Ross was, by nature, incapable of despair; but he felt something akin to it now. He was so hopelessly in the dark; he did not know what to guard against, what was most dangerous. He remembered Eddy’s warning, not to let any one come “monkeying around” that cottage; but he did not know the reason for that warning. Nor could he think of any way to prevent Donnelly’s going there.
Should he lock the fellow up in the garage until he had warned Eddy? No; that was a plan lacking in subtlety. Certainly it would confirm whatever suspicions Donnelly might have; it might do a great deal more harm than good.
Should he tell Amy, on the chance that she might suggest something? No. The chance of her suggesting anything helpful was very small, and the chance that she would do something reckless and disastrous very great. Better keep Amy out of it.
Then what could he do? The idea came into his head that he might keep Donnelly quiet for a time by boldly asserting that he himself was Ives. But perhaps Donnelly knew that he wasn’t.
“By Heaven, why shouldn’t I tell him the truth?” he thought, in a sort of rage. “Why not tell him I’m James Ross? There’s nothing against me. I’ve done nothing criminal. I don’t even know what’s happened here. I’ll just tell him.”
And then Donnelly would ask him why he had come, and why he was here masquerading as a chauffeur. How could he explain? For it never occurred to him as a possibility that he could ignore Donnelly’s questions.
There was an air of unmistakable authority about the man. Ross had not asked him who he was, and he had no wish in the world to find out, either; simply, he knew that Donnelly was justified in his very inconvenient curiosity, that he had a right to know, and that he probably would know, before long.
“Perhaps I can manage to get away from him,” thought Ross.
That was the thing! Somehow he must sidetrack Donnelly; get him off upon a false scent, while he himself hastened to Eddy. Such a simple and easy thing to do, wasn’t it?
“Well!” said Donnelly. “Do we go back, and have a look at that license of yours—or do we go and pay a little visit to that cottage, eh?”
“I’m going back,” said Ross, curtly.
“Of course,” Donnelly went on, in a mild and reasonable tone, “I know, and you know, that you’re not going to show me any license. What you want is a little time to make up your mind. You’re saying to yourself: ‘I don’t know this fellow. I don’t know what he’s up to. I don’t see any reason why I should trust him with any of my private affairs.’ You’re right. Why should you? You’ve talked to certain other people, and you’ve heard good reasons why you ought to keep quiet—about one or two little things. That’s sensible enough. Why, naturally,” he went on, growing almost indignant in defense of Ross, “naturally an intelligent young man like you isn’t going to tell all he knows to a stranger. Why should you?”
Ross found it difficult to reply to this.
“No,” said Donnelly. “Naturally not. What you say to me is: ‘Put your cards on the table, Donnelly. Let’s hear who you are, and what you know, and what you’re after. Then we can talk.’ That’s what you say. All right. Now, I’ll tell you. I’ll be frank. I’ll admit that when I saw you this morning, I thought you were Ives. You see, I’m frank—not pretending to know it all. I made a mistake. You’re not Ives.”
“Thanks!” said Ross.
“When Ives came out here on Tuesday,” Donnelly proceeded, “he took a taxi. I’ll tell you frankly that I just found that out this morning by a lucky fluke. No credit to me. He went out to this cottage, and there he met somebody.”
“Oh, that was me, I suppose” said Ross.
“No,” said Donnelly. “It was a woman.”
“Oh, Lord!” thought Ross. “This is—I can’t stand much more of this.”
“Now, I’m not going to pretend I know who that woman was,” Donnelly went on. “I don’t. I haven’t found that out—yet. Not yet.”
“But you will,” thought Ross.
He felt sure of that. He believed that there was no hope now for the guilty ones, and he felt that he was one of the guilty ones. He did not know what had happened at “Day’s End,” but the burden of that guilt lay upon his heart. This man was the agent of destiny, inexorable, in no way to be eluded. He had come to find out, and find out he surely would.
Ross was a young man of remarkable hardihood, though; no one had ever yet been able to bully him, or to intimidate or fluster him. He had precious little hope of success, but he meant to do what he could. If he could only gain a little time, perhaps he might think of a plan, and, in the meanwhile, he would say nothing and admit nothing.
“Now, before we talk,” said Donnelly, “you want to know who I am, and how I came to be mixed up in this business. As soon as you saw me, you said to yourself: ‘Police!’”
Ross winced at the word.
“That was natural. But you made a mistake. I’ll tell you frankly that I was a police detective once, but I’ve left the force. I’m a private citizen, now, same as you are. Got a little business of my own—what you might call a private investigator. Collecting information—jobs like that. Nothing to do with criminal cases.”
He was silent for a moment.
“Nothing to do with criminal cases,” he repeated. “I don’t like ’em. Now, this—”
Again he fell silent.
“We’ll hope this isn’t one,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it. My sister, she’s a widow, and she keeps a rooming house, down on West Twelfth Street. Well, yesterday she came to me with a story that sort of interested me. She told me that about a month ago a young fellow took a room in her house. Quiet young fellow, didn’t give any trouble, but she’d taken a good deal of notice of him, in what you might call a sort of motherly way.”
“Yes, I know,” Ross nodded.
“A good-looking young fellow, very polite and nice in his ways—and she thought from the start that he was pretty badly worried about something. She’d hear him walking up and down at night—and she said there was a look on his face—You know how women are.”
“Yes,” Ross agreed.
“So, when he didn’t show up for a couple of nights, she came to me. I told her to go to the police, but she had some sort of notion that he wouldn’t like that—and I dare say she didn’t like it herself. Bad for business—a thing like that in the newspapers, you know. So, just to please her, I got his door unlocked, and had a look at his room.”
“You found—”
“Well, the first thing I saw there was a pile of money on the table—about seventy-five dollars in bills, under a paper weight, and a half finished letter. No name—just began right off—‘I won’t wait any longer.’ But here’s the letter. You can see for yourself.”
Unbuttoning his overcoat, he took a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Ross. It read:
I won’t wait any longer. I am coming out to Stamford tomorrow, and if you refuse to see me this time, it will be the end. You’ve been putting me off with one lie after the other for all this time, and now it’s finished. I don’t know how you can be so damned cruel. Don’t you even want to see your own child? As for your husband—I have no more illusions about that. You’re sick of me. All you want is to get rid of me, and you don’t care how, either. Well, I don’t care. I’d be better off with a bullet through the head. It’s only the baby—
Here there were several words scratched out, and it began again:
Darling, my own girl, perhaps I’m wrong. I hope to God I am. Perhaps you are really doing your best, and thinking of what’s best for the child. Only, it’s been so long. I want you back so. I’ve got a little money saved. I can keep you both. I can work. I can make you happy, even if we are a bit poor. Darling, just let me see you and—
That was the end. Ross touched his tongue to his dry lips, and folded up the letter again. He dared not look at Donnelly, but he knew Donnelly was looking at him.
“Ives wrote that letter,” said Donnelly. “The way I figure it out is this. He began to write, and then he decided that, instead of sending a letter, he’d go. He must have been in a pretty bad state to leave all that money behind. But, of course, he meant to come back. Well, he didn’t. Aha! Here we are!”
The taxi stopped before the gates of “Day’s End,” and Donnelly, getting out, told the driver to wait for him. Then he set off with Ross, not along the drive, but across the lawn, behind the fir trees.
“I won’t bother you by telling you how I know he came to Stamford on Tuesday,” he proceeded. “It’s my business to find out things like that. He came, and he took a taxi out to this cottage I’ve mentioned, and a woman met him there. He sent the taxi away—and that’s the last I’ve heard of him.”
The snow was wholly turned to rain, now; it blew against Ross’s face, cold and bitter; the trees stood dripping and shivering under the gray sky. He was wet, chilled to the bone, filled with a terrible foreboding.
“That cottage belongs to an old lady in the neighborhood,” said Donnelly. “But she doesn’t know anything about this. She said the place had been vacant two years, and she didn’t expect to rent it till she’d made some repairs. She said anybody could get into it easily enough if they should want to. Well!”
They stood before the garage, now, and Ross took the key from his pocket.
“So you see,” said Donnelly, “that’s how it is. We’ve traced him that far. I know that there’s some woman in Stamford who has a good reason for wanting to get rid of him. And now—” He looked steadily at Ross. “And now I’ve about finished.”
“Finished?” said Ross. “You—you mean—”
But Donnelly did not answer.