He shut the door and sinking into the nearest chair read on absorbedly:
“John M. Horton, pay clerk for the Mid-Eastern Consolidated Coal Corporation, disappeared on the sixth inst. with a black leather handbag in his possession containing the total sum of $112,552.84 which he had just drawn from the Mid-Eastern Trust Company’s Poughkeepsie branch. He was last seen boarding a train in the latter city at four-forty P. M. for New York en route to Altoona, Pa., and the alarm was not sent out until late yesterday afternoon. Representatives of the Mid-Eastern C. C. C. who have been interviewed loyally declare their faith in the missing man and assert that he must have met with foul play. When last seen ‘Jack’ Horton, as he is known, wore a dark green felt hat, black overcoat, blue serge suit and low tan shoes. He is about forty years of age——”
Storm’s eyes traveled on to the last line of the personal description and the few meager details added, and the paper dropped from his listless fingers. This was a contingency which he had not forseen. He had taken it for granted that the body would be discovered and identified before the Mid-Eastern people would have time to take alarm and send out tracers after the missing man.
To his mind in its warped state came no reminder of his own treachery, no thought of the hospitality betrayed, the blow struck in the dark from behind. He felt no animosity toward Horton; he had killed him because the latter stood between him and the money he coveted. It had been a necessary, even a brilliant stroke, and he felt no remorse for the dead.
But suppose Horton’s body were not found? An aspersion of theft might logically follow in the course of time, but it could not harm him now, and that solution would end any local search. It might be as well, after all . . .
As he dressed a vague desire came over him to revisit the scene of that sudden, crafty blow. It could do no harm to stroll up along that path and just glance over the wall. No suspicion could be attached to him for that if the body were found later, and he longed to see for himself if no trace of it could be discerned from above.
Then he thrust that trend of thought from him in a wave of horror. Great heavens, was he going mad? Murderers had been known to haunt the scenes of their crimes; that was the way in which they were frequently caught! He must avoid that spot as he would the plague! Yet the vague, terrifying sensation of being drawn toward it persisted, and in sheer desperation he fled downtown earlier than was his wont and plunged feverishly into the business of the day. It had a steadying effect upon his nerves, and when noon came he had quite recovered command of himself.
George telephoned again, asking him to lunch, but he pleaded another engagement. If he had to listen to old George’s theories and speculations it would madden him, and he wanted to have himself well in hand for his visit to Police Headquarters with Millard.
As the hour drew near his keen anticipation mounted. Millard had said that there was nothing very big on, but that was yesterday; the disappearance of a man with a hundred thousand dollars in his possession would be a sensation even in the manifold events of so huge a city, and he was eager to hear what view had been taken of the case by the authorities. As on the previous afternoon, he purchased the earliest editions of the evening papers; but although they contained lengthy accounts of the Mid-Eastern affair, no mention was made of the discovery of a dead man near the Drive.
Millard was bubbling with enthusiasm when they met.