CHAPTER XIV.
THE MARKED NAMES.
As Grail turned back into his quarters, after seeing Meredith off, that night of her arrival from Chicago, his face had fallen into lines of troubled solicitude, and he gave an ominous shake of the head, for it was idle to deny that the startling news concerning Sasaku had filled him with the gravest sort of misgivings. Indicating that this was no ordinary game of hide and seek, such as the gumshoe men of the various powers are accustomed to play with each other, but a sinister intrigue, prepared to balk at nothing to gain its ends, it raised a serious question as to the possible fate which had befallen the colonel.
Hurriedly summoning his “striker,” he sent him out for a copy of the extraHeraldcontaining an account of the murder; then, when the paper had arrived, he devoted himself to a careful perusal and analysis of the details.
There was really but little to be gleaned. The body of the Japanese had been found on the stairs of a rooming house for laboring men, down near the river front, and, as Grail noted, not more than a block or two away from the Dolliver Foundry. Struck evidently from behind, by an unexpected knife thrust, as he was starting to go out, he had lurched forward, clutching at the banister, then sagged down lifeless on the third step from the top, his straw hat rolling on down the flight, and, by exciting the curiosity of a lodger on the floor below, leading, later on, to a discovery of the dead man.
Life had not been extinct more than half an hour when he was found, it was stated, and thus the time of the murder was definitely fixed at about two o’clock in the afternoon; yet, although a number of the occupants of the place had been in their rooms at that hour, no one could beunearthed who had heard any outcry or sound of altercation.
Indeed, there seemed an utter lack of any clew to indicate the motive or perpetrator of the crime. The door of the house was usually left open, all kinds of people coming and going at will; so it was assumed that the murderer must have entered deliberately, gained the third floor, then laid in wait in the dark hallway until Sasaku, all unsuspecting, came out. That the assassin did not belong in the house seemed certain, from the fact that the Japanese was an utter stranger in the place, having only engaged his room the afternoon before, and being, so far as could be learned, unacquainted with any of the other tenants. Besides, all those at home at the time of the affair were able to account satisfactorily for their movements.
Some significance, at first, was attached to the circumstance that the door of the room directly across the corridor from Sasaku’s was found ajar, whereas the man to whom the room belonged, a foundry worker by the name of Marice Matschka, was known to be very circumspect about keeping his door locked, and one of the fourth-floor lodgers, who had come in at noon, asserted that when he passed by the door had undoubtedly been closed.
Matschka, however, was able to prove conclusively that he himself had not been back to the place since leaving for work at six o’clock that morning, and also stoutly denied having given up his key, or sent any one else there. He was confident, he said, that he had locked the door behind him, as usual, that morning, but, of course, might be mistaken, and in that case it would have been an easy matter for the unlatched portal to have swung open in the draft.
There was, moreover, no reason to believe that he had known the Japanese, or could have harbored ill will against him for any cause, so this line of investigation was very speedily abandoned.
In short, the case was a puzzle, looked at from any angle. Sasaku’s scanty effects, consisting chiefly of his clothes, a few letters, and a notebook containing a few names and addresses, offered nothing in the way of a clew; nor did his history, so far as it could be traced out, disclose the existence of any enemies. He had been an affable, friendly sort of a little chap, generally well liked. Finally, it was plain that robbery was not the cause, since a diamond ring, a gold watch and chain, and some fifty dollars in his pocket, had been left untouched.
The police, all at sea for an adequate motive, had to fall back on the fantastic theory that he had been the victim of some sort of Oriental vendetta at the hands of his own countrymen; and, with great pretense at secret knowledge, made significant allusions to oath-bound clans and mysterious brotherhoods.
Grail had just about completed his reading of the newspaper narrative, digesting carefully not only what appeared, but also what lay between the lines, when Sergeant Cato entered and saluted him.
The sergeant was dusty and perspiring from what had evidently been an arduous day, but his beaming expression showed that his efforts had not been in vain.
“You’ve found out what I wanted, eh?” Grail glanced up eagerly.
“I think I’ve got it all, sir.”
“Good!” The adjutant nodded toward a chair, and extended a cigar. “Sit down and make yourself comfortable, sergeant, and let’s have the story as quickly as possible. I would tell you to go and get something to eat first, but things have been happening since you’ve been away that make haste imperative.”
“Oh, I’m not hungry, sir,” Cato assured him. “This beats a meal any old time”—puffing luxuriously at the perfecto—“and, besides, I had a sandwich over at Sunset Bluffs.”
“Sunset Bluffs, eh? Then youdidhave time to look up the motor-boat business for me?”
“Sure, sir. It came in yesterday morning, just as you said, billed to Otto Schilder, and was taken out on his order late yesterday afternoon by Mike Flannery, a truckman over there on the other side of the river.”
“And you talked to Flannery, of course?”
“No.” Cato shook his head. “He was out with his wagon. But I did better, sir. I had a chin with Flannery’s kid, a boy about ten years old.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, sir. He and I took in a moving-picture show together”—the sergeant grinned—“and before it was over I guess he had told enough to earn him the licking of his life, if the old man should ever find it out. His father, it seems, intended to haul the boat out to the lake last night, but just as he was getting ready to start out a stranger came around to engage him for an immediate moving job. A big, dark-eyed man, the boy said he was, who gave the name of Dabney, and seemed to be in a great hurry.”
“A big, dark-eyed man, who gave the name of Dabney,” Grail echoed. “Go on!”
“Well sir, Flannery, seeing a chance to squeeze in some extra money, took him up, and, leaving the boat there in his stable yard, went off with his truck and horses, expecting to be back and start for the lake about one o’clock, Dabney telling him that his job wouldn’t take more than that long. What with one thing and another, though, he didn’t get back until the six-o’clock whistles were blowing, and then, according to the kid, he sure turned the air blue. Somebody had borrowed the motor boat during his absence, for a joy ride—his yard is only a stone’s throw from the river—and it was a sight to look at, all covered with river mud and grease, and dripping wet inside and out. He was in an awful sweat for fear Schilder would find out about it, and he worked like a nailer for over two hours, cleaning it up and polishing the brasswork, before he dared set out with it for the lake. Funny thing, though,” Cato concluded, “he doesn’t suspect this man Dabney in the matter at all. He blames a gang of young roughs who live in the neighborhood.”
Grail smiled. “As you infer, sergeant, it was Dabney, all right,” he said. “He had need for a swift boat on the river last night, and he didn’t want the hiring of one to be traced to him. Consequently, he adopted this rather elaborate ruse to get hold of the one in Flannery’s care. Dabney, although passing himself off as an Englishman, and ostensibly conducting a real-estate office, is, I may as well tell you, the man tipped off to me by Sasaku as a Russian spy, and the leader of the operations to which Colonel Vedant has fallen victim.”
“Then you think,” Cato inquired quickly, “that the colonel was carried off in this motor boat?”
“Assuredly,” Grail answered, and briefly explained his theory of the seizure, and the employment of the electric crane to convey the prisoner and his captors outside of the inclosure.
“The next thing, of course,” he concluded, “was to gettheir man away as quickly and quietly as possible, and, naturally, the river suggested itself as the most convenient avenue.”
“That sounds plausible enough.” Cato thoughtfully scratched his head. “But what gets me, captain, is how did they know so much about the motor boat, and just how to get hold of it? Is this Dabney-ovitch, or whatever his real name is, a pal ofMr.Schilder’s?”
“No,” the adjutant admitted. “On the other hand, I think he has taken especial pains to avoid meeting Schilder, or coming under his eye. But”—he hesitated slightly—“the point you raise offers no difficulty. Take my word for it, sergeant, there was a way for Dabney to find out with absolute certainty anything he wanted.”
“And now,” he broke off, rather abruptly, “tell me what you discovered in regard to the cigarette?”
“Oh, that was easy.” Cato’s brows cleared. “I scored a bull’s-eye the second place I went into. It’s a little tobacco and stationery shop down on Third Street, and the old fellow who runs it is one of the talkative kind. He said he’d laid in a stock of these cigarettes for four customers of his who get their newspapers there every morning, and who live at a rooming house just around the corner. Here, I have the names.” He produced a card on which he had jotted a memorandum. “Miller Vance——”
“Ah!” Grail interrupted sharply. “The man who operated the crane. I had a very strong suspicion that he was Russian, for all his alias, and the American twist he had managed to acquire to his tongue. However, that is not especially important. Go on, sergeant.”
“I, Pepernik, Louis Minowsky,” read Cato, “and Maurice Matschka.”
“Maurice Matschka!” The officer sprang to his feet. “That is a link worth looking into,” he muttered. “Come on!” He caught up his hat, and gave a quick nod of the head toward Cato. “I am going to the city hall.”
Arriving at the municipal building, and proceeding to police headquarters, he was directed, on inquiry, to a certain Detective Krause, as having the case of the murdered Japanese in charge.
“What makes all you people out at the fort so interested in this affair, anyhow?” the detective asked, with a curious glance at Grail. “Major Appleby and Lieutenant Hemingway was over here before supper, and I told them all there was to know. The best I can do for you, captain, is just to go over the same ground.”
“Of course,” Grail assented, with a smile. “Still you know how it is,Mr.Krause; every one wants to hear a story at firsthand; and, as I was, perhaps, better acquainted with poor Sasaku than any of the other officers at the mess, there is just a possibility that I may be able to throw some light on the tragedy.”
As a matter of fact, the detective required very little urging. He had come to such an absolute halt in the investigation that he was only too willing to repeat the story to any one who offered even the faintest show of providing a solution.
His recital, though, if somewhat more diffuse, was practically the same as that which Grail had already read in the newspaper. He presented nothing new in the way of any material details.
“H’m!” The adjutant thoughtfully stroked his chin at the completion of the narrative. “There would be no objection, I suppose, to letting me examine the notebook which you say was found on Sasaku?”
“Certainly not, sir.” He stepped away to get it, adding, as he returned and handed it over: “You won’t find anything there to help you, captain. We’ve been over it already with a fine-tooth comb, and it seems nothing but a list of names and people he’d met; some of them in the city directory, and some not.”
Grail, however, evidently preferred to decide this point for himself; for slowly and painstakingly he ran over the pages, scrutinizing each entry carefully before he passed on to the next.
The detective, fidgeting at what he manifestly regarded as wasted time, presently excused himself, on the plea of wanting to do some telephoning, and sauntered off, and, with his going, Grail turned back a couple of pages to point out significantly to Cato the name of Dabney, with a little, almost indistinguishable mark set opposite it.
No further discovery was elicited until they reached the last page; then Grail gave a sudden start, as he read, with the same cabalistic mark against it, the name of Rezonoff.
“Rezonoff!” he muttered, with a frown of grave foreboding. “That can only be Count Boris Rezonoff, captain in the imperial engineers!”
Cato, gathering from his tone that something was seriously wrong, edged up closer.
“Is it bad, sir?” he whispered.
Grail vouchsafed no answer, but stood silent a moment, the look of apprehension growing on his face; then snapped open his watch and glanced at the time.
“Too early, by far,” he commented, under his breath. “I shall have to wait at least two hours yet.”
Meanwhile, Cato, glancing over his shoulder, had been reading down the page of the notebook, and now he gave a quick exclamation.
“There’s another name with that same mark against it,” he breathed excitedly. “Don’t you see it! Down there at the bottom, underneath your thumb!”
But Grail, as though recalled to himself, sharply closed the book.
“Oh, that one is of no consequence,” he insisted; yet he knew that it was, for he had already noted the name with the telltale check opposite.
In Sasaku’s stiff, angular handwriting was set down: “Mrs. Otto Schilder!”
TO BE CONTINUED.