The Chief Legatee | Page 8

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 one noticed
them, but no one heard anything. They talked very low but they meant
business."
"Where is this man now?"
"At the same place. He has engaged a room there."
"The man with the twisted jaw?"
"Yes."
"Under what name?"
"Hugh Porter."
"Ah, it was Hazen only five hours ago," muttered Ransom. "Porter, did
you say? I'll have a talk with this Porter at once."
"I think not to-night," put in the detective, with the mingled authority

and deference natural to one of his kind. "To-morrow, perhaps, but
to-night it would only provoke scandal."
This was certainly true, but Mr. Ransom was not an easy man to
dominate.
"I must see him before I sleep," he insisted. "A single word may solve
this mystery. He has the word. I'd be a fool to let the night go by--Ah!
what's that?"
The telephone bell had rung again. A message from the office this time.
A note had just been handed in for Mr. Ransom; should they send it
up?
Gerridge was at the 'phone.
"Instantly," he shouted down, "and be sure you hold the messenger. It
may be from your lady," he remarked to Mr. Ransom. "Stranger things
than that have happened."
Mr. Ransom reeled to the door, opened it and stood waiting. The two
detectives exchanged glances. What might not that note contain!
Mr. Ransom opened it in the hall. When he came back into the room,
his hand was shaking and his face looked drawn and pale. But he
showed no further disposition to go out. Instead, he sank into a chair,
with a motion of dismissal to the two detectives.
"Question the boy who brought this," said he. "It is from Mrs. Ransom;
written, as you see, at the St. Denis. She bids me farewell for a time,
but does not favor me with any explanations. She cannot do differently,
she says, and asks me to trust her and wait. Not very encouraging to
sleep on; but it's something. She has not entirely forsaken me."
Gerridge with a shrug turned sharply towards the door. "I take it that
you wouldn't object to knowing all the messenger can tell you?"
"No, no. Question him. Find out whether she gave this to him with her

own hand."
Gerridge obeyed this injunction, but was told in reply that the note had
been given him to deliver by a clerk in the hotel lobby. He could tell
nothing about the lady.
This was unsatisfactory enough; but the man who had influenced her to
this step had been placed under surveillance. To-morrow they would
question him; the mystery was not without a promise of solution. So
Gerridge felt; but not Mr. Ransom; for at the end of the lines whose
purport he had just communicated to the detective were these few,
significant words:
"Make no move to find me. If you love me well enough to wait in
silence for developments, happiness may yet be ours."
CHAPTER IV
MR. RANSOM WAITS
Gerridge rose early, primed, as he said to himself, for business. But to
his great disappointment he found Mr. Ransom in a frame of mind
which precluded