But he was wasting precious time in pandering now to the obsession which filled him. Storm caught the golf cap from the rack and tossed it lightly upon the closet shelf where it had rested so brief a time before, then reluctantly closed the door. Moving to the living-room once more, he collected the glasses, siphon and bottle and carried them to the kitchen where with scrupulous care he cleared away the debris of the earlier repast. As he applied himself to his unaccustomed task his thoughts raced forward to the magic years ahead, and if the lingering specter of a lonely, huddled, battered form lying somewhere out in the night intruded itself to block the vision he thrust it sternly aside.
Nothing could stop him now! The cup of forgetfulness, of hope and adventure and rejuvenation which had been held to his lips and snatched away was at last safe within his grasp, and he meant to drink of it to the full! That picture of Yokohama harbor which Horton had drawn; he should see it, too, and soon! The bobbing lights and tinkling notes of the samisens, and taste of the East in his mouth; it should be his, all of it, until he was satiated with it and turned to other lands!
He looked about the conventional, luxurious rooms as though already they were strange to him, lost in a haze of half-forgotten memories. How soon they would be wholly forgotten, merged with those other more poignant thoughts of Greenlea in the blankness of a descending curtain! Not a memento should go with him into his new life; every thread must be clipped short on the day when he finally shook the dust of the past from his feet. And that would be soon, soon! There was nothing now to wait for, no lack of funds to hold him back. He would hang about, of course, until the little flurry of Horton’s disappearance had blown over and been forgotten, and then he would set sail!
When all was in order again Storm gave a final approving glance about the kitchen and turned out the light. Homachi would note the quantity of food which had been consumed, of course, but that could be casually explained, and of Horton’s hour there remained no other indication.
The gold! He could revel in it now, feel its solid, reassuring touch, know that for each separate clinking coin and crackling bill he could demand of the world full measure in all that he had thought denied to him forever! He dragged the bag from its hiding place, and dropping unheedingly into the same chair which Horton had occupied two hours before, he opened it, working the secret spring as he had seen the other do. There it all lay before him; the few neat cylinders of gold, the many compact piles of yellow-backs! He fondled them in a strange ecstasy of possession, drunk with the knowledge of his own power. Had a glimpse of his face been vouchsafed him at the moment, he would not have recognized it as his own, so distorted was it by the passion which consumed him. Avarice had never laid its clutching fingers on him before, he had never known the rapacious hunger for wealth which assailed others; and it was not now the money itself over which he gloated, but all that it stood for, all that it would mean to him.
He had known the galling shackles of necessity which bound him to the wheel of circumstance, and now at one blow he had struck them off! He was free!
How long he crouched there he never knew, but after a time the first ecstasy passed and a measure of sanity returned. The money was his now; but he could not make instant use of his fortune, nor could he leave it in that bag. The logical thing would be to place it in the safe built into the wall of his bedroom, of which Potter had shown him the combination before he departed. The gold and banknotes would form too bulky a package to be concealed from Homachi’s sharp eyes anywhere else in the apartment, and Storm repelled the thought of conveying it secretly to some safe deposit vault. He must keep it in his immediate possession, within reach of his hand.
He rose and carried the bag into the bedroom where he carefully counted out its contents upon the bed. One thousand, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, a hundred and twelve! He gasped at the immensity of it spread out before him! A hundred and twelve thousand dollars; and there were still some smaller gold coins and a two-dollar bill! As he lifted the bag something clinked within it, and investigating an inner pocket he discovered eight shining new dimes and four bright pennies. Five hundred and fifty-two dollars and eighty-four cents in addition to the thousands! He recalled Horton’s statement of the amount, and an ironic smile curved his lips. What a methodical, cautious, conscientious protector of other people’s money he had been, and how little it had availed him or them when the blow fell!
Storm opened the safe, deposited the money within it down to the last penny, and closing it slid the panel back into place. The bag remained to be disposed of, and there was Horton’s hat and pistol, too, in the drawer of the living-room table. He must get rid of them at the earliest possible moment, and in a manner which could not be traced. Of course, there was a chance that Horton’s body would not be discovered until all means of identification had been obliterated; but it was so unlikely that Storm dismissed it from his thoughts. He could not afford to gamble on a favorable long shot now; he must look at this situation as squarely as he had the first desperate one of a month before, and prepare himself for every contingency.
Horton’s clothing must surely contain papers revealing his identity and attesting to his connection with the Mid-Eastern coal people. In the event that his body were found on the morrow, they would be communicated with, perhaps even before they had time to grow uneasy over the non-appearance of their paymaster. In a few hours, twelve at most, that ordinary looking bag might become the most important and sought-after article in the country, its description down to the minutest detail spread broadcast in the press.