And yet Storm realized all at once that he could not go! He was bound even more irrevocably than by the lack of funds which yesterday had oppressed him to the environs of this latest act of his. In vain he told himself that it was mere morbid curiosity; that he didn’t care, it couldn’t matter to him how or when the crime was discovered. He knew in advance what the result of the investigation would be and how the furore over the disappearance of the money would die out in sheer lack of evidence upon which to continue the search. Morbid or no, there was a secret spell upon him, a secret fascination which would hold him there until the case had run its course and been relegated to the limbo of forgotten things.
In lesser degree, the same impatience which had filled him during that night-long vigil when he waited for the servant’s cry to announce Leila’s death now assailed him to learn of the discovery of Horton’s body. He bought the early editions of the afternoon papers and scanned them eagerly, but they bore no reference to such an episode. Had the body, in its fall down that steep declivity, been arrested by the branches of some clump of underbrush, to lie concealed perhaps until autumn stripped the foliage away? The thought was unendurable, the prolonged suspense would drive him mad!
The money, too, began to worry him. Was its hiding place really secure? What if Homachi had discovered and made away with it? He tried to concentrate on the routine work of his office, but the effort was futile, and at four o’clock he closed his desk and hurried home to his rooms.
Homachi had departed for the day, and Storm pushed back the panel in the wall and opened the safe with shaking hands. There lay the neat piles of bills and roulades of gold just as he had placed them on the previous night; and the sight of them calmed his jangling nerves like a potent, soothing draught.
As he stood lost in contemplation of them there came a double ring at the bell, and he cursed softly beneath his breath as he closed the safe and pushed the panel back into place. That was George Holworthy’s ring, and George was the last person he cared to see in his present mood. Perhaps if he did not reply the other would go away——
But the bell rang again, and resigning himself to the inevitable Storm opened the door.
“Hello, Norman.” George’s placid face broadened with a smile of assured welcome. “I stopped in at the trust company for you but they said you had left early and I was afraid you were ill. You do look rather seedy.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” Storm answered shortly. “Didn’t sleep very well last night, that’s all. Come on in.”
“Suppose you come out?” suggested the other. “I’ve borrowed Abbott’s car and we can run up the road to some quiet little joint for a bite of dinner; the air will do you good.”
A sense of relief pervaded Storm. He had dreaded the thought of seeing George seated where Horton had sat last night, smoking the same cigars and piling up the ashes on the same tray. He assented readily enough to the plan, and soon they were seated in the little car with George at the wheel heading up the Drive.