The Brand of Silence: A Detective Story by Johnston McCulley (read book txt) 📖

earth do you mean by this? I'll call a clerk and——"

"The door is locked," Farland said, taking the automatic from his pocket. "You raise your voice, touch a button or make any move that I do not like, and I'll plug you and say afterward that I had placed you under arrest and had to shoot when you tried to escape. Answer my question, Lerton! You are at the end of your rope! Why did you kill Rufus Shepley and then try to hang the crime on your cousin, Sidney Prale?"

"This is preposterous!" Lerton exclaimed.

"Oh, I've got the goods on you, Lerton! I wouldn't be here talking like this if I didn't! You're going to the electric chair!"

Lerton laughed rather nervously. "I always thought that you were a good detective, Jim, but I am beginning to have doubts now," he said. "What has put such an idea into your head?"

"Facts gathered and welded together," Farland told him. "Don't try to carry out the bluff any longer, Lerton. And don't call me Jim. I never allow murderers to get familiar with me!"

"This has gone far enough!" the broker exclaimed. "I'll have to ask you to leave my office, sir!"

"I expect to do that little thing before long, and you are going with me," Farland said.

There was a knock at the door.

CHAPTER XXVI THE TRUTH COMES OUT

Farland did not take his eyes off George Lerton.

"If you have touched a button and called some fool clerk, I'll manhandle you!" he promised. "Kindly consider yourself a prisoner!"

The knock was repeated, and Farland, still keeping his eyes on the man at the desk, backed to the door and turned the key. Then he took up a position where he could continue watching George Lerton and keep an eye on the door at the same time.

"Come in!" he called.

The door was hurled open. At the same instant, the office boy who had opened it was thrust aside. Sidney Prale sprang into the private office and stood glaring at his cousin. Behind him was Murk, and behind Murk were Kate Gilbert and her maid.

"Quite a gathering!" Farland said, grinning. "I'm glad that you are here. Kindly close and lock the door, Murk, with that young office gentleman on the outside!"

Murk obeyed. George Lerton sprang to his feet.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" he demanded. "Has my office been turned into a rendezvous for maniacs?"

"Sit down!" Sidney Prale cried. He had not taken his eyes off Lerton, had not even turned to speak to Jim Farland, had not even wondered how Farland had escaped and come here.

Lerton dropped back into his chair, wetting his thin lips, his eyes furtive now.

"You miserable cur!" Sidney Prale went on, advancing toward his cousin. "I should handle this affair myself. I should have you in Honduras, and fasten you to a tree and beat you until you are senseless."

"These insults——"

"Are deserved, you beast!" Prale cried. "So, when I went away ten years ago, you sold out Mr. Griffin and put the blame for it on me, did you? You wrecked that good man's faith in me, turned influential men against me, had me persecuted when I returned."

Jim Farland gave a shout of delight. "That right, Sid?" he cried, "Then I have the connecting link! So George Lerton has been causing you all this trouble, has he? I understand a lot more now. Lerton killed Rufus Shepley, also!"

"It's a lie! You are trying to save Prale by accusing me!" Lerton cried.

"Why, we've got you, you weak fool!" said Farland. "I knew you in that old farmhouse despite your mask. Your hands gave you away—I recognized them."

"And he's the man who tried to bribe me!" Murk cried. "I can tell it by his hands, too!"

"You tried to smash Prale's alibi," Jim Farland continued. "You had him followed that night and you sent those notes to the barber and the clothing merchant, with money in them."

"And you betrayed yourself when you began using violence," Prale put in. "You were too vindictive. You showed that you had some good reason of your own for wanting to drive me away from New York quickly!"

"Oh, we've got you!" Farland repeated. "You are as good as in the electric chair now!"

George Lerton looked as if he might have been in it. He was breathing in gasps, and his face was white. His eyes held an expression of terror.

"I guess—you've got me!" he said. "But I'll never—go to the chair!"

Farland stepped across to him. "Get it off your chest!" he suggested.

"I—I'll talk about it—yes!" George Lerton said. "I—I sold out Griffin. I wanted money, and I hated Griffin because he had put Sidney Prale over me. Then Sid had his trouble with the girl and ran away. I fixed things so it looked as if he had been the guilty one.

"I pretended to hate Sid for what he was supposed to have done. I suggested the scheme of vengeance, and worked to get the influential men together. Then he came back—with his million. I hated him all the more because of that. I was afraid that, if he remained in New York, he would find out the truth and I'd be exposed. I knew what that would mean, and I was beginning to get rich.

"So I had him followed and watched. I trailed him myself and met him on Fifth Avenue, and tried to get him to go away, and afterward denied that I had seen him at all, for he was accused of the murder of Rufus Shepley."

"Which was your deed!" Farland put in. "Go ahead—tell it all. Let us see whether you were clever or merely an amateur at crime."

"Oh, I was clever enough!" Lerton boasted. "I—I killed Shepley because he was about to have me arrested for embezzlement. I had been handling a vast sum for him, aside from his regular business. While he was traveling, I speculated with the money—and lost. He knew it. I could not repay.

"I had an engagement with him that night at the hotel. The detective I had working for me had reported that Sid had had a quarrel with Shepley, and where he had gone afterward and what he had done. There I saw my chance.

"I did not have myself announced at Shepley's hotel. I knew where his suite was, so I slipped up to it without anybody seeing me, and knocked at the door. He admitted me. I begged him to give me a little time to repay the money, but he would not. He called me a thief, and said that I must go to prison, that he would not have a hand in letting me remain at liberty to rob other men.

"There was a steel letter opener on the table. I—I stabbed him with it, and then I got away by the fire escape. Nobody saw me. I left him there dead. I was almost frantic when I reached home. Then I saw how I could have Sidney Prale accused and remove the menace of his presence also. I would be safe if Prale were convicted of the murder. I would not have to repay the Shepley money, and Prale never could reveal that I had betrayed Mr. Griffin and the others instead of him.

"So I sent the notes and money to the barber and clothing merchant, and they denied that Prale had visited them, thus smashing his alibi. I denied that I had met him on the Avenue. I thought that I was safe. But the barber and merchant told Farland the truth, and the police began to think that Sid was not guilty.

"I grew almost frantic then. My one hope was in running Sid out of town as quickly as possible, and so I did everything I could think of to bring about that end."

"How about that fountain pen found beside the body?" Farland asked.

"When I was talking to Sid that night on the Avenue, his coat was open and I saw the pen. Something seemed to tell me to take it, that it might be used against him some time. As I clutched his lapel, begging him to leave town, I took the pen from his pocket."

"Nothing but a plain dip, after all!" Farland sneered.

"I dropped it beside the body after I had killed Shepley. It was a part of my plan. And—and I guess that is all!"

"I guess it is!" Sidney Prale said. "Mr. Griffin and I, and some other men, made a little investigation last night and continued it this morning. We found that you were the traitor who caused that financial smash ten years ago. It may please you to know that Mr. Griffin is my friend again, and that others are being informed of my innocence. Even Coadley has come to me and asked to take my case again. But I was clearing myself of the charge of business treason, and nothing more. I did not connect you with the murder of Shepley."

"Well, I did connect him with it," Farland put in. "But when I sprung it on him here this afternoon, I was running a bluff. I had some evidence, but not enough to convict. You might have got away with it, Lerton, if you had had any nerve. But you happen to be a rank coward—and a guilty man!"

"You—you——" George Lerton gasped.

He had been holding two fingers in a pocket of his waistcoat. Now he withdrew them and, before Farland could reach him, he had swallowed something.

"You'll never——" he began, and then his head fell forward to the desk. "Get the ladies outside, Murk!" Farland commanded suddenly. "And tell that secretary out there to send in a call for a physician and the police. Lerton was right—he'll never go to the electric chair!"

Ten minutes later, Sidney Prale and Murk were waiting for the elevator with Kate Gilbert and Marie, but each couple was standing at some distance from the other.

"I have proved my innocence, and now I ask you to remember your promise and grant me your friendship," Prale was telling Kate Gilbert.

"I shall remember," she said. "You have my address, haven't you? If you haven't, ask Murk. He knows it. You sent him to spy on me, remember."

"Jim Farland did that," Prale protested.

Murk was talking to the gigantic Marie at that moment.

"You're mighty nice!" he was saying. "Say, I'd like to see you some more. I've got an idea my boss will be calling on your mistress, and when he does I might come up to the corner, and you might slip out and meet me, and we might take a walk in the Park. You wouldn't want to stay in the apartment and bother them, would you?"

"It would be a shame!" said Marie. "Which corner, Murk?"

THE END