Senator Alynton started in surprise. “As the late Mr. Garston was only a Senator-elect, I presume there will be no Governmental notice taken of his decease.
“We look, therefore, to you, Senator Alynton, to Mr. Haygood Apchurch, his old friend (in whose rooms he died) and to these two interested young women beneficiaries, for all directions as to the funeral.”
“That is,” hastily added the Trust Company’s Cerberus, “if no swarm of hungry relatives, no duplicate wives nor mysterious claimants turn up when the Associated Press dispatches have been read all over America.
“Such things have happened before.”
“It seems strange,” mused Alynton, after giving a few brief directions, “that such a man lived and died entirely unloved.”
But goaded on by self-interest, he hastened away to the “Circassia,” after vainly telephoning all over New York for Harold Vreeland. The “rising star” was in a dark eclipse!
At the Hotel Savoy, the suave head clerk, with a sigh, admitted that the young banker’s habits were now very “irregular.”
“He has not been seen to-day. He went out very early,” was the clerk’s report, and he vaguely indicated Vreeland’s principal operations with an upward sweep of his lily-white hand.
The clerk was a purist in manner, and only beginning himself to drink secretly. He was not yet in the dark waters!
Senator Alynton found Mrs. Elaine Willoughby strictly denied to all visitors. It was to the clear-eyed cripple that he gravely handed his card.