The Chief Legatee | Page 7

have drawn Mrs. Ransom from my side, it was not lack of affection, or any doubt of my sincerity or undivided attachment to herself."
The detective may not have been entirely convinced on the first point, but he was discretion itself, and responded quite cheerfully with an emphatic:
"Very well. You still want me to find her. I will do my best, sir; but first, cannot you help me with a suggestion or two?"
"I?"
"There must be some clew to so sudden a freak on the part of a young and beautiful woman, who, I have taken pains to learn, has not only a clean record but a reputation for good sense. The Fultons cannot supply it. She has lived a seemingly open and happy life in their house, and the mystery is as great to them as to you. But you, as her lover and now her husband, must have been favored with confidences not given to others. Cannot you recall one likely to put us on the right track? Some fact prior to the events of to-day, I mean; some fact connected with her past life; before she went to live with the Fultons?"
"No. Yet let me think; let me think." Mr. Ransom dropped his face into his hands and sat for a moment silent. When he looked up again, the detective perceived that the affair was hopeless so far as he was concerned. "No," he repeated, this time with unmistakable emphasis, "she has always appeared buoyant and untrammeled. But then I have only known her six months."
"Tell me her history so far as you know it. What do you know of her life previous to your meeting her?"
"It was a very simple one. She had a country bringing up, having been born in a small village in Connecticut. She was one of three children and the only one who has survived; her sister, who was her twin, died when she was a small child, and a brother some five years ago. Her fortune was willed her, as I have already told you, by a great-uncle. It is entirely in her own hands. Left an orphan early, she lived first with her brother; then when he died, with one relative after another, till lastly she settled down with the Fultons. I know of no secret in her life, no entanglement, not even of any prior engagements. Yet that man with the twisted jaw was not unknown to her, and if he is a relative, as she said, you should have no difficulty in locating him."
"I have a man on his track," Gerridge replied. "And one on the girl's too; I mean, of course, Bela Burton's. They will report here up to twelve o'clock to-night. It is now half-past eleven. We should hear from one or the other soon."
"And my wife?"
"A description of the clothing she wore has gone out. We may hear from it. But I doubt if we do to-night unless she has rejoined her maid or the man with a scar. Somehow I think she will join the girl. But it's hard to tell yet."
Mr. Ransom could hardly control his impatience. "And I must sit helpless here!" he exclaimed. "I who have so much at stake!"
The detective evidently thought the occasion called for whatever comfort it was in his power to bestow.
"Yes," said he. "For it is here she will seek you if she takes a notion to return. But woman is an uncertain quantity," he dryly added.
At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Ransom leaped to answer; but the call was only an anxious one from the Fultons, who wanted to know what news. He answered as best he could, and was recrossing disconsolately to his chair when voices rose in the hall, and a man was ushered in, whom Gerridge immediately introduced as Mr. Sims.
A runner--and with news! Mr. Ransom, summoning up his courage, waited for the inevitable question and reply. They came quickly enough.
"What have you got? Have you found the man?"
"Yes. And the lady's been to see him; that is, if the description of her togs was correct."
"He means Mrs. Ransom," explained Gerridge. Then, as he marked his client's struggle for composure, he quietly asked, "A lady in a dark green suit with yellowish furs and a blue veil over her hat?"
"That's the ticket!"
"The clothes worn by the woman who went out of the basement door, Mr. Ransom."
The latter turned sharply aside. The shame of the thing was becoming intolerable.
"And this woman wearing those yellow furs and the blue veil visited the man of the broken jaw?" inquired Gerridge.
"Yes, sir."
"When?"
"About six this afternoon."
"And where?"
"At the hotel St. Denis where I have since tracked him."
"How long did she stay?"
"About an hour."
"In the parlor or--"
"In the parlor. They had a great deal to say. More than