“He’s a good fellow,” he explained, “one of the best I ever met, and comes of one of the best families Virginia ever had—a true F. F. V. He’s pretty quick tempered and all that, but an excellent chap, and everywhere he has gone here he has made friends.”
“He used to be in love with Miss Lipscomb of Virginia, didn’t he?” asked Hatch, casually.
“Used to be?” the other repeated with a laugh. “He is in love with her. But recently he understood that she was engaged to Weldon Henley, a broker—you may have heard of him?—and that, I suppose, has dampened his ardor considerably. As a matter of fact, Cabell took the thing to heart. He used to know Miss Lipscomb in Virginia—she comes from another famous family there—and he seemed to think he had a prior claim on her.”
Hatch heard all these things as any man might listen to gossip, but each additional fact was sinking into his mind, and each additional fact led his suspicions on deeper into the channel they had chosen.
“Cabell is pretty well to do,” his informant went on, “not rich as we count riches in the North, but pretty well to do, and I believe he came to Boston because Miss Lipscomb spent so much of her time here. She is a beautiful young woman of twenty-two and extremely popular in the social world everywhere, particularly in Boston. Then there was the additional fact that Henley was here.”
“No chance at all for Cabell?” Hatch suggested.
“Not the slightest,” was the reply. “Yet despite the heartbreak he had, he was the first to congratulate Henley on winning her love. And he meant it, too.”
“What’s his attitude toward Henley now?” asked Hatch. His voice was calm, but there was an underlying tense note imperceptible to the other.
“They meet and speak and move in the same set. There’s no love lost on either side, I don’t suppose, but there is no trace of any ill feeling.”
“Cabell doesn’t happen to be a vindictive sort of man?”
“Vindictive?” and the other laughed. “No. He’s like a big boy, forgiving, and all that; hot-tempered, though. I could imagine him in a fit of anger making a personal matter of it with Henley, but I don’t think he ever did.”
The mind of the newspaper man was rapidly focusing on one point; the rush of thoughts, questions and doubts silenced him for a moment. Then:
“How long has Cabell been in Boston?”
“Seven or eight months—that is, he has had apartments here for that long—but he has made several visits South. I suppose it’s South. He has a trick of dropping out of sight occasionally. I understand that he intends to go South for good very soon. If I’m not mistaken, he is trying now to rent his suite.”
Hatch looked suddenly at his informant; an idea of seeing Cabell and having a legitimate excuse for talking to him had occurred to him.
“I’m looking for a suite,” he volunteered at last. “I wonder if you would give me a card of introduction to him? We might get together on it.”
Thus it happened that half an hour later, about ten minutes past nine o’clock, Hatch was on his way to the big apartment house. In the office he saw the manager.
“Heard the news?” asked the manager.
“No,” Hatch replied. “What is it?”
“Somebody’s shot Mr. Henley as he was passing through the Common early tonight.”
Hatch whistled in amazement.
“Is he dead?”
“No, but he is unconscious. The hospital doctors say it is a nasty wound, but not necessarily dangerous.”
“Who shot him? Do they know?”
“He knows, but he won’t say.”
Amazed and alarmed by this latest development, an accurate fulfillment of The Thinking Machine’s prophecy, Hatch stood thoughtful for a moment, then recovering his composure a little asked for Cabell.
“I don’t think there’s much chance of seeing him,” said the manager. “He’s going away on the midnight train—going South, to Virginia.”
“Going away tonight?” Hatch gasped.
“Yes; it seems to have been rather a sudden determination. He was talking to me here half an hour or so ago, and said something about going away. While he was here the telephone boy told me that Henley had been shot; they had telephoned from the hospital to inform us. Then Cabell seemed greatly agitated. He said he was going away tonight, if he could catch the midnight train, and now he’s packing.”
“I suppose the shooting of Henley upset him considerably?” the reporter suggested.
“Yes, I guess it did,” was the reply. “They moved in the same set and belonged to the same clubs.”
The manager sent Hatch’s card of introduction to Cabell’s apartments. Hatch went up and was ushered into a suite identical with that of Henley’s in every respect save in minor details of furnishings. Cabell stood in the middle of the floor, with his personal belongings scattered about the room; his valet, evidently a Frenchman, was busily engaged in packing.
Cabell’s greeting was perfunctorily cordial; he seemed agitated. His face was flushed and from time to time he ran his fingers through his long, brown hair. He stared at Hatch in a preoccupied fashion, then they fell into conversation about the rent of the apartments.
“I’ll take almost anything reasonable,” Cabell said hurriedly. “You see, I am going away tonight, rather more suddenly than I had intended, and I am anxious to get the lease off my hands. I pay two hundred dollars a month for these just as they are.”
“May I looked them over?” asked Hatch.
He passed from the front room into the next. Here, on a bed, was piled a huge lot of clothing, and the valet, with deft fingers, was brushing and folding, preparatory to packing. Cabell was directly behind him.
“Quite comfortable, you see,” he explained. “There’s room enough if you are alone. Are you?”
“Oh, yes,” Hatch replied.
“This other room here,” Cabell explained, “is not in very tidy shape now. I have been out of the city for several weeks, and—What’s the matter?” he demanded suddenly.
Hatch had turned quickly at the words and stared at him, then recovered himself with a start.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “I rather thought I saw you in town here a week or so ago—of course I didn’t know you—and I was wondering if I could have been mistaken.”
“Must have been,” said the other easily. “During the time I was away a friend of my sister’s, occupied the suite. I’m afraid some of her things are here. She hasn’t sent for them as yet. She occupied this room, I think; when I came back a few days ago she took another place and all her things haven’t been removed.”
“I see,” remarked Hatch, casually. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of her returning here unexpectedly if I should happen to take her apartments?”
“Not the slightest. She knows I am back, and thinks I am to remain. She was to send for these things.”
Hatch gazed about the room ostentatiously. Across a trunk lay a Turkish bath robe with a scarlet stripe in it. He was anxious to get hold of it, to examine it closely. But he didn’t dare to, then. Together they returned to the front room.
“I rather like the place,” he said, after a pause, “but the price is—”
“Just a moment,” Cabell interrupted. “Jean, before you finish