“I think I do want a professional,” began Avice, slowly; “still Mr. Pinckney, if you have a taste for this sort of thing, and know how to go about it, I might work with you more easily than with a professional detective. I’m going to do a lot myself, you know. I’m not just going to put the matter in an expert’s hands.”
“I hardly know what to say, Miss Trowbridge; I’d like to take up the case, but I might muff it awfully. I suppose you’d better get the real thing.”
“Well, until I do, why don’t you have a try at it? If you discover anything, very well; and if not, no harm done.”
Jim Pinckney’s face glowed. “That’s great of you!” he cried; “I’d like to take it up on that basis, and if I don’t find out anything of importance in a few days, engage any Sherlock Holmes you like.”
But a few days later when Pinckney again called on Avice, he was in a discouraged mood.
“I can’t find out anything,” he said. “The whole case is baffling. I went to the scene of the crime, but could find no clues. But, what do you think, Miss Trowbridge? When I reached the place where they found Mr. Trowbridge, there was that young office boy, looking over the premises.”
“That Fibsy, as he calls himself?”
“Yes; I asked him what he was doing, and he said, ‘Oh, just pokin’ around,’ and he looked so stupid that I feel sure he had found something.”
“He’s just smart enough for that,” and Avice smiled a little.
“Yes, he is. I asked him to come here today, and I thought you and I would both talk to him, and see if we can learn anything of his find. If not, I admit I am at the end of my rope, and if you choose, perhaps, you’d better get a real detective on the case.”
“I spoke to Judge Hoyt about that, and he agreed. But Mr. Landon doesn’t want a detective. Ah, here’s Fibsy, now. Come in, child.”
The boy had appeared at the door with a beaming face, but at Avice’s calling him “child,” his countenance fell.
“I ain’t no child,” he said, indignantly; “and say, Miss Avice, I found some clues!”
“Well, what are they?”
“A shoe button, and a hunk o’ dirt.”
“Interesting!” commented Pinckney. “Just what do you deduce from them?”
Then Fibsy rose up in his wrath. “I ain’t a-goin’ to be talked to like that! I won’t work on this case no more!”
“Sorry,” said Pinckney, grinning at him. “Then I suppose we’ll have to call in somebody else. Of course, he won’t do as well as you, but if you’ve decided to throw the case over, why——”
“Aw, can the guyin’!” and with a red, angry face, Fibsy jumped up and fairly ran out of the room and out of the house.
“Now you’ve made him mad,” said Avice, “and we’ll never know what he found in the way of clues.”
“He said, a shoe button, and some mud! We could hardly expect much from those treasures.”
Then Judge Hoyt came. His calls were frequent, and he continually tried to persuade Avice to announce their engagement. But the girl was perverse and said she must first solve the mystery of her uncle’s death. The judge was always willing to listen to her latest theories, but though he never said so, Avice felt pretty certain that he did not suspect the Swede.
She told him of Fibsy’s finds, and he said curiously, “What did he mean by mud?”
“He didn’t say mud,” corrected Avice, “he said dirt I think he meant soil or earth.”
“How would that be a clue? Any one can get some soil from the place, if they don’t take too much. A few square feet might be valuable.”
“Why pay any attention to that rubbishy boy?” exclaimed Pinckney. “Why not get a worth-while detective, and let him detect?”
“Yes, that’s the thing to do,” agreed Hoyt. “Duane stands well in the profession.”
“Alvin Duane! just the man,” and Pinckney looked enthusiastic. “But he’s a bit expensive.”
“Never mind that,” cried Avice; “I must find uncle’s murderer at any cost!”
“Then let’s have Duane,” and Judge Hoyt reached for the telephone book.
Meantime the administrators of law and justice were pursuing the uneven tenor of their way, hoping to reach their goal, though by a tortuous route.
“It’s a mighty queer thing,” said District Attorney Whiting, “I’m dead sure the western chap killed his uncle; we’ve even got his uncle’s word for it, and yet I can’t fasten it on him.”
“But,” said the chief of police to whom this observation was addressed, “aren’t you basing your conviction on that curious coincidence of names, Cain and Kane? To my mind that’s no proof at all.”
“Well, it is to me. Here’s your man named Kane. He’s mad at his victim. He goes to the place where the old man is. And as he kills him, the old man says, ‘Kane killed me.’ What more do you want? Only, as I say, we’ve got to have some more definite proof, and we can’t get it.”
“Then you can’t convict your man. I admit it’s in keeping with that young fellow’s western ways to kill his uncle after a money quarrel, but you must get more direct evidence than you’ve dug up yet.”
“And yet there’s no one else to suspect. No name has been breathed as a possible suspect; the idea of a highway robber is not tenable, for the watch and money and jewelry were untouched.”
“What about the Swede?”
“Nothing doing. If he had killed the man, he certainly would have done it for robbery? What else? And then he would not have come forward and told of the dying words. No, the Swede is innocent. There’s nobody to suspect but Landon, and we must get further proofs.”
The District Attorney worked hard to get his further proof. But though his sleuths searched the woods for clues, none were found. They had the bare fact that the dying man had denounced his slayer, but no corroboration of the murderer’s identity, and the neighborhood of the crime was scoured for other witnesses without success.
The district attorney had never really thought the Swede committed the murder. A grilling third degree had failed to bring confession and daily developments of Sandstrom’s behavior made it seem more and more improbable that he was the criminal.
And so Whiting had come to suspect Kane Landon, and had kept him under careful watch of detectives ever since the murder, in hope of finding some further and more definite evidence against him.
But there were no results and at last the district attorney began to despair of unraveling the mystery.
And then Groot made a discovery.
“That Stryker,” he said, bursting in upon Whiting in great excitement, “that butler,—he’s your man! I thought so all along!”
“Why didn’t you say so?” asked the other.
“Never mind chaffing, you listen. That Stryker, he’s been taking out a big insurance. A paid-up policy, of,—I don’t remember how much. But he had to plank down between eight and nine hundred dollars cash to get it. And he used his bequest from old Trowbridge to do it!”
“Well?”
“Well, here’s the point. You know how those premiums work. After Stryker is sixty years and six months old, he can’t get insured at all,—in that company any way, and at those rates.”
“Well?”
“Well, and Friend Stryker reaches his age limit next week!”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Sure, I’m sure! I got it from the agent Stryker dealt with. The old fellow has been fussing over that insurance off and on for years; and now, just at the last minute, a man up and dies who leaves him enough money to get his insurance. Is it a coincidence?”
“At any rate we must look into it,” said Whiting, gravely. “What have you done?”
“Done? I’ve just found this out! Now’s the time to begin doing. I’ll search his rooms first, I think, and see if I can nail any sort of evidence. And by the way, on the day of the murder, it was Stryker’s day out, and he’s never given any definite or satisfactory account of how he spent the afternoon. For one thing, he wasn’t definitely asked, for nobody thought much about him, but now I’ll hunt up straws, to see how the wind blows.”
Groot went off on his straw hunt, and as it turned out, found far more decided proof of the wind’s direction than straws.
Inspector Collins and he came back together with their news.
“It’s Stryker, all right,” said Collins to the district attorney; “the handkerchief is his.”
“The handkerchief his?”
“Yes, we found others in his dresser just like it. It’s a peculiar border, quite unmistakable, and the size and textures are the same. Oh, it’s his handkerchief, for sure. And Sandstrom found it, just as he said, and he was scared out of his wits,—remember he saw the police there with the body,—so he hid the handkerchief, and was afraid even to wash it.”
“What’d he take it for?”
“Plain theft. Thought he’d make that much. Same way he took the milk bottle. Say, maybe Stryker laid a trap for Mr. Trowbridge, and maybe somebody else did tell him of it, over the telephone, as a warning!”
“Arrest Stryker as soon as possible,” said Whiting, “perhaps we’d better let the Swede go.”
“Sure let him go. He won’t make any trouble. I’ve got to know him pretty well, and I sort of like him.” Groot’s shrewd, old face showed a gleam of pity and sympathy for the wronged prisoner. “But how could we know it was Stryker’s handkerchief?”
“Where can we find him? Is he at home?”
“Guess he is now,” returned the detective. “They expected him in about five o’clock. I’ll go to the house myself, and a couple of chaps with the bracelets can hang around outside till I call ’em.”
At the Trowbridge house, Groot was admitted as usual. His visits had been rather frequent ever since the crime, but as he had done nothing definite, the family paid little attention to him.
He asked for Avice, and found her, with Judge Hoyt, in the library.
“Come in, Groot,” said the lawyer. “What’s up now?”
“Where’s the man, Stryker?” asked Groot, in lowered tones. “Is he in?”
“I think so,” said Avice, “he always is, at this hour. Do you want to see him?”
“Yes, mighty bad, he’s the murderer!”
“What!” exclaimed both his hearers together.
“Yes, no doubt about it,” and Groot told the story of the handkerchief.
Avice looked simply amazed, but Judge Hoyt said, “I’ve looked for this all along.”
“Whyn’t you give us a hint, Judge?”
“I hadn’t enough to base my idea on, to call it a suspicion. I never thought of the handkerchief being his. As a matter of fact, I rather thought it was Mr. Trowbridge’s own, and that the murderer, whoever he was, had used it and left it without fear of its incriminating himself. Surely no one would leave his own handkerchief on the scene of his crime! Are you sure it’s Stryker’s?”
“Positive. But all that can be proved and investigated later. Now we want to nail our bird and jail him. Will you send for him, Miss Trowbridge?”
“Certainly,” and Avice rang a bell, a sorrowful look coming into her eyes at thought of suspecting the old servant.
A parlor-maid appeared, and Avice asked her to send the butler to them.
“Won’t he bolt?” asked Groot, fearing to lose his quarry at the last moment.
“Why should he?” said Avice, “any more than yesterday? He doesn’t know he’s suspected, does he?”
“Oh, no, he couldn’t know it.”
“Then he’ll be here in a minute.”
While waiting, Groot told them, in low tones, about Stryker’s insurance matter.
“Time up next week!” repeated Judge Hoyt. “That looks bad, very bad. I’ve heard Stryker speak of insuring, several times, but I thought nothing about it. He wasn’t asking my advice, merely discussing it as a business proposition. When I’ve been here of an evening with Mr. Trowbridge, we often spoke with Stryker almost as to a friend. He’s an old and trusted servant. I’m desperately sorry to learn all this.”
“So am I,” said Avice. “I do want to track down uncle’s murderer,—but I don’t want it to be Stryker!”
The parlor-maid returned. “Miss Avice,” she said, “Stryker isn’t in the house.”
“Isn’t?” cried Groot, starting up; “where is he?”
“I don’t know, sir, but he can’t be far away. The second man says that Stryker was in his pantry and he answered a telephone call there, and then he just flung on his hat and coat and went out.”
“He’s escaped!” shouted Groot, dashing out of the room and downstairs, two at a time.
And he had. Search of the house showed no trace of the vanished butler, save his belongings in his room. And among these were several handkerchiefs, indisputably from the same lot as the one found at the place of the crime. And a further search of the rooms of every inmate of the household showed no other such handkerchief.
Having learned from Avice of Stryker’s relatives, Groot sought the butler at the home of his daughter.
“No,” said Mrs. Adler, a scared-looking young woman, “I don’t know where father is. I haven’t seen him for a day or two. But he can’t be lost.”
“He’s in hiding, madam,” said Groot, “and he must be found. Are you sure he’s not here?”
“Of course, I’m sure. What do you want of him, anyway? My husband is very ill, and I wish you wouldn’t bother me about it. I don’t believe anything has happened to my father, but if there has, I don’t know anything of it. You’ll have to excuse me now, I’m very busy.” She didn’t exactly shut the door in his face, but she came near it, and Groot went away uncertain as to whether she was telling the truth or not.
“I wish I’d searched the house,” he thought. “If Stryker doesn’t turn up soon, I will.”
Stryker didn’t turn up soon, and Groot and his men did search the house of Mrs. Adler and her sick husband, but with no result.
The daughter was apathetic. “Poor father,” she said, “I wonder where he is. But I’m so worried about Mr. Adler, I can think of nothing else.”
There was cause, indeed, for the wife’s anxiety, for Adler was in the late stages of galloping consumption. And the harassed woman, none too well fixed with this world’s goods, was alone, caring for him. Groot’s humanity was touched and he forbore to trouble her further.
“Stryker’s decamped, that’s all,” Groot said; “and flight is confession. It’s clear enough. He wanted this insurance of his for his daughter, the agent told me the policy is payable to her, and he had to take it out before his age limit was reached. He knew of the legacy coming to him, and in order to get his insurance, he hastened the realization of his fortune.”
It did look that way, for Avice and Mrs. Black agreed that Stryker was devoted to his daughter, and they knew of her husband’s desperate illness. Knew too, that she would be left penniless, and was herself delicate and unfit for hard work. Stryker could support her while he lived, but to leave her an income from his life insurance was his great desire. Judge Hoyt, too, said that he knew of this from conversations he had himself had with Stryker. But he had supposed the butler had saved up funds for his insurance premium. He now learned that the support and care of the sick man had made this impossible.
So Stryker was strongly suspected of the crime, and every effort was made to find the missing man.
Meantime Alvin Duane came. Though alleged to be a clever detective, he admitted he found little to work upon.
“It is too late,” he said, “to look for clues on the scene of the crime. Had I been called in earlier, I might have found something, but after nearly a fortnight of damp, rainy weather, one can expect nothing in the way of footprints or other traces, though, of course, I shall look carefully.”
Duane was a middle-aged, grizzled man, and though earnest and serious, was not a brilliant member of his profession. He had, he said himself, no use for the hair-trigger deductions of imaginative brains which, oftener than not, were false. Give him good, material clues, and attested evidence, and he would hunt down a criminal as quickly as anybody, but not from a shred of cloth or a missing cuff-link.
Eleanor Black, with her dislike of detectives of all sorts, was openly rude to Duane. He was in and out of the house at all hours; he was continually wanting to intrude in the individual rooms, look over Mr. Trowbridge’s papers, quiz the servants, or hold long confabs with Avice or Kane Landon or herself, until she declared she was sick of the very sight of him.
“I don’t care,” Avice would say; “if he can find the murderer, he can go about it any way he chooses. He isn’t as sure that Stryker’s guilty as Mr. Groot is. Mr. Duane says if Stryker did it, it was because somebody else hired him or forced him to do it.”
“Well, what if it was? I can’t see, Avice, why you want to keep at it. What difference does it make who killed Rowland? He is dead, and to find his murderer won’t restore him to life. For my part, I’d like to forget all the unpleasant details as soon as possible. I think you are morbid on the subject.”
“Not at all! It’s common justice and common sense to want to punish a criminal, most of all a murderer! Judge Hoyt agrees with me, and so does Kane——”
“Mr. Landon didn’t want you to get Mr. Duane, you know that.”
“I do know it, but only because Kane thought the mystery too deep ever to be solved. But I am willing to spend a lot of money on it, and Judge Hoyt is willing to share the expense if it becomes too heavy for me alone.”
“The judge would do anything you say, of course. I think you treat him abominably, Avice. You’re everlastingly flirting with Mr. Landon, and it grieves Judge Hoyt terribly.”
“Don’t bother about my love affairs, Eleanor. I can manage them.”
“First thing you know, you’ll go too far, and Judge Hoyt will give you up. He won’t stand everything. And where will your fortune be then?”
“You alarm me!” said Avice, sarcastically. “But when I really need advice, my dear Eleanor, I’ll ask you for it.”
“Oh, don’t let’s quarrel. But I do wish you’d see your detective friends somewhere else. If it isn’t Mr. Duane, it’s that Groot or young Pinckney, and sometimes that ridiculous office boy with the carrot head.”
“His hairisfunny, isn’t it? But Fibsy is a little trump. He’s more saddened at Uncle Rowly’s death than lots of better men.”
“Hasn’t he found another place to work yet?”
“He’s had chances, but he hasn’t accepted any so far.”
“Well, he’s a nuisance, coming round here as he does.”
“Why, you needn’t see him, Eleanor. He can’t trouble you, if he just comes now and then to see me. And anyway, he hasn’t been here lately at all.”
“And I hope he won’t. Dear me, Avice, what good times we could have if you’d let up on this ferreting. And you know perfectly well it will never amount to anything.”
“If you talk like that, Eleanor, I’ll go and live somewhere else. Perhaps you’d rather I would.”
“No, not that,—unless you’d really prefer it. But I do hate detectives, whether they’re police, professional or amateur.”
Avice repeated this conversation to Duane, and he proposed that they have some of their interviews in his office, and he would then come to the house less frequently.
So, Avice went to his office and found it decidedly preferable to talk in a place where there was no danger of being overheard by servants or friends.
After due consideration she had concluded to tell the detective about Eleanor’s telephone message the night of the murder and her own subsequent call of the same number.
“This is most important,” said Duane, “why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“For one thing, Mrs. Black was always within hearing at home, and I didn’t like to.”
“I think I’ll go right now to see this Lindsay; he may give us some valuable information.”
And Lindsay did.
He was a frank, outspoken young man and told Duane all he knew which was considerable.
“Of course, I read all about the murder that the papers told,” he said, “but I always felt there was more to come. What about that housekeeper person?”
“Mrs. Black?”
“Yes. I’ve not wanted to butt in, but she was described in the papers and then,—well, it’s a queer thing,—but some sweet-voiced fairy called me up one day and asked me if I knew Mrs. Black!”
“Perhaps that was the lady herself,” said Duane, who knew better.
“Don’t think so. Sounded more like some damsel in distress. Voice quivered and all that sort of thing. And she said that the Black person had called up this number the very night of the murder! What do you think of that?”
“Strange!” murmured Duane.
“Yes, sir, strange enough, when you realize that Kane Landon occupied these rooms of mine that night.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well, Landon is an old friend of mine,—used to be, that is,—and when he blew in from Denver, with no home and mother waiting for him, and I was just flying off for a few days out of town, I said, ‘Bunk here,’ and he gratefully did. Then next thing I know, he’s gone off to his uncle’s inquest, leaving a note of thanks and farewell! Queer, if you ask me!”
“I do ask you. And I ask you, too, if you’re casting any reflection on Mr. Landon himself?”
“Oh, not that, but you’d think he’d come to see me, or something.”
“Yes, I’d think so. Did he talk to you of money matters?”
“Not to any great extent. Said he had a big mining proposition that meant a fortune if he could get the necessary advance capital. Said he hoped to get it from his uncle.”
“Not meaning by a legacy?”
“Oh, no. Said he was going to bone the old man for it. Which he did, according to the yarn of a fresh office boy.”
“Well, Mr. Lindsay, I’m glad you’re so frank in this matter. Do you know anything further of interest regarding Kane Landon?”
“I’m not sure. What does this housekeeper look like?”
“Rather stunning. Handsome, in a dark, foreign way. Big, black eyes, and—”
“Look like an adventuress?”
“Yes, I must admit that term describes her.”
“Black, glossy hair, ’most covering her ears, and mighty well groomed?”
“Exactly.”
“Then Kane Landon met that woman by appointment Tuesday afternoon,—the day of his uncle’s murder.”
“Where?”
“In the Public Library. They didn’t see me, but I was attracted at the sight of this beautiful woman on one of the marble benches in one of the halls, evidently waiting for somebody. Then Landon came and he greeted her eagerly. She gave him a small packet, wrapped in paper, and they talked so earnestly they didn’t see me at all. I was only there for a short time, to look up a matter of reference for some people I was visiting. We had motored in from Long Island,—Landon was then in my rooms, you know.”
“What time was this?”
“Just half-past two. I know, because I had told my people I’d meet them again at three, and I wanted a half hour for my research, and had it, too.”
“This is most important, Mr. Lindsay. You are prepared to swear it all as a witness, if called on?”
“Oh, it’s all true, of course. But, I say, I don’t want to get old Landon in trouble.”
“It doesn’t necessarily imply that. Perhaps Mrs. Black may be implicated more than we have supposed. But he, I understand, denies knowing the lady until meeting her here, after his uncle’s death.”
“Nonsense, he knew her for years out in Denver. They are old friends.”
“That, too, is of importance. Why should he wish to pretend they were not?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. But Landon always was a queer Dick. You know he left college before he was graduated, because of a quarrel with this same uncle. Mr. Trowbridge was putting him through, and they had a tiff about something, and Kane chucked it all, and went off out West. Been there ever since, till just now, and it’s a pity he hadn’t stayed there rather than to get mixed up in this affair.”
“You consider him mixed up in it, then?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but I know the police are still hinting at his possible connection with the matter and the Press, you know, will try to hang the crime on to somebody worth while. They don’t want to suspect highwaymen or Swedish passers-by, if they can get a man higher up. Now, do they?”
“I can’t say. I’ve only just begun on this case, and I wish I’d been called sooner. It’s a great thing to get in at the beginning——”
“Yes, when the clues are fresh. Well, if I can help you in any way, call on me. Landon is my friend, but if he’s innocent, investigation won’t hurt him, and if he’s implicated, he ought to be shown up.”
Alvin Duane went away, full of new theories. If Kane Landon did kill his uncle, here were several bits of corroborative evidence. If Mrs. Black was an old friend of his, and they had pretended otherwise, that was a suspicious circumstance in itself. And if they were both entirely innocent and unconnected in any way with the murder, why did they meet secretly in the library instead of openly at the Trowbridge home? These things must be explained, and satisfactorily, too.
Also, what was in the package that she went there to give him? Lindsay had said it was about the size of a brick, but flatter. Was it, could it have been a handkerchief of Stryker’s? Duane’s brain was leaping wildly now. Supposing these two conspirators were responsible for the murder. Supposing Kane had been the subject of his uncle’s dying words, and had himself committed the deed, might it not be that the adventuress (as he already called Mrs. Black) had brought him a handkerchief of the butler’s in deliberate scheming to fasten the crime on Stryker! That Landon had left it there purposely, and that Stryker discovering this, had fled, in fear of being unable to prove his innocence.
All theory, to be sure, but well-founded theory backed by the recorded facts, which Duane had studied till he knew them by heart.
Then the telephone caller who said “Uncle” was really the nephew, and the “stephanotis” and Caribbean Sea were jokes between the two, or as was more likely, figments of the stenographer’s fertile brain.
On an impulse, Duane went to see Miss Wilkinson, the stenographer, and verify his ideas.
“You’re sure it was a man’s voice?” he asked her.
“Sure,” she replied, always ready to reiterate this, though she had been quizzed about it a dozen times.
“Do you think it could have been Mr. Landon?”
“Yes, I think it could have been Mr. Landon, or Mr. Stryker, or the President of the United States. There isn’t anybody Idon’tthink it could have been! I tell you the voice was purposely disguised. Sort of squeaky and high pitched. Socan’tyou see that it was really a man with a natchelly low voice? You detectives make me tired! I give you the straight goods that it was a disguised voice, and so, unreckonizable. Then you all come round and say, ‘was it this one?’ ‘was it that one?’ I tell you I don’tknow. If I’d a known whose voice it was, I’d a told at the inquest. I ain’t one to keep back the weels of justice, I ain’t!”
“Never mind the voice then. Tell me again of those queer words——”
“Oh, for the land’s sake! I wish I’d never heard ’em! Well, one was stephanotis,—got that? It’s averyexpensive puffume, and the next man that asks me about it, has got to gimme a bottle. I had a bottle onct——”
“I know, I know,” said Duane, hastily, “that’s how you came to know the name.”
“Yep. Now, go on to the Caribbean Sea.” The blonde looked cross and bored. “No, Idon’tknow why anybody invited Mr. Trowbridge to the Caribbean; if I had I’d been most pleased to tell long ago. But somebody did. I heard it as plain as I hear you now. Yes, I’m sure itwasthe Caribbean Sea, and not the Medtranean nor the Red Sea nor the Bay of Oshkosh! So there, now. Anything else this morning?”
“How pettish you are!”
“And so would you be if everybody was a pesterin’ you about them old words. Can I help it if the man talked Greek? Can I help it if he squeaked his voice so’s I couldn’t reckonize it? I gave my testimony and it was all recorded. Why can’t you read that over and let me alone, I’d like to know!”
But after a pleasant little gift of a paper, fresh from the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Miss Wilkinson grew a little more sunny tempered.
“No,” she said, in answer to Duane’s last question, “I can’t quite remember whether the voice saidhehad set a trap or somebody else had set one. But I’m positive he said one or the other. And he said the trap was set for Mr. Trowbridge,—whoever set it.”
Alvin Duane had to report to Avice and to Judge Hoyt the result of his interview with Lindsay.
The detective had an idea that Avice would be far from pleased at the possible incrimination of Kane Landon. Duane knew that Miss Trowbridge was reported engaged to Judge Hoyt, but he had seen and heard her in conversation with the judge, and to his astute observation she did not seem desperately in love with him. This, to be sure, was none of his business, but he greatly desired to find out just where the affections of his young employer lay. Moreover, he had a slight suspicion that the girl was a little jealous of the beautiful widow’s attractions, but whether this jealousy was directed toward Landon or the judge he did not know. And he chose his own method of discovering.
Avice came to his office by appointment to learn his news. Duane greeted her, looking admiringly at the slender figure, so pathetic in its dull black draperies. But there was a vivid color in the girl’s cheeks, and a sparkle of excitement in her eyes, as she sat down, eager to learn the latest developments.
“Mr. Duane,” she said, “I see by your very manner that you learned something from my unknown friend, Mr. Lindsay.”
“I did,” and Duane looked mysterious and important.
“Well, tell me! I am all impatience!”
Pursuing the plan he had formulated to himself, he said, impressively, “I’ve a new theory.”
“Yes,” said the girl, breathlessly.
“I think Mrs. Black is the criminal,” he declared, bluntly.
Avice almost laughed. “How absurd!” she said. “Why, Mrs. Black was with me all that afternoon.”
“That’s just it! She stayed and kept you at home on purpose. I don’t mean she actually committed the murder, but she instigated it.”
“And who was her accomplice?”
“Stryker, the house man, of course.”
Avice began to be a little interested. She had never really liked Stryker. He seemed to her shifty and deceitful. “But how?” she asked.
“Easy enough. The man simply took a knife from the kitchen, followed his master to the woods, and waylaid him.”
“How did he know Uncle Rowly was going to the woods?”
“He telephoned him at his office to go to Van Cortlandt Park. You remember the stenographer said the man who telephoned called Mr. Trowbridge ‘Uncle’.”
“And Stryker did that?”
“Yes; to be misleading.”
“But Stryker didn’t know Kane Landon had come on from the West.”
“Yes, he did. Landon telephoned the night before. You were all out and Stryker took the message.”
“How do you know?”
“I have ferreted it all out from the other servants. The facts, I mean,—not my deductions from them.”
“Have you spoken to them about Stryker?”
“No; I wanted to speak to you about it first.”
“Mr. Duane, I will be frank with you. I don’t want Kane Landon suspected of this crime. I know he is innocent. I know, too, that some evidence seems to be against him. But that is only seeming. He is entirely innocent. Now, if Stryker is innocent, also, I don’t want to direct suspicion to him. And it doesn’t seem to me you have any real evidence against him.”
“But, my theory is that he was only a tool in the hands of the principal criminal.”
“Mrs. Black?”
“Yes.”
“Preposterous! Incredible!”
“Not at all. Mrs. Black was engaged to your uncle, but she did not love him. She was marrying for a fortune. Then she heard that Landon, whom she has known for years, was coming East, and she connived with Stryker to put the old gentleman out of the way.”
“Uncle Rowly was only in the fifties, that is not old.”
“Old compared with Kane Landon. And as I told you, Miss Trowbridge, this is largely theory. But many facts support it, and it ought to be looked into.”
“Then the thing to do, is to lay it before Judge Hoyt. He will know what is the best way to sift the theory to a conclusion.”
But when the three were together in Hoyt’s office, and Duane told the whole story of his interview with Jim Lindsay, the detective laid aside his pretence of still suspecting Stryker and enumerated his reasons for looking in the direction of Landon.
“That must be a true bill about his meeting that adventuress in the library,” he argued; “it couldn’t have been anybody else but Mrs. Black.”
“Why couldn’t it?” Avice spoke fiercely, and her brown eyes were full of indignant amazement at the tale Duane had told.
“Lindsay saw her picture in the papers, and anyway, it all fits in. You see, those two were pals in Denver, and they kept it quiet. That’s enough to rouse suspicion in itself. The old butler is no sort of a suspect. To be sure he wanted the money to get his insurance before the time was up, but he wouldn’t commit murder for that——”
“Why wouldn’t he?” demanded Avice, “as likely as that a man’s own nephew would do it?”
“He isn’t an own nephew,” said Judge Hoyt, slowly. “I don’t want to subscribe to your theory, Duane, but I’m startled at this library story. Of course, Landon had a right to meet anybody he chose and wherever he chose, but why keep secret his previous acquaintance with the widow?”
“He might have lots of good reasons for that,” and Avice looked pleadingly at the judge. “Don’tyouturn against him, Leslie; you know him too well to think him capable of crime.”
“Of the two I would rather it had been Stryker,” said the judge, “but we can’t ignore definite evidence like this. Did Mrs. Black go out that afternoon, Avice?”
“Yes,” replied the girl, unwillingly. “She went out soon after luncheon and stayed about an hour.”
“Time to go to the library and back. Duane, you’re drawing a long bow, to jump at the conclusion that the housekeeper took a handkerchief of Stryker’s, to be used as a false clue that would incriminate the butler! It’s almosttoomuch of a prearranged performance.”
“Of course it is!” cried Avice. “Kane is a firebrand and impulsive and hotheaded, but he’s not a deliberate criminal! If he killed Uncle Rowly,—which he never did, never!—he did it in the heat of a quarrel, or under some desperate provocation. I wish you had never come to us, Mr. Duane! I don’t want Stryker found guilty, but I’d a thousand times rather he did it than Kane. I dismiss you, Mr. Duane. You may give up the case, and tell no one of these wrong and misleading circumstances you’ve discovered.”
“Wait, wait, Avice,” and Judge Hoyt spoke very gently; “we can’t lay aside evidence in that way. These things must be looked into. They must be told to the district attorney, and investigated, then if Landon is innocent, as he doubtless is, he can explain all that now looks dark against him.”
“Don’t accusehim!” flared Avice, “go to Eleanor Black, and ask her what was in the parcel she took to Kane. She is the wrongdoer, if either of them is. She telephoned him that night of Uncle’s death, and she said——”
“What did she say?” asked Hoyt, as Avice stopped short.
Compelled by the insistent glances of the two men, Avice went on: “She said she’d meet him the next day at the same time and place. That proves there was nothing wrong about it.”
It didn’t prove this conclusively to her two listeners, and they quizzed her further until she admitted that she had reason to think that Landon and Mrs. Black had known each other before Avice had introduced them.
“How do you explain that,” asked Duane, “unless they were concealing something,—some plan or a secret of some sort?”
“And suppose they were! It needn’t have been anything connected with Uncle Rowly’s death. If they knew each other in Denver, all the more likely they had business of some sort that they didn’t care to have known.”
The girl was arguing against her own suspicions as much as against theirs. A terrible fear clutched at her heart, and surging emotions choked her speech. For, as she pictured Kane as a suspected criminal, came the even more heartrending thought that he was in love with Eleanor Black! Quickly to Avice’s sensitive intuitions came the conviction that Landon would not be holding secret conferences and having secrets with Eleanor unless they were or had been lovers. And yet, he had told Avice he loved her. But, granting all this she was hearing today, what faith could she put in his speech or actions?
“I can only repeat what I said, Mr. Duane,” she asserted, with dignity, “I hereby release you from your engagement on this case, and I will willingly pay you for the time you have wasted,—worse than wasted! And I hope never to see you again!” Here Avice was unable longer to control her tears.
Greatly distressed, Judge Hoyt attempted to soothe her, but met only with rebuff.
“You’re just as bad,” she sobbed. “You, too, want to prove Kane mixed up in this, when you know he isn’t—he couldn’t be!——”
“There, Avice, there, dear, dry your eyes and go home now. I will talk this over with Mr. Duane, and if there is any way of disproving or discrediting this evidence, rest assured——”
“Oh, can you do that, Leslie?” and the girl looked up hopefully; “isn’t there a thing called ‘striking out’ anything you don’t want to use against a person?”