CHAPTER XVII
THE TRUTH ABOUT LOCKE
“Well, Mr. Nelson, I’ve solved part of the mystery, at any rate,” said Lorimer Lane, as he went to make his first formal report to Nick Nelson. “I’m afraid you’ll be sorry rather than otherwise, but the disclosure was bound to come.”
“I may be sorry I called you in at all,” Nelson responded, gloomily. “My friend Mr. Barham is not pleased at my bringing you into the matter.”
“I knew it, and I am not surprised. You see, his secret was safe, until my advent. Without undue conceit, I may say I feel sure the police would never have discovered it.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s simply this. The missing artist Thomas Locke can never be found—for the simple reason that there is no such person.”
Nelson stared at the detective.
“Explain, please,” he said briefly.
“I will. The artist, Locke, and your friend, Mr. Andrew Barham, are one and the same person.”
“Oh, now, Mr. Lane, that’s a little too much. I can’t take it in.”
“Take it slowly. I shouldn’t make the statement unless I knew it to be true. If you will think it over as I detail my arguments, I am sure you’ll be convinced.”
“Go ahead.”
“To begin with, it would be practically impossible for a man to disappear so utterly off the face of the earth, as Locke seems to have done. With a large reward offered for his apprehension, no man could hide his personality so long and so cleverly and escape all discovery or detection. But, aside from that, I have proved my case to my own satisfaction, as I am sure I can prove it to yours.”
“I’m trying to grasp it. But, before anything else, why would Andrew Barham cut up any such trick as that? Why?”
“I will tell you. I may as well tell you that first. I have studied Mr. Barham for three days now—I have inquired among his friends and acquaintances—in a roundabout way—I have interviewed his servants and I have even talked with his mother-in-law. A most surprisingly unpleasant old lady.”
“And you learned?”
“I learned that for some reason, Andrew Barham chose to lead a double life. He was part of the time a resident of Fifth Avenue and a society man. Also, part of the time, he was Thomas Locke, artist, of Washington Square.”
“Have you taxed him with this?”
“I have not. I am employed by you—so I come to you with my findings. If you say so, my discovery shall go no further.”
“I don’t know what to say—I am too amazed for words. If any lesser detective than yourself told me this thing I should scoff at it. But I know your reputation, I know your prowess, and I feel I must believe you—at least I must believe that you believe this thing yourself.”
“I know it. As to the more positive bits of evidence, let me call to your mind the wig, left behind in the mid-night scramble with the policeman. Mr. Barham, of course, pursued his career as Locke, in disguise. He couldn’t have managed it any other way. His disguise was not elaborate but it was effective. It consisted only of the well-made and perfectly fitting wig of long black hair, the large and heavy-rimmed glasses and two gold caps for his eye teeth. With these he was sufficiently changed in appearance for his purpose.”
“Those things couldn’t really disguise him.”
“Not from you or from any one who knew him. But he didn’t need that. All he wanted was a different personality for the artist that should in no way resemble the real Andrew Barham. He never expected to meet the same people in his two separate walks of life. And so, he went his way in his Fifth Avenue surroundings, and occasionally, when he chose, he went away, down to Washington Square for a day or two. His frequent absences from the studio, and also, from his Barham home, are thus explained.”
“I can’t take it in. Hid his wife know of this?”
“Most certainly not. No one knew it. But, to my mind, it was a suspicion of it that made Mrs. Barham go down there that night to find out.”
“Mr. Lane, I don’t believe a word of all this! I can’t believe it! You are carried away with it all as a theory, and you are trying to make things prove up. But it’s too preposterous—too incredible”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Nelson, how about this? In Mr. Barham’s desk drawer, the one at his right hand, as he usually sits, I found concealed under some papers, the small picture of Miss Cutler that disappeared from the studio that night of the reappearance of Locke.”
And then Nick Nelson remembered how Barham had continually fumbled in that drawer on certain occasions when Nelson had been there. Was the man in love with Pearl Jane? Was he really Locke? Nelson’s brain seemed to spin around.
“This won’t do,” he said after a moment. “I can’t take the responsibility of your disclosures. Come with me at once to Andrew Barham. We will lay all our cards on the table. If he has done this thing—he will tell me so. I know Barham.”
And so the detective and the man who had employed him went together to Barham’s office.
He received them gravely, seeming to know their errand.
He took them to his private office, and at once opened the subject himself.
“My secret is a secret no longer,” he said, and looked at Nelson with a strange, almost wistful smile.
“Tell me it isn’t so, Drew,” Nelson cried; “tell me you never did such a thing!”
“As what?”
“As to pretend to be Locke—and all that!”
“Is it so terrible?” Barham looked thoughtful. “Yes, I am Locke, as I see Mr. Lane has already discovered. Do you want to hear the story, Nick?”
“Indeed I do.”
“It isn’t a unique one, I daresay.” Barham still had that far-away look in his eyes and an absorbed expression on his face.
But he told his story with dignity and with a fine faith in Nelson’s ability and willingness to understand.
“You know, Nick, that Maddy and I were never congenial in our tastes or in our selection of companions. I couldn’t bear that crowd that she enjoyed so much, and she never liked the quieter people I preferred.
“I honestly tried to adapt my preferences to hers, and to bring about a state of affairs whereby we could be more congenial, but she wouldn’t make any concessions. I’m not blaming her, you understand, but—well, I suppose the main trouble was that I couldn’t play Bridge—that is, not as her cronies played it. Nor did I want to. I have none of the gambling instinct, none of the craving for that sort of excitement. Maddy had.
“The result was, we drifted more and more apart. I used to take her to the card parties and go for her when they were over—but they kept up so late, and it irked her to have me waiting for her—well, never mind all that. I became bored and restless because almost every night I was left alone to amuse myself—or, to enjoy the company of Mrs. Selden. I went to the clubs a lot, of course, but they didn’t give me what I wanted. I longed for an interest in life, a few congenial spirits, and most of all I wanted to follow up a taste for painting that I had as a younger man.
“I tried it at home, but Maddy objected to the smell of paint in the house, so I concluded to set up a studio. I had no thought, at first, of what came about afterward—but one night I went to a masquerade with Madeleine. I wore that long haired wig, which so became me and looked so natural on me—that after a while some such idea as I finally carried out began to take shape in my brain. I mulled over it a year before I decided to try it, and then—after a desperate attempt to persuade Maddy to give me at least part of her time, and failing, I set up my studio.
“The disguise and the double life were partly to be free from intrusion and interruption—to have a sort of haven and sanctuary all to myself—and partly, out of a spirit of bravado. If Maddy could lead her life—I could lead mine, I argued. I wasn’t so very keen about keeping it secret—indeed, if my wife had discovered it I was in no way ashamed of it.
“But, as time went on, I found I was changing. I was becoming more and more Tommy Locke and less and less Andrew Barham. I began to realize that I had gone farther than I intended—that I had burned bridges behind me that I never could rebuild. Time and again I tried to give up that other life—tried to resolve to close up the studio and never go back to it. I kept things arranged that way—there was always money enough in Charley’s possession to pay all bills and settle up all claims, if I could conclude to give up the other life I led.
“But I couldn’t do it. Always I would drift back there again.”
“But how, Drew, how could you work it? Why were you never discovered—or suspected.”
“It was easy,” Barham said. “I had so many out of town engagements in connection with my business that no one at home was surprised at my absence for several days at a time. And, at the other end, no one ever thought of questioning my goings or comings. It was really all very innocent and decent. I had good friends—no intimates, and no”
“You are sure you want me to hear all this revelation, Mr. Barham?” Lane asked, noting the confidences that were evidently meant for Nelson.
“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Lane. Yes—I think I’d rather you understood the whole situation. That’s about all, anyway. The disguise became second nature to me. I could achieve it in a moment or two. Many a time I have left the house in Fifth Avenue, ostensibly for a trip to Chicago or St. Louis. In my bag I had my wig, glasses, collar and tie, and a few such things. I would take a taxi from the station, whither my own chauffeur had driven me, and in it I would make the change in my appearance. The taxi driver rarely noticed it—if he did a five dollar bill closed his mouth. I would get out a few blocks from the studio and walk to it. I cannot tell you how I enjoyed the rest and freedom from my distressing home life—yes, I may as well admit it was distressing. Madeleine grew continually harder to live with, and Mrs. Selden was always a thorn in my flesh. I would not make these disclosures, Nick, but I must make you understand.”
“I do understand, Andrew, and I want you to know it!”
Nelson impulsively reached over and grasped his friend’s hand.
Lorimer Lane, too, showed appreciation and understanding, but he was eagerly awaiting the rest of the story. His leaping mind had already jumped to the last chapter.
“But,” Barham resumed, “there never was a truer word than Oscar Wilde wrote in his ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol.’
“For he who lives more lives than one.
More deaths than one must die.
“I have proved that over and over again. I have lived a double life, it is true, and I have paid for it by dying a thousand deaths in my conscience. I have suffered remorse untold—I have so loathed myself at times that I would willingly have died in earnest to get out of it all. And then—the urge would be so strong, the desire for that little home, those few good friends—that I would go back there in spite of myself.”
“And I don’t blame you!” cried Nelson. “It was no crime, Drew. Many a man lives a double life of far more ignominy and shame.”
“There was no ignominy, no shame,” said Barham, gravely, “but it was deceit—and I am not naturally a deceitful man. I could look at it all calmly and dispassionately while I was down at the studio, but whe n I was at home, at my own table, with those two unsuspecting women, I felt the veriest scoundrel on the face of the earth.”
“Well you’re not!” and Nelson again grasped the hand of his friend.
“I agree to that,” said Lane, looking earnestly at Barham. “But now—will you tell us all you know about the night of the masquerade?”
Barham looked up quickly..
“You think I killed my wife, Mr. Lane. I don’t blame you—or, rather, I mean, I can’t wonder at it. When the police know this story and I suppose they must, I shall be suspected—probably accused—possibly convicted. That I must bear—for ‘he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die.’ But—I didn’t kill my wife.”
“Thank God!” and Nelson’s fervent expression told how eagerly he had been waiting for this declaration. He believed Barham implicitly; as he believed the whole story he had just heard, so he believed the statement of Barham’s innocence regarding the murder of Madeleine.
“Now the thing is to find the criminal,” Nick exclaimed, his whole face almost radiant with his relief.
But Lane was not so sure of Barham’s integrity.
“Tell us about the party,” he said, his eyes fixed on Barham’s face.
“I will,” and Barham sensed the doubt in the detective’s mind. “I had no wish to have it but some friends urged me to, and though I never had given a large party before, I consented, on condition that they should do all the planning and ordering. To this they consented and even sent out the invitations. I didn’t go down until the night of the ball.”
“Will you detail your movements that evening?” Lane asked him.
“Certainly. I was at home for dinner. Afterward, I went to the Club—you remember, Nick, I talked with you a few moments. After that I merely left the Club, walked a block or two, took a taxi, made the necessary changes in my appearance while in the taxi. That is, I did so in part. As I reached the studio before any guests arrived, I could fix myself up at my leisure.”
“One moment, Mr. Barham. Was part of your disguise a change in your especially white teeth?”
“Yes;” and Barham looked surprised at the question. “I had a small vial of a brown colored preparation. A swallow of that and my teeth were stained rather darker than they really are. I confess I became a bit of an expert at it.”
“And you used pumice stone to remove that brown stain. It was the pumice stone in your studio bathroom that helped me to my conclusions.”
“Right,” and Barham smiled a little ruefully. “I was not very clever, was I? But, as I told you, I really had no very great fear of discovery. I mean, if, or when I was discovered, I was ready to admit it all. However, to resume. By the time the guests arrived, I was completely my other self, and arrayed in my monk’s robe. Then the party began.”
Barham paused, as if unable to go on with his recital.
But Lane was waiting, eager and anxious for the rest.
“I didn’t enjoy the party much,” Barham said; “I care little for dancing and the whole thing bored me.”
“And then your wife came,” Lane said, pointedly.
Andrew Barham looked the detective straight in the eye.
“I didn’t see my wife arrive,” he said. “I didn’t know she was there. I came away before the alarm of her death was raised—and I had no idea that she was in that house.”
“Why did you leave so suddenly and so unceremoniously?”
“That I shall not tell you—but it was in no way connected with my wife’s presence on the scene—of which I state, on my word of honor, I was entirely unaware.”
Lorimer Lane looked disappointed. And he was. Not that he, now, really suspected Andrew Barham guilty of his wife’s death, but so far he had believed in his veracity, and now he doubted it. There could be no reason, he argued, that would made Barham leave as he did leave, except the knowledge of his wife’s presence at the ball, either alive or dead.
“You say you left before the alarm of Mrs. Barham’s death was raised; but she was already dead when you ran out of the front door.”
“I didn’t run out.”
“No; on the contrary, you walked out casually, saying you would be back in a few moments.”
“I did.”
“Why did you go?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“You mean you will not?”
“I mean I will not.”
“Oh, Drew, for Heaven’s sake, tell us,” Nelson cried, in genuine distress. “You’ve been so frank and honest till now, do tell me the truth. Why did you go—if you didn’t know Madeleine was there?”
“I can’t tell you, Nick. Mr. Lane, I refuse to tell. You asked for my story, you have heard it. Now, it is up to you to make what use of it you see fit.”
Andrew Barham folded his arms and sat back in his chair, as one who has played his part.
But Lane pursued his inquiries.
“Now, how about the scarab, Mr. Barham?”
“Oh, yes, the scarab. It is my own—and is, as Charley called it, a ‘lucky piece.’ I have had it for years, and I am a bit superstitious about it. Foolishly, I took it down to the studio and left it there. It was, I think, on the table in the den, and—I am only surmising now—but I fancy my wife saw it and recognized it as mine. She had it in her hand when she died—that is certain. Miss Cutler, thinking I cherished it, took it and saved it for me. My Chinaman saw this. Well, never mind all that—when Detective Hutchins showed it to me, I knew at once that the Museum people would recognize it as mine. It is a famous specimen. So I substituted another for it—both being my own property.”
“Yes—I see,” and Lane pondered a few moments. “Now, Mr. Barham, in view of your frank disclosures, I must ask you if you want me to continue my investigation of the case.
“I do not.”
“Do you, Mr. Nelson?”
“I want whatever Mr. Barham wants. He is my friend, and I agree to any decision he may make.”
“Can you tell me, Mr. Barham,” Lane went on, thoughtfully, “why your wife went down there that evening?”
“No; I cannot. That is what puzzles me. I should think it might be possible that she had seen or heard something that made her suspect the truth about me, and that she went down to see for herself. But I cannot think that; first, because I can see no possible way in which her suspicions could have been aroused, and also, because her whole attitude toward me of late had been kinder and more pleasant than usual.”
“Yet it might have been that she suspected your deception,” Lane said.
“Yes, it might be,” Barham agreed. “I’ve thought over that a great deal, but I can come to no conclusion.”
“And that night, Mr. Barham, when you left the studio party you came directly home?”
“I did. I took a bus on Fifth Avenue which came up to my own door. I rode a few blocks past, and walked back. I let myself in with my latchkey, and went at once to my room and to bed.”
“You refuse to tell why you left the party?”
“I refuse.”
“Very well, go on.”
“I had been in bed less than an hour, when my man called me to the telephone, and I heard the astounding news that my wife was dead—or, as they put it, fatally injured—in my own studio! I was absolutely stunned with amazement. Understand, I had no idea she was there when I left the place.”
“Mr. Barham, that is the one point of your story that I can’t believe!”
“I believe it!” Nelson cried. “I know it is true if you say so, Drew. Go on.”
“That’s all there is to tell. I went down there at the summons of the police, and I found my wife there—dead. I cannot tell you of my surprise and horror—and bewilderment. Nor do I yet understand why she was there.”
“And after all that—Mr. Barham, you returned to the studio in your disguise?”
“I went down first in my rightful name. I went with Mr. Nelson, in hopes I might find my scarab, which I greatly prized, and which I knew would be recognized as mine if found. But I couldn’t find it—so I secretly left a note for Charley asking him to search for it.”
“But you went down again—in your Locke disguise, and had a set to with the man Glenn—and lost your wig!”
Andrew Barham couldn’t repress a slight smile at the recollection and only replied, “Yes, I did.”
“What did you go for?”
“I don’t care to tell you.”
“Then I’ll tell you. You went for the picture of Miss Cutler. You secured it, and brought it home with you, and it is now in your desk drawer at home.”
Andrew Barham looked a little surprised, but he said, “Since you know that, I will tell you that I did do so. I will tell you, too, that I do care for Miss Cutler, and I hope some day in the future to tell her so in person. But I want to say that not only did I never hint this to her during the life of my wife, but I did not realize it myself. It is only since my series of troubles began, that I have learned the state of my own heart, and I will say to you two men in confidence, that I do love Pearl Jane Cutler, but I will ask you to respect my secret, for the present, at least.”
Andrew Barham was so quietly dignified, so truly frank, that the two men who listened felt a renewed respect for him, and Lane hastily revised certain of his decisions.
Nick Nelson merely grasped once again the hand of his friend, and there was no need of words between them.