Chapter V: A Decision and a Letter

If Mr. Converse departed from the cottage with a feeling of depression, it was based, as we know, upon a formidable number of reasons. If the sensation was incompatible with his profession, it at least proved that, as a human being, he was not so utterly devoid of feeling as his grim exterior continually indicated; and when the irresistible logic of the present investigation singled out again and again a beautiful girl as the author of a monstrous assassination; when the amorphous figure of Paquita--that featureless, shadowy phantom--presented itself between his mental vision and Joyce Westbrook--it was with a sense of relief that he asked, "Paquita, what do you spell?" There was always the hope that sooner or later an answer would be returned clearing Joyce beyond peradventure.

That he did not consider Fairchild accessory to either crime was a belief resting upon a very sound foundation of reasoning, although such a conviction must needs be an additional point adverse to Joyce. The testimony delivered by Doctor Westbrook and Mr. Howe of Georgia at the inquest, relating to Fairchild's strange behavior when he beheld the body of De Sanchez lying on the Doctor's reception room floor, and a careful analysis of this evidence--although it certainly left the young man's conduct something to be explained--would not admit the idea of a guilty knowledge on his part, or of an active participation in the crime itself. Before he entered the reception-room he must have known that the Doctor or some other person was there, for a light was burning brightly therein; that the deed had been discovered; and it was certain that even then the police were on their way thither, if they had not already arrived. Yet he entered the office unhesitatingly. Again, no powerful emotions were betrayed by him until after he had seen the body, and then his first change of expression betokened surprise and bewilderment. The rapidly succeeding horror and terror were present while he was looking at Doctor Westbrook, and not at the body. "I was quite as much astonished by his behavior," was Mr. Howe's testimony hereof, "as by anything that had happened before.... The mere sight of the body did not, to my mind, account for the extremity of emotion depicted on his countenance, which seemed completely to overwhelm him." There was a quality about the look with which he regarded Doctor Westbrook so dreadful that it spurred the Doctor from his own preoccupying excitement and agitation to demand an explanation.

Did Clay Fairchild, puzzled over Miss Joyce's excited and unexpected appearance, go to Doctor Westbrook's office seeking enlightenment, and were his unspoken questions there answered by the dead body of Alberto de Sanchez?

And now there was a witness who could establish the identity of the unknown woman.

Possibly the last consideration had as much weight in influencing Mr. Converse to a decision which he made while riding back to the city, as the reasons therefor which he gave in his own mind; but, trifling as that decision may appear to be, it was destined to entail consequences of the utmost moment--it was the thread-like fissure in the dam. He shrank from hearing Joyce Westbrook's name on the lips of Slade; but yet, if that individual was possessed of such important evidence, it was clearly the Captain's duty to secure it as early as possible. However, he was beginning to feel acutely the need of both rest and nourishment; he realized, what with his own infirmity of speech and the other's deafness, the difficulties that would arise in the course of an interview with the abstracter; therefore he would defer his call until he had snatched a few hours' sleep, and could secure the aid of McCaleb to act as his mouthpiece.

He was ignorant alike of Merkel's ambition to engineer a coup, and the motives controlling the crusty Mr. Slade. Otherwise it is more than likely, after he received Mr. Follett's message, that he would have repaired with all haste to the offices of the Guaranty Abstract Company, instead of first eating a substantial breakfast, and afterward of composing his immense frame upon a certain leathern couch which formed a part of his office furniture at headquarters.

But such was the nature of his decision; and when he awoke late in the afternoon no earthly power could have changed the result of his procrastination.

At five o'clock Mr. Converse arose from his leathern couch, mentally decided to glimpse at the late afternoon mail, and then look up Mr. Slade.

But the mail brought one letter which, even before he opened it, banished all thought of the sour abstracter from his mind. The envelope bore in its upper left-hand corner the return address of "The Guadalupe Transportation and Construction Co.," and had been postmarked at Monterey, Mexico.

The missive was very long, and as it entered into a number of matters quite foreign to this narrative, it will be condensed. It purported to be written by one Morris A. King, now a civil engineer in the employ of a Mexican construction concern, and the author asserted that he and Clay Fairchild had been schoolmates, and that a warm friendship yet existed between them. The letter ran:

"My parents reside in New York and on the first of last October I had leave of absence to pay them a visit. On my return I shortened that visit by a day in order to surprise Clay, and I stopped with him two or three hours on November fourth." Here the reader's interest suddenly quickened. "The mysterious sketch of the dagger mentioned by the papers was made on that day solely for my benefit."

The writer went on to say that Clay had confided his literary ambitions to his friend, and that the latter had urged him to come with him to Mexico, "the land of romance, love, fighting, tinkling guitars, and sloe-eyed _señoritas_." He held out many inducements to Fairchild in the way of material for stories; but the young man persisted in his inability to accept the invitation.

One of the plots suggested was indeed extraordinary. The letter went on:

"The heroine of my yarn was a certain Paquita. Does that strain your credulity? Well, it's a fact which you may easily verify when you come up with Clay. In my veracious legend Paquita stabbed herself with a magnificent jewelled dagger, the same having been the gift of a false lover. Could it have been your 'Silver Blade,' I wonder? .... I had this story from a certain Ignacio Monterde, who related it as a fact. He was once under me in a construction gang; but his wife came into some money,--according to his account, as a reward for her kind offices to Paquita during a time of stress and vicissitude."

Then followed Monterde's address, and the assertion that the story had held Fairchild "spellbound."

Which was not surprising, considering his knowledge of Doctor Westbrook's paper-knife. Indeed, Fairchild seems to have mentioned it immediately to his friend, volunteering to secure it for the purpose of confirming his statements concerning its existence. The weapon could not be found in its customary place, hence the sketch as an effort to convey some idea of its appearance.

The writer concluded by offering to appear in his friend's behalf, at any time, should the exigencies of the case demand it of him.

Mr. Converse laid the letter to one side, with a long-drawn "Ah-h-h!" expressive of extreme satisfaction. He carefully made a note of Ignacio Monterde's address.

After the unexpected intelligence had been properly digested it was time for dinner; Mr. Slade and the woman he had seen could very well wait until the following morning. Besides, Mr. Converse's other business had become much in arrears during the past few days, and there were a number of matters demanding immediate attention. He smiled grimly as he turned to the accumulation of letters and papers on his desk, and mentally contrasted his recent anxiety to run this same mysterious woman down, with his present dilatoriness--his admitted reluctance to hear her name from the lips of a witness whose testimony would be irrefutable.

The manner in which the name of Slade wound in and out of this maze, indefinitely and apparently without cause or purpose, had excited Mr. Converse's attention to such an extent that even now two subordinates were burrowing into the abstracter's past in an effort to unearth something that might clear up this distracting and irritating side-issue; but their efforts had been abortive in so far as the results aimed at were concerned, although--as he had informed Miss Charlotte--a number of seemingly irrelevant facts had been brought to light, which only made this phase more perplexing than ever. And now, Mr. Slade's remarkable visit to the Fairchild cottage, and what had happened there, were only added knots in an already badly tangled skein.

He next rang for the departmental stenographer, and for two hours was busy dictating letters and going over reports, with an energy that made his pale young amanuensis marvel. But as the Federal Building clock began to toll off eight strokes, he noted the impatience with which the young man consulted his watch.

"Julius, you are tired," he said, in a matter-of-fact way. "This is the last letter."

It was not to be written that night, however. His statement was punctuated by the telephone bell, and, shoving the desk instrument toward the stenographer, he said:

"Talk for me." Without such aid, he was shorn of this device's convenience in long-distance communication.

The stenographer presently announced that Mr. McCaleb desired to talk with Captain Converse.

"What does he want?" sharply demanded the latter.

It required a minute's maltreatment of the telephone to elicit the further information that Captain Converse's presence at the Westbrook home was urgently desired.

Wondering much what this summons might portend, he donned his hat and overcoat, and strode forth to intercept a street-car.

At the same time Mr. William Slade, wrapped in a dingy and much frayed dressing-gown, with a ghoulish light of exultation smouldering in his mouse-like eyes, sat in his dingy hole of a room, and went over again in his mind a recent conversation between himself and Mr. Merkel. What he had told the Coroner that evening had caused the worthy official to stare in speechless amazement--a feeling which rapidly grew into one of eminent satisfaction after Mr. Slade, with much precision and circumstantiality, had embodied his statements in a written affidavit.

So Mr. Slade now reviews this colloquy.

"What's twenty-five dollars!" he mutters, laughing noiselessly and without mirth, and cracking his knuckly fingers. "What is any money to this! You may have defeated one purpose, my dear; but, to a man of talent and resource, there exist an infinite variety of ways. To be sure, what's twenty-five dollars to this!" And he glances at an open paper displayed conspicuously on the table.

"GEN. PEYTON WESTBROOK THE
VICTIM OF AN ASSASSIN."

By the feeble illumination of the candle could yet be read, in letters an inch high, this "scare head" extending across the entire front page.