“Of course,” Storm commented; “but ordinary footpads could have set upon him from behind——”
“Ordinary footpads would not have known the contents of that bag,” objected the other. “Now, if he really boarded that train alive in broad daylight, he must have left it willingly, and therefore he must have done so at the terminal in New York, for no amount of persuasion or coercion would have made him get off at an intermediate station with that bag in his possession.”
“And since the bag was found at the terminal, you think he was murdered there?” Storm laughed shortly.
“No, but I do think he was murdered somewhere within the city limits; you couldn’t get a dead or drugged or resisting man off a train in broad daylight without attracting attention, and as a matter of fact the autopsy shows that Jack wasn’t drugged. He may have met some old pal on the train or in the station and decided to wait over for an hour or so in town before continuing on his journey, and it must have been someone he knew well. If he left Poughkeepsie on that four-something train, he must have reached New York in time for dinner, and it has been established that he wasn’t killed until around midnight. It seems to me that if the police would look up what friends of his were in New York that night, they might learn something to their advantage.”
“You are getting to be quite an analyst, George; I should never have suspected it.” Storm yawned openly and tossed away his cigarette. “What about the bag? You said that when they found the man who checked it they would have Horton’s murderer. It has been established, then, that a man did check it? They have a description of him, perhaps?”
He waited breathlessly for the answer, but George merely shrugged.
“No. It was checked some time on Thursday; that’s all they know. The hat and pistol were in it, wadded out with newspapers, but not another scrap of evidence.” George rose. “Guess I’ll be getting on downtown. If I can get Abbott’s car to-morrow afternoon, do you want to run out somewhere for dinner? You’re not looking up to the mark lately, old man; too much brooding and sticking around by yourself. The air will do you good.”
Storm assented absently, and after he had shown his visitor out he sprung the light in the bathroom and examined his face in the mirror. It bore a grayish, unhealthy pallor, and there were lines about his mouth which certainly had not been there a month before. His eyes, too: there was a look in them which Storm himself did not care to meet, and for the first time he noted a faint touch of gray in the dark hair at his temples. He shrugged and turned away.
Ah, well, a few days now and he would be on his way to new fields. A few gray hairs: what did they matter? It was this ceaseless strain of being on guard, the constant rankling torture of memory! Let him once start afresh, with the past behind him, and he would soon regain his own old snap and vigor.
Since that memorable Wednesday evening his rooms had become as hateful to him as the house at Greenlea. Horton had only passed a few hours there, yet he had left a vivid impression behind him as disturbing as the effect of Leila’s influence in the home. Every time Storm entered the living-room he seemed to see Horton’s figure seated in that heavy armchair, his legs stretched out luxuriously, and the smoke curling up from his cigar. The empty walls echoed with his loud, self-satisfied voice, his coarse, good-natured laugh.