PART II
CECILY
In the Promenade de Luxe of the New York Theatre
CHAPTER I
A Change of Lodgings
AS a matter of course, the affair at the Marathon created a great public sensation. The papers overflowed with details, theories, suggestions to the police, letters from interested readers. Many of the latter were quite certain that they could quickly solve the mystery, but unfortunately private business demanded their whole attention; meanwhile, the stupidity of the detective force was a disgrace to the city; let the guilty parties be arrested without further delay, whatever their position! It was remarkable how few accepted the simple theory which Simmonds had propounded; all of them chose to discern something deeper, more intricate, more mysterious, and Miss Croydon incurred much oblique reference. This, for the most part, took the form of scathing, even hysterical polemics against the degeneration of American Society, the greatest peril threatening the health and prosperity of the Republic. As it was with Rome, so would it be with America; luxury, sensuality, a moral code growing ever more lax, could have only one result!
No doubt these vigorous correspondents enjoyed themselves and imagined that Society quivered in consternation under the castigation. Certainly they formed a source of exquisite amusement to the readers of the papers.
It has long been a habit of mine, when any particularly abstruse criminal mystery is before the public, to pin my faith to the Record. Its other features I do not admire, but I knew that Jim Godfrey was its expert in crime, and ever since my encounter with him in the Holladay case, I have entertained the liveliest admiration of his acumen and audacity. If a mystery was possible of solution, I believed that he would solve it, so it was to the Record I turned now, and read carefully every word he wrote about the tragedy.
It is difficult for me to explain, even to myself, the interest with which I followed the case. I suppose most of us have a fondness, more or less unrealised, for the unique and mysterious, and we all of us revolt sometimes against the commonplaceness of every-day existence. We had been having a protracted siege of unusually hard work at the office, and I was a little run down in consequence; I felt that I needed a tonic, a distraction, and I found it in “The Tragedy in Suite Fourteen,” as Godfrey had christened it.
I was sitting in my room on the evening of the second day after the affair, smoking a post-prandial pipe and reading the Record’s stenographic report of the coroner’s inquest, when there came a knock at my door and my landlady entered. She held in her hand a paper which had a formidable legal appearance.
“Have you found another apartment yet, Mr. Lester?” she asked.
“No, I haven’t, Mrs. Fitch,” I said. “I’m afraid I’ve not been as diligent in looking for one as I should have been.”
“Well, I’ve just got another notice,” and she sighed wearily. “They’re going to begin tearing down the house day after tomorrow. I can’t find another house, so I’m going to put my furniture in storage. I’ve told the men to come for it tomorrow.”
“All right,” I said. “If I can’t find an apartment to suit, I’ll put my stuff in storage, too, and stay at a hotel for a while. I’ll know by tomorrow noon, Mrs. Fitch.”
“Very well. It does seem hard, though,” she added pausing on the threshold, “that we should be the ones to suffer, when there’s so many other blocks they might have taken.”
“The residents of any of the other blocks would probably have said the same thing,” I pointed out. “After all, I suppose this block was better than the others, or it wouldn’t have been chosen.”
She sniffed sceptically, and went on her way to notify her other lodgers of the imminent eviction.
We were martyrs to the march of public improvement. The block had been condemned by the usual legal process, and an armory was to be erected on the site. So there was nothing left for us to do but move. I had hoped that Mrs. Fitch would find another house somewhere in the neighbourhood and that I could stay with her; now, it seemed, I must search for other quarters, and at exceedingly short notice. To find comfortable ones, conveniently situated, and at the same time within reach of my modest income would, I knew, be a problem not easy of solution.
I settled back in my chair and took up my paper again, when a sudden thought brought me bolt upright. Here was an apartment, two rooms and bath, just what I wanted, empty—and moreover, so situated that I should be admirably placed for close-at-hand study of the tragedy. I glanced at my watch—it was only half-past seven—and I hurried into my coat in a sudden fever of impatience lest someone else should get there before me.
Twenty minutes’ walk brought me to the Marathon apartment house, and as I stepped into the vestibule, I saw sitting by the elevator a red-faced man whom I recognised instantly as Higgins, the janitor. He rose as I approached him.
“You have an apartment here to rent, haven’t you?” I asked.
“Not jest now, sir,” he answered. “There will be next week—if th’ walkin’ delegates leaves us alone. You see, th’ house is bein’ remodelled.”
“Oh,” I said, more disappointed than I cared to show, “I thought perhaps there was one I could move into at once. Next week won’t do me any good.”
He moistened his lips and scratched his head, eyeing me undecidedly.
“May I ask your name, sir?” he said, at last.
I handed him a card, which had also the address of my firm, Graham & Royce. He read it slowly.
“We’ve got one apartment, sir,” he said, looking up when he had mastered it; “two rooms an’ bath—but it needs a little cleanin’ up. When do y’ have t’ have it?”
“I have to move in to-morrow,” I answered, and I told him briefly why. “May I look at this apartment?”
He hesitated yet a moment, then straightened up with sudden resolution.
“You kin see it if you want to, sir,” he said; “but first, I must tell you that it’s soot fourteen, where they was a — a murder two days ago.”
“A murder?” I repeated. “Oh, yes; I did see something about it in the papers. Well, that doesn’t make any difference; I’m not afraid of ghosts.”
“Then that’s all right, sir,” he said, with a sigh of relief, and motioned toward the elevator. “I didn’t believe we’d find it so easy t’ rent that soot ag’in,” he added, as we started upward, “though I see now that I was foolish; fer really, it don’t make no difference”
The car stopped and he led the way down the hall without troubling to finish the sentence.
“Here we are,” he added, pausing before a door and producing a bunch of keys. “Which reminds me that I’ll have t’ git a key fer you — the other tenant lost his — leastways, it wasn’t found on him. Or mebbe you’d rather I’d change th’ lock?”
“Oh, no,” I assured him. “Another key will do,” and we entered together.
I examined the room with keen interest. Evidently everything had been left just as it was on the night of the crime; only the body had been removed, and it, I knew, was at the morgue, waiting identification. Higgins was busy pointing out to me the advantages of the apartment, but I confess I did not hear him. I reconstructed the picture which had met Godfrey’s eye when he burst into the room; I tried in vain to discern some point of evidence which he had overlooked. The furniture was of the commonest kind and consisted of only the most necessary articles.
Higgins led the way into the bedroom and opened the door of the bathroom beyond.
“I shall bring my own furniture,” I said. “But I haven’t any carpets. Perhaps I can buy these. They seem pretty good.”
“They are, sir,” agreed Higgins. “They’re good carpets and as good as th’ day they was put down. It’ll make it lots easier for us if we don’t have t’ take ’em up.”
“All right,” I agreed. “Find out what they’re worth. When can you have the rooms ready?”
He looked at me and scratched his head again; then, remembering suddenly the nature of janitors, I took out my purse and tipped him.
“Have them ready by to-morrow afternoon,” I said. “Get a man to help you, if necessary. I’ll expect to be at home here to-morrow night.”
His face cleared instantly.
“I’ll do it, sir,” he agreed, as he pocketed the money. “I’ll see that everything gits in all right. You kin sign th’ rent agreement to-morrow—th’ soot rents fer forty a month.”
“Very well,” I said, and followed him into the outer room, smiling to myself at the thought that I had forgotten to ask for this important detail: “Would you mind if I sat down and took a smoke, while I decide how I’ll arrange my furniture?”
“That’s all right, sir,” he assured me instantly; and just then the elevator bell rang. “There,” he added, “it’s them confounded artists, too lazy t’ walk downstairs. I’ll be back in a minute, sir.”
It took me but an instant to light my cigar, then I whirled my chair around to the table before which it stood. The table had a single drawer. I opened it. It was absolutely empty. I went quickly to the bedroom and opened the closet, but not even a piece of clothing hung there. Then I turned to the dresser, but its three drawers, too, were empty. Evidently all of Thompson’s belongings had been removed by the police. Of course they had searched through every nook and cranny; it was foolish of me to expect to find anything now.
I returned to my chair and looked again about the room. There was the corner where Miss Croydon had cowered, and from which she had shot at Thompson’s assailant; there was the spot where Thompson himself had fallen; he had lain extended on the carpet, while the … what was that? A tiny sparkle caught my eye, a reflection of the light overhead. I sprang from my chair and stooped above the place, but could see nothing. I returned to my chair, and again caught the reflection. This time, I marked it exactly in the pattern of the carpet, went to it carefully; put down my hand—nothing—yes, a little hard point pressed into the carpet, so minute I could not pick it up. I moistened my finger, and an instant later, under the light, I saw that I had found a diamond!
I wrapped it carefully in a scrap of paper and stowed it away safely in my pocket-book. Then I went back to my chair. How came the diamond there? A stone so minute must have been set in a piece of jewelry; perhaps was only one of many such stones forming a cluster, or a border to a larger jewel. If one could only discover the piece from which it had fallen, there would be a clew…
“Well, have y’ got it all fixed, sir?” asked a voice from the door, and I turned with a start to see Higgins standing there.
“Yes,” I answered, rousing myself with an effort; and I gave him such directions as occurred to me. “Has anyone else been in the rooms?” I asked.
“Not since yesterday morning sir, when th’ coroner brought his jury t’ look ‘em over. They’ve been locked since then.”
“I thought perhaps somebody might have wanted to rent them,” I explained.
“Say, that’s funny!” he cried. “I’d purty nigh fergot it. Early this mornin’ they was somebody-a woman.” He came close to me and dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “D’ y’ know who I think it was? That Croydon woman!”
I stared at him in amazement.
“Weren’t you sure?”
“No; she had a veil wrapped around her head an’ she was dressed different. But it was her—I know it.”
“And what did she want?” I asked, more and more astonished.
“She wanted t’ see th’ rooms; but I told her they was closed. I tell you, I was dead afeard t’ come up here with her. How’d I know but she’d take a shot at me? Then she wanted t’ rent ’em sight unseen, an’ offered a month’s rent in advance—but I told her we didn’t rent soots t’ single women, which is true. Mebbe I was kind o’ rough, but I was a-skeered t’ have her around, fer I kind o’ believe she’s crazy, so purty soon, after some more talkin’, she give it up an’ went away.”
As we went down in the elevator, I pondered this remarkable story. Could it really have been Miss Croydon? But what possible reason could she have for wishing to rent the rooms? How could she nerve herself to enter them again? Was it the rooms and not the man that had brought her to the Marathon? Did they hold the key to the mystery? Did they contain some secret…
The car stopped. A man and woman were waiting to be taken up. At the man I did not even glance, for his companion held my eyes. Such fierce, dark, passionate beauty I had never seen before, and my nerves were still tingling with the sight of it as I left the building and turned westward toward my rooms.
CHAPTER II
A Cry for Help
FOR three days Thompson’s body lay enthroned on its couch at the morgue, but of the thousands of people who filed past it, not one could give a single clew to its identity. Godfrey’s emissaries went from end to end of the docks, loitered in sailors’ saloons and eating-places, provided innumerable drinks, but nowhere did they met anyone who recognized the rough, bearded face which the camera had reproduced. The officers of every ship that had arrived within a week were interviewed, but none of them knew Thompson. It would seem that he had dropped from the clouds and that no one had witnessed his descent. It was an altogether puzzling state of affairs, and made impossible any further real progress in the investigation of the crime.
The police worked in a desultory fashion along the usual lines. Various theories were built up and exploded; various clews were laboriously followed and found to lead nowhere; various suspects were arrested and afterward released; a close and utterly futile watch was kept on the movements of Jimmy the Dude. It was plainly apparent that the authorities were all at sea, and it seemed altogether likely that the affair would soon be written down with New York’s other unsolved mysteries.
Public interest waned and dwindled, and passed on to other things. Even with me, living at the very scene of the crime, it faded in an astonishing way; it no longer occupied my thoughts; over my evening pipe, it was not the details of the mystery I conjured up, but a vision of a dark face…
An inquiry of the janitor developed the fact that it was my neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine, whom I had met that evening as I left the elevator. They had the apartment just across the hall from mine, and I had thought, of course, that I must meet them frequently; but three days had passed and I had caught not a glimpse of them; their hours for coming and going seemed radically different from mine.
So it was with a sense of disappointment somewhat foolishly excessive that I sat in my room and watched the smoke circle up around the chandelier and wondered at the whim which had brought me to this apartment. Not but that it was comfortable enough; yet I was vaguely restless, uneasy; I had not that homelike sense of comfort and quiet which had marked my sojourn with Mrs. Fitch. There was nothing to be discovered here concerning the tragedy; the rooms had been stripped bare of evidence before my arrival; it was absurd to suppose…
I heard the sudden opening of a door; a scream, shrill, full of terror…
Rarely have I been so startled as I was by that voice. In an instant, I was in the hall. A red light streamed through the open door of the apartment opposite, silhouetting a woman’s figure, staring, with clasped hands…
I sprang past her, pulled down the burning curtains, and threw them into the hall, where Higgins, who had run up the stairs, stamped out the flames. The room was full of smoke, but it was evident that the fire had spread no farther. I opened the window, and the smoke was whirled away.
“That was lucky,” was Higgins’s comment, as he stood panting in the doorway. “By cricky! I’m all in a tremble. I thought it was another murder!”
I couldn’t help laughing as I looked at him gasping excitedly for breath.
“You’ve got murder on the brain,” I said. “I hope there won’t be any more at the Marathon.”
“So do I,” he agreed, and gathering up the fragments of the curtains, turned to go.
“Ah, bon dié!” cried Mrs. Tremaine, in a queerly broken but very charming mixture of French and English. “What a chance! What good fortune that you were in your room, missié!”
She had closed the window with a nervous shiver at the cold, and then stepped back into the full light. I fairly gasped as I looked at her. Charming she had been gowned according to the New York fashion; now she was radiant in a costume whose gorgeousness seemed just the setting her beauty needed. At the moment, it completely dazzled me, but I was able afterwards, in a calmer mood, to analyse it—the crimson petticoat, the embroidered chemise with its fold upon fold of lace, showing through the silken shoulder-scarf; the necklace of gold beads, and bracelets, studs, brooches—what not The sight of Higgins standing staring at this vision with open mouth brought me to my senses.
“I am very happy to have been there, madame,” I said, and started toward the door.
“But you will not go,” she protested. “Missié Tremaine will be here in a moment. He will desire to thank you.”
The words were accompanied by a smile there was no resisting. I faltered, stopped…
Higgins was still staring from the hall. Mrs. Tremaine stepped forward and calmly shut the door in his face.
In that instant a quick shiver ran through me, as though I had been suddenly imprisoned with a wild beast--a shiver that had in it something fearfully delightful. And let me add here that the emotion which Cecily, for so I came to know her, raised in me was not in the least admiration in the ordinary sense of the term, but rather an overpowering fascination, such as one sometimes feels in watching a magnificent tigress pacing back and forth in her cage; Such, I believe, was the feeling she inspired in most men; even in Tremaine himself.
She smiled at me again as she swept past me to a couch in one corner, and sank upon it.
“Sit, missié,” she said, and motioned me to a chair close at hand. “I was very lonesome; I was weary of talking to my own body.”
I cannot reproduce the soft dialect she spoke; any effort to do. so makes it appear grotesque, so I shall hot try. At first, it puzzled me occasionally, but I soon came to understand her perfectly.
“So was I,” I said, smiling at the quaint expression. “I was growing very sick of my own body. Have you been in New York long?”
“Less than a month, missié; and I do not like it—it is too cold—too grey.”
“Ah, you have come in a bad time,” I said, wondering at her almost childish expression of misery. “Wait until June—then you will see!”
“June! Ah, we shall not remain so long—I, at least! I have promised to stay one month longer, but more than that—impossible!”
She reached out and took up a cigarette from a pile which lay on a tabouret beside the couch.
“It was thus the curtains caught,” she laughed, and, after a whiff or two, flung the still-blazing taper over her shoulder. “Pouf!—and they were all in flame. A moment before, I was longing for excitement-any excitement whatever—but that sudden burst of fire frightened me—I rushed out—cried for help—and,” she finished with a charming little gesture, “spoiled your smoke. Try one of these.”
There was no resisting her—it was like playing with fire. I took a cigarette and lighted it.
“At Fond-Corré there was much to do,” she continued, with a little sigh. “Here there is nothing but to smoke, smoke!”
“Fond-Corré?” I queried.
“Just beyond St. Pierre,” she explained, closing her eyes with delight at the memory. “There was our home—I can see it again, in its grove of cocoa trees running down to the grey sand, with the waves lapping gently over it. Tambou! how I sigh for it!” and she stretched her arms above her head with a gesture of infinite longing.
Looking at her, I began to believe that I was dreaming all this; that I had fallen asleep in my chair and been transported to the land of Haroun-el-Raschid. I had never seen a woman like her—so full of colour, of passion, of…
A key rattled in the lock, the door opened and a man came in. It was quite in keeping with the dream—the enraged husband with naked cimeter—even here in New York it was hardly the proper thing to be discovered thus, though not till that instant had I thought of it.
“Ah, now,” I said to myself, “stilettos and pistols! you’re in a ticklish place, my friend.”
But before I could rise, Cecily had sprung from the couch and thrown her arms about his neck.
“Oh, coument ou yé, doudoux?” she asked, in a voice like—well, I have never heard anything to compare with it.
“Toutt douce, ché—et ou?” he answered, and kissed her; then he perceived me, seemingly for the first time, though this I somehow doubted. “Good-evening, sir,” he said, standing with his arm still about his wife and gazing at me with a look so sharp that I found myself for an instant unable to meet it, as though I had really been guilty of some fault.
His wife uttered in his ear a sentence so rapid that I was utterly unable to catch the words, but I suppose it explained the reason of my presence, for he turned to me instantly with outstretched hand.
“Cecily tells me that your presence of mind prevented a general conflagration, Mr.”
“Lester,” I said. “I am your neighbour across the hall.”
“My name is Tremaine, and I’m exceedingly glad to meet you,” he continued, with a courtesy which charmed me from the first moment. “We must pour a libation to honour the escape.”
Cecily, who had been hanging on his lips, flew to the next room and was back in a moment with decanter and glasses—three of them—and she joined us with an imperturbable matter-of-course air which somewhat surprised me. Only I noticed she left a little wine in her glass, and with it she approached a square cage of fine gilt mesh hanging over the radiator in the warmest corner of the room.
I happened to look at Tremaine and was astonished at the intensity of the glance he sent after her. So absorbed was he that for the first time I had the opportunity to examine him closely. It was impossible to tell his age, there was about him such an air of exhaustless youth—he might have been anywhere from thirty to forty-five. He was a handsome man, with a dark, fascinating face which somehow matched his wife’s. The power of his eye I had already experienced, and the square jaw and clear-cut lips bespoke an extraordinary power of will to match. He perhaps felt my scrutiny, for he turned to me, shaking off with an effort the spell that held him.
“She’s a most extraordinary woman,” he said, with a smile that seemed a little forced. “She’s about to do what no other woman in the world would dare do, and she thinks nothing of it. Come and see.”
Cecily had already reached the cage, and was bending over it, humming a weird little refrain that rose and fell and turned upon itself, reminding me faintly of the negro spirituals I had once heard at a camp-meeting in the Jersey woods. After a moment, I saw a movement within the cage, and a head erected itself, a broad, triangular head, deep orange barred with black, with eyes like coals of fire. It swayed to and fro, to and fro, as Cecily fitted words to the refrain—queer, chopped-off Creole words.
“Oh, ou jojolli, oui! Oh, thou art pretty, pretty, Fé-Fé! Pa ka fai moin pé! I do not fear her, not at all! Fé-Fé is the work of the good God. Travaill Bon-Dié joli? Is she not pretty?”
Gradually we had drawn nearer, Tremaine and I, and I felt myself yielding to the fascination of the song, even as the serpent did. It was not very large, nor seemingly very formidable, so I did not even think of fear when Cecily opened the little door of the cage and drew it forth. She held it between thumb and finger just behind the head, and by a slight pressure she forced its jaws apart. Then she poured the wine down its throat, drop by drop. Finally she returned it to its cage and shut the door.
When it was over and she was lying again on the couch, panting with a kind of fearful exhaustion, I turned to Tremaine, who was mopping his forehead feverishly.
“I’ve got a kind of superstitious horror of that snake,” he said apologetically, as he met my eyes. “I’ve seen a lot of them, but none ever affected me just as this one does.”
“What is it?” I asked, astonished by his pallor, by the trembling of his hand as he put away his handkerchief and reached for a cigarette. He lighted it before he answered, inviting me by a gesture to help myself.
“It’s a fer-de-lance,” he said, at last; “One of the deadliest serpents in the world—and this particular variety is said to be especially deadly—a sort of crème de la crème, as it were. Its bite kills a man in three minutes, if it happens to strike an artery—it does more than that—it turns him to a swollen, rotten piece of carrion—I’ve seen it,” and he leaned back to blow a ring toward the ceiling.
I sat, petrified, with my cigarette half-way to my mouth.
“A fer-de-lance!” I faltered, at last, with a horrified glance at the figure on the couch.
“Oh, it’s safe enough, I guess,” he added. “She’s had it for years and it has never attempted to harm her. Perhaps it has lost its poison.”
“Still,” I said, “it’s a risk. I shouldn’t think you’d permit it.”
“Permit it?” he repeated. “Oh!” and he shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of impotence impossible to describe.
CHAPTER III
A Break in a Circle
MY acquaintance with the Tremaines, in the weeks that followed, grew by imperceptible degrees into an intimacy which was one of the most pleasant of my life. Of Cecily I have already attempted to give some idea, although I realise how cold and inadequate it is. As I began to know her better, I came to wonder more and more at her complexity, her simplicity, her swift change of mood, her utter ignorance of social convention. Another thing I saw, and that was her absolute worship of Tremaine. I question if he fully understood its strength; he had grown, in a way, accustomed to it; but to a stranger, an outsider, it was startlingly apparent. I say startlingly, because one was vaguely conscious of unsounded, threatening depths beneath that sweet exterior, which promised I know not what of passion and tragedy, should they be rudely stirred.
As for Tremaine, I hesitate to say how utterly I fell under his spell. Yet this was not in the least to be wondered at. My life had been, on the whole, so narrow, and his had been so broad; my experience of the world had been cast in the usual grooves, while his had so evidently overleaped them, had struck out a path for itself into all sorts of unexpected places. Why he so exerted himself to charm and conquer me, I do not yet fully understand—perhaps it was the mere delight in power, in the exercise of his dazzling faculties; or perhaps it was that he had leisure, that his mind was not yet engrossed in the game on which he staked so much.
I have said that his life had been cast in many curious places. Martinique was only the last of these, the most recent, and I gathered that the business which brought him to New York was the forming of a syndicate to build a railroad through the island. Through is the right word, for it was evident that, owing to the island’s peculiar formation, there would have to be much tunnelling. But he waved all such practical difficulties aside and discoursed of the great future before such a road with an enthusiasm that was absolutely convincing.
I remember one evening he got fairly started upon this hobby of his and talked uninterruptedly for at least an hour—facts, details, descriptions at his finger-ends. Cecily, chin in hands, listened intent to every word, and I, with the remembrance of that evening still fresh upon me, can understand how he won the ear of even Wall Street’s suspicious denizens. And, indeed, it was a wonderful prospectus which he painted—broad sugar plantations with no market, the whole traffic of the island carried upon the heads of women; the great sand-heaps of the east coast ninety per cent. pure steel, waiting only for development, but worthless now because no ship can approach them—and I know not what beside, but all of which, I have no doubt, was substantially true.
Perhaps I am lingering unduly over this portrait of Tremaine, but I have never met his equal for daring, for audacity, for personal magnetism. In the days that followed, I was to see less and less of him, but the memory of those first evenings is a living and vivid one. I can see him sitting there yet before me with his wonderful eyes, his expressive face, his lithe, graceful form and his slim, white nervous hand holding his cigarette. I found myself speculating sometimes as to his nationality. French he seemed unquestionably by temperament, and yet he spoke English with a facility and carelessness unusual in a foreigner. I was often tempted to ask him, straight out, but a feeling of hesitation always held me back. I came at last to the conclusion that he was of French parentage, but had lived in England or America probably from his youth.
I had just come in from dinner one evening and was settling down to a reperusal of “L’Affaire Lerouge,” when there came a knock at the door and Tremaine entered. He was in evening dress and was seemingly much perturbed.
“My dear Lester,” he began abruptly, in that quick, nervous way of his, “I’m in the deuce of a box, and I’m going to ask you to help me out. I promised Cecily to take her tonight to see the extravaganza at the New York and have the seats here, but at the last moment I find I can’t get away. I’ve a business engagement that I can’t afford to break, but Cecily will never forgive me if I disappoint her. Have you anything on for tonight?”
“No,” I answered, looking at him in some astonishment, for it was evident what was coming.
“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking Cecily? It would be a tremendous favour.”
“Not at all,” I assured him, “but”
“It isn’t quite convenable?” he finished, as I hesitated. “Surely, we don’t need to stand on ceremony, and Cecily doesn’t care a hang for convention. It’s a great favour to both of us. She’ll cry her eyes out if she has to stay at home, and I simply can’t take her.”
“Very well,” I said, “I’ll be glad to take her,” and thanking me again, he hurried away.
She was dressed and waiting for me when I knocked at her door, and she caught me by both hands as I entered.
“This is good of you!” she cried. “Doudoux has been so busy for many days that we have gone nowhere; but he promised me to-night. Oh, I should not have stayed at home! I should have gone alone! I care not for the eyes of the men!”
“Oh, I shan’t let you go alone!” I protested, and watched her, fascinated, as she put on a little bonnet and gave her hair two or three final pats before the mirror.
She was in the highest spirits, singing to herself—really, I told myself, only a child—and at last she swung around and dropped me a courtesy.
“How is that, ché?” she cried, smiling up at me. “Does that please you?”
“Charming!” I cried, gasping a little, with a feeling of giddiness, as I looked down into her eyes.
“Then in a moment,” and turning, she struck a match and touched it to a wick floating on olive oil in a tiny glass before an image of the Virgin, which hung in a little chapelle against the wall. She made a genuflection and turned back to me. “Now I am ready,” she said, and tucked her hand confidingly under my arm.
“What is the light for, Cecily?” I asked, as we left the room.
“Oh,” she explained, “faut limé lampe ou pou fai la Vierge passé dans caïe-ou. Now the Virgin will watch over me while I am away. But you are a Protestant. You do not care for the Virgin.”
She looked up at me reproachfully, with a little sigh because I must be damned.
“But Tremaine—is he not also a Protestant?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” she answered, shaking her head. “Certainly not—not at all. He even at one time thought of becoming a priest.”
“A priest!” I repeated, astonished. Here was news, indeed, and I was so absorbed in it that I did not resent Higgins’s stare of astonishment as we went down together in the elevator. Tremaine a priest! Yet, why not? No doubt he would have made a most successful one—an ideal Jesuit, for example, rising to a high place.
“Then why did he not become one?” I questioned, when we were seated in our cab and bowling along toward Broadway. A sudden fever of eagerness to probe into Tremaine’s past took possession of me.
“I do not know,” she answered; then she looked at me with a sudden quizzical narrowing of the eyes. “Perhaps he found the vows of a repugnance.”
We swung around into Broadway, ablaze with light, and Cecily forgot me in the excitement of watching the changing crowd, the brilliant shop-fronts.
“Here we are,” I said, as the cab drew up at the curb, and sprang out and helped her down.
As we entered the foyer, I heard that murmur of surprise and admiration which I knew my companion must inevitably call forth. As for her, she was interested in everything; the lights, the colour, the movement of the crowd, the bustle of the great theatre combined to form an excitant which brought the deep blood surging to her cheeks. She looked around with half-open lips, smiling, pleased as a child, seemingly quite unconscious of the many curious eyes centred upon her.
“Oh, it is glorious!” she cried. “I have to thank you again, ché.”
“You have nothing like this at St. Pierre?” I questioned, laughing at her eagerness.
“No,” and she shook her head; “except perhaps the Carnival.”
“I’m enjoying it, too,” I said; and, indeed, I was, for her happiness was contagious. She seemed charged with electricity, overflowing, communicating it by a look, a word, a smile.
We went up to the promenade after the first act, and ate an ice together. The place was crowded, and Cecily soon became again the centre of attraction. Men strolled past merely to look at her, and from more than one woman I caught a flash of the eye that said unutterable things. The advent of a new, incomparable siren could not pass unchallenged. At them all, Cecily glanced from time to time with admirable nonchalance; one would have sworn she had been reared in New York. She chatted gaily, eating her ice, sipping her wine, looking at me with eyes that glowed like stars. Then suddenly, as she looked up, her face changed. I glanced up, too, and caught Jim Godfrey’s astonished eyes fixed on mine. He bowed and passed on.
“Who is that gentleman?” demanded Cecily eagerly, leaning across the table toward me. “You know him?”
“Oh, quite well,” I answered, more and more surprised. “His name is Godfrey.”
“God-frey,” she repeated slowly, after me, as though fixing it indelibly in her memory. “And what is his business?”
“He’s a reporter by trade; he gathers news for a paper,” I added, seeing that she did not wholly understand.
“Oh,” she said, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. “I see.” Then, as she met my glance, she added, “I fancied that I had met him somewhere; I was mistaken. In New York I have met no one except you, missié.”
But I scarcely heard her; my eyes had dropped to a pin at her throat; as she leaned forward, I could see it very clearly—an opal surrounded by a blazing ring of diamonds. I looked at it mechanically—then with a sudden, intent interest. For one link of that brilliant ring was missing; one of the diamonds had fallen out.
CHAPTER IV
Thr Problem of the Diamond
IWAS scarcely surprised when Godfrey’s card was brought in to me at the office next morning. Both Mr. Graham and Mr. Royce happened to be out at the time, so that I had the inner room to myself, and I directed that Godfrey be shown in at once.
“I was expecting you,” I said, rising to shake hands with him. “That stare of yours last night warned me that you’d be around to demand an explanation.”
“Demand is hardly the word,” he corrected, as he sat down. “Beseech would be nearer it. I confess I was never more surprised in my life than when I saw you sitting there calmly chatting away with Mrs. Tremaine.”
“Then you have met her? She thought she was mistaken.”
“You mean she knew me?” he asked quickly.
“She asked who you were—she fancied she’d met you somewhere.”
Godfrey laughed a little dry laugh.
“She has,” he said, “but it’s strange she remembers it, for I’ll swear she never looked at me—or perhaps,” he added, knitting his brows, “she has some special reason to remember. I happened to be in the hall of the Marathon apartment house talking with Higgins, the janitor, when she and her husband came in from dinner the night that man Thompson was killed there—perhaps you remember about it?”
I nodded, smiling.
“Yes, I remember.”
Something in my face caught his attention.
“You mean you know something about it?” he asked quickly. But a movement of feet across the floor outside interrupted him. “We can’t talk here,” he said. “Will you be at home to-night?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll look you up,” and he turned to go.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m not with Mrs. Fitch any more.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No—I’m quartered at the Marathon.”
“At the Marathon?”
“Yes—suite fourteen—Higgins will show you up.”
He stared at me an instant with starting eyes. Then the door opened and Mr. Royce came in, followed by two clerks.
“I’ll look for you this evening,” I added, hugely enjoying his stupefaction.
He nodded mechanically, and turned away, walking like a man in a dream.
“Well,” began Godfrey, as he settled back in his chair and looked around the room, “this is about the last place on earth I’d have expected to find you.”
“And yet it’s not so wonderful,” I pointed out. “I had to change my lodgings and found that these would suit.”
“It’s in your blood,” he went on, smiling. “It has been ever since that affair of Miss Holladay. You’ll never get it out. But I’m glad you’re here. I’ve an idea that we’re just on the threshold of a very remarkable mystery, and you can help a lot.”
“Then the murder wasn’t the end?”
“No; I fancy it was only the beginning. Now tell me how you happened to be with Mrs. Tremaine last night.”
“Tremaine had an important business engagement,” I said, “which he couldn’t break. He’d promised to take her to the theatre and had secured seats. Rather than disappoint her, he asked me to take his place.”
“And she didn’t object?”
“She made the best of it, I guess.”
“She seemed to be getting a good deal of fun out of it.”
“She was. She’s the most unconventional creature I ever met. She’d interest you, Godfrey.”
“I don’t doubt it in the least. But Tremaine interests me, too. You don’t happen to know what this business engagement was?” and he looked at me with a queer smile.
“No; I suppose that it had something to do with his railroad.”
“His railroad?”
I related briefly the project in which Tremaine was engaged.
“Well, perhaps it was connected with that,” Godfrey said, when I had finished, “but indirectly—very indirectly. He spent the evening in Dickie Delroy’s box at the opera.”
It was my turn to stare. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure—I saw him there. Tremaine, I understand, was taken up by Delroy some time ago and has been cutting quite a swath in society—it’s easy enough to understand why. That’s not the first time he’s been in the Delroy box.”
“But,” I asked, more and more astonished, “how did he accomplish it?”
“I don’t know. A polished fellow like that has an open sesame, sometimes. More than likely, he’s interested Delroy in his railroad scheme, and Delroy has become fascinated with him, just as you’ve evidently been.”
“Yes,” I admitted, candidly, “I have.”
“I saw at a glance that he’s a smooth one. I believe that railroad business is just a blind-he doesn’t look the man to waste his time building castles in the air.”
“Oh, if you could hear him!” I protested.
“I wish I could.”
“I can introduce you—as a reporter looking for a story, say.”
“No, it won’t do. I’ll try to get at him some other way.”
“I don’t believe it’s a blind,” I persisted. “His heart’s too deeply in it. Besides, I don’t see that we have any reason to suspect him of anything. If it’s a blind, what’s his real game?”
“I give it up. That’s just what we’ve got to find out.”
“Godfrey,” I said suddenly, “there’s two points I’d like to submit to you—both rather important ones, I fancy. But first I want you to tell me the story of the crime, just as it occurred. I suspect there were some details that didn’t get into the Record. Start a cigar first.”
He took a cigar and struck a match.
“There were,” he assented with a smile, “a number of details that didn’t get before the public. Most of them have an unfortunate tendency to implicate Miss Croydon.”
“Miss Croydon?”
“Yes; I don’t mean implicate her in the actual crime—I don’t for an instant believe she had any hand in that; but they seem to indicate that she wasn’t frank with us—that she’s concealing something—protecting somebody. Now there wasn’t any use in telling the fool public that; they’d jump at once to the conclusion—why,” he broke off, abruptly, with some heat, “even as it was”
“Yes,” I said, somewhat surprised at his irritation, “I noticed the shots at her.”
“Some of them were outrageous! It’s a shame that such a woman as that—but you shall judge,” and he told me the story substantially as I have set it down in the first chapters of this history. “There isn’t the least doubt,” he added, “that she took the clippings from Thompson’s pocket-book, and I think it very improbable that she has told us the whole truth concerning the minor details of the crime, but nevertheless she’s innocent.”
He got up and walked across the room and placed his finger over a little hole in the woodwork of the bedroom door.
“There’s where the bullet from her revolver struck,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that—it was taken out and found to fit. I’d give a good deal to know who it was she fired at and why she fired. I tell you, Lester, the more one thinks about that affair, the more incomprehensible it becomes, there are so many questions which seem unanswerable. Who was Thompson? How did he get in condition to receive her? Was the murderer a friend of Thompson’s? If not, how did he get into the rooms? Above all, why, after he had knocked Thompson down, should he stand over him and shoot him through the heart? That savours more of a wild beast than of a human being.”
He paused a moment in a sort of helpless perplexity, then sat down abruptly and turned to me.
“What were your points?” he asked.
“The first,” I said, looking at him, “will, I fear, help to tip the scale against Miss Croydon. She came here the morning after the inquest and tried to rent this apartment.”
He stared at me, astounded, his cigar in the air, while I repeated the story Higgins had told me. When I had finished, he sat gazing into vacancy, his lips compressed.
“I see it puzzles you,” I said, at last, enjoying his perplexity. “I confess I couldn’t make anything out of it.”
“Puzzles me!” he repeated, getting up again and walking nervously about the room. “Why, it’s the most astounding thing I ever heard—it’s the most unexplainable feature of this whole unexplainable case. I should think she’d never want to enter these rooms again. But perhaps Higgins was mistaken,” he added, stopping short.
“That might be,” I admitted, “though he swears he wasn’t.”
“Well, let’s pass over it for a moment. What’s the second point? Is it another staggerer?”
“Not a staggerer—but another twist to the puzzle, I imagine. Did Thompson have any jewelry on him?”
“Jewelry? Not a bit, he was practically in rags.”
“Where was his body lying?”
“Right here,” and he indicated the spot with his foot.
“And right there,” I said, “two days later, I found this, pressed into the carpet,” and I took the little paper packet from my pocket-book.
He opened it carefully and looked at what lay inside. Then he whistled softly.
“A diamond, by all that’s wonderful!”
“Tell me what it came out of,” I said.
“One of a group, I should say; or perhaps a border around a larger central stone.”
“Precisely,” I nodded. “And last night I happened to notice that Mrs. Tremaine wore a pin with just such an arrangement of stones. One of the small diamonds in the border was missing.”
Godfrey wrapped up the tiny bit of crystal and handed it back to me with an exceedingly thoughtful face.
“That’s a mighty pretty bit of evidence,” he said, at last; “though, of course, it may be only a coincidence. Taken by itself, it isn’t worth a cent; in connection with other evidence, it would be worth a great deal.”
“And there isn’t any other?”
“Just one little bit. You say Tremaine comes from Martinique. Well, among Thompson’s clothes I found a peculiar nut, called a snake nut, which grows only in the West Indies. When you add to this that Thompson’s clothing was all such as is worn in the tropics, the presumption is pretty strong that he lived for a while somewhere in Tremaine’s neighbourhood.”
I nodded; then my face fell.
“After all,” I pointed out, “all that amounts to nothing. Both Tremaine and his wife can prove an alibi. They weren’t in the building when the crime was committed. You yourself saw them coming back.”
“Yes—but it’s a significant fact that no one saw them go out.”
“Oh, well,” I said, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, “that doesn’t prove anything, either. We mustn’t let our suspicions carry us away, Godfrey. If you knew the Tremaines, you’d see how ridiculous it is to suspect them—on no better evidence than this, anyway.”
“I don’t suspect them,” corrected Godfrey, smiling. “I’m simply seeking the truth. If the Tremaines are innocent, as they very probably are, it will do them no harm for us to investigate them a little.”
“No,” I agreed; “of course not.”
“And that’s just what I want you to do. You’re here on the inside. Keep your eyes and ears open. In the meantime, I’ll set our newspaper machinery at work to look up Tremaine’s career. Maybe, in that way, we’ll get enough foundation to start a theory on.”
“And the diamond?”
“The diamond may not have come from the pin, at all. It’s no uncommon thing to lose a stone like that. Or if it did, she may have dropped it here at some other time—perhaps she was in here the next day to have a look at the body.”
“I doubt that,” I objected. “She’s not a woman who’d have a curiosity for that sort of thing.”
“Well, we’ll puzzle it out in time. If I only had a chance to study Tremaine, to hear him talk, to watch him without being seen. That would be worth more to me than all this theorising. Then I’d have my feet on solid ground; I could—sh!—who’s that?”
A door opened and a step crossed the hall. There came a tap at my door.
Godfrey shot me one electric glance; then, lightly as a panther, he seized coat and hat and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.
CHAPTER V
A Flash from the Depths
"IHAVE come to thank you for your kindness of last night,” said Tremaine, as he entered. “It was a great favour.”
“It was nothing,” I protested, waving him to a chair. “I was glad to do it. I had a very pleasant time myself.”
As he sat down, he laid a handful of cigarettes on the table beside him.
“You see I’ve come for a chat,” he said, with his inimitable smile. “I hope you will help yourself.”
“Thank you,” and I suited the action to the word; Tremaine’s cigarettes would have tempted anyone. “I trust the business of the railroad is getting on well?”
“Splendidly!” he answered, inhaling a great puff of smoke. “The interview of last night did much to assist it. It was for that also I wished to thank you—for leaving me free—it was most important.”
I waved my cigarette deprecatingly. I was conscious that he was watching me keenly.
“I am not interrupting any plans of yours?” he asked suddenly. “You were not going out? You’re not expecting visitors?”
“No,” I said, “I’d resigned myself to spend the evening over a book. Your company is very welcome.”
“That is good of you to say. I shall speak frankly, then, as I had intended doing.”
He paused and puffed at his cigarette. I saw that, in spite of his superb assurance, the subject, whatever it was, presented a certain difficulty.
“I have been curious to see,” he began, at last, “how Cecily would affect New Yorkers. She is certainly well stared at.”
“And no wonder!” I said. “She would make St. Anthony turn his head.”
“You really weren’t bored last night?”
“I don’t see how anybody could be bored with Cecily,” I answered with conviction.
“Ah, you think so?” and he shot me a quick glance. “You admire her, then?”
“Admiration is hardly the word,” I said slowly. “It is too weak, too thin”
Evidently he misunderstood me, for he did not wait for me to finish—to explain myself.
“That makes it easier for me,” he interrupted. “You have perhaps suspected that the union between us is not a—ah—a legal one?”
“Yes,” I said, “I had suspected that.”
“Such unions are the rule in Martinique,” he continued calmly, “and have been from time immemorial. They are a part of the life there-they are a matter of course-and frequently they are as permanent and happy as any regular one could be. Cecily is what is known as a fille-de-couleur; physically, I believe, the most beautiful women in the world.”
“Then she is not an exception?”
“Oh, no—she’s a type—physically, at least. Mentally, I believe she does differ somewhat from the typical capresse. For instance, I never knew another attempt to tame a fer-de-lance.”
“It seemed to me,” I observed “that she had as many possibilities as the snake.”
He laughed lightly.
“For evil, you mean? That’s merely the effect of the first view. Really, the capresse girls have an excellent reputation for docility and all the rest. Not that it would matter much in Martinique-the people there are used to living over a volcano and don’t mind. Of course,” he added, in another tone, “I shall, before long, have to break it off. Society, here, is differently organised—different climates, different morals, you know; I feel that I must conform to it. Indeed, I even wish to do so. It is time that I settled down, ranged myself, became a man of family—I have been a wanderer long enough. Cecily can’t endure this climate, anyway. I’ll send her back to St Pierre.”
“What will she say to that?” I asked, with a vivid memory of the adoring way her eyes always dwelt upon him.
“You think it sounds a little brutal?” and he smiled gaily. “It isn’t, in the least. You’ve put Cecily on too high a pedestal. They have an axiom down there, ‘Née de l’amour, la fille-de-couleur nit d’amour, de rires, et d’oublis’—her life is a thing of love, laughter, and forgettings. I think it’s essentially true. At the same time,” he added, more seriously, “I don’t wish to be needlessly cruel. That’s the reason I’m telling you all this. It’s a sort of introduction.”
“Ah,” I said, and looked at him.
“I’ll blurt it out in a word. I’ll be out of town next week—all week—my business demands it—and it’s absurd for me to think of taking Cecily with me—it’s absolutely impossible—it would ruin the whole affair. What I want to ask you is this—look in on her occasionally, cheer her up, take her to the theatre, if you’ll be so good. She knows no one here, and she has a ridiculous need of companionship, of chattering to someone, of having someone to admire her. It’s born in the blood, I suppose; it’s an inheritance from two centuries of ancestors. Left to herself, she’ll soon mope herself sick. Will you do this for me, my friend?”
There was a compelling wizardry in his eyes as he looked at me, yet I had self-control enough to pause and reflect. Still, I saw no reason why I should refuse, even had my own inclination not greatly urged me forward. Here would be an opportunity to unveil such secrets of his as Cecily might know—especially as to where they had been on the evening of the murder. Perhaps she even knew the victim; could give me a clew to the connection between him and Tremaine, if such a connection existed—there were unlimited possibilities. And yet, a feeling of shame held me back. To take advantage in this way of a man who trusted me, against whom there was nothing but the merest, most intangible suspicion…
I looked up and met his intent gaze.
“You were reflecting?” he said.
“Merely that it is a delicate trust. I’m not at all unwilling to undertake it, only”
Again he misunderstood; again he did not wait for me to finish. It was the only weakness I ever detected in him—he made a false step that could never be retraced.
“Only you are flesh and blood, you would say?” and he shot me a smile which illumined as a lightning flash the depths of his character. “On that score, do not worry, I beg of you; I am not of a jealous disposition—I shall not”
A knock at the door interrupted him, or I might have answered in a way that would have wrecked Godfrey’s plan forever. I flung the door open and saw Higgins standing there.
“A call at th’ telephone fer you, Mr. Lester,” he said.
“Excuse me, please,” I called over my shoulder to Tremaine, and strode down the hall after the janitor. So heated was I with anger, so shaken by this sudden revelation, that not till we were in the elevator dropping downward did I remember that Godfrey was in my bedroom. A sudden chill struck through me. Suppose Tremaine should take advantage of the opportunity to examine my rooms; suppose he should discover Godfrey…
It was too late now to avert it; I could not go back, so I went on to the telephone. It was Mr. Royce who wanted me; he had been called suddenly out of town and wished to give me some instructions for the next day. Our conversation lasted perhaps five minutes; then I hung up the receiver and mounted to my rooms. With a hand not wholly steady, I opened the door. Tremaine was sitting in the chair where I had left him and was just lighting another cigarette.
He arose with a smile as I came in.
“I must be going,” he said. “And you will keep an eye on Cecily?”
“Yes, I’ll be glad to,” I assented. Surely, I need hesitate at no means to learn the truth about him.
“And be as gay as you please,” he added. “You’re doing me a great favour, which I shall take care to repay some day. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” I answered and closed the door.
As I turned, Godfrey walked calmly out of the bedroom. I waited till I heard Tremaine’s door close. Then I opened mine softly and looked up and down the hall. It was empty.
“You’re getting cautious,” said Godfrey, as I closed the door a second time.
“Yes—I’m beginning to fear him. You heard?”
“Every word.”
“And what do you think of him?”
“I think,” said Godfrey slowly, “that he’s one of the most consummate scoundrels I ever had to deal with. However, we’ll unmask him—he’s letting us into his citadel.”
“Yes,” I said, “and I hesitated”
“I saw you did; and I was trembling for fear you’d refuse—your notions of honour are a little too finely drawn.”
“I think I should have refused,” I said, “if I hadn’t been called away to the telephone, and so had time to cool off a bit and think it over. I don’t understand yet how he came to strike such a false note.”
“It’s the Latin blood in him. They never can comprehend the Anglo-Saxon point of view.”
“Perhaps that’s it. By the way,” I added suddenly, “that was mighty lucky.”
“It was uncommonly lucky,” he agreed, with an enigmatic smile.
“I mean his not looking through the rooms. I almost had a nervous chill when I remembered you were in there. But it was too late to come back.”
“I’m glad you didn’t come back-that would have spoiled everything.”
“You mean he didn’t sit still?”
“Not for an instant. I was sure he wouldn’t; therefore as soon as I caught Higgins’s errand, I dived behind your raincoat. Luckily, it’s a long one.”
“Yes—and then?”
“And then he took a quick look through the bedroom—I heard him open the closet door and drop on one knee to glance under the bed. Then he went on into the bathroom, and finally came back again to the sitting-room.”
“Well?” I asked, for I saw that there was something yet untold.
“Well,” continued Godfrey, “after a minute or two, I thought it safe to venture out from under the raincoat, more especially as certain peculiar sounds from the other room awakened my curiosity. The sounds were a sort of slow, regular scraping.”
He paused a moment to look at me; I could only stare at him.
“I crept to the door and peeped through. Guess what I saw! You never could guess, though. Tremaine was crawling slowly about the room, running his hands carefully over the carpet. He was searching for the diamond.”
CHAPTER VI
A Trap for Tremaine
"WELL," I said, at last, “it seems to me we’re weaving a pretty strong chain about our friend Tremaine. But why should he have waited this long to look for the diamond?”
“Perhaps he’s just discovered its loss,” suggested Godfrey.
“Or perhaps this is the first opportunity he’s had. I’ve never before left him alone here, and I keep the snap on so that the door locks itself whenever it’s closed.”
Godfrey sat for a full minute motionless, his eyes fixed on the door.
“Of course,” he said, at last, “it may not have been the diamond he was looking for, though I can’t imagine what else it could be. But I’ve a theory I want to test. Suppose we take a look at your bedroom.”
I followed him in and turned up the light. He glanced around keenly, and went finally to the closet, which was almost opposite the door leading into the sitting-room. He entered the closet and closed the door behind him. After a moment, I heard a scraping noise, and perceived a knife-blade working back and forth in a crack of the door. Finally the blade was withdrawn, the door opened, and Godfrey came out. He examined the lock, tried it once or twice with the key, which was in it; then he turned to me.
“What time do you leave in the morning?” he asked.
“About seven-thirty.”
“Seven-thirty—very well. Now I must be going. Look for me in the morning.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes—I’ll explain afterwards. Now let me out softly.”
“Wait,” I said, for I too had a sudden idea. “You have a photograph of Thompson, I suppose?”
“Yes, at the office.”
“Bring it up in the morning with you. I should like to look at it.”
“All right,” he said, and after I had made sure that the coast was clear, he stole away upon tiptoe.
For a long time after he had gone, I sat and thought over the evening’s events. In the first place, he had given me a complete and succinct story of the crime; I felt that I held in my hands all the details of the tragedy—all the threads that led toward its solution. As Godfrey had pointed out, the foundation was as yet too weak to support a theory—we needed more facts to build upon. The strands of circumstance we had woven about Tremaine were really mere cobwebs—any breath of wind might blow them away. Was there really any connection between him and Thompson? That they had both lived in the tropics proved nothing; and they could hardly have come to New York together, since the Tremaines had arrived at the Marathon fully three weeks before Thompson appeared there.
At least, I told myself, I could find out on which boat the Tremaines had come, since I knew the approximate date of their arrival. If Thompson proved to be a fellow-passenger of theirs we had taken an important step forward; if not, some other bit of evidence might possibly be stumbled upon. That should be my task for the luncheon-hour tomorrow; till then, I would permit myself to consider none of the other details of the mystery-I knew how easy it was to get inextricably tangled in a maze of conjecture—and with this resolve I went to bed.
But, as it happened, my noon hour was to be differently occupied. Scarcely was I out of bed next morning, when there came a light tap on my door and Godfrey slipped in the instant I opened it.
“I had a few properties to arrange,” he explained, smiling, “and so thought I’d best come early.”
He went on into the bedroom and opened the closet door. Then he took from his pocket a stout bolt, with screws and a screw-driver, and proceeded to affix it to the inside of the door.
“Now, my dear Lester,” he said, rising when the task was finished, “I’ll have to ask you to run up this noon and let me out.”
“Let you out of where?”
“Out of the closet. You see, unfortunately, this lock works only from the outside, so you’ll have to lock me in before you go. I’ve put on the bolt as an extra precaution.”
“You mean you’re going to spend the whole morning in that closet?”
“That’s precisely what I mean.”
“But you’ll suffocate.”
“No—you see I’ve cut a hole through. That will let in the air; besides, through it one can get an admirable view of the outer room.”
“Ah!” I said, beginning to understand. “It’s a trap!”
“Yes, a trap. Maybe we’ll catch something and maybe we won’t. What time do you usually go to lunch?”
“About one o’clock.”
“That ought to bring you here by one-thirty. Very well; lock me in and take the key with you.”
I did as he bade me, though not without some reluctance, and I confess that I thought of little else during the morning. How the hours dragged—and I pictured to myself Godfrey standing in that narrow space, cramped, half-suffocated, counting the minutes. Yet perhaps he did not find the time so long; perhaps before his eyes some drama was enacting…
One o’clock came at last, and I hurried out and took the Elevated uptown as the quickest way of getting there. It was just one-twenty when I opened my door; with a little shiver of apprehension, I inserted the key in the lock of the closet and threw back the bolt. Godfrey walked out on the instant. He was smiling, but pale with fatigue.
“If you’ve got such a thing as a nip of brandy anywhere about, Lester,” he said, sinking into the nearest chair, “I’d be infinitely obliged for it. I feel rather shaky in the knees.”
I brimmed a glass for him, and he set it down empty, with a sigh of satisfaction.
“That’s better. Do you know, I thought for a time, toward the last, that I was going to collapse. One little crack is scarcely ventilation enough for an active pair of lungs. However, I was repaid.”
“You were?”
“Yes,” and he smiled at my impatience. “I’ll tell you the story, and see what you make of it. First came the chambermaid, who performed her duties with neatness and despatch. Then a dreary half-hour passed. I had about come to the conclusion that I might have spared my pains, when I caught the sound of a key in the lock of the outer door. I heard the door open and close, and an instant later our friend Tremaine appeared within my range of vision.”
“Tremaine!” I exclaimed. “Then he had Thompson’s key!”
“So it seems. Stole it most probably.”
“But why?”
“Ah, if we knew that, we should know everything. I’m glad you didn’t have the lock changed.”
“So am I—it’s added another link to the chain.”
“Yes,” agreed Godfrey, “and a strong one. But my story’s only begun. Tremaine took a look through the rooms to assure himself that there was no one here. He tried the closet door, but didn’t seem surprised or suspicious when he found it locked. Then he went back to the outer room, dropped on his hands and knees and began to search.”
“For the diamond.”
“So I thought, at first. I couldn’t see him for a little while, but presently I perceived that he wasn’t searching over the body of the carpet, but around its edges. He seemed to be looking for a place where it was loose, for he went very slowly from tack to tack. Once I thought he had found it, for he came to a place where a tack was wanting, and ran his hand under eagerly. But in a moment he brought it out again empty.”
“So it couldn’t have been the diamond,” I remarked in perplexity.
“No, it couldn’t have been the diamond,” assented Godfrey, his eyes shining. “But Tremaine wasn’t done yet. Really, he’d make an admirable detective. I admired his methods—though they also gave me a clew to what he was looking for. He placed a chair just here, before this desk, just opposite the bedroom door—you’ll remember that Thompson also had a table and chair similarly placed.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Then he sat down in the chair and began a minute scrutiny of the walls—first that one yonder—he went over it inch by inch until he came to the speaking-tube. Then he sprang up and opened it and peered inside; even holding a lighted match in—let us see,” and Godfrey also examined the tube. “It’s empty.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve used it once or twice, and it works all right.”
“Well, Tremaine wasn’t satisfied with that. He ran his hands along the top ledges of the doors, mounted a chair and peered above the windows—examined every nook and cranny. At last he gave it up, replaced things just as he had found them, glanced at his watch, and went away. Now what was he looking for?”
I cudgelled my brain.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t imagine.”
“Let me help you,” said Godfrey, his eyes shining still more brightly. “I had time to think it all out in the closet there. In the first place, he looked only in the outer room; in the second place, he was plainly looking for something that had been purposely concealed; in the third place, when he examined the room, he placed his chair just where Miss Croydon had sat.”
A flash of light burst upon me.
“The clippings!” I cried.
“The clippings—just that. I haven’t the least doubt of it. And that explains another thing which seemed very puzzling—it explains why Miss Croydon was so anxious to rent this suite. Of course, if she hid the clippings here, she was desperately anxious to recover them, and she’d have got them if Higgins hadn’t been such a superstitious fool.”
Yes, that was plain enough; what had appeared so mysterious was really quite simple, after all. It is so with most mysteries, if one can only see rightly. The trouble is that most of us persist in trying to look beneath the surface instead of examining what is in plain sight. The admirable C. Auguste Dupin was quite right in remarking that truth does not always lie at the bottom of a well.
“But how did he find out about them?” I asked, at last. “Simmonds decided to keep that point to himself, and you have told no one except me.”
“I don’t know—nor how he came to believe they were hidden here.”
“Perhaps Miss Croydon told him,” I suggested. “Perhaps she asked him to get them for her.”
“No, I don’t think so; if she’d done that, she’d have told him where she hid them. I think it much more probable that they contain some secret of his, and he’s concluded she hasn’t got them because she hasn’t produced them against him. And he’s reasoned correctly in supposing that if she hasn’t got them, she must have hidden them here.”
It was a good guess; an adroit one.
“The question is,” added Godfrey, looking about him, “where did she hide them?”
I looked about, too, but I could think of no place which had escaped Tremaine’s scrutiny.
“Perhaps it was in the table she sat before,” said Godfrey, at last. “It must have been some place near at hand, instantly suggesting itself, for Simmonds and I were in the inner room only a minute or two.”
“The table had only a single drawer,” I said, “and I looked through it the night I engaged the rooms. It was empty. I don’t see why Miss Croydon should have concealed the clippings at all; it seems to me that the most natural thing for her to do would be to put them in her pocket.”
“No doubt,” agreed Godfrey; “yet in a moment of excitement like that, the natural thing might be the very last thing she’d think of. Besides, she might have feared that she was to be placed under arrest, and of course she wouldn’t want the clippings to be found on her. But there’s no use sitting here spinning theories. I feel in need of solid refreshment.”
“So do I,” I said, and we went down to the street together.
“By the way,” he added, as we reached the door, “here’s that photograph you asked me for.”
I looked at it, at the coarse, bearded face with its closed eyes—the livid forehead, the full, sensual lips, the heavy, bloated nose. It was not a pleasant sight, but your police photographer does not aim at beauty—he scorns retouching and the other tricks of the trade—he strives only for truth.
“It’s hard to imagine any connection between him and Tremaine,” I remarked.
“Not half so hard as to imagine his connection with Miss Croydon,” commented Godfrey; and I agreed with him.
CHAPTER VII
Success and failure
WHEN I left the office at noon next day, I took a cross-town car which eventually landed me at the foot of West Tenth Street, where the red and black steamers of the Quebec line load and unload their West Indian cargoes. There were other lines plying to Martinique, but none with arrivals which approximated the date given me by Cecily, as I had found by reference to a file of the Maritime Gazette. Of the Quebec fleet, the Parima had arrived on February 23d, and had sailed again on the 5th of March. A reference to the paper of the day before showed me that she had just arrived in port again. There, sure enough, she was, drawn up beside the dock, while two noisy donkey engines were puffing away at the task of lifting great barrels of sugar from her hold. I hunted up the purser without delay.
“May I see your passenger list for your last trip north?” I asked; “the trip before this one.”
“Certainly,” he responded, and produced it.
It was not a long one, and in a moment I had found what I was looking for. Victor Tremaine and wife were fifth on the list. But no “H. Thompson” appeared there. However, I had a last resource—I had scarcely expected to find him entered among the passengers.
“Is the captain aboard?” I inquired.
“Captain Hake has gone over to his home on Long Island for a day or two,” answered the purser. “The first officer, Mr. Grice, is forward, superintending the unloading.”
“Thank you,” I said, and hurried up to the deck. I found Mr. Grice without difficulty, a tall, blond young man, with eyes of a cerulean blue. “Can you spare me a moment?” I asked, after I had introduced myself.
“Why, I guess so. What is it?”
“Did you ever see this man before?” and I produced the photograph Godfrey had given me.
“Well, I should say so!” he cried, at the first glance. “And I hope I’ll never see him ag’in. Thompson his name is, and we shipped him at Barbadoes, in place of one of our men who deserted there. He didn’t have a decent rag to his back, so we fitted him up with some old things out of the slop-chest.”
I nodded; that explained the different initials marked on his clothing.
“He only shipped as far as St. Pierre,” continued the mate; “but after we’d got there, he changed his mind and come on to New York. What’s he been doin’? Gettin’ into more trouble? He’s not been out of jail more’n three or four weeks.”
“Out of jail?”
“Yes—he was a regular fiend for booze, though we didn’t find it out until after we left St. Pierre. Where he got it I don’t know—he didn’t have any money t’ buy it, that’s sure. I’ve kind o’ thought one of the passengers must ’a’ give it to him, though I can’t imagine why. But anyway, he was half-drunk three-fourths of the time and dead drunk the other fourth. We’d find him layin’ in his berth and we’d yank him out and drop him into a tub of water. He’d sober up quicker ’n any man I ever see, but he was never satisfied unless he had a pint or two inside him. When we tied up at the wharf here, he got awful bad—wanted t’ go ashore right away—fought the captain when he wouldn’t let him. The captain handed him over to a policeman, and he got twenty days on the island.”
I nodded again; so that was why he was so long after Tremaine in putting in an appearance at the Marathon.
“Let’s see the picture,” he added, and looked at it more closely. “That’s the very son-of-a-gun. What’s the matter with him, anyway? Asleep? Drunk more likely.”
“No,” I said, “he’s dead.”
“Dead? Drank hisself to death, hey?”
“No; somebody murdered him.”
“Oh, shucks! What’d anybody want to murder him for? Most likely he was tryin’ to kill somebody else and got a dose of his own medicine.”
“That may be,” I assented; and indeed the suggestion was not without its merits. “We’ve been trying to find out something about him. Can you tell us anything?”
“Not a thing more’n I’ve told you. He was on the bum down there in Barbadoes for sure.”
“Do you think the captain would know anything more?”
“No, I don’t. Plant him in Potter’s Field and good riddance. I’ll bet he didn’t get any more’n was comin’ to him.”
With which sage reflection, he turned back to his work, while I sought the shore. On the way back to the office, I turned the mate’s story over in my mind. It had, at least, served to establish one thing—a connection, however slender, between Thompson and Tremaine. It was evident that Thompson had intended joining Tremaine at St. Pierre, but when he found him embarking on the Parima, stayed with the vessel so that they might reach New York together. That it was Tremaine who had supplied the other with spirits on the voyage north I did not doubt; Thompson, then, had some claim upon Tremaine—a claim, perhaps, of friendship, of association in crime; a claim, doubtless, to which those missing clippings gave the clew. If I could only find them! But Tremaine had searched for them with a thoroughness which had excited even Godfrey’s admiration. No doubt Miss Croydon had them at this moment in the pocket of her gown; or perhaps she had destroyed them without realising their importance. But she must have realised it, or she would never have dared take them from that repulsive body; she must have known exactly what they contained, if they were the papers she had gone to suite fourteen to get…
I felt that I was getting tangled in a snarl of my own making, and I gave it up.
Godfrey came into the office that evening, just as I was closing my desk.
“I want you to go to dinner with me,” he said. “I have to run down to Washington tonight, and it may be three or four days before I get back. I want to talk things over.”
We took a cab uptown and stopped at Riley’s—the Studio, alas! had closed its doors—and we were presently ensconced in a snug corner, where we could talk without danger of being overheard.
“I’ve found out a few things about Tremaine,” began Godfrey, as the waiter hurried away with our order.
“And I about Thompson,” I said.
“You have?” and he looked at me in surprise. “How in the world did you do it?”
His astonishment was distinctly complimentary, and I related with considerable gratification my conversation with the mate of the Parima.
“Well,” observed Godfrey, when I had finished, “that was a bright idea of yours—that establishes the link between the two men. Our St. Pierre correspondent wires us that Tremaine arrived there some three years ago, presumably from South America. He bought a little plantation just outside the town and settled there. He seemed to have plenty of money when he arrived, but he probably spent it all—on that girl Cecily, perhaps—for before he sailed, he borrowed thirty-five hundred francs with his plantation as security.”
“Seven hundred dollars—that wouldn’t go far,” I commented.
“No—let’s see just how far,” and Godfrey drew the menu card toward him and made the following computation in one corner:
“You see, he hadn’t enough to run him a month—and he’s been here nearly twice that long. Besides, that estimate is much too low—for it’s evident that he’s an extravagant liver. He’s been moving in expensive company and has, of course, been keeping up his end. Then, too, I don’t doubt that he provided for Thompson—gave him enough money, anyway, to keep drunk on—that’s the only way to explain Thompson’s taking an apartment like that. I should say that fifteen hundred dollars would be a low estimate for the two months. Of course, he had to get all his clothing new—Martinique clothing wouldn’t do for March New York.”
“All of which indicates,” I said, “either that he had other resources or that he’s received some money—a thousand dollars, at least—since he’s been here.”
“Precisely—and I incline to the latter theory. He’s working some sort of tremendous bunco game. He’s playing for big stakes. He’s not the man to play for little ones.”
“No,” I assented, “he’s not,” and we fell silent while the waiter removed the dishes.
Over the cigars, afterwards, neither of us said much; we were both, I think, trying to find some ray of light in the darkness. At last, Godfrey took out his watch and glanced at it.
“I must be going,” he said, as he tore into little bits the menu card upon which he had made his computation. “My train leaves at nine.”
We put on our coats and went out together. On the steps we paused.
“There’s one thing, Lester,” he said; “we’re making progress, and he doesn’t suspect us. That’s our great advantage. Perhaps we may catch him off his guard. During the next week, keep your eyes open and find out how much Cecily knows. Another thing—keep a clear head—don’t let that siren”
“No danger,” I interrupted, and half unconsciously I touched a ring on my finger.
He smiled as he saw the gesture.
“Oh, yes; I’d forgotten about that. Where is she now?”
“In Florida—she and her mother. They’re coming north next month.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m glad you’ve got the ring—you’ll need it this next week. I wish the chance was mine—Cecily, I’m sure, knows a good many interesting things about Tremaine. Besides, I haven’t got your high moral scruples—I believe in fighting fire with fire. However, do your best. I’ll look you up as soon as I get back. Good-bye.”
I watched him until the crowd hid him; then I turned toward my rooms a little miserably. Without Godfrey to back me, I felt singularly weak and helpless. If Tremaine were really the finished scoundrel we supposed him, what chance had I against him? But perhaps he was not; perhaps we were wide of the mark—looking for truth at the bottom of a well instead of on the mountain-top.
The next day was Saturday. Tremaine was to leave in the afternoon for his week’s absence, and he came in before I left in the morning to say goodbye. He seemed strangely elated and triumphant; his eyes were even brighter than usual, the colour came and went in his cheeks—he presented, altogether, a most fascinating appearance. He lingered only a moment to shake hands and thank me again.
“Cecily is jealous of these last moments,” he said, with a laugh. “She’s a spoilt child—and like a child, her moods are only of the moment—she’ll be gay as a lark tomorrow. Well, au revoir, my friend,” and he waved his hand to me and closed the door behind him.
With the vision of him yet in my eyes, I saw clearly for the first time how weak and puny and ineffective was the chain of evidence which we were endeavouring to forge about him. He rose superior to it, shattered it, cast it aside, trampled on it contemptuously—emerged unstained. I had permitted myself to be blinded by Godfrey’s prejudices—no unbiassed person would ever believe Tremaine guilty. Then I remembered that sudden, infernal smile he had cast at me two nights before, and some of the glory fell from him.
At the office, I found awaiting me a note from Godfrey, scribbled hastily in the station of the Pennsylvania road.
Dear Lester [it ran]: By the merest good luck, I met Jack Drysdale just after I left you. Drysdale is betrothed to Miss Croydon, and is to be one of a little house party which Mrs. Delroy has arranged at her country house near Babylon, Long Island. Tremaine is to be a guest also! That is where he will spend the week, and it’s evident he’s going there with a purpose. I would give worlds to be there, but Drysdale has promised to keep a journal of events — he’s willing to do a good deal for me — and to wire me if anything unusual happens. So I hope for the best. Remember to keep your eyes open.
"Godfrey"
It is principally from Drysdale’s journal that I have drawn the story of those eventful days.
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