midnight
Jud Clark ! If that was Judson Clark , he had the story of a lifetime . For some time he walked the deserted streets of the city , thinking and puzzling over the possibility of Gregory 's being right . Sometime after midnight he went back to the office and to the filing room . There , for two hours , he sat reading closely old files of the paper , going through them methodically and making occasional brief notes in a memorandum . Then , at two o'clock he put away the files , and sitting back , lighted a cigar . It was all there ; the enormous Clark fortune inherited by a boy who had gone mad about this same Beverly Carlysle ; her marriage to her leading man , Howard Lucas ; the subsequent killing of Lucas by Clark at his Wyoming ranch , and Clark 's escape into the mountains .