The Bartlett Mystery

“Voles?”

“Yes, sir, but he says you’ll recognize him better by the initials R. V. V.”

Men of Meiklejohn’s physique – big, fleshy, with the stamp of success on them – are rare subjects for nervous attacks. They seem to defy events which will shock the color out of ordinary men’s cheeks, yet Meiklejohn felt that if he dared encounter the eyes of his discreet servant he would do something outrageous – shriek, or jump, or tear his hair. He bent over some papers on the table.

“Send Mr. Voles in,” he murmured. “If any other person calls, say I’m engaged.”

The man who was ushered into the room was of a stature and demeanor which might well have cowed the valet. Tall, strongly built, altogether fitter and more muscular than the stalwart Senator, he carried with him an impression of truculence, of a savage forcefulness, not often clothed in the staid garments of city life. Were his skin bronze, were he decked in the barbaric trappings of a Pawnee chief, his appearance would be more in accord with the chill and repellant significance of his personality. His square, hard features might have been chiseled out of granite. A pair of singularly dark eyes blazed beneath heavy and prominent eyebrows. A high forehead, a massive chin, and a well-shaped nose lent a certain intellectuality to the face, but this attribute was negatived by the coarse lines of a brutal mouth.

From any point of view the visitor must invite attention, while compelling dislike – even fear. In a smaller frame, such qualities might escape recognition, but this man’s giant physique accentuated the evil aspect of eyes and mouth. Hardly waiting till the door was closed, he laughed sarcastically.

“You are well fixed here, brother o’ mine,” he said.

The man whom he addressed as “brother” leaned with his hands on the table that separated them. His face was quite ghastly. All his self-control seemed to have deserted him.

“You?” he gasped. “To come here! Are you mad?”

“Need you ask? It will not be the first time you have called me a lunatic, nor will it be the last, I reckon.”

“But the risk, the infernal risk! The police know of you. Rachel is arrested. A detective was here a few hours ago. They are probably watching outside.”

“Bosh!” was the uncompromising answer. “I’m sick of being hunted. Just for a change I turn hunter. Where’s the mazuma you promised Rachel?”

Meiklejohn, using a hand like one in a palsy, produced a pocketbook and took from it a bundle of notes.

“Here!” he quavered. “Now, for Heaven’s sake – ”

“Just the same old William,” cried the stranger, seating himself unceremoniously. “Always ready to do a steal, but terrified lest the law should grab him. No, I’m not going. It will be good nerve tonic for you to sit down and talk while you strain your ears to hear the tramp of half a dozen cops in the hall. What a poor fish you are!” he continued, voice and manner revealing a candid contempt, as Meiklejohn did indeed start at the slamming of a door somewhere in the building. “Do you think I’d risk my neck if I were likely to be pinched? Gad! I know my way around too well for that.”

“But you don’t understand,” whispered the other in mortal terror. “By some means the detective bureau may know of your existence. Rachel promised to be close-lipped, but – ”

“Oh, take a bracer out of that decanter. At the present moment I am registered in a big Fifth Avenue hotel, a swell joint which they wouldn’t suspect in twenty years.”

“How can that be? Rachel said you were in desperate need.”

“So I was until I went through that idiot’s pockets. He had two hundred dollars in bills and chicken-feed. I knew I’d get another wad from you to-night.”

“Why did you want to murder me, Ralph?”

“Murder! Oh, shucks! I didn’t want to kill anybody. But I don’t trust you, William. I’m always expecting you to double-cross me. Last night it was a lasso. To-night it is this.” And he suddenly whipped out a revolver.

CHAPTER VII

STILL MERE MYSTERY

Meiklejohn pushed his chair back so quickly that it caught the fender and brought down some fire-irons with a crash.

“More nerves!” croaked his grim-visaged relative, but the revolver disappeared.

“Tell me,” said the tortured Meiklejohn; “why have you returned to New York? Above all, why did you straightway commit a crime that cannot fail to stir the whole country?”

“That’s better. You are showing some sort of brotherly interest. I came back because I was sick of mining camps and boundless sierras. I had a hankering after the old life – the theaters, dinners, race-meetings, wine and women. As to ‘the crime,’ I thought that fool was you. He called for the cops.”

“For the police! Why?”

“Because my line of talk was a trifle too rough, I suppose.”

“Did he know you were there to meet me?”

“Can’t say. The whole thing was over like a flash. I am quick on the trigger.”

“But if you had killed me what other goose would lay golden eggs?”

“You forget that the goose was unwilling to lay any more eggs. I only meant scaring you. To haul you neck and crop into the river was a good scheme. You see, we haven’t met for some years.”

“Then why – why murder Ronald Tower?”

“There you go again. Murder! How you chew on the word. I never touched the man, only to haul him into the boat and go through his pockets. I guess he had a weak heart, due to over-eating, and the cold water upset him.”

“But you left him in the river?”

“Wrong every time. I chucked him into a barge and covered him tenderly with a tarpaulin.”

Meiklejohn sprang upright. “Good God,” he cried, “he may be alive!”

“Sit down, William, sit down,” was the cool response. “If he’s alive, he’ll turn up. In any case, he’ll be found sooner or later. Shout the glad news now and you go straight to the Tombs.”

This was obviously so true that the Senator collapsed into his chair again, and in so doing disturbed the fire-irons a second time.

The incident amused the unbidden guest. “I see you won’t be happy till I leave you,” he laughed, “so let’s go on with the knitting. That girl – she is becoming a woman – what is to be done with her?”

“Rachel takes every care – ”

“Rachel is excellent in her way. But she is growing old. She may die. The girl is the living image of her mother. It’s a queer world, and a small one at times. For instance, who would have expected your double to walk onto the terrace at the landing-stage at nine o’clock precisely last night? Well, some one may recognize the likeness. Inquiries might be instituted. That would be very awkward for you.”

“Far more awkward for you.”

“Not a bit of it. I’ve lived with my neck in the loop for eighteen years. I’m getting used to it. But you, William, with your Senatorship and high record in Wall Street – really the downfall would be terrible!”

“What can we do with her? Murder her, as you – ”

“The devil take you and your parrotlike repetition of one word!” roared brother Ralph, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a bang. “I never laid violent hands on a woman yet, whatever I may have done to men. Who has reaped the reward of my misdeeds, I’d like to know – I, an outcast and a wanderer, or you, living here like Lord Tomnoddy? None of your preaching to me, you smug Pharisee! We’re six of one and half a dozen of the other.”

When this self-proclaimed adventurer was really aroused he dropped the rough argot of the plains. His diction showed even some measure of culture.

Meiklejohn walked unsteadily to the door. He opened it. There was no one in the passage without.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a strangely subdued voice. “What do you want? What do you suggest?”