“No?” quizzed Gorson. “Well, I’ll tell you something then. Terwiliger was out to get the murderer. That means he was out to get you. Terwiliger keeps his promises!”
Swinging to Clark Brosset, the police chief gave additional words of information.
“It was this way, Mr. Brosset,” he explained. “Last night, Terwiliger and I were here with Jasper Delthern. We talked about these mysterious killings. Terwiliger had a theory that one man was in back of them.
“Terwiliger told us that he would come into this very room; that he would lay down the evidence before myself and Jasper Delthern. I counted on Terwiliger to do it.”
“Perhaps,” mused Brosset, “the detective will arrive shortly. If so -“
“He’ll bring proof,” interrupted Gorson, in a decisive tone. “I can’t see what we need. We’ve got enough evidence to convict Barringer in short order. But I’d like to see what Terwiliger has found. He won’t come here empty-handed.”
The police chief glared at Warren. Still holding to the thought that the accused man knew something about the detective’s whereabouts, Gorson endeavored to catch the prisoner off guard.
“Maybe Terwiliger is downstairs,” suggested the police chief. “Suppose one of you men” - he was speaking to the policemen - “go down and find out if he’s arrived. I’ll tell you this, Barringer” - Gorson was again addressing Warren - “and you can remember it. If Terwiliger comes into this room, he’ll have the proof of murder in his fist. He said he would, and he will -“
As Gorson spoke, one of the policemen was walking toward the door. The other was standing in a corner. Clark Brosset was leaning against the desk. Chief Gorson, with a dramatic gesture that he had seen Terwiliger use, was pointing with his outstretched hand toward Jasper Delthern’s body.
Then came the unexpected - a startling occurrence that broke the police chief’s statement. Once again, this room of death was plunged into total darkness!
THE one audible sound amid the blackness was an involuntary cry that came from Warren Barringer’s lips. Warren had experienced this sudden darkness in the past. Each time, it had meant a strange and unexpected result. What would happen now?
On came the lights. The illumination revealed all the persons present in approximately their same positions. Warren, in instinctive apprehension, was gazing toward the other side of the desk. His second cry caused all eyes to swing in that direction.
Another man had entered the room. No one had seen the manner of his coming, and ghastly gasps were the responses that greeted his gruesome entrance. For this new arrival was a dead man!
Propped against the paneled wall, introduced there by some unseen and unknown force, was the body of Detective Harold Terwiliger. The sleuth’s bulging eyes were glazed and unseeing; his whole shape made a morbid sight as it tottered there, as though imbued with life.
The dead form swayed crazily; then toppled forward as Police Chief Gorson uttered a frantic cry of recognition.
Sprawling as it struck the floor, Terwiliger’s corpse rolled on its left side, and the right hand came upward in a rigid gesture.
There, in a dead, clutching fist, Police Chief Gorson saw an envelope. Terwiliger’s face, though hardened in lifelessness, still wore a dramatic expression. The slain sleuth seemed to be pleading with his chief. His outstretched arm was raised almost above the body of Jasper Delthern!
“Terwiliger!” cried Gorson. “Terwiliger! Dead!”
Then came a weird realization. The manner of Terwiliger’s death - who had killed him - the freak of chance that had hurled the body here - these thoughts passed from Sidney Gorson’s mind.
All that the police chief could grasp was the recollection of Terwiliger’s boast. The sleuth had said that he would get the man behind the murders; that he would deliver evidence in this room, while Sidney Gorson and Jasper Delthern were present.
The trio was here now; of the three, only one man was living! Yet Terwiliger’s promise had been kept! Dead, the detective had arrived to fulfill his self-appointed mission!
CHAPTER XXV
A MURDERER FLEES
OF all the astonished men who had witnessed the amazing appearance of Terwiliger’s corpse, Sidney Gorson was the first to take action. Springing forward, the police chief seized the envelope that was clutched in the dead detective’s hand. He wrested it from the stiff fist and stared at ink-inscribed lines that shone blue upon the wrapper of the packet.
“Jasper Delthern is a murderer. He killed Winstead Delthern. He
killed Humphrey Delthern. He killed Wellington. I, Harold Terwiliger,
also died at his hand!”
Gorson’s slow voice was reading from word to word. Unconsciously, the police chief continued to recite the statements that shone before his eyes. Warren Barringer looked on in amazement; Clark Brosset wore a puzzled air; the two policemen were stolid and unmoving, as Gorson continued in an awed tone:
“Jasper Delthern himself was marked for death. The man with
whom he plotted planned his end. Jasper was murdered by the master
hand behind the scheme of crime.
“Within this envelope are documents that prove the murderer’s
guilt. They explain his motive. They were taken, tonight, from his
safe, while he had gone to murder Jasper Delthern.”
There was a momentary pause, while Gorson’s fingers fumbled with the envelope to find what lay within. It was then that Warren Barringer cried a spasmodic warning. He, alone, had been looking toward Clark Brosset. He had seen a hunted stare appear upon the club president’s face.
“Look out!” shouted Warren. “Stop him! Stop him!”
Clark Brosset was edging toward the door as Chief Gorson swung to see him. The look on Brosset’s face told its own story. This man was the murderer mentioned in those words upon the envelope!
While his countenance showed its fiendish, incriminating gleam, Clark Brosset was drawing his hand from his coat pocket. The nickel-plated barrel of a revolver came to view as the officer by the door leaped forward to prevent the murderer’s escape.
With a cry of rage, Brosset dodged the policeman and sprang toward the door. The officer followed to stop him. Instead of snatching at the doorknob, Brosset managed to press the light switch and plunge the room into total darkness.
“I’ve got him stopped!” shouted the policeman at the door. “He can’t get away!”
Promptly, the second officer aided with his flashlight. The rays of the torch revealed Warren Barringer huddled in the chair; then the door, with the policeman guarding it, revolver in hand.
CLARK BROSSET was not in view. The gleam swung across the room. It showed Police Chief Gorson, crouched beside the table, with the envelope in his hand, the murdered forms of Jasper Delthern and Harold Terwiliger at his feet.
This time the beam showed Clark Brosset. In the darkness, the man was almost to the farther wall. Gorson, by backing away, had escaped him. Brosset’s aim had been to snatch the envelope.
Before the president of the City Club could turn his gun toward Gorson, the policeman fired wildly from the door. His hasty shot went wide; but it gave the police chief a chance to scramble beyond the farther end of the desk, carrying the precious envelope along with him.
Clark Brosset fired at the door. The policeman uttered a sharp cry as the bullet clipped his shoulder. Brosset did not shoot again. With Gorson and the other officer drawing their revolvers, the self-revealed fiend feared the odds against him.
