An indefinable constraint seemed to have fallen upon them, for the gloomy memory of the past night was still vivid in their minds and oppressed them greatly. The doctor was the first to break the silence.
“By gum!” he said; “I’d clean forgotten about your ear, Ellis. My bag’s still here. Let’s dress it again for you. Come inside again for a bit.”
With deft hands he soon performed the operation and Benton, studiously avoiding the elder man’s eyes, thanked him and, with a slightly overdone yawn, prepared to leave and carry out the orders that he had previously received. Throughout Musgrave had talked incessantly on irrelevant subjects. It seemed as if he were maundering with design, beating about the bush of some communication he feared to make, and just talking against time.
“Well! have you seen that patient of mine up at the hotel yet?” he inquired.
The Sergeant, with a curious, apprehensive glance at the closed bedroom door, beckoned the other outside. As if, almost, he feared that the dead might hear.
“Yes,” he said. “Saw him when I went up for breakfast He’s the man, all right—Herbert Wilks—admits everything. Seemed glad to get it off his chest. Told me the whole business. Sounds just like a dime novel yarn. Well, truth’s stranger than fiction, so they say. Appears he’s been a dissipated young beggar, and he got fired from the Trust Company for inattention to his work. The very day he got let out he happened to pick up a paper in the manager’s private office, which turned out to be nothing more or less than the combination of the safe. Suppose the manager—or whoever had the combination—was scared to commit it to memory alone. Well, being, as I said before, a dissipated young scamp, he’d somehow got mixed up with this Shapiro chap in one or two dirty deals—women, I guess—an’ what not. Of course, he was pretty sore about gettin’ the push—went on a bust that night, an’ while he was ‘lit’ told Shapiro all about this paper he’d found. You just bet Mister ‘Harry the Mack’ wasn’t goin’ to let a chance like that go by, an’ soon got Wilks goin’ ... telling him what a good opportunity it was to get back at them, an’ all that. Well, they fixed everything up for two nights after, and brought in Lipinski along with them. Shapiro’d got a set of burglar’s tools and soon effected an entrance. He an’ Wilks crawled in, leaving Lipinski as a ‘look-out.’ Wilks messed with the combination for a bit an’ tried to open her up, but couldn’t work it. Might have been an old one that’d been changed two or three times since the scale’d been written on this paper. Anyway, there seemed nothing doin’ an’ ‘Harry,’ being a yegg, got tired, an’ suggested blowin’ it. He went out to get the ‘soup’ ... from a pal of his who lived a short distance away, leaving Wilks still there. While he was waiting, our friend had another go at it, an’ this time managed, somehow, to turn the trick.
“He cleaned up everything, as he thought, and beat it in a hurry, leaving the safe open. Told Lipinski he’d be back in a minute—an’ skinned out. ‘Honor among thieves’—what? Well, naturally, the first idea that came into his head was to go back to his home town—Hamilton—and swank around there for a bit with this money, thinking, of course, though, that suspicion might fall on him right away, bein’ fired two days before, and the safe, not blown, but opened by the combination, he was cute enough not to attempt to get aboard the East-bound there. Mr. Man gets some crooked pal of his—a chauffeur—to drive him in his automobile as far as Garstang. He laid up there till the ten-fifteen came along next morning. Then he got a bloomin’ fright. He was sitting in the first-class coach, all tickled up the back at makin’ his get-away so easy when, who should come an’ plank himself down on the seat alongside him but Mister ‘Harry the Mack.’ This chauffeur pal of his had double-crossed him after he’d driven back—told Shapiro everything who, you bet, wasn’t goin’ to get left like that.
“All this is, of course, what Harry told him. He’d managed to get on the train all right, without bein’ spotted—taking—” He lowered his voice, and indicated the drawn blinds with a significant gesture—“with him. Partly to divert suspicion, I suppose ... look like respectable couple—man an’ wife. Well, naturally, Harry talked pretty ugly ... what he’d do to him, an’ all that, if he didn’t whack up; but Wilks wouldn’t ’come across’—kept bluffin’ that he’d divvy up later on, an’ so on—knowing that he was safe enough as long as he was amongst a crowd of people. Of course Harry never breathed a word about shootin’ the night-watchman. The first intimation Wilks had about that was in a paper at the hotel, here. It appears about ten minutes after he’d vamoosed with the money Harry came back with the ‘soup,’ to do the blowin’ act. Lipinski told him that Wilks would be back in a few minutes, so they waited a bit. As he showed no signs of returning, they decided to go ahead without him—Lipinski goin’ in with Harry this time, to give him a hand. It didn’t take ’em long to see what’d happened, you bet. Everything all strewn around and turned upside down. They found a hundred an’ fifty in a small drawer I guess he’d overlooked in his hurry an’, according to Lipinski’s statement, they’d just split this up when the poor, bloomin’ watchman happened along an’ Shapiro fixed him. Then they bolted an’ the patrolman on the beat shot at them an’ one skinned one way an’ one the other. Lipinski didn’t see Harry again after that—beat it on his own to Seattle later, an’ got nailed.
“Well, it seems they kept up this chewin’ the rag an’ watching each other till the train got down as far as here. It was gettin’ dark, then. Harry’d got a bottle of whiskey in his grip when he’d come on the train. He started in to get primed up on this, an’ Wilks got scared, for Harry began to raise his voice an’ look at him pretty nasty, with his hand in his hip-pocket. They managed to kick up such a row between ’em that the con’ came along—gave ’em a callin’ down an’ threatened to chuck ’em off the train if they didn’t shut up. Harry started to give the con’ a whole lot of lip, an’ while these two were squabblin’ together, Mister Wilks slipped off—here—just as the train was on the move.
“Of course Harry, as soon as he missed him, promptly got off at the next stop—Glenmore—fifteen miles east of here—an’ caught the West-bound back again in the morning. Went straight to the hotel an’ soon located his man. Didn’t speak to him, though. Didn’t register at the place, either—but that may have been because of the expense—hadn’t any too much ‘dough’ left, an’ p’r’aps figured he’d most likely have a long wait. He rented this furnished cottage instead, for a few days. It belongs to a chap named George Ricks, over at Beaver Dam. He comes into town an’ lives in it himself all the winter, but leaves it in charge of some chap here to rent to anybody who comes along during the summer. I guess Harry felt pretty safe, knowing that Wilks wasn’t exactly in the position to give him away. There’s absolutely no doubt what his intention was—”