 Chapter 20 of The Black Eagle Mystery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Mike Overby, Midland Washington. Dedicated to UNI. The Black Eagle Mystery by Geraldine Bonner. Chapter 20 Jack tells the story. When I came down, she was waiting for me. With a finger against her lips and a command for silence, she turned and went along the passage to the door from which I had seen her enter. I followed her, and catching up with her as she placed her hand on the knob, burst out. What is it? What does it mean? Where's Baca? In the name of heaven, tell me quickly. What has happened? I'll tell you in here. She said softly, and, opening the door, proceeded me into the room. It was evidently the dining room of the house, a round table standing in the corner, a sideboard with glass and china on it against the wall. A coal fire burned in the grate, and the blinds were raised, showing the dazzling glitter of the snow outside. It was warm and bright, the one place in that sinister house that seemed to have a human note about it. She passed around the table to the fire, and, standing there, made a gesture that swept the walls and unveiled windows. Last night in this room, I at last understood the tragedy in which we've all been involved. I stood like a post, still too bemused to have any questions ready. There were too many to ask. It was like a skine so tangled there was no loose thread to start with. Did you know Holland was here when you came? Was what I finally said. She nodded. I suspected it on Sunday afternoon. I was certain of it on Sunday night before I left New York. She dropped into a chair by the fire, and pointed me to one nearby at the table. Sit down and let me tell it to you, as it happened to me, my side of it. When you've heard that, you can read the statement he gave. Then you'll see it all. Straight from the beginning to its awful end here. Last night. Before she began, I told her of our interview with Mrs. Whitehall, and that we knew her true relationship to Barker. She seemed relieved, and asked if her mother had also told us of her position with regard to Harland. When she saw how fully we'd been informed, she gave a deep sigh and said, Now you can understand why I pervericated that day in Mr. Whitney's office. I was trying to shield my father, to help him any way I could. Oh, if I'd known the truth then, or you had, the truth you don't know even yet. It was Johnston Barker that was murdered, and Hollings Harland who murdered him. I started forward, but she raised a silencing hand, her voice shaken and pleading. Don't please say anything. Let me go on in my own way. It's so hard to tell. She dropped the hand to its fellow, and holding them tight clenched in her lap said slowly, If my mother told you of that conversation I had with Mr. Harland, you know what I discovered then, that he loved me. I never suspected it before, but when he pressed me with questions about Johnston Barker, so unlike himself, vehement and excited, I understood and was sorry for him. I told him as much as I could then, explained my feeling for the man he was jealous of without telling my relationship, said how I respected and trusted him, what any girl might say of her father. He seemed relieved, but went on to ask if Mr. Barker and I were not interested in some scheme, some undertaking of a secret nature. That frightened me. It sounded as if he had found out about us, had been told something by someone. Taken by surprise, I answered with a half-truth that Mr. Barker had a plan on foot for my welfare, that he wanted to help me and my mother to a better financial position, but that I was not yet at liberty to tell what it was. I saw he thought I meant business, and as I go on you'll see how that information gave him the confidence to do what he did later. I know now that the Whitney office discovered I had had a letter from Mr. Barker, mailed from Toronto, asking me to join him here, and that I agreed to do so in a phone message that same day. That letter, directed to my office, was in typewriting and was signed with my father's initials. It was short, merely telling me that there was a reason for his disappearance, which he would explain to me, that his whereabouts must be kept secret, and that he wanted me to come to him to make arrangements for a new business venture in which he hoped to set me up. As you know, I attempted to do what he asked, and was followed by two men from the Whitney office. How do you know all this? I couldn't help butting in. She gave a slight smile, the first I had seen on her face. I'll tell you that later. It's not the least curious part of my story. Realizing by the papers that there was a general hue and cry for him, I was very cautious, much more so than your detectives thought. I saw them, decided the move was too dangerous, and came back. At that time, and for some time afterward, I believed that letter was for my father. Wasn't it? She shook her head. No. But wait. I had no other letter, and no other communication of any sort. I searched the papers for any news of him, thinking he might put something for me in the personal columns. But there was not a sign. Days passed that way. My business was closed, and I had time to think. And the more I thought, the more strange and inexplicable it seemed. Why in the letter had he made no reference to the broken engagement, so vital to the both of us, that night in the church? Why had he said nothing about my mother, whose state of mind he would have guessed? From the first I had suspicions that something was wrong. I could not believe he would have done what they said he had. Even after I read in the papers of his carefully planned getaway, I was not convinced. After that scene in the Whitney office, when I saw you were all watching me, eager to trip me up into any admission, my suspicions grew stronger. There was more than showed on the surface. I sensed it. An instinct warned me. As days passed, and I heard nothing more from him, the conviction grew that something had happened to him. If it was accident, I was certain it would have been known. If, as many thought, he'd lost his memory and straight away, I was equally certain he'd have been seen and recognized. What else could it be? Can't you picture me, shut up with my poor distracted mother, ravaged by fear and anxiety? Those waiting days, how terrible they were. With the sense of dread, always growing, growing. Finally it came to a climax. If my father was dead, as I thought, there was only one explanation, foul play. On Friday, when you came to see me, I was at the breaking point, afraid to speak, desperate for help, and unable to ask for it. Now I come to the day when I learned everything, when all these broken forebodings of disaster fell together like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope and took a definite shape. It was Sunday. Can it be only two days ago? My mother had moved to the cottage, and I was alone in the apartment, packing up to follow her. About the middle of the afternoon, while I was hard at work, the telephone rang. I answered it, and was told by the operator, long distance was calling me, Quebec. At that, my heart gave a great jump of joy and relief. My father was alive, and sending for me again. It was like the wireless answer of help to a foundering vessel. You know how often the long distance connection varies. One day you can recognize a voice a thousand miles off that on the next you can't make out at a hundred. The voice that had spoken to me from Toronto was no more than a vibration of the wire, thin and toneless. The one that spoke from Quebec was distinct and colored with personality. The first words were that it was JWB, and at these words, as if the receiver had shot an electric current into me. I started and grew tense, for it did not sound like the voice of JWB. It went on, explaining why he had not communicated with me, and how he now again wanted me to come to him. I, listening, became more and more sure that the person speaking was not my father, but that whoever he was, his voice stirred a faint memory, was dimly suggestive of a voice I did know. I was confused and agitated, standing there with the receiver at my ear, while those sentences ran over the wire, every syllable clear and distinct. Then, suddenly, I thought of a way I could find out. My father was the only man in the world who knew of our secret, of the plan for our reunion. A simple question would test the knowledge of the person talking to me. When he had finished, I said, I've been longing to hear from you, not only for myself, but for my mother. She's been in despair. There was a slight pause before the voice answered, Why should Mrs. Whitehall be so disturbed? Then I knew it wasn't Charleston Barker. The reason for Mrs. Whitehall's disturbance was as well known to him as it was to me. Besides, in our talks together, he had never alluded to her as Mrs. Whitehall, but always as your mother, or by her Christian name, Serena. I said the mystery of his disappearance had upset her. She was afraid something had happened to him. A faint laugh, with again that curiously familiar echo to it, came along the wire. You can set her mind at rest after you've seen me. There was something ghastly about it, talking to this unknown being, listening to that whispering voice that called me to come and wasn't the voice I knew. It was like an evil spirit, close to me, but invisible, and that I had no power to lay a hold of. While I was thinking this, he was telling me that he had a safe hiding place, and that I must join him at once. The plans were now perfected for the new enterprise in which he was to launch me. I demurred and, to gain time, told him how I'd tried to go before, and been followed. That caught his attention at once. His questions came quick and eager. Perhaps before that, he had tried to disguise his voice. Anyway, now that familiar note in it grew stronger. I began to catch it something, inflections, accent, till suddenly, like a runner who rounds a corner and sees his goal unexpectedly before him, my memory saw a name. Harland. I was so amazed, so staggered, that for a moment I couldn't speak. The voice brought me back, saying sharply, Are you there? I stammered or reply, and said I couldn't make up my mind to come. He urged, but I wouldn't promise, till at length, feeling I might betray myself, I said I'd think it over and let him know later. He had to be satisfied with that, and gave me his telephone number, telling me to call him up as soon as I decided. What did I feel as I sat alone in that dismantled place? Can you realize the state of my thoughts? What did it mean? What was going on? The man was not Johnston Barker, but how could he be Harland? Who was dead and buried? Ah, if you had come then, instead of Friday, I'd have told you, for I was in waters too deep for me. All that I could grasp was that I was in the midst of something incomprehensible and terrible, from the darkness of which one thought stood out. My father had never sent for me. I had never heard from him. It had been this other man all along. I was then as certain as if his spirit had appeared before me. The Johnston Barker was dead. And now I come to one of the strangest and finest things that ever happened to me in my life. Late on Sunday night a girl, unknown to me and refusing to give her name, came and told me of the murder, the whole of it, the evidence against me, and that I stood in danger of immediate arrest. I jumped to my feet. I couldn't believe it. A girl? What kind of girl? Young and pretty, with dark brown eyes and brown curly hair. Oh, I can place her for you. She said she had been employed to help get the information against me and my father, and was the only woman acting in that capacity. Molly. I gasped, falling back into my chair. Molly Babitz. What in heaven's name? You're right to invoke heaven's name, for it was heaven that sent her. She wouldn't tell me who she was or why she came, but I could see. What reason could there have been except that she believed me innocent and wanted to help me escape? For a moment I couldn't speak. I dropped my head and a silent oath went up from me to hold Molly's sacred forevermore. I could see it all. She'd found her heart, realized the cruelty of what was to be done, discovered in some way she'd given me wrong information and done the thing herself. The gallant noble little soul. God bless her, God bless her! Carol went on. I wonder now what she thought of me. I must have appeared utterly extraordinary to her. She thought she was telling me what I already knew, or at least knew something of. But, as I sat there listening to her, I was piecing together in my mind what she was saying with what I myself had found out. I was building up a complete story, fitting new and old together, and it held me dumb, motionless, as if I didn't care. It would take too long to tell you how I got to the main facts, the smaller points I didn't think of. It was as if what she said and what I knew jumped toward each other like a flame and the igniting gas, connecting the broken bits into a continuous line of fire. I knew that murder had been committed. I knew that the body was unrecognizable. I knew that had my father been living I would have heard from him. I knew that the voice on the phone was Harlins. Without all the details she gave me it would have been enough. Before she had finished, my mind had grasped the truth. It was Johnston Barker who had been murdered, and Harland, trying now to draw me to him, was the murderer. Do you guess what a flame of rage burst up in me? What a passion to trap and bring to justice the man who would conceive and execute such devilish thing? I could hardly wait to go. I was too wrought up to think out of reasonable course. Looking back on it today it seems like an act of madness, but I suppose a person in that state is half mad. I never thought of getting anybody to go with me, of applying to the police. I only saw myself finding Harland and accusing him. It's inconceivable, the irrational action of a woman beside herself with grief and fury. I called up the number he'd given me and told him I was coming on the first train I could catch. He told me at what hour that morning he would leave New York and when it would reach Quebec. He said he would send his servant, a French woman, to meet me at the depot as he didn't like to risk going himself. Then I left the house and went to the Grand Central Station where I sat in the women's waiting room for the rest of the night. I did not get to go back till after midnight. The servant met me, put me in a sleigh that was waiting for us, and together we drove here. The house was lit up, every lower window bright. As we walked up the path from the gate, I saw a man moving behind the shrubbery and called her attention to him. While she was opening the door with her key, I noticed another loitering along the footpath by the gate, obviously watching us. This time I asked her why there should be men about at such an hour and on such a freezing night. She seemed bewildered and frightened, muttering something in French about having noticed them when she went out. In the hallway she directed me to a room on the upper floor, telling me when I was ready to go down to the dining room where supper was waiting. I went upstairs and she followed, showing me where I was to go, and then walking down the passage to another room. As I took off my wraps and hat, I could hear a voice, loud and excited, telling someone of the two men we had seen. Another voice answered it, a man's, but pitched too low for me to make out the words. When I was ready I went downstairs and into the room. No one was about. There was not a sound. The fire was burning as it is now, the curtains drawn and the table set out with a supper was brightly lit with candles and decorated with flowers. I stood here by the fire waiting, white I suppose, as the tablecloth, for I was at the highest climax of excitement a human being can reach and keep her senses. Suddenly I heard steps on the stairs. I turned and made ready, moistening my lips which were stiff and felt like leather. The steps came down the passage, the door opened. There he was. That first second, when he entered as the lover and conqueror, he looked splendid. The worn and harassed air he had the last time I'd seen him was gone. He was at the highest pinnacle of his life, the very butt and seamark of his sail, and it was as if his spirit recognized it and flashed up in the last illuminating glow of fire and force. He was prepared for amazement, horror, probably fear from me. The first shock he received was my face, showing none of these, quiet and I suppose fierce, with the hatred I felt. He stopped dead in the doorway, the confidence stricken out of him, just staring. Then he stammered, Carol, you, you. He was too astounded to say more. I finished for him, my voice low and hoarse. You think I didn't expect to see you? I did. I knew you were here. I came to find you. I came to tell you that I know how you killed Johnston Barker. I don't think anyone has ever said he lacked courage. He was one of those bold and ruthless beings that came to their fullest flower during the Italian Renaissance. Terrible and tremendous too. I've thought of him since as one of the Borgias, or Yago, transplanted to our country in modern times. When he saw that I knew he went white, but he stood with the light of the candles bright on his ghastly face, straight and steady as a soldier before the cannon. Johnston Barker, he said very quietly, killed him? You bring me interesting news. I didn't know he was dead. As I've told you, I had come without plans with no line of action decided upon. Now the futility, the blind rashness of what I had done, was borne in upon me. His stony calm, his measured voice, showed me I was pitted against an antagonist whose strength was to mine as a lion's to a mouse. The thought maddened me. I was ready to say anything to break him, to conquer and crush him, and in my desperation, guided by some flash of intuition, I said the right thing. Oh, don't waste time denying it. It's too late for that now. It's not I alone who knows it. They know in New York everything. How you did it, how you stole away, where you are now. The net is around you, they've got you. There's no use anymore in lies and tricks, for you can't escape them. He had listened without a movement or a sign of agitation. But when I finished, he straightened his shoulders and, throwing up his head, sent a glance of piercing question over the curtained windows. His whole being suggested something arrested and fiercely alert. Not fear, but a wild concentration of energy, as if all his forces were aroused to meet a desperate call. Then suddenly, he made a step forward, leaned across the table, and spoke. I can't tell you all he said. It was so horrible in his face. It was like a demon in its death throes. But it was about his love for me, that he'd done it all for me. That he could give me more than any woman ever had before, lay the world at my feet. And to come with him, now, we could get away, we had time yet. She closed her eyes and shuddered at the memory. I can't go on. He knew it was hopeless. He must have known then what the men outside meant. It was the last defiance, the last mad hope. And then I conquered him. Not as I'd meant to, not with any intention. All the horror and loathing I felt came out in what I had said. Terrible words. How I hated him. All that had been locked up in me since I'd known the truth. His face grew so dreadful that I shrank back into his corner. And finally, to hide it, hid my own in my hands. People do such strange things in life. Not at all like what they do in books and plays. When I stopped speaking, he said nothing. And dropping my hands, I looked at him. Not knowing what I'd see. He was standing very quiet, gazing straight in front of him, like a man thinking. Deeply thinking. Lost in thought. We were that way for a moment, so still you could hear the clock ticking. Then, without a word or look at me, he turned and went out of the room. I was so paralyzed by the scene that for a space I stood where he'd left me. Squeezed into an angle behind the mantelpiece, stunned and senseless. Then the sound of his feet on the stairs called me back to life. He was going. He was running away. I did not know myself then who the men outside were, and thought he could easily make his escape. I ran out into the hall, calling to the Frenchwoman. She came out of a door somewhere in the back part of the house, and I have a queer impression of her face by the light of a bracket lamp, almost ludicrous and its expression of fright. As I ran up the stairs, I screamed to her to come, to follow me, and heard her steps racing along the passage and her panting and exclamations of terror. At the stair-head my ear caught the snap of a closing door, and the click of a key turned in a lock. It came from the darkened end of the hall, and as I ran down I cried to the woman, get someone, call, get help. Then and there she threw up a window, and thrusting out her head, screamed into the darkness, Ussacour, Ussacour! A man's voice, close under the window, answered her, and she flew past me to another staircase beyond in the darkness, down which I could hear her clattering rush. Then there was the sound of steps, and the breaking of wood, sharp tearing noises mixed with the shouts of men. It all came together, for as I stood outside that locked door, listening to the woman's cries and the smashing of the wood below, sharp as a flash, came the report of a pistol from the closed room. That's all. I didn't see him again. I couldn't. The police inspector. They've all been very kind, have done everything for me they could. Let me see the statement. When you've read that, you'll know everything. It'll be the last chapter. I can't tell it to you. It's more than I can bear. She glanced at me, and then suddenly looked away, for tears, quick and unexpected, welled into her eyes. She put up one hand, pressing it against her eyelids, while the other lay still on the table. I leaned forward and laid mine over it. She sat speechless, struggling with her moment of weakness. I looked at the two hands, mine, big and hard and brown, almost hid hers, closing round it, sheltering and guarding it, as my life, if God willed it, would close round and shelter and guard hers. I am coming to the end of my part of the story, and it's only up to me now to give the final explanation furnished by Harland's statement of the strangest crime that had ever come within the can of the Whitney office. We all read the statement that day, and that night in our sitting room at the frontenac, O'Malley Babitz and I talked it over. A good deal had to be supplemented by our own inside information. For anyone who had not our fuller knowledge, there would have been many broken links in the chain, but to us it read as a clear, consecutive sequence of events. One thing I drew from it, almost as if Harland had told me himself, its unconscious revelation of the development in him of sinister possibilities that had lain dormant during the struggle of his early years. In middle life, his world conquered. Two master passions, love of gain and love of women, had seized him and swept him to his ruin. I won't give it in his words, but in his plain and short a narrative as I can. Harland had been the welter in the copper pool, and Barker had suspected him. This was the immediate cause of the murder. Back of that, the route from which this whole intricate crime grew, was his love of Carol Whitehall in determination to make her his wife. Briefly outlined, his position with regard to her was as follows. His passion for her had started with the inauguration of the land company, but while she was grateful and friendly, he soon saw that she was nothing more, so he kept his counsel, making no attempt by word or look to disturb the harmony of their relations. But while he maintained the pose of a business partner, he studied her, and saw she was ambitious, large in her aims, and aspiring. This side of her character was the one he decided to lay siege to. If he could not win her heart, he would amass a fortune and tempt her with his vast possibilities. His membership in the copper pool gave him the opportunity, and he saw himself able to lay millions at her feet. On January 5th, he met Barker on the street, and in the course of a short conversation learned that the head of the pool suspected his treachery, that half-exposed suspicion with its veiled hint of publicity, planted the seed of murder in his mind. It was not, however, till two days later, that the seed sprouted. How his idea came to him indicated the condition of morbidly acute perception and wild recklessness he had reached. Walking up Fifth Avenue after dark, he had seen a man standing under a lamp, lighting a pipe. The man, Joseph Samus, was so like Barker that he moved nearer to address him. A closer view showed him his mistake, but also showed him that Samus, feeble in health, shabby and impoverished, was sufficiently like Barker to pass for him. From that resemblance, his idea expanded further. He followed Samus to his lodgings, had a conference with him, and told him he had work in Philadelphia which he wanted Samus to undertake. The man, down to his last dollar, flattered and amazed at his good fortune, agreed at once. Though the work had not developed, it was necessary for Samus to be on the ground and stay there awaiting instructions. Money was given him for proper clothes and an advance of salary. The date when he was to leave would be communicated to him within a few days. It would appear that Samus never knew his benefactor's real name, but accepted the luck that came to him, eagerly and without question. In his case, the chief had guessed right. He was a plant. From this point, the plot mushroomed out into its full dimensions. Harland and Barker were of a size, small, light and wiry. Both men had gray hair and dark eyes. The features obliterated, clothes and personal papers and jewelry were the only means of identification. The back office, with its one egress through the other rooms, was selected as the scene of the crime. Barker's body could be lowered from the cleat, tried and tested to the floor below. Through his acquaintance with Ford and Ms. Whitehall, Harland was familiar with the hours of the Azalea Woods Estates people. They would be gone when he went down, entered their office with the pass key he had procured, and made the change of clothing with his victim. His own disguise was a very simple matter. Through an acquaintance with actors and his youth, he had learned their method of building up the nose by means of an adhesive paste. That and the white mustache were all he needed. He took one chance and one only, a gambler's risk, that the body might not be sufficiently crushed to escape recognition. This chance, as we know, went his way. Gone thus far, he had only to wait his opportunity. Against that, he bought and concealed the rope, the blackjack for the blow, and the articles for his own transformation, all the properties of the grisly drama he was about to set stage. Meanwhile, his scheme to win Carol was working out less successfully, and the strain was wearing on him. On January 15th, his nerves stretched to the breaking point. He went to her, determined to find out how she stood with Barker. Her answer satisfied him. He knew her to be truthful, and when she told him she had no other than a filial affection for the magnate, he believed her. The information she gave about Barker's intention of helping her, of having plans afoot for her future welfare, he seized upon and subsequently used. He also, in that interview, learned that she had had a phone message from the magnate, saying he was coming to her office that afternoon, and would later go to the floor above to see Mr. Harland. When he heard this, he knew that his time had come. From her, he went straight to a telephone booth, called up Barker's garage, and gave Henny the instructions to meet him that night, and take him to the Elizabeth depot. That done, he returned to the Black Eagle Building, saw that his stenographer and clerk were disposed to his satisfaction, and made ready for the final event. The quarrel with Barker was genuine. The head of the copper pool burst into accusations of treachery, and threatened immediate exposure. Sitting at the desk, engrossed in his anger, he did not notice Harland slip behind him. One blow of the blackjack, delivered below the temple, resulted in death, as instantaneous as it was noiseless. Fastening the rope about the body, Harland swung it from the cleat to the floor below, where in the darkness it would have been invisible at the distance of ten feet. He then passed through the outer offices, and went downstairs. He must have missed Carol by a few seconds. His knock being unanswered, he let himself in with his pass key, and walked through to the back room. Here he drew in the body, and, curting the window, turned on the lights, and affected the change of clothes, shaving off the mustache, and looking for the scarf pin which he couldn't find. He had just completed this, when Ford entered. A terrible moment for him. When Ford left, his nerve was shaken, and he realized he must finish the job at once. After he had done so, he went back to the private office, carefully arranged his own disguise, and after waiting for over an hour, put on Barker's hat and coat, and went down the service stairs. He met no person or obstacle, skirted the back of the block, and picked up Henny at the place designated. At the Elizabeth station, he bought a ticket to Philadelphia, but when he saw his chance, crossed the lines to the Jersey Central Platform, and boarded a local for Jersey City, from which, by a devious route, he made his way to Canada. It was in the waiting room at Jersey City Depot, that he removed his disguise. In Toronto, he sublet the small apartment, only going out at night, and keeping a close watch on the developments in New York, which he followed through the papers. By these, he learned that everything had worked out as he hoped. That his crime was unsuspected, and the public interest centered on the chase for Barker. All that now remained to complete his enterprise was to get Carol. That his continued success must have given him an almost insane confidence, is proved by the way he went about this last and most difficult step. Criminals all slip up somewhere. He had attended to the details of the murder with amazing skill and thoroughness. It was in his estimate of the character of Carol, that he showed that blind spot in the brain they all have. The only way to explain it, is that he was so sure of his own powers, so confident that she was heart whole, and would be unable to resist the temptations of his enormous wealth, that he took the final risk, sent for her, in Barker's name. Her response to his first summons encouraged him. When she didn't come, he had many reasons with which to buoy himself up. Fears, illness, the impossibility of leaving her mother. But it made him more cautious, and he didn't venture again till the hue and cry for Barker had subsided, and he had made a move to the last port of call on the St. Lawrence. That he had expected to take her by storm, win her consent, and leave her no time to deliberate, was proved by the fact, quote-unquote, Henry Santley, had engaged the accommodations for himself and his, quote-unquote, sister on the Magantic, sailing from Quebec at 10 the next morning. What had he intended to say to her? How was he going to explain? If he had not mentioned it in his statement, we never would have known, for Carol did not give him time to tell. The story was simple, and in the face of her supposed ignorance of the murder, might have satisfied her. He was going to admit his duplicity in the copper pool, his excuse being he had done it for her. In his last interview with Barker, he had saw that discovery was imminent, and decided to drop out of sight. When he passed through his own office, he was on his way out of the building, descending unseen by the stairs, and going immediately to Canada. When he read in the papers of the suicide, identified as Hollings Harland, no one was more surprised than he was. How the mistake had been made, he readily guessed. Some months before, he had discharged one of his clerks for intemperance. The man, unable to get another job, and in the clutch of his vice, had gone to the dogs, applying frequently to Harland for help. The lawyer, moved to Pitty, had given this in the form of clothing and money. On the afternoon of January 15th, he had visited the Harland offices in a suit of Harland's clothes, begging for money and threatening suicide. He was sunk to the lowest depths of degradation, for, during the few moments when he was alone in the private office, he had evidently searched among his employer's papers, and taken a watch and chain which was lying on the desk, to be sent to the jewelers for repairs. Startled in his hunt among the papers, he had had no time to replace them, and had put them in his pocket. After the man had gone, Harland noticed the missing documents and jewelry, but in the stress of his own affairs paid no attention to the theft. The next day when he read of the suicide, he remembered the man's threat to kill himself, and realized he had done it later that afternoon, that the body, crushed beyond recognition, had been identified through the clothes, papers and watches himself, he regarded as a lucky chance. Without his intervention, a thing had occurred which forever severed him from the life he wished to be done with. Such was Harland's crime, as explained in Harland's statement. How he talked it over, how he mused on the slight happening that had brought it to light, a child at a window, strange and wonderful, the hotel noises, the traffic in the street, faded into the silence of the night as we sat there, pondering, speculating, and odd too, by this modern fall of Lucifer. End of chapter 20, chapter 21 of the Black Eagle Mystery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Mike Overby, Midland Washington, dedicated to UNI. The Black Eagle Mystery, by Geraldine Bonner. Chapter 21, Molly Ends the Story. They all came back on Wednesday night, late, in the small hours. I had a wire from Babitz, and, gosh, as I sat up waiting for him, I thought I'd die right there on my own parlor carpet. For, of course, I supposed she'd tell them what I'd done, and he was coming straight home to divorce me. First off, when he came in, I was afraid to move. Then, when I got a good look at his face, I saw he didn't know. He was so crazy with joy and triumph, he didn't notice how I acted, trembling and excited about the things that didn't matter. How did she get there, what made her go, were the questions I was keen to have answered. Did it off on her own bat, recognize the voice on the phone, instinct, knew all along something was wrong, and just rushed off without thinking of anything? She was a tip-topper, wonderful girl. Seemed almost as if she was clairvoyant, didn't I think so? Yes, I did, but maybe when it was your father you felt that way. And I sank back against the cushions of the Davenport, weak in the knees and swallowing down a lump in my throat as big as a new potato. The next day I had a letter from her that made me sick, gratitude bubbling out of every line, and saying she'd told Jack in how never, as long as either of them lived, would they reveal it to a soul. That made me sicker, the two of them down on their bended knees. I've lied in my life, and though it's come back on me like a bad dream, I'd been able to bear it. But having two people like that, ready to worship you because you did something that you didn't do, would take the spirit out of Theodore Roosevelt. Then came the great excitement, the case going to the public, and Babitz is getting his big story. It made a worse uproar than the suicide and disappearance. The city was stunned, and thrilled, and everything else it could be. Not a man, woman or child, but was reading the dispatch and asking you if you'd ever heard of such an awful thing and enjoying every word of it. Babitz's picture was all in the papers, and a raise. Well, I guess so. It would have been the proudest moment of my life. But who can be proud when they're full up with nothing but guilty conscience? Not me, anyway. Even when Babitz came home on Friday night with a set of black links furs, carrying them himself and putting them on me, I felt no joy. Can you understand it? Having a secret from the one you love best, and not knowing if he knew that secret, whether he wouldn't drop you out of his arms like a live coal, and you'd see the love dying from his face? Oh, it was awful. I had to turn away from him to the mirror, getting up the right smile for a first set when a rope of pearls wouldn't have lifted the misery off me. Sunday, Jack asked us to his place for dinner, just us too in Miss Whitehall. All the way downtown, Babitz had wondered why it was only Miss Whitehall. Sort of funny, he didn't include Mr. George, who was often there, and even the old man, seeing it was to be a dinner of the Harland case outfit. I had my own ideas on the subject, and they made me limp, sitting small and peaked beside Babitz with my hands damp and clammy in my new white gloves. It was a swell dinner, the finest things to eat I ever had, even there. Miss Whitehall, all in black with her neck bear, and Jack in his dress suit, were such a grand pair I'd have enjoyed the mere sight of them, only for that terrible secret. It wasn't till the end of the dinner, old David gone into the kitchen, that the thing I'd been waiting for came out. Jack's face told me it was coming. Happiness and pride were shining from it like a light. He'd asked us there, his best and truest friends, to tell us before anyone else that he and Miss Whitehall were going to be married. They looked across the table at each other, a beautiful, beaming look, and Babitz with his mouth open, looked at them, and I looked down at my plate where the ice cream was melting in a pink pool. Then Jack poured champagne into our glasses, and raising them high we drank their health, and then clinked the rims together and laughed, and wished them joy. It ought to have been perfectly lovely, and would have been if that fiendish guilty conscience of mine could only have gone to sleep for a few minutes. And then came the awful, and unexpected. I didn't think he'd dare to do it, but he did. Turning to me, with his glass in his hand, and his face so kind, it made me melt like the ice cream. Jack said, and there's gonna be another health drunk, Molly's, Molly Babitz, the best friend any man and woman ever had, the person who did the biggest thing in the whole Holland case. He wasn't going to tell. He knew enough for that. He knew that Babitz wasn't on. But he wanted me to understand. I looked at their faces, Jack with its grateful message, and Carols saying the same, and Babitz's red with pride and joy. Then I couldn't bear it. Feeling queer and weak, I sat dumb, not touching my glass, looking at the plate. Why, Molly, said Babitz, surprised. Aren't you going to answer? No, I said suddenly. Not till I've told something first. I guess I looked as cheerful as the skeletons they used to have at feasts in foreign countries. Anyway, I saw them all amazed, their eyes staring on me. I stiffened up and set both my hands hard on the edge of the table, and looked at Carol. My lips were so shaky, I could hardly get out the words. You're all wrong. You've made a mistake. I didn't do it for you the way you think. I I turned to Jack, and the tears began to spill out of my eyes. I did it for him. Me, he exclaimed. Yes, you. We swore to be friends once, and that's what I am. I saw you were going to tell her. I thought it would ruin you, and I knew I couldn't stop you. So, so... as I didn't matter, I did it myself before you could. He pushed back his chair, all stirred in pale. Carol, with a catch of her breath, said my name, just molly. Nothing more. But Babitz, who didn't know where he was at, cried out, Did what? For heaven's sake, what's it all about? Then I told him, the whole thing, out it came with tears and sobs, all to him, every word of it, with not a voice to interrupt, and when it was done, down went my head to the table with my hair in the ice cream. Well, what do you think happened? Was he mad? Did he say, you're a false and deceitful woman, be gone? Oh, he didn't. He didn't. He got up and came around the table, and Carol and Jack slipped away somewhere and left us alone. Afterward in the parlor, me a sight with my nose red, and the ice cream only half out of my hair. We talked it all out, and they... Oh, well, they said a lot of things. I can't tell you what, too many and sort of affecting. It made me feel awful and comfortable, not knowing what to say, but Babitz adored it, couldn't get enough of it, just sat there nodding like the Chinese image on the mental piece, while those two fine people sat and threw bouquets at his wife. On the way to the street, we didn't say much, walking close together, hand tucked in arm, but suddenly, up under one of those big arc lights in Gramercy Park, he stopped short, and, looking strange and solemn, gave me a kiss, a good loud smack and said sort of husky, I love you more this evening, morning dew, than I ever did since the day I first met you. Well, that's the end. Jack and Carol are going to be married this spring and go to Fire Hill. Babitz and I have a standing invitation down there for every Sunday and all summer if we want. There's a great lawsuit started to prove the claims of Mrs. Whitehall and Carol, as Johnston Barker's wife and child. He died without a will, so in the end they'll get most all he left. Piles and piles of money. It's in the Whitney office, and last time I saw Mr. Whitney, he told me Carol would someday be one of the richest women in New York. It won't spoil her. She's not that kind. A grand, fine woman, true blue every inch of her. I've come to know her well, and I'm satisfied she's just the girl I would have chosen for Jack Reddy. Queer, isn't it? The way things come about? Here was I, searching for a wife for him, turning them all down, and he goes and stumbles on the only one in the country I'd think good enough. That's the way it is with life. When it looks most like a muddle, it's going to be straightest. It sure is sort of confusing, but it's a good old world after all. End of Chapter 21. End of The Black Eagle Mystery by Geraldine Bonner.