Master Tales of Mystery Part 62

"Look here, Lester," demanded G.o.dfrey impatiently, "you don't mean to say that you believe any such rot?"

"No," I answered; "I don't see how I can believe it--and yet, what did she tell it for?"

"She had to tell something."

"That's just it," I objected; "she didn't."

"Well, then, she wanted to tell something to throw you off the track.

That was the best thing she could think of."

"Why should she want to throw me off the track?"

"There are some women who would rather have a ghost in the family than a scandal. I don't suppose you know that Magnus had another wife living over in Jersey?"

"Another wife?"

"Oh, of course not a wife really--your Mrs. Magnus has the prior claim. But I fancy Number Two has asked to be provided for."

I sat silent for a moment, casting this over in my mind.

"It's just like a fool woman," I said at last, "to try to throw dust in the eyes of the one man who might have helped her. Heaven help a woman who won't tell the truth to her lawyer! I suppose there's nothing to do but turn over the money?"

"Of course not. Mrs. Magnus can afford it, and if it will give her peace of mind, why--"

"All right," I said. "And thank you, G.o.dfrey, for telling me. I was imagining that either Mrs. Magnus was crazy or that some one was trying to bunco her. This is different. If she wants to lie to me, why, let her."

"You'll take it up to her yourself?"

"Yes. I promised to have it at the house at eight o'clock to-night."

I fancied that G.o.dfrey's eyes paused on mine for the merest instant as though he was about to say something more, but he merely nodded and said good-by and was off.

And I turned to the task of deciding which of Mrs. Magnus' securities I should sell in order to get the best out of the market. But more than once in the course of the afternoon a vague uneasiness seized me.

For, after all, G.o.dfrey's explanation did not account for Mrs. Magnus'

strained and frightened manner. If the story she had told me was a lie, she was certainly a consummate actress. I had never credited her with any ability in that direction.

A consummate forger, too!

The thought stung me upright. Of course, if her story was a lie, she herself had written the note. Had G.o.dfrey thought of that? Or was it G.o.dfrey who was trying to throw dust in my eyes?

CHAPTER II

It was raining when I left my apartment at the Marathon that night--a cold and disagreeable drizzle--and the thought occurred to me as I turned up my coat collar and stepped into the cab I had summoned, that it was a somewhat foolhardy thing to be driving about the streets of New York with fifty thousand dollars in my hand bag. I glanced at the lights of the Tenderloin police station, just across the street, and thought for an instant of going over and asking for an escort. Then I sank back into the seat with a little laugh at my own nervousness.

"One-twenty West Twenty-third," I said, as the cabman slammed the ap.r.o.n shut.

He nodded, spoke to his horse, and we were off.

The asphalt was gleaming with the rain, and a thin fog was in the air, which formed a nimbus around the street lamps and drew a veil before the shop windows. Far away I heard the rattle of the elevated and the never-ceasing hum of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, but, save for these reminders of the city's life, the silence of the street was broken only by the click-clack of our horse's hoofs.

We swung sharply around a corner, and then another. A moment later the cab drew up at the curb, and the driver sprang from his box.

"Here we are, sir," he said, and as I stepped to the pavement, I saw the old Magnus house frowning down upon me.

I had never before seen it at night, and for the first time I really appreciated its gloomy situation. In its day it had been part of a fas.h.i.+onable residential district, of which it was now the only survival. It was of brownstone, with a flight of steps mounting steeply to the door, and stood back from the street at the bottom of a canon formed by the towering walls of the adjacent office buildings.

Why any woman who could afford to live where she chose should choose to live here was a riddle past my solving.

Musing over this, I mounted the steps and rang the bell.

"I am Mr. Lester," I said, to the maid who opened the door. "Mrs.

Magnus is expecting me."

She stood aside for me to enter, and as I pa.s.sed I happened to glance at her face. It was that of a woman no longer young, and yet scarcely middle-aged; not a repulsive face; indeed, rather attractive in a way, except for a certain hardness of expression which told of lost illusions. And as she took my coat and hat, I noticed that the little finger of her left hand was missing.

"This way, sir," she said, and motioned me into a room at the right.

"Mrs. Magnus will be down in a minute."

I heard her step recede along the hall, and then somewhere a clock struck eight. As the sound died away the rustle of skirts came down the stair, and Mrs. Magnus appeared in the doorway. Her panic of the morning had pa.s.sed, and she was perfectly self-controlled.

"Ah, Mr. Lester," she said, "you are prompt. You have the money?" she added in a lower tone.

"Yes," I answered, and then stopped, for I fancied I heard a stealthy footstep at the door.

"Let us go up to the study. We will be more comfortable there," and she led the way out into the hall.

I was close at her heels, and looked quickly to right and left. But there was no one in sight.

Mrs. Magnus went before me up the stair, turned toward the front of the house in the hall above, and ushered me into a small room which seemed to have been fitted up as an office. Its princ.i.p.al piece of furniture was a ma.s.sive, roll-top desk. The top was up at the moment, and disclosed rows of pigeon-holes, some full of papers and some empty. Below them were the usual small drawers. The desk was one of the largest I have ever seen, and I wondered how it had been got into the room. An office chair of the usual swing type stood in front of it.

Something told me that this was _the_ desk. It stood in one corner of the room; not closely in the corner, but at an angle to it, its back touching the wall on either side and leaving a little triangle of s.p.a.ce behind it. The reason of this was evident enough, for, placed in this way, the person sitting at the desk got the advantage of the light from the window at his right, and also the heat from the fireplace at his left.

The thought flashed through my mind that, before I placed the money on the desk, I would take occasion to glance over into the s.p.a.ce back of it.

"Sit down, Mr. Lester," said Mrs. Magnus, and herself drew up a chair to one side of the fireplace, where a wood fire crackled cheerily, throwing out a warmth just strong enough to be grateful on this damp evening. "The money is in that bag?"

"Yes," I said. "I have it in hundred-dollar bills--five packets of one hundred each. I thought perhaps you--your husband would prefer it in that form."

She nodded, and sat for a moment staring absently into the fire.

"This was Mr. Magnus' workroom, I suppose?" I said at last.

"Yes; when he was first really succeeding in business, he used always to bring some work home with him in the evening. But he outgrew that"--a shade of bitterness crept into her voice--"and during the last ten years of his life he used the room hardly at all. But he is using it again now," she added, in another tone. "Every night."

I stared across at her, wondering if she could be in earnest.

Certainly her countenance gave every impression of earnestness.