Trapped (Young)

by Gordon Young

Trapped
⁠by

GORDON
YOUNG

Author of “Blackmail,” “Wild Blood,” etc.

GRANT DOUGLAS left the girl in the midst of other admirers and came into his father’s darkened library to think about her.

He had known Frances Wyck for about a month. Behind her almost flirtatious manner he had seen that she was warily alert, and her blue eyes at times had an abrupt chilliness that was not explainable by anything he knew of other women.

Grant felt that it was very bad to have his father and brother think him a thief; but to have the woman that he suddenly loved think so too—and not care! That was what really bewildered him, and he sat in the dark and brooded.

No doubt it was his brother who had told her; but no doubt “Brother” John—it was in irony that Grant called him “Brother” John—would have been as surprized as shocked had he known how Miss Wyck felt about it.

Most people approved of John, though he was preternaturally suave as perhaps a rising young lawyer should be; and, so Grant felt, was always making people around him painfully aware of his attentiveness to business. Tall, noiseless, soft-spoken, dark eyed, pleasant, with a quick brain and an exasperatingly modest air, John had become the pride of his father’s eye and very nearly the most distinguished member of Douglas, Douglas & Douglas, Attorneys-at-Law.

John loved the law, and Grant hated it; John was up to all the curlicues, wrinkles and tricks that a legal gamester can play—that was business; but Grant had never won a case in which he did not believe that his client was right—that was Quixotic.

John could win anything. He might get even Miss Wyck.

That night he was staying late in the city—to attend to business, he said. Always business came first.

The house was packed with week-enders. His father enjoyed company by the herds; and John in a sly calculating way thought it was a good thing to entertain—good for business.

That evening a group of people had chatted for a moment or two about a police raid on-an exclusive gambling-place.

“You have flirted with chance?” Miss Wyck had asked.

“I am a lawyer,” said Grant, who also owed some pressing debts at cards.

“Risky things are most delightful,” she added slowly; “aren’t they?”

Under her blonde fluffiness there was an almost mysterious reserve, a sort of watchful purpose, a steely glint, that puzzled him. Other people had not seemed to notice it, in fact she did not seem to show much of that manner when talking with other people.

“I love to gamble,” she dropped her voice. “I can understand—I really can—why people do crime. The excitement—it is the same as gambling.”

“Nothing so romantic,” he said. “I never knew anybody to gamble to lose. A man takes any chance to win.”

“Even turn burglar?” the question slipped smoothly from her lips, but with such a significant glance and intonation that Grant flushed.

The office safe, to which only members of the firm had access, just about a month before had been opened, some money taken and the safe carefully relocked. Almost unfortunately Grant, whose weakness was gambling, had made a winning that same evening and paid some of the debts of which his father was angrily aware. No denial of his could make either his father or brother believe that he had not “borrowed” the money.

His father was an impulsive high-tempered generous man, who had been in a rage for several days over the matter, then had seemed to forget it.

Grant knew by the manner of Miss Wyck that she had heard the story and he was astounded when she reached over and patted his hand quickly saying:

“There are worse things. I’ve broken into locks myself.”

She seemed inviting intimacy, almost asking for confidences. It bewildered him.

He really did not know much about Frances Wyck. His father knew her—“a daughter of an old friend,” he had said; and Grant’s sister liked her. Frances was a pretty young woman with something fascinatingly dangerous about her, and in spite of her nearly flirtatious gaiety, he felt that she was far-sighted and he knew that she was watchful. But he loved her—and had told her so. In answer he got laughter that gave no decision, but did not discourage him.

⁠THE library door opened and shut quietly.

“That you, dad?” Grant called.

No answer. He waited a moment—waited for the light to be turned on. But there was only silence.

“Who is it?”

Silence.

“Come on. What’s the joke?”

No reply.

Grant arose, reached to the table and jerked the cord of the reading-lamp, at the same time looking over his shoulder and into the muzzle of an ivory-handled revolver, behind which crouched a man in evening dress; his hair had been hastily rumpled and a white handkerchief was tied around his face clear to the eyes.

“I say——” Grant began.

“Shut up!” The voice was low, hoarse, disguised.

The light was indistinct outside of the brilliant glow immediately under the lamp. Most men look alike in dress suits. The house was full of men in them, so it was not easy even to guess who the figure might be.

At a gesture Grant lifted his hands.

The man obviously had not expected to find any one there, but hurriedly made what disguise he could by pulling his hair down over his eyes, tying the handkerchief about his face and crouching as he did so that it was impossible to judge his height. A hoarse whisper will hide almost anybody’s natural voice.

“Open that safe,” said the man.

“Can’t.”

“Open that——”

“Combination’s been changed,” said Grant.

“Lie!” The hoarse voice appeared a little shocked.

“Only yesterday,” Grant insisted. “Combination changed.”

It had not been, but he was taking a chance that the burglar would not know better.

The burglar did. He said—

“Go over there.”

Grant went.

The masked man followed him warily. When Grant had kneeled before the safe door a flash-light streamed across his shoulder on to the circular metal about the knob.

“Open it!”

“I tell you I can’t!” Grant protested.

The man began calling off the combination, forcing Grant to follow it. The robber had come expecting to open the safe quietly, but finding Grant there perhaps thought it easier to make him help than to tie and gag him.

Grant had no great wonder as to how the fellow knew the combination. The safe was really more of a fire-proof box than anything else, and at least three or four of the Douglas clerks had been given the combination when sent to the house after forgotten papers.

When the door swung open, the fellow said—

“Hand me that yellow envelop.”

It was the first thing in sight—and contained money. Grant knew there were ten thousand-dollar bills in it.

He felt the muzzle of the gun against his spine as he held the envelop over his shoulder. It was roughly jerked away.

“Stay where you are on your knees. If you look toward me, I’ll kill you!”

As the man said that the flashlight went out.

Grant knew without looking around that the fellow was slowly backing across the room—not toward the door through which he had come, but toward the door of a little stairway that led to his father’s den. The fellow seemed to have made himself familiar with the house.

Grant began slowly to turn his head, but the vague light of the reading-lamp revealed the movement.

“Keep your head still!” said the voice.

A moment later there was a resounding smash; then the door shut. There was a clatter of feet on the stairs. The man was gone.

Grant felt that he must have backed into the short pedestal of the tall vase, for it overturned with a terrific crash.

⁠HE LEAPED up and ran to the door through which the fellow had gone. It was locked.

He turned. Already people were beating on the other door that opened from the hall into the library. The fellow had locked that as he came in. The fall of the vase had been heard.

Grant opened the door—

“Quick—a robber—he went that way,” Grant cried and pointed.

There was a start for the door, but he said that it was locked; some stopped, but others went and tried the door.

Among those who stood near Grant listening closely to him were Frances Wyck and his father. There was the usual babble and flurry of excitement. Some women felt it was a good chance to get special attention, by being hysterical; men talked excitedly and a few hurried out as if in search of the robber, but more likely to be the first to carry the news.

As Grant was rapidly telling what happened, he looked into Miss Wyck’s face. She was watching him closely with something more than the interest of the curious excited women about him. In fact, she did not appear excited at all, but her tenseness was inescapable and her eyes scrutinizing.

In turning from her he looked toward his father and was very nearly unable to go on.

Judge Douglas, as he was called out of deference to past honors and continued success, was a robust man of the Southern type. His face was inclined to be red, but at that moment it was nearly pale; his features were prominent and strong and the graying long hair was brushed back over his head.

To those around him Judge Douglas presented the air of one more sorry to have guests disturbed than to lose whatever robbers might take.

There was chattering speculation about the robber and all were soon of the opinion that the fellow had been frightened into haste by the noise he made in overturning the vase, and they were convinced that the robber was one of themselves—a guest in the house.

The people began to withdraw, still in agitated wonder; but as Grant started out his father called to him for a private word. Judge Douglas turned and talked to Miss Wyck until every one else had left the library, then he accompanied her to the door, closed it and turned toward Grant.

“You—you—” he began very angry, “you scoundrel!”

“I don’t understand.”

“You lie, sir!” Judge Douglas cried.

“I? Lie!”

“And steal!”.

“Father! What do you dare mean by that!”

“That you opened this safe and imagined a masked bandit when you tumbled against the vase. You didn’t know the door to my den was locked—till you tried to leave. You had this one locked to keep people out. You were trapped and lied—but not even cleverly.”

“Father!”

“Never use that word to me again, sir! Never again! The father of a thief—no! You gambler! Cheat! Thief!”

“I do gamble. I do not cheat. I am no thief.”

“You robbed the office safe too. I couldn’t believe it of you. But here—here—it is proved. I trapped you!”

“You trapped me! You—stoop to that? Contemptible!” Grant was angry.

“Contemptible, eh? Contemptible—to get caught. Your brother begged me not to do it. John has defended you—blamed our clerks—anybody—everybody—to protect you. All in spite of your disrespect to and hatred for him. He said that one way to catch a thief was to set a trap—but that you weren’t a thief. You are!”

“John suggested it?” said Grant.

“John had defended you first, last and all the time. If he suggested the trap it was because he believed in you. Wanted to prove to me that you would not steal. You’ve got your inheritance. All of it. Take it and be out of this house by morning!”

“But fa— Judge Douglas, I did not——”

“What were you doing in here—door locked—low light? A detective has watched you.”

“Detective! Who is he—what—father?”

“I had to be sure. I wanted to know what debts you had. I didn’t want to tempt you to lie by questioning you. I wanted to know.”

“John too—the detective? He suggested it?”

“John has been your best friend. Why did you sneak away and come in here alone?”

“I came——”

“Yes, you came. Why?”

“To think,” said Grant.

“To think—about your debts and this safe. The temptation was too strong. You thought you could invent the story of the masked robber. You are no longer my son. I rewrite my will—tonight—now. Get out!”

“Father!”

“I am no father of yours. You thief!”

As Grant went toward the door, it opened and John came hurrying in, closing the door softly behind him.

⁠JOHN was rather slender and a little stooped, with dark watchful eyes and the fixed smile of one who wishes to appear agreeable to all people. He had an almost kindly expression, though Grant knew him for as cold-blooded a lawyer as ever bamboozled a jury. His voice was trained, smooth, the words carefully chosen and pronounced.

He was about as excitable as a piece of iron; but as he came hurrying into the library carrying his hat and wearing his topcoat, John showed a great deal of agitation.

“Grant—Grant! Tell me—it isn’t so? It was a robber—wasn’t it? I just this minute got here and heard. It was——”

He gripped Grant’s arm, looking at him earnestly.

Judge Douglas pushed him aside with:

“No, John. Not this time—you can’t defend him. There is no doubt and not the trace of a robber. Imagine a burglar telling Grant the combination to the safe. It is not even a clever story.”

“Grant!” John exclaimed. “I don’t believe it. Father, he couldn’t—he simply couldn’t. And yet—oh, Grant!”

Grant felt like a brute for not feeling that John was sincere; but it was expecting the unnatural for a man of John’s money-loving nature not to be pleasantly aware that his inheritance was being doubled though the family honor was being smirched.

Grant turned to the door and as he went out he heard his father saying that right then and there a new will must be made.

“But you will surely destroy it tomorrow,” John replied. He knew the impulsiveness of his father, perhaps even better than Grant.

“Never, my boy! Never. Gambler—liar—thief. Stranger!”

It was nearing eleven o’clock as Grant went out and he turned up the stairs hurriedly, anxious to avoid every one and be by himself; but at the top of the stairs he met Frances Wyck.

He spoke and started by, but she caught his arm, saying—

“I have waited for you, Grant.”

“You too want the truth,” he said bitterly. “Well, then, I am a thief. I turned the vase over by accident and imagined the masked man.”

“You imagine badly if you think I believe that,” she replied with arresting calmness, the more surprizing because of her ruffles and fluffiness.

“What! You don’t think——

Hope came to him suddenly.

“No. I do not think.”

Her gesture was mothering. He never would be able to understand her. It was the last sort of gesture and tone that he would have expected from her. More surprizingly, she said—

“And I would not have blamed you if you were guilty.”

“Frances!”

“Oh I can say that, knowing you are not guilty.”

Grant impulsively took her hand. She drew it away.

“But——” he began protestingly.

She read his thought and answered—

“I do not draw back from you and I believe you innocent.”

“You know I love you.”

She replied—

“I know that you are grateful.”

“You know, Frances, this is not the first time I have been thought a thief.”

She nodded.

“John told you,” Grant went on. “Yes, John would tell you.”

“Shh-sh— you will be angry if you keep on talking. John said that he deeply regretted that your father suspected you. He told me himself that he was sure you would never do such a thing.”

“But in telling you that, he could tell you that I was suspected,” Grant cried. “Oh, he is a born lawyer.”

“Shh-hh,” she repeated. “Just now you should avoid hasty judgment—it has made you a thief.”

“I know. I know,” he replied humbly. “It must be some man in the house. There are a dozen who—a detective too.”

“A detective!”

“Yes. I wish that he had kept better watch on me.”

Both were silent for a time, then he extended his hand.

“I am going before sunrise—my father said I could have the money that was stolen. That is to be my inheritance. Good-by.”

“No—no. Not before sunrise. Please Grant, promise me. Don’t be stubborn. Don’t rush off like that.”

“I was told to go.”

“I am telling you not to go. Please.”

“And have people come up to me, saying how sorry they are, yet with the joy of scandal on their faces! No thank you. I’ll clear out. A thief has no right to love a respectable woman, so Miss Wyck I——”

“You don’t know that I am respectable,” she said quickly, smiling, speaking so easily that he was astonished.

“But——” he was showing astonishment.

“You are ready to doubt!” she flashed, and laughed softly, not merrily.

“No. I love you,” he protested.

“And you are so sure that you wouldn’t love a woman who wasn’t respectable! No Grant, it isn’t love with you. It is gratitude—and curiosity. And if you won’t leave the house at sunrise, I’ll make a confession.”

“Confession!”

“Confession.”

“What—tell me—I don’t understand,” he protested.

“No, and you wouldn’t if I told you—now. Good-by, Grant.”

He tried to question her, to talk, but she was evasive and cryptic, and at last he strode off, bitter.

⁠FRANCES watched him go. She was thoughtful and the steely quality that had glittered under her fluff and laces appeared in her pretty face.

“If I could get in his room,” she said to herself, “I am sure that I could find that money. I simply must get it away from him without his knowing.”

She stood for a long time in the upstairs hall while the music for dancing and voices of people floated up. At last resolutely she went looking for a servant and, having found one, followed him back up the stairs, turning into her room as he went on to Grant’s door.

“Who is it?” Grant called, replying to the knock.

“Your father sir, wishes to speak to you. He would like for you to wait in his den, sir.”

No answer. The servant went away, and presently Grant came out. He had no sooner disappeared down the hall than Frances darted from concealment and ran into his room.

She began hastily, deftly, with the manner of one accustomed to going through other people’s belongings without disturbing anything to search the drawers of his room.

Footsteps were outside of the door. Grant had returned sooner than she expected. She had thought that he might wait indefinitely, but Judge Douglas and John had been in the den and Grant learned at once that no one wished to see him.

Frances, caught without means of getting out unseen, looked quickly around her and darted behind the open door of a closet.

Grant was angry and hopeless. He thought of hunting out the servant and demanding who had given that false message but instead he sat down on a chair to think and brooded.

It was very cramped and close quarters behind the closet door, but as she had no one to blame but herself, Frances endured it with good grace and kept her eyes fastened on his face. When he finally arose, took out a revolver and examined it meditatively, she was startled into a movement that made a slight sound.

Grant wheeled and stood listening; but at that moment some people passed with much talk through the hall and he either forgot the noise that had attracted his attention or thought it had been made by those in the hall. He threw the gun dejectedly back into the drawer and slumped miserably into a chair—and there he sat, on and on.

Frances began to be alarmed, then weary. Her body ached from standing tense in a position that permitted little change and no rest. He would sit as if frozen for a half-hour, then stir slightly and again become immobile.

There was no way for her to escape unless, he left the room or went to sleep; and luck was not with her. He did neither. She blamed herself for having been careless enough to get caught in a situation of the kind; but self-blame could not help. Grant did not leave his chair. She leaned against the wall to get what rest she could, and smiled painfully.

Hours went by. She was nearly exhausted. But her fluffiness was only on the surface; she did not faint or sink to the floor.

The house had become quiet after the bustle and tramp, the laughter and calling of partings in the hall and at the doors.

Then out of the silence hurried slippered feet went pattering through the hall. There was a sharp knock on a door not far away—an excited voice rose indistinctly—other excited voices joined it and there was increasing excitement and babbling, with people scurrying about.

Grant went to the door, listening. Some one knocked. He opened it quickly.

“Your father—he has been murdered!”

Grant turned weakly and tried to ask questions.

“He was heard moaning—beaten on the head and stabbed!”

Grant, half reeling, went into the hall and started for his father’s room.

Frances waited. It was not going to be easy to get out of that room unseen with the hall full of people running to and fro, though Judge Douglas’s room was at the other end of the house.

When it seemed quiet for a moment she slipped from behind the door, but at once moved back. Some one was coming, noiselessly.

She could not see the face, but a figure in a bathrobe came into the room, swiftly opened the top dressing-table drawer, threw something into it and hurriedly shuffled out without looking around.

Frances thought that she knew who it was, and darting across the room, opened the drawer and looked at what had been left.

“I guess right!” she said to herself, and a moment later she darted furtively into the hall and to her own room, where quickly as possible she gave herself the appearance of hasty dressing and hurried to join the group in and about the room of Judge Douglas.

He lay on a broad bed of the old-fashioned Southern kind, with a high carved head-board, and dark red splotches were over the pillows and stained the soft fresh linen. The assault had been more than murderous; it had been particularly brutal. The scalp was torn from the blow of some blunt instrument evidently intended to make the sleeping man unconscious and, that there might be no possibility of recovery, he had been stabbed. He moaned, unconscious, and seemed to be dying.

John was on his knees beside the bed, praying aloud. Behind him, Grant stood gazing down sorrowfully. Other people disheveled and awed stood about, dumbly staring.

Judge Grant was greatly admired as men are likely to be when they overcome the fault of temper by frank apology and great generosity. His daughter had fainted and was being supported by friends who scarcely knew what to do.

After the first glance about the room, particularly at the two sons, Frances asked if the doctor had been called. He had. The police? They, too.

The doctor arrived first and at once cleared the room of all who were not relatives.

⁠WHEN the two plain-clothes men arrived, John was sent for. He took them into the library, closing the door. He was ever neat in his appearance and had found time to slip into his clothes.

Frances ran upstairs, entered Judge Douglas’s den, and softly descending the stairs from there, listened at the door.

John was saying:

“You understand, gentlemen, how reluctant I am to accuse or even suspect any one of this monstrous crime and I shall accuse no one. I shall state the facts and you may judge of the evidence.”

He then related the story of the masked robber which had not been believed by his father.

“My father and my brother quarreled. Their voices were loud. Many heard them. I had been detained in the city by business and as soon as I arrived home I heard of the supposed robber and came into the library where my father was just announcing his intention of making a new will at once and had ordered my brother to leave the house by morning.”

The detectives were beginning to see light.

“I endeavored,” John went on earnestly, “to dissuade my father from his intention. Gentlemen, I love my brother, though we have never been friends, that is, close friends. But my father was determined. The will was made out and placed in this safe. You see, gentlemen, the safe is open. The will is not there. My father has been murdered!”

The detectives looked at each other understandingly: the motive was clear.

“But, gentlemen,” John declared passionately, “I can not even now believe my brother guilty—that he would do such a thing. I can only suggest that you search the room of the only person who would have any interest in taking the will to destroy it and in murdering my father so that he could not make a new one. Oh, it is terrible and it was foolish—foolish as well as horrible. Tomorrow, within a week, a month at most, my father would have forgiven him.

“So, gentlemen, I suggest that you search the room and if you there find anything to warrant the action, you must immediately bring him here. I shall wait for you to return.”

The detectives went out with long, satisfied strides.

Frances remained at the door, which she had barely opened. It had a catch lock. John sat in a deep chair with his back toward her.

The detectives, bringing Grant with them, soon re-entered and placed two large envelopes on the table.

“Oh, Grant, Grant!” John cried, rising and reaching toward him at the sight of the objects the officers laid down. “How could you!”

Grant looked. about helplessly, bewildered. He could scarcely speak—

“You believe that of me?”

“But Grant—this money—this will—in your room.”

Grant shook his head. He could not explain. He could not speak. He knew that he was innocent, but he was too bewildered to protest.

“Grant, you know, you know very well that no matter what the terms of the will were, I would have shared equally with you. You knew that—and yet, you murdered our father!”

Grant cried out. He was aghast. He had not expected that.

“Officers, arrest him,” John said.

The detectives laid hands on him; then all turned at the sound of light footsteps and a clear pleasant voice:

⁠“PLEASE, please. Just a moment.”

“Ah, Miss Wyck,” said John, turning toward her; then to the officers, “The private detective, gentlemen, whom my father employed to watch Grant.”

Grant looked at her with weary, tired eyes. He felt betrayed, lost, shattered. Then he heard her say—

“But Grant is innocent.”

“Alas, no, Miss Wyck,” John began. “You are not familiar with the evidence. That robber was imagined——”

“Not by me,” she said quickly. “I heard him!”

“Heard him!” John’s voice was incredulous.

“Yes. I was eavesdropping. I would have come into the library but the door was locked. I am sure too, that the robber turned over the vase intentionally.”

“Intentionally!” John cried, and the two detectives echoed him. Grant was like a man returning to life.

“Yes, it would have been such a stupid thing to do by accident; but such a brilliant thing if intentionally. It brought people running—and Grant’s father found him in a compromising position. The robber was clever. It kept Judge Douglas from suspecting—say, any of the guests.”

“But Miss Wyck—the stolen will—my father—where else is the motive except——” he indicated Grant.

“That’s true, perhaps,” said Frances. “But Grant did not leave his room. I was there with him.”

“You—in Grant’s room!” John was shocked. “Miss Wyck, though you are a detective—it—you are a woman.”

“Yes. For that reason I did not let him know I was there.”

“He didn’t know—really Miss Wyck——”

“Yes, really, Mr. Douglas. I was behind a closet door. I had to stay there. I am a woman, you know.”

“Why were you there?” John demanded almost unpleasantly.

“I thought the robber would try to clinch the suspicions against Grant by putting the money in his room.”

“And—Miss Wyck, and then?” John asked quickly.

“Some one knocked and told Grant his father had been killed.”

“Had been killed. Yes. Then—then you got out without being seen?” John asked.

“Yes, Mr. Douglas.”

“How fortunate, Miss Wyck. Had people seen——”

“Yes, Mr. Douglas—for had the man seen who immediately entered Grant’s room——”

“What—somebody—you saw?”

“I saw, but not his face.”

“Oh,” said John.

“I saw what he did. He put those things in the top dresser drawer.”

“Then, Miss Wyck. Then?”

“He went out quickly.”

“And you did not see——”

“I did not see his face. No. But I saw the money and document.”

The detectives made surprized sounds and stared at each other. John put his hands to his head as if to collect whirling thoughts and Grant almost collapsed but caught himself at the edge of the table. Miss Wyck was undisturbed. Her blonde fluffy hair gave her an almost frivolous appearance if one did not notice her eyes so coldly blue just then.

“Who—who——” said John with trembling voice and indignation, “could have done that—and—why?”

“I thought,” she replied, “it possible that this mysterious person had been plotting with Grant to steal the money and then the will.”

A hopeless groan came from Grant.

The detectives looked wisely at each other; this woman was saving them the trouble of thinking.

John turned on his brother furiously—

“So that—that—is what you did!”

⁠“THERE seemed no reason in the world,” said Frances, “why anybody but Grant would be interested in destroying his father’s will.”

“None,” said John, his eyes accusingly on Grant.

“None,” said one detective.

“Yes, none,” said the other.

“But,” Frances continued, “there must be some other reason some place. The man who brought those things to Grant was not his friend.”

“You did not see him!” John cried. “You said——”

“No—I saw only his dressing gown. I am a woman—a woman never forgets details of a garment. Colors are indicative of character. This one was covered with black dots. I saw it again in Judge Douglas’ room—and there I saw the man’s face too, though he was kneeling!”

“Who? Who? For God’s sake, who?” Grant cried.

The two detectives leaned forward breathlessly.

John was standing tense, watchful.

“It was worn by the only person in the world who would have an object in seeing Judge Douglas dead so that he might immediately enter upon his large inheritance while some one else was suspected of murder.”

“You lie!” John screamed at her. “This is a plot—dastardly. You lie—I tell you. I do such a thing!”

Frances was unruffled. She faced him steadily.

“Why not? You slipped into the library and unexpectedly found Grant here and made him open the safe—then overturned the vase. You wanted to make his father think him a thief— Oh, yes, I saw you. I know you were supposed to be in the city.”

“Officers,” John cried, “they have plotted to ruin me! Arrest him—arrest her too!”

“You are clever, Mr. Douglas, but——”

“You can prove nothing!” John cried. “You were in his room. You are——”

Grant jumped forward with upraised fist. Before John could move or the officers raise a hand, Frances had caught his wrist:

“Be quiet, Grant. Don’t you see that he is confessing in every word that he says!”

Then the door opened and the doctor came in slowly. He was a big man with a deep voice and a slow emphatic manner. He looked from one to the other and addressing John said:

“Judge Douglas is in a very serious condition. He may not die; but I fear for him as he is using up what little strength he has to make a statement. He recognized his assailant and——”

The doctor did not finish. He sprang forward, but not soon enough to prevent the report of a revolver; and John fell dead. In his hand was a pearl-handled revolver and with that he had made a full confession.