ATa sporting goods store that afternoon he ran into Jerome Dangerfield again. He had just bought a dozen balls when he saw the millionaire and his two attendants. He was not minded to be observed of them, so slipped into the little room where putters may be tried and drives be made into nets. From where he was he could hear Dangerfield’s disagreeable, rasping voice. His grievance, it seemed, was that other golfers were able to get better balls than he. He badgered the clerk until the man found spirit to observe: “If there was a ball that would make a dub play good golf it would be worth a fortune to any one.”
Trent was able to see the look of anger the capitalist threw at him. And this anger he saw reflected on the faces of the two attendants. Decidedly any lone man pitting his courage and wit against the Dangerfield entourage would need sympathy.
“Send me a half-gross up to Sunset Park Hotel,” he heard Dangerfield say as he walked away, still frowning.
“I hope you don’t have many of that kind to wait on,” Trent said sympathetically. He was always courteous to those with whom he had dealings.
“He’s the limit,” said the clerk; “and from theway he looked at me I guess the boss will hear of it. Seemed to think there was a ball that would make him drive two hundred and fifty and hole a twenty-foot putt and I was trying to hide it from him. You wouldn’t think it, but he’s one of the richest men living. Gee, it makes me feel like a Socialist when I think of it!”
The clerk wondered why it was a superb golfer, as he knew Trent to be, was modest and courteous, while a man like Dangerfield was so overbearing.
Before he went home Trent looked up Sunset Park in a golfer’s guide. It was a little-known course among the Berkshires, with only nine holes to its credit. The rates of the hotel were sufficiently high to make it clear only the rich could play. It was probably one of these dreary courses where a scratch player would be a rara avis, a course to which elderly men, playing for their health, gravitated and made the lives of caddies miserable.
It was a curious thing, Trent thought, that while this morning he knew nothing of Dangerfield, by night he knew a great deal. An evening paper told him why the millionaire was going to the Berkshires. There was to be a wedding in high society and the bride was a niece of Mrs. Jerome Dangerfield. The ceremony would take place at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, and a bishop would unite the contracting parties. The fancy dress ball to be held would be the most elaborate ever held outside New York. A great pavilion was to be erected for the occasion in the grounds of the bride’s magnificent home, and Newport would be for the moment deserted. It was rumored that the jewels to be worn would exceedin value anything that had ever been gathered together this side the Atlantic, and so on, two columns long.
It explained very clearly why the Jerome Dangerfields were going to Sunset Park. The collective value of the jewels appealed particularly to Trent. He wondered if the Mount Aubyn ruby would shine out on that festal night. And if so how would it be guarded? It would be less difficult to disguise the detectives in fancy costume than in evening dress. Of course the owner of such a world-famous gem might wear an imitation as the Baroness von Eckstein had done. But if Clarke had painted her aright this was an occasion when an ambitious woman would be willing to take risks.
The proprietors of the Sunset Park Hotel were glad to accommodate Mr. Anthony Trent with a bed and bathroom for a little over a hundred dollars a week. It was a very select resort, they explained, attracting such people as the Jerome Dangerfields and their friends.
The golf course was owned by the hotel and the first tee was on the lawn a few yards from the front piazza. On the morning following his arrival, Trent, golf clubs already allotted to a caddy, waited to see what kind of golf was played. They were indifferently good but he betrayed little attention until he saw Dangerfield coming. Immediately he went to the tee but did not make his first shot until the millionaire was near enough to see. Playing alone as was the capitalist—for few were yet on the links—he had not to wait as he must have done had the other beenplaying with a partner. The first green was distant one hundred and sixty yards from the tee. A brook with sedgy reeds was a fine natural hazard, and as the green was on an elevated plateau with deep grass beyond, it was not an easy one to reach. Dangerfield dreaded it.
Dangerfield saw a tall, slim young man correctly clad in breeches and stockings, using a mashie, drop his ball neatly on the green within putting distance of the hole. Later he saw the hole done in two which was one under par.
“Who is that man?” Dangerfield demanded of his caddie.
“Never seen him before,” the lad answered.
Dangerfield took his brassey and went straightway into the brook. He saw, however, as he was ball hunting, this stranger make a wonderful drive to the second—two hundred and fifty yards, the enthusiastic caddie swore. Meanwhile the millionaire continued to press and slice and pull and top his ball to such effect as to do the double round in one hundred and forty-two. Nothing exasperated him so much as to find the game mock his strength and desire. A power wherever money marts were, he was here openly laughed at by caddies. He was discovering that rank on the links is determined by skill at the game alone. What mattered it that he was the great Jerome Dangerfield. What had he done the round in? What was his handicap?
He particularly wanted to humble Stephen Goswell, president of the First Agricultural Bank of New York City. Goswell was a year ahead of him at the game and had the edge on him so far. Goswell couldmanage short approaches occasionally, strokes that were beyond his own inflexible wrists. Now this tall, dark stranger had such strokes to perfection. The ball driven up into the air skimmed tree, wall or bunker and rolled up to the pin sweetly. Dangerfield quickly made up his mind. He would invite the stranger to play with him and then get hints which would improve his game fifty per cent.
“Morning,” he said later at the “Nineteenth Hole” where the stranger was taking a drink.
“Good morning,” said the stranger rather stiffly. “It is evident,” thought Dangerfield, “he does not know who I am.”
“Going ’round again after lunch?” Dangerfield demanded.
“I think so,” the stranger responded.
“We might play together,” said Dangerfield. “I haven’t a partner.”
“I’m afraid that won’t make a good match,” Trent told him. “Surely there is some one more your strength who would make a better match of it?”
“Huh!” grunted the other, “think I don’t play well enough, eh?”
“I know it,” said Trent composedly.
Dangerfield regarded him sourly.
“You’re not overburdened with modesty, young man.”
“I hope not,” the other retorted, “nothing handicaps a man more in life. I happen to know golf, though, and my experience is that if I play with a much inferior player I get careless and that’s bad for my game. I’m perfectly frank about it. You know next to nothing about the game. In your own line of work youcould no doubt give me a big beating because you know it and I don’t.”
“And what do you suppose my line of work is?” snapped the annoyed mill-owner.
“I don’t know,” Trent commented. “Either a dentist or a theatrical producer.” As he spoke up sauntered one of the two men with whom he had seen Dangerfield in the subway.
“I’d like to hire some one to take the starch out of you,” Dangerfield said as he rose to his feet.
“Quite easy,” Trent returned, “almost any professional could.”
He watched the two walk away and chuckled. He had attracted the millionaire’s attention and he had rebuffed him. So far his programme was being carried out on scheduled time. The attendant had not looked at him with any special interest. It was unlikely in different clothes, under other conditions and in a strange place he would recognize him.
He did not play again that day. Instead he paid attention to some elderly ladies who knitted feverishly and were inclined to talk. He learned a great deal of useful news. For example, that the Dangerfields always had meals in their big private suite and rarely without guests from nearby homes. That they quarreled constantly. That Mr. Dangerfield never went to bed wholly sober. That he was given to sudden gusts of temper and only last year had beaten a caddie and had been compelled to settle the assault with a large money payment. That he was not above pocketing a golf ball if he could do so without being observed. That he had several times been seen to lift his ball out of an unfavorable lie into one from whichhe could play with greater chance of making a good stroke.
These petty meannesses Trent had already surmised. Dangerfield seemed to him that sort of a man. He was more interested in the dinner parties. But a man in such a position as he was had to be careful as to what questions he asked. People had a knack of remembering them at inopportune moments. Fortunately one of the ladies, who was a Miss Northend of Lynn, came back to it. She was a furious knitter and knitted best when her tongue wagged.
“Of course this hotel belongs to Mr. Dangerfield,” she babbled, “and that explains why they have a palatial suite here and can entertain even more readily than if they had a summer home, as their friends have. This is a very fashionable section. The women dress here as if they were in Newport. Every night Mr. Dangerfield goes down to the hotel safe and brings something gorgeous in the jewelry way for his wife to wear. There’s a private stairway he uses. I wandered into it once by mistake.”
“And sister was so flustered,” the other Miss Northend of Lynn told him, “that when he accused her of spying on him she couldn’t say a word. It really did look suspicious until he knew we were Northends and our father was his counsel once when he controlled the Boston and Rangely road.”
When these estimable maidens had finished, Anthony Trent knew all those particulars he desired. It was not the first time amiable gossips had aided him. But he played his part so well that Miss Fannie chided her sister.
“He wasn’t a bit interested in the Dangerfieldwealth,” she said. “All a young man like that thinks of is golf.”
“Well,” said her sister, “I am interested and I’m frightened, too. When I think of all that amount of precious stones in the hotel safe, I’m positively alarmed. Every night she wears something new, her maid told the girl who looks after our rooms.”
THEREwas exactly one week to the night of the fancy dress dance at the Uplands from the time that the Northend sisters gave the abstractor so much information. Every moment of it was carefully taken up by that calculating gentleman.
For example, on the following morning, Wednesday he played a round with the club’s champion, an amateur of some skill. Dangerfield posing for the moment as a warm admirer of the local player, followed the two on their match, betting freely on Blackhall, his clubmate. Also, he violated every rule of the royal and ancient game by speaking as Trent made his strokes. Never in his ten years of golf had Trent played such a game. It was characteristic of him to do his best when conditions were worst.
When the game was over at the thirteenth hole Dangerfield turned crossly to Blackhall.
“You played a rotten game!” he said.
“I never played a better,” that golfer exclaimed. “The whole trouble with me was that I was up against a better man.”
It may be observed that Blackhall was a sportsman.
Dangerfield was astonished and gratified next day when he was essaying some approaching to find Trent watching his efforts in a not unfriendly spirit.
“The trouble with you,” said the younger player graciously, “is that you chop your stroke instead of carrying through. I’ll show you what I mean.”
In the half hour he devoted to Dangerfield he improved the millionaire’s game six strokes a round.
“It would be no fun to play with you,” he said when Dangerfield again invited him, “but I hate to see a man trying to approach as you did when a little help could put him right.”
Thus were any Dangerfield suspicions disarmed. He helped him once or twice more and on every occasion insisted that the hovering attendant be sent away.
“Your keeper,” said Trent genially, “puts me off my stroke.”
“Keeper,” grinned Dangerfield, “I’m not as bad as that. He’s my valet.”
Two days before the ball at the Uplands it was observed that Anthony Trent visited the Nineteenth Hole more frequently and stayed there longer. He was playing less golf now. The bartender confided in Mr. Dangerfield, who was also a consistent patron, that he was drinking heavily.
“I guess,” said the tender of the bar with the sapience of his kind, “that he’s one of these quiet periodic souses. They tell me he has the stuff sent up to his room.”
“Too bad!” said Mr. Dangerfield, shaking his head as he ordered another.
It was true that to Trent’s room much dry gin and lemon juice found its way, together with siphons of iced carbonic. The carbonic and the lemon juice was drunk since a belated heat wave was visiting the Sunset Park Hotel. The gin found its way into his flowerladen window boxes, which should have bloomed into juniper berries. Trent liked a drink as well as any other golfer, but he found that it just took the keen edge off his nerves. He was less keen to realize danger and too ready to meet a risk when he drank. As a conscientious workman he put it behind him when professionally engaged.
On the night of the ball he was, to quote a bell boy, dead to the world, which proves that bell boys may be deceived by appearances. On the night of the ball he was keyed up to his highest personal efficiency.
Physically he was at his best. His muscles were always hard and his wind good. The resisting exercises he practised maintained the former and a little running every day aided the latter.
The great costume ball was to take place on the third of September, when the sun would set at half-past six. The Uplands was no more than a half hour motor spin distant from the hotel. The time set was half-past nine, which meant few would be there before ten. It was plain then that Mrs. Jerome Dangerfield would not commence her preparations for dressing until after the dinner. She was devoted to the pleasures of the table, as her maid lamented when she harnessed her mistress within her corsets.
Looking from his window, Trent saw that the sun had retired behind clouds early in the afternoon. Darkness would not be delayed, and the success of his venture depended upon this.
Reviewing the amazing events of the evening of September the third, it is only fair to let Jerome Dangerfield relieve his feelings in a letter to his closestfriend, the president of the First Agricultural Bank of New York.
“You were right in warning me not to bring the Mt. Aubyn ruby up to this place. It was Adele’s fault. She wanted it for the wedding. The damned thing has gone, Steve, vanished into thin air. If you told me what I’m going to tell you, I should say you were crazy. The people here and the fool police thought I’d been drinking. I’d had three or four cocktails, but what is that to me—or you? I was absolutely in possession of my senses.
“We dined early and we dined alone. At eight I went down for the jewels Adele wanted to wear. The ruby was thepièce de résistanceof course. I went down my own private stairway as usual and unlocked the door leading from it to the hotel lobby. Devlin is here, and O’Brien, but they were both outside keeping tabs on strangers. The papers have played this costume ball up so much that every crook in the land knew what we had to offer in the way of loot. Graham, the hotel clerk, came with me to the private stairway and swears he pushed the door to as I started to go up the stairs. And he swears also that, although it wasn’t lighted as well as usual, there was nobody in sight. They are steep stairs, Steve, but they save me rubbing shoulders with every man or woman who might want to get acquainted in the public elevators; and, naturally, I wasn’t carrying a fortune where any crook could get a crack at me.
“Read this carefully. I was on the fifteenth step of the flight of twenty-two steps when the thing happened. The light was dim because one of the bulbswasn’t working and the only illumination came from a red light at the head of the stairway.
“I was holding the jewel box in both hands resting it almost on my chest when the thing happened. There was suddenly a noise that might have been made by the beating of wings and something swooped out of nowhere and hit me on my wrists with such violence that I went backwards down the stairs and was unconscious for more than ten minutes. On each wrist there is an abrasion that might be caused by the sharp bill of a big bird. I’m bruised all over and have three stitches over one eye.
“I found the box lying on one of the steps closed as I had held it.The only thing that was missing was the Mt. Aubyn Ruby!
“Devlin and O’Brien have all kinds of theories but I told them I wanted the stone back and if they didn’t get it I wouldn’t have them any longer in my employ.
“Devlin says he will swear a car passed him on the Boston road yesterday containing some Continental crooks who used to operate along the Italian and French riviera. He’s full of wild fancies and swears I shall get the ruby back. I’m not so sure. I’ve given up the theory that it was a great black bat which hit me, but whatever it was it was a stunt pulled by a master craftsman who is laughing at Devlin and his kind. Can you imagine a crook who would leave behind what this fellow did?
“I wish you’d go to the Pemberton Detective Agency and get them to send some one up here capable of handling the situation. I shall be coming down to New York as soon as I’m able. I’m too much bruised to play golf but when I do I shall win some of yourmoney. I’ve had some lessons from a crackerjack golfer up here who goes round the eighteen holes in anything from seventy-two to seventy-eight. My stance was wrong and I wasn’t gripping right.”
So much for Jerome Dangerfield. When Devlin and O’Brien examined the scene of the crime they immediately noticed that some fifteen feet above the ground level a stained glass window lighted the stairway. “Of course,” they exclaimed in unison, “that is the solution.” But the theory did not hold water, as the soil of the flower-beds showed no sign of a ladder or any footmark. They had been raked over that afternoon and the gardener swore no foot but his had set foot in this enclosed garden which supplied the hotel tables with blooms. An examination of the window showed no helpful finger marks. It was an indoor job, they declared, amending their first opinion.
But they were thorough workmen in their way. For instance: Anthony Trent, reclining fully dressed across his bed with cigarette stubs and emptied glasses about him within thirty minutes of the robbery, was evidently in fear of interruption. An onlooker would have seen him take three gin fizzes in rapid succession until indeed his face wore a faint flush. He listened keenly when outside his door footsteps lingered. And he was snoring alcoholically when the hotel clerk entered, bringing with him Messrs. Devlin and O’Brien.
“He’s been like this for days,” Graham, the clerk, asserted. “If it wasn’t that he was no trouble and made no noise I should have told him to get out. A pity,” Graham shook his head, “one of the pleasantest-spoken men in the hotel, and some golfer, they tell me.”
“You leave us,” Devlin commanded. “We are acting for the boss and it’ll be all right.”
Out of the corner of his eye Trent watched the two trained men make a thorough examination of his room and effects. Indeed, their thoroughness gave him ideas which were later to prove of use. But they drew blank. They examined the two fly rods he had brought with him and a collapsible landing net with great care, tapping the handles and balancing the rods. They sighed when nothing was found.
“This guy is all right,” said O’Brien.
“I don’t know,” said Devlin. “He looks a little too much like a moving-picture hero to suit me. He may have it on him.”
At this moment Trent sat up with an effort and looked from one to the other of the visitors. As drunken men do, it appeared not easy to get them in proper focus.
Devlin was not easily put in the wrong. His manner was most respectful.
“Mr. Dangerfield wants you to join him in a little game of bridge,” he began ingratiatingly.
“Sure,” said the inebriate. “Any time at all.” He attempted to get up.
“You can’t go like this,” Devlin assured him. “You’d better sober up a bit. Take a cold bath.”
O’Brien obligingly turned the water on and five minutes later Devlin assisted him into the tub, while O’Brien examined the clothes he had left in his sitting-room.
Then the two left him abruptly and made no more mention of bridge or Dangerfield. Trent rolled on the bed chuckling. The honors were his.
The great black bird swooping from nowhere to relieve Dangerfield of his great ruby and other stones of value, to strike that worthy upon his strong wrists with such startling effect as to make him fall down a dozen steps, was capable of a simpler explanation than he had supposed.
Trent, a week before the robbery, had observed with peculiar attention the window leading to Dangerfield’s private stairway. He could see one easy approach to it and one of greater difficulty. The first was approach by a step-ladder. The second was a great arm of the enormous tree that reared its head above the hotel roof. This arm hung down from the roof almost twenty feet above the little window. He believed that his weight would bring it swaying down to the window-ledge. He tried it one moonless night and found the scheme feasible. Already the chiller mountain breezes following the heat spell were making visitors close their windows. On the evening of the third of September he stole from his room by climbing over the roof until he came to the side where the big tree was. In one hand he held a coil of rope to hold the branch when his weight was taken off it. This rope he tied to the iron staple of the shutter outside the window. It was easy to open this.
Dropping silently on to the stairs, he unscrewed the bulb of the light until the staircase was in partial darkness. Tense, he knelt on the edge of the window and waited for the millionaire. And as the man came in sight he suddenly lifted from a step his landing net, the same collapsible one Devlin had examined with such care. But this time it was draped in dark material to conceal its form. The brass rim, sharp andheavy, struck Dangerfield’s wrists as he held the box by both hands on a level with his heart. Into the open net the precious casket fell silently. Trent was in his room ten minutes ere Dangerfield came to consciousness. His next move seemed strange and unnecessary. With a used golf ball in his pocket, he slid down the veranda posts until he came, by devious routes, to the shed in which the lockers were of those who used the links. It had long since been closed for the night. Parker unfastened Dangerfield’s locker and placed the ball in the pocket, where it lay with others of similar age and make.
He was able to return to his room unobserved. It was less than a half hour afterward that he received his call from the two detectives.
Although he was anxious to get on the links again and breathe the air of the pine woods, he was careful not to undo his artistic preparations. It was noticed that no more drink was sent to his room. There came instead ice water and strong coffee. He was getting over it, they said. Two days later he was out on the links and made a peculiarly bad round, taking ten more strokes than usual. Dangerfield watched him from the piazza. One of his arms was in a sling.
“Cut the rough stuff out,” said Dangerfield, “that’s the second time you topped your ball.”
Trent passed a hand across his face, possibly to hide a smile.
“I guess I’ll have to,” he returned simply. “It was that damned heat wave that got me going.”
It happened that the Dangerfields and Trent returned to New York on the same train. Devlin andO’Brien were in attendance. Trent noticed that when Devlin’s eye fell on the golf bag over his shoulder he frowned. So far the ruby had not been recovered and here was a piece of baggage that might hold crown jewels. Over Devlin’s broad shoulders his master’s golf bag was suspended. Cheerily and with respect he approached the crack player.
“Let me hold your golf bag, sir,” he said with a ready smile. “I’ll put it on the train for you.”
Trent relinquished it with relief. “Thank you,” he returned, “it will be a help.”
He had long ago noticed that his own bag and Dangerfield’s were alike save for the initials. They were both of white canvas, bound with black leather. Watching the smiling Devlin with a well-disguised curiosity, he saw that Dangerfield’s bag had been substituted for his own. Devlin had done exactly as Trent expected him to do and had, in the doing of it, saved him much trouble.
There were not many people in his Pullman. Dangerfield had his private car. None saw Anthony Trent open the ball pouch on the Dangerfield bag and extract therefrom an aged and somewhat dented ball. He balanced it almost lovingly in his hand. Never in the history of the great game had a ball been seen with the worth of this one. And yet he had so cunningly extracted its core and repaired it when once the Mount Aubyn ruby was nestling in its strange home that detection was unlikely, even were an examination made. A porter had the Dangerfield bag and Trent’s suitcase when Devlin came up to him. He was no longer obliging. He had spent wearisome hours in the privacyof the Dangerfield car examining every part of the Trent impedimenta. The task had wearied him and had been fruitless.
“You got the boss’s clubs,” he said shortly.
Languidly Trent examined what his porter carried.
“You’re to blame for it,” he answered, and as Mr. Dangerfield came up raised his voice a little. He knew Devlin suspected him, and he sensed that some day the two would meet as open foes.
“This man of yours,” cried Trent, “tried to give me your clubs instead of my own. I wouldn’t lose mine for anything.”
“You crack golfers couldn’t do anything without your own specially built clubs,” jeered the millionaire, “I believe it’s half the game.”
Trent smiled.
“There’s something in the ball, too,” he admitted, and had difficulty in keeping his face straight.
Mrs. Kinney was delighted to see her employer home again, and hurried to a convenient delicatessen store so that he might be fed. It was when she came back that her eye caught sight of the brass lamp from Benares.
Where had been the unsightly gap caused by her breaking of the red glass was now a piece which glittered gaily.
“Why, you’ve had it mended, sir,” she cried. “I feel I ought to pay for it, since it was my carelessness which broke it.”
“I’m glad you did,” he laughed. “If you hadn’t I shouldn’t have got this.” He looked at it with pride. “Do you know, Mrs. Kinney, I like this one better.”
“It makes the other ones look common though,” she commented.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I think I shall have to replace them, too.”
ONEday, months before the affair of the ten ambulances, Horace Weems had seen Anthony Trent about to enter Xeres’ excellent restaurant. Lacking no assurance Weems tacked himself on to his friend.
“Say, do you feed here?” he demanded and looked with respect at his friend’s raiment.
“Only when I’m hungry,” Trent retorted. He knew it was useless to try to get rid of Weems. “Have you dined?”
“Thanks,” said Weems, “I don’t mind if I do.”
In those days Weems was proud as the owner of the finest camp on Lake Kennebago. He was high stomached and generous of advice. He told Trent so much of a certain stock—a gold mine in Colorado—that at last he purchased a considerable interest in it. Later he learned that Weems had unloaded worthless stock on him. Trent bore no sort of malice. He had gone into the thing open-eyed and Weems, as he knew of yore, never sold at a loss.
Weems had been wiser to have held his stock for tungsten in large quantities was discovered and what cost Trent five thousand dollars was now worth ten times that amount.
It was one evening shortly after his adventures with the Baron von Eckstein that Weems called him up onthe telephone. That he was able to do so annoyed Trent who had carefully concealed his number. But Horace Weems had secured it by a use of mendacity and with it the number and the address. He said he was ’phoning from a nearby drug store and was about to pay a visit.
Weems was ill at ease. And he was unshaven and his shoes no longer shone with radiance. His disheveled appearance and attitude of dejection swept away his host’s annoyance. He took a stiff Scotch and seltzer.
“Little Horace Weems,” he announced, “has got it in the neck!”
“What’s happened?” Trent demanded.
“Got that Wall Street bunch sore on me and hadn’t the sense to see the danger signals.” Weems soothed his throat with another stiff drink. “The trouble with me is I’m too courageous. I knew what I was up against but did that frighten me? No siree, no boss, I went for ’em like you used to go through a bunch of forwards in a football game. I’m like a bull terrier. I’m all fight. Size don’t worry me. They pulled me down at last but it took all the best brains in the ‘Street’ to do it. They hate a comer and I’m that. Well, this is the first round and they win on points but this isn’t a limited bout. You watch little Horace. I’ll have a turbine steam yacht yet and all the trimmings. Follow me and you’ll wear diamonds or rags—nothing between. Rags or diamonds.”
Weems was a long time coming to the point. When he did it was revealed as a loan, a temporary loan.
“It’s like this,” said the ingenuous Weems, “whenI sold you those shares in a tungsten mine I did it because you were a friend.”
“You did it,” Trent reminded him, “because you hadn’t a faint idea there was tungsten there and you thought you’d done something mighty clever. What next?”
“You needn’t be sore about it,” Weems returned, “you made money.”
“I’m not sore,” Trent said smiling. “You did me a good turn but I don’t have to be grateful all things considering. How much do you want?”
“I shall get back,” Weems said a little sulkily. “I only want a hundred or maybe two hundred, although five hundred would see me through till I get the money for the camp.”
“You are not going to sell that?” Trent cried. It was of all places the one he craved.
“Got to,” Weems asserted.
“Who is going to buy it?”
“A fellow from Cleveland named Rumleigh.”
“I remember him,” Trent said frowning, “he’s a hog, a fish hog. All the guides hate him. What’s he going to give you?”
“Forty thousand,” said Weems.
“Constable, grand piano and all?”
“The piano’s there,” Weems told him, “but the picture is sold. Honest, Tony, that picture surprised me. Senator Scrivener gave me ten thousand dollars for it. Just some trees, an old barn and some horses looking over a gate. What do you know about that? That helped me some.”
“You’re such a damned liar, Weems, that I never believe you but I’ll swear Rumleigh isn’t paying youforty thousand dollars for that camp. It’s a good camp but if you’ve got to sell in a hurry he’ll hold you down to less than that. Be honest for once and tell me what he’s going to give.”
“Twenty-two thousand,” Weems said sullenly.
“I’ll give you twenty-five,” said Trent carelessly.
“His is a cash offer,” Weems said shaking his head, “and that’s why I’m selling so cheap.”
Trent took a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off before Weems’ astounded eyes five and twenty thousand dollars.
“Mine is also a cash offer,” he observed.
“Come right off to my lawyer,” Weems cried springing to his feet. “Gee, and I thought you hadn’t as much money as I have.”
Thus it was that Anthony Trent came into possession of his camp. It was a beautiful place and there were improvements which he planned that would cost a lot to execute. He decided that it might be unwise to retire yet from a profession which paid him such rewards. Another year and he could lay aside his present work satisfied that financial worries need never trouble him. He admitted that many unfortunate things might happen in twelve months but he was serene in the belief that his star was in the ascendant.
Since Anthony Trent had replaced the red glass in his Benares lamp with the Mount Aubyn ruby, the other pieces of cut glass seemed so dull by comparison that had his visitors been many, suspicion must have arisen from the very difference they exhibited. The lamp was discreetly swung in a distant corner and the button which lighted the lamp carefully concealed.
Reading one morning that owing to the financial trouble into which the war had plunged a great West of England family, the celebrated Edgcumbe sapphire had been purchased by a New York manufacturer of ammunition—one of the new millionaires created by the war to buy what other countries had to sacrifice.
The papers gave every necessary particular. At ten o’clock one morning Anthony Trent sallied forth to loot. By dinner time the Edgcumbe sapphire had replaced the blue cube of cut glass and in his lamp the papers were devoting front page space to its daring abduction. How he accomplished it properly belongs to another chapter in the life of the master criminal. So easy was it of consummation that he planned to use the same technique for a greater coup.
When these two great stones were making his brazen lamp a thing of flashing beauty they threw into infinite dullness the cube of green. Looking at itnight after night when Mrs. Kinney was long abed and the grateful silences had drowned the noise of day, Anthony Trent longed for an emerald to bear these lordly jewels company.
There was an excellent second-hand book store on Thirty-second street, between Seventh avenue and Sixth, where he browsed often among waiting volumes. One day he picked up a book, written in French, “Romances of Precious Stones.” It was by a Madame Sernin, grandniece of the great Russian novelist Feoder Vladimir Larrovitch. Trent remembered that he had read her translation ofCrasny BabaandGospodi Pomi, and looked at this original work with interest. It was published in Paris just before the war.
He knew well that most of the great stones which had became famous historically were still in Europe. And Europe, until the long war was over, was closed to him. He hoped Madame Sernin had something to say about American-owned jewels. There was a reference in the index and later, in his rooms, he read it eagerly. There were, Mme. Sernin announced, but two of the great emeralds in the United States. One belonged to the wife of the Colombian minister and was found in Colombia. Trent considered this stone carefully. It might not be in the United States after all. Mme. Sernin was doubtful herself. But of the second stone she was certain. It was known as the Takowaja Emerald. A century and a half before it had been dug from the Ural Mountains. That great “commenceuse,” the second Catherine of Russia, had given it to her favorite, Gregory Orlov, who had sold it to a traveling English noble in a day beforeAmerican gold was known in Continental Europe.
It was now the property of Andrew Apthorpe, of Boston in Massachusetts. Presumably the man was a collector, and assuredly he was wealthy, but Anthony Trent had never heard of him. A trip by boat to Boston would make a pleasant break and a day later he was steaming north. His inevitable golf clubs accompanied him. Trent was one of those natural-born players whose game suffer little if short of practice. And of late he had not stinted himself of play. He told Mrs. Kinney he was going to Edgartown for a few days. He had sometimes played around these island links; and his bag of clubs was always an excellent excuse for traveling in strange parts.
Directly he had registered at the Adams House he consulted a city directory. Andrew Apthorpe’s town house was in the same block on Beacon street which held the Clent Bulstrode mansion.
It was a vast, forbidding residence of red brick running back to the Charles embankment. The windows were small and barred and the shades drawn. An empty milk bottle and a morning paper at a basement door gave evidence of occupancy. And at the garage at the rear a burly chauffeur was cleaning the brass work of a touring car. Looking wisely and suspiciously at Trent as he sauntered by was an Airedale. The family, Trent surmised, was absent and the caretaker, who rose late if the neglected Post was a sign, and this man and dog were left to guard the place.
If the Takowaja emerald were housed here with two such guardians its recovery might not be difficult. But the more Trent thought of it the moreimprobable it seemed that the owner of such a gem should leave it prey to any organized attack. The curious part about this Ural emerald was that Trent had never before heard of it and he knew American owned stones well. Most of the owners of famous jewels were ready to talk of them, lend them for exhibition purposes when they were properly guarded, but he had never seen a line about the Apthorpe emerald.
A few minutes before midday Anthony Trent strolled into the Ames building and saw that Andrew Apthorpe, cotton broker, occupied very large offices. A little later he followed one of the Apthorpe clerks, a well-dressed, good-looking young man, to the place where he lunched. It was curiously unlike a New York restaurant. Circular mahogany counters surrounded self possessed young women who permitted themselves to attend to those who hungered. To such as they knew and liked they were affable. To others their front was cold and severe.
The Apthorpe employee was a favorite, apt at retort and not ill pleased if others noted it. Soon he drifted into conversation with Trent, who with his careful mind had read through the column devoted to cotton in the morning papers and was ready with a carefully remembered phrase or two for the stranger who responded in kind.
Gradually, by way of the Red Sox, the beauties of Norumbega Park and the architectural qualities of Keith’s, the young man lapsed into personalities and told Anthony Trent all he desired to know of Andrew Apthorpe. Andrew, it seemed, was not beloved of his employees. He was unappreciative of merit unless itaccompanied female beauty. He was old; he was ill. His family had abandoned him with the sincere reluctance that wealth is ever abandoned.
“He lives up at Groton,” said Trent’s loquacious informant, “in a sort of castle on a hill fitted with every burglar resisting device that was ever invented.”
“What’s he afraid of?” Trent demanded.
“He’s got a lot of valuables,” the other answered, “cut gems and cameos and intaglios and things that wouldn’t interest any one but an old miser like him. I have to go up there once in a while. The old boy has an automatic in his pocket all the while. I think he’s crazy.”
There were two or three men at Camp Devens whom Trent knew slightly. The Camp was within walking distance of Groton, he learned. By half past nine on the following morning Anthony Trent left Ayer behind him and breasted the rising ground towards Groton. He could go to the Camp later. He might not go at all but if questioned as to his presence the excuse would be a just one. He was always anxious that his motives would pass muster with the police if ever he came in contact with them.
After a couple of miles he came in sight of the beautiful tower of Groton School Chapel. Two or three times he had played for his school against this famous institution in the years that seemed now so far behind him. The town of Groton, some distance from the more modern school, charmed his senses. Restful houses among immemorial elms, well kept gardens and a general air of contentment made the town one to be remembered even in New England.
He hoped he would be able to find something aboutApthorpe from some local historian without having to lead openly to the matter. A luncheon at the famous Inn might discover some such informant. But he was not destined to enter that admirable hostelry for coming toward him, with dignified carriage and an aura of fragrant havana smoke about him, was Mr. Westward whom he had known slightly at Kennebago. This Mr. Westward was the most widely known fisherman on the famous lake, an authority wherever wet-fly men foregathered.
Trent would have preferred to meet none who knew him by name. This was a professional adventure and not a trout fishing vacation. But the angler had already recognized him and there was no help for it. Westward rather liked Anthony Trent as he liked all men who were skilled in the use of the wet-fly and were, in his own published words, “high-minded, fly-fishing sportsmen.”
“Why, my dear fellow,” said Westward genially, “what are you doing in my home town?”
“I’d no idea you lived here,” Trent said, shaking his hand. “I thought you were a New Yorker.”
Westward pointed to a modest house. “This is what I call my office,” he explained. “I do my writing there and house my fishing tackle and my specimens.”
“I wish you’d let me see them,” Trent suggested smiling. “I’ve often marveled at the way you catch ’em.”
It was past twelve when he had finished talking over what Mr. Westward had to show. He realized he had forgotten the matter which brought him to Groton. When Mr. Westward asked him to luncheonhe hesitated a moment. This hesitation was born not of a disinclination to accept the angler’s hospitality but rather to the feeling that he was out for business and if he failed at it might be led as a criminal to whatever jail was handy. And were he thus a prisoner it would embarrass a good sportsman. But Mr. Westward gained his point and led Trent to a big rambling house further down the street that was a rich store house of the old and quaint furniture of Colonial days.
Mrs. Westward proved to be a woman of charm and culture, endowed with a quick wit and a gift of entertaining comment on what local happenings were out of the ordinary.
“Has Charles told you of the murder?” she asked.
“We’ve been talking fish,” Anthony Trent explained.
“Oh you fishermen!” she laughed. “I often tell my husband he won’t take any notice of the Last Trump if he’s fishing or talking of trout. We actually had a murder here last night.”
“I hope it was some one who could be easily spared,” Trent returned, “and not a friend.”
“I could spare him,” Mrs. Westward said decisively. “I know his wife and she has my friendship but for Andrew Apthorpe I have never cared.”
“Apthorpe?” Trent cried. “The cotton man?”
“The same,” Mrs. Westward assured him.
Anthony Trent was suddenly all attention. He surmised that the murder of so rich a man was actuated by a desire for his collection. And if so, where was the Takowaja emerald?
“Please tell me,” he entreated, “murders fascinate me. If the penalty were not so severe I should engagein murder constantly. What was it? Revenge? Robbery?”
“Yes and no,” Charles Westward observed with that judicial air which confounded questioners. “Revenge no doubt. Robbery perhaps, but we are awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Apthorpe and her daughter. We shall not know until then whether his collection of valuables has been stolen.”
“What about the revenge theory?” Trent inquired.
“Apthorpe made many enemies as a younger man. Physically he was violent. There are no doubt many who detested him. Personally I had no quarrel with him. I sent him a mess of trout from the Unkety brook this season and had a little talk with him over the phone but he saw few except his lawyer and business associates.”
“Is any one suspected in particular?” Trent asked.
“The whole thing is mysterious,” Mrs. Westward declared with animation. “Last night at eight o’clock I received a telephone message from his nurse, a Miss Thompson, a woman I hardly know. Once or twice I have seen her at the Red Cross meetings but that is all. She apologized for calling but said she felt nervous. It seems that Mr. Apthorpe had let all the servants go off to the band concert at Ayer. There were two automobiles filled with them. The only people left were Miss Thompson in the house and a gardener who lives in a cottage on the grounds. They left the house just after dinner—say half past seven. At a quarter to eight a stranger called to see Mr. Apthorpe.”
“Accurately timed,” commented Mr. Westward.
“Miss Thompson declined to admit him. You mustunderstand, Mr. Trent, that Andrew Apthorpe was a very sick man, heart trouble mainly, and she was within her rights. The man who would not give his name put his foot in the door and said he would see Mr. Apthorpe if he waited there all night. While she was arguing with him, begging him, in fact, to go away, her employer came to the head of the stairs that lead from the main rooms to the hall. Miss Thompson explained what had happened. To her surprise he said, ‘I have been expecting him for twenty years. Let him in.’”
“Why should she call you up?” Trent asked.
“Merely because she was nervous and knew other people even less than she did me.” Mrs. Westward hesitated a moment. “There have been rumors about her and Mr. Apthorpe which were not pleasant. They were probably not true but when a man has lived as he had it was not surprising. She called me up at eight because the two men were quarreling. My husband told you he was a man of violent temper. That is putting it mildly. I told her there was nothing to be alarmed about. At nine she called me up again to say that she would be grateful if Mr. Westward and my nephew Richmond, who is staying with me, would go up there as she had heard blows struck and Mr. Apthorpe was too ill to engage in any sort of tussle. I told her my two men were out but that the police should be called in. While I was talking she gave a shriek—it was a most dramatic moment and I could hear her steps running from the telephone.”
“My nephew and I came in at that moment,” Westward interrupted, “and went up the hill to the houseas fast as possible. Mrs. Westward meanwhile had telephoned for the police. Miss Thompson was waiting on the steps. She was hysterical and afraid to go back into the lonely house.”
“Richmond said he thought she had been drinking,” his wife interjected.
“That meant nothing,” Westward observed, “she was hysterical and I don’t wonder in that great lonely house. When we went in with the police we found the big living room door locked with the key on the inside. We had to break it open and found it bolted. Evidently the stranger had seen to that. Old Apthorpe was lying dead shot through the head with a bullet from his own revolver. The window was open. There was a twelve-foot drop to the grass outside and the man had lowered himself by a portiere. So far not a trace has been found of him. A great many people pass through here on the way to or from Boston and we have become so used to strangers that no heed is paid to them any more.”
“Was there any evidence of robbery?” Trent asked.
“Not a trace so far as we could see. I mean by that there was no disorder. Things of value might have been taken but nothing had been broken open. We shan’t know until Mrs. Apthorpe comes.”
“It was evidently,” Mr. Westward declared, “some man whom he had been expecting. Miss Thompson, according to her story, did not know the man’s name and yet was told to admit him. It may be the police will find it from correspondence.”
“I doubt it,” Trent observed shaking his head. “If it was a man Apthorpe had dreaded for a score of years he wouldn’t be corresponding with him.”
“Then why was he admitted?” asked Mrs. Westward.
“Consider the circumstances,” Anthony Trent reminded her. He was becoming thoroughly interested. “Here he was almost in the house, his foot in the door. All the servants were away. No matter what Apthorpe said he would have got in. What more likely than that the proud overbearing old man felt sufficient confidence in his nerve and his revolver? Or if he didn’t he would not admit it. The curious part to my mind was how this unknown timed it so exactly. He turned up just as the servants were going out for the evening.” He turned to Mrs. Westward, “Why didn’t Miss Thompson telephone for police aid do you suppose? Does it seem strange to you that she telephoned to you instead?”
“Knowing Andrew Apthorpe it does not,” she answered. “He would have been furious if she had done so. To begin with he has had many squabbles with the local authorities over trumpery matters. He was most unpopular. The last thing he would have desired would be to have them in his house. None of the servants were from Groton and he would not have them associating with local people.”
Anthony Trent ruminated for a little. So far nothing had been developed which offered a reasonable solution of the problem. And the problem for him was a different one from that which would confront the police. Trent’s problem was to secure the Takowaja emerald. So far neither of the Westwards had mentioned it. Probably for the reason that they did not know of its existence. It would be unwise, he decided, to try to lead them to talk of the dead man’s collection of jewels. But he felt reasonably certain in his own mind that in this carefully guarded house, replete with burglar alarms and safety appliances, the treasure from the Ural Mountains had been reposing within a dozen hours. The stranger who had come after a score of years and had left murder in his trail, was more likely to have come for the great green stone than anything else.
“I wish I could have a look at the place,” he said presently.
“Amateur detective?” laughed Mrs. Westward.
“I can’t imagine anything being more exciting,” he admitted, “than to follow this mysterious man except, perhaps, to be the man himself and outwit the detectives.”
“Why not take Mr. Trent up there, Charles?”
Plainly Mr. Westward was not eager to do so. This was due to a dislike to invade premises under police supervision to which he had no business except a friendly curiosity. Still there would be no harm done. He had known the Apthorpes for years and perhaps Anthony Trent might be an aid. Some one had told him Trent was an expert in the oil market. He had no reason to believe him anything but a man of probity.
“It might be arranged,” he said slowly.
THEApthorpe estate ran parallel to the main street of the town but the house itself was perched on a hill almost a mile distant from it. A long winding ascent led to a big stone, turreted mansion commanding an extensive view of the country that lay about it. A well kept lawn three hundred yards in width surrounded the house.
“The place was built,” Mr. Westward explained, “by Colonel Crofton, the railroad man. On this lawn were great beds of rhododendrons which cost a great deal of money. When Apthorpe bought it he had them torn up and sown in grass. He said the flower beds and shrubberies were places where burglars might conceal themselves by day to break in by night.”
“He was certainly suspicious,” Trent commented.
Westward pointed to the house which rose like a fortress above them.
“When Crofton had it there were windows on the ground level and several entrances. Apthorpe had them filled with granite all except that big doorway opposite.”
By this time Trent was near enough to see that the house was not remote from buildings such as the stables and garages which are adjacent to most such residences. He remarked on the peculiarity.
“The automobiles are kept in the basement of the house,” Westward explained. “The big doors I pointed out to you cannot be opened by the chauffeurs. When they want to go out or come in they have to phone for permission. Then Mr. Apthorpe or some one else would touch a button in his big living room and the gates would swing open. He had a searchlight on the tower until the Federal authorities forbade it.”
“It seems to me he must have lived in dread of violence,” Trent observed, “and yet why should he? He was a well known Boston broker of an old New England family, not the kind one would think involved in crime. In fiction it is the man who comes home after spending half his life in the mysterious East that one suspects of robbing gods of their jeweled eyes and incurring the sworn vengeances of their priests.”
“All men who collect precious stones live in dread,” Charles Westward said. “I’ve never seen any of his things. I’m not interested in them particularly. I’ve always talked about fishing when I’ve been there, but it’s common knowledge that he was going to leave his valuables to the Museum of Fine Arts. One of the things which incensed his wife was that he wouldn’t give her or her daughter any of the jewels but preferred to keep them locked away.”
A flight of twenty granite steps led to the main entrance, two heavily built, metal studded doors. A lofty hall was disclosed with a circular stairway around it. Leading from the hall to what seemed the main room on that floor was a flight of six steps. The chestnut doors had been shattered. Obviously it wasthe room in which Apthorpe had met his death. For the rest it looked in no way different from half a hundred other rooms in big houses which Trent had investigated professionally. Bookshelves not more than four feet in height lined three sides of the apartment. Making a pretense of reading the titles Trent looked to see whether they were indeed volumes or mere blinds. The policeman in charge, knowing Mr. Westward well, was only too willing to show him and his friend what was to be seen. The body, he explained, was in an upper chamber.
One peculiarity Trent noted in the book cases. Apparently there was no way to open them. They were of metal painted over. If keyholes existed they were hidden from view. Fearing that the policeman in charge would notice his scrutiny, he walked over to the open window and looked out. It was from this that the murderer made his escape. Twelve feet below the green closely cropped turf touched the granite foundation of the walls.
When Mr. Westward offered him a cigar he took out his pipe instead and knocked out the ashes against the window ledge. Mr. Westward heard an exclamation of annoyance and asked its cause. Then he saw that while the stem of the pipe remained in its owner’s hand the bowl had fallen to the lawn below.
“I won’t be a minute,” Trent said, and went down the main steps to the grounds. It was no accident that led him to drop his favorite briar. His keen eyes had seen footprints in the grass as he looked down. They might well be the marks of him who had stolen the famous emerald and Trent had decreed a private vendetta against one who might have robbedhim for what he came into Massachusetts. Searching for the pipe bowl which he had instantly detected he made a rapid examination of the ground.
There were indeed footprints made undoubtedly by some one dropping from the end of the portiere to the soft turf. And as he gazed, the mysterious man whom he had suspected faded into thin air. They were the imprints of the high heels that only women wear! Carefully he followed them as far as the big gates of the garage. They were not distinct to any but a trained observer. They were single tracks leading from the grass beneath the window to the garage. Not an unnecessary step had been taken. Apparently the local police had pulled in the portiere from the window and had made no examination of the grass below.
Trent noticed that a man, evidently a gardener, was approaching him. Quickly he dropped the bowl of his pipe again among some clover. The man was eager and obliging. Furthermore he had heavily shod feet which were already making their impression on the turf to the undoing of any who might seek, as Anthony Trent had done, to make a careful examination. Already the high heeled imprints were obliterated.
When the pipe was found the man insisted on speaking of the murder. He declared that for an hour on the fatal night a big touring car had been drawn up near his cottage in a lane nearby and that two men got out of it leaving another in charge.
Trent shook him off as soon as he could and returned to the house, his previously held theories wholly upset. He had built them in the facts or falsitiescarefully supplied by Miss Thompson and he was anxious to see the lady. It was most likely that the woman who had lowered herself from the window was the woman who had committed the murder. And for what could the crimes have been committed so readily as the Takowaja emerald?
He recalled now that there had been a certain reserve in the Westwards’ manner when they had spoken of Miss Thompson. Might they not have suspected her and yet feared to voice these suspicions to a stranger?
As he thought it over he came to the conclusion that it was not of the crime of murder they suspected her but perhaps because of her relations with so notorious a man as the late Andrew Apthorpe. He remembered that the dead man’s family was alienated from him, possibly for this very reason.
He was given an opportunity very shortly to see the nurse. She came along the hall, not seeing him as he stood in the entrance, and made her way toward Mr. Westward. She was a tall woman, quietly dressed and not in nurses’ uniform. Her walk was studied and her gestures exaggerated. She was that hard, blond type overladen with affectation to one who observed carelessly. But Trent could see she had a jaw like a prize fighter and her carefully pencilled eyes were intrinsically bellicose. She had a big frame and was, he judged, muscularly strong. And of course nurses must have good nerves. If she had the emerald he was determined to obtain, it would not be an easy conquest.
Her greeting of Mr. Westward was effusive. Indeed it seemed too effusive to please him. He wascourteous and expressed sympathy. She talked volubly. She related in detail the events of the previous night and the listener noticed that she was letter perfect. The only new angle he got was a description of the supposed murderer. According to Nurse Thompson he was about fifty, wore a short grizzled moustache, was of medium height but very broad, and dressed in a dark gray suit. In accent she judged him to be a Westerner. She would recognize him, she declared dramatically, among ten million.
Trent had no wish to meet her—yet. He had seen her, recognized a predacious and formidable type and had observed she wore expensive shoes with fashionably high heels.
Presently Charles Westward joined him.
“I’ve been talking to Miss Thompson,” he volunteered.
“I saw you,” Trent said, “but supposed it was one of the family. She wasn’t dressed as a nurse.”
“She doesn’t act like one,” Westward answered. “Richmond was right. That woman drinks. I don’t like her, Mr. Trent.”
“I suppose she needs sympathy now that her position is lost?”
The more Anthony Trent thought over the matter the more thoroughly he became convinced that the mysterious stranger of whom the nurse spoke had no existence. If she had killed her employer she would not have done so unless it were to her advantage. And what better reason could there be, were she criminally minded, than some of his famous jewels? Trent determined to follow the thing up. He chuckled to think that he was now on the opposite side of the fence, thehunter instead of the hunted. But that was no reason that he should aid his enemy the law. If he devoted his talents to the running down of the murderer he wanted the reward for himself.
Supposing that she had planned the crime, the opportunity was hers when she had the old man alone in the house. She would have been far too clever to use her knowledge of drugs to poison him. By such a ruse she would inevitably have incurred suspicion. If his assumption were correct she had been very clever. At eight o’clock she had started the ball rolling. At nine she had strengthened her position by some acting clever enough to deceive Mrs. Westward. And when they had reached her primed by her story of the threatening stranger they had found her waiting hysterically for their aid. No doubt she had been drinking. Most women hate using firearms for violent purposes unless the act is one of suddenly inspired fury when the deed almost synchronizes with the impelling thought.
She had planned the thing carefully. She had, if his theory held, probably shot the old man as he sat reading. Then she had locked and barred the great doors and lowered herself to the ground and entered by the garage door which she could have opened from above. Thus the men coming to her aid found a scene prepared which her ingenuity had led them to expect as entirely reasonable.
“By the way,” he demanded suddenly, “how long was the doctor or coroner in getting to Mr. Apthorpe?”
“He didn’t get there until midnight. His motor broke down.”
It was thus impossible to fix accurately the time of Apthorpe’s death.
As they turned from the drive into Groton’s main street a big limousine passed them. To its occupants Mr. Westward raised his hat.
“Mrs. Apthorpe,” he explained, “her daughter and son-in-law, Hugh Fanwood. The other man was Wilkinson the lawyer who acts for Mrs. Apthorpe.” He paused as another car turned into the drive. “Look like detectives,” he commented. “We are well out of it.”
That night Anthony Trent went back to New York. Twenty-four hours later his fast runabout drew up at the Westward’s hospitable home.
“I brought my car over from Boston,” he explained untruthfully, “on my way back to New York by way of the Berkshires and dropped in to see if there was any news in the Apthorpe murder case. The Boston papers had very little I didn’t already know.”
He learned a great deal that interested him. First that Nurse Thompson had been left fifty thousand dollars in the Apthorpe will. This, on the advice of counsel, would not be contested, as the widow desired, on the ground of undue influence. Her daughter Mrs. Hugh Fanwood was not desirous of publicity.
Secondly one of the most famous jewels in the world had been stolen.
“Imagine it,” Mrs. Westward exclaimed, “for five years an emerald that was once in a Tsarina’s crown has been within a mile of us and not a soul in Groton knew of it. It was worth a fortune.Nowwe know why the poor man was done to death.”
“Have they any clue?” he demanded.
“They have offered a reward of ten thousand dollars. Miss Thompson’s description of the man has been circulatedwidely and caused arrests in every town in the state. The house is being searched by a detective agency but we all believe it’s useless. I don’t think Amelia Apthorpe behaved at all well. She insisted on having everybody searched who was in the house. Not Charles of course but every one she didn’t know and some whom she did.”
“I was in the house,” Trent reminded them, “perhaps I ought to offer myself.”
“No, no,” Westward exclaimed, “I told Mrs. Apthorpe who you were. I said you bought the Stanley camp on Kennebago and that I could vouch for you.”
“That’s mighty nice of you,” Trent responded warmly. It was at a moment like this when he realized he was deceiving a good sportsman that he hated the life he had chosen. It was one of the reasons that he denied himself friends. “Did she have any sort of scrap with Miss Thompson?”
“It’s too mild a word,” said Westward. “After the nurse’s things were searched she was told to go. Then she said she should bring an action against Mrs. Apthorpe for defamation of character and illegal search. She promised that there would be enough scandal unearthed to satisfy even the yellow press. I don’t suppose poor Amelia Apthorpe knew there were such lurid words in or out of the dictionary until the Thompson woman flung them at her.”
“Will she bring action, do you think?”
“I think she’s too shrewd. From what Hugh Fanwood told me they had looked up her record and found it shady. Shewasa graduate nurse once. Her diploma is genuine and the doctor here tells me she knew her business, but there are other things thatshe wouldn’t want in print. I think we’ve seen the last of her. She’ll get her fifty thousand dollars and when she’s gone through that she’ll find some other old fool to fall for her.”
So far, Trent’s conjecture as to her character had been accurate. The death of Apthorpe meant a large sum of money to her while the legacy remained unrevoked. He could not marry her since he was not divorced from his wife. Perhaps he had believed in her sufficiently to show her his peerless emerald. Or perhaps he had only hinted at its glories and she had become possessed of the secret of its whereabouts. In any case Anthony Trent firmly believed she had it. It was quite likely that she had secreted it somewhere in the grounds of the mansion to retrieve it without risk later on. What woman except Nurse Thompson would have lowered herself from the room to the turf below on the night of the murder? And was it not likely that the emerald was the cause of the tragedy? The whole history of precious stones could be written in blood. In any case it was a working hypothesis sound enough for Trent to have faith in.
In accordance with the advice of lawyers and relatives Mrs. Andrew Apthorpe decided to place no obstacle in the way of the departure of Nurse Thompson. She told Mrs. Westward she was certain the woman had taken the diamond ring she flaunted and that it had not been a gift, as she claimed, from her employer. Furthermore it was evident that she had made a good deal of money in padding the household expenses.
Detectives, meanwhile, clinging faithfully to the description so generously amplified by Miss Thompsonof the thief in the night, were hunting everywhere for him and his loot.
TheWest Groton Gazettesupplied Anthony Trent with some much needed information. It printed in its social columns the news that Miss Norah Thompson was to make an extended stay in the West, making her first long stop at San Francisco. Until then she was staying with a married sister in East Boston. Since the name was given in full Anthony Trent had little difficulty in finding what he needed. An operative from a Boston detective agency gleaned the facts while Trent made a pleasant stay at the Touraine. To the operative he was a Mr. Graham Maltby of Chicago.
When he went West on the same train as the now resplendent Miss Norah Thompson he was possessed of a vast amount of information concerning her. In St. Louis six years before she had badly beaten a man whom she declared had broken his engagement to marry her. She was a singularly violent disposition and had figured in half a dozen cases which wound up in police courts.