The Mystery Girl
by Carolyn Wells · English · Gutenberg #44984 · 367,886 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Mystery Girl
Author: Carolyn Wells
Release date: February 23, 2014 [eBook #44984]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY GIRL ***
THE MYSTERY
GIRL
BY
CAROLYN WELLS
_Author of “Vicky Van,” “Raspberry Jam,” &c._
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
TO
HUBER GRAY BUEHLER
A GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNEUR WHO
POSSESSES THE ADDED GRACE OF A RARE
TASTE IN MYSTERY STORIES
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A President-elect 9
II. Miss Mystery Arrives 28
III. Thirteen Buttons 47
IV. A Broken Teacup 65
V. The Tragedy 84
VI. An Incredible Case 103
VII. The Volume of Martial 121
VIII. Where is Nogi? 140
IX. A Love Letter 158
X. Who is Miss Mystery? 176
XI. The Spinster’s Evidence 193
XII. Maurice Trask, Heir 212
XIII. The Truesdell Eyebrows 231
XIV. A Proposal 250
XV. Fleming Stone Comes 269
XVI. Miss Mystery’s Testimony 287
XVII. Planning an Elopement 305
XVIII. Miss Mystery no Longer 322
THE MYSTERY GIRL
CHAPTER I
A PRESIDENT-ELECT
Quite aside from its natural characteristics, there is an atmosphere
about a college town, especially a New England college town, that is
unmistakable. It is not so much actively intellectual as passively aware
of and satisfied with its own intellectuality.
The beautiful little town of Corinth was no exception; from its
tree-shaded village green to the white-columned homes on its outskirts it
fairly radiated a satisfied sense of its own superiority.
Not that the people were smug or self-conceited. They merely accepted the
fact that the University of Corinth was among the best in the country and
that all true Corinthians were both proud and worthy of it.
The village itself was a gem of well-kept streets, roads and houses, and
all New England could scarce show a better groomed settlement.
In a way, the students, of course, owned the place, yet there were many
families whose claim to prominence lay in another direction.
However, Corinth was by all counts, a college town, and gloried in it.
The University had just passed through the throes and thrills of one of
its own presidential elections.
The contest of the candidates had been long, and at last the strife had
become bitter. Two factions strove for supremacy, one, the conservative
side, adhering to old traditions, the other, the modern spirit,
preferring new conditions and progressive enterprise.
Hard waged and hard won, the battle had resulted at last in the election
of John Waring, the candidate of the followers of the old school.
Waring was not an old fogy, nor yet a hide-bound or narrow-minded back
number. But he did put mental attainment ahead of physical prowess, and
he did hold by certain old-fashioned principles and methods, which he and
his constituents felt to be the backbone of the old and honored
institution.
Wherefore, though his election was an accomplished fact, John Waring had
made enemies that seemed likely never to be placated.
But Waring’s innate serenity and acquired poise were not disturbed by
adverse criticism, he was a man with an eye single to his duty as he saw
it. And he accepted the position of responsibility and trust, simply and
sincerely with a determination to make his name honored among the list of
presidents.
Inauguration, however, would not take place until June, and the months
from February on would give him time to accustom himself to his new
duties, and to learn much from the retiring president.
Yet it must not be thought that John Waring was unpopular. On the
contrary, he was respected and liked by everybody in Corinth. Even the
rival faction conceded his ability, his sterling character and his
personal charm. And their chagrin and disappointment at his election was
far more because of their desire for the other candidate’s innovations
than of any dislike for John Waring as a man.
Of course, there were some who candidly expressed their disapproval of
the new president, but, so far, no real opposition was made, and it was
hoped there would be none.
Now, whether because of the exigencies of his new position, or merely
because of the irresistible charms of Mrs. Bates, Waring expected to make
the lady his wife before his inauguration.
“And a good thing,” his neighbor, Mrs. Adams, observed. “John Waring
ought to’ve been somebody’s good-looking husband long ago, but a bachelor
president of Corinth is out of all reason! Who’d stand by his side at the
receptions, I’d like to know?”
For certain public receptions were dearly loved by the citizens of
Corinth, and Mrs. Adams was one of the most reception-loving of all.
As in all college towns, there were various and sundry boarding houses,
inns and hotels of all grades, but the boarding house of Mrs. Adams was,
without a dissenting voice, acclaimed the most desirable and most
homelike.
The good lady’s husband, though known as “Old Salt,” was by no means a
seafaring man, nor had he ever been. Instead, he was a leaf on a branch
of the Saltonstall family tree, and the irreverent abbreviation had been
given him long ago, and had stuck.
“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Adams asserted, “we’ve never had a bachelor president
of Corinth and I hope we never will. Mrs. Bates is a nice sweet-spoken
lady, a widow of four years standing, and I do say she’s just the one for
Doctor Waring’s wife. She has dignity, and yet she’s mighty human.”
Emily Bates was human. Not very tall, a little inclined to plumpness,
with fair hair and laughing blue eyes, she was of a cozy, home-loving
sort, and her innate good nature and ready tact were unfailing.
At first she had resisted John Waring’s appeal, but he persisted, until
she found she really liked the big, wholesome man, and without much
difficulty learned to love him.
Waring was distinguished-looking rather than handsome. Tall and
well-made, he had a decided air of reserve which he rarely broke through,
but which, Emily Bates discovered, could give way to confidences showing
depths of sweetness and charm.
The two were happily matched. Waring was forty-two and Mrs. Bates half a
dozen years younger. But both seemed younger than their years, and
retained their earlier tastes and enthusiasms.
Also both were bound up, heart and soul, in the welfare of the
University. Mrs. Bates’ first husband had been one of its prominent
professors and its history and traditions were known and loved by the
cheery little lady.
Perhaps the only person in Corinth who was not pleased at the approaching
nuptials of John Waring and Emily Bates was Mrs. Peyton, Waring’s present
housekeeper. For it meant the loss of her position, which she had
faithfully filled for ten years or more. And this meant the loss of a
good and satisfactory home, not only for herself, but for her daughter
Helen, a girl of eighteen, who lived there also.
Not yet had Waring told his housekeeper that she was to be dethroned but
she knew the notice would come,—knew, too, that it was delayed only
because of John Waring’s disinclination to say or do anything unwelcome
to another. And Mrs. Peyton had been his sister’s school friend and had
served him well and faithfully. Yet she must go, for the incoming
mistress needed no other housekeeper for the establishment than her own
efficient, capable self.
It was a very cold February afternoon, and Mrs. Peyton was serving tea in
the cheerful living-room. Emily Bates was present; an indulgence she
seldom allowed herself, for she was punctilious regarding conventions,
and Corinth people, after all, were critical. Though, to be sure, there
was no harm in her taking tea in the home so soon to be her own.
The two women were outwardly most courteous, and if there was an
underlying hostility it was not observable on the part of either.
“I came today,” Emily Bates said, as she took her tea cup from the
Japanese butler who offered it, “because I want to tell you, John, of
some rumors I heard in the town. They say there is trouble brewing for
you.”
“Trouble brewing is such a picturesque phrase,” Waring said, smiling
idly, as he stirred his tea. “One immediately visions Macbeth’s witches,
and their trouble brew.”
“You needn’t laugh,” Emily flashed an affectionate smile toward him,
“when the phrase is used it often means something.”
“Something vague and indefinite,” suggested Gordon Lockwood, who was
Waring’s secretary, and was as one of the family.
“Not necessarily,” Mrs. Bates returned; “more likely something definite,
though perhaps not very alarming.”
“Such as what?” asked Waring, “and from what direction? Will the freshmen
make me an apple-pie bed, or will the seniors haze me, do you think?”
“Be serious, John,” Mrs. Bates begged. “I tell you there is a movement on
foot to stir up dissension. I heard they would contest the election.”
“Oh, they can’t do that,” Lockwood stated; “nor would anybody try. Don’t
be alarmed, Mrs. Bates. I’m sure we know all that’s going on,—and I can’t
think there’s any ‘trouble brewing’ for Doctor Waring.”
“I’ve heard it, too,” vouchsafed Mrs. Peyton. “It’s not anything
definite, but there are rumors and hints, and where there’s smoke,
there’s bound to be fire. I wish you’d at least look into it, Doctor.”
“Yes,” agreed Emily Bates, “do look into it, John.”
“But how can I?” Waring smiled. “I can’t go from door to door, saying
‘I’ve come to investigate a rumor,’ can I?”
“Oh, don’t be absurd!” Mrs. Bates’ plump little hands fluttered in
protest and then fell quietly to rest in her lap. “You men are so
tactless! Now, Mrs. Peyton or I could find out all about it, without any
one knowing we were making inquiry.”
“Why don’t you, then?” asked Waring, and Mrs. Peyton gave a pleased smile
as the guest bracketed their names.
“I will, if you say so.” Emily spoke gravely. “That is what I wanted to
ask you. I didn’t like to take up the matter with any one unless you
directly approved.”
“Oh, go ahead,—I see no harm in it.”
“But, Doctor Waring,” put in Lockwood, “is it wise? I fear that if Mrs.
Bates takes up this matter she may get in deeper than she means or
expects to, and—well, you can’t tell what might turn up.”
“That’s so, Emily. As matters stand, you’d best be careful.”
“Oh, John, how vacillating you are! First, you say go ahead, and then you
say stop! I don’t mind your changing your opinions, but I do resent your
paying so little attention to the matter. You toss it aside without
thought.”
“Doctor Waring thinks very quickly,” said Mrs. Peyton, and Emily gave her
a slight stare.
It was hard for the housekeeper to realize that she must inevitably lose
her place in his household, and the thought made her a little assertive
while she still had opportunity.
“Yes, I know it,” was the reply Emily gave, and went on, addressing
herself to the two men.
“Persuade him, Mr. Lockwood. Not of his duty, he never misapprehends
that, but of the necessity of looking on this matter as a duty.”
“What a pleader you are, Emily,” and Waring gave her an admiring bow; “I
am almost persuaded that my very life is in danger!”
“Oh, you won’t be good!” The blue eyes twinkled but the rosy little mouth
took on a mutinous pout. “Well, I warn you, if you don’t look out for
yourself, I’m going to look out for you! And that, as Mr. Lockwood hints,
may get you into trouble!”
“What a contradictory little person it is! In an effort to get me out of
trouble, you admit you will probably get me into trouble. Well, well, if
this is during our betrothal days, what will you do after we are
married?”
“Oh, then you’ll obey me implicitly,” and the expressive hands indicated
with a wide sweep, total subjection.
“You’ll find him not absolutely easy to manage,” Mrs. Peyton declared,
and though Emily Bates said no word, she gave a look of superior managing
power that brought the housekeeper’s thin lips together in a resentful
straight line.
This byplay was unnoticed by large-minded John Waring, but it amused
Lockwood, who was an observer of human nature.
Unostentatiously, he watched Mrs. Peyton, as she turned her attention to
the tea tray, and noted the air of importance with which she continued
her duties as hostess.
“Bring hot toast, Ito,” she said to the well-trained and deferential
Japanese. “And a few more lemon slices,—I see another guest coming.”
She smiled out through the window, and a moment later a breezy young chap
came into the room.
“Hello, folkses,” he cried; “Hello, Aunt Emily.”
He gave Mrs. Bates an audible kiss on her pretty cheek and bowed with
boyish good humor to Mrs. Peyton.
“How do you do, Uncle Doctor?” and “How goes it, Lock?” he went on, as he
threw himself, a little sprawlingly into an easy chair. “And here’s the
fair Helen of Troy.”
He jumped up as Helen Peyton came into the room. “Why, Pinky,” she said,
“when did you come?”
“Just now, my girl, as you noted from your oriel lattice,—and came
running down to bask in the sunshine of my smiles.”
“Behave yourself, Pinky,” admonished his aunt, as she noted Helen’s quick
blush and realized the saucy boy had told the truth.
Pinckney Payne, college freshman, and nephew of Emily Bates, was very
fond of Doctor Waring, his English teacher, and as also fond, in his
boyish way, of his aunt. But he was no respecter of authority, and, now
that his aunt was to be the wife of his favorite professor, also the
President-elect of the college, he assumed an absolute familiarity with
the whole household.
His nickname was not only an abbreviation, but was descriptive of his
exuberant health and invariably red cheeks. For the rest, he was just a
rollicking, care-free boy, ring leader in college fun, often punished,
but bobbing up serenely again, ready for more mischief.
Helen Peyton adored the irrepressible Pinky, and though he liked her, it
was no more than he felt for many others and not so much as he had for a
few.
“Tea, Mrs. Peyton? Oh, yes, indeed, thank you. Yes, two lemon and three
sugar. And toasts,—and cakies,—oh, what good ones! What a tuck! Alma
Mater doesn’t feed us like this! I say, Aunt Emily, after you are
married, may I come to tea every day? And bring the fellows?”
“I’ll answer that,—you may,” said John Waring.
“And I’ll revise the answer,—you may, with reservations,” Mrs. Bates
supplemented. “Now, Pinky, you’re a dear and a sweet, but you can’t annex
this house and all its affairs, just because it’s going to be my home.”
“Don’t want to, Auntie. I only want you to annex me. You’ll keep the same
cook we have at present, won’t you?”
He looked solicitously at her, over a large slice of toast and jam he was
devouring.
“Maybe and maybe not,” Mrs. Peyton spoke up. “Cooks are not always
anxious to be kept.”
“At any rate, we’ll have a cook, Pinky, of some sort,” his aunt assured
him, and the boy turned to tease Helen Peyton, who was quite willing to
be teased.
“I saw your beau today, Helen,” he said.
“Which one?” she asked placidly.
“Is there a crowd? Well, I mean the Tyler person. Him as hangs out at Old
Salt’s. And, by the way, Uncle President,—yes, I am a bit previous on
both counts, but you’ll soon have the honor of being both President and
my uncle,—by the way, I say, Bob Tyler says there’s something in the
wind.”
“A straw to show which way it blows, perhaps,” Waring said.
“Perhaps, sir. But it’s blowing. Tyler says there’s a movement on foot to
make things hot for you if you take the Presidential chair with your
present intentions.”
“My intentions?”
“Yes, sir; about athletics, and sports in general.”
“And what are my so-called intentions?”
“They say, you mean to cut out sport—”
“Oh, Pinckney, you know better than that!”
“Well, Doctor Waring, some seem to think that’s what you have in mind. If
you’d declare your intentions now,—”
“Look here, Pinky, don’t you think I’ve enough on my mind in the matter
of marrying your aunt, without bringing in other matters till that’s
settled.”
“Going to be married soon, Uncle Doc?”
“We are. As soon as your aunt will select a pleasant day for the
ceremony. Then, that attended to, I can devote my mind and energies to
this other subject. And meanwhile, my boy, if you hear talk about it,
don’t make any assertions,—rather, try to hush up the subject.”
“I see,—I see,—and I will, Doctor Waring. You don’t want to bother with
those things till you’re a settled down married man! I know just how you
feel about it. Important business, this getting married,—I daresay, sir.”
“It is,—and so much so, that I’m going to take the bride-elect off right
now, for a little private confab. You must understand that we have much
to arrange.”
“Run along,—bless you, my children!” Pinky waved a teacup and a sandwich
beneficently toward the pair, as they left the room and went off in the
direction of the Doctor’s study.
The house was a large one, with a fine front portico upheld by six
enormous fluted columns.
One of the most beautiful of New England doorways led into a wide hall.
To the right of this was the drawing-room, not so often used and not so
well liked as the more cozy living-room, to the left as one entered, and
where the tea-drinking group now sat.
Behind these two rooms and hall, ran a cross hall, with an outer door at
the end back of the living-room and a deep and wide window seat at the
other end, behind the drawing-room.
Further back, beyond the cross hall, on the living-room side, was the
dining-room, and beside it, back of the drawing-room was the Doctor’s
study. This was the gem of the whole house. The floor had been sunken to
give greater ceiling height, for the room was very large, and of fine
proportions. It opened on to the cross hall with wide double doors, and a
flight of six or seven steps descended to its rug covered floor.
Opposite the double doors was the great fireplace with high over-mantel
of carved stone. Each side of the mantel were windows, high and not
large. The main daylight came through a great window on the right of the
entrance and also from a long French window that opened like doors on the
same side.
This French window, giving on a small porch, and the door that opened
into the cross hall of the house were the only doors in the great room,
save those on cupboards and bookcases.
On the other side of the room, opposite the French window was a row of
four small windows looking into the dining-room. But these were high, and
could not be seen through by people on the sunken floor of the study.
The whole room was done in Circassian walnut, and represented the ideal
abode of a man of letters. The fireside was flanked with two facing
davenports, the wide window seat was piled with cushions. The French
window-doors were suitably curtained and the high windows were of truly
beautiful stained glass.
The spacious table desk was in the middle of the room, and bookcases,
both portable and built in, lined the walls. There were a few good busts
and valuable pictures, and the whole effect was one of dignity and repose
rather than of elaborate grandeur.
The room was renowned, and all Corinth spoke of it with pride. The
students felt it a great occasion that brought them within its walls and
the faculty loved nothing better than a session therein.
Casual guests were rarely entertained in the study. Only especial
visitors or those worthy of its classic atmosphere found welcome there.
Mrs. Peyton or Helen were not expected to use it, and Mrs. Bates had
already declared she should respect it as the sanctum of Doctor Waring
alone.
The two made their way to the window seat, and as he arranged the soft
cushions for her, Waring said, “Don’t, Emily, ever feel shut out of this
room. As I live now, I’ve not welcomed the Peytons in here, but my wife
is a different proposition.”
“I still feel an awe of the place, John, but I may get used to it.
Anyway, I’ll try, and I do appreciate your willingness to have me in
here. Then if you want to be alone, you must put me out.”
“I’ll probably do that, sometimes, dear, for I have to spend many hours
alone. You know, I’m not taking the presidency lightly.”
“I know it, you conscientious dear. But, on the other hand, don’t be too
serious about it. You’re just the man for the place, just the character
for a College President, and if you try too hard to improve or
reconstruct yourself, you’ll probably spoil your present perfection.”
“Well nothing would spoil _your_ present perfection, my Emily. I am too
greatly blest,—to have the great honor from the college,—and you, too!”
“Are you happy, John? All happy?”
Waring’s deep blue eyes fastened themselves on her face. His brown hair
showed only a little gray at the temples, his fine face was not touched
deeply by Time’s lines, and his clear, wholesome skin glowed with health.
If there was an instant’s hesitation before his reply came, it was none
the less hearty and sincere. “Yes, my darling, all happy. And you?”
“I am happy, if you are,” she returned. “But I can never be happy if
there is a shadow of any sort on your heart. Is there, John? Tell me,
truly.”
“You mean regarding this trouble that I hear is brewing for me?”
“Not only that; I mean in any direction.”
“Trouble, Emily! With you in my arms! No,—a thousand times no! Trouble
and I are strangers,—so long as I have you!”
CHAPTER II
MISS MYSTERY ARRIVES
Anyone who has arrived at the railroad station of a New England village,
after dark on a very cold winter night, the train late, no one to meet
him, and no place engaged for board and lodging, will know the desolation
of such a situation.
New England’s small railroad stations are much alike, the crowds that
alight from the trains are much alike, the people waiting on the platform
for the arriving travelers are much alike, but there came into Corinth
one night a passenger who was not at all like the fellow passengers on
that belated train. It was a train from New York, due in Corinth at
five-forty, but owing to the extreme cold weather, and various untoward
freezings occasioned thereby, the delays were many and long and the train
drew into the station shortly after seven o’clock.
Tired, hungry and impatient, the travelers crowded out of the train and
stamped through the snow to the vehicles awaiting them, or footed it to
their nearby homes.
The passenger who was unlike the others stepped down from the car
platform, and holding her small suitcase firmly, crossed the track and
entered the station waiting room. She went to the ticket window but found
there no attendant. Impatiently she tapped her little foot on the old
board floor but no one appeared.
“Agent,” she called out, rapping with her knuckles on the window shelf,
“Agent,—where are you?”
“Who’s there? What d’y’ want?” growled a surly voice, and a head appeared
at the ticket window.
“I want somebody to look after me! I’m alone, and I want a porter, and I
want a conveyance and I want some information.”
“Oh, you do! Well, I can’t supply porters nor yet conveyances; but
information I may be able to give you.”
“Very well then,” and a pair of big, dark eyes seemed to pierce his very
brain. “Then tell me where I can find the best accommodations in
Corinth.”
The now roused agent looked more interestedly at the inquirer.
He saw a mere slip of a girl, young, slender, and very alert of manner.
Her dark, grave little face was oval, and her eyes had a strange uncanny
way of roving quickly about, and coming suddenly back, greatly
disconcerting the stolid ticket agent.
This agent was not unused to girls,—a college town is often invaded by
hordes of smart young women, pretty girls and gay hoydens. Many Junes he
had sold tickets or given information to hundreds of feminine inquirers
but none had ever seemed quite like this one.
“Best accommodations?” he repeated stupidly.
“You heard me, then! About when do you propose to reply?”
Still he gazed at her in silence, running over in his mind the various
boarding houses, and finding none he thought she’d like.
“There’s a rule of the Railroad Company that questions must be answered
the same day they’re asked,” she said, witheringly, and picking up her
suitcase she started for the door, feeling that any one she might find
would know more than this dummy.
“Wait,—oh, I say, miss, wait a minute.”
“I did,” she said coolly, proceeding to the door.
“But,—oh, hold on,—try Old Salt Adams,—you couldn’t do better.”
“Where is it?” she deigned to pause a moment, and he replied quickly:
“He’s right outside,—hurry up out,—you can catch him!”
Here was something she could understand, and she hurried up out, just in
time to see an old man with long white beard jump into his sleigh and
begin to tuck fur robes about him.
“He sprang to his sleigh,—to his team gave a whistle,—” she quoted to
herself, and then cried out, “Hey, there, Santa Claus, give me a lift?”
“You engaged for our house?” the man called back, and as she shook her
head, he gathered up his reins.
“Can’t take any one not engaged,” he called back, “Giddap!”
“Wait,—wait! I command you!” The sharp, clear young voice rang out
through the cold winter air, and Old Saltonstall Adams paused to listen.
“Ho, ho,” he chuckled, “you command me, do you? Now, I haven’t been
commanded for something like fifty years.”
“Oh, don’t stop to fuss,” the girl exclaimed, angrily. “Don’t you see I’m
cold, hungry and very uncomfortable? You have a boarding house,—I want
board,—now, you take me in. Do you hear?”
“Sure I hear, but, miss, we’ve only so many rooms and they’re all
occupied or engaged.”
“Some are engaged, but as yet unoccupied?” The dark eyes challenged him,
and Adams mumbled,—“Well, that’s about it.”
“Very well, I will occupy one until the engager comes along. Let me get
in. No, I can manage my suitcase myself. You get my trunk,—here’s the
check. Or will you send for that tomorrow?”
“Why wait? Might’s well get it now—if so be you’re bound to bide. ’Fraid
to wait in the sleigh alone?”
“I’m afraid of nothing,” was the disdainful answer, and the girl pulled
the fur robes up around her as she sat in the middle of the back seat.
Shortly, old Salt returned with the trunk on his shoulder, and put it in
the front with himself, and they started.
“Don’t try to talk,” he called back to her, as the horses began a rapid
trot. “I can’t hear you against this wind.”
“I’ve no intention of talking,” the girl replied, but the man couldn’t
hear her. The wind blew fiercely. It was snowing a little, and the drifts
sent feathery clouds through the air. The trees, coated with ice from a
recent sleet storm, broke off crackling bits of ice as they passed. The
girl looked about, at first curiously, and then timidly, as if frightened
by what she saw.
It was not a long ride, and they stopped before a large house, showing
comfortably lighted windows and a broad front door that swung open even
as the girl was getting down from the sleigh.
“For the land sake!” exclaimed a brisk feminine voice, “this ain’t Letty!
Who in the earth have you got here?”
“I don’t know,” Old Salt Adams replied, truthfully. “Take her along,
mother, and give her a night’s lodging.”
“But where is Letty? Didn’t she come?”
“Now can’t you see she didn’t come? Do you s’pose I left her at the
station? Or dumped her out along the road? No—since you will have it, she
didn’t come. She _didn’t_ come!”
Old Salt drove on toward the barns, and Mrs. Adams bade the girl go into
the house.
The landlady followed, and as she saw the strange guest she gazed at her
in frank curiosity.
“You want a room, I s’pose,” she began. “But, I’m sorry to say we haven’t
one vacant—”
“Oh, I’ll take Letty’s. She didn’t come, you see, so I can take her room
for tonight.”
“Letty wouldn’t like that.”
“But I would. And I’m here and Letty isn’t. Shall we go right up?”
Picking up her small suitcase, the girl started and then stepped back for
the woman to lead the way.
“Not quite so fast—_if_ you please. What is your name?”
As the landlady’s tone changed to a sterner inflection, the girl likewise
grew dignified.
“My name is Anita Austin,” she said, coldly. “I came here because I was
told it was the best house in Corinth.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York City.”
“What address?”
“Plaza Hotel.”
By this time the strange dark eyes had done their work. A steady glance
from Anita Austin seemed to compel all the world to do her bidding. At
any rate, Mrs. Adams took the suitcase, and without a further word
conducted the stranger upstairs.
She took her into an attractive bedroom, presumably made ready for the
absent Letty.
“This will do,” Miss Austin said, calmly. “Will you send me up a tray of
supper? I don’t want much, and I prefer not to come down to dinner.”
“Land sake, dinner’s over long ago. You want some tea, ’n’ bread, ’n’
butter, ’n’ preserves, ’n’ cake?”
“Yes, thank you, that sounds good. Send it in half an hour.”
To her guest Mrs. Adams showed merely a face of acquiescence, but once
outside the door, and released from the spell of those eerie eyes, she
remarked to herself, “For the land sake!” with great emphasis.
“Well, what do you know about that!” Old Salt Adams cried, when, after
she had started him on his supper, his wife related the episode.
“I can’t make her out,” Mrs. Adams said, thoughtfully. “But I don’t like
her. And I won’t keep her. Tomorrow, you take her over to Belton’s.”
“Just as you say. But I thought her kinda interesting looking. You can’t
say she isn’t that.”
“Maybe so, to some folks. Not to me. And Letty’ll come tomorrow, so that
girl’ll have to get out of the room.”
Meanwhile “that girl” was eagerly peering out of her window.
She tried to discern which were the lights of the college buildings, but
through the still lightly falling snow, she could see but little, and
after a time, she gave up the effort. She drew her head back into the
room just as a tap at the door announced her supper.
“Thank you,” she said to the maid who brought it. “Set it on that stand,
please. It looks very nice.”
And then, sitting comfortably in an easy chair, robed in warm dressing
gown and slippers, Miss Anita Austin devoted a pleasant half hour to the
simple but thoroughly satisfactory meal.
This finished, she wrote some letters. Not many, indeed, but few as they
were, the midnight hour struck before she sealed the last envelope and
wrote the last address.
Then, prepared for bed, she again looked from the window, and gazed long
into the night.
“Corinth,” she whispered, “Oh, Corinth, what do you hold for me? What
fortune or misfortune will you bring me? What fortune or misfortune shall
I bring to others? Oh, Justice, Justice, what crimes are committed in thy
name!”
The next morning Anita appeared in the dining-room at the breakfast hour.
Mrs. Adams scanned her sharply, and looked a little disapprovingly at the
short, scant skirt and slim, silken legs of her new boarder.
Anita, her dark eyes scanning her hostess with equal sharpness, seemed to
express an equal disapproval of the country-cut gingham and huge white
apron.
Not at all obtuse, Mrs. Adams sensed this, and her tone was a little more
deferential than she had at first intended to make it.
“Will you sit here, please, Miss Austin?” she indicated a chair next
herself.
“No, thank you, I’ll sit by my friend,” and the girl slipped into a
vacant chair next Saltonstall Adams.
Old Salt gave a furtive glance at his wife, and suppressed a chuckle at
her surprise.
“This is Mr. Tyler’s place,” he said to the usurper, “but I expect he’ll
let you have it this once.”
“I mean to have it all the time,” and Anita nodded gravely at her host.
“All the time is this one meal only,” crisply put in Mrs. Adams. “I’m
sorry, Miss Austin, but we can’t keep you here. I have no vacant room.”
The entrance of some other people gave Anita a chance to speak in an
undertone to Mr. Adams, and she said;
“You’ll let me stay till Letty comes, won’t you? I suppose you are boss
in your own house.”
As a matter of fact almost any phrase would have described the man better
than “boss in his own house,” but the idea tickled his sense of irony,
and he chuckled as he replied, “You bet I am! Here you stay—as long as
you want to.”
“You’re my friend, then?” and an appealing glance was shot at him from
beneath long, curling lashes, that proved the complete undoing of
Saltonstall Adams.
“To the death!” he whispered, in mock dramatic manner.
Anita gave a shiver. “What a way to put it!” she cried. “I mean to live
forever, sir!”
“Doubtless,” Old Salt returned, placidly. “You’re a freak—aren’t you?”
“That isn’t a very pretty way of expressing it, but I suppose I am,” and
a mutinous look passed over the strange little face.
In repose, the face was oval, serene, and regular of feature. But when
the girl smiled or spoke or frowned, changes took place, and the mobile
countenance grew soft with laughter or hard with scorn.
And scorn was plainly visible when, a moment later, Adams introduced
Robert Tyler, a fellow boarder, to Miss Austin.
She gave him first a conventional glance, then, as he dropped into the
chair next hers, and said,
“Only too glad to give up my place to a peach,” she turned on him a
flashing glance, that, as he expressed it afterward, “wiped him off the
face of the earth.”
Nor could he reinstate himself in her good graces. He tried a penitent
attitude, bravado, jocularity and indifference, but one and all failed to
engage her interest or even attention. She answered his remarks with
calm, curt speeches that left him baffled and uncertain whether he wanted
to bow down and worship her, or wring her neck.
Old Salt Adams took this all in, his amusement giving way to curiosity
and then to wonder. Who was this person, who looked like a young, very
young girl, yet who had all the mental powers of an experienced woman?
What was she and what her calling?
The other boarders appeared, those nearest Anita were introduced, and
most of them considered her merely a pretty, new guest. Her manners were
irreproachable, her demeanor quiet and graceful, yet as Adams covertly
watched her, he felt as if he were watching an inactive volcano.
The meal over, he detained her a moment in the dining-room.
“Why are you here, Miss Austin?” he said, courteously; “what is your
errand in Corinth?”
“I am an artist,” she said, looking at him with her mysterious intent
gaze. “Or, perhaps I should say an art student. I’ve been told that there
are beautiful bits of winter scenery available for subjects here, and I
want to sketch. Please, Mr. Adams, let me stay here until Letty comes.”
A sudden twinkle in her eye startled the old man, and he said quickly,
“How do you know she isn’t coming?”
That, in turn, surprised Anita, but she only smiled, and replied, “I saw
a telegram handed to Mrs. Adams at breakfast—and then she looked
thoughtfully at me, and—oh, well, I just sort of knew it was to say Letty
couldn’t come.”
“You witch! You uncanny thing! If I should take you over to Salem, they’d
burn you!”
“I’ll ride over on a broomstick some day, and see if they will,” she
returned, gleefully.
And then along came Nemesis, in the person of the landlady.
“I’m sorry, Miss Austin,” she began, but the girl interrupted her.
“Please, Mrs. Adams,” she said, pleadingly, “don’t say any thing to make
me sorry, too! Now, you want to say you haven’t any room for me—but that
isn’t true; so you don’t know what to say to get rid of me. But—why do
you want to get rid of me?”
Esther Adams looked at the girl and that look was her undoing.
Such a pathetic face, such pleading eyes, such a wistful curved mouth,
the landlady couldn’t resist, and against her will, against her better
judgment, she said, “Well, then, stay, you poor little thing. But you
must tell me more about yourself. I don’t know who you are.”
“I don’t know, myself,” the strange girl returned. “Do we, any of us know
who we are? We go through this world, strangers to each other—don’t we?
And also, strangers to ourselves.” Her eyes took on a faraway, mystical
look. “If I find out who I am, I’ll let you know.”
Then a dazzling smile broke over her face, they heard a musical ripple of
laughter, and she was gone.
They heard her steps, as she ran upstairs to her room, and the two
Adamses looked at each other.
“Daffy,” said Mrs. Adams. “A little touched, poor child. I believe she
has run away from home or from her keepers. We’ll hear the truth soon.
They’ll be looking for her.”
“Perhaps,” said her husband, doubtfully. “But that isn’t the way I size
her up. She’s nobody’s fool, that girl. Wish you’d seen her give Bob
Tyler his comeuppance!”
“What’d she say?”
“’Twasn’t what she said, so much as the look she gave him! He almost went
through the floor. Well, she says she’s a painter of scenery and
landscapes. Let her stay a few days, till I size her up.”
“You size her up!” returned his wife, with good-natured contempt. “If she
smiles on you or gives you a bit of taffy-talk, you’ll size her up for an
angel! I’m not so sure she isn’t quite the opposite!”
Meanwhile the subject of their discussion was arraying herself for a
walk. Equipped with storm boots and fur coat, she set out to inspect
Corinth. A jaunty fur cap, with one long, red quill feather gave her
still more the appearance of an elf or gnome, and many of the Adams house
boarders watched the little figure as she set forth to brave the icy
streets.
Apparently she had no fixed plan of procedure, for at each corner, she
looked about, and chose her course at random. The snow had ceased during
the night, and it was very cold, with a clear sunshiny frostiness in the
air that made the olive cheeks red and glowing.
Reaching a bridge, she paused and stood looking over the slight railing
into the frozen ravine below.
Long she stood, until passers-by began to stare at her. She was unaware
of this, absorbed in her thoughts and oblivious to all about her.
Pinckney Payne, coming along, saw her, and, as he would have expressed
it, fell for her at once.
“Don’t do it, sister!” he said, pausing beside her. “Don’t end your young
life on this glorious day! Suicide is a mess, at best. Take my advice and
cut it out!”
She turned, ready to freeze him with a glance more icy even than the
landscape, but his frank, roguish smile disarmed her.
“Freshman?” she said, patronizingly, but it didn’t abash him.
“Yep. Pinckney Payne, if you must know. Commonly called Pinky.”
“I don’t wonder,” and she noticed his red cheeks. “Well, now that you’re
properly introduced, tell me some of the buildings. What’s that one?”
“Dormitories. And that,” pointing, “is the church.”
“Really! And that beautiful colonnade one?”
“That’s Doctor Waring’s home. Him as is going to be next Prexy.”
“And that? And that?”
He replied to all her questions, and kept his eyes fastened on her
bewitching face. Never had Pinky seen a girl just like this. She looked
so young, so merry, and yet her restless, roving eyes seemed full of
hidden fire and tempestuous excitement.
“Where you from?” he said, abruptly. “Where you staying?”
“At Mrs. Adams,” she returned, “is it a good house?”
“Best in town. Awful hard to get into. Always full up. Relative of hers?”
“No, just a boarder. I chanced to get a room some one else engaged and
couldn’t use.”
“You’re lucky. Met Bob Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like him! I see that. Met Gordon Lockwood?”
“No; who’s he?”
“He’s Doctor Waring’s secretary, but he’s mighty worthwhile on his own
account. I say, may I come to see you?”
“Thank you, no. I’m not receiving callers—yet.”
“Well, you will be soon—because I’m coming. I say my aunt lives next door
to Adams’. May I bring her to call on you?”
“Not yet, please. I’m not settled.”
“Soon’s you say the word, then. My aunt is Mrs. Bates, and she’s a love.
She’s going to marry Doctor Waring—so you see we’re the right sort of
people.”
“There are no right sort of people,” said the girl, and, turning, she
walked away.
CHAPTER III
THIRTEEN BUTTONS
Apparently Miss Austin’s statement that there were no right sort of
people was her own belief, for she made no friends at the Adams house.
Nor was this the fault of her fellow-boarders. They were more than
willing to be friendly, but their overtures were invariably ignored.
Not rudely, for Miss Austin seemed to be a girl of culture and her
manners were correct, but, as one persistent matron expressed it, “you
can’t get anywhere with her.”
She talked to no one at the table, merely answering a direct question if
put to her. She retained the seat next Old Salt, seeming to rely on him
to protect her from the advances of the others. Not that she needed
protection, exactly, for Miss Anita Austin was evidently quite able to
take care of herself.
But she was a mystery—and mysteries provoke inquiry.
The house was not a large one, and the two-score boarders, though they
would have denied an imputation of curiosity, were exceedingly interested
in learning the facts about Miss Mystery, as they had come to call her.
Mrs. Adams was one of the most eager of all to know the truth, but, as he
did on rare occasions, Old Salt Adams had set down his foot that the girl
was not to be annoyed.
“I don’t know who she is or where she hails from,” he told his wife, “but
as long as she stays here, she’s not to be pestered by a lot of gossiping
old hens. When she does anything you don’t like, send her away; but so
long’s she’s under my roof, she’s got to be let alone.”
And let alone she was—not so much because of Adams’ dictum as because
“pestering” did little good.
The girl had a disconcerting way of looking an inquisitor straight in the
eyes, and then, with a monosyllabic reply, turning and walking off as if
the other did not exist.
“Why,” said Miss Bascom, aggrievedly relating her experience, “I just
said, politely, ‘Are you from New York or where, Miss Austin?’ and she
turned those big, black eyes on me, and said, ‘Where.’ Then she turned
her back and looked out of the window, as if she had wiped me off the
face of the earth!”
“She’s too young to act like that,” opined Mrs. Welby.
“Oh, she isn’t so terribly young,” Miss Bascom returned. “She’s too
experienced to be so very young.”
“How do you know she’s experienced? What makes you say that?”
“Why,” Miss Bascom hesitated for words, “she’s—sort of sophisticated—you
can see that from her looks. I mean when anything is discussed at the
table, she doesn’t say a word, but you can tell from her face that she
knows all about it—I mean a matter of general interest, don’t you know. I
don’t mean local matters.”
“She’s an intelligent girl, I know, but that doesn’t make her out old. I
don’t believe she’s twenty.”
“Oh, she is! Why, she’s twenty-five or twenty-seven!”
“Never in the world! I’m going to ask her.”
“Ask her!” Miss Bascom laughed. “You’ll get well snubbed if you do.”
But this prophecy only served to egg Mrs. Welby on, and she took the
first occasion to carry out her promise.
She met Anita in the hall, as the girl was about to go out, and smilingly
detained her.
“Why so aloof, my dear,” she said, playfully. “You rarely give us a
chance to entertain you.”
As Mrs. Welby was between Anita and the door, the girl was forced to
pause. She looked the older woman over, with an appraising glance that
was not rude, but merely disinterested.
“No?” she said, with a curious rising inflection, that somehow seemed
meant to close the incident.
But Mrs. Welby was not so easily baffled.
“No,” she repeated, smilingly. “And we want to know you better. You’re
too young and too pretty not to be a general favorite amongst us. How old
are you, my dear child?”
“Just a hundred,” and Miss Austin’s dark eyes were so grave, and seemed
to hold such a world of wisdom and experience that Mrs. Welby almost
jumped.
Too amazed to reply, she even let the girl get past her, and out of the
street door, before she recovered her poise.
“She’s uncanny,” Mrs. Welby declared, when telling Miss Bascom of the
interview. “I give you my word, when she said that, she looked a
hundred!”
“Looked a hundred! What do you mean?”
“Just that. Her eyes seemed to hold all there is of knowledge, yes—and of
evil—”
“Evil! My goodness!” Miss Bascom rolled this suggestion like a sweet
morsel under her tongue.
“Oh—I don’t say there’s anything wrong about the girl—”
“Well! If her eyes showed depths of evil, I should say there _was_
something wrong!”
The episode was repeated from one to another of the exclusive _clientele_
of the Adams house, until, by exaggeration and imagination it grew into
quite a respectable arraignment of Miss Mystery, and branded her as a
doubtful character if not a dangerous one.
Before Miss Austin had been in the house a week, she had definitely
settled her status from her own point of view.
Uniformly correct and courteous of manner, she rarely spoke, save when
necessary. It was as if she had declared, “I will not talk. If this be
mystery, make the most of it.”
Old Salt, apparently, backed her up in this determination, and allowed
her to sit next him at table, without addressing her at all.
More, he often took it upon himself to answer a remark or question meant
for her and for this he sometimes received a fleeting glance, or a ghost
of a smile of approval and appreciation.
But all this was superficial. The Adamses, between themselves, decided
that Miss Austin was more deeply mysterious than was shown by her
disinclination to make friends. They concluded she was transacting
important business of some sort, and that her sketching of the winter
scenery, which she did every clear day, was merely a blind.
Though Mrs. Adams resented this, and urged her husband to send the girl
packing, Old Salt demurred.
“She’s done no harm as yet,” he said. “She’s a mystery, but not a wrong
one, ’s far’s I can make out. Let her alone, mother. I’ve got my eye on
her.”
“I’ve got my two eyes on her, and I can see more’n you can. Why, Salt,
that girl don’t hardly sleep at all. Night after night, she sits up
looking out of the window, over toward the college buildings—”
“How do you know?”
“I go and listen at her door,” Mrs. Adams admitted, without
embarrassment. “I want to know what she’s up to.”
“You can’t see her.”
“No, but I hear her moving around restlessly, and putting the window up
and down—and Miss Bascom—her room’s cornerways on the ell, she says she
sees her looking out the window late at night ’most every night.”
“Miss Bascom’s a meddling old maid, and I’d put her out of this house
before I would the little girl.”
“Of course _you_ would! You’re all set up because she makes so much of
you—”
“Oh, come now, Esther, you can’t say that child makes much of me! I wish
she would. I’ve taken a fancy to her.”
“Yes, because she’s pretty—in a gipsy, witch-like fashion. What men see
in a pair of big black eyes, and a dark, sallow face, I don’t know!”
“Not sallow,” Old Salt said, reflectively; “olive, rather—but not
sallow.”
“Oh you!” exclaimed Mrs. Adams, and with that cryptic remark the subject
was dropped.
Gordon Lockwood, secretary of John Waring, had a room at the Adams house.
But as he took no meals there save his breakfasts, and as he ate those
early, he had not yet met Anita Austin.
But one Saturday morning, he chanced to be late, and the two sat at table
together.
An astute reader of humanity, Lockwood at once became interested in the
girl, and realized that to win her attention he must not be eager or
insistent.
He spoke only one or two of the merest commonplaces, until almost at the
close of the meal, he said:
“Can I do anything for you, Miss Austin? If you would care to hear any of
the College lectures, I can arrange it.”
“Who are the speakers?”
She turned her eyes fully upon him, and Gordon Lockwood marveled at their
depth and beauty.
“Tonight,” he replied, “Doctor Waring is to lecture on Egyptian
Archaeology. Are you interested in that?”
“Yes,” she said, “very much so. I’d like to go.”
“You certainly may, then. Just use this card.”
He took a card from his pocket, scribbled a line across it, and gave it
to her. Without another word, he finished his breakfast, and with a mere
courteous bow, he left the room.
Miss Austin’s face took on a more scrutable look than ever.
The card still in her hand, she went up to her room. Unheeding the maid,
who was at her duties there, the girl threw herself into a big chair and
sat staring at the card.
“The Egyptian Temples,” she said to herself, “Doctor John Waring.”
The maid looked at her curiously as she murmured the words half aloud,
but Miss Austin paid no heed.
“Go on with your work, Nora, don’t mind me,” she said, at last, as the
chambermaid paused inquiringly in front of her. “I don’t mind your being
here until you finish what you have to do. And I wish you’d bring me a
Corinth paper, please?’ There is one, isn’t there?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Twice a week.”
Nora disappeared and returned with a paper.
“Mr. Adams says you may have this to keep. It’s the newest one.”
The girl took it and turned to find the College announcements. The
Egyptian Lecture was mentioned, and in another column was a short article
regarding Doctor Waring and a picture of him.
Long the girl looked at the picture, and when the maid, her tasks
completed, left the room, she noticed Miss Austin still staring at the
fine face of the President-elect of the University of Corinth.
After a time, she reached for a pair of scissors, and cut out the
portrait and the article which it illustrated.
She put the clipping in a portfolio, which she then locked in her trunk,
and the picture she placed on her dresser.
That night she went to the lecture. She went alone, for Gordon Lockwood
did not reappear and no one else knew of her going.
“Shall I have a key, or will you be up?” she asked of Mrs. Adams, as she
left the house.
“Oh, we’ll be up.” The round, shrewd eyes looked at her kindly. “You’re
lucky to get a ticket. Doctor Waring’s lectures are crowded.”
“Good night,” said Miss Austin, and went away.
The lecture room was partly filled when she arrived, and her ticket
entitled her to a seat near the front.
Being seated, she fell into a brown study, or, at least, sat motionless
and apparently in deep thought.
Gordon Lockwood, already there, saw her come in, and after she was in her
place, he quietly arose and went across the room, taking a seat directly
behind her.
Of this she was quite unaware, and the student of human nature gave
himself up to a scrutiny of the stranger.
He saw a little head, its mass of dark, almost black hair surmounted by a
small turban shaped hat, of taupe colored velvet, with a curly ostrich
tip nestling over one ear.
Not that her ears were visible, for Miss Austin was smartly groomed and
her whole effect modish.
She had removed her coat, which she held in her lap. Her frock was taupe
colored, of a soft woolen material, ornamented with many small buttons.
These tiny buttons formed two rows down her back, from either shoulder to
the waist line, and they also formed a border round the sailor collar.
They were, perhaps, Lockwood decided, little balls, rather than buttons,
and he idly counted them as he sat watching her.
He hoped she would turn her head a trifle, but she sat as motionless as a
human being may.
He marveled at her stillness, and impatiently waited for the lecture to
begin that he might note her interest.
At last Doctor Waring appeared on the platform, and as the applause
resounded all over the room, Lockwood was almost startled to observe Miss
Austin’s actions.
She clasped her hands together as if she had received a sudden shock.
She—if it hadn’t seemed too absurd,—he would have said that she trembled.
At any rate she was a little agitated, and it was with an effort that she
preserved her calm. No one else noticed her, and Lockwood would not have
done so, save for his close watching.
Throughout the lecture, Miss Austin’s gaze seemed never to leave the face
of the speaker, and Lockwood marveled that Waring himself was not drawn
to notice her.
But Waring’s calm gaze, though it traveled over the audience, never
rested definitely on any one face, and Lockwood concluded he recognized
nobody.
“Miss Mystery!” Gordon Lockwood said to himself. “I wonder who and what
you are. Probably a complex nature, psychic and imaginative. You think it
interesting to come up here and pretend to be a mystery. But you’re too
young and too innocent to be—I’m not so sure of the innocent, though,—and
as to youth,—well, I don’t believe you’re much older than you look any
way. And you’re confoundedly pretty—beautiful, rather. You’ve too much in
your face to call it merely pretty. I’ve never seen such possibilities of
character. You’re either a deep one or your looks belie you.”
Lockwood heard no word of the lecture, nor did he wish to; he had helped
in the writing of it, and almost knew it by heart anyway. But he was
really intrigued by this mysterious girl, and he determined to get to
know her.
He had been told, of course, of the futile attempts of the other boarders
to make friends with her, but he had faith in his own attractiveness and
in his methods of procedure.
Pinky Payne, too, had told of the interview he had on the bridge. His
account of the girl’s beauty and charm had first roused Lockwood’s
interest, and now he was making a study of the whole situation.
Idly he counted the buttons again. There were thirteen across the collar.
The vertical rows he could not be sure of as the back of the seat cut off
their view.
“Thirteen,” he mused; “an unlucky number. And the poor child looks
unlucky. There’s a sadness in her eyes that must mean something. Yet
there’s more than sadness,—there’s a hint of cruelty,—a possibility of
desperate deeds.”
And then Lockwood laughed at himself. To romance thus about a girl to
whom he had not said half a dozen sentences in his life! Yet he knew he
was not mistaken. All that he had read in Anita Austin’s face, he was
sure was there. He knew physiognomy, and rarely, if ever, was mistaken in
his reading thereof.
After the lecture was over, Miss Austin went home as quickly as possible.
Lockwood would have liked to escort her, but he had to remain to report
to Doctor Waring, who might have some orders for him.
There were none, however, and after a short interview with his employer,
Gordon Lockwood went home.
As he went softly upstairs to his room in the Adams house, he passed the
door of what he knew to be Miss Austin’s room. He fancied he heard a
stifled sob come from behind that closed door, and instinctively paused
to listen a moment.
Yes, he was not mistaken. Another sob followed, quickly suppressed, but
he could have no doubt the girl was crying.
For a moment Lockwood was tempted to go back and ask Mrs. Adams to come
and tap at the girl’s door.
Then he realized that it was not his affair. If the girl was in sorrow or
if she wanted to cry for any reason, it was not his place to send someone
to intrude upon her. He went on to his own room, but he sat up for a long
time thinking over the strange young woman in the house.
He remembered that she had paid undeviating attention to the lecture,
quite evidently following the speaker with attention and interest. He
remembered every detail of her appearance, her pretty dark hair showing
beneath her little velvet toque,—the absurd buttons on the back of her
frock.
“That will do, Gordon, old man,” he told himself at last. Better let her
alone. She’s a siren all right, but you know nothing about her, and
you’ve no reason to try to learn more.
And then he heard voices in the hall. Low of tone, but angry of
inflection.
“She threw it away!” Miss Austin was saying; “I tell you she threw it
away!”
“There, there,” came Mrs. Adams’ placating voice, “what if she did? It
was only a newspaper scrap. She didn’t know it was of any value.”
“But I want it! Nora has no business to throw away my things! She had no
reason to touch it; it was on the dresser—standing up against the mirror
frame. What do you suppose she did with it?”
“Never mind it tonight. Tomorrow we will ask her. She’s gone to bed.”
“But I’m afraid she destroyed it!”
“Probably she did. Don’t take on so. What paper was it?”
“The Corinth Gazette.”
“The new one?”
“I don’t know. The one she brought me this afternoon.”
“Well, if she has thrown it away, you can get another copy. What was in
it that you want so much?”
“Oh,—nothing special.”
“Yes, it was.” Mrs. Adams’ curiosity was aroused now. “Come, tell me what
it was.”
“Well, it was only a picture of Doctor Waring, the man who lectured
tonight.”
“Such a fuss about that! My goodness! Why, you can get a picture of him
anywhere.”
“But I want it now.”
An obstinate note rang in the young voice. Perhaps Miss Austin spoke
louder than she meant to, but at any rate, Lockwood heard most of the
conversation, and he now opened his door, and said:
“May I offer a photograph? Would you care to have this, Miss Austin?”
The girl looked at him with a white, angry face.
“How dare you!” she cried; “how dare you eavesdrop and listen to a
conversation not meant for your ears? Don’t speak to me!”
She drew up her slender figure and looked like a wrathful pixie defying a
giant. For Lockwood was a big man, and loomed far above the slight,
dainty figure of Miss Mystery.
He smiled good-naturedly as he said, “Now don’t get wrathy. I don’t mean
any harm. But you wanted a picture of Doctor Waring, and I’ve several of
them. You see, I’m his secretary.”
“Oh,—are you! His private secretary?”
“Yes—his confidential one,—though he has few confidences. He’s a public
man and his life is an open book.”
“Oh, it is!” The girl had recovered her poise, and with it her ability to
be sarcastic. “Known to all men, I suppose?”
“Known to all men,” repeated Lockwood, thinking far more of the girl he
was speaking to than of what he was saying.
For, again he had fallen under the spell of her strange personality. He
watched her, fascinated, as she reached out for the picture and almost
snatched at it in her eagerness.
Mrs. Adams yawned behind her plump hand.
“Now you’ve got your picture, go to bed, child,” she said with a kind,
motherly smile. “I’ll come in and unhook you, shall I?”
Obediently, and without a word of good night to Lockwood, Anita turned
and went into her room, followed by Mrs. Adams. The good lady offered no
disinterested service. She wanted to know why Miss Austin wanted that
picture so much. But she didn’t find out. After being of such help as she
could, the landlady found herself pleasantly but definitely dismissed.
Outside the door, however, she turned and reopened it. Miss Mystery,
unnoticing the intruder, was covering the photograph with many and
passionate kisses.
CHAPTER IV
A BROKEN TEACUP
“I’ll tell her you’re here, but I’m noways sure she’ll see you.”
Mrs. Adams stood, her hand on the doorknob, as she looked doubtfully at
Emily Bates and her nephew.
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Bates, in astonishment, and Pinky echoed, “Why not,
Mrs. Adams?”
“She’s queer.” Mrs. Adams came back into the room, closed the door, and
spoke softly. “That’s what she is, Mrs. Bates, queer. I can’t make her
out. She’s been here more’n a week now, and I do say she gets queerer
every day. Won’t make friends with anybody,—won’t speak at all at the
table,—never comes and sits with us of an afternoon or evening,—just
keeps to herself. Now, that ain’t natural for a young girl.”
“How old is she?”
“Nobody knows. She looks like nineteen or twenty, but she has the ways of
a woman of forty,—as far’s having her own way’s concerned. Then again,
she’ll pet the cat or smile up at Mr. Adams like a child. I can’t make
her out at all. The boarders are all fearfully curious—that’s one reason
I take her part. They’re a snoopy lot, and I make them let her alone.”
“You like her, then?”
“You can’t help liking her,—yet she is exasperating. You ask her a
question, and she stares at you and walks off. Not really rude,—but just
as if you weren’t there! Well, I’ll tell her you’re here, anyway.”
It was only by his extraordinary powers of persuasion that Pinky Payne
had won his aunt’s consent to make this call, and, being Sunday
afternoon, the recognized at-home day in Corinth, they had gone to the
Adams house unannounced, and asked for Miss Austin.
Upstairs, Mrs. Adams tapped at the girl’s door.
It was opened slowly,—it would seem, grudgingly,—and Anita looked out
inquiringly.
“Callers for you, Miss Austin,” the landlady said, cheerily.
“For me? I know no one.”
“Oh, now, you come on down. It’s Mrs. Bates, and her nephew, Pinky Payne.
They’re our best people—”
“What makes you think I want to see your best people?”
“I don’t say you do, but they want to see you,—and—oh, pshaw, now, be a
little sociable. It won’t hurt you.”
“Please say to Mrs. Bates that I have no desire to form new
acquaintances, and I beg to be excused from appearing.”
“But do you know who she is? She’s the lady that’s going to marry Doctor
Waring, the new President. And Pinckney Payne, her cousin, is a mighty
nice boy.”
Mrs. Adams thought she detected an expression of wavering on the girl’s
face, and she followed up her advantage.
“Yes, he’s an awfully nice chap and just about your age, I should judge.”
“I’ll go down,” said Miss Austin, briefly, and Mrs. Adams indulged in a
sly smile of satisfaction.
“It’s Pinky that fetched her,” she thought to herself. “Young folks are
young folks, the world over.”
Triumphantly, Mrs. Adams ushered Anita into the small parlor.
“Mrs. Bates,” she said, “and Mr. Payne,—Miss Austin.”
Then she left them, for Esther Adams had strict notions of her duties as
a boarding-house landlady.
“Mrs. Bates?” Anita said, going to her and taking her hand.
“Yes, Miss Austin,—I am very glad to know you.”
But the words ceased suddenly as Emily Bates looked into the girl’s eyes.
Such a depth of sorrow was there, such unmistakable tragedy and a hint of
fear. What could it all mean? Surely this was a strange girl.
“We have never met before, have we?” Mrs. Bates said,—almost
involuntarily, for the girl’s gaze was too intent to be given to a
stranger.
“No,” Anita said, recovering her poise steadily but slowly,—“not that I
remember.”
“We have,” burst forth the irrepressible Pinky. “I say, Miss Austin,
please realize that I’m here as well as my more celebrated aunt! Don’t
you remember the morning I met you on the bridge,—and you were just about
to throw yourself over the parapet?”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t,” and a delightful smile lighted the dark little face.
The lips were very scarlet, but it was unmistakably Nature’s own red, and
as they parted over even and pearly teeth, the smile transformed Miss
Austin into a real beauty.
It disappeared quickly, however, and Pinky Payne thenceforward made it
his earnest endeavor to bring it back as often as possible.
“Of course you weren’t,” agreed Mrs. Bates, “don’t pay any attention to
that foolish boy.”
“I’m a very nice boy, if I am foolish,” Pinky declared, but Miss Austin
vaguely ignored him, and kept her intent gaze fixed on Emily Bates.
“We thought perhaps you would go with us over to Doctor Waring’s for
tea,” Mrs. Bates said, after an interval of aimless chat. “It would, I am
sure be a pleasant experience for you. Wouldn’t you like it?”
“Doctor Waring’s?” repeated Anita, her voice low and tense, as if the
idea was of more importance than it seemed.
“Yes; I may take you, for the Doctor is my fiance,—we are to be married
next month.”
“No!” cried the girl, with such a sharp intonation that Mrs. Bates was
startled.
“Sure they are,” put in Pinky, anxious to cover up any eccentricity on
the part of this girl in whom he took an increasing interest. “They’re as
blissful as two young turtle-doves. Come on, Miss Austin, let’s go over
there. It’s a duck of a house to go to, and jolly good people there. The
view from the study window is worth going miles to see. You’re an
artist,—yes?”
“I sketch some,” was the brief reply.
“All right; if you can find a prettier spot to sketch on this terrestrial
globe than the picture by the Waring study window, I’ll buy it for you!
Toddle up and get your hat.”
His gay good nature was infectious and Anita smiled again as she went for
her hat and coat.
The walk was but a short one, and when they entered the Waring home they
found a cheery group having tea in the pleasant living room.
Doctor Waring was not present and Mrs. Peyton was pouring tea, while
Helen and Robert Tyler served it. The capable Ito had always Sunday
afternoon for his holiday, and while Nogi, the Japanese second man, was
willing enough, his training was incomplete, and his blunders frequent.
He was a new servant, and though old Ito had hopes of educating him, Mrs.
Peyton was doubtful about it. However, she thought, soon the
responsibilities of the Waring menage would be hers no longer, and she
resolved to get along with the inexperienced Nogi while she remained.
Mrs. Peyton was very regretful at the coming change of affairs.
She had looked upon John Waring as a confirmed bachelor, and had not
expected he would ever marry. Now, she declared, he was marrying only
because he thought it wiser for a College President to have a wife as a
part of his domestic outfit.
Helen disagreed with her mother about this. She said Doctor Waring had
begun to take a personal interest in the attractive Mrs. Bates before he
had any idea of becoming President of the University.
But it didn’t matter. The wedding was imminent, and Mrs. Peyton had
received due notice that her services would be no longer needed.
It was a blow to her, and it had made her depressed and disconsolate.
Also, a little resentful, even spiteful toward Emily Bates.
The housekeeper greeted Miss Austin with a cold smile, and then
disregarded her utterly.
Helen was frankly curious, and met the newcomer with full intention of
finding out all about her.
For Helen Peyton had heard of Miss Mystery from her friend and admirer,
Robert Tyler, who, however, did not report that the girl had snubbed him
more than once.
One or two other guests were present and, having been told of Mrs. Bates’
arrival Doctor Waring and his secretary came from the study and joined
the others at tea.
With a welcoming smile, John Waring greeted his fiancee, and then Mrs.
Bates turned to the girl she had brought.
“Miss Austin,” she said, “let me present Doctor Waring. John,—Miss Anita
Austin.”
At that very moment Helen Peyton offered Waring a cup of tea, and he was
in the act of taking it from her hand when Mrs. Bates made the
introduction.
The cup and saucer fell to the floor with a crash, and those nearest saw
the Doctor’s face blanch suddenly white, and his hand clench on a nearby
chair.
But with a sudden, desperate effort he pulled himself together, and gave
a little laugh, as he directed Nogi to remove the wrecked teacup.
“Pick up the four corners, and carry it all off at once,” he ordered,
pointing to the small rug on which the cup had fallen, and Nogi, a little
clumsily, obeyed.
“Pardon the awkwardness, Miss Austin,” he said, turning to smile at the
girl, but even as he did so, his voice trembled, and he turned hastily
away.
“What is it, John?” asked Emily Bates, going to his side. “Are you ill?”
“No,—no, dear; it’s—it’s all right. That foolish teacup upset my nerves.
I’ll go off by myself for a few moments.”
Somewhat abruptly, he left the room and went back to his study.
Listening intently, Mrs. Bates heard him lock the door on the inside.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning to Anita, “but I know you’ll forgive
Doctor Waring. He is under so much strain at present, and a foolish
accident, like the broken teacup, is enough to give him a nervous shock.”
“I know,” said the girl, sympathetically. “He must be very busy and
absorbed.”
She spoke, as she often did, in a perfunctory way, as if not interested
in what she was saying. Her glance wandered and she bit her red lower
lip, as if nervous herself. Yet she was exceedingly quiet and calm of
demeanor, and her graceful attitudes betokened only a courteous if
disinterested guest.
Gordon Lockwood immediately followed his chief and tapped at the locked
study door.
“All right, Lockwood,” Waring recognized the knock. “I don’t want you
now. I’ll reappear shortly. Go back to the tea room.”
Willingly, Lockwood went back, hoping to have a chance for conversation
with Miss Mystery.
She was chatting gayly with Helen Peyton, Pinky and Mrs. Tyler.
To Lockwood’s surprise, Miss Austin was really gay and merry and quite
held her own in the chaff and repartee.
Yet as Lockwood noted her more closely, his quick perception told him her
gayety was forced.
The secretary’s ability to read human nature was almost uncanny, and he
truly believed the girl was making merry only by reason of her firm
determination to do so.
Why? He wondered.
Gordon Lockwood was a rare type of man. He was possessed of the most
impassive face, the most immobile countenance imaginable. He never
allowed himself to show the slightest excitement or even interest. This
habit, acquired purposely at first, had grown upon him until it was
second nature. He would not admit anything could move him, could stir his
poise or disturb his equanimity. He heard the most gratifying or the most
exasperating news with equal attention and equal lack of surprise or
enthusiasm.
Yet, though this may sound unattractive, so great was Lockwood’s
personality, so responsive and receptive his real nature beneath his
outer calm, that all who really knew him liked him and trusted him.
Waring depended on him in every respect. He was more than a secretary to
his employer. He was counselor and friend as well.
And Waring appreciated this, and rated Lockwood high in his esteem and
affection.
Of course, with his insight, Gordon Lockwood could not be blind to the
fact that both Mrs. Peyton and her daughter would be pleased if he could
fall a victim to the charms of the fair Helen. Nor could he evade the
conviction that Mrs. Peyton herself had entertained hopes of becoming
mistress of the Waring home, until the advent of Emily Bates had spoiled
her chances.
But these things were merely self-evident facts, and affected in no way
the two men concerned.
The Peytons were treated with pleasant regard for both, and that ended
the matter so far as they were concerned.
The subject had never been alluded to by Waring or Lockwood, but each
understood, and when the Doctor’s marriage took place, that would
automatically end the Peytons’ incumbency.
And now, Gordon Lockwood smiled patronizingly at himself, as he was
forced to admit an unreasonable, inexplicable interest in a slip of a
girl with a dark, eerie little face and a manner grave and gay to
extremes.
For Anita was positively laughing at some foolishness of Pinky Payne’s.
Still, Lockwood concluded, watching her narrowly, yet unobserved, she was
laughing immoderately. She was laughing for some reason other than
merriment. It verged on hysterical, he decided, and wondered why.
He joined the group of young people, and in his quiet but effective way,
he said:
“You’ve had enough foolery for the moment, Miss Austin,—come and talk to
me.”
And to the girl’s amazement, he took her hand and led her to a davenport
on the other side of the room.
“There,” he said, as he arranged a pillow or two, “is that right?”
“Yes,” she said, and lapsed into silence.
She sat, looking off into vacancy, and Lockwood studied her. Then he
said, softly:
“It’s too bad, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Anita sighed, and then suddenly; “what do you mean? What’s too
bad?”
“Whatever it is that troubles you.” The deep blue eyes met her own, but
there was no sign of response or acquiescence on the girl’s face.
“Good-by,” she said, rising quickly, “I must go.”
“Oh, no,—don’t go,” cried Pinky, overhearing. “Why, you’ve only just
come.”
“Yes, I must go,” said Miss Mystery, decidedly. “Good afternoon, Mrs.
Bates, and thank you for bringing me. Good afternoon, Mrs. Peyton.”
Including all the others in a general bow of farewell, the strange girl
went to the front door, and paused for the attendant Nogi to open it.
Door-tending the assistant butler understood, and he punctiliously waited
until Miss Austin had buttoned her gloves and had given an adjusting pat
to her veil, after a fleeting glance in the hall mirror.
Then he opened the door with an obsequious air, and closed it behind her
departing figure.
But it was immediately flung open again by Pinky Payne, who ran through
it and after the girl.
“Wait a minute, Miss Austin. How fast you walk! I’m going home with you.”
“Please not,” she said, indifferently, scarcely glancing at him.
“Yep. Gotto. Getting near dusk, and you might be kidnapped. Needn’t talk
if you don’t want to.”
“I never want to talk!” was the surprising and crisply spoken retort.
“Well, didn’t I say you needn’t! Don’t get wrathy—don’t ’ee, don’t
’ee—now,—as my old Scotch nurse used to say.”
But Miss Mystery gave him no look, although she allowed him to fall into
step beside her, and the two walked rapidly along.
“How’d you like the looks of the Doctor?” Pinky asked, hoping to induce
conversation.
“I scarcely saw him.”
“Oh, you saw him,—though you had small chance to get to know him. Perfect
old brick, but a little on edge of late. Approaching matrimony, I
suppose. Did you notice his ruby stickpin?”
“Yes; it didn’t seem to suit him at all.”
“No; he’s a conservative dresser. But that pin,—it’s a famous gem,—was
given him by his own class,—I mean his graduating class, but long after
they graduated, and he had to promise to wear it once a week, so he
usually gets into it on Sundays. It’s a corking stone!”
“Yes,” said Miss Austin.
On reaching the Adams house, the girl said a quick good-by, and Pinky
Payne found himself at liberty to go in and see the other members of the
household, or to go home, for Miss Austin disappeared into the hall and
up the staircase with the rapidity of a dissolving view.
Young Payne turned away and strolled slowly back to the Waring home,
wondering what it was about the disagreeable young woman that made him
pay any attention to her at all.
He found her the topic of discussion when he arrived.
“Of all rude people,” Mrs. Peyton declared, “she was certainly the
worst!”
“She was!” Helen agreed. “I couldn’t make her out at all. And I don’t
call her pretty, either.”
“I do,” observed Emily Bates. “I call her very pretty,—and possessed of
great charm.”
“Charm!” scoffed Helen; “I can’t see it.”
“She isn’t rude,” Pinky defended the absent. “I’m sure, Mrs. Peyton, she
made her adieux most politely. Why should she have stayed longer? She
didn’t know any of us,—and, perhaps she doesn’t like any of us.”
“That’s it,” Gordon Lockwood stated. “She doesn’t like us,—I’m sure of
that. Well, why should she, if she doesn’t want to?”
“Why shouldn’t she?” countered Tyler. “She’s so terribly superior,—I
can’t bear her. She acts as if she owned the earth, yet nobody knows who
she is, or anything about her.”
“Are we entitled to?” asked Lockwood. “Why should we inquire into her
identity or history further than she chooses to enlighten us?”
“Where is Miss Austin?” asked Doctor Waring, returning, quite composed
and calm.
“She went home,” informed Mrs. Bates. “Are you all right, John?”
“Oh, yes, dear. I wasn’t ill, or anything like that. The awkward accident
touched my nerves, and I wanted to run away and hide.”
He smiled whimsically, looking like a naughty schoolboy, and Emily Bates
took his hand and drew him down to a seat beside her.
“What made you drop it, John?” she said, with a direct look into his
eyes.
He hesitated a moment, and his own glance wandered, then he said, “I
don’t know, Emily; I suppose it was a sudden physical contraction of the
muscles of my hand—and I couldn’t control it.”
Mrs. Bates didn’t look satisfied, but she did not pursue the subject.
Then the discussion of Anita was resumed.
“How did you like her looks, Doctor Waring?” Helen Peyton asked.
“I scarcely saw her,” was the quiet reply. “Did you all admire her?”
“Some of us did.” Mrs. Bates answered; “I do, for one. Did you ever see
her before, John?”
Doctor Waring stared at the question.
“Never,” he declared. “How could I have done so?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Mrs. Bates laughed. “I just had a sort of an
impression—”
“No, dear, I never saw the girl before in my life,” Waring reasserted.
“And you need never want to see her again,” Robert Tyler informed him.
“She’s sulky, silly and supercilious. She’s a mystery, they say, but I
say she merely wants to be thought a mystery to make a little sensation.
I can’t abide that sort.”
Helen Peyton heard this with undisguised satisfaction, for she had quite
enough girls in her life to be jealous and envious of, without adding
another to the list. Also, she especially wanted to retain the admiration
of Robert Tyler, and was glad to know it was not newly endangered.
“Miss Austin is very beautiful,” Gordon Lockwood declared, in his usual
way of summing up a discussion and announcing his own opinion as final.
“Also, she is a mystery. I live in the same boarding house—”
“So do I,” put in Tyler, “and she snubs us both.”
“She hasn’t snubbed me,” said Lockwood, simply.
“Never mind, Oscar, she will!” returned Tyler, and then laughed
immoderately at his own would-be wit.
CHAPTER V
THE TRAGEDY
That same Sunday evening the Waring household dined alone. Oftener than
not there were guests, but tonight there were only the two Peytons,
Lockwood and John Waring himself.
Ito, the butler, had holiday Sunday afternoon and evening, and Nogi, the
second and less experienced man, was trying his best to satisfy the
exactions of Mrs. Peyton as to his service at table.
Helen Peyton was in a talkative mood and commented volubly on the caller
of the afternoon, Miss Austin.
She met little response, for her mother was absorbed in the training of
the Japanese, and the two men seemed indisposed to pursue the subject.
“Don’t you think she’s odd looking?” Helen asked, of Doctor Waring.
“Odd looking,” he repeated; “I don’t know. I didn’t notice her
especially. She seemed to me a rather distinguished type.”
“Distinguished is the word,” agreed Lockwood. “What about the lecture
tomorrow night, Doctor? Will Fessenden take care of it?”
“No; I must lecture myself tomorrow night. I’m sorry, for I’m busy with
that book revision. However, I’ll look up some data this evening, and I
shall be ready for it.”
“Of course you will,” laughed Mrs. Peyton. “You were never caught unready
for anything!”
“But it means some work,” Waring added, as he rose from the table.
He went into the study, followed by Lockwood, whose experience made him
aware of what books his chief would need, and he began at once to take
them from the shelves.
“Right,” Waring said, looking over the armful of volumes Lockwood placed
on the desk and seating himself in the swivel chair.
“Bring me Marcus Aurelius, too, please, and Martial.”
“The classic touch,” Lockwood smiled.
“Yes, it adds dignity, if one is a bit shy of material,” Waring admitted,
good-naturedly. “That’s all, Lockwood. You may go, if you like.”
“No, sir. I’ll stay until eleven or so. I’m pretty busy with the reports,
and, too, some one may call whom I can take care of.”
“Good chap you are, Lockwood. I appreciate it. Very well, then, don’t
bother me unless absolutely necessary.”
The secretary left the room and closed the study door behind him.
This door gave on to the end of the cross hall, and the hall ended then,
in a roomy window seat, and also held a book rack and table; altogether a
comfortable and useful nook, frequently occupied by Gordon Lockwood. The
window looked out on the beautiful lake view, as did the great study
window, and it also commanded a view of the highroad on which stood, not
far away, the Adams boarding-house.
Lockwood lodged there, as being more convenient, but most of his waking
hours were spent in his employer’s home. A perfect secretary he had
proved himself to be, for his prescience amounted almost to clairvoyance,
and his imperturbability was exceedingly useful in keeping troublesome
people or things away from John Waring.
So, he determined to stay on guard, lest a chance caller should come to
disturb the Doctor at his work.
But Lockwood’s own work was somewhat neglected. Try as he would to
concentrate upon it, he could not entirely dismiss from his mind a
certain mysterious little face, whose meaning eluded him. For once,
Gordon Lockwood, reader of faces, was baffled. He couldn’t classify the
girl who was both rude and charming, both cruel and pathetic.
For cruelty was what this expert read in the knowing eyes and firm little
mouth of Miss Mystery. And because of this indubitable element in her
nature, he deemed her pathetic. Which shows how much she interested him.
At any rate he thought about her while his work waited. And, then, he
thought of other things—for he had troubles of his own, had this
supercilious young man. And troubles which galled him the more, that they
were sordid—money troubles, in fact. His whole nature revolted at the
mere thought of mercenary considerations, but if one is short of funds
one must recognize the condition, distasteful though it be.
At nine-thirty, Nogi came with a tray bearing water and glasses. Under
the watchful eye of Mrs. Peyton the Japanese tapped at the study door
and, in response to the master’s bidding, went in with his tray. He left
it punctiliously on the table directed, and with his characteristic bow,
departed again.
At ten-thirty, Mrs. Peyton and Helen went upstairs to their rooms, the
housekeeper having given Nogi strict and definite instructions, which
included his remaining on duty until the master should also retire.
And the night wore on.
A clear, cold night, with a late-rising moon, past the full, but still
with its great yellow disk nearly round.
It shone down on what seemed like fairyland, for the sleet storm that had
covered the trees with a coating of ice, and had fringed eaves and fences
with icicles, had ceased, and left the glittering landscape frozen and
sparkling in the still, cold air.
And when, some hours later, the sun rose on the same chill scene its rays
made no perceptible impression on the cold and the mercury stayed down at
its lowest winter record.
And so even the stolid Japanese Ito, shivered, and his yellow teeth
chattered as he knocked at Mrs. Peyton’s door in the early dawn of Monday
morning.
“What is it?” she cried, springing from her bed to unbolt her door.
“Grave news, madam,” and the Oriental bowed before her.
“What has happened? Tell me, Ito.”
“I am not sure, madam—but, the master—”
“Yes, what about Doctor Waring?”
“He is—he is asleep in his study.”
“Asleep in his study! Ito, what do you mean?”
“That, madam. His bed is unslept in. His room door ajar. I looked in the
study—through from the dining-room—he is there by his desk—”
“Asleep, Ito—you said asleep!”
“Yes—madam—but—I do not know. And Nogi—he is gone.”
“Gone! Where to?”
“That also, I do not know. Will madam come and look?”
“No; I will not! I know something has happened! I knew something would
happen! Ito, he is not asleep—he is—”
“Don’t say it, madam. We do not know.”
“Find out! Go in and speak to him.”
“But the door is locked. I tried it.”
“Locked! The study door locked, and Doctor Waring still in there? How do
you know?”
“I peeped from the dining-room window—and I could see him, leaning down
on his desk.”
“From the dining-room window! What do you mean?”
“The small little inside windows. Madam knows?”
The study had been added to the Waring house after the house had been
built for some years. Wherefore, the dining-room, previously with a lake
view from its windows, was cut off from that view. But, the windows,
three small, square ones, remained, and so, looked into the new study.
However, the study, a higher ceiling being desired, had its floor sunken
six feet or more, which brought the windows far too high to see through
from the study side, but one could look through them from the
dining-room. The original sashes had been replaced by beautiful stained
glass, opaque save for a few tiny transparent bits through which a
persistent and curious-minded person might discern some parts of the
study.
The stained glass sashes were immovable, and were there more as a
decoration than for utility’s sake.
And it was through these peepholes that Ito had discovered the presence
of Doctor Waring in his study at the unusual hour of seven o’clock in the
morning.
The Japanese, true to his tribal instinct, showed no agitation, and his
calm demeanor helped to soothe Mrs. Peyton. But as she hastily dressed
herself, she decided upon her course of action.
Her first impulse was to call her daughter, but she concluded not to
disturb the girl. Instead, she telephoned to Gordon Lockwood, and asked
him to come over as soon as he possibly could.
Old Salt took the message, and transmitted it to the secretary.
“What’s the matter over there?” asked Lockwood.
“Don’t know. Mrs. Peyton seemed all on edge, ’s far’s I could judge from
her voice—but she only said for you to come over.”
“All right, I’ll go as soon as I can get dressed.”
Once out of doors, Lockwood couldn’t fail to be impressed with the beauty
of the morning landscape. One of the most beautiful bits of New England
scenery, it was newly lovely in its sheath of ice.
Lockwood’s hasty steps crunched through the crusted snow, and he hurried
over to the Waring house.
Ito opened the door for him and Mrs. Peyton met him in the hall.
“Something has happened to Doctor Waring,” she said at once; “he stayed
in the study all night.”
“Why? What do you mean?” asked the secretary.
“Just that. His room door is still open, and his bed hasn’t been slept
in. Also, Ito says he can see him in the study, through the dining-room
window. I—I haven’t looked—”
“Why don’t you go in?”
“The study door is locked.”
“Locked! And Doctor Waring still in there?”
“Yes; I think he must have had a stroke—or, something—”
“Nonsense! He’s just asleep. He’s overworked of late, anyway.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” And Mrs. Peyton looked relieved. “You see
about it, Mr. Lockwood, won’t you?”
The secretary went first to the study door. He rapped, and then he tried
the door, and then rapped again, very loudly. But no response came, and
Lockwood returned to the dining-room.
“Can you see through that glass?” he asked in surprise, noting the thick,
leaded mosaic of pieces.
“Yes, sir, through this corner,” Ito directed him, and, peering through,
Lockwood discerned the figure of John Waring. He sat at his desk, his
body fallen slightly forward, and his head drooped on his breast.
“Sound asleep,” said Lockwood, but his tone carried no conviction.
Mrs. Peyton well knew the man’s disinclination to show any emotion, and
in spite of his calm, she was almost certain he shared her own belief
that John Waring was not merely asleep.
“We must get to him,” Lockwood said, after a moment’s pause. “Can you get
through one of these windows, Ito, and unbolt the door?”
“No, sir; these windows do not open at all.”
“Not open? Why not?”
Save to remark the beauty of their color and design, Lockwood had never
before noticed the windows, especially, and was genuinely surprised to
discover that they could not be opened at all.
“Of what use are they?” he mused, aloud; “They give very little light.”
“They were outside windows before the study was built,” Mrs. Peyton told
him, “and when the stained glass was put in, it was merely for decoration
and the panes were not made movable.”
“Well, we must get in,” said Lockwood, almost impatiently. “How shall we
do it? You, Ito, must know how.”
“No, sir, there is no way. Unless, the long window is unfastened.”
The long French window—really a double door—was on the other side of the
study, exactly opposite the useless high windows that gave into the
dining-room.
To reach it one must go out and around the house.
“It is very bad snow—” Ito shrugged.
“You heathen!” Lockwood exclaimed, scornfully, and himself dashed out at
the front door and around to the side of the house.
Mrs. Peyton started to follow, but the secretary bade her go back lest
she take cold.
He reached the French window only to find it locked on the inside. He
could not see in through its curtained panes, and impulsively he raised
his foot and kicked through the glass at a point high enough to allow of
his putting in a hand and turning back the latch.
He went into the room, and after the briefest glance at the man by the
desk he went on and unbolted the door to the hall.
Helen had joined her mother and Ito, and the three stood cowering on the
threshold.
“He is dead,” Gordon Lockwood said, in a calm, unemotional way. “But not
by a stroke—he has killed himself.”
“How do you know?” Mrs. Peyton cried, her eyes staring and her face
white.
“Go away, Helen,” Lockwood said; “go back into the living-room, and stay
away.”
And willingly the girl obeyed.
“Come in, Mrs. Peyton,” Lockwood went on. “You must see him, though it
will shock you. See, the flow of blood is dreadful. He stabbed or shot
himself.”
Conquering her aversion to the sight, Mrs. Peyton, from a sense of duty,
drew nearer, and as Lockwood had said, the condition of the body was
terrible indeed.
Wounded, apparently in the side of the head, Waring had fallen forward in
such a way that the actual wound was concealed, but the fact was only too
apparent that he had bled to death. The blotter on the desk and many of
the furnishings were crimsoned and there was a large and dark stain on
the rug.
“He is positively dead,” said Lockwood, in cool, even tone, “so I advise
that we do not touch the body but send at once for Doctor Greenfield. He
will know best what to do.”
“Oh, you cold-blooded wretch!” Mrs. Peyton burst forth, uncontrollably.
“Have you no feelings whatever? You stand there like a wooden image, when
the best man in the world lies dead before you! And you, Ito!” She turned
on the awe-struck butler. “You’re another of those impassive, unnatural
creatures! Oh, I hate you both!”
The housekeeper ran from the room, and was soon closeted with her
daughter, who, at least showed agitation and grief at the tragedy that
had occurred.
The two she had called impassive, stood regarding one another.
“Who did it, Master?” inquired the Japanese, calmly.
“Who did it!” Lockwood stared at him. “Why, he did it himself, Ito.”
Otherwise immovable, the Oriental shook his head in dissension, but
Lockwood was already at the telephone, and heeded him not.
Doctor Greenfield consented to come over at once, and Lockwood going to
the living room, advised the Peytons to have breakfast, as there was a
terrible ordeal ahead of them.
“I’ll have some coffee with you, if I may,” he went on. “Brace up, Helen,
it’s pretty awful for you, but you must try to be a brave girl.”
A grateful glance thanked him for the kindness, and Lockwood returned
quickly to the study.
“What are you doing?” he said sternly, as he saw Ito bending over the
dead man.
“Nothing, sir,” and the butler straightened up quickly and stood at
attention.
“Leave the room, and do not return here without permission. Serve
breakfast to the ladies. Where is Nogi?”
“He is gone, sir.”
“Gone where?”
“That I do not know. Last night he was here. Now he is gone. I know no
more.”
“You don’t know anything. Get out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Left to himself, Gordon Lockwood gazed thoughtfully about the room. He
did not confine his attention to the bent figure of his late employer,
nor even to the desk or its nearby surroundings. He wandered about
looking at the windows, the floor, the furniture.
One chair, standing rather near the desk, he looked at intently. An
expression of bewilderment came into his face, followed by a look of
dismay.
Then, after a cautious almost furtive glance about him, he passed his
hand quickly over the plush back of the chair, rubbing it hard, with a
scrubbing motion.
Then he looked about the room even more eagerly and carefully, and
finally sat down in the same plush chair, to await the Doctor’s arrival.
Helen Peyton came timidly to the door to ask him to come to breakfast.
“No, Helen,” he answered. “My place is here until the Doctor comes. Eat
your breakfast, child, and try to throw off your distress. It will do you
no good to brood over it. You can be of real help if you keep brave and
calm, but it will be quite otherwise if you get hysterical.”
He did not see the adoring glance she gave him, nor did he realize how
much effect his words had on her subsequent behavior. For Helen Peyton
was suffering from shocked nerves, and only Lockwood’s advice would have
been heeded by her.
She returned to the dining room, saying, quietly, “Gordon will come after
a while. Let us eat our breakfast, mother, and try to be brave and
strong.”
It was not more than fifteen minutes later that Lockwood joined them.
He took his seat at the table and as he shook out his breakfast napkin he
said,
“Doctor Greenfield is there now. He says Doctor Waring was stabbed not
shot. He says the instrument was round and pointed—not flat, like a
knife.”
“Who did it?” asked Helen, wide-eyed.
“It must have been suicide, Helen, for, as you know, the room was locked.
How could any one get in or out?”
“But how absurd to think of Doctor Waring killing himself!” The girl
looked more amazed than ever.
“He never killed himself,” stated Mrs. Peyton. “Why, you know that man
had everything to live for! Just about to be married, just about to be
President of the College—full of life and enthusiasm—suicide! Nonsense!”
“I’m only telling you what the doctor said. And you know yourselves, the
room was all locked up.”
“Yes, that’s so. Ito, leave the room!”
Mrs. Peyton spoke sharply to the butler, who was quite evidently drinking
in the conversation.
“He must not hear all we say,” she observed after the butler had
disappeared.
“What’s this about Nogi being gone?” asked Lockwood, suddenly.
“Yes, he’s gone,” Mrs. Peyton said, “and I can’t understand it. I didn’t
think he’d stay, he didn’t like the duties at all—you know he’s just
learning to be a butler—but queer he went off like that. His wages are
due for three weeks.”
“He’ll be back, then,” surmised Lockwood. “Now, what shall we do first?
The faculty must be notified of this tragedy and also, Mrs. Bates must be
told. Which of you two will go and tell Mrs. Bates about it?”
“You go, Helen,” said her mother after a moment’s thought. “I ought to be
here to look after the house, and anyway, dear, you can do it wisely and
gently. Mrs. Bates likes you, and after all, it can be soon told.”
“Oh, I can’t!” cried Helen, dismayed at the thought of the awful errand.
“Yes, you can,” and Lockwood looked at her with a firm kindliness. “You
want to be of help, don’t you Helen? Well, here’s one thing you can do
that will be of great assistance to your mother and to me. For on us two
must fall most of the sad duties of this day.”
“But what can I say? What can I tell her?”
“Just tell her the facts as far as you know them yourself. She will guess
from your own agitation that something has happened. And then you will
tell her, as gently as you can. Be a true woman, Helen, and remember that
though your news must break her heart, yet she’d far rather hear it from
you than from some less sympathetic messenger.”
“I’ll do it,” said Helen, struggling bravely to keep her tears back.
“That’s a good girl. Run right along, now, for ill news flies fast, and
rumors may get to her before you reach there.”
“Now about that Nogi,” Lockwood said, thoughtfully. “Call Ito back,
please, Mrs. Peyton.”
“When did you see Nogi last?” the secretary asked of the butler.
“When I came home last night, sir. Sunday is my holiday. I returned about
ten, and as I found Nogi with his duties all properly done, and at his
post, I went to bed. I found this morning that he had not been in his bed
at all. His clothes are gone, and all his belongings. I think he will not
come back.”
CHAPTER VI
AN INCREDIBLE CASE
When Lockwood returned to the study, he found the Medical Examiner and
Doctor Greenfield in consultation.
The Examiner was a large, pompous-looking man, with an air of authority.
He looked at Gordon Lockwood from beneath his heavy brows, and demanded,
“What do you know of this?”
The younger man resented the tone but he knew the question was justified,
and so he replied, respectfully:
“Nothing more than you can see for yourself, sir. I broke in at that
glass door, being unable to get in any other way, and I found Doctor
Waring—as you see him now.”
“There was some other way, though, to get in and out,” Examiner Marsh
stated.
“Positively not,” Lockwood repeated.
“Don’t contradict me! I tell you there must have been—for this man was
murdered.”
“Impossible, sir,” and Lockwood’s eyes met the Examiner’s with a gaze
fully as calm and insistent as his own.
“Very well, then, how came he by his death?”
“I am not the Examiner,” the Secretary said, and he folded his arms and
leaned against the corner of the great mantelpiece; “but since you ask
me, I will repeat that there was no way of ingress into this room last
night, and that necessarily, the case is a suicide.”
“Just so; and, granting that, will you suggest what may have become of
the weapon that was used?”
“What was the weapon?” Lockwood asked, not so disturbed by the question
as the Examiner had expected him to be.
“That is what puzzles me,” returned Doctor Marsh. “As you can clearly see
the wound was inflicted with a sharp instrument. The man was stabbed just
below his right ear. The jugular vein was pierced, and he bled to death.
A plexus of nerves was pierced also, and this fact doubtless rendered the
victim unconscious at once—I mean as soon as the stab wound was made,
though he may have been alive for a few minutes thereafter.”
Gordon Lockwood gazed imperturbably at the speaker. He had always prided
himself on his unshakable calm, and now he exhibited its full
possibilities. It annoyed Doctor Marsh, who was accustomed to having his
statements accepted without question. He took a sudden dislike to this
calm young man, who presumed to differ from his deductions.
“I must say,” observed the mild-mannered Doctor Greenfield, “I knew
Doctor Waring very well, and he was surely the last person I would expect
to kill himself. Especially at the present time—when he was looking
forward to high honors in the College and also expected to marry a
charming lady.”
“That isn’t the point,” exclaimed Doctor Marsh, impatiently. “The point
is, if he killed himself, where is the weapon?”
“I admit it isn’t in view—and I admit that seems strange,” Lockwood
agreed, “but it may yet be discovered, while a way of getting into a
locked room cannot be found.”
“All of which is out of your jurisdiction, young man,” and Marsh looked
at him severely. “The police will be here soon, and I’ve no doubt they
will learn the truth, whatever it may be. What instrument do you deduce,
Doctor Greenfield?”
“That’s hard to say,” replied Greenfield, slowly. “You see the aperture
it made is a perfectly round hole. Now, most daggers or poniards are
flat-bladed. I’m not sure a real weapon is ever round. The hole is much
too large to have been made by a hatpin—it is as big as a—a—”
“Slate pencil,” suggested the Examiner.
“Yes, or a trifle larger—but not so large as a lead-pencil.”
“A lead-pencil could hardly accomplish the deed,” Marsh mused. “A
slate-pencil might have—but that is a most unusual weapon.”
“How about a bill-file?” asked Doctor Greenfield. “I knew of a man killed
with one.”
“Yes, but where is the bill-file?” asked Marsh. “There’s one on the desk,
to be sure, but it is full of papers, and shows no sign of having been
used for a criminal purpose. If, as Mr. Lockwood insists, this is a
suicide case, the victim positively could not have cleaned that file and
restored the papers after stabbing himself!”
“He most certainly could not have done that!” declared Doctor Greenfield.
Marsh examined the file carefully. It was an ordinary affair consisting
of a steel spike on a bronze standard. It would without doubt make an
efficacious implement of murder, but it was difficult to believe it had
been used in that way. For the bills and memoranda it contained were, to
all appearance, just as they had been thrust on the sharp point—and
surely, had they been removed and replaced, they would have shown traces
of such moving.
“Anyway,” Doctor Greenfield said, after another examination, “the hole in
the side of Waring’s neck seems to me to have been made with an
instrument slightly larger than that file. Surely, there are round
stilettos, are there not?”
“Yes, there are,” said Lockwood, “I have seen them.”
“Where?” demanded the Examiner, suddenly turning on him.
“Why—I don’t know.” For once, the Secretary’s calm was a trifle shaken.
“I should say in museums—or in private collections, perhaps.”
“Are you familiar with so many private collections of strange weapons
that you can’t remember where you have seen a round-shaped blade?”
Examiner Marsh stared hard at him and Lockwood became taciturn again.
“Exactly that,” he conceded. “I have sometime, somewhere, seen a
round-bladed stiletto—but I cannot remember where.”
“Better brush up your memory,” Marsh told him, and then the police
arrived.
The local police of Corinth were rather proud of themselves as a whole,
and they had reason to be. Under a worthwhile chief the men had been well
trained, and were alert, energetic and capable.
Detective Morton, who took this matter in charge, went straight to work
in a most business-like way.
He examined the body of John Waring, not as the medical men had done, but
merely to find possible clues to the manner of his death.
“What’s this ring on his forehead?” he asked, looking at the dead man’s
face.
“I don’t know—that struck me as queer,” said Greenfield. “What is it,
Doctor Marsh?”
The Examiner peered through his glasses.
“I can’t make that out, myself,” he confessed, frankly.
Morton looked more closely.
There was a red circle on Waring’s forehead, that looked as if it had
been put there of some purpose.
A perfect circle it was, about two inches in diameter, and it was red and
sunken into the flesh, as if it might have been done with a branding
iron.
“Not a very hot one, though,” Morton remarked, after suggesting this,
“but surely somebody did it. I’ll say it’s the sign or seal of the
murderer himself. For a dead man couldn’t do it, and there’s no sense in
assuming that Doctor Waring branded himself before committing suicide.
Was it done before or after death?” he asked of the two doctors present.
“Before, I should say,” Doctor Greenfield opined.
“Yes,” concurred Marsh, “but not long before. I’m not sure it is a
brand—such a mark could have been made with, say, a small cup or
tumbler.”
“But what reason is there in that?” exclaimed Morton. “Even a lunatic
murderer wouldn’t mark his victim by means of a tumbler rim.”
Absorbedly, he picked up a tumbler from the water tray, and fitted it to
the red mark on Waring’s forehead.
“It doesn’t fit exactly,” he said, “but it does almost.”
“Rubbish!” said Gordon Lockwood, in his superior way. “Why would any one
mark Doctor Waring’s face with a tumbler?”
“Yet it has been marked,” Morton looked at the secretary sharply. “Can
you suggest any explanation—however difficult of belief?”
“No,” Lockwood said. “Unless he fell over on some round thing as he
died.”
“There’s nothing here,” said Morton, scanning the furnishings of the desk
“The inkstand is closed—and it’s a smaller round, anyway. There’s no one
of these desk fittings that could possibly have made that mark.
Therefore, since it was made before death, it must have been done by the
murderer.”
“Or by the suicide,” Lockwood insisted firmly.
Morton, looking at the secretary, decided to keep an eye on this cool
chap, who must have some reason for repeating his opinion of suicide.
“Now,” the detective said, briskly, “to get to business, I must make
inquiries of the family—the household. Suppose I see them in some other
room—”
“Yes,” agreed Lockwood, with what seemed to Morton suspicious eagerness.
Why should the secretary be so obviously pleased to leave the
study—though, to be sure, it was a grewsome place just now.
“Wait a minute,” Morton said, “how about robbery? Has anything been
missed?”
Lockwood looked surprised.
“I never thought to look,” he said; “assuming suicide, of course robbery
didn’t occur to me.” He looked round the room. “Nothing seems to be
missing.”
“Stay on guard, Higby,” the detective said to a policeman, and then asked
the secretary where he could interview the housekeeper and the servants.
Lockwood took Morton to the living-room, and there they found Mrs. Bates
as well as the two Peytons.
Though her eyes showed traces of tears, Emily Bates was composed and met
the detective with an appealing face.
“Do find the murderer!” she cried; “I don’t care how much that room was
locked up, I know John Waring never killed himself! Why would he do it?
Did ever a man have so much to live for? He couldn’t have taken his
life!”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, Mrs. Bates,” Morton told her, “yet you
must see the difficulties in the way of a murder theory. I’m told the
room was inaccessible. Is not that right, Mrs. Peyton?”
Flustered at the sudden question the housekeeper wrung her hands and
burst into tears. “Oh, don’t ask me,” she wailed, “I don’t know anything
about it!”
“Nothing indicative, perhaps,” and Morton spoke more gently, “but at
least, tell me all you do know. When did you see Doctor Waring last?”
“At the supper table, last evening.”
“Not after supper at all?”
“No; that is, I didn’t _see_ him. I am training a new servant, and I
watched him as he took a tray of water pitcher and glasses into the
study, but I didn’t look in, nor did I see the doctor.”
“Did you hear him?”
“I don’t think I heard him speak. I heard a paper rustle, and I knew he
was there.”
“The servant came right out again?”
“Yes; my attention was all on him. I told him exactly what to do during
the evening.”
“What were those instructions?”
“To attend to his dining-room duties, putting away the supper dishes and
that, and then to stay about, on duty, until Doctor Waring left his study
and went to bed.”
“This servant had done these things before?”
“Not these things. He arrived but a few days ago, and Ito the butler,
attended to the Doctor. But Sunday afternoon and evening Ito has off, so
I began to train Nogi.”
“And this Nogi has disappeared?”
“Yes; he is not to be found this morning. Nor has his bed been
disturbed.”
“Then we may take it he left in the night or early morning. Now the
doctors judge that Doctor Waring died about midnight. We must therefore
admit the possibility of a connection between the Jap’s disappearance and
the Doctor’s death.”
At this suggestion, Gordon Lockwood looked interested. Whereas he had
preserved a stony calm, his face now showed deep attention to the
detective’s words and he nodded his head in agreement.
“You think so, too, Mr. Lockwood?” Morton asked, in that sudden and often
disconcerting way of his.
“I don’t say I think so,” the secretary returned, quietly, “but I do
admit a possibility.”
“It would seem so,” Mrs. Peyton put in, “if Nogi could have got into the
study. But he couldn’t. You know it was locked—impossible, Mr. Lockwood?”
“Yes,” Gordon returned. “I heard Doctor Waring lock his door.”
“When was that?” asked the detective, sharply.
“I should say about ten o’clock.”
“Where were you, then?”
“Sitting in the window nook outside the study door.”
“Could you not, then, hear anything that went on in the study?”
“Probably not. The walls and door are thick—they were made so for the
doctor’s sake—he desired absolute privacy, and freedom from interruption
or overhearing. No, I could not know what was taking place in that
room—if anything was, at that time.”
“At what time did you last see the doctor?”
“After supper I went with him to the study. I looked after his wants,
getting him a number of books from the shelves, and selecting from his
files such notes or manuscript as he asked for. Those are my duties as
secretary.”
“And then?”
“Then he practically dismissed me, saying I might leave for the night.
But I remained in the hall window until eleven o’clock.”
“Why did you do this?”
“Out of consideration for my employer. He was exceedingly busy and if a
caller came, I could probably attend to his wants and spare the doctor an
interruption.”
“Did any one call?”
“No one.”
“Yet you remained until eleven?”
“Yes; I was doing some work of my own, and it was later than I thought,
when I decided to go home.”
“And you spoke to the Doctor before leaving?”
“As is my custom, I tapped lightly at the door and said good-night. This
is my rule, when he is busy, and if he makes no response, or merely
murmurs good-night, I know there are no further orders till morning, and
I go home.”
“Did he respond to your rap last night?”
“I—I cannot say. I heard him murmur a good-night but if he did, it was so
low as to be almost inaudible. I thought nothing of it. Since he did not
call out. ‘Come in, Lockwood,’ as he does when he wants me, I paid little
attention to the matter.”
“And you reached home—when?”
“Something after eleven. It’s but a few steps over to the Adams house,
where I live.”
“Now,” summed up the detective, “here’s the case. You, Mr. Lockwood, are
not sure Doctor Waring responded to your good-night. You did not see or
hear him when Nogi took in the water tray?”
“No; I did not.”
“Mrs. Peyton did not see him then, either—though she imagined she heard a
paper rustle. Nogi is gone—he cannot be questioned. So, Mr. Lockwood, the
last person whom we know definitely to have seen John Waring alive, is
yourself when, as you say, you left him at about—er—what time?”
“About half-past eight or nine,” said Lockwood, carelessly.
“Yes; you left him and sat in the hall window. Now, we have no positive
evidence that he was alive after that.”
“What!” Lockwood stared at him.
“No positive evidence, I say. Nogi went in, but no one knows what Nogi
saw in there.”
“Come now, Detective Morton,” Lockwood said, coldly, “you’re romancing.
Do you suppose for a minute, that if there had been anything wrong with
Doctor Waring when Nogi went in with the water, that he would not have
raised an alarm?”
“I suppose that might have easily have been the case. The Japanese are
afraid of death. Their one idea is to flee from it. If that Japanese
servant had seen his master dead, he would have decamped, just as he did
do.”
“But Nogi was here when I went home. He handed me my overcoat and hat,
quite with his usual calm demeanor.”
“You must remember, Mr. Lockwood, we have only your word for that.”
Gordon Lockwood looked at the detective.
“I will not pretend to misunderstand your meaning,” he said, slowly and
with hauteur. “Nor shall I say a word, at present, in self defence. Your
implication is so absurd, so really ridiculous, there is nothing to be
said.”
“That’s right,” and Morton nodded. “Don’t say anything until you get
counsel. Now, Mrs. Bates—I’m mighty sorry to bother you—but I must ask
you a few questions. And if I size you up right, you’ll be glad to tell
anything you can to help discover the truth. That so?”
“Yes,” she returned, “yes—of course, Mr. Morton. But I can’t let you seem
to suspect Mr. Lockwood of wrong-doing without a protest! Doctor Waring’s
secretary is most loyal and devoted—of that I am sure.”
“Never mind that side of it just now. Tell me this, Mrs. Bates. Who will
benefit financially by Doctor Waring’s death? To whom is his fortune
willed? I take it you must know, as you expected soon to marry him.”
“But I don’t know,” Emily Bates said, a little indignantly. “Nor do I see
how it can help you to solve the mystery to get such information as that.
You don’t suppose anybody killed him for his money, do you?”
“What other motive could there be, Mrs. Bates? Had he enemies?”
“No; well, that is, I suppose he had some acquaintances who were
disappointed at his election to the College Presidency. But I’d hardly
call them enemies.”
“Why not? Why wouldn’t they be enemies? It’s my impression that election
was hotly contested.”
“It was,” Mrs. Peyton broke in. “It was, Mr. Morton, and if Doctor Waring
was murdered—which I can’t see how he was—some of that other faction did
it.”
“But that’s absurd,” Gordon Lockwood protested; “there was disappointment
among the other faction at the result of the election, but it’s
incredible that they should kill Doctor Waring for that reason!”
“The whole case is incredible,” Morton returned. “What is it, Higby, what
have you found?”
“The doctor,” Higby said, coming into the living room, “they have just
noticed that although there is a pinhole in Doctor Waring’s tie, there is
no stickpin there. Did he wear one?”
“Of course he did,” Mrs. Bates cried. “He had on his ruby pin yesterday.”
“He did so,” echoed Mrs. Peyton. “That ruby pin was worth an immense sum
of money! That’s why he was killed, then, robbery!”
“He certainly wore that pin last night,” said Lockwood. “Are you sure
it’s missing? Hasn’t it dropped to the floor?”
“Can’t find it,” returned Higby, and then all the men went back to the
study.
“Anything else missing?” asked Morton, who was deeply chagrined that he
hadn’t noticed the pin was gone himself.
“How about money, Mr. Lockwood?” said Doctor Marsh. “Any gone, that you
can notice?”
With an uncertain motion, Gordon Lockwood pulled open a small drawer of
the desk.
“Yes,” he said, “there was five hundred dollars in cash here last
night—and now it is not here.”
“Better dismiss the suicide theory,” said Detective Morton, with a quick
look at the secretary.
CHAPTER VII
THE VOLUME OF MARTIAL
The Medical Examiner, Doctor Marsh, the Detective Morton, and the
Secretary of the late John Waring, Gordon Lockwood, looked at one
another.
Without any words having been spoken that might indicate a lack of
harmony, there yet was a hint of discord in their attitudes.
Doctor Marsh was sure the case was a suicide.
“You’ll find the stiletto somewhere,” he shrugged, when held upon that
point. “To find the weapon is not my business—but when a man is dead in a
locked room, and dead from a wound that could have been
self-administered, I can’t see a murder situation.”
“Nor I,” said Lockwood. “Has the waste-basket been searched for the thing
that killed him?”
Acting quickly on his own suggestion, Gordon Lockwood dived beneath the
great desk.
Like a flash, Morton was after him, and though the detective was not
sure, he thought he saw the secretary grasp a bit of crumpled paper and
stuff it in his pocket.
“Now, look here, I’ll make that search,” Morton exclaimed, and almost
snatched the waste-basket from the other’s grasp.
“Very well,” and Lockwood put his hands in his pockets and stood looking
on, as Morton fumbled with the scraps.
He emptied the basket on the floor, but there were only a few torn
envelopes and memoranda, which were soon proved to be of no indicative
value to the searchers.
“I’ll save the stuff, anyway,” Morton declared, getting a newspaper and
wrapping in it the few bits of waste paper.
“Did you take a paper from this basket and put it in your pocket?” the
detective suddenly demanded.
Lockwood, without moving, gave Morton a cold stare that was more negative
than any words could be, and was, moreover, exceedingly disconcerting.
“Look here, Mr. Morton,” he said, “if you suspect me of killing my
employer, come out and say so. I know, in story-books, the first one to
be suspected is the confidential secretary. So, accuse me, and get it
over with.”
The very impassivity of Lockwood’s face seemed to put him far beyond and
above suspicion, and the detective, hastily mumbled,
“Not at all, Mr. Lockwood, not at all. But you don’t seem real frank,
now, and you must know how important it is that we get all the first hand
information we can.”
“Of course, and I’m ready to tell all I know. Go on and ask questions.”
“Well, then, what do you surmise has become of that five hundred dollars
and that ruby stickpin? Doesn’t their disappearance rather argue against
suicide?”
Lockwood meditated. “Not necessarily. If they have been stolen—”
“Stolen! Of course they’ve been stolen, since they aren’t here! I don’t
see any safe.”
“No, Doctor Waring had no safe. There has been little or no robbery in
Corinth, and Doctor Waring rarely kept much money about.”
“Five hundred dollars is quite a sum.”
“That was for housekeeping purposes. Whenever necessary, I drew for him
from the bank that amount, and he kept it in that drawer until it was
used up. He always gave Mrs. Peyton cash to pay the servants and some
other matters as well as her own salary. His tradesman’s bills were paid
by check.”
“Was the money in bills?”
“I invariably brought it to him in the same denominations. Two hundred in
five dollar bills, two hundred in ones, and a hundred in silver coins.”
“In paper rolls?”
“Yes; it may have been injudicious to keep so large a sum in his desk
drawer, but he always did. Though, to be sure, he often paid out a great
deal of it at once. Sometimes he would cash checks for some one or give
some to the poor.”
“Drawer never locked?”
“Always locked. But both the Doctor and I carried a key. He was not so
suspicious of me as you are, Mr. Morton.” The speaker gave his cold
smile.
“And as to the ruby pin, Mr. Lockwood?” Morton went on. “Are you willing
we should search your effects?”
Lockwood started and for a moment he almost lost his equipoise.
“I am not willing,” he said, after an instant’s pause, “but if you say it
is necessary, I suppose I shall have to submit.”
Morton looked at him uneasily. He had no appearance of a criminal, he
looked too proud and haughty to be a culprit, yet might that not be sheer
bravado?
Discontinuing the conversation, Morton turned his attention to the table
in the window in the hall where the secretary so often sat.
He examined the appurtenances, for the table was furnished almost like a
desk, and he picked up a silver penholder.
It was round and smooth and without chasing or marking of any sort, save
for the initials G. L.
“This yours?” he asked, and Lockwood nodded assent.
“I ask you, Doctor Marsh,” Morton turned to the Examiner, “whether that
wound which is in Doctor Waring’s neck could have been made with this
penholder.”
Startled, Marsh took the implement and carefully scrutinized it. Of usual
length, it was tapering and ended in a point. The circumference at the
larger end was just about the circumference of the wound in question.
“I must say it could be possible,” Marsh replied, his eyes alternately on
the penholder and on the dead man. “Yes, it is exactly the size.”
“And it is strong enough and sharp enough, and it is round,” summed up
Morton. “Now, Mr. Lockwood, I make no accusation. I’m no novice, and I
know there’s a possibility that this might have been the weapon used, and
yet it might not have been used by you. But I will say, that I have much
to say to you yet, and I advise you not to try to leave town.”
“I’ve no intention of leaving town or of trying to do so,” Lockwood
asserted, “but,” he went on, “would you mind telling me, if I killed the
man I was devoted to, how I left the room locked behind me?”
“Those locked rooms bore me,” said Morton, “I’ve read lots of detective
stories founded on that plot. Invariably the locked room proves to be
vulnerable at some point. I haven’t finished examining the doors and
windows myself as yet.”
“Proceed with your examinations, then,” said Lockwood; “if you can find a
secret or concealed entrance, it’s more than I can do.”
“More than you will do, perhaps, but not necessarily more than you can
do.”
“Don’t forget that vanished Japanese,” prompted Marsh. “I’ve small faith
in Orientals, and if there is a way to get in and out secretly, I’d
question the Jap before I would Mr. Lockwood here.”
“So should I,” declared the impassive secretary himself. “And another
thing don’t forget, Morton, after the Private Secretary, the next person
to be suspected is the butler—that is in fiction, which I gather you take
as your manual of procedure.”
Lockwood’s sarcasm drove Morton frantic, but he was too wise to show his
annoyance.
“I shall neglect no possible suspect,” he said, with dignity.
And then two men came from the police, who said they were photographers
and desired to take some pictures, at the Chief’s orders.
Lockwood left them, and went to the living-room where the household and a
few neighbors were assembled.
“I’m glad to get out of that detective atmosphere,” he said, relaxing in
an easy chair. “It’s bad enough to have the man dead, without seeing and
hearing those cold-blooded police bungling over their ‘clues’ and
‘evidences.’”
“Tell me a little of the circumstances,” asked Mrs. Bates, who was
present. “I can bear it from you, Gordon, and I must know.”
“Apparently, Doctor Waring was sitting at his desk, reading,” Lockwood
began, with a faraway look, as if trying to reconstruct the scene. “He
must have been reading Martial—for the volume was open on the desk—and
the pages were blood-stained.”
Mrs. Bates gave a little cry, and shuddered, but Lockwood went unmovably
on.
“There were other books about, some open, some closed, but Martial was
nearest his hand—quite as if he were reading up to the last moment.”
“When the murderer came!” Mrs. Bates breathed softly, her eyes wide with
horror.
“It couldn’t have been murder,” Lockwood said, in a positive way, “you
see, Mrs. Bates, it just couldn’t have been. That Morton detective is
trying to trump up a way the assassin could have entered that locked
room—but he can’t find any way. I know he can’t. So it must have been
suicide. Much as we dislike to admit it, it is the only possible theory.”
“But they say there was robbery,” Mrs. Peyton put in. “The ruby pin is
gone and the money from the drawer.”
“But, perhaps,” Gordon said, “they were taken by a robber who did not
also murder his victim. Nogi, now—”
“Of course!” cried Helen Peyton, quickly; “I see it! I never could abide
Nogi, with his stealthy ways. He stole the things, and then he ran away,
and later, Doctor Waring killed himself!”
“Because of the robbery!” exclaimed Emily Bates.
“Oh, no!” Lockwood returned. “Certainly not for that. Indeed, the motive
is the greatest mystery of all. We could perhaps imagine a motive for
murder—whether it was robbery, or some brute of ‘the other faction’ or
some old enemy of whom we know nothing. But for suicide, though I am sure
it was that, I can think of no motive whatever.”
“Nor I,” said Mrs. Bates. “I knew him better than any of you, and I
know—I know for a certainty, that he was a happy man. That he looked
forward eagerly to his marriage with me, that he was happy in the thought
of his Presidency—that he hadn’t a real trouble in the world.”
“The other faction,” began Mrs. Peyton.
“No,” said Mrs. Bates, firmly. “He knew he was doing his duty, upholding
the principles and tradition of his College, and the other faction did
not worry him. He was too big-minded, too broad-visioned to allow that to
trouble him.”
“I think you’re quite right, Mrs. Bates,” Lockwood agreed; “but granting
it was suicide, what do you think was the cause?”
“That’s just it,” she declared; “I don’t think it was suicide, I know it
couldn’t have been. He was too happy, too good, too fine, to do such a
thing, even if he had had a reason. And then, what did he do it with?”
“Morton imagines a secret entrance of some sort,” said Lockwood. “If
there is one, the robber could have come in afterward, and could have
carried off the weapon—”
“Hush, Gordon,” said Mrs. Bates, sternly. “That’s too absurd! If it had
been suicide—which it wasn’t—why under heaven would a burglar coming in
later, take away the weapon?”
“To save himself,” said Lockwood, shortly. “So he wouldn’t be suspected
of the greater crime.”
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Peyton, irately; “I never heard such rubbish! And,
in the first place, there’s no secret entrance to the study. I haven’t
swept and dusted and vacuum-cleaned that place all these years without
knowing that! Yes, and had the room redecorated and refloored, and—Oh, I
know every inch of it! There’s no possible chance of a secret entrance.
Who built it and when and why? Not Doctor Waring. His life’s always been
an open book. Never has he had any secret errands, any callers whom I
didn’t know, any matters on which he was silent or uncommunicative. Until
his engagement to Mrs. Bates, he hadn’t a ripple in his quiet life, and
that he told me about as soon as it occurred.”
Mrs. Peyton looked squarely at Doctor Waring’s fiancee, as if to imply a
complete knowledge of the courtship, as well as an intimate knowledge of
the Doctor’s life.
“That’s true,” Lockwood said. “He was a man without secrets. He was
always willing I should open his mail, and there was never a letter that
I did not know about.”
Yet even as he spoke, the man remembered the crumpled paper he had taken
from the waste basket, and he felt it in his pocket, though he made no
sign.
“Oh, people, is my aunt here?”
It was Pinky Payne, who, all excitement, came running in.
“I’ve just heard, and I want to see Aunt Emily.”
“Here I am, dear. Come here, my boy,” and she drew him down beside her on
the sofa.
“What do they say, Pinky? What’s the talk in town?” Lockwood asked.
“Oh, the place is in a turmoil. There are the wildest reports. Some say
it’s a—a—that he killed himself, you know, and some say—he didn’t. Which
was it?”
The boy’s lip quivered as he looked about at the silent people.
“Tell him, Gordon,” begged Mrs. Bates, and Lockwood told the principal
details of the mystery.
“Never a suicide! never!” Pinckney Payne declared. “I know Doc Waring too
well for that. Suicide means a coward—and he was never that! No, Aunt
Emily, it was murder. Oh, how terrible,” and the boy almost lost control
of himself. “You were at the bottom of it, Auntie. I’m sure it was either
one of those men you refused when you took up with Doc Waring.”
“Why, Pinckney! How dreadful of you! Don’t say such a thing!”
“But I know it. If you’d heard Jim Haskell and Philip Leonard talk—I felt
sure they meant to kill Doctor Waring.”
“Pinky, I forbid you—”
“But it’s true, Auntie. And if it’s true, you want them shown up, don’t
you, whichever one it was?”
“Hush, Pinky—hush!”
“Yes, shut up, Pink,” Lockwood spoke sternly. “What you suggest is highly
improbable, but even if there’s suspicion of such a thing, don’t babble
about it. That’s the detective’s work.”
“Yes—and who’s your detective? Old blind-as-a-bat Morton, I’ll bet, who
can’t see a hole through a ladder! I’ll show him now—”
“Pinky, I beg of you, hush,” said his Aunt, losing her self-control.
“There, Auntie, dear, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to worry you, but
something must be done—”
“Something will be done, Pinky,” Lockwood assured him. “But I tell you
right now, if you try to stick your inexperienced finger in this pie,
you’ll make trouble for us all—from your aunt down. Now, behave yourself.
Try to be a man, not a foolish boy.”
“That’s what I’m doing! And I don’t propose to lie down on the job,
either. I tell you, Gordon. I know a lot about detective work—”
“Cut it out, Pink,” said Helen, and her words seemed to have an effect on
the irrepressible youth. “To read detective stories is one thing—to solve
a real, live mystery is quite another.”
“That’s right, Helen,” and Lockwood nodded approval. “Many a person
thinks he has a bit of detective instinct, when all he has is curiosity
and imagination.”
Helen, pleased at this appreciation went on to lay down the law for
Pinckney Payne.
She was interrupted by the entrance of Morton who wanted to learn more of
the departed Japanese, Nogi.
“What other servants are there?” he asked Mrs. Peyton.
“Only the two Japanese,” she replied. “They do all the cooking and
serving at table; all the cleaning of the house; and the rest, my
daughter and myself attend to.”
“There is a chauffeur?”
“Yes, but the garage is a few blocks away, and the chauffeur lives at
home.”
“You had Nogi but a short time?”
“Only a few days.”
“He came well recommended?”
“He had very fine written recommendations, but from people I did not
know, and too far away to inquire of. I took him on trial.”
“He seemed honest and faithful?”
“He seemed so—but he was silent and moody—a man one could scarcely
understand.”
“Can you imagine his killing his master—granting the opportunity?”
Mrs. Peyton considered. “I can imagine it,” she said, “but I shouldn’t
like to say I would suspect him of it. He was soft-footed, and went about
with a sort of stealthy manner, but I’m not prepared to say he was wrong
in any way.”
“Call in Ito, the other one.”
Ito came, and stood stolidly by. His impassive demeanor was not unlike
that of Gordon Lockwood. Waring had sometimes remarked this in a chaffing
way to his secretary.
“You knew this Nogi?” asked Morton.
“Only since he came here,” answered the butler, in perfect English.
“You liked him?”
“Neither yes nor no. He knew little of his duties, but he was willing to
learn. He was respectful to me, and friendly enough. I had no reason to
dislike him.”
Morton didn’t seem to get anywhere with this man.
“Well, what do you think of his character?” he said. “Would you say he
was capable of killing his employer?”
“All men are capable of crime,” said the Jap, in a low, even voice, “but
he could not kill Doctor Waring and go away leaving the study locked on
the inside.”
“Why did he go away, then?”
“That I do not know. It may be he tired of the place here.”
“But there was money due him.”
“Yes; that makes it hard to understand.”
Morton had an uncomfortable feeling that the Japanese was scornful of
him, and, worse still, that the other listeners were also.
“You may go,” he told Ito, and then, turning to Lockwood, he said, a
little belligerently, “Who is in charge here? To whom do I make my
report?”
The question was like a bombshell. All were silent, until Mrs. Bates
said, “I suppose I am what might be called in charge. You may report to
me.”
“To you, ma’am?” Morton was, clearly, surprised.
“Yes; as Doctor Waring’s affianced wife, and as his heir, I feel I am in
authority. And also, I wish all reports made to me, as I am the one most
deeply interested in learning the identity of the murderer.”
“If he was murdered,” supplemented Mrs. Bates.
And Mrs. Peyton broke in, “You needn’t think, Mr. Morton, that there’s
such a thing as a secret entrance or secret passage in this house, for I
know there is not.”
“Yet there are other theories, other possibilities,” the detective said,
his air a little less important than it had been. “Suppose, now, that
Nogi had robbed and murdered his master, when he carried in the water
tray. Just suppose that, and suppose that, with his Japanese cunning he
had devised a way to lock the door behind him—or, say, he had gone out by
the glass door, and had locked that behind him.”
“How?” cried Pinckney, his eyes wide with excitement.
“Say he had previously removed a pane of glass—they are not large panes.
Say, he reached through, locked the door inside—the French window, I
mean—and then had put in the pane, reputtied it, and gone away.”
“Gee!” cried the boy. “That could be!”
“Of course it could. And there are other ways it might have been
accomplished. Now, we don’t say that did happen, but what I want to know
is, who is at the head of this investigation?”
“I can’t feel that Mrs. Bates is,” Mrs. Peyton said, a little sullenly.
“She was not married yet, and therefore, as resident housekeeper, I feel
rather in authority myself.”
“But you say you are the heir, Mrs. Bates?” the detective inquired.
“Perhaps I ought not to have told that,” Emily Bates spoke regretfully.
“But Doctor Waring’s lawyer will tell you, it is true I am the principal
heir. It is so designated in his will, which you will find in a secret
drawer in his desk.”
“You know where this drawer is?”
“I do.”
“Later on, I will ask you to show us. If you are the heir, there is no
further question of your authority here.”
And Detective Morton left the room.
CHAPTER VIII
WHERE IS NOGI?
Twenty-four hours later Cray, the District Prosecuting Attorney, stood in
the Waring study.
The body of the master had been removed, and to Cray’s regret he had not
seen it before the embalmer’s work had removed the red ring on the
forehead.
“It was a sign,” he said to Morton, who was moodily listening. “A sign
like that, left by the murderer, always means revenge.”
“You agree to murder, then?” Morton spoke eagerly, glad to have his
theory corroborated.
“What else? Look here, Morton; it’s got to be either murder or suicide,
hasn’t it? Yes? Well, then, to which of the two do the greater number of
clues point? Sum up. For suicide we have only the locked room argument. I
admit I don’t know how any one could get in or out of this study, but, as
I say, that’s the only sign of suicide. Now, for murder we have the
absence of the weapon, the robbery of the money and the ruby, and sign of
a circle on the dead man’s forehead. Wish I’d seen that. It wasn’t burnt
on, for it disappeared after the embalmers took care of it.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t as deep as a burn. More like an impression left by a
ring of cold metal or the edge of a glass tumbler.”
“Very strange, and decidedly an important clue. For, here’s the queer
part. The doctors declare the mark must have been made while the man was
alive—now, how can that be explained?”
“Give it up. It’s too much for me. But it was too small a circle to have
been made by the tumbler on the water tray. I measured it.”
“I know; that’s why I think it was a sign of revenge. Suppose the motive
was revenge and the reason for revenge had something to do with a quarrel
in which a small glass or cup figured. That’s the idea, though, of
course, it needn’t have been a glass or cup at all, but something with a
ring-like edge. Thus, there was a reason for the sign on the dead man’s
face.”
“I see; though I never could have doped it out like that.”
“Oh, I don’t say it’s exactly what happened, but there must have been
something of the sort, for what other hypothesis fits the case at all? We
can’t imagine Doctor Waring branding his own forehead, and then killing
himself, can we?”
“No; and if he had, where’s the branding iron—to call it that—and where’s
the dagger?”
“That’s right. Now, I propose to treat the matter as a murder case, and
look for the criminal first, and then find out how he entered the locked
room afterward.”
“Pooh! those locked rooms—”
“You’re ’way off, Morton, when you sneer at a ‘locked room.’”
“It was locked—I mean impenetrably locked. There is no secret passage—of
that I’m sure. Your ingenious idea of removing and replacing a whole pane
of glass was clever, I grant, but we’ve seen that not a pane has been
lately reputtied. They’re all framed in old, dried, hard, and even
painted putty.”
“I know it. But some other such way might have been devised.”
“Can’t think of any. We’ve examined all the window sashes and door
frame—oh, well, so far as I can see the room was absolutely unenterable.
But, notwithstanding, I’m going to work on a murder basis. Because
inexplicable as that seems, there are even more insurmountable
difficulties in the way of the suicide theory. Now, I suppose you’ve had
the finger print expert in?”
“No—I haven’t—not yet.”
“Good Lord! What kind of a detective are you? Well, get him, and put him
to work. What about footprints?”
“Inside the room?”
“Or outside, either. But inside, I suppose has been trampled by a score
of people!”
“You can’t get footprints on a thick rug,” the discomfited Morton
grumbled.
“Sometimes you can. And a polished floor will often show marks. What have
you done, anyway?”
“There was enough to do, Mr. Cray,” Morton flared back at him. “I have
been busy every minute since I began, except for a few hours sleep.”
“Over twenty-four hours since the alarm was given. You’ve put in at least
twelve, then. What have you done?”
“A lot. I’ve found out, to my own satisfaction, that—if it is a
murder—Gordon Lockwood knows all about it.”
“You suspect him?”
“Either of the deed, or of guilty knowledge.”
“And his motive?”
“Money. That young man is over head and ears in debt.”
“To whom?”
“To shops—jewelers, florists, restaurants. All the debts a gay young
blade would incur.”
“You amaze me, Morton. Lockwood isn’t that sort.”
“Isn’t he? You’re deceived, like every one else, by that icy calm of his.
He stares haughtily, and appears above and beyond ordinary mortals, but
he’s deep. That’s what he is, deep.”
“Well, how did he do it?”
“With his penholder. A smooth, sharp silver penholder. And he took the
money and the ruby.”
“And how did he leave the room?”
“Don’t ask me that! That’s his secret. But, I’ve a notion he was in
cahoots with that new Jap, the one that vamoosed. I theorize,” Morton
waxed important as he noted the Prosecutor’s attention, “that the Jap had
some grudge against Waring, and it was he who branded his forehead, and
who contrived a way to leave the room locked behind him. Why, I read a
story the other day, where a key was turned from the other side of a door
by means of a slender steel bar through the key handle, and a string from
the bar, leading down and under the door. Once outside, the murderer
pulled the string, the bar turned the key in the lock, the bar fell to
the floor and he dragged it under the door by means of the string.”
“Ingenious! but it implies a door raised from the floor.”
“I know. And this one isn’t. But it all goes to prove that there can be
some way—some diabolically clever way to do the trick. And the Japanese
are diabolically clever. And so is Lockwood. And if the two worked
together they could accomplish wonders. Then Lockwood with his wooden
face, could disarm suspicion. The Jap, let us say, couldn’t, so Lockwood
packed him off.”
“Interesting—but all theory.”
“To be proved or disproved, then.”
“Yes, but meantime, you are losing time on more practical investigation.
Let’s look outside for footprints—I mean for any one coming or going from
this side entrance.”
“The French window? Nobody comes or goes that way in this weather; the
path isn’t even shoveled. That’s used mostly in summer time.”
“Nevertheless,” Cray opened the window door, “somebody has been here.”
Morton looked out and stared hard. How had he come to neglect a matter of
such importance. There were two plainly visible lines of footprints in
the snow, one quite obviously coming toward the house and one going away
from it.
“There’s your murderer,” said Cray, quietly.
“Oh, no,” but Morton wriggled uneasily. “It couldn’t be. No murderer is
going to walk through crusted snow, to and from the scene of his crime,
leaving definite footprints like those!”
“That’s no argument. He might have come here with no intent of crime, and
afterward, might have been so beside himself he couldn’t plan safely.”
“Oh, well, get what you can from them,” said Morton, pettishly. “I
suppose you deduce a tall man, with blue eyes and two teeth missing.”
“Don’t be cheap, Morton. And, on the contrary, I deduce a small man. They
are small footprints, and close together. The Japanese are small men,
Morton.”
“Well, these prints are more than twenty-four hours old, and they’re not
clear enough to incriminate anybody.”
“They haven’t changed an iota from the moment they were made. This cold
snap has kept everything frozen solid. Look at the frost still on the
panes, the icicles still on the window sashes, the ice coating still on
all the trees and branches. In fact it has grown steadily colder since
night before last, and until it begins to thaw we have these footprints
as intact evidence. I will have them photographed.”
“They are small,” Morton agreed after further examination. “And as you
say, too close together for an ordinary sized man. It looks like the
Jap.”
“Beginning to wake up, are you? You’ve sure been asleep at the switch,
Morton.”
“Nothing of the sort, Mr. Cray. But I ought to have help. I’ve had all I
could tackle, making the necessary first inquiries, and getting the facts
straightened out.”
“That business could have waited better than these other things. Now,
there’s Crimmins, the lawyer arriving. Let’s interview him. But not in
the study. Keep that clear.”
They met Crimmins in the hall, and took him to the living room.
The matter of the will was immediately taken up, and Mrs. Bates was asked
to tell which desk drawer it was in.
Accompanied by the lawyer and the secretary, Mrs. Bates indicated the
drawer, and Lockwood opened it with his key.
There were a few papers in it but no will.
Nor could further search disclose any such document.
“Who took it?” said Mrs. Bates, blankly.
But no one could answer her. The others came thronging in, Cray’s urgent
requests to keep out of the study being entirely ignored.
“I knew it,” declared Mrs. Peyton, triumphantly. “Now, I guess you won’t
be so cocky, Emily Bates—you or your ‘authority!’”
Mrs. Bates looked at her. “I am the heir,” she said haughtily. “I assert
that—but I cannot prove it until the will is found. It isn’t in your
possession, Mr. Crimmins?”
“No; Doctor Waring preferred to keep it himself. I cannot understand its
disappearance.”
“A lot of paper has been burned in this fireplace,” said Helen Peyton who
was poking the ashes around.
Morton hastened to look, for it seemed to him as if everybody was
stealing his thunder.
“Nothing that can be identified,” he said, carelessly.
“No?” demurred Cray. “At any rate, it looks as if some legal papers were
destroyed. This bit of ash is quite evidently the remainder of several
sheets folded together.”
But no definite knowledge could be gained outside the fact that much
paper had been burned there. As no fire had been made since the discovery
of the tragedy, it stood to reason the papers were burned by Doctor
Waring himself or by his midnight intruder, if there were such a one.
“Well,” Cray demanded of the lawyer, “if no will can be found, then who
inherits the property of Doctor Waring? And is it considerable?”
“Yes; Doctor Waring had quite a fortune,” Crimmins told them. “As to an
heir, he has a distant cousin—a second cousin, who, I suppose would be
the legal inheritor, in the absence of any will. But, I know he made a
will in Mrs. Bates’ favor, and it included a few minor legacies to the
members of this household and some neighbors.”
“I know it,” Mrs. Bates said. “I’m perfectly familiar with all the
bequests. But where is the will? It must be found! It can’t have been
burnt!”
“We’ve no right to assume that those paper ashes are the will, but I
confess I fear it,” Crimmins announced, his face drawn with anxiety. “I
should be deeply sorry, if it is so, for the cousin I speak of is a ne’er
do well young man, and not at all a favorite of his late relative. His
name is Maurice Trask and he lives in St. Louis. I suppose he must be
notified in any case.”
“Yes,” said Cray, “that must be done. But, please, all go out of this
room, for the finger print experts and the photographers are coming soon,
and every moment you people stay here, you help to cloud or destroy
possible clues.”
Impressed by his sternness, they filed out and gathered in the
living-room.
There they found a neighbor, Saltonstall Adams, awaiting them.
“I came over,” he said, with scant preliminary greetings, “because I have
something to tell. You in charge, Mr. Cray?”
“Yes, Salt, what do you know?”
“This. I was awake late, night before last—the night Doc Waring died, and
I was looking out my window, and it was pretty light, with the snow and
the moonlight and all, and I saw a man—a small man, creeping along sly
like. And I watched him, he went along past my house down toward the
railroad tracks. He had a bag with him, and a bundle beside. I wouldn’t
have noticed him probably, but he skulked along so and seemed so fearful
that somebody’d see him.”
“Nogi?” said Gordon Lockwood, calmly, looking at the speaker.
“Don’t say it was, and don’t say it wasn’t. But I went down to the
station and the station master told me that that Jap of Waring’s went off
on the milk train.”
“He did!” cried Morton, “what time does that train go through?”
“’Bout half past four. The fellow passed my house ’long about half past
twelve, I should say—though I didn’t look, and he must have waited around
the station all that time till the milk train came along.”
“Is the station master sure it was Nogi?” asked Mrs. Peyton, greatly
excited.
“Said he was, and there’s mighty few Japs in Corinth, all told.”
“Of course it was Nogi,” said Lockwood, and Morton snapped him up with,
“Why are you so sure?”
Lockwood treated the detective to one of his most disconcerting stares,
and said,
“You, a detective, and ask such a simple question! Why, since there are
but a very few Japanese in this town, and since one of them left on that
milk train, and since all the rest are accounted for, and only Nogi is
missing—it doesn’t seem to me to require superhuman intelligence to infer
that it was Nogi who took his departure.”
“And who was mixed up in the murder of Doctor John Waring?” cried Morton,
exasperated beyond all caution by the ironic tone of Lockwood. “And,
unless you can explain some matters, sir, you may be considered mixed in
the same despicable deed!”
“What matters?” Gordon Lockwood asked, but his already pale face turned a
shade whiter.
“First, sir, you have a large number of unpaid bills in your possession.”
The secretary’s face was no longer white. The angry blood flew to it, and
he fairly clenched his hands in an effort to preserve his usual calm, nor
even then, could he entirely succeed.
“What if I have?” he cried, “and how do you know? You’ve searched my
rooms!”
“Certainly,” said Morton, “I warned you I should do so.”
“But, in my absence!”
“The law is not always over ceremonious.”
“Now, Mr. Lockwood,” Cray began, “don’t get excited.”
Gordon Lockwood almost laughed. For him to be told not to get excited!
He, who never allowed himself to be even slightly ruffled or perturbed!
This would never do!
“I’m not excited, Mr. Cray,” he said, and he wasn’t, now, “but I am
annoyed that my private papers should be searched without my knowledge.
Surely I might—”
“Never mind the amenities of life, Mr. Lockwood,” Cray went on; “your
effects were searched on the authority of a police warrant. Now,
regarding these bills—”
“I have nothing to say. A man has a right to his unpaid bills.”
“But he has not a right to steal five hundred dollars in cash and a ruby
pin, in order to be able to pay them!” This from Morton, and instead of
replying to the detective in any way, Lockwood ignored the speech
utterly, quite as if he had not heard it, and addressed Cray.
“Was anything further found to incriminate me?” he asked.
“Was there anything else to be found?” said Cray, catching at the implied
suggestion.
“That’s for your sleuths to say. I know of nothing.”
“Well, there’s your round, sharp penholder. And the fact that you had
keys to all desk drawers. Also the fact that only you and the Jap are
known to have been in that part of the house that night. These things
were not learned from the search of your rooms; but your pecuniary
embarrassment, which was discovered, all go together to make a web of
circumstances that call for investigation.”
“Don’t beat about the bush!” exclaimed Lockwood, his lips set, and his
eyes staring coldly at the District Attorney. “I’d far rather be accused
definitely than have it hinted that I am responsible for this crime.”
“But we haven’t sufficient evidence, Mr. Lockwood, to accuse you
definitely, that’s why we must question you.”
“Sufficient! You haven’t any evidence at all!”
“Oh, we have some.” With a turn of his head, Cray summoned a man who
stood at the hall door.
The man came in, and handed Cray a report.
“H’m,” the attorney scanned the paper. “We find, Mr. Lockwood, fresh
finger prints on the chair which stood near Doctor Waring’s desk. Facing
the Doctor’s chair, in fact, as if some one had sat there talking to him.
Did you?”
“No; I never sat down and talked to him. I was always waiting on him in
the matter of bringing books or taking letters for transcription, and in
any case, I either stood, or sat at my desk, never in that chair you
speak of.”
“This man will take the finger prints of all present,” the Attorney
directed, and one and all submitted to the process.
Old Salt Adams was greatly interested.
“But you can’t get the prints of Friend Jap,” he said. “Like’s not, he’d
be of more importance than all of us put together. Me, now, I can’t see
where I come in.”
Yet, after time enough had passed to complete the processes, it was
learned that the finger prints on the shiny black wood of the chair under
discussion were indubitably those of Gordon Lockwood. Also, there were
other prints there, slightly smaller, that Cray immediately assumed to be
those of the missing Japanese.
Lockwood looked more supercilious than usual, if that were possible.
“How can you identify the prints of a man not here?” he asked with an
incredulous look.
“Supposition not identification,” said Cray, gravely. “But we’re
narrowing these things down, and we may yet get identification.”
“Get the Jap back,” advised Old Salt Adams. “That’s your next move, Cray.
Get him, check up his finger prints and all that, and best of all get his
confession. There’s your work cut out for you.”
“Find Doctor Waring’s will,” Mrs. Bates lamented. “There’s your work cut
out for you. I am not unduly mercenary, but when I know how anxious
Doctor Waring was that I should inherit his estate, when I realize what
it meant that he drew this will before our marriage, so urgent was his
desire that all should be mine, you must understand that I do not
willingly forego it all in favor of a distant relative, whom, Mr.
Crimmins tells us, Doctor Waring did not care for at all.”
“I should say not!” and Crimmins looked positive. “It will be an outrage
if Mr. Trask inherits the estate already willed to Mrs. Bates. I stand
ready to do all I can to see justice done in this matter.”
“But justice, as you see it, can only result from finding the will,” said
Cray.
“Yes,” agreed Crimmins, “and the whole matter opens up a new train of
thought. May not the distant cousin, this man Trask be in some way
responsible for the destruction of the will and the death of the
decedent?”
“It is a new way to look,” Cray agreed, with a thoughtful air; “and we
will look that way, you rest assured. We will at once get in touch with
this cousin, you will give us his address, and learn where he was and how
employed on the night of Doctor Waring’s death. We still have to face the
problem of an outsider’s exit from a locked room, and though it seems
more explicable in the case of a member of the household, yet a new
suspect brings fresh conditions, and perhaps fresh evidence, which may
show us where to look. At any rate, we must speedily find Mr. Maurice
Trask.”
CHAPTER IX
A LOVE LETTER
“Look here, Esther,” said old Salt to his wife, “that’s a mighty curious
case over at Waring’s.”
“How you do talk! I should think that to you and me, knowing and loving
John Waring as we did, you’d have no doings with the curious part of it!
As for me, I don’t care who killed him. He’s dead, isn’t he? It can’t
bring him back to life to hang his murderer. And to my mind it’s
heathenish—all this detectiving and evidencing—or whatever they call it.
Whom do they suspect now? You?”
Adams looked at his wife with a mild reproach. “Woman all over! No sense
of justice, no righteous indignation. Don’t you know the murderer must be
found and punished? That is if it was a murder.”
“Of course it was! That blessed man never killed himself! And he about to
marry Emily Bates—a lady, if ever there was one!”
“Well, now you listen to me, Esther, and whatever you do, don’t go
babbling about this. They say the Jap, who vamoosed from the Waring
house, made a line of foot tracks in the snow. The snow’s crusted over,
you know, and those footprints are about as clear now as when they were
made.”
“Huh! footprints! Corinth is full of footprints.”
“Yes, but these—listen, Esther—these lead straight from the Waring house,
over to this house. And back again.”
“How can they?” Mrs. Adams looked mystified. “That Japanese didn’t come
over here.”
“You can’t say that he didn’t. And, look here, Esther, where’s Miss
Austin? What’s she doing?”
“Miss Austin? She’s in her room. She hasn’t been quite up to the mark for
a day or two, and she’s had her meals upstairs.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“A slight cold, she says. I can’t make her out, Salt. What’s she doing
here, anyway?”
“Don’t pester her, my dear. How you and Bascom do love to pick at that
girl! Why does she have to do anything?”
“It’s queer, though. And I hate a mystery.”
“Well, she is one—I grant you that. Have you told her about Doctor
Waring? Though I daresay it wouldn’t interest her.”
“And I daresay it would! Why, that girl cut his picture out of the paper,
and she did have one stuck up on her dresser, till I looked at it sort of
sharp like, and she put it away.”
“Poor child! Can’t even have a newspaper cutting, if she wants it! You’re
a tyrant, Esther! Don’t you ever try to boss me like that!”
The good-natured smile that passed between them, proved the unlikelihood
of this, and Old Salt went on. “I wish you’d tell her, wife, about the
tragedy. Seems like she ought to know.”
Mrs. Adams stared at him. “I’ll tell her, as a matter of course, but I
don’t know why you’re so anxious about it.”
“Good morning, Miss Austin,” the good lady said, soon after, “better this
morning?”
“Yes, thank you. My cold is almost entirely well.”
The girl was sitting by the window, in an easy chair. She had on a
Japanese dressing gown of quilted silk, embroidered with chrysanthemums,
and was listlessly gazing out across the snow covered field opposite.
The Adams house was on the outskirts of the little town, and separated by
a wide field from the Waring place.
“Heard the news about Doctor Waring?” Mrs. Adams said, in a casual tone,
but watching the girl closely.
“No; what is it?”
The words were simple, and the voice steady, but Miss Austin’s hands
clutched the arms of the chair, and her face turned perfectly white.
“Why, what ails you? You don’t know the man, do you?”
“I—I heard him lecture, you know. Tell me—what is the—the news?”
“He’s dead.” Mrs. Adams spoke bluntly on purpose. She had felt in a vague
way, that this strange person, this Miss Mystery, had more interest in
Doctor Waring than she admitted, and the landlady was determined to find
out.
To her own satisfaction she did find out, for the girl almost fainted.
She didn’t quite lose consciousness, indeed it was not so much a faint as
such a desperate effort to regain her poise, that it unnerved her.
“Now, now, Miss Austin, why do you take it so hard? He was a stranger to
you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes—yes, of course he was.”
“Why are you so disturbed then?”
“He was such a—such a fine man—” the girl’s stifled sobs impeded her
speech.
“Well, somebody killed him.”
At that, Miss Austin seemed turned to stone. “Killed him!” she whispered,
in accent of terror.
“Yes—or else he killed himself—they don’t feel sure.” Mrs. Adams, once
embarked on the narrative, told all she knew of the circumstances, and in
the exciting recital, almost forgot to watch the effect of the tale on
her listener.
But this effect was not entirely unnoted. At the partly open door, Old
Salt Adams, stood, eavesdropping, but with a kindly, anxious look on his
face, that boded no ill to any one.
And he noticed that the girl’s attention was wandering. She was pitifully
white, her face drawn and scared, and soon she exclaimed, with a burst of
nervous fury, “Stop! please stop! Leave the room, won’t you?”
It was not a command but an agonized entreaty. Mrs. Adams fairly jumped,
and alarmed as well as offended, she rose and started for the door, only
to meet her husband entering.
“Go downstairs, Esther,” he said, gravely, “I want to speak to Miss
Austin myself.”
Staring at one then at the other, and utterly routed by this unbelievable
turn of affairs, Mrs. Adams went.
Old Salt closed the room door, and turned to the trembling girl.
“Miss Austin,” he said kindly, “I like you, I want to help you—but I must
ask you to explain yourself a little. The people in my house call you
Miss Mystery. Why are you here? Why are you in Corinth at all?”
For a moment the girl seemed about to respond to his kindly, gentle
attitude and address. Then, something stayed her, and she let her lovely
face harden to a stony blankness, as she replied, “It is a bit intrusive,
but I’ve no reason not to tell. I am an art student, and I came here to
paint New England winter scenery.”
“Have you done much?”
“I haven’t been here quite a week yet—and I’ve been picking out available
bits—and for two days I’ve had a cold.”
“How did you get cold?” The voice was kind but it had a definite note, as
if desirous of an accurate answer.
Miss Mystery looked at him.
“How does any one get cold?” she said, trying to smile; “perhaps sitting
in a draught—perhaps by means of a germ. It is almost well now.”
“Perhaps by walking in the snow, and getting one’s feet wet,” Mr. Adams
suggested, and the girl turned frightened eyes on him.
“Don’t,” she breathed; “Mr. Adams, don’t!” Her voice was piteous her eyes
implored him to stop torturing her.
“Why, what’s the harm in my saying that?” he went on, inexorably. “You
wouldn’t go anywhere that you wouldn’t want known—would you—Miss
Mystery?”
He spoke the last two words in a meaning way, and the great dark eyes
faced him with the look of a stag at bay.
Then again, by a desperate effort the girl recovered herself, and said,
coldly,
“Please speak plainly, Mr. Adams. Is there a special meaning in your
words?”
“There is, Miss Austin. Perhaps I have no right to ask you why—but I do
ask you if you went over to Doctor Waring’s house, late in the
evening—night before last?”
“Sunday night, do you mean?”
Miss Mystery controlled her voice, but her hands were clenched and her
foot tapped the floor in her stifled excitement.
“Yes, Sunday night.”
“No; of course I did not go over there at night. I was there in the
afternoon, with Mrs. Bates and Mr. Payne.”
“I know that. And you then met Doctor Waring for the first time?”
“For the first time,” she spoke with downcast face.
“The first time in your life?”
“The first time in my life,” but if ever a statement carried its own
denial that one seemed to. The long dark lashes fell on the white cheeks.
The pale lips quivered, and if Anita Austin had been uttering deepest
perjury she could have shown no more convincing evidence of falsehood.
Yet old Salt looked at her benevolently. She was so young, so small, so
alone—and so mysterious.
“I can’t make you out,” he shook his head. “But I’m for you, Miss Austin.
That is,” he hedged, “unless I find out something definite against you. I
feel I ought to tell you, that you’ve enemies—yes,” as the girl looked up
surprised, “you’ve made enemies in this house. Small wonder—the way
you’ve acted! Now, why can’t you be chummy and sociable like?”
“Chummy? Sociable? With whom?”
“With all the boarders. There’s young Lockwood now—and there’s young
Tyler—”
“Yes, yes, I know. I will—Mr. Adams—I will try to be more sociable.
Now—as to—to Doctor Waring—why did he kill himself?”
Old Salt eyed her narrowly. “We don’t know that he did,” he began.
“But Mrs. Adams told me all the details”—she shuddered, “and if that room
he was in was so securely locked that they had to break in, how could it
be the work of—of another?”
“Well, Miss Austin, as they found a bad wound in the man’s neck, just
under his right ear, a wound that produced instant unconsciousness and
almost instant death, and as no weapon of any sort could be found in the
room, how could it have been suicide?”
“Which would you rather think it?” the strange girl asked, looking
gravely at him.
“Well, to me—I’m an old-fashioned chap—suicide always suggests cowardice,
and Doc Waring was no coward, that I’ll swear!”
“No, he was not—”
“How do you know?”
Miss Mystery started at the sudden question.
“I heard him lecture, you know,” she returned; “and, too, I saw him in
his home—Sunday afternoon—and he seemed a fine man—a fine man.”
“Well, Miss Austin,” Old Salt rose to go, “I’m free to confess you’re a
mystery to me. I consider myself a fair judge of men—yes, and of women,
but when a slip of a girl like you acts so strange, I can’t make it out.
Now, I happen to know—”
He paused at the panic-stricken look on her face, and lamely concluded;
“Never mind—I won’t tell.”
With which cryptic remark he went away.
“Well, what you been saying to her?” demanded his aggrieved spouse, as
the Adamses met in their own little sitting-room.
“Why, nothing,” Old Salt replied, and his troubled eyes looked at her
pleadingly. “I don’t think she’s wrong, Esther.”
“Well, I do. And maybe a whole lot wrong. Why, Saltonstall, Miss Bascom
says she _saw_ Miss Austin traipsing across the field late Sunday night.”
“She didn’t! I don’t believe a word of it! She’s a meddling old maid—a
snooping busybody!”
“There, now, you carry on like that because you’re afraid we will
discover something wrong about Miss Mystery.”
“Look here, Esther,” Adams spoke sternly; “you remember she’s a young
girl, without anybody to stand up for her, hereabouts. Now, you know what
a bobbery a few words can kick up. And we don’t want that poor child’s
name touched by a breath of idle gossip that isn’t true. I don’t believe
Liza Bascom saw her out on Sunday night! I don’t even believe she thought
she did!”
“Well, I believe it. Liza Bascom’s no fool—”
“She’s worse, she’s a knave! And she hates little Austin, and she’d say
anything, true or false, to harm the girl.”
“But, Salt, she says she saw Miss Austin, all in her fur coat and cap
going cross lots to the Waring house Sunday evening—late.”
“Can she prove it?”
“I don’t know about that. But she saw her.”
“How does she know it was Miss Austin? It might have been somebody who
looked like her.”
“You know those footprints.”
“The Jap’s?”
“You can’t say they’re the Jap’s. Miss Bascom says they’re the Austin
girl’s.”
“Esther!” Old Saltonstall Adams rose in his wrath, “you ought to be
ashamed of yourself to let that girl’s name get into the Waring matter at
all. Even if she did go out Sunday night, if Miss Bascom did see her, you
keep still about it. If that girl’s wrong, it’ll be discovered without
our help. If she isn’t, we must not be the ones to bring her into
notice.”
“She couldn’t be—be implicated—could she, Salt?”
“No!” he thundered. “Esther, you astound me. That Bascom woman has turned
your brain. She’s a viper, that’s what _she_ is!”
He stormed out of the room, and getting into his great coat, tramped down
to the village.
Gordon Lockwood was in his room. This was much to the annoyance of
Callie, the impatient chambermaid, who wanted to get her work done.
Lockwood was himself impatient to get over to the Waring house, for he
had much to do with the mass of incoming mail and the necessary
interviews with reporters and other callers.
Yet he tarried, in his pleasant bedroom at Mrs. Adams’, his door securely
locked, and his own attitude one of stupefaction.
For the hundredth time he reread the crumpled paper that he had taken
from the study waste-basket under the very nose of Detective Morton.
Had that sleuth been a little more worthy of his profession he never
would have allowed the bare-faced theft.
And now that Lockwood had it he scarce knew what to do with it.
And truly it was an astonishing missive.
For it read thus:
My darling Anita:
At the first glance of your brown eyes this afternoon, love was born in
my heart. Life is worth living—with you in the world! And yet—
That was all. The unfinished letter had been crumpled into a ball and
thrown in the basket. Had another been started—and completed? Had Anita
Austin received it—and was that why she kept to her room for two days?
Was she a—he hated the word! a vamp? Had she secretly become acquainted
with John Waring during her presence in Corinth, and had so charmed him
that he wrote to her thus? Or, had they known each other before? What a
mystery!
There was not the slightest doubt of the writing. Lockwood knew it as
well as he knew his own. And on top of all the other scraps in the
waste-basket it must have been the last missive the dead man wrote—or,
rather the last he threw away.
This meant he had been writing it on the Sunday evening. Then, Lockwood
reasoned, knowing the routine, if he had written another, which he
completed and addressed, it would, in natural course, have been put with
the letters for the mail, and would have been posted by Ito that next
morning.
What an oversight, never to have asked Ito about that matter.
It was an inviolable custom for the butler to take all letters laid on a
certain small table, and put them in the pillar box, early in the
morning.
Had Ito done this? It must be inquired into.
But far more absorbing was the actual letter before him. How could it be
possible that John Waring, the dignified scholar, the confirmed bachelor,
should have loved this mystery girl?
Yet, even as he formulated the question, Gordon Lockwood knew the answer.
He knew that from his own point of view it would not be impossible or
even difficult for any man with two eyes in his head to love that
fascinating, enchanting personality.
And as he pondered, he knew that he loved her himself. Yes, had loved her
almost from the moment he first saw her. Certainly from the time he sat
behind her at the lecture, and counted the queer little ball fringes in
the back of her dainty gown.
Those fringes! Lockwood gave a groan as a sudden thought came to him.
He jumped up, and with a determined air, set about burning the
inexplicable letter that John Waring had written and thrown away.
In the empty fireplace of the old-fashioned room, Lockwood touched a
match to the sheet and burned it to an ash.
Then he went over to the Waring house.
It was an hour or so later that Callie reported to Miss Bascom.
“Queer goin’s on,” the girl said, rolling her eyes at her eager listener,
“Mr. Lockwood, now, he burnt some papers, and Miss Austin, too, she burnt
some papers.”
“What’s queer about that?” snapped Miss Bascom, who had hoped for
something more sensational.
“Well, it’s sorta strange they’re both burnin’ paper at the same time.
And both so sly about it. Mr. Lockwood he kep’ lookin’ back at the
fireplace as he went outa the door, and Miss Austin, she jumped like she
was shot, when I come in suddenly an’ found her stoopin’ over the
fireplace. An’ too, Miss Bascom, whatever else she burnt, she burnt that
picture she had of Doctor Waring.”
“Did she have his picture?”
“Yep, one Mr. Lockwood guv her, after Nora carried off the one she cut
out of a paper.”
“What in the world did that girl want of Doctor Waring’s picture?”
“I dunno, ma’am. What they call hero-worship, I guess. Just like I’ve got
some several pictures of Harold Massinger, that man who plays Caveman in
the Movies! My, but he’s handsome!”
“And so Miss Austin burned a photograph of John Waring?”
“Yes, ma’am. And you know they’re kinda hard to burn. Anyways, she was a
kneelin’ by the fireplace an’ the picture was smokin’ like everything.”
“‘Lemme help you miss,’ I says, as polite as could be—“and watcha think,
she snatched back, and says, ‘You lemme lone. Get outahere!’ or somethin’
like that. Oh, she was mad all right.”
“She has a high temper, hasn’t she?”
“Yes’m, there’s no denyin’ she has. Then again, she’s sweet as pie, and
nice an’ gentle. She’s a queer makeup, I will say.”
“There, Callie, that will do; don’t gossip,” and Miss Bascom, sure she
had learned all the maid had to tell, went downstairs to tell it to Mrs.
Adams.
The landlady seemed less receptive than usual, being still mindful of her
husband’s admonitions. But Miss Bascom’s story of the burnt photograph
roused her curiosity to highest pitch.
“There’s something queer about that girl,” Mrs. Adams opined, and the
other more than agreed.
“Let’s go up and talk to her,” Miss Bascom suggested, and after a
moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Adams went.
The landlady tapped lightly at the door, but there was no response.
“Go right in,” the other whispered, and go in they did.
Miss Mystery lay on the couch, her eyes closed, her cheeks still wet with
tears. She did not move, and after a moment’s glance to assure herself
the girl was sound asleep, Miss Bascom audaciously opened one of the
small top drawers of the dresser.
Mrs. Adams gasped, and frantically made motions of remonstrance, but
swiftly fingering among the veils and handkerchiefs, Miss Bascom drew out
a large roll of bills, held by an elastic band.
Anita Austin’s eyes flew open, and after one staring glance at the
intrusive woman, she jumped from the couch and flew at her like a small
but very active tiger.
“How dare you!” she cried, snatching the money from Miss Bascom’s hand,
even as that elated person was unrolling it.
And from inside the roll, down on the painted floor, fell a ruby
stickpin.
CHAPTER X
WHO IS MISS MYSTERY?
Mrs. Adams fell limply into a chair, her round eyes staring in horror.
Miss Bascom had taken upon herself the rôle of dictator and with an
accusing finger pointed at Miss Mystery she said:
“What have you to say for yourself?”
“Nothing,” replied Anita Austin, coolly, “except to insist that you leave
my room.”
“Leave your room, indeed! I am only too glad to! And I know where to go,
too.”
Miss Bascom’s determined air as she strode out of the door gave a hint of
her desperate intention and within five minutes she was out on the road
toward the village.
Mrs. Adams, still almost speechless with surprise and dismay, looked
sorrowfully at Anita. Something in the girl’s face stayed the kindly
words the woman meant to say, and, instead, she broke out:
“You must leave this house! What are you anyway? A thief—and a murderer?”
“Oh! Don’t!” Anita put up her hand as if to ward off a physical blow.
Then, as if the cruel words had stung her to a quickened sense of her own
danger, she cried, piteously:
“Oh, Mrs. Adams, help me—protect me—won’t you? I don’t know what to
do—I’m all alone—so alone—”
She sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands.
Esther Adams was uncertain what course to pursue. Should she protect this
guilty girl, of whom she really knew nothing, or should she dismiss her
at once from her house, in the interests of her other boarders, who must
be considered?
Surely, her first duty was to the others—the people she had known so
long, and who looked upon her house as a home and a safeguard.
“You must go,” she said, though her voice wavered as she saw the pathetic
face Anita raised to look at her.
“Oh, no! Don’t send me away! Where could I go? Even the Inn people
wouldn’t take me!”
“Of course they wouldn’t! Go home! Haven’t you a home? Who are you,
anyway? But I don’t care who you are—you must get out of this house
today—this morning. Do you hear?”
Meantime Miss Bascom, on her virtuous errand had trotted quickly to the
office of the Prosecuting District Attorney.
There, however, she was told that Mr. Cray was over at the Waring house,
and she concluded to go there. Nor did this displease her. She longed to
be in the limelight, and the tale she had to tell would surely give her
the right to be there.
Mrs. Peyton received her coldly, for the two were not friends.
“I came to see Mr. Cray,” Miss Bascom announced, “on important business.”
“Oh, very well,” the housekeeper returned, “take a seat and I’ll ask him
to see you.”
Miss Bascom waited in the living-room, secure in her knowledge of the
importance of her news.
The attorney welcomed her cordially for he saw at once that she brought
news of value.
And, expressed in emphatic language, and interspersed with many and
unfavorable personal opinions, Liza Bascom told of the incident of
finding the money and the ruby in Miss Austin’s bureau drawer.
“Astonishing!” commented Cray. “Who is she?”
“Nobody knows, that’s the queer part. We call her Miss Mystery.”
“Where did she come from?”
“Nobody knows. She just appeared.”
“Don’t the Adamses know?”
“No, they don’t.”
“A young girl, you say?”
“She appears to be very young—but you never can tell with those sly
things. I daresay she makes herself look several years younger than she
really is.”
“Did she know Doctor Waring?”
“How do I know? She came over to this house late Sunday night—for I saw
her—”
“Good heavens! Are you sure?”
“Well, it was fairly light, with the moon, and the snow all over the
ground, you know, and I saw her, all wrapped up in her fur coat, sneaking
away from the house—”
“How late?”
“Oh—after everybody had gone upstairs and the lights were all out at the
Adamses.”
“You saw her come back?”
“No; I didn’t think much about it at the time—she’s a crazy piece
anyway—and—”
“What do you mean by a crazy piece?”
“Why, she’s queer—not like other folks. She won’t have anything to do
with any of us over there—”
“That doesn’t make her out crazy.”
Miss Bascom shrugged impatiently. “I don’t mean insane or demented. I
only mean sly and secretive. She never speaks to anybody at the table—and
though she makes eyes at Gordon Lockwood, she snubs Mr. Tyler, who is
just as good a young man. They both admire her—anybody can see that, but
she treats them like the dust under her feet.”
“Not an adventuress, then?”
“I don’t know. But I do know she’s a thief—or how did she get that money
and the ruby?”
“Perhaps Doctor Waring gave them to her?”
“Then she is a wrong one! Why should he give a strange girl such things?”
“If he was in love with her—”
“Now, look here, Mr. Cray, do try to show ordinary common sense! Doctor
Waring was about to marry Mrs. Bates, a sweet, dear woman, of suitable
age. Is he going to have a little flibbertigibbet coming to see him late
at night, for any romantic reasons?”
Cray hesitated to speak his mind, but he ruminated that he had heard of
such things, in the course of his life. Miss Bascom, he thought was an
unsophisticated old maid, but there was certainly a new condition to be
investigated, and the case of Miss Anita Austin must be carefully
considered.
“Now, Miss Bascom,” he said, diplomatically, “I’ll have to ask you to
keep this whole matter quiet for a time. You must see that we can’t work
successfully if we take the whole town into our confidence. Or even this
entire household.”
“Don’t you try to bamboozle me, Stephen Cray! I know your sort. You want
to keep this matter quiet because you want to get that girl off scotfree!
I know you men! Just because she has a pair of big, dark eyes and a slim
little shape you are ready to hide her guilt and let her off easy. I
won’t have it! That girl stole those things, or else she got them from
poor John Waring in a way no decent woman would—”
“What are you talking about, Liza Bascom?”
Mrs. Peyton appeared in the doorway, and though she asked the question,
it was fairly evident that she knew the answer, and had been listening.
“Yes,” she went on, “I’ve been listening at the door, and I’m glad I did.
First of all, I won’t have Doctor Waring’s name traduced, and next, if
there’s a girl implicated in the matter, the whole truth about her has
got to come out! I know the girl, she was here Sunday afternoon, and a
more brazen-faced, bold-mannered chit, I never want to see!”
“She was here?” asked the bewildered Cray. “You know her?”
“I know all I want to know of her,” Mrs. Peyton declared. “Yes, she was
here—came over with Emily Bates and Pinky. Wouldn’t condescend to be
really one of us, but just acted offish and seemed to me about
half-witted.”
“Don’t be silly,” put in Miss Bascom. “That’s the last thing to say of
her! Whatever that girl may be she’s got all her wits about her! I can
see that for myself.”
“Was Doctor Waring present when Miss Austin was here?” asked Cray,
thinking hard.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Peyton, “and that’s a strange thing. When he first
saw her—unexpectedly, you know—he dropped his teacup.”
“Because of the meeting?” asked Cray.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Peyton said. “He declared afterward he had never
seen the girl before—but—oh—I can’t believe she came back here that
night!”
“Of course she didn’t,” Cray said. “How could she get in, unless someone
admitted her.”
“There’s the French window in the study,” Mrs. Peyton suggested,
uncertainly. “Doctor Waring could have let her in that way—”
“Well, he didn’t!” Miss Bascom declared. “Land! I’ve known John Waring
all my life, and he’s not the kind of man that had anything to do with
flirtatious young women.”
Of a truth, Liza Bascom had known Waring for many years and had spent a
number of them in desperate efforts to persuade him to renounce
bachelorhood in her favor.
Yet her words carried little weight with Attorney Cray, who fancied that
he knew men better than the insistent spinster possibly could.
“Miss Bascom,” he said, after further thought, “and Mrs. Peyton, too, I’m
going to ask you—I’m going to instruct you to keep this matter quiet
until after the funeral of Doctor Waring. That occurs tomorrow, and I
want a day or so to look into this thing quietly. We would gain nothing
by rushing matters. I will see Miss Austin, of course, and rest assured,
if she is guilty of any wrong doing, she shall not escape. But it is a
serious matter to accuse a suspect without giving any chance for
explanation—”
“There’s no explanation of that ruby pin and all that money, that is not
incriminating to that girl!” Miss Bascom exclaimed.
“Nevertheless, I am in authority, and I forbid you to discuss the
connection of Miss Austin with the case at all.”
Cray knew how to impress belligerent women, and he even added a hint of
their making trouble for themselves unless they obeyed his explicit
command.
He returned to the study, where Gordon Lockwood was going over the
morning’s mail.
The secretary was a busy man, for his late employer had had a number of
diversified interests and every mail brought letters, catalogues,
circulars and newspapers that required careful attention. John Waring had
been a collector of rare books, and other curios, and was interested in
several literary enterprises.
To many of these correspondents Lockwood could merely send a statement of
the Doctor’s death. But others involved careful and wise judgment, and
Lockwood conscientiously discharged his duties.
The study had been put in order, and all traces of the tragedy had been
removed. The books that had been on the desk, including the blood-stained
copy of Martial, Lockwood had, after consideration, restored to their
places on the shelves.
Although it gave him a thrill of horror, Lockwood had nerved himself to
appropriate Waring’s desk, for it meant far greater convenience in his
work.
He sat there as Cray entered, and raised his impassive face to note the
attorney’s excitement.
“By Jove, Lockwood,” Cray, exclaimed, as he closed the door behind him,
“there’s a new way to look, which seems to promise to straighten out a
lot of things. Do you know that little piece over at your boarding house,
named Austin?”
“I know her slightly. What about her?”
From Lockwood’s voice no one would suspect that his heart was pounding
desperately.
“Well, she was here late Sunday night! What do you know about that?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” returned Lockwood, coldly, “and I don’t
believe it. For if she had been here I should have known about it. I was
here myself, just outside the study door, until eleven. You don’t mean
later than that, do you?”
“Dunno. The Bascom spinster tells the story—”
“Then don’t bank on it. With all due deference to Miss Bascom, I know she
is not always a reliable source of information.”
“But she says she saw the girl coming over here late that night—”
“She didn’t! It’s not true! What under the heavens would she have come
for?”
“What does any girl visit a man for?” Cray gave an unpleasant wink, and
Lockwood with difficulty controlled an insane desire to spring at his
throat. “And, beside, she is even now in possession of the missing five
hundred dollars and the ruby pin.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“See here, Mr. Lockwood, it doesn’t matter to anybody whether you believe
these things or not. Miss Austin has the valuables, and I’m going over
there now to inquire how she got them. Also, it just occurs to me that
those small footprints leading across the field, are directed toward the
Adams house, and may have been made by a woman as likely as by our
hypothetical small-footed man.”
“Those are Nogi’s footprints.”
“How do you know?”
“Common sense. Even if Miss Austin did come over here for any reason she
would have come by the street, not across the snowy field.”
“Apparently she chose the field. So I’m going to ask her why.”
“All right, Cray, but you must admit you’re illogical, inconsequent and
inconsistent. You think I killed Doctor Waring, because I have a sharp,
round penholder, and owe some large bills. Then, because a gossiping old
maid comes over here and babbles, you fly off at a tangent and accuse an
unprotected girl of absurd and unbelievable crime.”
“Oho! Interested in the siren yourself, eh?”
“No; I’m not—if you mean Miss Austin. That is, not personally.”
Few men could have told this lie with such a convincing manner but
Lockwood’s phlegmatic calm stood him now in good stead, and his air of
obvious indifference carried conviction.
“But,” he went on, “I am sorry for her. It’s nobody’s business who or
what she is, yet those women over at the Adams house are one and all
possessed to find out something against her. I only want to advise you,
Cray, if you talk to anybody over there, get Old Salt himself. He’s more
fair minded than his wife or the other women.”
“Men are apt to be—where a pretty girl is concerned,” said Cray, drily,
and Lockwood ground his teeth in rage, as the Attorney went away.
His demand to see Miss Austin was listened to by Old Salt Adams, who had
seen him coming and opened the door for him.
“Well, Cray,” said the old man, as he ushered him into the sitting room
and shut the door. “I know what you’re after—and I just want to say, go
slow. That’s all—go slow.”
“All right, Salt. Will you send Miss Austin down here—also, I must
interview her alone.”
“Yes—I understand. But don’t be led away now, by circumstantial evidence.
You know yourself, it isn’t always dependable.”
“Go along, Salt, don’t try to teach me my business. Have you talked to
the girl?”
“Not a word. My wife has, but she didn’t learn much.”
Adams went away, and in a few moments Anita Austin came into the room.
A first glance showed Cray’s experienced eye that the girl was what he
called a siren.
Her oval, olive face was sad and sweet. The pale cheeks were not touched
up with artificial color, and the scarlet lips were, even to his close
scrutiny, also devoid of applied art. She wore a smart little gown of
black taffeta, with crisp, chic frills of finely plaited white organdie.
Whether this was meant as mourning wear or not, Cray could not determine.
The frock was fashionably short, showing thin silk stockings and black
suede ties.
But Miss Mystery seemed wholly unconscious of her clothes, and her great
dark eyes were full of wondering inquiry as she looked at the attorney,
and then a little diffidently offered a greeting hand.
The little brown paw touched Cray’s with a pathetic, hopeful clasp, and
he looked up quickly to find himself looking into a pair of hopeful eyes,
that, without a word, expressed confidence and trust.
He shrugged his shoulders a trifle and secretly admonished himself to
keep a tight rein on his sympathy.
Then relinquishing the lingering hand, he sat down opposite the chair she
had chosen to occupy.
“Miss Austin,” he began, and paused, for the first time in his life
uncertain what tack to take.
“Yes,” she said, as the pause grew longer, and her soft, cultured voice
helped him not at all.
How could he say to this lovely small person that he suspected her of
wrong doing?
“Go on, Mr. Cray,” she directed him, meantime looking at him with eyes
full of a haunting fear, “what is it?”
Cray had a sudden, insane feeling that he would give all he was worth for
the pleasure of removing that look of fear, then commanding himself to
behave, he said,
“I am sorry, Miss Austin, but I must ask you some unpleasant questions.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” she said, with the ghost of a smile on her
curved red lips, and, smoothing down her taffeta lap, she demurely
clasped her sensitive little hands and waited.
Those hands bothered Cray. Though they lay quietly, he felt that at his
speech they would flutter in anxiety—even in fear, and he was loath to
disturb them.
Because of this hesitancy, he plunged in more abruptly than he meant to
do.
“Where do you come from, Miss Austin?”
“New York City,” she said, a brighter look coming to her face, as if she
thought the ordeal would not be so terrible after all.
“What address there?”
“One West Sixty-seventh Street.”
“You told some one else the Hotel Plaza.”
“Yes; I have lived at both addresses. Why?”
The “why” was disconcerting. After all, Cray thought, he was not a census
taker.
He gave up getting past history, and said, briefly,
“Were you at Doctor Waring’s house Sunday evening?”
“Not evening,” she returned, looking thoughtful. “I was there Sunday
afternoon.”
“And went back again, late in the evening—to see Doctor Waring, in his
study.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked quietly, but a small red spot showed on
either olive cheek.
“Because I must. How well do you—did you know the Doctor?”
“Know Doctor Waring? Not at all. I never saw him in my life until I came
here to Corinth.”
“You are sure of that?”
“Almost sure—oh, why, yes—that is, I am quite sure.”
“Yet you went over there Sunday evening, and came back to this house in
possession of Doctor Waring’s valuable pin, and a large sum of money.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Cray, I didn’t do any such thing!”
“Then can you explain your possession of those articles?”
“You mean, I suppose the roll of bills that Miss Bascom put into my top
bureau drawer?”
“Miss Bascom put in the drawer!”
“Yes—that is, she must have done so, or—how else could they have been
found there? You know yourself, now, don’t you, Mr. Cray, that I’m not a
burglar—or a bandit or a sneak thief? You know I never went in to Doctor
Waring’s study and took those things! So, as I say, isn’t it the only
plausible theory, that Miss Bascom, who found the valuables so readily,
first put them there herself?”
CHAPTER XI
THE SPINSTER’S EVIDENCE
“That matter can easily be settled,” Cray said, and going to the door he
asked Mrs. Adams to send Miss Bascom to them.
With an important air the spinster entered the room.
Holding herself very erect and even drawing aside her skirts as she
passed Miss Austin, she took a seat on the other side of the room.
“Now, Miss Bascom,” Cray began at once, “what made you think of looking
in this lady’s bureau drawer for that money?”
“I didn’t look for it, Mr. Cray. I merely felt that she had done wrong
and I thought perhaps some evidence would be hidden away in her room. And
a top drawer is the place a woman oftenest hides things.”
Cray gave a short laugh. “Rather clever of you, I admit. But Miss Austin
says she did not put that money there, herself—that it was a plant.”
“A plant?” Miss Bascom looked puzzled at the word.
“Yes; she thinks some in-disposed person put it there to implicate her,
falsely.”
“Oh, I see. Well, Mr. Cray, let her say who did it, and who could have
got that money to do it with.”
The hard old face took on a look that was almost malignant in its
accusation, and little Anita Austin gave a low cry as she saw it, and hid
her face in her hands.
“Take her away,” she moaned, “oh, take that woman away.”
“You hear her,” Miss Bascom went on, unrelentingly. “Now, Mr. Cray, I’m a
bit of a detective myself, and while you’ve been down here talking to
Miss Mystery, I’ve been searching her room more carefully, and I’ve found
a few more things, of which I should like to tell you.”
Cray was nonplused. His sympathies were all with the poor little girl,
who, clinging to the arms of her chair, seemed about to go to pieces,
nervously, but was bravely holding on to herself. Yet, if the Bascom
woman was telling the truth, he must beware of the “poor little girl.”
“I’m not sure you’re within your rights, Miss Bascom,” he began, but he
was interrupted with:
“Rights! Indeed, the rights of this matter are above your jurisdiction!
The blood of John Waring calls from the ground! I am the instrument of
justice that has been chosen by an over-ruling Providence to discover the
criminal. She sits before you! That girl—that mysterious wicked girl is
both thief and murderess!”
“Oh, no!” Anita cried, putting up her arm as if to ward off a physical
blow.
Then she suddenly became quiet—almost rigid in her composure.
“That is a grave accusation, Miss Bascom,” she said, “you must prove it
or retract it.”
Cray stared at the girl in astonishment. Her agonized cry had been human,
feminine, natural—but this sudden change to stony calm, to icy hauteur
was amazing—and, to his mind, incriminating.
Miss Bascom, however, was in no way daunted.
“Prove it I will!” she said, sternly. “In another drawer, Mr. Cray, I
found the rolls of silver coin—exactly one hundred dollars worth—that we
have been told were in the desk with the roll of bills. The ruby pin, you
know about. And so, these thefts are proved. Now, as to the murder—I
admit, it seems impossible that a girl should commit the awful crime—but
I do say that I have found the weapon, with which it was done, hidden in
Miss Austin’s room.”
Again that short, low cry—more like a hurt animal than a human being. And
then, Anita Austin, the girl of mystery fell back into the depths of her
chair, and closed her eyes.
“You needn’t faint—or pretend to,” admonished Miss Bascom, brutally;
“you’re caught red-handed, and you know it, and you may as well give up.”
“I didn’t—I didn’t—” came in low moans, but the girl’s bravery had
deserted her. Limp and despairing, she turned her great eyes toward Cray
for help.
With an effort, he looked away from her pleading face, and said:
“What is the weapon? Where did you find it?”
“It is a stiletto—an embroidery stiletto—and I found it tucked down in
the crevice between the back and seat of a stuffed chair in Miss Austin’s
room. Did you put it there?”
She turned on the girl and fired the question at her with intentional
suddenness, and though Anita uttered a scared, “No,” it was a palpable
untruth.
“She did,” Miss Bascom went on. “You can see for yourself, Mr. Cray, she
is lying.”
“But even if she is, Miss Bascom, I must ask you to cease torturing her!
I can’t stand for such cruelty!”
Cray’s manhood revolted at the methods of the older woman who was causing
such anguish to the poor child she accused.
“You are not a legal inquisitor, Miss Bascom,” he went on; “it is for me
to establish the truth or falsity of your suspicions.”
“Yes, you! You’re like all the other men! If a girl is pretty and
alluring, you would believe her statement that white is black!”
“I believe no statements that cannot be proved to my satisfaction. Miss
Austin, do you own an embroidery stiletto?”
“Yes,” was the hesitating answer, and the dark eyes swept him a
beseeching glance that made Miss Bascom fairly snort with scorn.
“Where is it?”
“I—I fear I must admit that it is just where Miss Bascom says it
is—unless she has removed it. Tell me, Mr. Cray,” and Miss Mystery
suddenly resumed her most independent air, “must I submit to this? I
thought accused people were entitled to a—oh, you know, counsel—a lawyer,
or somebody to take care of them.”
“Wait, Miss Austin. You’re not accused yet—that is, not by legal
authority.”
“Oh, am I not? Then—” and she gave Miss Bascom a glance of unutterable
scorn, “I have nothing to say.”
“Nothing to say!” the spinster almost shrieked. “Nothing to say! Of
course she hasn’t! She kills a man, takes his valuables, and then
declares she has nothing to say.”
“Now, now, Miss Bascom, be careful! Why did you put your stiletto in such
a place, Miss Austin?”
“I don’t know.”
The dark eyes gave him a gaze of childlike innocence, and Cray couldn’t
decide whether he was looking at a deep-dyed criminal or a helpless
victim of unjust suspicion.
“And where did you get the money and the ruby pin?”
“I don’t know—I mean I don’t know how they got in my room. This lady says
she found them there—that’s all I know about them.”
An indifferent shrug of the slim shoulders seemed to imply that was all
Miss Mystery cared, either, and Cray asked:
“Then, if the valuables—the pin and the money are not yours, you are, of
course, ready to relinquish possession of them.”
“Of course I am not! Since I am accused of stealing them, I propose to
retain possession until that accusation is proved or disproved! Perhaps
Miss Bascom wishes to take them herself.”
“You know, Miss Austin,” Mr. Cray spoke very gravely, “you are making a
mistake in treating this matter flippantly. You are in danger—real
danger, and you must be careful what you say. Do you want a lawyer?”
“I don’t know,” the girl suddenly looked helpless. “Do you think I ought
to have one?”
“Have you funds?”
“Yes. I am not a rich girl—but, neither am I poor. However, I think I
shall ask advice of some one before I decide upon any course.”
“Of whom? Perhaps no one can advise you better than I can.”
“What is your advice, Mr. Cray?”
The sweet face looked at him hopefully, the curved red lips quivered a
little as the speaker added, “I am very alone.”
Again Miss Bascom sniffed. Unattractive, herself, she resented with a
sort of angry jealousy the appealing effect this girl had on men. She
knew intuitively that Cray would sympathize with and pity the lonely
girl.
“My advice is, Miss Austin, first, that you dispel this mystery that
seems to surround you. Tell frankly who you are, what is your errand in
Corinth, how you came into possession of Doctor Waring’s ruby, and why
you hid your stiletto, if it is merely one of your sewing implements.”
Miss Mystery hesitated a moment, and then said, quietly:
“Your advice is good, Mr. Cray. But, unfortunately, I cannot follow it.
However, I am willing to state, upon oath, that I did not kill Doctor
Waring with that stiletto.”
“I’m afraid your oath will be doubted,” Miss Bascom intervened sharply.
“And, too, Mr. Cray, even if this girl did not strike the fatal blow, she
well knows who did! She is in league with the Japanese, Nogi. That I am
sure of!”
“Nogi!” exclaimed Anita.
“Yes, Nogi,” Miss Bascom went on, positively. “You came here only a day
or two after he did. You have a Japanese kimono, and several Japanese
ornaments adorn your room. You went to the Waring house that night, Nogi
let you in and out, and though the Japanese doubtless committed the
murder, you stole the money and the ruby, and then, your partner in crime
departed for parts unknown.”
Miss Bascom sat back in her chair with a look of triumph on her plain,
gaunt face.
Clearly, she was rejoiced at her denunciation of the girl before her, and
pleased at the irrefutable theory she had promulgated.
“And how did Miss Austin or the Jap, either, leave the room locked on the
inside?” propounded Cray, his own opinions already swayed by the
arraignment.
“That,” said Miss Bascom, with an air of finality, “I can’t explain
definitely, but I am sure it was an example of Japanese jugglery. When
you remember the tales of how the Japanese can do seemingly impossible
tricks, can swallow swords and get out of locked handcuffs, it is quite
within the realm of possibility that one could lock a door behind him,
and give it the appearance of having been locked from the inside.”
Now, Cray had already concluded that the door had been cleverly locked by
some one, but he hadn’t before thought of the cleverness of the Japanese.
He rose almost abruptly, and said, “I must look into some of these
matters. Miss Austin, you need not attempt to leave town, for you will
not be able to do so.”
“I most certainly shall not attempt to leave—as you express it—if I am
asked not to. But, I may say, that when I am entirely at liberty to do
so, I propose to go away from Corinth.”
Her dignity gave no effect of a person afraid or alarmed for her own
safety, merely a courteous recognition of Cray’s attitude and a frank
statement of her own intentions.
Miss Bascom sniffed and said:
“Don’t worry, Mr. Cray. I’ll se
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