The Brand of Silence: A Detective Story by Johnston McCulley (electric book reader .TXT) 📗

that I haven't the faintest idea who my enemies are, or why they are trying so hard to make life miserable for me. If I knew where to start to round them up, I wouldn't be standing in this room talking to you—I'd be out rounding them up!"

"Well, if you ask me, I think it's about time that Farland settled that murder case," Murk said. "If he don't get busy pretty quick, I'll tackle it myself. I've got an idea——"

The ringing of the telephone bell cut his sentence off. Sidney Prale was near the instrument, and he answered the call.

"Mr. Prale?" asked a man's voice.

"Talking."

"I just wanted to inform you that you needn't depend on Detective Jim Farland any more. We've got him—and we'll get anybody else you engage. And we'll get you, too, Mr. Prale, before very long. Don't think we'll not!"

The man at the other end of the wire hung up his receiver. Prale paced the floor and told Murk of the conversation.

"They've got Farland!" Prale exclaimed. "They probably got him last night, decoyed him in some way. Well, Murk, if that is the truth, and I imagine that it is, we'll have to do our sleuthing ourselves."

"Suits me!" Murk said. "I'm ready to start out right now and sleuth until it's settled. Let's get in action, boss!"

"We are in the same old quandary, Murk. We don't know where to start," Sidney Prale said. "If our foes would come out in the open, instead of fighting from the dark, we might have a chance. This is some city, Murk, and there are several million persons in it and around it. Starting right in such a maze isn't the easiest thing in the world, you know."

For the second time that afternoon, Murk was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone bell, and once more Sidney Prale happened to be near and answered the call.

"Send them up at once!" Murk heard him say.

And then Sidney Prale hung up the receiver and whirled around with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Murk," he said, "Miss Kate Gilbert is coming up here with that big maid of hers—coming to see me. What she wants is more than I can guess, remembering what happened the last time I talked with her. It may be good news, Murk!"

They waited impatiently for the ring at the door. Murk opened it and ushered them in.

He grinned at the gigantic Marie, but she did not return the compliment. There was a serious expression in her face, and Murk looked past her at Kate Gilbert, who was being greeted by Sidney Prale.

Something important had happened, Murk told himself immediately. Kate Gilbert did not look frightened exactly or sorrowful or triumphant. There was a peculiar expression about her mouth, and her face seemed pale.

"I felt that I had to come, Mr. Prale, and have this talk with you," Kate Gilbert said, when she was seated near the window. "I wanted to speak to you here instead of in some public place, and so I brought Marie and came to your suite."

"You are welcome, Miss Gilbert, I am sure," Prale said. "If you wish to speak in private, Marie and Murk can step into the adjoining room."

"Please," she said softly.

Murk opened the door, and the maid stepped in. Then he followed and closed the door again. Prale sat down near Kate Gilbert and turned toward her.

"Now, Miss Gilbert," he prompted.

She met his eyes squarely as she spoke, but her lips trembled at times as if she were undergoing an ordeal.

"Mr. Prale," she said, "as you know, I have been associated with others in an attempt to bring retribution home to you. When I became associated with them, it was understood between us that there was to be no violence, nothing outside the law. We were simply to attack you from every angle, cause you trouble and annoyance, take away your money if we could, break you in every way."

"Pardon me, but——"

"Please say nothing until I am finished, Mr. Prale. We began at once to gather all the information we could about you and your affairs. We began to plan for your downfall. We found that we could do nothing that amounted to anything while you were in Honduras, where you were a powerful man. But we were about to try, even there, when we learned that you were selling out your properties and preparing to return to New York.

"You may know how that struck us. You had gone away and made your fortune, and you were coming home, possibly with the hope that the past had been forgotten. We intended showing you that it had not been forgotten, that you could not return and enjoy the fortune whose foundation was——But enough of that!

"I had been in Honduras spying upon you. I was sent because you did not know me, and would not be on guard, as you might have been, had some man gone down there. We did not care to send an ordinary detective, of course. I kept the people here informed of all your movements. I began the punishment by leaving that note in your stateroom and pasting the other on your suit case, began it by reminding you that the past lived in the minds of some persons.

"You know the rest. We began our work. We caused you annoyance from the first, with the banker, the hotel manager, and all that. Before we could do any more, you were accused of murder. That pleased us, of course. We did not believe you guilty, but we were glad to see that you were being caused some trouble, that your name was being stained. Some of us even began to think that the law of retribution was at work itself, without our poor help.

"We went ahead with our plans, however. You engaged a prominent attorney, and finally we induced him to leave you. But some who were handling the affair went too far. You were assaulted in Central Park. Your valet was knocked on the head and kidnaped, and an attempt made to get him to take payment and spy upon you. At that time I told a certain man who had the handling of the affair that there could be no more violence.

"We should not break a law to undo you, I declared. If we did that, we were as bad as you. I said that, if there was any more violence, I should cease having anything to do with the affair, and would come to you and tell you so. An hour ago, I found out that Detective Farland, a man in your employ, had been seized and treated with violence and was being held prisoner because he insisted upon remaining loyal to you. So I am here!"

"This is amazing, Miss Gilbert!" Sidney Prale told her. "The whole thing has been amazing. Somebody has tried to connect me with that murder. Somebody tried to smash my alibi. The little annoyances were bad enough, and the knowledge that I had unknown foes who fought in the dark; but the murder charge was the worst of all, for it placed me in a position where I had to clear myself absolutely or remain forever suspected by many persons."

"I understand that," Kate Gilbert said.

"And now you have come to me to say that you are no longer associated with my enemies?"

"For what you did, there can be no forgiveness, Mr. Prale. I want to see you punished. But I will not be a party to violence. It seems to me that the man who has been managing this affair has gone beyond proper bounds. For some reason, he is particularly vindictive, though he did not suffer at all, as did some of the others. I cannot forgive you for what you did, Sidney Prale. But I can wash my hands of the entire affair and try to forget you entirely and hope that there is a law of retribution that will take vengeance for me. That is all, Mr. Prale. Only please remember that, from this hour, I am not concerned with the others in this affair."

She started to rise, but Prale motioned for her to retain her seat. He bent forward and looked at her searchingly.

"I am very glad that you have come here and spoken to me in this way, Miss Gilbert," he said. "I scarcely know how to express what I feel that I must tell you. I have listened to you patiently, without interruption. Will you be kind enough to listen to me for a moment now?"

"I'll listen, though it will be useless," she said.

"When I left Honduras, Miss Gilbert, I was a happy man. I had made my pile and was coming home. I had left ten years before because a selfish woman, whom I imagined I loved, jilted me for a wealthier man. That wound had healed, and when I left Honduras, I did not think that I had an enemy in the world, unless it was some poor devil of a disgruntled native workman I had been forced to discharge, or somebody like that.

"I believed those notes on the ship to be in the nature of a jest, or else that somebody was making a mistake. Then troubles began, and I was at a loss to understand them. Next came the murder charge! We will put that aside for the moment, for it seems to be the result of circumstantial evidence and probably has nothing to do with the other affair—merely a coincidence.

"Miss Gilbert, look at me! I want you to believe what I am going to say. You must believe it! In the name of everything I hold sacred, I swear to you that I do not know these foes of mine, or the reason for their enmity!"

"How can I believe that?" she cried. "Why should you ask me to believe such a statement?"

"Because I want some light on this subject, Miss Gilbert, and I am determined to get it. There is some terrible mistake. I am being punished for the fault of some other person."

"Can you not remember back ten years?" she asked.

"Easily. I can live over again the last day I spent in New York ten years ago."

"And the few days before that time?"

"Certainly, Miss Gilbert."

"And yet you ask why others should seek to punish you? Perhaps you are one of those men whose natures are so dishonorable that you think you did nothing wrong at that time."

"So it was then that I was supposed to have done this terrible thing—whatever it was?"

"As you know, Mr. Prale."

"But I do not know, Miss Gilbert. To the best of my recollection I left New York without having done anything in the least dishonorable; and certainly I did nothing to merit a band of enemies working against me."

"What is it that you wish me to do?" she asked.

"Be fair with me, Miss Gilbert. I tell you that there is some terrible mistake! If I am supposed to know all about this, what harm can there be in your repeating the details to me? Tell me what crime I am supposed to have committed to merit this attack. Give me a chance to prove my innocence! The common thug gets that chance in a court of law, you know."

"But this is ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "There can be no question of it! The whole thing came out at the time."

"Then you do not wish to be fair?" Prale asked.

"I cannot allow you to say that. I will tell the story to you, Mr. Prale, tell exactly what you did—as you know very well—if that will be any satisfaction to you. But it will do you no good to deny it!"

"Tell me!" Sidney Prale said.

CHAPTER XXIII A STARTLING STORY

"This is a painful subject for me, as you must be aware," Kate Gilbert said. "I shall tell the story in as few words as possible, and if you are a gentleman, you will not interrupt or cause me more suffering by protesting your innocence."

"I promise not to interrupt," Sidney Prale replied. "I want justice and nothing more, Miss Gilbert."

"Ten years ago you were a clerk in the office of Griffin, the big broker, were you not?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Griffin took a fancy to you, after your father died and left you alone in the world without any money. He gave you odd jobs to do around his residence, fed and clothed you and arranged it so that you could go to school. Your uncle, the father of George Lerton, your cousin, would do nothing for you because there had been a family quarrel several years before.

"Had it not been for Mr. Griffin you might have been an ordinary street Arab. He sent you to a business college after you had finished the public