughes?" Edwards asked as he stepped in to get his driving gloves. "I pa.s.sed him out there headed for town lugging a lot of freight, and the fellow growled like a dog when I spoke to him."

"I fired him. Come on, Jim--let's get out of this."

"Hold on, Worth," I took a hand. "Fired Hughes? When?"

"While I was fixing up that door--after you and Bobs came to the house."

"What in G.o.d's name for?" I asked in exasperation.

"For giving me back talk," said the youth who never quarreled with any one.

He and Edwards tramped out together. I realized that the hostile son and an alienated friend had gone for a last look at the clay that had yesterday been Thomas Gilbert. Of course Worth would do that before he left Santa Ysobel. But would Edwards go in with him--or was he only along to drive the machine? It might be worth my while to know. But I could ask to-morrow; it wasn't worth a tired man's waiting up for. We must make an early start in the morning. I went upstairs to bed.

CHAPTER XIV

SEVEN LOST DAYS

Instead of driving up to San Francisco with Worth and Barbara, the next morning, I was headed south at a high rate of speed. Sitting in the Pullman smoker, going over what had happened and what I had made of it, vainly studying a small, blue blotter with some senseless hieroglyphics reversed upon it, I wasn't at all sure that this move of mine was anywhere near the right one. But the thing hit me so quick, had to be decided in a flash, and my snap judgment never was good.

We were all at breakfast there at the Gilbert house when I got the phone that those b.o.o.bs down in Los Angeles had let Skeels slip through their fingers. I could see no way but to go myself. When I went out to retrieve my hand bag from the roadster, there was Barbara already in the seat. I delayed a minute to explain to her. She was full of eager interest; it seemed to her that Skeels ducking the detectives that way was more than clever--almost worthy of a wonder man.

"Slickest thing I ever knew," I grumbled. "You can gamble I wouldn't be going south after him if Skeels hadn't shown himself too many for the Hicks agency--and they're one of the best in the business."

Worth came out and settled himself at the wheel; he and Edwards exchanged a last, low-toned word; and they were ready to be off.

Barbara leaned towards me with s.h.i.+ning eyes.

"Perhaps," she said, "Skeels might even be Clayte!" then the roadster whisked her away.

The bulk of Worth Gilbert's fortune was practically tied up in this affair. Even as the Pullman carried me Los Angeles-ward, that boy was getting in to San Francisco, going to the bank, and turning over to them capital that represented not only his wealth but his honor. If we failed to trace this money, he was a discredited fool. Yes, I had done right to come.

So far on that side. Then apprehension began to mutter within me about the situation at Santa Ysobel. How long would that coroner's verdict of suicide satisfy the public? How soon would some seepage of fact indicate that the death was murder and set the whole town to looking for a murderer? The minute this happened, the real criminal would take alarm and destroy evidence I might have gathered if I had stayed by the case.

I promised myself that it should be simply "there and back" with me in the Skeels matter.

This is the way it looked to me in the Pullman; then--once in Los Angeles--I allowed myself to get hot telling the Hicks people what I thought of them, explaining how I'd have run the chase, and wound up by giving seven days to it--seven precious, irreclaimable days--while everything lay wide open there in the north, and I couldn't get any satisfactory word from the office, and none of any sort from Worth.

That Skeels trail kept me to it, with my tongue hanging out; again and again I seemed to have him; every time I missed him by an hour or so; and that convinced me that he was straining every nerve, and that he probably had the whole of the loot still with him. At last, I seemed to have him in a perfect trap--Ensenada, on the Peninsula. You get into and out of Ensenada by steamboat only, except back to the mines on foot or donkey. The two days I had to wait over in San Diego for the boat which would follow the one Skeels had taken were a mighty uneasy time. If I'd imagined for a moment that he wasn't on the dodge--that he was there openly--I'd have wired the Mexican authorities, and had him waiting for me in jail. But the Mexican officials are a rotten lot; it seemed to me best to go it alone.

What I found in Ensenada was that Skeels had been there, quite publicly, under his own name; he had come alone and departed with a companion, Hinch Dial, a drill operator from the mines, a transient, a pick-up laborer, seemingly as close-mouthed as Silent Steve himself. Steve had come on one steamer and the two had left on the next. That north-bound boat we pa.s.sed two hours off Point Loma was carrying Skeels and his pal back to San Diego!

Again two days lost, waiting for the steamer back. And when I got to San Diego, the trail was stone cold. I had sent Worth almost daily reports in care of my office, not wanting them to lie around at Santa Ysobel during the confusion of the funeral and all; but even before I went to Ensenada, telegrams from Roberts had informed me that these reports could not be delivered as Worth had not been at the office, and telephone messages to Santa Ysobel and the Palace Hotel had failed to locate him. When I believed I had Skeels firmly clasped in the jaws of the Ensenada trap, I had sent a complete report of my doings up to that time, and the optimistic outlook then, to Barbara with instructions for her to get it to Worth. She would know where he was.

But she hadn't. Her reply, waiting at San Diego for me, a delicious little note that somehow lightened the bitterness of my disappointment over Skeels, told me that she had seen Worth at the funeral, almost a week ago now, but only for a minute; that she had supposed he had joined me on the Skeels chase; and she would now try to hunt him up and deliver my report. Roberts, too, had a line in one of his reports that Worth had called for the suitcase on the Monday I left and had neither returned it nor been in the office since.

I worried not at all over Worth; if he wanted to play hide and seek with d.y.k.eman's spotters, he was thoroughly capable of looking after himself; but in the Skeels matter, I did then what I should have done in the first place, of course; turned the work over to subordinates and headed straight home.

I reached San Francisco pretty well used up. It was nearly the middle of the forenoon next day when I got to my desk and found it piled high with mail that had acc.u.mulated in my absence. Roberts had looked after what he could, and sorted the rest, ready for me. Everything concerning the Clayte case was in one basket. As Roberts handed it to me, he explained.

"The Van Ness bank attorney--c.u.mmings--has been keeping tabs on you tight, Mr. Boyne. Here every day--sometimes twice. Wants to know the minute you're back."

I grunted and dived into the letters. Nothing interesting. Responses acknowledging receipts of my early inquiries. Roberts lingered.

"Well?" I shot at him. He moved uneasily as he asked.

"Did you wire him when you were coming back?"

"c.u.mmings? No. Why?"