The Substitute Prisoner | Page 4

feverish anxiety to have done with the business that dominated his mind and accelerated his footsteps sent him unheeding across Seventh Avenue and down that thoroughfare until he stopped abruptly before one of the shabby second-hand clothing stores with which the street abounds.
The air of prosperity with which he was invested saved him from being seized immediately by one of the bawling salesmen and dragged into the mothy interior of the shop. He was not of the type that submits to being manhandled and browbeaten into purchasing cast-off garments. But, as he stood hesitant and uncertain within the narrow radius of the gas-lit window, one of the barkers found sufficient courage to invite him within. And, to the utter amazement of the alert salesman, Whitmore entered the store.
The proprietor of the place, a stooped, be-whiskered man who spoke with a pronounced Hebraic accent, came forward to wait personally on this elegant customer. But he found that no especial skill was required to consummate a sale. Whitmore selected an old, dilapidated suit, a worn coat, an old slouch hat, and a pair of heavy shoes, and almost caused the beaming merchant to die of heart failure by paying the first price demanded of him.
"It's for an amateur theatrical performance," Whitmore explained to the proprietor, who was unable to hide his surprise that a customer of such seeming prosperity should invest in these cast-off garments.
With the bundle containing the clothes under his arm, Whitmore returned to Broadway and entered one of the hotels. He consulted a railroad time table, after which he called for a taxicab and directed the chauffeur to take him home.
He entered the house with his latchkey and climbed the stairs to his room. Divesting himself of coat and vest, he stepped before the mirror and shaved off his gray mustache. Next he produced a soft tennis shirt, which he exchanged for the linen one he had on, and an old bow tie took the place of the blue four-in-hand which he usually wore.
Undoing the bundle with which he had entered the house, he proceeded to dress in the second-hand garments. When he had pulled the battered slouch hat well down on his forehead, he surveyed himself in the glass. The transformation was complete.
Regarding himself in this shabby disguise, he almost deteriorated in his own estimation. It was difficult to believe that a mere change of apparel could make such a vast difference. But one satisfaction he could not deny himself. It was unlikely that anyone would recognize, in the human derelict before the looking-glass, Herbert Whitmore, millionaire, owner of the great Whitmore Iron Works. It was certain that his most intimate friend would have failed to penetrate his disguise.
Dismissing the unpleasant reflections kindled within him, Whitmore proceeded with characteristic assurance to execute what was in his mind. He descended silently to the basement of the house, where he obtained a heavy screw-driver. This he secreted in the inside pocket of his coat. Next he went to the basement door and peered furtively through the grating. His anxious eyes swept the street until convinced that no inquisitive policeman was loitering in the immediate vicinity. Then, slowly, apprehensively, he opened the door and issued, like a thief in the night, from his own home.
CHAPTER II
The domestic life of George Collins and his wife was a daily lie which fooled no one. For five years they had lived completely estranged beneath the single roof that sheltered both, yet trying desperately to conceal their conjugal infelicity from the world. But the eyes of the world are too keen and penetrating when it comes to other people's affairs, and such painful efforts as the Collinses made to appear reconciled to each other were measured and appraised at their true worth.
Marriage is a common institution and the symptoms of its discontent are familiar to all. They appeared early in the married life of the Collinses, were faithfully diagnosed by the members of their immediate circle, and the prognostication based on them called for the early appearance of Mrs. Collins as plaintiff in the divorce court.
But religious scruples and a natural abhorrence of such a proceeding combined to keep the wife from making the one essential move necessary for her freedom.
Rather than do violence to the tenets of her religious faith and to the rigid principles of her upbringing, she chose to bear the burden of unhappiness that was imposed on her. Occasionally she and her husband even appeared in public together, and on such occasions they tried to give the impression of entertaining for each other all the affection of a happily married couple. But in their own home they lived continuously in a state of mutual aversion and estrangement, occupying separate apartments and holding only the most formal communications with each other.
The house