THE TEST
MORNING found Detective Joe Cardona at the county jail. The New York sleuth was anxious to witness the arrival of Hoyt Wyngarth from Albany.
The event took place shortly before noon.
An automobile pulled up in front of the jail. Two men alighted from the front, three from the rear, of the sedan. Hoyt Wyngarth, handcuffed between two captors, was led into the prison. Cardona watched the man go by.
Wyngarth, tall, stoop-shouldered, and cadaverous, looked pale and miserable. He was conducted to a cell. Cardona talked with the men who had brought him. Three were from Albany; the fourth, who had driven the car, was one of Tharbel’s assistant detectives.
“He won’t talk,” affirmed one of the Albany sleuths. “We’ve got plenty on him, though. He’s been suspected of blackmail a couple of times. A bad egg, this bird Wyngarth, and a smooth one.”
“He doesn’t look so smooth,” remarked Joe.
“He’s scared — that’s why,” rejoined the dick from Albany. “I guess he knows the clamps are on him.”
Tharbel’s assistant was calling Harman’s hunting lodge. He announced, when he had completed his telephone conversation, that Junius Tharbel would arrive at the jail within a short time.
“He wants you to be here,” the man told Cardona, “and he said to bring a fellow named Challick. I’m calling the inn to get Scudder and Neswick.”
“Challick is with them.”
“All right. I’ll get the three over.” The trio arrived; with Cardona, they waited in the gloomy hallway just within the door of the jail. Tharbel showed up not long afterward. Accompanied by his hunting companions, Hollis Harman and Wade Hosth, he stalked into the hallway.
Reporters, too, were on the job. They strolled into the place in Tharbel’s wake. The county detective raised no objection to their presence. With a curt nod to Cardona and the others, Tharbel walked through the hallway and opened the door of a side room.
“Come in here,” he ordered.
EVERY one obeyed. They found a room which had evidently been disused. It was separated, by a glass-framed partition, from a smaller room beyond it. All the windows had bars; there was a connecting door between the two.
“This layout,” declared Tharbel, “was supposed to be my office. One of the county prosecutors rigged it up after the addition had been built to the jail. I was supposed to sit in there” — he pointed to the other room as he spoke — “and have my assistants out here. I tried it, barred windows and all, and then I moved back to my old offices. The prosecutor was sore, but we’ve had a new one since then.”
Tharbel was unusually loquacious. It was seldom that he spoke at such lengths. He paused to smile sourly as he came to the point of his remarks.
“I’ve been figuring for a long while what I could do with these vacant rooms,” he said. “At last, I’ve found a use for them. Pull down those shades, Scudder. I’m going to make a dark room out of this one.”
Scudder obeyed. The darkening of the room produced a gloom that was lightened only by the illumination which came through the clear glass partition.
“Line up along the partition, all of you,” ordered Tharbel. “Keep back far enough so your faces won’t show from the other side.”
The crowd followed instructions. Cardona took a position beside Challick and Neswick. Tharbel’s hunting companions were next; on the other side of the door were Burke and the reporters who had come with him.
Tharbel opened the door in the partition, and went into the next room. He looked at the faces along the glass. He called out for the reporters to move back a bit. Satisfied, he put his head through the door and spoke:
“I’m going to quiz Hoyt Wyngarth. I’ll leave the door open a little way, so you can hear as well as see. No noise. Understand? I’m coming in here later, and leave Wyngarth alone. No noise then, either.”
Speaking in an undertone to Scudder, Tharbel gave new instructions. The assistant went out. Tharbel returned to the lighted office. As he promised, he left the door a trifle ajar. Tharbel seated himself in a chair.
The watchers saw a door open on the other side of the lighted room. Hoyt Wyngarth, relieved from his handcuffs, entered. The county detective invited him to sit down. The grilling was to begin.
JOE CARDONA, watching and listening, again felt admiration as well as disapproval for Tharbel’s methods. There was no challenge of the third degree in the county detective’s manner. Tharbel was calm, almost friendly toward Wyngarth. At the same time, he was enigmatic; his hatchet-face showed no expression.
“What’s your name?” questioned Tharbel quietly.
“Hoyt Wyngarth,” blurted the pale-faced man.
“You live in Albany, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Ever been in Darport before?”
“No.”
Wyngarth’s face, twitching, became suddenly tense as the prisoner made the final reply.
“That’s odd,” decided Tharbel. “I thought that maybe you knew something about a man who used to live in Darport. He called himself Mox — short for Moxton — Jarvis Moxton.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Mox was the man’s assumed name. Mox might be any one. For instance” — Tharbel paused to smile for the first time — “I, myself, might be Mox. You might be Mox. The man, as he was known here, was a masquerader. Gray hair — gray beard — all probably false.”
Wyngarth winced. His face, however, became suddenly firm after that. He seemed quite determined to say nothing.
“Do you want to answer questions?” queried Tharbel. “Or do you prefer to make a statement?”
“Neither,” replied Wyngarth. “I have nothing to say. Nothing.”
“Sure of that?”
“Yes.”
Tharbel arose and strolled about the room. He started toward the far door, and paused to open the wrapper of a stick of chewing gum. As he used his right hand to place the gum in his mouth, he placed his left upon the knob and gave it a slight turn. Then, as an afterthought, he walked straight across the room and opened the door to the front room, where the hidden watchers were located.
“I’ll be back,” he promised, as he went through. He closed the door until only a crack remained. He joined those who were at the partition.
Hoyt Wyngarth, alone, stared solemnly toward the door by which Tharbel had left. He looked about in a furtive manner, noted the barred windows. He again faced the door between the two rooms.
The watchers, looking beyond, saw the farther door open. A big-fisted jailer stooped and shoved a dog into the room. Stepping back, he pulled the door shut.
THE growl of the dog, the slam of the door; both attracted Wyngarth’s attention. Turning, the prisoner — like the watchers — saw the brown-spotted Dalmatian that had been captured in Mox’s upstairs living room.
Wyngarth gasped. The dog, still growling, stared at the man. Then, with sudden recognition, the Dalmatian sprang toward Hoyt Wyngarth. Its growl turned to a yelp of joy.
As Wyngarth backed away, the dog leaped and pressed its paws against his body. With wagging tail, it looked to Wyngarth as any hound would welcome a long-lost master.
Wyngarth’s reactions were a medley. For a moment, he forgot himself. Though backing away, he began to stroke the head of his canine friend.
Then, with anger, he thrust the dog away, and sprang toward the door in the partition.
“Take the dog away!” he screamed. “Take it away! I’m afraid of it!” Tharbel shut the door tight and held the knob. Wyngarth, the dog bounding after him, dashed across the room toward the farther door. As he fumbled with the knob, the Dalmatian, with tail wagging furiously, again showed its recognition.
The door opened. The beefy jailer pushed Wyngarth aside. As Tharbel, calling from the partition, gave him an order, the jailer grabbed the dog and pulled it from the room. The dog snarled at the jailer.