Had Grantley merely wanted money he could have earned that sum legitimately, or even more than that, by bringing his great skill to bear—as he had actually done—on the multimillionaire’s eyes.
The fact that he had not been content with that, but had gone on and committed a revolting crime by literally robbing Baldwin of part of his brain, indicated that revenge of some sort had been his motive.
But even so, there would have been no reason, from his unscrupulous standpoint, for his refusing to profit financially by the first operation. His act in destroying the check seemed to show that somebody else was paying for the crime, and that, such being the case, Grantley felt that he could afford the luxury of spurning Baldwin’s two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
And that, in its turn, implied that the surgeon must have hated Baldwin so intensely that, criminal though he was, he could not bear to touch any of the millionaire’s money if his own wants could be supplied in any other way.
There had been several difficulties about this new theory, notably the fact that Grantley had, apparently, been anxious to get hold of the check in the first place.
The more Nick puzzled over that, however, the more he became inclined to believe that the surgeon’s seeming eagerness to obtain the check had been due to pressure from a third person, his unknown backer.
If such a person existed, it would obviously have been to his interest to have Grantley obtain and seem to make use of the huge fee which Baldwin had promised, for that and Grantley’s own enmity toward the blind financier would supply a sufficient motive for the crime, and prevent the authorities from probing deep enough to discover the surgeon’s secret arrangement with this third person.
On the other hand, if Grantley were shown to have had a quarter of a million, as good as in his grasp, and to have failed to take full advantage of his opportunities, no mere motive of private vengeance would be likely to be accepted as an adequate explanation, and in that case the prosecution would probably attempt to dig up additional facts, to the great embarrassment of Grantley’s principal, or silent, partner.
Supposing such an individual to exist, that was the way the detective pictured him as reasoning. But it was hardly probable that any one of Baldwin’s financial enemies would have been willing to pay Grantley for the crime, and, at the same time, allow the surgeon to carry off a quarter of a million of the victim’s money in addition.
Therefore, it looked as if Grantley’s backer must have prevailed upon him to obtain the check, partly as a blind, but with the understanding that it was to be turned over to him after the transaction had been covered up in some way.