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2777. 27
Harvard College
- Library
By Exchange

















“How I succeeded I cannot imagine, but I found myself somehow out or
the street and beyond the fringe of the crowd" -
- -
- -


THE CLUE IN THE AIR
*
A DETECTIVE STORY
BY
ISABEL OSTRANDER

AUTHOR OF
“THE CREvice,” “AT 1.30," Etc.
Frontispiece by
PAUL STAHR
AW,\)
º
ſ\

NEW YORK
W. J. WATT & CoMPANY
PUBLISHERS


*
* *. * ºf a
-
CopyRIGHT, 1917, By
w. J. WATT & COMPANY
Press of
BRAunworth & Co.
Book MAnufacture R8
Brooklyn, N. Y.


CONTENTS
cHAPTER pace
I. “Out of THE NIGHT ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I
II. “ROSES AND A KNIFE ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I5
III. THE BROADENING TRAIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
IV. IDENTIFIED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
| V. THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBy...... 43
VI. TERHUNE TAKES A HAND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
VII. THE METHODs of WADE TERHUNE... . . . . 68
VIII. THE MAN IN THE CoRNER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
IX. THE INQUEST. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
X. THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE. . . . . . . . . . . Io;
XI. THE MOTIVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I2O
XII. ANOTHER OF THEM! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3 I
XIII. THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE. . . . . . . . . . 136
XIV. AN UNExPECTED DEPARTURE. . . . . . . . . . . . I45
XV. Tony.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I57
XVI. Miss BeckwitH INTERVENEs. . . . . . . . . . . . I7o
XVII. THE PASSING OF MARY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
XVIII. THE MAN WITH THE SKULL CAP. . . . . . . . . I95
XIX. WHERE THE ROAD ForkED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O7
! XX. THE GRAVE YAwNs... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O
XXI. THE WARNING... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23o
º XXII. “THE MAN FROM NowHERE ". . . . . . . . . . . 242
XXIII. SEALED LIPs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
XXIV. “THE BURNISHED PIPE ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
XXV. THE PASSER-BY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
XXVI. THE FLYING MAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
XXVII. THE ScIENCE OF Ex-RoundSMAN McCARTY 3oo


TO
3łahert {ſ}. ſlauig
WITH THE APPRECIATION
OF THE AUTHOR
;


THE CLUE IN THE AIR
CHAPTER I
“OUT OF THE NIGHT”
Tº: heat wave, almost unprecedented in intensity
even for mid-July, had held the city in its re-
lentless grip for more than a week, and the
night, sultry and overcast, brought no relief. Although
it lacked an hour until midnight, the streets were prac-
tically deserted, and the subdued sparsely scattered
lights in the towering, clifflike apartment houses on either
side shone through a haze, as if the very pavements
steamed.
A solitary figure strolled aimlessly down the Drive.
Heavy-set without being bulky, broad of shoulders and
curiously long of arm, he swung along with a rhythmic,
measured tread, the glow of his cigar revealing a square-
jawed face, the long upper lip adorned with a stubby,
sandy mustache, and keen, twinkling blue eyes, which
mechanically roved over entrance ways and areas as he
passed. -
A second figure had halted beneath the street lamp on
the corner, and catching sight of the familiar blue coat
and brass buttons, he quickened his pace, but still re-
taining the swinging stride which was a relic of the years
when he, too, had followed his beat.
Timothy McCarty's promotion on the force, from
policeman to roundsman, had been rapid, and the stripes
of a sergeant were within reach when the death of a


2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
prosperous, saloon-keeping uncle had made him finan-
cially independent. In the first flush of opulence he
resigned from the department, but the life of elegant
leisure looked forward to with such satisfaction had
proved empty and monotonous, and time dragged. Al-
though a private citizen for several years now, he still
yearned for the old excitement and glory of the chase,
and treasured the long-past associations.
“A hot night, Cunliffe.”
“It is that, Macſ” the policeman responded, as he
took off his helmet to wipe his glistening forehead. “The
heat that’s been after soaking into the street all day comes
up now like the blast of a furnace, and there ain't a breath
stirring. We'll have a storm, though, before morning,
I'm thinking.”
McCarty's huge shoulders moved with a gesture of
impatience, as if this atmospheric dissertation was be-
side the point at issue.
“Anything doing?” His question was casually put,
but behind it was a note of wistful eagerness lost on
the other.
“Divil a thing!” Cunliffe eased a forefinger between
his collar and perspiring throat. “There was a drunk
down the block there, but he moved on peaceable. Even
the cats in the back yards are too wilted to put up a
scrap. Besides, this is a quiet district, all flats, and half
of them closed now for the summer. Nothing ever
happens around here.”
“Then look out. When it does come, it'll come big,”
remarked McCarty sagely. “I mind when I was on the
force all the brawls in the tough wards put together
didn't give us half the trouble of one crime pulled off
in a residential section.” -
“Oh, sure!” the younger man acquiesced indifferently.
“Nobody cares when one dago knifes another, but if
--|


“OUT OF THE NIGHT” 3
some guy scraggs a high-roller and we don't pinch him
on the job, the papers let out a holler, and we're liable
for a shake-up.”
“It's not alone that.” McCarthy tilted his cigar at an
argumentative angle. “If two men have a run-in on a
Bowery street corner and one of them falls, it's a matter
of wind, not brains, to nab the other one. But the more
educated a fellow is, like the class around here, the more
careful he is to plan his get-away and cover his tracks,
and the department has got its work cut out for it to
land him.”
Cunliffe laughed.
“I’ve been on this beat for six months, and I’ve seen
nothing more desperate than a lost kid and a scrap be-
tween janitors. Drop in at the station and have a look
at the blotter, and you’ll find it as clean as the palm of
your hand. Sure, a cripple could keep order in the
whole ward.” A pause. “Well, Conners is waiting to
relieve me; I’ll be after moving on.”
He saluted and tramped off, and McCarty sauntered on
around the corner in the direction from which the other
had come. The side street was brighter than the Drive,
for glowing lamps shone out from the entrances of the
apartment houses which flanked it. Cunliffe's “drunk”
had disappeared, but the street was not quite deserted.
In the shadows on the opposite side, toward the farther
corner, two indistinct figures loitered, and near them
at the curb stood a huge, tightly closed limousine.
“Is it the air they are afraid of, on a night like this?”
mused McCarty.
He walked on leisurely, his eyes upon the enigmatic ve-
hicle until he had all but reached the end of the block,
when that happened which drove all idle speculation
from his mind.
There was a sharp, choking cry from somewhere over-


4 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
head, and a swift rush of air as something hurtled down
and fell with a hideous crashing impact on the pavement
at his feet.
“Glory be to God!” The exclamation burst from
McCarty's lips as he involuntarily recoiled, then recov-
ering himself, sprang forward. A widening stain was
creeping out on all sides from the quivering heap, but
unmindful of it, he knelt and felt about the sodden, silken
mass until his hands touched a long strand of hair.
Gently, pityingly he raised the mangled head, and as he
did so a hissing sigh escaped from the tortured lips.
“The-flying—man!”
McCarty glanced up at the murky blankness of the
sky. Could he have heard aright? His eyes traveled
swiftly to the apartment house beside him, from which
the woman must have fallen. There were lights only
in the third and fourth floor windows directly overhead.
The upper of the two was open, but the lower one was
closed and the shade drawn down. He was aware, too,
that a piano was playing riotously somewhere above, and
even as he looked, the shade flew violently up on the
third floor, the window opened, and a woman appeared,
screaming.
In reality scarce a full minute had passed since the
catastrophe, but the shock of it had dulled McCarty's
usually hair-triggered presence of mind. The shrill cry
overhead aroused him, and he beat a rapid tattoo upon
the pavement with his cane in lieu of a nightstick, then
glanced about for assistance.
The two figures lounging across the way had disap-
peared, and the tail lights of the limousine blinked as it
rounded the corner with almost stealthy speed, but hur-
ried steps sounded from behind McCarty, and a young
man with dropped jaw and protruding eyes bent over him.
“Gawd!” he muttered. “Jumped, did she?”


;
“OUT OF THE NIGHT” 5
“Or was thrown,” McCarty returned. “Help me lift
her.”
The young man shuddered, but obeyed, and between
them they raised the limp form.
“Where’ll we take her?”
“In here.” McCarty indicated the apartment-house
entrance. “There's a little sign in that window. I guess
maybe it's a doctor's office.” -
A negro hall-boy met them at the door, and at sight
of their burden his dusky skin paled and his knees shook
visibly beneath him.
“Is there a doctor in there?” demanded McCarty
bruskly. “One of your tenants has got hurt.”
The boy stared, tongue-tied and quaking, but at that
moment the door of the office was flung open and the
doctor himself appeared on the threshold. He was a
slim, dapper individual, wearing huge-rimmed glasses on
the broadest of black ribbons, and he appeared to take
in the situation at a glance.
“Accident?” he asked briskly. “Bring her right in
here. That's it, ease her down on the couch. Um-m, bad!
Pad I’”
“Is she—gone?” The young man who had helped
carry the girl in voiced his question in a hushed tone,
but no one replied. The doctor was busied over the
poor, crumpled heap on the couch, and McCarty had
turned to the frightened hall-boy.
“You’d better let her folks know, whoever they are,”
he directed. “She fell from the window of one of the
apartments up-stairs.”
The boy shook his head and gulped.
“She-she don’t belong hyar!” he gasped, through
stiffened lips. “I ain't seen her befo', leastways not
this evenin'! I don't know how come she got in, or
when. She mought have fell from next door—”


6 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Well, anyway, you go up and stop that woman on
the third floor from yelling her fool head off!” McCarty
interrupted shortly. “If she don't put the soft pedal
on we'll have to call out the reserves. And look here,
boy, don't you sneak off anywhere. I want to talk to
you later.” -
Swift-running feet pounded heavily past the window,
and in another moment Cunliffe burst into the hall.
“What's up?” he demanded, his breath rasping in his
throat. “Somebody rapped for help, and there's blood
on the sidewalk out there!—Oh, you're here, Mac' Say,
what happened?” º
“Have a look,” McCarty invited grimly, moving aside
to make room for him. “One of the things that don’t
ever happen in this quiet neighborhood of yours, that a
cripple could keep order in It's a little matter of
murder, I'm thinking.”
“Holy saints ſ” Cunliffe muttered. “It’s smashed en-
tirely she is How did she-”
“Out of some window in this house, and landed right
at my feet,” McCarty added in asperity, forgetting his
own moment of shock. “You’d better not be standing
there staring like a lunkhead, Cunliffe, but send in a
hurry call for the ambulance and notify headquarters.”
“True for you, Macl”
Cunliffe pushed his way through the hastily gathered
group of people who stood anxiously about in the main
hall and went to the switchboard telephone. They eddied
around him, listening in frank eagerness, and as the
purport of his messages was conveyed to them, a shocked,
excited murmur arose, and faint, hysterical screams from
one or two women in the crowd.
“That'll be about enough of that!” admonished Cun-
liffe, gruffly. “Clear out, now, every last one of you!
Clear this hall !”


“OUT OF THE NIGHT” 7
But the policeman found it an impossible task to at-
tempt single-handed. The group was augmented with
every passing instant by occupants of the building, who,
sketchily attired, flocked down the stairway, and by
passers-by who had seemed to spring up from nowhere
in that semi-deserted street at the first note of alarm.
Cunliffe was obliged to content himself by making a
determined stand at the door of the doctor's apartment,
and from that vantage point repulsing the more venture-
some of the morbidly excited throng.
Within the office, the doctor still bent over the couch.
McCarty mounted guard at its head, and a little way off,
by the desk, the young man who had helped to bear the
ghastly burden stood as if waiting for dismissal, his
head bowed, his fingers mechanically turning his hat
around and around.
No sound had escaped the woman's lips, no slightest
moan or whisper since that first incredible gasp when
McCarty had raised her head. The flying man! What
could she have meant? What vital thought had remained
in that poor battered brain even after the overwhelming
shock of her fall, which she had tried so desperately to
convey in those few cryptic words?
Hardened as he was, McCarty could not force himself
to regard without a shudder the broken thing which
lay upon the couch. It was crushed beyond recognition,
almost beyond semblance of human form. He would
not have believed that life still lingered were it not for
the convulsive gasps which tore their way from her
throat. Would she die with that urgent message unde-
livered P
“Doctor,” McCarty's tones were very low, “if we could
rouse her for just a minute; if we could get a word
from her as to how it happened yy
The doctor shook his head, and as if in answer a


8 - THE CLUE IN THE AIR
faint breath fluttered from her parted lips, her closed
lids lifted wide, and the soft brown eyes stared straight
before her and beyond, with a curious fixity in their
depths.
“It's all over,” the doctor said quietly, and folding a
cloth, he laid it over the still face.
The young man's hat dropped from his nerveless
fingers and rolled to the feet of Cunliffe, who had turned
and was coming swiftly forward. The policeman picked
it up and laid it on the table, noting as he did so the
cheap, gilt-paper initials, “W. D.,” winking up from
within the inverted crown. McCarty, too, had turned,
and the young man took a step toward him.
“She's—dead?” he asked haltingly.
McCarty nodded without speaking, his eyes searching
the face of the man who had sprung so opportunely to
his call. It was long and cadaverous, deeply lined for
so young a man, and of a pasty, unhealthy hue. The
huge ears stood out grotesquely from his conically shaped
head, and his every gesture and movement produced a
curiously loose-jointed effect, as if he was strung on
wires.
“Her—her blood is on me.”
McCarty started. Obviously the man had spoken
literally, for he was glancing down in shuddering repul-
sion at the sodden blotches which stained his light-gray
summer suit, and yet an undercurrent in his tone, even
more than the possible significance of the words them-
selves, suggested an emotion apart from the shock of the
affair to a mere bystander.
“You know this woman? Ever see her before?”
McCarty rapped out.
The young man made a gesture of denial and leaned
suddenly against the desk, his pallid face gray.
.


“OUT OF THE NIGHT” - 9
“Here, better let me give you a bracer.” The doctor
came forward.
“No, thank you, doc. This gave me a bit of a jolt,
but I'll be all right when I get out in the air.”
He pulled himself together and reached for his hat,
but Cunliffe whipped out a note-book.
“Just a minute. What's your name and address?”
“What for?” the young man countered swiftly.
“The inquest. Coroner'll want to see you about find-
ing her and bringing her in.”
“Oh, that l” He paused. “Jerry—Jerome Bowker,
eight-twelve, West Twenty-Fifth Street. Say, it'll be
soon, won't it? I was expectin’ to leave town.”
“Sure, in a day or two.” Cunliffe snapped his note-
book shut and turned again to the door as the murmur
of voices rose higher outside, and the harsh, insistent
clang of an ambulance bell smote upon the discord.
The white-coated surgeon and his orderly had barely
pushed their way through the crowd when a deeper-toned
gong sounded and a patrol wagon filled with policemen
dashed up to the door.
There was little left for the surgeon to do but confirm
the resident doctor's conclusion that the woman must
have fallen from at least the third floor, and probably
higher, to have received the concussion which the con-
dition of the body proved, and he and his orderly had
stepped aside when a tall, gray-haired man with keen,
alert eyes and a sharp, clean-shaven chin appeared on the
Scene.
“Well, MacI What are you doing here?” Then,
without waiting for a reply, he went on : “This is a bad
business.”
“Bad it is, inspector,” responded McCarty. “I was
walking along the street, and the poor thing all but fell


IO THE CLUE IN THE AIR
on me. Cunliffe had passed not five minutes before. I
met him on the corner.”
He repeated his experience in detail, and Chief In-
spector Druet listened, together with two of his detectives,
Cunliffe, and the resident doctor.
“‘The flying man!’” repeated the inspector, when he
had finished. “Now, what do you make out of that?”
“Delirium, maybe,” McCarty hazarded. “And yet I
don't know. She seemed wise to what she was say-
ing, all right, and trying as hard as she could to make
me get it. I looked up, I couldn't help it, half expecting
to see a flying-machine in the air, though there was no
sound of an engine except that limousine slipping away.
Somebody was thumping a piano to beat the band, and
then a woman up-stairs screamed.”
“I’ve given orders to clear the crowd away, and allow
no one who belongs in the building to leave the premises.
Doctor—” the inspector turned with a peremptory note
of inquiry.
“Elmsford—Ralph Elmsford.” The doctor bowed
slightly.
“Dr. Elmsford, can you add anything to what McCarty
here has just stated? Can you identify the woman?”
“No. I have never seen her before, to my knowledge.
Indeed, unless I were well acquainted with her, identi-
fication would not be easy.” He glanced significantly
toward the couch.
“I understand. I’m going to have that hall-boy in
now. No objection to our using your office awhile
longer?”
The doctor bowed again, and taking the hint, with-
drew.
At a word from the inspector a policeman at the door
pushed the young negro forward. The first stupefying
effect of his fright had given place to a frenzy of ex-


“OUT OF THE NIGHT” II
* .
:
citement. His big eyes rolled until little more than their
whites were visible and he stammered uncontrollably in
his effort to unburden himself.
“I don't know how c-come it happened, boss. I don't
know nothin' 'tall about it. I run m-my elevator up
from the basement and I heard somebody yell out—
seems 1-like it c-come from the street. I went to the
entrance, and I seen this gen’leman hyar and another
one cyarrying the lady in. That's all I knows about it,
boss, 'deed it is l”
“What's your name?”
“Alfred Griggs.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Ev' since I come North, boss, a year and a half.”
“You said that this lady wasn't a tenant of the house?”
“No, sir, she ain't. She don’t live hyar.”
“Ever seen her before?”
The boy hesitated, beads of perspiration standing out
on his forehead. Finally, he blurted:
“Yes! Leastways I knew her from that striped dress
she done got on. I seen her once befo', I think. Three
days ago.”
“She was here? Who did she come to see?”
“Nobody—that is, she wasn't payin’ no call. She come
to look at apartments.”
“Who showed them, you or the superintendent?”
“Me. The superintendent was busy.”
“Did she give any name?”
“No, sir. She said she'd call again.”
“What apartments did you show her on this side of
the house?” -
“Not a one. There ain't none goin' to be vacant. I
showed her two on the fifth floor, on the other side, but
she didn't say much; just looked around.”
“How long did she stay?” The inspector was firing


I2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
the questions jerkily at the boy, and the latter's slow-
moving brain groped to keep pace with him.
“I don’t know, boss.”
“Don’t know? What do you mean?”
“I was called away—I had to run my elevator. I left
her 'xaminin’ the kitchen of 5-D, and when I come back
she'd done gone. She must have walked down the stairs,
and I thought it was kind of funny—four flights.”
“How was it you didn't see her? Your elevator shaft
has open grillwork.” -
“'Cause I was up on the top floor, 'sputin’ with the
nurse-girl of the Fentons. She was bound and deter-
mined to get the baby carriage in my elevator, and the
superintendent done give orders that it was to go down
in the freight one—”
“What time of day was this?”
“Near noon. I went off for my lunch pretty soon
after.”
“And what time did this lady call to-night?”
“I don't know. I didn’t see her. The telephone-girl
ain't on at night, and I has to 'tend the switchboard as
well as my elevator. Lots of people pass me in the
hall when I'm busy gettin’ numbers, and I ain't got no
time to take notice of them, lessen they use the elevator,
Telephone was powerful busy to-night, too.”
“Got a record of those calls?”
“Outgoin’ ones? Yes, sir.”
“You say none of the apartments on this side of the
house are vacant?” -
“No, sir; but a lot of them are closed, just for the
summer, while the folks is away in the country. There’s
two apartments on each floor, facin’ on this street, and
two at the back, and seven floors above this one. The
plan is the same from the next floor, right on up.”
“Got a diagram?”


“OUT OF THE NIGHT” I3
“Yes, sir.” The boy produced one from the breast-
pocket of his gilt-braided coat and spread it flat on the
desk. “There's apartments “A,” “B,” “C,’ and ‘D,’ on
every floor, ‘A’ and ‘B’ facin' this way. ‘A’ is the corner
one, and runs around on the avenue, all outside rooms
'ceptin' of two bedrooms openin' on that oblong air-
shaft. ‘B’ just runs along on the side street from about
over where we’re standin’ now to the court between this
and the next apartment building.
“Its long entrance hall runs along the air-shaft, across
from the two rooms of the other apartment. See, it's
got windows just correspondin’. Don't need any air-
shaft for the rooms openin’ from the hall in apartment
“B,” 'cause they look out on the side court.”
“Now, which ones are in use, and which closed for
the summer ?”
“Apartment ‘A’ on this floor and the second is shut
up. Doremus lives on the third, Foxe on the fourth,
Jennings on the fifth, and Humphrey on the sixth. The
seventh is closed, and the Fentons live on the top, like
I said.
“Apartment “B,” over this here one of Dr. Elmsford's,
is closed on the second and third floor, Mr. Antonio
lives on the fourth, the fifth is closed, Barkus on the
sixth, seventh is closed, and Armitage on the top.”
“All right. I’ll keep this diagram.”
Before the inspector could frame the next sentence
there was a slight commotion in the hall, and a white-
faced but determined maid thrust her head in at the
door.
“Oh, please, where is Dr. Elmsford? My lady, Mrs.
Doremus, is beside herself, laughing and crying some-
thing terrible, and, try my best, I can't do anything with
her l’”
“Mrs. Doremus ! Third floor! That'll be the one


I4 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
who stuck her head out of the window and screamed,”
McCarty remarked in lowered tones to Policeman Cun-
liffe, who stood beside him.
“Yes, and there's something else,” the latter whispered
hoarsely. “Did you notice the initials in that feſlow's
hat—the fellow who helped you carry the woman in
here? They don’t go with the name he gave me.”
“No more they do, but what does that prove?”
“It’s enough for me—that, and what else I'm wise to.
He’s the drunk ſ”
“What drunk?”
“The one I told you about, when I first met you on
the corner. I recognized the ears of him, and the funny,
long face, as soon as I got a good look at him under
the light in here. He was hanging around outside there,
and as soon as he saw me he began staggering and
reeling and I passed him the word to be getting on home.
“Mac, he must have been as sober as we are this
minute. 'Twas a blind!”
.


I6 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“One hatpin must have been jarred out and lost in
her fall, for the marks of it were in her hat, but the
other—it had broken short off and jammed into the
straw—was a star sapphire, the real thing. Her purse
or hand-bag or whatever she carried must be in this
house somewhere, in the room from which she fell, but
she must have worn some other jewelry. What's become
of it?”
“Don’t run away with that idea, Martin,” objected the
inspector. “If she came here secretly for some purpose
she didn't want even the hall-boy to know about, as his
evidence seems to show, she may have had good reasons to
leave her valuables at home.
“But we haven't any time now for theorizing; we’ve
got the tenants in this house to interview yet, and it's
after midnight. Did you get anything more definite,
anything practical from your survey of the body?”
“I don't know whether you'd think it was, inspector,
or not,” Martin responded in an aggrieved voice. “Only,
did you notice her feet? They were small enough any-
way, but she'd squeezed them into shoes two sizes too
little for her; the doctor had to cut one off. And the
foot itself was all calloused, not soft like a lady's. That's
all, but the identification will be a pipe, of course, from
the marks in the clothes alone.” -
“Then we'll get to work.” The inspector rose.
“Martin you go and see if you can find out anything
from the coat and hat tabs. The caretakers or watchmen
at the shops will know where the managers live. Rout
them out and make them tell you from the description
of the things who purchased them, or else show you the
books, if they can be had to-night.
“Yost, you get on down to the morgue and keep an
eye on any one who comes to look at the body. If some
party arouses your suspicions, telephone to headquarters


“ROSES AND A KNIFE” 17
for a man to take your place there, and tail them. I
want to have a look at the outside of the house now, to
get a line on where she might have fallen from.”
“I suppose I’d better be getting on home,” McCarty
announced reluctantly. “I’m only butting in here now.
I'll see you at the inquest.”
“Oh, stick around, Mac.” There was a kindly flash
of understanding in the inspector's eyes. “You got
mixed up in this thing at the very start, and you might
as well see it through. You have nothing else to do, I
hear, since you got so prosperous you turned the de-
partment down.”
“I’d like nothing better than to be on hand when the
folks in this house tell what they know !” responded
McCarty, with unrestrained eagerness. “I’d never be-
lieved in a million years that it's either suicide or acci-
dent, inspector, if only for that whisper I got from her.”
“We'll see. Come along outside.”
They found the superintendent, a stolid-faced, lanky
Swede, awaiting them in the hall. He verified the dia-
gram and list of tenants which the hall-boy has supplied,
and accompanied them to the street.
By his orders the gruesome traces of the tragedy had
been obliterated, and a broad expanse of glistening,
freshly hosed sidewalk met their eyes.
McCarty measured his distances carefully and walked
to the exact spot where the woman fell.
“It was just here, inspector. I'm certain, because when
I looked up I marked that it was on a plumb line with
the space between those two windows that come almost
together on each floor. She could have fallen from either
window and a twist of her body would have landed
her here.”
“Which apartment are those two windows in?” The
inspector turned to the superintendent.


18 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“In both,” the latter replied. “The one on left, as you
stand here and look oop, bane last winder of 'partment
“A.” That’s music-room like, next drawing-room on
corner. Other winder living-room of 'partment ‘B.’
Only house wall between.”
“Humph! Then she might have been in either apart-
ment, on any floor,” remarked the inspector. “That
doesn't help any. Now we'll have a go at the tenants.
You needn't come, superintendent; I'll take the hall-boy.
Give him your pass-keys.”
McCarty understood that the inspector believed in-
formation to be more easily available from the garrulous
negro than the taciturn Swede, but he doubted, as he
followed the official into the elevator, whether anything
more of value could be learned from either source.
The two closed apartments on the second floor gave
unmistakable evidence in the stuffiness of the atmos-
phere and the smooth unbroken film of dust which lay
everywhere, that they had not been entered for several
weeks at least. Everything was in order, the furniture
funereally encased in linen covers, and the pictures
draped with netting.
They ascended to the third floor, and pressed the bell
of the corner apartment. The same maid who had inter-
rupted the conference below with her call for the doctor
opened the door cautiously and her eyes widened when
she recognized the inspector.
“I should like to speak to Mrs. Doremus.”
“Oh! I don’t think you can,” the girl demurred.
“She's all upset, and the doctor has given her a sleeping-
powder.”
“I’m sorry to disturb her, but it's important.” The
inspector pushed his way in unceremoniously, with
McCarty at his heels.
“She’ll be very angry,” persisted the girl. “This is


“ROSES AND A KNIFE” I9.
a nice time of night to come getting people out of their
beds! She don't know anything about what hap-
pened—”
“That will do! You tell your mistress the police want
to ask her some questions, or I'll go in myself " the in-
spector interrupted sternly. -
With an impudent toss of her head the girl disap-
peared down the hall. There was a little cry, a petulant
murmur, and then silence for five long minutes.
“If she knows anything at all about it, at least it was
not from here the woman fell,” McCarty whispered. “If
you remember 'twas after I raised the poor thing's head
that the window here opened and this one screamed.”
“The window might have been shut quickly and
opened again by some one with presence of mind enough
to pull such a stunt,” remarked the inspector reflectively.
“Don’t you see, Mac, that screaming would draw atten-
tion to the fact that the window had been closed before?
We'll try what we can get out of the lady. Here she
is.”
The drawing-room curtains at the end of the hall
parted, and a short, plump figure in an elaborate tea-
gown stood before them.
“Come in, please, and let me know what you want.
I am very ill; this terrible affair has completely unnerved
me.” -
Her eyes were round and staring, and of a bright,
rather hard blue. It was only when they were quite
close that McCarty noticed the carefully massaged crow's
feet and the meretricious glitter of her curling blond
hair.
“We regret the necessity of breaking in upon you like
this, Mrs. Doremus, but we must learn all we can without
delay.”


2O THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“But what can I tell you? I know nothing, nothing
of this awful thing!”
She led the way into the library, waved them to seats,
and sank weakly upon a couch.
“How many are in your family? Your husband—”
The lady's languid pose stiffened.
“I live here alone, with my two maids!” The dulcet
sweetness of her affected, childish treble had sharpened.
“I fail to see what bearing my private affairs have on
this matter. Please state what you want as briefly as
you can and permit me to retire.”
“Very well, madam. Who was in your apartment
this evening?” *
It was evident that she regretted her flash of temper
as quickly as she had exhibited it, for she dropped her
eyes and murmured shrinkingly:
“When—when the accident occurred? Only Mary,
the maid you saw just now, and myself. I let my cook
go to her people in Brooklyn for the night.”
“What did you hear or see; what made you go to
your window and scream—for it was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” She shuddered, and for a moment covered her
eyes with her hand. “It is so horrible to have to recall
it, I was trying so hard to put it all out of my thoughts.
I was as you see me now, sitting in that chair over there
under the floor-lamp, reading the dearest little story I
was so interested in. The chair was turned around,
almost facing the window.
“All at once I heard a muffled sort of cry. It seemed
to come from somewhere overhead, but I couldn’t be
sure, everything was so confused and happened so
quickly. There was a piano going, too, at the time, but
the cry rose above it. That is the terrible part of it,
that the piano should have kept right on, as if nothing
was the matter—”


“ROSES AND A KNIFE” 2I
“Please go on,” prompted the inspector patiently.
“You heard the cry—”
“And I looked up. I don't know why, for the people
just over my head are so noisy that I’ve grown accus-
tomed to all sorts of hilarious sounds from there, but
this was like nothing I had heard before. Just as I
raised my eyes something shot past my window ! Of
course it was light in here and comparatively dark out-
side, so it made merely a faint shadow on the blind, but
I felt what it was. I’m very psychic, every one tells me
so, and things seem to come to me. I don't know whether
I actually heard it—her, strike the ground or not, but
I fancied I did, and that was quite as bad. I sat here
with my poor little heart up in my throat, afraid to
breathe l’”
“Do you usually sit with closed windows on such a
hot night?”
The lady blinked.
“Why, no! I hadn't noticed before then that it was
closed. I never feel the heat, and I suppose Mary forgot
to open it. I leave everything to her, and she has com-
plete charge. She takes care of me just like a baby.”
She paused with a sidelong glance at the inspector's
inscrutable face, but her naive helplessness did not appear
to have carried effectively.
“What else did you hear from above?”
“Oh, nothing! Not a sound ! I tried to call Mary, but
my voice wouldn't come. I managed somehow to get
over to the window and open it, and when I looked
down 22
“Your voice came then,” the inspector observed dryly.
“Yes, I must have screamed—oh, fearfully! I’m very
delicate, the slightest thing affects me, and this— I
know I shall never recover from the shock, never! My
little home here will not be the same to me ever again!”


22 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
The lady's corpulency belied the frailness she claimed,
but it was evident beneath what might have been her
habitual pose that she was genuinely shaken and on the
verge of a fresh outburst of hysteria.
With a parting reminder that she must hold herself in
readiness for the inquest, the inspector and McCarty
withdrew.
The maid, Mary, was waiting at the entrance door,
but instead of closing it after them, she followed for
a hesitating step or two into the main corridor.
“I suppose it's not my place to be offering any in-
formation, if you don’t think it worth while to ask me,”
she remarked, “but I could tell you something.”
“Good!” The inspector turned to her. “What part
of the flat were you in when this affair happened?”
“In Mrs. Doremus's bedroom, sir, picking up.” She
spoke haltingly, but then the words came with a rush.
“The window on the air-shaft was open, and you could
hear a kind of murmur of voices from the different
apartments opening onto it. All at once, above them
all I heard a hoarse voice call out. It seemed to be just
one quick sentence, and I could only make out one word
near the middle of it. That word was ‘stepfather.’ Just
after that came a funny, choked cry, but I couldn't tell
whether it was the same voice or not.”
“Was the first voice a man's or a woman’s P’’ asked
Inspector Druet.
“I dont' know, sir. It was so hoarse and harsh like.”
“And this was 39
The girl hesitated.
“About a minute before Mrs. Doremus screamed.
That's all I know, but I wanted to tell you.”
“I’m glad you did, Mary. Now, have you any idea
where this voice came from?”
“Well, sir, I thought at the time that it was directly


“ROSES AND A KNIFE” 23
y
overhead, but sounds carry so in that shaft that I may
have been mistaken. It might have come from higher
up and across for all I know. There's Mrs. Doremus
calling, I’ll have to run back.”
“There may be something in that,” the inspector ob-
served, when she had closed the door. “What do you
make of the other one, Mrs. Doremus, Mac”
McCarty's eyes twinkled, but he replied evasively.
“Throwing the bull in great style, wasn't she? She'd
never get by in a good light!”
“Oh, come, you know what I mean?”
“Has she got an ace in the hole, you're thinking?”
McCarty's tone was still noncommittal. “No, I guess her
story is straight enough—maybe.”
The smaller apartment beside that of Mrs. Doremus
was closed, and they gave it merely a cursory inspection,
as her account, if true, narrowed the investigation to the
floors above. -
“Who lives here?” asked the inspector, as they halted
before the corner apartment on the next floor.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grafton Foxe, sir,” the hall-boy re-
plied. “Real lively folks, they is—seems like they's in
some kind of theater business.”
“Well, they don’t appear to be at home,” McCarty re-
marked, as repeated pressure of the bell failed to bring
a response.
“Lordy, I done forgot!” The hall-boy's eyes rolled
apologetically. “They went out 'long about eight, and
the young lady, she left after you-all come.”
“What young lady?”
“Miss Collins, sir. She's been—er—visitin’ here for
nearly a month.”
“What do you mean about her leaving after I came?”
demanded the inspector sharply. “I gave orders that
none of the tenants were to leave the premises!”


24 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Oh, it was before you got hyar, sir! I mean this
gen'l’man.” He pointed to McCarty. “It was after he
done cyarry that daid lady in.”
“How long after?”
“I don't know. I was too scared to reckon the time.
But it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, 'cause
the ambulance hadn’t come.”
“Did you bring her down in the elevator?”
“Me, boss? No, sir, I wasn’t fit to run no elevator
then. She come down the stairs, and pushed through
the crowd and out.”
The inspector made a gesture of impatience.
“Cunliffe's a fool! You're sure she hasn’t come in
yet?”
“She ain't coming back. She's done gone for good.”
“Gonel”
The boy nodded.
“Her trunk went this morning. And Mis’ Foxe called
back from the elevator as they was goin’ out to-night
that they'd meet her at the train. She was cyarryin' her
suitcase when she left.”
“She should have been stopped, whether she knows
anything about this affair or not!” declared the inspector
hotly. “Well, we can't waste any more time. Open
the door.”
The boy obeyed, and leaving him outside, Inspector
Druet and McCarty entered. The hall was lighted, as
appeared the drawing-room at the end, but all the other
rooms were in darkness.
Involuntarily they paused a moment, but no sound
came to their ears, and they made their way down the
hall, past a moth-eaten stag's head, a row of framed
photographs, and a heterogeneous arrangement of stage-
property swords.
The drawing-room was in startling contrast to the


“ROSES AND A KNIFE" 25
soft-toned one below. Blatant reds and greens clashed
riotously everywhere, and a general air of convivial un-
tidiness prevailed. They passed through the archway
into the library or music-room beyond, and McCarty's
hand found and pressed the switch in the wall.
There was a shabby leather couch and two bookcases
on the opposite side of the room, a heaped-up writing
table between the two open windows, several deep-
cushioned chairs scattered about, and an electric piano
in the angle of the wall leading into the bedroom. No-
where was there any sign of a struggle, or of disorder
beyond what appeared to be the habitual condition of
the apartment.
“That's where the music came from.” The inspector
nodded toward the piano. “The girl who left must have
been playing. I wonder why she turned out the light
in here and left it on in the drawing-room and hall when
she went out?”
McCarty did not reply. He had stooped and picked
up something which lay on the floor before the open
window and was examining it closely.
“What's that you've got there?”
McCarty held it out, without remark. It was a paper-
knife with a curved bronze handle and long steel blade.
“Belongs on the desk there,” the inspector commented.
“It matches the other bronze things. If the woman
picked it up to defend herself, she must have dropped
it in the struggle, providing that it was from this room
she fell. Are there any marks on it?”
McCarty shook his head.
“Well, put it in your pocket, anyway. Now, come on.”
The bedroom was in a far worse state of disorder than
the other two. Old garments were trailing about from
chairs and half-opened drawers, wads of tissue-paper
were here and there, and the dresser was littered with


“ROSES AND A KNIFE” 27
“Yes,” Inspector Druet responded. “We’d like to have
a little talk with you.” -
“Certainly. Come in.” He stepped back for them to
enter, then led the way to the room which opened from
the hall as in the first apartment. Books were piled
everywhere, but in a disarray which yet held a sugges-
tion of system, and the table between the windows was
heaped with oddments of mechanism in all stages of
assemblage.
“I’m afraid I can't tell you anything,” he went on.
“I heard some one scream, and saw the crowd, and then
the ambulance came, but that is all I know. What was
it, a fight?”
“It was murder, sir.” The inspector faced him under
the light.
“Murder! Good God!” The young man retreated a
step or two, and his voice shook. “Who was it? I
didn't hear any shots!”
“A woman was flung out of a window—some window
in this house.”
“Horrible!” His eyes traveled frankly toward his own
opened windows, and suddenly he strode to one of them
and stood for a moment looking out. Then he turned
again abruptly. “I cannot believe it! Surely I would
have heard something!”
“Suppose you tell us what you did hear. By the way,
your name is Antonio, isn't it?”
He nodded. a
“Guiseppe Antonio—Joseph, in this country. I'm
American born, but my father was Italian. Sit down,
won't you?” He dropped into a chair himself as he
spoke. “It was murder, you say! And a woman! I'll
be glad to tell you anything I can. I’ve been reading
all the evening—boning up on mechanics. I'm by way


28 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
of being an inventor, you know, trying to perfect a new
automobile appliance. -
“The piano next door started up about half-past ten;
they appear to be a jolly bunch in there. It seems to me
now that I did hear a sort of a cry, but I wouldn't swear
to it; they are always singing and carrying on. Anyhow,
I did hear some one below screaming. I didn't pay much
attention at first, somehow it didn't get to me, my mind
was so concentrated on my work.
“When I did fling down my book and go to the window
I could see only that a crowd was collecting about the
entrance, and I thought there had been a fight, as I
told you. The screaming had stopped and the piano-
playing, too, and I was going back to my reading when
the ambulance came. I watched it drive away again after
a bit, and then I took up my book again and read until
just now when you came. I don't know another thing
about it, I wish I did l’”
He had told his story in such a straightforward man-
ner, and was so evidently anxious to render any possible
assistance, that the inspector found few queries to put
to him. He lived quite alone, it developed, cared for
by a man servant, who went home at night. He had
only been there two months, having subleased from
another bachelor tenant, and was taking a special course
in advanced mechanical engineering and chemistry at the
neighboring university.
After a glance about his apartment, every corner of
which he threw wide for their inspection, they took leave
of him. -
The hall-boy had deserted his post, but as they stepped
into the main corridor the elevator ascended and stopped,
and a man and woman emerged.
“Here they are, boss!” the boy called eagerly. “Here's
Mr. and Mrs. Grafton Foxeſ”


CHAPTER III
THE BROADENING TRAIL
hastily toward them. She was a magnificent-
looking creature, tall, deep-chested, and splen-
didly formed, and she walked with a curious, lithe,
swaying grace. Her face was marble white, but her
tawny eyes snapped and her mouth was like a crimson
stain.
“Is it true, what Alfred here just told us?” she de-
manded. “Has somebody been killed?”
“Now, Leolal” The man accompanying her was an
attenuated, stoop-shouldered person, with a small, black
Vandyke beard, and stiff, up-standing hair. He laid a
restraining hand upon her arm, but she shook him off
impatiently.
“Yes. Didn't your guest, Miss Collins, tell you? Or
perhaps you missed her at the station,” the inspector
suggested warily.
The woman shook her head.
“No, she didn't—” she began, but this time her
husband interrupted her.
“Don’t let us stand here talking,” he said nervously.
“If you are police officers, and you have anything to
say to us, come in the flat.”
He produced a key and opened the door, stepping back
for his wife to enter, but she paused, her shoulder brush-
ing his and her head thrown back like an animal on the
Scent.
Tº woman turned with a little cry, and came
29


30 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Some one's been in here!” she challenged. “What
does it mean?”
“We have been making an examination of all the
apartments,” the inspector explained suavely. “You will
find that we have disarranged nothing.”
The woman's deep-throated laugh rang out.
“I guess everything was in a mess, any way,” she
said casually. “It usually is. Now please tell us what
happened l’”
The inspector herded them into the garish, cluttered
drawing-room, without giving them an opportunity to
look about further, and briefly told them the facts of
the tragedy. Grafton Foxe heard him through without
comment, his head held reflectively on one side, pointed
fingertips together, and pale, expressionless eyes fixed
upon the other's face.
Mrs. Foxe clenched her hands.
“What a rotten, cowardly thing!” she exclaimed.
“And you don't know who the girl was, or how she got
in, or where she fell from ' You're sure it wasn’t sui-
cide? She might have climbed to the roof and dived
off.”
“No, we have reason to believe it was murder,” the
inspector assured her gravely. “Now, if you'll give us
an account, purely as a matter of form, of your move-
ments to-night, and Miss Collins'—”
“An alibif" she asked quickly, but her tones were more
subdued, as if realization of the catastrophe had curbed
her exuberant spirit. “Good Lord, you don't suppose
we had anything to do with it, do you?”
“Leola, I’ll do whatever explaining is necessary.” Her
husband's voice was cool now and steady with a note of
authority. He turned again to the inspector. “I am a
playwright. A sketch of mine was being tried out in
Newark to-night, and my wife and I went over to see it,


THE BROADENING TRAIL 31
leaving here about eight o'clock. We went downtown in
the subway, got off at Times Square, and picked up a
friend, Evan Hughes, at the Knickerbocker.
“From there we three taxied down to the Pennsylvania
Station, caught a train to Newark, and went to the
theater. After my sketch I went behind and talked it
over with the people in the cast, marking changes, cuts,
and all that.
“This delayed us, but we got to New York again in
time to hurry over to the Grand Central and see Miss
Collins off on her midnight train. Hughes was still with
us, and we went over to Marsau’s and had a bite to eat.
Then we left him and took the subway home.”
He spoke slowly, didactically, and when he had fin-
ished there was a slight pause.
“You talked with Miss Collins at the station, and she
said nothing of any trouble here?” The inspector re-
peated his former question with added emphasis.
Mrs. Foxe opened her lips to speak, but her husband
forestalled her.
“No. She could not have seen anything of it, or she
would have mentioned it, of course.”
“She pushed her way out through the crowd which
had collected in the entrance and on the sidewalk,” re-
plied the inspector.
“But that does not prove she even knew what it was
all about,” Foxe insisted evenly. “A crowd might have
meant any minor disturbance, and she was late as it was.
She had barely time to say good-by to us and board her
train.”
“Where has she gone?”
“To Chicago.”
“Is that her home? What was her object in taking
this journey?”


THE BROADENING TRAIL 33
“Lord, no! Jack Zucker is sixty-five, and Lammy has
a perfectly good wife and four children!”
“Why do you ask, inspector?” interposed Grafton
Foxe quietly.
“I want to know who her sweetheart is, who is called
Jack.” -
“Which sweetheart do you mean? Ivy has dozens!
“I have already told you that we know little about her
friends or her private affairs,” Foxe reiterated. “She is
a popular girl, and greatly admired; but we have heard
of no engagement, no one for whom she seems to care
more than the rest.”
“Mr. Foxe, do you recognize this?” The inspector
motioned to McCarty's pocket, and the latter produced
the paper-knife he had picked up from the floor in the
next room.
“Why, yes.” For the first time a shade of perturba-
tion crossed the man's hitherto impassive face. “Where
did you get it?”
“Where should it have been P’’
“In the library, of course, on the writing-table with
the rest of the desk set—unles it had fallen on the floor.
It's top-heavy, the handle is overweighted, and it is
always getting knocked about. Look here, inspector,
what are you driving at? The woman wasn't stabbed,
was she? Why are you trying to connect us with this
affair P”
“I’m trying to get at the truth, and I’ll do it if I have
to subpoena every one in this house!” retorted the in-
spector. “Did Miss Collins mention to you any woman
friend or acquaintance who was in trouble, or in fear
of an attack upon herself P”
“No, never.”
“Had she any enemy, against whom she might have
been compelled to defend herself?”


34 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Certainly not! Oh, such imputations are horrible!”
Mrs. Foxe glared. “Every one loves Ivy. She wouldn't
hurt a mouse.”
“Was this departure of hers a sudden one?”
“Oh, no, she planned it some time ago, and last week
she decided on the day. I went down with her when she
bought her ticket and section.”
“Did she receive any letters or messages which seemed
to disturb her within the last few days?”
“No.” Grafton Foxe once more took up the task of
replying. “She has been happy and free from any pos-
sible anxiety.”
“Did any flowers come for her this evening, before you
went out?”
“No.”
“Any telephone messages?”
“Nothing of importance. Several people called up to
say good-by, I believe. That was all.”
“Very well.” The inspector rose and drew out his
memorandum pad. “Now, if you will give me the ad-
dress of the friends to whom Miss Collins has gone in
Chicago, I won't trouble you further at this time.”
Mr. and Mrs. Foxe glanced swiftly at each other, but
remained silent. *
“Of course, you realize that I can trace her through
the expressman who removed her trunk this—yesterday—
morning, but I warn you that if you try to keep her
whereabouts a secret it will tell very much against her.
You claim that she has nothing to conceal, knows nothing
of this affair. Why, then, should she hide like a crim-
inal?”
“Well”—Mrs. Foxe moved uneasily in her chair—
“she's going to No. 1281 Leavitt Street. Platt, her
friend's name is. But they will be annoyed, and so will
she, if she is dragged into notoriety of this kind.


- THE BROADENING TRAIL 35
“And you're wasting your time if you are trying to
prove Ivy had a thing to do with it at all, or that the
woman, whoever she was, fell from this apartment. You
can see for yourself no one else has been here. I don't
know why you should have picked on us more than any
other tenants in the building.”
“There is just one question more.” The inspector ig-
nored the tirade, but made a note of the address. “Has
any one of your acquaintances a stepfather?”
“A stepfather? What a funny questionſ” There was
unfeigned surprise in the woman's tone. “Nobody that
I can recall. Certainly Ivy hasn't.”


CHAPTER IV
IDENTIFIED
concluded. A family named Jennings, with two
small children, occupied the apartment above.
They had heard the screams of Mrs. Doremus, and Mr.
Jennings had descended to the main floor to ascertain
the cause of the disturbance. They were inexpressibly
shocked, but could throw no light on the affair. The
apartment beside them was closed.
The sixth-floor corner was brilliantly lighted, and a
little game was in progress, as Mr. Humphrey, the host,
explained genially. Mrs. Humphrey and two of her
women guests were laying out a late supper in the dining-
room, and in the room which corresponded with the
air-shaft bedroom below a group of men in comfortable,
hot-weather negligee were seated about a table on which
cards, chips, and sundry tall glasses were scattered.
The sudden advent of the uniformed inspector caused
a moment of strained anxiety which swiftly changed to
impersonal consternation when he disclosed his errand.
It was all too evident that they had heard nothing and
were not aware of the tragedy until that moment.
Mr. Humphrey, in bibulous concern and solicitude,
followed them down the hall and offered to have himself
sworn in as a special deputy to assist in the search for
the murderer, but his suggestion was declined.
Two crusty old bachelor brothers named Barkus lived
next door. Aroused from asthmatic slumber, they were
not only ignorant of the crime, but wholly uninterested.
Tº: further search of the house was more quickly
36


IDENTIFIED 37
*
Moreover, they did not thank the officious police for
annoying them, and would most assuredly write to the
morning Mercury about it.
Both apartments on the seventh floor were closed, and
on the top the Fentons and Armitages were alike unable
to supply any information.
They descended to the main floor in speculative
silence. Dr. Elmsford, who had evidently been eagerly
awaiting them, thrust his head out of the office door and
inquired the result of their tour of inspection.
“You found Mrs. Doremus pretty much upset?” Mc-
Carty replied to his question with another, the first he
had asked since the inspector assumed charge.
“Oh, all gone to pieces!” responded the doctor care-
lessly. “The maid had to fairly tear her gown off, to
loosen her stays. She was quite violent for a time—
mere hysteria, you know—but I managed to quiet her.”
“Well, Mac, it's a puzzler,” the inspector confided as
they walked off together through the silent street.
“There's a bare chance that she jumped or fell from one
of those windows, in spite of what she said when you
picked her up, but it looks to me like murder.”
“It does that!” agreed McCarty soberly. “God rest
her soul! From the clothes of her, alone, you could tell
she was a lady, and a well-to-do one, at that. She may
turn out to be of some prominent family, for all you
know. We're about due for another big sensational case
that'll crowd the war news off the front page and bring
promotion and glory to the fellow that gets the murderin'
hound. It's sorry I am the day that I left the force!”
“Come on back again, Mac,” suggested the inspector
cordially. “There's always room near the top for one
like you. The chief hasn't forgotten one or two things
you pulled off, and you could easily get recommissioned.”
McCarty shook his head. “I’m too old,” he said.


38 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“”Tis not that I'm out of training, or slower with the
headwork, but the old routine would gall me after being
my own master.” -
“Why, man, you're no more than forty-five.”
“Still, it's the fellows younger than me that are coming
up, inspector. But it was like old times, to-night. I
was saying to Cunliffe not ten minutes before that poor
creature lit on the sidewalk in front of me, that when
any one does pull off a crime up here in a good-class
residential neighborhood, they pull it off big. You'll
be calling it a day, all right, when you've laid the laddie-
buck by the heels that did this.”
“We ought to go a good way toward finding out the
truth when the body is identified,” remarked the in-
spector. “If we once get a line on the young woman
herself and her friends, and trace her movements for
the last few days or weeks, it ought to be easy to put
our hands on the flying man she spoke of, to say nothing
of the stepfather.”
“Maybe so, and maybe not. I've seen the cases where
half the truth balled up every theory you could frame.
No matter who she is, ’tis the man you want—the man
who flung her from the window and made his get-away
as if he did actually fly off, like she said. Here's my
corner. I’ll be on hand for the inquest, and if you should
want me before, inspector, you'll know where to find
me.”
McCarty, through the munificence of his uncle and by
virtue of his own judicious investments thereafter, had
attained the dignity of bachelor apartments. It is true that
they consisted merely of two rooms and an antiquated,
wooden-cased bath on the second floor of a somewhat
dilapidated three-story brick building over a bogus an-
tique-shop; but it afforded him immense satisfaction.
The fact that he had, by virtue of his lavish hospitality
at fires and strike riots, attained the dignity of a “buff.”


IDENTIFIED 39
with both fire and police calls affixed to the wall of his
sitting-room, enhanced its attractions in his eyes.
He had secured it through much local wire-pulling,
and the greasing of many intermediary palms, as an in-
surance against ennui on his retirement from the force.
Conflagrations had always possessed an unholy fascina-
tion for him, and he had followed his life-long friend,
Dennis Riordan, to many, even before the acquisition of
the private call elevated him to the aforementioned posi-
tion known as a buff in the parlance of the department,
and the envy of all his associates.
Engine Company o23 was stationed just around the
corner, and Dennis being one of its ornaments, McCarty
lacked neither social intercourse nor excitement in the
daily round, but this tragic mystery was as breath to his
nostrils.
The early dawn of midsummer was already manifest-
ing itself by pale warning streaks of light in the eastern
sky when he finally composed himself for sleep. The
night's rush of events crowded his mind, but through
them all the faint, broken whisper of the dying girl still
echoed in his ears.
Who and what could have been “the flying man”?
Was it a fantasy, a mere figment of a distraught brain,
or had some monstrous, inexplicable shadow frightened
her so that she recoiled and fell from some room to
which she had effected as inexplicable an entry?
In all his experience he had not encountered so baffling
a mystery, and his blood ran more swiftly through his
veins than it had for many aimless months, afire with
energy and the old eager, almost automatic, response to
a call of duty. -
It was broad day when he awoke and dressed hastily,
impatient for a glimpse of the morning papers. The
earlier editions would have only a brief scare-head, but
the event of the night seemed now in retrospect to have


40 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
been so vague and unreal that it would be a relief to
see it chronicled in cold print.
“You in all-a de pape'!” announced the Italian at the
corner news-stand. “Beeg-a murder, great-a excite'!
You get-a de woman fall-a smash, boss?”
So the suggestion of suicide or accident had gone by
the board, and murder was an accepted fact! McCarty
eluded the Italian's inquiries and hastened to the little
restaurant where he customarily breakfasted; but the
proprietor came out from behind the cashier's cage and
bombarded him with questions, and he gulped his coffee
hurriedly and departed.
Once more securely entrenched in his own rooms, he
spread the papers out upon the table. From the first
one his own face glared back at him, grimacing ma-
levolently in the effort to look pleasant before the hostile
eye of the camera. It was a formal picture taken in
the pride of his first promotion and bore a striking re-
semblance to something between a butcher and a brigand.
The snapshots which peppered the other papers were
more lifelike, but he did not favor them with a glance.
He was eagerly absorbing the printed account of what
had taken place.
It varied little in the several records, and, although
terse and sketchy, was in the main correct. To the
moment of going to press the body had remained un-
identified, and there was of course no mention of per-
sonal interviews with the tenants as yet.
McCarty was deep in cogitation when the door-bell
pealed insistently, and, crossing the room, he stuck a
cautious head out of the window. A young man in a
trim, dark-blue suit, with a straw hat on the back of a
shock of very red hair, stood upon the steps.
With a muttered imprecation McCarty was withdraw-
ing his head, turtle-fashion, when the young man looked
suddenly upward and caught his eye.


IDENTIFIED 41
“Mac, you old hermit, come down here and let me in 1
What do you mean by keeping an ornament of the press
languishing on your door-step?”
McCarty sighed in resignation.
“All right, Jimmie,” he responded. “I suppose it might
as well be you.”
Jimmie Ballard was a regular reporter. As evidence
of it he did not, on gaining entrance, pull a note-book
from his pocket and assume an inquisitorial air. Instead,
he perched himself on the edge of the table, swinging
his long legs, and observed with boyish heartiness:
“That was a rum thing last night, wasn’t it? Must
have given you a turn, Mac, when that woman dropped
almost on top of you! Tell us all about it.”
McCarty was well aware that the guilelessly ingratiating
air was arrantly assumed to invite confidence, but he
could not forbear a responsive grin.
“It’s all here, my lad.” He motioned to the heap of
newspapers. “All that I know, anyway. The woman
fell, and we carried her in, and she died, and that's all
about it.”
“Not by a long shot, it isn't! You went through the
house with Inspector Druet—oh, we've got his report
down at the shop; it'll be all out in the next edition—
and of course somebody was lying. The woman couldn't
have dropped from the clouds. You must have hit on
something; you used to be able to dope out the answer
to harder questions than this.
“Remember when the whole department was stumped
on that Throckmorten jewelry robbery, you picked out
your man and stuck to him in spite of ridicule and orders
and everything else until you proved it on him? There
wasn't a man on the force who could beat you at the
game in those days, Mac, but of course if you've grown
rusty—”
He paused expectantly, but McCarty refused the bait.


42 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Maybe I have,” he admitted quietly. “It was the
inspector's job, not mine. What does he say about it?”
“Oh, you can't get near him now with a ten-foot pole.”
Jimmie veered off suddenly on a new tack. “But the
girl now; did she really say that to you or did you dream
it—that preposterous thing about a flying man?”
McCarty was on safe ground there. That was already
public property.
“Sure, she said it,” he affirmed. “You got it the first
time.” |
“What did you make of it?” • *s.
“What would anybody? Nothing. You could not go
on that with no hide nor hair of a clue to back it up.
I’m no mind-reader.”
“And she said nothing more? The fellow who helped
you carry her in—didn't he hear a word out of her?”
“Why, does he say he did?" McCarty's tone was alive
with artless interest. \ . N N
“He doesn't say anything. In fact, there doesn't seem
to be any such person as Jerry Bowker, and at the address
he gave they never heard of him. He's one factor even.
you didn't reckon with.”
“Think of that now !” McCarty cried in well-simu-
lated astónishment. “Would any one have believed it
of him? And what would your own opinion be, Jimmie?”
“That I’m wasting my time here.” The young man
slid off the table. “You’re holding out on me, Mac.
You've got a theory, all right, but you're keeping it under
cover like a setting hen. I’ll get even with you—wait
till you read the account of this interview Oh, by the
way,” he wheeled swiftly at the door, “I suppose you
know the girl has been identified? She's Marion Rown-
tree, stepdaughter of Stephen Quimby, the president of
the Tradesman and Artisan's Bank.”


CHAPTER v
THE ATTITUDE of STEPHEN QUIMBY
cCARTY gaped in genuine amazement at the
departing figure of his informant. That the
woman who had met her death at his feet the
night before was a person of a superior class, he had
taken for granted from a casual inspection of her general
appearance, but that she should prove to be of such
prominence and wealth was utterly beyond his concep-
tion.
He had heard of Stephen Quimby, of course. The
banker's astuteness and masterly generalship had averted
a spectacular run on the institution of which he was
president at a time of panic and chaos some years be-
fore, and he had been more or less in the public eye as
one of the municipality's financial advisers ever since.
There was something else, too, some sport with which
he had identified himself notably in an amateur way,
but for the moment McCarty could not recall its nature.
His memory instantly supplied a vivid picture of the
man himself, however. He had once seen the president
of the Tradesman and Artisan's Bank in court testify-
ing against a defaulter, and his personality had made a
distinct impression.
He was well over the average height, lean and wiry,
with a thin-lipped, smooth-shaven face and dark hair
just graying at the temples. But it was not so much his
physical appearance which gave weight and importance
to the personal effect he created; it was the suggestion
43


44 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
of quiet, relentless force and indomitable will in his bear-
ing and manner.
Of his family life and social side McCarty, of course,
knew nothing, but if he were indeed the stepfather of
the young victim of last night's tragedy
McCarty's train of thought was checked by a swift
flash of memory. Her stepfather! The words overheard
through the air-shaft by the maid, Mary, assumed a sig-
nificance in direct bearing on the case for the first time
in McCarty's mind. Unlike the inspector, he had not
attributed much importance to the girl's statement,
partly because in itself it denoted no relation with the
tragedy, but more because of a belief that she was trying
in sheer morbid hunger for sensation, to thrust herself
into the lime-light. Now it struck him with the aug-
mented force of compulsory recognition. It might still
prove to be a coincidence, but the chances against that
outweighed its serious consideration.
At that moment it was borne in upon him that a con-
fused babel of intermingling cries was resounding in
the street below, and as he started for the window, one
hoarse voice detached itself from the rest.
“Extra! All about the murder in the Glamorgan |
Body identified. Heiress slain! Extra !”
Hastening downstairs, he seized a paper from the near-
est boy. The owner of the antique-shop called him from
the doorway, but giving no heed, he returned to his
rooms and locked himself in.
As before a picture stared out at him from the front
page of the paper, but this time it was that of a sweet-
faced young girl with a soft, wistful mouth, straight
delicate brows and thoughtful eyes.
For some minutes he sat gazing back at it, trying to
reconcile it with the poor bruised face which lingered
so clearly in his memory. With the distortion of mortal
*


w
tº
Kº
THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBY 45
agony smoothed away and perhaps a little less weight,
she might have been very like her photograph, but he
concluded that it had in all probability been taken at a
somewhat earlier period.
The text amplified the reporter's announcement elabo-
rately and McCarty perused it with absorbed interest.
Marion Rowntree was twenty years old and had re-
sided with her stepfather, Stephen Quimby, her nine-
year-old stepbrother, Stephen, Jr., and her aunt, Miss
Pauline Beckwith, who, since the death of her mother
six years before, had been mistress of the banker's town
and country establishments.
Mr. Quimby and Miss Beckwith had appeared at the
morgue at an early hour, identified the body, and arranged
for its removal. They had appeared overcome by grief
and refused to make any statement, but in a later con-
ference with police officials it was understood that Mr.
Quimby professed complete ignorance of his daughter's
whereabouts on the previous evening, declared that to
his knowledge she was unacquainted with any one resid-
ing in the Glamorgan apartment house, and could assign
no reason for her presence there.
He refused to credit the statement of the hall-boy,
Alfred Griggs, that she had called there on a previous
occasion to look at apartments, asserting that she could
have had no possible intention of leaving her own home
and acquiring a separate establishment, and should such
a thought have been hers, her station in society would
have led her to seek a more pretentious habitation than
the Glamorgan offered.
Miss Beckwith was in a state of extreme prostration,
and could not be interrogated. Then followed an ac-
count of Marion Rowntree's life, the schools she had
attended, and her social activties, together with a hint
at two separate romances in which she had figured, each


46 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
of which had abruptly terminated before any formal an-
nouncement of an engagement was made.
The article concluded with a résumé of Stephen
Quimby's career, and in the final paragraph there was an
allusion which brought McCarty to his feet.
Mr. Quimby had been an ardent devotee of aviation
since its first inception in America, and had taken many
prizes in amateur events both here and abroad before
the war. His skill and daring were proverbial, and he
maintained several aeroplanes with elaborately equipped
hangars and a retinue of mechanicians on Long Island.
The flying man!
Could it be mere coincidence again? If so, it denoted
a marvelous concurrence of events which over-stepped
the bounds of the credible. McCarty paced his room in
a fever of conjecture.
It was in vain that he strove to remind himself of his
own negative position in the affair. He was no longer
an officer of the law but a private citizen, in no way
connected with the mystery or its investigation save as
a bystander whom chance had made a witness of the
initial catastrophe.
He had far better be out at Homevale Park, where his
bit of money was invested, collecting his modest rents
and discounting the complaints of his tenants, than tramp-
ing up and down here, addling his brains with a prob-
lem that was distinctly up to the service he had long
quitted.
But such specious self-reminder was futile. The prob-
lem was there, a concrete puzzle for any man to solve
for his own satisfaction; somewhere there was a skulk-
ing criminal to be brought to justice, and in McCarty's
eyes glowed the old light which had made him the terror
of malefactors in days gone by. He was in this thing


THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBY 47
from the start, as Inspector Druet had said, and in it he
would stay until he had seen it through. -
Seizing his hat, he locked the door behind him, and
again evading his neighbor of the antique-shop, he hur-
ried to the nearest elevated station. He meant to get a
detailed account of that scene at the morgue in the
early morning hours, and Bill Gerahty was an old and
cordial friend.
Daily epilogues of sordid tragedy had tended to dull
the sympathies of the morgue-keeper, but his sense of
the dramatic which is inherent in the sons of his na-
tionality was acutely developed. Moreover, he took a
certain grim pride in the event; it was long since his
grewsome hostelry had harbored so distinguished a guest.
“True for you, Mac” he seconded his visitor's open-
ing remark. “It was a hell of a job, whoever pulled it.
I wish you could have seen the two that come for her.
Swells they were, as I could tell the minute I clapped an
eye on them, to say nothin' of the automobile as big as
a hearse, but I never thought they'd turn out to be who
they was Well, well, them up in high life gets a jolt
now and then the same as the rest of us!”
McCarty, who was not in a mood for philosophizing,
brought him artfully to the point.
“You saw them yourself, then? I thought maybe
Higgins was on when they came. The papers had no
mention of you.”
“Sure, they didn't!” acquiesced Bill bitterly. “If it
wasn't for me, some of them newspaper boys would
starve to death, or have to get out and hunt a real job.
But do I ever get a bit of credit? I do not! They've
been pesterin' the life out of me for the last three hours
or more, but I knew how it would be, and ’tis precious
little satisfaction they got. There's more to this case,
Mac, that you'd be thinkin'. You can take it from me.”


48 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“It's the devil's own riddle, and that's a fact,” McCarty
agreed. “It was me that she almost landed on, you
know, when she fell out of the window, and the in-
spector kept me with him when he went over the house.
Nobody seems to know anything about it. Have a smoke,
Bill P”
The morgue-keeper, who had been tentatively fingering
the pocket where his pipe reposed—they were in the
outer office—gravely accepted a cigar, and biting off the
end, chewed it with gusto.
“You ought to have been here,” he remarked.
“'Twould have been worth your while to see them two.
I had her all put away in her drawer—she couldn't have
been more smashed up if she had been in a pulp-mill—
and her clothes all ticketed, when first of all along came
Yost.
“The inspector had sent him down to keep an eye on
any one who might come to inquire. He had another
look at her, and turned over her things, and then he came
back in here and waited. I was busy—a floater had
just been brought in and a wop came looking for his
brother—but after, I sat down with him and ’twas he
told me about you gettin' mixed up in this.
“Well, 'twas past six, and the sun shinin', when a
powerful big car came drivin' up and out got Mr. Quimby
and the lady. Martin, of the inspector's staff, was with
them, but they didn't pay no attention to him. It seemed
as if they'd forgotten he was with them, entirely, but
him and Yost got together and trailed along.
“They come into the office here, and the lady threw
back a heavy veil she'd got on, and grabbed the rail at
the top of the desk as if she was goin’ to fall down the
next minute. She was as white as paper, and her chin
was workin’. She tried to speak, but not a word would


THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBY 49
come, and while she was flutterin' and gaspin', the gentle-
man broke in :
“‘A man from the police has come to my house, and
tells me that my daughter met with an accident.’ He
was as pale as the lady, but his jaw was stickin’ out
firm, and his voice was very quiet: “He tells me that
she is here. I am Stephen Quimby. Has the body of
a young woman been brought in to-night, a young
WOman 2.
“‘Oh, God!’ says the lady, interruptin’ him; not cryin',
but as if she was talkin' to herself. “Oh, God!’
“‘Pauline !' He turns to her. “How was Marion
dressed? Describe the gown that is missing, that the
detective says is on the body they found.”
“His voice wasn't bullyin' or harsh, but I could get
the command in it, and she cringed as if he'd struck her
with a whip.
“‘It was black-and-white striped silk, she says. “Very
soft, and the hat had a rose-lined brim and a black lace
veil appliqué—’ somethin’—‘with butterflies. The shoes
were low white ones, with a narrow black piping and
French heels. Oh, Stephen l’ she breaks off. “I can't
go on! It's too horrible! Too impossible!”
“‘You needn't, ma'am,” I says. “At least, not if she
had a scar across her ribs on the left side. I guess I've
got what you're lookin’ for.’”
He paused, spat out the fragment of tobacco and
lighted the cigar.
“How did they take it?” asked McCarty.
“Like no one else ever I see, and I’ve been here a long
time.” Bill puffed luxuriously and leaned back in his
chair.
“There's some that goes down in a dead faint, and some
that shrieks and carries on over the body, till it's all you
can do to get them away from it, and some that won't


50 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
-
even look. That is, at first. They just can't bring
themselves to give up the last chance, I suppose, that
maybe it ain't the one they're huntin' for, but they all do
come around to it, sooner or later. There's a kind of
a fascination about it, I'm thinkin', like the wax-works
in the Chamber of Horrors. Even when they're certain,
one way or the other, from the clothes and the descrip-
tion, they'll take a peep. All but them two this morning.”
“What!” exclaimed McCarty. “Do you mean they
never looked at the body at all—not once?”
“They did not. They looked at the clothes, and the
lady broke down and cried fit to kill herself, but Mr.
Quimby was as steady as a rock, though his face turned
kind of gray. When I started to pull out the slab the
lady screamed out no, that she couldn't stand it. Mr.
Quimby started to persuade her, but I guess he thought
better of it, for he stopped all of a sudden and stood
quiet awhile. Then he led her out to the automobile and
come back alone, and I had the surprise of my life.
He wouldn't see the corpse, either.”
“But why?” McCarty's jaw dropped.
“You can search me, Mac, I'm givin’ it to you straight.
He’d been so calm and sort of hard through it all, that
I thought he'd be the last to turn squeamish, but give
her a look he would not. It was almost as if he didn’t
want to face her, dead or alive. He said it wasn’t neces-
sary, that the identification was complete and there wasn't
any doubt in the world but that it was his daughter.
“I stared at him, with the eyes of me all poppin’ out,
and all at once he put his hand up over his eyes, but
when he took it away there wasn't a tear. He said he
would make arrangements at once to have the body re-
moved, and he put a bill in my hand—though you can
keep that under your belt, Macl—his own hand was as
cold as ice when it touched mine, but he held his head


THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBY 51
high as he waved Yost and Martin aside and walked out
to the car.”
“I’d like to have another look at the body myself, Bill,”
observed McCarty after a pause. “Is it here yet?”
“It is not. The undertaker called for it within the
hour, and the clothes was carried along, too. I’ve seen
many that could take misfortune bravely without going
to pieces until afterward, maybe, but none with the ease
of that man Quimby, without even battin' an eye. I
don't say he mightn't have been grievin' inside, and too
proud to show it, but he acted as if nothin', not even
this, could feaze him—as if he was stronger than any-
thing that could come to him in this world.”
“She wasn't his own daughter, at that,” McCarty ob-
served. “Just a stepdaughter.” -
“I know. I got an extra a few minutes before you
came. Did you read what he told the inspector, after?”
McCarty nodded.
“Well, if you ask me, I don't believe it,” declared Bill,
flatly. “All that professin’ and denyin', I mean. I've
got a hunch he knows more than he's tellin', at any rate
about why she went there last night, and the other time,
too, for that matter. He may be a great man and all
that, like the paper says, but you can take it from me,
he's a smooth customer.”
“Bill, you're getting to be a regular old woman with
your fancies.” McCarty rose. “You’ll be saying he
murdered her himself next.”
“I would not put it past him,” the other remarked.
“Though that's neither here nor there. He's got some-
thin' up his sleeve that he's keepin’ to himself, and it'll
take more than the inspector to get it out of him. He
took it too quiet; it ain't in reason. Mac, would you see
a daughter of yours, or a stepdaughter either, murdered.
in cold blood and stand around like a graven image


52 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
after? You would not l You'd raise hell till you found
the one that did it, and when you got through with him
there'd be no call for anybody but the coroner!”
“Maybe, but I’m not a prominent banker with a posi-
tion to keep up before the world and the Lord knows
what kind of a secret to hide. I’m speaking no harm
of the dead, but if Mr. Quimby does know more than
he admits, perhaps there’s a good reason for him not to
take the newspapers and the public into his confidence.
There'll be notoriety enough as it is, before this case
is finished.”
At this juncture the door was timidly pushed open
and a bent little figure entered, clad in rusty black. As
Bill Gerahty rose she lifted a pair of faded eyes, eloquent
with a question she could not utter.
“No, ma'am,” Bill said wearily, but with strange gen-
tleness. “No one's here like what you described to me.
Now if you'll just take heart to yourself, ma'am, you'll
find in the end no harm's come to the lad 22
McCarty made his way out and tramped across to the
subway. An idea had come to him which he meant to
put in immediate execution. He alighted from the train
at the station nearest to the scene of the previous night's
event, and circling the block, was soon retracing his steps
of twelve hours before.
He noticed that there was a narrow court between the
Glamorgan and the next apartment building, as the hall-
boy had shown on his diagram, but on this occasion it
was the opposite side of the street which engaged his
attention.
To his disappointment he saw that the building across
the way, whose windows looked directly into those of the
Glamorgan, was still a mere shell in the course of con-
struction, and a broad sign on its front announced that it
would be ready for occupancy by the first of October. It


THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBY 53
was much larger than its neighbor opposite, extending al-
most to the middle of the block, and next to it the line of
apartments was broken by a garage. It seemed almost
hopeless that any one in the houses still further along
to the west could have witnessed the tragedy, but on a
bare chance he tried the building on the other side of
the garage.
An irate janitor drove him forth.
“Himmell Votiss diss, more policers? Von hundert
times alretty I haff said it, we don't know nodings und
we don’t vant to l Respeckitable peoples you should ask
it about murders und such? Verdampt, bummerlei!”
Muttering darkly to himself, McCarty beat a retreat.
As he neared the corner of the Drive he glanced back.
A trim-looking nurse was easing a resplendent baby car-
riage down the steps of the Glamorgan and evidently
in violent altercation with the hall-boy who stood in the
doorway. McCarty crossed the street and strolled back
toward her.
It is sad to record, but as he approached, he deliber-
ately gave her what he would have termed “the eye.”
Her cheeks were still flushed from her late encounter,
but McCarty was a personable-looking man and she
dimpled.
“A fine child you have there, miss,” he observed diplo-
matically, raising his hat.
The girl giggled.
“He’s cross to-day. He had a bad night, with all the
excitement and getting woke up by the police. And then
those fresh hall-boys everlastingly trying to make me
take him and his fine carriage down in the dirty old
freight elevator! I just gave that one a piece of my
mind ſ”
So this was the child of the Fentons, on the top
floor! McCarty fell into step beside the nurse.


THE ATTITUDE OF STEPHEN QUIMBY 55
afraid if I came up the back way the cook would tell
on me. The stairs wind around the elevator shaft and
I came up behind the lady right near the third floor.
“She turned as quick as a flash and then she got wery
white and sat down on the step. I asked if she felt sick,
but she said no, that I’d startled her, but she would be
all right in a minute. I didn't dare wait, being late as
I said, so I went on and left her there, but I heard the
rustle of her dress as she stood up again before I’d
fairly turned the corner. It came to me afterwards,
when I learned what had happened, that she sat down
there to make me pass her, so I shouldn't see what apart-
ment she was going to.”
“Wasn't there a hall-boy on duty? It's queer he didn't
see her come in.”
“He didn't see me either, and for a very good reason.
He was sound asleep with his head down on the switch-
board l’”


CHAPTER VI
TERHUNE TAKES A HAND
next free evening, intimating his intended
presence in the vicinity of the drug store on
the corner, and took leave of her as gracefully as his
impatience would permit.
He wanted to be alone to think. The chance interview
had borne fruit, for although the meeting on the stairs
threw no light on the crime itself, it proved the time
of the unfortunate woman's arrival, and explained how
she had been enabled to pass through the lower hall
unobserved.
She had therefore been in the building scarcely an
hour when she met her death. But where? Surely not
lurking in the halls, or hiding unseen in one of the apart-
mentS.
As Jimmie Ballard had remarked earlier in the morn-
ing, somebody must have lied. Some one of those in-.
terviewed had known more than they would admit, and
behind their various poses one had concealed at least a
guilty cognizance of the truth, even had they not partici-
pated actively in the event.
But which one?
Was it the blonde lady on the third floor, or the seem-
ingly frank and straightforward young inventor, or the
bizarre couple who were his immediate neighbors?
Had the crucial scene which must have preceded the
tragedy been enacted in that room where he had found
the paper-knife on the floor? Was it conceivable that
M cCARTY ascertained the date of his companion's
56


TERHUNE TAKES A HAND 57
any one could go on playing a piano while another was
done to death almost within arm's length?
McCarty could have named a dozen theories off-hand,
any one of which might have been stretched to cover the
facts in the case then in his possession, but in each there
were gaps which could not be filled, and bewildering in-
consistencies met him at every turn. He had been ham-
mering away at the problem from so many disconnected
angles that he needed a fresh starting point.
It was nearly two o'clock before his insistent appetite
forced itself at length upon his abstracted consciousness,
and with it the realization that he had aimlessly crossed
to Broadway and wandered over a mile down that thor-
oughfare. He remembered vaguely that he had passed
the white entrance of a small restaurant a block or two
back, and retracing his steps, he entered.
Save for two chauffeurs at a corner table the place
was empty. McCarty chose a retired seat against the
wall, and ordered steak and coffee, then pending their
arrival, he gave himself up again to his cogitations. Not
the least puzzling of these was the attitude of the dead
girl's relatives who had identified her, particularly her
stepfather, and again her inexplicable denunciation
battled at the doors of his intelligence for recognition.
Why had she used so strange and crude a term as “the
flying man” when “aviator” would more naturally have
leaped to her lips had she meant to designate such a
person? It was inconceivable that she could have re-
ferred to her stepfather, for in that event she would have
named him. The whole case baffled him, and although
he told himself sternly that it was no affair of his any
more than that of a mere inadvertent witness, he could
not dismiss it from his mind. In some inexplicable way,
the years of idle ease had been erased and he was back
in harness, with the bit in his teeth. What matter that


TERHUNE TAKES A HAND 59
your little toy village coughing up their dollar a week
without murmur, or are they kicking for man's-size chim-
neys and walls that wouldn't fall flat if you gave them a
hard look?” -
“The tenants,” remarked McCarty, “be damned. What
do you think of this mystery?”
Dennis glanced down at the paper between his knees.
“Mystery?” he repeated reflectively. “”Tis always a
mystery when the Giants win four consecutive
games—”
“A murrain on them!” In moments of stress Mc-
Carty's native idioms returned unbidden. “You know
well what I mean The woman who was thrown from
that window last night.”
“Oh—that!” Dennis brought his chair down with all
four legs on the sidewalk. “'Tis queer how a man can't
get away from his past. Here you are, a prosperous
landed proprietor, and prominent private citizen, dragged
into another police matter when you were so success-
fully living down the days you were on the force. You
have my sympathy—”
“Denny, it's not to be kidded that I came around this
afternoon!” interrupted McCarty bitterly. “If you've no
mind to talk it over, I'll be getting on my way.”
“Oh, well, of course, I only know what the papers
have.” Dennis evinced conciliation. “Take Mike's chair,
he's gone up for a nap. You're getting write-ups that
would make a prima donna look sick, but I’ve not found
much real information yet, beyond the bare fact of what
happened, and who the girl was.”
“I have,” McCarty announced. “I’ve got it from all
directions and I can't make head nor tail of it.”
“It says here that you went through the house with In-
spector Druet 32
“That's only the start. I’ve had a busy day.”


TERHUNE TAKES A HAND 6I
lie that wouldn't be necessary unless the truth would
have brought inconvenient questions, maybe in direct
connections with the case.”
“You did?” Dennis exclaimed. “Who was it? The
young man with the invention?”
“No. The dumpy little blonde on the third floor. She
received us in a flossy kind of a wrapper, all ruffles and
thingumbobs, and she said she was sitting and reading
just like that, when the affair happened. Yet we'd no
sooner got downstairs again than the doctor told us that
she had been all dressed up when he was called to treat
her for hysterics, and that was some time after it was
all over and the girl dead.
“She admitted she had been sitting in there with the
windows shut, and I noticed from the minute we entered
her apartment the smell of a good heavy cigar. But she
told the inspector she had been alone in the place with
the servant, at least at the time the girl fell. Now, I
would not put cigarette-smoking past the like of her,
Denny, but the tobacco I smelled in that room was strong
enough to lift her off her feet. Why did she go out of
her way to make us believe she'd had no visitor, the
night?”
“Not wanting to have him dragged into the notoriety
of the case, maybe, as a possible witness, along with
every one else who happened to be in the house at the
time,” suggested Dennis.
“She might have known we could find out from the
hall-boy who had called.”
“But did you?”
“No. As I told you, it was the inspector's job,” Mc-
Carty grinned. “I’m still enough of a disciplinarian,
Denny, to attempt no advice to a superior officer. Now
then, if there had been any connection between Mrs.
Doremus's caller and the actual crime, I'm thinking that


62 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
girl, Mary, would have told, for she was dying to be of
importance, but she held her mouth about that because
she’d been told to. There's another thing that come to
me, Denny. Who is it that runs after the fire-engines,
and in the foremost ranks pressing against the ropes
you stretch to keep the crowds back?”
“Small boys,” returned Dennis, promptly.
“And young men. It’s youth that craves excitement,
whether it be a fire or a fight. There's no normal, healthy
fellow that wouldn't drop his work or his studies like
they burnt him, at the first hint of a fracas, whether he
was inventing or no.”
“I get you,” Dennis nodded. “But this young man
with a dago name, maybe he's different. Inventors don't
know they're alive, sometimes, when they're on the trail
of an idea. I mind one we had to tear away from his
gimcracks with the roof near falling in on him, and him
not even knowing there was a fire.”
“Not this lad,” returned McCarty emphatically. “An
inventor he may be, but he's no crank. You could tell
with half an eye that he was a regular fellow. 'Tis not
in nature to believe he would sit quiet with a book in
his hand while a woman screamed her head off and a
crowd collected below.” • ‘’
“He said he went and looked out, didn't he?”
“But not for some little time. The first yell should have
brought him to the window, providing he was just a
bystander, as you might say, and knew nothing about the
crime. I’m thinking he lied, too, for all his frankness.
But why?”
“You can search me!” replied Dennis, after a pause.
“I’m inclined to think I'd take the lad's word, from what
you’ve told me.”
“That's as may be. Let's get back to the girl, Ivy
Collins, who skipped in the confusion. Granted she was


64 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
station, had said nothing about the excitement in the
house. He was real careful to establish an alibi for
both of them, and it's a fine one. If it had been planned
ahead it couldn't be better.
“Then he cut in quick when his wife started to tell
what they knew of Ivy Collins and her life and asso-
ciates, and made out that they were ignorant entirely of
her affairs, which was pretty thin. He made the first break
by showing his uneasiness when the inspector nodded to
me to produce the paper-knife, but it was clear that the
‘stepfather' remark didn't mean anything to them. I'd
like to have had a talk with the two of them on my own
hook, though. The inspector let them down easy, but
'tis only the beginning.”
“And that’s all you've got to go on 2" Dennis's voice
betrayed acute disappointment. “You’re leaving all the
other apartments out of consideration and centering on
them three, and, according to you, the people in all three
of them lied. Now, they don't appear even to know each
other, and it ain't in reason they could all be connected
with what happened. One of them might, but that's not
even sure. What did you find out to-day?”
“First off, I saw Bill Gerahty at the morgue.”
He told of his interview with that individual, and the
latter's opinion of the dead girl's stepfather.
“I wouldn't go so far as to say that Quimby knew or
even suspected how she came to be killed, but it wouldn't
surprise me to find out that there was some secret about
it, independent of the murder itself, that he would be
glad to hush up,” he added. “When people accept off-
hand, as you might say, a fact that ordinarily they'd be
supposed to demand the last, strongest proof of before
they would be convinced, it's a pretty sure sign that
they're ready to believe it—that they want to believe it.
The aunt may have been just naturally overcome with


TERHUNE TAKES A HAND 65
the horror and grief of the whole thing, but Quimby
kept himself in hand and acknowledged the identification
at the first proof shown him. It's almost as if he was
glad of it; glad to have her out of the way for some
reason.”
“Well, whether he is or no, I suppose now he'll have
to offer a big reward for the capture of the one that did
it, if only to save his own face. If it is true he's not
sorry for her death, he couldn't afford to let the public
get a smell of that. How do you suppose it'll all turn
out, MacP If they could once find out what errand
would take a girl like this Marion Rowntree to the Gla-
morgan last night xx
McCarty struck his knee impatiently.
“The thing to find is the man—if it was a man—who
struck the blow that sent her to her death!” he exclaimed.
“You have her own word that it was a man, a flying
man,” Dennis reminded him. “And that's got you no-
where. 'Tis a riddle she left behind her, and no mistake.
Well, I know, if you had the man picked out, he could
not fly too high but what you'd be going after him, Mac.
But you have no single clue to point him out. There are
so many things about this that no explanation seems to
fit—”
“There are,” agreed McCarty grimly. “The dead girl's
purse, for instance.”
“You said nothing to me about any purse.”
“No more did anybody. None was found, to talk
about; that's the queer part of it. She must have carried
one, or some sort of a wrist-bag, even if it was only a
little silk thing with a powder puff. It didn't come down
with her in her fall, and it must be hid in the building
somewhere, or else—”
Dennis nodded comprehendingly.
“Or else the girl had it with her that went away.”


66 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“If it is still in the house, the inspector will find it,
if he has to tear the place down brick by brick,” McCarty
prophesied. “No one would have a chance to dispose
of it, for it's a safe bet he'll have every one shadowed
that he's not satisfied about in his own mind, and I'm
thinking that'll be nearly everybody in the house, at this
stage of the game, at least in the three apartments I’ve
told you particularly about.”
“Have you seen the afternoon papers?” There was a
peculiar expression on Dennis's face.
“I have not. What's new P’’ McCarty asked, with a
sidelong glance.
“Inspector Druet seems to think the case is one too
many for him.”
“What do you mean?”
Dennis spread the newspaper out flat across his knees.
A great black heading ran across a double column:
TERHUNE ON ROWNTREE CASE
WoRLD-FAMED DETECTIVE CALLED UPON To AID
AUTHORITIES IN BAFFLING MYSTERY
With a smothered ejaculation, McCarty seized the
paper and read the opening paragraphs to himself.
The celebrated scientific detective, Wade Terhune, whose
phenomenal success in solving the most difficult criminal prob-
lems of the last decade has made him famous on two con-
tinents, has been retained by the district attorney, at the request
of the chief of police, to assume charge of the investigation
into the circumstances surrounding the tragic death last night
of Miss Marion Rowntree, stepdaughter of the noted banker,
Stephen Quimby.
The chief of police, in an interview immediately succeeding
this announcement, asserted that this move was in no sense an
admission of failure on the part of his staff. He has, on the


TERHUNE TAKES A HAND 67
contrary, the utmost confidence in the ability of his subordinates;
but it is an acknowledged fact that Wade Terhune has scientific
facilities at his disposal which the police department is unable
to command, and his record of success is unique in the annals
of criminal investigation. His commission in this instance is
an evidence of the determination of the authorities to leave no
stone unturned in bringing the matter to an immediate and
triumphant conclusion. It is understood that Inspector Druet,
who has had charge of the investigation since its inception,
himself suggested to the chief the advisability of consulting
the renowned crime specialist.
McCarty folded the paper slowly.
“Well,” he remarked at length, “we’ll see some fire-
works now, I’m thinking!”


CHAPTER VII
THE METHODS OF WADE TERHUNE
event chronicled on the evening before.
A second minute inspection of the Glamorgan, ,
and exhaustive inquiries amounting practically to a
cross-examination of the various tenants had elicited no
further result, and proceedings appeared to be at a stand-
still when Mr. Wade Terhune had assumed charge early
in the afternoon. In accordance with his established cus-
tom, he would make no statement at this stage of the
investigation, and had no information for the press.
Stephen Quimby, the stepfather of the young girl
whose tragic death was shrouded in mystery, had con-
sented to an interview. He confirmed in every particular
the report of his previous statement to the police and
recounted what was known of his daughter's movements
on the previous day.
Miss Rowntree had remained indoors because of the
oppressive heat until late afternoon, when she went with
her aunt, Miss Beckwith, on a brief shopping expedition.
The two ladies had dined alone together at home, Mr.
Quimby himself having an engagement, and the little
boy, Stephen, Jr., being given an early supper, as usual,
in his nursery.
Miss Rowntree expressed herself as being greatly
fatigued and enervated by the weather, and went to her
room almost immediately after dinner. Miss Beckwith
retired an hour later and tapped upon her niece's door in
Tº: morning newspapers had little to add to the
68


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 69
passing. Miss Rowntree had called out “good night,”
and that was the last that those at home knew of her.
Mr. Quimby returned about midnight, smoked a last
cigar in his study and retired ignorant of any untoward
circumstance until awakened at six o'clock in the morn-
ing by the arrival of the detective to inform him of the
tragedy.
Except for her slight indisposition due to the heat, Miss
Rowntree had appeared quite as usual. Her maid as-
serted that she had helped her prepare to retire, and the
garments found upon the body later were not those she
had worn during the day.
When asked if he intended to offer a reward for the
capture of his daughter's assailant, or for information
concerning her death, Mr. Quimby declined to make a
statement at this time.
The funeral would take place privately on the follow-
ing day.
Ex-Roundsman McCarty found troubles of his own
awaiting him in the morning's mail. Dennis's allusion
on the previous day to the importunities and exactions of
the Homevale tenants had been no idle remark. One
discontented holder of an instalment-plan title had
reached the limit of his endurance in a protracted duel
with McCarty's thrift, and the latter was reluctantly
preparing to surrender, when the door-bell thrilled a
peremptory summons.
As on the morning before, he reconnoitered cautiously
from the window. A long, low, torpedo-shaped roadster,
with a chauffeur in impressive livery, stood at the curb
and on the steps directly beneath him was a tall, spare,
unfamiliar figure.
McCarty rubbed his immaculate chin reflectively, then
pressed the button in the wall which released the entrance
lock. Brisk footsteps sounded upon the stairs and in


7o THE CLUE IN THE AIR
another moment his visitor appeared in the doorway. He
was an individual of approximately forty, slightly bald,
slightly stoop-shouldered with a keen, ascetic, smooth-
shaven face and the well-poised, alert, self-confident air
of a professional man.
At sight of him McCarty emitted a gasp, but instantly
recovered himself and came quickly forward.
“It's Mr. Terhune, isn't it?” he asked. “Come right
in, sir, and sit down. 'Tis about the Rowntree case you
wanted to see me?”
Wade Terhune's smile softened the rather stern lines
of his mobile face as he held out his hand.
“Partly, my dear McCarty! It gives me an excuse for
making the acquaintance of a man whose excellent work
in other cases is not unknown to me. Handicapped as
you were by your complete disregard of deductive
methods and lack of imaginative construction, you yet
handled the Throckmorten jewel robbery and the Daven-
port poisoning affair, and one or two others which I
have in mind, in a really admirable manner.”
McCarty accepted the tribute warily.
“Thank you, sir. I wouldn't have thought those things
might have come under your notice, being occupied as
you were with matters of tremendous importance. All
that was long ago and I’ve no connection now with the
force, getting mixed in this business the other night by
the merest chance, as you know. You'll be wanting me
to tell you about that?”
“If you will. No, don't throw your cigar away. I'll
smoke, too.”
He produced a platinum cigarette-case, the unostenta-
tious elegance of which made McCarty's eyes bulge, and
lighted a cigarette with his own matches before the latter
could push forward the box upon the desk. Then he
settled back in his chair.


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 71
*
.
“This case possesses extraordinary points, and in some
ways is unique even in my experience. I do not as yet
know what inferences, if any, you have drawn from your
association with Inspector Druet during his preliminary
inquiries among the tenants of the Glamorgan. It does
no good, of course, to jump to conclusions, but an active
use of deductive reasoning, together with a slight exer-
cise of your imagination, would have taught you much,
McCarty. I personally utilize science to a great degree
when I have established a working basis. It weighs and
measures with unassailable exactitude, recording the most
subtle emotions and trains of thought of the subject
under examination.”
“Think of that, now !” ejaculated McCarty, with im-
mense respect.
“But to obtain that working basis I reason, I deduce,
sometimes from the most trifling indications. Nothing
is without significance to the trained analytical mind. I
will try to make you see what I mean.
“You, for instance, McCarty, have told me nothing
of yourself or your affairs, but I have discovered several
small facts about you since I have been in this room.
You have had trouble with at least one of your tenants
about repairs and are threatened with a lawsuit, but you
have decided to meet the demand, and are planning to
provide immediately what is required. You are not easy
about the state of your health and have tried to give up
cigars, but you haven’t succeeded in doing so.
“Your increasing weight, too, bothers you, and you
are making an effort to reduce. You purchased a new
suit of clothes, but it doesn't fit, and you are going to
send it back. That is all, I think, except that you thought
of taking a trip to Ireland last spring, but gave up the
idea because of the difficulty in obtaining a passport.”
McCarty, who had been listening with starting eyes


72 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
and slowly dropping jaw, edged his chair back until it
caromed with the desk.
“Holy Saint Patrick!” he exclaimed in an awestruck
voice. “I’ve heard of black magic, but this beats the
devil himself Mr. Terhune, do you mean to be telling
me that you've doped all that out about me, just by
sitting there five minutes?”
“Exactly. I'll explain. Inspector Druet has mentioned
your investment in suburban real estate, of course, and
when I see an envelope on your desk with an attorney's
name in the corner and a Homevale postmark, together
with the fact that your classified telephone book is open
at plasterers and masons, I conclude that some one has
consulted a lawyer to enforce certain repairs, and you
are arranging to comply.
“As far as the worry over your health is concerned and
your effort to give up cigars, there is a well-thumbed home
medical book on your mantel and also several boxes of
different brands of cigarettes, pouches of tobacco and an
imperfectly colored pipe. The cigarette boxes are open
and the cigarettes themselves stale and dry and slightly
dusty, and only one, or at most two, gone from each box.
Obviously you have tried them but found them not to your
taste, and the same result obtained with your pipe, for
only a small quantity of tobacco has been taken from
each pouch.
“You’re smoking a cigar at the present moment, so
the habit proved too strong for you. On a chair just
inside your bedroom door, there, is a tailor's box, open,
containing a blue-serge suit folded but without regard to
its original creases. Why would you put it back in the
box if it were not to be returned, and why return it
unless it failed to fit satisfactorily?
“In the corner are a pair of Indian clubs and from
where I sit I can just catch a glimpse of the bath-room


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 73
beyond your bedroom. There is a punching bag sus-
pended there, and a standard scales. Here again the
inference is obvious. You see how simple it is, my dear
McCarty.”
“But—my trip to Ireland and the pig-headed red tape
that interfered with my getting a passport? However did
you light on that?”
“Mere observation once more, and a little deduction.
Your nationality is patent and your inclinations would
lead you rather to Ireland than England if considering
a trip purely for pleasure in that direction.
“There is a dusty pile of American and English steam-
ship-line folders in the colors they use for late winter
and spring issues on the shelf beneath your desk, and
sticking out among them are several State Department
envelopes, showing that you have held quite a corre-
spondence with the authorities in Washington. Now, do
you begin to understand my method?”
McCarty brought his hand down smartly on the desk-
top.
“Never have I heard the beat of that! You're a won-
derful man, Mr. Terhune, if you'll excuse my saying so !
I thought it was only in story books they could pull such
a stunt and get away with it. And have you gone through
the Glamorgan like that? Sure, you must know all about
the mystery by now !”
Mr. Terhune smiled deprecatingly.
“Scarcely that. We are dealing with a crime in which
clever influences are at work to conceal all possible clues;
but I don't mind telling you in strict confidence, McCarty,
that I am convinced I am on the right track. I have the
details of the girl's death properly fixed in my mind.
We will eliminate the young man who assisted you to
carry her into the building, for he could have had no
connection whatever with the affair. The fact that he


74 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
gave a false name and address to the officer in charge
is of no importance. Nine casual witnesses out of ten
will do that to avoid the annoyance and notoriety of
testifying at an inquest.”
“Yes, sir,” McCarty spoke respectfully, but without
conviction. “Of course, Cunliffe said he'd been loitering
around before, shamming intoxication 35
Terhune waved the suggestion aside.
“An extraneous detail,” he said. “If Officer Cun-
liffe's surmise as to that is correct, it has absolutely no
bearing on the case. Inspector Druet has given me an
account of his first interviews with the tenants, but I
should like to have you tell me again. There may be
one or two points which he failed to bring out. You
see, I have a sincere admiration for your own ability,
my friend.”
McCarty, with a mutinous glance at the medical volume
on the mantel, produced a fresh cigar, lighted it from
the stump of the last, and began. He told of each in-
terview in turn, carefully reserving his own opinions
and conclusions, and the famous detective listened in-
tently.
“And what do you think of it? Did anything suggest
itself to you, McCarty? Any inconsistencies or contra-
dictions in the testimony?” There was a tolerant, slightly
skeptical smile at the corners of Mr. Terhune's mouth,
but it vanished utterly at the other's reply.
“Well, sir, of course it was not for me to interfere
in the inspector's investigation; but, in spite of what she
said, that grass widow on the third floor, Mrs. Doremus,
was not alone with her servants that evening. She had
a visitor—a man.”
“Extraordinary !” The detective's tone was not too
cordial. “I myself discovered that yesterday, but I do
not understand how you came to the same conclusion.


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 75
There is a garbage-incinerating plant in the building;
but because of the excitement and general disorganiza-
tion resulting from this affair, the janitor had not yet
disposed of the kitchen refuse brought down from the
different apartments on the previous evening.
“In Mrs. Doremus's can I found the rinds of two
alligator-pears, artichoke leaves, bits of terrapin, and the
crushed carcass of a canvasback duck, the remains of
a meal far more elaborate than it is to be supposed a lady
would indulge in alone. From her tradespeople, a list
of whom I obtained from her maid, I ascertained that
the articles had been ordered on that day, so they were
not left over from a previous occasion. When I con-
fronted the lady, she attempted to deny it; but I studied
her psychology carefully, and finally succeeded in getting
an admission from her. How did you happen upon that
point?”
“Me? Oh, I smelled his cigar,” said McCarty.
“H-m! Did you discover anything else?”
McCarty shook his head.
“Well, I have settled, purely by a process of elimina-
tive deduction, the approximate time Miss Rowntree
must have entered the house,” the detective went on.
“It was between half-past nine and half-past ten. I am
sure that the hall-boy, Albert, is telling the truth when
he says he did not see her that evening; but although he
insists that he was on duty every minute, I think he must
have deserted his post about then, probably to run an
errand for one of the tenants and secure an extra tip.
The records of the telephone calls show that they were
fairly numerous up to that time, but none are listed
after that until just before eleven. I have noted them
carefully, traced each one, and made exhaustive inquiries
at the central exchange.”
“Miss Rowntree came in a little after ten,” McCarty


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 77
can do, but I'm afraid I'm not much good at it. I was
trained in the old days, when all we did was to go out
after the guilty party and get him convicted. There's
been a lot learned since I was on the force.”
Conversation was impossible in the breakneck dash of
the roadster through the crowded streets. Speed regula-
tions were set at naught, the policemen on the way evi-
dently recognizing the gray car and its distinguished
occupant. McCarty set his teeth and held on grimly,
with a mental note to side-step a like invitation in the
future, and made no effort to speak until they pulled up
before the doors of the Glamorgan.
A pretty nurse, arranging the pillows in a baby car-
riage in the hall, looked up at McCarty with an expres-
sion of blank surprise as they entered, which swiftly
changed to sullen apprehension as she caught sight of
his companion, and she replied to her quondam admirer's
lifted hat with an indignant toss of her head.
“Is that the girl?” asked Wade Terhune, and scarcely
waiting the other's nod, he approached her.
She was obviously disposed to be defiant and non-
committal at first, but she quickly surrendered, and from
a discreet distance McCarty saw that she was repeating
her story of the encounter with the other woman. After
a few moments she and the detective turned and dis-
appeared up the stairs together.
“She showed me the exact spot where she overtook
Miss Rowntree,” the latter explained when he rejoined
McCarty. “Her story appears to be straight enough.
What a pity her curiosity did not lead her to watch and
see which apartment the young lady entered. But that,
I think, is a foregone conclusion.”
McCarty paused in the elevator door and eyed him.
“You mean that one with the window open, and the


78 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
roses?” he asked, breathlessly. “The one the other girl
walked out of and away under our noses?”
“I mean the apartment we are going to now.” Terhune
stopped, and then, as the boy entered the cage and
fastened the door, he added: “To the third floor, please.
Mrs. Doremus’s.”
McCarty caught his breath. The woman whom he
had convicted of the first lie, and whose manner had
been so bafflingly furtive! Wade Terhune must, of
course, be in possession of some more indicative fact
than her mere reticence about a guest on the night of
the tragedy. To be sure, he himself had seen her open
her window, and heard her first scream of surprise and
horror, but had the inspector not said that the window
might have been closed quickly almost before the body
touched the sidewalk, and a person with sufficient pres-
ence of mind would know that by raising it again violently
and screaming, attention would be drawn to the fact
that it had been closed?
However, presence of mind was the last virtue Mc-
Carty would have attributed to Mrs. Doremus, even
though in the midst of her panic and hysteria she had
remembered to shield her visitor from being drawn into
the inquiry. Who had that guest been, and was the
motive for concealing his presence on that night a deeper
and more sinister one than an attempt to save him from
the nuisance of an interrogation?
The maid, Mary, opened the door to them, and Mc-
Carty found himself watching her askance. There
was a perceptible difference in her attitude since the
night of the tragedy. Pert and self-assured she had been
then, resisting their authority to the point of insolence
when they had first demanded to see and question her
mistress, civil later only when she wanted to divulge her
own information concerning the voice she had heard in


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 79
the air-shaft. Yet there had been about her, too, an
air of furtiveness, a barely concealed apprehension which
McCarty, the unimaginative, had divined rather than ob-
served.
Now it had vanished, and although she was demurely
respectful in the presence of the great detective, her
poise and self-assurance were more marked, and there
was a veiled mockery in her manner which puzzled
McCarty more than a little.
Mrs. Doremus was standing in her drawing-room pull-
ing on her gloves when they entered, and she bridled
defiantly as she returned Wade Terhune's suave saluta-
tion. In her street costume her plump figure unmis-
takably revealed the lines of middle-age, and her face
seemed sharpened in the clear morning light.
“I am going to a hotel, Mr. Terhune,” she announced,
her mouth tightening. “I understand it is by your request
that I have received an order preventing me from pack-
ing and removing my things to a storehouse, but you
surely will not attempt to go so far as to make me a
prisoner here?”
“Certainly not, Mrs. Doremus. You are free to make
what arrangements you please, but we must know where
to find you at any time,” he responded.
“You mean that I am to be under surveillance? This
is intolerable!” She burst out angrily. “I will not sub-
mit for a moment to such an indignity!”
Mr. Terhune shrugged.
“You must realize that every one in this house is
more or less under observation, and you are the first to
attempt to evade it by going away.”
“I cannot help it. I cannot endure this place another
day, it is getting on my nerves—but I don't know why
I should give any explanation to you!”
“I don't know either, madam,” Terhune said pointedly.


8o THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Your lack of frankness in the first instance concerning
the gentleman who was your guest two evenings ago
was unfortunate, however. If his account of the time
he spent here is satisfactory and can be proven, we will
not trouble you further. But we must locate him first.”
The telephone shrilled, and Mrs. Doremus picked up
her hand-bag.
“My taxi is waitin
Terhune stepped quietly between her and the door.
“I'm afraid it will have to wait a little longer, unless
you care to dismiss it. You told me yesterday that your
guest of the evening before was a Mr. Allen–George
T. Allen—an old friend whom you had not seen in years
until you met him by chance that morning downtown.
You said he was merely passing through New York on
his way to Canada, and you did not know at what hotel
he was stopping. I think that is correct?”
“Perfectly. Having corroborated that, I suppose I am
at liberty to leave? Really, Mr. Terhune, you go too
far !”
“One moment, please. Mr. Allen arrived at about
seven and left at ten ?”
She nodded curtly, her eyes snapping.
“Mrs. Doremus, where did you first meet Mr. Allen?”
“I—I don't remember. It was so long ago. In Seattle,
I think.”
“You were not married then? What was your maiden
name?”
She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“It was Thomas.”
Wade Terhune took a single step forward, and al-
though his voice was still quiet, there was a quality in
it which braced the listening McCarty as if to meet a
forthcoming blow.
>>


THE METHODS OF TERHUNE 8I
.
“Are you sure, Mrs. Doremus? Please think again.
Are you sure your name was not Thompson P’’
She stared at him, her face paling until the flecks of
rouge on her cheeks stood out in ugly blotches of purple.
“You have said that George T. Allen was an old
friend, but you did not add that he was a former husband
of yours. You claim not to have seen him in years until
the day he dined with you, yet the house attendants
declare that the man who was your guest that evening
had been a frequent and never announced visitor here.
“You assert that he left at ten o’clock; I maintain and
will prove that he was in this apartment when Marion
Rowntree crashed to her death on the pavement below;
he was in this apartment when Inspector Druet and
ex-Roundsman McCarty questioned you later! Mrs.
Doremus, what had that man, and you, to do with the
crime?”
The woman did not answer. Her mouth twisted con-
vulsively, the hand-bag slipped from her grasp, and she
swayed backward against the table and crumpled to the
floor.


CHAPTER VIII
THE MAN IN THE CORNER
in his customary chair before the fire-house
that afternoon, and coaxed his pipe to draw
properly, when ex-Roundsman McCarty made his ap-
pearance.
It was not the McCarty of the glad hand and the good
word whom Dennis knew, however; it was a strange and
stealthy McCarty, who walked with a cautious step
which might have been termed mincing in a person of
less bulk, and who glared balefully at the astonished
object of his regard.
“There was a fire last night,” he announced weightily.
“And you, that's mostly as sure-footed as a cat, fell off
a ladder or tripped over the hose. Also, you have had an-
other row with your sister, and wrote to her to make
D": RIORDAN had scarcely settled himself
it up. That's all, I'm thinking, except that your month's
pay is running low, and your eyes are troubling you
again.”
Dennis knocked his pipe against the arm of his chair
and scuffed the glowing embers carefully out on the
pavement.
“'Tis either rye or Irish,” he observed. “It’s Irish,
I’ll bet. It used to get you this way years ago. You
don’t happen to be under the impression that I'm Queen
of the May, or anything like that?”
“I’m deducing,” McCarty returned with dignity.
“And using the powers of my imagination.”
.
82
|


THE MAN IN THE CORNER 83
“You are that l” agreed the other emphatically. “My
advice to you, my lad, is to go home and sleep it off.
There's been no fire, not even a false alarm, and I don't
know what the devil you mean about Molly, or my pay
or my eyes and if it isn't Irish whisky—which I’d like
you to let me know where you can get a drop of the
real thing now, with the war and all—you'd better keep
out of the sun and not excite yourself.”
“Then I’ve not got the hang of it at all.” McCarty
dropped crestfallen into the chair expectantly vacant be-
side his friend. “I told Mr. Terhune I wasn't onto the
trick.”
“Terhune!” Dennis straightened his chair with a
clatter. “Ter—do you mean to say, Mac, you've been
hobnobbing with the like of him?”
McCarty nodded.
“I was trying his method just now, but it don't seem
to work. You've got a, bump on your forehead the size
of an egg, and I deduced you'd tripped up at a fire.
Molly does your mending for you except when the two
of you have had a scrap, and I see there's hole in your
sock and a button gone off your vest; you never write
a letter that you don't try to blot it with your thumb,
so I put two and two together and took a chance you'd
written to her. When do you shave yourself except
when your month's pay is running low, and are you ever
without a sporting extra in your hand unless your eyes
are bothering you too much to read? It's very simple.”
“It's damn’ foolishness!” Dennis retorted, stung by the
reference to his personal appearance. “I banged my
forehead on a chair in a friendly shindy with Mike up-
stairs, Molly's gone to the country with the baby, and
I got the ink on my thumb writing a bank-deposit slip,
so you needn't be losing sleep over my month's pay.
“Moreover, I got no paper for well I knew I’d have


84 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
no chance to read it now, with you haverin’ around, and
I cut myself shaving because Brian himself is sick, and
I’ll not have that German feller there leaning over me
with a razor and me with my two arms tied down under
a towel—not after the views he's heard me express about
neutrality | And is that the way the celebrated Mr.
Terhune works?” -
“It is. Wait till you hear!”
He described his own experience of the morning, and
Dennis listened gravely, his skepticism shaken.
“Did he tell you that you've the scar of Nick the
Wop's knife on your back or that you voted Republican
once, being drunk?” he asked, with interest.
“He did not, but I've no doubt he would if I’d given
him time,” responded McCarty solemnly. “He took me
to the Glamorgan after, in a scooting devil of a car
that'd give dust to your fire chief's, and what he did
there was fair amazing.”
His description of Wade Terhune's accusation of
Mrs. Doremus and her collapse left Dennis round-eyed
and short of breath.
“She admitted it?” he gasped. “When she came to,
she broke down and confessed ?”
“Not so that you could notice it,” McCarty replied
grimly. “The girl, Mary, brought her round with smell-
ing salts, and she was thundering mad at first, then
tried her long suit, hysterics. She said that whether
George Allen had ever been her husband or not was no
affair of Mr. Terhune's; that the people in the house who
said he'd called there before were mistaken; that he had
left at ten o'clock, and she could prove it by Mary.
“Then she began laughing and crying, and declared
she didn’t know what she'd said and wasn't responsible;
everybody had confused her so with questions and trying
to trap her when she knew nothing whatever about the


THE MAN IN THE CORNER 85
murder that it was a wonder she didn't lose her mind.
That was when Mary showed her claws.
“‘It doesn't matter what you said, Mrs. Doremus,’
she butted in, respectful and as if she were soothing a
child, but with a kind of meaning tone as though she
might almost be coaching her. “You’re not under oath,
and they can't make you swear unless they bring some
sort of a charge against you, and you know that's im-
possible.’
“The girl shut up quick when Terhune told her, but
what she'd said got to Mrs. Doremus all right, and from
that minute on she was just acting, going off into worse
hysterics if you so much as looked at her, let alone asked
a question. Terhune saw there was no more to be got
out of her then, and he let her go.”
“Go!” repeated Dennis, unable to keep silent longer.
“When he had her in the hollow of his hand ' What did
he do that for P”
“Oh, she'll not go far ! She will have been shadowed
from the time she sets foot out of the house, and the
girl, too. Besides, she was sticking to her story that
the man Allen left at ten, and nothing could shake her.
If you want to know my opinion, I don't think Terhune
expected to break her down in that, I think he purposely
told her what he knew and let her go to see what move
she would make next, and maybe trace this man through
her if she tried to communicate with him. It's the girl,
Mary, that's got me going.”
“How 2 I’d say she was just one of them pert, im-
pudent things that's been over here long enough to think
she's as good as the next one, and if”—Dennis chose his
words with unusual care—“if Mrs. Doremus is the kind
of a lady I'm thinking, the girl could hardly be expected
to keep her place.”
McCarty shook his head.


86 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“There's more than that back of it. She had a look
like she was laughing in her sleeve at the two of us, and
a kind of a way with her as if she knew just what she
was doing because she'd been told how to act. If you
ask me, I think she's following instructions from Some-
body higher up—the man who was there that night.”
“How do you suppose Mr. Terhune found out all that
about the Doremus woman, if it's true, to say nothing
of the rest of it?”
“Sure, he told me. He's trying to teach me his way
of working, he says, but I’m too old a dog to be learning
new tricks. After his first talk with her yesterday he
looked up her record and found she'd come on from the
West about five years ago, claiming to be a widow, and
broke into some sort of society. She married this man
Doremus, and a matter of two years ago he divorced her,
a put-up job, according to her. Terhune wired to where
she said she came from, traced back, and got the dope
that her maiden name was Thompson, and she'd married
and divorced this George Allen long before ever she hit
New York.”
“She must want bygones to be bygones, to go giving
him a fine dinner the other night,” observed Dennis.
“From what you said of her, I should think she'd be the
kind to hold it against you to her dying day, if you so
much as trod on her skirt.”
McCarty eyed him significantly.
“Do you think if a man once got foot-loose from a
woman like that he'd be after coming around again?”
he demanded. “It is my belief that when Terhune faced
her all of a sudden and asked her the name of the man
who'd been there, and her not thinking till that minute
it was known she’d not been alone; that she answered
with the first name which came in her head so as not to
give away the truth.


THE MAN IN THE CORNER 87
“The elevator-boys and the superintendent gave her the
lie about his not having been there before, but they'd
never heard his name, because he wasn't announced over
the 'phone, and he's the only visitor of hers that wasn't.
She put it off on Allen because he's away out West,
or dead, maybe, and she had no idea her own record
would be traced. She's not clever, that Mrs. Doremus,
but she's as stubborn as a mule, and she has good rea-
sons, whatever they are, for keeping the real man out of
it. Unless she's fool enough to try to get in touch with
him and so give Terhune a hint, he'll have to go after
the other end of the string and locate Allen.”
“Much good it'll do him if Allen's not the man.” Den-
nis paused in refilling his pipe. “Was that just a wild
guess of his that the fellow was there after the girl was
killed, or did he know? It's a fine joke on the inspector,
and you, too, if he was there under your noses and you
never spotted him!”
McCarty's jaw set.
“’Twas not my investigation, I'll be reminding you,
Denny.”
“But you smelled the smoke of his cigar.”
“He might have gone before ten, for all that would
matter. A cigar with the body to it that one had would
leave the smell of it for hours with all those flimsy
draperies around, especially as the windows were closed.
Nobody saw him go out that night, and Terhune, with
his spy-glass and his little measuring-stick, found out
something mighty curious.”
“When he was snooping in the garbage?” A trace of
skepticism had returned to Dennis's voice.
“No. I’ve told you that the drawing-room in Mrs.
Doremus's apartment is on the corner, with the library
opening out of it on the side street, but next the drawing-
room on the avenue side is the dining-room. It's a kind


88 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
of an old-fashioned house, the Glamorgan, with exposed
radiators, and in that room there is one in the corner
between the window looking on the avenue, and the
folding-doors leading to the drawing-room.
“Catacornered across it is a great tall cut-glass closet,
with just enough space for any one not too portly to
squeeze in. Denny, somebody had squeezed in, and it
was a tight fit, too, for they'd torn their dinner coat!
Terhune found a bit of fine, black broadcloth hanging
to the little valve near the top of the radiator on one
side. And more than that.
“The closet in front of it is higher than your head,
and glass all around, sides and back. There were marks
on it—the print of a man's fingers, and 1.1 one or two
places of a whole hand where he'd pressed against it,
pushing his way in and out. It seems that yesterday,
after he'd talked to them, Terhune got Mrs. Doremus
and Mary and the cook—who'd gone to-day—out of the
way, and he went over that apartment inch by inch, until
he came on that. He took impressions of those finger-
prints, and if he ever gets hold of the man who stood
there, he'll know him.”
“Maybe it was the janitor, moving the glass closet to
get at the radiator if it leaked,” suggested Dennis hope-
fully.
“Radiators don't leak in July,” McCarty retorted.
“Nor do janitors wear fine, black broadcloth coats at
work, to say nothing of mother-of-pearl vest buttons.”
“Mother of what?”
“Pearl. Something like what you got to wear at
Molly's wedding, only real. Terhune found one under
the glass closet, where the man had rasped it off him
squeezing through, the same as he'd torn his coat in the
back. He got it coming and going.”


THE MAN IN THE CORNER 89
“It's funny he wouldn't have hid in a cupboard, where
he'd have had room enough,” Dennis reflected.
“Afraid, maybe, we'd look there.”
“But wouldn't he know he'd be seen behind that thing
if it was all glass?”
“Not if you'd cast your eye over it once. It's so full
of junk it would dazzle you, with big platters tilted .
against the back and sides, filling up the space from one
shelf to another. Besides, the light is low in the dining-
room, just one center drop over the table.”
“And you're thinking he was there putting it over on
you and the inspector?”
“I don’t know what to think about that,” confessed
McCarty frankly. “I’ve a mind to look up the inspector
later. 'Twas him that first suggested getting Terhune on
this job, too.” -
“He’s a wonder, all right,” Dennis acknowledged. “I
didn't think much of his methods when you tried them
on me, but you've got to hand it to him. He must be
a great man.”
“And he's having a great little time with his micro-
scope and foot-rule, to say nothing of his psycho-what-
ever it is—reasoning.”
Something in McCarty's tone made his friend look
up swiftly.
“Well, he found out about the man in the corner,
didn’t he?”
“He did, and it was good work. I've no doubt that
if he goes through every apartment in the house the same
way, he'll find something in each one that the family
are not advertising; things, maybe, just as queer as this.
But that don’t say that any of them had a hand in
murdering the girl.
“To my mind, there's nothing in what he doped out
in Mrs. Doremus's apartment to connect her, or the man


90 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
either, with the death. There's nothing to show they
even knew her, let alone a motive; and what would she
be doing there, in the first place? The funeral is to-
morrow, and the inquest the day after. Maybe Mrs.
Doremus will talk then.”
Dennis's sudden access of admiration for the genius
of Wade Terhune, and his evident approbation at the
ease with which the detective had discovered what the
inspector had overlooked, jarred upon McCarty's mood,
and rankled in the face of his loyalty to his former
superior. But Dennis was disposed to argue.
“I should think it was pretty clear that the two of them
had something to do with what happened, from their
actions. Why would Mrs. Doremus take so much trouble
to keep him out of it, and lie and get in Dutch about it
herself if they was as innocent as she makes out? And
look at him! 'Tis not a parlor diversion, except for
children, to go hiding behind furniture. You're bound to
admit that l”
“What if he was a prominent man—married, too,
maybe—and couldn't afford to have it known he was
calling there, murder or no murder? If he was there
when the girl fell past the window, as Mrs. Doremus
said she did, he mightn't want to take a chance on trying
to walk out through the crowd he must have known
would collect, and perhaps being stopped and questioned
by the police. The fact that he never gave his name
down-stairs when he came looks as if he was trying to
keep his visits secret.”
“Say, Macl” Dennis twisted abruptly about in his
chair. “How did he get out, anyway? After, I mean.
Wasn't the house surrounded and watched P’’
“It was, and there's been men at both entrances ever
since.” McCarty's face was a study. “The inspector
even had the roofs watched all night, until he made a
.


THE MAN IN THE CORNER 9I
second search in the morning into every hole and corner
of the building from the cellar up. I never thought of
that, Denny. I wonder if Terhune did? There's one
thing sure. If I was him, I'd keep an eye on the flat
above, the one where that play-writer and his wife live.
I'd get hold of the girl that went away and ask her a
few questions, and I’d find out a little about Marion
Rowntree. A line on her friends, and what she's been
doing with herself lately, would come in handy.”
“You wouldn't do much in twenty-four hours, would
you?” asked Dennis with scorn. “Give him a chance,
can't you? It's not for nothing he got his reputation.
Sure, he did more in an hour, by your own account,
than Inspector Druet in the whole night, and with the
trail hot before him.”
“Well”—McCarty rose—“of course it's nothing to me
since I’m out of the game. There's no denying he's a
smart man; but he's as apt to make a mistake as the next
one, being human. I’ve no powers of imagination, and
no deduction, and my reasoning may be on the fritz;
but I’ve got a plain, ordinary hunch, and that is that the
couple on the fourth floor could tell him more about
what happened than the fat little blonde woman, or her
friend behind the glass closet. They were in Newark
at the theater, with a grand little alibi all ready and
working overtime; but I saw the looks that passed be-
tween them while the inspector was questioning them,
and if they don't actually know what took place that
night, they could give a pretty shrewd guess.”
After supper that evening, McCarty followed the
vague impulse of the afternoon and dropped in at head-
quarters. He found Inspector Druet alone at his desk
in the little side office, going over a voluminous batch of
typed notes. -
“Well, Mac, they put one over on us.” The inspector


92 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
smiled wearily. “I thought I'd pumped that little Dore-
mus woman nearly dry, but she was too much for me.
Even that girl of hers, Mary, gave us a stall about the
voice down the air-shaft.”
“I don’t think so, sir.” McCarty sat in the chair in-
dicated and laid his hat on the desk. “I think she was
telling the truth there, all right; but what she heard has
got no more to do with the murder than the man hiding
in the corner as far as any evidence goes that Mr. Ter-
hune has now, as I was saying to my friend Riordan
this afternoon.” -
“Terhune tells me you were with him when he faced
Mrs. Doremus to-day.”
“Yes, sir.” McCarty paused, wondering uncomfort-
ably if the detective had told of his suspicions which
he had not communicated to the inspector. “He asked
me to go along. The case has got me going, sir; that's
a fact. I can't help turning it over in my mind and trying
to dope it out myself.” -
“I wish you could, Mać,” responded the inspector
heartily. “If you want to know anything, fire away.
We know you'll keep any information you get safe from
the newspaper boys, and that is what we want just now.”
“Sure I will P. McCarty moved his chair nearer. “I
came trailing all the way down here to satisfy my curi-
osity about two other tenants—them on the fourth floor.
Did you get a line on them, inspector?”
“Oh, yes; they're straight enough The young man,
Antonio, is taking a summer course at the university,
as he said. He seems to be quite a favorite with the
others in his class, but he is intimate with no one. He
registered up there as coming from San Francisco.
“The other two, Grafton Foxe and his wife, are on
the level, too. They are well known in theatrical circles,
especially vaudeville, and every one speaks well of them.


THE MAN IN THE CORNER 93
We've wired out to the Chicago authorities to look up
the girl, Ivy Collins, at that address on Leavitt Street
and get her statement. That's all we've got about any
of them as yet. Mrs. Doremus's record you heard from
Terhune, I understand.”
McCarty nodded. -
“Of course, you know she flew the coop—”
“She has taken a suite at the Hotel Lavenham, with
Mary along as her personal maid,” the inspector inter-
rupted. “We are taking no chances of losing sight of
them.”
“That Mary acts queer to me,” McCarty remarked.
“As if she might have some one back of her.”
“She has.” Inspector Druet leaned forward in his
chair. “We got the office to-night to lay off of Mrs.
Doremus, and it came from high up, too. There's a
strong influence at work for her somewhere.”
“I had an idea that might come,” McCarty grinned.
“It’s more for the sake of the man, I’m thinking, than
for her. So she's to be dropped from the investigation,
is she?”
“Not while Terhune's in the game,” the inspector re-
plied grimly. “It’s a good thing I had him retained on
this, for we-well, it would have been healthier for us
to take that hint. You know how it was yourself, Mac,
when you were on the force. But Terhune is a free
lance; he never takes a case unless he can have full
swing, and he stops at nothing. This quiet word passed
on down the line is like waving a red flag before a bull,
to him. He won't get off that trail now until he runs
the man to earth.”


THE INQUEST 95
not have dared show themselves at the inquest or near
the scene of the tragedy itself.
The faces about him expressed merely an avid if
impersonal interest, and so closely did they press against
him that he could scarcely turn to look behind. Across
the bare intervening space McCarty spied the stalwart
form of Cunliffe in the other division of the crowd, but
he could not catch his eye.
The minister and the last of the few guests had long
since disappeared behind the noiselessly closing doors,
and the waiting throng commenced to evince a restive
impatience. Feet shuffled upon the pavement; the mur-
mur of voices grew louder, and an aimless but concerted
movement here and there brought quick attention and
sharp reprimand from the guardians of the peace. The
crowd facing McCarty was shifting, the foremost being
slowly but inexorably pressed aside to make way for
those back of them.
McCarty's eyes, casually sweeping the changing mass,
were caught and held momentarily by one face directly
across from him, and not far removed from where Cun-
liffe was standing. Its pale intentness marked it even
in that sea of eagerly curious faces.
• Where had McCarty seen that pasty, cadaverous,
deeply lined, yet oddly youthful countenance, with the
enormous ears standing out on either side? In another
instant it would disappear in the crowd, and he searched
his traitorous memory desperately. All at once, as if it
sounded audibly in his ear, a hushed, shuddering voice
came to him:
“Her blood is on me!”
It was the strange young man who had helped him
to carry the battered body into the doctor's office, who
had later given a false name and address, and had
dropped from sight!


96 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
McCarty signaled frantically to Cunliffe, who at length
perceived him, and gestured cordially in response with
a bland lack of comprehension that was maddening.
McCarty redoubled his efforts, but a look of puzzled
inquiry from the officer was the only reward of his at-
tempt. It produced an unwelcome result, however.
His gesticulations had drawn the attention of the
young man himself, who vouchsafed him one keen, ap-
prehensive glance, then turned swiftly and wormed his
way with sinuous agility through the serried ranks back
of him.
McCarty, hemmed in on all sides, was forced to stand
impotently, but with raging exasperation in his heart,
and watch the disappearance of one whom he felt to be
no idle spectator, but a character of importance in the
drama whose grim final curtain was ringing down there
at that hour. .
A rising murmur of expectation turned McCarty's
eyes to the door of the Quimby house. It had opened,
and the brief, black-garbed procession appeared, and
started down the steps toward the waiting hearse and
motorS.
Immediately behind the slender, flower-heaped coffin
a tall, bowed woman, closely swathed in crape, leaned
heavily upon the arm of Stephen Quimby. The banker
was pale, but his face was a composed, expressionless
mask, and he held himself with his habitual dignity and
poise.
Half-way down the steps, however, his somberly-
banded hat slipped from his grasp and rolled to the side-
walk. One of the pallbearers picked it up and handed
it to him, and he brushed it with his sleeve.
McCarty craned his neck forward. The incident in
itself was trivial, but to his watchful gaze there had
seemed to be something forced and unnatural in Quim-


THE INQUEST 97
by's movements, and he had not failed to note the swift,
significant glance with which the banker had swept the
assembled multitude as the hat fell from his hand.
The crowd swayed and parted, forming a lane for the
egress of the funeral procession, and in a few minutes the
last motor-car had slipped around the corner, and all
Was Over. -
Cunliffe had vanished before McCarty could reach
him, and the assemblage rapidly disintegrated. At the
outskirts of the thinning crowd he saw a woman whose
figure seemed familiar, and edging his way closer, he
discovered that it was Mary, the maid of Mrs. Doremus.
Had morbid curiosity alone drawn her to the scene?
He wondered that her mistress should have sanctioned
such a step, and then remembered the girl's evident
ascendancy over the woman she served. -
An impulse to approach her sent him forward as
quickly as the human obstacles barring his way would
allow; but he was halted by a glimpse of Martin, one of
Inspector Druet's aids, just behind her, and Yost almost
abreast. Her presence at least would not go unrecorded,
but he cursed the chance which had permitted the strange
young man—Cunliffe's “drunk”—to slip again from un-
der his hands.
He spent a restless afternoon, reading the papers and
pacing the floor of his room. Dennis had made use of
a day off duty to go to see his sister and her baby in
the country, and McCarty resented the defection of his
confidant.
In the evening, impelled by an impulse too vague to
be defined, he found himself back at the scene of the
morning's event. It was after nine o'clock, and the street
was fairly deserted. A few crushed flowers in the
gutter marked the house of bereavement; and as McCarty
sauntered by on the other side of the street, he perceived


98 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
a dark figure loitering in the shadow of the tradesmen's
entrance.
He crossed at the corner and strolled back, and the
figure emerged from the gloom and approached him.
“Mac, what the devil brings you hanging around?
There's two more across the way by Mr. Terhune's
orders. It's beyond me why Quimby should be getting
the double O.”
It was the detective, Martin.
“What are you doing here yourself?” retorted Mc-
Carty. “I thought you were trailing that servant girl of
Mrs. Doremus’s.”
“I’m on the job now. She's in there.” He pointed a
thumb over his shoulder.
“In Quimby's house? What for?” McCarty was
staggered.
“You can search me,” the detective returned with a
shrug. “She's nobody's fool, and she's on to it that she's
being shadowed; but she came here straight from the
Lavenham Hotel a matter of ten minutes ago, as open as
if she didn't care who followed her. She wasn't expected
either. There was talk and some little delay before they
let her in. Whist! Get along with you, Mac. She's
coming out now !”
McCarty promptly effaced himself and returned to
his room. She would be a witness at the inquest on the
following day, and undoubtedly this visit would be made
the subject of query. What explanation would she give
of her errand?
A natural sequence led his train of thought back to
the girl's mistress and the significant hint from “higher
up” to eliminate Mrs. Doremus from the investigation.
Obviously, the influence was at work to protect her
mysterious guest, for she was scarcely in a position to
command it for herself. This question, however, was in


THE INQUEST 99
Terhune's hands, and, like the inspector, McCarty felt
convinced that he would compel an answer to it. But
when he had done so, would they be any nearer a solu-
tion to the initial problem confronting them? When the
man was found, would he prove to have been the slayer
of Marion Rowntree?
As he finally dropped off to sleep, there appeared be-
fore McCarty in the darkness the long-jawed, lugubrious
face of the man who had escaped him in the crowd that
morning. It had changed greatly in the two days that
had elapsed since their first encounter; the unhealthy
pallor was accentuated, the lines more deeply marked,
and even across the wide space which had separated
them, it seemed to McCarty that a harassed, hangdog air
pervaded him, as of one whose thoughts gave him no
peace.
The inquest had been set for ten the next morning,
but McCarty was on hand a good half-hour earlier. He
selected a seat at the side of the room and near the rail,
where he could scan the faces, not only of the prospective
witnesses as they filed in, but of the spectators as well.
Terhune was busied with the coroner over a pile of
typewritten sheets at the desk, but he favored his asso-
ciate of two days before with a brisk nod.
Cunliffe, too, hailed the ex-roundsman cheerfully, but
his good humor turned to chagrin when McCarty told
him how close he had been to the missing witness, and
he swore energetically beneath his breath.
“That comes of being so darned anxious to see what's
going on a ways off that you overlook a bet right under
your nose!” he exclaimed bitterly. “My time was taken
up watching the two near you, and I never thought of
looking around me.”
“The two 22
“Sure. That man Grafton Foxe and his wife. I was


IOO THE CLUE IN THE AIR
thinking the woman would drop in the street, to look at
her. They beat it just after the coffin was brought out,
and I lost track of them.”
McCarty set his lips grimly. So he, too, had over-
looked a bet! He would have given much to have edged
near them, unperceived in the crowd, and listened to
their comment. He mentally cursed his wasted oppor-
tunity.
But he had no time for further regret. The hands
of the big clock pointed to five minutes before the hour;
the room was filling rapidly, and the jury already seated
in their allotted place.
His eyes traveled over the assembled witnesses. Dr.
Elmsford was there, and the hall-boy, Mr. and Mrs.
Grafton Foxe, the youthful inventor, Mr. Antonio; Mrs.
Doremus and the maid Mary. There were several
people, too, whom McCarty had never seen before, among
them a shabby, shrinking little gray-haired woman; a
tall young man with a weather-beaten face and keen
eyes, a smartly attired girl, staring and round-eyed, and
an immaculate, blond youth with an incipient mustache
and a broad, rather cynical expression.
Two chairs were still vacant, and even as McCarty
noted them the door swung open once more. The first
to enter was a little man with a hawk nose and shining,
bald head, at sight of whom the ex-roundsman stiffened
in his chair. It was Humboldt, one of the most brilliant
as well as by far the most unscrupulous lawyers of the
day. Who could have retained him to safeguard their
interests?
Immediately following him came Stephen Quimby,
supporting the same frail, heavily veiled figure which
had leaned upon his arm on the previous day.
They paused for an instant in the doorway, while
Stephen Quimby swept the room with one of his keen,


THE INQUEST IOI
lightninglike glances. Then he stooped slightly and
whispered something into the ear of his companion. She
made no reply, but swayed and clutched his arm in a
convulsive grasp, and as if aware that all eyes were upon
them, he steadied her and drew her toward the two
empty chairs.
McCarty had just time to perceive that the lawyer,
Humboldt, had sidled in between Mrs. Doremus and lier
maid when the proceedings were opened and his own
name called.
He gave his testimony with concise brevity, and was
followed on the stand by Dr. Elmsford, Officer Cunliffe,
and the hall-boy, Alfred Griggs. The latter had one
fresh item to disclose, and although his evidence was given
in a furtive and abashed manner, it could not be shaken.
He was positive he had taken Mrs. Doremus's guest
down in the elevator at ten o'clock and seen him depart.
“How do you know it was just ten o'clock?” Coroner
Selby asked.
“Be-because I just got through winding the clock on
the telephone-desk when the gentleman rang the elevator-
bell.”
“He had been a frequent caller on Mrs. Doremus?”
“N-no, sir.”
“No?” The coroner eyed him sharply. “You told
Mr. Terhune two days ago that he came very often but
you had never heard his name.”
The boy shook his head.
‘No, sir. I said seems like I had seen him there before,
but I wasn't 'zactly certain. Then I done got thinking
it over, an’ bimeby I seen it was a mistal:e. I never did
lay eyes on the gen’leman till that night.”
His testimony closed with a description of Marion
Rowntree's first visit to the Glamorgan and a reiteration
of his ignorance of her return on the night of her death.


IO2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
The coroner's physician was called next, and then
Stephen Quimby took the stand. He told in a quiet,
unemotional voice of the identification at the morgue,
and repeated his first statement to the police. He knew
of no reason for his daughter's visit to the Glamorgan
and no enemy who would have taken her life.
But even as he spoke his glance shot down straight
before him to the waiting group of witnesses, and for
an instant it seemed to McCarty that a threat, a menace
glared from his eyes.
It was gone the next moment, and his tone was as
calmly controlled as ever as he continued his testimony.
In reply to the questions put to him, he stated that to his
knowledge his daughter had been contented and happy,
with no shadow of trouble preying on her mind, and
full of plans for the future. She was of the athletic,
outdoor type, but during the past few months she had
developed an enthusiastic tendency toward literature, and
devoted much of her time to reading.
She had never had a serious love affair, only one or
two mild attachments, which had come to no definite
point. He had made every endeavor to bring her up
with the most careful guardianship, as she was mother-
less, and her aunt had been her constant companion.
She could scarcely have formed acquaintances without
their knowledge and approval, and he was quite sure she
knew no one living in the Glamorgan.
Although his responses were given firmly and without
hesitation, there was a seeming lack of personal interest
and feeling in his manner as well as his carefully guarded
utterances, which could not fail to create an unpleasant
impression upon his hearers. Even the coroner fell a
prey to its influence, as evinced by the increasing brevity
and peremptory tone of his inquiries.
“Mr. Quimby, what is known of Miss Rowntree's


THE INQUEST ... IO3
movements on the occasion of her first visit to the Gla-
morgan, three days before her death?”
“She went ostensibly for a visit to her dressmaker's.
Miss Beckwith called there by appointment to meet her,
but she had gone. She reached home somewhat later,
and said she had walked through the park.”
“You say that you know of no reason for her presence
in the apartment house, no enemies, no trouble—nothing,
in fact, which can in any way aid our investigation. Surely
you have formed some theory, Mr. Quimby; your suspi-
cions must be aroused ?”
He paused suggestively, but the banker eyed him with
a courteous reserve and remained silent.
“Have you any theory or suspicions?” he demanded
curtly, annoyed at being forced to frame a direct question.
“None. The affair is absolutely inexplicable to me.”
“Is it your purpose to offer a reward for the appre-
hension of your stepdaughter's murderer?”
“No.”
“May I ask why not, Mr. Quimby 2”
“Really I had not analyzed my mental attitude in
anticipation of such a query.” He paused and then
added: “I am philosophical enough to realize that no
amount of official inquiry, or punishment of the guilty
can bring my stepdaughter back to life again. That being
so, I do not feel the need of feeding the rapacity of the
public with further sensation and keeping alive a noto-
riety which is exceedingly distasteful to Miss Rowntree's
relatives and friends.”
He inclined his head slightly in the direction of the
veiled figure; and the coroner, after a few final ques-
tions of trivial import, dismissed him and called Miss
Pauline Beckwith.
The veiled lady arose trembling and, again supported
by her brother-in-law, tottered to the stand. Before


104 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
taking the oath she threw back the crape which had
swathed her head, revealing a colorless, delicately lined
face, which still retained traces of faded beauty.
Her chin was weak, her brows arched in a character-
less semicircle, and the pale-blue eyes beneath, strained
with much weeping, fluttered in a nervous panic from
Stephen Quimby's impassive countenance to the coroner's
- professionally grave one.
Her first replies were made in a broken, almost toneless
whisper, and she hesitated before even the most per-
functory questions. After establishing her position as the
head of her brother-in-law's household, the coroner
broached the identification of the body at the morgue.
“Yes, I saw the the clothing.” Her face twitched
painfully with emotion. “Mr. Quimby attended to the
rest. I–I could not bear to look upon her face.”
She seemed upon the point of collapse, and the coroner
reassured her hastily.
“I understand. The shock must have been great.
Now, tell me please, Miss Beckwith, of the preceding
day. Miss Rowntree remained in, the house until late
in the afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Did you observe anything unusual in her manner?”
“No. She was a very self-contained girl and un-
demonstrative. I was quite busy; we were preparing to
close the house and go to our country home in the
Berkshires.” She paused and her eyes sought Stephen
Quimby. “But though we were not together except at
luncheon, I am sure I would have noticed anything out
of the ordinary in her mood.”
“She went shopping with you in the afternoon?”
“About four o'clock, or perhaps a little before.”
“Where did you go?”


Ioé THE CLUE IN THE AIR
the counter. I turned to consult Marion about a pur-
chase, believing her to be just behind me, but she had
disappeared. That is all I know.”
Detailed questioning from the coroner brought forth
a disjointed repetition of the unimportant conversation
at dinner and the fact of Marion Rowntree's almost
immediate retirement. As Stephen Quimby had already
related to the police, Miss Beckwith, in passing to her
own room a little later, had tapped at her niece's door,
and elicited a “good night” response. She knew of
nothing more until the tragic tidings came in the early
morning.
The coroner released her, and after a hurried scrutiny
of his notes, called:
“Miss Gladys Hatfield.”


CHAPTER X
THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE
betrayed her identity by her start of emotion
during Miss Beckwith's testimony, rose with a
stir of silken ruffles and came slowly forward. She was
pretty in a rather bold, ostentatious fashion, but her
youthful charm was marred by an air of cynical sophisti-
cation. -
Without preamble the coroner launched his thunder-
bolt.
“When was the last occasion on which you saw Miss
Rowntree alive?”
“Two months ago, in the Cherry Blossom tea-room at
the Fitz-Morris.”
“Then you did not meet her in Mollenhauer's four
days ago, as she stated to Miss Beckwith ?”
“I wasn’t even in town' My aunt, of whom she spoke,
too, went to Honolulu weeks ago. I really think it is
quite too bad to drag us into a thing of this sort! Of
course, she couldn't have known what was going to
happen to her, and I’m dreadfully sorry for her, but she
might have used somebody else as an excuse—”
“Never mind that, please. How long have you known
the deceased?”
“Marion? Oh, for perfect ages! We were at school
together, and until last season we were quite intimate.”
“What happened last season?”
“Why—nothing, only Marion changed a lot. She grew
Tº: young woman who a few minutes earlier had
IoW


IO3 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
terribly serious all of a sudden and didn't seem to care
any more for the things we'd always done; riding and
dancing and bridge. Of course, she had never been quite
like the other girls in our set. She had queer socialistic
ideas and no regard at all for class distinctions. She
would make friends with just anybody if they happened
to interest her. When she began to keep to herself last
autumn, and wouldn't go about, we all thought it was
because of an affair.”
“A love affair? Please tell what you know about it,
Miss Hatfield.”
For the first time the young lady betrayed signs of
embarrassment. She looked down, fingering her little
gold purse self-consciously and a dull flush mounted in
her cheeks.
“I don't really know anything. It was all just gossip,
but—but somebody had been very attentive to her all
the previous winter, from the time of her début, and then
in the summer it was broken off suddenly. Not that
there was anything to break off, no engagement had been
announced, but it simply ended. Nobody knew why, she
would never discuss it afterward.”
“You say Miss Rowntree changed. Did she seem
depressed?”
“No, on the contrary. She seemed awfully happy, in
a quiet sort of way, as if she was interested in some-
thing else more than in social things.”
“And this continued until the last time you saw her?”
“Yes. She was brighter that day at the Fitz-Morris,
simply radiant and bubbling over. It was funny, because
she seldom really woke up, and she was in an unusually
gay mood. I remember asking her what had happened,
but she only laughed, and kissed me.”
“Thank you. That will do.”
Miss Hatfield left the stand, tossing her head as she


THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE Io9
encountered Stephen Quimby's cold glance, and while
the coroner again consulted his notes McCarty studied
the witnesses. Mrs. Doremus was eying the girl critically,
as if mentally summing up her costume and appearance,
Grafton Foxe was whispering intently to his wife, and
the young inventor, Mr. Antonio, was surveying the
whole scene with frank curiosity and interest.
The coroner looked up from his papers.
“Mr. Luke Edwards.”
The tall bronzed young man with the keen, furrowed
eyes, rose and made his way briskly forward. He was
a stranger to McCarty, but as the oath was administered
to him, the ex-roundsman's attention was drawn else-
where.
Miss Beckwith had suddenly leaned forward and
grasped her companion's arm until her thin knuckles
seemed about to burst through the black glove. Her
eyes, fixed and glassy, were staring at the new witness
and her breath came in great gasps. Stephen Quimby
for a moment cast aside his iron control, and bending
over her, he whispered almost fiercely into her ear. She
shrank back in dismay, and the next instant the crape
veil descended about her face, effectually concealing her
emotion.
“What is your profession, Mr. Edwards?”
“I am an aviator, employed by Mr. Quimby as chief
mechanician at his hangar near Garden City, Long
Island.”
“You were acquainted with Miss Marion Rowntree?”
“Slightly. She had accompanied Mr. Quimby to the
hangars on several occasions, and I piloted her on two
short flights.”
“Was there an accident on either of these two occa-
sions?”
“No, sir. The accident in which she received the in-


IIO THE CLUE IN THE AIR
jury to her side that left the scar your physician men-
tioned this morning, occurred a year ago, when she was
flying with Mr. Quimby. It was after that she flew with
me.”
“Mr. Edwards, will you tell the jury what took place
last Monday afternoon?”
“Why, I came into town.” The young man seemed
to hesitate, then went on firmly: “Mr. Quimby had been
out to the hangar on the afternoon of the previous day
and instructed me to purchase certain mechanical Sup-
plies, so Monday I took the little runabout and drove in.
I finished my errands and started back, when at the en-
trance to Manhattan Bridge I met Miss Rowntree.”
He stopped, and the coroner asked:
“At what time was this?”
“About half-past five.”
“Had you any idea what Miss Rowntree was doing
in that locality at that hour?”
. “No, sir. I didn't think anything about it. She was in
an open taxicab, a worn-out, shabby one, and it had
broken down. She was looking for another and I of
fered to take her anywhere she wanted to go in the
runabout.
“She got in and I drove her out to a little cottage in
Steinway, beyond Astoria. I don't know the address—
she didn't, either, but she knew the way and directed me
at each turning. I could take any one there again, sir,
but the house is closed and boarded up. When she found
no one there, we turned and came straight back to the
city. She did not want me to take her home, but left
me and took the first taxi we could find after crossing
the bridge again.”
“Did she make any explanation of her errand, or seem
put out when she found no one at the house?”
“No, sir, only puzzled. She just said: “They will


THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE III
probably return in the fall.” She didn't talk much on
the way back, but going out she asked a lot of questions
about the aëroplanes and seemed interested in the differ-
ent races and flying meets scheduled.”
“There was nothing in her manner to indicate that
anything of a personal nature was preying on her mind?”
“Nothing that I noticed, sir, but then I hardly knew
her well enough to judge.”
He was dismissed, and returned to his seat without a
glance at his employer. Quimby had listened with an
air of well-bred but slightly bored attention as if the
testimony was not new to him. At its conclusion, Miss
Beckwith had made a movement toward him as if to
speak, but he drew back with an unmistakable gesture
and she relinquished her intention.
The coroner next called Miss Agnes Wilkinson, and
the shabby, little gray-haired woman advanced.
After taking the oath she said she was a visiting
seamstress and was frequently in the employ of Miss
Beckwith and Miss Rowntree, to make underwear and
repair household linen. She was an expert embroiderer
and darner, and had worked for the family at odd times
for the past twenty years, having seen Miss Marion
grow from babyhood.
Her soft voice faltered as she spoke and tears stood
frankly in her gentle eyes. Miss Marion had been a
sweet child and a lovely, kind, young lady. No one could
have had cause to wish her any harm.
“You were employed in the Quimby household in the
spring?”
“Yes, sir, every spring and fall I went to them for
a month.”
“Try to think back, Miss Wilkinson, to a year ago
last spring. Do you remember anything unusual in Miss
Rowntree's bearing or conduct then?”


II2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“No, sir, she was just like any other light-hearted
young girl.”
“You saw her frequently?”
“Yes, sir, every day. She made it a point to come in
and have a little talk with me, no matter how busy she
was with social things. She was just like her mother,
always considerate and thoughtful. She used to get me
to talk about her mother whenever we were alone; she
missed her.”
“When you sewed for them last autumn, did you ob-
serve any change in Miss Rowntree?”
“She was quieter, not sad but as if she was trying to
think something out for herself. She asked me a lot of
questions I couldn't begin to answer that showed her
mind was on deep things.”
“What sort of questions?”
“Oh, about heredity—things that were handed down
like a family likeness, from one generation to another—
and about all the things a woman could do in the world
besides just marrying and settling down. I didn't think
anything about it at the time. I guess most girls get
those notions nowadays until somebody comes along they
care for.”
She hesitated.
“I had thought that spring that maybe she would be
married; there was a young man around all the time
and she seemed to like him, but when I spoke of him in
the fall, she said she hadn't seen him in a long time.
She smiled in a funny kind of way, and I couldn't help
asking if they’d quarreled or anything had happened.
You may think I was taking liberties, sir, but she seemed
to confide in me more than in any one else, almost.”
“Did she tell you what had occurred?”
“She just said that the gentleman—Mr. Sturtevant,
his name was—had gone away. But if he did, he must


THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE II3
have come back for I was taking a little walk in the
park late one afternoon—it was after I had finished at
the Quimby house—and I saw them meet on the drive.
“Mr. Quimby's chauffeur was with her in the roadster,
but Mr. Sturtevant was alone in his racing car. I
thought she was going to pass him at first, but he drew
up and she had to stop. He seemed urging her to do
something, but she shook her head and drove on. He
sat still, looking after her till she was out of sight.
Neither of them saw me.”
“When you went to them this spring, did anything
out of the usual take place?”
“Yes, sir.” The little woman paused, glancing timidly
toward the motionless veiled figure. Then she straight-
ened herself and threw back her head. “Maybe I did
wrong, but I’d always loved her and I would have done
anything she had asked of me. She seemed queer and
I couldn’t make her out; worried almost to death about
Something, but happy, too, in an excited kind of way.
“She got me to mail some letters for her, and the
answers came to my address. I’d get them when I went
home for a change of clothes and give them to her when
we were alone, which wasn't often this spring. It just
happened that Miss Beckwith or one of the maids would
be with me whenever she came in.”
“To whom were those letters addressed which you
mailed?” The coroner leaned forward expectantly and
a great stillness had settled over the room.
“I don't know.” The little woman eyed him steadily.
“Oh, come, Miss Wilkinson, you don't mean to tell us
you didn't glance at the envelopes?”
“I don't read what's not meant for me. Miss Marion
trusted me, and I wouldn't tell you as much as I have,
only—only that gentleman surprised it out of me yes-


II4 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
terday, and anyway, it can't hurt poor Miss Marion
now.”
She had indicated Wade Terhune, and her face flushed.
“The handwriting on the envelopes you received for
her at your home—was it a man's or woman's P’’
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Would you know it again if you saw it?”
“No, sir.” Her manner made it evident that she
should take care not to know, and the coroner did not
press the point. -
“How many letters passed, in all?”
“Three or four each way.”
“Did this correspondence keep on until you left?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you believe it to be in connection with another
love affair P” -
“I didn’t know, sir. She asked me to do what I did
and that was enough for me. I remember, though, she
was looking forward to this coming autumn.” Her
voice grew husky. “Whatever she planned, poor dear,
it’s all over now ! She started two or three times to
say something about her birthday—she would have been
twenty-one a couple of weeks from now, if she'd lived
—but she always broke off before I could make out what
she'd meant.” *
“Was her home life as happy this last spring as it
had been in the past?”
Miss Wilkinson hesitated, and swallowed hard.
“I wish you wouldn't ask me that, sir, it don't seem
fair to go in other people's houses and then talk about
them afterward.”
“This is a matter of life and death !” the coroner
barked at her. “I must know all that you can tell me.”
“Well, sir, Miss Marion had always been friendly and
polite to her stepfather, but not affectionate, as you


THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE II5
might say. This spring I never saw her speak to him,
not once the whole month. Of course, I don't know what
happened at meal-times, but they used to pass each other
in the hall without a look or a word.
“Once, though, they had some kind of a scene in the
library, you could hear his voice all over the house he
was shouting so, but you couldn't make out what was
said. It was funny, for in all the years I’ve never known
him to raise his voice before. Miss Marion flew past
me in the hall afterward, not crying, but white as a
sheet, and angrier than I’ve ever seen her, and locked
herself in her room for the rest of the day. Her ways
with her aunt, too, were different. She seemed scornful
with her and bitter, Miss Marion, who'd always been
so gentle, and more than once her aunt was in tears.”
A few more questions, but of a trivial nature, ended
her examination and the name of Charles Sturtevant fell
on McCarty's ear. As the blond youth with the in-
cipient mustache took the witness chair, Mr. Quimby
moved slightly and for an instant caught his eye. Then
he settled back into his former attitude of calm attention.
Young Mr. Sturtevant's testimony took the form of
a general denial. He had known Miss Rowntree well,
admired her and valued her friendship, but nothing more
serious had entered his mind or hers, he was quite sure.
He might have been said to be attentive to her, but
no more so than to several other young ladies of his
acquaintance. He had gone away during the previous
summer, and on his return had not resumed his calls
because he had been too much occupied to think of social
affairs. The meeting in the park was of no consequence.
He had asked her to leave her car and come for a spin
with him, but she had declined, pleading an engagement,
and that was all.
The remaining witnesses at the morning session threw


II6 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
little new light on the tragedy, but one or two interesting
facts were brought out. Mrs. Doremus stuck to her
previous story and could not be shaken from it. The
maid, Mary Woolley, followed her on the stand. After
eliciting from her the facts of the evening in question,
as she had previously given them, and of the voice she
had heard in the air-shaft, the coroner asked suddenly:
“What were you doing at Mr. Quimby's house last
evening?”
She smiled as if she had anticipated the query, and
shrugged her shoulders.
“I went there to see him.”
“What for? Did you know Miss Rowntree?”
“No, but I wanted to tell him what I had heard that
night—that voice calling out about a stepfather. The
police didn't pay much attention to it, but I thought it
would be to his interest to know.” She paused, then
explained blandly: “I thought, of course, he'd offer a
reward for information, or I'm sure I shouldn’t have
bothered. It's nothing to me.”
So that was the explanation of her visit ! It sounded
quite plausible and yet McCarty, watching the little
lawyer Humboldt's quick nod of approval and encourage-
ment, was aware of a vague doubt.
Young Mr. Antonio was the next witness. He told
again of hearing the screams, going to the window, and
seeing the crowd, but returning to his studies after the
arrival of the ambulance. His testimony being of no
value, he was briefly dismissed.
The long strain of the inquest seemed to be telling
at last even on Stephen Quimby's well-governed nerves.
He was clenching and unclenching his hands spasmod-
ically and the perspiration stood out in beads upon his
forehead. Miss Beckwith swayed in her chair as the
young inventor passed her on his way to his seat, and
*


THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE 117
seemed about to fall, but she pulled herself together and
tremulously declined the glass of water which an at-
tendant offered. It was long past noon, and but two
witnesses seemingly remained, Mr. and Mrs. Grafton
Foxe.
The former was permitted to retire after a reiteration
of his alibi, but Mrs. Foxe was questioned somewhat at
length concerning her departed guest, Ivy Collins.
“As you doubtless know, Mrs. Foxe, your friend did
not go to the Platts, on Leavitt Street, nor have they
even seen her, although she went to Chicago, as she
planned. She evidently changed her mind at the last
moment, for she wired them from the train not to expect
her,” observed the coroner. “You, too, have tried to
reach her by wire.”
“Naturally,” Mrs. Foxe conceded. “I am anxious to
hear from her.”
“Mrs. Foxe, why was your need to communicate with
her so imperative? I have transcripts here of your tele-
grams. You wired her en route, saying: “Write im-
mediately fullest details what happened home before you
left.” The second telegram, sent in care of the Platts,
reads: ‘Wire at once. Did you get message on train?
Anxious.” The third, directed to Mrs. Lavinia Platt, is:
“Is Ivy with you? For God’s sake wire relieve anxiety.”
What caused this extreme anxiety?”
“I should think that was self-evident,” she shrugged.
“Of course, there has scarcely been time for a letter to
reach me from Chicago, but I thought she would tele-
graph me in response to the message I sent on the train.
I was anxious at first to know if she had seen the
tragedy at the house—the girl's fall, I mean. When I
failed to hear I was worried on her own account, to
know if she had arrived safely. No answer came to my
second telegram and I communicated with Mrs. Platt.”


II.8 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Have you succeeded yet in locating Miss Collins?”
“No, but I hope to hear from her now in any mail.”
“Have you any idea where she may have gone?”
“None.”
“Has she other friends in Chicago?”
“Oh, yes, several. But as long as you are prying into
my correspondence I may as well tell you that I have
wired to every one I can think of in Chicago who knew
her, with no result whatever.”
“Nevertheless, I shall ask you to give me their names
and addresses.”
Mrs. Foxe complied sullenly and left the stand, and
the coroner announced a postponement of the hearing
until the afternoon session. By common consent the
others waited until Stephen Quimby and his sister-in-
law had departed, and then made their way slowly out.
McCarty maneuvered so that he could fall in just be-
hind Mrs. Doremus and Humboldt when the group con-
gested at the door. “I’m glad it is over!” the lady was
saying. “I’m afraid of that man 33
“My dear Mrs. Doremus !” There was a peremptory
warning beneath the lawyer's silky tones. “I told you
this was the merest formality—distressing, of course, for
any nervous person like yourself, but really of no con-
sequence. The best thing to do is to put the whole dis-
tressing affair quite out of your thoughts.”
McCarty slipped past them in the corridor, compre-
hending that the lawyer was talking to prevent any
further unguarded remark on his client's part and his
own efforts to overhear anything more of value would
be wasted. -
On the street outside, he was astonished to see the
aviator who had testified walking off with the young
inventor, Mr. Antonio. Could that exceedingly frank,
ingenuous young man have, after all, been connected


THE MEETING AT THE BRIDGE II9
with the tragedy? In Terhune's zeal to uncover the
secret of one apartment, and his own suspicions against
another, they had both overlooked some possibly latent
clue in the third.
He quickened his steps and drew nearer the couple
ahead.
“No, sir,” Mr. Antonio was saying. “I haven't had
the time or money to try my luck at flying, but I mean to
take a course one of these days. I’m tremendously in-
terested in motors, you know. Got a little invention of
my own for automobiles nearly completed that I’d like
to have you come up and have a look at. I'm home any
time—”
McCarty smiled at his unfounded suspicion, and
passed on.


CHAPTER XI
THE MOTIVE
gº ND there you are! What to make of it all,
A Denny, is more than I know. That little seam-
stress came, the nearest to telling the truth of
the whole lot, but even she reneged when she got to the
point.”
It was mid-afternoon and Dennis, unable to await the
newspaper account of the inquest, had strolled around
from the fire-house to learn the news at first hand from
McCarty.
“What did she keep back?” he demanded. “She’s
cooked her goose with the Quimby bunch as far as
further employment goes by telling what she did, that's
sure. She might as well have told all she knew, and
by golly, it looks to me as if she did.”
McCarty shook his head.
“Denny, did you ever hear tell of a woman without
curiosity? You did not, and no more did I. It's not in
nature to believe that she didn’t read the name and
address on those envelopes she mailed for the girl. In
this case, like one or two that I handled when I was
on the force as you may remember, you have to work
backward. 'Tis not what the witnesses do or say that'll
help, 'tis what they don't do and don't mention that
will give you an opening to the truth.”
“I mind you used to go round with a paper and a stub
of a pencil, jotting down the points where people slid
over thin ice in testifying or failed to do the natural
I2O


THE MOTIVE I21
things they would have done if they'd been innocent.
'Twas the Nugent woman not going back for the ring
she'd dropped that time that made you first suspect her
of the Shayne murder, and old Throckmorten not re-
membering whether he'd changed the combination of the
safe that put you on the right track in the robbery.
What was it the inspector used to call that list of yours?”
“My elimination chart, and a good name, too. I looked
it up in the dictionary, and it means rejecting or casting
out what's superfluous. That's what those witnesses
tried to put over on me—that just the main facts I was
after had nothing to do with the cases. And, Denny,
that’s what this crowd are trying to do now—concealing
facts, every last one of them. Let's try it now.”
He reached to the desk, pulled a pencil and a large
sheet of paper over and scribbled rapidly.
“In the first place, there's the young man who helped
me carry the girl in. He didn't give his right name.
Why? He showed up in the crowd at the funeral, but
didn't stay when he caught my eye. Why? There's the
Grafton Foxes, not telling any more than they had to
about their young friend, Ivy Collins. Why? There's
the Collins girl herself not going to her friends in
Chicago, but dropping out of sight. Why?
“There's the young man Antonio not leaving his book
to take a look out the window when a woman was scream-
ing her head off. Why? There's Mrs. Doremus not
telling about her visitor until she was forced to, and
that visitor himself not coming forward like an innocent
party, but skulking in a corner. Why? And there's
that elevator-boy not remembering what he says or know-
ing his own mind from one minute to the next. Why?”
“That's easy answered,” Dennis observed. “Some-
body's paying him not to know, or at least to forget what
it ain’t comfortable to have him remember. The same


I22 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
party, likely, that passed the tip to headquarters to lay
off of Mrs. Doremus. What happened at the afternoon
session of the inquest?”
“Nothing but more denying. The coroner put Quimby
back on the stand and he said he didn't know why his
daughter wanted to go to Steinway, he'd never heard
of anybody living there, and was astonished that she
hadn’t taken her aunt into her confidence. As to why
she'd changed in the past year he couldn't say. If her
friends wasn’t hysterical and imagining things on account
of what had happened, they must have seen more than
those close to her every day. Neither her aunt nor him
had noticed anything different in her.
“Asked about the quarrel the seamstress had over-
heard, he said it was exaggerated; that he had remon-
strated with her about her extravagance. Miss Beckwith,
put back under oath, said the same thing, and that if
the seamstress had seen her in tears it had nothing to
do with her niece whatever; that she'd been nervous and
worried about her own ill health and dreading an opera-
tion that might have to be performed.
“She didn't know any one in Steinway, either, and if
it was true her niece went there—she had raised her veil
again and she glared at the young aviator fellow—she
could only conclude that the girl wasn't in her right mind.
The coroner adjourned the inquest after that, for it was
easy to see what the jury's verdict would have been in
such a mass of evidence that led nowhere, and Terhune's
determined to get a case.”
“Well,” Dennis tipped his chair back in his customary
attitude, but meeting with no sustaining wall, he re-
trieved himself from disaster by a violent lurch, “it’s
plain to be seen the girl's family know some secret about
her that they're keeping to themselves, but sure they
can't know anything about who murdered her. Even if


THE MOTIVE I23
she'd given them trouble, as she seems to have, there'd
be no reason for them to shield the one that killed her,
and if Quimby wanted to, for the sake of avoiding more
notoriety—which is a pretty slim excuse—I don't believe
the aunt would stand for it.”
“They must have had a fine time of it, keeping her a
prisoner for the last few months,” remarked McCarty.
“What? Keeping who prisoner?”
“Marion Rowntree, of course. Didn't you get that?
Every time you hear of her leaving the house, the aunt
was mounting guard. Even the seamstress said that this
last spring she could hardly get a word alone with the
girl; that Miss Beckwith or one of the maids was always
on hand. That shows they were afraid she would help
the girl on the quiet in some way, and they were good
guessers, as it happened.
“Three days before the murder she gave her aunt the
slip at the dressmaker's, and went to the Glamorgan, but
what her object was, of course, we don't know yet. Last
Monday afternoon she beats it the minute the old lady's
back is turned and goes to the Manhattan Bridge and
meets this aviator fellow.”
“If he hadn’t been there, Terhune would have a fine
time trailing her to Astoria and Steinway.”
“If he hadn't been there,” McCarty said slowly, “she'd
never have gone to Steinway, I'm thinking.”
“What do you mean, Macf" Dennis's jaw dropped.
“You don't think it was a date, by any chance!”
“I know I’d like to have a look at that little boarded-up
cottage that neither of them knew the address of, yet
both could find so easy,” averred the other. “Out through
Astoria's nice and quiet, after you pass the factories.
If I was in fashionable society, and wanted to get away
somewheres for a bit of a talk without being seen by


I24 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
my friends, I don't know as I could pick out a better
spot.”
“I wonder where he was that night, when she was
killed !” Dennis said in a sepulchral tone. “If Terhune's
the bright fellow I think he is, he'll look up that young
flying man's time.”
“If he does, and expects to find him at the Quimby
hangar, he'd better look sharp,” McCarty retorted. “I’m
thinking the young man's due for a quick bounce, from
the looks he got to-day.”
“You don’t think it's him they was trying to keep her
from, all this time they've been watching her?”
“No, or they would have discharged him long ago.
They know what they were holding her back from, all
right, and they knew what was drawing her to the Gla-
morgan. They got a few jolts this morning at the
inquest; the very first sight of the other witnesses gave
them both a shock that even Quimby himself couldn't
help showing, and later on when he testified that he didn't
know of an enemy his stepdaughter could have had, he
glared down at the bunch like a wolf.
“I tried to see who he was looking at, but he recovered
himself before I had a chance. There's one thing:
Marion Rowntree must have been fair desperate about
something to slip out of the house at night when every
one was in bed, and rush off to the apartment more than
a mile across town.”
“’Twas a love affair,” Dennis nodded sagely. “It's
only that can make a woman act more of a fool than
the Lord intended. Maybe 'twas the man who was calling
on Mrs. Doremus that the girl was in love with, and they
quarreled—”
“Lovers’ quarrels end sometimes in a clinch, and more
times in the courts, but not by one of them getting shoved
through a window, unless they're a low, wild class.”


THE MOTIVE I25
McCarty paused and then cried: “I’d forgot all about
the car! Now what do you think of that for a bone-
head?”
“What car?”
“The limousine and the two men waiting across the
street before the new building that's going up! They
beat it the minute her body hit the sidewalk!”
“What's that got to do with it?”
“Something, or they wouldn't have gone so quick. The
Rowntree girl didn't come in it herself, that's sure.”
“Glory bel Mac, 'twas the man come in it! The man
who was in Mrs. Doremus's apartment!”
“At seven o'clock of a fine summer evening, in a closed
limousine with the sun hardly gone down?”
“Well, then, maybe he'd arranged to have it come and
meet him there, to take him away. He might have used
a limousine, in spite of the heat, if he wanted to be as
darned private as his actions seem to make out.”
“If that's the answer to it,” McCarty was thinking
aloud, and running his hands violently through his hair
until it stood up like a sandy brush, “why didn't it wait
for him? Why did it go like hell when the girl came
flying out the window? Those that were running it
couldn't have recognized her across the street in the
dark! They could only have gone because they’d ex-
pected something like that to happen, were on the lookout
for it, and determined to keep out of trouble if it did
come !
“But that would mean that the man, whoever he was,
went there with the intention of murder in his heart,
and that couldn't be. Denny, we're getting in too deep !
If ever there was a murder committed on the spur of the
moment, and a red-hot moment at that of anger, or
jealousy, or revenge, it's this one. We'll have to look at


128 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
facts that would ordinarily take a tremendous amount
of thought to reach.”
McCarty's mind went swiftly back to the discovery
Dennis's idle words had led him to that afternoon, and
he was silent as he brought forward an easy chair for
his visitor, and placed the matches within reach.
“What did you think of the inquest to-day?”
McCarty glanced up at that.
“I think, since you asked me, sir, they're the biggest
pack of liars, male and female, you could find even with
that little spyglass of yours.”
“There was some tall prevaricating going on, there's
no doubt of it,” the detective agreed. ‘Still, I think we
succeeded in making some headway.”
“Your rounding up those new witnesses did that,”
remarked McCarty. “Especially the aviator fellow, Ed-
wards. Do you happen to know what he did that night,
sir? Was he in town, I mean?”
“You mean, was he near the Glamorgan, don't you?”
The detective laughed good-naturedly. “No, he went
straight back to Long Island, dined in a little restaurant
in Jamaica, where several men who knew him talked
with him, and went on to Garden City. He sat in a little
game of poker there until nearly midnight, and then went
to bed.”
“Sure, he's got as nice a little alibi, all tied up and
ready, as the other fellow, Grafton Foxe.” McCarty
paused and added carelessly: “I wonder where Mr.
Quimby's engagement took him that night?”
“Not suspecting him, are you, Mac” Terhune was
still chuckling, but his face grew swiftly grave. “Of
course, Miss Rowntree's meeting with the aviator in the
afternoon, and her dying reference to a flying man was
the merest coincidence, but there would not be two such
coincidences in the case. It’s unthinkable. The one word


130 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
nobody the wiser. Why would he make use of an apart-
ment house full of tenants on a public street?”
“That will all be made clear,” Terhune assured him.
“Where human conjecture and resource fail, science
steps in. Science cannot make a mistake, no faulty
human reasoning is back of its conclusions, but laws as
incontrovertible as those which control the elements of
life! Subjected to a scientific examination, he will betray
himself inevitably.”
“I’ve no doubt that science is rare and wonderful,”
McCarty admitted patiently. “But just for my own sat-
isfaction, like, I would be glad if I knew where he spent
Monday evening.”
“With his friend, Warren J. Keeler,” the detective
responded, with a touch of impatience. “They dined to-
gether at the Fitz-Morris, went to the summer show on
the Hyperia roof, left early, stopped in Mr. Keeler's
rooms for a drink and Quimby went home. The question
is settled. But I ran in to-night, Mac, to ask you to a
little party I'm giving to-morrow evening in my own
rooms.”
“A party? Me?” McCarty glanced up in amazement.
“Yes, I want to give you a practical demonstration of
the workings of science. Quimby will be there and all
the others whom I think have any possible connection
with this affair. I’ll only ask you to do as I tell you
without question, take the tests with the others and keep
your eyes open. I think you will find it interesting.”
“I’ll be there!” McCarty promised. “I don't want to
miss anything, you can be sure of that. If this science
can do all you claim for it, sir, maybe there'll be some
surprise for all of us!”


CHAPTER XII
ANOTHER of THEM |
ONSUMED as he was with excited anticipation
( of what the evening might bring forth, McCarty
awoke in the morning with a fixed determination
to prove or disprove on his own account the suspicion
which had flashed to his mind at Dennis's unconscious
suggestion.
The peculiarities of the case, and the hopelesness of
attempting to find a credible witness among these people
who for widely dissimilar reasons were perjuring them-
selves wholesale, pointed to the establishment of nega-
tion as the quickest method of arriving at the truth.
Immediately after breakfast he betook himself to the
fire-house, hailed the indignant Dennis from his morning
rest and dragged him protestingly forth.
“I wouldn't care if the half of New York was mur-
dered in its bed, so long as I got my rightful sleep in
my own,” he grumbled. “You were forever hauling me
out and rushing me off on fool's errands with you when
you were on the force, but I thought to get some peace
now. What is it you're after the day?”
“To prove that a man was where I think he was, by
proving that he wasn't where he said,” replied McCarty
promptly, if somewhat incoherently. “Mr. Quimby told
Terhune that he went to dinner and a show with a friend
of his, but I’ve reason to think he didn't. Come on.”
At the Fitz-Morris, he encountered at first a super-
I31


I32 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
cilious antagonism to his queries, but on displaying his
shield resurrected for the occasion, he and Dennis were
soon in conference with the maitre d'hôtel, who in turn
summoned the waiter captain.
Yes, Mr. Warren J. Keeler was a frequent patron
and well known there. He had dined in the Arcadian
Room on Monday evening last with another gentleman.
Mr. Stephen Quimby was not known there personally,
nor did they know the name of the gentleman who had
accompanied Mr. Keeler. At McCarty's request the
dinner check was put in his hands.
Inquiries at the Hyperia roof produced no result, since
only the doorman and ticket-taker could be interviewed
at that hour.
Dennis still bemoaned his lost sleep, and was for giving
up the project and going back to the fire-house, but Mc-
Carty piloted him determinedly over to an imposing
bachelor-apartment building just off the avenue.
“We're going to see this Mr. Keeler,” he announced.
“Maybe I'm on the wrong scent, but I’ll not let go till
I am sure.”
The few words which he scribbled on a card at the
office procured them an immediate invitation to come up-
stairs, and Dennis, considerably awed, followed from the
ornate elevator down the wide, thickly carpeted hall
to where an obsequious Japanese valet awaited them at
an open door. -
They found Mr. Keeler in the living-room, with the
remains of his breakfast on a tray before him and the
morning newspapers scattered about. He was a stout,
florid man of about forty-five, with pouches beneath his
bright, twinkling eyes, and an astonishing expanse of
girth held in by the belt of his gaily embroidered house-
robe.
“You’ve come about that affair last Monday night,
.


ANOTHER OF THEM | I33
haven't you?” he asked at once. “Sit down, please. I've
already been interviewed by one detective—Terhune, his
name is—but you are from headquarters, I suppose.”
McCarty ignored the last remark.
“We'd just like a little corroboration from you as to
time, Mr. Keeler. It's only a formality, of course, but
we've got to file this with the report. You had dinner
at the Fitz-Morris on Monday night?”
“With Mr. Quimby,” returned Keeler firmly.
“Just so. What time did you get there, sir?”
“About seven, or a little after. We left a little before
nine and went to the Hyperia roof, but the performance
wasn’t up to the standard and we got out before it was
over, and came here to my rooms.”
“Is this your dinner check from the Fitz-Morris?”
McCarty produced the pink slip of paper and held it
Out. -
Mr. Keeler glanced at it in some surprise.
“I think so. Yes, that was mine, but isn't this drawing
it rather fine? I fail to see what concern that is of the
authorities.”
“We just wanted to be sure, sir. Now, if you'll tell
me what time you came back here, from the theater ?”
“Around ten o’clock. We smoked and talked and had
a drink or two, and about half-past eleven Mr. Quimby
went home.”
“Thank you, sir. No offense, but I suppose you'll
swear to that, if necessary?”
“Of course, of course,” Mr. Keeler replied hurriedly
as they rose. “If you want to know anything else, just
come around. Here, take a cigar with you.”
The urbane Jap showed, them out, and Dennis appre-
ciatively sniffed the sleek, opulently banded cigar which
he held as gingerly as though he feared it would snap in
tWO,


I34 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“We’re in this much, even if you did draw another
blank,” he observed. “You’d better give it up, Mac,
there's nothing to it. Quimby was in there, smoking one
of these self-same beauties no doubt, at the very
minute 22
“Whist!” warned McCarty suddenly. The door of
another apartment half way down the hall had opened,
and a rosy-cheeked chambermaid emerged, trailing a
carpet-sweeper. She eyed them boldly, and with sudden
accord McCarty and Dennis smirked.
“That's a late riser you've got in there,” the former
remarked ingratiatingly, nodding in the direction of the
door through which they had just passed.
“He is that!” she laughed, good naturedly. “Some-
times I don't get in there till afternoon.”
“I’ll bet you didn't get in early last Tuesday,” McCarty
beamed at her.
“What's it to you if I did or not?” She tossed her
head. “Who are you?”
“Us?” Dennis stepped forward before McCarty would
reply, and flashed his own badge. “Fire examiners, my
dear.”
“We dropped in to see about that little fire on Monday
night,” added McCarty promptly.
“There was no fire—” began the maid, in amazement,
but he interrupted her.
“Yes, there was, a little one. Maybe he didn't want
the news of it to get about in the house, so the Jap
cleaned up the mess of it before you got in next day.”
“Then that clumsy Jap must have started it himself,
or else the young man!” remarked the maid indignantly.
“Mr. Keeler himself is the most careful, tidy gentleman
in the house.”
“‘The young man?’” repeated McCarty inquiringly,
hiding Dennis's start of surprise.


ANOTHER OF THEM | I35
“Mr. Keeler's nephew, from out of town,” she ex-
plained. “He often comes, and he stayed overnight
Monday, because I saw him myself the next day.”
“Maybe he just dropped in like, in the morning,” sug-
gested McCarty.
The maid shrugged.
“Didn't I make up the two beds myself l’” she retorted.
“And wasn't they talking about the show the night be-
fore, and dinner at the Fritz—something? But get along
with you. Jollying a girl and keeping her from her
work l’’
Not a word did the two sleuths exchange until they
were on the sidewalk and well toward the corner. Then
Dennis drew a long breath.
“You never know your luck!” he proclaimed. “What
do you think of it, Mac” There's another one lying !
Where do you suppose your friend Quimby was, anyway,
on Monday night?”
“If you ask me,” responded McCarty modestly, “I
think he was behind Mrs. Doremus's glass closet, busy
making finger-marks.”


CHAPTER XIII
THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE
W W rADE TERHUNE had designated half-past eight
as the time for his scientific experiment that
evening, but McCarty put in an appearance a
little before the hour.
He found the detective and his assistants engaged with
a complicated arrangement of coils and batteries behind
a screen in the corner of a great, bare room. Across
the opposite wall a sheet was extended and before it, at
a distance of some ten feet, was a long, narrow table,
like a school form.
A row of chairs was placed along one side of it facing
the sheet, and on the table before each chair was a thick,
square pad of writing paper and a tray of pencils. The
room was dimly lighted by a huge frosted dome high
up in the center of the ceiling, and McCarty entered
gingerly, avoiding a network of thread-like wires which
ran along the floor from the table to the screen.
“Don’t mind them, Mac. You won't get a shock if you
step on them,” called Terhune. “Come here behind the
screen, and I'll show you something.”
McCarty complied, without undue eagerness, holding
himself stiffly from contact with the instrument which
met his gaze. Above the coils of wire on the stand was
an elongated horizontal cylinder marked off into regu-
larly spaced sections and covered with a white, vellum-
like substance checked with tiny squares. Before each
section of the cylinder hung a steel needle-pointed pen
136


THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE 137
of the self-feeding variety, the holders of which were
slender, transparent tubes, filled with red ink.
“There are ten chairs before that table out there, and
ten sections on this clyinder,” explained Terhune. “The
pens will record on the individual charts the emotions
of each occupant of those chairs when a different picture
is thrown on the sheet. Between each picture the pens
lift automatically for a fraction of a second, to register
the break. No one can escape; they may resort to every
possible subterfuge in the test, school themselves to the
utmost impassivity, but their feelings, their most secret
thoughts will be bared as though their hearts and brains
were under a psychic microscopeſ”
McCarty nodded judicially. -
“I see,” he prevaricated. “It’s amazing! Is it your
own invention, Mr. Terhune?”
“I have contrived several modifications,” the detective
admitted modestly, as he emerged from behind the
screen. “The original is in use in the criminal investiga-
tion departments of all the larger cities in Europe. One
of these chairs, by the way, will be vacant; Miss Beck-
with has been in a state of collapse since the inquest
yesterday, and is under the care of a physician.”
“Miss Beckwith?” McCarty glanced up. “Are you
sure of that, sir?”
“Well, I didn't have subpoenas issued,” Terhune tem-
porized, smilingly. “This is purely an invitation affair.
Have you made this connection, Bassett?”
“Yes, sir,” the assistant replied, as he, too, left the
screened enclosure.
“Well, lay the rugs to cover the wires, and everything
will be ready. It is nearly time.”
“There's one thing I’d like to ask you, Mr. Terhune.”
McCarty drew him to one side. “Will you let me have


138 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
a look at the impressions you made of those finger-prints
on Mrs. Doremus's glass cabinet?”
“Indeed I will, Mac, but not now. You'll see them
before you leave, I promise you.”
“However did you get them, sir? You couldn't trace
them.” -
“Photographed them,” returned the detective briefly.
“I brought them out clearly by sprinkling them with a
chemically prepared powder, subjecting the glass itself
to a certain degree of heat from the under side, and then
blowing the loose particles of powder away with a small
bellows. The heat caused the powder, which is green,
to adhere to each line of the original markings, and they
showed more distinctly in the photograph even than to
the eye. But my guests are coming.”
The bell rang as he spoke, and Bassett ushered in a
tall, bronzed man who walked with a free, swinging
stride and whose eyes were youthfully bright in spite
of his gray hair.
“Good evening, Mr. Allen. You are prompt, I see.
Please sit here.” Terhune indicated a chair at the end
of the line, and McCarty turned away to hide his sur-
prise.
Allen! It must be Mrs. Doremus's former husband,
the man whom she claimed had dined with her on the
night of the tragedy. How had Terhune located him
so quickly P -
Further conjecture on that score was prevented by
the arrival of the others who were to form this strangely
assorted gathering. Mr. Charles Sturtevant entered,
with the aviator, Luke Edwards, at his heels. Then came
Grafton Foxe and his wife, followed shortly by Stephen
Quimby.
Mr. Terhune greeted each in a brisk professional man-
ner, and indicated the seats which he desired them to


THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE 139
occupy at the table. They had scarcely taken their places
when the door opened once more and Mrs. Doremus
made her appearance, accompanied by her maid, Mary.
As the former advanced to the table she paused ab-
ruptly, her eyes dark with terror fastened upon the
averted face of the first comer, but Terhune ushered her
reassuringly to her seat, then turned and beckoned to
McCarty, motioning to the vacant chair between Mrs.
Doremus and Stephen Quimby.
“I think we are ready now,” he began. “I have you all
here to-night to put before you a simple test, one prima-
rily of observation. It is a variation of those used in
the lower-grade schools, and in certain institutions for
determining the degree of intelligence, and perceptive and
retentive powers of the subjects under examination.
“The room will be darkened, and on the sheet before
you will be thrown a disconnected series of pictures,
after the manner of the old lantern slides. Before each
of you there are pencils and paper, and I will ask you
to write down what different pictures suggest to your
mind when they pass before you.
“The spaces on the paper are numbered to correspond
with the order of sequence in which the pictures are
presented. You will note that along the edge of the table
runs a narrow pneumatic cushion for the wrist. It is
bulky, but very soft, and you need have no hesitation in
pressing down upon it.”
McCarty noticed then a band of what appeared to be
inflated black rubber about four inches wide, extending
on the extreme edge of the table for its entire length.
He rested his hand and wrist upon it experimentally, and
found that it gave readily beneath the pressure, but
swelled on either side and seemed to cling to his hands
as if by some process of suction. The pads of paper


I4O THE CLUE IN THE AIR
were clamped immovably to the table, and the pencils
were sharp, and of very hard lead. -
“Understand, I do not wish a description of the pic-
tures themselves, but merely a word indicating what they
each suggest to you. There will be no titles thrown on
the sheet to guide you, nor do I propose to lecture about
them beyond this brief foreword. I must ask those
who are still wearing gloves to remove them, that the
writing may be unhampered. All ready? Lights down,
Bassettl”
The glow of the dome in the ceiling dwindled to a
blurred, hazy glimmer, in which the white square of the
sheet seemed to stand out glaringly. No further sound
of a voice broke the stillness and a long minute passed
as they sat in motionless expectancy. The gloom and
suspense worked on McCarty's nerves, and he could feel
his scalp tingle, while an unaccountable desire to move
or shout, anything to break the tension, obsessed him.
Then, from the obscurity came Terhune's voice.
“Steady! Write, please!”
A face suddenly flashed upon the sheet; the face of a
young girl with a soft, wistful mouth, straight, delicate
brows and thoughtful eyes.
McCarty gasped as he recognized the picture of Marion
Rowntree, which had been published in the newspaper
a few days before, and mechanically he wrote two words.
All thought of his errand there vanished in his absorbed
interest in the game itself.
He forgot the shadowy figures seated on either side
of him in the darkened room, forgot that he himself was
under a mysterious and ruthlessly betraying test. His
breathing became audible, his eyes protruded, and with
leaping pulse and mounting excitement he watched as
picture succeeded picture on the screen.
After the portrait, there appeared a stand containing


THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE 141
a miscellaneous collection of objects; books, flowers,
candy-boxes, a Persian kitten, and a solitaire ring. Num-
ber three was a bridal party ascending the steps of a
church, and with scarcely a break it was succeeded by
a funeral cortège.
McCarty was oblivious to the stirring near him, and
his own muttered ejaculations drowned any others which
might have reached his ears.
The fifth picture almost brought him to his feet. It
was that of a young woman, with streaming hair and
distorted face, struggling in the grasp of two nurses;
obviously a maniac. What could it have meant? What
connection with—
It vanished before his thought could complete itself,
and its place was taken by a scroll with pendent seals,
labeled “Last Will and Testament.” This time he was
subconsciously aware of a movement beside him, but he
gave it no heed.
The seventh picture was a photograph of a corner of
Mrs. Doremus's living-room, showing a window opened
wide upon the darkness; the eighth was a window in the
same position on the screen, but viewed from the outside,
and barred with the iron of a prison.
Then came in regular sequence a view of the Man-
hattan Bridge; a little cottage with boards across door
and windows; a railroad train; an open box of roses,
and a card with the word “Jack” plainly written upon
it; a photograph of the glass cabinet in the corner of
Mrs. Doremus's dining-room; a printed copy of the oath
administered to the witnesses at the coroner's inquest, and
finally an enlarged photograph of finger-prints on glass.
This drew from McCarty a loud and unconscious
ejaculation of satisfaction as he realized it must be the
impression he had asked for, but his exclamation was


THE SEARCHLIGHTS OF SCIENCE 143
His voice and the slight flush upon his ascetic face
denoted an unwonted excitement and elation, and when
they were alone with the assistant he beckoned to Mc-
Carty.
“Come and have a look at the papers,” he invited.
“Here is a list of the pictures in the order in which they
appeared. Now let us see what suggestions they gave our
friends.”
McCarty glanced at the list the other had placed in his
hands. It read:
1. Photograph of Marion Rowntree. 2. Collection of
gifts. 3. A wedding. 4. A funeral. 5. Scene in aslyum.
6. A will. 7. An open window. 8. A barred window.
9. Manhattan Bridge. Io. Closed cottage. II. Railroad
train. I2. Roses and card “Jack.” I3. Glass cabinet.
14. Witness's oath. I5. Finger-prints.
Terhune was rapidly sorting the papers in his hands,
which trembled exultantly.
“Ah! Here are some highly significant indications!”
he cried. “There were cool heads here to-night, with
alert, cautious minds inside of them, but we’ve broken
them down, Mac' In spite of their efforts at conceal-
ment, we've dragged their secrets from them! I told
you science could not fail! The mind of man may be-
come confused, may be side-tracked by conflicting evi-
dence and false clues, but science places its finger upon
the truth invariably.
“It is the greatest, the only flawless detector! Each
of these records bears interesting testimony and reveals
very curious admissions, but in this one, Mac, we have
the crux of the whole matter. It is an absolute betrayal
of guilt, a veritable confession!
“How unconsciously yet irretrievably he has revealed
his crime—for it is a man's handwriting, of course.
Listen: Number one: The girl. Two: Cat, books, ring.
Three: Bride she might have been. Four: Her corpse.


I44 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
Five: Crazy. Six: Her mother's will. Seven: The win-
dow. Eight: Prison. Nine: The bridge. Ten: The
house in Steinway. Eleven: The girl that went away.
Twelve: Blank. Thirteen: The hiding place. Fourteen:
The oath. Fifteen: My marks.”
McCarty's lips parted, but no words came, and Ter-
hune shook the incriminating paper aloft in triumph.
“What did I tell you? Science is omnipotent! See
how he gives himself away!
“‘The bride she might have been’—but for him ‘Her
corpse'—for which he was responsible! “Her mother's
will'—how well he knew l ‘The window !” He could not
bring himself to be more explicit. Twelve is blank be-
cause he knew nothing of the roses or card. The glass
cabinet was instantly recognized, and then in the end,
his self-control shattered, he damned himself by an un-
equivocal confession. “My marks!" The record is num-
bered six, and the hand that penned it is the hand that
sent Marion Rowntree to her death ! Bassett, what is
registered on the cylinder?” -
The voice of the assistant came from behind the
Screen :
“Every section shows agitation and excitement, but
nothing above normal in the circumstances, except num-
ber six. That jumped spasmodically all over the chart,
and finally touched the maximum point the cylinder
records !”
McCarty's face was a study.
“Number six is my own,” he announced meekly. “I
only put down what the pictures meant to me, like you
told us. Twelve is blank, for I’m not any too handy with
a pencil, and the whole business was going so fast for
me, and I wrote “my marks' because they were the very
finger-prints on my mind, that I’d asked you to let me see.
Science had better take another guess, Mr. Terhune.”


I46 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
Dennis betrayed symptoms of alarm.
“I’m no squealer!” he affirmed. “And as for jealousy,
I’ve no interest in any woman, as you well know.”
“I’m using you as a figure of speech, you mullet head!
Money is an incentive to do 'most anything in this world,
but rarely to kill, as the records of the department will
show. That is, outside of hold-ups, and then it's acci-
dental like. Even house-breakers caught turning a trick
will run, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, before
they'll shoot and take a chance of going to the chair.
“When I was on the force, we handled all kinds of
murders, from knifings in the Eyetalian quarter to aris-
tocratic killings in the best circles, and you can take it
from me, Denny, when you got down to the motive,
there wasn’t much difference. It don’t matter whether
you live up an alley or on the avenue, if your blood is
hot and some fellow steals your girl or gives you a rotten
deal that you've got to get even for. Not five per cent.
of the murders you come across are premeditated, you
can bank on that; they're done when a fellow sees red,
and can’t think of anything but stark destruction.”
“That's so. This brainstorm thing ain't just a lawyer's
excuse,” Dennis reflected.
“No more it is. Now take this Rowntree case. Does
it look to you as if it had been planned ahead?” asked
McCarty. -
“Well, if I’d made up my mind to put the girl out of the
way, I’d do it more private, I'm thinking, than to heave
her out of the window and down in the middle of the
street.”
“Just so,” McCarty nodded. “Terhune's a smart man,
but he's so chuckful of science he despises the brains
God gave him.” -
“'Tis thorough he is, for a fact.”
“True for you! And so am I when there's good reason,


AN UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE 147
but I don't need a spyglass to tell me a coal hole is open
in front of me! Now, if this murder had been done by
means of some new, outlandish invention, it would take
some one up in those things to find out the truth, but it's
as elementary as a Saturday night bar-room scrap.”
“There's more behind it nor that, Mac.” Dennis shook
his head. “Do you mind that book I told you about—
the ‘Darting Death,’ it was 33
“In the detective stories you improve your mind with,
Denny, my lad, where the stunt is pulled off by the pin-
prick of some poison nobody ever heard of, or the bite
of a foreign bug that's never been classified, I’ve no
doubt it takes as much machinery to prove it as would
run a boiler factory. In this case, ’twas black rage and
a fist that shoved her through the open window into
eternity. The job now is not to find the motive behind the
crime, but the man behind that fist, and Terhune will not
be doing it with a microscope and chemicals, nor yet
with a dope sheet of recorded emotions.”
“And after the help you were to him yesterday, Mac,
I don't think he’ll include you in any more séances,”
Dennis grinned, “or be trailing you along with him in
the investigation, either.”
“Small blame to him,” admitted the other. “But for
all that, Denny, I've made up my mind to be in at the
finish. The game has got me, and I’m feeling the old
thrill of the hunt as if I was on the force still. The way
this thing landed in front of me, so to speak, as if it
was a dare to me to try my hand again, makes me bound
to see it through.”
“I knew that from the start!” Dennis spoke with im-
mense satisfaction. “But without Terhune—”
“I don't want to be on this with him,” interrupted
McCarty. “He’s a great man, with a grand reputation
he's well entitled to, but with all due respect to him, he's


148 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
got his way of working and I have mine, and they're
no manner of means the same. I want to go it alone.”
“But don't forget, Mac, you're no longer on the force,
and you can't butt in.”
“Can't I?” McCarty triumphantly produced a folded
paper and displayed it before his friend. “Inspector
Druet asked me the night this thing happened why I
didn't take up the work again, so I had a little talk with
him to-day, and then saw the commissioner. I'm a spe-
cial officer, Denny, detailed to rubber around all I’ve a
mind to and report results when I see fit.
“Terhune has full charge of the case, of course, but
I'll take good care he doesn’t run into me till I’ve got
hold of something that'll be useful to him. He'll not
kick then, and if he should, the commissioner can tell
him I’m just a tiresome old has-been, that was given
papers to get me out from under foot.”
“Well, it’s glad I am to see you back where you belong
once more, Macl” Dennis's voice was roughened with
feeling as they shook hands solemnly. “And now, Spe-
cial Officer McCarty, what are you going to do?”
“Swear in a deputy named Riordan, and take him
along with me to look over the ground,” returned Mc-
Carty, with studied carelessness. “That is, unless he's
wishful to take a nap!”
“One second till I get my coat!” Dennis jumped ex-
citedly to his feet. “And you wasting an hour here with
your palaver. I’ve only been waiting a chance to have
a look-in on this myself ſ”
On their way to the Glamorgan, Dennis ventured a
remark concerning the record slips the others had made
of their impressions the night before the test, and voiced
a desire to see them.
“You can,” McCarty assured him. “I have copies of
all of them at home. I got Terhune to give them to


AN UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE I49
me after he'd calmed down a little from the shock of
having his scheme go back on him. We'll look them
over the first chance we get. It's different evidence I’m
after now.”
A word with the superintendent on arrival put them
in possession of the key to Mrs. Doremus's apartment.
Within everything was in confusion, as when McCarty
had last seen it in company with Wade Terhune. Evi-
dently Mrs. Doremus and her maid had taken only a
few bags containing immediate necessities in their re-
moval to the hotel, although trunks and barrels half
filled with china and ornaments, and pictures stacked
against the wall, bore testimony to the wholesale de-
parture planned.
The cook's bedroom was quite bare of any personal
belongings. Not even a torn envelope rewarded their
search, but in the room which had been occupied by Mary
there were traces of hasty and indiscriminate packing.
Bureau drawers and the half-opened closet door revealed
a scattered disarray of garments, and the bed and chairs
were similarly littered.
“Look here, Denny!” McCarty dived in the closet
and reappeared with an armful of costly gowns, frothing-
with laces and heavy with spangled sequins. “These
don’t seem like the clothes of a servant girl, do they?”
He laid them out on the bed, and Dennis examined
them gingerly.
“They do not,” he agreed. “I’m not up in the fashions,
Mac; but any one could tell with half an eye that she
wouldn't be able to pay for one of them with a year's
wages. Do you suppose she stole them?”
“Not shel Mrs. Doremus gave them to her. They're
almost new, too; not a speck on them; and no lady would
be giving her clothes away like that if she didn't have
to. If it's not bribery, I don't know what it is. You'd


- AN UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE I5I
be her stepfather, though who it is I’ve not an idea.”
The letters disclosed nothing, being for the most part
laboriously scrawled missives of a sentimental nature,
but upon the back of an envelope some figures had been
jotted down.
“Ten,” read McCarty. “Twenty-five, a hundred, fifty,
five hundred And dollar signs! Phew! Six hundred
and eighty-five dollars. That’s quite a jump from the
first ten. I guess I'll just keep this envelope, too.”
“Here’s a little old bank-book,” announced Dennis,
who had been rummaging industriously. “The accounts
have been torn out of it, but there's a lot of writing;
sentences like, all jumbled together.”
“Let me see it.” McCarty had slipped the envelope
in his pocket and turned. “It is sentences. Why, it
looks as if some one had been taking down a conversa-
tion word for word. Listen:
“‘But I don’t see why we should wait till August. I’ve waited
two years, S., and I am tired. So am I. Of me, you mean.
After all I have sacrificed? Oh, no, don't be foolish. But we
must go slow. Remember, I never promised. No? I fancy
your letters won't bear out that statement.”
“And here again on the next page:
“‘I tell you I will, but there's no use hounding me now. I'm
in too deep as it is, in something you know nothing about, and
there's only one way out, that I can see. You may hear some-
thing that will surprise you, soon.’
“They’re dated, too. The first is June 22d and the
last is July 8th, and there are a lot more entries before
those two. Denny, the girl has gone in for blackmail,
all right, and she has listened and written down what
might be useful to her. They must be things she's heard
pass between Mrs. Doremus and the man, and maybe
that sum on the back of the envelope is what she's got
out of them already.”


AN UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE 153
pretended not to know who the ‘Jack’ was that sent the
roses to Miss Collins >>
“I tell you I don't know!” she protested.
“I’ll not ask you that. Mrs. Foxe, I'm a special officer
on this case, and I'm working independently of Mr.
Terhune. If he finds Miss Collins first, he'll bring her
back here and put her through the third degree with his
little machines, like he did with us last evening. But
if I can locate her, I'll want only to get a statement from
her as to the truth of what she saw or didn't see the
night she went away, and then she can stay hid, if she's
got private reasons of her own.”
“Oh, I don't care who finds her, so long as she is
found !” Mrs. Foxe put her hands to her head. “I’m
so worried I can't sleep or even think! If only you
could discover where she is ->
“Then suppose you give me the other address?” sug-
gested McCarty.
“I—I don’t know what you meanſ” the lady faltered.
“The one you kept back at the inquest. You gave the
coroner the addresses of the people you’d communicated
with, because you guessed that he would have them
traced, anyway; but you hesitated over one you hadn't
tried yet.” He paused, and then went on persuasively:
“You know that until Mr. Terhune gets wind of the
missing girl, your mail and telegrams will be watched,
you'll be followed on the street, and your telephone mes-
sages recorded. You haven’t a chance of getting in touch
with her yourself, but I could. Now, all I want is
a statement from Miss Collins, and all you want is to
know where she is? Why can't we work together, and
nobody the wiser?”
Mrs. Foxe sat for a long minute with her head buried
in her hands. Then they dropped to her lap, and she
straightened herself with an air of resolution.


AN UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE 155
“Nevertheless, if Joseph Pangborn doesn't know where
she is, I'm sure that something is wrong. Oh, if you
find her, you'll let me know?”
“I will that.” McCarty signaled with his eye to Dennis
and rose. “There's no other trouble, I suppose, that
you're fearing for Miss Collins? Nothing apart from
this in her own affairs?”
“Certainly not.” She moved toward the door. “Ivy
is not the kind to borrow trouble, and she has none of
her own. She's the lightest-hearted girl in the world.”
When the front door had closed behind them, Dennis
asked excitedly:
“What do you think of that idea of hers, MacP Do
you suppose the one that killed the other girl has got
this one hid away to keep her mouth shut?”
McCarty shook his head.
“Nothing to it. She's worrying about the girl because
of something else entirely, and she turned it off quick
when I caught her. Terhune can have the man behind
Mrs. Doremus's glass closet, but I’d like to lay my hand
on the girl that walked out of here before Marion Rown-
tree had hardly breathed her last.”
“Well, you're through here, ain't you?” Dennis made
for the elevator. “Let’s go and have a look at those
copies you got from Terhune—”
“Not yet. You mind that list I made out of what the
witnesses in this case failed to do; that start of an
elimination chart? Well, I want another talk with the
open-faced young fellow in here, who made friends so
easy with the aviator at the inquest, and who didn't even
look up from his book on the night of the murder when
Mrs. Doremus shrieked fit to wake the dead.”
McCarty pressed the bell of apartment B.
“”Tis not the ones that's secretive from the jump I
have my eye on, so much as those that'll bend all their


156 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
energies to hide just one thing. The more a man has
to keep to himself, the more he'll be frank about things
that don't matter to throw you off the track.”
“Maybe he's at the college to-day,” Dennis suggested,
after a somewhat lengthy pause. “You said he was tak-
ing a course there.”
McCarty rang again, but at that moment the elevator
shot up and stopped, and the boy, Alfred, stepped out.
“No use ringin' for Mr. Antonio, boss,” he said, grin-
ning. “He’s done gone.”
“Gone where?” McCarty wheeled about sharply.
“I didn't ask no questions, boss. He's gone clean
away; that's all I know. He went this mornin', and he
took all his books and contraptions with him.”
McCarty and Dennis looked at each other. Finally
the latter remarked:
“Terhune’ll be having him trailed, anyway.”
McCarty shook his head.
“He don’t think the lad's of any importance in the
case! Lord, if I’d only been on the job sooner! I'm
not saying he done it, Denny; but you mark my words,
the one that could give us the key to the whole damn'
business has slipped through our fingers.”


CHAPTER XV
TONY
Mº was still fuming over the young in-
ventor's untoward departure as he and Dennis
made their way back to his rooms. The fact
that he had had nothing definite in mind in seeking the
interview, beyond a general intention to pump the oc-
cupant of apartment B in a casual way, did not mitigate
his disgust; and only his companion's confidently ex-
pressed belief that Mr. Antonio's present whereabouts
could easily be traced restored his equanimity.
Reaching home, he produced the copies of the test
papers and spread them out upon the desk.
“There's not much to be gained from these, for, of
course, Bassett — that's Terhune's assistant—couldn't
imitate their writing,” he remarked. “To tell you the
truth, I didn't get anything myself from the originals.
Terhune is the lad that can tell your past history from
a pen-stroke! They all looked like ordinary, normal
writing to me except Mrs. Doremus's, when toward the
end she got into a panic. But here's what tells the tale!”
He placed beside the slips of paper an elongated roll
of parchment marked off in minute squares, with a
series of broken zigzag lines running down in numbered
brackets.
“What the devil is that?” exclaimed Dennis. “Sure,
it looks like a weather report!”
“'Tis the feelings of each one of us, by the pulse-beats
I57


158 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
in our wrists on that padded cushion I was telling you
about, put down on the contrivance behind the screen.”
Dennis shook his head.
“Do you mean to tell me that Terhune can make any-
thing out of those crow-tracks?” he demanded.
“Sure he can. Look here.” McCarty bent down and
pointed with a horny forefinger. “This is how he put
it to me. If you're calm and undisturbed, the line would
run down almost straight, with a little curve into the
next square at regular intervals, for the beat of your
pulse, but if you got a shock the beats would come more
quick and hard and the line would jump out in a sharp
point, like what's here. Every square is a degree. The
break in the line is where the pens lifted between each
picture, and the numbers at the top of the whole thing
correspond to the different seats at the table, so you can
tell whose each record is.”
“Well, it may be all clear to Terhune,” Dennis drew
a deep breath, “but it looks like black magic to me, and
no jury of honest voters would put a man away on
any such heathenish evidence as this. You can't make
head or tail of it!”
“Take this line, number nine; that's Mary's. She's
a cool hand, all right, she only showed a little start at
the seventh picture. That was the one of the barred
window, and if it meant a jail and she happened to think
of the brooch in her trunk, you can understand it. Here's
Mr. Allen, number one; his pulse went up a little at the
third picture, the wedding party, which is not to be won-
dered at, with the wife that he hadn't seen for years right
under his nose.”
“Who’s this one, number seven?” asked Dennis, with
absorbed interest. “That line is crooked all the way
through, but near the middle it takes two big jumps and at
the end it goes crazy.”


TONY I59
“It's Mrs. Doremus's, and right here is something
queer. What made her pulse leap at the fifth picture,
the one of the mad-woman being held by nurses, and
again at the sixth, the will? At the end, of course, when
she saw her glass closet, and then the finger-marks on
it, she went all to pieces.”
“What would the mad-woman signify, anyway?”
“Terhune wouldn't tell me. I could dope out the
meaning of all the rest for myself except the second,
with the long-haired cat, and the books and candy and
ring. Terhune said it was a collection of the presents
given to the dead girl by that young Sturtevant, the ring
being for the engagement which didn't come off.
“Here's his record, and you can see the start he gave
when he saw it, as well as at Marion Rowntree's photo-
graph. The bridal party and the funeral, too, hit him
hard, but the worst shock he got was at the picture of
the mad-woman. Now take Edwards, the aviator. He
went up in the air, too, at the crazy picture, and he got
a little excited over the view of Manhattan Bridge, and
the closed cottage, but the rest didn't mean anything to
him.”
“Where's Quimby's record?”
“This one. He showed only the least bit of surprise
at the girl's photograph, and then he took hold of himself,
but the crazy scene and the will got to him, and so did
the picture of the glass closet. The finger-prints didn't
for a wonder. Grafton Foxe was the fellow that had
himself under control, though. He never slipped once
beyond the slight general nervousness all through, that
any one would have had.”
“Maybe he's the least concerned,” suggested Dennis,
thoughtfully. “How about Mrs. Foxe?”
“The picture of the open window gave her a start, and


16o THE CLUE IN THE AIR
the railroad train, and the one with roses and the card
marked “Jack,” but that was all.”
“And who, in the name of the saints, made this
record?” Dennis cried. “”Tis like forked lightning !”
“That,” replied McCarty with dignity as he gathered
up the papers, “was me. I’d no reason to be thinking
of myself and hiding my feelings, and ’tis only natural
the whole business would give me a turn.”
“When a man reaches your age, Mac, to say nothing
of the weight you’ve put on in your case, ’tis no time to
be taking chances,” observed Dennis sententiously.
“Is that sol” McCarty slammed the drawer. “”Twas
surprised I was, by Terhune's little game, as any one
would be l’” -
“Well, look out he don’t surprise you into apoplexy,”
advised his friend tactfully. “What are you going to
do in the morning?”
“To-morrow I’m going for a walk in the park by my-
self,” announced McCarty, with bitter emphasis.
“The park, is it? And what for?”
“For my health ! To keep myself calm, and take down
the weight that's giving concern to my friends.”
And he was as good as his word, but not precisely
for the reason his indignation had prompted him to offer
to Dennis. His course was a devious one, and took him
first to the Grand Central station, where by judicious
inquiries of not too important officials and a liberal dis-
tribution of small change, he managed to find the porter
of the train upon which the girl Ivy Collins had left
for Chicago on that eventful night.
This individual proved to be an unctuous, urbane
negro with a jovial face and twinkling eyes. He re-
membered the lady with gratifying promptitude from
the description of her attire which McCarty had previ-
ously gleaned from the police notes.


TONY I61
“Lots of folks been enquirin' 'bout dat lady,” he re-
marked. “I thought to myself dere was somethin’ queer
in her actions.”
“Who else has been asking?” demanded McCarty,
“Tall, thin gentleman, with kind of stooped shoulders,
he come twice.”
(Terhunel thought McCarty.)
“Then some other men, and then a lady,” went on the
porter. “The lady, she seemed real excited, too.”
“What did she look like?” McCarty allowed the yellow
back of the bill he carried to show between his fingers.
“Well, sir, she was jest grand-lookin', with sort of
yellow-brown eyes, an’ she walked like a queen! She
asked me 'bout a hundred questions, an’ dat's why I
remember the young lady we carried along dat night
So well.”
So Mrs. Foxe's anxiety had brought her here! Mc-
Carty had not troubled to look over the later police
reports, or he would have been prepared for this in-
formation, since she had doubtless been shadowed. He
reverted to the porter's initial remark.
“What did you mean by saying the lady acted queer?”
“Well, when she first got on the train she seemed dazed
like, an’ she had no more'n got to her section when she
called an’ asked couldn't she have a compartment to
herself. Say she felt sick, an’ she cart'n'y looked like
it, white as a ghost an’ shiverin', with her eyes jest a-
starin’ out of her haid. The compartments on all the
sleepers was taken, howsomever, an’ she had to stay
where she was.
“I asked should I see if there was a doctor on board
an’ she say ‘no’ an’ seemed kind of scared. I went down
the aisle past her section after ever'thing was quiet, an’
seem like I heard her groanin' an’ sighin'. I wasn't
real easy in my mind, sir, believe me! 'Long 'bout two


162 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
hours after, her bell rung, an’ when I answered I see
she hadn't undressed, jest took her hat off, an' her shoes.
She asked me to send a telegram for her at the next stop,
an' I give her a blank. She done try to write, but her
hands was tremblin' so she couldn't, an’ she got me to
put it down for her.”
“Do you remember the message?”
“Lawdy, I do, sir! I done repeat it to ever'body dat
come 'round makin' inquiries 'bout her. It was to L.
Platt, 1281 Leavitt Street, an’ said: ‘Plans changed.
Not coming to you. Will write an' explain,” an’ signed
‘Ivy.” She seemed to rest quiet after dat, but sure looked
like a walkin' corpse in the morning.
“I brung her some coffee first call from the diner
but it didn't hearten her none, an’ I thought she would
break down altogether befo' we got in, but she done
pull herself together somehow. After her section was
made up, she jest set there starin’ out of the window
as if she was lookin' at a ha’nt. It done give me the
creeps to see her, sir. Dat young lady was in trouble,
Sure 'nuff.”
“Did she notice any of the other passengers?”
“No, sir, I don’t believe she even saw 'em. She seemed
dazed like I told you, as if she didn't rightly know where
she was. She tried to eat but she couldn’t, an’ when
we pulled in to Chicago I looked to see her drop in her
tracks gettin' off the cyar, but she didn't. She stepped
out real strong an’ So fast dat she seem to melt right
into the crowd.”
“Was she dressed the same on leaving the car, as when
she boarded it here in New York? Long tan traveling
coat, tan shoes, green linen dress, and red hat with a
White veil?”
“I didn't notice the shoes, sir, but she’d changed to
a dark blue silk dress, an' put a black veil all over her


I64 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
He was a thin little fellow, with blue-veined temples
and shadows about his great, wistful eyes.
“I’m not afraid!” he announced. “We’ve got a lot
of tame chipmunks up at our country place. Sister and
I used to feed them ” he stopped suddenly, and turned
his face away.
“Does your sister come out here with you, and feed
these little rascals, too?” McCarty asked without glancing
at his small companion.
“No. She-she's gone away.”
“Have you nobody else to play with?”
“The only boys that father ever lets me play with have
gone to the country, and Annie don't know how to
play.” He looked with pitying disdain in the direction
of his delinquent nurse. “She just talks to the police-
man every day. Tony and I used to have lots of sport,
though.” -
“Who's Tony?”
“Father's chauffeur. He was a-a crackerjack! He
said we were real pals and he used to open up the long
thing in front of the car and show me how the cylinders
worked. He let me drive, too, sitting between his knees,
when we were alone in the machine and the road ahead
was all clear. Gee! It's great to have the wheel, and
just feel you're making the car go! Tony let me have it
all to myself, only with his hands ready, you know, in
case of anything happening.”
McCarty looked down at the eager little face, flushed
now, and bright with happy memories, and his honest
heart went out to the lonely child, but his purpose re-
mained uppermost in his mind.
“That must have been great,” he agreed enthusiastic-
ally. “And where is Tony now?”
“I don't know.” The little boy's face clouded. “He
went away, too. Father sent him.”


TONY 165
“Too bad!” McCarty thrust some more peanuts into
the child's hand. “Didn't your father like him?”
“I guess he did at first, but father's awful cross, most
all the time. Tony was with us ever since last summer,
but all of a sudden father got mad at him, and he had
to go. There was a fierce row—but then there often is,
at our house.”
The unconscious candor was illuminating and McCarty
made the most of it.
“Rows are bad things,” he observed, “but maybe this
Tony wasn't smart.”
The boy shook his head.
“I don't believe that was what was the matter. Only
the day before he left, father told Aunt Pauline he was
the most com—com >>
“Competent?”
“That's it! Most competent chauffeur we'd ever had.
And Tony knew an awful lot; more than father, I
guess! He 'vented something, all by himself—something
to help make the automobiles go.” -
McCarty dropped the bag of peanuts precipitately.
Tony! Had he stumbled upon a more significant clue
than he had dreamed of finding? Could there be any
connection between this dismissed chauffeur, and the
young inventor, Mr. Antoniof
He remembered Quimby's involuntary pause on enter-
ing the door where the inquest was held, his quick,
startled glance at the group of waiting witnesses, the
whisper to Miss Beckwith and her sudden faintness.
Then, too, there was that incomprehensible look of hatred
and menace which had flashed down into the same group,
when the banker on the stand had sworn that he knew
of no enemy who would have harmed his stepdaughter.
The little boy picked up the peanuts, but there were


I66 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
only a few left, and McCarty brought his mind hastily
to bear on the present issue.
“Did your sister like Tony as well as you did?” he
asked artfully.
“Oh, yes. She cried awful when he went. You see,
he used to take her out in the car every day, and I guess
she missed him. They were pals, too. She gave me
letters to take to him out at the garage, and one time
when I did, he hugged me just like a bear. Oh, I’d
love to see Tony again!”
“Well, maybe you will.”
“No.” The small voice was infinitely dreary. “Father
told him never to dare let him find him anywheres
around.”
“And what did Tony say?”
“He said he'd come back for what belonged to him.
Perhaps father had something of his and wouldn't give
it up.”
“Your father wouldn't do that, sonny.”
The boy sighed deeply.
“I don't know. He had something of Marion's—that's
my sister. Before she went away she asked him for it.
I don’t know what it was, but he wouldn't let her have
it.”
“Maybe when she comes back he will.”
The sensitive little face twiched.
“She isn't coming back, ever. Aunt Pauline told me.
She stayed down in the drawing-room for two days be-
fore she went, but they wouldn't let me go in and talk
to her; they said she was asleep. She couldn't sleep
all that time, could she? Then they sent me up to the
country with Annie for the day, and when we got home,
she had gone!”
He lifted hurt, puzzled eyes to his new friend's face,
and McCarty asked quickly:


TONY I67
“Didn't your aunt tell you where she went?”
“No, and she never did go anywhere before without
saying ‘good-by' to me. I thought perhaps she went
away somewhere to get well, like the time before when
the aëroplane fell with her, but Aunt Pauline only cried
when I asked her.”
“To get well!” McCarty repeated. “Was she sick,
then, before she went away?”
“Father said so, but I didn't know. I thought she was
as well as anything, but perhaps she had another accident
because father told her there must be something wrong
with her head. That was just a few days before she
went away. I was all by myself in the library, fast
asleep when they came in and woke me up, but I kept
as still as a mouse and they didn't know I was there.
Father was awful angry, and I didn't want him to catch
me.”
“I should think not!” McCarty bent forward ingratiat-
ingly. “And what was the row about; did you hear?”
The little boy glanced up again, this time in quick ap-
prehension and he drew shyly back.
“No, I—I don't know. I guess I'll have to go back
to Annie now, she'll be mad—”
“Wait a minute, Sonny. Maybe I know your pal,
Tony. What does he look like? Would you know him
again if you should see him?”
“I just guess I would ! He's only been gone since last
spring. He was awful tall, and his shoulders were as
wide as this—” the little arms stretched to their utmost,
in unconscious exaggeration. “He walked real quick,
and he seemed to be laughing with his eyes all the time,
as if everything was just fun.”
“I guess he's the lad,” remarked McCarty. “What
color were his eyes, do you remember?”
“They weren't blue, like yours.” The child stared


I68 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
critically. “They were sort of gray, I think. Oh, if you
know him, please give him my love and tell him Stevie
wishes he'd come back!”
McCarty promised solemnly and rose as hasty foot-
steps sounded along the path.
“Oh, Master Stevie, this is quite too bad of you!” The
nurse appeared and pulled her charge unceremoniously
off the bench. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,
and you know you're not allowed to talk to strangers.
I never saw such a child ! Turn my head away for a
minute, and you're off I’”
“Hello, Macl” Her erstwhile companion, the park
policeman, had sauntered into view, and blandly disre-
garded McCarty's warning signal. “Been tackling the
kid, eh? Annie, this is McCarty, the man who
found 99
“McCarty!” The girl gasped, her eyes round with con-
sternation. “Whatever would Mr. Quimby say? Come
along at once, you bad boy!”
Dragging the child, she vanished precipitately around
a bend in the walk and McCarty turned upon his fellow
officer in disgust. -
“Larry, you blundering fathead! Why couldn't you
keep your mouth shut?”
“Sure, ’twas surprised I was to see you! Whatever
were you trying to pump the kid for? You'll get nothing
out of him.”
“No?” returned McCarty sarcastically. “I’ll thank
you to stick to your trespassers and park bums, Larry,
and not be butting in on my game.”
“Your game, is it?” The other glowered. “Since
when are you back on the force?”
“Since—” McCarty pulled himself up with a sheep-
ish grin. “You’ve got the suspicious mind! What
should I be trying to worm anything out of the kid for?


TONY 169
The Rowntree matter is nothing to me, and the two of
us was only feeding squirrels I’”
But as he walked away his brain was a-tingle with
what he had learned. More than one phase of the case
which had been obscure to him was clearing before his
eyes.
The picture of the insane woman which Terhune had
projected upon the screen in his test, and which had so
obviously impressed not only Quimby himself, but Mrs.
Doremus, Edwards, the aviator, and the dead girl's former
admirer, Charles Sturtevant, loomed up now with a sig-
nificance almost menacing.
Stephen Quimby had asserted that there was some-
thing wrong with his stepdaughter's head. There was
but one interpretation to put upon it, although a question
remained. Did he believe it himself, or was it part of
a diabolical plot, a plot which reached its climax in that
shattered body on the pavement?
Upon one thing McCarty was determined; now, more
than ever, was it imperative that Mr. Antonio be found.


CHAPTER XVI
MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES
headquarters, and held an earnest consultation
with Inspector Druet.
Nothing was known of the young inventor's departure
and no request had come in from Terhune to have him
shadowed, or his present whereabouts ascertained. At
McCarty's earnest solicitation, however, the inspector
promised to put a man or two on “Mr. Antonio's” trail,
and McCarty returned to his rooms in no very satisfac-
tory state of mind.
That an affair of some sort had existed between the
dead girl and her stepfather's chauffeur there was no
possibility of doubt. She had employed her small brother
to carry notes between them and had wept when the man
was finally turned from the door. -
There was nothing to show that she had ever been
particularly interested in her former admirer, Charles
Sturtevant, nor would her stepfather, from motives of
self-interest, have encouraged any attachment which
would have removed her from his direct influence. Ac-
cording to Stevie, however, there had been boundless
opportunity in their daily intercourse for an acquaintance-
ship to have overstepped the social barrier and ripened
into romance between the chauffeur and the lonely girl.
If there was any truth in McCarty's suspicions, and
Tony the chauffeur was in reality Mr. Antonio, the in-
ventor, vast fields of conjecture would be opened up,
and a new and startling interpretation placed upon the
event of her death. Could it be that those two apart-
E": in the afternoon, McCarty went down to
17o


MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES 171
ments on the fourth floor of the Glamorgan had harbored
people who, in ignorance of each other's presence, and
purpose, were equally and vitally connected with the
tragedy of the night?
The proprietor of the antique shop peered eagerly
from his door as McCarty halted, fumbling for his keys.
He was a grizzled old Frenchman, lean and stoop-shoul-
dered, with the face of a savant and small avariciously
twinkling eyes.
He laid a finger across his withered lips and sidled
quickly over to the steps.
“You have a caller, my frien'ſ An old lady, a grande
dame, très distinguée. She arrive in ze auto, it is an
hour.”
“What's that, Girard?” McCarty paused. “Did you
speak to her?”
“But yes. She ask of me when you will return.” He
gesticulated over his shoulder. “She is here.”
“In your shop?”
McCarty went hastily to the door and stopped. Amid
the cluttered disarray of dusty ornaments, dingy drap-
eries and rusty armor, sat a figure wrapped heavily in
mourning. He drew off his hat and stepped inside.
“Were you looking for me, ma'am?” he asked. “I’m
McCarty.”
“Oh, yes!” a fluttering voice answered breathlessly
from beneath the veil. “I want to see you privately. I
have been waiting 23
“Well, ma'am, if you care to come up-stairs to my
rooms we'll not be disturbed.”
The lady rose at once and prepared to follow McCarty,
who led the way in a daze. What was the purport of
this self-sought interview? And why had he been selected
instead of Terhune?
He threw open the door of his living-room and wheeled


172 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
forward a capacious arm-chair, so that the light from
the late afternoon sun would strike athwart it.
“Sit down, Miss Beckwith, and tell me what I can
do for you.”
She started slightly at hearing her name, but dropped
into the chair and with a sudden movement tossed back
her crape veil as if it stifled her. Her face was paler
even than at the inquest, and the marks of mental suffer-
ing more deeply drawn. Her voice shook and her hands
twisted nervously as the words rushed from her lips:
“Mr. McCarty, why did you question my little nephew
in the park this morning? What could you have thought
to learn from him? I understand that you are no longer
connected with the police force—what possible interest
have you in our trouble?”
“A very natural one, ma'am, seeing as it was me that
the poor young lady yy
“Oh, I know.” Miss Beckwith shuddered. “But it is
insufferable that we should be so hounded in our grief.
I have tried to keep the shadow of this terrible thing
from little Stevie; and now you, who are in no way con-
cerned, must arouse his already alert sensibilities and
create anxiety in his mind. Have we not sorrow
enough?”
“I told him nothing, ma'am.” The significant em-
phasis in his words made her fix her burning eyes on
his, and for a moment there was silence. Then she burst
out impetuously:
“Why did you approach him at all? Mr. Terhune,
I believe, has the investigation in charge, and he and the
authorities are considerate enough to leave us alone in
our bereavement, now that they know all that we can
tell them.”
“Do they so?” asked McCarty quietly. “Of course, as
you say, ma'am, it's nothing to me; but wouldn't you


MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES I73
think that they'll soon begin to wonder, just as I do,
why, knowing so little about how your niece came by
her death, you've no desire to know any more? Wouldn't
it seem queer to anybody—I put it to you straight—for
a fine young lady like that to be murdered in cold blood
and them that's nearest to her not raising a finger to
find out the truth?”
“We we have every confidence in Mr. Terhune,” she
faltered.
“Before Mr. Terhune ever came into the case, ma'am,
Mr. Quimby announced that he'd offer no reward, and
he showed plainly that, as far as he was concerned, he
wanted no investigation.”
“But you should be able to understand that!” she cried
eagerly. “The shock and the hideous notoriety—”
McCarty shook his head slowly.
“If you'll excuse me for saying so, ma'am, you look
like a tender-hearted woman, and you couldn't have
brought the young girl up and been the mother to her
you have without having some small affection for her.
Would you stand by, calm and collected, and let her
murderer go free without a wish to stop him unless you
thought you knew pretty well who it was and there was
a good reason for hushing the whole matter up?”
Miss Beckwith buried her face in her thin hands.
“That is what is killing me,” she moaned. “If I could
only be sure—but what am I saying? I—I should never
have come here!”
She started wildly to her feet, but McCarty laid a
reassuring hand upon her arm. -
“Whatever you're saying, ma'am, will go no further.
Remember, I’m no longer on the force, and it's Mr.
Terhune that's working for the authorities. You've an
idea about her death, but you're not certain if it's the
right one; isn't that it?”


I74 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“It’s the only possible thing. Stephen must be right,
and yet, somehow, I cannot force myself to believe it.
When I remember how she clung to life, how defiant
and strong-willed she was, determined to have her hap-
piness in her own way, I cannot feel that she would do
such a thing.”
“Commit suicide, you mean?” McCarty's voice was
carefully controlled. “No more she did, ma'am. Your
niece never killed herself, you can bet—you can be sure
of that.”
“But she must have.” Miss Beckwith sank back in
her chair. “No one would harm her; no one had an
interest in her death. The people in that house were
all strangers to her 33
“Are you sure of that?” interrupted McCarty. “Were
they all strangers to you, too, those that you saw at the
inquest?”
“Why, of course.” She held her head erect, although
her chin trembled and her eyes did not meet his. “How
could we ever come in contact with people of their social
position?”
“That young man, for instance, Mr. Antonio,” pur-
sued McCarty, ignoring her question. “Didn't he remind
you of any one you know?”
“Mr. Antonio” she repeated. “I don't remember such
a person. Who is he?”
“The young man who has the apartment next to Mr.
and Mrs. Foxe, on the fourth floor. He testified to hear-
ing Mrs. Doremus scream, and then going back to his
book. Are you sure you never saw him before, ma'am P
It seemed to me that you recognized him at the inquest.”
“I cannot even recall him,” Miss Beckwith declared
coldly. “You may be sure that neither my niece nor
any member of our family is acquainted with a single
occupant of that house.”


MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES I75
“Then how do you account for Miss Rowntree going
there, and that not once, but twice? Why should she
choose that particular place to die, if what you seem to
think is true; and why should she kill herself, anyway?”
“I don't know; I cannot imagine, Mr. McCarty. I do
not believe for a moment that she was ever there before
that night; the hall-boy was surely mistaken. An ig-
norant, half-hysterical boy is not to be believed; and my
niece's costume was not distinctive—”
“Distinctive enough for you to recognize the body,
ma'am, without ever seeing the face,” McCarty inter-
posed. “With all those questions in your mind, you're
willing to let the matter rest?”
“But there is no question, to me. I—I’m quite sure
that my poor niece made away with herself.” Miss Beck-
with looked up at him imploringly, but McCarty's jaw
WaS Set.
“Quite sure that she went to a certain house just by
blind chance, without knowing any one there, and killed
herself with no reason? You can't mean that, ma'am.
You couldn't expect any one to take that view of it.”
“It must be true!” She leaned forward across the
desk. “Mr. McCarty, I would not have the newspapers
and the public learn of this for anything in the world; but
I believe you are to be trusted. Mr. Quimby would
never forgive me for telling it if he knew, but I must
satisfy you and ask you to leave us all in what peace
we can find. It is because my poor niece had no reason
to go to that house or to—to kill herself—no sane reason
—that I am convinced it was her own act. She must
have been overcome suddenly with madness!”
“Is that what Mr. Quimby thinks?” McCarty de-
manded. “Was anything wrong with her mind?”
Miss Beckwith bowed her head.
“We have thought so for some time, Indeed, Mr.


176 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
Quimby was sure of it. This is a family secret; but
her own father, my sister's first husband, died insane, and
Marion suffered an injury a little over a year ago from
which we do not believe she ever fully recovered. She
has been subject to peculiar moods ever since, and has
done things for which we can account in no other way.”
“Many a girl falls in love with a chauffeur without
being crazy,” observed McCarty in an elaborately care-
less tone.
“You—you know that?” A faint flush appeared in
the cheeks of his visitor. “It was unfortunate, but it
was a mere passing fancy, and she soon forgot all about
that. It would be exceedingly distasteful to Mr. Quimby
if such a report got about, Mr. McCarty, and a reflection
on my poor niece which she would be the first to re-
pudiate now if she were alive. It was in other ways
that her malady manifested itself; but we hoped that
with careful treatment she would recover in time. Surely
we never dreamed she would do anything violent.”
“And that is why you watched her so closely, and
never left her out of your sight.”
“Yes.”
“Was that why you stopped her from communicating
with her friends, so that she had to bribe the little seam-
stress, Miss Wilkinson, to take her letters?”
“No, no.” Miss Beckwith looked down at her twisting
hands. “That was because of the other matter; we did
not want her to do anything foolish.”
“You said just now, ma'am, that you didn't believe
Miss Rowntree ever went to the Glamorgan before the
night of her death. Where else do you think she went,
then? The time of her first visit, according to the hall-
boy, agrees with the time she gave you the slip in the
dressmaker’s.”
Miss Beckwith's trembling lips tightened.


MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES 177
“I have no idea.”
“The afternoon before her death, too. Why did she
run away from you and go to the bridge to meet the
young flying fellow P”
“She didn't. That was merely an indication of her
diseased mind. She had wandered away, and young Mr.
Ewards came upon her by chance. The very fact of her
leading him upon that long, aimless journey out of the
city is proof of her mental condition.”
“Don’t you think, ma'am, that her excuse afterward
was pretty glib for a lunatic?” McCarty asked slyly.
Miss Beckwith winced.
“I have heard that those who are afflicted in such a
manner are wonderfully cunning,” she replied, somewhat
uncertainly. “Really, this has been such a frightful shock
that I have been unable to collect myself sufficiently to
analyze every detail.”
“That's what I’m trying to do now,” said McCarty
gravely. “Have you stopped to think about her dying
words to me—her reference to the flying man?”
“Don’t you see that is the crowning proof of her in-
sanity!” Miss Beckwith exclaimed. “The injury to her
side and head was occasioned by a fall from an aéroplane,
and Mr. Quimby says it must have been on her mind ever
since.”
“It seems to me,” remarked McCarty deliberately,
“that it is Mr. Quimby who says all this, and you that
tries to believe it against your better judgment, ma'am.
You're forcing yourself to accept it because you don't
dare to think of any other answer to it.”
“What other answer could there be?” She rose and
faced him. “Who would want to take Marion’s life? I
must believe it; I must, if I am not to go mad, too !”
“But you are not finding it any too easy to convince
yourself, are you? Miss Beckwith, you want the truth,


178 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
don't you? Wouldn't you rather know than have to
just believe blindly, no matter what the outcome of it
is? It's your own sister's child that's lying dead.
Doesn’t that mean more to you than a bit more notoriety
on top of what you've had already through this case, if
notoriety is all you fear?”
The last words struck her like a blow, and as if in a
feeble, instinctive effort at self-defense she dropped the
veil once more over her face.
“Mr. McCarty,’” she said quietly, “I came here and
confided a distressing family secret to you, hoping that
you would accept the truth as we do, as we must, and
stop these useless attempts to probe farther into our
affairs. Mr. Quimby did not offer a reward for the
discoverer of my niece's murderer because he knew that
no such person existed.
“She was of unsound mind; her death was self-in-
flicted, and he had no wish to prolong this unnecessary
investigation and keep us all continuously in the public
eye; nor do we want the truth to become known and
cloud poor Marion's memory with such a shadow. Others
besides ourselves knew of her infirmity, but they will not
speak.
“Then, too, Mr. Quimby knew what zealous activity
a reward would promote on the part of the police, and
he had no desire to see suspicion fall upon some inno-
cent person in their mistaken efforts to prove a case.
I hope, when you think this matter over, you will realize
that ours is the only possible solution, terrible as it is,
and that you and the authorities will not distress us by
any further intrusion on our grief.”
After she had taken her departure McCarty returned
from seeing her to her motor-car and, seated in the chair
she had just vacated, he gave himself up to troubled
thought. Miss Beckwith's motive in seeking him out
was not definitely clear in his mind.


MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES I79
Was she actuated solely by a desire, through self-
interest, to impress him with the truth of the theory she
had advanced, and assure him of the futility of further
investigation? Or had she been driven by her own tor-
turing doubts to disclose them to another and, in seeking
to convince him, reassure herself?
That she was sincere in the belief in her niece's de-
ranged mental condition he did not question; but it was
equally evident that she shrank from the suggestion of
self-destruction which her brother-in-law had so eagerly
grasped at as the solution of the girl's death and was
so indomitably forcing her to accept.
If it were not the true explanation—and McCarty put
it from him as unworthy a second thought—why had
Stephen Quimby professed to accept it with such un-
questioning readiness, unless he desired above all things
to cover the real facts in the case, and would he so
cover them unless they led irrefutably back to himself?
Miss Beckwith was completely dominated by her
brother-in-law, her pliant will absolutely beneath his
control. In his stepdaughter, however, he had en-
countered a nature which he evidently could not break.
The little boy had unconsciously revealed that morning
that the man who held himself in such complete self-
mastery before the world was not the ruler of his own
passions in his home, and to one accustomed as he was
to carrying everything before him, the defiance of his
stepdaughter must have been a bitter experience.
Had she really been of unsound mind, or was it a
long-maturing plan of his to secure a permanent control
of her property? Miss Beckwith had spoken of others
who knew of her niece's mental condition; who could
they be? No hint of it had been disclosed at the inquest;
the little seamstress was ignorant of such a possibility,
as were the dead girl's friends—Miss Hatfield and
Charles Sturtevant— -


MISS BECKWITH INTERVENES I8I
one could be trying to see him at that hour, and if
they were, let then ring. He turned over and rooted
his head deeper in the pillöw, but the bell's clamor was
repeated, and a swift realization of its purport made
him leap from his bed.
It was the first fire alarm, his own private signal from
the chief's office!
The “big three” was sounding now, and McCarty waited
only for the signal to tell him in what district the fire
was located. When it came his eyes bulged with excite-
ment; it was here in his own neighborhood!
He rushed to the window. A blaze of such magnitude
as to call out the big three would surely be visible, yet
no ruddy glow lighted the dark expanse of the sky.
He waited for no evidence, however, but climbed into
a pair of trousers over his pajamas, thrust his feet into
shoes, and seizing a coat, charged down the stairs and
off for the corner. They would know at the fire-house
whither the engines had gone.
He did not pause to wonder that no din and clatter
had assailed his ears, and none but his own wildly cavort-
ing figure appeared in sight until he drew up panting
and snorting before the fire-house. The engine was
stationary in its accustomed place, and Dennis lounged
grinning in the doorway.
“Fire!” McCarty gasped, waving his arms in a vain
effort to express himself. “Where's fire? Big three ſ”
Dennis's grin widened.
“It hasn’t happened—yet,” he announced. “I thought
I'd get you up, my lad, and it took the big three to do it!
I tapped in a little private call to you, Mac. Sit down
and don't try to swear till you get your breath. I want
to talk to you about the Rowntree case.”


CHAPTER XVII
THE PASSING OF MARY
cCARTY'S indignation spent itself in his efforts
to regain his breath, and a glow of returning
warmth pervaded his heart when Dennis voiced
his complaint.
“This whole day have I been hanging around waiting,
and never a sign of you! You've not been so busy you
couldn't spare a minute to tell a fellow how things are
going, and anyway, why wasn't I in on whatever you
were doing, I’d like to know? Sure, it's not like you to
go to bed with all the news on your chest and me left
out in the cold ! ”Tis the inflooence of that Terhune,
that's what it is 1 Since you've been associating with the
great man, you've no use for the like of me!”
“Why isn't it him you're getting out of his bed in
the middle of the night for news, if he's so great?” re-
torted McCarty; but his eyes twinkled. “I’m only a
has-been, and fat at that! What should I know about
the case?”
“You are out of condition, and that’s a fact,” observed
Dennis tactlessly. “Look at you now, puffing like a trac-
tion engine from just a little sprint round the block!
But Mac, you old divil, there ain't a man in the detective
line to-day, on the force or off it, can hold a candle to
you with all their scientific contraptions, and well you
know it!
“'Tis a week to-night since the murder, and not a
step forward have they got, any of them. If the truth
182


THE PASSING OF MARY 183
about who killed the girl is ever coming out, 'tis you
that'll do the trick, and no one else—with me helping
you, maybe.”
“Is that sol” McCarty grunted. “A lot of help you
are. And it's not to hear my news that you got me
around here; I'm on to that. You've some idea of
your own you want to spring !”
“True for you,” responded Dennis. “If you'd found
out anything to-day you couldn't have slept on it without
telling me in spite of your grouch. I’ve been thinking
the case over, and it come to me that the whole thing
hinges on what the girl whispered to you with her dying
breath. It's that flying man you’ve got to find, Macl”
“That's real smart of you, Denny, you're improving!”
McCarty commented satirically. “Now, if you'll just be
telling me where he is, I'll go right out and collar him,
and then get some sleep.”
“Oh, you may laugh, but there's no smoke without fire.
That girl said “flying man,’ and flying man she meant,
for by the same token she was not delirious or crazy.
There's no flying man but an aviator, and the only one
she knows is the one she met on the afternoon before she
was killed. I’ve thought all that out, and it's straight.
Of course he's got an alibi, but so has Quimby, and
you knocked it higher than a kite. Mac, you mark my
words, he's the fellow you want.”
“Maybe the poor thing was crazy, after all,” McCarty
remarked. “At least that's what her family are trying
to put over now.”
He gave Dennis an account of the day's events, in-
cluding his interviews with the Pullman porter, little
Stevie, and Miss Beckwith, and the other listened with
shining eyes.
“That's where my idea comes in l’ he exclaimed. “If
this Mr. Antonio that's gone is the chauffeur, maybe the


184 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
aviator fellow was in love with her, too; followed her
to the flat on the fourth floor and killed her l’”
“Then how did he get away?” demanded McCarty.
“How did the girl who went to Chicago get out, and
Quimby, or whoever the man was who was behind the
glass closet, and any one else who wanted to? From the
way that building was policed, if you ask me, the whole
ward could have passed in and out and nobody the
wiser | If you can lay your hands on that aviator and
make him talk, you'll learn something, I'll bank on it.”
, McCarty's reply was cut short by the harsh clamor
of the fire-bell, and he had merely time to step out of
the way as Dennis jumped to his place and the engine
shot out of the door.
“And I hope it's a false alarm!” muttered McCarty,
acutely aware once more of his incomplete attire and
recalled to the ruse which had urged him forth.
The alarm, however, was a genuine one, a stubborn
blaze in a basement cleaning establishment, and Dennis
returned water-soaked and too weary to continue the
discussion. With a promise to look him up in the
afternoon, McCarty left him and returned to his own
interrupted slumber.
Nine o'clock the next morning found him in the office
of Charles Sturtevant. That young man faced about
irascibly from his desk when the ex-roundsman entered,
but beneath his bluster McCarty detected a note of un-
easiness. w
“Confound you fellows! Can't you ever let a chap
alone? I’ve told you repeatedly that I know nothing
about the case, and Terhune assured me after his silly
farce the other night that I shouldn't be annoyed any
more in connection with it. What do you want now?”
“Just a word, Mr. Sturtevant, and I’ll not bother you
again. The inspector thought you would rather make a


I86 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Did you go before or after you proposed for Miss
Rowntree?”
“I never proposed to her!”
“I didn't say you did, sir. I said proposed for her;
asked her stepfather for her. When you did, he told
you something that made you change your mind in a
hurry.”
“I—I don't know what you meanſ” Sturtevant blus-
tered. “My feelings toward Miss Rowntree were always
those of friendship, and they never changed.”
“But you thought twice, as any man would, about
marrying a girl whose mind wasn't quite all there—”
“Look here!” The young man leaped from his chair.
“How did you people get hold of that? It's past and
done with, and has no connection with the case what-
ever, and anyway I thought Quimby would manage to
keep it quiet. What's the good of raking it up?”
“Because if this thing comes to a showdown, Mr.
Sturtevant, it will not be to Mr. Quimby's interest to
hide that. 'Tis a pity, sir, you were so quick to believe
what was told you without finding out the truth for
yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if I wanted to discourage a man from marry-
ing a girl, so that I could keep control of her property,
that would be the strongest kind of a lie I could put up.”
“I—I can’t believe it! Quimby wouldn't dare make
such an assertion if it were not founded on fact, and
his stepdaughter's property wasn't a patch on his own.”
“A patch that'd maybe stop a disastrous leak, Mr.
Sturtevant. Think for yourself. Did you ever see any
sign of craziness on Miss Rowntree's part?”
“I can't say I ever did.” He strode to the window.
“It's monstrous, unheard of that a man of Quimby's posi-
tion would take such a chance—”


THE PASSING OF MARY 187
“He knew you'd be the last to speak of it, sir. And
'twas no longer a chance than to let the affair go on till
he was forced to give an accounting of the trust, which
he would have found a pretty hard job. You played
in his hands right enough when you let all that slide at
the inquest, but you can see that if it becomes necessary
for him to establish her insanity, he'll call on you to back
him up, and you'll be in a hole.”
“But you understand my position l’ Sturtevant turned
abruptly and came forward. “Miss Rowntree was dead,
and I saw no reason for casting a slur upon her memory,
to say nothing of the effect on the remaining members
of the family. It is true that I admired her immensely
and wanted to make her my wife. I was hard hit when
I went to Quimby and he told me of her—her trouble,
But I thought it was deucedly straightforward and hon-
orable of him to come out with the truth.
“I hadn’t the least idea that the old scoundrel could
have an ulterior motive, and naturally I—I fought shy.
Every one thought his position was impregnable—thinks
so to-day. See here, I’d like to know if your informa-
tion is correct about his financial condition; I'm pretty
well tied up with him, carrying a huge marginal account
of his on my books at this moment. If he's shaky, I've
got to get out from under.”
“You’ll have to find that out for yourself, Mr. Sturte-
vant.” McCarty's voice was thickened with contempt.
“The purpose of our investigation is to clear the young
girl that's dead from the black lie that was told about
her, and find the man that killed her.”
“Oh, to be sure,” murmured Sturtevant hurriedly.
“Of course, the whole incident was most unfortunate,
and if I permitted myself to be deceived I regret it
deeply, but as you say, any man would naturally think
twice before he contracted a marriage with a person who


I88 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
was—er—mentally afflicted. Now, sir, I’ve told you all
I really know, and in return you've given me some in-
formation which I must act upon without delay. Come
around again and I'll be happy to tell you anything I
can, but just now every minute counts. You'll excuse
me, won't you? Have a cigar?”
McCarty declined in disgust, and departed without
further conversation. Dead or alive, he concluded that
Marion Rowntree was well rid of her self-centered
suitor, and dismissed him from his consideration. A
task loomed before him which would require all his
diplomacy to perform, and his habitual confidence had
well-nigh deserted him as he boarded an up-town car
on the way to Mr. Terhune's rooms.
He found the detective busily engaged in mounting a
series of photographs upon a board, and affably disposed
to ignore the fiasco of their last meeting.
“Still interested in our little case, MacP’’ he asked.
“It does present some very unusual points, I confess,
but basically it is simple, almost elementary. All the
minor details are satisfactorily cleared up and I have the
whole affair in a nutshell. Scientifically it admitted of
only one solution from the beginning and working along
that line without blundering into irrelevant issues, I have
arrived at the infallible conclusion.”
“Yes, sir,” said McCarty. “Have you got the man?”
Terhune frowned.
“That will come,” he announced shortly. “The process
of ratiocination alone would disclose him in time, but
we shall not adopt so lengthy and crude a measure. The
objective side of crime is particularly amenable to scien-
tific analysis, and with that objective firmly fixed in the
mind the solution presents no difficulties to the expert
intelligence.”
“I’ve no doubt of it in the world,” agreed McCarty,


THE PASSING OF MARY 189
in haste. Of course, me being an outsider and belonging
to the old school that's past with these wonderful new
scientific discoveries you're master of, sir, it's that in-
teresting I can't keep my mind from it.”
“That is natural,” Terhune acknowledged generously.
“I like to see a man without prejudice toward innovations
which he is not mentally equipped to grasp in their full
practical significance.”
A dull red appeared behind McCarty's ears, but he
shifted to the other foot and asked naively:
“Then you've no objections, Mr. Terhune, to me put-
tering around a little and asking a few questions of some
of the witnesses, just to satisfy my own mind? I'll not
be bothering you, or interfering with the real investiga-
tion, but you know we old fellows like to pull in the
harness now and again.”
Terhune waved his hand airily.
“Go as far as you like, my dear McCarty! Come to
me with what puzzles you have some time when I'm not
so busy, and I'll set you straight.”
“Thank you, sir,” McCarty hesitated. “I was thinking
of having a bit of a talk with Mrs. Doremus and maybe
that girl of hers, this afternoon. Of course if you'd
rather I didn’t, sir, thinking I might upset your plans,
or want me to wait till you can be along, too—”
“My good man,” Terhune turned with an air of
amused impatience, “my plans are not susceptible to
change because of anything you may be able to discover.
Go to her by all means, and ask what you please, but
don't bother me with any conclusions you may reach.
I am concentrating upon this from a scientific stand-
point, and my attention must not be even momentarily
deflected from it by idle theories or chimerical clues.
Run along, Mac, and investigate to your heart's content.”
McCarty needed no second bidding, but hugging the


I90 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
official sanction to his bosom, he hastened off to the fire-
house, dragged Dennis forth, and across a little restaurant
table he unfolded his scheme.
“So you saw Terhune,” the latter commented. “I
suppose you're after handing over the brooch, and giving
him a slant at the little book of notes we found in Mary's
trunk, and the accounts on the back of that envelope.”
“I did not,” returned McCarty. “Not being mentally
equipped to grasp the grand scientific stunts of him, I've
permission to blunder along in my own way, and go as
far as I like, so long as I don't bother him with anything
I may find out, and interrupt the marvelous workings of
his brain.”
Dennis choked over his coffee.
“By God, you put it over on him! On Terhunel” he
gurgled. “A free hand and only himself to blame if you
leave him at the post! Mac, you're back in the running
and going strong!”
A half-hour later they presented themselves at the
Hotel Lavenham and Mrs. Doremus received them with
an air of languid boredom which did not conceal the
alert watchfulness in her eyes. She was clearly on her
guard and more self-confident than at any previous in-
terview.
The maid hovered about in an elaborate pretense of
occupation, but McCarty waited pointedly until she with-
drew, and then producing the little jeweler's case, he
said:
“I’ve called to return this to you, Mrs. Doremus.”
She gave a little scream of delight.
“My diamond pin' It was stolen from my apartment
over two months ago. Oh, how glad I am!”
“It was stolen, then? You didn't just lose it?”
“No, indeed! It disappeared in the most unaccount-
able way. I advertised for it, offering a reward, but it


THE PASSING OF MARY I91
was never returned. It couldn't have been lost, for Mary
and I searched and searched I Did you find out who stole
it?”
The curtains at the doorway swung violently apart and
Mary reappeared, her face suffused.
“You have forgotten, Mrs. Doremus !” she cried, and
there was no mistaking the open threat in her manner.
“You gave me that pin after we found it under your
dresser, for nursing you through your illness. It was
never stolen l’’
For an instant the eyes of the two women met and
battled, then Mrs. Doremus bowed her head.
“Yes, I—I remember now. I did give this pin to Mary,
but my mind wanders since this horrible experience we
have been through. I was startled and forgot.”
“Denny, take care of the door!” McCarty smiled
grimly. “There's nothing now that you need forget,
Mrs. Doremus, nothing the police don't know. This girl
here will have no chance to blackmail either you or
Mr. Quimby any more, and we'll send her up on the
theft of this pin alone.”
A snarl of rage broke from the girl, but it was drowned
in Mrs. Doremus's choking cry.
“Blackmail! What do you mean? What have you
found out?”
“That Mr. Quimby was your guest at dinner a week
ago Monday night; that he was a frequent caller on you,
and you'd made up your mind to marry him. There's
no use denying it, ma'am. He was in your apartment
at the time his stepdaughter was killed, and he was still
there, hiding behind the glass closet in the dining-room,
when Inspector Druet and I questioned you later. You
knew of the report he started, that his stepdaughter was
crazy—”
“Oh, stop! Stop! I can’t bear it! What shall I do?


I92 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
Does Mr. Quimby know what you have discovered?
Can't you keep it quiet? Oh, I implore you! Mr.
Quimby will pay anything, anything! not to have this dis-
closed l’”
“We represent the law, ma'am. We're not playing
Mary's little game. I suppose you don't know she's been
planning for a long time to blackmail you, before Miss
Rowntree ever came to her death. In this little book,
which we found in your girl's trunk, are records of talk
between you and Mr. Quimby that she'd listened to and
copied down, and meant to make you pay for later on
when you'd married him, perhaps. From the evidence
of this he was trying to back out and you held his letters
over his head, a thing that a man in his position would
pay well to keep from the newspapers, as Mary well
knew.”
“I cannot believe it! This is infamous! She could
not have done such a thing—”
“Here,” proceeded McCarty, ignoring the interruption,
“is a little memorandum of what Mary got out of the
two of you on account of what happened at the Gla-
morgan that night. The first amount is ten dollars >>
“Yes!” Mrs. Doremus was staring at him, wild-eyed.
“I gave it to her when the disturbance occurred, and
Mr. Quimby added twenty-five to keep her from letting
any one know he was there. You see, he didn't want to
get mixed up in anything.”
“I believe you!” McCarty ejaculated. “Then there's
an item of a hundred and another of fifty—”
“Mr. Quimby sent the hundred to me to give her
when we found out the next day that the girl who was
killed was his stepdaughter, and she got the fifty from
me—”
“And some dresses and things, too?”
Mrs. Doremus nodded and swallowed convulsively.


THE PASSING OF MARY I93
“Mr. Quimby was to let her know when to come to
see him and get his instructions—he didn't dare send any
more letters 32
“No. He signaled to her by dropping his hat at the
funeral, and she saw it from the crowd,” McCarty went
on. “She called that night and got the instructions and
five hundred dollars besides, to keep her mouth shut—”
Mary, who had been standing at bay like a figure of
stone, suddenly sprang to life.
“It's a lie!” she screamed. “A lie! You're letting
them drag everything out of you like the fool you are l
I never blackmailed you or him either; you gave that
money to me of your own free will, and you gave me
the brooch, too ! If you round on me, I'll fix both of you!
I haven't told what I know and they'll not find it out
unless I do, but you get me out of this or it'll be the
worse for both of you!”
Mrs. Doremus clenched her hands with an unexpected
flare of spirit.
“There's nothing to conceal now! I have done all that
I could, but as long as they know, I'm glad to be free
from you. You are a blackmailer and a thief l’’
Mary uttered a furious ejaculation, and turning, dis-
appeared. Dennis started to follow her, but halted at
a sign from McCarty.
“Terhune's men are below,” he observed. “She’ll be
trailed, wherever she goes.” -
“Oh, let her go!” moaned Mrs. Doremus, sinking upon
the couch. “I wouldn't prosecute her if she'd stolen a
hundred jewels. All this blackmailing business would
come out and—and what you tell me she overheard, and
the scandal would be ruinous ! You, will be merciful
and keep the public from knowing that Mr. Quimby
was in the house when that terrible thing happened? He
has great influence, he will not forge 32


I94 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“The public?” repeated McCarty. “Isn't it the author-
ities he should be worrying about? If the man was
present when his stepdaughter was killed—”
“But he wasn’t ; he was with me! It all happened just
as I told you, that I swear! We saw the the body fall
past my window, but we had no idea who it was, even
later. Mr. Quimby hid because he didn't want notoriety
of any sort, didn't want it known that he was calling
On 1116.
“We were both absolutely ignorant of his stepdaugh-
ter's presence in the building and don't know to this
moment why she went there or how she met her death.
It was not until the next morning, when I saw the papers
and received Mr. Quimby's note, that I learned of her
identity and I thought I should go mad! Oh, please,
please believe me! I am telling the truth!”


196 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
and I'm wasting no more time running around in circles.
I'm going to get that Ivy Collins if she's above the sod
and make her come across with the truth.”
“Maybe she saw nothing, and knows no more than
us, this minute,” ventured Dennis.
“Then why did she drop out of sight?” retorted Mc-
Carty. “She's either paid to keep out of the way, or
she's hiding on her own account and whichever it is,
by the Lord, I’m going to dig her out. I wired to that
lad in Chicago, Joseph Pangborn, that Mrs. Foxe gave
us the address of, but I got no answer, and we'll just
have a try at the job ourselves.”
“I’m with you!” Dennis cried. “I’ll hotfoot it now to
the Old Man and I'll be at your rooms at eleven to-night
with my grip.”
“And don't bring ten bundles and a bird cage!” ad-
monished McCarty. “We’re traveling light.”
Dennis arrived punctually on the hour and found Mc-
Carty deep in his own packing.
“I’ve taken a section for the two of us,” the latter
announced with grim satisfaction. “Me being fat, I'll
have the lower berth, and I'll thank you, Denny, not to
drop your boots on me, as you did when we went to
Washington that time, after the lad that had old Throck-
morten's diamonds.”
“We got him, though l’” Dennis exulted. “You never
went out after any one yet you didn't get them, Mac,
and I’ve got a hunch you're not going to fail now.”
“Not if I can help it.” McCarty rose, red-faced from
strapping his bag. “The inspector has a couple of men
out looking for the inventor fellow and we’d do no good
by staying here, anyway. I'm putting my two eyes and
the sense I was born with against Terhune's science, and
I'm going to follow the trail to the end, Denny, but the
Lord knows what we'll find there.” -


198 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
her this afternoon, and he looked as if he'd had the
shock of his life. He told me the same story she did, and
it rings true, Denny, I'll have to hand that to him.
Whether the girl followed him there that night, or he
followed her, and whatever knowledge he may have of
her death, he had no active part in it.
“I dropped a few lines to the inspector—in case he
wants to let Terhune in on the fact ’twas Quimby who
was in Mrs. Doremus's apartment—before one of them,
thinking he knows already, gives it away. I'm playing
square with Terhune, and I don't want him to think I'm
stealing a march on him.”
The journey was uneventful, and late in the afternoon
of the following day they found themselves nearing their
destination. Dennis was visibly suffering from the bond
of silence imposed by McCarty and he carried himself
with the air of a gloomy conspirator. Looking carefully
about the smoking-car, he leaned forward and nudged
his companion.
“Macl There's no one within ear-shot but that old
man in the skull cap, and him buried a hundred miles
deep in his book. It’s about time I knew where we were
heading for, and what we're going to do when we get
there.”
“If you could tell me that, Denny, I'd thank you!”
responded McCarty readily. “The waiting-room of the
station is the last sign we've got to go by, and after that
it'll be a case of following our noses.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you've come a thousand
miles to go wandering like a loon around the streets
asking people if they've met up with Ivy Collins?”
“Whist! Soft pedal on names, Denny. I mean I'm
going to size up the lay of the land, and figure out from
there just what a person would do if they wanted to leave
no trail. It's a waste of time to dig up her friends, for


THE MAN WITH THE SKULL CAP 199
she banked on giving all of them the slip, and she was
taking no chances of being recognized either.”
“How do you get that?” asked Dennis. “She didn't
go to them Platts, because she knew the police would be
after her there for a statement, but as to not being
Seen »y
“Didn't she do all she could to change her appear-
ance? I told you what the porter said; can't you dope it
out for yourself? She put on a different dress, carried
her coat inside out and tied a dark veil over her hat.
Moreover, she didn't even write that telegram herself.
She's slick, and she put it all over the porter, pretending
she was too nervous, and getting him to do it, so that
her handwriting wouldn't be left behind her. If she's
in funds, she'll hang on to that gold purse, not knowing
how to get rid of it, but if she is broke she'll put it up.”
Dennis's eyes were on the rolling country scudding
past the window.
“It seems to me,” he remarked, “that if she wanted
to lose it, she might have thrown it off the car. She'd
a space of a thousand miles to do it in and leave never
a trace.”
McCarty made no reply and Dennis, glancing up,
caught a swift signal of warning.
“Now what the—” he began, but McCarty rose.
“Let’s beat it back to the Pullman,” he suggested with
elaborate carelessness. “I’ve smoked till I’m dry, and
I've a little something in my ba »
In the vestibule Dennis seized his arm.
“What took you all of a sudden?” he demanded. “Any
one would think you'd seen a ghost!”
“’Twas the man in the skull cap,” returned McCarty.
“I had my eye on him, and he wasn't asleep, but he
never turned a page for five minutes. He was on the


2OO THE CLUE IN THE AIR
job, Denny, listening, and we'll take no more chances
till we’re off this train.”
When they finally pulled into the station McCarty got
off quickly, looking neither to the right nor left, and
Dennis followed. Once beyond the gates he stepped to
one side and wheeled, and the man of the smoking-car,
with a soft straw hat pulled low over his eyes in place
of the skull cap, passed them and walked on to the taxi-
cab stand.
“Did you get that? Right behind us.” He nudged
Dennis.
“Shall we follow him?” that amateur sleuth suggeste
eagerly. -
McCarty chuckled. -
“The shoe is on the other foot, my lad! It's him that’s
trailing us, and we’ve got to lose him. Pick up your
bag and go on in the waiting-room; I'll take a taxi, and
if he chases me I’ll shake him off. If he hangs on to
you, go through the waiting-room and on out. You don't
know this town, but grab the first taxi you see and tell
the chauffeur there's a fellow behind that's no member
of the family and he can make a triple fare by dodging
him and doubling back. See?”
“Oh, I see right enough, but suppose the chauffeur
don't take my view of it? What if he lands me at a
station-house, and has me run in for a sloping crook?”
“In this town?” retorted McCarty, with immense
scorn. “Get along with you, Denny! I'll meet you back
here in an hour, whatever happens. Mind you don't
get lost, yourself!”
It wanted fifteen minutes to the hour when McCarty
sauntered into the station to find Dennis, red and em-
barrassed, barricaded behind a newspaper to avoid the
flirtatious glances of a large and buxom lady across the
aisle of seats.


THE MAN WITH THE SKULL CAP 201
“So there you are! You could be doing better by
remembering you're on the job, and not trying to attract
attention 33
“I never!” denied Dennis, hotly. “That dame's been
giving me the eye ever since you left, and I’ve no use for
any of them, as well you know !”
“She has, eh?” McCarty turned thoughtfully, but the
woman had already disappeared. “Come on, then.”
“Did you lose the old fellow P You were gone long
enough!”
“He’s up somewhere north of the river, by now. He
was tagging along, all right, but he's not on to the game
and ’twas like child's play to drop him.”
With Dennis in tow, McCarty made his way to the
lost-and-found desk, and stepped up to the window.
“Can you tell me, please, if a coat was found in the
station here a week ago last night?” he asked blandly.
“My wife dropped hers—a long tan one with a silk
lining.”
“Any name in it, or maker's tab?” demanded the
clerk.
“No name, but I don’t know about the tab; she didn't
tell me, and I forget where she bought it, but ’twas some-
where here in town.”
“This it?”
The clerk produced a light-brown traveling cloak, and
laid it upon the counter. McCarty turned it over; it
was lined with a brilliant plaid and bore on a tab the
name of one of Chicago's principal shops.
McCarty relinquished it with a shake of his head.
“No, sir, 'twas lined different.”
“Well, nothing else like what you described was turned
- 92
1n
“'Twas hers, wasn't it?” demanded Dennis when they


2O2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
had left the station safely behind them. “However did
you dope that out?”
“She’d want to lose it as quick as she could, wouldn't
she?' 'Tis loud enough to wake the dead and you could
trail her a mile in it. What better place could she drop
it than in a big station like that, with crowds going and
coming all the time?”
“What put you on that she bought the coat in Chicago,
anyway?” -
“She went to New York from here last spring, and
if she'd got it there, why would she be afraid of it being
recognized in Chicago? Now the question is: What did
she do next?”
“Maybe after all she went to some one who she knew
would take her in and keep quiet about it.” Dennis was
plainly stumped.
“No. Mrs. Foxe has got after every one of them
without a sign of life. I’m going on the idea that she's
avoided the people that know her, and the places where
she's known, as if she was a stranger here. Now let's
See.
“She's got in about the same time in the evening as
this or maybe a bit earlier than now for we lost an hour
fooling around. The porter said she couldn't eat a thing
all day, but she'll have felt freer once she got off the
train, and maybe faint for food. The first thing she'll
look for is a meal, and the next a lodging, and she'll
not have gone far, nor yet tried a big public place, in
her condition. There's a lunch-room over there across
the street; come on till we try it.” -
“If she was a man, now, I'd know the place she would
have headed for,” remarked Dennis, with a wistful eye
on a corner café, but McCarty dragged him relentlessly
Oil.
The lunch-room on nearer inspection proved to be


2O4 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
just like you, and she must be satisfied, for my sister
says she's there yet.”
“Is she trying to see everything there is in town, stay-
ing this long?” laughed McCarty as he rose. “But maybe
she only came the end of the week.”
“No, sir, it was Tuesday night. I guess she ain't very
well, though, she looked kind of sick. If you want to
try it you'll find it a nice place.” - -
“Sure we will !” agreed McCarty heartily. “Four
blocks up, you say?”
“Yes, sir; on the corner. Oh, thanks!”
She dropped the tip in her pocket. “It’s the Middle
Western; you can’t miss it.”
“If that's not blind luck!” ejaculated Dennis as they
started up the street. “It’s the Collins girl; it's bound
to be; coming Tuesday night and sick and all. No wonder
she was rocky, with a murder on her soul, or at least in
her mind's eye. How will you nab her, Mac”
“I’ll be damn' certain it's her before I do any nabbing,”
responded McCarty. “We’ll have to go easy, now, and
keep our eyes open.” -
“You can go as easy as you like!” his companion re-
torted. “I’m going to have one drink and beat it to bed.
as soon as I find a place to lie down. It's small rest I
got on that shelf last night with you snoring away
underneath, and this job is more wearing than a fact'ry
fire.”
The found the hotel without difficulty, and its ap-
pearance bore testimony to the cleanliness and respecta-
bility its sponsor had claimed. McCarty paused at the
desk before registering and ruffled the pages of the big,
flat book.
“I wonder if 'twas here Mike stopped two weeks ago?”
he said in a careless aside to Dennis.
“Mike who?” the proprietor asked, with a keen glance.


THE MAN WITH THE SKULL CAP 205
“Michael Devlin, my cousin from New York,” re-
sponded McCarty.
“Nobody here of that name. Sign there, please.”
McCarty obeyed, but his quick eye had found that for
which he sought. The only entry for Tuesday of the
preceding week was: “Miss A. Wilkes, Boston, Massa-
chusetts,” in an erratically angular hand.
They followed the boy to a large double bedroom on
the second floor, and Dennis, after ascertaining the loca-
tion of the bar, bestowed a dime upon him and closed
the door. McCarty waited a moment, then swiftly re-
opened it, but the boy had departed, whistling, and the
hall was deserted. Transferring the key to the inside,
McCarty turned it in the lock.
“If it's all the same to you,” ventured Dennis meekly,
“I’d like to know what name you put down for me.”
“Your own; you'll never remember any other. I’m
your brother, Tim, and don't be yelling out “Mac” to-
morrow! Did you get a slant at that register?”
“How could I, with you on top of it? And what's
the idea of the time-table; looking up a train for home
already?” -
“No, I was just making sure that address she wrote
down was phony. She's on the book as a Miss Wilkes,
from Boston, but no train gets in from there at the same
time as the New York one.”
“The name is neither here nor there, and maybe she
stopped off in New York,” suggested Dennis helpfully.
“’Twas a long shot, and we might be on the wrong track
after all. Are you coming down to the bar?”
“I am not, and mind you don’t get matching for the
drinks and tell your family history,” McCarty warned.
“The proprietor lamped us down-stairs as if he spotted
us for plain-clothes men from the jump. If anybody gets


2O6 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
inquisitive, leave them to me; I'll answer them to-
morrow.”
Dennis's absence was not prolonged. Five minutes had
barely elapsed when he reappeared, and his face was a
study.
“What is it?” asked McCarty sharply.
“There's a tray with a tea-pot and a covered dish on
it outside number ten, around the bend in the hall; but
that's not what gave me a jolt. A man is leaning across
the desk, talking to the boss. I could see him from the
end of the bar over the top of the little swing door that
leads into the office, and I finished my drink quick, I can
tell you. 'Tis the man you lost in such grand style not
two hours ago: the man with the skull cap!”


CHAPTER XIX
WHERE THE ROAD FORKED
start at the unfamiliarity of his surroundings.
Strange, sprawling wall-paper met his view,
and stiff, shiny furniture, and worse than all, it appeared
that he was alone. A smart breeze flapped the shade,
and the sun pouring in at the window flooded the empty
iron bed across the room.
Dennis sat up suddenly.
“Mac-Tim l’”
“Whist!” McCarty, fully dressed but for his coat,
was peering out through the aperture of the partly
opened door. “You’ll have to get a move on you. The
girl in number ten, where you saw the tray last night, is
leaving, and we've got to get on the job.”
Dennis needed no urging. He slid out of bed and
dressed with the celerity born of his years in the fire
company, while McCarty hastily packed their belongings.
Descending to the office, they paid their bill and ordered
breakfast at a table in the dining-room which commanded
a view of the desk and side door.
The boy who had shown them to their room on the
previous day appeared presently with a suit-case, and
going to the entrance, whistled for a taxicab. Dennis
and McCarty rose just as a woman came down the stairs
and approached the desk.
She wore a dark blue gown, and the black veil which
swathed her head gave forth gleams of scarlet from her
D": awoke the next morning with a puzzled
2O7


WHERE THE ROAD FORKED 209
vacant taxi coming around the corner. Run out the
other way, Denny, and nail it!”
The open car drew up at the side entrance of the
hotel, and a man and girl ran quickly down the steps
and entered it. They wore linen dusters and the girl was
veiled, while her companion had a soft straw hat pulled
low over his eyes.
The car spurted around the corner, heading due west,
and at a discreet distance behind chugged a taxi. Mc-
Carty had asked only one question of the sharp-eyed
driver:
“Got plenty of gas?”
“Good for fifty miles and more, and the engine only
tuned up yesterday.”
Through the crowding turmoil of the city, over bridges
and past the smoke and squalor of the suburbs, they
pressed steadily mile upon mile into the open country.
Dennis, stupefied by the swift turn of events, had held
his peace, but his eyes were fixed in awed fascination
upon the meter by the driver's left ear.
“Are they heading for the coast, I wonder?” McCarty
muttered at length. “This is no jaunt for a taxi!”
“Twenty miles and more have we come already,” an-
nounced his companion. “If the cost of this little trip
is on the department, Mac, well and good, but should you
be footing it yourself, you'll be out the price of one of
your elegant Homevale mansions by the time we get back.
Maybe this is only another decoy, and not the right girl,
either l’”
“No fear ! We’ve got the drop on them now,” McCarty
smiled grimly. “’Twas smart of them to rig the other
up in the same outfit this one wore getting off the train.”
“It only goes to show that you cannot be sure of a
person just by the clothes they may have on,” remarked
Dennis.


2IO THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“You said something then, my lad!” McCarty's smile
expanded to a chuckle, but it was curiously lacking in
mirth. “The trouble with most of us is that we see just
what we're expecting to, and shut our eyes to the things
we're not looking for.”
The occasional country club, with its colony of cluster-
ing villas, gave place to detached farms, and still the car
ahead sped forward. They were compelled to give it
more and more leeway to lessen the chances of dis-
covery, for the sight of an urban taxi in that road could
suggest only the truth to those in advance.
However, if the occupants of the touring car were
aware of espionage they gave no sign, keeping definitely
on their way and maintaining a uniform speed. The road
made several sharp turns, the scattered houses drew
closer and they seemed to be nearing a village.
McCarty was urging their chauffeur to greater cau-
tion when Dennis, who had lapsed into a brown study,
suddenly gripped him.
“Mac” I’ve got it! I know who the man is with
the girl ahead!”
“Do you so !” McCarty turned a critical eye upon
him. “Having doped that out, if you'll tell me where
they're making for »y
“'Tis the other one that disappeared—Antonio !”
Dennis ignored the sarcasm. “Him and the girl struck
up an acquaintance, living right next door to each other
in that apartment house; they got mixed up in this
murder somehow, and they're making their get-away to-
gether!”
“And I suppose, after leaving the Glamorgan on Sun-
day morning, he waited around town until midnight
Tuesday for nothing!” supplemented McCarty with fine
scorn. “”Tis likely, too, that an actress with the ad-
mirers this girl had would take up with a chauffeur !”


WHERE THE ROAD FORKED 2II
“Who says he's that but you!” Dennis demanded,
stung by the skeptical reception of his inspiration.
“There's nothing to connect him with Quimby's chauffeur
except the name, and Miss Beckwith told you herself
that she'd never seen Mr. Antonio before the inquest!”
The promising argument was abruptly terminated. A
new turning loomed ahead, but before reaching it the
touring car swerved and halted by the roadside, and the
driver leaped out and hovered over the forward wheel.
McCarty swore beneath his breath.
“Go on past them!” he ordered. “We’ve got to, we're
too close to stop now. Pull up just around the turn till
they start on again.”
The two figures in the tonneau of the car sat motion-
less as the taxi hummed by, but their driver looked up,
and it seemed to the discomfited sleuths that a derisive
grin wreathed his face.
“Stop under those trees and shut off your engine,”
directed McCarty. “They’re on to us now if they weren't
before, but there's no help for it. When they start up
again we'll hear them and the chase will be on in the
open.”
But minute succeeded minute, and no sound of a motor
came from behind them. McCarty descended from the
taxi and strolled back to reconnoiter. A clump of trees
and a stout sign-post marked the point of the turn, and
he peered cautiously around it, then wheeled with a
frantic beckoning gesture to Dennis.
The touring car was still there, with the chauffeur
tinkering at the wheel, but the tonneau was empty, and
no other figure appeared upon the long sunlit expanse
of the road.
“Done!” cried McCarty. “They've given us the slip !”
“But where'd they go to ?” Dennis's jaw dropped.
“There's not a house facing this stretch—”


2I2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“There! Don't you see those tracks through that
wheat field? There's a bunch of houses over that way;
they must have taken a short cut to the village.”
As if aware of their scrutiny, the chauffeur straight-
ened himself, looked once in their direction, then sprang
to his seat and started the engine. Speechlessly they
watched while the car turned and disappeared in a cloud
of dust in the direction whence it had come.
“Well,” observed Dennis at length. “I suppose we’d
better pay off that robber we have on our hands and
then follow them tracks.”
“We'll let him take us first around to that village and
see if it's on a railway line and whether or not a train
is due,” McCarty responded. “If it's just a little one-
horse burg, we've got them sewed up, yet.”
A scant mile further brought them to the beginning
of an elm-shaded village street, with a tiny red-roofed
station at hand. It was deserted except for a somnolent
telegraph operator, from whom McCarty learned that
no train would come in before five o’clock.
“The name of this flourishing town is Wheatley,” an-
nounced Dennis, when McCarty joined him again in the
dust-covered taxi. “We’re a million miles from nowhere,
and the only ray of hope is the beer sign on that hotel
down the road.”
“Go to it,” McCarty said briefly.
The found a small hotel, with a group of staring natives
on the porch, and mid-day dinner in progress in the
fly-infested interior. Their driver was fed, paid, and
suitably rewarded, and McCarty saw him start upon his
journey cityward before he attacked his own belated
meal.
“I was taking no chances on his entertaining the popu-
lace with a history of this morning's little ride,” he ex-
plained to Dennis, “We’ve got four hours to trace that


2I4 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
you be telling us where we've got to? Our machine
broke down just over beyond, and we're in a hurry.”
“This is Wheatley.” She spoke dryly, with a reserved,
guarded note. “You ought to have come around by the
road. It's lucky for you that my husband took the dog
to the veterinary's a little while ago or he might have
torn you to pieces. He's terrible fierce, and he don't
know any difference between tramps and gentlemen when
it comes to trespassing.”
McCarty commenced an apology, but the woman had
already turned to the kitchen door with an air of dis-
missal, so he followed Dennis, who at mention of the
dog had made a precipitate move for the front gate.
“So that’s where our birds flew to !” he muttered.
“Nice hint, that, to keep us from prowling around later.”
Dennis opened his lips to reply, but a husky shout
sounded behind them, and they turned to face an irate
farmer.
“I’ll have the law on ye! You're the second passel
of folks to go traipsin' through my wheat to-day ! I
closed that right-o’-way last year, and I paid out good
money for the notice board 33
“Look here!” McCarty's quick eye traveled over the
mean, avaricious face with the close-set, peering eyes
and thin lips. “I’ll pay for any damage we did, and I'll
give you five dollars if you'll take us in for over night.
My friend, here, feels bad; too much motoring in the
heat, and him just getting over a sun-stroke.”
Dennis gasped, but clapped his hand realistically to his
head while the countryman looked from one to the other
of them.
“Well, I don't know’s I couldn’t,” he said at last.
“Ain’t in for a sick spell, is he? Don't want doctors
fussin’ round. I keep bachelor house.”
Reassured on this point, he conducted them up the
*


WHERE THE ROAD FORKED 2I5
shell-lined path to a bare but scrupulously clean little
dwelling and threw open the door of a room leading
from the kitchen.
“You can have that. It was ma's, and she's the only
woman ever set foot in this house. Got no use for 'em.
It’ll be about two dollars, I reckon, for that wheat ye
trod down coming through.”
McCarty produced a bulging pocketbook and handed
over the required sum without demur, adding the agreed
payment for hospitality in advance. The farmer waxed
greedily loquacious.
“Don’t expect no great doin's for supper,” he warned.
“I’m a plain man, but I’ll do what I can for ye. I
wouldn't be round now, but I'm puttin' in to-day on the
truck garden.”
“Who lives next door?” asked McCarty, indicating the
yard from which they had just emerged.
“The Leonards, gol darn 'em! Been fightin' 'em over
that dividin’ fence for five years! Tryin' to steal my
land Young city feller he is—used to drive racin’ cars
before he took up farmin’. They got visitors—come
through my wheat this mornin’ same as you did. Well,
I'll get back to my weedin' now; make yourselves to
home.”
Through the long, still summer afternoon McCarty
and Dennis watched from behind the closed, green shut-
ters of their window, but from the house next door
came no sign of the couple they sought. The whistle of
the five o'clock train died away in the distance, and the
sun crept low in the western sky before the kitchen door
opened once more and the woman reappeared with a
pan of scraps held resting upon her hip.
She went unconcernedly about her duties in the chicken
yard and at the hog-pens, but her glance traveled fre-
quently to the gate in increasing impatience, and at


216 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
length she dropped the pan and ran forward with an
eager little cry.
A young man had turned in from the road—a tall,
broad-shouldered young man, gray-eyed and bronzed by
wind and sun. He walked with the easy, swinging stride
of one accustomed to free spaces, and a great, cadaverous
dog padded surlily at his heels.
“Bad-looking brute!” commented Dennis, with an
honest shiver. “Look! It won’t even notice the woman,
and she's scared of it herself l’”
McCarty did not reply. The starchy, frilled curtains
at an upper window had parted, and for a brief moment
a face looked down. It was a woman's face, framed in
a cloud of soft, brown hair, and McCarty, watching,
caught his breath in a vast sigh of satisfaction.
Their host entered from the barn with a pail of milk,
and the frugal supper was soon prepared. McCarty had
moved the bed over to the window, and insisted that
Dennis remain there, bringing him his meal on an im-
provised tray.
“Don’t take your eyes off that house for a minute!”
he cautioned. “If any one stirs out of it, cough.”
But Dennis did not cough, and supper concluded, their
host shortly bade them a grudging good night and
ascended to the upper floor. McCarty, who had assisted
him to tidy the kitchen in order to get rid of him the
more quickly, hurried back to the bedroom to find the
pseudo invalid convulsed with silent laughter.
“I heard all that talk of him at the table, about being
a blue-ribbon teetotaller and all the rest of it !” he ex-
claimed. “The hypocritical, long-faced old son-of-a-gun
Take a look in that closet, Mac, there on the shelf ſ”
McCarty obeyed, and a row of empty brown bottles
met his gaze, unmistakable in shape and size even without
their labels.
-


WHERE THE ROAD FORKED 217
“No use trying them,” Dennis sighed. “I did already.
He's not left a drop!”
“And you'd have been doing better to watch like you
were told than be snooping into what don't concern you!”
retorted McCarty. “I’m going to put out the lamp, but
don't you dare droop an eye! They may make a break
for it any minute, and we'll have to be on the jump.”
But hour succeeded hour, and the house next door
lay wrapped in darkness in the clear, moonless night.
Dennis dozed, and even McCarty nodded fitfully, but all
at once he started, tensely awake. A dull, metallic click
had reached his ears; the fall of a latch on the neighbor-
ing gate.
Arousing Dennis with a heavy hand on his shoulder
and enjoining him to silence, McCarty opened the shutters
noiselessly and leaned out. A figure, black against the
lesser darkness, had stolen out and was slipping down
the road in the opposite direction toward the open coun-
try. -
“Stay where you are unless you hear my whistle,”
commanded McCarty, and placing his hand on the sill,
he vaulted to the soft turf beneath the window and
was gone.
Dennis hung out as far as he dared, his eyes trying to
pierce the gloom and every sense alert for the signal.
But the minutes passed slowly, and no sound reached
him save the harsh, strident whirring of the katydids and
the tree-toads’ croon.
At last the low, singing hum of an engine pulsed on
the air, and a runabout without lights shaped itself in
the darkness, and turning about in the road, drew up,
panting like a live thing, before the house next door.
A lone figure descended from it and vanished in the
shadow of the porch, and at the same moment McCarty's
hoarse whisper came from beneath the window.


218 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Denny! Pass me out an armful of those empty
whisky bottles from the closet! Quick, now, and mind
you don't let any fall. That's it! Grab your hat, and
mine, for I'm thinking we'll not be back—and out with
you! Come onl”
Wrapping the bottles in his coat to subdue their clink-
ing, he dashed with surprising speed down the road.
Dennis, a faithful shadow at his heels, muttered excfted
queries, but McCarty doggedly reserved his laborious
breath for the present needs. -
Passing a few clustering houses, they came into the
open, with fields of grain rolling on either side in great
billows beneath the stars. McCarty plodded on for a
quarter of a mile until they reached a clump of trees
where the road forked. There, gasping, he deposited
his burden in the ditch.
“Hustle, now, Denny! Help me crack these bottles and
strew them in the road; the more jagged the pieces are,
the better. If this don't rip their tires, I’ll shoot!”
“How do you know they'll come this way?” Denny
asked, between crashes of glass.
“Didn't the fellow turn the car around before he
stopped, so they could make a straight getaway?”
“But what'll you do with them when you get them?”
“What?” McCarty threw the last shattered bottle out
into the roadway and sank perspiring upon a stone. “I’ve
a warrant in my pocket for Jane Doe on a capital charge,
and I’ll need none for the man; if I take her up you'll
not be able to lose him. I couldn't have gone in the house
after them without dragging the local sheriff into the
game, but this way they're playing right into my hands.
Whist, now, till you hear the car !”
They had not long to wait. The droning purr of a
motor detached itself from the nocturnal whisperings and
grew in volume and the low bulk of the car appeared


WHERE THE ROAD FORKED 219
bearing swiftly down upon them. There was a heavy,
sickening crunch as it struck the slivered glass, a series
of sharp reports like a miniature machine-gun, and the
car swerved on two wheels and came to a dead stop
in the ditch.
A shrill feminine scream that ended in a wail was
mingled with a man's groaning curse, and then Mc-
Carty's deep Yoice boomed out solemnly:
“In the name of the law I’ve a warrant here for the
lady—”
His bull's-eye flashed, and the young man leaped to
the road, but paused at the muzzle of the revolver and
the two grim faces behind it.
The girl's slender figure rose in her seat.
“It’s all over !” she sobbed. “I know what you want
me for—the murder of Marion Rowntree!”


CHAPTER XX
THE GRAVE YAwNS
the best of humors. A smile hovered about his
ascetic, finely-chiseled lips and a faint tinge of
color glowed beneath his sparkling eyes.
Just a week had elapsed since the scientific test which
had resulted in so unexpected a climax and the atmos-
phere of his consulting-room was miraculously changed.
The screen, the lantern-slide sheet, the long table and
row of chairs had vanished as had every evidence of
mechanical device.
Rich, mellow-hued rugs covered the floor, book-cases
and rare cabinets lined the walls and age-stained Jacobean
furnishings gave to the apartment an air of dignity and
distinction which denoted the private sanctuary of a
savant and connoisseur.
An ancient brass-studded chest, its lid slightly atilt as
if warped, flanked the hearth on one side and on the
other a heavily carved bench was set at right-angles with
the wall. The soft light filtered dimly through a bronze
lantern suspended on a chain above the library table, and
brought out in burnished points of radiance the gold
tooling on the massive tomes on the book shelves. The
combined effect was a masterly suggestion of luxurious
ease and harmonious, intellectual communion.
The stir of the city came but faintly through the
shrouded windows and only the rhythmic, measured beat
I' was Saturday evening and Wade Terhune was in
22O


THE GRAVE YAWNS 22I
of the tall clock in the corner broke the stillness, until s
all at once an electric bell jangled a false note in the
scheme, and a bourgeois, commonplace figure obtruded
itself upon the scene.
“McCarty!” Terhune dropped the ivory pawn he had
been fingering upon the the chess-board, and came hur-
riedly forward. “Where have you been, man? I’ve tried
to get in touch with you for the last four days, but you
had dropped completely from sight.”
“I’ve been away on a little trip, sir.” McCarty's eyes
roamed evasively. “A friend of mine had his vacation,
and I went with him. Were you wanting me?”
“I wanted to shake hands with you! I confess I had
underrated your remarkable facility for stumbling upon
the truth.” He laughed a trifle wryly. “If you had
given me the slightest indication, the other day, of the
probable importance of your surmise as to the identity
of Mrs. Doremus's guest, I would have handled the affair
myself and finished it conclusively. Your attempt was
meritorious but not sufficiently persevering to be ef-
fective, my dear McCarty; you failed to carry it to a
successful issue.”
“Yes, sir.” His tone was meekly ingratiating. “I
only thought to see if my guess was right or not, Mr.
Terhune, and I did not want to disturb you in your scien-
tific thinking.”
The detective shot a keen glance at him, but McCarty's
face betrayed only bewildered contrition.
“Oh, well,” Terhune smiled in tolerant patronage, “I
have taken it in hand where you relinquished your grasp
of the situation, and although up to the present moment
both the woman and Stephen Quimby have adhered
stubbornly to their assertion of innocence, the case is
practically consummated. Every link in the chain is
complete and the end is in sight.”


THE GRAVE YAWNS 223
apparatus I employed a week ago, I have elaborated it
and multiplied its efficiency.
“The method I shall adopt will differ widely from
that of the first experiment, however. Mr. Quimby will
sit in this chair, you see, facing the fireplace, and I shall
read to him twenty separate and unconnected words from
a previously prepared list, asking him to name what rela-
tive thought each brings to his mind.
“That, as far as he is aware, will be the full extent of
the test and he will depend upon the prompt reaction of
his mind, and consequent evasiveness of his countering
replies, to bring him safely through the ordeal. But
Mac, every inflection of his voice, minutely graded to be
differentiated by the human ear or controlled by his will,
shall be recorded; every infinitesimal degree of time be-
tween the word I utter and his reply shall be measured.”
“How in the name of goodness!” McCarty was pro-
foundly impressed and his awestruck glance swept the
room as if in quest of material evidence of magic.
Terhune smiled in spite of himself.
“The pendulum of that tall clock in the corner is really
a metronome, but more finely attuned than any measurer
of time and rhythm known to the world at large. It will
give us the difference in his pauses to the hundredth
part of a second, and note them upon a chart concealed
in the mechanism of the clock itself.
“In the chimney back of the fireplace I have adjusted
a vibratometer, a small apparatus which, as the subject
sits facing the hearth, will measure the vibration of his
breath. It is perhaps too subtle a point to have come
under your observation, but when the brain reacts sud-
denly from the shock of a new and unexpected thought,
one involuntarily exhales and inhales instantaneously, or,
as you might phrase it, catches one's breath. That is
the instinctive storing of oxygen against the physical de-


224 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
mand of the brain, and in studying these vibrations we
can trace the degree of mental shock sustained.”
McCarty listened open-mouthed, but in his eyes there
was an awakened gleam of comprehension which belied
the obtuseness attributed to him. The detective had
swiftly crossed the room to the brass-studded chest, lifted
its curiously warped lid and produced a square, compact
instrument not unlike the earlier form of tone repro-
ductive machines, with a circular record and wide-spread-
ing horn. -
“This,” he announced, “is a projectophone. It records
the voice, noting every wave-tone of inflection, and will
later reproduce it for us, but exaggerating a hundredfold
the differentiations of key and pitch. Thus a note of
fear, too delicate to reach our sensibilities, will become
a veritable wail, a slight tremor will be increased to a
discordant jangle, and an all but toneless mutter will
reveal itself as a roar of wrath. In other words, his
slightest tonal manifestation of varying emotion will
definitely and irrevocably betray itself.”
“It’s wonderful, beyond the power of man!” cried
McCarty. “”Tis almost sacrilegious, like usurping the
workings of Almighty. Providence l’”
“Science, my dear McCarty!” The lid of the chest
descended. “Science at the disposal of the analytical
mind.”
“Mr. Terhune, would you mind showing me that list
of questions?” There was a new note in McCarty's
voice.
“Certainly.” The detective drew a slip of paper from
his bill-case. “Here it is.”
McCarty glanced down it and shook his head.
“Please don’t think it's fresh of me, sir, but I’d like
to suggest some changes in it. I’m not setting myself up
to butt in on this experiment, which I couldn't pretend


THE GRAVE YAWNS 227
reconcile to his preconceived hypothesis, and he realized
somewhat uneasily that the conclusions of the blunt un-
scientific ex-roundsman had proved miraculously reliable
in the past. -
His cogitations were interrupted by the arrival of his
anticipated guest. Stephen Quimby, a distinctive figure
in his correct mourning garb, was more pale even than on
their last meeting and a harassed expression had shaken
the dominance of his glance, but his voice was even as
he courteously responded to the detective's greeting and
accepted the chair indicated.
Terhune was explaining the obvious system and method
of the word test, when his expectant ear caught the soft
closing of the front door, and the sound of footsteps
down the hall toward the curtained alcove. His humble
confrère was on hand, and he proceeded at once to the
issue.
“You understand now, I think, Mr. Quimby. I speak
one word, and you a single one in reply, indicating the
relative idea my suggestion has evolved in your mind.
We will begin, if you are ready. The first word is:
Money.”
“Wealth,” responded Quimby without hesitation.
“Inheritance.”
“Will.” A double stroke of the pendulum had inter-
vened between question and answer.
“Investments.”
“Business.” The countering word came promptly.
“Failure.”
“Loss.”
“Atlanta.”
There was a pause of three seconds before Quimby's
reply, in a carefully controlled voice: “City.”
“Cashier.”
“Bank.” The tone had lowered to a mere whisper.


228 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Consumption.”
“Disease.” The whisper was shaken.
“Brazil.”
Another pause, and then, in quick evasion: “Copper.”
“Death.”
“Grave.” There were beads of perspiration on Quim-
by's forehead.
“Twenty-one.”
The man on the rack floundered desperately, and fin-
ally muttered: “Number.”
“Lover.”
“Romance.”
“Lie l’’
Five measured strokes ticked out before Quimby found
utterance.
“Soap.” He had deliberately chosen to put a far-
fetched definition on the obvious word.
“Control.”
“Power.” He breathed more easily.
“Chauffeur.”
“Motor-car.”
“Sanatorium.”
“Hospital.”
The replies to the last three questions had fallen from
Quimby's lips with a regularity and precision which
equaled that of his inquisitor, but now he showed un-
mistakable signs of breaking beneath the continued
strain. His lips were painfully compressed, and his long
slender fingers tenaciously gripped the arms of his chair.
“Escape—” the detective's voice droned monoto-
nously on.
“F-freedom.” The reply came in a convulsive gasp.
“Murder—”
“Crime.” The word was merely shaped with quivering
lips.
|


CHAPTER XXI
THE WARNING
room had enclosed many and varied scenes in
the years of his occupancy; scenes which ran the
gamut of human emotion, but none more strange than on
that July night when Stephen Quimby stood at bay be-
fore the girl he thought had lain for nearly a fortnight
cold in death.
The seeming apparition shook even Terhune's self-
control, and he, too, bounded forward, then paused with
every nerve tense.
“It was not I who was killed, you see.” The soft voice
seemed to fill the room. “You were overready to put
me in my grave since I frustrated your purpose, but I
have come back to face you, and to see that justice is
done.”
“Who are you?” demanded Terhune, for Quimby's
nerves were gone and he had collapsed in the chair, his
face buried in his hands.
“He has already answered you, Mr. Terhune. I am
Marion Rowntree, or, rather, that is the name the world
knows; I am the wife of Anthony Leonard.”
“McCarty!” The detective turned almost helplessly to
the curtained enclosure. “Mac, are you there? Will
you come out and tell me what this means?”
The draperies parted once more, and a very sheepish
McCarty appeared.
“You’ll forgive me for springing the surprise on you,
T. four walls of Wade Terhune's consulting-
23O


232 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Then it was murder?”
“Yes, Mr. Terhune. But I don't know by whom, it
all came so suddenly! I owe you an explanation, and I
shall be relieved to get the burden of what little I do know
off my conscience. I have been in deep trouble all these
days; I felt that it was not fair to the poor girl who
had trusted me to keep silence when I might, perhaps,
help you find the man who killed her, but I was afraid,
not only of being accused of the crime myself, but of
continued persecutions from my stepfather.
“My liberty was in far greater danger from him than
from the police, and I was panic-stricken in my trouble.
I thought only of myself. When Mr. McCarty found
me out West, he said that if I would come to you and
tell you the whole truth, you would join my husband in
protecting me.”
McCarty carefully avoided the detective's eye.
“Her husband,” he observed, “is the young man who
lived in the next flat; the inventor, Mr. Antonio.”
“If I am under arrest on these preposterous charges
you have brought, I demand to be taken where I can
send for my attorneys and arrange my affairs.” Quim-
by's voice was broken, but he held his head indomitably
high. “If not, I will go. I have no desire to listen to
a reiteration of the accusations of this girl, whom it
would be more charitable to consider out of her mind
than as wilfully insubordinate and undutiful as her own
confession will show her to have been. Unless, of course,
she chooses to claim I murdered the other girl.”
“Oh, no!” Marion said gently. “I didn't even know
you were in the apartment-house that night.”
“Mr. Quimby, I am afraid I must insist on your re-
maining. Miss Rowntree, will you tell us your own
story of that night?” Terhune pulled forward an arm-
chair and waved McCarty to another. “I think it will be


234 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Last summer the incident was repeated with Mr.
Sturtevant, only he had actually reached the point of
asking me to marry him. I did not care for him in that
way, but I was lonely and not any too happy at home,
and I was undecided, when he came to me and wriggled
out of his proposition as gracefully as he could. I was
astounded; I felt there must be some tangible reason for
a man of the world such as he was to act in the same
unaccountable manner as the impetuous boy of the year
before. I could not, of course, demand an explanation,
but it worried me all summer.
“In the autumn I accidentally overheard a conversation
between my stepfather and my aunt, Miss Beckwith,
which revealed the truth to me; he-Mr. Quimby—had
told each of the young men who had wished to marry
me that I was of unsound mind. It was hideous, almost
unbelievable ! He claimed that I had inherited it from
my own father, who died insane. That was a cruel per-
version of the facts; my father was mentally incom-
petent when he died, but it was caused by an accident
in the hunting field.
“I was dismayed, aghast that such a thing should be
said of me. I could not understand his motive, and I
was afraid. My aunt was always easily influenced, and
he had made even her believe this dreadful thing, so that
I felt I hadn't a friend in the world whom I could trust.
“Then Anthony Leonard came to work for my step-
father. In my fear and trouble I had kept away from
every one, and was thrown upon my own resources for
a method of passing the time. I took long daily drives
in the motor, and I–I became interested in Anthony.
He was my ideal of what a real man should be; straight-
forward, clean, honest, and sincere. I knew he cared,
too, but he wouldn't speak, Mr. Terhune; he is no for-
tune-hunter, please be assured of that, for I think it is


236 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
buy him off, and there was a frightful scene. The result
of it was that my husband was turned from the door,
and I was made a virtual prisoner. I did succeed in
communicating with him through our old seamstress, but
that means was removed. My aunt, whether she really
believed then in her heart that my mind was affected or
not, felt that I had married beneath me and disgraced
them all, and she was like putty in my stepfather's hands.
“Of course, my husband could have compelled them
to produce me in court, or taken the law in his own
hands and rescued me by force, but my stepfather swore
that if any such attempt was made, he would have me
declared incompetent by specialists and unassailable wit-
nesses and confined permanently in a sanatorium.
“The profusion and seeming weight of the false proof
against me which he boasted he could bring was stag-
gering, and we knew that we would be worse than help-
less in the face of what the money and influence which
my stepfather could command would do. Sane people
have been railroaded to asylums before this, Mr. Terhune,
and my stepfather would stop at nothing.
“The only thing to be done was for me to dissemble and
allow him to believe that I was slowly realizing my mis-
take, and might in the future consent to annulment of
my marriage. The instant that I became of age I could
defy him, and Tony and I could fight him openly, if
necessary.
“At that stage, too, my resentment was at white heat;
I was burning with a sense of injustice, and I determined
that my stepfather should not profit by his dastardly
schemes against me; that he should account for what was
mine to the uttermost farthing!
“I did not give a thought to the material side of the
case; I have never considered money, because I have not
known what it means to be without it, and Tony hated


238 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
tell him that I had escaped her vigilance. I fancied that
no harm was in store for me, but on Monday I learned
the awful truth.
“Tony and I had one confidant—the aviator, Luke
Edwards. He was a staunch friend, and we knew we
could trust him. Oh, if we hadn’t I would now be in
a far worse plight than that poor girl who is buried
under my name!”
Her soft voice died in a shudder, and she bowed her
head. For a moment the room was very still, and only
Stephen Quimby's breathing, convulsive and panting like
a trapped animal's, could be heard. Then the girl lifted
her eyes once more to Terhune.
“Sunday my stepfather went out to the aviation field.
Another man met him there, seemingly by appointment,
and a flight was attempted, but the wind was too un-
certain. Luke recognized the stranger as a physician of
questionable reputation who maintained a sort of sanato-
rium near by for so-called nervous cases, and he happened
to overhear a few words, which made him deliberately
listen. He heard just enough to gather that I was to
be a patient there, and he realized that it must be a part
of some plan to separate me from Tony.
“He had learned a great deal about the establishment
from one of the female nurses there whom he knew, and
that evening he went over and took her motoring. She
told him all the details of the horrible plan my stepfather
had made, and after he left her, he drove straight into
the city, hunted up my manicurist and paid her to slip
a little note to me when she came to do my nails in the
morning. He didn't know where to find Tony.
“Monday morning, right before Aunt Pauline's eyes,
the manicurist pushed a tiny wad of paper into my palm.
As soon as I could make an excuse to be alone I smoothed


THE WARNING 239
it out. It was just a line, but it frightened me almost to
death:
“Awful danger for you. Meet me sure Manhattan Bridge,
five to-day. “LUKE.”
“I shall never forget it, every word seemed burned
into my brain'
“You know how I managed to escape from my aunt,
and reach him. He drove me out around Steinway,
where no one would be likely to recognize me, and told
me that the physician was to call for me at my home at
half-past nine that evening and remove me in a limousine
to the private asylum. My stepfather had arranged to
be out; I believe he wanted to avoid a possible scene
with my aunt, for he knew she would object to such a
scheme, but the physician would bring the necessary
papers authorizing him to take me away. Aunt Pauline
would not have the courage to take any active steps on
my behalf, at least before my stepfather's return, and he
was sure that his influence over her was great enough
to prevent her from openly defying him.
“Luke would have taken me at once to Tony, but he
had gone out of town over Sunday to see the manu-
facturer who had his patent and would not return before
eight o'clock, and I had no means of getting into his
apartment.
“Besides, I did not know whether my stepfather knew
where Tony lived or not, and was afraid he would look
there for me. For the same reason I dared not stay
away from home for those intervening hours, fearing
that if my stepfather discovered my absence he would
do something to Tony. I realized at last how desperate
he was.
“I don't know how I ever had the courage to go back


24O THE CLUE IN THE AIR
t
to that house, but I did, and made a pretense of dining
with Aunt Pauline. I was tempted to throw myself on
her mercy, but I realized it would be useless and I
thought that awful hour would never end. I made an
excuse to retire almost immediately after dinner, and
just before nine o'clock I managed to slip out of the
house.
“Luke was waiting for me near the corner with his
little car to take me to Tony, but the limousine drew up
at the door just as I ran down the steps. I couldn't help
crying out in my terror, and the physician heard and
understood.
“I managed to reach Luke and he pulled me into the
car and raced off. The physician chased us in the
limousine—a great high-powered one—and we had to
drive around for an hour or more to try to elude them.
They evidently didn’t dare to have us halted in the street
for fear of publicity. My stepfather's plan had been to
keep Tony in absolute ignorance of my whereabouts until
they had forced me, by the isolation and horrors in that
awful place, to agree to an annulment.
“We threw them off finally, as we thought, and Luke
brought the car to a stop a little way down the street
from the Glamorgan. No one was in the entrance hall
but the boy, and he was asleep at the telephone. I
slipped past him and had started up the stairs when I
heard Luke's horn. I ran down and peered around the
elevator shaft, to see the limousine drive up, some men's
faces at the window; we hadn't been able to shake them
off, after all!
“In a panic I turned and rushed back up the stairs,
but I was weak from fright and my knees gave under
me. Just before. I reached the third floor I heard some
one coming up behind me. I collapsed, but when I saw
it was just a maid my courage came back to me. She


CHAPTER XXII
“THE MAN FROM NOWHERE”
quiet room was so great as to be almost tangibly
felt. Inured as he was to listening to the most
poignant of disclosures, there was a quality in the girl's
tones which stirred Terhune to the depths of his sensi-
bility and he waited, tense in every nerve, for the climax.
Quimby himself seemed to forget the ignoble part he
played in the drama and attended with undisguised in-
terest, and as for McCarty, it was evident that only by
a supreme effort could he curb his eagerness and restrain
himself from interrupting forcibly and telling her story
for her.
Marion faltered for an instant.
“If you think I have dwelt too much on myself and
my own trouble, in the face of that terrible tragedy
which happened so soon after, it is because I am trying
to tell you everything just as it happened and just as it
impressed me.
“When I saw the girl standing there I was too agitated
to observe details; she was dressed rather loudly, but
her clothes were ordinary and cheap, and I thought she
was just a servant like the other. You must realize my
half-frenzied state of mind, for nothing else will explain
my obedience to the blind impulse which came to me then.
“I walked up to her, and offered her a hundred dollars
to change clothes with me!
“I haven’t the least idea what words I used, but I
A S her voice momentarily ceased, the tension in the
-
242


244 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
Terhune, no one entered that door after us and no one
could. Please remember that; it is important, and I
can swear to it if necessary.
“‘You needn't be afraid any one will hear us,” she
said. “They are all out but me, and I’m going for good
myself in an hour.’
“She led me down the hall to a large corner room at
the end, a sort of drawing-room hideously vivid, with
bright clashing colors everywhere. An archway led into
a library at the left, the room where—where it hap-
pened ſ”
Again a fit of trembling seized her, but she fought
it back resolutely and continued:
“I remember there was a writing-table all strewn with
papers between the two windows, a piano in the corner
and some book-cases against the wall. My strength was
leaving me, and I sank down in the nearest chair.
“‘I guess we'd better have some noise after all,” the
other girl said. “Nobody would dare break in and start
anything if they thought a party was going on!’
“She went to the piano and touched some electrical
attachment and it commenced to play one of those riotous
music-hall things. Every thump seemed to pound into
my brain, and I could have screamed in anguish, but the
girl turned to me briskly. I was still clutching the roll
of bills in my hand.
“‘We’ve got to hustle,” she said. “Put that money
away, sister. I don't want it, and you're getting the
worst of the bargain as far as the clothes go. I'll look
swell landing in Chicago in that dress of yours.”
“She led me into the bedroom back of the library. It
had just one small window opening on an air-shaft, and
was in great disorder. She was talking all the time in a
nervous, high-pitched voice, and in spite of my own
terror, I did think it strange that she kept looking over


246 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
on the bed and asked if she did not mean to take them.
She shook her head.
“‘I don't feel much like pinning roses on myself to-
night, and I guess you don't, either.” She picked up the
card, and then threw it down again. ‘The poor boob |
Thinks he's going to follow me out to Chicago, but I'm
fighting shy of the serious stuff. I always give them the
laugh when they start that!’
“She clattered on as she moved about, picking up her
remaining things. I wanted to rush to Tony the instant
I was dressed, but a strange lethargy held me. That
awful piano was banging and ringing in my ears, and
quite suddenly it seemed to die away, and the sound of
her voice, too, and everything grew dark.
“The next thing I knew my face and neck were all wet
and she stood over me rubbing my wrists.
“‘You’ll be all right in a minute, she said. “You
keeled over like a shot. I believe I know what’s the
matter with you. You're hungry!’
“It was true. I didn’t know it then, but she dragged
me out to the kitchen, in spite of my protestations that
every minute counted and I had to go. She made a
sandwich for me, and I ate it ravenously, but, of course,
I couldn't touch the whisky or beer she offered me.
“There is a sort of freight and tradesman's elevator
which opens directly in the kitchen in those apartments.
It is the only possible entrance, Mr. Terhune, besides the
front door, and she locked and fastened it as she had
the other. I am convinced there could have been no
one hiding in the apartment, for she told me she had
looked all through it just before I came; she explained
that she ‘wasn't usually a fool, but she’d felt nervous as
a cat that night, and kept thinking she heard things.”
“I’ve taken a long while to tell you this, but I wanted
to give you every little detail that I could remember. I


“THE MAN FROM NOWHERE” 247
could not have been with her for more than a half hour,
for it was almost half-past ten when I entered the build-
1ng.
“She-her name, she had told me, by the way, was
Ivy Collins—she began to question me, not in an un-
pleasant way, but curious, like a child. She said she had
taken me for a high-class crook in a tight squeeze at
first, but she knew from my talk I was a lady. I men-
tioned something about an elopement, and that I had been
followed by people in a limousine, and begged her to
open the door and let me go, as I had friends in the
building who would help me now.
“‘Man friends!' she laughed, ‘or you wouldn't have had
to get clothes from me. Never mind, sister, your secret's
safe with me. Come on till I get my things and we'll
go out together. You'd better take a flash out of the
window, and see if your little pals are still there in the
car.”
“I went back with her to the library and looked from
the window; the limousine was across the street. I
waited while she proceeded to the bedroom and picked
up her suit-case. I was standing by one end of the piano,
between it and the archway leading to the drawing-room.
She had one glove half on, and handed me the suit-case
to hold while she stopped the piano and switched off the
lights yy
Marion's voice had commenced to falter again, and
now another uncontrollable tremor shook her and she
turned very white. Terhune sprang to his feet and
hastily poured a glass of ice-water from the silver tankard
on a stand, but she refused it.
“There isn't much more to tell, but it came so swiftly
and was so confused that I don't know how to make
you see it as I did. The last hour had passed in a sort


248 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
of dream and what followed in the next minute was like
a frightful, distorted nightmare!
“She started toward the piano attachment, but stopped
as if a reminder of something had come to her, and
walked over to the writing-table. She was standing at
one side of it before the opened window near the op-
posite wall when suddenly a man appeared in front of
my eyes!
“There had not been a sound, he seemed to spring
from nowhere! I tried to cry out, but my throat closed
as if a hand had gripped it. The man didn't even notice
me, but for an instant he crouched, poised for a spring.
“It all happened then, in a flash! She wheeled around,
saw him, and seizing something from the desk, she raised
it over her head, calling out in a low, hoarse sort of
scream. He laughed, and leaped for her!
“There was a queer, choking cry, a confused blur
before my eyes, and—she wasn't there! Her body had
hurtled over the low sill of the window almost instantane-
ously with his spring ! He had not seemed to strike her
a blow; it was as if with one mighty swing of his arms,
he had obliterated her from the face of the earth.
“It was an eternity before that horrible thud of her
body striking the sidewalk came to my ears. He had
stood poised and immovable after his leap, and when he
heard the sound of her fall, he laughed again, softly but
dreadfully. Then he turned and passed like a swift,
noiseless shadow from the room. -
“I am sure he did not even see me, for I had sunk
back instinctively in the triangular niche between the
piano and the wall, and terror had constricted my very
breathing. Everything went around before my eyes and
it seemed an hour that I clung there, praying that I
might not faint, with that terrible music jingling on
.


250 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
girl's suit-case. Her purse was inside, with the ticket
to Chicago; I would take her place!
“I explained hurriedly to Tony, and he had to agree,
for it was the only way out, and already there was a
commotion throughout the building, and a crowd was
collecting below. We arranged for me to hide in some
little hotel in Chicago near the station until he could
COme to me.
“It was the most difficult moment in my life when I
bade him good-by and forced myself to walk calmly down
those echoing stairs, push my way unnoticed through
that throng of people in the lower hall and past the door
of the doctor's office and what I knew lay behind it.
“How I succeeded I cannot imagine, but I found my-
self somehow out on the street and beyond the fringe
of the crowd. It was very late, but there was still a
bare chance that I could catch the train if I made a
prompt subway connection. I dreaded the very thought
of it, but it was the only way.
“I rounded the corner and far down the block I saw
a little car drawn up at the curb under a street-lamp.
It looked familiar, and scarcely daring to hope, I walked
toward it. It was dear, good Luke, waiting faithfully
to know that all was well!
“I explained breathlessly that I had to make the train,
and he rushed me down to the station; I had only time
to tell him that a terrible thing had happened, and a
girl was dead who would be thought to be me. I warned
him that he might be dragged into the investigation, and
he said he would have an alibi ready.
“I reached the station just as the gates were closing,
and boarded my train. I tried to get a compartment,
for I felt that I must be quite alone, but none was to
be had. I collapsed as the train started, but after a time


“THE MAN FROM NOWHERE” 253
º
“As long as Tony escaped their notice he meant to
follow them and see where they were going, but they
separated on arrival at the station. My good friend met
Tony, and while he followed Mr. McCarty in a taxi,
she tried to engage his companion in conversation and
learn their destination, but she wasn’t successful.
“I don't know how they had found my hiding-place, but
when Tony—after losing the trail of Mr. McCarty—
came to the hotel, he found they had reached there be-
fore him. The next morning my friend, dressed in the
clothes which had already changed hands so tragically,
attempted to lead them off on a false scent, while Tony
and I made our escape in a motor-car to his brother's
little farm, out in the country.
“But they were too clever for us three; they tracked
us down, and when Tony and I fled again in the night
in a borrowed machine, they halted us in the road.”
She paused with a deep sigh, and added:
“Of every one connected with this whole terrible affair,
Mr. McCarty alone had discovered the truth. When I
realized that we were caught and further effort to escape
would be useless, I cried out that he must want me for
the murder of Marion Rowntree.
“‘No, ma'am,” he said. “It’s Marion Rowntree I’m
talking to this minute. I want to know how Ivy Collins
came to her death!’”


CHAPTER XXIII
SEALED LIPS
&g ND how did Terhune take it all? It must have
A caught him in the solar plexus almost as bad
as Quimby when the dead girl rose up and
stood before the two of them l’” Dennis chuckled the
next morning, when McCarty came to tell him of the
night's event. “Had it all framed up on the stepfather,
did he, and then you came along and busted up the
game! Faith, I’ll bet he was as pleased as the devil at
a revival l”
“Denny, he's eating out of my hand!” McCarty's
voice was almost solemn. “We’re keeping it out of the
papers, you know, so the murderer, whoever he is, will
feel all the more secure, but I intimated to Terhune that
when the whole story is given to the press I'd tell the boys
'twas him sent me out West to find, not Ivy Collins, but
Marion Rowntree. He all but kissed me!”
“And what did you do that for?” demanded Dennis.
“After him saying your brain was not fit to grasp his
little toy pinwheels and phonograph records, I’d give
him what was due him and no more. ‘Twas you turned
the trick, and you ought to get the credit of it!”
“What do I want it for?” returned McCarty quietly.
“If luck has been against him so far in this case, he's
done wonderful work in others, as every one knows, and
he's got a reputation to keep up before the public. He's
welcome to the credit and glory, whatever there is of it.
I only butted in because I couldn't keep my hands off,
254


256 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
when you and me had that little talk with Mrs. Grafton
Foxe it burst over me all at once that it was God's
truth!”
“But how? Why? There was nothing in what Mrs.
Foxe said ” Dennis began.
“Wasn't there? She and her husband had hedged at
first about Ivy and her affairs, so as not to drag her
into the investigation. But they didn't hear from her,
and Mrs. Foxe kept telegraphing and got nearly crazy
with anxiety. Why? What did she fear for the girl?
The inquest didn't reassure her any, and when we talked
to her two days after she said, if you remember, that she
didn't care who found the girl as long as she was found.
What did that mean?”
“Why, that maybe something had happened to her.”
“Yes,” McCarty added grimly. “Happened to her that
Monday night, at the Glamorgan! She hadn't an idea
how or where the other girl came in or what the change
of clothes meant, but you can take it from me she'd a
pretty good notion of the real motive for the murder
and who the man was that done it, if 'twas Ivy that had
been killed. -
“The suspense was just about eating her heart out, but
behind the wavering and maybe hope there was the cer-
tainty that she couldn't bring herself to believe and admit.
She lied, of course, about meeting and talking to her
friend at the station, and Terhune and me are going to
face her to-day and find out if we can what she knows.
You mind I told you when we started for Chicago that
I meant to find Ivy Collins if she was above the sod?
I'd made up my mind then that she wasn't, God rest
her soul!” •
“And never a word out of you to me!” Dennis cried.
“Leading me around like a bull by the nose!”
“I wanted to wait till I had proof,” explained McCarty.


SEALED LIPS 257
“When did you get that, I'd like to know? Not when
you faced her in the road l’”
“No. In the afternoon late, when you and me were
rubbering from the old man's house next door. Mrs.
Leonard was out in the yard when her husband came
home with the dog, and I saw a face looking down for
just a minute from one of the windows up-stairs. 'Twas
the face of Marion Rowntree, as you'd have seen for your-
self if you'd been watching like you were told. I recog-
nized it, as anybody would have, from the pictures that
had been in all the newspapers.” -
“Well, it took you to do it!” responded his friend.
“Whether Terhune grabs the credit or not 'twas you that
found out the truth. You're a bigger man that he is the
day for all his reputation, Mac, and you delivered the
goods.”
“I did, did I, you big chump?” retorted McCarty with
affectionate indulgence. “I’ve done a hell of a lot, and
got no further than Terhune, which is nowhere. We’ve
been busier than deaf mutes in an argument, the two of
us, and we've stuck our noses into a lot of other people's
business that was, maybe, interesting, but didn't in any
way concern us, but 'twill be two weeks to-morrow since
the girl was done to death, and we're no nearer the truth
than when she fell in front of me. Who was the
murderer? Why did he do it? How did he get in and
get out, and where the devil is he now? Answer me
that l”
Dennis found the questions unanswerable, and Mc-
Carty presently departed to keep his appointment with
Wade Terhune. His train of thought, freed from the
mass of seeming irrelevances which had cumbered it for
so long, led back to the main issue, and he was convinced
that in one of three separate paths, obscure and doubt-


SEALED LIPS 259
“She doesn't,” the detective paused significantly. “But
did he? If his alibi cannot be shaken, my theory falls to
the ground. However, suppose for a moment that the
girl had idly encouraged his attentions and then when
the game got too steep for her, decided suddenly to de-
part from the scene. Suppose he was desperate, madly
jealous, and made up his mind that no one else should
have her if he could not.”
McCarty was not visibly impressed.
“How did he get in and out again?” he asked.
“With his own key, of course. Marion Rowntree was
mistaken, she was too agitated to observe carefully when
the other girl closed the front door. That is another
point, too. He was not noticed entering or leaving the
building because his was a familiar presence and made
no particular impression on the mind of any one. He
managed to get away from his party for a time, and
returned, meaning to implore her to stay, but when he
saw her actually on the moment of departure, and real-
ized the futility of his effort, rage overcame him and
he destroyed her. What do you think of it?”
“Since you ask me, sir, I'll have to tell you 'tis not an
idea that would keep me awake at night,” responded
McCarty frankly. “I believe if you can get Mrs. Foxe to
speak what's in her mind you'll learn something, but not
in that direction. That's one chance we’ve still got.
The other two that's sticking in my head I know you
don't hold with, but I can't help believing that between
them lies the truth.
“The young man that hung around outside, pretending
to be drunk when Cunliffe saw him first, but sober
enough, when he helped me carry the girl in, to say that
her blood was on him, and to beat it, leaving no trace; I
think he knows more than we do about the case. Then
there's the girl's own words: “The flying man.” She


26o THE CLUE IN THE AIR
was not delirious, Mr. Terhune, she was trying with her
last ounce of fighting strength to tell me who'd done
for her.”
Terhune shook his head.
“You’ve made some marvelous guesses at the truth
in this affair, Mac, but I'm afraid you're away off there,”
he said with decision. “No credence can be put in a
mere ejaculation uttered at such a time, and as for the
passer-by, you'll find he is quite beside the issue. But
come, let us see what Grafton Foxe has to say for him-
self.”
It was obvious that the Foxes had anticipated no im-
mediate intrusion on their privacy. The slatternly maid
was not in evidence, the remains of an unappetizing
breakfast still languished on the dining-room table, and
the couple themselves were in a Sabbath deshabille of
more than customary untidiness.
Mrs. Foxe's eyes narrowed with apprehension as she
recognized her visitors, but she led them without hesita-
tion to the living-room, where her unshaven husband
luxuriated on the shabby couch, in a welter of cigarette
smoke and newspapers.
“Mrs. Foxe,” Terhune began without preamble, “it
will save time if I tell you that some additional facts
have come to our attention which make it necessary for
me to ask you to repeat to us word for word just what
took place between you and Miss Collins when you met
her at the station on her departure for Chicago.”
“Why, I hardly remember "she faltered. Her furtive
glance sought her husband's, but he was gazing at the
detective with curious intentness. “I—there was only
a moment, you know, and the gates were on the point
of closing—”
“Did one word pass between you, Mrs. Foxe? I want


SEALED LIPS 261
the truth. Did you see and speak to your friend that
night?”
Grafton Foxe rose slowly and went to his wife.
“I don’t think you need answer that question,” he said
with grave tenderness. “Sit down, dear. I believe Mr.
Terhune has something to tell us instead.”
Her pale face went a shade more white and she dropped
limply into a chair, clinging to her husband's arm, and
drawing him to her side. -
“What is it?” Her voice was a mere toneless whisper.
“I will tell the truth. We saw Ivy, but we could not get
near enough to speak to her. She hurried past the crowd
and through the gates just as they were closing. We
could not catch her eye. What have you come to tell
us?”
“You saw Miss Collins,” the detective repeated slowly.
“Are you sure, Mrs. Foxe? You recognized her clothes,
perhaps, but did you see her face?”
“Mr. Terhune !” She put her trembling hands out as
if seeking to ward off a blow. “What is it that you
are trying to say? Do you mean that it was not Ivy
whom we saw 2 That it was not Ivy whom we saw
That it was the other! My God, it wasn't Ivy who was
killed !”
Terhune bowed his head.
“Ivy (" The tears were raining down her face. “I
knew it! I knew it all the time, but I would not let
myself believe! That other girl, and the change of
clothes; I could not understand, but I felt it! Oh, my
poor girl! Why would she not listen! She was reckless,
mad! She had had one lesson, one warning—”
Her breath caught in a sob and she pressed her hand
convulsively to her shaking lips. Her husband's hand
upon her shoulder had tightened until his knuckles showed
white.


SEALED LIPS 263
viously making a supreme effort to control herself and
marshal her scattered faculties.
“I—I will tell you anything I can, of course.” She
pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. “It won't be of any
use, though, for my husband is right; a frightful mistake
must have been madel Let me see, I have known Ivy
for ten years. NShe was a child performer then.”
“On the stage? I have had the records of theatrical
bureaus and organizations searched, and none carry the
name of Ivy Collins.”
“She was known as Mme. Yvonne, and she was never
on the stage.” Mrs. Foxe paused. “Ivy was a circus
performer.”
“Ah!”. Terhune shot a quick side-glance at McCarty.
“And you met her 35
“I was an animal-trainer in the same show.” Mrs.
Foxe raised her head. “It was the biggest three-ring
circus in the West, and I’m not ashamed of it. I told
you before that I was an actress because, well, it looks
more dignified on Grafton's account. He's getting on
splendidly and soon he'll be a well-known playwright.
It wouldn't look well if people knew his wife had been
in a circus. I have been on the stage, too, for after-
ward I showed my cats in vaudeville in a big star act.
Grafton had written a sketch which was on the same
bill, and that's how I met him.”
“‘Cats’?” repeated the detective.
“Leopards. They were beauties, too. I was known as
La Belle Leola. Perhaps you heard of me a couple of
years ago.”
Terhune nodded mendaciously, thinking that she was
not unlike the creatures she had ruled, with her sullen
tawny eyes and glorious lithe body.
“I don't know where Ivy came from, or who her people
were. She was one of a troupe of acrobats and later


SEALED LIPS 265
claim the body as hers, and hustle it underground before
it was cold!”
“Mr. Foxe, you will gain nothing by trying to balk
my investigation.” The detective spoke sternly. “We
know that Ivy Collins was in a desperate state of fear;
fear for her lifel We know that she anticipated an at-
tempt upon her and did her utmost to escape it. She
was killed by a man in this room, flung from that win-
dow, and we have an eye-witness to the murder l’”
Mrs. Foxe gave a stifled scream and buried her face
in her hands, while her husband leaned as if for support
on the back of her chair, his own face suddenly gray.
“Then don't ask us any more!” he cried hoarsely.
“We don't know who the man was, or anything about it.
Ivy may have had enemies, but good God! what have
we to do with it?”
“Mrs. Foxe.” Terhune's voice was quiet but com-
pelling. “You naturally know more of Ivy Collins's
affairs and secrets than your husband. You were in her
confidence and it will be of no avail to pretend you were
not aware of her fears, for we have proof of the con-
trary. Who was that man?”
She dropped her hands with a little hopeless gesture.
“Yes, it is true! She was afraid, mortally afraid,
but she would never tell us who or what threatened her.
We could not force her to speak. Believe it or not, as
you please; I can tell you no more.”
Her trembling lips pressed tight, as if a seal had been
laid upon them, and she glanced swiftly at Terhune, but
read his knowledge of her lie in the stern, unwavering
eyes bent upon her. She sprang wildly to her feet.
“I will answer no more of your questions ! If she was
murdered as you say, find the man for yourself I know
nothing, nothing!”


268 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
try it again, but the heart of them must be black with
hate.”
“People in a circus are all like one big family,” Dennis
observed. “They'll scrap among themselves, but they'll
stand together against, outside interference.- Terhune's
men will have long, slow work cut out for them, I’m
thinking.”
“If he can't induce that Foxe couple to talk, there's
nothing for him to do but try to trace back through the
girl's history for a clue to some one who had reason
to wish her dead,” returned McCarty. “He won't be-
lieve there's anything in what she tried to say to me.
I’d like to find that young fellow who helped me carry
her in, I can tell you that. I can't get him out of my
head, and the way he looked when I saw him in the
crowd outside the Quimby house on the day of the
funeral.”
“The fellow with the funny, long face and big flapping
ears like a clown? I remember your telling me of him.”
Dennis suddenly seized his friend in a dexterous grasp,
and swung him out of the path of a passing motor.
“Do you want to get run down, entirely? Stopping in
the middle of the street and staring like a rubel”
McCarty was indeed staring as if a light had dawned
upon him, and now he chuckled softly, ignoring the re-
buke.
“Denny, our friend Terhune is welcome to all his little
registering and charting machines as long as I have you
along with me. When it comes to hitting the bull's-eye
blindfolded, you beat any fancy shot going!”
“And what is it now?” demanded his friend. “I’ve no
notion at all of what you're getting at, but mind where
you're going or you'll land in a hospital!”
They reached their destination, but McCarty walked
past the entrance.


“THE BURNISHED PIPE” 271
which way he went, but she'd been too overcome with the
horror of it to notice. She said he just appeared from
nowhere, like, and then vanished again. I don’t get it
at all.”
“He must have gone through the archway into the
parlor, and down the hall,” Dennis hazarded. “Come till
we look at the doors.”
They examined them both thoroughly, experimenting
with the locks and chain, but could come to only one
conclusion. If Ivy Collins had fastened them, as Marion
Rowntree was prepared to swear, no human agency could
have opened them from the outside.
Returning once more to thc library, Dennis threw
up the windows and looked out, but no jutting cornice
or ledge ran beneath and there was no foothold where
a man, be he ever so agile, could have clung.
“Unless he was hiding in the flat all the time in spite
of her searching, I give it up,” declared McCarty. “The
two fireplaces are fakes, with no chimney he could have
squeezed down, and a man can't pass through solid walls.
Denny, where’ve you got to?”
But Dennis did not reply. He was hanging perilously
out of the air-shaft window in the bedroom, craning his
neck upward, and his whole body quivered with excite-
ment like a pointer with his quarry. He drew back at
last, dusting his hands upon his trousers, and turned to
McCarty with an odd gleaming in his eyes.
“You said something awhile back about going up on
the roof,” he said, his voice shaking with an effort to
speak calmly. “I'd like to have a look up there right
now.”
“What is it?” McCarty asked curiously. “Have you
got an idea about it, Denny? You don't think he came
in that window !”


272 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Never mind what I think!” Dennis started headlong
for the door. “I want to see that roof l’”
They ascended quickly and Dennis was through the
trap-door and out like a cat without waiting for his
bulkier companion. He was already at the air-shaft
opening when McCarty clambered out upon the roof and
he knelt by the extreme edge, waving frantically.
McCarty hastened panting to him, but all he saw were
two stout pipes which lay across the top of the shaft
bisecting it, and ran along to a leader at the cornice.
He drew back, shivering, from the brink of the well-like
opening.
“Come away from the edge of that, Denny!” he
growled. “”Tis a wonder you're not killed a dozen times
a day, with the risks you run!”
“Do you see that?” Dennis pointed triumphantly to one
of the conduits. “See the wide shiny mark on that
pipe?”
“I dol” His friend's excitement was communicating
itself to McCarty, and he dropped down on all fours as
near the opening as he dared. “It looks as if it had been
rubbed up and polished.”
“That's just what happened And it’s a rope rubbing
around it that burnished it, Mac' A rope with a weight
swinging on the end of it—the weight of the man that
let himself down to that bedroom window and evened
his score with Ivy Collins !”
“Holy Saint Patrick!” McCarty sat back on his heels
and stared at Dennis. “Would it bear the weight of
him, do you think?”
“It’s strong enough to hold up three of him!” declared
the other. “Them two are water pipes and there's no
soft lead in them, and no joints over the shaft.”
“”Twould be a damn nervy stuntſ” McCarty muttered.
“It would not. Any fellow with his muscles developed
pº


274 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
thought it? Come on till we have a look at those flats,
and see can we find a trace of him.”
“I thought you and the inspector went through them
all the night of the murder,” remarked Dennis as they
made their way toward the trap-door.
“We did,” McCarty admitted. “But it was the old
story of seeing what we were looking for, and being blind
to the rest. We expected nothing, and we found it.
About how far down would he be flinging the rope from,
Denny?”
“The nearer the top, the more likely,” Dennis averred.
“'Twould be an impossibility from more than three floors
down, and that would be taking an awful chance of the
rope twisting, and hitting one of the windows on the
other side.”
“I’ve the memorandum still that the hall-boy give me
the night of the murder, with the names of the tenants
and the flats they occupy.” McCarty felt rapidly through
his pockets. “Here it is. Third floor down, being the
sixth from the street, would be Baxter's They're the
two old cranks with asthma, that threatened to write to
the newspapers complaining about our waking them up.
Neither of them could throw a ball of cord over a gate.
The next flat above is closed for the summer, and the
top is occupied by a family named Armitage; consump-
tive-looking mother and two daughters. Let's try the
empty flat first.”
Descending the stairs, they halted on the seventh floor
and McCarty opened the door of apartment “B” with
the pass-key obtained earlier from the superintendent.
Within all seemed orderly and wore the appearance of
having been undisturbed for many weeks, the shades
lowered carefully, and the furniture covered with linen.
Like that of the pseudo Mr. Antonio, it was a four-room
apartment, the hall running toward the street front, with


276 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
the other windows down-stairs, you're a bigger fool than
even I thought you! 'Tis his stockinged feet, and unless
I'm a liar here are more tracks of them on the oilcloth
of the kitchen.”
He had crossed the narrow hall at a bound and was
pointing excitedly to the floor. Surveyed at an oblique
angle, the oiled surface gave forth a chain of crossed
and recrossed narrow elongated blurs at irregular inter-
vals, the whole forming a broken line from the door to
the window opening on the narrow court.
“You’re right, Denny!” shouted McCarty, convinced
at length. “Neither the inspector nor me went in there
at all and as far as I know Terhune hasn't poked his
nose in this flat; anyway, if he did 'twas not without
his shoes. The fellow got in that window from the house
next door! There's just one thing puzzles me, though.”
“What?” Dennis was flushed with victory. “”Tis as
plain as the nose on your face, to me.”
“This flat was closed up, and the kitchen window shut
and maybe bolted. I’m not saying he couldn't have
opened it from the outside with a little jockeying, but he'd
have to stand on the sill to do it. It seems to me 'twould
be too close a calculation for a fellow to take a five-foot
jump and be able to count on landing on a three-inch
strip of brick sill on his toes without missing it entirely
and falling or else going too far and crashing through
the window.”
“No more he did | The window is closed, but not
locked. Look!” Dennis opened it and paused with an
unconsciously dramatic gesture. On the sill, where it
had been wedged beneath the window frame, was a long
splinter, and in the slanting ray of lingering sunlight, they
saw tiny flecks of paint upon it.
“He put a board across and crept from the other


THE PASSER-BY 279
street. “The young man will not be occupying that
apartment, if I can lay my hands on him, but a small,
little one, with a green door at the end!”
“You’ve not got him yet,” Dennis reminded him. “You
know his general looks and you can pretty well judge
the strength of him, but the woods are full of spry, dark,
clean-shaven young men with the muscles of piano-
movers.”
“I’ve got more than that,” responded McCarty con-
fidently. “The girl's dying guess wasn't so very far
wrong, if he didn't exactly fly in, he came as near to it
as a human being can, Denny, and I’ve still my other
hunch to follow; the fellow that helped carry her in.”
“And where will you look for him?” demanded Dennis.
“He got by with a false name and address to your friend
Cunliffe, and he gave you the slip in the crowd at the
funeral?”
“How do you know ’twas a false name and address?”
retorted McCarty. “Just because the police didn't find
him there later is no sign. If he's the kind of fellow
I think he may be, he'll be known by something fancier
than Jerry Bowker and that with no wrong intent.”
“Here! Where're you going?” Dennis caught his
arm. “That's a down-town car.”
“And it's what we want. You've an hour yet before
you go on duty, and we'll pay a little call at eight hun-
dred and twelve West Twenty-fifth Street. I’d like to
have you go along to hear for yourself if what you guessed
about him is right or not.”
“‘What I guessed?’” repeated Dennis. “Is it out of
your head you’ve gone, entirely? I’ve said not a word
about him, and for all I know, he might be the devil
himself.”
McCarty chuckled, then grew swiftly grave.
“No,” he said. “To my mind, he's just a well-meaning,
blundering young fool who butted into what didn't con-


THE PASSER-BY 281
2
“You go tell her two gentlemen want to see her—”
began McCarty, but a shrill voice interrupted.
“Katie! Will you shut that door? Do you want all
the flies in the neighborhood chasin’ in?”
A shining fat face, framed in an aura of upstanding
curl-papers appeared over the banister rail on the floor
above. The voice which floated down had contained more
than a flavor of brogue, and McCarty's expression un-
consciously lightened.
“Is it Mme. Oriel?” he asked, with bland deference.
“Could we disturb you, ma'am? I know ’tis a nuisance
to be bothered of a Sunday, but we just dropped in 32
“One minute and I’ll be with you!” A large hand
yanked ruthlessly at the curl-papers. “Katie, show the
gentlemen into the parlor and pull up the shades. If
Callory's dogs has slunk in, kick 'em out!”
The parlor was empty, however, and dismal in its air
of unnatural order and calm, as if it were holding its
breath during the week-end pause.
Dennis seated himself gingerly and looked about him.
From the basement echoed an anxious chorus of barks,
and far above a thin female voice ran a doubtful scale,
jangling in discord with the melancholy groan of a
saxophone. - -
“Nice quiet place your lad with two names hangs out!”
he observed. “How are you going to open up about
him?”
“Whist!” warned McCarty, and twisted his mouth into
a beaming smile as a heavy foot sounded upon the stairs
and the lady of the house swept into the room with a
swirl of scarlet kimono draperies.
McCarty rose ceremoniously.
“”Tis a shame we took you from your rest, ma'am—
“Man, dear, don't mention it! My head was splittin
from yellin' at that gump of a girl or I’d not have been
loafin'.” She broke in upon his protestations with a
3.


THE PASSER-BY 283
A slight, fair young man with a round face and pale,
inquiring eyes entered and stood looking from one to
the other of them.
“Did you want to see me?” he asked.
“If your initials are ‘W. D.’,” replied McCarty.
“We found a gold watch outside, and if you lost one,
and can describe it—”
“Say, what kind of a kid is this?” the young man
interrupted. “A gold watch I I hocked a nickel one for
cigarette money three weeks ago, and I never had the
price of a gold ticker in my life! What're you givin'
us?”
“A cigar, then, instead, if you'll have it,” McCarty
responded, producing the article from his pocket. “Say,
Mr. Delano, have you lost anything else lately? A hat,
for instance?”
“‘Lost a hat!’” the young man repeated, as he took
the cigar. “You fellers haven’t been walking around in
the sun too much, have you? Let me in on this. What's
the idea?”
“I want to know if you lost a hat, or any one borrowed
one of yours, Mr. Delano.” McCarty's smile had dis-
appeared, and a stern peremptory note crept into his
voice. “Think, please. A straw hat, with your initials
inside.”
“Why, I–I don't remember.” The young man stared
blankly at him. “I’ve only had the one hat all sum-
mer 33
“About two weeks ago,” McCarty suggested. “Didn't
you mislay it, or lend it to somebody?”
“No, I didn’t, but—say Mrs. Oriel, do you remember
when Pico grabbed my hat in mistake for his off the
rack outside the dining-room? What night was it?” He
turned to the landlady, unheeding her swiftly warning
gesture. “I made a holler about it, because I didn't have
any other, and I had to keep a date. I couldn't wear


THE PASSER-BY 285
we've got to ask him some questions. There's some-
thing he can tell us and nobody else. I’m not trying to
trap you or him, it's God's truth!”
She eyed him steadily for a long minute, then drew
a deep breath.
“You mean it? 'Twas no lie I told about his going,
for he did leave last night,” she said slowly. “I can
show you his room, though it's not been cleaned yet, for
the new feller don’t come in till to-morrow. I knew
he'd done nothing, but when the police come first off,
thunderin’ at the door and callin’ for Jerry Bowker, I
was glad Katie told them there was no one here of that
name. She didn't know any different, for every one
calls him Pico—”
“Yes. He's a circus clown, isn't he?” McCarty asked,
while Dennis gave a sudden snort.
“He is, and although I don’t cater to that trade, as
a rule, I’d rather have him here than many a headliner
that's kicked as if they was at the Waldorf, and skipped
out at night leavin’ a trunk nailed to the floor! I don’t
know what he can tell you, for he kept early, regular
hours, and no bad company, and he's not the kind to
get himself mixed up with crooks.”
“He didn't,” explained McCarty patiently. “He just
happened to be on hand, and saw something, that Mon-
day night that he took Delano's hat by mistake, and he
gave Cunliffe—the policeman who came here after, to
see him—his own name and this address, as a witness.
He was willing enough, you see, ma'am, and ’twas just
a mistake our not getting in touch with him later.”
“That Monday night!” Mme. Oriel repeated. “What
was it he saw P”
There was a hushed, expectant note in her voice which
made McCarty look closely at her.
“Why, ma'am! Did you see him when he came in?
Didn't he tell you?”


286 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Not a word, though if he'd seen the ghost of his
own father he couldn’t have been more stunned like. I
come face to face with him, at the front door. I’d been
waiting up till Queenie La Montaine come in, for she'd
sneaked in and out for three days, and owed me two
weeks' board—”
“What time was it?”
, “A little after twelve. He fairly reeled in the door, and
I thought he'd been drinkin’—though he'd never touched
liquor in the two months he’d been here—until I saw his
face. It was that white and set, and the two eyes of
him sunk in and glitterin', that I asked him if he was
sick. He shook his head, and mumbled something, as if
he hardly recognized me, and went stumblin' up-stairs,
catchin' at the banisters and all but fallin'. -
“He had the little hall-room on the third floor, just
over mine, and he walked the night through, with never
a stop. Once I thought I heard him call out, but I
wasn't sure. I heard him comin’ down again as soon as
it was light, and I went up and looked in his door. The
bed had not been slept in, nor so much as his collar
changed. About seven o’clock I met him comin’ in with
a pile of newspapers under his arm and he looked ten
years older.”
“Didn't you ask him what was the matter?”
“No, sir, I did not. I thought it was some trouble of
his own, maybe, and if he wanted me to know, he'd have
told me himself. I knew if he felt like he looked, he'd
not be down to the dining-room for a bite, so I took him
up a cup of coffee. He thanked me, but when Katie
went afterwards to do up his room, she brought it back
without its being touched. He did come down to dinner,
but every one was talkin’ about the Rowntree murder,
and nobody noticed him much.”
“You told him after the officer had been here?”


CHAPTER XXVI
THE FLYING MAN
veil of McCarty's slumbers. He opened a heavy
eye and struggled to a sitting position, but the
clanging died swiftly in the echoing distance, and he sank
back again upon his pillow with a grin at the thought
of Dennis still on the job after a full day.
He was not grinning the next morning, however, when,
breakfastless, he hastened around to the engine-house with
a newspaper crushed in his hand. His face was very
grave, and there was a curious, shocked expression in
his eyes.
Dennis was not in evidence, but another fireman
lounged in his accustomed chair, a wide white bandage
about his head.
“Hello, Mike! What's happened you? Somebody hit
you with a brick?”
Mike smiled faintly in acknowledgment of the pleas-
antry, but the smile ended in a grimace of pain.
“Rotten job last night, Mac. Some fool dropped a
cigarette in a garage down on Fifty-fourth. I got a
swipe from a falling beam, but wait till you see Denny!”
“My God! Where is he?” McCarty's face went
white. “Mike, he's not—no 3.x
“He’s up in the dormit'ry, sick as a pup! Overcome
twice, and he wouldn't quit, the game old chump!”
Mike's voice was suspiciously hoarse. “He hauled me
out, or I’d have croaked. You needn’t look like that,
Mac, you'll not be ordering flowers for him yet a while.
Go on up and have a look at him; the lieutenant'll let
you !"
I ATE that night a raging clamor of bells rent the
289


290 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
McCarty needed no second bidding. With his heart
suddenly stilled within him he turned, and diving into the
engine-house, choked out his request. Permission readily
granted him, he was up the narrow stairway three steps
at a time and peering with blurred eyes at the row of
narrow COtS.
“Hello, there !” a weak but cheerful voice wheezed
near at hand, and two blood-shot eyes goggled up at him
from a drawn, haggard face. “What's the good word?”
“Denny!” McCarty whispered and sat down heavily
on the side of the cot. “Denny!”
“Get off my leg!” the invalid commanded. “You
missed it last night, Mac' 'Twas a grand little display
of fireworks while it lasted.” -
“Oh, Denny!” his visitor gulped. “I heard the bells,
but little I thought!— If anything had happened to
you—”
“Well, it didn't, you thundering baby!” Two hands
met and gripped tight and there was a brief pause. “I’ll
be out of this in a day, and none the worse. But there's
something up, or you'd not be chasing round here so
early in the morning. Has Terhune stole a march on
us, and nabbed the fellow P’’
The adroit mention of his confrère's name acted as a
bracer, and McCarty straightened.
“Terhune! I've no doubt he's rigging up some more
little machines to pump the truth out of the Foxes. It's
Quimby; he's cashed in.”
“Skipped l’” Dennis raised himself on a wavering
elbow. “The white-livered son-of-a-gun He beat it with
the girl's coin”
McCarty shook his head slowly.
“He took no money with him where he's gone,” he
said solemnly. “You mind when we were up on the roof
of the Glamorgan yesterday afternoon, what a high wind
there was? Quimby made a flight in his aéroplane and


THE FLYING MAN 293
come back, and ready for anything,” Dennis asserted.
“I’m too old a hand at the game to be soldiering around
because of a few puffs of smoke. You'll find me waiting
for you.”
And he was as good as his word, albeit it was a
very wan and shaky Dennis who tottered weakly to
his chair and eyed his cold pipe with wistful repugnance.
The weather was cooler and a freshening breeze coaxed
his returning strength and brought a faint sparkle to his
inflamed eyes by the time McCarty reappeared.
“Fine for you!” the latter cried fervently. “You’re
looking like yourself again, Denny! Lord, but it gave
me a turn to see you lying there as if your last hour had
come! You made me think of poor Corcoran—remem-
ber? He went just like that, after inhaling the flames,
and I couldn't get him out of my mind.”
“'Tis well for you that you didn't bring him up,” re-
marked Dennis darkly. “You’d be a fine, cheerful guy
to have around if there was anything real the matter with
me! What have you been doing?”
“I got a list of every circus in the country, down to
the little one-ring fly-by-nights, and I’ve looked up their
routes and sent out the wires, but ’twas a big order. If
I could lay my hands on that Pico fellow, 'twould be all
over.”
“Look here!” Dennis exclaimed. “Did you go to the
booking agents for vaudeville houses and such P There's
acrobats and slack-wire performers and the like of them
on every bill, opening the show and sandwiched in be-
tween the big acts.”
“I never even thought of it!” cried McCarty. “What
with Quimby killing himself, and you getting laid by the
heels, my mind's not working right. I’ll hop a car this
minute, and get down before the offices close; you'll see
me again in an hour or so.”
Dennis watched his retreating figure until it disappeared


THE FLYING MAN 295
Ziniatofsky's Seals, Tabloid Comedy, the Flying Ac-
colinis p,
“What do you know about that?” McCarty executed
a ponderous shuffle. “What do you think of it for a
hunch; I'm going straight down to headquarters and
get a warrant, and to-night I'll be at the Pantheon for
my man!”
“And I’ll be with you!” declared Dennis. “I’d not miss
it for the world!”
“You’re not fit,” protested his friend. “That fellow
will not be the kind to throw up his hands without a
struggle, and well I know you could not keep out of a
scrap if there was one handy, to save your life. I'll tell
you all about it after—”
“You’ll tell me nothing! I'll be in at the finish myself.”
Dennis glared at him. “Do you think after trailing along
through the whole case I'll be left out in the cold now?
There's enough fight in me still to help put him to sleep,
as you'll see if he starts anything. But what if he ain't
the right fellow at all? Just because that circus bill was
in the clown's room 2x
“I’ll take a chance on it, and if you feel able to come
along I'm glad of it. I'll be around for you at half-past
seven.”
The Pantheon was a huge and ornate theater with a
fashionable clientèle, and McCarty and Dennis, arriving
early, stood for a few minutes in the lobby watching the
steady stream of motor cars discharging their occupants
at the curb.
“We'll watch their act from the front, and try to pick
out our fellow, then go around and pinch him,” McCarty
announced in a lowered tone.
“Why not watch from the wings?” suggested Dennis.
“The house fireman here is Brennan, an old friend of
mine, and he'll pass us in. You can study them close,
then, and get your man as he leaves the stage.”


296 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
“Fine! Come on. By the program, they're the third
act on.”
They paused for a moment beside the entrance, at a
large frame containing photographs of the principal actors
on the bill. The center one on the top row depicted two
men in fleshings and spangled trunks, poised airily on
a trapeze. One was short and thickset, with a bull neck
and bulging muscles; the other taller and obviously
younger, with a superb physique and a lowering hand-
some face like a splendid, sulky beast.
“That's our man!” McCarty pointed to the second
figure. “He looks like the kind that would stand no
trifling with, don't he? The girl that went back on him
would take her life in her hands, all right!”
“And he'll put up a grand little scrap, too, or I'm
mistaken!” Dennis forgot his weakness, and tingled with
pleasurable anticipation. Come on, the orchestra's tun-
ing up.”
Brennan, the house fireman, was glad to renew his
friendship with Dennis and readily found a place for
them at the left of the stage, just back of the proscenium.
McCarty was highly interested in his unaccustomed sur-
roundings and after the curtain had risen it was neces-
sary to draw him back repeatedly to prevent him from
obtruding his presence on the gaze of the audience.
Hogan and Hare, dancers, opened the bill, and he
watched the dainty little comedienne of the team with an
awe and respect which was scarcely diminished when in
a temporary prelude she volleyed a broadside of curses
at the electrician for the eccentricities of the spotlight.
Four husky young men in strangely conceived dress
suits—the Barton quartette—were grouped behind Mc-
Carty's chair awaiting their turn, and he addressed the
nearest one in a tentative undertone.
“Good house to-night.”
“Yah!” the young man responded. “But cold as ice!


298 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
ing him from the shadows. Then he sprang lightly into
the air, caught the swinging trapeze and the act was on.
McCarty, oblivious to all about him, sat staring at the
graceful convolutions of the lithe, agile figure which
moved with an abandon that was yet all poise and control.
The other member of the team he scarcely saw, and he
held his breath as the one upon whom his attention was
riveted paused for a fraction of a moment and then flung
himself recklessly into space in a triple somersault and
clutched at the flying rings.
He all but missed them; one hand slipped perilously
and a sobbing gasp went up from the breathless audience,
but the next instant he had regained his hold, drawn him-
self up to his precarious perch and was smiling sardon-
ically down.
A muttered curse behind McCarty obtruded itself on
his consciousness, and he turned to find a man garbed
as a comedy tramp standing back of his chair, his face
white beneath the make-up.
“My God, what's got into Dan l’” the man exclaimed.
“He’s losing his grip! That was no stall for a hand.
He'll do for himself if he ain't careful one of these days!”
“Friend of yours?” asked McCarty quietly.
“I know him, right enough,” the other responded non-
comittally. “I clowned it in Frawley & Wells with him
last year.”
“The circus?—Have a cigar, sir?”
“Thanks, brother, don't mind if I do, but I'll keep it
till after our turn; I'm doing rough-and-tumble with the
tabloid, and we're on next.”
“I know a girl with that circus outfit, Ivy Collins,”
McCarty observed carelessly. “Yvonne, she called herself
in the show.”
“Dan Accolini knows her, too.” The comedian laughed
significantly. “It’s her that put him on the blink.”


THE FLYING MAN 299
“No!” exclaimed McCarty. “She’s a grand little
kidder, but you don't mean he fell for her?”
“Fell hard. He may look good to you now, but you'd
ought to have seen him when he was working right. No-
body in the business could touch him. Yvonne's as pretty
as the devil, but there's no more heart in her than a
wild-cat, and Dan could have kissed the ground she
walked on. She had him roped, tied, and branded and
then threw him over, and he's gone to pieces now. There,
that’s their finish.”
He nodded and moved away to take up his entrance as
the curtain fell.
McCarty rose slowly and took a step forward to meet
the lithe figure which advanced nonchalantly toward him,
while Dennis kicked the chairs away and lined up at his
elbow. Accolini paused, glanced scowlingly at the stocky
figure which barred the exit, then turned with a shrug to
pass him, but McCarty touched his shoulder.
“I want you, Dan.”
With a snarl the man turned, his muscles rippling like
a snake's beneath the satiny skin, and sprang straight for
McCarty's throat. Some one shouted hoarsely, the cur-
tain was held and a knot of stage-hands, with Accolini's
partner at their head, rushed forward, but halted at
Dennis's warning:
“In the name of the law l’”
Then, his weakness fallen from him, he hurled himself
joyously on McCarty's antagonist.
The struggle was sharp and violent, but soon over. In
the act of a terrific lunge Dan Accolini halted, a spasm
of pain contorted his face and his arms dropped limply
to his sides.
His short, mirthless laugh ended in a choking cough,
and he squared his massive shoulders.
“All right!” he said. “You’ve got me! I'm all in, but
I pulled off my job and nothing matters now !”


3O2 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
and white, like one of these here early summer apples,
and like most of them, rotten to the core.
“I guess I was the first guy she ever struck that didn't
come cringin' like a dog when she whistled, and if I’d
dodged, and kept away from her as if I was scared of
what she could do to me, maybe she'd have been satisfied,
and let up on me, but I just didn't happen to see her at
all, and that's what got to her. You know how it is your-
self, Mac, when a dame makes up her mind to land you.”
“I do not,” McCarty observed thankfully.
“Well, she stuck around, determined I should know
she was on earth, and at last her wish came true. I saw
her, right enough, and I fell for her—God, how hard I
fell! It's funny, lookin' back now, for she'd played the
same little game with a few others in the show, but I
wouldn't listen. I had it all doped out for a double team,
her and me together on the rings and a little home when
the big top was furled for the winter, and she led me on
till I thought there wasn't nothin' but her in the whole
world. Soft? Say, I'd have laid down in the sawdust
and let her ride over me on the elephant if she'd said
the word l’’
The hands of whose strength he was so proud were
twisted together in a convulsive clasp and for a moment
he bowed his head. Then he raised it swiftly and the old
fire glowed in his eyes.
“And I made her what she was Prettiest thing God
ever put on earth and daring as they come, she was nothin'
but a guttersnipe, one of a stragglin’ bunch of cheap
acrobats picked up any old way. I taught her all she
ever knew, raised her out of that ruck of ornery flip-
flappers, and got her up in my class. She'd try anything.
I'll say that for her 1
“She'd fling herself with a laugh from the highest bar
away up under the roof with nothin' under her but the


306 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
cheeks like when she'd got back on the bar after a risky
stunt. It just seemed to burn into my brain!
“In one window, too, you could hear the rattle of chips
and clinkin’ of glasses, and behind another a kid was
cryin'. It was a queer trip, and I had to set my mind
for all I was worth on what was comin’ and what I had
to do, so I could shut out everything else and try not to
see or hear the life that was goin’ on so near me. When
I got down level with her room, I took a good swing
back, and landed in like a cat, without touchin’ the sill
or makin' a sound. It was dark in there, but the light
was on in the front room and I saw her standin’ by a
desk in front of an open window.
“I didn't mean to take any chances with a gun this
time, my bare hands were good enough for the work I
had to do, and I just made for her, creepin’ along slow
and takin’ her all in so I could remember it later on. That
minute paid up for all she'd put me through, and I knew
that nothin’ would matter afterward.
“She whirled around when I got to the middle of the
room and saw me. She yelled out and grabbed up some
kind of a knife from the desk, but she never had time to
use it, for I made one spring on her l I was goin’ to
choke her, but the rage boiled up in me, and I Smashed
her out of the window ! I didn't pick her up and throw
her, I just gave her a shove, with all the strength in me
back of it!
“I heard her strike the ground and I laughed—laughed
the way she had at me, only mine was the last one !
Then I turned and beat it back to where I’d drawn in
the ends of the rope over the sill in the other room. I
let them out and started up, hand over hand, the way I’d
come.”
He broke off, and a spasm as of acute pain contorted
his face. It was gone in a moment, but he pulled out a
~


308 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
different flats was livin' my life for me, just in those
few minutes, the life that would have been mine and
Ivy's together, if she'd only run straight with me!
“I heard a girl say: “There, I knew you’d burn it,
you dear old stupid!’ and a man's voice answered: ‘If
you say “I told you so,” I’ll kiss you right now !” Then
there came a sound like he'd done it, and her laugh, just
like Ivy's and my eyes blurred again, and once more I
slipped down a little way.
“I don’t know why I didn't drop off right there and
get it over with ! Mind you, Mac, I’d no thought of
gettin' clean away; I knew I’d be nabbed sooner or later
for what I’d done and I didn't care a curse. I guess it
was just the idea of finishing the job up clean and not
gettin' caught at it. It was the greatest stunt an aérial
guy ever tried, and I wanted to pull it off without muffin'
it at the end. God, if it could have been worked into an
act, wouldn’t it have gone great! It can’t be done now,
for nobody could get it over but me, and I'm out of the
game.
“I got a fresh grip on myself, and went on up to the
flat where the card game was goin' on. My foot touched
the very sill when I braced myself to swing out, and right
then somebody pulled a cork. I never tasted liquor in
my life, like I told you straight, but God! how I wanted
a drink that minute!
“I thought of how they'd look if I should stick my head
in and ask for one, or maybe offer to sit in the game, and
I laughed till I had to take a turn of the rope around my
wrist and hang there, helpless. The sound of it echoing
back from the black pit of that shaft pulled me together,
though, and I heard one guy say: ‘Give me two cards.”
I thought what a sucker he was, holdin' up three of a
kind and advertisin’ it and how I’d have trimmed him
proper. -


3I4 THE CLUE IN THE AIR
mind,” Dennis remarked after a pause. “Who was the
‘Jack’ that sent her the roses?”
“Oh, he was a poor nut of an actor the Foxes had
introduced her to, who went dippy about her, and she'd
strung him along just like she did with all the others.
He thought he was going to follow her out West and
they’d be married when the circus shut down for the
winter. She must have had a way with her, that girl!”
“A way that landed her a crumpled heap on the side-
walk!” Dennis shook his head. “We know when we're
well off, Mac, giving them a wide berth. Good to look
at they may be, and useful to sew on buttons and such,
but there's only trouble connected with them, getting them
and getting rid of them!”
“True for you,” McCarty responded slowly. “Murder
is wrong, any way you look at it, there's no denying
that, but I don't mind admitting between ourselves that
I'm not any too happy about running Dan Accolini down.
“If ever a heartless little wretch cumbered the face of
the earth, 'twas that same Ivy Collins and it might have
been Providence that removed her so she could ruin no
more fine, strong men! 'Twas no aneurism that burst in
the breast of Flyin' Dan and killed him, but a real broken
heart, and broke by a worthless little devil that’s better
dead. I’m sorry for poor Dan.”
“Me, too!” affirmed Dennis. “”Tis another kind of a
woman, entirely, that Tony Leonard picked for himself.”
“She is that!” agreed McCarty with gusto. “A fine
young girl with no nonsense about her, and caring for
him straight. She'd have been happy with him in black
poverty, if need be, but there was a little left of her
fortune, you know, and they’ve put it in an invention of
his that's going to coin enough money to make what
Quimby lost for them look like a bum jitney. That