[CHAPTER IX]
JACK TELLS THE STORY
With the fitting of the murder on Johnston Barker, the office of Whitney & Whitney drew in its breath, took a cinch in its belt, and went at the work with a quiet, deadly zest. It was the most sensational and one of the biggest cases that had ever come their way. No one on the inside could have failed to feel the thrill of it, the horror of the crime, and the excitement of the subterranean chase for the criminal.
I was as keen as the rest of them, but there was one feature of the secret investigations that I detested—the dragging in of Carol Whitehall's name. It couldn't be helped. The affair had taken place in her offices, but it was hateful to me to hear her mentioned in our conferences, even though it was merely as an outside figure, a person as ignorant of the true state of the case as Troop or Mrs. Hansen.
The tapped phone message and the subsequent trip to Rochester had given me no end of a jar. Up till then I couldn't imagine her as caring for Barker. Everybody admitted that his private life had been beyond reproach—entirely free from entanglements with women—but even so I couldn't picture the girl I'd met in New Jersey in love with him. He was between fifty and sixty, more than twice her age. George said it was his money, but George has lived among the fashionable rich, women who'd marry an octogenarian for a house on Fifth Avenue and a string of pearls. I would have staked my last dollar she wasn't that kind—proud and pure as Diana, only giving herself where her heart went first.
But if it had been hard to imagine her as fond of Barker the magnate, what was it now when he was Barker the murderer? It made me sick. All I could hope for was that we'd get him and save the unfortunate girl by showing her what he was. And while we were doing this it was up to us to keep her out of it, shield her and protect her in every possible way. She was a lady, the kind of woman that every man wants to keep aloof from anything sordid and brutal.
I was thinking this one morning, a few days after our last séance, on my way to the office. I had been detained on work uptown and was late, entering upon a conference of the chief, George and O'Mally. When I heard what they'd been evolving, I didn't show the expected enthusiasm. Miss Whitehall was to be asked to come to Whitney & Whitney's that afternoon, the hope being to trap or beguile her into some information about Barker's whereabouts. It was the chief's plan—a poor one, I thought, and said so—but he was as enigmatic as usual, remarking that whether it succeeded or not, he wanted to see her. It didn't add to my good humor to hear that, as I knew the girl, they'd selected me for their messenger.
Not being able to strike straight at their subject they'd framed up a story, one that would give them scope for questions and be a sufficiently plausible excuse to get her there. It seemed to me absurd, but the old man was satisfied with it. Everybody now knew that Harland had been her silent partner. Their story was that they'd heard Barker was also in the enterprise, she'd had a double backing, his visits to her office gave color to the rumor, and so forth and so on. I left the office while they were conning it over.
As I mounted the stairs to her apartment I felt a good deal of a cad. If it had been anyone else, or any other kind of a woman—but that fine, high-spirited creature! A group of men trying to make a fool of her—beastly! Why had I said I'd do it—and why the devil had she got mixed up in such an ugly business?
A servant opened the door and showed me up a hall into the parlor. She was there sitting at a desk littered with papers, and rose with a faint surprised smile when she saw me. As we sat down and I made my apologies for intruding, I had a chance to observe her and was struck by the change in her. It was less than a year since we'd last met and she looked singularly different. Handsome of course—she'd always be that—but another kind of woman. At first I thought it was because she was paler and thinner—she'd been a radiant, blooming Amazon in the country—but after a few minutes I saw it was something—how can I express it?—more of the spirit than the body. The joyousness and gayety had gone out of her, and the spontaneity—I noticed that especially. I could feel constraint in her composure as if she was on her dignity.