The policeman’s description of the heavier set of the two pedestrians whom he had passed on the night of the murder might have fitted Horton—according to the newspaper report on the body—or any of a million other men, perhaps. But his account of the taller man——! George picked up his notebook from the floor where it had fallen from his paralyzed fingers in the shock of the verification of his discovery and read the description again:—“Tall, thin, with a smooth-shaved face and small hands——I saw that much when he put a match to his cigarette. He was dressed all in dark clothes; black, maybe.”
George closed the notebook and put it back slowly into his pocket. Tall, thin, smooth-shaven, in mourning, with the inevitable cigarette! It was Storm to the life! His heart, all the accumulating affection of years cried out against the justice of that verdict. A tall, thin man dressed in dark clothes; were there not thousands in the city? But that methodical, inexorable brain of George’s had gone back swiftly to the night after that on which the murder must have taken place, when he and Storm had motored out in Abbott’s car up the road for dinner.
They passed twice by the very spot where Horton’s body must still have been lying, and on the first occasion——God! how it had all come back!—Storm had leaned forward, staring, then uttered a sharp exclamation and sank back in his seat; George had had to speak to him twice before he answered. He knew then what lay beyond that wall!
The visit to the Police Headquarters, the wager with Millard: all that had been sheer bravado. But what horrible manner of man was this whom he had thought he knew so well! With what outward calm he had received Millard’s revelations at that dinner on Tuesday night! The fact that the newspapers stuffed in Horton’s bag—from which he had thought to remove all clues by taking off these outer sheets with the apartment number on them—had been made special note of must have been a shock to him, and also the news that the bills were marked and a warning had been sent out for them. But perhaps he had already discounted that, perhaps he was depending on the ten thousand in gold to get him out of the country.
But why should he go? His salary at the trust company each year was that amount and half again as much. Unless he were quite mad he would not have dreamed of throwing up such a position and committing murder for a comparatively paltry sum in order to gratify a sudden whim for a few months of travel in the East.
George’s heart rebounded in a sudden leap of loyalty, and he sought eagerly for evidence in rebuttal. That desperately tired, harassed man who was his friend; that man whose presence was so near, who even now was sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion upstairs was not guilty of this fearful thing! Storm would certainly have been mad to commit a crime; but Storm was certainly not mad! He was nervous and worn out and grief-stricken, but he was unquestionably sane. By what ruse could he have gotten Horton’s pistol from him? How separated him from the bag in his charge and how and why become possessed of his hat?
These were but trivial details and immaterial to the mass of circumstantial evidence, George realized, and his heart sank once more. Storm could easily have persuaded Horton to leave the bag and pistol there in his own rooms while they went for a short midnight stroll. But what of the hat——?
The policeman’s testimony again! He had said that the stocky, heavy-built man wore a cap of some sort! George’s eyes traveled shrinkingly to those he had taken from the trunk. No cap had been found near the body. Perhaps—perhaps it was one of these, here in this room!
If events had really occurred as he was mentally evolving them, the bag, together with the hat and pistol, would be all the evidence of the crime except the money itself which remained in Storm’s hands; and he could very readily have been the one to check the bag with the other articles inside at the terminal the next morning as the easiest method of disposing of them. But what had he done with the money? Where was it now?
George dropped limply into a chair, his mind struggling with the problem. It did not matter so much at the moment what had become of the money as why Storm had done this fearful thing.