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"The stones have all been turned over once."
"By you?"
"Not altogether by me."
"Then they will bear being turned over again. I want to be witness
of the operation."
"Where will you see Miss Clarke?"
"Wherever she pleases--only I can't walk far."
"I think I know the place. You shall have the use of this elevator.
It has not been running since last night or it would be full of
curious people all the time, hustling to get a glimpse of this place.
But they'll put a man on for you."
"Very good; manage it as you will. I'll wait here till you're ready.
Explain yourself to the lady. Tell her I'm an old and rheumatic
invalid who has been used to asking his own questions. I'll not
trouble her much. But there is one point she must make clear to me."
Sweetwater did not presume to ask what point, but he hoped to be
fully enlightened when the time came.
And he was. Mr. Gryce had undertaken to educate him for this work,
and never missed the opportunity of giving him a lesson. The three
met in a private sitting-room on an upper floor, the detectives
entering first and the lady coming in soon after. As her quiet
figure appeared in the doorway, Sweetwater stole a glance at Mr.
Gryce. He was not looking her way, of course; he never looked
directly at anybody; but he formed his impressions for all that,
and Sweetwater was anxious to make sure of these impressions.
There was no doubting them in this instance. Miss Clarke was not
a woman to rouse an unfavourable opinion in any man's mind. Of
slight, almost frail build, she had that peculiar animation which
goes with a speaking eye and a widely sympathetic nature. Without
any substantial claims to beauty, her expression was so womanly and
so sweet that she was invariably called lovely.
Mr. Gryce was engaged at the moment in shifting his cane from the
right hand to the left, but his manner was never more encouraging
or his smile more benevolent.
"Pardon me," he apologised, with one of his old-fashioned bows,
"I'm sorry to trouble you after all the distress you must have been
under this morning. But there is something I wish especially to
ask you in regard to the dreadful occurrence in which you played so
kind a part. You were the first to reach the prostrate woman, I
believe."
"Yes. The boys jumped up and ran towards her, but they were
frightened by her looks and left it for me to put my hands under
her and try to lift her up."
"Did you manage it?"
"I succeeded in getting her head into my lap, nothing more."
"And sat so?"
"For some little time. That is, it seemed long, though I believe
it was not more than a minute before two men came running from the
musicians' gallery. One thinks so fast at such a time--and feels
so much."
"You knew she was dead, then?"
"I felt her to be so."
"How felt?"
"I was sure--I never questioned it."
"You have seen women in a faint?"
"Yes, many times."
"What made the difference? Why should you believe Miss Challoner
dead simply because she lay still and apparently lifeless?"
"I cannot tell you. Possibly, death tells its own story. I only
know how I felt."
"Perhaps there was another reason? Perhaps, that, consciously or
unconsciously, you laid your palm upon her heart?"
Miss Clarke started, and her sweet face showed a moment's perplexity.
"Did I?" she queried, musingly. Then with a sudden access of
feeling, "I may have done so, indeed, I believe I did. My arms
were around her; it would not have been an unnatural action."
"No; a very natural one, I should say. Cannot you tell me
positively whether you did this or not?"
"Yes, I did. I had forgotten it, but I remember now." And the
glance she cast him while not meeting his eye showed that she
understood the importance of the admission. "I know," she said,
"what you are going to ask me now. Did I feel anything there but
the flowers and the tulle? No, Mr. Gryce, I did not. There was
no poniard in the wound."
Mr. Gryce felt around, found a chair and sank into it.
"You are a truthful woman," said he. "And," he added more slowly,
"composed enough in character I should judge not to have made any
mistake on this very vital point."
"I think so, Mr. Gryce. I was in a state of excitement, of course;
but the woman was a stranger to me, and my feelings were not unduly
agitated."
"Sweetwater, we can let my suggestion go in regard to those ten
minutes I spoke of. The time is narrowed down to one, and in that
one, Miss Clarke was the only person to touch her."
"The only one," echoed the lady, catching perhaps the slight
rising sound of query in his voice.
"I will trouble you no further." So said the old detective,
thoughtfully. "Sweetwater, help me out of this." His eye was dull
and his manner betrayed exhaustion. But vigour returned to him
before he had well reached the door, and he showed some of his old
spirit as he thanked Miss Clarke and turned to take the elevator.
"But one possibility remains," he confided to Sweetwater, as they
stood waiting at the elevator door. "Miss Challoner died from a
stab. The next minute she was in this lady's arms. No weapon
protruded from the wound, nor was any found on or near her in the
mezzanine. What follows? She struck the blow herself, and the
strength of purpose which led her to do this, gave her the
additional force to pull the weapon out and fling it from her. It
did not fall upon the floor around her; therefore, it flew through
one of those openings into the lobby, and there it either will be,
or has been found."
It was this statement, otherwise worded, which gave me my triumph
over George.
V
THE RED CLOAK
"What results? Speak up, Sweetwater."
"None. Every man, woman and boy connected with the hotel has been
questioned; many of them routed out of their beds for the purpose,
but not one of them picked up anything from the floor of the lobby,
or knows of any one who did."
"There now remain the guests."
"And after them--(pardon me, Mr. Gryce) the general public which
rushed in rather promiscuously last night."
"I know it; it's a task, but it must be carried through. Put up
bulletins, publish your wants in the papers;--do anything, only
gain your end."
A bulletin was put up.
Some hours later, Sweetwater re-entered the room, and, approaching
Mr. Gryce with a smile, blurted out:
"The bulletin is a great go. I think--of course, I cannot be sure
--that it's going to do the business. I've watched every one who
stopped to read it. Many showed interest and many, emotion; she
seems to have had a troop of friends. But embarrassment! only one
showed that. I thought you would like to know."
"Embarrassment? Humph! a man?"
"No, a woman; a lady, sir; one of the transients. I found out in
a jiffy all they could tell me about her."
"A woman! We didn't expect that. Where is she? Still in the
lobby?"
"No, sir. She took the elevator while I was talking with the clerk."
"There's nothing in it. You mistook her expression."
"I don't think so. I had noticed her when she first came into the
lobby. She was talking to her daughter who was with her, and looked
natural and happy. But no sooner had she seen and read that
bulletin, than the blood shot up into her face and her manner became
furtive and hasty. There was no mistaking the difference, sir.
Almost before I could point her out, she had seized her daughter by
the arm and hurried her towards the elevator. I wanted to follow
her, but you may prefer to make your own inquiries. Her room is on
the seventh floor, number 712, and her name is Watkins. Mrs. Horace
Watkins of Nashville."
Mr. Gryce nodded thoughtfully, but made no immediate effort to rise.
"Is that all you know about her?" he asked.
"Yes; this is the first time she has stopped at this hotel. She
came yesterday. Took a room indefinitely. Seems all right; but she
did blush, sir. I ever saw its beat in a young girl."
"Call the desk. Say that I'm to be told if Mrs. Watkins of
Nashville rings up during the next ten minutes. We'll give her
that long to take some action. If she fails to make any move, I'll
make my own approaches."
Sweetwater did as he was bid, then went back to his place in the
lobby.
But he returned almost instantly.
"Mrs. Watkins has just telephoned down that she is going to--to
leave, sir."
"To leave?"
The old man struggled to his feet. "No. 712, do you say? Seven
stories," he sighed. But as he turned with a hobble, he stopped.
"There are difficulties in the way of this interview," he remarked.
"A blush is not much to go upon. I'm afraid we shall have to resort
to the shadow business and that is your work, not mine."
But here the door opened and a boy brought in a line which had been
left at the desk. It related to the very matter then engaging them,
and ran thus:
"I see that information is desired as to whether any person was
seen to stoop to the lobby floor last night at or shortly after
the critical moment of Miss Challoner's fall in the half story
above. I can give such information. I was in the lobby at the
time, and in the height of the confusion following this alarming
incident, I remember seeing a lady,--one of the new arrivals
(there were several coming in at the time)--stoop quickly down
and pick up something from the floor. I thought nothing of it at
the time, and so paid little attention to her appearance. I can
only recall the suddenness with which she stooped and the colour
of the cloak she wore. It was red, and the whole garment was
voluminous. If you wish further particulars, though in truth, I
have no more to give, you can find me in 356.
"HENRY A. MCELROY."
"Humph! This should simplify our task," was Mr. Gryce's comment,
as he handed the note over to Sweetwater. "You can easily find out
if the lady, now on the point of departure, can be identified with
the one described by Mr. McElroy. If she can, I am ready to meet
her anywhere."
"Here goes then!" cried Sweetwater, and quickly left the room.
When he returned, it was not with his most hopeful air.
"The cloak doesn't help," he declared. "No one remembers the cloak.
But the time of Mrs. Watkins' arrival was all right. She came in
directly on the heels of this catastrophe."
"She did! Sweetwater, I will see her. Manage it for me at once."
"The clerk says that it had better be upstairs. She is a very
sensitive woman. There might be a scene, if she were intercepted
on her way out."
"Very well." But the look which the old detective threw at his
bandaged legs was not without its pathos.
And so it happened that just as Mrs. Watkins was watching the
wheeling out of her trunks, there appeared in the doorway before
her, an elderly gentleman, whose expression, always benevolent,
save at moments when benevolence would be quite out of keeping with
the situation, had for some reason, so marked an effect upon her,
that she coloured under his eye, and, indeed, showed such
embarrassment, that all doubt of the propriety of his intrusion
vanished from the old man's mind, and with the ease of one only too
well accustomed to such scenes, he kindly remarked:
"Am I speaking to Mrs. Watkins of Nashville?"
"You are," she faltered, with another rapid change of colour. "I
--I am just leaving. I hope you will excuse me. I--"
"I wish I could," he smiled, hobbling in and confronting her
quietly in her own room. "But circumstances make it quite imperative
that I should have a few words with you on a topic which need not
be disagreeable to you, and probably will not be. My name is Gryce.
This will probably convey nothing to you, but I am not unknown to the
management below, and my years must certainly give you confidence in
the propriety of my errand. A beautiful and charming young woman
died here last night. May I ask if you knew her?"
"I?" She was trembling violently now, but whether with indignation
or some other more subtle emotion, it would be difficult to say.
"No, I'm from the South. I never saw the young lady. Why do you
ask? I do not recognise your right. I--I--"
Certainly her emotion must be that of simple indignation. Mr. Gryce
made one of his low bows, and propping himself against the table he
stood before, remarked civilly:--
"I had rather not force my rights. The matter is so very ordinary.
I did not suppose you knew Miss Challoner, but one must begin
somehow, and as you came in at the very moment when the alarm was
raised in the lobby, I thought perhaps you could tell me something
which would aid me in my effort to elicit the real facts of the case.
You were crossing the lobby at the time--"
"Yes." She raised her head. "So were a dozen others--"
"Madam,"--the interruption was made in his kindliest tones, but in
a way which nevertheless suggested authority. "Something was picked
up from the floor at that moment. If the dozen you mention were
witnesses to this act we do not know it. But we do know that it
did not pass unobserved by you. Am I not correct? Didn't you see
a certain person--I will mention no names--stoop and pick up
something from the lobby floor?"
"No." The word came out with startling violence. "I was conscious
of nothing but the confusion." She was facing him with determination
and her eyes were fixed boldly on his face. But her lips quivered,
and her cheeks were white, too white now for simple indignation.
"Then I have made a big mistake," apologised the ever-courteous
detective. "Will you pardon me? It would have settled a very
serious question if it could be found that the object thus picked
up was the weapon which killed Miss Challoner. That is my excuse
for the trouble I have given you."
He was not looking at her; he was looking at her hand which rested
on the table before which he himself stood. Did the fingers tighten
a little and dig into the palm they concealed? He thought so, and
was very slow in turning limpingly about towards the door.
Meanwhile, would she speak? No. The silence was so marked, he
felt it an excuse for stealing another glance in her direction. She
was not looking his way but at a door in the partition wall on her
right; and the look was one very akin to anxious fear. The next
moment he understood it. The door burst open, and a young girl
bounded into the room, with the merry cry:
"All ready, mother. I'm glad we are going to the Clarendon. I
hate hotels where people die almost before your eyes."
What the mother said at this outburst is immaterial. What the
detective did is not. Keeping on his way, he reached the door, but
not to open it wider; rather to close it softly but with unmistakable
decision. The cloak which enveloped the girl was red, and full
enough to be called voluminous.
"Who is this?" demanded the girl, her indignant glances flashing
from one to the other.
"I don't know," faltered the mother in very evident distress. "He
says he has a right to ask us questions and he has been asking
questions about--about--"
"Not about me," laughed the girl, with a toss of her head Mr. Gryce
would have corrected in one of his grandchildren. "He can have
nothing to say about me." And she began to move about the room
in an aimless, half-insolent way.
Mr. Gryce stared hard at the few remaining belongings of the two
women, lying in a heap on the table, and half musingly, half
deprecatingly, remarked:
"The person who stooped wore a long red cloak. Probably you
preceded your daughter, Mrs. Watkins."
The lady thus brought to the point made a quick gesture towards the
girl who suddenly stood still, and, with a rising colour in her
cheeks, answered, with some show of resolution on her own part:
"You say your name is Gryce and that you have a right to address me
thus pointedly on a subject which you evidently regard as serious.
That is not exact enough for me. Who are you, sir? What is your
business?"
"I think you have guessed it. I am a detective from Headquarters.
What I want of you I have already stated. Perhaps this young lady
can tell me what you cannot. I shall be pleased if this is so."
"Caroline"--Then the mother broke down. "Show the gentleman what
you picked up from the lobby floor last night."
The girl laughed again, loudly and with evident bravado, before
she threw the cloak back and showed what she had evidently been
holding in her hand from the first, a sharp-pointed, gold-handled
paper-cutter.
"It was lying there and I picked it up. I don't see any harm in
that."
"You probably meant none. You couldn't have known the part it
had just played in this tragic drama," said the old detective
looking carefully at the cutter which he had taken in his hand,
but not so carefully that he failed to note that the look of
distress was not lifted from the mother's face either by her
daughter's words or manner.
"You have washed this?" he asked.
"No. Why should I wash it? It was clean enough. I was just going
down to give it in at the desk. I wasn't going to carry it away."
And she turned aside to the window and began to hum, as though done
with the whole matter.
The old detective rubbed his chin, glanced again at the paper-cutter,
then at the girl in the window, and lastly at the mother, who had
lifted her head again and was facing him bravely.
"It is very important," he observed to the latter, "that your
daughter should be correct in her statement as to the condition of
this article when she picked it up. Are you sure she did not wash
it?"
"I don't think she did. But I'm sure she will tell you the truth
about that. Caroline, this is a police matter. Any mistake about
it may involve us in a world of trouble and keep you from getting
back home in time for your coming-out party. Did you--did you
wash this cutter when you got upstairs, or--or--" she added, with
a propitiatory glance at Mr. Gryce--"wipe it off at any time between
then and now? Don't answer hastily. Be sure. No one can blame you
for that act. Any girl, as thoughtless as you, might do that."
"Mother, how can I tell what I did?" flashed out the girl, wheeling
round on her heel till she faced them both. "I don't remember doing
a thing to it. I just brought it up. A thing found like that
belongs to the finder. You needn't hold it out towards me like that.
I don't want it now; I'm sick of it. Such a lot of talk about a
paltry thing which couldn't have cost ten dollars." And she wheeled
back.
"It isn't the value." Mr. Gryce could be very patient. "It's the
fact that we believe it to have been answerable for Miss Challoner's
death--that is, if there was any blood on it when you picked it
up."
"Blood!" The girl was facing them again, astonishment struggling
with disgust on her plain but mobile features. "Blood! is that
what you mean. No wonder I hate it. Take it away," she cried.
"Oh, mother, I'll never pick up anything again which doesn't belong
to me! Blood!" she repeated in horror, flinging herself into her
mother's arms.
Mr. Gryce thought he understood the situation. Here was a little
kleptomaniac whose weakness the mother was struggling to hide.
Light was pouring in. He felt his body's weight less on that
miserable foot of his.
"Does that frighten you? Are you so affected by the thought of
blood?"
"Don't ask me. And I put the thing under my pillow! I thought
it was so--so pretty."
"Mrs. Watkins," Mr. Gryce from that moment ignored the daughter,
"did you see it there?"
"Yes; but I didn't know where it came from. I had not seen my
daughter stoop. I didn't know where she got it till I read that
bulletin."
"Never mind that. The question agitating me is whether any stain
was left under that pillow. We want to be sure of the connection
between this possible weapon and the death by stabbing which we
all deplore--if there is a connection."
"I didn't see any stain, but you can look for yourself. The bed
has been made up, but there was no change of linen. We expected
to remain here; I see no good to be gained by hiding any of the
facts now."
"None whatever, Madam."
"Come, then. Caroline, sit down and stop crying. Mr. Gryce
believes that your only fault was in not taking this object at once
to the desk."
"Yes, that's all," acquiesced the detective after a short study
of the shaking figure and distorted features of the girl. "You had
no idea, I'm sure, where this weapon came from, or for what it had
been used. That's evident."
Her shudder, as she seated herself, was very convincing. She was
too young to simulate so successfully emotions of this character.
"I'm glad of that," she responded, half fretfully, half gratefully,
as Mr. Gryce followed her mother into the adjoining room. "I've
had a bad enough time of it without being blamed for what I didn't
know and didn't do."
Mr. Gryce laid little stress upon these words, but much upon the
lack of curiosity she showed in the minute and careful examination
he now made of her room. There was no stain on the pillow-cover
and none on the bureau-spread where she might very naturally have
laid the cutter down on first coming into her room. The blade was
so polished that it must have been rubbed off somewhere, either
purposely or by accident. Where then, since not here? He asked to
see her gloves--the ones she had worn the previous night.
"They are the same she is wearing now," the anxious mother assured
him. "Wait, and I will get them for you."
"No need. Let her hold out her hands in token of amity. I shall
soon see."
They returned to where the girl still sat, wrapped in her cloak,
sobbing still, but not so violently.
"Caroline, you may take off your things," said the mother, drawing
the pins from her own hat. "We shall not go to-day."
The child shot her mother one disappointed look, then proceeded to
follow suit. When her hat was off, she began to take off her gloves.
As soon as they were on the table, the mother pushed them over to Mr.
Gryce. As he looked at them, the girl lifted off her cloak.
"Will--will he tell?" she whispered behind its ample folds into her
mother's ear.
The answer came quickly, but not in the mother's tones. Mr. Gryce's
ears had lost none of their ancient acuteness.
"I do not see that I should gain much by doing so. The one
discovery which would link this find of yours indissolubly with
Miss Challoner's death, I have failed to make. If I am equally
unsuccessful below--if I can establish no closer connection there
than here between this cutter and the weapon which killed Miss
Challoner, I shall have no cause to mention the matter. It will be
too extraneous to the case. Do you remember the exact spot where
you stooped, Miss Watkins?"
"No, no. Somewhere near those big chairs; I didn't have to step out
of my way; I really didn't."
Mr. Gryce's answering smile was a study. It seemed to convey a
two-fold message, one for the mother and one for the child, and both
were comforting. But he went away, disappointed. The clew which
promised so much was, to all appearance, a false one.
He could soon tell.
VI
INTEGRITY
Mr. Gryce's fears were only too well founded. Though Mr. McElroy
was kind enough to point out the exact spot where he saw Miss Watkins
stoop, no trace of blood was found upon the rug which had lain there,
nor had anything of the kind been washed up by the very careful man
who scrubbed the lobby floor in the early morning. This was
disappointing, as its presence would have settled the whole question.
When, these efforts all exhausted, the two detectives faced each
other again in the small room given up to their use, Mr. Gryce showed
his discouragement. To be certain of a fact you cannot prove has not
the same alluring quality for the old that it has for the young.
Sweetwater watched him in some concern, then with the persistence
which was one of his strong points, ventured finally to remark:
"I have but one idea left on the subject."
"And what is that?" Old as he was, Mr. Gryce was alert in a moment.
"The girl wore a red cloak. If I mistake not, the lining was also
red. A spot on it might not show to the casual observer. Yet it
would mean much to us."
"Sweetwater!"
A faint blush rose to the old man's cheek.
"Shall I request the privilege of looking that garment over?"
"Yes."
The young fellow ducked and left the room. When he returned, it
was with a downcast air.
"Nothing doing," said he.
And then there was silence.
"We only need to find out now that this cutter was not even Miss
Challoner's property," remarked Mr. Gryce, at last, with a gesture
towards the object named, lying openly on the table before him.
"That should be easy. Shall I take it to their rooms and show it
to her maid?"
"If you can do so without disturbing the old gentleman."
But here they were themselves disturbed. A knock at the door was
followed by the immediate entrance of the very person just mentioned.
Mr. Challoner had come in search of the inspector, and showed some
surprise to find his place occupied by an unknown old man.
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