Wallace looked slowly in his direction, as though seeking him with blind eyes.
“I have done you and your mother an injustice,” he droned monotonously. “You will suffer no more harm from me. As soon as possible you will be liberated. Your mother is here and quite unharmed. In other ways I have done what I can to make amends. It is too late to bring back your father and my friend. I made a mistake there—”
“You’ve made more than one,” said Hal grimly.
“Yes. I trusted to letters — for eighteen years.”
There was a little silence.
“How did you learn that dad never betrayed you?” Hal demanded.
“An old letter. Some one sent it to the papers. Morgan, no doubt. Your father wrote it soon after my crash. He offered to help me. I never got it. You were right.”
Hal studied his captor blankly. Here were sanity and madness, cheek by jowl. Hands still shaking from one murder, Wallace sincerely regretted another. Having wreaked his triple revenge with almost incredible skill and foresight, he had shown a simple-minded carelessness in confessing his crimes. He had bedeviled Hal and his mother. Now he would make amends. Then Dorothy might escape harm if Hal pleaded her cause—
But Hal hesitated. While admitting his human mistake, the man still usurped the prerogative of a deity. He had inflicted a sort of rough justice, demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Hal’s heart sank. If Hearn had been guilty, how could Dorothy hope to escape such mad, distorted revenge?
Wallace straightened his shoulders and spoke.
“In the meantime,” he sighed, “you are again to witness the justice of punishment inflicted in kind. Nimbo!”
Before Hal could stir, the black had lifted him like a child and stood him up on the bed. The Nubian leaped to his side, gripped him by one wrist and arm and spun him about to face the dark, barred opening.
Hal turned his head quickly. Wallace was eying him. To risk an uppercut at the black’s jaw would be madness.
With the skill of long practice, Nimbo bound first one of his wrists and then the other to the bars. He stepped down, leaving Hal securely lashed, his enemies behind him in the lighted room and mysterious darkness before him.
The bed creaked as Wallace took the Nubian’s place, his head close to Hal’s at the bars.
A wall switch clicked. Hal found himself looking into a cell like his own, now flooded with light. But it lacked a window. Presumably the barred opening was intended for ventilation.
On the far side of the cell, with its head against the wall, stood a cot like his own. Dorothy lay there, dressed, and fast asleep.
Hal caught his breath at the sight of her.
She lay with her head away from him. Her slim, arched feet projected limply beyond the foot of the bed. Her ankles were bound to the bar there. The rope ran under the bed, where it was fastened out of her reach.
Hal turned his head to face Wallace.
“Untie her and let her go!” he ordered with desperate calmness. “I love her, Wallace. You have no quarrel with me. You owe me something for that beating.”
“No!” said Wallace.
“If you must torment somebody, take it out on me! Not on a girl!”
“No! That it happens to be she who must suffer is your misfortune, not my fault. Her father was guilty!”
Hal jerked at his fettered wrists. His eyes narrowed to slits, glimmering with a chill, desperate purpose.
“I’ll kill you for murdering my father!” he promised huskily. “But if you touch that girl in there, you madman, I’ll torture you to death! I’ll follow you until I get you, as you followed them!”
For an instant Wallace hesitated; then he shrugged.
“The two cases are not the same, Evans. Wait and watch.”
Chapter XXV
The Last Stand
When Dorothy reached the offices of her father’s lawyer that afternoon her detective escort left her. She was admitted at once. Elder was conferring with a man past middle age. He greeted her warmly, then asked leave to present Judge Moreland.
Dorothy saw a rather stern-looking man of great natural dignity. The sternness was modified by his smile.
“So this is Dorothy!” he echoed the introduction. “Pardon my familiarity. You had been eating mud pies when I last saw you.”
Dorothy laughed. “My passion for mud pies has faded.”
“Has Mr. Elder told you that we are closely related?” asked the judge. “I don’t — quite understand.”
“Your father asked me to be your godfather and I accepted the honor, promising to come to your aid in time of need. Not every one takes such a promise seriously. But I have always managed to keep my word, Miss Hearn.”
Dorothy smiled uncertainly. Judge Moreland nodded.
“When I heard of your father’s death I came up from Baltimore, where I have been living in retirement. I am without other ties. You must not hesitate to let me keep my word to poor Ben. Mr. Elder tells me that your affairs are in a muddle. That won’t do. I hope you will let me take your future into my hands. I am a just man, Miss Hearn. It will be a pleasure to me.”
Dorothy was touched, so touched that her eyes filled with quick tears.
“You’re awfully kind,” she said. “But — we’re quite strangers. I have no claim on your kindness, Judge Moreland. Playing godfather to a child is no more than a pretty custom.”
“It is more to me. Only some fifteen years have passed since you were kind to a bachelor who was rather at a loss in your presence. You put me at ease by presenting me with a large piece of sticky candy. What’s more, I ate it!
“I’ve asked Mr. Elder to prepare for me a statement of your financial position,” he continued. “While his clerk is at it, will you join me at lunch, so that I can apologize for taking such a liberty?”
“So that you can use your legal skill to override my objections!” she corrected, smiling. “Well, I accept the invitation to lunch. For the other, I don’t see why—”
“The lunch is all I ask,” replied the judge gravely, “until we are better acquainted, Miss Hearn.”
He rose and held out his arm in a courtly way.
Dorothy accepted it with a small brown hand, warming to the obscure sadness she read in his face.
Down in the street, Judge Moreland called a taxi and helped her into it. They drove to another large building farther uptown. Here, the judge explained, he had told his chauffeur to meet him.
He dismissed the taxi and looked about for his car.
“The rascal isn’t here,” he smiled. “Probably he is waiting at the other entrance.”
He led her through the long foyer toward the next street. As they trod the tiled floor side by side, Dorothy felt a surge of gratitude to her escort. In his position, not one man in a million would have considered himself obligated to help her. An upright judge, she mused. He had called himself a just man, not a generous one. What a quaint point of view!
Almost as soon as they appeared in the street beyond, a big, dark-blue limousine drew up at the curb. The chauffeur jumped down to open the door. About to slip lithely into the tonneau, Dorothy’s finer instinct made her wait to allow the judge to hand her in.
He took his place at her side. The door slammed. The driver hopped back to his place. As the car drew swiftly away from the curb, Dorothy turned to smile at her companion.
At that instant she felt a sharp pain in her arm and uttered a little cry of surprise.
Judge Moreland looked his concern.
“What is it, my dear?” he inquired anxiously.
“I pricked my arm on something!” she exclaimed. “Why — I feel quite ill—”