As the outcome of information given by a well-known Senator, the police have obtained an important clue which leads straight to a house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street.
As the outcome of information given by a well-known Senator, the police have obtained an important clue which leads straight to a house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street.
“Well,” mused Winifred, wide-eyed with astonishment. “Fancy that! The very street where I live!”
She read on:
The arrest of at least one person, a woman, suspected of complicity in the crime may occur at any moment. Detectives are convinced that the trail of the murderers will soon be clearer.Every effort is being made to recover Mr. Tower’s body, which, it is conceivable, may have been weighted and sunk in the river near the spot where the boat was tied.
The arrest of at least one person, a woman, suspected of complicity in the crime may occur at any moment. Detectives are convinced that the trail of the murderers will soon be clearer.
Every effort is being made to recover Mr. Tower’s body, which, it is conceivable, may have been weighted and sunk in the river near the spot where the boat was tied.
Winifred gave more attention to the newspaper report than to her frugal meal. Resolving, however, that Miss Sugg should have no further cause for complaint that day, she returned to the factory five minutes before time. An automobile was standing outside the entrance, but she paid no heed to it.
The checker tapped at his little window as she passed.
“The boss wants you,” he said.
“Me!” she cried. Her heart sank. Between Miss Sugg and Mr. Fowle she had already probably lost her situation!
“Yep,” said the man. “You’re Winifred Bartlett, I guess. Anyhow, if there’s another peach like you in the bunch I haven’t seen her.”
She bit her lip and tears trembled in her eyes. Perhaps the gruff Cerberus behind the window sympathized with her. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper: “There’s a cop in there, an’ a ‘tec,’ too.”
Winifred was startled out of her forebodings.
“They cannot want me!” she said amazedly.
“You never can tell, girlie. Queer jinks happen sometimes. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they rounded up the boss hisself.”
She was sure now that some stupid mistakehad been made. At any rate, she no longer dreaded dismissal, and the first intuition of impending calamity yielded to a nervous curiosity as she pushed open a door leading to the general office.
Aclerk, one of the would-be swains who had met with chilling discouragement after working-hours, was evidently on the lookout for her. An ignoble soul prompted a smirk of triumph now.
“Go straight in,” he said, jerking a thumb. “A cop’s waitin’ for you.”
Winifred did not vouchsafe him even an indignant glance. Holding her head high, she passed through the main office, and made for a door marked “Manager.” She knocked, and was admitted by Mr. Fowle. Grouped around a table she saw one of the members of the firm, the manager, a policeman, and a dapper little man, slight of figure, who held himself very erect. He was dressed in blue serge, and had the ivory-white face and wrinkled skin of an actor. She was conscious at once of the penetration of his glance. His eyes were black and luminous. They seemed to pierce her with an X-ray quality of comprehension.
“This is the girl,” announced Mr. Fowle deferentially.
The little man in the blue suit took the lead forthwith.
“You are Winifred Bartlett?” he said, and by some subtle inter-flow of magnetism Winifred knew instantly that she had nothing to fear from this diminutive stranger.
“Yes,” she replied, looking at him squarely.
“You live in East One Hundred and Twelfth Street?”
“Yes.”
“With a woman described as your aunt, and known as Miss Rachel Craik?”
“Yes.”
Each affirmative marked a musical crescendo. Especially was Winifred surprised by the sceptical description of her only recognized relative.
“Well,” went on Clancy, suppressing a smile at the girl’s naïve astonishment, “don’t be alarmed, but I want you to come with me to Mulberry Street.”
Now, Winifred had just been reading about certain activities in Mulberry Street, and her eyebrows rounded in real amazement.
“Isn’t that the Police Headquarters?” she asked.
Fowle chuckled, whereupon Clancy said pleasantly:
“Yes. One man here seems to know the address quite intimately. But that fact need not set your heart fluttering. The chief of the Detective Bureau wishes to put a few questions. That is all.”
“Questions about what?”
Winifred’s natural dignity came to her aid. She refused to have this grave matter treated as a joke.
“Take my advice, Miss Bartlett, and don’t discuss things further until you have met Mr. Steingall,” said Clancy.
“But I have never even heard of Mr. Steingall,” she protested. “What right have you or he to take me away from my work to a police-station? What wrong have I done to any one?”
“None, I believe.”
“Surely I have a right to some explanation.”
“If you insist I am bound to answer.”
“Then I do insist,” and Winifred’s heightened color and wrathful eyes only enhanced her beauty. Clancy spread his hands in a gesture inherited from a French mother.
“Very well,” he said. “You are required to give evidence concerning the death of Mr. Ronald Tower. Now, I cannot say any more. I have a car outside. You will be detained less than an hour. The same car will bring you back, and I think I can guarantee that your employers will raise no difficulty.”
The head of the firm growled agreement. As a matter of fact the staid respectability of Brown, Son & Brown had sustained a shock by the mere presence of the police. Murder has an ugly aspect. It was often bound up in the firm’s products, but never before had it entered that temple of efficiency in other guise.
Clancy sensed the slow fermentation of the pharisaical mind.
“If I had known what sort of girl this was I would never have brought a policeman,” he muttered into the great man’s ear. “She has no more to do with this affair than you have.”
“It is very annoying—very,” was the peevish reply.
“What is? Assisting the police?”
“Oh, no. Didn’t mean that, of course.”
The detective thought he might do more harm than good by pressing for a definition of the firm’s annoyance. He turned to Winifred.
“Are you ready, Miss Bartlett?” he said. “The only reason the Bureau has for troubling you is the accident of your address.”
Almost before the girl realized the new and astounding conditions which had come into her life she was seated in a closed automobile and speeding swiftly down-town.
She was feminine enough, however, to ply Clancy with questions, and he had to fence with her, as it was all-important that such informationas she might be able to give should be imparted when he and Steingall could observe her closely. The Bureau hugged no delusions. Its vast experience of the criminal world rendered misplaced sympathy with erring mortals almost impossible. Young or old, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, the strange procession which passes in unending review before the police authorities is subjected to impartial yet searching analysis. Few of the guilty ones escape suspicion, no matter how slight the connecting clue or scanty the evidence. On the other hand, Steingall and his trusty aid seldom made a mistake when they decided, as Clancy had already done in Winifred’s case, that real innocence had come under the shadow of crime.
Steingall shared Clancy’s opinion the instant he set eyes on the new witness. He gazed at her with a humorous dismay that was wholly genuine.
“Sit there, Miss Bartlett,” he said, rising to place a chair for her. “Please don’t feel nervous. I am sure you understand that only those who have broken the law need fear it. Now,youhaven’t killed anybody, have you?”
Winifred smiled. She liked this big man’s kindly manner. Really, the police were not such terrifying ogres when you came to close quarters with them.
“No, indeed,” she said, little guessing thatClancy had indulged in a Japanese grimace behind her back, thereby informing his chief that “The Yacht Mystery” was still maintaining its claim to figure as one of the most sensational crimes the Bureau had investigated during many a year.
Steingall, wishing to put the girl wholly at ease, affected to consult some notes on his desk, but Winifred was too wrought up to keep silent.
“The gentleman who brought me here told me that I would be required to give evidence concerning the murder of Mr. Ronald Tower,” she said. “Believe me, sir, that unfortunate gentleman’s name was unknown to me before I read it in this morning’s paper. I have no knowledge of the manner of his death other than is contained in the account printed here in this newspaper.”
She proffered the newspaper purchased before lunch, which she still held in her left hand. The impulsive action broadened Steingall’s smile. He was still utterly at a loss to account for this well-mannered girl’s queer environment.
“Why,” he cried, “I quite understand that. Mr. Clancy didn’t tell you we regarded you as a desperate crook, did he?”
Winifred yielded to the chief’s obvious desire to lift their talk out of the rut of formality. She could not help being interested in these twomen, so dissimilar in their characteristics, yet each so utterly unlike the somewhat awesome personage she would have sketched if asked to define her idea of a “detective.” Clancy, who had taken a chair at the side of the table, sat on it as though he were an automaton built of steel springs and ready to bounce instantly in any given direction. Steingall’s huge bulk lolled back indolently. He had been smoking when the others entered, and a half-consumed cigar lay on an ash-tray. Winifred thought it would be rather amusing if she, in turn, made things comfortable.
“Please don’t put away your cigar on my account,” she said. “I like the smell of good tobacco.”
“Ha!” cackled Clancy.
“Thank you,” said Steingall, tucking the Havana into a corner of his mouth. The two men exchanged glances, and Winifred smiled. Steingall’s look of tolerant contempt at his assistant was distinctly amusing.
“That little shrimp can’t smoke, Miss Bartlett,” he explained, “so he is an anti-tobacco maniac.”
“You wouldn’t care to take poison, would you?” and Clancy shot the words at Winifred so sharply that she was almost startled.
“No. Of course not,” she agreed.
“Yet that is what that mountain of brawndoes during fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. Nicotine is one of the deadliest poisons known to science. Even when absorbed into the tissues in minute doses it corrodes the brain and atrophies the intellect. Did you see how he grinned when you described that vile weed as ‘good tobacco’? Now, you don’t know good, meaning real, tobacco from bad, do you?”
“I know whether or not I like the scent of it,” persisted Winifred. She began to think that officialdom in Mulberry Street affected the methods of the court circles frequented by Alice and the Mad Hatter.
“Don’t mind him,” put in Steingall genially. “He’s a living example of the close alliance between insanity and genius. On the tobacco question he’s simply cracked, and that is all there is to it. Now we’re wasting your time by this chatter. I’ll come to serious business by asking a question which you will not find embarrassing for a good many years yet to come. How old are you?”
“Nineteen last birthday.”
“When were you born?”
“On June 6, 1894.”
“And where?”
Winifred reddened slightly.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What?”
Steingall seemed to be immensely surprised,and Winifred proceeded forthwith to throw light on this singular admission, which was exactly what he meant her to do.
“That is a very odd statement, but it is quite true,” she said earnestly. “My aunt would never tell me where I was born. I believe it was somewhere in the New England States, but I have only the vaguest grounds for the opinion. What I mean is that aunty occasionally reveals a close familiarity with Boston and Vermont.”
“What is her full name?”
“Rachel Craik.”
“She has never been married?”
Winifred’s sense of humor was keen. She laughed at the idea of “Aunt Rachel” having a husband.
“I don’t think aunty will ever marry anybody now,” she said. “She holds the opposite sex in detestation. No man is ever admitted to our house.”
“It is a small, old-fashioned residence, but very large for the requirements of two women?” continued Steingall. He took no notes, and might have been discussing the weather, now that the first whiff of wonderment as to Winifred’s lack of information about her birth-place had passed.
“Yes. We have several rooms unoccupied.”
“And unfurnished?”
“Say partly furnished.”
“Ever had any boarders?”
“No.”
“No servants, of course?”
“No.”
“And how long have you been employed in Messrs. Brown, Son & Brown’s bookbinding department?”
“About six months.”
“What do you earn?”
“Eight dollars a week.”
“Is that the average amount paid to the other girls?”
“Slightly above the average. I am supposed to be quick and accurate.”
“Well now, Miss Bartlett, you seem to be a very intelligent and well-educated young woman. How comes it that you are employed in such work?”
“It was the best I could find,” she volunteered.
“No doubt. But you must be well aware that few, if any, among the girls in the bookbinding business can be your equal in education, and, may I add, in refinement. Now, if you were a bookkeeper, a cashier or a typist, I could understand it; but it does seem odd to me that you should be engaged in this kind of job.”
“It was my aunt’s wish,” said Winifred simply.
“Ah!”
Steingall dwelt on the monosyllable.
“What reason did she give for such a singular choice?” he went on.
“I confess it has puzzled me,” was the unaffected answer. “Although aunty is severe in her manner she is well educated, and she taught me nearly all I know, except music and singing, for which I took lessons from Signor Pecci ever since I was a tiny mite until about two years ago. Then, I believe, aunty lost a good deal of money, and it became necessary that I should earn something. Signor Pecci offered to get me a position in a theater, but she would not hear of it, nor would she allow me to enter a shop or a restaurant. Really, it was aunty who got me work with Messrs. Brown, Son & Brown.”
“In other words,” said Steingall, “you were deliberately reared to fill a higher social station, and then, for no assignable reason, save a whim, compelled to sink to a much lower level?”
“I do not know. I never disputed aunty’s right to do what she thought best.”
“Well, well, it is odd. Do you ever entertain any visitors?”
“None whatever. We have no acquaintances, and live very quietly.”
“Do you mean to say that your aunt neversees any one but yourself and casual callers, such as tradespeople?”
“So far as I know, that is absolutely the case.”
“Very curious,” commented Steingall. “Does your aunt go out much?”
“She leaves the house occasionally after I have gone to bed at ten o’clock, but that is seldom, and I have no idea where she goes. Every week-day, you know, I am away from home between seven in the morning and half past six at night, excepting Saturday afternoons. If possible, I take a long walk before going to work.”
“Do you go straight home?”
Winifred remembered Mr. Fowle’s query, and smiled again.
“Yes,” she said.
“Now last night, for instance, was your aunt at home when you reached the house?”
“No; she was out. She did not come in until half past nine.”
“Did she go out again last night?”
“I do not know. I was tired. I went to bed rather early.”
Steingall bent over his notes for the first time since Winifred appeared. His lips were pursed, and he seemed to be weighing certain facts gravely.
“I think,” he said at last, “that I need notdetain you any longer, Miss Bartlett. By the way, I’ll give you a note to your employers to say that you are in no way connected with the crime we have under investigation. It may, perhaps, save you needless annoyance.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the girl. “But won’t you tell me why you have asked me so many questions about my aunt and her ways?”
Steingall looked at her thoughtfully before he answered: “In the first place, Miss Bartlett, tell me this. I assume Miss Craik is your mother’s sister. When did your mother die?”
Winifred blushed with almost childish discomfiture. “It may seem very stupid to say such a thing,” she admitted, “but I have never known either a father or a mother. My aunt has always refused to discuss our family affairs in any way whatever. I fear her view is that I am somewhat lucky to be alive at all.”
“Few people would be found to agree with her,” said the chief gallantly. “Now I want you to be brave and patient. A very extraordinary crime has been committed, and the police occasionally find clues in the most unexpected quarters. I regret to tell you that Miss Craik is believed to be in some way connected with the mysterious disappearance, if not the death, of Mr. Ronald Tower, and she is being held for further inquiries.”
Winifred’s face blanched. “Do you mean that she will be kept in prison?” she said, with a break in her voice.
“She must be detained for a while, but you need not be so alarmed. Her connection with this outrage may be as harmless as your own, though I can inform you that, without your knowledge, your house last night certainly sheltered two men under grave suspicion, and for whom we are now searching.”
“Two men! In our house!” cried the amazed girl.
“Yes. I tell you this to show you the necessity there is for calmness and reticence on your part. Don’t speak to any one concerning your visit here. Above all else, don’t be afraid. Have you any one with whom you can go to live until Miss Craik is”—he corrected himself—“until matters are cleared up a bit?”
“No,” wailed Winifred, her pent-up feelings breaking through all restraint. “I am quite alone in the world now.”
“Come, come, cheer up!” said Steingall, rising and patting her on the shoulder. “This disagreeable business may only last a day or two. You will not want for anything. If you are in any trouble all you need do is to let me know. Moreover, to save you from being afraid of remaining alone in the house at night, I’ll give special instructions to the police inyour precinct to watch the place closely. Now, be a brave girl and make the best of it.”
The house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street would, of course, be an object of special interest to the police for other reasons apart from those suggested by the chief. Nevertheless, his kindness had the desired effect, and Winifred strove to repress her tears.
“Here is your note,” he said, “and I advise you to forget this temporary trouble in your work. Mr. Clancy will accompany you in the car if you wish.”
“Please—I would rather be alone,” she faltered. She was far from Mulberry Street before she remembered that she had said nothing about seeing the boat that morning!
During the brief run up-town Winifred managed to dry her tears, yet the mystery and terror of the circumstances into which she was so suddenly plunged seemed to become more distressful the longer she puzzled over them. She could not find any outlet from a labyrinth of doubt and uncertainty. She strove again to read the printed accounts of the crime, in order to wrest from them some explanation of the extraordinary charge brought against her aunt, but the words danced before her eyes. At last, with an effort, she threw the paper away and bravely resolved to follow Steingall’s parting advice.
When she reached the warehouse she was naturally the object of much covert observation. Neither Miss Sugg nor Mr. Fowle spoke to her, but Winifred thought she saw a malicious smile on the forewoman’s face. The hours passed wearily until six o’clock. She was about to quit the building with her companions—many of whom meant bombarding her with questionsat the first opportunity—when she was again requested to report at the office.
A clerk handed her one of the firm’s pay envelopes.
“What’s comin’ to you up to date,” he blurted out, “and a week’s salary instead of notice.”
She was dismissed!
Some girls might have collapsed under this final blow, but not so Winifred Bartlett. Knowing it was useless to say anything to the clerk, she spiritedly demanded an interview with the manager. This was refused. She insisted, and sent Steingall’s letter to the inner sanctum, having concluded that the dismissal was in some way due to her visit to the detective bureau.
The clerk came back with the note and a message: “The firm desire me to tell you,” he said, “that they quite accept your explanation, but they have no further need of your services.”
Explanation! How could a humble employee explain away the unsavory fact that the smug respectability of Brown, Son & Brown had been outraged by the name of the firm appearing in the evening papers as connected, even in the remotest way, with the sensational crime now engaging the attention of all New York?
Winifred walked into the street. Somethingin her face warned even the most inquisitive of her fellow-workers to leave her alone. Besides, the poor always evince a lively sympathy with others in misfortune. These working-class girls were consumed with curiosity, yet they respected Winifred’s feelings, and did not seek to intrude on her very apparent misery by inquiry or sympathetic condolence. A few among them watched, and even followed her a little way as she turned the corner into Fourteenth Street.
“She goes home by the Third Avenue L,” said Carlotta. “Sometimes I’ve walked with her that far. H’lo! Why’s Fowle goin’ east in a taxi! He lives on West Seventeenth. Betcher a dime he’s after Winnie.”
“Whadda ya mean—after her?” cried another girl.
“Why, didn’t you hear how he spoke up for her this mornin’ when Ole Mother Sugg handed her the lemon about bein’ late?”
“But he got her fired.”
“G’wan!”
“He did, I tell you. I heard him phonin’ a newspaper. He made ’em wise about Winnie’s bein’ pinched, and then took the paper to the boss. I was below with a packin’ check when he went in, so I saw that with my own eyes, an’ that’s just as far as I’d trust Fowle.”
The cynic’s shrewd surmise was strictly accurate. Fowle had, indeed, secured Winifred’sdismissal. Her beauty and disdain had stirred his lewd impulses to their depths. His plan now was to intercept her before she reached her home, and pose as the friend in need who is the most welcome of all friends. Knowing nothing whatsoever of her domestic surroundings he deemed it advisable to make inquiries on the spot. His crafty and vulpine nature warned him against running his head into a noose, since Winifred might own a strong-armed father or brother, but no one could possibly resent a well-meant effort at assistance.
The mere sight of her graceful figure as she hurried along with pale face and downcast eyes inflamed him anew when his taxi sped by. She could not avoid him now. He would go up-town by an earlier train, and await her at the corner of One Hundred and Twelfth Street.
But the wariest fox is apt to find his paw in a trap, and Fowle, though foxy, was by no means so astute as he imagined himself. Once again that day Fate was preparing a surprise for Winifred, and not the least dramatic feature thereof connoted the utter frustration and undoing of Fowle.
About the time that Winifred caught her train it befell that Rex Carshaw, gentleman of leisure, the most industrious idler who ever extracted dividends from a business he cared little about, drove a high-powered car acrossthe Harlem River by the Willis Avenue Bridge, and entered that part of Manhattan which lies opposite Randall’s Island.
This was a new world to the eyes of the young millionaire. Nor was it much to his liking. The mixed citizenry of New York must live somewhere, but Carshaw saw no reason why he and his dainty car should loiter in a district which seemed highly popular with all sorts of undesirable folks; so, after skirting Thomas Jefferson Park he turned west, meaning to reach the better roadway and more open stretches of Fifth Avenue.
A too hasty express wagon, however, heedless of the convenience of wealthy automobilists, bore down on Carshaw like a Juggernaut car, and straightway smashed the differential, besides inflicting other grievous injuries on a complex mechanism. A policeman, the proprietor of a neighboring garage, and a greatly interested crowd provided an impromptu jury for the dispute between Carshaw and the express man.
The latter put up a poor case. It consisted almost entirely of the bitter and oft-repeated plaint:
“What was a car like that doin’ here, anyhow?”
The question sounded foolish. It was nothing of the kind. Only the Goddess of Wisdomcould have answered it, and she, being invisible, was necessarily dumb.
At last, when the damaged car was housed for the night, Carshaw set out to walk a couple of blocks to the elevated railway, his main objective being dinner with his mother in their apartment on Madison Avenue. He found himself in a comparatively quiet street, wherein blocks of cheap modern flats alternated with the dingy middle-class houses of a by-gone generation. He halted to light a cigarette, and, at that moment, a girl of remarkable beauty passed, walking quickly, yet without apparent effort. She was pallid and agitated, and her eyes were swimming with ill-repressed tears.
As a matter of fact, Winifred nearly broke down at sight of her empty abode. It was a cheerless place at best, and now the thought of being left there alone had induced a sense of feminine helplessness which overcame her utterly.
Carshaw was distinctly impressed. In the first place, he was young and good-looking, and human enough to try and steal a second glance at such a lovely face, though the steadily decreasing light was not altogether favorable. Secondly, he thought he had never seen any girl who carried herself with such rhythmic grace. Thirdly, here was a woman in distress, and, to one of Carshaw’s temperament and upbringing,that in itself formed a convincing reason why he should wish to help her.
He racked his brain for a fitting excuse to offer his services. He could find none. Above all else, Rex Carshaw was a gentleman.
Of course, he could not tell that the way was being made smooth for knight-errantry by a certain dragon named Fowle. He did not even quicken his pace, and was musing on the curious incongruity of the maid in distress with the rather squalid district in which she had her being when he saw a man bar her path.
This was Fowle, who, with lifted hat, was saying deferentially: “Miss Bartlett, may I have a word?”
Winifred stopped as though she had run into an unseen obstruction. She even recoiled a step or two.
“What do you want?” she said, and there was a quality of scorn, perhaps of fear, in her voice that sent Carshaw, now five yards away, into the open doorway of a block of flats. He was an impulsive young man. He liked the girl’s face, and quite as fixedly disliked Fowle’s. So he adopted the now world-famous policy of watchful waiting, being not devoid of a dim belief that the situation might evolve an overt act.
“I want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to-day,” said Fowle, trying to speaksympathetically, but not troubling to veil the bold admiration of his stare. “I tried hard to stop unpleasantness, and even risked a row with the boss. But it was no use. I couldn’t do a thing.”
“But why are you here?” demanded Winifred, and those sorrow-laden eyes of hers might have won pity from any but one of Fowle’s order.
“To help, of course,” came the ready assurance. “I can get you a far better job than stitchin’ octavos at Brown’s. You’re not meanin’ to stay home with your folks, I suppose?”
“That is kind of you,” said Winifred. “I may have to depend altogether on my own efforts, so I shall need work. I’ll write to you for a reference, and perhaps for advice.”
She had unwittingly told Fowle just what he was eager to know—that she was friendless and alone. He prided himself on understanding the ways of women, and lost no more time in coming to the point.
“Listen, now, Winnie,” he said, drawing nearer, “I’d like to see you through this worry. Forget it. You can draw down twice or three times the money as a model in Goldberg’s Store. I know Goldberg, an’ can fix things. An’, say, why mope at home evenings? I often get orders for two for the theaters an’ vaudeville shows. What about comin’ along down-town to-night?A bit of dinner an’ a cabaret’d cheer you up after to-day’s unpleasantness.”
Winifred grew scarlet with vexation. The man had always been a repulsive person in her eyes, and, unversed though she was in the world’s wiles, she knew instinctively that his present pretensions were merely a cloak for rascality. One should be fair to Winifred, too. Like every other girl, she had pictured the Prince Charming who would come into her life some day. But—Fowle! Her gorge rose.
“How dare you follow me here and say such vile things?” she cried hysterically.
“What’s up now?” said Fowle in mock surprise. “What have I said that you should fly off the trolley in that way?”
“I take it that this young lady is telling you to quit,” broke in another voice. “Go, now! Go while the going is good.”
Quietly but firmly elbowing Fowle aside, Rex Carshaw raised his hat and spoke to Winifred.
“If this fellow is annoying you he can soon be dealt with,” he said. “Do you live near? If so, he can stop right here. I’ll occupy his mind till you are out of sight.”
The discomfited masher was snarling like a vicious cur. The first swift glance that measured the intruder’s proportions did not warrant any display of active resentment on his part. Out of the tail of his eye, however, he noticeda policeman approaching on the opposite side of the street. The sight lent a confidence which might have been lacking otherwise.
“Why are you buttin’ in?” he cried furiously. “This young lady is a friend of mine. I’m tryin’ to pull her out of a difficulty, but she’s got me all wrong. Anyhow, what business is it of yours?”
Fowle’s anger was wasted, since Carshaw seemed not to hear. Indeed, why should a chivalrous young man pay heed to Fowle when he could gaze his fill into Winifred’s limpid eyes and listen to her tuneful voice?
“I am very greatly obliged to you,” she was saying, “but I hope Mr. Fowle understands now that I do not desire his company and will not seek to force it on me.”
“Sure he understands. Don’t you, Fowle?” and Carshaw gave the disappointed wooer a look of such manifest purpose that something had to happen quickly. Something did happen. Fowle knew the game was up, and behaved after the manner of his kind.
“You’re a cute little thing, Winifred Bartlett,” he sneered, with a malicious glance from the girl to Carshaw, while a coarse guffaw imparted venom to his utterance. “Think you’re taking an easier road to the white lights, I guess?”
“Guess again, Fowle,” said Carshaw.
He spoke so quietly that Fowle was misled, because the pavement rose and struck him violently on the back of his head. At least, that was his first impression. The second and more lasting one was even more disagreeable. When he sat up, and fumbled to recover his hat, he was compelled to apply a handkerchief to his nose, which seemed to have been reduced to a pulp.
“Too bad you should be mixed up in this disturbance,” Carshaw was assuring Winifred, “but a pup of the Fowle species can be taught manners in only one way. Now, suppose you hurry home!”
The advice was well meant, and Winifred acted on it at once. Fowle had scrambled to his feet and the policeman was running up. From east and west a crowd came on the scene like a well-trained stage chorus rushing in from the wings.
“Now, then, what’s the trouble?” demanded the law, with gruff insistency.
“Nothing. A friend of mine met with a slight accident—that’s all,” said Carshaw.
“It’s—it’s—all right,” agreed Fowle thickly. Some glimmer of reason warned him that an exposé in the newspapers would cost him his job with Brown, Son & Brown. The policeman eyed the damaged nose. He grinned.
“If you care to take a wallop like that as afriendly tap it’s your affair, not mine,” he said. “Anyhow, beat it, both of you!”
Carshaw was not interested in Fowle or the policeman. He had been vouchsafed one expressive look by Winifred as she hurried away, and he watched the slim figure darting up half a dozen steps to a small brown-stone house, and opening the door with a latch-key. Oddly enough, the policeman’s attention was drawn by the girl’s movements. His air changed instantly.
“H’lo,” he said, evidently picking on Fowle as the doubtful one of these two. “This must be inquired into. What’s your name?”
“No matter. I make no charge.”
Fowle was turning away, but the policeman grabbed him.
“You come with me to the station-house,” he said determinedly. “An’ you, too,” he added jerking his head at Carshaw.
“Have you gone crazy with the heat?” inquired Carshaw.
“I hold you for fighting in the public street, an’ that’s all there is to it,” was the firm reply. “You can come quietly or be ’cuffed, just as you like. Clear off, the rest of you.”
An awe-stricken mob backed hastily. Fowle was too dazed even to protest, and Carshaw sensed some hidden but definite motive behind the policeman’s strange alternation of moods.He looked again at the brown-stone house, but night was closing in so rapidly that he could not distinguish a face at any of the windows.
“Let us get there quickly—I’ll be late for dinner,” he said, and the three returned by the way Carshaw had come.
Thus it was that Rex Carshaw, eligible young society bachelor, was drawn into the ever-widening vortex of “The Yacht Mystery.” He did not recognize it yet, but was destined soon to feel the force of its swirling currents.
Gazing from a window of the otherwise deserted house Winifred saw both her assailant and her protector marched off by the policeman. It was patent, even to her benumbed wits, that they had been arrested. The tailing-in of the mob behind the trio told her as much.
She was too stunned to do other than sink into a chair. For a while she feared she was going to faint. With lack-lustre eyes she peered into a gulf of loneliness and despair. Then outraged nature came to her aid, and she burst into a storm of tears.
Clancy forced Senator Meiklejohn’s hand early in the fray. He was at the Senator’s flat within an hour of the time Ronald Tower was dragged into the Hudson, but a smooth-spoken English man-servant assured the detective that his master was out, and not expected home until two or three in the morning.
This arrangement obviously referred to the Van Hofen festivity, so Clancy contented himself with asking the valet to give the Senator a card on which he scribbled a telephone number and the words, “Please ring up when you get this.”
Now, he knew, and Senator Meiklejohn knew, the theater at which Mrs. Tower was enjoying herself. He did not imagine for an instant that the Senator was discharging the mournful duty of announcing to his friend’s wife the lamentable fate which had overtaken her husband. Merely as a perfunctory duty he went to the theater and sought the manager.
“You know Mrs. Ronald Tower?” he said.
“Sure I do,” said the official. “She’s inside now. Came here with Bobby Forrest.”
“Anybody called for her recently?”
“I think not, but I’ll soon find out.”
No. Mrs. Tower’s appreciation of Belasco’s genius had not been disturbed that evening.
“Anything wrong?” inquired the manager.
Clancy’s answer was ready.
“If Senator Meiklejohn comes here within half an hour, see that the lady is told at once,” he said. “If he doesn’t show up in that time, send for Mr. Forrest, tell him that Mr. Tower has met with an accident, and leave him to look after the lady.”
“Wow! Is it serious? Why wait?”
“The slight delay won’t matter, and the Senator can handle the situation better than Forrest.”
Clancy gave some telephonic instruction to the man on night duty at headquarters. He even dictated a paragraph for the press. Then he went straight to bed, for the hardiest detectives must sleep, and he had a full day’s work before him when next the sun rose over New York.
He summed up Meiklejohn’s action correctly. The Senator did not communicate with Mulberry Street during the night, so Clancy was an early visitor at his apartment.
“The Senator is ill and can see no one,” said the valet.
“No matter how ill he may be, he must see me,” retorted Clancy.
“But he musn’t be disturbed. I have my orders.”
“Take a fresh set. He’s going to be disturbed right now, by you or me. Choose quick!”
The law prevailed. A few minutes later Senator Meiklejohn entered the library sitting-room, where the little detective awaited him. He looked wretchedly ill, but his sufferings were mental, not physical. Examined critically now, in the cold light of day, he was a very different man from the spruce, dandified politician and financier who figured so prominently among Van Hofen’s guests the previous evening. Yet Clancy saw at a glance that the Senator was armed at all points. Diplomacy would be useless. The situation demanded a bludgeon. He began the attack at once.
“Why didn’t you ring up Mulberry Street last night, Senator?” he said.
“I was too upset. My nerves were all in.”
“You told the patrolman at Eighty-sixth Street that you were hurrying away to break the news to Mrs. Tower, yet you did not go near her?”
Meiklejohn affected to consult Clancy’s card to ascertain the detective’s name.
“Perhaps I had better get in touch with the Bureau now,” he said, and a flush of anger darkened his haggard face.
“No need. The Bureau is right here. Let us get down to brass tacks, Senator. A woman named Rachel met you outside the Four Hundred Club at eight o’clock as you were coming out. You had just spoken to Mrs. Tower, when this woman told you that you must meet two men who would await you at the Eighty-sixth landing-stage at nine. You were to bring five hundred dollars. At nine o’clock these same men killed Mr. Tower, and you yourself admitted to me that they mistook him for you. Now, will you be good enough to fill in the blanks? Who is Rachel? Where does she live? Who were the two men? Why should you give them five hundred dollars, apparently as blackmail?”
Clancy was exceedingly disappointed by the result of this thunderbolt. Any ordinary man would have shrivelled under its crushing impact. If the police knew so much that might reasonably be regarded as secret, of what avail was further concealment? Yet Senator Meiklejohn bore up wonderfully. He showed surprise, as well he might, but was by no means pulverized.
“All this is rather marvelous,” he saidslowly, after a long pause. He had avoided Clancy’s gaze after the first few words, and sank into an armchair with an air of weariness that was not assumed.
“Simple enough,” commented the detective readily. Above all else he wanted Meiklejohn to talk. “I was on duty outside the club, and heard almost every word that passed between you and Rachel.”
“Well, well.”
The Senator arose and pressed an electric bell.
“If you don’t mind,” he explained suavely, “I’ll order some coffee and rolls. Will you join me?”
This was the parry of a skilled duelist to divert an attack and gain breathing-time. Clancy rather admired such adroitness.
“Sorry, I can’t on principle,” he countered.
“How—on principle?”
“You see, Senator, I may have to arrest you, and I never eat with any man with whom I may clash professionally.”
“You take risks, Mr. Clancy.”
“I love ’em. I’d cut my job to-day if it wasn’t for the occasional excitement.”
The valet appeared.
“Coffee and rolls for two, Phillips,” said Meiklejohn. He turned to Clancy. “Perhaps you would prefer toast and an egg?”
“I have breakfasted already, Senator,” smiled the detective, “but I may dally with the coffee.”
When the door was closed on Phillips, his master glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece. The hour was eight-fifteen. Some days elapsed before Clancy interpreted that incident correctly.
“You rose early,” said the Senator.
“Yes, but worms are coy this morning.”
“Meaning that you still await answers to your questions. I’ll deal with you fully and frankly, but I’m curious to know on what conceivable ground you could arrest me for the murder of my friend Ronald Tower.”
“As an accessory before the act.”
“But, consider. You have brains, Mr. Clancy. I am glad the Bureau sent such a man. How can a bit of unthinking generosity on my part be construed as participation in a crime?”
“If you explain matters, Senator, the absurdity of the notion may become clear.”
“Ah, that’s better. Let me assure you that my coffee will not affect your fine sensibilities. Miss Rachel Craik is a lady I have known nearly all my life. I have assisted her, within my means. She resides in East One Hundred and Twelfth Street, and the man about whom she was so concerned last night is her brother. He committed some technical offense years ago,and has always been a ne’er-do-well. To please his sister, and for no other reason, I undertook to provide him with five hundred dollars, and thus enable him to start life anew. I have never met the man. I would not recognize him if I saw him. I believe he is a desperate character; his maniacal behavior last night seems to leave no room for doubt in that respect. Don’t you see, Mr. Clancy, that it was I, and not poor Tower, whom he meant attacking? But for idle chance, it is my corpse, not Tower’s, that would now be floating in the Hudson. You heard what Tower said. I did not. I assume, however, that some allusion was made to the money—which, by the way, is still in my pocketbook—and Tower scoffed at the notion that he had come there to hand over five hundred dollars. There you have the whole story, in so far as I can tell it.”
“For the present, Senator.”
“How?”
“It should yield many more chapters. Is that all you’re going to say? For instance, did you call on Rachel Craik after leaving Eighty-sixth Street?”
Meiklejohn’s jaws closed like a steel trap. He almost lost his temper.
“No,” he said, seemingly conquering the desire to blaze into anger at this gadfly of a detective.
“Sure?”
“I said ‘no.’ That is not ‘yes.’ I was so overcome by Tower’s miserable fate that I dismissed my car and walked home. I could not face any one, least of all Helen—Mrs. Tower.”
“Or the Bureau?”
“Mr. Clancy, you annoy me.”
Clancy stood up.
“I must duck your coffee, Senator,” he said cheerfully. “Is Miss Craik on the phone?”
“No. She is poor, and lives alone—or, to be correct, with a niece, I believe.”
“Well, think matters over. I’ll see you again soon. Then you may be able to tell me some more.”
“I have told you everything.”
“PerhapsImay do the telling.”
“Now, as to this poor woman, Miss Craik. You will not adopt harsh measures, I trust?”
“We are never harsh, Senator. If she speaks the truth, and all the truth, she need not fear.”
In the hall Clancy met the valet, carrying a laden tray.
“Do you make good coffee, Phillips?” he inquired.
“I try to,” smiled the other.
“Ah, that’s modest—that’s the way real genius speaks. Sorry I can’t sample your brew to-day. So few Englishmen know the first thing about coffee.”
“Nice, friendly little chap,” was Phillips’s opinion of the detective. Senator Meiklejohn’s description of the same person was widely different. When Clancy went out, he, too, rose and stretched his stiff limbs.
“I got rid of that little rat more easily than I expected,” he mused—that is to say, the Senator’s thoughts may be estimated in some such phrase. But he was grievously mistaken in his belief. Clancy was no rat, but a most stubborn terrier when there were rats around.
While Meiklejohn was drinking his coffee the telephone rang. It was Mrs. Tower. She was heartbroken, or professed to be, since no more selfish woman existed in New York.
“Are you coming to see me?” she wailed.
“Yes, yes, later in the day. At present I dare not. I am too unhinged. Oh, Helen, what a tragedy! Have you any news?”
“News! My God! What news can I hope for except that Ronald’s poor, maimed body has been found?”
“Helen, this is terrible. Bear up!”
“I’m doing my best. I can hardly believe that this thing has really happened. Help me in one small way, Senator. Telephone Mr. Jacob and explain why our luncheon is postponed.”
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
Meiklejohn smiled grimly as he hung up thereceiver. In the midst of her tribulations Helen Tower had not forgotten Jacob and the little business of the Costa Rica Cotton Concession! The luncheon was only “postponed.”
An inquiry came from a newspaper, whereupon he gave a curt order that no more calls were to be made that day, as the apartment would be empty. He dressed, and devoted himself forthwith to the task of overhauling papers. He had a fire kindled in the library.
Hour after hour he worked, until the grate was littered with the ashes of destroyed documents. Sending for newspapers, he read of Rachel Craik’s arrest. At last, when the light waned, he looked at his watch. Should he not face his fellow-members at the Four Hundred Club? Would it not betray weakness to shirk the ordeal of inquiry, of friendly scrutiny and half-spoken wonder that he, the irreproachable, should be mixed up in such a weird tragedy. Once he sought support from a decanter of brandy.
“Confound it!” he muttered, “why am I so shaky.Ididn’t murder Tower. My whole life may be ruined by one false step!”
He was still pondering irresolutely a visit to the club when Phillips came. The valet seemed flurried.
“There’s a gentleman outside, sir, who insists on seeing you,” he said nervously.“He’s a very violent gentleman, sir. He said if I didn’t announce him he——”
“What name?” interrupted Meiklejohn.
“Name of Voles, sir.”
“Voles?”
“Yes, sir, but he says you’ll recognize him better by the initials R. V. V.”
Men of Meiklejohn’s physique—big, fleshy, with the stamp of success on them—are rare subjects for nervous attacks. They seem to defy events which will shock the color out of ordinary men’s cheeks, yet Meiklejohn felt that if he dared encounter the eyes of his discreet servant he would do something outrageous—shriek, or jump, or tear his hair. He bent over some papers on the table.
“Send Mr. Voles in,” he murmured. “If any other person calls, say I’m engaged.”
The man who was ushered into the room was of a stature and demeanor which might well have cowed the valet. Tall, strongly built, altogether fitter and more muscular than the stalwart Senator, he carried with him an impression of truculence, of a savage forcefulness, not often clothed in the staid garments of city life. Were his skin bronze, were he decked in the barbaric trappings of a Pawnee chief, his appearance would be more in accord with the chill and repellant significance of his personality. His square, hard features might have been chiseledout of granite. A pair of singularly dark eyes blazed beneath heavy and prominent eyebrows. A high forehead, a massive chin, and a well-shaped nose lent a certain intellectuality to the face, but this attribute was negatived by the coarse lines of a brutal mouth.
From any point of view the visitor must invite attention, while compelling dislike—even fear. In a smaller frame, such qualities might escape recognition, but this man’s giant physique accentuated the evil aspect of eyes and mouth. Hardly waiting till the door was closed, he laughed sarcastically.
“You are well fixed here, brother o’ mine,” he said.
The man whom he addressed as “brother” leaned with his hands on the table that separated them. His face was quite ghastly. All his self-control seemed to have deserted him.
“You?” he gasped. “To come here! Are you mad?”
“Need you ask? It will not be the first time you have called me a lunatic, nor will it be the last, I reckon.”
“But the risk, the infernal risk! The police know of you. Rachel is arrested. A detective was here a few hours ago. They are probably watching outside.”
“Bosh!” was the uncompromising answer. “I’m sick of being hunted. Just for a changeI turn hunter. Where’s the mazuma you promised Rachel?”
Meiklejohn, using a hand like one in a palsy, produced a pocketbook and took from it a bundle of notes.
“Here!” he quavered. “Now, for Heaven’s sake——”
“Just the same old William,” cried the stranger, seating himself unceremoniously. “Always ready to do a steal, but terrified lest the law should grab him. No, I’m not going. It will be good nerve tonic for you to sit down and talk while you strain your ears to hear the tramp of half a dozen cops in the hall. What a poor fish you are!” he continued, voice and manner revealing a candid contempt, as Meiklejohn did indeed start at the slamming of a door somewhere in the building. “Do you think I’d risk my neck if I were likely to be pinched? Gad! I know my way around too well for that.”
“But you don’t understand,” whispered the other in mortal terror. “By some means the detective bureau may know of your existence. Rachel promised to be close-lipped, but—”
“Oh, take a bracer out of that decanter. At the present moment I am registered in a big Fifth Avenue hotel, a swell joint which they wouldn’t suspect in twenty years.”
“How can that be? Rachel said you were in desperate need.”
“So I was until I went through that idiot’s pockets. He had two hundred dollars in bills and chicken-feed. I knew I’d get another wad from you to-night.”
“Why did you want to murder me, Ralph?”
“Murder! Oh, shucks! I didn’t want to kill anybody. But I don’t trust you, William. I’m always expecting you to double-cross me. Last night it was a lasso. To-night it is this.” And he suddenly whipped out a revolver.
Meiklejohn pushed his chair back so quickly that it caught the fender and brought down some fire-irons with a crash.
“More nerves!” croaked his grim-visaged relative, but the revolver disappeared.
“Tell me,” said the tortured Meiklejohn; “why have you returned to New York? Above all, why did you straightway commit a crime that cannot fail to stir the whole country?”
“That’s better. You are showing some sort of brotherly interest. I came back because I was sick of mining camps and boundless sierras. I had a hankering after the old life—the theaters, dinners, race-meetings, wine and women. As to ‘the crime,’ I thought that fool was you. He called for the cops.”
“For the police! Why?”
“Because my line of talk was a trifle too rough, I suppose.”
“Did he know you were there to meet me?”
“Can’t say. The whole thing was over like a flash. I am quick on the trigger.”
“But if you had killed me what other goose would lay golden eggs?”
“You forget that the goose was unwilling to lay any more eggs. I only meant scaring you. To haul you neck and crop into the river was a good scheme. You see, we haven’t met for some years.”
“Then why—why murder Ronald Tower?”
“There you go again. Murder! How you chew on the word. I never touched the man, only to haul him into the boat and go through his pockets. I guess he had a weak heart, due to over-eating, and the cold water upset him.”
“But you left him in the river?”
“Wrong every time. I chucked him into a barge and covered him tenderly with a tarpaulin.”
Meiklejohn sprang upright. “Good God,” he cried, “he may be alive!”
“Sit down, William, sit down,” was the cool response. “If he’s alive, he’ll turn up. In any case, he’ll be found sooner or later. Shout the glad news now and you go straight to the Tombs.”
This was obviously so true that the Senator collapsed into his chair again, and in so doing disturbed the fire-irons a second time.
The incident amused the unbidden guest. “I see you won’t be happy till I leave you,” he laughed, “so let’s go on with the knitting. Thatgirl—she is becoming a woman—what is to be done with her?”
“Rachel takes every care—”
“Rachel is excellent in her way. But she is growing old. She may die. The girl is the living image of her mother. It’s a queer world, and a small one at times. For instance, who would have expected your double to walk onto the terrace at the landing-stage at nine o’clock precisely last night? Well, some one may recognize the likeness. Inquiries might be instituted. That would be very awkward for you.”
“Far more awkward for you.”
“Not a bit of it. I’ve lived with my neck in the loop for eighteen years. I’m getting used to it. But you, William, with your Senatorship and high record in Wall Street—really the downfall would be terrible!”
“What can we do with her? Murder her, as you—”
“The devil take you and your parrotlike repetition of one word!” roared brother Ralph, bringing his clenched fist down on the table with a bang. “I never laid violent hands on a woman yet, whatever I may have done to men. Who has reaped the reward of my misdeeds, I’d like to know—I, an outcast and a wanderer, or you, living here like Lord Tomnoddy? None of your preaching to me, you smug Pharisee!We’re six of one and half a dozen of the other.”
When this self-proclaimed adventurer was really aroused he dropped the rough argot of the plains. His diction showed even some measure of culture.
Meiklejohn walked unsteadily to the door. He opened it. There was no one in the passage without.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a strangely subdued voice. “What do you want? What do you suggest?”
“This,” came the instant reply. “It was a piece of folly on Rachel’s part to educate the girl the way she did. You stopped the process too late. In a year or two Miss Winifred will begin to think and ask questions, if she hasn’t done so already. She must leave the East—better quit America altogether.”
“Very well. When this affair of Tower’s blows over I’ll arrange it.”
The other man seemed to be somewhat mollified. He lighted a cigarette. “That rope play was sure a mad trick,” he conceded sullenly, “but I thought you were putting the cops on my trail.”
A bell rang and the Senator started. Many callers, mostly reporters, had been turned away by Phillips already that day, but brother Ralph’s untimely visit had made the positionpeculiarly dangerous. Moreover, the valet’s protests had proved unavailing this time. The two heard his approaching footsteps.
Meiklejohn’s care-worn face turned almost green with fright, and even his hardier companion yielded to a sense of peril. He leaped up, moving catlike on his toes.
“Where does that door lead to?” he hissed, pointing.
“A bedroom. But I’ve given orders—”
“You dough-faced dub, don’t you see you create suspicion by refusing to meet people? And, listen! If this is a cop, bluff hard! I’ll shoot up the whole Bureau before they get me!”
He vanished, moving with a silence and celerity that were almost uncanny in so huge a man. Phillips knocked and thrust his head in. He looked scared yet profoundly relieved.
“Mr. Tower to see you, sir,” he said breathlessly.
“What?” shrieked the Senator in a shrill falsetto.
“Yes, sir. It’s Mr. Tower himself, sir.”
“H’lo, Bill!” came a familiar voice. “Here I am! No spook yet, thank goodness!”
Meiklejohn literally staggered to the door and nearly fell into Ronald Tower’s arms. Of the two men, the Senator seemed nearer death at that moment. He blubbered something incoherent,and had to be assisted to a chair. Even Tower was astonished at the evident depth of his friend’s emotion.
“Cheer up, old sport!” he cried affectionately. “I had no notion you felt so badly about my untimely end, as the newspapers call it. I tried to get you on the phone, but you were closed down, the exchange said, so Helen packed me off here when she was able to sit up and take nourishment. Gad! Even my wife seems to have missed me!”
Many minutes elapsed before Senator Meiklejohn’s benumbed brain could assimilate the facts of a truly extraordinary story. Tower, after being whisked so unceremoniously into the Hudson, remembered nothing further until he opened his eyes in numb semi-consciousness in the cubbyhole of a tug plodding through the long Atlantic rollers off the New Jersey coast.
When able to talk he learned that the captain of the tugCygnet, having received orders to tow three loaded barges from a Weehawken pier to Barnegat City, picked up his “job” at nine-thirty the previous night, and dropped down the river with the tide. In the early morning he was amazed by the sight of a man crawling from under the heavy tarpaulin that sheeted one of the barges—a man so dazed and weak that he nearly fell into the sea.
“Cap’ Rickards slowed up and took meaboard,” explained Tower volubly. “Then he filled me with rock and rye and packed me in blankets. Gee, how they smelt, but how grateful they were! What between prime old whiskey inside and greasy wool outside I dodged a probable attack of pneumonia. When theCygnettied up at Barnegat at noon to-day I was fit as a fiddle. Cap’ Rickards rigged me out in his shore-going suit and lent me twenty dollars, as that pair of blackguards in the launch had robbed me of every cent. They even took a crooked sixpence I found in London twenty years ago, darn ’em! I phoned Helen, of course, but didn’t realize what a hubbub my sad fate had created until I read a newspaper in the train. When I reached home poor Helen was so out of gear that she hadn’t told a soul of my escape. I do believe she hardly accepted my own assurance that I was still on the map. However, when I got her calmed down a bit, she remembered you and the rest of the excitement, so I phoned the detective bureau and the club, and came straight here.”