"You leave this matter to me," said I.

"Yes--I did that before."

"But you took a bath contrary to my advice." Tinkering middlemen and ferrets can squeeze through small holes.

I determined to stop proceedings in Ninety-sixth Street, if such a thing were possible. It seemed nervy for me to interfere now, but it was a long shot and I determined to take it. What I would do to cement the break I really knew not, but trusted to luck.

Jim did not yet know about the Browning woman and the interest he was supposed to have in her. I tapped him gently and so indirectly on the subject that I could see he knew nothing about her. The undertaker's card he had found in the hall and brought in and laid on the table, where I chanced to pick it up, little thinking I would take it as corroborative of anything that might be said against him. He declared he had not left the house that night. Smith's men had simply lied when they said he left with the undertaker. I had a plan for testing his statement, however.

When he told me how I had driven the Tescheron family to Hoboken for six weeks, and hinted his suspicions gathered from Gabrielle that the old gentleman had been forced to settle with some official before returning, I was almost struck dumb. As he gave me the details of his wretched experience of that afternoon at the Gibsons', I became desperate.

"Jim, if that wedding comes off next Wednesday, will you forgive me?" I asked.

"It's impossible."

"What--to forgive me?"

"For me to ever achieve such happiness." From the depths of his despair, he looked at me entreatingly as he spoke.

CHAPTER XXI

During the night--we turned in about two A. M.--it occurred to me that I had heard or read that no person could be legally convicted of murder till the body of the victim had been found dead. This little matter had been overlooked about long enough, I thought. The lawyers might have asked concerning the _corpus delicti_, but no one had sought their advice. It struck me that the common-sense thing to do now was to begin at the bottom and see Collins, the undertaker, before I went too far in exonerating Hosley, even though I could never hope to escape the spell of his innocent, wholehearted manner.

The morning following the arrival of Jim, with his burden of woe, seeking release through the middleman of yore, I started out early, determined to do the biggest day's work as an intermediary ever recorded on Cupid's card index. I found Mr. Collins busy keeping his professional Prince Albert coat wide open, with both hands in his trousers pockets, at his quiet "establishment"--so described on the gold sign. I explained that I wanted some information. He recalled the Browning case very well, and tried hard to smile when I asked for the name of the cemetery and its location, that I might visit the grave. I thought that might stagger him, but it did not.

"You see, this sort of burial was out of my line altogether, but I did it to please Browning, an old friend of mine, and the children, as much as anything," he answered with complete self-possession.

Out of his line, of course, thought I, because his specialty was cremations, and this was a burial--much to my surprise.

"The lady was very kind to us when we lived there, Mr. Collins," I said, lying impressively. "I have been laid up in the hospital so long I have not had a chance to make the inquiry before. I want to take some flowers to lay on her grave as a token of our respect--my partner and I, you know--Mr. Hosley. We always found Mrs. Browning very accommodating" (she never bothered me, for I did not know that she existed until she ceased to do so). "We propose to take a whole day off and make a trip up there now to attend to this duty which has been uppermost in our minds."

Mr. Collins being a member of the Undertakers' a.s.sociation, had been operated on for the removal of his diaphragm to prevent laughing, and he therefore took a serious professional interest in my request. He retired to the neighborhood of his safe, looked into some large books and returned with the name of the cemetery and a few directions written on a slip of paper.

"You'll find it just back of Mount Vernon, about two miles from the trolley crossing I have given you there. Take a hack when you leave the car; there's a livery right across the street. And say, don't forget to come back and tell me about it."

I thanked him for his kindness and a.s.sured him I would return to tell him the result of my search.

The proper thing to do with a murderer is to subject him to the third degree. Very often he will quake when taken to the grave of his victim.

So I decided to take Jim up there with me; we could do it and get back easily by noon, and maybe before. If he quaked, I would not need to be hasty in defending him, and if he did not quake, the air would do him good, poor chap, for he was badly unstrung and needed a ride in the country.

"Come, Jim," I shouted, rushing into the house. "I am not going down to the office to-day. I shall take a day off to straighten out your tangled affairs. Get your things on and come with me."

He seemed to doubt my prowess, but slowly worked his way into his coat.

Before boarding the elevated train going north, I bought a handsome bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, tuberoses, asparagus fern and enough forget-me-nots to appropriately light up the center. This indicated to Jim that I was preparing a peace offering to tender Gabrielle. He wanted to know if he hadn't better wait on the corner while I went in and did the talking.

"In where?" I asked, for I had given no particulars.

"Why, you are going up to Ninety-sixth Street, aren't you?"

"Not I," said I. "At least not yet. We are going beyond that, Jim; up to Mount Vernon and beyond by trolley when we leave the elevated." I looked him square in the eye, and I could see no quaking. If he was suspicious, he knew how to dissemble. Could that be possible? I wondered, but only for a second.

"What are you going there for, Ben?"

"Can't you imagine, Jim?" I asked, having that midnight journey in mind that he might have taken with the man Collins, or his representatives, the night I was at the hotel. But I could not understand how he could have had time to make the trip.

"Never was up this way in my life," he answered, "and don't see where it comes in now, hanged if I do."

"Well, it's a little notion of mine," I a.s.sured him. "I don't want to proceed on this matter with Gabrielle until I have been to Mount Vernon and two miles beyond. The air will do you good, and so I brought you for that purpose."

I thought I would appear benevolent in his eyes, if I could not startle him. To tell the truth, I did not expect to startle him. He could not plot, and I was a knave, I thought then, ever to have doubted him. But I must go on and give him the third degree, for common-sense compelled caution.

"Ben, let's cut out Mount Vernon, get off and go up to Ninety-sixth Street. I'll go in alone and see if Gabrielle will not meet me this morning. I think she may, if you did not spoil everything by some crazy message."

"Why, Miss Tescheron will be down-town by this time; it is after nine o'clock."

"That's so. I don't suppose any one but her mother would be home." He seemed perfectly satisfied to go with me after that.

It was a dismal ride across the little stretch of country, and when the hack drew up in front of a tall, red building, I looked at my bouquet and then at the driver, asking him if he understood me to call for a brewery, the only object that seemed to lie before us. The man with the reins thereupon directed us to make a detour of the building and its fringe of beer garden, to a point where we would behold the spot we sought. I took Jim's arm and helped him to struggle toward the place. An old man in his shirt-sleeves was digging in a prospective vegetable patch with much lubrication of the h.o.r.n.y hands of toil, in which he grasped a potato fork.

"Getting ready to plant?" I asked, my farming blood beginning to rise.

"Why don't you use a spade and get somewhere?" There I was, as usual, ready to give advice.

"'Tain't necessary; we don't plant very deep, only 'bout a foot or two; expect we'll have to later on, though, if the business keeps on like it has been goin'. Say, mister, what time is it?" A man who digs for day's wages frequently wants to know the time, so I accommodated him and lost track of the direction of his remarks.

"Can you tell me where I'll find the grave noted on this slip of paper?"

I asked, handing Collins' memorandum to him.

"Yes," said he, "that's one of mine. Browning--that's right. I kin show it to you. Step this way."

When he said it was one of his, I took it to mean that he had been the digger for the occasion. So we followed through a little rustic gate--Hamlet Hopkins and Horatio Hosley--into a fenced lot comprising about two acres of level ground, laid out in the smallest graves I had ever seen. Most of them were about the size of my floral tribute. The tiny marble slabs reared above many of the little knolls seemed like foot-stones, and appeared to indicate that the perpendicular system of the Irish pagans had been adopted.

"Here's your'n," said our guide, pointing to a very small exhibit in his peculiar collection. I laid the flowers on it and glanced at the headstone. The simple inscription read:

"TOOTSEY."

The foot-stone bore this epitaph:

"RATS!"

CHAPTER XXII