“Uh-huh. The last edition of all the papers is playing it up big. The bag with poor old Jack’s hat and a pistol and a lot of old newspapers inside was discovered in the parcel-checking room of the Grand Central Station.” George paused and added: “Isn’t that marvelous police work for you? They must have doped it out that because he disappeared presumably from the terminal the bag would be found somewhere around there, and by Jingo, it was! Think of conceiving the idea of searching the parcel room and then tell me a fellow can get away with anything in this town when such minds as those are on the job after him! Wonderful work, I call it! When they find out who checked that bag there, they’ve got Jack Horton’s murderer!”
Chapter XX.
Marked!
They finished packing the trunk, made and devoured the rarebit, and still George lingered. His mind had been jarred from its placid routine by the tragic death of their former classmate, and he dwelt upon the reminiscences which were an added torture to Storm’s perturbed mental state.
The bag had been discovered, but did the porter remember checking it? Did he remember the face of the man who had given it into his charge? That was a paramount question. He had not noticed that the papers he brought home with him were not the final edition, and now it was too late to procure one even if he could get rid of George. He felt that he could not wait till morning; he must know! Dare he ask his companion for particulars? Surely it would be only natural for him to show as much casual interest as that in the mystery surrounding an old friend’s death!
“What do you think about the case yourself?” he queried at last, abruptly cutting off the flow of reminiscence. “What is your theory as to how Jack came to his death?”
“Well,” George helped himself to a cigar. “He may not have been killed on the Drive, you know. His body may have been brought there by automobile and thrown over the wall, and a high-powered car travels fast; the murder may have taken place miles away. I’m going down and have a look at old Jack to-morrow if they will let me—I have a theory about the whole thing that I would like to try out for my own satisfaction.”
“And what is that?” Storm inquired with a jarring note of sarcasm in his tones.
“Oh, I don’t pretend to be any amateur detective,” George returned mildly. “But I knew old Jack! They’re all taking it for granted that he wasn’t killed in New York because he had no business to be here; at least, he was supposed to have gone right on through. Now, his character may have steadied down and grown more dependable with the years—it must have, since he has been so uniformly trusted in such responsible positions—but you can’t change a person’s natural propensities, and Jack was always keen for a good time. Understand, I’m not casting any aspersions on him; I don’t say he would have taken a chance of trouble with that money in his care, but what if he didn’t think he was taking chances? What if he ran into some people he knew and trusted as he would himself, was persuaded to stop over and then taken unawares?”
“But what grounds are there for such a supposition?” The sarcasm had gone from Storm’s tones and they were muffled and oddly constrained. “Didn’t the papers speak of a struggle? That doesn’t look as if Horton were caught off guard by people he might have been chumming with.”
“That’s why I want to see the body,” responded George. “It could have been banged about and the clothes torn by that fall over the wall and down that steep, rocky incline.”