The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Husband by Proxy, by Jack Steele

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Title: A Husband by Proxy

Author: Jack Steele

Release Date: October 10, 2006 [EBook #19523]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HUSBAND BY PROXY ***

Produced by Al Haines

A HUSBAND BY PROXY

By

JACK STEELE

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1909, by

Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE PROPOSITION II. A SECOND EMPLOYMENT III. TWO ENCOUNTERS IV. UNSPOKEN ANTAGONISM V. THE "SHADOW" VI. THE CORONER VII. A STARTLING DISCOVERY VIII. WHERE CLEWS MAY POINT IX. A SUMMONS X. A COMPLICATION XI. THE SHOCK OF TRUTH XII. A DISTURBING LOSS XIII. A TRYST IN THE PARK XIV. A PACKAGE OF DEATH XV. SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES XVI. IN QUEST OF DOROTHY XVII. A RESCUE BY FORCE XVIII. THE RACE XIX. FRIGHT AND A DISAPPEARANCE XX. NEW HAPPENINGS XXI. REVELATIONS XXII. A MAN IN THE CASE XXIII. THE ENEMY'S TRACKS XXIV. A NEW ALARM XXV. A DEARTH OF CLEWS XXVI. STARTLING DISCLOSURES XXVII. LIKE A BOLT FROM THE BLUE XXVIII. A HELPLESS SITUATION XXIX. NIGHT-WALKERS XXX. OVERTURES FROM THE ENEMY XXXI. THE FRET OF WAITING XXXII. A TRAGIC CULMINATION XXXIII. FOSTER DURGIN XXXIV. THE RICHES OF THE WORLD XXXV. JOHN HARDY'S WILL XXXVI. GARRISON'S VALUED FRIEND XXXVII. A HONEYMOON

A Husband by Proxy

CHAPTER I

THE PROPOSITION

With the hum of New York above, below, and all about him, stirring his pulses and prodding his mental activities, Jerold Garrison, expert criminologist, stood at the window of his recently opened office, looking out upon the roofs and streets of the city with a new sense of pride and power in his being.

New York at last!

He was here—unknown and alone, it was true—but charged with an energy that he promised Manhattan should feel.

He was almost penniless, with his office rent, his licenses, and other expenses paid, but he shook his fist at the city, in sheer good nature and confidence in his strength, despite the fact he had waited a week for expected employment, and nothing at present loomed upon the horizon.

His past, in a small Ohio town, was behind him. He blotted it out without regret—or so at least he said to himself—even as to all the gilded hopes which had once seemed his all upon earth. If his heart was not whole, no New York eye should see its wounds—and the healing process had begun.

He was part of the vast machine about him, the mighty brain, as it were, of the great American nation.

He paced the length of his room, and glanced at the door. The half-painted sign on the frosted glass was legible, reversed, as the artist had left it:

JEROLD ———— CRIMINOLOGIST.

He had halted the painter himself on the name, as the lettering appeared too fanciful—not sufficiently plain or bold.

While he stood there a shadow fell upon the glass. Someone was standing outside, in the hall. As if undecided, the owner of the shadow oscillated for a moment—and disappeared. Garrison, tempted to open the door and gratify a natural curiosity, remained beside his desk. Mechanically his hand, which lay upon a book entitled "A Treatise on Poisons," closed the volume.

He was still watching the door. The shadow returned, the knob was revolved, and there, in the oaken frame, stood a tall young woman of extraordinary beauty, richly though quietly dressed, and swiftly changing color with excitement.

Pale in one second, crimson in the next, and evidently concentrating all her power on an effort to be calm, she presented a strangely appealing and enchanting figure to the man across the room. Bravery was blazing in her glorious brown eyes, and firmness came upon her manner as she stepped inside, closed the door, and silently confronted the detective.

The man she was studying was a fine-looking, clean-cut fellow, gray-eyed, smooth-shaven, with thick brown hair, and with a gentleman-athlete air that made him distinctly attractive. The fearless, honest gaze of his eyes completed a personal charm that was undeniable in his entity.

It seemed rather long that the two thus stood there, face to face. Garrison candidly admiring in his gaze, his visitor studious and slightly uncertain.

She was the first to speak.

"Are you Mr. Jerold?"

"Jerold Garrison," the detective answered. "My sign is unfinished.
May I offer you a chair?"

His caller sat down beside the desk. She continued to study his face frankly, with a half-shy, half-defiant scrutiny, as if she banished a natural diffidence under pressure of necessity.

She spoke again, abruptly.

"I wish to procure peculiar services. Are you a very well-known detective?"

"I have never called myself a detective," said Garrison. "I'm trying to occupy a higher sphere of usefulness. I left college a year ago, and last week opened my office here and became a New Yorker."

He might, in all modesty, have exhibited a scrap-book filled with accounts of his achievements, with countless references to his work as a "scientific criminologist" of rare mental attainments. Of his attainments as a gentleman there was no need of reference. They proclaimed themselves in his bearing.

His visitor laid a glove and a scrap of paper on the desk.

"It isn't so much detective services I require," she said; "but of course you are widely acquainted in New York—I mean with young men particularly?"

"No," he replied, "I know almost none. But I know the city fairly well, if that will answer your purpose."

"I thought, of course—I hoped you might know some honorable—— You see, I have come on rather extraordinary business," she said, faltering a little helplessly. "Let me ask you first—is the confidence of a possible client quite sacred with a man in this profession?"

"Absolutely sacred!" he assured her. "Whether you engage my services or not, your utterances here will be treated as confidential and as inviolate as if spoken to a lawyer, a doctor, or a clergyman."

"Thank you," she murmured. "I have been hunting around——"

She left the sentence incomplete.

"And you found my name quite by accident," he supplied, indicating the scrap of paper. "I cannot help observing that you have been to other offices first. You have tramped all the way down Broadway from Forty-second Street, for the red ink that someone spilled at the Forty-first Street crossing is still on your shoe, together with just a film of dust."