"You put a case well, Dearie. But it doesn't convince me. However," for he knew her whim must be obeyed, "I don't mind trying again to find Horace Endicott in this Arthur Dillon."
"And of course," with a sneer, "you'll begin with the certainty that there's nothing in the theory. What can the cleverest man discover, when he's sure beforehand that there's nothing to discover?"
"My word, Colette, if I take up the matter, I'll convince you that you're wrong, or myself that you're right. And I'll begin right here this minute. I believe with you that we have found Endicott at last.
Then the first question I ask myself is: who helped Horace Endicott to become Arthur Dillon?"
"Monsignor O'Donnell of course," she answered.
"Then Endicott must have known the priest before he disappeared: known him so as to trust him, and to get a great favor from him? Now, Sonia didn't know that fact."
"That fool of a woman knows nothing, never did, never will," she snapped.
"Well, for the sake of peace let us say he was helped by Monsignor, and knew the priest a little before he went away. Monsignor helped him to find his present hiding-place; quite naturally he knew Mrs. Dillon, how her son had gone and never been heard of: and he knew it would be a great thing for her to have a son with an income like Endicott's. The next question is: how many people know at this moment who Dillon really is?"
"Just two, sir. He's a fox ... they're three foxes ... Monsignor, Anne Dillon, and Arthur himself. I know, for I watched 'em all, his uncle, his friends, his old chums ... the fellows he played with before he ran away ... and no one knows but the two that had to know ... sly Anne and smooth Monsignor. They made the money that I wasn't smart enough to get hold of."
"Then the next question is: is it worth while to make inquiries among the Irish, his friends and neighbors, the people that knew the real Dillon?"
"You won't find out any more than I've told you, but you may prove how little reason they have for accepting him as the boy that ran away."
"After that it would be necessary to search California."
"Poor Dick," she interrupted with compassion, smoothing his beard. "You are really losing your old cleverness. Search California! Can't you see yet the wonderful 'cuteness of this man, Endicott? He settled all that before he wrote the letter to Anne Dillon, saying that her son was coming home. He found out the career of Arthur Dillon in California. If he found that runaway he sent him off to Australia with a lump of money, to keep out of sight for twenty years. Did the scamp need much persuading? I reckon not. He had been doing it for nothing ten years.
Or, perhaps the boy was dead: then he had only to make the proper connections with his history up to the time of his death. Or he may have disappeared forever, and that made the matter all the simpler for Endicott. Oh, you're not clever, Dick," and she kissed him to sweeten the bitterness of the opinion.
"I'm not convinced," he said cheerfully. "Then tell me what to do."
"I don't know myself. Endicott took his money with him. Where does Arthur Dillon keep his money? How did it get there? Where was it kept before that? How is he spending it just now? Does he talk in his sleep?
Are there any mementoes of his past in his private boxes? Could he be surprised into admissions of his real character by some trick, such as bringing him face to face on a sudden with Sonia? Wouldn't that be worth seeing? Just like the end of a drama. You know the marks on Endicott's body, birthmarks and the like ... are they on Dillon's body? The boy that ran away must have had some marks.... Judy Haskell would know ...
are they on Endicott's body?"
"You've got the map of the business in that pretty head perfect," said Curran in mock admiration. "But don't you see, my pet, that if this man is as clever as you would have him he has already seen to these things?
He has removed the birthmarks and peculiarities of Horace, and adopted those of Arthur? You'll find it a tangled business the deeper you dive into it."
"Well, it's your business to dive deeper than the tangle," she answered crossly. "If I had your practice----"
"You would leave me miles behind, of course. Here's the way I would reason about this thing: Horace Endicott is now known as Arthur Dillon; he has left no track by which Endicott can be traced to his present locality; but there must be a very poor connection between the Dillon at home and the real Dillon in California, in Australia, or in his grave; if we can trace the real Arthur Dillon then we take away the foundations of his counterfeit. Do you see? I say a trip to California and a clean examination there, after we have done our best here to pick flaws in the position of the gentleman who has been so cruel to my pet. He must get his punishment for that, I swear."
"Ah, there's the rub," she whimpered in her childish way. "I hate him, and I love him. He's the finest fellow in the world. He has the strength of ten. See how he fought the battles of the Irish against his own. One minute I could tear him like a wolf, and now I could let him tear me to pieces. You are fond of him too, Dick."
"I would follow him to the end of the world, through fire and flood and fighting," said the detective with feeling. "He loves Ireland, he loves and pities our poor people, he is spending his money for them. But I could kill him just the same for his cruelty to you. He's a hard man, Colette."
"Now I know what you are trying to do," she said sharply. "You think you can frighten me by telling me what I know already. Well, you can't."
"No, no," he protested, "I was thinking of another thing. We'll come to the danger part later. There is one test of this man that ought to be tried before all others. When I have sounded the people about Arthur Dillon, and am ready for California, Sonia Endicott should be brought here to have a good look at him in secret first; and then, perhaps, in the open, if you thought well of it."
"Why shouldn't I think well of it? But will it do any good, and mayn't it do harm? Sonia has no brains. If you can't see any resemblance between Arthur and the pictures of Horace Endicott, what can Sonia see?"
"The eyes of hate, and the eyes of love," said he sagely.
"Then I'd be afraid to bring them together," she admitted whispering again, and cowering into his arms. "If he suspects I am hunting him down, he will have no pity."
"No doubt of it," he said thoughtfully. "I have always felt the devil in him. Endicott was a fat, gay, lazy sport, that never so much as rode after the hounds. Now Arthur Dillon has had his training in the mines.
That explains his dare-devil nature."
"And Horace Endicott was betrayed by the woman he loved," she cried with sudden fierceness. "That turns a man sour quicker than all the mining-camps in the world. That made him lean and terrible like a wolf.
That sharpened his teeth, and gave him a taste for woman's blood. That's why he hates me."
"You're wrong again, my pet. He has a liking for you, but you spoil it by laying hands on his own. You saw his looks when he was hunting for young Everard."
"Oh, how he frightens me," and she began to walk the room in a rage.
"How I would like to throw off this fear and face him and fight him, as I face you. I'll do it if the terror kills me. I shall not be terrified by any man. You shall hunt him down, Dick Curran. Begin at once. When you are ready send for Sonia. I'll bring them together myself, and take the responsibility. What can he do but kill me?"
Sadness came over the detective as she returned to her seat on his knee.
"He is not the kind, little girl," said he, "that lays hands on a woman or a man outside of fair, free, open fight before the whole world."
"What do you mean?" knowing very well what he meant.
"If he found you on his trail," with cunning deliberation, so that every word beat heart and brain like a hammer, "and if he is really Horace Endicott, he would only have to give your character and your address----"
"To the dogs," she shrieked in a sudden access of horror.
Then she lay very still in his arms, and the man laughed quietly to himself, sure that he had subdued her and driven her crazy scheme into limbo. The wild creature had one dread and by reason of it one master.
Never had she been so amenable to discipline as under Dillon's remote and affable authority. Curran had no fear of consequences in studying the secret years of Arthur Dillon's existence. The study might reveal things which a young man preferred to leave in the shadows, but would not deliver up to Sonia her lost Horace; and even if Arthur came to know what they were doing, he could smile at Edith's vagaries.
"What shall we do?" he ventured to say at last.
"Find Horace Endicott in Arthur Dillon," was the unexpected answer, energetic, but sighed rather than spoken. "I fear him, I love him, I hate him, and I'm going to destroy him before he destroys me. Begin to-night."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A FIRST TEST.
Curran could not study the Endicott problem. His mind had lost edge in the vain process, getting as confused over details as the experimenter in perpetual motion after an hundred failures. In favor of Edith he said to himself that her instincts had always been remarkable, always helpful; and her theory compared well with the twenty upon which he had worked years to no purpose. Since he could not think the matter out, he went straight on in the fashion which fancy had suggested. Taking it for granted that Dillon and Endicott were the same man, he must establish the connection; that is, discover the moment when Horace Endicott passed from his own into the character of Arthur Dillon.
Two persons would know the fact: Anne Dillon and her son. Four others might have knowledge of it; Judy, the Senator, Louis, and Monsignor. A fifth might be added, if the real Arthur Dillon were still living in obscurity, held there by the price paid him for following his own whim.
Others would hardly be in the secret. The theory was charming in itself, and only a woman like Edith, whose fancy had always been sportive, would have dreamed it. The detective recalled Arthur's interest in his pursuit of Endicott; then the little scenes on board the _Arrow_; and grew dizzy to think of the man pursued comparing his own photograph with his present likeness, under the eyes of the detective who had grown stale in the chase of him.
He knew of incidents quite as remarkable, which had a decent explanation afterwards, however. He went about among the common people of Cherry Hill, who had known Arthur Dillon from his baptism, had petted him every week until he disappeared, and now adored him in his success. He renewed acquaintance with them, and heaped them with favors. Loitering about in their idling places, he threw out the questions; hints, surmises, which might bring to the surface their faith in Arthur Dillon. He reported the result to Edith.
"Not one of them" said he, "but would go to court and swear a bushel of oaths that Arthur Dillon is the boy who ran away. They have their reasons too; how he dances, and sings, and plays the fiddle, and teases the girls, just as he did when a mere strip of a lad; how the devil was always in him for doing the thing that no one looked for; how he had no fear of even the priest, or of the wildest horse; and sought out terrible things to do and to dare, just as now he shakes up your late backers, bishops, ministers, ambassadors, editors, or plots against England; all as if he earned a living that way."
She sneered at this bias, and bade him search deeper.