# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 36/Number 6/Every Man Has His Price

[Heywood Achison / Wallace Ramsey]. Extracted from Red Book magazine, , pp. 52–56, 156–258, 160, 162. Illustrations by Robert W. Stewart may be omitted.
EVERY MAN HAS HIS PRICE
By
MRS. WILSON WOODROW
THE miniature sun in the traffic-tower at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street was sharply snuffed out, to be succeeded by the warning red; then the green light gleamed like an emerald against the soft, thick dusk of the November evening. In obedience to the signals, the two streams of motors flowing up and down the Avenue came to an automatic stop.
Of the northbound cars, the one which halted nearest the curb was a big gray limousine which Wallace Ramsey, who stood waiting to cross, would have recognized at once even if his attention had not been caught and held by one of its occupants, a girl who, at the pause, leaned forward and glanced over the sidewalk throngs.
Her eyes encountered his for a second and then swept on. But for Ramsey it was one of those fleeting moments which come to all of us, when the world about us seems suddenly phantasmagorical and unreal. Autumn twilight, the hurrying crowds, the traffic lights, the prismatic colors of shop-windows disappeared; and Ramsey was on April slopes where hyacinths filled the spring air with their fragrance, and flowering branches lay against a pale, clear sky.
The girl had turned again to the man beside her, whom Ramsey now recognized as Heywood Achison. Her manner toward him was one of joyous confidence, and she seemed to be plying him with excited questions broken by happy laughter. Achison, bland and smiling, his gray head bent toward her, was answering them with indulgent, pleased amusement; and Ramsey, with a feeling of unreasonable resentment, saw that one of her hands was slipped into his. Then the signals flashed again, and they drove on.
Ramsey walked on up the street, his mind still rankling with indignant protest. A girl like that with Achison! Athene and a satyr! His April slopes had melted into the crass reality of Fifth Avenue, but against a murky background her face still bloomed. Who was she? Possibly a relative. The thought was consolatory. Achison was a bachelor, but bachelors did often have nieces.
Ramsey had taken a long, aimless stroll, and now he realized that the dinner-hour was passing, and that in spite of his preoccupation he was hungry; so he stopped at one of the hotels and went into the grill-room. Near the door some one hailed him. It was Howard Brown, a newspaper man of his acquaintance.
[Illustration: One of her hands slipped into his... ]
“I was just wishing some one would come in,” said Brown. “I'm all alone; why don't you join me?”
“Glad to,” returned Ramsey, and took the opposite chair,
“No dinner of herbs for me tonight,” laughed Brown presently indicating the array of dishes before him. “I've got to stokes the old engine. There's work ahead, and a long, cold drive behind me. I've just got back from looking over Achison's ruined bungalow.”
“Achison's ruined bungalow?” repeated Ramsey, staring at him. “What do you mean?”
Brown picked up the evening paper beside his plate and handed it across the table, pointing to a brief article on the front page
“They only gave it a couple of sticks,” he said contentedly. “It's good for headlines in my sheet tomorrow morning.”
Ramsey hastily read the paragraph which stated that the country home of Mr. Heywood Achison, the distinguished lawyer and art-collector, had been burned to the ground shortly after noon, and it was reported that a painting of great value had been lost in the flames. This had not been verified, however, as it was impossible to locate Mr. Achison before going to press.
Anything that pertained to Achison was of interest to Ramsey, but he had his own reasons for not showing that fact too patently.
“Too bad!” He tried to make his comment carefully casual. “What's behind it? Not much news-value in the mere burning of a bungalow out in Jersey.”
“The backbone of the story,” said Brown, cutting into a thick steak with its accompanying onions, “is, so to speak, a 'fade in.' We must flash back to the Edgewater collection. Ever hear of it? No?” Ramsey had made a negative gesture. “I forgot that you are more or less a newcomer among us.
“Well,—I'll have to talk between bites,—Edgewater was a queer old bird, very eccentric. He was one of the figures of New York back in the seventies and eighties—made a pile of money off a shoe-string, and when he had properly salted it down, started off on a grand tour. But instead of going around the world, as he had planned, he lingered in France and Italy, got the picture craze, and developed a passion for collecting.
“After he came home, he still had agents buying for him on the other side, and was always a high bidder at the really important sales here. But when anything passed into his hands, it was seen no more.
[Illustration: They drove on. Ramsey walked up the street, his mind rankling with protest. A girl like that with Achison!]
“He had a big house opposite the Park, on the east side, with the windows barred like a jail; for he was a morose, misanthropic old devil who lived in constant dread of his treasures being stolen. And this obsession deepened as time went on, until finally in a fit of violent insanity he actually set fire to his enormous gallery.
“When the firemen broke into the house, he was found dying in a corridor just outside the door of the picture gallery, overcome by the smoke and too far gone to be resuscitated. A few of the pictures were saved—chiefly the less valuable ones, I believe.
“His widow, who had found it impossible to live with him, was in a sanitarium at the time. She is still alive, I understand, although a great sufferer from rheumatism. And she got practically nothing from the estate, as Edgewater had squandered his entire fortune on his pictures and they were gone—insurance inoperative, of course, under the circumstances. All she has had to support her since his death was what she could get from an occasional sale of one or another of the small lot of pictures.
“Among these, so the story goes, was a genuine, though unestablished, Velasquez. Achison—you know what a bug he is on that sort of thing—got on the trail of it and several months ago bought it from her, probably for a song.
“That was the picture that went up in smoke today. I might”—he paused, with a forkful of salad halfway to his mouth—“work up something lurid about the curse on the Edgewater collection.”
“A Velasquez?” repeated Ramsey incredulously, quite ignoring the last bright idea. “And a connoisseur like Achison left it in a frame bungalow out in the wilds? But that's absurd.”
“Well, people do queer things,” said Brown with the philosophy engendered by a long newspaper experience. “And the picture must have been something pretty good, for one of the insurance men tipped me off that Achison had it insured pretty near up to the limit. They were poking around in the ruins and quizzing the caretaker when I got there.
“Besides, it's not so very remarkable that the picture should have been left there under the circumstances.” He sipped his coffee appreciatively. “They make the best coffee in town at this place.”
“Under the circumstances? What circumstances?” Ramsey's tone was slightly irritable.
“Why, Achison only left the place himself last week, so the caretaker tells me. And you know what it is to get a moving-van now, with this strike on. He finally sent one out day before yesterday, and they brought back a lot of his bric-à-brac and books and water-colors and one thing and another. But somehow this picture wasn't on the list the driver had—didn't want it handled with the other stuff, I suppose—so they were to make a special trip after it this afternoon.
“Seems like fate, in a way.” He shook his head. “Of course, the thing, as I say, is heavily insured; but Achison's too rich to care about that. I'll bet he's tearing his hair right now over the loss of his Velasquez.”
RAMSEY recalled Achison's face as he had seen it less than an hour before. If the owner of the picture were bereaved over his loss, he had certainly concealed it admirably.
“How the deuce the bungalow ever caught on fire is a mystery.” Brown had lighted a cigarette and was leaning back in his chair. “If the caretaker is telling the truth, it must have started on the inside: but nobody had entered the house since he was in there two days ago with the moving-van men. A dropped match or carelessly flung cigarette couldn't possibly have smoldered that long. Neither was it caused by tramps; the man had been about the premises all morning, and he insists that the heavy wooden shutters which covered the windows were intact, and the doors, all chained and padlocked. There was no sign or smell of smoke; in fact, he left the place without the slightest feeling of apprehension. But he hadn't got more than a quarter of a mile away before, happening to turn around, he saw the flames bursting through the roof. He hurried back with the idea of telephoning to the village and getting help, but the flimsy building burned like tinder, and almost before he got there, it was practically destroyed.
“I'm anxious to hear what Achison has to say about the affair,” added the newspaper man, glancing at his watch. “I have an appointment with him at half-past eight at his club. Guess I'll be starting.”
“I was just going up there myself,” said Ramsey mendaciously. “I'll walk along with you.”
They covered the short distance to the clubhouse in a few minutes, and went in. By what Ramsey considered rare good luck, Achison was standing just inside the door talking to one of the club attachés as they entered.
He looked up, lifting his heavy brows a little as he saw Ramsey, then came forward and shook hands with the two men.
“How do you do, Mr. Brown? I'm on time, you see. Ah, Ramsey? I am glad to see you, and not greatly surprised. You have a faculty of always turning up when I am in any trouble. The test of true friendship, eh, Mr. Brown?
“Come in here”—he motioned toward a room on the left—“where we can talk.” Then as Ramsey drew back as if to leave them, he laid a hand on the young man's arm. “Come along,” he said genially; “this is no star-chamber session.”
Ramsey, who looked below surface indications when he matched wits with Achison, divined behind that blandly courteous mask an arrogant triumph, a contemptuous assurance which made the lawyer's request that he be present at the interview more of a challenge than an invitation. And a challenge from Achison, even though it had not coincided with his inclination, Ramsey was unable to refuse.
“You've had quite a loss today, Mr. Achison?” said Brown as they seated themselves.
Achison at once became serious, even glum.
“Indeed, yes.” He drew a sigh. “A man doesn't lose a great work of art without some very acute twinges of regret—nor, for that matter, a bungalow of which one is particularly fond. The house of course can be replaced, but the painting!” He lifted his shoulders, the corners of his mouth dragging down. “A heap of ashes!”
“Have you been out there yet?”
“Yes; I drove out as soon as I heard the news. Not a pleasant journey. I assure you. I haven't been able to shake off the depression since.”
He spoke with the air of a man who has sustained a real and unexpected blow, his expression regretful and a bit stern; but Ramsey, who knew his histrionic ability, watched him with a skeptical eye.
“Both the picture and the house were insured, I understand?”
“Oh, yes. But when a thing of beauty is destroyed, money seems a poor recompense.
“I suppose,” he went on bitterly, “I was a fool to take the picture out there; but I was working hard during the summer and early fall, and I enjoyed the quiet and repose of the place. Call me a sybarite, if you will,”—he smiled in deprecation of his weakness—“but I must be surrounded by beautiful objects. They not only rest and refresh, but stimulate me; and this Velasquez, not a large picture, by the way, hung in my bedroom where I could see it the last thing before I turned off the light at night and the first thing when I awoke in the morning.”
“It meant a lot to you, I can see,” Brown murmured sympathetically, but quickly reverted to his dominant news instinct.
“What was the cause of the fire, in your opinion, Mr. Achison?”
“Ah, there you have me. I confess I'm at sea. My first thought was that it must have been the work of an incendiary, possibly some criminal who held me responsible for his conviction. But the fire started from the inside; and old Fred, the caretaker, whom I have always found very reliable, swears that none of the doors or windows had been tampered with. Then the idea struck me that he himself might have lighted a fire to burn rubbish, but he denies that just as strenuously—says that he has not been in the house for two days. So the only conclusion left me is that the blaze must have resulted from a break or defective insulation in the electric wiring.”
“That seems feasible enough,” nodded Brown. “But how on earth, Mr. Achison, did you ever come to leave a picture of so great value in that empty house and exposed to such hazards?”
Achison spread out his thick white fingers.
“That,” he said, “comes in the category of questions which most of us are asking ourselves every day. 'Why did I do this?' “How could I have done that?' 'Why should I have been so incredibly careless?' I can only explain it by telling you that my mind has been almost completely absorbed by an important case which comes up for trial within a few days.”
“Surely,” conceded the newspaper man. “I know how that goes. After the horse is stolen, it's easy enough to realize that we should have locked the stable door.
“And now just one more question, Mr. Achison.” He hesitated. “I hope you wont be offended; but I was talking to one of the big art-dealers this afternoon, and found him rather inclined to cast doubts on the genuineness of this picture. To put it plainly, he regarded the claim for it as a real Velasquez as a good deal of a joke. He paid you a number of compliments, said that you were an undoubted connoisseur with a real flair of paintings, but that everyone was taken in now and again, and that no experts so far as he knew had ever passed on this work. He asserts that every true Velasquez is listed. They are chiefly in the great galleries, a few in private collections in England, and fewer in America. He admits that Edgewater might have bought a picture attributed to Velasquez, and following his custom, have hidden it away; but he says he can't imagine your doing the same thing.”
Achison curled his lip contemptuously, but the color rose to his face.
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I had intended showing the picture this winter; it would have created a stir. But, my dear Brown, suppose, answering the argument of your friend the art-dealer, that you were a judge of pearls and had stumbled on one of rare value? Would you run about from one jeweler to another, inquiring if it were genuine?” He looked down arrogantly at the two men through half-closed eyes.
[Illustration: “Miss Edgewater,” Achison said, “I want to introduce Mr. Wallace Ramsey. I have an idea he will be a good person for you to consult in making your plans.” ]
“Egotistical though I may appear, I regard myself as an expert. Why should I have a lot of fellows for whose opinions I hold very little respect, pawing over my picture and giving their owlish pronouncements? The only man beside myself whose judgment I would trust has been out of the country for some time. But I will insist with my last breath that the picture which was burned today was a genuine Velasquez, a copy of the celebrated 'Lady with a Fan,' in part the work of a pupil, but unquestionably finished by the master himself.”
“Well, I wont question its validity, anyhow.” Brown smiled as he got up. “That would spoil the story. Thank you very much, Mr. Achison. Staying on, Ramsey?”
“Yes. He's going to play bridge with me.” Achison spoke before Ramsey had a chance to answer. “I need to have my mind diverted; and Ramsey, as I said before, is a true friend.”
There was something in the lazy, taunting glance which accompanied the words that again stirred Ramsey with a sense of challenge and decided him to remain. Achison had once more flung down the gauntlet; and, no weapon in his hand, nothing to go on but the vaguest suspicion, the other promptly took it up.
“I'm staying,” he said, as the newspaper man disappeared through the door. “But not to play bridge. I'm not in the mood for cards tonight.”
“Neither am I,” returned Achison, a twinkle showing in his eye. “It's far more fun to talk to you. I can see, dear boy, that you are off on the scent again, convinced that I am guilty of arson and that you are the divine instrument of retribution to bring me to justice. This continual chase must keep you rather breathless; but you're a persevering lad, and it's good exercise for you, even though you never can and never will get anywhere.”
“No?” Ramsey settled himself more deeply in his chair and crossed his knees, lightly quoting: “'They also serve, who only stand and wait.' The quality that insures success, Achison,” he went on, “is the staying power. And I am with you to the bitter end.”
“I am afraid it will indeed be the bitter end for you.” The lawyer lighted a cigarette, and threw one arm carelessly over the back of his chair.
“I listened closely to you and Brown,” said Ramsey deliberately, “and the longer I listened, the more my conviction grew that there is something crooked in this affair.”
“You would think that, under any circumstances,” Achison broke in.
“I don't believe for one moment that you ever left a valuable picture in a deserted house, without intending it to burn,” Ramsey retorted stubbornly.
“I could have prompted you on that statement,” Achison observed. “I know so well the workings of your mind. You no doubt label it: 'A logical conclusion deduced from what I know of Achison's character.'
“But considering the evidence at hand, I wish you would kindly enlighten me as to how I could possibly have had any complicity in the matter. Eliminating my theory of defective wiring, a house does not burn from the inside unless it is set on fire; and the caretaker declares that no one had entered the place for two days.
“Of course he might have been bribed by a wicked employer to perjure himself on that score.” His mouth twitched with satiric laughter. “I can imagine poor old Fred in the hands of the insurance adjusters. If he had been trying to conceal anything, they would have muddled him so in three minutes that he couldn't have told his own name straight. He'd have simply broken down at about the sixth question, and have confessed the whole immoral plot.”
If Achison's object was to nettle or incense Ramsey by these verbal banderillos, he did not succeed.
“Let us dismiss Fred from the discussion,” the latter said evenly. “No use in wasting time on him. You are a host in yourself, when it comes to conceiving and carrying out plans.”
“You flatter me.” Achison bowed with mock humility. “But I submit that I am only human. Did I fly through the air to accomplish this fell deed? Ah, Ramsey, it is a great mistake to permit suspicion to warp your judgment so as to give undue importance to a few careless words or actions.”
“Quite true,” Ramsey agreed. “But you are the last man on earth, Achison, to be careless of a great art treasure, and the last man to keep that treasure from the sight of experts and collectors.”
“Hah!” Achison sat upright. “But what was the motive in it all? Tell me that. Do you think that I was in need of money, and hatched a scheme to defraud the insurance companies? Is that what you are hinting at? Suppose you go down and talk to my bankers; I'll give you a note instructing them to grant you all the information you want regarding my finances.”
Was he bluffing? Ramsey decided to call.
“Perhaps I'll take you up on that,” he said. “I might use it, although I hardly think so. The clue to this mystery doesn't lie there.” He frowned thoughtfully. “There's something else, something behind it all; and I warn you, Achison, that I'll never let up until I find out what it is.”
Achison gave one of his characteristic chuckles.
“You amuse me so much that I could almost pay you for your bloodhound pursuit of me. Give you the slightest circumstance on which to hang a suspicion against me, and you are off like—"
“It isn't entirely suspicion, in this instance,” Ramsey interrupted. “I know the state of mind you would be in, if you had lost a genuine Velasquez in such a way. But you are exultant rather than cast down. When I saw you earlier this evening, I thought you had never seemed in better spirits.”
Achison appeared as bland as ever; but he was on guard at once, and Ramsey knew it.
“When you saw me earlier this evening?” he repeated. “And where was that?”
“When your car was halted near the curb at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street at about six o'clock. You were accompanied by a young girl.”
“Ah, yes.” The mask fell over Achison's face. “So I was.”
Ramsey was disappointed. He had not expected to learn anything very definite about the girl, but he had hoped at least for some clue to her identity; for he was determined to discover who she was, and what was the nature of her association with Achison.
He waited for some further comment from the lawyer; but Achison was silently noncommittal. The malicious zest which had sparkled in his eyes all during their verbal fencing-match had now flickered out. Ramsey's mention of the girl had evidently given him something to think about. Achison's self-control was too perfect for him to show any outward manifestation of it, but the other knew that he was perturbed. Perhaps a minute passed; then Ramsey picked up his hat.
“Nothing more to be gained from you, is there?”
“Nothing,” said Achison absently; but realizing that he was possibly revealing more than he cared to in his manner, he added quickly with an assumption of his former humor: “Sorry I can't break down and make a confession, Ramsey; but I'm too sleepy for hysterics. Au revoir!”
[Illustration: “Where did you find these two parts, “Ramsey questioned, “—anywhere near together?” ]
Ramsey had learned nothing tangible from the interview, and yet he departed feeling more convinced than ever that the burning of the bungalow was far from the purely accidental happening that it appeared on its face.
In the continuing duel that went on between himself and Achison, intuition played its part. The things that were unsaid often counted more than the things that were said. While talking to Brown, the lawyer had simulated great depression of spirits, but in the later conversation with himself had thrown off all pretense of it. Ramsey felt that if Achison had really sustained the loss he claimed, he would have been in no mood for such light sparring. And more significant still, whatever the lawyer's position was, he had felt quite secure in it until the girl was mentioned. Then he immediately became cautious and reticent.
The girl? Where did she fit into the puzzle? The mere recollection of her made Ramsey recoil from connecting her even in thought with Achison's tortuous activities. He reflected upon the momentary impression he had had of her—her gay excitement, her eager questions, her evident confidence in her companion. And yet he was positive that she was not of Achison's world. He recalled the shabbily gloved hand she had laid on the window of the limousine, her worn coat.
To search for her among New York's multitudes would be like looking for a needle in a haystack; and yet in some way he would, he must meet her. But before he entered on this quest, he determined to make a thorough investigation among the ruins of the bungalow; for he was now beginning to doubt very seriously if there had been any picture there at the time of the fire.
Of course, the chances were strongly against finding any clue that would aid him, so complete was the destruction of the building, according to all reports. Still, Ramsey was a persistent fellow, who was never satisfied to overlook any possibility, and he had all the courage of his curiosity. Quite early the next morning he crossed the river and went into the Jersey hills.
When Ramsey finally reached Achison's place, he was rather dismayed at the sight which met his eyes. The flames had done their work even more thoroughly than he had supposed. There was little left of the bungalow but a heap of cinders, There was no one in authority about except the old caretaker, who was busily engaged in straightening out the yard, overrun and trampled in the excitement of the day before, and he paid no heed as Ramsey alighted from his car and strolled over to take a look at the ruins. The villagers had all satisfied their curiosity, and the only persons now at the scene were a half-dozen or so small boys from the neighborhood who were grimly turning over the débris in the search of treasure trove.
As Ramsey came up, one of them had just dug out the circular, concave reflector of an electric heater which had survived the fire better than might have been expected. The protecting strands of wire across the face of it were still intact, but strangely enough, the “heating-element” was missing.
One of the lads to whom such a contraption was evidently familiar hurried off to a little pile of salvage they had hitherto collected, and came back with the missing part, a round, spool-like coil with two strands of insulated wire still attached to it. What especially attracted Ramsey's attention, however, was the fact that to each of the strands of wire, at about equal distance from the heating-element, clung two charred and blackened pieces of wood
Excitedly he snatched the apparatus from the boy and examined these carefully. There could be no doubt about it; those two charred bits of wood were fragments of a picture frame.
He turned again to the reflector and studied it and the heating-section in conjunction. They belonged together; that was obvious. Moreover the heating-section had not been fused or melted away from its place by the fierceness of the fire: it had been removed by human agency.
“Where did you find these two parts,” Ramsey questioned the boys, “—anywhere near together?”
“Oh, no, sir,” volunteered the one who had recovered the reflector. “I found this here round thing right yonder where the bathroom was; and Jimmy, he found that spool way over there under what was the bedroom.”
Ramsey did not stop to ask them how they were so well acquainted with the lay of the burned house; youth has a way of imbibing accurate information of that sort by simply standing around and listening. Instead, he spurred them to new and more eager efforts of research by the offer of a pecuniary reward for any fresh discoveries.
All that afternoon he sat with his assortment of charred and broken relics spread out on a table before him, turning over in his hands now one, now another, and trying to read some significance into them.
But the most of the lot were meaningless, mere fragments of shattered china and glass, or bits of metal cracked and twisted by the heat, parts of faucets and door-knobs, two andirons, half of a kitchen sink, the steel box to which was still attached the bell of the telephone—a heterogeneous collection of junk. The only things that gave Ramsey any real suggestion were the reflector and the spool-like coil from the electric heater with the two bits of burned wood fastened to its connecting wires.
There was no longer any doubt in his mind that there had been a picture in the bungalow—just what picture he could not say—and that Achison had destroyed it and the house together for the purpose of collecting the insurance; but just how the thing had been accomplished was still beyond his comprehension.
Achison himself had advanced the explanation of defective wiring, and Ramsey, with the evidence he had secured, was inclined to agree with him, with the added qualification that the condition was due to design; but considering the pretty well established fact that no one had been inside the building for two days, he was unable to see how the incendiary purpose had been consummated.
All afternoon and late into the evening he pondered the problem without arriving at any solution; but just as he was about to confess it beyond him, an unguarded movement of his elbow knocked one of the objects on his table to the floor, and stooping over to retrieve it, he gave himself a sharp prick upon the finger.
Involuntarily he glanced at the object to see what had caused this, and the answer he had been so vainly seeking was at last revealed to him. He sprang to his feet with a thrill of exultation. After all these months of dodging and twisting, he now had Achison in a corner from which he could not escape.
THE next morning, as soon as Ramsey could get into communication with the lawyer, he telephoned, asking for an interview.
“Come down to my office at once,” Achison replied after a moment's hesitation, “—that is, if you have anything really important to talk about.”
“I have,” returned Ramsey with emphasis. “I'll be there inside of fifteen minutes. Good-by.”
In immediate response to his card, he was shown into Achison's private room. The lawyer glanced up from a pile of papers on his desk, to nod indifferently.
“You look as if you had hurried,” he said. “It's something I never do myself. I am too old and philosophical.”
He leaned back in his chair and joined his finger-tips together, surveying Ramsey with patronizing superiority.
“Now, my young friend—or shall I say my young enemy,—out with it. What's on your mind? I am a busy man.”
“So am I,” retorted Ramsey cheerfully. “I've been an extremely busy one today, up since dawn getting my evidence in shape and a statement written out—”
Achison's supercilious expression altered slightly.
“Constructing a theory, eh, and manufacturing the evidence to substantiate it? Ramsey, you shock me. I had almost said I wouldn't have believed it of you; but on second thought, it is just the sort of thing of which you are capable.”
These gibes had no effect on Ramsey.
“Wouldn't you like to see some of this manufactured evidence of mine, and have me tell you just how the fire occurred?” he asked. As he spoke, he lifted a small handbag he had brought with him and placed it on the table.
“Go ahead.” Achison's tone was scornfully tolerant, but his steel-gray eyes were alert and wary.
“Well, then,” said Ramsey equably, “let us suppose that some one had acquired a picture which might or might not have been the work of a great master. Suppose, too, that that some one was a connoisseur who had been honestly deceived as to the authenticity of the painting, but who after it came into his possession discovered that it was beyond question a fake.
“Would not that some one, rather than submit to the ridicule of fellow-experts and collectors, wish to obliterate the picture in such a way that his failure of judgment would never be known? He would also—especially if he happened to be an Achison—want to make some one pay for his disappointment and the blow he had inflicted on his own self-conceit.
“The answer is simple. On the strength of his reputation in matters of art, and his social position, he would insure the picture as genuine and then destroy it.”
“Reasoned just as I might have expected.” The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
The words meant little to Ramsey; but watching the other every second, he was conscious that Achison's wary vigilance had relaxed, and it puzzled him. Nevertheless he went ahead with his presentment.
“To do the thing I have outlined,” he resumed, “offered serious difficulties. It must be accomplished in such a way that it would seem pure accident. The beneficiary of the fraud must be absolutely free from any taint of suspicion. That was doubtless a question that required thoughtful consideration and planning; but the cunning brain that tackled it was equal to the problem.”
HE paused, and opening the handbag, brought out the reflector and heating-element which he had recovered from the ruins of the bungalow.
“The electric heater to which these belonged, Achison, was, as you know, a part of your bathroom furniture. As proved both by the evidence of the articles themselves and by the fact that they were found in different parts of the ruins, this heating coil had been removed from the reflector by some one, previous to the fire. And why?
“Again the answer is simple. These charred bits of picture-frame attached to the connecting wires on either side are an explanation in themselves. To anyone with even the most elementary electrical knowledge, it would have been an easy matter to hang that picture by insulated wires instead of ordinary picture cord, and to attach the ends of those wires to the heating-element so that it would hang suspended at the back of the canvas. In fact, the connection as made here with the coil shows it to have been the work of an amateur. With that done, all that remained was to connect to the lighting circuit of the house the insulated wires which held the picture. Then, when the current flowed through them down into the coil at the back of the canvas, it would redden and glow, ignite the picture itself, and the blaze, spreading to some inflammable draperies near at hand, would soon have the whole flimsy bungalow in flames, with the chances a thousand to one that every scintilla of evidence of the device would be destroyed.”
Achison glanced down a bit impatiently at the papers in front of him; nor was it, Ramsey recognized, a mere assumption of indifference.
“Very ingenious,” he nodded. “I was aware that you had carted away a load of trash from the ruins yesterday, but I really had not expected that you would do so well with it. However, you overlook one very salient point, young man. A fire started as you suggest would have taken place as soon as the current was turned into the connecting wires. Some one, to accomplish that, must have thrown a switch inside the house. And no one had been there in two days.”
“Objection granted,” Ramsey smiled. “And I'm willing to admit that that very circumstance came near proving a fatal stumbling block to me. It was only by pricking my finger on a bit of twisted wire that I arrived at the solution.
“Let us suppose again,” he proceeded in his former manner, “that the artful mind which devised this scheme had foreseen this difficulty and had provided against it. Suppose a very delicate switch had been installed in the lighting connections which would operate at the slightest pressure—even to so slight a pressure as the vibration of a telephone bell. Then all that one would have to do to throw the switch and set his house on fire would be to enter a telephone booth miles away and call up the number of the empty bungalow.”
He reached into his handbag and set out upon the table the telephone-bell he had brought back from the ruins, pointing out the slender bit of fine wire twisted about its clapper, and against the end of which he had pricked his finger.
“That wire ran, as you had it arranged, from the clapper to an electric switch probably directly above it on top of the molding. All that was required was the vibration of the clapper, and the thing was done.
“You are caught, Achison!” His voice rang out in triumph. “Caught as surely and as strongly by that little loop of wire as if it were a noose of hemp!”
ACHISON never altered his position, but from the moment the telephone-bell had been produced with its telltale attachment of wire, his eyes had dropped to his desk.
But now he looked at the other man. His gaze was grave enough, but there was no fear in it. Ramsey paid him the compliment of not expecting that.
“I think I told you once before, Ramsey,” he said, “that I have never made the mistake of underestimating you. But you are cleverer, far cleverer than I imagined you.”
He rubbed his chin with his hand, and meditated a moment.
“Your theory is quite correct,” he said suddenly. “Of course your discovery of the means I employed to effect my purpose is disconcerting to me. I do not pretend that it is not. As for convicting me of crime, that is another matter. You have the evidence to do it,”—as Ramsey started to interrupt,—“but—well, you will not use that evidence.”
Ramsey gasped. What was the fellow driving at? Trying of course to divert his attention from the issue, playing for time. Well, he would get little advantage from that. His own mind was made up. Achison was caught. By the next morning his reputation would be in shreds.
And yet Wallace was conscious of a certain uneasiness. Achison was tasting the bitterness of defeat and was furious; there could be no doubt about that. But he had not the air of one who sees the house of cards he has spent years in erecting fall about him in ruins. Rather, his attitude was that of a man who realizes that he is in a tight place, but still has a loophole of escape.
Achison pressed a buzzer on his desk. A clerk entered
“Ask my secretary to come in”, said the lawyer.
The clerk bowed and disappeared. Ramsey waited tense and ready: then a young woman entered.
RAMSEY'S heart gave a sudden leap. He rose mechanically, his eyes widening as he gazed at her. She was the girl he had seen in Achison's car, and whose face had haunted him ever since—his needle in a haystack!
Her severe little black frock with the touches of white at the throat and wrist accentuated rather than subdued her flowerlike grace and charm. She brought into that dull and sober office something of the radiance of spring. But what struck Ramsey most forcibly was that in spite of her efforts to preserve a demure and businesslike demeanor, she was overflowing with a buoyant, irrepressible happiness.
“Miss Edgewater, I shall want you to take some dictation in a little while,” Achison said, “but I am not quite ready yet. I shall ring when I need you. I also want to introduce Mr. Wallace Ramsey. I have an idea that he will be a good person for you to consult in making your future plans.”
“I am sure that will be very kind.” She gave Ramsey a shy and lovely smile, hesitated a moment, and then the door closed behind her.
“A charming girl,” remarked Achison, “but in her present position a little miscast. Let me sketch her circumstances for you; they have a bearing on the matter between us.
“You know the story of Edgewater, of course. He was a client of mine. Rose, this girl, is a niece of his wife's. She was an orphan, and her aunt took her as a child and bestowed upon her the Edgewater name. Mrs. Edgewater herself has for a long time been a sufferer from arthritis, and is now bedridden, unable to move. The poor woman was left with no means whatever, nothing to live on except through the sale of the few pictures which were saved from her husband's collection, and which at last were all sold to meet her needs, with the exception of one which she regarded as too worthless to be disposed of.
“Last spring she wrote and asked me to come and see her. I found her and the girl in a deplorable situation. They were literally down to their last cent, their only remaining asset this miserable daub of a picture, a worse than mediocre copy of Velasquez's 'Lady with a Fan.' Rose was taking a business course with the hope of earning enough to support the two of them, but her prospects were far from bright.
“I am not charitably inclined by nature. My heart is not easily touched. But I will admit to you, Ramsey, that the position of those two tenderly nurtured women, struggling merely to live, lacking the bare necessities of life, affected me deeply. I went through a good deal of hocus-pocus, examined the picture minutely, and then told Mrs. Edgewater that I was convinced it was in part, at least, the work of Velasquez. I took an option on it and removed it to my bungalow. Also, I gave the girl a place here in my office. As a private secretary, she is a wonderful musician. I have heard her play, and I am convinced that she has an unusual gift for music, which she certainly has not for secretarial work.
“I had not yet formulated any plan as to what I was going to do with the picture; but suddenly the idea came to me how I could provide tor them and at the same time supply the funds to develop Rose's undoubted talent.
“I elaborated my scheme in detail. That bungalow had unpleasant associations for me anyhow, as you may imaging. Then I successfully carried out the enterprise—not for my own benefit, mind you, but out of pure altruism.”
“Then will you tell me”—there was a note of exasperation in Ramsey's voice—“why, instead of resorting to these criminal and dangerous methods, you did not provide for the old lady out of your own abundant funds and assume the responsibility of the girl's musical education?
ACHISON lifted his shoulders.
“Simply because my way was more interesting.”
Ramsey had a vivid imagination, The life of those two women with its pinching economies its wretched straits, its constant apprehensions, unrolled itself like a cinema before him, hideously, photographically real.
Again the picture of the girl rose before him, her face turned from him in horror.
Opposed to its tremendous appeal was the dominating aim which had ruled his life for many months—the determination to end Achison's criminal activities once and for all. And now that the opportunity had come to him, he felt that he could not let it slip. He owed it to the public, to justice, to his own honor.
He strode up and down the room. He dropped back into a chair and drummed restlessly with his finger-tips. When at last he spoke, his voice was strained and hoarse.
“If I let you off, Achison, it is upon two conditions. Here they are: you will refuse to take any money from the insurance companies, saying that you have discovered circumstances which make it impossible for you to do so. Then you will make over to those two women from your own resources the exact amount of insurance you expected to receive.”
Achison stared at him speechless. His face had grown livid, with blotches of dark red on the cheek-bones. When he found his breath, he leaned menacingly across the table.
“Ramsey, I'll be hanged—” he began.
“You will, indeed,” said Ramsey unperturbed, “—or more probably, electrocuted. And may I be there to see. But what you are going to do now, this morning, is to make over seventy-five thousand dollars to Mrs. Edgewater and her niece, and I am going to inspect the instrument by which it is conveyed, and also take charge of it and see that the provisions are carried out.
“That,” he added “is my fee for compounding a felony.”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1935, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 88 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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