“I will try it for a month; then, if it still pleases Mrs. Welden, I will make an offer.”
Wicks, the Alert, the Indefatigable, sighed and looked down. Actually at the moment he was in agony. The unexpected and magnificent fish that had so providentially come into his net was wriggling unarrestably away. The commission on a month’s rental was all on which he could surely count.
Conscious, however, that he must make some reply, with an effort he rallied.
“I don’t know,” he said, “that the owner would care to rent the property. But if price seems—”
Welden, standing there supple and smiling, cut him short.
“I never argue.”
After all, Wicks had immediately reflected, the property was worth certainly a thousand a month—to anyone who could be induced to pay it. At ten percent that meant a hundred for him, with the chance still of the bigger commission.
“Very good, sir,” he had replied. “I will assume the responsibility.”
In this manner the business had been temporarily concluded. On the premises was a lame ostler, who was Irish; a minute gardener, who was Japanese; a half-breed man of all work and an obese negro cook. These the Weldens retained, reinforcing them with servants of their own and with others recruited from Los Angeles—preparations which seemed to postulate permanency if signs and portents might. But Wicks could be sure of nothing, nor was he, until this radiant forenoon, when the crumpler nearly occurred, and Welden, damning the brute, dismounted.
It was then, reddening with emotion, that these anterior events were recalled, for now, at last, the fish, the magnificent fish, was landed.
“No, certainly not, we won’t burden you with him,” he replied in answer to Welden’s protest. “If you will take a seat in my office for a moment, I will leave him at the livery across the way.”
Pleasurably, a hand on the bridle, he led the horse off. The netting of the fish meant—at seven and a half percent, which was the commission agreed—in the event of the top figure being reached—eleven hundred and twenty-five dollars. It was certainly a very radiant forenoon.
Welden, meanwhile, flicking still at his boots, strolled into the office and sat down on one of the three chairs which the place contained. On the wall was a map. Beneath was a pulpit desk, high and narrow. On it were documents, a china cat, other things as well, but most noticeably, a telephone, which, as Welden seated himself, began ringing.
Welden, still flicking at his boots, stared aimlessly about. On one of the other chairs was the local sheet; he reached for it and was looking over the news of the day when Wicks reappeared.
“Excuse me,” said the agent, who went to the telephone, which had continued to ring.
Welden but glanced at him. He had just read that the New York Central had decreased its dividend. The item was of interest; he happened to be a stockholder and mentally he began on a calculation which Wicks, his hand on the receiver, interrupted.
“It’s for you. Your man, I think. He wants to speak to you.”
Absently Welden looked up. “Nonsense,” he presently remarked. “Harris knows better than that. If there is any message, though, tell them to give it to you.”
Then, after fumbling in a pocket, he got out a gold pencil with which he jotted figures on the margin of the paper that he held. But the operation did not prevent him from hearing.
“Yes,” Wicks was saying. “Mr. Welden is here. Mr. Welden says you are to tell me for him. He—What!”
At the “What,” which was not a query, but an exclamation, Welden replaced the gold top on the pencil and putting it back in his pocket, turned again to the news.
Before him Wicks stood, the receiver at his ear, a hand pendent at his side. It was shaking a little.
The motion, odd in itself, attracted Welden. His eyes roamed slowly upward from it to the agent’s face. Wicks was standing now, his mouth half open, looking limply at him.
Welden tossed the paper aside.
“Are you ill?”
Wicks closed his mouth, shook his head, then partly opened his mouth again. But still he did not speak.
Welden stood up. “Are you?” he repeated.
Then finally Wicks did speak. “Your wife!” he said slowly, and hanging the receiver up, flopped into a chair.
The nightmare that had overspread the land was battening individually on him. Through it the face of the grocer peered. With the grocer was the mortgagee. Both were throwing him and his out on the country road. That indeed might yet occur. At the moment, however, he was but being shaken, not roughly, but authoritatively, from a form of mental swoon.
“What is this about Mrs. Welden? Why the devil don’t you tell me? Is she ill?”
Wicks, the Alert and Indefatigable, could but nod in reply.
“Very?” Welden persisted. “Come, damnation, don’t keep me questioning you like this. What did they say?”
The winded Wicks now had got his breath. He straightened himself, and rising from the chair, put a hand on Welden’s arm.
“She is—” And Wicks raised his eyes.
“Not dead!” cried Welden, starting back.
Wicks moved nearer and with that sympathy which, in certain crises, one human being will always show to another, said lowly:
“Mr. Welden, they tell me that this lady has been killed.”
“Killed!” Welden, again starting back, repeated; “but how?”
Then the detail, passably gruesome, was produced.
“They found her in bed, her throat cut from ear to ear.”
II
The Inquest
Astride the brute on which ten minutes before the crumpler had nearly occurred, Welden tore down the street, galloped along the ocean boulevard, and on, into a scarlet lane, at the end of which stood White Peacocks.
The entrance was a bit beyond. Rather than make the brief circuit, he cleared a hedge, raced through the grounds and flung himself off at the steps of the veranda.
In the hall, through the open door, he had a glimpse of servants huddled together, and of a woman, her face to the wall, whimpering like a
