第66章 WITHIN THE TOILS(2)

"You forget yourself, Inspector," he said, icily."This is my wife.She has the right to be with me--her husband!"The Inspector grinned sceptically.He was moved no more effectively by Mary's almost hysterical effort to respond to her husband's leading.

"Why shouldn't I be here? Why? Why? I----"Burke broke in on the girl's pitiful histrionics ruthlessly.He was not in the least deceived.He was aware that something untoward, as he deemed it, had occurred.It seemed to him, in fact, that his finical mechanisms for the undoing of Mary Turner were in a fair way to be thwarted.But he would not give up the cause without a struggle.Again, he addressed himself to Dick, disregarding completely the aloof manner of the young man.

"Where's your father?" he questioned roughly.

"In bed, naturally," was the answer."I ask you again: What are you doing here at this time of night?"Burke shook his shoulders ponderously in a movement of impatience over this prolonging of the farce.

"Oh, call your father," he directed disgustedly.

Dick remonstrated with an excellent show of dignity.

"It's late," he objected."I'd rather not disturb him, if you don't mind.Really, the idea is absurd, you know." Suddenly, he smiled very winningly, and spoke with a good assumption of ingenuousness.

"Inspector," he said briskly, "I see, I'll have to tell you the truth.It's this: I've persuaded my wife to go away with me.

She's going to give all that other sort of thing up.Yes, we're going away together." There was genuine triumph in his voice now."So, you see, we've got to talk it over.Now, then, Inspector, if you'll come back in the morning----"The official grinned sardonically.He could not in the least guess just what had in very deed happened, but he was far too clever a man to be bamboozled by Dick's maunderings.

"Oh, that's it!" he exclaimed, with obvious incredulity.

"Of course," Dick replied bravely, though he knew that the Inspector disbelieved his pretenses.Still, for his own part, he was inclined as yet to be angry rather than alarmed by this failure to impress the officer."You see, I didn't know----"And even in the moment of his saying, the white beam of the flashing searchlight from the Tower fell between the undrawn draperies of the octagonal window.The light startled the Inspector again, as it had done once before that same night.His gaze followed it instinctively.So, within the second, he saw the still form lying there on the floor--lying where had been shadows, where now, for the passing of an instant, was brilliant radiance.

There was no mistaking that awful, motionless, crumpled posture.

The Inspector knew in this single instant of view that murder had been done here.Even as the beam of light from the Tower shifted and vanished from the room, he leaped to the switch by the door, and turned on the lights of the chandelier.In the next moment, he had reached the door of the passage across the room, and his whistle sounded shrill.His voice bellowed reinforcement to the blast.

"Cassidy! Cassidy!"

As Dick made a step toward his wife, from whom he had withdrawn a little in his colloquy with the official, Burke voiced his command viciously:

"Stay where you are--both of you!"

Cassidy came rushing in, with the other detectives.He was plainly surprised to find the room so nearly empty, where he had expected to behold a gang of robbers.

"Why, what's it all mean, Chief?" he questioned.His peering eyes fell on Dick, standing beside Mary, and they rounded in amazement.

"They've got Griggs!" Burke answered.There was exceeding rage in his voice, as he spoke from his kneeling posture beside the body, to which he had hurried after the summons to his aides.He glowered up into the bewildered face of the detective."I'll break you for this, Cassidy," he declared fiercely."Why didn't you get here on the run when you heard the shot?""But there wasn't any shot," the perplexed and alarmed detective expostulated.He fairly stuttered in the earnestness of his self-defense."I tell you, Chief, there hasn't been a sound."Burke rose to his feet.His heavy face was set in its sternest mold.

"You could drive a hearse through the hole they've made in him,"he rumbled.He wheeled on Mary and Dick."So!" he shouted, "now it's murder!...Well, hand it over.Where's the gun?"Followed a moment's pause.Then the Inspector spoke harshly to Cassidy.He still felt himself somewhat dazed by this extraordinary event, but he was able to cope with the situation.

He nodded toward Dick as he gave his order: "Search him!"Before the detective could obey the direction, Dick took the revolver from his pocket where he had bestowed it, and held it out.

And it so chanced that at this incriminating crisis for the son, the father hastily strode within the library.He had been aroused by the Inspector's shouting, and was evidently greatly perturbed.His usual dignified air was marred by a patent alarm.

"What's all this?" he exclaimed, as he halted and stared doubtfully on the scene before him.

Burke, in a moment like this, was no respecter of persons, for all his judicious attentions on other occasions to those whose influence might serve him well for benefits received.

"You can see for yourself," he said grimly to the dumfounded magnate.Then, he fixed sinister eyes on the son."So," he went on, with somber menace in his voice, "you did it, young man." He nodded toward the detective."Well, Cassidy, you can take 'em both down-town....That's all."The command aroused Dick to remonstrance against such indignity toward the woman whom he loved.