I didn’t laugh at that. I hadn’t seen the butler but there was no reason for believing he was not in the game.
“They got him,” I thought to myself. “They got old Win Scofield.”
His life was not an invaluable one, as perhaps you have gathered; but that wasn’t the point with me. They—his wife and other people close about him and upon whom he had a right to depend—had got him, and certainly in some low, treacherous way. No wonder Jerry had warned me to try and stop this; he’d told me he’d pick and choose, so when he took the risk of warning, he’d warn against a more than ordinary crime.
“Jerry killed Winton Scofield,” my father repeated just then; and I came back at him now, “He didn’t.”
I couldn’t tell him that Jerry had sent me to try to stop this murder. I remembered in time that Jerry forbade me a word. There was no use talking to father, anyway.
“Get some clothes on,” was all he said to me.
“Keeban did that!” I proclaimed; and father pulled up and faced me.
“There’s no Keeban; don’t let me hear you say that again. This family faces the fact; Jerry’s gone to crime. We face it and we do not shirk our responsibility. Come to yourself, Stephen. Jerry’s picture is in police headquarters in every city east or west; New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Baltimore, every headquarters has reported the same; they have no criminal in their galleries who would be taken for Jerry. There’s never been a Keeban in crime; it’s Jerry.”
“Keeban, he goes by the name of Harry Vine,” I returned; “he’s not in their galleries because he’s kept out of their hands. They’ve got to catch a man before they can photograph him.”