The Black Eagle Mystery Part 25

"That's it. We tracked him up and found him. But I don't want to raise any false hopes. We were too late. When we got there he was dead."

It had an extraordinary effect upon Ford. He gave a gasp, and raised himself up into a sitting posture, his mouth open, his eyes glued on O'Mally. For a minute not one of them said a word-Ford evidently too paralyzed at what he'd heard, and the others too surprised at the way Ford was acting which was exactly different to what they'd expected. It was he who spoke first, his voice gone down to a husky murmur:

"_Dead?_"

O'Mally answered:

"Heart disease, angina pectoris. The doctor down there said some strain or effort had finished him. That, as we see it, was the attack he made on you."

Then Ford did the most surprising thing of all. Raising his hands he clapped both over his face, and with a big, heaving sob from the bottom of his chest, fell back on the pillows and began to cry.

Babbitts said you couldn't have believed it if you hadn't seen it-he and O'Mally looking stumped at each other and between them that great ox of a man, lying in the bed crying like a baby. Then Himself, being fearful that maybe they'd done the man harm, rose up to go after a nurse, but O'Mally caught him by the coat, whispering, "Keep still, you goat," then turned and said very pleasant to Ford:

"Knocked you out, old man. That's natural, nerves still weak. Keep it up till you feel better. Don't mind us-we're used to it."

So there they sat, Babbitts still uneasy, but O'Mally, calm and patient, tilting back in his chair looking dreamy out of the window. He said afterward that he knew that hysterical fit for what it was-relief, and that was why he wouldn't let Babbitts call a nurse.

Presently the sobs began to ease off and Ford, groping under the pillow for a handkerchief, said, all choked up:

"How did you come to connect him with me?"

"By papers found in his desk-records of a real-estate business you and he'd been in some years ago at Syracuse."

"That's the man," said Ford, between his hiccuppy catches of breath, "and he's dead?"

"Dead as Julius Caesar." O'Mally leaned forward, his voice dropping, "You _knew_ he was the chap that attacked you?"

Ford, his head drooped, his shoulders hunched up like an old woman's, nodded:

"Yes, I lied when I said he was a stranger to me."

"Why did you do that?" asked Babbitts.

It was just what you might know he'd ask. One of the cutest things about Himself is that he never can understand why anyone, no matter what the provocation, has to lie.

Ford didn't answer and O'Mally, giving his chair a hitch nearer to the bed, said kind and persuasive:

"Say, Ford, you'd better tell us all you know. We got the papers, and most of the information. The man's dead. Clean it up and we'll let it drop."

Without raising his head Ford said, low and sort of sullen:

"All right-if you agree to that. I was in business with him and I-I-didn't play fair-lit out with some of the money." He turned a lowering look on Babbitts. "_That's_ the answer to your question," then back to O'Mally, "I didn't run across him or hear of him in all this time and supposed the whole thing was buried and forgotten till he came into my room Tuesday night. He was blazing mad, said he'd been waiting for a chance to even up, and had at last found me. To keep him quiet I said I'd give him some money. I had some."

"Yes, yes," said O'Mally, nodding cheerfully, "the legacy your uncle left you."

Ford shot a look at him, sharp and quick:

"Oh, you know about that?"

"Naturally. Inquiries have been made in all directions. Go on."

"I hadn't much cash there-a few dollars, but I thought I'd hand him that and agree to pay him more later. He said he didn't want money, _that_ wouldn't square our accounts, and as I went to the desk he came up behind me and struck me. That's all I know."

"Did he say how he'd located you?"

"Yes. He'd been looking for me ever since I'd skipped but couldn't find me. Then he saw my name in the papers after the Harland suicide. Some fool reporter spoke to me in the street that night and I told him who I was and where I worked. A short while after Sammis phoned up to the Black Eagle Building, heard from Miss Whitehall I'd left and got from her my house address."

"Did he say what he was doing in Philadelphia?"

"He had some new job there, he didn't say what, but he said he was well paid. That came out in his bl.u.s.tering about not wanting my money."

There was a pause, Babbitts and O'Mally scribbling in their note books, Ford sitting up in that hunched position, looking surly at his hands lying on the counterpane. So far every word he'd said tallied with what they already knew. Babbitts was wondering how O'Mally was going to get round to the real business of the interview, when the detective suddenly raised up from his notes, and leaning forward tapped lightly on one of Ford's hands with the point of his pencil.

"Say, Ford, how about that legacy from your uncle?"

Ford gave a start, stiffened up and looked quick as a flash into the detective's face.

"What about it?" he stammered.

O'Mally, his body bending forward, his pencil tip still on Ford's hand, said with sudden, grim meaning:

"_We_ know where it came from."

For a second they eyed each other. Babbitts said it looked like an electric current was pa.s.sing between them, holding them as still as if they were mesmerized. Then O'Mally went on, very low, each word falling slow and clear from his lips:

"We know all about that money and the game you've been playing. This Sammis business isn't what we're here for. It's the other-the Harland matter, the thing that's been occupying your time and thoughts lately.

That outside job of yours-that job that was finished on the night of January the fifteenth." He paused and Ford's glance slid away from him, his eyes like the eyes of a trapped animal traveling round the walls of the room. "We've _got_ you, Ford. The whole thing's in our hands. Your only chance is to tell-tell everything you know."

In describing it to me Babbitts said that moment was one of the tensest in the whole case. Ford was cornered, you could see he knew it and you could see the consciousness of guilt in his pallid face and trembling hands. O'Mally was like a hunter that has his prey at last in sight, drawn forward to the edge of his chair, his jaw squared, his eyes piercing into Ford like gimlets.

"Go ahead," he almost whispered. "What was that money paid you for?"

Ford tried to smile, the ghost of that c.o.c.k-sure grin distorting his face like a grimace.

"I guess you've got the goods on me," he said. "I know when I'm beaten.

You needn't try any third degree. I'll tell."

Babbitts was so excited he could hardly breathe. The Big Story was his at last-he was going to hear the murderer's confession from his own lips. Ford lifted his head, and holding it high and defiant, looked at O'Mally and said slowly:

"I got that money from Hollings Harland for reporting to him the affair between Johnston Barker and Miss Whitehall."

If you'd hit him in the head with a brick Babbitts said he couldn't have been more knocked out. He had sense enough to smother the exclamation that nearly burst from him, but he _did_ square round in his chair and look aghast at O'Mally. That old bird never gave a sign that he'd got a blow in the solar plexus. For all anyone could guess by his face, it was just what he'd expected to hear.

"You were in Harland's pay," he murmured, nodding his head.

"I was in Harland's pay from the first of December to the day of his death. In that time he gave me eight hundred dollars."

O'Mally, slouching comfortable against his chair back, drooped his head toward his shoulder and said: