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THE BIGAMIST





THE BIGAMIST
A Detective Story
BY
JOHN JAY CHICHESTER
Author of “The Porcelain Mask”
CHELSEA HOUSE
79. Seventh Avenue New York City


Copyright, 1925
By CHELSEA HOUSE
The Bigamist
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.


To my editor and my friend,
FRANK ENGS BLACKWELL
whose wise and patient coun-
sel has meant so much to this
book and to me.
THE AUTHOR.


CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MoonLIGHT . . . . . . . . . 11
II. A TELEGRAM . . . . . . . . . 25
III. THE ODoR OF BALSAM . . . . . . 42
IV. THE NATIVE RETURNS . . . . . . 55
W. A NEW PREDICAMENT . . . . . . 67
VI. A Room1 IN THE COUNTRY . . . . 77
VII. THE TERRIBLE THING . . . . . . 84
VIII. THE PRICE OF FOLLY . . . . . . 93
IX. PRYING INQUIRIEs . . . . . . . 100
X. THE FIRST DEMAND . . . . . . 109
XI. No PROTEST . . . . . . . . . 116
XII. THE WOLF RETURNS . . . . . . 126
XIII. SPARRING FOR TIME . . . . . . 137
XIV. CALVIN, THE AVENGER . . . . . 148
XV. “THE MAN IS DEAD” . . . . . . 157
XVI. THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES . . . . . 165
XVII. DoCTOR BUSHNELL DECIDEs . . . . 176
XVIII. CLEw PLUS CLEw . . . . . . . 187


CONTENTS
Chapter
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS . .
Miss JoLINE’s SUSPICIONS . .
AN ExPLODED CARTRIDGE .
BEHIND THE FRENCH WINDOWS
REvolver of AUTOMATIC.?
THE OPTIMIST
PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT
A CoNVINCING ALIBI
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE
SIGNED WITH A BULLET
AN ANTE-MoRTEM STATEMENT .
THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS
PAGE
199
210
217
230
241
254
263
269
279
285
298
303


THE BIGAMIST


THE BIGAMIST
*@
CHAPTER I
M O O N L I G H T
IFE had suddenly become a miracle to Channing
Searles. In the passing of a few swift weeks
he had attained his most roseate dreams of opulence,
although not according to any of the nebulous plans
which his fancy had devised. This realization of
his ambitions had not been, as he had wanted it to
be, the earned fruits of his own endeavors. At-
tainment, yes; but not achievement. Chance had
been the generous necromancer—chance, abetted by
a WOInan.
While luxury had become an actuality, Channing
Searles could not master the feeling that it was a
dream—that the great house, with its wide sweep
of lawn sloping sharply down to the water's edge in
a series of landscaped terraces; the great, somber
dining room, Italian in motif; and the butler and
second man, who made him exceedingly nervous and
ill at ease—everything that went with the scale of
living, even the woman who had become his wife,
would presently dissolve, as all dreams do, and
that he would find himself back at Mrs. Chubb’s
boarding house.
From Mrs. Chubb's to this—what an amazing
transition! Channing Searles' thoughts often went


12 THE BIGAMIST
back to Mrs. Chubb's, sometimes shudderingly, and
at other times, when something happened to torture
him with a sense of inferiority, almost regretfully.
At Mrs. Chubb's he had been superior.
Mrs. Chubb, who had seen better days, harassed
by an endless stream of bills always overdue; try-
ing to pretend that running a boarding house was a
lark; that she enjoyed being “a business woman;”
making up stories about rich family connections
and repeating without conviction that she “loved
her independence.”
Miss Chamberlin, eighteen or nineteen, from De-
kalb, Illinois, who had come to New York for a
literary career, loftily proclaiming her scorn for
those who “wrote down to a common level.” She
would never sacrifice her talents upon the altar of
Mammon; she would work with her hands first, and
she eventually did.
Mr. Holcomb, who went strolling Sunday after-
noons in a silk topper; who spoke grandly, but
vaguely, of Wall Street; and who was always ex-
plaining, rather defensively, that he had given up
rooms at one of the good hotels because he pre-
ferred a “home atmosphere.”
It had seemed to Searles that all of Mrs. Chubb’s
paying guests were pretenders, and not very good
pretenders, either. Ed Hinkle was the one excep-
tion, attempting no stupid alibis for his frequent
state of indigence; and yet there were times when
it might have been suspected that even Hinkle's
frankness was not one hundred per cent.
Rather a queer one was Hinkle, cynical and cal-


MOONLIGHT 13
lous to the finer things of life, as lazy as they come,
and, to take the man’s own word for it, not much
burdened with scruples. He readily admitted his
willingness to turn his hand to anything within
legal limits; he even confessed that if he found a
game worth the candle, he might take a chance on
going to jail. Upon occasions he was in funds, and
he was not always communicative about the source.
At Mrs. Chubb's, Searles, too, was somewhat of a
pretender, being not unwilling that the others should
think him greater than he was, although it was by
his manner and not through any vain boastings that
he fostered this impression. Being a lawyer, he
considered it only proper that he should adopt a cer-
tain dignity of bearing which might be called “the
legal manner.” He had great fluency of speech
and a trick of turning commonplace phrases into
the dramatic. He was not handsome; but, better
than that, he had “a strong face” and a pair of ex-
pressive eyes which leaped into a quick, fervid
flame when he talked.
A strange mixture was Searles; when he could
give himself free rein he became a dynamic per-
sonality; but underneath it all there was what the
Freudians call “an inferiority complex.” There were
times when it submerged him entirely; perhaps this
was one reason why he had made no progress with
Platt, Hornaday & Platt, the law firm with whom
he had obscure employment.
Thursday morning—this particular Thursday
morning—dawned with no outward signs of sig-
nificance; it was very much like the two previous


14 THE BIGAMIST
Thursday mornings when Channing Searles had
awakened to the persistent strangeness of this mas-
ter bedroom, the massive four-poster bed and the
soft crinkle of his silk pyjamas.
It was a balmy morning; the French windows,
open, looked out upon the perfect green of the
lawn, with stone steps dropping through the ter-
raced levels to the river. The water was very placid
this morning, although, shimmering and dancing in
the warming sunlight, it seemed fairly alive with
motion. On the rail of the balcony, just outside the
windows, a sparrow looked in upon him inquisi-
tively and took sudden wing as Searles tossed back
the linen sheets.
The door between Searles’ bedroom and that of
his wife was closed. He slid his feet to the floor
and, almost stealthily, crept across to the entrance
of his own bath. What a relief it would be to draw
his own water again, to get into his clothes without
the assistance of a servant. It was evidently earlier
than his usual hour for rising, for Kendricks, the
second man, and who also valeted him, had not put
in an appearance.
Searles had discovered that it took more courage
than he possessed to make it clear that he preferred
to shave his own face and put the buttons in his
own shirts; that he resented this invasion of his
privacy. Perhaps he would get accustomed to it in
time; he had to fall into these luxurious ways.
This was now his life; he had become the master
of this house.
This morning he had awakened, as he usually


46 THE BIGAMIST
knuckles cracked sharply against the silvered plate
glass.
“You cad!” he shouted, his voice rising above the
splashing water. “You contemptible, self-centered
cad! You think you've made something of your-
self, don't you? You think you are somebody now!
You wanted to wallow in money, like a fat hog
wallowing in the mud. You got your chance to get
it, and now—now you’ve got it. Oh, Lord, what a
price to pay!”
This was not the first time he had accused him-
self, but never before had he been so violent. His
outburst of self-stigmatizing passion spent itself
quickly, leaving him ashamed of himself for this
surrender to the melodramatic. He had completed
his morning's toilet when there was a rap at the
hallway door, and, in response to his grumpy, “Yes,
come,” Kendricks entered the bedroom, an expres-
sion of surprise on his face.
“You did not ring for me, sir?” Kendricks' tone
was reproachfully accusing.
“Haven’t I got a right to dress myself if I hap-
pen to feel like doing it?” snapped Searles. “Get
out and let me alone.”
“Yes, sir; quite so, sir,” murmured Kendricks,
but he was unable completely to mask his disap-
proval of his new master.
He gave voice to this disapproval some minutes
later downstairs, speaking to Hedges, the butler.
“There ain’t nothin so pitiful, Mr. Hedges,” said
Kendricks, “as a man tryin’ to convince people he's


MOONLIGHT 17
a gentleman and born to the purple. Sure now,
Mr. Hedges, I'm as good an American as anybody,
and I’ve got no objection to a man bein’ plain in his
tastes, but—well, there's the new master. A fish
that's got into the wrong brook, an no mistake.”
“It will probably take Mr. Searles no longer to
become a passable gentleman than it has taken you
to become a passable second man,” responded the
butler. “It has been my observation that Mr.
Searles is doing very well indeed—ah—considering.
Some never get the trick of it, but he'll learn. Mr.
Searles is no man’s fool.”
“I’ll admit he was smart enough to marry a rich
woman, but the puzzle of it to me, Mr. Hedges, is
that she took him. She's never been the kind to
jump at a man. Women is a riddle, ain’t they?”
“Yours is a universal mistake, Kendricks,” the
butler said, with an air of profundity. “Man has
endowed the female of the species with mystery.
There is no mystery, none at all. I have made a
study of women; I know them better than they
know themselves.”
“I didn’t know you was a married man, Mr.
Hedges.”
“Not at present, Kendricks. I have been married
three times, and I doubt if I shall be again. Oh, I
had my illusions once. I assure you I had them,
but courtship lost its flavor when I discovered that,
instead of courting, I was being courted. And that
is just the point I am getting at.”
The second man, being none too nimble of wit,


18 THE BIGAMIST
wrinkled his shallow forehead and blinked slowly,
as he always did when he was puzzled.
“You mean, Mr. Hedges—”
“We will cite the case you have mentioned, that
of our master and mistress. You say he married
her. It doesn’t occur to you that she married him?
Well, she did. All women do. Yes, indeed.
“Was it King Solomon who chased after the
Queen of Sheba? It was not. She made up her
mind to get him before she ever so much as put
eyes on him. And didn't Cleopatra roll herself up in
a rug so she could crash in on Mr. Caesar and show
him what a great looker she was? Answer me that,
Kendricks!”
“I—I ain’t much on hist'ry,” stammered the sec-
ond man, overwhelmed, as he always was, by his
superior's erudition; “but Mr. Searles, you can take
it from me, was lookin’ for somethin soft. He seen
his chance to grab off an heiress, and he took it.”
“Maybe he thinks he did; but a woman marries a
man because she wants him—either the man or
something he's got. It may be his looks, his money,
his title, or social position; but it's the woman who
does the picking. We must agree that Mr. Searles
had no money, no title, no social position; then she
wanted him. She wanted him, and she got him.”
“But why did she want him?” demanded Ken-
dricks with a baffled gesture. “Tell me that!” His
tone was a mixture of bewilderment and challenge.
“There goes the bell!” exclaimed Hedges, hurry-
ing to his feet, with what may have been unneces-
sary haste and smoothing down his waistcoat.


MOONLIGHT 19
Thereupon Kendricks came to the conclusion that
the butler was hardly so wise about women as he
so stoutly professed to be.
The second man was by no means the only person
who had curiously put the same question. Why
had Elizabeth Borland, rich and unimpulsive, mar-
ried the poor young lawyer, probably two or three
years younger than herself, whom she had known
so short a time?
Her two nieces, certain that Aunt Elizabeth was a
confirmed spinster, and, perhaps, thinking secretly
that she did not look extra strong, bitterly charged
Searles with some mesmeric power over her, brand-
ing him a scheming adventurer. The very fact that
the engagement had been brief gave them further
food for suspicion.
Channing Searles had been as bewildered as any
one else. This Thursday morning, taking a nervous
stroll along the upper terrace, awaiting break-
fast time, it remained an unanswered query within
his own mind. Obviously the explanation was that
she had been in love with him, and yet what a
Strange love it was, undemonstrative, ardorless,
just as their courtship had been.
Due to a law-school friendship, Searles had got
a place in the office of the New York legal firm,
Platt, Hornaday & Platt. It was a position of small
importance, with a correspondingly small salary.
He brought no business with him, and he had not
been able to get ahead. The fault was not lack of
ambition, for ambition burned at white heat within
him.


20 THE BIGAMIST
He had been twenty-five before entering college.
It had taken him seven years to get his A. B. and
law school degree. Those seven years had been a con-
stant accumulation of debts, borrowing mostly from
relatives who could not well afford to lend. Dora
had let him have five hundred dollars to finish out
his last year.
Then four years of paying debts, twenty-five
dollars a month on this note one month, another
twenty-five on that the next. A treadmill of debt!
Dora had agreed with him that they must wait until
he had cleaned the slate. She had waited eleven
years—for this blow of disillusionment!
When he was just beginning to see his way out of
the financial woods, the law firm had sent Channing
Searles out to the Borland country house, in West-
chester County, with some papers for Elizabeth
Borland's signature. That had been their first
meeting.
Strangely enough, Searles did not feel embar-
rassed with the rich Miss Borland. It might have
been the cocktail which sharpened his wit to rapier
point that evening. His conversational brilliancy had
fascinated her; she found him a mental stimulus,
little short of intoxicating. Not only did she ask
him to come again, she urged him.
Searles had come again, not impelled by any
scheming notions, but because it was immeasurably
pleasing to find himself welcome in such an atmos-
phere. And then that evening upon the terrace,
with a golden moon casting its mystic spell about


MOONLIGHT 21
them, soft beams of mellow light playing upon the
Surface of the river below.
The magic of nights like that does tricks with a
man's mind and strange things to a woman's soul.
Romance rides the moonbeams. Elizabeth Borland
seemed touched by a fairy wand; white and slender
she stood there, her face given a borrowed beauty,
her features softened, and the whole of her envel-
oped in a subtle perfume. She was not Elizabeth
Borland, but the creation of a beautiful fantasy.
Channing Searles was never able to explain to his
own satisfaction how it happened. He had no con-
scious thought, as his arm went softly about her,
and then in a sudden panic he realized what he had
done, and it fell limp at his side.
“Forgive me,” he said thickly. “I forgot myself.”
Her hand went out, and her fingers rested across
his; hers were trembling a little and cold.
“Forgive?” she said softly. “There is nothing to
forgive, my dear. I love you—I love you!”
After that neither of them spoke; he was too dazed
for words, and she was too enthralled. They only
stood there by the stone parapet, her hand against
his, the silence to her immeasurably sweet.
But for Searles the night's enchantment was
broken; the poetry of the moonlight gave way to the
harsh prose of practical things. A very rich woman
had just told him that she loved him. Something
Ed Hinkle had said to him back in Mrs. Chubb’s
boarding house flashed through his mind; it had not
made much impression on him at the time, for Hin-
kle indulged in many extravagances of speech.


22 THE BIGAMIST
“You’ll never be much of a lawyer, Searles, but
with your magnetism, your personality, your flow of
words, you’d be a whiz in public life. When you
turn on the oratory, you hypnotize 'em. Congress,
the Senate, the presidency! If you had a chance,
money, or some influential friends to give you a
boost, there'd be no stopping you. It's a darn
Shame!”
It was a start he needed—a start on the road to
the high places! And here it was for the taking.
Searles could not remember everything that went
on in his mind, but the picture of Dora Oakes, wait-
ing for him with a patience which even eleven
years of waiting could not tire, slipped far into the
background. His arm went about Elizabeth again.
Until a day or so before the wedding—it was
Elizabeth who wanted a brief engagement and a
quiet ceremony—Searles kept up his correspondence
with Dora, trying to pave the way and yet lack-
ing the courage to put even a hint of it on paper.
Perhaps, too, in the back of his head, was the
thought that with Elizabeth it was only an emo-
tional whim, and that, upon taking second judg-
ment, she would probably declare the affair off.
This morning, less than three weeks after his mar-
riage, thoughts of Dora Oakes haunted him with
harrowing poignancy, although there had not been
a day when she had not weighed heavily upon his
mind. It had been almost three weeks since she had
heard from him, and this unexplained silence must
be filling her with dread alarms. There were no
doubt letters from her at Mrs. Chubb's boarding


MOONLIGHT 23
house, frantic letters begging to know what was
wrong. Instead of having his mail forwarded, he
had dropped a note to Ed Hinkle, asking him to
keep all letters until he called for them.
“I’ll write to-day,” Searles muttered, drumming
his fingers against the rail of the stone parapet.
A step sounded on the walk behind him, and he
turned. It was his wife. There were no soft lights
and magic shadows to film her with an illusive
glamour, and the mornings were never kind to
Elizabeth. For the first few hours she had a tired,
ill look, as if she had slept badly. Her skin had a
touch of sallowness, her lips had little color, and
she scorned rouge. Thin, repressed lips they were.
“Oh, Chan, isn’t it a glorious morning?” she said,
as she came beside him and slipped her fingers about
his arm. Her voice did have beauty, a musical
charm. “I saw you from my window, so I hur-
Tied.”
“Yes, a glorious morning, Elizabeth.” Searles
compelled himself to smile.
They walked along the terrace, side by side, for
half a dozen paces, when she paused, a touch of
color mounting to her cheeks. He felt the pressure
of her fingers on his arm.
“It was here, Chan, this very spot,” she said, her
voice low and hushed. “Oh, that wonderful night
when you and I stood here alone in the moonlight.
Do you remember?”
“Yes, Elizabeth, I remember. I shall always re-
member that night.”
She had said the same thing, and he had made


24 THE BIGAMIST
the same answer many times before; it had become
a kind of ritual. She lifted her face to his, and
their lips touched lightly.
Her kiss chilled him now, as it always chilled
him, for each time he kissed her he thought of an-
other kiss, warm, clinging, hungry; of a pair of
velvety soft arms pressing about him in a passionate
embrace, holding him close, very close, as if she
wanted never to let him go. Even the memory of
those other kisses, Dora's, electrified him.
Elizabeth, looking up into her husband's face,
smiled gently.
“You do love me, Chan,” she murmured; “you do
love me so deeply, so finely.” For she saw that his
eyes had become moist. “Oh, Chan, I am so happy
—happier than I ever dreamed I would be. The
thought of love had always frightened me a little;
I was afraid that I would find it a sort of tempest.
I had not hoped to find it so tender, so sweet.”
Channing Searles turned his head to keep her
from seeing how utterly miserable he was.
“I think we had better go in to breakfast,” he
said, after a pause. “I must be at the office this
morning, and that means the nine o'clock train.”


CHAPTER II
A TELEGRAM
A'. Elizabeth insisted upon having him
driven to New York in the open car—during
breakfast she saw there was little color in his face,
and she thought the fresh air would be about what
he needed—Searles did take the train, as he had
planned to do. It had been his intention to get off
at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, taking a
taxi to Mrs. Chubb's for his personal mail. Dora's
letters he had decided to destroy unopened.
There was a congestion of traffic on the Harlem
division this morning, with the result that he would
not reach the Grand Central Station until after
eleven, and the delay denied him any surplus of
time. Conrad Hornaday, heading the law firm, was
leaving for California on the Twentieth Century and
wanted to see him.
“If you can find it convenient,” Hornaday's note
had said, a deference which Channing Searles un-
derstood perfectly. He had often imagined himself
turning Conrad Hornaday's tart ungraciousness into
respect, but, now that he had it, there was no ex-
pansive feeling of satisfaction. Rather it irked him
with a tinge of bitterness. It was because, instead
of being an inconsequential clerk, whose tasks were
confined to inconsequential routine, a kind of glori-


26 THE BIGAMIST
fied office boy, with his name stenciled in humbly
Small letters upon the door of a humbly small private
office, he had become the husband of one of Platt,
Hornaday & Platt's wealthy and lucrative clients.
Reflected glory is always dull, with a disappointing
tarnish.
The senior Mr. Platt, now past eighty, had with-
drawn from active practice; the value of the junior
Mr. Platt to the firm was neglible; and the burden
of directing this highly efficient law organization
fell upon the capable and willing shoulders of
Hornaday, a tremendous worker, learned in the law
and wise in the ways of turning it to the advantage
of their clients. A brusque man by nature, he knew
When to oil his tongue with diplomacy.
All the way in on the train Searles was thinking
not of Hornaday and his own altered status at the
office, but of the letter he must Write. Fluent
phrases usually came to him easily, but not now,
as he tried to mold sentences which would hurt
Dora the least. Perhaps it would have been easier
had it not been that at the same time he was trying
to excuse himself. He continued his groping for
words, as he cut across the station rotunda to tele-
phone to the office to say that he was on his way.
From north, west, and east, the traffic of New
York empties itself into lower Broadway, a jam-
ming mass and maze of automobiles, trucks and
drays until the downtown thoroughfare is like a
lumbering country river, choked at its mouth with
timber. The tangle of vehicles, moving a few feet,
spurting ahead when a clear space opens, makes


A TELEGRAM 27
one think of logs hopelessly clogged in a narrow
stream on their sluggish journey to the sawmills.
To get to the Battery in a hurry, a sensible man
does not take a taxicab.
Being in a hurry, Searles used the subway—the
shuttle to Times Square and a downtown express to
Wall Street. After twenty minutes underground he
had reached the tall, narrow building wherein the
firm of Platt, Hornaday & Platt occupied an entire
floor. This was the first time since his marriage
that he had been in. Morning after morning, during
his four years' employment here, he had passed
through the office entrance, getting a perfunctory,
chilling greeting, and often no greeting at all from
Miss Robertson, who had become forty and forbid-
ding in the service of Platt, Hornaday & Platt. To-
day she relaxed her thin, taut mouth into a cordial
smile and bowed stiffly from the waist.
The office boy leaped to his feet and swung open
the low gate of the office railing.
“Good morning, Mr. Searles!” They said it
together, as if they might have rehearsed their greet-
ing, and they stared at him, as if he were an inter-
esting stranger they were seeing for the first time.
“Good morning, Miss Robertson! Good morning,
Alfred,” Searles responded rather absently. “Miss
Robertson, please tell Mr. Hornaday I am here.”
“He is expecting you, Mr. Searles; you are to go
right in. It's a lovely morning, Mr. Searles.”
“May I take your stick and hat, sir?” This eag-
erly and courteously from the office boy.
Channing took neither satisfaction nor amusement


28 THE BIGAMIST
from this attention. It had scarcely any impression
on him. Conrad Hornaday's office was at the front
of the building, a private office within a private
office, and Hornaday’s very efficient secretary was
stationed at her desk in the latter.
“Good morning, Mr. Searles!” She, like Miss
Robertson, greeted him with a new effusiveness.
“Step right in I Mr. Hornaday is waiting for you.”
Searles opened the door and crossed the threshold.
Hornaday stood before an open window, toying with
the silk cord of his eyeglasses which he seemed to
use principally for the purpose of making elegant
gestures. He was a bulky man, with a florid, force-
ful face and thinning gray hair; encroaching bald-
ness gave his forehead an appearance of amazing
height.
“Good morning, Searles.” His tone, as the other
had expected, was most cordial. Hornaday would
be cordial to the husband of a rich client, whether
he felt like it or not. They shook hands, and Horna-
day motioned the younger man to a chair beside the
wide mahogany desk. “Sorry to drag you from the
Garden of Eden, but, as I mentioned in my note, I
start for California this afternoon. Wanted to have
a talk with you before I left town.”
“It's quite all right, Mr. Hornaday. I had intended
coming in to-day, anyhow.”
“Smoke?” The senior member of the law firm
offered cigars. “I trust Mrs. Searles is in good
health.”
“Yes.”
“A splendid woman, Searles—a woman of de-


A TELEGRAM 29
cided mental attainments. I congratulate you.”
Hornaday glanced at his watch. “Time is limited,
and I'll come directly to the point. The firm trusts
you have decided to remain with us.”
This was precisely what Searles had expected.
As a rough guess he had estimated that the handling
of Elizabeth’s legal business was worth many thou-
sands a year to Platt, Hornaday & Platt. In addition
to her own share of her father's fortune, she was
trustee for a younger brother whose irresponsible
character had caused a number of legal strings to
be tied about his inheritance.
“I shall of course continue my profession,” Searles
answered. “I do not want to become a parasite.”
“Splendid!” murmured Hornaday, his eyes upon
the other's face, tapping the lens of his glasses
against the pinkish surface of a freshly manicured
thumb nail. “In that case, my dear Searles, there
is no reason why you should not continue with us.
You have been with this firm four years. You be-
gan at the bottom, have worked hard and faithfully,
and have now reached a place where we can offer
you advancement—material advancement.” Trust
Conrad Hornaday to put it tactfully.
“I have wanted to get ahead with your firm,” said
Searles, knowing full well the offer was made with
no regard for his own merits as a lawyer. Hornaday
wanted to keep the Borland business, and doubtless
he considered the surest way to keep it was to keep
Searles. “My salary has been so small, however,
that I feared I might be forced to make a change.


30 THE BIGAMIST
No self-respecting man likes to be dependent upon
his wife's purse.”
“The question of your future salary was the very
matter I wanted to have settled before I left town.
Your duties will, from now on, be of a more im-
portant nature. The figure I have in mind is ten
thousand a year. Will that be satisfactory, Searles?”
“Quite satisfactory,” he answered.
“Good! Until my return Mr. Framington will look
after you; he will probably ask you to assist him
with the Norcross case. Now about an office. You
will have the junior Mr. Platt's room, and, I am sure,
you’ll find it comfortable. His name will remain on
the door with yours, but he is much too busy win-
ning golf trophies. He will not often intrude upon
your privacy. The office arrangement meets with
your approval?”
“Entirely so, Mr. Hornaday.” Searles smoked for
a moment in silence. Hornaday must know he was
not such a conceited fool as to think these considera-
tions were given him because of actual ability.
Abruptly he leaned across the desk. “I should like
to be frank,” he blurted.
The other nodded, looking surprised and rather
curious.
“I realize,” said Searles, haltingly at first, but
gathering earnestness as he spoke, “that there are
certain considerations which enter into your gener-
ous offer and which do not take my ability into
account. I want you to know I understood.
I am accepting it because it is less humiliat-
ing to take money from Platt, Hornaday & Platt


A TELEGRAM 34
than to take it from my wife. Perhaps it amounts
to the same thing fundamentally, but I want a
chance, a genuine chance, to earn your ten thou-
sand. I don’t want to play at practicing law; I
want to dig in and make good. I want to stand on
my own feet.”
A quizzical gleam shone briefly in Conrad Horna-
day’s eyes. He was thinking this might be a mere
sop for Searles' self-respect, but he was not sure.
“Ah!” he murmured. “I hadn’t expected you to
feel this way about the—ah—arrangement; frankly,
I hadn’t. But I like you better for it. Humph!
It’s just possible we have kept you so buried with
routine you haven’t had a real opportunity; perhaps
you can stand on your own feet. Anyhow, you’ll
get a chance.” He looked at his watch. “No more
time than I need to have my lunch and make the
train. We shall get better acquainted, Searles,
when I return from California.” He offered his
hand, and it seemed to Searles that there was more
genuine warmth in the pressure of his fingers than
there had been before.
An hour later Searles had completed the job of
moving himself into his new quarters, this richly
furnished office which the junior Mr. Platt, before
that frivolous young man had discovered the practice
of law would seriously interfere with the pursuit of
his personal pleasures, had equipped with a lavish
hand. It was a large, important-looking room, with
a blue rug and a handsome mahogany desk and
other appointments in keeping.
Channing Searles sat at the desk, a dictaphone at


32 THE BIGAMIST
his elbow, a row of ivory push buttons within easy
reach of his hand. An office like this had the nat-
ural effect of making a man feel important. He
found it a pleasant sensation, but this soon passed.
He slumped down in the swivel chair, his face mir-
roring the torture of a soul in chaos.
“Pretense!” he muttered. “All empty pretense.
A bribe! That's all it amounts to—a common bribe.
I am a cheap bribe taker!”
Presently he remembered the unwritten letter and,
clamping his teeth, as if for a stupendous physical
effort, drew a sheet of paper toward him, picked up
a pen from the metal tray, and dipped it into the
inkWell.
DEAR DORA: No matter how much these
words may cause you to suffer, you can know
I am suffering, too. I have traded my dreams
for a nightmare. Perhaps when you read on,
when you discover how unlike I am to the man
you have thought me to be, you will be glad—
Abruptly he stopped, tore the sheet twice across,
and let the pieces fall into the wastebasket. He
began again.
DEAR DoRA: An insane man is not account-
able for his actions. There are times when
ambition becomes insanity. I am just emerg-
ing from a horrible madness to find I have
wrecked our happiness, mine as well as yours.
For weeks I have been like one walking through
a fog. Even now—


A TELEGRAM 33
The telephone tinkled merrily. Searles mechani-
cally took down the receiver and mouthed a weary
“yes” into the transmitter.
“Mr. Hinkle to see you, Mr. Searles,” said Miss
Robertson's voice. “He says he is calling on a
personal matter.”
“You may send him in,” Searles told her and
crumpled the second start of his letter between his
fingers. He welcomed the interruption; it gave him
excuse for further procrastination. Hinkle was a
diverting fellow.
The door opened, and Ed Hinkle breezed into the
private office, a Malacca stick with a gold band
hanging from his forearm, his fedora slightly tilted
toward his right ear, a carnation in the lapel of his
coat, which was too loud for good taste. His mouth
pursed into an admiring whistle, as he took in the
I'OOIn.
“Gosh, Chan, what a wow of a place you’ve got
here! I take off my hat to you.” He did literally.
“Hello, Ed,” said Searles, putting out his hand.
“Glad to see you.”
“Dog-gone it, I believe you are, even if you have
got out of my class.” Hinkle dropped into a chair,
tapping the ferrule of his stick against the sole of
a spat-topped shoe. “This isn’t much like the shoe
box they had you in the last time I called to see
Lawyer Searles. Looks like they’ve made you a
member of the firm. Have they?”
“No, not a member of the firm, Ed. They’ve
merely given me this office and ten thousand a year,


34 THE BIGAMIST
and I would give it up this very minute, if I
could—”
“Ha! Merely ten thousand a year! But, of course,
since marrying a multimillionairess you have only
scorn for mere thousands. Lord, you could have
knocked me down with a humming bird's feather
when I got back to Mrs. Chubb's and heard the
news. You sure worked fast. Thick as you and I
were, you didn’t tell me you were planning—”
“It wasn’t planned, Ed. It—well, it just seemed
to happen. I met Miss Borland the same week you
went away on your trip. The engagement was a
brief one.”
Hinkle winked owlishly. “Clever boy! Didn't
give her a chance to change her mind. You sure
used your head better than I would have given you
credit for. I’d have made a ten-to-one bet you were
the kind of sentimental ass who would pass up a
rich chance for that pretty little trick you used to
rave about, until I could almost choke you.”
Searles flinched. “You are looking rather pros-
perous yourself, Ed.”
“For yours humbly, Edward Theodore Hinkle—
yes. I put over a little deal in Cleveland that put
thirty-five hundred in the hip pocket. A bit shady,
I'll admit, but strictly legal-proof. And, say, from
the way you look, Chan, I’m having a darn sight
more fun out of my piking thirty-five hundred than
you are out of your millions. I’d have a smile as
wide as Fifth Avenue—perhaps wider if I’d fallen
into a soft thing like you have.”
Searles' mouth twisted, as he gestured heavily.


A TELEGRAM 35
“Ed,” he burst out, “I wish to the Lord I were back
in the room down the hall that you call a shoe box.
I would give ten years of my life if I were sitting
across the table from you at Mrs. Chubb's to-night!
What does it matter if a man’s hands are filled,
when—when his heart is empty?”
“You talk like an idiot! Why, you crazy fool,
you’ve got everything you want.”
“Except what I want most,” Searles said thickly.
“You call me a crazy fool—it's exactly what I am.
What have I got? A wife whose kiss chills me,
like the touch of ice to my lips; a fine house in
which there is no comfort; I’m waited on by serv-
ants who have no respect for me; some money and
this fine office, both of which are a bribe. I have
lost my self-respect, and I have lost—her.” His
voice ended in a choking sound that was almost a
sob.
Hinkle stared at him in uncomprehending amaze-
ment, and then he shrugged his shoulders. “The
girl back in New Hampshire, eh? Oh, bosh! I can
see you’re still nutty about her, but you'll get over
it.”
“What about her?” thundered Searles, as if he
were a lawyer pleading with a jury for his own
conviction. “Do you realize what I have done to
her? Do you realize she has’loved me, trusted me,
waited for me—eleven years? Have I ever told
you it was her money that helped pay my last year
through law school? Do you know it was she who
fired me with my first ambition to make something
of myself? Except for her, I would be back there


A TELEGRAM 37
big chance like this. Gosh, no! I told you that if
you had some coin, some influential friends to give
you a boost, you’d be a knock-out in public life.
You got to get into politics—that's what. Dog-gone
you, when I was listening to you just now, you sort
of had me hypnotized. With the way you’ve got of
tossing the words around—”
Searles had forgotten that, but he remembered
now. He also remembered that Hinkle's words had
flashed through his mind the night he had stood with
Elizabeth upon the terrace. Ambition, tempting him,
had used Hinkle's words as bait. He took a step
forward, his hands clenched, and his eyes were
burning with such a passion of anger that the other
scrambled to his feet in bewildered alarm.
“S-say, Chan!” he stuttered. “What's the matter
with you, anyhow? What did I say to make you
SOre?”
Searles subsided, deeply ashamed of himself.
“I have no right to blame you, Ed. It is no fault
of yours that some nonsensical thing you said dur-
ing an evening's chat at Mrs. Chubb's became the
turning point for me. A man likes to blame other
people for his own folly. If I had the right stuff in
me, it wouldn’t have made any difference; nothing
would have made any difference. I am a fool—and
weak.
“We’ll not talk any more about it, Ed. I’ve made
myself a bed of thorns, and I’ve got to lie on it. It
is only right I should pay the price for my own
miserable selfishness, but what hurts the Worst is


38 THE BIGAMIST
knowing how much I’ve got to hurt her. She does
not know. I haven't had the courage to tell her.”
Hinkle completed the movement he had twice al-
ready made toward his pocket. In his hand was a
telegram.
“This takes care of that end of it, Chan,” he said.
“Guess you won't have to tell her, and that's what
seems to be bothering you most. I got your note,
telling me to keep your mail, but, being a telegram,
I thought maybe you ought to have it. You'll think
I have a fat nerve, but the flap came loose, and I
read it. If it wasn’t important I wasn’t going to
bother about bringing it.”
Searles’ face became ghastly, and his fingers,
Snatching at the yellow envelope, were trembling.
“You mean,” he cried thickly, “that she—that
Dora is—” He choked over the dread word.
“She probably is by now,” Hinkle answered.
“You had better read it for yourself.”
Tearing the folded paper from its envelope,
Searles read with blurred eyes the terse typewritten
lines.
Dora dying. You better come quick.
CALVIN 0AKES.
How unsatisfactory is the average telegram, sacri-
ficing everything for brevity, as if there might be an
embargo on all words above ten. Calvin Oakes,
with habitual frugality of speech, had confined him-
self to but six. He did not say if her condition were
due to illness or an accident.


A TELEGRAM 39
“‘Dora dying. You better come quick.’” Searles
read it aloud, rather repeating it from memory. The
paper crackled between his clenched fingers and fell
to the rug at his feet, as he swayed against the sup-
port of the desk, like a man stricken with a heart
seizure.
“Buck up, old man,” Ed Hinkle said almost gently,
even his cynical nature pierced by the depth of the
other's grief. “Sit down, Chan, and pull yourself
together. I didn't know it would hit you between
the eyes like this.”
“It tells so little,” Searles said dully; “it tells so
little when I want to know so much. I—I may be
guilty of this. Three weeks since she has had any
word from me. My silence may have worried her
into a collapse. I—I have heard of brain fever from
a mental strain.
“Were there no letters, Ed? There must be let-
ters! Perhaps they tell something—give some
news—”
“Yes, there were letters, half a dozen of them.
I’ve got them in my pocket.”
Searles took the packet of envelopes, his shaking
hands sorting them clumsily. It might save time to
open first the one with the latest postmark. All
were addressed to him in Dora's small, firm script,
except one. He recognized Calvin Oakes’ labored,
ragged handwriting.
Dora's brother had barely escaped illiteracy. Un-
like his sister, he had no thirst for knowledge, no
ambition beyond the sterile acres which he farmed
after a slovenly fashion. There were many mis-


40 THE BIGAMIST
spelled words, capitals where there should have been
none, a confusing lack of punctuation. Searles read
the letter with difficulty.
“She has been hurt, badly hurt,” he told Hinkle in
a strained voice. “This is from her brother. Like
his telegram, it is brief and unsatisfactory. She
has had some kind of a fall. Her spine—her back,
Calvin puts it—has been injured. She is helpless
and unconscious most of the time. She—she calls
for me continually. The doctor says there is no
hope; she may linger a little while, he thought at
the time this letter was written, but a matter of
days at most.
“It is three days since I should have known all
this. Of course they cannot understand why I have
not come to her. I—I hardly know what to do.”
Ed Hinkle stirred uncomfortably. He could think
of nothing appropriate to say. Searles’ fingers
strayed toward Dora's unopened letters, five of
them; he touched them as if they were sacred. He
would not attempt to read them now; he felt that
they would break him down. On the desk was a
clock, the hands marking half past two. Abruptly
he rushed to his feet.
“I can just make it—the three o’clock train!
There is a chance, the barest chance, that she may
be alive when I get there. It will be something to
see her again, to hear her speak my name, if I am
not too late.”
“You are going?” Hinkle said.
“Going? She is calling for me—she wants me!


A TELEGRAM 41
Going? Of course I am going. What else could I
do?”
“Yes, I suppose so, Chan, since you feel the way
you do about it. But haven’t you forgotten your
wife? Running off and leaving her so suddenly,
married only three weeks—well, she might ask
questions—she might insist on going with you.”
Searles made no response. Crushing his hat on
his head, he dashed out of the office, leaving Ed
Hinkle to shift for himself.


CHAPTER III
THE ODOR OF BALSAM
OM the Grand Central Station, Channing Searles
dispatched a wire to Calvin Oakes, naming the
train and hour of his arrival, and then he telephoned
Elizabeth. He told her hurriedly that “a very dear
friend” was critically ill and had sent for him. A
man engaged in a deliberate lie will sometimes cling
conscientiously to the strict letter of truth.
Elizabeth did not complicate his explanation with
questions. The tone of his voice told her he was
deeply affected, and she was gently sympathetic. It
was fine of him, she said, that he should be loyal
to an old friendship. Of course she would miss him,
but by all means he must go. He promised her he
would return in two or three days, at most. No, it
would not be necessary for her to write, for he
would be back before any mail could reach him.
Travel was usually light on this train, but to-
day there were members of some fraternal order,
returning home from a lodge convention, and they
had taken all of the Pullman space with the excep-
tion of a drawing-room. Searles, thrift born in him,
as it is in so many New Englanders, and practiced
under compulsion during the past eleven years, in-
dulged in this extravagance only after some hesita-
tion. Later he was very glad he had done so, for it


THE ODOR OF BALSAM 43
gave him complete privacy at a time when he wanted
to be alone—absolutely alone.
A long time after the train had entered Connecti-
cut and had turned north from Hartford, he sat,
dazed and motionless, his eyes fixed upon a flying
landscape, endlessly unwinding ribbons of stone
fences, trees, houses, and barns given the illusion of
movement, none of which he noticed. He could
think only of Dora Oakes and see only the pictures
which his memory brought before him—pictures
which were beautiful, except that his own unfaith-
fulness had made them ugly.
Just before dusk closed in, he remembered the
letters in his pocket. Now he took them in his
hands and sorted them according to the dates of the
postmarks, deciding to read them in the order in
which they had been written. The first, he noted,
had been mailed at four p. m., the sixth of June—
the day and the precise hour of his marriage to
Elizabeth Borland. Searles shuddered and put the
five letters back into his pocket without opening
them. He had forfeited his right to read these
pages, made sacred by her tender endearments.
But, after a time, when the outside light had be-
come so dim that it strained his eyes to follow
Dora's neat, closely penned script, he did read
them. Only he reversed the order and opened the
last letter first, the one written when it had been
nearing two weeks since she had heard from him.
He knew that her agonized apprehension over his
unexplainable silence would stab him, like the thrust
of a dull knife, through his heart; but he deserved


44 THE BIGAMIST
to suffer, wanted to suffer, and hoped to find a small
measure of atonement in it.
None but a woman who loved with every fiber of
her being could have put into simple words such a
passionate outpouring of anxiety. All sorts of panic-
stricken thoughts went tumbling through her mind.
She had no reproaches; she considered him incapa-
ble of any act which could warrant reproach.
Yesterday I thought, for the first time, that
you might be dead. The thought made me
scream. Calvin came running from the barn
lot, thinking I was hurt. If God took you away
from me, I should feel there is no God.
Searles’ very soul writhed. He had bartered away
such a love as this! This, her last letter, the last
letter she would ever write, ended with a piteous
entreaty that he get some kind of a message to
her. There were, too, some passages he could not
understand, but, as he went on, from envelope to
envelope, he found the explanation.
Your last letters worry me a little. They con-
tain a vague something I cannot grasp. I think
it must be that you are becoming discouraged
—that you are beginning to feel that you should
get ahead faster. How can you say that you
have no right to keep me waiting so long? My
arms ache with emptiness. It has been hard,
harder than you will ever know, for me to put
off coming to you when I wanted you so hun-


THE ODOR OF BALSAM 45
grily that I was ashamed; but, with all the debts
to be paid, it would have been selfish for me to
add to your burdens. And now, oh, my dear,
I am ready to tell you my wonderful plan.
I have been taking a business course. In a
few more weeks I shall be ready to take a
position. The pay, I know, will be small, but it
will make me self-supporting. Calvin has
agreed to buy my share of the farm for fifteen
hundred dollars, and with that we can furnish a
heavenly little place.
She went further into her plan, which she had
kept to herself for six months. June was the month
she had always wanted for their wedding; if he was
pleased and could get away from the office, she had
selected the twenty-eighth. It had been the twenty-
eighth of June, eleven years before, that he had
caught her in his arms for the first time, out there
under the great pine tree which had been their tryst-
ing place.
She wished the ceremony there under the old pine
—her dreams fulfilled at the hallowed spot where
they had begun. Besides, she added, the parlor was
so tiny that most of the guests would have to stay
outdoors, anyhow. Her wedding dress was finished;
no fingers but hers had touched it; no eyes but hers
had seen it.
Deepening shadows darkened the car window.
Channing Searles could no longer read. He sat with
bowed head, and his lips moved in one of the
strangest prayers a man ever uttered; he was ask-


THE ODOR OF BALSAM 47
force of gravity. Perched upon the crest was Squire
Hodge's store, the only commercial establishment.
Searles, thinking there might be a message for him
at the store, and, if not, that he might be able to
arrange some way of getting out, struck out up the
inclining street.
Hodge's store filled all the local wants. There
were groceries, dry goods, hardware, stationery,
paints, a modest assortment of wall paper, souvenirs,
picture post cards, and sporting goods; it was
also the meat market and post office. Squire Hodge
was behind the frail wooden partition, sorting the
mail.
While Searles waited for the government's busi-
ness to be disposed of, a rig drove up in front
of the roofed porch. Heavy boots clumped noisily
on the rattling boards, and a face, bristling with
a black beard stubble, appeared in the doorway.
“I’ve come fer you, Oz.’”
It had been so long a time since Searles had
heard himself called Oz that he was startled. He
had launched life with the christened name of
Oswald, which all but his mother had promptly
abbreviated to Oz. He had always loathed the name
and considered it a handicap. Upon entering school
he had promptly appropriated his grandmother's
family name of Channing which, he told himself,
at least had dignity.
“Allow y don’t remember me. I’ve growed some
since the time I caught y' in Hart's grove, makin'
a speech to a jury of birch trees. Gosh, Oz, y' was
as flabbergasted as if I’d of come on y kissin'


48 THE BIGAMIST
another fella's wife. Gimme a nickel not to tell
nobody.”
Searles smiled faintly. This was Ezra Waite,
Dora's cousin. Some time previously, Dora had
written that Ezra had been arrested by the prohibi-
tion officials for selling liquor, and that Jed Waite,
Ezra's father, had been hard put to raise the
amount of the fine.
“Allow we might as well get started, Oz. It's
a right smart drive—every rod of fifteen mile,
though there's some says it ain’t but twelve. Up-
hill an’ down it comes nearer to bein’ twenty.”
As they got into the rig, and Ezra Waite slapped
the reins over the backs of the team, Searles caught
the smell of alcohol. Evidently Ezra had not learned
his lesson.
“Tell me, Ezra—how is she? Is—is she still
alive?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thank God for that! Does—does she suffer
much pain?”
“Allow she's been out of her head most of the
time. Gran'ma Waite says Doc Belden has been
jabbin some kind o' stuff in her arm a keep her
from carryin' on when the pain gets real bad.”
“I had a letter from Calvin, but it only reached
me yesterday afternoon. He said it was an acci-
dent, but he neglected the details. How did it
happen?”
“Can't say how it happened, Oz, but I cac'late
she was ridin a lot careless. Most likely she was
thinkin' 'bout you 'stead of the horse. Anyhow,


THE ODOR OF BALSAM 49
she was throwed off. Bein’ night she wasn’t found
till mornin', lyin' 'longside the road 'bout ten yards
t’other side Tatum's Corners. Sort of in the ditch
she was, with her back across a rock. Her hittin'
the rock was what made it so bad. She must
have been there eight hours or more; them that
picked 'er up thought she was dead fer sure.”
A puzzled frown creased sharply between Searles'
eyes. If what Ezra said was true, Dora had been
riding alone at midnight, or near midnight, and
Tatum’s Corners was a good ten miles from the
Oakes' farm. He couldn’t understand it.
“What was she doing on a horse at such an
hour?” he demanded. “Where was she going?”
“She was goin’ home,” Ezra told him. “She
ought to stayed home 'stead o’ ridin' twenty-five
miles, two an’ three times a week, goin’ to that
dang fool school.” He snorted disgustedly. “I
never seen such a girl! Learnin’ to be a business
woman, Cal said. What was the sense o’ that
now? You'd think she was aimin’ to support
you when you an her got hooked up. It does
beat all, the notions females get into their heads!”
Searles flinched, and a groan slipped past his
clenched teeth. His face was white. Dora taking
that long ride into town, night after night, so
that she would not be a burden to him, and it
was costing her life!
“Feelin' sick, Oz?” asked Ezra.
“Yes, I am sick—sick inside,” Searles answered
thickly.
“I got a few swigs of purty fair stuff under


50 THE BIGAMIST
the seat. Friend o' mine sneaked it past the
customs men at Canaan. You take the lines a minute
an’ I’ll—”
“Not for me, Ezra. Thanks just the same. My
sickness is mental; I couldn't make you under-
stand.” What he meant was that he didn’t want
Ezra to understand.
“Allow I understand, all right, Oz. You're all
cut up over her bein’ took away from you. It'll
make Cal feel some kinder toward you to see you
takin’ it so hard. Gran'ma Waite says Cal got
it into his head you'd took up with some of them
Noo York flappers when you quit writin’ all of
a sudden.”
“Yes?” Searles said mechanically.
Previous “swigs” from the bottle beneath the
buggy seat had inspired Ezra to unusual loquacity.
“Cal didn’t take much stock in you bein’ too
sick fer writin’,” he went on. “Cal allowed, so
Gran'ma Waite says, it was kinder suspicious the
letters quit comin’ right at the time Dora was
gettin' things ready fer the weddin’. Claimed it
looked like you was aimin’ to back out o' it
When it come to a show-down.
“Guess there ain’t nothin Cal would have stopped
at if it had o' turned out that way. Cac'late he'd
have follered you down, an’—well, there ain’t no
tellin’ what he'd have done to you. Put a bullet
through you more'n likely. Cal's terruble bitter
medicine when he gets riled. I never seen a
fella that got mad so quick an' stayed mad so
long. Gran'ma Waite says it ain't no less’n the


THE ODOR OF BALSAM 51
hand o' God that's kept Cal from bein’ hung fer
murder.
“Remember that time, Oz, when we was all put-
tin' up the hay, an’ Cal went after ‘Hemp Tyler
with a pitchfork?”
Searles did remember. Ezra's words revived a
long forgotten, but now vivid, picture. Never,
before or since, had he seen a rage so savagely
terrible, so primitively unreasoning. The provoca-
tion had been so trivial that he had forgotten
exactly what it was. Hemp Tyler had made some
sort of crude jest that Calvin resented as reflecting
upon his father. Calvin had always been pas-
sionately loyal to his own; particularly would he
resent any humiliation of his sister, for Dora was
the idol of his family devotion. Searles realized
that what Ezra said was not mere empty talk. It
would be wise for him to be careful where Calvin
was concerned.
Ezra babbled on, frequently quoting Gran'ma
Waite on varied topics. She was the family oracle;
she had an opinion upon every subject, no matter
how remote from her limited experience, and a
concoction of herbs for almost every possible ail-
ment. Only with Dora's injury did she confess
herself baffled.
His supply of mountain gossip finally run dry,
Ezra Waite turned questioner. He wanted to know
about New York, particularly of its wickedness,
and was keenly disappointed that Searles gave him
no shocking picture of Broadway which he had
imagined must be a street given entirely to beautiful


52 THE BIGAMIST
women and gilded, glittering sin. He took no
stock whatever in Searles’ weary explanation that
Broadway was for the most part a thundering cañon
of commercialism, crowded with people seriously
concerned about making a living; in fact, Searles’
muteness on the depravity of “The Devil's High-
Way”—Ezra had got that out of a lurid Sunday
supplement—convinced him that Oz was a very
sly dog playing innocent.
After a time the conversation became so dull and
fragmentary that Ezra began to drowse. The reins
slipped from his hands and would have slid over the
dashboard beneath the heels of the team had Searles
not made a grab for them. He gave whip to the
jaded horses, and, Ezra's body joggling against
him, the journey continued. He was glad of the
silence.
The passage of time lays but a light hand upon
any mountain country, and it was so here. It
seemed to Searles that nothing had changed since
he could remember. It was as if this rugged
wilderness of pine and birch trees was too beautiful
for destruction by the puny hand of man. Houses
were unpretentious and far between. Here and
there a modest clearing. Born of thrifty stock,
these folk are generally frugal, even in their
aspirations.
Now they were almost there. Searles would have
known, even with his eyes shut, because he recog-
nized the odor of the balsams. There was the
abandoned sawmill, which was on what had once
been the Searles' homestead, and the sale of which


THE ODOR OF BALSAM $3
had financed his first years at college. Sight of the
house itself brought no flood of sweet memories; it
gave him no feeling of resentment to see the
birthplace of himself, his father, and his grand-
father in alien hands. He had hated the drudgery
that promised no future rewards, no prospective
comforts; hated the summers for their profitless
toil, hated the winters for their imprisonment and
their loneliness.
Dora had given him the key with which to
unlock those fetters; she had emancipated him,
and he had killed her. Yes, Searles told himself,
it amounted to that; he was morally guilty of mur-
der! He saw her riding home that night, her
thoughts so intent upon him, her mind so filled
with dread that she had not been quick enough
to check the bolt of the horse, as the animal shied
at a ghostly something in the road. Horses, he
knew, were easily startled in the darkness, and
he had the whole thing pictured as clearly as if
he had been an actual witness.
Then, too, continuing the building of the case
against himself, had he been really fair with Dora
he would have found a way, some way, to hasten
the wedding. He could have managed somehow,
small as his salary had been. Compared with the
way people lived out here, Mrs. Chubb's boarding
house had been luxury. Dora would have gladly
shared an attic with him, and he, utterly selfish,
had deserted her at the first opportunity to better
himself. Only he had not bettered himself; he
realized that now. The price had been too high.


54 THE BIGAMIST
An audible groan burst from him, and Ezra Waite,
at this sound, stirred from his tipsy doze.
“Guess I was sort o' nappin’,” he mumbled.
“Mighty near home, ain't we? Wonder if Cal
beat me back?”
“Cal?” said Searles. “Did he go somewhere?
I thought the reason he didn’t meet me at the
train was that he wanted to be home with Dora,
if she took a turn for the worse.”
“Kind o seemed queer to me; first time he's
left the house since she was hurt,” Ezra answered.
“He stopped by our place bright an early this
mornin', sayin' I was to hook up an’ fetch you
out. Told me he was goin’ over to the county
seat. Didn’t say what he was goin’ there fer, but
Gran'ma Waite kind o' allowed that he was goin'
to get a marriage license.”
“Marriage license?” blurted Searles, feeling as
if he had suddenly been submerged in an icy lake.
“Fer Dora and you,” Ezra stated. “Gran'ma
Waite couldn’t think o’ no other reason fer Cal
goin’ to the county seat. This was the day Dora
had picked fer the weddin’.”


CHAPTER IV
THE NATIVE RETURNS
HE horses topped the crest of the last inter-
vening hill. Below, in the narrow, shallow
valley, was the Oakes homestead. There was the
house, ancient, shabby and ugly, standing bleakly
in a cleared space, some fifty yards back from
the road. One might wonder why it had been
so ruthlessly shorn of trees when foliage would
have clothed its stark, aged nakedness with shadows,
green and kind. There was a reason, a practical
One.
With the influx of summering folk and auto-
mobile parties gypsying by the roadsides, the
hazard of forest fires had become a constant dread
menace. A carelessly flung match, the smoldering
embers of an abandoned camp fire easily becomes
a raging storm of flame, a fiery tidal wave of
destruction consuming everything that lies in its
path. Those who are wise protect their buildings
with a clearing for a fire break.
The barn, an old custom in rural New England,
was attached to the dwelling, with only a passage-
way between. This arrangement was extremely
convenient during winter when, otherwise, tunnels
would have to be cut through the snow to get
at the live stock, but it was not so commendable
in summer, when there were stable odors and flies.


56 THE BIGAMIST
“Yep, Cal's got back,” said Ezra Waite. “There's
his buggy standin’ in the lane. An that's him, I
allow, waitin’ down there by the gate.”
Ezra had not noticed Searles' sudden panic, and
it was perhaps fortunate for Searles that he had
been forewarned. If Calvin Oakes had seen the
look of horror widening the other's eyes, the spasm
of terror twitching his features, he would have
known things were not right. Advised in advance
what the plans were, Searles had time to get a
grip on himself, an opportunity to meet this over-
whelming situation. He remembered the time Calvin
had gone after Hemp Tyler with the pitchfork,
and a cold chill of fear swept through him. Calvin
would kill him; of that he was absolutely certain.
The rig coasted swiftly down the sharp incline,
the team breaking into a clumsy gallop, as the
traces banged their buttocks. Calvin Oakes had
opened the sagging gate which led into the lane.
He stood motionless, awaiting their approach.
A gaunt giant, with huge, lumpy hands and
hairy wrists hanging below his coat sleeves, clad in
a wrinkled suit of blue serge, which for ten years
or more had been his “Sunday clothes,” Calvin’s
face bore the stamp of his grim life. Because of
their immobility, one might have considered his
features expressionless, but their very inflexibility
told things. The wide, tightly closed mouth in-
dexed him as a man sparing in his speech. Not
often did those compressed lips relax into a smile;
no one had ever heard them give voice to com-


THE NATIVE RETURNS 57
plaint. He met life, as life had met him, sternly,
without humor. Whatever expression there may
have been in his eyes was masked in a shadow
cast by his overhanging brows. Only when one
of his terrible angers stirred him, the pupils be-
came dilated and burned, black and hot, with
the fire of his rage.
Ezra Waite swung the horses around the abrupt
turn and pulled them to a halt. Calvin Oakes, his
eyes upon Searles, still did not move. His arms
rested upon the top plank of the gate, arms
knobbed with two great hands now closed into a
pair of massive fists.
Searles climbed down stiffly. He was glad his
clothes were wrinkled, and that his collar was
soiled; these things kept him from looking too
prosperous. He knew that Calvin, behind those
screening eyebrows, was staring at him with critical
questioning and hostile accusation.
“Dora—she is—I’m not too late?” Searles said
with difficulty; he fought to keep his eyes steady,
but they wavered. He checked the movement to
offer his hand in greeting. Calvin’s fingers remained
closed in unfriendly-looking fists.
“Took you a long time to get here,” said Calvin
Oakes. His tone demanded an explanation.
“I came as soon as I knew. I was on the train
within an hour after I received your telegram.”
Searles realized it sounded defensive and, perhaps,
evasive.
“Likely true 'bout the telegram,” Calvin responded


58 THE BIGAMIST
stonily, “but what about the letter I wrote? Got
my letter, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I got it, Calvin, but not until yesterday
afternoon.”
“Mailed it Sunday. Had Ezra there take it
to the railroad station an' put it on the train fer
New York. It certainly should have got to you
Monday mornin’.”
“No doubt it reached my address on time, but
I wasn’t there. Even the letters Dora Wrote before
she was hurt did not come into my hands until
yesterday afternoon.” Searles was uneasy under
this cross-examination, and his words came halt-
ingly.
“Why did you quit writin’?” Calvin's voice was
hard and brittle.
“I—I’ve been sick,” Searles answered lamely.
“You’re lyin', Oz. Always was a poor liar.”
Calvin's gaze passed from the other's face and
rested upon the purpled peaks of the mountains
in the distance. “You look kind o' scared, Oz.
Guess you needn’t be—providin' you’ve come with
your mind made up to do the right thing by Dora.
She made me promise to keep my hands off you.
Only—” The unfinished sentence, accompanied
by a tightening of his hands until the bony knuckles
bulged, was significant.
“Ain’t no reason, is there, why you an her
shouldn’t be married 'fore she passes on?”
“Calvin,” Searles burst out, desperately avoiding
a direct answer, “I love Dora better than anything—
better than—”


60 THE BIGAMIST
last bit o' happiness, I'd string you up to the
barn rafters by your thumbs an’ do fer you—an
inch at a time. I’d aim to make you suffer, like
she's been sufferin’.” Extravagance often robs
a threat of its force, but, as Calvin Oakes gave
voice to these words, they did not seem a mere
exaggeration of the emotions; there was a real
menace in them, real and terrible.
“We better be gettin' to the house now, Oz.
She's countin’ the minutes.”
Summer is a fleeting season in this section of
New Hampshire. It comes late and is early gone.
This year it had been unusually tardy, and, al-
though it was the end of June, Dora's rose beds
at the side of the house had not been warmed
into bloom. But Searles did not notice. His
thoughts blundered back and forth through a maze
from which he could find no escape.
“She’s in the parlor,” said Calvin. “Makes it
some easier on Gran'ma Waite, doin’ the cookin'
an’ the nursin'; saves her all the goin' up an’
down stairs.”
As they reached the porch, the battered screen
door, its rust-rotted wire replaced with a more
economical mosquito netting, creaked open, and
Grandma Waite, tall and raw-boned, vigorous de-
spite her nearing eighty years, stared fixedly at
Searles, with a pair of sharp eyes which had never
needed the aid of spectacles. With approval she
noted how deeply stirred he was with grief, and
to her mind this dissipated all suspicion. She


THE NATIVE RETURNS 61
reached out her bony hand and touched his shoulder
consolingly. Grandma Waite had always liked Oz.
“The sweet darlin’ is frettin' fer ye, sonny,”
she said, her harsh, somewhat nasal voice achiev-
ing a miraculous softness. “Knowin' yer was
comin’ has kinder helped her t” fergit the pain.
Her mind has been sort o' floatin' 'round in the
clouds since the telegram got here. I allow she'll
never be no happier'n she is right now—even when
she gits t’ heav'n.”
The small parlor, in addition to the furniture
which had belonged to the Oakes family for two
and three generations, had a more modern equip-
ment of convenience—only thirty years old—a
folding bed which, when closed, presented to view
an ornamental expanse of mirror. In this room the
occasional guests were both entertained and put
up for the night.
Searles stood in the doorway, his hat crushed
into a shapeless mass between his hands, staring
across the foot of the bed. Her hand fluttered to-
Ward him, and, in the shadows, her eyes had the
light of stars shining through a graying twilight.
Dora's beauty, when one looked from her face to
the harsh, granite-hewn features of her brother,
might be considered something to marvel about;
but her mother, before endless toil and embittered
resignation had crushed out her youth and her
prettiness, had been the belle of the mountains.
Searles, coming closer, thought he had never seen
Dora more beautiful than now. Silently he dropped
to his knees beside the bed. Her fingers crept


62 THE BIGAMIST
across the sheet until they caressingly touched his
cheek.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
Searles kissed her. Even when life hung by
so slender a thread, her lips were warm and
clinging.
“Now I know,” she murmured faintly. “Your
kiss tells me you still love me. Nothing else matters.
You are mine—mine.” There were no questions,
no reproaches. “Sit beside me—in the chair. Hold
my hand—tightly. Don’t let me go away from
you—too soon.”
Grandma Waite, her eyes swimming, slipped the
chair nearer the bed. Searles slumped down, tor-
tured with emotions. Dora's fingers clung to his,
as if that fragile clasp would keep her from
slipping into the beyond. After a time, with a
Smile which was but the ghost of a smile, her
eyes closed, and she lay still as death. For one
awed instant Searles thought it was death; it
seemed to him her breathing had ceased. His
body twitched with a spasm of horrified terror.
He had been left an orphan before he could re-
member; until now death had been a vague, im-
personal something that happened to every one,
sooner or later. Now it became real, vivid; in
his fancy he heard the rustle of unseen wings—
a soul in flight.
Grandma saw his stricken face and knew what
was in his mind. Her hand touched his shoulder.
“She's jest fell asleep, Oz, an it's the first


THE NATIVE RETURNS 65
The old man dismounted stiffly, and Calvin went
out on the porch to meet him.
The Reverend John Westerfelt was a fixture in
the community. It had been almost ten years
since he had laid claim to a regular pastorate,
and no one knew exactly how he managed to live.
His frock coat was threadbare and rusty; his shoes
were sad affairs, indeed.
He had been apprised of the situation, but the
sight of Dora Oakes filled his faded old eyes with
sympathetic tears. She had talked often with him
of Oz Searles, of Oz's ambitions and of her faith
in his future. The patriarch lifted his head, white
as the snows of the many winters through which
he had lived, and his bearded lips moved in a brief
prayer.
Calvin brought an envelope from his pocket; the
paper, as he unfolded the marriage license, crackled
loudly in the stillness of the room. The minister,
his worn Bible appearing from the breast of his
coat, advanced to the foot of the bed. On the
fly-leaf of the Holy Book was written the marriage
service, but there was no need for him to read from
it. Hundreds of times those set phrases had flowed
solemnly from his tongue, and he knew them by
rote. But they did not flow now. The words
stumbled thickly from his lips, mostly inaudible.
Searles heard it as a far-off, phantom voice.
Grandma Waite prompted him when the time came
to slip the heavy band of gold about Dora's slender
finger. He felt her hand tremble.


66 THE BIGAMIST
“What God hath joined together, let no man
put asunder.”
It was over. Unsteadily Searles got up from
his knees. He leaned over the bed and kissed
Dora's full, curved lips. Her face was radiant
with happiness and, although it cost her pain, she
found the strength to slip her arm about him. She
held him close, very close.
“My husband!” she whispered. “Mine—after so
long a time. Oh, dear God, don’t take me away
from him. Let me live—let me live!”
There was a rift in the gray clouds which moved
sluggishly over the tops of the mountains. A shaft
of sunlight shot through and found the parlor
window, a stream of golden radiance which fell
across Dora's face and glinted with yellow fire
upon the ring circling her finger.
“It’s a sign!” cried Grandma Waite, her voice
husky, trembling with awe as she watched the
golden ray. “God’s answerin yer, child. Glory
be to God!”


CHAPTER W
A NEW PREDICAMENT
HAT if Dora did live? While Searles had
long since outgrown certain mystic super-
stitions which translate the frequent tricks of nature
into all sorts of portents, both good and evil, there
had been something startling about the stream of
sunlight pouring, warm and golden, from out of
the cold, gray sky, through the window of the
cramped little parlor and across Dora's face, as
she prayed for life, and which Grandma Waite
had promptly interpreted as a sign direct from
Heaven.
All of Searle's thoughts became fixed on the
possibility that Dora would live. It was not, how-
ever, until some time afterward, his mind in a
heavy fog, that he reduced this strange marriage
to a concrete legal term. Bigamy! He had made
himself guilty of a crime. He was a bigamist!
How could he ever hope to escape from such a
tangle, if Dora lived? If, of course, death claimed
her, to-day would in all probability become a closed
chapter. They would carry her to the top of the
third hill up the road, and there, while the tears
of the Oakes clan mingled with those of the Waites,
they would put her to rest in the family plot,
where there was always the soft whimper of the


68 THE BIGAMIST
pines and the windows of the bleak, white-painted
church which looked toward the modest gravestones,
as if keeping watch over the dead.
Then he would go back to New York, back to
the fine house in which there was no comfort,
back to the rich wife for whom he had no love.
Searles was not the first man to discover that
happiness is not tagged with a money price; he
had merely found it out sooner and more dra-
matically than most.
But what if Dora lived? It was a question,
although his mind asked it again and again in a
mounting frenzy of desperation, for which he could
find no satisfactory answer. Not that he wished
her to die, yet he realized that it must be a far
kinder thing for her not to know of what ugly
stuff her to-day’s paradise was made.
A little while after the ceremony Dora had fallen
into a smiling sleep, and Grandma Waite had led
him out of the room. The old minister had de-
parted, and Calvin had gone to the wooded brook
pasture, rounding up the cows for milking.
Searles walked slowly away from the house, and
before he knew it his feet had led him to “Old
Glory,” as Dora had named the majestic pine. Memo-
ries were here, and they filled his mind when he
wanted to use his head for practical thoughts, to
make some plan with which to meet what might
be an appalling situation. While there was a deep
undercurrent of fear for himself, uppermost in
Searles' mind was concern for the effect it would
have on her; it seemed to him that he could commit


A NEW PREDICAMENT 69
no greater sin than causing her further pain. She
would have to know; of course she would have to
know, unless—
He considered going to Elizabeth and making a
clean breast of the whole miserable business, from
beginning to end, of asking her to give him a
legal release; but he was extremely doubtful of
her attitude. Besides, he knew the unelastic divorce
code in New York State. Furthermore, it would
take time, perhaps two years, and a rich woman,
a bride of bare weeks, cannot institute divorce
proceedings against her husband without the news-
papers making sensational capital of it.
He thought of taking flight, like a criminal—
and he was a criminal—no less. Bigamy meant
five years' imprisonment. He could carry Dora
with him, perhaps, to some place of obscurity out
West. He did not want to give Dora up; he
wanted her to live and belong to him.
But his disappearance would create a furor.
Elizabeth, with unlimited means at her disposal,
would, no matter where he went, find him. And,
too, no matter where he went, he could not continue
his profession without presenting his New York
license to practice. That would reveal his identity.
Yes, the situation was utterly hopeless. There was
no honorable way out—if Dora lived. Not even
a safe way out. Searles dropped to the soft carpet
of pine needles beneath the tree and stretched
himself at full length. Perhaps he could think
more clearly if he relaxed. Then came reaction.


70 THE BIGAMIST
He had not closed his eyes at all last night, and
his body demanded sleep.
Dusk had darkened into night when he awakened,
and then not of himself. Calvin’s enormous hand
was dragging at his shoulder, and Calvin's toneless
voice was calling his name. For a moment Searles
grumbled drowsily, as does a growing boy when
summoned to early morning chores. He sat up
stiffly, confused by the darkness and wondering
how long he had been asleep.
“Been lookin’ fer you all over th’ place,” said
Calvin. “Couldn’t figger out where you'd took
Off to.”
“Dora is—worse?”
“No, she's better—a lot better, Doc Ashton says.
Allow it ain’t nothin’ less’n a miracle, Oz. The
doc says she's got a right good chance now to
get well.”
The deep shadows provided a kindly mask for
Searles’ face, shielding from Calvin Oakes’ gaze
a strangely mixed expression—relief and fear.
Dora's brother would, no doubt, have identified the
dominant emotion as fear, and that would have
revived his former suspicions.
“She wants to see me?” Searles asked thickly.
“No, she's sleepin’ ag’in, Oz, an’ smilin’ all th’
time. I’d been feelin' mighty riled at you, but
that’s fergot now. It was your comin’ that pulled
her through. Come on—Doc Ashton wants to have
a talk with us, you an’ me together, 'bout what
should be done.”
The physician was taking a drink from the


A NEW PREDICAMENT 71
pump behind the stable when Calvin and Searles
joined him. Doctor Ashton did not cultivate a
professional appearance; he was careless about his
clothes, and there were two buttons missing from
the front of his vest.
For a quarter of a century he had been setting
the broken bones and treating the varied ailments
of his widely scattered patients. Twenty-five years
of rigorous practice, sometimes battling his way
for long miles through a blinding snowstorm, had
given his face a weather-beaten look. These hardy
and thrifty people to whom he ministered did not
surrender easily to illness, nor did they part with
their hard-grubbed dollars for medical fees until
all home remedies had first failed. Doctor Ashton's
was not what would be called a lucrative practice,
but lack of prosperity did not prevent his face
from wearing an expression of genial benevolence.
“Allow we better go into th’ barn to talk,”
Calvin suggested. “Might wake Dora if we went
inside th’ house, an its kind o’ chilly out here
in th’ night air. You remember Oz, don’t you, doc?”
“Certainly I remember him,” the physician re-
sponded, dabbing his fingers along his coat, where
Some water had leaked down from a rusted hole
in the tin dipper. He shook hands heartily. “Mighty
glad to see you, Oz. You came just in time. As
I’ve told Calvin, you’ve brought Dora out of the
shadows. Your presence was the stimulus she
needed. The link between mind and body is so
complex I can never hope to fathom it. I can
only marvel.”


72 THE BIGAMIST
The three men went into the stable runway. A
lighted coal-oil lantern swung from a wooden peg
at the side of the steep stairs leading into the
loft. The yellowish light gleamed upon the prongs
of a pitchfork suspended from the wall of the
oat bin, five curving points of steel which could,
with sufficient force behind them, run a man through
like so many stilettos. The sight of the pitchfork
made Searles again remember the time Calvin had
gone after Hemp Tyler, with just the same sort
of a weapon. He shivered. Calvin thought it was
because he was cold.
“You hadn’t ought to o slept out there on th’
ground like you done, Oz. Knowed a feller caught
his death doin’ that. Tom Kelsey I’m talkin' 'bout,
doc. Tom got summer pneumonia an’ was a goner
inside o' forty-eight hours. Him an’ Mary Pulver
hadn’t been married much over a month when he
died.”
“Yes, I remember,” said Doctor Ashton, sitting
down on a bag of bran and tying a shoe lace that
had worked loose. “Speaking of that, Tom's widow
and Will Harden are going to hook up Monday.
Mary wanted Will in the first place, but her mother
talked her into taking Tom.”
Last summer's hay straggled down from the cracks
Overhead, and the rafters, black in the shadows,
were festooned with cobwebs that sagged heavily
With grain seeds and dust. One of the horses
gnawed at the side of a feed box, and another,
the dun, stretched his neck across the open space
above the manger, nuzzling Calvin's shoulder. Ab-


A NEW PREDICAMENT 73
sently Cal stroked the animal's nose. Searles picked
up a straw and began to nibble it nervously. What
was it the doctor wanted to say, and why didn't
he get it over with?
“You think, Doctor Ashton, there's a chance Dora
may recover?” he asked, his voice strained and
jerky.
“Yes, Oz, I do,” replied the physician. “Just
how good her chances are I wouldn’t want to say,
but they’re easy a hundred times better than they
were when I called by yesterday. I didn’t give
her more than a few hours then, but now she's
made up her mind to live, and that helps.” He
fished his battered brier pipe from his pocket, re-
membered it was not safe to smoke in a stable,
and put it back.
“Dora's case has had me guessing. Most doctors
do a lot more guessing than they like to admit.
At first I thought it was a spinal injury. Practically
her entire body was paralyzed at first, and she
was in a state of coma. Then her periods of un-
consciousness became less frequent, and the paralysis
gradually became localized in her limbs.
“This paralysis may be permanent, or it may
be only temporary. Frankly, Oz, I don’t know.
She may recover completely, and then it's possible
she may be an invalid for the rest of her life.
There may be pressure on the brain tissue which
can be relieved only by a delicate operation.
“But what I do know is that my medical ex-
perience is too limited for this sort of a case.
She's got to have another doctor, a specialist. The


74 THE BIGAMIST
kind of man I’ve got in mind is too busy to come
'way out here, and he’d charge more, even if he
could come, than you can afford to pay.
“Now here's what I'm getting at. Dora's chance
of getting well depends upon her getting either
to Boston or New York for the right treatment.
Since you live in New York, Oz, New York’s
the place. You're her husband now, so the right
thing and the only thing is for you to take her
back to New York with you and get her the best
that can be got, just as soon as she's able to
make the trip. If she keeps on improving and
getting her strength, she might be able to stand
it in a few days.
“The man in New York I’m thinking about is
Doctor Wienstein. There’s none better for a case
like Dora’s.”
Take Dora to New York with him! The Sud-
denness of this complication overwhelmed Searles
completely. It was impossible, but how could he
refuse? Only by blurting out the truth and taking
the consequences. Even when he had anticipated
the most desperate outgrowth of this situation, he
had hoped for a little time to arrange some sort
of a plan. He had taken it for granted that Dora
would remain here during convalescence, perhaps
many weeks.
In his imagination he saw Calvin Oakes enormous
hand flash out through the shadows and his fingers
close about the handle of the pitchfork; he could
almost feel the prongs stabbing through his vitals.


A NEW PREDICAMENT 75
Before he could check it, a groan of despair burst
from his lips.
“Allow Oz is thinkin' 'bout th’ money it's goin'
to take,” said Calvin. “Oz has had a mighty lean
time of it in New York, doc. There was all his
schoolin’ debts to be paid off, but—”
“I don’t know anything about Oz's finances,” in-
terrupted Doctor Ashton, “but I wouldn’t be sur-
prised maybe I scared him a little about the cost.
What I meant was that a specialist would charge
more than he could afford to pay if he had to
leave his practice and come 'way out here.
“Those big fellows have an elastic scale of
fees; they soak the rich so they can let the poor
down easy. They charge to fit the purse. And
there are free hospitals for those who haven’t got
the money to pay.”
“My sister don’t have to go to no free hospital,”
blurted Calvin Oakes. “None of us Oakes has
ever had to take charity yet. Dora's got fifteen
hundred dollars I give her fer her share in th’
farm, an I got a few hundred tucked away, if
there’s need of it. If Oz can’t make th’ riffle I’ll
help—right down to th’ shirt on my back.”
Searles remained silent for a moment. There
was no way he could refuse to take Dora back
to New York without telling the truth, and that
he dared not do. Yes, he would take Dora to
New York and give her a chance to walk again.
While she was undergoing treatment, he would
have time to decide upon some course; he couldn’t
desert her in this helpless condition, and for her


76 THE BIGAMIST
to know the truth too soon might doom the possi-
bility of her recovery.
“I don’t think it will be necessary to use her
money,” he said heavily. “I believe I can manage
the money part of it.”
Doctor Ashton got up from the bran sack and
dusted off his trousers.
“Good!” he exclaimed heartily. “Glad that's
all settled so easy. Guess I’d better be shaking a
leg. It's getting late, and I ought to drop in and
see how Molly Ames is holding out. Right sick
girl, Molly is. I'll come again day after to-morrow
and see if we can fix Dora up so she'll be able
to travel.
“Good Lord, Oz, what a thoughtless old fellow
I’m getting to be. I’ve forgotten to congratulate
you. Dora is the sweetest mountain flower that
ever grew. Be good to her, Oz, for there's no
happiness greater than the poor child deserves.
And there's not many men lucky enough to have
a woman love 'em the way Dora loves you.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” Searles answered huskily,
and neither the doctor nor Calvin Oakes could
know how impossible it seemed to him to give her
happiness. Only misery and shame waited for her.
Calvin took the lantern down from the wooden
peg and then abruptly replaced it.
“Dang it!” he grunted. “Mighty near fergot
to pitch down some hay fer th’ horses.”


CHAPTER WI
A ROOM IN THE COUNTRY
Ti". arrangements in New York shaped them-
selves with a kindly regard for Searles' pre-
dicament. It seemed that there must be an unseen
force at work in his behalf, smoothing things out,
making everything easy for him. No amount of
ingenuity on his own part could have managed
a temporary solution of his problem so convenient
and satisfactory.
Dora, although her limbs remained helpless, had
otherwise improved so rapidly that Doctor Ashton
advised her to undertake the journey without fur-
ther loss of time. More than that, the physician
offered the use of his car and drove her and
Searles over to Meredith, where they took the
through train from Montreal to New York. Ash-
ton, too, had telephoned to the railroad station in
advance, reserving a drawing-room.
Searles, with his wife who was not his wife,
disembarked at Grand Central Station a little after
eight o'clock the following morning. After a brief
delay in getting a wheel chair, Dora was trundled
to the automobile entrance on Wanderbilt Avenue,
where she was placed in a taxi. All these little
luxuries terrified her, thinking what a fearful drain
they were on Oz's limited resources. She warned


78 THE BIGAMIST
him repeatedly that he must not be so prodigal,
and she gave a gasp of horror when she saw him
tip the taxi driver a half dollar.
Doctor Wienstein’s office hours did not begin
until ten, and they had to wait more than an hour
for his arrival. The brisk, White-clad nurse ex-
plained it was highly unusual for the doctor to see
a patient without an appointment, but she was
quick to understand that this was an unusual situa-
tion, and she said she would get them in.
This she did quite promptly. Doctor Wienstein,
a German Jew, was a surprisingly human and
genial man for one so high in his profession.
Searles had expected to find him extremely brusque
and forbidding. Ashton had written out a some-
what lengthy report, explaining the medical aspects
of Dora's case, and this the specialist read swiftly,
nodding his head, as if he had already found the
answer. A physical examination followed, and
then Doctor Wienstein sat down, smiling encourag-
ingly.
“I can assure you, Mr. Searles, that your wife
will walk again,” he said. “How soon? Ah, that
is more than I can tell you. It may be weeks,
many weeks, but she will recover. An operation?
It is my opinion that an operation will not be
necessary. We will first give nature a chance to
be the healer.
“She has had a violent fall which ruptured a
blood vessel. A blood clot has formed and has
arrested the function of the nerves controlling the
limbs. Her rapid improvement during the past


A ROOM IN THE COUNTRY 79
few days indicates that the pressure is lessening.
The clot will probably be absorbed naturally. Any-
how, we'll give nature a chance before we resort
to surgery.
“Now there is the question of her care. She
must have nursing. Massages may help things
along. Now, about the hospital,” Searles said
that he had no preference, and Doctor Wienstein
suggested one. When he told them what the weekly
charges would be, Dora's face showed her conster-
nation, and she gave voice to a panic-stricken
protest.
“Oh, Oz, you could never afford
“Let me worry about the hospital bills, Dora.”
“But seventy-five dollars a week!” she gasped.
“And the doctor's fee!”
“Don’t worry yourself about my fee,” the specialist
said kindly. “And we might secure a more economi-
cal arrangement; I am sure we can.” He frowned
thoughtfully for a moment and then smiled beam-
ingly. “Yes, I have it. I shall send you out to
Miss Joline's place. Absolute rest and quiet; the
country air your lungs are accustomed to. Miss
Joline is a retired nurse and very capable; she has
a modernized farmhouse up in Putnam County
and accepts occasional patients. Her charges will
be very reasonable.”
And so it was arranged. When Searles heard
where Miss Joline's establishment was located, his
first feeling was one of panic. Less than twenty-
five miles from Riverview, as the Borland country
house had been so fittingly named. On second
**


80 THE BIGAMIST
thought, however, the hazard of this proximity
seemed negligible, and it did have compensations.
He could, by automobile, make the trip from River-
view to Miss Joline's rustic retreat in three quarters
of an hour or even less. One of the things that
had bothered him considerably was the difficulty
he might have in explaining to Dora the irregularity
of his visits, and this brief distance would simplify
the problem of seeing her frequently. Had she
remained in New York for treatment, she would,
of course, have expected him to spend the evenings
with her, and that would have been impossible.
On the whole, it had worked out quite well.
They arrived at Miss Joline's late in the afternoon
and found the place a delightfully old-fashioned
house, which some rich woman had purchased as a
whim, and in which she had lost interest almost
immediately after squandering many times its first
cost in repairs, additions, and landscaping. It
was put on the market for what it would bring,
and the retired nurse—her retirement having been
made possible by the matter of a substantial legacy
left her by a well-to-do patient—had bought it at
a very low figure. The income from the inheritance
was not quite sufficient to keep the place running,
and Miss Joline, being a most practical and sen-
sible woman, filled in the gap by accepting occa-
sional patients.
The house, surrounded by a number of stately
trees, topped the summit of a high hill. Searles
carried Dora inside, up the broad staircase and
into a sunny southwest room, with a private porch,


A ROOM IN THE COUNTRY 81
which was to be her bedchamber. She was, as
was to be expected, greatly exhausted from her
trip, and Miss Joline, with that tactful firmness
which all good nurses acquire, declared Searles
must take his departure; but Dora's eyes moistened
with such an appealing mist of tears that the
decree was modified. They were to have a quarter
of an hour and not a minute longer. He could
remain while the patient had some broth and tea.
From the bed where she had been placed, Dora
could see through the open glass doors, past the
second-story porch and out of doors. She reached
out for Searles’ hand and, when her fingers had
entwined about his, closed her eyes wearily. A
soft sigh slipped from her, a sigh in which there
was both content and wistfulness.
“You are being so wonderful to me, Oz, dear,”
she murmured. “It makes me know how truly
you love me. But I like to hear you say it—again
and again.”
He crushed her palm to his mouth.
“I love you,” he said thickly. “No matter what
happens, Dora, you are to know that I love you—
to the very depths of my soul. Remember that—
always remember that.”
Her eyes opened and widened with a startled
expression.
“How—how strangely that sounded, Oz. It—it
was as if you expect something to happen! You—
you frighten me.”
“There is nothing to be frightened about,” Searles
replied hastily. “Just words—I meant nothing.”


82 THE BIGAMIST
“‘Just words—I meant nothing,’” she mimicked
him with a pout. “Well, I like that!” She laughed,
and he tried to laugh with her. But she did not
hear its hollow note, and her apprehension was en-
tirely disarmed. Again her eyes closed; she was
very tired, but she did not want to let him go.
“She—the nurse—will soon be sending you away
from me, Oz. You are going back to New York
this afternoon?”
“Yes, I must. I’ve been away from the office
a good while. This is the fifth day, and they'll
be wondering if I’m coming back.”
“How many miles will you be away from me?”
“It is about fifty miles from here to Columbus
Circle. I saw that on a sign-board just before
We turned in.”
“You will come back to-morrow, Oz?” Dora
pleaded. “Oh, I know I don’t have to ask you.
I know you will come when you can, but I will
feel so lonely here among strangers. I haven’t
even Calvin or Grandma Waite now. The days
will be very long, but if I could look forward
to seeing you each evening—”
“Yes, I will come to-morrow by all means, and
every other day I can; but I am afraid you must
expect my visits to be irregular. There are certain
to be times when I shan’t be able to make it.
You see, Dora, the round trip is better than a
hundred miles, and the train service none too gen-
erous out here. It’s best I explain so you won’t
be disappointed.”
“I understand, Oz, dear, but I won’t be able


A ROOM IN THE COUNTRY 83
to help being disappointed when you fail to come.”
Her fingers clung about his, and tears crept down
from beneath her long, dark lashes. “Oh, what
fragile things our plans are—so easily shattered.
How different things are from what I wanted them
to be.
“You will think it is wicked and ungrateful
of me to complain. God has given me life, and
He has given me you, and I must be patient.
Only”—her voice became a whisper—“I hadn’t
expected our honeymoon to be like this.”
Searles could not find words with which to re-
spond; he wondered if their love would ever find
fulfillment. It must; he would find a way. Thoughts
of losing her were torture. He would not give
her up; no matter what the cost, he would not!
Dora heard Miss Joline's footsteps ascending the
stairs. The nurse was returning with the tea, and
this meant that Searles would be banished for the
day.
“Oz, she's coming back! She will send you away
from me. It—it almost makes me hate her. Kiss
me, dear, before she comes. Oh, my husband, my
husband!” She put all of her little strength into
her parting embrace, which lingered so passionately
long that Miss Joline, coming into the room, dip-
lomatically retreated from view and rattled the lid
of the teapot.


CHAPTER VII
T H E T E R R i B L E T H IN G
S' there was no direct way of getting to
Riverview other than by automobile, Searles
had instructed the driver of the hired car to wait.
Guilt makes a man excessively cautious, and, al-
though he did not stop to weigh what particular
advantage in safety was to be gained by this subter-
fuge, he told the man at the wheel his services
would be required no farther than Peekskill. This
meant Searles would have to use another machine
in completing his journey.
The car slid swiftly down the private driveway to
the public highway, and he let his body sag de-
jectedly against the cushions. And now—Elizabeth !
It could not be avoided; he must return to River-
view until, in his persistent groping for a solution
of the appalling problem, he had been able to
arrive at some plan.
If only Elizabeth were the sort of woman he
could go to, frankly and openly, telling her the
whole truth and holding nothing back! But he
doubted if there were any woman with whom a
man in his predicament could do that safely, un-
less perhaps it was Dora, loving him enough to
understand and to forgive, and it was not Dora
from whom he wanted a release.


THE TERRIBLE THING 85
Women are not usually generous when it comes
to the case of another woman. Elizabeth would
be angry, naturally; he would be a fool to expect
anything else. There was no telling in what
frightful direction her anger would carry her.
It was only ten miles from Miss Joline's into
Peekskill, and, before Searles realized it, the car
had completed its journey so far as he was con-
cerned.
“Where to, guv-nor? Y’ said Peekskill. Any
pa’tic'lar part of th’ burg?”
“This will do,” Searles answered and paid the
bill. His supply of cash was reduced to twenty
dollars. He waited until the dismissed machine
had disappeared before he started out in search
of another, and he took the first one available, a
sad-looking affair with scarred fenders which sang
with a metallic clatter with the uneven vibration
of the motor.
Twelve miles more along the Hudson, the noisy
little taxi clipping along the smooth road, which
unwound like a sleek satin ribbon, and he would
be returning to Riverview—a bigamist. Searles
knew he was in a terrible funk and tried to
get a grip on himself. Elizabeth had a pair of
observant eyes in her head, and if she saw him
in this state she might grill him with questions.
Not that she would suspect the true reason for this
perturbation, but he didn’t want questions.
He had found the opportunity at Meredith to
send her a telegram, advising her that he was
on his way. She would be expecting him, perhaps


88 THE BIGAMIST
Searles concluded that Borland must be pounding
his fist angrily against the top of a table.
“Don’t you understand English?” he screeched.
“I’m in a mess, and I want money—money that
belongs to me. Moreover, you’re going to let me
have it. I don't like to get rough with you, Eliza-
beth, but I'm in a desperate fix.”
“There's nothing new in that, is there? Aren’t
you always in a desperate fix, Elliot?”
“I’ve got to have six thousand dollars by to-
morrow morning. If you want to know the truth,
I’ve got to have six thousand dollars, or take the
risk of being arrested.”
“That might teach you a lesson,” Elizabeth an-
swered without sympathy.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, Elliot, you have told me so many lies to
get money that I can no longer believe you. Once
it was the girl who would sue you for breach of
promise unless you settled with her quietly, and
upon another occasion you came to me with an
alarming story about—”
“If you want the truth,” Borland broke in, “I’ve
given a bad check. If you want the police coming
out here and putting me under arrest, if you want
the headlines in the newspapers— Well, take
your choice, that's all.”
“No.”
What happened on the other side of the closed
door of the library Searles could not see, and the
words which followed were very indistinct, as if


THE TERRIBLE THING 89
Elliot Borland might be talking through his clenched
teeth, but Elizabeth screamed.
“Don't! Elliot, you’ve lost your mind. My
God, you're—” Again she screamed.
Searles heard some one hurrying across the hall,
perhaps one of the servants alarmed by Elizabeth's
shrill cry. For one frozen moment he stood there,
Wondering what had happened, and then he flung
open the door.
The first thought that raced through his mind,
as he stood there upon the threshold, staring with
transfixed horror, was that fate had dramatically
solved his problem for him. Elizabeth lay in a
crumpled heap upon the floor, her face against
the rug, and her arms flung out in front of her,
hands clenched into tight, pallid fists, and Elliot
Borland leaned against the table, his body wabbling,
and his right hand frozen about a tall, brass candle-
stick. The murderous-looking thing twitched with
the jerking of his muscles.
“W-what's happened?” It was Hedges' voice,
stammering with fright that asked the question.
The butler, for all his superb dignity, was a
human being, and what he saw over Searles’ shoul-
der was enough to shatter any man's imperturba-
bility.
“He’s killed her,” Searles said thickly; “he must
have struck her with the candlestick. They—they
were having a quarrel.”
Elliot Borland swung around, as, with a clumsy
movement of his shaking hand, he replaced the
brass candlestick upon the table.


90 THE BIGAMIST
“That is not true,” he denied hoarsely. “I did
not strike her. I did not touch her. She—she
just fell over on her face—like she is now. She-
she can’t be dead. Don't stand there staring and
doing nothing, you fools! Pick her up—find out
what’s to be done!” But he himself made no
InOWe.
Hedges was the first to respond. As he lifted
his mistress from her prostrate position, so that the
light streamed across her face, a tremor went
through her body, and she moaned faintly. Searles,
taking a step forward, looked for the wound he
expected to find about her head. So far as he
could see, there was none—not even a discolored
bruise where the base of the candlestick might
have struck.
“She is alive!” whispered Borland. “Thank
Heaven for that! I—I think I must have frightened
her. She has only fainted, but we'd better call a
doctor.”
“Yes, she seems to have fainted,” agreed Hedges,
beginning to chafe her wrists. “It has happened be-
fore. The poor woman has a bad heart, and she can’t
stand too much excitement. Miss Julie, her maid,
says the doctor told her it was going to be the end
of her some time.” He glared at Borland and so
far forgot himself as to give voice to a sharp re-
proof: “You should know better than to frighten
her.”
Elizabeth's brother made no response, and Searles,
expelling a deep breath, continued to stare into his
wife’s bloodless features. She was not dead; no,


THE TERRIBLE THING 91
she was not dead. How much easier things would
have been for him if she no longer breathed! Just
the thought made him feel almost the guilt of
murder!
“Is there something I can do, Hedges?” he asked.
“You had better help me to get her upstairs, Mr.
Searles,” the butler answered. “And I would ad-
vise you to summon the family physician at once.
Julie, the maid, can give you the telephone number.”
Elliot Borland gave Searles a stare of curiosity
and dislike. One could read the thought passing
through his mind. “So this is the mercenary
bounder who has married my sister,” he was think-
ing, for he said aloud in a tone which was almost
openly sneering: “So you are the new brother-in-
law? Humph!”
Searles knew that he and Borland were not going
to get along well together. For a moment he
studied the other's face, surprised that Elliot's no-
torious profligacy should have left no glaring brand
upon his countenance. Perhaps his skin had a too
white and faintly unhealthy look, and his mouth,
Searles decided, sagged too loosely for a character
recommendation, but otherwise he was a decidedly
attractive man of around thirty. Under different
circumstances Searles might have missed these de-
fects entirely and have formed a liking for him.
This appraising scrutiny was brief. Searles joined
Hedges in lifting Elizabeth clear of the floor, and
together they carried her toward the staircase. At
the head of the steps they were met by Julie, who
promptly fetched the smelling salts and a bottle of


92 THE BIGAMIST
medicine which, she explained, the doctor had pre-
scribed for just such an emergency.
A telephone was in his wife's bedroom, and
Searles used it to call the doctor; then he went to
his own chamber, where he proceeded to make him-
self presentable. What Hedges had said downstairs
persisted in his thoughts. The doctor had warned
Elizabeth that too violent a nervous shock would
overtax her weak heart and prove fatal. She was
subject to these seizures. That might be one way
out; no one would ever suspect—
As Searles lathered his face and lifted the razor
to his cheek, his fingers were trembling so violently
that he dared not put the steel edge to his skin.
Desperation is a blood brother of madness; it twists
a normal brain into horrible distortions. The open
razor slipped from Searles' fingers and tinkled
against the enameled surface of the basin. He sat
down heavily on the side of the bathtub and cov-
ered his face with his hands. There was but one
name for the terrible thing which had slunk into his
mind. Murder!


CHAPTER VIII
T H E P R L C E OF F O L L Y
R several hours Elizabeth's condition remained
grave, and Doctor Blessing remained at her bed-
side until long past midnight; but, with the aid of
restoratives, her heart was at last functioning fairly
normally, and the family physician departed with
the warning that she must have absolute rest for
several days, and must not, at the risk of her life,
again be subjected to any mental shock.
Searles had seen his wife for a few minutes,
while the doctor was present, but any extended con-
versation was inadvisable. The next morning after
breakfast she sent for him, smiling at him from her
pillows, as he came into the room. He forced him-
self to kiss her cheek, seeing that she, of course,
expected it.
“Did you get my letter, Chan?” she asked.
“Your letter?” he repeated blankly, suddenly ap-
prehensive. “What letter?”
“I see you didn't. I mailed it day before yester-
day.”
“Where did you address it?” he demanded, having
difficulty in keeping his voice steady.
“You told me I needn’t write, Chan, but when the
days passed, and you hadn’t come home, I couldn’t
understand why you had not written a line or sent


94 THE BIGAMIST
me a telegram. At first I hadn’t the slightest idea
where to reach you. You thoughtless boy, you for-
got to tell me where you were going! But then I
sat down and thought and thought. And then I re-
membered your telling me one time that your old
home was named after some poet. I looked on the
map, and the only place I could find named after a
poet was Mount Whittier. So I sent it there. Was
I right?”
“It might have reached me, if I had been there to
receive it.”
Searles was now thoroughly frightened. Every
one knew everybody back there in the sparsely set-
tled White Mountain country. His only hope was
that the strange prefix of “Channing” to the name of
Searles would confuse the rural postmaster, but he
doubted if it would. People would remember that
Oz Searles' mother had been a Channing. The ro-
mantic story of his marriage to Dora would be on
every tongue back there.
His mind pictured what would happen—how it
would happen. The postmaster, no doubt puzzled
and not a little curious, would hold the letter until
Calvin Oakes drove in, and then Calvin’s advice
would be asked as to what should be done with it.
Calvin, with reborn suspicion, would note the fem-
inine hand; he would probably slip it into his
pocket with a toneless, “Yes, I allow this must be
fer Oz, seein’ there ain't no other Searles here'bouts,
an’ they do call him Channing Searles down there
in New York. I'll look up his address an see it's
got to him.”


THE PRICE OF FOLLY 95
This imaginary scene became so vividly real that
Searles found himself thinking the words of the
self-coined dialogue. Calvin, if he suspected things
were wrong, would have no scruples whatever about
opening the envelope. Elizabeth’s letter would
spread the whole truth before him.
“Did you have a return address on the envelope?”
Searles asked her.
“Why, of course; I used my new stationery,
Chan. It will be returned to me. You look almost
Worried about it.”
“Worried about the letter, Elizabeth?” he parried.
“Doesn’t it occur to you that I might be worried
Over your condition?” There was a chance, he told
himself, that the return address might save the situ-
ation, but those meddlesome people back home were
forever falling all over themselves to do favors for
old friends. The Mount Whittier postmaster would
likely as not go to absurd lengths in forwarding the
letter, without returning it to the sender. The pos-
sibility of it falling into Calvin’s hands would con-
tinue to disturb him until it had come back.
Elizabeth looked into his face and saw more
clearly the lines which a sleepless night, filled with
harrowing thoughts, had furrowed into a mask of
misery. Her hand sought his, and she smiled
gently.
“Would it hurt you so much, Chan, dear?”
Searles did not answer that. Instinctively he had
always despised lying, for that was a part of his
New England rearing, yet he knew his very silence
was a lie. His sitting beside her, letting her fingers


96 THE BIGAMIST
caress the back of his hand, was a lie; the whole
fabric of his life had become an ugly pattern of
lies. But somehow he felt better for having avoided
the spoken falsehood. The human conscience is very
gullible.
“You haven’t told me,” Elizabeth said presently;
“the friend who was so ill; did he die, Chan?” She
had taken it for granted the “very dear friend” was
a Iman.
“No, my—my friend did not die,” Searles replied
hastily. “It was almost a miracle—it was a miracle;
but let's not talk about that now. Later I shall tell
you about it—yes, all about it, but not now. The
doctor told me you must have complete rest, and you
must obey orders.”
“There is one matter I want to discuss with you,
Chan. That is why I sent for you. It is about
Elliot.”
“Yes?”
“Perhaps you don’t know what happened last
night, but—”
“I think you’d best try to forget what happened
last night. I know all about it. I had just come in
and was starting up the stairs when I heard you
Scream.”
“Oh, I was foolish to let Elliot frighten me. He
is high-strung and excitable, but he had no intention
of striking me. I have been thinking it over this
morning. I have decided that perhaps I haven’t been
able to reason with him in the right way. Possibly
he resents the fact that it’s a woman who holds a
whip over him. I haven't been able to talk with him


THE PRICE OF FOLLY 97
as I would have liked. Neither of us can seem to
hold our tempers when we discuss his affairs.
“Elliot has been wild and reckless, but he is my
brother, and I love him. I want to see him living
decently. He can’t be all bad, Chan. I can’t be-
lieve his moral fiber has been utterly destroyed;
there still must be decent instincts that can be ap-
pealed to if properly approached.
“He has just come back from Europe. Seventy-
five thousand dollars from our grandfather's estate
was turned over to him two years ago. He's dissi-
pated all of it, and, Chan, I can't—I just can’t let
him have money from the estate until he has learned
to behave himself. I have been thinking if you
talked to him—”
“No, Elizabeth, he would resent advice from me
even more than he would from you. He dislikes me
and looks upon me as an adventurer.”
“But you can overcome that, Chan. I know you
can, and you must. You are so fine, so splendid!
You could be a saving influence, once you won his
confidence. I feel it—I know it. You will try, won’t
you, Chan?”
What else was Searles to do but agree?
“Over there in my writing desk,” Elizabeth went
on, “is my check book. I have decided to let him
have the six thousand dollars, for I am convinced
he is really in a desperate plight. I'll write the
check, and you will give it to him, please?”
Searles gave her the check book and her foun-
tain pen.


98 THE BIGAMIST
“Will you be going to the office to-day, Chan?”
Elizabeth asked, as she gave him the signed check.
“Yes, I had better go into the office,” he replied.
“And I may not get back until quite late. I’ve been
gone five days, and there's likely piled-up work for
me to dispose of. Perhaps I’ll drive one of the cars.”
“By all means,” she replied, and, as he got to his
feet, raised her face to receive his expected kiss.
Going downstairs Searles found his brother-in-
law lounging against the stone balustrade of the
top terrace, staring moodily across the river. Bor-
land turned at the sound of the other man's foot-
steps and, when he saw who it was, made no effort
to conceal his animosity.
“I have been talking to Elizabeth,” said Searles,
and he perceived at once that he had made a bad
beginning. Not that he had any intention of attempt-
ing to cultivate such a friendship, as Elizabeth had
suggested; he knew that was impossible.
Borland smiled thinly. “About me, I suppose,” he
said. “Oh, I don’t doubt you’ve advised her to
pitch me out on my ear. Going to order me off the
place, no doubt. Well, I don’t blame her, after what
I did to her last night.”
“Not at all, Borland. Elizabeth said nothing what-
ever about wanting you to leave, and, so far as I
am concerned, you're welcome to stay here as long
as you choose.”
“Very generous of you,” sneered Borland. “I
might return the compliment, if I were as smooth-
tongued as you are. But you can’t take me in with
that soft-soaping of yours. I know your kind.”


THE PRICE OF FOLLY 99
Searles showed no resentment, and, in fact, he
felt none. Without retort he took the check from
his pocket and offered it to his brother-in-law. The
latter took it eagerly, but ungraciously, read the
amount with a swift glance, and thrust it into his
C0at.
“Go ahead and get it over—or maybe you haven’t
got the nerve,” he said harshly.
“I don’t believe I understand, Borland. In fact, I
am quite sure I don’t. Get what over?”
“Reading me your lecture for what happened last
night.”
“Oh, I see. What happened between you and
Elizabeth,” Searles answered. “No. I’ve nothing to
say about that. You were excited, that’s all. All
of us do things we regret. You intended no real
harm. Elizabeth knows that, and I know it.”
One might think this attitude would have struck a
friendly chord, although there had been no delib-
erate purpose behind Searles’ words of conciliation.
Instead, it only served to aggravate Elliot Borland's
hostility.
“That confirms my opinion of you, Searles. If
you cared a hoot for my sister, if you'd married her
for anything besides her money, you’d probably
punch my head. If you didn’t do that, you’d at
least speak to me as I deserve. I almost killed her,
didn't I? And you pass it over as if it didn’t bother
you in the least. You want to know what I think?
I’m going to tell you, whether you want to know
or not. I think you’d be damn glad if I had killed
her.” And with that he turned his back and stalked
down the terrace.


CHAPTER IX
P R Y IN G IN QUIRI ES
EARLES did not drive the blue roadster, the ma-
chine which he had selected from the four
housed in the Riverview garage, into New York;
that had not been his intention. He merely wanted
to leave it in a convenient place, where he could
pick it up and make the trip to Miss Joline's later
in the afternoon for his visit to Dora. He was
somewhat green at the wheel, and he dared not run
the risk of the city's confusing traffic congestion.
What he did was to place the car in a public
garage at Tarrytown, a distance of but a few miles,
and continue his trip by train. This would save
both time and the nervous strain of so long a drive.
This morning he boarded the nine thirty at Tarry-
town and made the mental note that hereafter he
would arrange his schedule for an hour earlier. He
would, by to-day’s arrangement reach the office at
eleven o’clock, and if he departed again at three, it
would give him but four hours in town. That
wouldn’t make it look as if he were trying to earn
Conrad Hornaday's ten thousand a year.
When he arrived at the law offices he discovered
Hornaday had taken him at his word. There was
piled up on his desk more work than he could get
out from under in a week's time, no matter how


PRYING INQUIRIES 101
diligently he might apply himself. But he was in
no fit state of mind for concentration; he knew he
was wasting his efforts even to make the attempt.
His thoughts refused to move except in the endless
circle of his own dilemma.
He stuck it out until two o'clock, when he gave
it up as useless and bolted, pausing only to leave
Word with Miss Robertson in the outer office that he
was feeling bad and would be gone for the rest of
the day. Not that it mattered to any one whether
he stayed or went.
It was a quarter to four when he was back in
Tarrytown and reclaimed Elizabeth's blue roadster
from the garage, heading the car swiftly toward
Miss Joline's place. He drove at so headlong a pace
that, being new at the wheel, he narrowly escaped a
bad smash at a sharp turn, and it was only the
presence of mind used by the other machine's owner
that the crash was avoided. His nerves were in bad
enough shape already, and when he stopped a few
yards below the entrance to the retired nurse's
establishment, he sat motionless for two or three
minutes, trying to pull himself together.
There was a particular reason for leaving the
automobile beyond sight of the house. He wished
Dora to think that he came and went by train, al-
though he had considered telling her that the road-
ster belonged to a member of the law firm, and that
he was able to get the occasional loan of it. But
there was that tenacity of his for the spoken truth;
self-hypocrisy, no doubt, but he always felt a little
the better for it.


102 THE BIGAMIST
He found Dora propped up in bed, awaiting his
arrival with anxious impatience. Miss Joline had
banded her hair with a silk ribbon and had loaned
her a satin dressing sack edged with white fur.
Searles, pausing for an instant in the doorway, told
himself it was not possible for there to be another
woman in the world so beautiful.
Dora's cheeks had more color this afternoon, but
her radiant expression fled when she saw his face.
“Oz! What's the matter? You look as if some-
thing terrible must have happened.”
There was not even a half truth to which he
could cling. “Nothing has happened, dear girl,” he
denied. “Just tired, that's all. There was a lot of
Work at the office, and—”
“Oz, you are fibbing dreadfully; you just know
you are! Don't you think I know when you’re wor-
ried? It's about the expense. Now tell the truth.
ISn’t that it?”
The easiest way was to let her think so, for, if
he successfully denied it, she would ask other ques-
tions not so simply disposed of.
“Well, perhaps I have been a little worried,” he
anSWered.
“There’s my fifteen hundred dollars, Oz. It's so
ridiculous for you to feel you shouldn’t touch my
money. Anyhow, it won’t be nearly so long as we
had feared. The electric massages are helping me a
great deal, and I am beginning to feel really alive
again. Miss Joline thinks that I shall be able to
walk in three or four weeks—five at the most.
“Oh, Oz, I am counting the days, the hours, almost


PRYING INQUIRIES 103
the minutes! Then I shall go to New York with
you—just you and I.” She seized his hand and
pressed his knuckles against her glowing cheek.
“Miss Joline,” she went on in an ecstasy of plan-
ning, “tells me there are scarcely any houses at all
in New York, and that they are frightfully expen-
sive. But she has been explaining to me all about
the cozy little apartments. All morning I have been
reading the advertisements in the paper, and here is
one I have marked. Miss Joline says it sounds
lovely. Only two rooms, Oz, but the fewer the
rooms the less furniture we'll have to buy. I don't
care if there's only a bed and a stove.” She gave a
discouraged sigh. “The rent of this one, dear, is
seventy dollars a month. It seems frightfully ex-
pensive, but Miss Joline thinks that’s about the best
we could do. I thought perhaps we could do a little
better in Brooklyn.”
She rattled on gayly, and, although he was man-
aging to smile, every word she uttered was like a
knife thrust through his heart. It took so little to
make Dora happy, and yet it was more than he could
hope to give her. There was no way out, absolutely
no Way out, unless—
It was a merciful thing that she did not know
the dark thoughts which again were beginning to
creep through his mind.
When Searles returned to Riverview that evening,
after an hour's visit with Dora, there was no sign of
Elliot Borland, nor did he see Borland again for
several days. He began to suspect that his brother-
in-law's story about needing six thousand dollars to


104 THE BIGAMIST
escape the penalty for having passed a worthless
check, might be the fabrication that Elizabeth herself
had first put it down for, and that, having got what
he wanted, he was now engaged in tossing the
money to the everhungry winds of Broadway. Bor-
land would come back when the money was gone.
The following day Searles went to the office again
and made another unsuccessful pretense of doing
some work. Conrad Hornaday returned this same
morning, not having gone any farther than Chicago.
But the active head of the law firm was too much
occupied with highly important matters to have more
than a politely perfunctory greeting for Searles.
The latter, although it was getting him nowhere,
remained at his desk in his ornate private office,
mucking aimlessly through the accumulated pile of
papers. There was the Arnheim case, its complex
ramifications reaching through hundreds of type-
written pages, with Mr. Benton's scribbled notation:
“Look this over and give Mr. Hornaday your written
opinion of our chances in court.” Hornaday, of
course, Wanted to take the measure of his initiative.
Searles did not go out to lunch. He wasn't hun-
gry. It was almost two o'clock when the telephone
finally tinkled in that merry little way the firm’s
switchboard operator had of jiggling it.
“Mr. Hinkle calling to see you, Mr. Searles. He
says it is a personal matter.”
Searles hesitated for a moment. In a way he pre-
ferred not to see Ed Hinkle, and then when he was
about to have the girl report him “Not in,” it oc-
curred to him that Hinkle might be bringing him


PRYING INQUIRIES 105
that letter of Elizabeth's which she had addressed to
Mount Whittier. The New Hampshire postmaster
might have, by grace of a retentive memory, recalled
the address to which Dora's numerous missives had
been directed.
“I’ll see him,” he said.
Hinkle did not breeze in to-day. He did not carry
his Malacca stick with its gold band, nor wear his
hat at a jaunty angle. His manner was apologetic
and somewhat embarrassed.
“Hello, Chan,” he blurted, dropping into a chair,
after they had shaken hands. “I’m in a hole—a
devil of a bad hole. I need a hundred dollars for a
few days. You're the only friend I could think of
who might be able to loosen up with a hundred.
Can you manage it? I’ll be no end grateful, if you
can, and, of course, I’m going to pay it back.”
Searles and Hinkle, in their days together at Mrs.
Chubb’s boarding house, had frequently accommo-
dated each other in the way of loans, although never
more than for small amounts. Neither of them ever
had much of a surplus for any purpose. As it hap-
pened, Searles now had a hundred dollars in his
pocket; he had drawn it from the bank yesterday,
and while he had no intention of refusing, he
couldn’t help wondering if Hinkle really did intend
to repay it. Hinkle now considered him a rich man
and well able to lose it.
“Why, yes, Ed, I’ll lend you a hundred dollars.
I wouldn’t think of refusing such a good friend,
but I was just wondering—”
“Oh, I know, Chan. You're wondering what I


106 THE BIGAMIST
did with the thirty-five hundred I had a week ago,”
Hinkle said morosely. “It’s a long and painful
story, and I won’t bother you with the details. I
financed a little bunco game that looked like a sure
thing. It went sour and didn't pan out. The guy
I was gonna sink the hooks into squirmed off the
hook. I not only didn’t get the sucker, but the
sucker got away with my bait. I do need the hun-
dred, and I need it bad.” He pocketed the two
fifty-dollar bills which Searles passed across the
desk, and, the money actually in hand, he imme-
diately became more cheerful. Evidently he had
really needed it badly. “Thanks, old scout. You'll
get it back when I’ve pulled a new trick.”
“If you don’t land in jail first,” laughed Searles.
“If you need a lawyer to defend you—”
“Oh, I always play safe,” Hinkle retorted. “You
don’t catch me taking any long chances.”
“By the way, Ed, I don’t suppose there's any
more mail for me at Mrs. Chubb’s?” Despite his
effort to speak carelessly, a note of anxiousness crept
into Searles’ voice.
“Nope. Were you expecting a letter? Good Lord,
Chan, you’re not keeping up that affair with the
girl in New Hampshire? You're not that big a fool!
What happened to her? Didn’t she die after all?”
“Yes, she—she died,” Searles lied hastily, and he
was not aware of the half-frightened expression
which flashed across his face. “Yes,” he repeated,
“she died. I got there too late. I suppose it was
for the best. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That's too bad,” Ed Hinkle said slowly, but


PRYING INQUIRIES 107
Searles did not like the way he said it, and the curi-
ous, searching quality of Hinkle's stare was discon-
certing. Something told him that Hinkle knew he
was lying. Ed Hinkle had a pair of eyes that could
probe deep.
As a matter of fact, Hinkle more than suspected
that Searles had lied; he knew it and was speculat-
ing as to the motive. On the face of it, this lie
seemed an entirely useless falsehood. He saw, too,
Searles’ uneasiness, bordering upon panic, noted the
haste with which Searles had avoided the subject,
and he wondered what the reason might be. When
he left the office a quarter of an hour later a puzzled
and meditative frown creased between his eyes.
“Now that's a queer go,” he mused. “Chan has
been up to something. Why did he want me to
think that girl up in New Hampshire was dead?”
Ed Hinkle had an extreme dislike for unexplained
things.
Searles did not, as he had intended, go to Miss
Joline’s that afternoon, but when he left the office
he used a pay station and telephoned a message for
Dora, explaining that unexpected press of business
made it impossible for him to come out. Nor did
he return to Riverview on an early train.
As a matter of fact, Hinkle's visit had left him
in a greatly disturbed state of mind. He had to do
something and do it soon. Dora would soon be able
to walk again, and then his nerve-straining deception
would no longer be possible. Yes, he kept repeating,
over and over again, something had to be done soon.


108 THE BIGAMIST
He walked all the way from lower Broadway to the
Grand Central Station, trying to think things out, to
arrive at some decision.
When he returned to the river-bordered Borland
estate late in the evening—more than an hour past
the dinner hour—he discovered that Elizabeth's
brother had returned, but he did not see Elliot. In
the discreet words of Hedges, the butler, “Mr. Bor-
land was slightly indisposed,” and Searles supposed
that his brother-in-law was recuperating from some
Sort of debauch.
Elizabeth herself had also retired to her room and
had gone to bed, this time with a nervous headache.
Her eyes looked as if she had been crying, and,
while she offered no explanation whatever, Searles
took it for granted that her tears were over her
brother. Dutifully he knocked at her door to in-
quire how she was feeling, and he was relieved
that her apathy made their conversation a brief one.
He had to do something quickly. But what?
Reject them as he would, black, horrible, revolting
thoughts returned to his mind. Perhaps if he told
Elizabeth the truth, cruelly and brutally, the
shock of it would do what the family physician
had warned her might happen. And then it
would come back to him again, fascinatingly terri-
ble. Murder! That was the only word for it; as
deliberately murder as if he should strike her down
with a club. More than once he fell upon his knees
beside his bed and prayed for moral strength.


CHAPTER X
THE FIRST DEMAND
0 more days of this agony dragged past.
Somehow he managed sufficiently to master his
emotional chaos to conceal the depths of his despair
from Dora, and even to stimulate a passable sort of
cheerfulness. Dora's recovery was becoming sur-
prisingly rapid, as the blood clot, pressing upon the
nerve center which controlled the movement of her
limbs, slowly absorbed.
Each day, too, her happiness reached toward more
ecstatic heights. Miss Joline was giving her such
wonderful ideas about making a home in a two-
room-and-kitchenette apartment. Very carefully and
economically Dora had drafted a house-furnishing
budget which she showed him anxiously, afraid he
might think she had not pruned it severely enough.
“That part of it is all right—quite all right,”
Searles said, after he read the list; “but I’ve been
wondering if we were doing the right thing in try-
ing to stay in New York.”
“Why, Oz, what do you mean?”
“I mean that I made a mistake in tackling the
law in New York. I don’t fit in. It has taken me
four years to discover that I'm the sort born for the
small puddle. The city is too big for me; it over-
whelms me. I’m a failure in New York, and I al-
ways will be.”


110 THE BIGAMIST
“Oz, how dare you slander my husband like that?”
Dora cried indignantly. “You are capable of big
things. You must not lose faith in yourself; you
must have the faith in yourself that I have in you.
You mustn't be a quitter.”
“Is it quitting to come to your senses and to be
honest with yourself?” he argued. “No, I'm just a
mediocre man. Even a mediocre man has his
dreams, but I’ve come to a place where I realize my
limitations. When a man discovers he can’t lift a
hundred-pound weight, he's a fool to break his back
trying; the thing for him to do is to pick up the
burden he's got the strength to carry. And New
York isn’t the place for mediocrity.”
“What—what is it that you think you want to do,
Oz?” Dora's voice was heavy with disappointment.
“Of course, I want to consider what is best for you.
But, oh, it’s so hard to give up dreams! I know that
if you stuck it out you could climb to the top of
the ladder.”
“There's always faith where there's love, little
girl; but I’ve taken my own measurement, and I
know the smallness of my caliber. The best brains
from all over the country come to New York, and
it’s a competition I can’t meet. In a smaller com-
munity it would be different; I’d have a chance to
get my head and shoulders above the crowd. I want
to go West.”
There was much truth in what he said, notwith-
standing the purpose of it was deception. Searles
was being more honest with himself than he had


THE FIRST DEMAND 111
ever been in his life; he knew his limitations, but
this was the first time he had admitted them.
Dora refused to believe a word of it.
“You’re just a little discouraged, Oz, dear,” she
told him. “Everything that has happened has taken
the heart out of you.”
“I have thought it all out, and I know what is
best,” he insisted. “You could never be happy, and
I could never be happy if we stayed. We'll go
West where there’ll be a chance.”
It would have been useless for Dora to have made
any attempt at concealing her disappointment; but
she did not reproach him. Because he was so dis-
couraged and depressed, her heart went out to him
in a great surge of tenderness, and she caught one
of his hands in both of hers.
“Not until you have given it another trial—with
me here to cheer you up when you are in the
dumps. I am sure it will be different, Oz. I know
you have the ability to succeed in a big way.
Please, dear,” she begged.
Searles promised that he would think things over.
His decided course of running away from it all, or
trying to run away from it, had been reached some-
what abruptly, although he had, from time to time,
given it consideration. While it might not solve the
situation, it did promise the least immediate danger,
and, he reasoned, there would probably be n0 search
for him if he wrote the right sort of note to Eliza-
beth. He had, of course, no intention of explaining
that a bigamous marriage was the reason for his


112 THE BIGAMIST
desertion—most assuredly not. There was no telling
how Elizabeth might react to that.
He and Dora talked a little while longer before he
departed. Miss Joline had not been in evidence when
he had arrived, but, as he went downstairs, she
came out into the hall and met him.
“Did the man who was inquiring for you last
night succeed in getting in touch with you?” she
asked.
“What's that?” Searles’ voice was sharp and
startled. “A man looking for me—here?”
“Very shortly after you departed, Mr. Searles;
not more than ten or fifteen minutes after you had
gone.”
“Did he happen to say what he wanted, Miss
Joline?” Searles found it difficult to keep his voice
steady. “Did he tell you his name? I am rather
nonplused—”
“Yes, he did tell me his name,” the nurse replied
with a laugh. “His name was Jones.”
“Jones?” Searles repeated. “Jones?” Searles
knew not a single Jones, even remotely. Immedi-
ately he was positive that the always convenient
name of “Jones” had been used to conceal the
caller's true identity. Without any conscious mental
process, Searles thought of Ed Hinkle.
“There are so many Joneses, Miss Joline. Perhaps
if you gave me some idea of his appearance—”
“A rather pleasant man, I thought, Mr. Searles. I
judged he must know you quite well, although he
did seem more than a little surprised when I spoke
of Mrs. Searles.”


THE FIRST DEMAND 113
“Yes, yes, of course,” Searles agreed; “he would
be. Practically none of my acquaintances know of
my marriage. Jones—Jones?” He gave the im-
pression of trying to select the particular Jones who
could be identified as yesterday's visitor, and his
memory utterly failed to let him recall the color of
Ed Hinkle's eyes.
“He was, I would say,” Miss Joline added help-
fully, “about medium height, and in his thirties. He
wore a pair of shell-rimmed glasses, and—
Descriptions are so difficult for the average person.
Shell-rimmed glasses! Searles could not remember
that he had ever seen Hinkle wear any sort of
glasses, but if the latter wished to cloak his visit
with a fictitious name it was only to be expected
that he would also make some effort to disguise his
physical appearance.
“And I did notice that he walked with a slight
limp. Oh, I know these little mysteries are always
S0 tantalizing.”
Ed Hinkle had no limp unless, since Searles had
last seen him, he had suffered some minor injury;
but a limp is a noticeable peculiarity which any one
could easily assume.
“It’s of no consequence, Miss Joline; but, as you
say, rather tantalizing. If his wanting to see me is
of any importance, he can easily enough get in
touch with me at the office.”
But it was of consequence. Searles did not mis-
lead himself about that. These prying inquiries
were backed by a definite motive. But how had
Hinkle managed to discover him out here in Putnam


114 THE BIGAMIST
County? Shadowed him, to be sure; that was the
only conceivable answer. Trailing an unwary man
is not such a difficult feat. Anyhow, Hinkle had
followed him and got the goods on him. Why?
What was the purpose? Curiosity perhaps, but
probably something more sinister than that.
Searles was not, in fact, totally taken by surprise
the next morning when upon his arrival at the law
offices he found a letter waiting for him. It rested
on the blotter pad of his desk, a plain envelope, the
address typewritten and with a heavily underscored
“Personal” in the lower corner. The message it
contained was likewise typewritten, badly spaced
and letters written over each other where the wrong
key had been struck. Evidently an amateur typist's
work.
While not wholly unprepared for this very thing,
Searles’ face went dead white as he read the saluta-
tion. Those few brief lines told him that another
shared his dread secret.
MR. CHANNING SEARLEs, alias MR. OswALD
SEARLEs.
MUCH-MARRIED SIR: There is a saying that
a man has to pay for his folly. You can pat
yourself on the back that you are getting off so
cheap. I am the only one that knows, and I
will keep my mouth shut if you follow my in-
Structions.
I need five thousand dollars by noon Satur-
day. Get that amount in currency and wrap it
in a package. Address the package to Mr.


THE FIRST DEMAND 445
Richmond Jones. Take it to Park View Hotel
and leave at desk with clerk. Say it will be
called for. That will be all. If you fail, the jig
will be up, and you go to prison for bigamy.
Blackmail! Ed Hinkle, whom he had always con-
sidered his friend, had lowered himself to blackmail.
He wondered if Hinkle would turn him up, did he
fail to pay.
“A man capable of this would be capable of any-
thing,” Searles told himself. “I can’t take a chance.
I’ve got to pay!” And then he realized he didn't
have five thousand dollars.


NO PROTEST 117
making an explanation. He tried to concoct a plaus-
ible story, but his imagination failed him utterly.
The story must have plausibility, otherwise Elizabeth
would ask questions, and, as he had been told more
than once, he was a poor liar.
He had foolishly indorsed a note, as a favor for a
friend, and the note had fallen due. How would
that sound, he wondered.
“Pretty thin,” Searles answered himself. “She’s
not fool enough to take any stock in that; she's too
good a business woman. She'd know it was only
trumped-up bunk to get hold of money.”
On the night he had ridden toward New Hamp-
shire to marry the dying woman he loved, he had,
in the throes of self-castigation, offered a prayer to
be punished for what he had done. It began to look
as if he were getting what he had asked for. That,
however, did not occur to him, and it is doubtful if
he would have resigned himself to it, even had he
interpreted it as a divine retribution. Emotional
contrition is one thing, and the jeopardy of prison
is something else.
“Hornaday might let me have an advance against
my salary,” Searles told himself hopefully. His
inventive faculty had failed him utterly in his effort
to construct a specious explanation that must ac-
company his asking Elizabeth for five thousand dol-
lars. “Yes, I am sure Hornaday would let me have
it. There's no good reason why he shouldn't.”
On inquiry of the law firm's switchboard operator
he learned that Conrad Hornaday was in, but at
present engaged with a client.


118 THE BIGAMIST
“Let me know when he is free,” Searles requested
and, pushing back the telephone, struck a match, ap-
plying the flame to the blackmail letter and letting
the charred pieces fall into the wastebasket. It
would have been exceedingly rash to have done
otherwise, and all he needed from it was the un-
doubtedly fictitious name of Mr. Richmond Jones
and the hotel to which the blackmail money was to
be delivered.
It was some three quarters of an hour before
Hornaday’s secretary called him, saying that Mr.
Hornaday was now disengaged and would see him.
Searles squared his shoulders with an unconscious
tightening of muscles, but he was unable entirely to
banish his feeling of nervousness.
“Hornaday won’t ask any questions,” he assured
himself. “He may wonder what I want with the
money, but he'll keep his curiosity to himself.
Don’t have to cook up any stories for his benefit.”
The active head of the law firm had been Wholly
absorbed in an important piece of litigation since his
return from California, and Searles had seen noth-
ing of him. They had merely exchanged greetings
when they had chanced to meet in the hall. Horna-
day was at his desk, deep in what appeared to be a
hopeless confusion of law reports and documents.
“You Wanted to see me, Searles?” His tone was
absent, perhaps unpremeditatedly brusque, and evi-
dently he was eager to have the interview over with
and get back to the matter upon which he was at
work.
Searles found it more difficult than he had antici-


NO PROTEST 119
pated to put his request into words. He found him-
self stammering a banal something, instead of get-
ting directly to the point, and Hornaday fingered the
cord of his eyeglasses with a poorly concealed im-
patience.
“Is there something in particular?” the latter in-
quired pointedly. “As it happens, Searles, I'm
rather pushed for time. I’ve got to clear my desk
before I go to Washington.”
“Yes, there is,” blurted Searles, forcing himself
to the issue. “The day you left for California you
called me in and told me that—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Hornaday broke in. “You
want to earn your salary. Very commendable,
Searles—very!” An annoyed frown showed between
his eyes. “I told Murdock—rather, I left him a
note—that he was to start you working on some
cases. He must have forgotten it. I shall speak to
him in the morning, and when I have more
leisure—”
“Murdock did not forget, Mr. Hornaday. He gave
me work—plenty of it; but I have been feeling so
bad that I haven’t made much progress.”
Conrad Hornaday thought the other man was
merely offering an explanation for having accom-
plished so little, and he moved his hand in a dis-
missing gesture.
“Oh, that's all right. You needn’t have let it
bother you. Humph! You are looking rather off
your feed. Maybe it’s liver—yes, that’s probably
it—your liver's taking a nap. Used to have the
same trouble until I took to riding in the Park every


120 THE BIGAMIST
morning. Try it some time.” His swivel chair
creaked faintly, as he turned toward the desk.
“We'll talk over your work some of these days soon.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Hornaday, there is some-
thing else that I wanted to mention very particularly.
I am sorry to interrupt you, but I find it very em-
barrassing to ask Mrs. Searles for money, and I
thought perhaps you might find it convenient to let
me anticipate my salary to the amount of—”
“Oh, I see, Searles, you want a check. My dear
man, why, in the name of common sense, didn’t you
say that in the first place without all this quib-
bling?”
His manner was most agreeable, yet when Searles
named the amount he fancied there was a slight lift
of Hornaday's eyebrows. Still the head of the law
firm made no objection and offered no comment, as
he opened the middle drawer of his desk to get his
check book. The stubby pen scratched across the
safety paper, leaving a trail of firmly flowing letters
and figures, and Searles gave an audible sigh of
relief. It had been, after all, quite simple. His
relief must have been obvious to the keen-eyed old
lawyer, who blotted the check meticulously and
tore it free from the stub.
“Thank you, Mr. Hornaday. I was afraid it
might be considered sheer effrontery for me to—”
“Oh, not at all, Searles—not at all. Glad to ac-
commodate you.” He smiled faintly. “It does save
you the embarrassment of asking Mrs. Searles. I
can understand how you feel about that. And how
is Mrs. Searles, may I ask?”


NO PROTEST 421
“She hasn’t been well. Borland is back from
Europe, and—” Searles stopped abruptly, think-
ing it not in good taste to peddle family gossip.
“Yes, yes, I know. You can’t tell me anything
new about Elliot Borland. If he's back, that means
his money is gone. He had quite a few thousand
from his grandfather's estate, you know, with no
string tied to it. I suppose he is badgering his
sister morning, noon and night for money. No
moral fiber—that’s the trouble With Borland. His
father indulged him too freely and put on the brakes
when it was too late.” Hornaday picked up some
papers. “We’ll have lunch together when I return
from Washington; we'll have a long talk and get
some real work lined up for you.”
Searles returned to his own office with the five-
thousand-dollar check fluttering between his fingers.
He folded it and thrust it into his pocket, then put
on his hat. It was now past eleven o'clock, and,
since the banks close at noon on Saturday, he had
less than half an hour in which to get the cash.
Fortunately the bank where he had his own modest
account, and which was also the institution upon
which the law firm’s check was drawn, was on
Broadway, a distance of three brief blocks. If he
lost no time, and there were no delays, he could
reach the Park View Hotel by twelve, as the black-
mailer's note had specified.
At the bank there was no trouble whatever.
Searles had at various times transacted business
with Mr. Kennicott, the assistant cashier, and, since
one of the tellers might hesitate to cash so large a


122 THE BIGAMIST
check for a customer whose balance never exceeded
a few hundreds, it was only necessary to have
Kennicott scribble his initials upon the back of the
check.
“How will you have it, Mr. Searles?” asked the
teller, with his hand inside the money drawer.
“Hundred dollar bills, I think,” Searles answered.
“Yes, hundred-dollar bills will be satisfactory.”
The thick sheaf of yellow currency, all new notes,
slid beneath the wicker, and Searles at once placed
them in a fiberboard envelope, such as are used for
the mailing of bulky legal papers, and which he
had brought along for this particular purpose. Then
he went over to one of the customer's counters,
sealed it securely and addressed it to “Mr. Richmond
Jones.”
Leaving the bank, he hurried to the nearest sub-
way kiosk, the envelope clutched in his hand, lest it
be jostled from his pocket in the home-going crush,
or perhaps lifted by some of the light-fingered gen-
try who, according to the newspapers, were operat-
ing underground despite the police “dead line.” As
he thought of pickpockets he decided that even these
preying fellows were a better lot than a man like
Ed Hinkle, who would extort money from a friend.
At Times Square he transferred to a local train,
since the express does not stop at Columbus Circle,
and Fifty-seventh Street was the subway station
nearest his destination, and from Columbus Circle he
took a taxi to the other side of the Park. It was ten
minutes past twelve when he reached the Park View
Hotel, one of those old-fashioned hostelries which


NO PROTEST 123
had not been swept into oblivion by the relentless
tide of modern progress. It had endured what so
many of its kind had found a ruinous competition,
for the Park View was an institution and lived on
amid the lengthening shadows of decadent glories.
Like an old man, who had traveled through his
years in only the most select company, and who has
taken great pride in his respectability, the Park View
wrapped itself snugly in a tattered garment of scru-
pulous dignity and continued to pile up a deficit for
the owner, who fortunately was rich enough to in-
dulge his pride. Whether it was accident or irony
which accounted for Searles’ blackmailer selecting
the Park View as the innocent agent in collecting his
hush money, Searles could not know.
The clerk at the desk was an aging, but dapper,
gentleman—there could be no doubt that he was a
gentleman—in a frock coat, with a white carnation
in the lapel.
“You have a guest, a Mr. Richmond Jones?”
Searles inquired.
“I think not,” responded the clerk, who, as a mat-
ter of fact, need not have qualified his statement.
The Park View was not so crowded but that he
could remember the name of each guest as well as
room numbers. Nevertheless, he referred to an al-
phabetical list before him.
“It is strange,” Searles said uneasily. “Mr. Jones
directed me to leave this envelope for him here.”
“Perhaps you misunderstood the name of the
hotel. I cannot recall a Mr. Richmond Jones stop-


124 THE BIGAMIST
ping with us previously, and most of our guests are
those who—” -
“No, I couldn't be mistaken,” Searles interrupted,
his tone positive. “He said the Park View.”
“Perhaps he may register later,” the clerk sug-
gested.
Searles had been thinking the same thing. There
was a high degree of shrewdness in Hinkle, and he
might delay his appearance until after the money
had been delivered. This move prevented Searles
from getting a description from the clerk and set-
tling with absolute finality the question of his
identity. For a moment Searles hesitated, fingering
the envelope nervously; he dared not go away with-
out leaving the money. It was a practical certainty
that it would be called for later.
“These are some important papers,” he said.
“There is no doubt Mr. Jones will call for them,
and may I ask you to put them in your safe until
his arrival. As a matter of precaution, I shall ring
up later and make sure that they are in his hands.
And if by any chance Mr. Jones should not call for
them, you will remember me, so that I may have
them back.”
There was nothing strange in this arrangement,
and the clerk promptly agreed to it.
“I will be on duty until six o'clock this evening,”
he said.
Searles left the hotel, walking slowly down Fifth
Avenue, where a stream of humanity flows in eddy-
ing cross currents between glittering rows of smart
shops. At the shrill blast of a police whistle, the


NO PROTEST 125
surging sea of traffic became motionless. The po-
liceman who stood in the center of the Avenue, with
white-gloved hand upraised, made one think of
King Canute commanding the waves of the ocean
to roll back.
A taxicab, moving up the Avenue, squirmed into a
vacant slot within the three-breasted line of motor
vehicles, and Searles had a glimpse of Ed Hinkle's
face through the glass. Hinkle on his way to the
Park View Hotel to collect the price of his silence!
Thankful that he had been able to circumvent this
imminent menace so speedily, Searles, a hard smile
twisting at his mouth, as he considered how shal-
low is that tie which men call friendship, walked
on. It would be some time before he could get a
train, but he went, nevertheless, to the Grand Cen-
tral Station and from there, half an hour later, he
telephoned to the hotel clerk and was told, as he
expected, that Mr. Jones had registered and had
claimed the envelope.


CHAPTER XII
T H E W O L F RE T U R N S
HE blackmailer, more truly than all other crim-
inals, is a wolf. The burglar who enters honest
men’s houses, preying upon the thrift of others, takes
what he can lay hands upon and seldom molests the
property of his victim a second time; at least, one
must allow him a certain grudging admiration for
risking the hazards of his occupation. Even the
highwayman takes what his hapless quarry may
have in his pocket and lets him go. But the black-
mailer, with his vulpine hunger for money, sinks his
fangs again and again, with a devouring greed.
Blackmail is the least courageous of crimes. There
is the shield of fear between the victim and the law,
the protection of terrified silence. When the dupe
can no longer pay, his predicament may give birth
to frantic desperation which may drive him to some
horrible extremity.
Searles knew nothing of the blackmailer's psy-
chology, and so he nursed the delusion that this
particular menace was fully disposed of. There
were other complications to claim his harassed at-
tention, sleepless nights and nightmarish days. Fre-
quently he experienced crawling sensations about
his temples and began to notice a gathering of gray
hairs; but he had mastered the trick of keeping his


THE WOLF RETURNS 127
face calm, and outwardly his reactions were those
of a man in a normally quiescent state of mind. He
felt like an actor whose part was never finished;
night was but a brief intermission between the rise
and fall of the curtain. He wondered how he man-
aged to Smile and to laugh and carry on conversa-
tions like any other intelligent human being. No
one seemed to notice that his smile was mechanical,
his laugh hollow and empty, unless, perhaps, it was
Elizabeth.
Frequently he surprised her looking at him in a
curious sort of way, as if vaguely she realized a
false note somewhere; but she asked no questions.
Sometimes he fancied that Elizabeth was disap-
pointed in him; that she had plumbed his depth and
discovered him to be what he was—not an em-
bryonic genius destined for high places, but a medi-
ocre man with a surface sparkle that misled first
impressions, like a bit of cheap glass which, if not
scrutinized too closely, may pass for a diamond.
Yes, Searles told himself, she was finding him out
for the fraud he was, an intellectual fraud, with a
shallow stock of brilliancies and a limited facility for
giving an original turn to a purloined collection of
epigrams and filched philosophies. It was only to
be expected that Elizabeth would fathom him sooner
or later. Eyes of love might have been blind to his
flaws, as Dora's eyes were blind, but Elizabeth did
not love him.
She had never loved him, and she had experienced
only the emotion of love, an emotion that had no
more substance than the moonlight which had stirred


128 THE BIGAMIST
it into timid, shrinking life. No doubt she had re-
spected him, admiring what she had considered to be
his superior mental attainments; but she was seeing
now, Searles was certain, that she had taken her-
self in. She no longer offered him her prim, chilling
kisses, or wanted to walk along the terrace with
him and speak of “that wonderful night.”
Searles felt immeasurable relief that this was S0;
it would help him to feel less like a scoundrel when
he deserted her. It would, of course, humiliate her,
but, now that she was disillusioned, deeper than her
humiliation, there would probably be relief. She was
the sort of woman who would make the best of a
bad situation so long as it did not become intoler-
able; she would sacrifice a good deal for the sake
of pride, yet underneath it all she would be glad to
be so easily rid of him.
Days were dragging past, and Searles seldom
failed in his visits to Dora, a few hours of happiness
plucked from out a black void of despair. Her re-
covery was so rapid that even Miss Joline was sur-
prised and said it might be only another week when
she would walk again.
Dora no longer pleaded with him to remain in
New York, for she saw that he was fully deter-
mined to go West and take a fresh start, and that
nothing she could say would alter his decision. He
had to be obdurate on that issue, for it was the
hinge of his plan.
Dora, of course, expected to go West with him.
That disturbed him not a little, for he could not, in
honor, take her with him until Elizabeth had di-


THE WOLF RETURNS 129
vorced him, and it would not be a simple matter to
induce Dora to go back to New Hampshire and wait
there until he sent for her to join him. He had
thrown out a tentative suggestion in this direction
only to meet with her vehement, hurt protest.
“No, Oz, dear—no!” she had cried, her fingers
clinging to his hand. “I shall never leave you-
not so much as a single day. Where you go, I go.
Oh, Oz, how can you suggest so cruel a thing?”
He knew that he had not the courage to tell her
the truth, and he didn’t know how he would man-
age this part of it.
Although it was an entirely useless pretense,
Searles continued his daily trips to the office. It
was ten days after he had paid the blackmail money
that he found two letters waiting for him on his
desk. One of them was from Ed Hinkle. He knew
the handwriting and was so agitated over it that he
grabbed it up without so much as a glance at the
Other. For the first time he realized that the five
thousand dollars had in no way removed the power
held over him, and that this was probably another
demand for money.
“So Hinkle's come out in the openl” he said un-
der his breath, as he tore open the envelope. From
out of the folded sheet of paper there slipped a new,
crisp hundred-dollar bill.
DEAR CHAN: Here's the century note—and
thanks. You sure pulled me out of a bad hole,
and I'm on my feet again. I’ve hooked a live
one and am on Easy Street.


130 THE BIGAMIST
Searles' suspicions wavered. Why had Hinkle re-
turned the loan by mail instead of bringing it in
person? Why else, except that he didn't have the
nerve to show his face? The blackmailer had to be
Hinkle; there was no one else who could have
known the situation. With a jerky, mirthless laugh
Searles wondered if this could possibly be one of
the hundred-dollar bills that he had left at the Park
View Hotel. Why hadn’t he written down the num-
bers of those notes?
No, it wasn’t like Hinkle to mail the money; it
was only a moderately clever effort to disarm his
suspicions. This theory became a certainty when he
glanced at the second envelope on his desk and,
with a startled reflex, recognized the same ragged,
untidy typewriting which he had noted on the first
demand for money. He suspected what it would
be, and it was precisely what he feared—another
extortion.
Before he opened the letter he compared the post-
marks. They had been mailed from different sta-
tions, several hours apart. Hinkle's letter, with the
bill inclosed, had probably reached the law offices
yesterday on one of the late deliveries. However,
that meant nothing, for Hinkle was too shrewd to
have posted them together.
“But you’re not quite so clever as you think you
are, Hinkle,” Searles said aloud, as if Ed might
have been in the room with him. “You can't fool
me with a cheap trick like this. How much do you
Want now?”


THE WOLF RETURNS 131
Twice-MARRIED SIR: I got the money O. K.,
but I need some more, and I need it P. D. Q.
Same amount as before. I know all about
everything, and where you’ve got wife number
two; so don't get it into your head that I haven’t
got you, and got you cold. Unless you come
across by Wednesday noon, I'll turn you up,
and don’t you think I won’t.
Leave it, like you did before, for Richmond
Jones, but this time at Hotel Burlingame.
Searles wondered how much longer this would go
on—how much he was expected to pay. Hinkle
must think he had unlimited access to the Borland
cash; no matter if he denied it, Hinkle would not
believe him.
“All right, I’ll pay again, but when he comes back
a third time I’ll be out of his reach—and safe.”
Then Searles wondered if he would be safe any-
where. No matter where he went, this thing would
follow him; but temporary safety was better than
no safety at all, and there was a chance that when
he was no longer upon friendly terms with a rich
wife, Hinkle would not molest him further.
Immediately he burned the second blackmail let-
ter, as he had burned the first one. For a moment
he watched the charred fragments that he had
dropped into the wastebasket. He didn't relish the
idea of asking Hornaday to advance him another
five thousand; but it had to be done, so the sooner
he got it over with the better. The unquestioning
promptness with which the head of the law firm had


132 THE BIGAMIST
written out the first check made it less of an ordeal,
and he did not doubt that Hornaday would let him
have it.
There was no delay about seeing Hornaday this
morning, and Searles found him unoccupied, tilted
back in his chair, smoking a cigar and looking very
amiable indeed—almost jovial. He had won an im-
portant case.
“Oh, hello, Searles. Come in and sit down.
Smoke?”
“I will take only a moment of your time, Mr.
Hornaday. I wanted—”
“Quite all right, Searles—quite all right. Not so
pressed for time this morning. Taking things easy
to-day. Mrs. Searles is in good health, I trust.”
Searles nodded. He did not sit down, for he
wanted to end the interview as quickly as possible.
“Mr. Hornaday,” he blurted, “I suppose you're
going to be surprised when I tell you that I am
badly in need of some money.”
The other's smile was lost in a puzzled frown, and
he turned upon the younger man a sharply ques-
tioning stare.
“I think I am entitled to be surprised, Searles—
particularly as I advanced you five thousand less
than two weeks ago,” he said dryly. “You mean
you’ve got rid of it already?”
“No, I haven’t squandered it, if that's what you
mean.” Searles didn’t like Hornaday's tone.
“Well, if you haven’t spent it,” the latter de-
manded bluntly, “what in the name of common sense
have you done with it?”


THE WOLF RETURNS 133
Searles hadn’t expected to be questioned, and he
had no glib explanation on the tip of his tongue.
He became noticeably nervous, as he made this un-
expected call on his imagination.
“I—er—I invested it,” he stammered, knowing
the moment the words were out of his mouth that
he was a fool to think an astute man like Conrad
Hornaday would swallow such a lame tale.
“Oh, I see,” the other retorted with a sardonic
smile, “you invested it in—in the stock market, I
suppose.”
Searles grasped this suggestion, like a drowning
man clutching at straws. It was more plausible
than anything he could have thought up for himself.
“Yes,” he answered, “I’ve got to protect my
margins. Unless I can get hold of another five
thousand, my brokers will sell me out.”
“Sometimes it's cheaper to let ’em sell you out,
Searles. What are you in?”
Again Searles was badly rattled; he seldom
read the market pages and scarcely knew one stock
from another.
“Oil,” he said at random; then, after searching
his memory for a moment, he added: “Western Oil.”
“H'm!” replied Hornaday. “What is Western
Oil selling at this morning?”
Searles couldn’t have answered that within twenty
points. He knew that he was trapped. The other
man jerked his head.
“Don’t know, eh? I thought you didn't. Well?”
“You’ve cornered me,” Searles had to admit.
“I’ve examined too many witnesses in my time


134 THE BIGAMIST
not to know when a man's lying. Do you want to
tell me now, truthfully, what sort of a predicament
you're in?”
Searles moistened his lips with the tip of his
tongue.
“All I can tell you, Mr. Hornaday, is that I’ve
got to have another five thousand dollars—got to
have it. This will be the last time I'll ask you for
an advance. In Heaven's name, don't turn me
down.”
“No, Searles, I can’t let you have it.”
“I’m in a desperate situation, Mr. Hornaday;
that's all I can tell you. If you can’t give it to
me as an advance on my salary, then let me give
you my thirty-day note—”
“Searles, I can’t do it. The only thing I can
suggest is that you get the money from Mrs. Searles.
Is there any reason why you can’t tell her the
reason you need it?”
“Mr. Hornaday, if you knew how much depended
upon this—”
“Ah, but I do know—I can read it in your
face. The truth is—oh, I might as well tell you
now—Platt, Hornaday & Platt aren’t paying you
any salary whatever. The five thousand I let you
have ten days ago was your wife's money.”
“W-what!” stuttered Searles. “My wife's money?
I don’t understand.”
“She wanted to save you from the embarrassment
of accepting funds from her, and, to give you a
feeling of independence, she instructed us to pay
you ten thousand a year. You've already had half


436 THE BIGAMIST
bleeding you with threats of suing you. Perhaps
there's some way I can help you in an advisory
capacity; if you want to take me into your con-
fidence, give me the facts, and I will see what
can be done.”
“That isn’t the situation, and there is no way
any one can help me unless they let me have five
thousand dollars, and you won’t do that.”
“No, I won’t,” Hornaday said flatly, and Searles
knew there was nothing more to be said.


CHAPTER XIII
S P A R R IN G F O R T I IM E
EN he returned to his own office, Searles
flung himself dejectedly into the chair at his
desk and surrendered to black despair. The un-
expected had happened—Conrad Hornaday had re-
fused to let him have the money. He had one
more chance, and that was Elizabeth. She might
respond to some cunningly fabricated story which
would appeal to her sympathies, but he doubted
it, and he knew that his imagination was not equal
to the creation of such plausible fictions.
“Where is it going to end?” he groaned. “Oh,
God, where is it going to end?” And then he
thought of something. “If I could manage to keep
Ed Hinkle quiet until I could get Dora away from
Miss Joline's, I could make a run for it. I’ve
got to think up some excuse and string him along
for a few days.” Anything appealed to Searles
more than going to Elizabeth, and so he tried
to reason along the lines of warding off Hinkle.
There was nothing to be gained in pleading for
time; the only appeal to a blackmailer is money.
Presently an idea began to germinate and very
quickly reached the growth of a fully matured plan.
Drawing a sheet of paper toward him, Searles
WTOte:


138 THE BIGAMIST
SIR: It is not so easy for me to get money
as you seem to imagine. You write me ten
days after getting five thousand dollars and
demand another payment of the same amount.
How am I to know where it will stop?
I am forced to pay for your silence because
there is no way I can help myself, but there
are limits to the money I can raise, and it
cannot go on forever. Before meeting your
second demand I Write to ask if you are not
willing to name some price that will satisfy you
permanently. If you will give me a few days
to raise it—as you may know, I have no money
of my own whatever—I think I can raise
twenty-five thousand dollars, provided I have
your positive assurance that you will make
no further demands upon me. S.
The whole thing, of course, was a bluff; not
having any faith in his ability to raise five thou-
sand, he had no intention whatever of attempting
to carry out the bargain. He was only sparring
desperately for time, delaying the issue until Dora's
recovery had sufficiently progressed for him to
run away from the situation. Nor, for that mat-
ter, did he have any foolish notion that the payment
of even twenty-five thousand, granting he could
lay hands upon it, would absolve him from the
menace of blackmail. It might keep Hinkle quiet
for a time, but when the money was dissipated
he would relentlessly resume his extortion.
Searles addressed an envelope and, leaving the


SPARRING FOR TIME 139
office, went to the Burlingame Hotel, where he
gave the letter to the care of the clerk who in-
formed him, as he had expected, that no Mr. Richard
Jones had as yet registered. It now remained for
to-morrow to tell him whether or not Hinkle would
be taken in by this piece of strategy.
When he reached Riverview that evening, Searles
discovered a change in Elizabeth's recent attitude.
While her demeanor was by no means affectionate,
it was more friendly than it had been for many
days, and, after a pleasant dinner she slipped her
hand about his arm and drew him into the library.
“Chan,” she said seriously, “I’m afraid we're
not hitting it off very well lately. I don't know
just what it is, but there is something that is
making a difference. Do you think we ought to
go on like this?”
“You mean, I suppose,” Searles answered slowly,
“you’ve discovered it’s been a mistake, and you—
you want to call it off.”
“Oh, no, Chan—no!” she protested quickly. “That
isn't at all what I mean. But I think we should
understand each other better—be more frank.
There's a breach, and we mustn't let it widen. It
may be the fault is mine.”
It occurred to Searles that if he could be suffi-
ciently adept at deception he might take advantage
of her mood and manage to wheedle from her enough
money to buy a few more weeks of safety from
Ed Hinkle; but his tongue refused to respond.
“You have been different lately,” she went on,


140 THE BIGAMIST
“so much different. I haven’t been making you very
happy, Chan.”
“Nor I you,” he answered. “You are disap-
pointed in me. I’ve seen that a hundred times.
Oh, I don’t blame you for it, Elizabeth. I'm not
quite the fellow you thought I was. You suggest
We be frank. Isn’t that the truth?”
Her face flushed faintly. “W-well,” she replied
meditatively, “I don’t suppose any one remains
quite the same after intimate acquaintance. All
of us are constantly revealing our imperfections. I
am still very fond of you, Chan, and, of course,
you are my husband.”
“Yes,” he agreed absently, a bitter edge uncon-
sciously toning his voice, “I am—your husband.”
Elizabeth smiled sympathetically. “I have been
afraid of that—lately,” she said. “It had never
occurred to me that the money would make any
difference; but you are not dependent upon me,
Chan. You have a good income of your own.”
“Which is nothing more than your generosity.
I know where the ten thousand comes from.”
“Conrad Hornaday told you?” she demanded
angrily. “How—how dare he violate my con-
fidence?”
“He had to tell me, Elizabeth. Circumstances
developed which’—and then he took the plunge—
“which forced me to ask Hornaday for an ad-
vance on what I considered my salary. Oh, don't
think I was conceited enough to feel I was earning
it. I thought it was a bribe for my good will,
a precaution to insure the firm retaining you as a


SPARRING FOR TIME 141
client. Hornaday gave me the five thousand with-
out question; but when I was forced to approach
him again this morning and ask him for another
five, he refused me, and when I pressed him he
had to tell me it was your money.”
Her conciliatory mood, Searles thought, chilled
slightly. From her astute father she had inherited
commercial instincts and straightway there leaped
into her mind the question, “Why should Chan
need ten thousand dollars?” This money matter,
she was sure, accounted for the harassed look she
had seen in his face at various times.
“You might as well be entirely frank with me,
Chan,” she said. “If you need money I will gladly
let you have it.”
“I do need it, Elizabeth—desperately.”
“Desperately, Chan? Your voice suggests un-
pleasant things.”
“It is unpleasant,” he said heavily. “I’m in a
mess. I’ve done something foolish, and there will
be a scandal unless—”
“Oh, I see,” she broke in, her face paling. “You
mean—blackmail?” Her tone was so scornful that
he flinched. “Only a coward pays blackmail, Chan.
Just what are the facts? A woman, of course.”
It would have been a better sign if she had sud-
denly flamed with a fury of jealous anger, but
the only emotion she displayed was that of con-
temptuous disgust.
Searles had let the situation get out of his
hands, and her rapid-fire questions confused him.
He could not tell her the truth, and so he used


142 THE BIGAMIST
the theory which Conrad Hornaday had suggested,
that of unwise letters which had fallen into un-
scrupulous hands.
“Yes, a woman,” he admitted, as he proceeded
haltingly to unfold a story which was a strange
intermixture of truths, half truths, and desperation-
driven fiction. “A girl I met long before I knew
you, Elizabeth. No, it wasn’t the sordid affair you
probably think. I give you my oath on that. I
wrote to her regularly for a long time, and—”
“And you promised to marry her, I suppose,”
Elizabeth broke in with a composure which, while
doubtless somewhat strained, was quite remarkable.
“She—she might have got that impression,”
Searles evaded, hating himself for these lies—this
cowardice.
“And she will let you have the letters back for—
how much?”
“I—I think I could settle With her in full for
twenty-five thousand.”
Elizabeth turned her back upon him and walked
to the window, staring out into the dusk. There
she stood, motionless, except for a spasmodic clench-
ing of her hands. Searles watched her, fascinated.
Presently she turned and came toward him.
“I can’t pretend that I like scandal,” she said,
her voice cold and hard, “but even worse than that
I detest the cowardice of paying blackmail. The
blackmailer is a coward, but the one who pays it
is more cowardly. And blackmail never ends; it
goes on and on. The more the victim pays the
more the blackmailer wants. I shan’t submit to it.


SPARRING FOR TIME 143
“Let this woman do as she likes. She will prob-
ably do nothing. And as for you, Channing Searles”
—her hand moved with a contemptuous gesture-
“at last I know your true character. No, it isn't
because you’ve had an affair with a woman. Oh,
I could forgive that, if it was something that be-
longed to the past; but what I cannot forgive is
something more fundamental than a transitory in-
fatuation. You admit that you were engaged to
marry this girl, and I have not the slightest doubt
you were willing enough to keep your bargain,
until—oh, it’s just too utterly horrible!
“What people hinted to me was true—your only
interest in me was the money. I know it now,
and I was fool enough to believe that the money
was no consideration whatever—that you were true,
noble, fine! Instead, you are just a cheap adven-
turer, and I—I despise you! I utterly loathe you!”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” Searles agreed hollowly.
“The whole thing was a mistake—a ghastly mis-
take. You weren't in love with me, to begin with.”
“How dare you say that?”
“No, Elizabeth, you weren’t,” he insisted. “I’ve
thought the whole thing out; to use that trite way
of putting it, you were in love with love. I'm
sorry, Elizabeth—truly, I am sorry. I'll clear out
at once. The five thousand I got from Hornaday—
your money, of course—I will return that when I
am able to.”
“Don’t waste your cheap melodrama on me, and
you’ll not clear out at once. Indeed, you shall not!”


SPARRING FOR TIME 445
nuts about you, so there won’t be any trouble
about that. To-morrow afternoon Without fail,
or. I’ll turn over all the facts to the newspapers.
This threat of “the newspapers” was not overcon-
Vincing, its purpose being to terrorize. Searles
realized this vaguely, but he could not be sure.
Hinkle, he told himself, had gone stark mad with
lust of money, and a madman may do almost
anything. The risk was so great that he could
not take the chance of ignoring it. He had to do
Something—but what? What, other than money,
could satisfy Hinkle? The man evidently looked
with suspicion upon delays, yet it was hardly pos-
sible that he could anticipate what Searles had in
mind—flight.
He wondered if it might not have a quieting
effect upon Hinkle's boldness if he got directly
in touch with him and let him know he was fully
aware of the clandestine Mr. Jones’ true identity.
Yes, that ought to take the wind out of Hinkle's
Sails.
Pulling the telephone toward him, he called from
memory the number of Mrs. Chubb’s boarding house.
The weary voice of Mrs. Chubb responded, and
Searles did not tell her who he was, for fear
she would launch a long and gushing conversation
to which he would find it difficult to respond. No,
she told him in response to the crisp inquiry, Mr.
Hinkle wasn’t in; nor did she know when he would
be. Mr. Hinkle, she explained, was irregular in
his habits, and she could not remember having


SPARRING FOR TIME 147
and if he did come—well, that was something else
again.
Putting the letter into an envelope, Searles ad-
dressed it and then left the office to deliver it
at the Burlingame Hotel. After that he walked
to Times Square and cut across toward Eighth
Avenue, where he found, after visiting half a
dozen pawnshops, a place where the proprietor was
willing, notwithstanding a law prohibiting the sale
of firearms, to sell him a revolver for three times
what it was worth. It was just as well, he had
decided, to be ready for any unforeseen emergency.


CHAPTER XIV
CALVIN, THE AWENGER
HE matter of the letter which Elizabeth had
addressed to him in New Hampshire had passed
from Searles' mind, the thing which Fate, with a
fine sense of the dramatic, was to employ as
the instrument of its amazing climax. That letter,
the fine linen texture of its envelope covered with
a gray coating of dust, reposed in an unused
pigeonhole, where Miss Rhoda, the postmaster's
assistant and niece, had placed it.
She intended showing it to Calvin Oakes, the
next time he came in, ostensibly to ask him what
had better be done with it. Deeper than that, how-
ever, was Miss Rhoda’s mystified curiosity. More
than once she had been tempted to open the flap
with steam and read what was within; but a certain
terrified respect for the postal laws held her back.
In the ordinary course of events she might have
promptly returned the letter to its sender and
thought no more about it; but Dora Oakes' romantic
marriage and what was considered her miraculous
recovery had brought Searles back to the local
consciousness at a time when he had been gone
long enough to make remembrance of him a trifle
hazy. Such interesting topics of conversation were
infrequent, and every one made the most of them.


CALVIN, THE AWENGER 149
Oz Searles was traced as far back as any one
could remember, and vague cousinships reëstablished.
Thus, when the letter came, only a day or two
after Oz and Dora had departed for New York,
Miss Rhoda, sorting the mail, immediately recalled
that Oz Searles' mother had been a Channing; she
reasoned that Oz might well have been christened
with a middle name, and she had to admit that it
had a much more pleasant euphony than Oz. The
mystery of it, however, was contained in the three-
lettered prefix on the flap of the envelope: “Mrs.
Channing Searles.”
If Oz Searles was Channing Searles, there
shouldn’t have been any “Mrs. Channing Searles”
when this letter was mailed. If Oz Searles was
not Channing Searles, why had the letter been sent
out here, for there was no other Searles for whom
it could have been intended. Miss Rhoda seethed
and palpitated with speculations and horrified sus-
picions, although she kept her thoughts strictly to
herself. Had her uncle, the postmaster, been at
home she would doubtless have talked it over with
him; but Uncle Walter was in Boston for a stomach
operation, and he was out of reach.
So the letter remained in the pigeonhole awaiting
one of Calvin Oakes infrequent visits to the village.
He always purchased his modest supplies at the
general store, which was also the post office, and
there was no chance that Miss Rhoda would miss
seeing him.
Calvin drove in on Wednesday morning in the
farm wagon, tied his team to the dilapidated hitch


150 THE BIGAMIST
rack, and clumped heavily into the store, fishing
in the pocket of his blue shirt for the list which
Grandma Waite had written out for him. At sight
of him Miss Rhoda became extremely agitated.
“Mornin', Calvin,” she said, with that shrillness
which always marked her voice when she was ex-
cited. “How's Dora? Have you heard lately?”
“Had a letter day 'fore yesterday, Rhoda. She's
goin’ to be walkin’ ag’in soon. Seems like her
and Oz is goin’ to move West. Oz thinks he can
do better out there.”
“Calvin!” The sharp rise of her voice was
startling, and Calvin Oakes looked at her. “Calvin,
there's somethin' I'm aimin’ to ask you 'bout Oz.”
“Yes?”
“Is his middle name Channing?”
“Huh?” Calvin Was noncommittal.
“There was a letter come here fer Mr. Channing
Searles 'bout two weeks ago, or such a matter. I
allowed I’d better ask you what to do with it.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if it was intended for
Oz,” Calvin said. “Ain’t no other Searles left, an’
I allow Oz has got it into his head that his ma
give him Channin’ as a sort o' middle name.”
Miss Rhoda darted behind the partition, which
separated the post office from the rest of the store,
and returned with the letter. With deliberate pur-
pose she handed it to him with the flap uppermost,
so that his eyes would by no chance miss seeing
what was engraved there. Calvin's features, much
to her disappointment, remained expressionless, al-
though, had the cluttered store not been so thick


CALVIN, THE AWENGER 151
with shadows, she might have seen a startled gleam
come into his eyes.
He lifted the envelope closer, then slowly turned
it over, examining the writing and the postmark.
“It is kind of—well, peculiar,” Miss Rhoda mur-
mured breathlessly. “I couldn't exactly understand.
Maybe it’s all right, but it seemed so kind of
Strange I thought you ought to know about it.”
Calvin slid the envelope into the pocket of his
frayed, shabby suit, and he had half turned, so
that his face was averted.
“I’ll see Oz gets this,” he said in his toneless
voice. “Yes, I’ll see he gets it—right off.”
“I ain’t sure that I got a right to turn over other
people's mail to you,” Miss Rhoda objected uncer-
tainly. “Maybe I hadn’t ought to let you have it.”
“I’ll see Oz gets it,” Calvin said again. “I
been thinkin’ some 'bout goin’ to New York an’
seein’ how things was gettin’ along with Dora.”
Abruptly he strode out of the store, leaving a
much disturbed, still puzzled, and helpless postmis-
tress behind him. Miss Rhoda did not know what
she could do about it, so she did nothing.
Calvin went back to the farm wagon. His face
was not so expressionless now; his cheek muscles
stood out in rigid knots, and his eyes blazed hot
with a suspicion that lacked little of certainty.
“I knowed there was somethin’ wrong,” he said
under his breath, “an here's the proof.” The letter
came out of his pocket, and he ripped open the
envelope with his massive, clumsy fingers.
Elizabeth, separated from her husband by their


152 THE BIGAMIST
first absence and not yet emerged from the spell
of romance, had filled the pages with timidly tender
endearments. The things Calvin read left no fur-
ther room for doubts, and, before he came to the
end, the stiff letter paper crumpled beneath the
clenching of his hands, and his gaunt, rugged body
fairly trembled with a passionate and uncontrollable
anger.
“Oz has got another wife—and he had another
wife when he married Dora. He took Dora away
with him, an’ she ain’t married to him legal.
You're goin’ to pay fer this, Oz Searles—you're
goin’ to pay to me!”
Half an hour later Calvin had cashed a check
for seventy-five dollars, made arrangements to have
the team driven home, and sat in the dingy, de-
serted railroad station, his enormous hands clenched
into hard fists resting across his knees. His rusty
black hat was pulled low over his unshaven face,
and he was waiting for the train which would
carry him to New York.
It was after dinner that same evening, and
Searles moved restlessly about the library, wonder-
ing if Ed Hinkle would come. When eight o'clock
had dragged along toward nine, he became positive
that Hinkle was fully as frightened of him as
he was of Hinkle, and he congratulated himself
that he had nothing more to fear from blackmail.
Elizabeth had gone upstairs; at least Searles
took it for granted she had. She seemed deter-
mined to convince every one that there was no
flaw in her matrimonial happiness, and at dinner


CALVIN, THE AWENGER 453
she had pretended so perfectly that neither the
Servants nor Elliot Borland, who had returned to
Riverview late that afternoon, could possibly have
imagined that her brief romance was already
wrecked beyond all hope of salvage.
The evening was warm, and the French windows,
opening from the library onto the terrace, were
swung wide. Only one light burned within the
massive room, and it was so deeply in the shadows
that a pool of moonlight rested upon the rug just
Within the Windows.
Searles, thinking it was no longer reasonable for
him to expect Hinkle, stood for a moment looking
out toward the river. On the far side of the
Hudson the Palisades of the New Jersey shore
bulked against the starlit sky, and the electric lights,
which winked, small as pin points across the dis-
tance, seemed stars which had dropped from their
orbits to imbed themselves in the face of the cliffs.
Searles did not hear the ring of the doorbell,
and he was startled from his preoccupation by the
appearance of Hedges in the doorway.
“A man is calling, sir,” said the butler, and it
was to be noted that he neglected his usual form
“gentleman.”
Searles turned quickly. So Hinkle had come!
“He declines to give his name,” added Hedges,
“but he says he must see you at once; in fact, sir,
he says that if you refuse to see him, he will—”
“All right, Hedges, let the man come in. I have
been expecting him—in a way.”
“But, Mr. Searles, he looks so—”


154 THE BIGAMIST
“Yes, I know,” Searles again interrupted; “but
it's all right.” And, as the butler, with a queer
side glance, noiselessly vanished into the hall,
Searles opened the drawer of the desk, taking out
the revolver which he had removed from his coat
and placed there only five minutes earlier when
he had decided that Ed Hinkle was no longer to
be expected. With the weapon in his pocket, he
stood tensely, waiting.
The wait was brief. In the dimness of the library
a huge hand flung the curtains apart, and a
massive form bulked against the doorway for a
moment. Searles’ eyes probed the shadows, puz-
zled. This towering giant could not be the slim,
dapper Ed Hinkle.
“Who are you?” he demanded unsteadily, as his
hand reached out for the light switch, and his
finger pressed the button. In the sudden flood of
illumination he saw who it was. “Calvin! My
God, Calvin!”
Calvin Oakes, making no response, came into the
room with a heavy, dragging tread, his unshaven
face grim and terrible, his bloodshot eyes flaming
red and hot with the fire of vengeful purpose.
Searles, in the grip of a paralyzing fear which
made him incapable of either speech or motion,
knew that Calvin had came for but one purpose,
and that was to kill him.
The open French windows behind him invited
flight, but retreat had been delayed a moment too
long; for, as Searles leaped backward, one of
Calvin's great hands darted out, the powerful


CALVIN, THE AWENGER 155
fingers sinking like talons about the other's shoul-
der. The latter felt himself spun around and
crushed into the depths of the chair beside the
table. And then Calvin spoke:
“You wasn’t thinkin' you could get away from
me, Oz?” he said. It was amazing that a man's
voice could remain so colorlessly unemotional when
such a hot passion of anger burned within him.
“I'd 'a' follered you clean to hell, Oz, but I'd 'a'
got you.” His grip on Searles’ shoulder tightened.
“What have you done with Dora?”
“Calvin, wait!” Searles panted. “You—you don’t
understand. Give me a chance to explain. I
want to tell you—”
“Allow I understand all I need to,” Calvin broke
in stonily. “You married my sister when you
already had a wife. That was why you quit writin'
all of a sudden. You was married to another
woman, an I swallered your lies. You married
Dora illegal, because you was feared of what I’d
do to you. You took her off with you when you
99
Seen–
“Calvin, wait! You’ve come to kill me. I know
that, but in Heaven’s name let me explain—”
“I ain’t goin’ to listen to nothin' you got to say.
I know what you done, an’ the rest of it don’t
make no difference. Answer me, Oz Searles, what
have you done with her?”
“Dora's all right, Calvin. She is recovering—
Miss Joline's nursing home—just a few miles from
here. In a few days more she will be walking again.
She—she is going back to New Hampshire to wait


156 THE BIGAMIST
until—until Elizabeth divorces me. I am going
to marry Dora—legally. God is my witness, Cal-
vin, my intentions—”
“No, you ain’t, Oz, fer you’re goin’ to be dead.
I'm goin’ to kill you with my bare hands—now.”
As Searles felt Calvin's fingers about his throat,
his hand went to his pocket, groping frantically
for the pistol. He knew it was his only chance.


CHAPTER XV
“THE MAN IS DEAD”
FTER admitting the uncouth and terrifying vis-
itor who refused to give his name, Hedges,
the butler, hesitated a moment in the hallway,
struggling with an apprehensive curiosity which
tempted him to eavesdrop outside the door curtains.
But, at the sound of some one coming down the
stairs, he very wisely restrained himself and re-
treated promptly to the rear of the house, where
the ringing of the doorbell had interrupted a con-
versation with Kendricks, the second man. He had
been taking Kendricks severely to task for some
bit of carelessness; but this matter of discipline
had entirely passed from his mind.
“Now what business could such a person have at
Riverview?” he muttered absently, screwing shut
his right eye, as he always did when puzzled. “Not
a pleasant business, that much is certain.”
“What person—what business?” murmured Ken-
dricks, relieved that he was spared a continuation
of Hedges' stern lecture on the proper demeanor of
a second man.
“If I ever saw a man who had the appearance
of having just escaped from a lunatic asylum,”
mused Hedges, still absently, “he was it. The
look in his eyes gave me the shivers. It was mad-


158 THE BIGAMIST
ness there—madness. He shouldn't have got inside
the house, I assure you, but there was no stopping
him. A Sampson for strength, and hands—my
word, Kendricks, I’ve never seen such hands on
a human being!” He shook his head slowly.
“Perhaps Mr. Searles knows what he is about;
anyhow, he seemed to be expecting him. I sought
to warn him, but he cut me very short, and—
well, a servant must remember he is a servant,
Kendricks.”
"Quite so, Mr. Hedges,” agreed the second man.
“I shall feel relieved when he is safely out of
the house.” The butler heaved a heavy sigh, ac-
companied by a sad shake of the head. “The
place is not the same since the mistress married.”
“You said a mouthful, Mr. Hedges!” Kendricks
affirmed. “There's things a man can’t quite put
his finger on. Haven’t I caught Mr. Searles a
dozen or more times pacing up and down the
floor, like an animal in a cage at the zoo? And
Miss Julie, the mistress' maid, says Mrs. Searles
hasn’t gone to sleep with a dry eye for a week
or better. Miss Julie says—” His mouth hung
gapingly open for one speechless moment. “W-what
was that?” he added in a tense, horrified whisper.
The two men stood, staring at each other and
listening.
“It's happened!” Hedges exclaimed thickly. “It
was a shot at the front of the house. That—that
madman has killed Mr. Searles! I'm as positive
of it as I had seen the weapon fired. He came
here to kill Mr. Searles, and he has done it. Heaven


“THE MAN IS DEAD” 459
forgive me for going away and leaving the poor
man to his fate!”
“It did sound like a shot,” quavered Kendricks,
“but it may have been the chauffeur tuning up one
of the cars. Sometimes the backfire of a motor—”
“I wish you could be right, Kendricks; I devoutly
wish you could. No, we will find Mr. Searles
murdered—cruelly and foully murdered by that
madman.”
“But are we going to stand here and let the man
get away, if it is murder? Hadn't we better make
Sure?”
“Kendricks, you speak as a practical man. Come!”
The pair, neither of them with any great eager-
ness, passed to the front of the house. As they
reached the hallway, which was the means of
communication with both stairway and the library,
they paused abruptly, the second man’s fingers
freezing tightly about the butler's arm. There were
steps upon the stair, swift, running steps which
sounded briefly, the closing of a door on the floor
above, and then silence.
Between them and the library fell the thick,
velvety folds of the silk mohair curtains. It seemed
to Hedges that they had a faint movement, but that
may have been his imagination. He took a step
nearer, Kendricks crouching behind him.
“Mr. Searles! Has—has something happened?”
There was no response from the room beyond,
only this oppressive, suggestive silence which gave
promise of Hedges' direst fears.


160 THE BIGAMIST
“It is as I thought, Kendricks—Mr. Searles is
done for. The poor fellow has met his doom.”
“He—he might be only wounded,” gulped the
second man. “Bullets do not always kill.”
The butler took three more steps toward the
library and laid an unsteady hand upon the cur-
tains. He drew them back cautiously and put
his eye to the slender opening he had thus made.
The lights in the room were fully ablaze, the illu-
mination from a half dozen incandescents in the
ceiling fixtures beating down upon the sprawled
figure, the outflung arms knobbed with massive
clenched fists, the face wearing a horrible, frozen
grimace, hideous enough without those crimson
streaks tracking lividly across the features. Other-
Wise the library was empty.
“What’s become of Mr. Searles?” Kendricks Whis-
pered hoarsely, as, peering over Hedges’ shoulder,
he looked through the opening of the parted cur-
tains. “That isn’t him lying there—it's—it's the
crazy fellow.”
“No, thank Heaven, it is not Mr. Searles,” mut-
tered the butler, “but, as you say, where is Mr.
Searles?” He passed on into the room, as, with a
dread shiver, the second man followed. It was
not a task that Hedges relished, but he bent down
over Calvin Oakes. Instantly his body jerked erect,
and he swung toward the other.
“The man still has got a little life left in him.
Get to the phone, Kendricks, and have some doctor,
any doctor, get here quick.” He cast a baffled stare


“THE MAN IS DEAD” 161
about the room. “I can’t imagine what has become
Of Mr. Searles.”
“It might have been him we heard running up-
stairs,” the second man suggested. “Maybe he is
already phoning for a doctor.”
“Don’t be a fool, Kendricks. Why should he
go upstairs for that when there are two phones
downstairs?”
“Perhaps—perhaps Mr. Searles has made his
escape.”
“His escape! Oh, Lord, what a fool you are!”
“It stands to reason that it must have been Mr.
Searles who shot the man,” persisted Kendricks.
“Certainly it does,” Hedges said tartly. “He did
it to save himself—self-defense. That isn't any-
thing to run away from, and, besides, the fellow
isn’t dead. Go and call a doctor, as I’ve told you
to do, and put an end to that silly jabbering.”
There was no telephone in the library, the former
master of Riverview, Elizabeth’s father, having
found that it frequently disturbed him. To carry
out the butler's orders, Kendricks had to leave the
I'00Im.
“It is a bit of mystery what has become of
Mr. Searles,” murmured Hedges when he was alone
with the Wounded man.
He was debating this puzzling matter when he
heard footsteps outside the open French windows.
Searles came slowly in from the terrace, his face
ghastly and his mouth twitching. He muttered
something, but the words reached Hedges' ears in
an unintelligible jumble.


162 THE BIGAMIST
“Kendricks is telephoning for a doctor, sir—any
doctor that can get here quickly, but I fear it will
do no good.”
Searles' head jerked up from its sagging posi-
tion. “Doctor, Hedges? You—you don't mean
that—that he—” He cast a quick glance to-
ward the crimson-stained features of the uncon-
scious man on the floor. “Great heavens, Hedges,
is—is he still alive?”
“Yes, I think he is still breathing a little; but I
doubt he will be by the time the doctor arrives.
There is, nearly as I can tell, a bullet in the fellow's
brain. Buck, up, sir; there's no one as will blame
you for it. He was a madman, if I ever saw one.”
Searles shivered, and his eyes met those of the
butler for a moment, and then he looked away,
his fingers opening and closing in a paroxysm of
Ile1"VOuSneSS.
“Don’t—don’t look at me like that, Hedges. I
didn't kill him. Heaven is my judge, Hedges, I
didn’t do it!”
“How did it happen?” asked the butler. It was
not surprising that he should look a trifle skeptical.
Searles, before he answered that question, floun-
dered into a chair, where he sat with his elbows
propped against his knees, rubbing his hands to-
gether. How trivial things will impress themselves
upon a man’s mind at times like this. Hedges
noted with an unconscious frown of disfavor that
his master's finger nails were in a most unsightly
state, black-rimmed with dirt.
“The shot was fired from the terrace—through


“THE MAN IS DEAD” 163
the open windows,” Searles said in a dull, dragging
voice. “I was sitting in that chair—there. I
couldn’t see the windows, but I heard some one
running away along the path. I tried to follow
him, but he seemed to have got away. It would
be easy for a man to lose himself in the shrubbery,
despite the moonlight.”
“Y-yes—I see.” Hedges responded in a tone
more dubious than he probably intended.
“You—you don’t believe what I have told you,
Hedges? You think it's something I’ve made up—
about the shot from the terrace.”
“Mr. Searles, sir, it is not considered good form
for a servant to disagree with his employer. My
training is English, as you know, and I have been
taught to be in accord with my master, no matter
how much of a fool it might seem to make of
me; but this is a time that calls for frankness,
sir. I should serve you but ill if I did not give
you the benefit of a calmer judgment than yours.
Shall we forget at the moment that I am—”
“Yes, Hedges, by all means be frank. I under-
stand that your intentions are kindly.”
“You’ll do yourself more harm than good by
not sticking to the truth. It's not a pleasant thing
to admit taking human life, regardless of the cir-
cumstances, but there's no one can blame you.
What passed between you and this fellow I do
not know, but he came, I'll take my oath, to do
you harm. I saw it in his face, and when I
heard the shot I was sure he had done for you.
I could see from the look in his face that he had


164 THE BIGAMIST
come here for no good. When you told me to admit
him I tried to warn you.”
There was a step in the hall. The curtains were
swung aside, and Kendricks stood in the doorway.
He stared for a moment at Searles, patently sur-
prised to see the latter there.
“Doctor Anderson, the family physician, could
not be reached,” the second man reported, “but I
got hold of a Doctor Bushnell who says he will be
here within ten minutes. Is there anything else, Mr.
Hedges?”
“No, Kendricks, there's nothing else,” replied the
butler, as he bent over the gruesome bulk on the
rug. “It makes no difference now when the doctor
gets here. The man is dead.”


CHAPTER XVI
THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES
OME months previously, Miss Etta Griggs, daugh-
ter of the Ardmore constable, Hamilton Griggs,
had altered the channel of her literary aspirations.
Her play having failed of production, leaving her
with the firm opinion that all New York producers
were a lot of blockheads, she had turned her am-
bitions and untiring pen to the Writing of a novel,
the plot of which had to do with a poor, but
beautiful, girl and her struggles to escape the
octopus which reaches its gilded tentacles through
the streets of great cities for none but poor and
beautiful girls. There was a hero to be sure,
and, naturally enough, he was handsome, strong
and brave. Oh, how brave he was |
Constable Griggs took no pride in Etta's aspira-
tions; he complained constantly and bitterly that
she had no time for housework, and he told her
with paternal frankness that she was a silly little
fool. At which she smiled at him in a sad, pity-
ing way and marveled to herself that genius could
spring from so humble and unintellectual a forbear;
it inclined her to belief in reincarnation. At times
it pleased her to believe that the soul of George
Eliot—who she had lately discovered was a woman,
and Whose “The Mill on the Floss” had been the


166 THE BIGAMIST
first novel Etta had ever read—reposed within her
own body.
Etta had appropriated the dining room as her
literary workshop, the dining-room table being the
only piece of furniture within the modest cottage
of the Ardmore constable which approximated a
desk; only for Sunday dinners did she clear off
the thickening pages of her manuscript and allow
the table to be used for its original purpose.
Her hair streaming about her face, in that care-
less disorder of person which is considered excusable
in true genius, her fingers stained with ink from
her pen—a dab of which had got on her nose—
Etta sniffled audibly. She always shed tears over
the poor and beautiful Violet Lemar, for to her Violet
was a creature alive and suffering.
She was making Violet suffer now—exquisitely;
but leave it to Etta. In the end there would be
happiness enough to atone for everything.
“I Want to die! I want to die!” Etta had Violet
moan. “The world is so cruel to me, and I am
just a poor girl, alone in the big, heartless city.”
At this moment Etta Griggs felt that the world
was also cruel to her, for she heard the staccato
bark of her father's police motor cycle, and she
knew that he would not permit her to finish this
dramatic situation in peace. He would nag until
she put aside her pen and got him something to
eat. One thing she had made up her mind to:
the very moment she got her first royalty check
she would leave this unsympathetic parent and
live her own life.


THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES 167
Constable Griggs, the magnificent Hamilton hav-
ing been conveniently shortened to “Ham,” as a
mode of address, was beginning his second term
of office, and the emoluments of his post were
governed by his own vigilance in apprehending
such offenders against the township code as came
under the classification of “speeders.” Out of each
fine collected he received a fee of two dollars
and fifty cents, which explains why his principal
official equipment was a motor cycle.
Etta, with a sigh of resignation, sheafed the
loose pages of her manuscript and hid them be-
neath the table linen in the bottom drawer of the
golden-oak sideboard. She had no notion of tempt-
ing their destruction at her father's hands, and
Ham Griggs had, more than once, threatened to
chuck the silly truck into the fire. As she pushed
back her hair and angrily moored the somewhat
stringy coils into place, with an insufficient number
of hairpins, there was a further distraction in the
ringing of the telephone, and she went to answer
it, thinking hopefully that it was a call which
would take her father away on official business and
thus permit her to resume her interrupted writing.
“Hello!” She shrilled into the transmitter. “Yes,
this is Griggs’ residence. This is Miss Griggs
speaking.”
“Doctor Bushnell speaking, Miss Etta. Can you
tell me where I am likely to find your father?”
She knew Doctor Bushnell was a deputy coroner,
and that his calling usually meant “a case.”
“He’s just got home, doctor. I heard his motor


168 THE BIGAMIST
cycle, but he hasn’t come into the house yet. Has
something happened?”
“Please deliver a message for me to him, Miss
Etta. I have just received a phone call from one
of the servants at Riverview, the Borland place.
A man has been shot, and I am responding at
Once as a physician. The servant was not very
satisfactory in his explanation, but he told me
enough to know that it is a matter which probably
calls for a constable. Tell your father that I
shall see him at Riverview.”
“I’ll tell him right away,” Etta answered, and,
as she returned the receiver to its hook, she heard
her parent entering the house by way of the kitchen
door.
Ham Griggs, a heavy-set, dull-faced man of be-
tween forty and fifty, clumping into the kitchen,
gave one disgusted look at the fireless stove, jerked
off his uniform coat, preparatory to washing his
hands in the sink, and roared a harsh, angry,
“Etty! Etty, you come 'ere!”
Etta came, not meekly, but with a callous indiffer-
ence, knowing full well that the call from Doctor
Bushnell would send him scurrying out of the
house again before he had launched another of his
endless tirades.
“Fawther! Please don’t shout like that. It’s
so common. And, before you wash your hands—”
“This is my house, and you're my gal. I'll
shout when I feel like it. I feel like shoutin’
now; more'n that, Etty Griggs, I feel like turnin'


THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES : 169
you 'cross my knee an’ whalin' you until you feel
like shoutin’ fer help. Where's my supper?”
“Fawther, I want to tell you—”
“No back talk, Etty. You get supper, an’ you
get it quick, and hereafter you—”
“Doctor Bushnell just called, fawther, and he
says—” Ham Griggs had turned on the water
in the sink, and the pipes made such a noise that
she had to raise her voice. “Doctor Bushnell says
there's been some kind of a shooting at Riverview—
the Borland place. He says you're to come right
away.”
The constable swung around, his hands dripping
and his eyes shut to keep himself from being
blinded by soapsuds.
“Gimme the towel!” he ordered. “Gimme it!”
Etta made haste to comply, and her father swabbed
it briskly over his face, leaving a trail of grime.
“What kind of a shootin’, Etty?”
“He didn’t say, and I don’t think he knew much
about it, anyhow. One of the servants called him
up to come out quick as he could. All he said
Was that it looked like a case for you, and that
you’d better get there as soon as you can make it.”
“Mighty right I had l” exclaimed Constable Griggs,
making a dive for his coat. “Seems like the only
crimes we’ve got around here is them rich people
that's got them fine houses. The last one was
that Gilmore woman. And say—this time you
mind your own business an’ don’t be callin' up
no New York newspapers, like you done th’ other


170 THE BIGAMIST
time. I don’t want that wiggly-eared reporter feller
hornin’ in on this case.”
Etta Griggs' eyes flashed, and her mouth tightened
into a thin line.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I wouldn’t
do that horrid Mr. Price a favor for anything—
not for anything in the world!”
As a matter of fact, Etta had asked Wiggly
Price to help along her writing aspirations by
getting her a job on The Star, and his failure
to comply with this request had struck him forever
from her list of friends. Ham Griggs' animosity
toward the detectively inclined newspaper man was
not so much because Wiggly had solved the case,
as for the failure of The Star to print a photograph
which the constable had caused to be made for that
particular purpose.
“There's some soapsuds in your ears, fawther,”
said Etta, as her parent bolted out of the kitchen.
The motor cycle roared into life and shot down
the quiet lane to the main road.
Great as was Ham Griggs’ haste, however, Doc-
tor Bushnell, who had several minutes' start of
him and more than a mile less of distance to come,
had preceded him by the margin of a minute or
so. The latter was at the door, awaiting a re-
sponse to his ringing of the bell, when the con-
stable's motor cycle roared up the drive from the
public highway.
The door was opened by Hedges, the butler, as
Griggs came running up the walk.
“You are the doctor,” said Hedges. “The man


THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES 171
is dead; he was dead very soon after we tele-
phoned. He didn’t have a chance, with a bullet
through his brain.” He saw the light glinting on
the constable's police shield, and his shoulders moved
with an unconscious sigh of resignation. “Oh, yes,
an officer. I suppose you had better come in,
gentlemen.”
“Mighty right we're comin’ in,” grunted Ham
Griggs with that belligerence of manner which he
considered a becoming mark of his authority.
“I am a deputy coroner,” explained Doctor Bush-
nell, “and so my presence here is official as well
as professional.”
He followed the butler within the house, and
the constable was close behind. In the hallway
they passed Elliot Borland, whom the doctor knew
by sight.
“Good evening, doctor. A nasty business we've
got here—a deplorable affair to have happened.
You're too late to do the man any good; he's dead—
dead as a hammer.”
Bushnell took no time with questions at present,
for interrogations could come later. His first duty
was that of a physician, to make certain that the
wounded man was, as they told him, quite dead.
The layman will sometimes mistake a reduced respi-
ration and a flaccid pulse for the total absence
of life.
“Who is it that's dead?” blurted Ham Griggs,
addressing the question to young Borland.
“I do not know,” the latter answered with a
shake of his head.


172 THE BIGAMIST
“What's that?” the constable snapped, his voice
rising sharply with an incredulous inflection.
“You heard me well enough,” Borland retorted.
“I said I don’t know. The man looks like a
bum, and he probably is. I didn’t even hear the
shot fired. Searles is the one for you to talk
With.”
“Who’s Searles?”
“My sister's husband.”
The constable would have asked a hundred more
questions, but his main interest was on the other
side of those curtains. Doctor Bushnell had already
entered the library, and now Griggs followed. The
physician was on the rug, bending over the gruesome
thing stretched beside the table.
“Dead, doc?”
“Yes, Griggs, the man is dead. A wound like
this would make death practically instantaneous.
He might have lived a few minutes, but not more
than that. The bullet crashed through his temple.”
“Sure! Anybody could see that. The big thing
is—who done it? Young Borland says he don’t
know nothin’ about it.” He swung toward Hedges
who stood just within the doorway. “Well, let's
hear what you’ve got to say! Who is this man?”
“I do not know, officer. He is a total stranger,
and he did not give his name when I admitted him
to see Mr. Searles.”
“Oh, I see—he came to see Mr. Searles. You're
sure you don’t know who did the shooting? Let's
hear what you do know.”
“That will be very little,” responded the butler.


THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES 173
“The doorbell rang, and I answered it. You can
imagine how taken aback I was to find such an
unusual person ringing at the front door. I thought
at first it must be some farmer delivering some-
thing or other that had been ordered. He said,
“Searles lives here, doesn’t he? I’ve come to see
him.’ His voice was quiet enough, but the ex-
pression on his face—well, it was alarming. Alarm-
ing is just the word. I was for closing the door
in his face, but he forced his way inside. So what
Was I to do?
“I told Mr. Searles there was a visitor, and I
tried to warn him that the man had come for no
good; but Mr. Searles cut me off short and said
I was to let this person come into the library.
After doing that, I retired immediately to the rear,
where I was in conversation with the second man
when we heard the shot. We came at once and
found the body lying precisely as you see it now.
He was still breathing, but very faintly.”
“And Searles—where was Searles?” barked the
constable.
Hedges answered that apparently after some hesi-
tation. “He was not in the room. He came in
a moment later from the terrace—through the win-
dow.”
“Humph! And where is Searles now?”
“He has gone upstairs for a moment; he said I
was to notify him when the police had come.”
“Well, I'm the police, an I'm here. Tell him
he's wanted down here,” ordered Constable Griggs.
Doctor Bushnell was taking an inventory of the


174 THE BIGAMIST
dead man's pockets. The personal effects were
meager indeed—a few coins, a cheap and much
Soiled handkerchief, and not much of anything else.
“This seems rather strange,” murmured the
physician.
“What's strange?”
“That there's not a scrap of anything that would
help us with an identification, in case no one is
able to tell us who the man is.”
“Looks to me,” grunted the constable, “young
Borland about hit it when he called him a bum.”
“A bum, eh?” retorted Bushnell. “Evidently you
haven't observed his hands. They tell a story of
hard work—the hardest kind of work. He did
need a shave badly, and his clothing is shabby,
but he certainly is not a bum. It would be my
guess that he is a man of the soil. A very queer
sort of visitor for this house, wouldn’t you say?”
Constable Griggs made no response. At this m0-
ment the curtains parted, and Searles came slowly
into the room. His face was pale and strained,
but he had steeled himself to an outward show of
calmness, although it might have been noted that
his eyes avoided Calvin Oakes' body upon the floor.
Bushnell forestalled Ham Griggs in the matter
of interrogation, much to the latter's pique.
“You are Mr. Searles?”
“Yes, that's right. You want to ask me what I
Know about this tragedy. You are the coroner as
well as a physician, the butler tells me.”
“Perhaps it will save time, Mr. Searles, for you
to give an account of what happened, and later, if


THE CONSTABLE ARRIVES 175
necessary, I will put questions. We have yet to
find out who the man is, and why—”
“I’ll tell you all I know about it, but I'm afraid
it won’t be much help in getting the guilty man—
the man who fired the shot. I came into the
library here after dinner, and I was here when
the butler came and told me that a man was call-
ing who asked to see me. I took it for granted
that it was some one else, and I instructed Hedges
that he was to admit the visitor.
“Then this fellow”—gesturing toward the body—
“came bursting in on me, looking and acting like
a lunatic. I admit I was frightened—badly fright-
ened, for his manner was so threatening—”
“Who is he, anyhow?” interrupted the constable.
“Why don't you tell us that? What's his name?
What did he come here to see you about?”
Searles' mouth twitched slightly, and his hands
seemed to clench more tightly shut. He drew a
long breath before he answered.
“Gentlemen,” he said slowly, “I don’t know who
the man is any more than you do. I never saw
him before to-night. I do not know who he is,
or why he came here.”


CHAPTER XVII
DOCTOR BUSHNELL DECIDES
HE constable received this statement with ex-
plosive skepticism; but Searles, without know-
ing exactly why, was concerned with convincing
the doctor. His eyes met the calmly probing stare
of the physician, and he managed, with tremendous
effort, to keep his own gaze unwavering.
“Permit Mr. Searles to tell his own story in his
own way,” said Bushnell. “He can be questioned
later. Proceed!”
Searles had been told often enough that he was
a poor liar, but extreme desperation gave his
tongue a certain glib plausibility.
“It all happened very quickly,” he went on.
“This stranger, this man I had never seen before,
burst in upon me, shouting an incoherent some-
thing, a senseless jargon of words.”
“Did he address you as Searles?” the doctor
asked the question.
“Y-yes, I believe he did. I was so confused that
I cannot be positive; but I think he did. He made
a grab for my throat. Perhaps you can see the
marks of his fingers on my collar.”
“I had already noted that,” replied the doctor;
“also, that his finger nails bit into the flesh of
your neck.”


178 THE BIGAMIST
I got up and stepped to the window. I saw very
distinctly a man running through the moonlight. He
was, as Searles suggests, screening himself in the
shrubbery, and then the chap vaulted over one of
the stone parapets.”
Searles gave Borland a look of surprised gratitude
and expelled an audible sigh of relief.
“Naturally,” sneered Ham Griggs, “he'd rig up
a story to protect his brother-in-law. I don't take
no stock in it.”
“I can’t very well force you to believe it,” said
Borland, with a mirthless smile. “Nevertheless, it
is true.”
“Can you give us any sort of a description?” It
was Doctor Bushnell who asked the question.
“None that will be of much assistance, doctor.
The chap was little more than a silhouette, and the
moonlight is very deceptive. This much I can tell
you—the man wore a cap, and he was, I think,
rather slight of build.”
“Might have been Searles he seen, if he did see
anybody,” grunted the constable.
“Not a bit of it,” retorted Borland. “Searles is
wearing a dinner coat, and I most certainly would
have noted the white of his shirt bosom.”
“Isn’t it a little strange, Mr. Borland,” the doctor
said pointedly, “that you should have seen a man
running away from the house in such an obviously
suspicious fashion and not have investigated it?”
Elliot Borland shrugged his shoulders. “What's
strange about it?” he retorted. “It simply didn't
occur to me that it was anything to get excited


DOCTOR BUSHNELL DECIDES 179
about. Perhaps I should have mentioned it to some
one. Anyhow, I was in my lounging robe, and I
didn’t feel like going to any fuss.”
Some one came running down the stairs, and
Hedges, who was standing beside the doorway,
thrust his head through the curtains. It was Julie,
Elizabeth Searles’ maid, and her face was White.
“My—my mistress!” she panted. “I—I have just
found her—in her bathroom. She-she is—”
“My God! not dead?” cried the butler.
“I—I am not sure,” Julie answered hysterically.
“She is as cold as ice, but I can’t be sure. There's
a broken bottle, and I think she may have taken
something to—” Her voice broke off in a Wail-
ing sob.
“Doctor!” Hedges called tensely. “Will you get
upstairs quickly and see Mrs. Searles? The maid
says—”
“Yes, I heard what she said,” broke in Doctor
Bushnell, striding forward, while Searles and Bor-
land, even the constable, stood in transfixed bewil-
derment.
It dawned upon the confused Ham Griggs that a
new complication had thrust itself into an already
mysterious situation. The maid’s suspicion, while
not put into complete words, was clear. It was her
notion that Mrs. Searles had poisoned herself.
The physician was halfway up the stairs before
Griggs recovered himself sufficiently to follow, and
Searles, after a moment of hesitation, trailed after
them.


180 THE BIGAMIST
“Are you coming with us, Borland?” he asked,
pausing.
“Neither of us can do any good up there, can we?
And the maid's an excited little fool. Elizabeth
hasn’t taken poison. She isn’t the sort who would
do that.”
“But she may be—”
“She needs the doctor, not the family, Searles.
I'll stay here; if I’m needed, call me.”
There was a private bath off of Elizabeth Searles’
bedroom, and here it was, directed by the sobbing
Julie, that Doctor Bushnell found her, lying in a
crumpled heap on the tiled floor. There was blood
on her hand, but this was from a superficial cut,
where her fingers had crushed against the broken
fragments of a three-ounce bottle. The blood had
congealed, proof enough that she must have lain
here for some little time—possibly for half an hour.
“Is she dead, doc?” This from the constable.
“This is no place to conduct an examination,”
Bushnell said curtly, as he lifted her in his arms
and carried her out into the bedroom. “I think
she is alive.”
“My wife, I had better tell you,” Searles ex-
plained, “is subject to heart seizures, and that may
be the explanation of her present condition.”
“Mental stress brings on these attacks?” the phy-
sician asked.
“Yes. I am sure the maid's conclusion that she
might have taken poison—”
“So am I, Searles. The cork had not been re-
moved from the broken bottle.” He reached into his


DOCTOR BUSHNELL DECIDES 181
pocket for the compact leather case containing his
stethoscope and proceeded to listen to Elizabeth’s
heart action, which was a faint and irregular flutter,
and it told him that her condition was extremely
grave.
“I shall inject a heart stimulant, Mr. Searles; but
the thing to do is to summon her regular physician
at once. He must be familiar with her case. How-
ever I shall remain with her until he arrives. No,
do not use the phone in here; even when she is un-
conscious; it is advisable that the room be kept
absolutely quiet. The subconscious mind is more
responsive to sounds than you might suspect. You
may as well wait downstairs. I shall call you if
you are needed.”
Searles passed into the hall, closing the door softly
behind him. In the room with the stricken woman
were the physician, the constable, and Julie. The
latter looked questioningly at the doctor.
“Shall I remain?” she asked.
“Yes, you had better stay. After she has re-
sponded to the stimulant, I shall want you to remove
her clothes. And tell me, do you know of anything
that happened to your mistress which would account
for this attack?”
“N-no, sir. I met her on the stairs shortly after
dinner. She had been to her room and was going
down again. She seemed all right then.”
“How long after you saw her going downstairs
was the shot fired?” Bushnell asked in a subdued
tone.
“I did not know there had been a-a shot—that is,


182 THE BIGAMIST
doctor, I knew nothing about it until a few minutes
ago when Hedges told me. I was in the linen room
On the third floor.”
“Guess I’ll clear out, doc,” said Griggs in a gruff
whisper. “Ain’t doin’ no good here, and, like as not,
I can learn somethin' by talkin' to the servants.
Naturally, if the butler feller knowed anything agin'
Searles, he wasn’t goin’ to say so when Searles was
in earshot. Wouldn’t be surprised that he'll loosen
up a lot when I get him alone and pin him down.”
Bushnell, having reason to doubt Ham Griggs’
ability as a detective, feared the constable would do
more harm than good; the doctor even doubted his
own capacity to meet the situation, and he had no
intention of permitting Griggs to blunder about and
probably make a mess of things.
“Wait a little while,” he advised. “I feel that
we'll accomplish more if we talk things over. This
is no simple matter we are dealing with.”
“Simple enough to me,” grunted the constable.
“I ain’t swallerin’ that yarn about the shot bein’
fired through them windows downstairs. Searles is
lyin', and Borland is lyin'. Anybody with a grain
of sense—”
“Not so loud, constable. We'll discuss it in a few
minutes.”
It was some minutes before Elizabeth Searles’
heart responded to Bushnell's treatment, and her
condition left much to be desired. Presently, how-
ever, he considered it safe to leave her for a few
moments and, after murmuring instructions to the
maid, motioned Ham Griggs to the bathroom, where,


DOCTOR BUSHNELL DECIDES 183
with the door closed, they could talk with some de-
gree of privacy.
“Searles done this killin’,” burst out the constable;
“and, more'n that, he knows who the dead man is.”
“And you would advise?” Doctor Bushnell asked.
“Arrestin him right away,” Griggs answered
promptly.
The physician shook his head slowly, a meditative
frown creasing between his eyes, as he absently fin-
gered his watch chain.
“No, constable, I am not in favor of that—not
until we have more evidence. While Borland's story
about seeing a man cut across the lawn and leap
down the terrace may be open to suspicion, still it
must stand until we can disprove it. We can’t very
well charge Searles with murder until we have
estabished a motive.”
“Don’t he admit that the fellow he killed came
rushing in at him? Ain’t there marks on his throat
where the dead man's fingers tried to choke him?”
retorted the other. “There's motive enough for any-
body.”
“Yes, quite so,” replied the doctor; “and that is
one of the things I find very puzzling. If what
Searles says is true, he certainly was justified in
firing that shot as a matter of self-defense. In that
case, Griggs, it would have been ridiculous for him
to have concocted this story he has told us about a
mysterious shot through the window. There were
the marks on his throat; there were no witnesses to
deny that it was self-defense; any coroner's jury on
earth will refuse to hold him criminally responsible.


184 THE BIGAMIST
He says he was unarmed, and, unless we establish
his ownership of a weapon—”
“Guess he had plenty of time to do away with the
gun,” grunted the constable.
“Unless we establish his ownership of a weapon,
went on Bushnell, “there is no way we can disprove
his statement. Admitting he might have had a re-
volver, the really important thing is to dicover the
dead man’s identity. We cannot hope to establish
motives until we have cleared that up, and the solu-
tion, I think, hinges upon it.
“It is somewhat strange, constable, that there
should have been absolutely nothing on the dead
man's person to tell us who he is.”
“Meanin' just what, doc?”
“I would not be greatly surprised if it turned
out that things had been taken from his pockets for
the very purpose of concealing his identity.”
“You’ve hit the nail square on the head!” Griggs
exclaimed in hearty agreement. “Our job is to find
the gun and the stuff that was taken from the fel-
low's pockets. We'll have the goods on Searles in
no time.”
“Not so fast, constable. There's something else.
Doesn’t it occur to you that there is a connection
between the shooting and Mrs. Searles’ condition?”
“Connection?”
“It would be little short of murder to question the
woman when her life hangs by little more than a
thread; but I am satisfied that she could tell us a
good deal about this business. The maid saw her
going downstairs after dinner, and I am guessing
99


DOCTOR BUSHNELL DECIDES 185
that she was downstairs when the shooting took
place. It's even possible that she did the shooting
to save her husband's life. It is natural that a
husband should try to shield his wife from the
stigma of manslaughter—for it would not be mur-
der if she did it to save Searles—especially if an
ordeal of this kind is apt to prove fatal to a woman
in her condition.
“This label, which I have removed from the
pieces of the broken bottle, tells us that it is for
just such heart attacks as the one that has now
seized her. She went to the medicine chest here,
but collapsed before she could take it.”
“Aw, you’re only guessin’,” the constable said
dubiously.
“Yes,” admitted Doctor Bushnell, “I suppose that's
all it amounts to—guessing. And the Gilmore trag-
edy of a year ago was pretty good evidence that
both you and I can guess very badly.”
Perhaps Ham Griggs anticipated what was in the
other's mind, for he glowered resentfully.
“Yes,” went on the doctor, “we not only guessed
badly, but we were most obstinate about it. The
whole trouble was that we haven’t the qualifications
for detective work. A man must have a flair for
that, and I am thinking the wisest thing for us to do
is—”
“Aw, there ain't no mystery in this case, like there
was in the Gilmore shootin’,” protested the con-
stable. “All we got to do is find out who the dead
man is, and after that—”
“Oh, it’s a bigger job than you would think, and


CHAPTER XVIII
C L E W P L U S C L E W
IKE the postman who spends his vacation taking
a hiking trip, Wiggly Price, who was constantly
saying that he hoped a kindly fate would arrange
his life in such a manner that he would never have
to see the inside of a newspaper office for the rest
of his days, seldom missed a night of his two-week
leave of absence in dropping around to The Morning
Star and loafing about the city room. The good
newspaper man is always reviling his profession;
but, because it is born in him, makes no effort to
escape it. He does not hate his job as he so often
and noisily complains; perhaps what he really hates
is his helplessness in loving it.
Wiggly Price prowled about the big, busy room,
like a homeless cat. It was nearing press time for
the first edition; telephones jangled; the copy desk
manipulated agile pencils; copy boys scuttled here
and there; a rewrite man speeded his practiced fin-
gers over the keyboard of his typewriter, putting into
terse, readable prose the account of a tenement holo-
caust in Brooklyn; a cub reporter burst in from his
assignment with visions of a story on the first page,
and which might get a one-line head at the bottom
of page eight, and which might not be printed at all.
The acrimonious voice of Scoggins, the city editor,


188 THE BIGAMIST
penetrated the din with its piercing, sharp edge.
Price felt like a varsity player on the side lines and
tingled to be back in the game.
“Hey, Wiggly l” It was the voice of Milne, from
the city desk, and Price thought a big story might
be breaking, and that he was about to be pressed
into emergency service. While he would grumble
sourly about it being a swell nerve, asking a man
to work when he was on his vacation, he secretly
hoped that it did mean an assignment. It was al-
ways pretty dull business to do nothing.
“Call for you on the phone, Price. Operator's
switching you over to the booth.”
A reporter who has been in the game for any
length of time always has friends ringing him up
with a news tip. When Jimmy Price went into
the telephone booth and took down the receiver, it
was at once clear why he had been nicknamed
“Wiggly.” He possessed a pair of animated ears
which, in moments of sudden interest or excitement,
had a most amazing habit of agitating themselves.
“Hello, Price, this is Doctor Bushnell, out at Ard-
more. The Gilmore murder case—you may remem-
ber. Constable Griggs and I have another mystery
on our hands, and we would like to have you come
out.”
“As good as the Gilmore affair, doctor?” Price
asked eagerly. “Tell me about it.” His pencil
leaped from his pocket and hovered over the scratch-
paper pad, ready to scribble down names and notes,
and his ears twitched.
“I’m not so sure how good a case it is from a


190 THE BIGAMIST
written to Milne, Scoggins assistant. “Friend of
mine, deputy coroner I met on the Gilmore case,
called me up and gave me the tip. There's a chance
it may develop into a corking good story.”
“Thanks, Wiggly,” grunted Milne. “I’ll send a
man out on it.” His eyes roved down the length of
the city room, picking out an idle reporter for the
assignment.
“No, you don't, Milne! I'm going out on this
story myself.”
“Thought you were enjoying a two-week vaca-
tion. You're a funny bird, spending your time off
mooning around the office and looking for a chance
to Work.”
“Makes no difference—vacation or not—I want to
cover this story. If you don’t assign me, I’ll go out
on my own.”
“Oh, I see,” laughed the assistant city editor, look-
ing over the sheet of copy the other had turned in.
“Chance to do a little detective work, eh? All right,
hop to it, you old Sherlock!”
Price dashed toward the elevators, was carried
downstairs, and ran up Park Row toward the sub-
Way station, for there was no time to spare. A
Lexington Avenue train landed him at Grand Cen-
tral Station with less than five minutes to spare,
and when he had purchased his ticket he had barely
got through the gate and aboard the train when he
Was on his way.
He arrived at Tarrytown after midnight, and it
was nearing one o'clock when the taxi brought him
to Riverview. The upper floors of the big house were


CLEW PLUS CLEW 191
in darkness, but there were lights burning down-
stairs, and when the newspaperman rang the bell it
was Doctor Bushnell who admitted him.
“Hello, Price,” the physician said, shaking hands
warmly. “I certainly am glad you're here. We're
destitute of local detective talent, and if you can
get to the bottom of this matter, I'll be no end
obliged. Constable Griggs, I'm afraid, does not take
very kindly to your presence; but you’re not to let
that bother you. I am in authority here, and I am
going to give you free rein. Come on inside.”
“Better not have too much confidence in me,
doctor. I think there must have been a generous
element of luck to help me in the Gilmore case.”
“Not at all, Price. Your eyes and your mind were
sharper than ours, and you had the tenacity to stick
to your theory in the face of our ridicule. I'm afraid
I treated you very shabbily, but the case against
Haskins did seem so obvious that—”
“No apologies necessary, doctor. A newspaper
reporter expects rebuffs,” said Wiggly, with a good-
natured grin. “That's part of his job. Anything
new since our talk over the phone?”
“The situation remains exactly the same,” an-
swered Bushnell, as he led the way into a room
across the hall from the library. “Mrs. Searles is too
ill for questions. She is a very sick woman, and
the family physician is with her now. When she
revived from her faint she muttered an incoherent
something that convinces me that I was right in my
guess that she knows something about the shooting.
Her Words were indistinct and disconnected; but,


192 THE BIGAMIST
unless I let my imagination play me a trick, I caught
a syllable or two that proves to me she had knowl-
edge of what happened.”
“Then one theory is that Mrs. Searles fired the
shot?” asked Price.
“If you can dignify it as a theory. In that case,
her husband is trying to protect her. Otherwise she
knows Searles did the shooting and is shielding him.
Still, that's very strange.”
“Yes?”
“There is no question that the man now dead
came to the house for some definite purpose, and,
if accounts are to be believed, for no friendly pur-
pose. The butler was alarmed and reluctant to
admit him. Searles says the fellow got him by the
throat, and there are marks on Searles' flesh to
verify that. He had the best of reasons to shoot–
to save himself. So, the strange part of it to me is,
that Searles should feel it necessary to tell us a
trumped-up story.”
“Oh, I don’t know about it being so strange, doc-
tor. It's not a nice thing to go through the rest of
one's life having people think you’ve taken a human
life, no matter how excusable the provocation. I
can understand a man trying to avoid that stigma.”
“Yes, that's true,” Bushnell agreed, “but I am
convinced we'll never get Searles to admit that he
fired the shot unless we get something incriminating
to face him. With.”
“How does he act?” Price Wanted to know.
“Nervous, of course, which may mean nothing.
He gives me the impression of fighting for self-


CLEW PLUS CLEW 193
control. His hands, I noticed, were tightly clenched
most of the time, and underneath an outward calm I
feel that he is a much frightened man.”
“As I see it,” said Wiggly, “the immediate job is
to identify the dead man. No clews?”
“He refused to give his name to the butler, and
Searles sticks to it that he never saw the man before
to-night. I find it more than a little difficult to be-
lieve that. I also find it hard to believe that the
dead man was followed by this unknown and per-
haps mythical person, who, according to Searles, did
the shooting. Elliot Borland comes to his brother-
in-law's rescue with a tale about seeing a man who
wore a cap—his attempt at a description begins and
ends with that—cutting across the lawn and disap-
pearing down the terrace. Yet Borland says he was
taking a nap upstairs and did not hear the explosion
of the pistol, if it was a pistol. Again, Borland
made no effort whatever to investigate the suspicious
circumstance of a man running away from the
house. Sounds pretty thin to me.”
“All things are possible, doctor, and, while more
often than otherwise the obvious is true, we mustn't
allow ourselves to accept the obvious uncondition-
ally.”
“Exactly!” Bushnell agreed warmly. “Your re-
fusal to accept the obvious accounted for your solv-
ing the Gilmore case.”
“Where is the dead man?” Price inquired.
The physician snapped on the lights within the
r00m and pointed to the sofa, where Calvin Oakes’


194 THE BIGAMIST
stiffening body had been placed, covered with a
sheet.
“We carried him in here on account of the couch,”
he explained. “The shooting happened in the
library, across the hall. Constable Griggs is in there
now, looking for evidence. He's determined to put
one over on you this time.”
“There's certainly one thing can be said for
Griggs; he's no coward,” declared Price. “I shall
never forget the way he went up the stairs after
Haskins. Gosh, but that was a thrill!” He sighed
reminiscently. “If I could stay in the newspaper
game another hundred years I don’t suppose I’d ever
come across a case that had all the thrills of the
Gilmore affair.”
Doctor Bushnell withdrew the sheet from Calvin
Oakes’ form, and Wiggly suppressed an exclamation
of amazement.
“You—you know the man?” the doctor demanded
incredulously.
“No, I don’t know him. But what a giant of a
man! Look at his hands! And did you ever see
such a rugged face? It takes a rigorous life to
breed a type like that.”
“He is a man who has known hard work—the
hardest kind of work,” said Bushnell. “What would
you say had been his occupation?”
“Farming, without a doubt. Those are his work-
ing clothes, and he milked cows in those shoes.”
“Yes?” Bushnell murmured questioningly. “How
do you know that, Price?”
“Oh, I know those stains. I’ve milked cows my-


CLEW PLUS CLEW 195
self. Not a thing in his pockets to give some hint
as to his identity, or where he came from?”
“Not a blessed thing; in fact, his pockets were so
barren that it occurs to me several articles must
have been removed to prevent finding out who he is.”
Wiggly Price examined the label on the breast
pocket of the coat. “Boston manufacturer,” he said.
“It would be reasonably safe to guess the man’s a
New Englander. He's got the New England face.”
“Is there really any such thing?” Bushnell ob-
jected doubtfully. “Isn’t it the Boston label that
has rushed you to the New England conclusions?
Wouldn’t a man who had led a rugged life in any
section of the country be liable to have such a face?”
“Well, I'm not so sure about that, doctor, but I’d
be willing to lay a wager that he's a New Englander.
What part of the country is Searles from?”
“I can’t answer that. I knew very little about
Searles. He is a lawyer in New York, associated
with Platt, Hornaday & Platt, one of the biggest law
firms in the city. He was married to Miss Elizabeth
Borland only a few weeks ago, and I suppose the
general impression is that he married her for her
money. She is not a physically attractive woman.
“Oh, there’s no need to do that, Price. I have re-
moved the articles his clothing contained and have
them here, wrapped in a handkerchief.” Wiggly
had begun an examination of the dead man’s
pockets.
“I’ll have a look, too, if you don’t mind. All
sorts of queer things stray into the bottoms of a
man's pockets. I was reading the other day where


196 THE BIGAMIST
Professor Lombard, a scientific criminal investigator
in France, solved a baffling crime by analyzing the
dust on a suspect's coat. I can’t expect to cut
things that fine, but there might be something—”
His voice trailed off, as he turned out the inside of
one pocket and let the accumulated dust trickle into
his palm.
“That won't tell you anything, Price,” said Bush-
nell, with perhaps a trace of amusement.
“You’d better look a little closer, doctor!” Wiggly
exclaimed tensely, his ears twitching, as he t00k
out his lead pencil and raked the point through the
shallow pile. “These larger particles, see? Know
what they are?”
“Look like dried fragments of pine needles to
me,” the physician said, remaining unmoved. “How
can that mean anything?”
“It means this man came from the pine country.”
“Oh, bosh, Price!” Bushnell broke in somewhat
impatiently. “You’re letting yourself be carried
away by inconsequentials. You can surely put your
powers of observation to more important use than
that. There are pine trees, plenty of 'em, right here
in Westchester County.” The doctor felt that the
newspaper man was taking himself much too seri-
ously, which is always a dangerous fault.
But Wiggly Price was merely enthusiastic. Dust-
ing off his hands, he took out his handkerchief,
moistened it with his tongue, and drew it across the
dead man’s neck. Then he held it up for inspection,
revealing a streak of grime dotted with black parti-
cles of grit.


CLEW PLUS CLEW 197
“You’ve taken enough train journeys, Doctor
Bushnell, to know what that means. This man came
a considerable distance by rail. True, there are pine
trees in Westchester County, but since when do
Westchester County farmers wear lumberjack
shirts? No, shirts like the one he wears belong to
the timber country, where, even in summer, the
weather is cool. A man would roast here in one
of 'em.”
“There's something in that, I suppose,” Bushnell
had to admit; “but all this, good as your deductions
may be, don’t get us any nearer a solution of the
man's identity.”
“It may help; at least we are trying to overlook
nothing. And for the sake of being thorough, may I
have a look at the dead man’s hat?”
“By George, that’s something that had slipped past
me. I haven’t seen his hat. I am positive it wasn't
in the library. The fellow must have had a hat.
It is strange where it’s disappeared to.”
“Perhaps it isn’t so strange,” retorted Price, his
ears in motion again. “Sometimes the retailer's
name is stamped upon the band; it is not infrequent
for the owner's initials to be stenciled there, or even
the owner’s full name. That could account for it
being missing.”
They began a search for the hat, but failed to find
it. In the course of the hunt they went into the
library, where they expected to find Griggs, but the
constable was not there.
“Prowling around the house somewhere looking
for clews,” said the doctor With a faint Smile. “At


198 THE BIGAMIST
least, he is industrious. What would you suggest as
our next move?”
“Where is Mr. Searles?”
“I think he has retired for the night.”
“Suppose we call him downstairs to see what we
can get out of him.”
“Don’t think it will do any good, Price, but I am
willing for you to have a try at it. Until we’ve got
something to face him with we'll never get him to
talk.”


CHAPTER XIX
EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS
ITH the door of his bedroom locked, Searles
abandoned his forced calm and surrendered to
hopelessness and despair. In the next room, he
knew, was Elizabeth, her life hanging by a slender
thread; but he was not thinking of her. His mind
was crowded with his own jumbled problems. He
had no illusions about his predicament; he knew
that neither the deputy coroner nor the constable
believed his story about the shot fired through the
French windows, and that the slightest slip of the
tongue, the wrong move on his part, would bring
about his arrest as Calvin Oakes slayer.
He began to realize, as Hedges, the butler, had
advised him, that it might have been wiser to have
admitted responsibility for Calvin’s death, and to
have pleaded self-defense. There were no witnesses,
and the marks of Calvin's fingers upon his throat
bore mute testimony to corroborate that version of
it. Furthermore, he could not reveal Calvin’s iden-
tity without letting it out why Calvin had tried to
kill him. Even were he acquitted of the shooting,
there remained the charge of bigamy.
Although he had taken refuge behind a tissue of
lies, he had little faith, now that he thought things
over, in their protection. The machinery of the law


200 THE BIGAMIST
would not rest until Calvin was identified. The
newspapers would print an account of the tragedy,
and that meant danger. It was even possible that
Dora, who read the paper, would come across it.
Dora—poor Dora! What an accumulation of un-
deserved sorrow, and how horrible an awakening
from her trusting dreams. An illegal marriage; the
man she had thought her husband charged with the
slaying of her brother; a double blow, either of
which would crush her utterly.
Searles slumped down into a chair, where he sat
listlessly, his brain having raced itself weary with
futile speculation. Presently there came a rap at
the door, and his nerves jerked taut; again he
steeled himself for an ordeal, but only with the most
tremendous effort. Perhaps those fellows downstairs
had found some sort of evidence. It was hard to
tell. Getting very deliberately to his feet, he crossed
the room, unlocked the door and opened it. Doctor
Bushnell faced him from across the threshold.
“Oh, I see you haven’t retired,” said the latter.
“That is convenient, for I should like you to come
downstairs again.”
“Very well, doctor,” Searles assented.
With no more comment than that, he stepped out
into the hall and followed Bushnell downstairs into
the library, where Wiggly Price was waiting. At
this moment, however, Ham Griggs strode into the
room from the terrace by way of the French win-
dows and glared resentfully at the newspaper man,
who smiled genially.


EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS 201
“Hello, Constable Griggs. Here we are all to-
gether again,” said Price and offered to shake hands.
Griggs responded only with a growl; his search
for evidence, judging from his cheerless and dis-
couraged expression, had not been successful.
“Where's the doc?” he inquired.
“He’s just gone upstairs to get Searles. I think
they're coming now,” Price answered and turned
toward the doorway, eager for a first look at the
suspected slayer.
Searles, following Bushnell into the library, cast
an inquiring glance at the newcomer. There was
something about the latter's lean face and searching
gray eyes which disturbed him and placed him on
the defensive.
“Sit down, Mr. Searles,” said Price, as the doctor
told him with a gesture that he might proceed as he
saw fit. “The chair beside the reading lamp, please.”
He had observed more than once that a man’s mind
is not so alert with his body in complete repose, and
the chair he indicated was an overstuffed affair with
a low seat and a slightly reclining back. Searles,
however, differently interpreted the purpose of it.
“Yes, I understand,” he replied. “There is where
I was sitting when—when the shot was fired. Is it
necessary for me to go through that again?”
“Perhaps I forgot to tell you, Price,” explained
the doctor, “that Mr. Searles, for the benefit of the
constable and myself, illustrated the positions which
he and the dead man occupied at the moment of the
tragedy. I may add that the mechanics of the ar-
rangement coincide with the angle of bullet penetra-


EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS 203
Some very particular reason for not wanting the
dead man's identity discovered. Do you deny that?”
“I do,” came the firm reply. “I never saw him
before to-night, and I do not know why he came
here. I think he must have been insane.”
“But he must have known you, Searles. He asked
for you by name when the butler admitted him.”
“Yes, I know, but, as I have told you, I never
Saw the man before.”
“You are not a native of New York, are you?”
“No.”
“New Englander, Mr. Searles?”
“Yes,” came the answer after the barest pause,
accompanied by another slight twitch of the fingers.
“There are a good many pine trees in the part of
the country of which you are a native.” Price saw,
as he had expected, that these questions were having
a disturbing effect upon the suspect.
“Yes, there are pines in my country,” the witness
responded. “But I fail to understand—”
“What State, Mr. Searles?”
“New Hampshire.”
It would have been extremely stupid for him to
have denied that. This human ferret had discovered .
something; of that he was certain. Why did he
ask such apparently foolish questions about pine
trees? Price's ears were twitching, and their
astounding agility fascinated Searles, as they fre-
quently fascinated so many people who noticed this
peculiarity for the first time.
“The northern part of New Hampshire?” the re-
porter detective pressed on. “Isn't that correct?”


204 THE BIGAMIST
“I have been away from there a long time, eleven
years, in fact,” Searles evaded. “I am the last of
my family, so there are no longer any ties. I am en-
tirely willing to answer your questions, but I can
hardly understand what connection you are trying
to make.”
While he maintained his bluff, he had a heavy,
lost feeling that the end was close. He thought he
knew why this human ferret, with the penetrating
gray eyes, was questioning him about his native
habitat; in some way they had associated Calvin
with New England and pine trees.
Frantically he tried to plan his next move; per-
haps he could ward off arrest long enough to
escape. Flight! Yes, he told himself that was his
only chance, and he repressed the impulse to leap
to his feet and make a dash for the French windows.
Swiftly he took stock of the situation, realizing
how comparatively simple a matter it would be for
them to identify Calvin now. A telegram sent back
home would not be long in bringing the information
that the man described in the message was Calvin
Oakes. He knew what the next question would be,
and, in anticipation of it, he thought of something
which might mislead the investigation. The ques-
tion came, as he expected.
“What is the name of the town you came from?”
asked Price, with the elated knowledge that he was
on a hot trail, a very hot trail.
“Berlin, New Hampshire,” lied Searles, and his
answer came so promptly that it did not occur to
the others that it was a crafty falsehood. Berlin


EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS 205
was on the far side of the mountains from Mount
Whittier, a sawmill town of thriving proportions.
They wouldn’t get any satisfaction by making in-
quiries there.
Wiggly Price was doubly triumphant, for he knew
that Berlin was a lumbering town, and the fact that
the slain man wore a lumberjack shirt made it
credible that the victim was from this very locality.
“Now, Searles,” the newspaper man went on
briskly, a sterner edge creeping into his voice, “we
are going to get somewhere in this matter. We have
felt from the first that you were concealing this
man's identity, and now I am positive of it. Your
effort, as you’ve doubtless got sense enough to see
for yourself, is quite useless. He is from your part
of the country, and you knew him back home. He
came here for some reason which we have yet to
learn. Perhaps you knew he was to come and were
prepared for possible emergency. Anyhow, you
shot him and, very probably, in self-defense. Do
you want to make a clean breast of the whole busi-
ness, or will you put us to the necessity of tele-
graphing the proper officials in Berlin? Why not
give us the truth now?”
“I have no change to make in my original state-
ment,” Searles replied, amazed at his own outward
coolness, so at variance with his inward panic and
trembling terror. “Of course you must telegraph;
it's your duty to sift out all the facts. If the man
was ever in Berlin, I never saw him there.” Which
Was a half truth; so far as he knew, Calvin Oakes
had never been to Berlin in his life.


206 THE BIGAMIST
“And, until the answer is wired back,” spoke up
Constable Griggs who, for a wonder, had remained
silent during all this time, “I’ll just put Mr. Searles
in jail, where we can keep an eye on him.”
Searles had expected that, and, while it horrified
him, he offered no explosive protest. This very sub-
missiveness created a favorable impression with the
doctor, for, according to Bushnell's observations, it
is the guilty man who is the most emphatic in his
protests of innocence.
“It will be much to your advantage, Searles,” the
doctor said, “to tell the truth of your own accord.
As I have told you previously, justifiable homicide
is not to be confused with murder. Hedges, the
butler, tells a straight story about admitting the
fellow to the house, and I honestly believe your life
was threatened. If you plead self-defense, there is
no jury that will convict you.”
Searles seemed to waver, as he sat, drumming the
tips of his fingers together; his lips moved in a
syllable or two and then his mouth closed again.
“I did not kill him!” he declared, his voice rising
to almost a shout. “I didn’t do it!”
“Searles, either you are a fool, or you are protect-
ing the person who fired that shot!”
“Just whom would I be protecting?”
“Your wife, of course.”
By a peculiar momentary mental lapse the words
“your wife” made Searles think of Dora. For an
instant or two it didn’t occur to him that it was
Elizabeth to whom the doctor referred, and his
mouth sagged open in a half-terrified, half-surprised


EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS 207
expression which convinced Bushnell that he had
struck the nail squarely on the head.
“Ah!” the physician exclaimed triumphantly.
“That got under your skin, didn’t it?” He lost no
time in pressing this theory. “This sort of chivalry
may get you into an immense lot of trouble, Searles,
and the truth is always best—always. We'll keep
at it until we discover who the dead man is, and
When we find that out, it won't take us very long to
know why he came, or why he wanted to choke the
life out of you.”
“What makes you so certain, doctor, that I am
protecting somebody?” Searles asked curiously.
“Because if you fired the shot you'd admit it, as a
sensible man should, plead self-defense, and leave
off trying to hoodwink us with a story about some
mysterious person who doesn’t exist. Again, Searles,
because your wife's present condition is due to
some tremendous mental shock; third, because of
your brother-in-law’s eagerness to have us believe
that he saw this mythical murderer in flight. Either
you cooked that up between you, or he dipped in
an oar on his own hook to help you out. You are
trying to save Mrs. Searles from an unpleasant
situation.” The doctor bent forward, whipped out
a questioning forefinger, and fastened Searles’ gaze
With his own. “Isn’t that the truth?”
“Good Lord!” gasped Searles. “You mean you
think she did it! No, you're wrong—dead wrong
about that!”
“She heard you having words, saw your life was
in danger, and did what any normal person—”


208 THE BIGAMIST
“No, Doctor Bushnell,” Searles insisted, “you're
Wrong, quite wrong. Mrs. Searles was upstairs.
She retired to her room immediately after dinner.
She—”
“Ah, but she came downstairs again. I have the
maid’s word for that.”
“If she did, doctor, I know nothing about it.”
Bushnell gestured hopelessly with his hands and
gave it up as a bad job. At this, Constable Griggs
took an eager step forward and from his pocket
came the clink of metal, as he reached for his hand-
cuffs.
“Don’t be a fool, Griggs!” snapped the doctor.
“Mr. Searles is going back upstairs for the night.
I'm not in favor of arresting people just for the
sake of doing something. We had enough of that
in the Gilmore case, you may remember. Don’t you
agree with me, Price?”
But Wiggly Price shrugged his shoulders and
made no comment. Searles got slowly to his feet
with a sigh of relief that he was spared spending
the remainder of the night in jail.
“Thank you, Doctor Bushnell,” he murmured,
with a wan twist of the lips which was meant to be
a smile.
When he had disappeared into the hall, and his
dragging footsteps were heard ascending the stairs,
the physician turned to the reporter-detective.
“I can’t say that you were overenthusiastic in
your agreement with me—about arresting him, I
mean.”
“Oh, that! I don’t think it matters much one


EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS 209
way or the other. There's very little chance of his
running away.”
“Good Lord, Price! I believe you agree with
Griggs that it was Searles who killed the man.”
Wiggly’s ears danced a brief jig at the sides of
his head, as he reached into his pocket for a ciga-
Tette.
“I’m not going to let myself form any definite
opinions until we’ve sent a telegram to that town
in New Hampshire and have had an answer. There
were two or three moments when I had the feeling
he was telling the truth; but, as a whole, I con-
sider his story a lie.”
“He didn’t seem much concerned about us send-
ing a message to Berlin,” argued the doctor.
“No, he didn't—that's a fact; but, just the same,
I'm not swallowing stuff about his never having
seen the dead man before. As things stand now,
I would pick Searles as the guilty man.”
“Shake on that, young fellow !” exclaimed Con-
stable Griggs with sudden cordiality. “You got
more sense than I give you credit for.”


CHAPTER XX
MISS JOLINE'S SUSPICIONS
HE windows of Dora's room at Miss Joline's
nursing establishment faced east, and this morn-
ing she awakened early so that she missed no detail
of dawn’s gorgeous panorama. The sun crept up
from behind the low-flung hills, radiant fingers
of light reaching above the horizon, touching the
gray and fleecy white clouds, melting them to a
wonderous flux of colors which presently blazed
into a yellow fire. How incongruous that such a
dawn should mark a day of tragedy!
There was a tree outside Dora's window, and
the dew upon its green leaves sparkled like emeralds;
the birds burst into a morning chorus, and Dora,
too, wanted to sing. She did sing, her voice rising
rich, sweet and tremulous; the notes vibrated with
happiness, for she sang with her heart as well as
her voice.
Miss Joline, downstairs brewing the breakfast
tea, heard her and smiled tenderly. The nurse
had become very fond of Dora. She had never
been with a patient who aroused within her such a
deep affection.
“The sweet darling—God made her for love.”
Perhaps it gave her a pang that she herself had
been denied such exaltation.


MISS JOLINE'S SUSPICIONS 211
Miss Joline's was not a nature which rises to
great emotion. Her mind was intensely practical.
Still smiling, with a touch of wistfulness, she
sliced the toast into small dainty triangles and
put it on Dora's breakfast tray.
Ascending the stairs, she heard the song break
off into a sharp cry of delight. Dora was sitting
up in bed, the covers thrown back, staring at her
shapely bare feet.
“Look!” she exclaimed. “Oh, look, Miss Joline!
I—I can wiggle my toes! I just this minute found
it out. Does that mean—” She paused with a
trembling gasp, her eyes shining like stars.
“Yes, my sweet dear, it means the blood clot
has been absorbed—the paralysis is gone, and that
you will be able to walk again very soon. This
is wonderful; so much better than we had hoped
for.”
“To-day?” Dora demanded breathlessly. “Can—
can I walk to-day, Miss Joline? Oh, please tell
me that I can! Perhaps—perhaps I can go down-
stairs and—and open the door for my husband.
. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful surprise if I could?”
“But you can’t, impatient child,” laughed the
nurse. “Why, you will have to learn to walk,
just as you did when you first toddled. It will
be a good many days before you're able to find
your way around without assistance, but this after-
noon, if you are a very good little girl, you shall
try to take your first step.”
“I feel that I could run a race right now,”


MISS JOLINE'S SUSPICIONS 213
with the morning newspapers. Having lived in
the city for so long, the nurse had become a news-
paper addict, and so strong was this habit of
starting her day with a perusal of the daily
publications that she gave a dollar a week to have
them delivered. She pushed the table containing the
breakfast tray closer to her patient's bed and went
downstairs. This was the day when the boy would
expect his pay for services rendered.
She met the lad on the porch, took the two
papers, and gave him a dollar bill. Then, having
already breakfasted, she sat down on the stone
steps to scan the headlines. Her interest lagged
until her eyes chanced upon a brief account at the
bottom of the first page—brief, but startling :
MYSTERY SURROUNDS
WESTCHESTER TRAGEDY.
Who is Roughly Garbed Stranger, Shot as he
Sought to Kill Channing Searles?
The officials of Westchester County are to-day
confronted with a perplexing mystery. Who
is the roughly dressed giant of a man who last
night forced himself into the home of Channing
Searles, New York lawyer, connected with the
firm of Platt, Hornaday & Platt, and who was
shot to death, as he attempted to kill Searles,
recently married to Miss Elizabeth Borland,
heiress?
Searles tells the officials that a mysterious


214 THE BIGAMIST
shot was fired through the library windows
of the Borland mansion near Ardmore as he
was being choked to death by the intruder whom
Searles insists he had never seen before.
There was a little more of it and Miss Joline,
reading swiftly, with an expression of incredulous
horror, crushed the paper between her hands, only
to smooth out the creases made by the contraction
of her fingers, and read again, more slowly.
“Platt, Hornaday & Platt!” Surely she could
not be mistaken in thinking this was the law
firm with which Dora's husband was connected.
But Channing Searles? Dora always called him
“Oz,” and yet it seemed extremely unlikely that
there could be two men of the same name with
the same firm. Newspapers, she knew, did make
mistakes; but it now occurred to her that the
Searles she knew had at times seemed to be carry-
ing a great burden of worry.
Further along in the account was another refer-
ence to Mrs. Searles, the former Miss Borland. If
Channing Searles and Oz Searles were the same
person, it meant that the man had two wives!
“Oh, it can’t be true!” she exclaimed. “It’s
too hideous to think about. The paper has simply
confused two people. I am a fool to let myself
imagine any such nonsense.”
But she did not find it so easy to dismiss. She
remembered a number of things Dora had told
her, among them that Searles insisted upon leaving
New York for some indefinite place in the West,


216 THE BIGAMIST
carefully, “mentioned that she knew a Mr. Searles.
I think he said a Mr. Channing Searles.”
Dora's eyes widened. For some reason, perhaps
because he feared she would frown upon the adop-
tion of his mother's family name, Oz had not told
her of his appropriating the more euphonious
“Channing.”
“That is strange!” she gasped. “Oz's mother
was a Channing. Why, what an odd coincidence!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Miss Joline, hastily turning
away her face, lest her faulty powers of dissimula-
tion should betray her renewed agitation.
It was true; of that there could no longer be
any doubt. Oz Searles, who had married this
sweet, beautiful flower of the New Hampshire
mountains, was also Channing Searles who had
a rich wife but a few miles away!
With the breakfast tray in her hands, Miss Joline
paused in the doorway and half turned.
“There are some matters I shall have to look
after this morning,” she said hurriedly. “I shall
be gone a couple of hours.”
Without knowing exactly why she was doing it,
she had suddenly determined to make a trip to the
Borland place. While no real doubts of the true
situation remained, perhaps she wanted the satis-
faction of being absolutely sure. And thus did
the net close tighter about Searles. The price
of his folly was due and demanded to be paid.


218 THE BIGAMIST
the latter's theory coincided with his own. Griggs,
searching for evidence, had discovered a cigar
humidor, and now he had helped himself, relaxing
into the depths of the chair which Searles had
so recently vacated. Blowing a rich cloud of
smoke toward the ceiling, the constable stretched
his legs straight in front of him.
“Guess there ain’t much chance of Searles tryin'
to make a break fer it,” he said. “That would
be just the same as confessin’ he done the job;
but I ain’t takin’ no chances on it. I stay right
here an' stand guard.”
“Or sit guard,” laughed Price. “No, there isn't
much chance of Searles running off. That would
be the most foolish thing he could do.”
“The doc's all right—a good fellow,” observed
Griggs, puffing briskly at his cigar, “but he's too
soft fer these murder cases. Now, if he'd have
let me clap the handcuffs on Searles and chuck
him in jail, where he belongs, he'd have talked
quick enough. Mighty good smoke, young fellow-
betcha they cost twenty-five cents each. Better
dip your hand into that box and help yourself.”
“I’ll stick to cigarettes,” said Price and lighted
a fag. “So you think a night in jail would have
loosened Searles' tongue? I doubt it; he's hoping
against hope that we won’t discover the dead man's
identity. He's got some vital reason for keeping
that a secret. When we’ve got to the bottom of
that, we'll have gone a long way, I think, toward
the correct solution of the mystery.”
“What do you suppose there was between 'em


AN EXPLODED CARTRIDGE 219
that would make fer a killin’?” the constable asked
speculatively.
“Searles tells us that it has been eleven years
since he has lived in New Hampshire,” the news-
paper man answered slowly. “He has recently
married a rich woman—a very rich woman. Every
man at some time in his life does something fool-
ish. It occurs to me as a possibility that the man
now dead had something on Searles. Just a possi-
bility, understand, and yet blackmailers do not
come blustering into people's houses. The black-
mailer is a coward. Besides, the dead man hasn’t
the face of a sneak, and only the sneak can black-
mail. No, we'll have to check that off. I was a
fool to consider it.
“The man has come a considerable distance on
the train. His face and neck are coated with
grime. No, Constable Griggs, it isn’t natural for
even a countryman to make a trip to New York,
without donning his best clothes, unless—”
“Unless he left in a devil of a hurry,” finished
the other.
“Exactly, constable—exactly! He must have
suddenly heard something about Searles which
caused the fellow to jump the first train. Now
let's speculate a bit and see what he might have
heard that would cause him to make the trip in
such haste.”
“Aw, that would only be guessin', an' guessin'
ain't goin’ to get us anywhere.”
“It can do no harm. We cannot ignore the


AN EXPLODED CARTRIDGE 221
“Sure it was!” declared Griggs, with a vigorous
jerk of his head. “That is, unless Borland is
just plain lyin’ about seein anybody. Most likely
he's tellin’ the truth, for I’ve heard some talk
down in the village—I hear a lot that’s bein’
gossiped around, y'know—about Borland bein’ sore
as a goat about his sister gettin' married to Searles.
Guess she went against the family; but he was
in Europe when the weddin’ took place.
“Dang it, that reminds me of somethin'!” And
the constable's heavy fist thudded upon the top
of the table. “I pinched Elliot Borland fer speedin',
and he beat it off to Europe that time without
answerin the summons. Went clean out of my
mind.”
Presently drowsiness overtook Wiggly Price, and
he fell asleep in the chair; but not so with Ham
Griggs, who was nothing if not conscientious. Smok-
ing cigar after cigar from the humidor, he kept
his wakeful vigil, and when dawn faded blackness
into gray and then painted the horizon with the
dazzling colors of a summer sunrise—the same
dawn which Dora was witnessing twenty-five miles
away—he got to his feet and crept quietly out of
the library. Although he was no longer resentful
of the newspaper man’s presence, still, if there was
to be any glory in discovering the weapon from
which the shot had been fired, he did not care
to share it with another.
It was not until Hedges, the butler, came into
the room and touched him on the shoulder that


222 THE BIGAMIST
Price aroused from his slumber. He got up stiffly,
yawned prodigiously, and stretched his arms.
“Who are you, if I may ask, sir?” demanded
Hedges.
“I have no objection to your asking, neither
have I any objection to telling you,” the other
answered with a sleepy grin. “I respond to the
name of Price.”
“Quite so, Mr. Price, and I take it, sir, that
you are helping with the investigation.”
“That's it. Are you the butler or the second
man?”
Hedges’ chin shot up with a show of dignity.
“The butler. I am Hedges, sir.”
“You have the look of an intelligent man, Hedges—
a very intelligent man. What is your opinion of
this lamentable affair?”
But Hedges was not to be trapped with a few
sugared words. “I have no opinions,” he replied
coldly; “it is not a good servant's place to have
opinions.”
“No, of course not; particularly when the master
is under suspicion of murder. But you can’t have
any objection to telling me what you know about
the tragedy. You'll have to answer questions at
the inquest, anyhow.”
“I have no objection to answering questions, Mr.
Price, except that I have already told all I know,
which is precious little, and it is time I was looking
after the breakfast arrangements. Doctor Bushnell
must have told you my account of the matter.”


AN EXPLODED CARTRIDGE 223
“Yes, so he did,” said Price, “but I always like
to get things at first hand.”
With an air of resignation, Hedges repeated what
had happened the previous evening, confining him-
self strictly to the facts; he told of admitting the
Stranger, of the latter's wild and menacing manner,
and of the shot. He and the second man had come
into the library to find the fellow on the floor,
dying, and Searles had gone outdoors, returning
after a minute or two through the windows.
“This stranger, Hedges, was he wearing a hat
when you admitted him?” questioned the reporter.
“Oh, certainly, sir,” responded the butler and
then added more cautiously: “At least I did not
notice his not having a hat.”
“And which you most certainly would have
noticed had he not had one. You have no idea
where it has disappeared to?”
“I have not.”
Price asked a number of other questions, the
purpose of which was to establish any connection
there may have been between the tragedy and
Mrs. Searles’ heart attack; but Hedges could tell
him nothing in this respect.
“That will be all, Hedges, for the present. No,
wait a moment. There is something else. As the
butler, you must receive the mail. Is that right?”
“Quite right, Mr. Price.”
“Have you ever noticed any mail for Mr. Searles,
postmarked Berlin, New Hampshire?”
“I have not.”


224 THE BIGAMIST
*
-
“Did you know that Mr. Searles was a native
of New Hampshire?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I knew that. It was only a few *
weeks ago that he returned—” His words broke :
off into an amazed gasp as the other's ears began -
their absurd gymnastics at the side of his head.
“That he returned from a trip to New Hampshire, |
eh?” exclaimed Price, justly elated “eyer this im-
portant discovery. . **
Searles had tried to give the im] ression that
he had not been back to his ...'" in
years, and yet he had made a trip, there very
recently. That visit, it was most reasonable to *
presume, had a vital connection with the death of
the unidentified man. * -
“What was it took Mr. Searles back to his \'
old home?” he asked; but the butler did not know;
he only remembered vaguely that Mrs. Searles had * *
said something about her husband being called
“back home” for a few days.
Still Price had reason to feel elated, and he now
realized that he had been careless in neglecting
to question Hedges last night. As soon as he
could get hold of Searles, he would ask him about
the New Hampshire trip. ** - > *
“Will you be served with breakfast?” inquired 3-.
Hedges. - -
“Yes, a pot of black coffee but nothing else,
said Price. “You can let me have it here in the ".
library.” * ,
A matter of some fifteen minutes later the coffee
was brought, and Wiggly drank it, at the same
*
99


226 THE BIGAMIST
demanded sharply. “Who do you think you are,
anyhow?”
“I happen to know who I am,” retorted Wiggly
Price, grinning a little. “The coroner has asked
me to help him out in getting to the bottom of
this affair, and you can just bet your last dollar
that I’m going to stay here until I do. Bushnell
is no fool, and neither am I. We don’t take any
stock in your brother-in-law's ridiculous story—
nor yours. You didn’t see any man with a cap
running away from the house.” *..
Elliot Borland's face paled noticeably, and a
frightened look flashed into his eyes for a moment,
a fleeting expression which Price did not miss. His
ears moved faintly. Perhaps there was something
in Bushnell’s theory—more than he had himself
credited.
“Do you dare to call me a liar?” blustered Bor-
land. He couldn’t quite put over his show of out-
raged dignity. He was too alarmed to be angry,
and his apprehension meant either that he feared
for his brother-in-law’s safety, or his sister's. More
likely the latter.
“There's no sense in being dramatic, Borland.
The maid said that Mrs. Searles came downstairs
after going up to her room after dinner. She
was found in her bathroom, unconscious from—”
“Good Lord!” broke in the other. “I—I actually
believe you're trying to intimate that it was my
sister who— Oh, you can’t be such a fool as to
believe that!”
“No one has any desire to accuse Mrs. Searles


CHAPTER XXII
BEHIND THE FRENCH WINDOWS
S the woman cut across the lawn and came
toward him, Price noted two things. One was
that she carried no satchel which, he had observed,
all trained nurses carried in answering “a case,”
and the other was the grim set of her mouth.
Her manner was brisk and capable, as was to be
expected.
“You are the nurse Doctor Flemming is expect-
ing?” he said pleasantly. “I’ll show you the shortest
way inside the house, which is by the windows
directly behind us. The patient is upstairs.”
“Wait! I am a nurse, but I am not expected.”
The woman was repressing a considerable agitation.
“Tell me, do you know Mr. Searles?”
“Why, yes, I suppose I might say I know him—
that is, I have known him since last night.”
She hesitated nervously, tapping together her
gloved hands which were, Price noted, tightly
clenched.
“I am not sure that I would recognize him.
Tell me, what does he look like?”
The newspaper man had become most curious,
but he restrained the temptation to ask questions,
and in a few terse sentences he gave a word picture
of Channing Searles. She caught her breath.


BEHIND THE FRENCH WINDOWS 231
“Oh, it's true—true! Of course it would be.
That poor child—that poor trusting darling!” She
seemed hardly aware that she was thinking aloud.
Her hand went out, and her fingers caught at
Price's sleeve. “And there is a–a Mrs. Searles?”
“Yes,” Wiggly answered slowly, “there is a Mrs.
Searles. Perhaps you would like to tell me—”
“Is Mr. Searles here, or has he been arrested?”
she broke in. “The newspaper this morning in-
timated that he was suspected of—”
“Of killing a man,” finished Price, knowing that
it must have been his story in The Star which had
brought the woman to Riverview in such haste
and agitation. “Mr. Searles is here. As I was
saying, perhaps you would like to tell me—”
“I want to see him—I must see him at once,”
she interrupted again. “Oh, how could a man do
such a terrible thing? How could he?”
Wiggly Price did some rapid thinking, accom-
panied by the violent twitching of his animated
ears, and he decided that rather than question this
woman, it might be better for him to say nothing
that might restrain her speech. He would remain
within hearing when she came face to face with
Searles. That her visit was vitally associated with
the tragedy, he did not doubt.
“This way, please,” he said. “I will take you
into the library and tell the butler that he is to
have Mr. Searles come down. Who shall I say
it is?”
“Just say a woman,” she answered.
Price conducted her inside the house and, leaving


BEHIND THE FRENCH WINDOWS 233
beyond the woman’s vision, in case she should
watch which way he went; but immediately he
returned and placed himself in a crouching posi-
tion behind the screen of a stubby blue spruce
which grew between the flagging of the terrace
and the wall of the house.
Upstairs Searles waited for his breakfast tray.
Not that he was hungry, but he felt that a cup
of strong coffee might help him to get a grip
on himself. Without removing his clothes, he
had, at about four o'clock in the morning, flung
himself across the bed and, despite the torture
of his mind, had slept after a fashion for a little
more than two hours. This harassed slumber had
not refreshed him; his face was drawn and hag-
gard, and his nerves were raw.
He went into the bathroom and doused his head
with cold water. A glance in the mirror told him
that he was in need of a shave, but he dared
not risk a razor in the clutch of his unsteady fingers.
He would have Kendricks do it for him later in
the morning; or perhaps a cup or two of black
coffee would brace him up so that he could do it
for himself.
There came a rap at the door, and Searles thought
it must be either Hedges or the second man with
the breakfast tray; but the butler entered empty-
handed.
“Where's my coffee?” snapped Searles.
“Begging your pardon, sir, Kendricks should be
up any moment with it. I am to tell you that
Mr. Price wishes to see you in the library. He


234 THE BIGAMIST
says that he wishes to have you come down at
once.”
Searles’ fingers closed convulsively, and the mus-
cles of his face twitched violently. “Has some-
thing happened, Hedges?” he demanded.
“Mr. Price did not enter into any explanation,
sir; he merely said you were to come down im-
mediately.”
“They must have got an answer to the telegram,”
Searles said under his breath. “That must be it.”
He tried to pull himself together, but found it im-
possible to steel himself to the same degree of
outward calm that he had managed last night.
The strain was breaking him down.
“You may tell Mr. Price,” he said after a mo-
ment, “that I shall see him after I have had my
breakfast, and you, Hedges, see that Kendricks
loses no more time getting it to me.”
Hedges hesitated a moment, and Searles saw
there was something the man desired to say.
“You may be as frank with me as you wish,
Hedges. If there is anything you want to tell
me, speak with all freedom.”
“Thank you, sir. It is merely a repetition of
what I said last night—just after it happened.
You will remember I took it upon myself to advise
you that—”
“That I should admit firing the shot,” said Searles.
“Yes, I remember. But I didn’t, Hedges. On
my word of honor, I didn't do it!”
A desperate man’s word of honor is not always


BEHIND THE FRENCH WINDOWS 235
sterling, but the butler very tactfully avoided a
direct contradiction.
“Admitting that, Mr. Searles, you will never
convince the gentlemen who are investigating the
affair. And I think I should tell you that I let
a little something slip—inadvertently, I assure you.”
Searles gave him a puzzled stare. What could
the butler know?
“This Mr. Price,” pursued Hedges, “was ques-
tioning me this morning. He seemed particularly
curious about your New England ancestry, and I
mentioned your recent trip back home. There was
no intention of tattling, sir, but the words came
out before I thought.”
“Thank you, Hedges, for your thoughtfulness,”
Searles responded with remarkable steadiness, con-
sidering what menacing promise there was in this
information. “At a time like this a man in my
position appreciates a friendly act.”
A rap at the door interrupted further talk be-
tween them, and Kendricks entered with a pot of
coffee, a glass of orange juice, and toast, placing
the tray on the table near the windows.
“The cook is asking for you, Mr. Hedges,” said
the second man, and, at a nod from Searles, both
Servants left the room.
After they had gone, Searles stood for a moment
or so on the verge of utter collapse. Any chance
that he may have had in misleading the investi-
gation of the tragedy and concealing Calvin Oakes’
identity had been shattered. They knew now that
he had been back home recently; even if his flash


236 THE BIGAMIST
of cunning in directing their inquiries to Berlin,
New Hampshire, should confuse the trail, they
would never let up on him now.
“I might as well tell everything and have it
over,” he said aloud; but he did not realize what
awaited him downstairs.
Gulping down a cup of black, unsweetened coffee,
followed immediately by a second, he found that
it did brace him up more effectively than he had
hoped for.
As he descended the stairs, he tried to anticipate
how he would answer Price's questions about the
trip to New Hampshire, but without much success.
Passing through the library doorway he paused
abruptly, staggered back a step, and his hands
clutched at the curtains as they swung back into
place behind him.
“Miss Joline!” he cried. “You—here?”
As they stared at each other, there was upon
the woman’s face an expression of such withering
scorn that he flinched.
“Yes, I am here, Mr. Searles. I had to know
the whole truth. I was fool enough to try to
make myself believe the newspaper had made a
mistake—that they had confused your identity with
that of some one else. Oh, you beast!”
“And, of course,” he said dully, “you are here
to tear off my mask. Your intention is—”
“You hardly expect me to protect you!” she cried,
her voice vibrant with anger. “Oh, how could
you have done such a horrible thing? How could
you? That sweet little woman who thinks she


CHAPTER XXIII
REVOLVER OR AUTOMATIC 7
HE truth is out, Searles, and the mystery has
very nicely solved itself,” said Price. “I can
quite understand now why you were so persistent
in concealing the slain man's identity. It was the
only way in which you could hope to conceal the
fact that you are a bigamist. Still you gained noth-
ing by concocting so incredulous a story as the one
about the mysterious shot through these windows;
in fact, I’m quite sure the very unreasonableness of
it had quite the opposite effect. If you had ad-
mitted the shooting and thought up a plausible
story to go with it, we might have believed you;
only, thanks to this woman, Miss Joline, you didn't
have a ghost of a show of keeping things covered
up. Now that I have heard these admissions you
have made to Miss Joline, you might just as well
give me an honest statement of the whole affair.”
Searles seemed too dazed to reply. He sat
slumped over in the chair, staring at the rug,
where there was a stain marking the spot where
Calvin Oakes had met his death.
“This Calvin—I did not hear you say what
his last name was.”
“Calvin Oakes,” Miss Joline interjected mechani-
cally, thinking of Dora. “The poor, sweet dear!


REVOLVER OR AUTOMATIC2 245
automatic pistol. It was an old-fashioned revolver,
and this is it!” With the flourish of a magician
producing a rabbit from his silk topper, he brought
from out of the hat a revolver, an antiquated,
stubby-barreled affair with fat butt plates of cor-
rugated black rubber.
“Also,” the constable added, with a flourishing
gesture, “I found this here pocketbook which has
got some papers in it, among other things a deposit
slip from a New Hampshire bank, showin’ without
doubt that the murdered man’s name is Calvin
Oakes. The same name is wrote inside the band
of the hat, and here's a letter addressed to Searles
in New Hampshire.”
“Where did you find that stuff?” interrupted the
doctor, with not a little admiration. Certainly Ham
Griggs had done very well in digging up this piece
of evidence.
“Dug it up from out of one of the flower beds,”
answered the constable. “This solves the case, I
guess.” He turned toward Wiggly Price and grinned
spaciously. “Kind of put one over on you, young
fellow, while you was stayin' inside the house
takin' a nice snooze.”
“I think Price has been somewhat diligent him-
self,” said Doctor Bushnell. “While it certainly
is not my intention to minimize the importance of
this evidence you have literally dug up, we already
know that the dead man's name is Calvin Oakes.
Even better than that, we know why he came here
last night to see Searles.”
Constable Griggs, looking much crestfallen that


REVOLVER OR AUTOMATIC.? 249
knew I was going to New Hampshire. He saw
me after I had come back—he borrowed a hundred
dollars from me, and I knew by the way he looked
at me that he suspected something. He must have
trailed me. Perhaps he even went to New Hampshire
and looked up the records.” He lifted his head,
drew a deep breath and said: “I will tell you who
killed Calvin Oakes—it was Ed Hinkle!”
“Bunk!” sneered Constable Griggs. “This yarn
he tells now is a wilder one than the other.”
“Have you got the blackmailing letters, Searles?”
inquired Wiggly Price, who had been examining
the revolver, as he listened to the unfolding of
this strange story the suspect told.
“No, I destroyed them.”
“There never was any letters,” declared the
constable, and Doctor Bushnell was inclined to
agree with him. “Searles,” and the handcuffs
flourished dramatically from Griggs' pocket, “we’ll
just slip these on. You are under arrest for the
murder of—”
“Wait!” cried Miss Joline who had withdrawn
to a corner of the room and was a silent spectator
to it all. “Perhaps Mr. Searles is telling the truth.
He says the blackmailer signed the name of Jones.
A man who gave the name of Jones came to my
place making inquiries. I can see now that he
was looking for information about Dora.”
“Yes, and that was Hinkle,” declared Searles.
“I got the first demand for money the following
morning.”
“Even admitting this blackmail story,” said Doc-


250 THE BIGAMIST
tor Bushnell, “I can't conceive of any motive this
fellow Hinkle could have had for shooting Calvin
Oakes.”
“Hinkle is the only person who could have done
it,” responded Searles, “who could have had any
reason for firing the shot. I think I have figured
out exactly how it happened.
“Hinkle did come to have it out with me about
the money. Doubtless he suspected I might try
to trap him, and, before ringing the bell, he went
about the house to look things over. This would
account for him being outside the library windows.
He had a gun because he knew there might be
trouble. He was just in time to see Calvin about
to kill me. With me dead, his chance of getting
any more money was lost, so he—”
“A fine lot of nonsense!” derided Ham Griggs,
jingling the handcuffs impatiently. What a thrill
he got in hearing the click of the steel wristlets!
“He wouldn’t have had to shoot the Oakes fellow
to have kept him from throttlin' you. All he had
to do was rush in and cover him with the pistol.
That would have stopped it without pullin’ the
trigger.”
“A point well made,” agreed Doctor Bushnell.
“Searles theory is one that only a desperate mind
would be capable of.”
“I’ll tell you why he killed instead of inter-
fering,” said Searles. “For Ed Hinkle's purposes
I might as well be dead as for Calvin to have
been left alive. He would have talked, and when
the thing came out, that would have ended Hinkle's


REVOLVER OR AUTOMATIC 2 251
power over me. At least that's the way I have
figured it out.”
The physician shook his head as if perplexed.
“There's the matter of the exploded shell, Searles.
It is asking too much to ask us to accept your
explanation of that. The constable will have to
take charge of you and keep you in confinement
until the inquest. I warn you in advance that
it will be much safer for you to admit the shooting
and plead self-defense. As to the charge of bigamy,
that is a crime committed in another State, and I
have nothing to say about that.”
“Just a moment, doctor,” said Wiggly Price. “I
have found something about this revolver that may
raise a little doubt. When Griggs spoke of four
cartridges and one discharged, I took it for granted
that it was a six-shooter. Instead, I find the
cylinder accommodates but five cartridges, and that
gives no room for this.” He extended his hand
and showed the exploded shell that he had picked
up on the terrace outside the library.
“This may have considerable importance,” Price
continued. “This sixth cartridge was used in a
center-fire gun, whereas this old revolver which
Searles admits is his is an old-fashioned rim-fire
gun. The shell I found on the terrace was not
discharged by Searles’ revolver.
“An automatic pistol ejects its exploded shells,
as it is fired, and I am convinced that this empty
cartridge came from an automatic. It was lying
on the walk outside the windows, and my shoe
kicked against it, which may prove to be a very


252 THE BIGAMIST
fortunate circumstance for Mr. Searles. It might
quite easily have rolled into the grass and never
been found.”
“What!” roared Constable Griggs, his sudden
anger born of a fear that Wiggly Price was
going to upset the case, just as it appeared to
have been solved, and which was precisely what
he had done in the Gilmore affair. “Are you tryin'
to make out that Searles didn’t do the shootin’?”
Doctor Bushnell, however, did not scoff. “You
say, Price, that it would have been impossible for
the shell you found outside the windows to have
been fired in Searles' revolver? Will you please let
me have a look at it?”
“If you will compare this shell with that of
the five found in the revolver, you will not only
see that it would have been impossible for it to
have been used in a rim-fire weapon, but it bears
the name of a different manufacturer.”
“This proves my story!” cried Searles who had
risen to his feet. “Hinkle used an automatic, and
the shell you found was ejected from the gun to
the walk, where you picked it up. Thank Heaven
for that little thing of brass! It clears me of
Calvin’s death.”
“Like thunder it does!” snorted Ham Griggs. “For
all we know you may have planted it there your-
self. Don’t you think for a minute this is goin'
to keep me from lockin' you up—not on your
life it ain’t!”
“No, I can’t say it actually proves anything,”
Doctor Bushnell said slowly; “it merely indicates a


256 THE BIGAMIST
doctor, until I’ve had a chance to find Hinkle and
learn what he's got to say?”
“I was thinking it would be best to delay the
inquest until to-morrow morning, but don't put too
much faith in this blackmailing business and the
fired cartridge you found on the terrace. We've
given Searles a good deal of freedom, and it's not
impossible he may have planted it there to raise
precisely this doubt. Of course, if Hinkle is the
guilty man, you may take him totally by surprise,
find the automatic pistol in his possession, and trap
him into a confession; but if he's expecting Sus-
picion and is ready for you, there isn’t a shred of
evidence against him. Searles has no proof, admit-
ting the blackmailing story is true, that it was Hin-
kle who was blackmailing him. He merely presumes
it Was Hinkle.”
“You forget that we have Miss Joline, doctor,
and that’s why I asked her to remain. She has
told us that a man who said his name was Jones
called at her place to ask about Searles. I want
Miss Joline to go with me to New York and, if we
can find Hinkle, identify him as Jones. Would you
be willing to help us out in this matter, Miss
Joline?”
“Yes,” she agreed promptly, “I will do anything
I can to save Dora, the sweet dear, from the blow of
having to believe the man she loves is the slayer of
her brother. I wish she could be kept in ignorance
of the whole sordid affair. There is no telling what
effect it will have on her. But her brother is dead;


260 THE BIGAMIST
He lost his bearings and blundered in the Wrong
direction.”
“That might explain it,” admitted Price, but his
voice had a doubtful tone. “For some reason—I
can’t exactly tell you why—that point bothers me
considerably.”
“It seems to me there are other points in the case
far more important than this trifle you mention.”
“You’re right about that, doctor, and one of them
is to determine with absolute finality whether or not
the bullet which killed Calvin Oakes was fired from
Searles’ old-fashioned revolver or from another
weapon.”
“Of course,” agreed the physician, rather puzzled.
“Isn't that what we’ve been trying to do all along,
and the precise reason why you're going to investi-
gate the Hinkle end of it? I don’t quite under-
stand.”
“I mean scientifically, doctor. It didn’t occur to
me until just now, but there is a method whereby
it can be established beyond all doubt that a par-
ticular bullet was fired from a particular weapon.
It will probably take a day or two, but, as soon as
you can get the fatal bullet—”
“I have it now, here in my pocket,” broke in
Doctor Bushnell; “but I haven’t the least idea what
you mean. Aren't all bullets alike, with the excep-
tion of differing in caliber?”
“Doctor, there are no two things in the entire
World exactly alike. Sometimes it takes a micro-
scope to give each thing its own individuality. Now
here is what I am getting at. When a bullet is


262 THE BIGAMIST
and Constable Griggs are the ones who deserve the
credit for establishing Calvin Oakes' identity.
What I have discovered is the exploded shell, that
and nothing else. You can well call that an acci-
dent; so I haven’t much credit coming my way,
even for that.
“But the fired cartridge, I think, develops into the
really important thing; it's pretty good proof that a
shot was fired from outside the Windows. Searles
isn’t a clever man, and I’m sure he didn't plant it
as a fake clew to confuse us. No, that's not likely
in any event; there was too much chance of its not
being found. Yes, I'm now convinced of Searles’
innocence.”
“And that you're on the track of the right man,
eh?”
“Who else could have had a motive? I’m riding
the hunch that when I find Hinkle we’ll have the
guilty man.”
The physician argued the matter no further. They
had reached the railroad station, and the approaching
New York train was marked by a streaming line of
Smoke less than a mile away.
“You’ll telephone me as soon as there are any
developments,” Bushness urged, as they parted.
“Certainly, doctor; and, if things turn out as I
hope, I'll be back before dark with a prisoner.”
As he himself had previously admitted, Wiggly
Price was an optimist, and an optimist frequently
lets himself in for disappointment.


CHAPTER XXV *
PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT
HE boarding house of Mrs. Chubb was located
in that part of New York known as Washington
Heights—at the foot of a cobbled street which de-
scended sharply from Broadway toward the river.
It was an old-fashioned three-story house of brick
with stone trimmings.
Mrs. Chubb, her maid never performing this task
satisfactorily, was polishing the brass handrail of
her stoop. She was proud of this glittering decora-
tion to the entrance, but how quickly it tarnished!
Mrs. Chubb vigorously shook the bottle of metal
polish, as the direction advised, and soaked a cloth
With a generous application of the amber fluid.
Suddenly she paused, the polishing rag trailing from
her hand, and she stared in amazement at the man
mounting the stoop.
“Why, Mr. Hinkle!” she exclaimed. “What on
earth is the matter?”
Things were obviously not right with Ed Hinkle.
His face was as white as his considerably soiled and
wilted collar should have been, and his eyes had
an expression which any reasonably observant per-
son could have read as one of fear. It was more
than fear—it was terror.
“What's the matter, Mr. Hinkle?” Mrs. Chubb said


PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT 265
deposited both upon the bed, and began to pack
enough of his personal belongings to last him for
an indefinite stay in Philadelphia. While he was
thus engaged, Mrs. Chubb was putting the finishing
touches to the polishing of the brass rail at the
boarding-house entrance, but her mind was not on
her task; she was debating how she could go about
asking Mr. Hinkle to surrender his room. She
wanted him safely out of the house before he
brought some unpleasant reflection upon the re-
spectability of her establishment.
A man came down the street, pausing now and
then to examine the house numbers. He came to a
complete stop in front of No. 640, deciphered the
peeling figures on the plate-glass panel of the door
and, being assured that he had found the proper
address, mounted the steps. His ears twitched
faintly with the tension which marked a critical mo-
ment in his search.
“Perhaps you will tell me,” Wiggly Price said
politely, “if I can find Mr. Hinkle in.”
The polishing cloth dropped from Mrs. Chubb's
fingers. It had come, just as she had feared it
would.
“What do you want with Mr. Hinkle?” she de-
manded.
“It is a private matter,” the newspaper man
answered.
“He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” Mrs. Chubb questioned
insistently. “Are you a-a detective?”
Why should this woman know that Hinkle was in
trouble? Here was something worth inquiring


266 THE BIGAMIST
about. Price studied Mrs. Chubb for a moment and
classified her as belonging to the communicative
type. He had not been interviewing people for ten
years without learning something about human na-
ture, and he knew instinctively the best way to start
her tongue moving.
“You’ve got a pair of observing eyes,” he said.
“So you think I am a detective?”
“Oh, I know how to add up two and two,” re-
sponded Mrs. Chubb. “Are you going to arrest Mr.
Hinkle?” Her question had an apprehensive note
which Price understood was not exactly concern for
Hinkle, so he used a canny brand of diplomacy.
“I promise you there will be no fuss,” he told
her. “No one will be any the wiser. I can well
understand that you would prefer not to have this
address mentioned, if it should get into the news-
papers.”
“Thank you so much,” she said gratefully; “but
you haven’t told me what it is he's done.”
“And you haven’t told me,” he interrupted, “how
you knew he was in trouble.”
“One look at him, when he came in just now,
would have told anybody that. He looked so scared,
and his face was so white, that I knew something
was wrong. And then Mr. Hinkle has never been
what one would call a steady person. If he ever
had a regular job, I never heard of it; although I
must say for him that he always pays his board
regularly. Sometimes he pays it weeks in advance.
Why are you going to arrest him?”
“In all fairness to Mr. Hinkle,” replied Wiggly


PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT 267
Price, “I can't tell you that until I have had a talk
with him. Now if you will allow me to go up to
his room unannounced, it will probably be better.”
“Yes, Mr. Officer,” assented Mrs. Chubb. “I un-
derstand. You want to take him by surprise. His
room is on the top floor; you can't miss it—straight
ahead when you come to the top of the stairs.”
There was now no doubt whatever in Price's mind
that he was on the trail of the guilty man. The
very fact that Hinkle was frightened seemed to
clinch it. While there wasn't a single concrete clew
to go on, the guilty conscience is always an ally
for the law.
He ascended the stairs swiftly and had no diffi-
culty in following Mrs. Chubb’s directions; it would
have been impossible to have made a mistake in
Hinkle's room. Reaching the top steps, Price light-
ened his tread to a cautious tiptoe, as he crept over
the faded carpet, its original red faded to a hideous
pink by the sunlight which frequently flooded
through the skylight in the roof. Outside of Hin-
kle's door he paused, listening. Within there was
the sound of movement, the opening and closing of
drawers, and Wiggly’s ears moved. He shrewdly
guessed that his quarry was preparing for a very
hasty flight.
Having no weapon of his own and realizing that
Hinkle in all probability was armed, Price took
from his pocket the revolver which Doctor Bushnell
had turned over to him, so that he might have the
interior of the barrel checked with that of the
lethal bullet. It was just as well to play safe.


CHAPTER XXVI
A C 0 N V INC IN G A LIB I
PPARENTLY Hinkle had no nerve With Which
to bluff it out. The man was like a Wilted rag.
His terror-stricken eyes were fastened upon the
revolver that Wiggly Price still trained at him, but
Price could hardly believe that he was going to get
a complete confession so easily.
“Don’t plug me!” pleaded Hinkle, his voice a ter-
rified whine. “I guess I’ve got it coming, but gimme
a chance to explain—”
“You can do all the explaining you please after
I’ve got that automatic pistol out of your pocket.”
“I haven’t—”
“Take off your coat—and keep your hands away
from the gun,” ordered Price. “Come on now—
quick! I’m not taking any chances with you.”
Hinkle obediently divested himself of his coat and
let it fall to the floor. There was a bulky thud.
“All right, that's better. Now back against the
wall for a moment while I complete the disarma-
ment,” commanded Wiggly.
When Hinkle had done so, he scooped the coat
from the carpet with a swift gesture, all the while
keeping the other covered. He had, however, let
himself in for a surprise; instead of the automatic
pistol he had expected to find, there was a revolver.


270 THE BIGAMIST
Even the caliber did not tally with the exploded
shell he had found on the terrace at Riverview; this
weapon was a .32, whereas it should have been
a .38.
“Where's the other gat, Hinkle?” he snapped.
“What other gat? I don't know what you're talk-
ing about.”
“Oh, yes, you do, Hinkle. It's the automatic I’m
after—the one you did the croak with.”
Hinkle's expression of terror gave way to one of
stupefaction. “Automatic?” he gulped. “Croak?
You—you're accusing me of croaking somebody?”
It was rather difficult to believe that his bewilder-
ment was artificial, and while Price was by no
means willing to admit failure, his cocksureness be-
gan to ebb. He made one more effort to sweep the
man off his feet.
“Don’t play innocent with me!” he said with a
fierceness which would have aroused the envy of a
browbeating headquarters man. “Bluff isn't going
to get you anywhere with me for I’ve got the goods
on you. You did the shooting out at the Searles'
place last night.”
“Searles' place? You mean Chan Searles?”
Hinkle looked both startled and relieved. “Then
you're not—” He paused, his eyes searching
Price's face questioningly; a moment of this scrutiny
and he laughed; a jerky, mirthless laugh it was.
“No, of course you're not, and if you hadn’t scared
the wits out of me when you crashed in with that
gun in your hand, I’d have known, first look, that
Spike Watson didn't send you! I thought Spike


A CONWINCING ALIBI 271
had sent you here to put my lights out; sure I was
just as good as cooked. More fool I was! That
would have been too raw. What's this about a
shooting?”
The situation was getting away from Wiggly
Price and he knew it. Hinkle was no longer afraid
of him, and that, a moment ago, was what he de-
pended upon to get a quick confession. Spike Wat-
son! An unsavory character about whose under-
world activities Price had written more than one
newspaper account, but who generally managed to
slip through the police net.
Many things were charged against Spike Watson,
but few of them had been proved. There were
rumors that he had turned his shady talents to the
profitable art of bootlegging and was getting away
with it. What had Spike Watson to do with the
tragedy at Riverview, and why should Spike Watson
want Ed Hinkle out of the way?
Perhaps the answer to that was that Hinkle had
been afraid to tackle the job alone; that, with a
murder, Hinkle was liable to squeal on his con-
federates. It wasn’t, Price realized, however, a very
sound theory; he hadn’t much faith in it, but he
had to take a shot at something.
“So you weren’t alone in this scheme to blackmail
Searles?” he said.
“Whatdaya mean!” sputtered Hinkle. “First you
talk about a croak, and now it’s blackmail. What's
the game, or are you just off your nut? Who's
croaked anyhow? Not Chan?”
“You know very well it's not Searles,” snapped


272 THE BIGAMIST
Price. “Don’t pull that innocent gag on me, Hin-
kle. Either you shot Calvin Oakes or you know who
did, and if you didn’t do it you’d better talk quick,
for you're headed straight for the chair.”
Ed Hinkle's terror had entirely disappeared, and
he seemed now only tremendously interested. “I
don’t know why you're picking on me,” he said.
“Who are you anyhow? You ain’t a cop, that's sure.
And what's this stuff about Calvin Oakes? Done
for, eh? So the pretty little thing's brother finally
did—”
“So you do admit knowing who Calvin Oakes is?”
Price broke in.
“Yes, I know that much. Why not? Chan showed
me a telegram from the brother, sent when the girl
was thought to be dying. She didn’t die, did she?”
“You know confounded Well she didn’t; you
know that Searles married her when he thought
she was dying, and that she got well.”
“Good Lord! So that Was it!” Hinkle exclaimed.
“He always was a kind of fool, but I didn’t think
he'd lose his nut and get himself into that sort of a
mess! Married the girl? The poor, soft fool!”
“Don’t pretend this is the first you knew of it,
Hinkle. That afternoon when you borrowed a hun-
dred-case note from Searles you knew he'd got him-
self into some sort of a mess, and you—”
“Sure; I knew it; I knew he was lying when he
told me the girl was dead, but I didn’t imagine he
had—”
“And you set out to discover what it was,” went
on Wiggly Price. “You found he had two wives,


A CONWINCING ALIBI 273
one of them so rich that it seemed reasonable you
could extort almost any amount of money from the
man.”
“See here!” exploded Hinkle. “What kind of a
rat do you think I am? I’m not wearing any wings,
but—”
“You went out to Miss Joline's place in Putnam
County, trailed Searles there, and discovered that's
where the sick girl was. You wrote him a letter
signed Richmond Jones and you collected five thou-
hand dollars at the Park View Hotel.”
“All wrong, mister—all dead wrong. Where do
you get that pipe dream anyhow?”
“Searles knew all along that it was you who
were blackmailing him; he knew you were the only
man who could have got the information about the
bigamous marriage. It had to be you.”
“Whether it had to be or not, it wasn’t. Now,
listen! There's no use for you to try and throw
your scares into me, for it won’t work. It might
except—” He smiled faintly as he paused. “You
say Calvin Oakes was croaked last night? All right,
I’ve got the best alibi in the world. Last night I
was locked up in the Tombs.”
“What's that?” Wiggly Price demanded skepti-
cally. “Easy enough to dynamite that alibi if you’re
lying.”
“And the night before last I was in the same
place—the Tombs. Ask the district attorney's office.
I got out on bail at ten o’clock this morning and—
well, that's what I'm afraid of. You're yapping up


274 THE BIGAMIST
the wrong tree, and it won’t take me long to set you
right.
“I don’t mind telling you I've been on the crook
for a long time, but I’ve always played a careful
game; never took long chances and never grabbed
much real dough. Then I met up with one of Spike
Watson's gang. They peddle hooch to the speedy
boys and girls, and they had a great scheme. When
a case of the wet goods was delivered to one of
those swell apartments, there was a chance to get
inside. See? Chance to look things over. Then
the scheme was to come back and lift the jewelry.
The first trick was one we pulled on a show girl
who had diamonds enough to sink a boat. It netted
a good forty thousand split four ways.”
“Why are you telling this to me?” asked Wiggly
Price, realizing that, unless he was greatly mis-
taken, Hinkle was admitting the Dolly LeMar rob-
bery which had recently occupied so much space in
the newspapers.
“I ain’t telling you anything I haven’t already
spilled to the D. A. That's why I thought you'd
come to put out my lights. I’d always stayed off
the rough stuff, but I was tired of piking, and it
did look good. Anyhow, the cops picked me up
and give me a free ride down to the Tombs. They
had me cold; my finger prints, curse 'em, were on
the glass top of the LeMar dame's dresser; that's
how they nabbed me. They had me dead to rights.
They put on the screws, and so I—”
“Snitched,” finished Price, who was beginning to
understand.


278 THE BIGAMIST
for it, and his disappointment was so absolute that
he had no desire for conversation.
As he more than half expected, his telephone call
to the district attorney's office confirmed Ed Hinkle's
story. Hinkle was not the guilty man.


282 THE BIGAMIST
certainly it was a compliment to Mr. Bannerton's
memory, but it might have fitted hundreds and even
thousands of men in New York.
“Any peculiarities?” pressed Wiggly.
“None that I seem able to recall. But Wait, I re-
member now; he had a slight limp as he walked. I
am afraid that is the best I can do.”
Price described Ed Hinkle in painstaking detail,
but, as he expected, Bannerton shook his head posi-
tively.
“No, that would not fit him at all. Prominent ears
and a thin face, you say. This Jones had no marked
characteristics, very little personality that would
impress itself upon me, and remembering faces is a
part of my business.”
After a few more questions which gained nothing,
Price took his departure, and while he was almost
dismal with the sense of having come to a stone
wall, he had definitely established one thing: Ed
Hinkle must be permanently scratched from the list
of suspects, although it still remained barely possi-
ble that Hinkle had worked with a blackmailer.
This, however, he doubted.
From the hotel he went by taxi to an address on
Madison Avenue which was a matter of but a dozen
blocks. His destination was an old-fashioned house
with a high stoop, and in response to his ring he
was admitted by a trim parlor maid who took his
newspaper card.
“Mr. Cunningham is very busy,” she said; “I
think it will be useless—”
“Tell him it is not an interview, but that it is—


SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE 283
no, better still, I will write it on the card. Let me
have it back for a moment, please.” He scribbled a
few words and gave it back to her.
Presently she came back, saying that Mr. Cunning-
ham would see him. This was Wiggly Price's sec-
ond visit here, and he knew in advance what Scott
Cunningham's workroom would look like. It was
on the second floor, a big room equipped with all
sorts of scientific material. Cunningham was a man
of independent means, and labored not for pay but
for the pleasure he got out of his detective investi-
gations. He was a nervous, undersized man, slightly
bald, and studious in appearance.
“May I ask you to be brief as possible, Mr.
Price,” he said hurriedly. “I have some important
experiments under way and can lose the result of
a month’s work in thirty minutes. I shall be able
to give you”—glancing at his wrist watch—“only
eight minutes.”
“All right, Mr. Cunningham, here goes,” responded
Wiggly, and in a series of short, terse sentences he
unfolded the salient features of the Riverview mys-
tery, going into details only as they concerned the
firing of the fatal shot.
“Here is the bullet which killed the man,” he
Said in conclusion, “and this is the revolver which,
as you will see for yourself, has been somewhat
recently fired. If your tests show the bullet to have
been fired from the revolver, then the shell I found
on the terrace means nothing, and it was Searles
who did the shooting. If not—well, Heaven only


284 THE BIGAMIST
knows what the answer will be. Queer mix-up,
isn’t it?”
“A good many crimes are queer mix-ups,” said
Scott Cunningham in his quick, nervous manner.
“How soon do you want a report?”
“Just as quickly as we can get it.”
“Impossible for me to do it, Mr. Price, until day
after to-morrow, but—just a moment.” He went to
his worktable and placed the bullet beneath the
lens of his powerful microscope, studying it at vari-
ous angles.
“You find—” Price's uncompleted question was
impatient with eagerness as he leaned forward.
Scott Cunningham did not answer. He picked up
the old-fashioned revolver, peered into its bore, and
then glanced hastily at his watch. His face seemed
to lose a little of its none-too-abundant color. The
gun thudded down to the table, and he leaped to-
ward the door at the far end of the room. He had
exceeded the allotted eight minutes by twenty sec-
onds, and his precious experiments called him.
“You’ve arrested the wrong man!” he called back
across his shoulder. “That bullet fired from more
modern weapon, smokeless powder. Give me a
ring day after to-morrow, nine o'clock; have com-
plete report ready.”
And then the door slammed violently, leaving
Wiggly Price to find his own way out.


286 THE BIGAMIST
and Hinkle's first behavior, the other nodded em-
phatically.
“That did look suspicious—very.”
“But he had an alibi, an air-tight, copper-riveted
alibi. He's spent the last two nights in jail.”
Bushnell listened as this was told, puffing slowly
at a blackened pipe. “Somehow, Price, I never did
have much faith in that end of it, although I tried
to. The whole blackmail story was a fabrication, I
suppose.”
“Oh, but it wasn’t, doctor. I went to the Park
View Hotel and verified this Richmond Jones busi-
ness. The clerk remembers Searles leaving the
envelope and Jones calling for it, but, worse luck,
he can’t give a description that's worth a whoop.
Only thing it does is add fresh proof that Jones
wasn’t Hinkle.”
“Then Searles merely seized upon that in an ef-
fort to explain his story about the shot coming from
through the windows, the most plausible thing he
could put his tongue to. I’ve seen Searles again
this afternoon, and Constable Griggs has been grill-
ing him for Heaven only knows how many hours.
Not another word can be got out of him; refuses to
talk at all now. Says he's told all there is to tell and
that he won't answer any more questions. The fool!
If he'd make a clean breast of it he could get away
with a plea of self-defense. The reason for this
stubbornness is, of course, apparent; he doesn’t want
his second wife to know he fired the shot that killed
her brother.”


SIGNED WITH A BULLET 287
Wiggly lit a cigarette. “The reason he doesn’t
confess, doctor, is that he's telling the truth.”
“Rubbish! Why in the name of common sense
must you persist in manufacturing a mystery when
there isn’t any mystery?” Bushnell's voice had an
impatient note.
“I seem to remember,” said Price, “that you said
identically the same thing to me in the Gilmore case,
When I was trying to make somebody take stock in
those clews of the piece of tallow and the broken
porcelain vase.”
“This is entirely different,” the doctor argued.
“There you had something definite to work with.”
“You didn’t think so at the time,” Wiggly retorted
with a grin. “I’ve got something to work with now;
I’ve got the word of Scott Cunningham that the death
bullet didn’t come from Searles' gun?”
“What's that? You’ve got a report on that?”
“Not a full report, doctor; we'll have to wait for a
couple of days, but Scott Cunningham knows more
about the individualities of firearms than any man
in New York. He examined the bullet and took a
peek inside the barrel of the revolver. While we'll
have to wait for a scientific report, before it will
constitute real evidence, Cunningham's word is good
enough for me. He tells me positively that the re-
volver did not fire that bullet, and in that case
Searles is telling the truth. Just as I thought, the
shot came from an automatic pistol, and from this
shell I picked up on the terrace.”
“Perhaps your faith in this Scott Cunningham is
justified, but I can’t believe it until I’ve had the


288 THE BIGAMIST
absolute proof in my hands. Dash it all, Price, if
neither Searles nor Hinkle did the shooting, who
did?”
“That's my job, I suppose,” Wiggly answered.
“You brought me out here to get to the bottom of
it, and I haven’t quit yet.”
“You admitted you were an optimist; I admire
your perseverance, but I haven’t, to be frank, much
faith that you will succeed. That exploded pistol
cartridge isn’t much of a clew.”
Wiggly Price's mouth tightened stubbornly.
“Somewhere out there at Riverview is the key to
the solution,” he declared. “I intend keeping on
until I have found it.”
“I’m not trying to discourage you; I don’t believe
I could anyhow, and you proved in the Gilmore case
that you’re a sticker, still I don’t expect you to work
miracles. Who else other than Searles or Hinkle
could have had a motive for killing Oakes? At first
I suspected Searles might be protecting his wife—
um—well, the rightful Mrs. Searles, I mean, but he's
in love with the other one.
“Perhaps you’re going to say the blackmailer fired
the shot, and the blackmailer, since he isn’t Hinkle,
must be somebody else. But who? I doubt if even
Searles can furnish us with any worth-while sug-
gestions, and I have always doubted that the black-
mailer would have taken the chance of going to
Riverview; there was too much danger of it being a
trap.
“No, with all respect to the abilities of this Cun-
ningham fellow, I’m sure that Searles, and Searles


SIGNED WITH A BULLET 289
alone, was responsible. If he's fool enough to insist
on trying to make a jury believe this wild yarn of
his, instead of owning up and making a plea of
self-defense, he'll have to take what the jury gives
him.”
A bell tinkled from another room. “Ah, there's
dinner.”
“Hope I haven’t inconvenienced Mrs. Bushnell,”
murmured Price.
“There is no Mrs. Bushnell; my wife died several
years ago, but I can assure you that Miss Bushnell
will consider it no inconvenience whatever. She is
most anxious to meet the stubborn young man who
made a fool of her father in the Gilmore case. This
way, please.” -
The doctor's household employed no servants, and
Lorna Bushnell, a wholesome, attractive girl of
twenty or so, had prepared the meal. Her face was
flushed from the heat of the kitchen, and she looked
very pretty indeed.
“Mr. Price, my daughter, Lorna.”
“I’ve been so anxious to meet you, Mr. Price, ever
since dad's told me how you did such marvelous
things with every one against you. It was just like
reading a detective story.”
“She knows whereof she speaks; detective stories
are her favorite literature,” laughed Bushnell.
Wiggly Price found himself fervently hoping that
he would be able to make his ears behave in the
presence of this highly attractive young woman; he
didn’t want to feel like a performing side-show.


SIGNED WITH A BULLET 291
become pretty dim now, but every once in a while I
take them out and furbish them up a bit.”
“Mr. Searles came to New York with his dreams,”
Lorna Bushnell went on, “but he was not making
them come true. He had his chance to marry Miss
Borland, who is fabulously rich, and he wasn’t
strong enough to pass it up. A human thing to do;
women have done the same thing countless times.”
“But this doesn't excuse the man, Miss Bushnell.
That girl back home had waited for him eleven
years or such a matter.”
“I am not trying to excuse him, but, as I see it,
Mr. Searles went a long way toward redeeming
himself when he went back to the girl he thought
was dying. The unforgivable thing would have
been for him to have refused to go to her. And
when he got there he married her. You can’t call
that a mean trick, Mr. Price; that was a fine thing
for him to do. He carried out a perfectly splendid
lie for the sake of her happiness. Then fate, with
its sometimes grotesque surprises, permitted her to
get well.”
“While you’re feeling sorry for Searles, what
about the poor girl whose heart has to be broken?”
“I am thinking about her,” said Lorna, her eyes
moist. “I am tremendously sorry for both of them.”
“Mrs. Searles,” questioned Wiggly, “is she pretty?
I have never seen her, you see. She is confined to
her room with a heart attack, and that's one of the
little mysteries that hasn’t been cleared up to any-
body’s satisfaction.”
“No, I wouldn’t call her pretty. Her color is bad.


SIGNED WITH A BULLET 293
the newspaper man. “I’m going to ring up Miss
Joline and ask her to meet us at Riverview just as
quickly as possible. I’ve been a blind, credulous
fool, and it took Miss Bushnell to put me on the
right track.”
“Me?” gasped Lorna. “I—I don’t understand.”
“Oh, I may be dead wrong, but it's worth trying
anyhow.” Price unceremoniously left the table and
went to the front of the house where he telephoned
to Miss Joline. His conversation was brief, and
Miss Joline was not given much chance to question
his reasons for requesting her immediate presence
at Riverview. She agreed to drive over.
“I hope you’re not making a serious mistake,” the
doctor said doubtfully as Wiggly returned to the
dining room. “Just what is this scheme you have?”
“Nothing whatever except to make a test which,
if I am wrong, will do no harm. As I say, it's worth
trying. Miss Joline will get there in about forty-five
or fifty minutes. Suppose we take your car, pick
up Constable Griggs, and go out at once, to be there
when she arrives. I would advise that we also take
Searles along; he might be useful.”
The doctor agreed, not without some hesitation.
Lorna Bushnell was both pleased that she might
have helped in some way, and piqued that Price
would not tell exactly what was in his mind. She
only knew that she had veered suspicion to Elliot
Borland.
The two men rushed through the remainder of
their dinner, and at once left the house in the phy-
sician’s car. They drove to Constable Griggs' house,


294 THE BIGAMIST
where they found the official leaving the front gate,
about to go back to Borough Hall, where Searles
was held a prisoner in the basement cell, intending
to have another try at cross-examination.
“Evenin', doc. What's up?” Then he saw Price.
“Howdy, young fellow. Where's that other pris’ner
you was goin’ to bring back with you from New
York? Ha, didn't pan out, did it? Knowed it
Wouldn't.”
“Price wants to have a try at another angle, a new
one,” explained Bushnell, “and I’ve agreed to it.
We'll get Searles and go out to Riverview.”
“What's the new angle?” demanded the constable.
“I’ll keep that under my hat for a little while,”
said Wiggly, “but I think there's a reasonably good
chance of your making another arrest—the right
man this time.”
“The gun expert in New York tells Price that the
fatal bullet was not fired from Searles’ revolver.
If that is true—”
“Don’t take no stock in them experts!” snapped
Ham Griggs, yet it was to be seen that he was un-
easy over the possibility of having Price cop the
honors; the memory of the latter's victory in the
Gilmore case was a constant reminder that the
newspaper man had a faculty for getting to the bot-
tom of things.
“Get in, Griggs, and we'll pick up Searles,” said
the doctor. “We haven’t any time to waste.”
Grumblingly the constable complied, and the three
drove to Borough Hall, where Griggs went to fetch
the prisoner. He brought Searles out handcuffed,


SIGNED WITH A BULLET 295
and the manacled man looked wan and crushed. He
didn’t seem to care where they were taking him or
what happened, but just slumped down into the ton-
neau, staring at nothing, except perhaps the dis-
torted pattern into which he had woven his life. He
asked no questions whatever.
Fifteen minutes later they drove into the grounds
of the Borland estate. When Doctor Bushnell rang
the bell, the door opened with rather surprising
promptness.
“I thought it might be Mr. Hornaday,” said the
butler; “Mrs. Searles has sent for him. She is very
low—not expected to survive the night. The strain
has been too much for the poor woman's heart. I
think she wishes to make—” He paused abruptly
as he became aware of Searles’ presence, but the
calling of a lawyer was easily open to interpreta-
tion. Elizabeth Searles wanted to make a will.
“We will go into the library, Hedges,” said Wiggly
Price. “Will you tell Mr. Borland to come down,
please?”
“Quite so, sir. He is upstairs; I will tell him at
once.” Hedges ascended the steps, and the other
four went into the library.
Ham Griggs snorted derisively. “What's Borland
got to do with it?” he asked.
“Wait and see,” Price retorted brusquely, “and in
Heaven's name keep your oar out!”
Bushnell shook his head skeptically, and Searles
did not seem even curious. Dazed and listless, he
let his body sag into a chair, his handcuffed wrists
resting heavily across his knees.


CHAPTER XXIX
AN ANTE-MORTEM STATEMENT
ALE and waxen, Elizabeth Borland lay with
closed eyes, clinging to the frayed and parting
thread of life. One might have thought her dead
except for the occasional movement of her hands,
but she was entirely conscious, so much so that
when she heard, through the open window, the ar-
rival of Doctor Bushnell's car, she moved her head.
“If that is Mr. Hornaday,” she said in a thin
whisper, “see that he is brought to me quickly.
There isn’t much more time.”
Miss Frazer, the nurse, knew this was true; her
patient might last a few more hours, and the end
might come at any moment. The room became silent
again. Presently there came the sound of running
feet in the hall, and Miss Frazer, frowning indig-
nantly, went to the door for the purpose of repri-
manding the offender. As her hand turned the
Knob there came the sound of the shot.
Elizabeth Searles heard it; there was no helping
that. Meager as was her strength, her head turned
and her eyes stared open, ghastly wide with horror.
Her whisper pierced the room.
“What Was that?”
“One of the servants dropped something,” lied the
nurse, but Elizabeth was not to be so easily misled.


AN ANTE-MORTEM STATEMENT 299
“Find out what it was and tell me,” she com-
manded. “I—I think I know, but I must be sure.”
Miss Frazer hesitated for a moment, not daring to
leave the dying woman. There were sounds of
pounding out in the hall. The doctor and Wiggly
Price had found Elliot Borland's door locked and
were breaking it in. The nurse stepped into the
hall, intending to warn them that this commotion
must cease immediately, that a human life depended
On it; she did not know that another life might de-
pend on a doctor getting past that locked door im-
mediately.
The heavy panel crashed inward as the lock was
broken. Borland lay crosswise on the bed, his
knees bent over the edge. The breast of his shirt
had been ripped open so that the flesh had been
bared when he had pressed the muzzle of the auto-
matic pistol against the spot nearest his heart. A
great welter of crimson soaked the upper part of
his body. The weapon with which he had ended
his life was still clutched in his hand.
“Mr. Borland has killed himself!” Screamed Ken-
dricks, peering in from the doorway.
Miss Frazer, white and trembling, returned to her
patient, but she knew Mrs. Searles had heard.
Elizabeth's lips twitched and her breathing was
labored.
“Perhaps it is best this way!” she whispered.
“Quick! Witnesses! Now I can speak.”
“Mrs. Searles, please!” the nurse pleaded franti-
cally.


302 THE BIGAMIST
had to draw upon, marveled, as all medical men
must at times, at the mastery of mind over the
physical. -
Elizabeth Searles' eyes fluttered, closed, then
opened again.
“Hornaday?” she whispered. “Why doesn't he
come? I must wait—for that.” But she could not
wait; a tremor moved her body, her eyes glazed and
her mouth sagged. Death had taken her.


CHAPTER XXX
THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS
AZED by this amazing rush of developments,
Constable Griggs stood out in the hall, not
having come upstairs until he had taken the pre-
caution of unlocking the handcuffs from Searles'
Wrists, and locking them again in such a fashion
that the prisoner was made fast to the arm of a
chair. Had he been fair with himself he would
have known that Wiggly Price had scored again,
but he was a stubborn man and slow to admit him-
self in error.
“The butler fellow says Borland has shot himself.
What made him do that?” he blurted, as Bushnell
and Price emerged from Elizabeth Searles’ bed-
T00m.
“Surely you know why, Griggs,” the doctor an-
swered impatiently. “Because he was trapped and
knew it. Borland killed Calvin Oakes. Amazing as
is is, Searles' story was true. If you’ve still got
him in irons, you might as well set him free.”
“Not much, I won't!” exploded the constable. “By
his own confession he's got two wives, an’ that's a
crime. I aim to hold him until the New Hampshire
officials come after him.”
“Then you’ll probably hold him a good while,”
Bushnell retorted wearily. “Without some one to


304 THE BIGAMIST
make a complaint there'll probably never be an ac-
tion about that. Mrs. Searles has just died and,
before she passed on, she removed any possible
doubts as to who killed Oakes. She was a witness
to the shooting—at least one theory I had is now
an established fact—and she has told us that her
brother fired the pistol through the window.”
The three men went downstairs and back to the
library where Ham Griggs, with evident reluctance,
unfastened the steel links which prisoned Searles to
the chair.
“He ought to be hung on general principles,” he
grumbled, “but I guess there ain’t nothin’ I can do
but turn him loose.”
Searles seemed to take no interest whatever in his
release.
“Then it was Borland?” he asked thickly. “I can’t
quite understand why Elliot did it. Not to save me
from Calvin? He disliked me—as he had a right
to.”
“Elliot Borland was the blackmailer, Searles,” ex-
plained Wiggly Price. “He was the mysterious
Richmond Jones.”
“Borland!” Searles cried incredulously. “Not
Hinkle?”
“No, not Hinkle; the man’s a crook, but I imagine
he is above blackmailing—particularly a man he
considered his friend.”
“But how did Borland know—”
“That you had another wife? I can’t answer
that, but it probably wasn’t so strange as you might
imagine. Miss Joline's nursing home isn’t far from


THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS 305
here; he may have seen your car headed in that
direction and been curious to find out where you
were going. When he discovered the truth he
grabbed the chance to get some quick money from
you instead of telling his sister the condition he had
found. Evidently he thought you could get un-
limited funds from her. There are a good many
gaps in the complete story, but we can’t go far
wrong in filling them in. It must have been quite a
shock to him when he got your letter, asking you to
meet him at Riverview.”
“Did he confess before he shot himself?”
“No, but your wife was outside the portières there
and was a witness. She saw Borland fire the shot.
This she told us just now—before she died.”
“Died?” gasped Searles. “Great heavens, you
mean that Elizabeth is dead? When? How?”
“Less than ten minutes ago as a result of a dis-
eased heart condition, aggravated by the horrors of
the last few hours,” explained Doctor Bushnell.
“The knowledge that her brother had killed a man
hurried her death, although it is doubtful if she
would have lived more than a few months. She
was much worse than she perhaps realized.”
“And the knowledge of what I had done,” Searles
added bitterly. “There's no use trying to save my
feelings, doctor; I am responsible for the whole
terrible business.”
There was the sound of an approaching motor,
and a moment later Miss Joline was shown into the
library. The whole thing had to be gone over
again, and in the midst of this, Doctor Bushnell


306 THE BIGAMIST
remembered a question he had been trying to ask
Wiggly Price.
“What was it made you so sure Borland was the
guilty man?”
“It was Miss Lorna who set me thinking along the
right track, doctor. When she told me that Mrs.
Searles' brother was a wild one, and always getting
into financial difficulties, it immediately became
plausible that he would be capable of some desperate
scheme to raise money. There was a case not long
ago where a young man was blackmailing his mil-
lionaire father—under cover, of course.
“What actually made Borland a suspect was a
small thing, something so trivial that at the time
I little more than noticed it. When Miss Joline ar-
rived this morning to face Searles and to make
certain that Channing Searles and Oz Searles were
one and the same person, Borland and I were on
the terrace. I had found the fired cartridge and
was examining it. As Miss Joline got out of her
car, Borland suddenly disappeared within the house.
I attached no importance to that at the time, but it
was because he recognized her and couldn’t take the
chance of her recognizing him.”
“Trivialities are often the really important things,”
murmured Miss Joline. “Why did you want me
to come?”
“To face Borland and tell us whether or not he
was Richmond Jones; I don’t think there can be any
doubt of it,” answered Price.
“Does Mr. Borland walk lame?” she asked.
“No; that must have been a simple but effective


THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS 307
deception, as was the wearing of the shell-rimmed
Spectacles. He was consistent enough to use it
when he registered at the Park View Hotel to get
the money he had extorted from his brother-in-law.
I suggest, Miss Joline, that you view Borland's body
and thus remove the last possible doubt as to his
being Jones.”
“The exploded shell you found on the terrace,”
said Doctor Bushnell. “I wonder if its being there
was altogether an accident, or if Borland planted
it there to create further doubts as to Searles' guilt.”
“I’m afraid we shall never know that for an ab-
Solute certainty, doctor, but since an automatic ejects
its cartridges, I think it is quite safe to presume it
was not planted. Of course his story about seeing
the man with a cap run across the lawn and dis-
appear over the parapet was pure fabrication to
protect Searles. He played a careful game by
making himself inconspicuous.
“Why he was carrying the gun is another circum-
stance we cannot definitely answer, but he may
have decided to come out in the open with Searles,
and had prepared himself for possible emergencies.”
“And Mrs. Searles is dead?” murmured Miss
Joline, looking at Searles. “What a trail of
tragedy!”
Searles stirred nervously and lifted his haggard
face to the nurse's gaze. “Does Dora know?” he
asked thickly. “Have you told her?”
“No, I am leaving that for some one else; I
haven’t the heart to do it. She wonders why you
did not come. I lied to her; I told her that you had


308 THE BIGAMIST
telephoned, that you had been called out of town on
business. She took her first step this afternoon;
she is so beautifully happy.”
“Don’t!” Searles cried thickly, wincing as if he
had been struck.
The portières swung back, and Conrad Hornaday
Strode into the room; he had arrived too late. For
at least once in his life he had lost his superb
poise. He stood staring from face to face. The
lawyer had returned from Washington late in the
afternoon and had not seen the papers containing
an account of the Riverview tragedy. He had gone
from the railroad station directly home, where Eliza-
beth’s urgent message had reached him. All he
knew about the amazing developments of the past
twenty-four hours was a highly unsatisfactory ac-
count of it, as given to him by Hedges only a
moment ago.
“What does all this mean?” he demanded. “Eliza-
beth dead? Elliot dead?”
So, for a second time, the story had to be gone into
again., Doctor Bushnell tersely supplied the salient
details, his account stripped to the bare facts, but
none the less complete. Hornaday dropped limply
into a chair, overwhelmed by it all.
“Yes, yes!” he exploded. “I can understand
Elliot descending to blackmail. He had no scruples
whatever concerning his methods of getting money.
Once he rigged up a breach-of-promise suit and split
the money with the complainant. No moral fiber
Whatever.”
He paused for a moment and then swung around


THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS 309
to Searles with a sneer. “You, who were at the
bottom of the whole business, have come out of it
very profitably. Thanks to an accident which made
me an hour late getting here, Mrs. Searles was un-
able to carry out her intention of making a will.
The Borland fortune comes into your hands—every
dollar of it. It will probably curse you to your
grave, and I sincerely hope it will!”
Searles’ head jerked up. “I don’t want it,” he
said slowly. “What's more, I won’t accept it—not a
penny. You might as well draw up some sort of
document right now and let me sign it. I have been
a fool and more than that. But I don’t want any of
the Borland money.”
“A cheap grand-stand play, Searles. A man of
your sort doesn’t throw away five million dollars.”
Searles moved his hands in a weary gesture.
“Money?” he said harshly. “What is money when
a man has lost Oh, there's no use of Words,
Mr. Hornaday. If you will draw up the document
I will sign it now. Let the money go to the estate
and be divided among whatever relatives there are.”
“I’ll call that bluff!” snapped Hornaday, having no
notion that it was anything but an empty gesture.
“Ring for the butler to bring me writing materiall”
Searles rang for Hedges and told the butler what
was wanted. The others stared at him in trans-
fixed silence, wondering, doubting, only half be-
lieving. Miss Joline seemed to be holding her
breath, her eyes bright and her lips parted. Not a
word was spoken while they waited for Hedges to
bring pen, ink and paper. The tense stillness of the


THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS 311
does not know,” she insisted. “It would be
cruel—”
“You are asking me to deceive Dora about what
has happened? I am done with lies and deceit!
You do tempt me, Miss Joline, but—oh, it's impossi-
ble. There is Calvin's death. She will have to
know that.”
“Yes, she will have to know something. But need
she know the whole truth? Dora loves you. I
know her well enough to be sure that nothing will
make any difference—not even what has happened.
She will understand and she will forgive. But why
torture her with all these black things, these ugly
happenings which will live with her forever? The
dear girl has a right to be happy; it is the one thing
you can do for her. I leave it to the rest of these
people; they understand the situation. They do
know by this time that, notwithstanding all your
mistakes, you do care for her.”
“I love her more than ever,” Searles answered
hopelessly.
“Except for one thing,” offered Doctor Bushnell,
“I would agree with Miss Joline. How can the cir-
cumstances of Calvin Oakes' death be satisfactorily
explained?”
“Leave that to my imagination,” declared Miss
Joline. “You have no idea what a credulous crea-
ture she is.
“I also have an objection,” said Wiggly Price.
“Searles and Dora Oakes will have to go through a
second ceremony to legalize the first marriage.
What will you tell her about that?”


312 THE BIGAMIST
Hard-crusted Conrad Hornaday felt himself moved
as sentiment seldom had the power to move him.
“As I understand the situation,” he said learnedly,
“I very much doubt that Searles has been techni-
cally guilty of bigamy. I am not familiar with the
laws of New Hampshire, but Searles did not per-
sonally apply for the marriage license. Therefore
he made no affidavit that he was eligible to marry.
The license was issued at the discretion of the
county clerk and as a favor to Calvin Oakes, who
doubtless explained the highly unusual situation.
“It might be a very plausible contention that since
Searles did not sign the customary declarations
which accompany proper application for a marriage
license, the validity of the ceremony—granting that
he had been a single man—might be open to attack.
I am sure such a theory might be presented—ah—
plausibly.”
Searles swung around to the lawyer. “Would you
advise me to do this?” he demanded. “Have I the
right to deceive Dora like this?”
Conrad Hornaday got out his eyeglasses and toyed
with them meditatively. A smile lifted the corners
of his mouth. “My boy,” he said firmly, “as I see
it, you have no right whatever to tell her the truth.
As Miss Joline said a moment ago: What is more
precious in all the world than a woman’s happiness?
“You have just done a courageous thing. Again
to quote Miss Joline, you have redeemed yourself.
I should be glad indeed to keep you on with my
firm—not at ten thousand a year, of course—but


THE PRICE OF HAPPINESS 313
these sensational developments make it impossible
for you to remain in New York. There is sure to
be unpleasant publicity. I have some legal friends
in California, and I think I could help you to get
located out there. In fact, I am sure of it, and if it
is a question of funds—”
“Of course he will!” cried Miss Joline. “He
cannot refuse for her sake. I am going to take you
With me now in the car—to Dora!”
A few minutes later the sound of Miss Joline's
departing car was lost in the night. Wiggly Price
turned to Doctor Bushnell.
“What a peach of a story to pass up!” he said
regretfully. “Murder, romance, and everything!”
“You’re passing it up?” the doctor gasped. “That's
a little difficult to believe.” -
“A story like that would be on the front page of
every newspaper in the country, from coast to
coast. It would hound Searles and that girl wher-
ever they went.”
“Price, this is a wonderfully decent and humane
thing for you to do, but your newspaper—”
“I stand on a technicality if you're raising the
point of loyalty to my sheet,” said Wiggly. “You
see, I'm on my vacation and the city editor didn't
assign me to this case. I’m working on my own.
Just the same”—he could not conceal the fact that
... it cost him a good deal to pass up such a sensational
news beat—“I’ll bet it wasn't half as hard for
Searles to pass up that five million as it is for me
to pass up this story. But I guess it's worth it.”