Suddenly, in the midst of one of his favorite arias, his hands began to falter. For a time he sat motionless, with lips tightening, gazing narrowly at the point where Helen Hardwick had stood at the moment when he held her hand. His face was grim and troubled, as if a disturbing thought had just occurred to him. He got up and with long strides passed to the desk, where he pressed a button.
“Wade,” he crisply announced when the fat man reappeared, “I am going to New York in the morning.”
Wade sat down, drawing a squeaky protest from an unoffending chair. “To New—New York?” he stammered.
“Exactly. Tell Dullah to pack my grip. I shall leave early, about the time you are getting your beauty sleep.”
Wade blinked his little eyes. “But why, boss?”
“Here’s the reason.” Vanardy handed him one of the papers he had been perusing, watching with an amused smile the flabbergasted look that came into the fat man’s face as he read. As he approached the end of the article, wheezy gasps and indignant mutters punctuated the reading.
“Rot!” he commented emphatically. “If I wasn’t a fat man I’d lick the editor of this sheet within an inch of his life. Why, you always played the game according to the code, boss. You never killed a man in all your life.”
“No, never.”
“And you were right here at Sea-Glimpse at the time the murder was done.”
“True enough. But I might have some difficulty proving it. Your own testimony wouldn’t be particularly impressive. Besides, there’s just enough of truth in the police theory to give color to the lies. It is true Gage and I quarreled, and I believe I once threatened to give the old skinflint a beating. It was a foolish wrangle, involving nothing but a cross made of imitation jade. I’d been wearing it attached to a chain around my neck as far back as I could remember. Who put it there I don’t know. Perhaps——”