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THE
TWENTY-SIX CLUES





THE
TWENTY-SIX CLUES
BY
ISABEL OSTRANDER
AUTHOR OF
“THE CLUE IN THE AIR,” “AT 1:30," Etc.
\º
NEW YORK
W. J. WATT & CoMPANY
PUBLISHERS
º
.


CopyRIGHT, 1919, BY
W. J. WATT & COMPANY
ºr----- .
T #! E # !. ºy Yušć
º,
PUBLIC LiRRARY
Other Detective Stories
By
ISABEL OSTRANDER
“AT 1:30”
“THE HERITAGE OF CAIN.”
“THE CREVICE"
(In collaboration with detective
William J. Burns)
“THE CLUE IN THE AIR”
Prates of
enaunworth & Co.
Book Manufacture Re
Brooklyn, N. Y.


º
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN THE CRIME MUSEUM . - - - I
II. Two STRANDS OF BLACK HAIR - • I2
III. MARGOT . - - - º - • 24
IV. THE OTHER HOUSE . - - - . 38
V. DENNIS SCORES - - - - • 51
VI. THE CAKE MARKED “NoFL” . - . 62
VII. THE THREE WARNINGS . - - • 75
VIII. THE RETURN of JoAN Norwood . . 85
DK. THE SECOND GLOVE - - - • 97
X. IN THE DARK . - - - - • Io9
XI. THE WRITING ON THE WALL . - • I2O
XII. “BACK FROM THE DEAD” - - • I34
XIII. THE BLACK WALLET - - e • I45
XIV. THE TWENTY-SIXTH OF MAY . - • I57
XV. A LONE HAND - - º º • 169
XVI. “IT WAS NOT MY DOING” . º . 181
XVII. ONE WORD - - - - º • I93
XVIII. GREEKS MEET . - - º - • 204
XIX. THE SECOND SHOT . - - - • 2I5
XX. FROM OUT THE PAST - - - . 228
XXI. SIGNED, “Victor MARCHAL” . - • 243
XXII. McCARTY'S SéANCE - - - • 254
XXIII. THE BETRAYING Worce . - e • 263
XXIV. THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES . - º • 272





THE
TWENTY-SIX CLUES


**


*"
THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
CHAPTER I
IN THE CRIME MUSEUM
g HE one thing you psychometric enthusiasts overlook
in claiming perfection for your method of solving
crime is the human equation. Your machines for
recording the emotions of the suspect cannot lie, it is true,
but neither can they tell the truth. Granted that they
are perfect in themselves, they are operated by the most
faulty machine created since the beginning of time—the
human being. You, Mr. Terhune, are unquestionably the
greatest living master of scientific criminal investigation,
but do the purely mechanical implements of your trade
invariably probe to the very soul of the crime?”
Five men of oddly assorted types were seated about
a round table drawn up closely before the fireplace at one
end of the spacious dining-room with coffee and liqueurs
before them. The speaker, evidently the host, was small
and elderly, with bushy gray hair and a pointed Vandyke
beard which waggled excitedly when he talked yet lent an
air of distinction to his dapper evening garb. His eyes
beamed in eager, ingenuous interest through their heavy
tortoise-rimmed glasses, but the lean, ascetic individual
across the table whom he had addressed smiled austerely
and lifted supercilious brows as he replied:


2 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“My dear Mr. Norwood, we do not rely only on what
you designate the mechanical implements of our trade;
we are fully aware of a prepared to cope with such sub-
jective phenomena as hysteria, defective mentality, false-
hood, suggestion and self-deception. That is where the
human equation proves of value. The mechanical imple-
ment is supplemented by the trained, analytical mind.”
Mr. Calvin Norwood nodded.
“But that brings us again to the faulty human machine,
he remarked slyly. “Is the investigator himself proof against
at least two forms of the subjective phenomena you mention:
suggestion and self-deception? A preconceived theory—”
“We do not deal in theories.” Wade Terhune inter-
rupted with a trace of asperity. “We work on a basis of
proof, not opinion; proof obtained by tapping all the
resources of modern science. Toxicology, bacteriology,
chemistry, mineralogy, physics, chirography, microscopy,
all aid us in the solution of crime. The expert criminalist
must be a profound and almost universal student before he
can hope to succeed.”
“And what is your method, Mr. McCarty?” The host
turned to a stocky, broad-shouldered man at his left. “You
achieved success in more than one intricate case while you
were connected with the police force of the city to say nothing
of your work last year in the Rowntree-Collins affair. The
investigation of crime has been my hobby for more than
twenty years and I follow the records of the department faith-
fully. What is your modus operandiP'
“My what, sir?” inquired ex-Roundsman Timothy
McCarty carefully. “You might not think it, but I would
have lit on the truth a good deal earlier in that Rowntree
case if I'd known what the Coroner was getting at when he
sprung that “corpus delicti' thing on us at the inquest.”
Calvin Norwood took the hint.
».


IN THE CRIME MUSEUM 3
“I mean, what is your procedure in starting an investi-
gation?” he hastened to explain. “How do you go about
it?”
McCarty stroked the immaculate chin beneath his stubby,
sandy mustache reflectively. -
“I don’t know, sir,” he responded in all sincerity. “I’ve
no science like Mr. Terhune, only the wits I was born with.
I just take the facts that's as plain as the nose on your face
and fit them together. You see, Mr. Norwood, I had my
training in the old days when it meant promotion if you got
the guilty party, or a quick transfer to some backwoods
precinct if you didn't. When anything stumped me I'd
talk it over with my old friend here, Denny Riordan, and
many a pointer I’ve got from him, though it's little he knew
it himself, half the time!”
The long-limbed, lantern-jawed gentleman beside him
stirred resentfully and his host smiled.
“I know of Mr. Riordan's co-operation with you,” he
said. “When I read the narrative which gave the inside
facts of the Rowntree case I was anxious to meet you and
talk it over with you; that is why I persuaded Mr. Terhune
to bring you both here to dine with me to-night. Mr. Rior-
dan, how do you analyze a case?”
“I don't!” protested Dennis Riordan hurriedly. “I’m
a city fireman, not a detective, Mr. Norwood. However,
being Mac's pal I’m let in for most that he's got on his mind.
Before his uncle died and left him a landed proprietor so that
he quit the force, there wasn’t much came up in the depart-
ment that we didn't discuss and scrap over and settle to
suit ourselves. When he was on a case I’d just trail along
with him to see what would happen.”
“Interesting, Victor, eh!” Norwood turned to the fifth
man, who had made no move to join in the conversation. .
He Was slim and dark, with a delicate, sensitive face
-


4. THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
which bore the scars of a skillfully healed wound. Obviously
in his twenties, he held himself with an erect military air,
the bit of ribbon in the lapel of his dinner jacket and cross
with two palms below it which he was destined never to
behold attesting to the gallantry that had cost him his sight.
He bowed slightly and smiled as his soft, blind, brown
eyes turned instinctively in the direction from which he had
been addressed.
“Most interesting, Monsieur Norwood,” he responded.
“A d’Artagnan of the gendarmerie, is it not so? I have
much desire to learn more of the little machines of Monsieur
Terhune, however. To me it is quite incomprehensible,
this recording of the emotions automatically; it would appear
a miracle.”
Terhune unbent and his quick smile lost all trace of
patronage.
“It will be a privilege, my dear Captain Marchal, to
give you a practical demonstration,” he announced. “I
will arrange to have you present at the next scientific experi-
ment upon which I may be engaged, that you may note the
effectiveness of my method. I can promise you that you
will be astounded at the reactions displayed. But our host
has made a collection of souvenirs which interests me pro-
foundly. Are we to be favored this evening by a sort of
private view, Mr. Norwood?”
“I should scarcely call them “souvenirs'!” retorted his
host with a shade of injured dignity. “In my crime museum
I have assembled relics which have formed important data
on many strange cases, solved and unsolved, as well as
objects that have played significant parts in moments when
history was made. I have been a mere dabbler, a dilettante
in criminal investigation but occasionally a real find has come
my way which at the time when inquiry was rife would have
been of inestimable value to the authorities but which they


IN THE CRIME MUSEUM 5
themselves failed to unearth. For instance, within the last
few days a worn black wallet has come into my possession
which contains the only tangible clue to a mystery which
aroused and baffled the city ten years ago. I tell you this
in confidence, gentlemen, for I mean to work upon its evidence
myself before turning it over to the police; they have re-
sented ny suggestions in the past and refused my offers of
co-operation on more than one occasion. I feel perfectly
justified in withholding this from them for the present in
view of the length of time that has elapsed since their
investigation of the case was dropped.”
“What mystery was that, sir?” asked McCarty, his
embarrassment at the unaccustomed grandeur of his sur-
roundings wholly forgotten in his interest. “I don't call
to mind any case that wasn't finished about that time,
and I was on the force then.”
“The Hoyos case, Mr. McCarty.” -
“Think of that, now!” Dennis, too, broke through the
bonds of self-consciousness which had held his abashed tongue
in leash. “You remember it, Mac' That Dago who was
lost off his yacht in the Hudson? 'Twas when you were
laid up after Nick the Wop knifed you! You said yourself
it was no suicide at the time, though the Chief let it go at
that.”
“I recall it,” McCarty responded. “And so you've
fresh evidence, sir? I'd like nothing better than a peep at
your museum.”
“Come then,” Calvin Norwood rose. “I’ll show you
some interesting things.”
“If you will excuse me.” The young Frenchman spoke
hesitatingly in a lowered tone. “I-there are some letters
which I can finish typing, Monsieur Norwood, and you will
perhaps not require my presence—” -
“Oh, let the letters go, Victor.” The older man inter-


6 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
*.
rupted with kindly solicitude. “You have not been like
yourself this evening, and we can't have you moping off all
alone too much, my boy. Besides, I may need you to check
me up on some of my data. You can have no idea, gentle-
men, what a valuable assistant Captain Marchal has already
proved himself. My museum is as sacred to me as a gallery
of Old Masters would be to an art connoisseur, and my young
friend here has developed a positive flair for the work.”
Victor Marchal flushed darkly at the praise.
“I find it most interesting, this study of crime in the
abstract,” he repeated. “It was to me a pleasure to cata-
logue the contents of this unique museum.”
Nevertheless, he hung back with evident reluctance when
the others prepared to follow their host and McCarty
watching his sensitive face noted the shade of repugnance
which passed across it and did not marvel. To a young
man fresh from the carnage of war and all but prostrated
beneath the shock of the irreparable blow which it had dealt
to him, a more cheerful atmosphere could well be imagined
than the morbid horrors of a crime museum, but after his
first momentary hesitation he resigned himself in suave
compliance to his patron's suggestion.
The Norwood residence was an imposing if somewhat
old-fashioned structure of brownstone situated near the
Park in the most aristocratic section of the city, its center
hall flanked by drawing-room and music-room on one side,
library and dining-room on the other while at the rear a
square, flat-roofed single-storied wing had been added which
occupied almost half of the ample back-yard space, with a
narrow strip of garden on either side. *.
It was toward this wing that the elated host marshaled
his guests, chattering volubly the while with the naïve delight
of an enthusiast sure of a congenial audience.
“You will see, gentlemen, the actual operating table


IN THE CRIME MUSEUM 7
+
upon which the mad surgeon Valparese committed so many
murders before his mania was discovered. Upon it, beneath
the blanket which covered Madero's body immediately after
his assassination, lies the skeleton of the once beautiful
Duchess of Piatra, the instigator and herself the victim
of the famous Bucharest poisonings a generation ago.”
Dennis Riordan clutched the arm of his friend McCarty
with a muttered exclamation, but the latter shook him off
in scorn and pressed forward lest a word of Norwood's dis-
course be lost to his avid ears.
“I have relics to show you of less celebrated but quite as
interesting crimes.” The sprightly, little, elderly gentle-
man continued with ghoulish relish. “For instance, the
pocketknife which after five years convicted that Yonkers
factory superintendent, Arnold, of the murder of his em-
ployer; also the knotted rope which proved that Ogilvy,
the eccentric Scotch millionaire, was hanged and did not
commit suicide, and the bottle of supposed headache cure
—but you shall see for yourselves!”
They had reached the end of the corridor and Norwood
with a flourish threw open the door leading to the wing and
pressing an electric-light switch stepped aside that the others
might precede him. They beheld a square, spacious, high-
ceilinged room with a huge fireplace in the center of the left
wall, tall windows at the farther end and long shelves and
rows of cases filled with an incongruous and bewildering
miscellany of objects familiar and bizarre.
In the center of the room directly beneath the great
dome of light stood a long table upon which was suggestively
outlined a figure beneath the gayly colored, sinisterly stained
Mexican blanket, and on all sides ordinary firearms were
mingled with strange knives and weapons, bits of fabric,
fragments of furniture, medieval parchments, modern docu-
ments and hermetically sealed glass jars containing relics


8 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
of a more gruesome nature which combined to form the
oddest conglomeration that had ever met their marveling
gaze,
With an exclamation of keen, professional interest Wade
Terhune advanced and McCarty followed gazing about him
in awed wonderment. Dennis Riordan hung doggedly at
his heels and the secretary, Marchal, brought up the rear
with Norwood's guiding hand upon his arm.
“Ah! This, I take it, is your collection of footprint
molds, of which you told me the other day.” Terhune had
paused at the first flat, glass-topped case. “Your theory
regarding them was inconclusive but highly ingenious, I
remember. I congratulate you, Mr. Norwood; you have
indeed a most complete aggregation of specimens—”
“That is only the beginning.” His gratified host drew him
to a second case and McCarty turned aside to a shelf upon
which a certain glass jar had caught his eye.
Discovering that it contained a neatly severed human
ear he was hurriedly replacing it, when a smothered ex-
clamation from Dennis Riordan summoned him.
The lanky fireman, awkward enough in his civilian
clothes, had been drawn as by a magnet to the bright-hued
blanket covering the skeleton upon the table and as his friend
approached he muttered darkly:
“Mac, would you believe it? 'Twas this very rag they
covered Madero with, after the murdering devils had riddled
him with bullets! By the powers, I’m not a believer in
ghosts but this is not the room I’d choose to spend a night
in by myself! I don’t wonder that blind young French-
man would rather juggle his typewriter than take a chance
of running up against one of these relics unbeknownst!”
“Whist, he'll hear you!” McCarty cautioned. “He’s
standing over by the fireplace. Come on and look at some-
thing more cheerful; there's a pickled ear over yonder—”


IN THE CRIME MUSEUM 9
“I want none of it!” Dennis announced with a shudder.
“I’ve heard of grown men running like mad after butter-
flies and spending their last nickel for canceled stamps and
such, but it's a strange and unholy taste that would lead to
a collection of this sort! Still, I would like one peep at the
bones of the Duchess Who's-this, under the blanket. From
the bulk of it, Madero himself might be lying beneath
it.”
“I’ve no doubt Mr. Norwood will show it to you, after.
Come on, now, and listen to him!” McCarty urged. “What's
that he's taking out of the case?”
“—Singular indeed!” Wade Terhune's comment carried
distinctly to their ears in grudging admiration. “Poisoned
court-plaster! I confess I never should have thought of so
simple a method of introducing deadly toxin directly into
the blood.”
“It found an innocent victim.” Calvin Norwood closed
the glass lid. “You may recall the inexplicable death of the
little Thorndike heiress, after a slight fall which merely
grazed her knee? The matter was hushed up for family
reasons and this bit of plaster came into my possession in a
confidential manner, but I have a very definite idea as to
the murderer's identity and for whom he really intended
its use. However, I want to show you the Hoyos wallet,
of which I spoke before we came in here. It contains some
letters which throw an entirely new light— Ah, Mr.
Riordan! You are interested in the Madero blanket?”
He had turned to cross the room and encountered Dennis,
who still lingered as if fascinated at the head of the long
table. - -
“In what's under it, sir,” Dennis responded. “The
bones of this Duchess you told us about. Did she have any
hair left now, I wonder?”
He spoke with elaborate carelessness, but McCarty, who


10 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
had turned also from his place at Norwood's elbow, eyed
him sharply and then took a quick step toward him.
“Hair?” repeated the amateur criminologist with an indul-
gent smile. “In life the Duchess of Piatra had very beauti-
ful red hair and a few strands of it cling still to the skull.
Would you care to see it?”
“Red hair, you say, sir? And it couldn't change after?”
There was a note of suppressed excitement in Dennis' voice
now which drew even Wade Terhune's attention, and the
young Frenchman, too, awoke from his reverie and ap-
proached. Dennis' rugged face had paled slightly and his
gray eyes glinted. “Mr. Norwood, I would like nothing
better than to see what is here!”
Still smiling, their host advanced to the side of the table.
“The Duchess of Piatra,” he began in his most didactic
manner, “was accredited the most beautiful woman in the
Balkans twenty years ago. During the last of the petty
wars before the great world-struggle her tomb was rifled
and I managed, after much diplomatic bartering, to obtain
the skeleton. The nature of the poison which killed her has
never been discovered, but it had a curious effect upon the
bones, as you may see—”
Norwood lifted a corner of the blanket and with one
jerk swept it to the floor. The next instant he had leaped
back, his face gray and eyes fairly protruding from their
sockets while a sound like a sharp, convulsive gasp emanated
from the tense group about him.
Stretched upon the table lay no skeleton but the rounded
life-like form of a young woman in all the opulent curves of
budding maturity. One arm was crumpled beneath her,
the other lay carelessly across the breast of her dark silk
gown and her masses of disheveled, jet-black hair rippled
over the edge of the table. It would seem almost that she
slept until her face was seen and then the distorted swollen
f


IN THE CRIME MUSEUM 11
features, the staring eyes and blackened, protruding tongue
revealed the hideous truth no less surely than the blue
scarf which had been knotted so ruthlessly about her slender
throat as to seem almost embedded in the flesh.
“My God! What is this!” Norwood croaked at last.
Terhune stood as if petrified, but Dennis rocked upon
his heels.
“Holy Mother!” he ejaculated. “Is it the Duchess her-
self come to life a corpse again, or is it—?”
“It’s murder!” McCarty announced in an awestruck
tone, as he touched the face of the dead woman. “The
woman's been strangled within the hour! Who is she?”
“Murder?” Victor Marchal elbowed him aside and grop-
ing wildly for the table, bent above it. He had scarcely
touched it, however, when he straightened and cowered back.
“That perfume!” His cry rang through the room.
“That scent of the Rose d’Amour! It is shel Madame
Jarvis!”
“Evelyn? God, can it be?” Calvin Norwood gasped in
a raucous whisper as his shuddering gaze swept the still
form before him. “It—it is! Who can have done this
fearful thing!” * -
“Murder, is it?” Dennis’ voice expressed a certain
revived confidence now that he was assured the materiali-
zation before them, tragic as it was, had not been induced
by some dread supernatural agency. He turned to McCarty
in swift challenge: “Now, you Irish son-of-a-gun, solve
that!”


CHAPTER II
Two STRANDS OF BLACK HAIR
Secretary's emotional voice rose in an almost
hysterical appeal and his fingers hovered trem-
blingly over the body. “What is it that has killed her?
A-ah! This scarf which is drawn about her throat! Un-
loose it, Messieurs, I beg of you! It may be that life still
lingers; that there is yet time!”
“'Tis useless, sir,” McCarty interrupted him. “She's
already cold, and the body must not be disturbed until the
police come.”
At the mention of the authorities who were sometimes his
allies, more frequently his adversaries but always his com-
petitors, Wade Terhune bestirred himself to action and took
swift command of affairs. Fixing his erstwhile host with the
cold eye of an inquisitor he asked in a curt, perempto
tone. -
“Who is Evelyn Jarvis?”
“She is my niece Joan's intimate friend,” Norwood re-
sponded mechanically as he moistened his dry lips. The
jaunty air of self-possession had fallen from him and he
appeared all at once shrunken and aged. “Oliver Jarvis’
wife and our near neighbor. God! How can we tell him!”
“You positively identify the body, then, Mr. Norwood?”
Terhune went on steadily.
“It cannot be! I feel as if I must have gone mad!” The
other passed a shaking hand across his brow. “I can
66 B". is it true that she is really dead?” The blind
12


TWO STRANDS OF BILACK HAIR 13
.
scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes and yet—
her eyes, her hair, that emerald upon her finger—oh! It is
Evelyn! Poor child! Poor child!”
“You say they are neighbors of yours?” Terhune began
and turned swiftly at a movement behind him. “Where
are you going, McCarty?”
“To telephone Police Headquarters.” The ex-Rounds-
man responded with a firmness which matched the criminal-
ist’s dominant tones. “There's been murder done and the
body's here, Mr. Terhune. It's up to them first of all.”
Terhune bit his lip and a slight color flushed his lean
face, but he capitulated with an ironic smile.
“Assuredly, my dear McCarty. Summon them by all
means! I merely wished to make a preliminary investiga-
tion before their well-meant efforts obliterated any possible
clues.” As the other disappeared in the corridor, he turned
once more to Calvin Norwood. “Where do the Olivers
live?”
“On the next street south directly on a line with this
house; their back-yard and ours are separated only by a
fence in which we have had a door cut through, for the girls
—Evelyn and my Joan—have been like sisters. Why should
anyone have taken her life, and how—how did she get here?”
Terhune did not reply immediately. He had bent over
the table in his turn and was examining the body with deft,
sure touches. Dennis Riordan stepped aside deferentially,
and Victor Marchal had retreated to the cold hearth once
more and stood with his elbow upon the mantel and his face
averted.
“We must send for Oliver, of course.” Norwood's dazed,
trembling voice rambled on. “I can’t tell the boy, I can't!
It will kill him! He worshiped her 27
“Dead at least four or five hours.” Terhune audibly
made note of the result of his conclusions as he glanced at his


14 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
wrist watch. “A quarter of ten; the murder was committed,
then, approximately between five and six. There was a
violent struggle; her hands are bruised and one sleeve of
her gown is torn as you can see, but that is merely super-
ficial. The knot in which the scarf is tied is the significant
poilt. When did you last see Mrs. Jarvis alive?”
“The day before yesterday, on Wednesday evening.
They gave an informal farewell dinner; she and Oliver are
sailing for France next week—were to have sailed, I
mean—” He paused and with an obvious effort pulled
himself together, adding: “Mr. Terhune, I appreciate your
interest in this terrible affair from a purely professional
standpoint but really I cannot discuss it further until Oliver
has been summoned.”
“He’s coming.” McCarty's voice announced from the
doorway as he re-entered. “After I talked to Inspector
Druet, I looked up the Jarvis' number in the 'phone book
and called their house. Some man, the butler, I’ve no
doubt, told me nobody was at home but Mr. Jarvis might
be at his club, the Gotham. I got to him there.”
“What did you tell him?” quavered Norwood.
The secretary, too, had come forward once more.
“Just that you must see him here immediately, sir.
‘Twas no concern of mine, but the Inspector will be asking
for him, anyway. And, Mr. Norwood, sir, I think if you'd
just say a word to the servants—the butler heard me at the
telephone talking to Headquarters and I'm afraid we'll
have them about our ears—”
“I—I must speak to them, of course!” Norwood turned
to the door. “This is horrible! Whatam I to say to Oliver!”
He hurried from the room and Victor Marchal started to
follow, then paused and stooping, fumbled for the Mexican
blanket.
“You will permit, Messieurs?” he asked quietly. “Until


TWO STRANDS OF BLACK HAIR 15
the police officials arrive, at least, it is but respect to the
dead.”
Reverentially he spread the blanket over the pitiful,
still form upon the table, then turning with outstretched,
groping hands he made his way from the room.
Terhune had taken himself to the farther end of the
museum where the four long French windows, set so closely
as to give the effect of a wall of glass, looked out upon the
back-yard and McCarty and Dennis stood gazing round-
eyed at each other.
“I knew it!” the latter ejaculated at last in a lowered
tone. “From the first minute I set foot in this room I
knew there was something wrong with it more than the
heathenish collection would account for. No more could
I keep my eyes off that table—”
“Whatever put it into your head to ask that question of
Mr. Norwood about the hair, Denny?” McCarty demanded.
“Well, I saw a skeleton in a real museum once, and it
was not what you might call corpulent,” Dennis averred.
“Likewise, it was as bald as the palm of your hand. Now,
that blanket looked too bulky to be covering just a rack of
bones and when I walked around the head of the table I
saw a long, black lock of hair hanging down nearly to the
floor. I didn't know what to think, Mac, except that
there was something going on here beyond a healthy mortal
mind to figure out. What do you make of it?” -
McCarty walked to the end of the table and glanced down.
From beneath the gaudy blanket there rippled a single
strand of silky ebony hair.
“Well, McCarty, what is your opinion?” Terhune had
approached and unconsciously echoed Dennis' inquiry.
“Have you formed one yet?”
There was about him an air of conscious superiority which
betokened a discovery and the other eyed him warily.


16 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“I have not, Mr. Terhune,” he responded. “I’ve nothing
yet to go upon. This is the first time in my experience that
a murder has been committed and the body brought and laid
out where it would be the most handy to come to the notice
of Mr. Norwood, as if the murderer was mocking him and
daring him to find out the truth. Of all places in the world
you'd expect to come on a fresh-killed corpse, it would not
be in a museum of old crime relics!”
“Mr. Norwood is merely an eccentric amateur.” Terhune
shrugged. “The remarkable phase of the affair is that it
should have occurred to-night, of all occasions, when I was
present; and you, too, McCarty, for your work on the force
in the old days and in association with me last year on the
Rowntree case is not forgotten. If someone, knowing that
we were to gather here to-night, had actually planned this
ghastly surprise for us it could not have been more success-
fully consummated.”
“It could not,” McCarty agreed. “However, 'twas not to
give us something to do that the poor lady was murdered!
What do you think of it yourself, sir?”
The subdued but insistent peal of the front door-bell
checked Terhune's reply and all three listened anxiously.
“What is it?” they heard a deep and pleasantly modu-
lated masculine voice inquire. “What has happened, Uncle
Cal? I came as quickly as a taxi would bring me.”
Their elderly host’s quavering tones responded in an
indistinguishable murmur and there came a sharp exclama-
tion from the other.
“Evelyn! An accident? What do you mean? Where
is she?”
Calvin Norwood's voice rose in a broken cry.
“Oliver, oh, my boy! I can't tell you! She's there—
there in my museum! May God help us all!”
Hasty steps strode down the corridor and a tall, young


TWO STRANDS OF BLACK HAIR 17
man appeared in the doorway. He was in his early thirties,
well-built and of a clean-cut Anglo-Saxon type but his
smoothly shaven face was very white and his blue eyes swept
widely about the room ignoring or unconscious in his alarmed
state of the presence of the three strangers.
“Where is my wife?” he repeated hoarsely. “She is
not here! What has happened to her?”
Wade Terhune stepped forward.
“Mr. Jarvis, we have terrible news for you. Your wife
has been killed.” -
He spoke slowly and quietly and for a moment the
younger man eyed him as though the purport of the words
had not penetrated his consciousness. Then he staggeredback.
“Killed!” It was a mere husky whisper. “Evelyn–
killed!”
His eyes roved dazedly once more about the room and
back to Terhune's face and leaping forward he seized him
by the arm.
“You can't mean what you are saying!” he cried.
“Speak, man! My wife—!”
“It is true, Mr. Jarvis. She is dead.”
“But how? Where?” The other’s voice broke in sheer
agony of half-incredulous grief. “Take me to her!”
“You don't understand, Mr. Jarvis. Your wife's body
was discovered here a few moments before you were sum-
moned. You must try to command yourself, for I have
something yet more shocking to tell you.” Terhune's
own voice was gravely sympathetic but his sharp eyes fol-
lowed every expression of the stricken face before him.
“Mrs. Jarvis' body was brought here and placed where it
was found in this room. She had been killed, I told you;
I should have said ‘murdered'!”
“Murdered! You are mad! Who would murder Evelyn?
Where is this body which you have found?”


18 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
No one answered him but unconsciously all eyes turned
to the swathed form upon the table and he followed their
gaze. With a gasp he sprung forward and tore off the
enshrouding blanket and a cry rang through the room so
poignant with horror and heart-breaking despair that the
others instinctively averted their faces.
“My boy!” Calvin Norwood had entered and swiftly
approached him. “Try to be brave and control yourself
for her sake! We must find the vile wretch who »
His voice ended in a choking gurgle for the grief-crazed
young husband had turned and seized him by the
throat.
“You’ve done this!” he roared. “You’ve killed her!”
Terhune moved swiftly, but McCarty and Dennis were
before him and with a dexterous lunge forced Jarvis to relin-
quish his frenzied grasp.
“There now!” McCarty admonished soothingly. “”Tis
a terrible business, Mr. Jarvis, but Mr. Norwood is not re-
sponsible. He knows no more of it than we do. We all
came in here with him and found the body just as you see
it now. We've no notion how it came here nor who killed
her!”
A shudder shook the tense form which they held and it
relaxed suddenly.
“Uncle Cal, I didn’t mean—I didn't know what I was
doing!” The young man murmured brokenly and turning
once more to the table he fell upon his knees with his arms
thrown out across the body of his wife and burst into harsh
racking sobs.
At that moment the door-bell rang a second time and
Inspector Druet's curt, incisive tones reached their ears in
quick questioning. The butler's frightened stammer re-
plied to him and then firm steps sounded in the corridor
and the police official entered the room followed by two


TWO STRANDS OF BLACK HAIR 19
sturdy figures who took up their positions on either side of
the doorway.
The Inspector nodded to Terhune and McCarty and his
keen, alert eyes took in the situation at a glance.
“Mr. Norwood?” He turned to the bowed, elderly
figure. “I’m from Headquarters. I’d like to have you
tell me what you know of this crime, but first who is that?”
He pointed to the grief-stricken man by the table and
Norwood responded: -
“Her husband. Mr. McCarty sent for him as soon as
he had telephoned to you. Inspector, this is a frightful
affair! The young woman was an intimate friend of my
household and a near neighbor, but I have not seen her
for two days. I don't know how she was murdered nor
the body conveyed here. I only know that we came in a
half-hour ago and found her as you see, only the blanket
had been drawn up, completely covering her. We were in
here for some minutes before we discovered the body—”
The Inspector stopped him with a gesture, for Oliver
Jarvis had dragged himself to his feet and lurched toward
them. -
“The police?” he asked thickly. “Find me the man
who killed my wife and you can have all I possess! Find
him for me and let me deal with him! Evelyn! Evelyn!”
He swayed and collapsed utterly, slumping forward as
McCarty caught him in his strong arms.
“He’ll do no good here for awhile,” the latter remarked.
“He’s fainted, I think. Shall we get him to another room,
Inspector, till he comes to and quiets down a bit? He's
near crazed, and no wonder!”
“Yes, Mac. Take him away, but come back yourself—
no, Martin and Yost can take him.” - -
The two figures by the door advanced at the Inspector's
nod, and Norwood roused himself,


TWO STRANDS OF BLACK HAIR 21
immediately thereafter, to visit my friend, Professor Par-
lowe, the eminent toxicologist. I found him in the midst
of a highly interesting experiment in his laboratory and
returned home barely in time to change for dinner.”
“You were alone when you came in here for the notes
this afternoon?”
“No. Victor—Captain Marchal—my secretary, was with
me.”
“He left the room with you?” persisted the official.
“Yes, but he returned later and replaced the notes.”
Norwood was evidently disturbed afresh at the trend of
the questioning. “He has free access to the museum at
all times, Inspector; most of his work for me is in the care
and tabulating of my collection, you know. He carries
one key and I the other.”
“You keep your museum locked, then?”
“Of course. It is only on comparatively rare occasions
that I throw it open to visitors.” Norwood spoke with
dignity. “My collection is not on display for the morbidly
curious.”
“The door was locked when you brought your guests
here this evening?” The Inspector was not to be swerved
from his point and Dennis stirred and glanced meaningly
at McCarty.
“Why, no, I–I don't believe that it was.” Norwood's
eyes traveled from one to another of them in troubled
bewilderment. “I was so deeply engrossed in talking of
the various objects of interest which I intended to show
my friends that I scarcely noted. Did you observe whether
I used my key or not?”
He appealed to Terhune, but while the latter was con-
sidering his reply Dennis broke in irrepressibly.
“You did not, sir. You switched on the light and just
turned the handle of the door.”


22 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Dear me! This is most unusual.” Norwood was
plainly taken aback. “I must ask Victor if he forgot to
lock the door.”
“I will ask him myself, later,” the Inspector announced
drily. “Who else was in the house this afternoon during
your absence?”
“Only the cook and housemaid, and they were below
stairs. My niece is out of town on a visit and her personal
maid is with her,” explained Norwood. “We have reduced
our household staff considerably as a matter of war economy
and we keep no other servants except the butler. I gave
him an afternoon off to-day to go to see his brother, who is
ill in the hospital.” -
“H'm! I should like to have a little talk, then, with
your secretary.” Inspector Druet turned to the door.
“He may have seen—”
“He can see nothing.” Norwood interrupted. “He is
a young French officer, recently blinded in battle, whom I
brought back with me from France three months ago. He
knows no more of this terrible event than I, and I beg
that you will be as considerate with him as possible. His
nerves were completely shattered by the ordeal through
which he has passed and he is only beginning to regain his
grip on life. Evelyn—Mrs. Jarvis—had taken a very
kindly interest in him and the shock of her death, her murder,
has utterly depressed and unnerved him. He was on the
verge of absolute prostration when I left him in the library.”
“I will let him off as lightly as I can, Mr. Norwood,”
the Inspector promised with a note of deepened respect
in his tones. “However, if the murder was not committed
here someone in this house must know how the woman’s
body was conveyed to this room—”
“If you will pardon my intrusion, Inspector,” Terhune's
tones were ironically apologetic. “I may be able to save


TWO STRAND'S OF BLACK HAIR 23
you some valuable time. Mrs. Jarvis was not killed on the
premises, nor was her body carried through the house.
Someone, presumably her murderer, brought it in through
that window there, the second from the left as you face it.
I do not as a rule express an opinion on mere theory but I
am led to believe that the murder occurred in her own home.”
“Is that so, Mr. Terhune?” The Inspector paused
deferentially. “On what do you base that opinion?”
“I have already ascertained from Mr. Norwood that the
Jarvis residence is directly on a line with this, facing the
next street south and the two back-yards are separated only
by a wall through which a door has been cut.” Terhune's
tenuous fingers sought the pocket of his vest. “Just before
your arrival I examined the four windows in the rear of the
room carefully. All were closed as you see them now, but
the second from the left was unbolted and I opened it
experimentally. Caught in a loose sliver of wood on the
inner side of the frame, a little over four feet from the floor,
where the two perpendicular sides of the window open like
double doors I found—this.”
He stretched out his hand and Dennis and McCarty
glanced once more significantly at each other. From between
the thumb and forefinger dangled a long, curling strand of
glossy, jet-black hair.


MARGOT 25.
“I’ll be taking myself off now, Inspector,” he remarked.
“You’ve the case in hand, to say nothing of an expert like
Mr. Terhune right on the job to help you and Mr. Norwood
himself.” -
“Between you and me, Mac,” the Inspector interrupted
confidentially, “old Norwood is a plain nut. He has been
the pest of the department for the last twenty years, dabbling
and interfering in every case that has come up, offering advice
and getting under foot generally. You know how we’ve
always been bothered with amateur Sherlock Holmeses,
but he is the worst crank of the lot and the fact that he has
never yet gotten the slightest result in an investigation
doesn't discourage him a little bit. As for Mr. Terhune,
he is a great man in his line, but he is not officially on this
case, you know, he only stumbled on it, just as you did, and
Riordan. Why don't you stay and see the preliminary
examination through at least? It looks to me as if it were
going to be one of the biggest things we’ve tackled in
years and I’d like to have you on the job in an unofficial
capacity.”
“I wouldn't ask anything better!” McCarty beamed.
“I telephoned to you over the head of the Lieutenant of the
precinct because I thought likely the District Attorney
would put you on the case anyway, sir, and you would
want to be in on the ground floor. It's the devil and all
how I came to fall into this, now that I’m off the force,
but I'd hate to quit it cold; I’ve never seen the beat of it
in all my experience.”
The Inspector concluded his telephonic communications
and then, locking the museum door with the owner's key
which he had procured from him, led the way to the library,
whither the host and Wade Terhune had preceded them.
They found Victor Marchal in his accustomed attitude
before the fireplace, his sightless eyes fixed as if intro-


26 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
spectively upon the empty hearth. He was pale but com-
posed and there was no trace of the prostration of which
Norwood had spoken.
The latter was seated on the couch with his arm about
the bowed shoulders of Oliver Jarvis, and Terhune stood
before them.
“I can't understand it!” The young husband's tone
was monotonous and dulled with despair. “It’s like a
hideous, insane nightmare! I feel that every moment
Evelyn may come and wake me from it and then I see her
poor face with that frightful knotted thing about her
throat—”
He broke off, shuddering, and Norwood patted him in
fatherly fashion.
“We must try not to think of that now,” he admonished.
“We have stern work ahead of us, Oliver—”
“Do you think I’m forgetting?” Jarvis sprang to his
feet. “Do you think I mean to waste my time in weak
repining now, Uncle Cal, when my poor darling has been
done to death and the creature who could do so monstrous
a thing still breathes God's air? All that I want, all that
is left to me, is to find him and make him suffer! Mr. Ter-
hune, they say that you are the greatest criminal investi-
gator in the wor- to-day; that you have never lost a
case—”
“I do not claim to be infallible, Mr. Jarvis,” interrupted
the detective, modestly.
“Nevertheless, your work is celebrated; you have an
international reputation and surely you can find the mur-
derer of my poor wife! Use every effort, Mr. Terhune.
Spare no expense! I am accounted rich as men compute
such things in these days and I would cheerfully, eagerly,
give everything I possess to avenge her! That is all that


MARGOT 27
matters to me now; I have nothing else to live for and I
shall not rest until it is accomplished!”
“You mean that you wish to engage me to investigate
the case for you, Mr. Jarvis?” Terhune's eyes glinted with
enthusiasm.
“I do. I place myself unreservedly in your hands.”
The younger man turned to the official. “Please don't
misunderstand, Inspector. I have no lack of confidence
in your ability or that of the authorities, but I want to leave
no possible stone unturned to find the assassin.”
“We are always glad to work with Mr. Terhune.” In-
spector Druet bowed slightly. “In fact, we have ourselves
called upon him on more than one occasion to give us the
aid of his specialized knowledge. Have you an idea of
any possible motive for the crime, Mr. Jarvis?”
“None! It seems like the act of a madman! Evelyn
had no enemies, no secrets; her life was like an open book
and everyone who came in contact with her loved her.”
He broke off with a groan. “No one could have had a sane
motive for taking her life!”
*How long have you been married?” -
“Five years. My wife was an orphan of French descent,
resident in New Orleans with her guardian. I met her
the winter before our marriage, whº... I went down for
the Mardi Gras.” Jarvis was evidently bracing himself
to meet the ordeal of questioning and the Inspector’ stone
was considerately gentle.
“What was Mrs. Jarvis's maiden name?”
“Evelyn Beaudet. She was an only child and has no
living relatives.”
“This guardian of whom you speak; who is he?”
“Pierre Chartrand; he died about two years ago. He
was a banker and life-long friend of her father; an eccentric


28 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
old gentleman but he worshiped Evelyn and made her his
sole heiress.”
“You brought Mrs. Jarvis to New York immediately
after your marriage?”
“Yes. Then we went to Europe but returned when
the war broke out.” He hesitated and added: “My wife
had never been north until we were married and as we
have not since visited New Orleans, her old friends have
dropped completely away. Her life entered practically a
new phase with our marriage and I know how and where
every hour of it has been spent. Her friends and associates
are mine and it is inconceivable that among them there
could be one who desired her death, much less a friend who
could have encompassed it in such wise! I tell you this
hideous thing has come like a bolt from a clear sky!”
“When did you last see your wife alive, Mr. Jarvis?”
“At luncheon to-day—God! Could it have been only
to-day? It seems years!—We were both busied with prep-
arations for our departure, for we had planned to sail for
France next week to engage in relief and reconstruction work
and there were many final details to be arranged.” -
“You lunched at home? Who was present beside Mrs.
Jarvis and yourself?”
“No one. Our household consists only of the servants.”
“How many are there?”
“Four, besides the chauffeur; the butler, cook, housemaid,
and my wife's personal maid. All the others have been
discharged pending our departure.”
“What do you know of them, Mr. Jarvis? Would you
consider them trustworthy?” pursued the Inspector. -
“Oh, absolutely. The butler, old Henry, was employed
by my parents before I was born, and the cook, also, was
in my mother's service; the housemaid is her niece and
Margot, my wife's maid, is particularly devoted to her.


MARGOT 29
:
She was a Belgian refugee whom we brought back from
Europe with us at the outbreak of the war. They are all
unquestionably loyal, Inspector; I could take my oath on
that.”
“You left the house after luncheon, Mr. Jarvis?”
“Yes, immediately. I had an appointment at my
attorney's office and a later one at the French consulate.
I was delayed there until after seven o'clock.”
“You did not dine at home?”
“No, I went directly to the club. Evelyn—” he paused
and a startled expression swept his drawn face. “Why,
Evelyn was to have dined alone at the house of old Mrs.
Lyle Fremont. I wonder—?”
“We will look into that presently.” Inspector Druet
waived the implied suggestion. “What were your wife's
plans for the afternoon?”
“She intended to shop and pay a farewell call or two; .
nothing of any vital importance, however; Mrs. Fremont,
with whom she was to have dined, is an invalid and prac-
tically a recluse, but she and my mother were girls to-
gether and my wife was one of the few people she would
still receive; she adored her. Inspector, when—how long
do you think my wife—?”
He could not continue, but Inspector Druet nodded
comprehendingly.
“We must wait for the arrival of the Chief Medical
Examiner before we can positively determine that, Mr.
Jarvis,” he responded. “However, I think we may safely
conclude that death took place in the afternoon, some little
time before the dinner hour. When you took leave of your
wife to-day did her manner seem quite as usual? You
observed no depression nor apprehension?”
“On the contrary,” replied Jarvis in a surprised tone.
“She was never frivolous nor lightminded and she had en-


30 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
tered with very serious intent into our plans for aid in
France, but to-day there was a gentle gayety about her, a
sense of joyous anticipation in our projected journey and
the work which lay before us—” -
His voice ended in a dry, convulsive sob and once more
he buried his face in his hands.
“I will ask you only one more question, Mr. Jarvis.”
Inspector Druet's voice lowered. “What was your wife's
costume at lunch? The same as when you viewed the
body just now in the museum?” -
A violent shudder swept again over the bowed figure.
“I don’t know—I saw only her face, as I shall see it
before me until I die!” he exclaimed brokenly. “When
I left her this afternoon she was dressed for her shopping
expedition in a green tailored suit; I remember that dis-
tinctly, for she spoke of discarding it before we sailed next
week.” -
Dennis, who, with McCarty, had remained in the back-
ground, thrust out a bony elbow and nudged his friend
significantly. The body, lying in the museum had been
clad in a plain gown of dark plum-colored silk with a low
rolling collar and cuffs of soft white and the scarf so cruelly
knotted about the slender throat was of navy blue.
McCarty shrugged impatiently at the unnecessary re-
minder and his eyes eagerly followed the Inspector, who
had turned to the young Frenchman.
“Captain Marchal, you accompanied Mr. Norwood to
the museum this afternoon, did you not?”
“Yes, Monsieur.” The secretary advanced with one
guiding hand resting lightly upon the mantel. “There
were some notes which Monsieur Norwood desired trans-
scribed—”
“You left the museum with Mr. Norwood?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”



MARGOT 31
“Did you or he lock the door behind you?”
“Monsieur Norwood did, but I unlocked it later with
the key which he has presented to me, when I went to
replace the notes after transcribing them.”
“Do you know what time that was, Captain Marchal?”
“Just after four. The clock upon the mantel here struck
the hour as I was gathering together the notes to return
them.”
“The museum was empty then? Did you detect any-
thing which would suggest the presence of an intruder?”
Inspector Druet spoke carefully and the young man smiled
a faint acknowledgment. -
“Nothing, Monsieur. Since I do not see, my other
senses are gradually becoming—how shall I say?—acute,
and I am sure that I should have known of a living pres-
ence, but yet—"
He paused, and after a moment the Inspector suggested:
“Yet'—what, Captain Marchal?”
“I—I did not know—nothing warned me, when we
re-entered the museum an hour ago, of the presence of the
dead.” His voice had sunk to a mere whisper and he added
hurriedly. “In spite of that I believe there was no one there
this afternoon when I entered.”. -
“Did you relock the door on leaving?”
“Yes, Monsieur; of that I can assure you. Seel here
is my key, which never leaves me.” He produced a small,
flat key of the Yale patent and held it out. “I returned
here to the library and typed until Monsieur Norwood
came home.”
“What time was that?”
“I do not know to the moment, but it was after six.”
“So that you were practically alone in the house from
the time of his departure until the dinner-hour?”
“Except for the cook and the housemaid, Monsieur,


82 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
and they were below. The butler was out, but just before
Monsieur Norwood returned I heard him moving about in
the dining-room, arranging the table for dinner. Until
then no slightest sound in the house had reached my ears.”
The young man spoke with deep earnestness. “The bell
of the front door, even that of the telephone, was silent
all the afternoon.”
“Captain Marchal, when was the last time you—er,
encountered Mrs. Jarvis alive?”
“Late on Tuesday afternoon. Madame Jarvis had called
to see Monsieur Norwood, but he was engaged.”
“You entered into conversation with her?”
The young man hesitated.
“Madame very graciously invited me to dine at her home
the following evening, with Monsieur Norwood.”
“You declined?” The question was terse.
“I am still awkward and gauche, Monsieur, in groping
my way about in strange surroundings.” He replied with
simple dignity. “I have not gained what you call self-
confidence. Monsieur and Madame Jarvis have been most
kind, but I should have felt de trop.” -
The arrival of the Chief Medical Examiner interrupted
the proceedings and Inspector Druet accompanied him to
the museum, where Martin and Yost mounted guard behind
the locked door.
With the departure of the official the tense atmosphere
relaxed somewhat and a stir of movement swept the little
group.
Norwood had started forward to follow the Inspector,
but the latter closed the door behind him with a hint which
brooked no opposition.
Jarvis, too, sprang to his feet.
“I must go to her!” he cried brokenly. “I cannot endure


MARGOT 33
the thought that strange, alien hands should desecrate her
now! Uncle Cal, we must see about getting her home!”
“Not yet, Mr. Jarvis.” Terhune interposed smoothly.
“The formalities must be complied with, you know, and the
matter is out of our hands.”
“Oliver, our personal feelings must not interfere with
the course of justice,” supplemented Norwood. “After all,
our one aim now is to get at the truth.”
Captain Marchal had made his way to a window seat and
dropped wearily upon it with his face in shadow.
- Dennis glanced toward him and asked in a cautious
undertone.
“Do you think he told the truth, Mac; about no one
coming here this afternoon?”
“And why not?” McCarty demanded. “If Mrs. Jarvis'
body was brought up the ladder and in through that museum
window, and the murderer left the same way even with that
rattling, clattering skeleton in his arms, Captain Marchal
would not have heard a sound of it in here and there would
have been no need for the murderer to come into this part
of the house at all.”
“Then why was the museum door unlocked?” retorted
Dennis argumentatively. “If this young feller can be be-
lieved he didn't leave it so at four o'clock this afternoon,
then somebody must have opened it between then and the
time we went in there to-night. The lad wasn't any too
anxious to go with us, either, if you remember.”
“It’s a good thing you're not the jury sitting on him,”
averred McCarty in disgust. “You’d be handing in the
verdict before court opened! Wait till we find out what's
gone on in that house beyond the back fence!”
Terhune meanwhile was plying his client with questions
in his turn, but he had succeeded in eliciting no detail from


34 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
the private life of the Jarvises which would throw the
slightest glimmer of light upon the tragedy when the muffled
trend of heavy footsteps in steady, measured unison echoed
down the hall, the front door closed resoundingly and
Inspector Druet reappeared.
“Now we'll get down to business,” he remarked briskly.
“I want to make an examination of your house next, Mr.
Jarvis, and your presence is necessary. If you will lead the
way through the rear yards—?”
He paused and Oliver Jarvis who had risen at his en-
tance demanded hoarsely.
“What of my wife? Your Chief Medical Examiner—
he's taken the place of the Coroner, hasn't he? Did he
discover when—?”
“Mrs. Jarvis' death occurred approximately six hours
ago.” The inspector glanced at the clock on the mantel
which Indicated the quarter hour past eleven. “That would
make it between five and six o'clock, sir.”
“While I cooled my heels at the French consulate!”
groaned Jarvis bitterly. “I-I may take her home now?
That is all there is left which I can do for her.”
The Inspector shook his head.
“The body has been removed,” he announced as gently
as he could. “There must be an autopsy, but in this case,
when the cause of death is so patent it will amount to only
a few simple tests as a matter of record. The body will be
conveyed to your home to-morrow morning, But now,
Mr. Jarvis, we are losing valuable time.”
“I am ready.” The younger man remarked quietly
as with an unconscious movement he squared his
shoulders.
Calvin Norwood was at his side and the secretary had
started up from his seat by the window, but Inspector
"Druet's voice halted him.


MARGOT 35
“You need not come, Captain Marchal, nor will it be
necessary for you, Mr. Norwood—”
“Nevertheless, I propose to accompany my friend,”
declared Norwood. “His wife's body was discovered in my
house and I have every right to know how it got here. I
intend to investigate this terrible matter thoroughly for my-
self, Inspector, with no hindrance from the authorities!”
Inspector Druet shrugged and turned to the others.
“You’ll come, of course, Mr. Terhune, and you, Mac.
Riordan, too, if he likes. I’ll leave Marton and Yost here.”
He glanced significantly at the blind secretary's impassive
face. “Mr. Norwood, how was it customary for those
using that door cut in the fence to gain entrance to your
house? Surely not through the museum window?”
“By no means.” The host, still indignant, responded
frigidly. “The back stairway leads to a private hall un-
connected with the kitchen quarters which ends in a door
opening directly into the yard.”
He led the way down the stairs and through the narrow
passageway to the door at the farther end. As he flung it
open the keen autumnal night wind smote them and a few
dry leaves swirled in and eddied at their feet, but the square
of blackness which met their gaze was relieved only by
patches of subdued light from the rows of curtained windows
at the rear of the houses on the next street.
While they hesitated Norwood stepped back and pressed
a switch in the wall and instantly the yard was revealed in a
flood of blinding light in which the stark outlines of a stunted
tree or two stood out in bold relief against the vine-clad
walls. A brick walk divided the patch of sward in the center
and at its end a small white door broke the expanse of the
rear wall and creaked as it swung idly upon its hinges.
“Is that door usually left unfastened?” asked Terhune
suddenly.


36 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“N–no,” stammered Norwood.
“Who has the keys to fit it?”
“Only my niece and—and Mrs. Jarvis.”
They had started down the path a few paces when Ter-
hune paused and glanced back at the slender ladder silhouetted
against the house. The open space between the floor of
the museum extension and the ground formed a sort of
porch in the shadow of which the windows of the rear base-
ment could be seen.
“That is the kitchen, isn't it?” Inspector Druet asked.
“Your cook must have been there between five and six
preparing dinner, Mr. Norwood. It is odd that she did not
see the murderer place the ladder at the window directly
above and climb up with his burden; it could not have
been quite dark at that hour.”
“The cook is elderly and has very weak eyes,” responded
Norwood. “She pulls down the shades and lights up at
the first approach of dusk.”
“I’ll question her to-morrow.” The Inspector turned
toward the little door in the fence, and as the rest followed
Dennis caught McCarty's arm in a mighty grip.
“Holy saints!” he gasped. “There's something there!”
“Where!” McCarty demanded.
“In the yard beyond!” Dennis was staring straight
ahead of him and his tone was sepulchral. “When the
door swung open just now I saw it; something white and
flitting!”
Terhune sprang to the passageway they had just left and
turned the switch, plunging the yard in darkness once
In Ore.
“Now come on!” Inspector Druet led the way, but
Oliver Jarvis dashed forward and reached the little door in
advance of the others.


MARGOT 37
“Ah, Madame, it is you?” They heard a little cry in
a clear feminine voice. “I have been so alarmed—”
They crowded through the doorway and beheld Jarvis
confronted by a girl whose frilled apron and cap gleamed
whitely in the darkness.
Inspector Druet whipped out an electric torch and flashed
it full into her face and she drew back with a faint scream
which died in her throat. Her trembling hands shaded her
eyes and as the light flared about she beheld the drawn,
grief-distorted face of her employer and the little knot of
grim, determined men behind him.
“What is it!” she whispered, swaying. “Madame—
shel”
“What are you doing here, Margot?” demanded Jarvis.
“Madame!” Her voice rose in a shriek, unheeding.
“It has come!”
Lurching forward, her body crumpled and she fell prone
at their feet.


CHAPTER IV
THE OTHER HOUSE
HE rear basement door of the Jarvis house stood
wide and a low light glowed forth as McCarty and
Dennis lifted the limp slender form of the uncon-
scious girl between them and under the direction of her
employer, bore it into the house and along the narrow
hall to the servant's dining-room, where they deposited it
upon a lounge. -
Jarvis himself poured water from a pitcher which stood
upon the sideboard and dashed it into the girl's face.
“Give her air!” Dennis admonished. “She's only fainted!
—There! She's coming tol”
The flaxen head with its drenched wisp of a cap all awry
had stirred upon the cushion and her frightened blue eyes
opened suddenly, and rested full upon her employer. Be-
wilderment gave place to swift apprehension and as swiftly
a look of belated caution veiled them as she struggled to
sit upright.
“What is it, Monsieur Norwood?” she asked in a faint,
trembling voice. “What has happened? Ah, I remember!
Monsieur came upon me so suddenly in the garden—
Has Madame returned?”
The sharp note of anxiety and fear betrayed itself in
her tones and Jarvis countered sternly.
“When did Madame go out, Margot?”
“I do not know.” The girl had risen and catching at
38


40 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
emotion had abated somewhat Inspector Druet laid a not
unkindly hand upon her shoulder.
“Now then, my girl, you must brace up and answer me.
Your name is Margot, isn't it?”
At his touch she stiffened and after a moment raised
a dull, tear-stained face from which all expression seemed to
have fled as she nodded dumbly.
“At what time, Margot, did Mrs. Jarvis return from
shopping this afternoon?”
The girl moistened her dry lips.
“At four o'clock, Monsieur.”
“She complained of feeling ill. Did she lie down imme-
diately?”
“I do not know, Monsieur. I got Madame into a negligee
and went upon my errand.”
“What errand? You did not mention it a minute ago.”
The Inspector eyed her sharply.
“Madame sent me to a shop down-town to change some
garments she had purchased and which did not fit,” Margot
explained. “She told me not to disturb her on my return,
but to wait until she rang.”
“When did you get back?”
“At half-past five, Monsieur. Madame's dinner engage-
ment was for seven.”
“How long did you wait before going to her room?”
“For an hour, Monsieur; until half-past six. I knocked
several times but there was no reply and at last I entered.
Madame was not there.”
No shade of defiance colored the well-trained deference
of her tone, yet her reluctance was manifest and Inspector
Druet asked quickly:
“Was the room in order? Did anything indicate that
Mrs. Jarvis' rest had been disturbed or that she had left
in haste?”


THE OTHER HOUSE 41
“No, Monsieur. The negligee was lying across the
chaise-longue and the slippers on the floor beside it, but the
cushions were quite smooth and the bed itself was un-
touched—”
She paused with a slight catch in her breath and Inspector
Druet pressed home his advantage.
“So Mrs. Jarvis had not lain down to rest, after all.
When she mentioned her headache, did she appear to be
really ill, Margot?”
“But no. Madame's eyes were very bright, and her
color—oh, Monsieur, how was it that she died?”
“You will learn all that later.” The Inspector evaded
another possible outbeak of hysteria. “Where were the
other servants during the afternoon? Were they all in the
house?” -
“No, Monsieur, only the housemaid and she was in her
room nursing a toothache. Since there was to be no dinner
at home, Madame had given both the cook and Henry a
holiday.”
“Have they returned yet?”
“Yes, Monsieur. They both came in before eleven
o'clock and went to their rooms.”
“How is it that you did not go to bed? Do you always
wait up for Mrs. Jarvis?”
“Not always.” The girl hesitated once more. “But
to-night I—I was uneasy about Madame. Her departure
without ringing for me to dress her—”
“Margot,” the Inspector interrupted with a trace of
sternness in his tones. “What were you doing out in the
yard at this hour when we came upon you?”
“The house stifled me; I wanted the fresh air.” Her
eyes wavered and fell. “Madame had intended to return
very early and when she did not come I—I became nervous,
alarmed—”


42 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Why? You had some other reason for your fears than
the mere fact that your mistress had gone out without
summoning you.” The Inspector thrust his face close to
that of the shrinking girl. “Margot, I want the truth.
Did you surmise what had taken place in this house during
your absence this afternoon? When you cried out to us
‘It has come!’ you knew that your mistress was dead—”
“Ah, no! No, Monsieur!” Her voice rose in a protesting
wail. “Madame was not even ill, a headache, only! When
I saw Monsieur Jarvis’ face there in the garden I knew that
something unfortunate—an accident, perhaps—must have
happened to Madame! That it had come true!”
“What had come true?” demanded Oliver Jarvis hoarsely.
“My dream,” Margot responded. “Last night I dreamed
that Madame was suffering, in danger! I ventured to tell
of it this morning, but although she only laughed at me I
could not put it from my thoughts for at my home in Louvain
before the Germans came I had warning in my dreams of
what was to be, Monsieur. Oh, was it an accident that
befell Madame?”
Dennis’ eyes were goggling in superstitious awe as he
glanced at McCarty, but the latter was gazing intently at
the girl with an expression of bland incredulity not unmixed
with admiration.
“That will do for now.” The Inspector turned to Oliver
Jarvis. “I won’t rout out the other servants; there will
be time enough for them in the morning. They sleep on
the top floor, I suppose?”" -
Jarvis nodded.
“I should like to see the lower portion of the house now
and particularly Mrs. Jarvis' apartments,” continued the
Inspector. “Margot, we shall not need you any more to-
night but don't attempt to leave the house; I want to have
a further talk with you to-morrow.”


THE OTHER HOUSE 43
The girl bowed and started for the door, then turned in
swift supplication to her employer.
“Monsieur!” she cried brokenly. “You know how I
have loved Madame! Now you tell me that she is dead
but I may not know the cause. Madame was alive and well
but a few short hours ago! Ah, Monsieur, in pity tell me
how Madame came to her death!”
Jarvis essayed to reply, but no words came, and mutely
he motioned toward the official.
The latter considered for a moment and then announced
slowly: -
“She was murdered, Margot.”
“Murdered!” The echo was a mere whisper and the
girl's eyes dark with horror traveled from face to face of
the group before her as if seeking a denial of the dread truth.
“I cannot believe—It must have been some frightful mis-
take! What madman has done this?”
“That is what we are here to find out,” the Inspector
responded gruffly. “You may go.”
Margot still hesitated, then timidly she approached her
employer. -
“I—I will pray for the soul of Madame,” she whispered
and turning stumbled blindly from the room.
The lower floors of the Jarvis house were laid out much
after the same plan as the Norwood residence and although
evidently erected at approximately the same period it had
later been remodeled and decorated. The music-room
had been elongated into a small ball-room, the staircase
widened and a tiny conservatory added at the back. No-
where was there sign of confusion or disorder and the grim
little party made its way upstairs.
At the threshold of the dead woman's private apartments,
Oliver Jarvis drew back with a moan of uncontrollable
anguish. -


44 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Don’t, dear boy! Don't go in now!” urged Norwood
gently. “You’ve endured all that you can for to-night—”
“No, Uncle Cal.” The young man braced himself in
dogged determination. “I must see this through. I must
learn the truth!”
They entered the sitting-room exquisite in its soft, rose-
shaded lights, eloquent in the studied simplicity of the
groupings of rare old furniture and priceless rugs and dra-
peries of the loving care and unostentatiously applied wealth
which had been expended to provide a fitting shrine for
the bride of five years before. The bedroom into which
they passed after a brief scrutiny was tragic in its little
intimate hints of a vibrant, living presence; the gold toilet
articles upon the dresser, the book open and face down on
the table, a crumpled lace handkerchief, a faint perfume—
the ‘Rose d'Amour' of which the blind secretary had spoken—
that still lingered in the air, the night-dress and tiny slippers
which lay expectantly beside the turned-back covers of
the bed.
Jarvis, whose fortitude despite his efforts was visibly
breaking during their progression through the apartments,
now broke down utterly with the grief of overwhelming
realization and he sank upon his knees beside the bed.
“Leave me!” he choked, in response to Norwood's com-
passionate approach. “I want to be alone!”. You can see
for yourselves that there is nothing here, gentlemen! I
shall have myself in hand again by to-morrow, but now I feel
that I have reached the end of my endurance. I must be
alone to face this thing which has come upon me or I shall
go mad!”
It would seem that he spoke truly. There had been no
slightest indication of violence or disturbance anywhere
in the serene charm of the well-ordered apartments and after
a final glance about and whispered word of consolation from


THE OTHER HOUSE 45
Norwood, they turned to the door of the dressing-room
beyond.
“By the twenty-four feet of the twelve apostles!” The
exclamation burst like a mighty oath from McCarty's lips
as for a moment the others halted transfixed upon the thresh-
old and the kneeling figure by the bed started up in renewed
consternation.
“What is it?” he demanded hoarsely, but no one replied
to him.
The little dressing-room was in chaos. Dainty, spindle-
legged chairs were flung about, drawers were open and their
silken contents billowed out upon the floor, the wardrobe
ransacked and from a shattered glass vase beside an over-
turned table a cluster of wilting roses lay in a sodden mass.
The door of a small wall safe swung back upon its hinges
and the aperture loomed empty and bare.
“I think we need search no further for the scene of the
actual crime, Inspector.” Terhune's voice was filled with
quiet satisfaction. “It was here, without a doubt, that Mrs.
Jarvis fought for her life.”
Inspector Druet nodded and his lips tightened as he
glanced about the wreck of the pretty room and turned to
where Oliver Jarvis stood staring with dazed, horrified eyes.
“Robbery,” he announced. “Your wife must have heard
someone moving about in here as she prepared to rest and
entering been attacked and finally strangled to prevent
her giving an alarm. A mighty bold, desperate attempt,
in daylight, too! It looks as if it must have been an inside
jo .”
“It couldn't have been!” Jarvis stammered. “You
heard what Margot said; none of the servants were at home
but the housemaid and she was ill, at the top of the house.
Besides, nothing was taken—”
“The safe is empty,” Inspector Druet remarked quickly,


46 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Were not Mrs. Jarvis' jewels there? How can you be sure
that nothing of value is missing?”
“Because there was nothing of value here; of sufficient
value, at least, to warrant such an attempt,” responded the
other. “It may be that a few small brooches, a plain plati-
num wrist watch and articles of that sort were taken but
they would scarcely have tempted a thief to commit such a
hideous crime for their possession. All my wife's jewels—
her diamonds and pearls and pigeon-blood rubies—are locked
away in our safe deposit vault. I took them downtown and
placed them there myself only yesterday, to remain until
our return from abroad and all our servants knew it, so that
even if they were not beyond all question, there would have
been no incentive for robbery. The gold toilet articles were
untouched upon the dresser; you must have seen that as
we came through. I–I cannot understand!”
“And poor Evelyn was still wearing her emerald ring,”
supplemented Norwood. “I noticed it there in the museum.
Why did not the murderer tear it from her finger if he were
after mere gain? It must be almost priceless.”
Jarvis shuddered.
“You forget, Uncle Cal, that it could not have been
disposed of.” He turned to the rest in explanation. “The
emerald is an heirloom in my family and was my betrothal
gift to my wife, the only jewel she resolved to take with
her to France. It is square and of wonderful color but our
coat of arms is cut so deeply into it as to render it practically
valueless if it were shaved down and in its present state it
could be too easily traced for anyone to dare dispose of it.
It may be that a thief broke in, knowing of the other jewels
but ignorant of their removal and my poor wife came upon
him. It seems incredible, however, that such an attempt
would have been made before dark, at any rate, in a house
presumably full of servants.”


THE OTHER HOUSE 47
Terhune who had been quietly but minutely inspecting
the chaos of the room now turned to his client.
“Mr. Jarvis, was there anything aside from the jewels
here that to your knowledge would have been of peculiar
personal value to anyone? I mean something the possession
of which would be vital to them? This room has been sub-
jected to a hasty but almost frenzied search, presumably
after the safe was opened, and it is scarcely conceivable that
the thief would ransack wardrobes and dresser drawers for
jewels which he had failed to find there.”
Oliver Jarvis eyed him in blank amazement.
“What could there have been?” he asked. “My wife
never kept negotiable securities or large sums of money
in the house, and if by peculiar personal value you mean
any object of a secret or compromising nature, Mr. Terhune,
I can only assure you again that her own life was an open
book and her associates above question or reproach. Her
sympathies were warm but she was far too high-minded to
have lent herself to any confidence of a scandalous or dis-
graceful sort. This hideous thing must have been the work
of a common thief, a burglar, and yet I cannot understand
how he managed to time his coming so adroitly, nor how
he gained entrance.”
The dressing-room possessed two doors beside the one
by which they had entered, one of which led to the bath-
room beyond, and the other to the hall. The last named
was locked and bolted from the inside, the bathroom fur-
nished no evidence of a possible intruder and nowhere
was there a clue except the marks upon the door of the safe
which had been jimmied open in a professional manner.
After a cursory examination of the closets and ward-
robes Inspector Druet glanced with a shrug at the dainty
Dresden clock which ticked with gay insouciance upon the
mantel and announced:


48 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Late as it is, I’ve got to arouse the servants, Mr. Jarvis,
and question them. Will you give orders that they are to
come to me at once downstairs, say, in your dining-room?”
“You wish to see Margot again, also?” Oliver Jarvis
halted in the doorway, still with that stunned look upon his
face.
“Margot, by all means,” the Inspector retorted. “And,
if you please, say nothing of the condition in which we
found this room.” -
When the stricken master of the house had departed
upon his errand, Inspector Druet turned to where McCarty
and Dennis communed together.
“Mac, I'll want you with me; Riordan, can I press you
into service?”
“That you can, sir!” Dennis stepped forward briskly.
“Run back through the yards to Mr. Norwood's house
and tell Yost I need him here. Martin can stay where he
is but I want Yost on guard at the front of this house and
you take the back till after I’ve searched it from top to
bottom.”
Carefully locking all entrances to the dead woman's
apartments, Inspector Druet pocketed the keys and followed
by Norwood, Terhune and McCarty he proceeded to the
dining-room downstairs, where Jarvis joined them.
Margot, still fully dressed, was the first of the servants
to appear. Her face bore traces of recent violent emotion
but it was now composed and over her stolid Flemish
features a certain wary impassivity had settled.
“You had not retired, Margot?” The Inspector glanced
sharply at her attire.
“Could sleep come to me on this night, Monsieur?”
she retorted but quietly. “I have been walking the floor of
my room, trying to make myself comprehend that it is true,
this terrible thing which you have told me.”


THE OTHER HOUSE 49
The Inspector spread his notes out upon the table before
him.
“Margot, you say that you went upon your errand this
afternoon shortly after four o'clock and returned at half-
past five; that you waited for an hour, until half-past six,
before going to your mistress' apartments. Where were
you during that hour?”
“In my room, Monsieur, and in that of Etta, the house-
maid, applying hot cloths to her face. She was in great
pain.”
“You then went to your mistress' rooms and found she
had gone,” the Inspector pursued. “Did you look through
her entire apartment, the dressing-room and bath, as well as
the other rooms?”
“Yes, Monsieur.” The girl glanced hastily up at him
and than dropped her eyes. -
“And everything was in perfect order, then, in all the
apartment? No room showed the slightest sign of disturb-
ance?”
“None, Monsieur. All was as usual, in perfect order,”
she repeated quietly. *
McCarty drew a deep breath and glanced at Terhune, but
the latter was listening with an imperturbable expression.
Inspector Druet leaned forward in his chair and his voice
took on an added note of sternness.
“This occurred at half-past six?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went down to the kitchen and prepared some broth
for Etta, and took it to her room.” Margot replied without
hesitation. “She could not eat and begged of me to go away
and let her alone; the pain had made her acariátre—how do
you say? Of an ill humor. I returned to the kitchen for
my own dinner and then went once more to Madame's apart-


CHAPTER V
DENNIS SCORES
Henry, the Jarvis’ butler made his appearance, and
close upon his heels came the cook, her portly form
clad in a weirdly striped wrapper, her ruddy countenance
grim with exasperation at being haled from her bed at so
unseemly an hour.
She paled, however, at sight of the Inspector's uniform
and turned hurriedly to her employer.
“Oh, sir, whatever is the matter? Margot told me nothing
when she woke me—” -
“There has been a burglary committed here.” Inspector
Druet announced before Oliver Jarvis could speak.
“Burglars! The saints preserve—”
“Never mind that now!” The Inspector broke in sharply
upon her exclamation. “What time did you leave the house
to-day?” r
“Right after lunch was cleared away, sir; along about
half-past two. Mrs. Jarvis gave me the afternoon and even-
ing off and I went to my sister's, in Brooklyn.” The cook
glanced about her with wildly startled eyes. “If you please,
sir, where is Mrs. Jarvis?”
“She will not be home to-night.” Inspector Druet added
quickly: “When did you return to the house?”
“At half-past ten, sir. Henry got in just ahead of me;
didn't you, Henry?”
Iº. after Margot had been dismissed old
51


52 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
She turned for confirmation to the butler who nodded
his white head solemnly.
“Did you notice any signs of disturbance? Hear any-
thing?” demanded her interrogator.
“No, sir!” The cook gasped and laid a fat hand upon
her capacious bosom in the region of her heart. “Glory be!
We might all have been murdered in our beds! There was a
light in the front basement but I thought it was only Margot
waiting up, maybe, for Mrs. Jarvis. There were low lights,
too, in the halls, but they are always left lit and I didn't
hear a sound or see anything at all as I went on up to my
room. Was it much that was took, sir? Did the burglar
get away?”
The Inspector silenced her importunities and dismissed
her, then turned to the butler who stood aside, his spare,
dignified figure wrapped toga-wise in his bath-robe.
“Henry, what time did you come in?”
“A moment before cook, sir; I was closing the door when
she came up behind me. I know nothing whatever of any
burglar, sir, but I'm positive none was in the house when I
entered, nor after, for I'm a light sleeper and I would have
heard him. You'll excuse me, sir, but was the silver touched?
It's been in my charge these forty years and never a piece
missing 33
The aged man's distress was very real and it was equally
evident that he knew nothing which could throw light upon
the mystery. Reassured as to the safety of the silver he too
was allowed to depart and the Inspector glanced significantly
at Oliver Jarvis.
“Your housemaid seems unwilling to put in an appear-
ance,” he observed. “I might suggest that you send for her
again—”
“I’ll bring her if I have to drag her from her bed!” declared
Jarvis with sudden violence as he started for the door. At
w


DENNIS SCORES 58
that moment, however, there came a light tap upon it and
without waiting for response it opened and a plump, buxom
girl with a shawl draped over her kimono slipped into the
room and stood half sullenly, half defiantly before them.
Her red hair was caught back in a rumpled, untidy braid,
and the lower part of her face was swathed in bandages above
which her round eyes glared with resentment and fright.
“My aunt says there's been a burglary, but I know nothing
of it,” she began. “I’m near dead with the pain in my
tooth—”
“Your aunt is the cook?” interrupted the Inspector
brusquely. “Why did you not come at once when you were
summoned?
The girl tossed her head mutinously.
“That Margot didn't say what I was wanted for, and
how was I to know, at this time of night, that there was
trouble? I’ve been in my bed since noon and not a sound
have I heard in the house since my aunt went out after lunch,
except when Margot came in and put hot cloths to my face,
and then brought me the bite of supper I couldn't touch.
There's nothing I can tell you, sir, and if you don't mind
I'll be getting back to my room, for it's draughty—”
“Just a minute.” The Inspector eyed her sharply.
“You did not leave your room at all during the afternoon?”
“No, sir; nor since, until now.”
“Did you hear your aunt and the butler come in?”
“I did not, sir. I must have dozed off after Margot
went away with the tray, but even if I’d been awake, I would
have paid small heed to any noise that might have come to
me, what with the pain and all.” Etta mumbled through
the bandages which held her jaw as in a vise, and her brown
eyes roved from one to another of the little group. “I’m
sure I’m sorry if—if anything was took, but I’m not to blame.
I wasn't left in charge of the house and besides, the burglar


54 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
might have been in the very next room to me and I’d not
have noticed, I was that crazed with my toothache!”
“Very well, Etta. You may go now, but I shall want
to see you to-morrow.” Inspector Druet gathered up his
papers and as the girl scuttled from the room without
more ado, he turned to the others. “We'll take a last look
over the house, now, and then get back to Mr. Norwood’s.”
A hasty but systematic search vouchsafed them no
further clues and an examination of every door and acces-
sible window by which the assassin might have gained en-
trance failed to reveal the slightest mark of applied force.
After a few parting whispered words of consolation
to the bereaved man from Norwood they left the house and
made their way back through the little door in the fence to
the latter's home.
As they brought up the rear Dennis remarked to McCarty:
“You’re thinking that girl Margot lied? She knew
about the crime all along? Maybe she was waiting in the
yard for the murderer himself—”
“I’d not go so far as to say that,” responded McCarty
cautiously. “But 'twas a mighty convenient dream she
had on the spur of the moment. With a gift like that,
Denny, and a pack of cards she could be making her ever-
lasting fortune!”
“You don't believe in it?” There was a trace of super-
stitious awe in Dennis' tone.
“Devil a bit!” his companion retorted stoutly. “If
she didn't actually know, she suspected well enough what
might have happened to her mistress when we found her
here in the yard and if I was the Inspector I’d have the
truth out of her. I’ve not figured out yet why she stood
up to it that Mrs. Jarvis' rooms were not disturbed when
she knew we must have seen with our own eyes the state
that the dressing-room was in; she'd had plenty of time, too,


DENNIS SCORES 55
to straighten it again if she'd wanted to keep from us the
fact that it has been ransacked like that.” -
“I noticed one thing,” Dennis observed. “The news
of Mrs. Jarvis' death itself floored her, but the manner of
it—that it was murder—didn’t seem to surprise her, and she
never even asked how or where it had been done.”
“Still, I wouldn’t say she was a party to it, nor that her
grief over it wasn't real enough,” demurred McCarty.
“The manner of the other girl, Etta, is as much on my mind.
A toothache she may have had, Denny, but 'twould take more
than that to choke off a woman's natural curiosity about a
burglary that had been committed under the same roof
with her, if she was entirely ignorant of it. That young
woman didn’t want to hear a word of it; all she wanted was
to get away out of sight without being asked any more ques-
tions herself. One thing is sure; there's no love lost between
her and Margot.”
When they re-entered the Norwood house the blind
secretary met them at the library door, his sensitive face
alive with eager questioning.
“It was a burglar, Victor.” Norwood dropped wearily
into a chair and replied to the mute appeal. “She was
killed in her own dressing-room and why her murderer brought
the body here I cannot imagine. It would seem the act of
an insane person 22
“Madame Jarvis was killed in her own dressing-room!”
Marchal repeated slowly. “That is what you have learned,
Monsieur. But how do you— What proof is there—”
“Her safe is forced open and empty and the room is a
wreck; everywhere the signs are unmistakable of the terrific
struggle which must have taken place—” Norwood was
beginning when Terhune advanced and interrupted him
smoothly.
“Captain Marchal looks quite done up. If the Inspector


56 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
does not require anything further of him to-night I would
suggest that he be excused.”
Inspector Druet nodded understandingly.
“Yes, Captain. You have helped us all you can, I am
sure, and it is very late. We won't detain you any
longer.”
Marchal bowed.
“If Monsieur Norwood ” he began.
“You had better go to bed now and get what rest you
can after this terrible business,” Calvin Norwood advised.
“We will have hard days ahead of us, Victor. Gad! I
never thought when I took up the investigation of crime
as a mere hobby years ago that it would strike home to me
like this! If it were my own niece who had been throttled
by some fiend in human form I could scarcely be more deeply
affected. But we'll get him, gentlemen! We'll get him!
Good-night, Victor—”
“Good-night, Monsieur Norwood. You will call me if I
can be of any assistance?”
As the secretary bowed and retired the butler appeared
in the doorway. He was a corpulent, middle-aged indi-
vidual with a rotund face from which the florid color had
departed in streaks and his earlier dignity had perceptibly
fallen from him.
“H'excuse me, Mr. Norwood,” he stammered. “But the
'ousemaid is still in 'ysterics, sir, and cook is packing;
she says as 'ow she won't stay another hour h’under a roof
where maybe a murderer is 'iding and 'er not being h’able
to see or 'ear very good if 'e was to get after 'er, sir.”
“I’d better see them, I suppose, and reassure them.”
Norwood rose. -
“I’ll go with you.” The Inspector announced. “I have
a few questions to put to them and then my preliminary
report will be complete.”


DENNIS SCORES : 59
4.
“And gone blundering around a dark yard hunting for
it, with a skeleton to keep him company and that dead body
in here to raise the alarm any minute?” McCarty demanded
derisively. “It is your idea, Mr. Terhune, that he came up
the ladder first and pried the window open, and then went
down and got the body—which he'd likely hid behind
some bush—and climbed back up again?”,
“How else?” Terhune shrugged.
“Well,” remarked McCarty slowly, “I’m thinking it’d
take more nerve then the average, or else he was a plain
lunatic. There's the back windows of the houses on both
streets staring at him, to say nothing of the fact that Mr.
Norwood or that young Frenchman was apt to come in here
any minute and catch him at his job. Why didn't he
leave the poor thing there in her own dressing-room where
he killed her, and beat it? Why should he have gone to all
this trouble and risk, and then left the evidence back there
behind him—” º
“We will learn that when we have found him and induced
him to talk,” Terhune assured the other coolly. “Even
with your singularly moribund deductive faculty, my dear
McCarty, one salient point in this case must have impressed
itself upon you; the murderer was no stranger to either
house or their occupants. I will go further; I think I may
say even at this early stage of the investigation that he was
on casual, if not intimate, terms with certain members of
both households. He knew the habits, the hours, the plans
of each family and gauged his time to a nicety. That Mrs.
Jarvis returned unexpectedly to the house because of her
headache instead of continuing her round of social calls
and discovered him at his work is one hypothesis which may
possibly be entertained—”
“But you don’t hold with it, sir?” McCarty interrupted
shrewdly.
-
-
- -
-


DENNIS SCORES 61
seemingly in the affectionate embrace of an angular, attenu-
ated shape which gleamed horridly in the light.
“Take it off me!” wailed Dennis. “Holy mother! Take
it away!”
Terhune uttered an exclamation but it went unheard as
McCarty strode forward, jerked the gruesome object loose
from his friend's prostrate form and dropped it with a clatter
upon the table.
“What is it?” Dennis whispered fearfully as he sat up
and wiped the sooty moisture from his forehead. “What
was it got me then, MacP’’
“I’m thinking it's the lady you were so anxious to see
when first we came in here, the night,” McCarty responded
with unsmiling gravity. “What with the glove and now
this, you're doing well for an amateur, I'll say that for
you. "Tis the missing skeleton, no less, that you brought,
down the chimney with vou, Denny, my lad!”


CHAPTER VI
THE CAKE MARKED “NoFL.”
Roundsman McCarty reached the modest rooms over
Girard's antique shop where he kept bachelor hall.
The varied excitements of the night, the thrill of being
once more, if unofficially, back in the old man-hunting game
had driven sleep far from his thoughts and it was dawn
before his eyes closed.
Nevertheless, he awoke early with undiminished enthusi-
asm to the drizzling rain of a dull November day, and over
his coffee in the little nearby restaurant which he frequented
he scanned the newspapers eagerly. At the hour of going
to press no information could have been obtainable of the
crime save that contained in McCarty's own telephone
message to Inspector Druet and the latter's summons of the
Chief Medical Examiner and report to the Homicide Bureau.
He was not surprised, therefore, at the meager paragraph,
substantially the same in each paper, announcing the sudden
death “under suspicious circumstances” of Mrs. Oliver
Jarvis, the brilliant young society leader and social worker
at the home of the family friend, Mr. Calvin Norwood.
That Oliver Jarvis himself was present when the tragic
event occurred was assumed, and the article in every instance
concluded with a statement that the authorities had the
affair under investigation.
One enterprising journal printed a photograph of the
I' was after three o'clock in the morning when ex-
dead woman, evidently resurrected from the files of the time:
.
62


THE CARE MARKED “NOEL’” 63
of her marriage, for the costume was obviously out of date,
but McCarty studied it with deep interest. There had been
small trace of beauty in the swollen, blackened countenance
which had stared up at him in the crime museum on the
previous night, but the pictured face before him was very
lovely in its girlish, ingenuous appeal. The soft, dark
eyes, small straight nose and Smiling, finely chiseled lips
were set in a perfect oval crowned by a mass of cloud-like
black hair and regarding it, McCarty's own blue eyes lost
their twinkle and grew stern.
“I’d like to get my two hands on that strangler, once!”
he muttered to himself as he drained his coffee cup and rose.
In the door of the restaurant he hesitated and then
turned a reluctant back upon the corner around which Engine
Company o23 was stationed, and raising his umbrella started
for his rooms again. Dennis was on day duty and after a
scant few hours' sleep would be in no mood to discuss the
event of the previous night; moreover, on the way home
he had proved distinctly “touchy” in regard to his exploit
with the defunct Duchess of Piatra and his friend wisely
concluded not to approach him on the subject of the crime
until he could bring fresh news.
But how would he himself acquire it? Not at first hand,
as in the old days. McCarty's spirits fell and he mentally
anathematized the day his saloon-keeping uncle's money
had descended to him and the first flush of prosperity had
led him to resign from the force. He had been too long in
uniform to gain lasting ease in the habiliments of a mere
citizen, too long under orders to find profit or pleasure in the
aimless days stretched out interminably before him, too
long a man of action to appreciate the life of elegant leisure
which had ensued, or derive from it aught but an utter bore-
dom that corroded his honest soul.
/ Inspector Druet, the celebrated Terhune and Calvin


64 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
Norwood; there were enough detectives, amateur and pro-
fessional, on the Jarvis case now, in all conscience, without
a blundering old departmental has-been butting in where
he wasn't wanted, and yet—
McCarty sighed lugubriously as he turned his own corner
/and then all at once his eyes brightened, his chin came
up with the old lift and he stepped forward briskly, for there
upon the doorstep beneath a dripping umbrella and regis-
tering outraged dignity in every bulbous curve of his portly
form, stood the Norwood butler.
“Good-morning to you!” McCarty beamed upon him.
“Were you looking for me?”
The butler turned and bowed stiffly.
“Good-morning, sir. Mr. Norwood sent me to say that
h'if you 'ave an hour to spare 'e would be glad to see you.
Being as you might say a confidential matter, 'e did not wish
to h’employ a common messenger.”
The last was evidently added in personal justification and
he sniffed audibly as his supercilious glance swept the
shabby neighborhood.
McCarty shifted his own umbrella.
“I’ll go right back with you now, my man,” he announced
shortly. “Did Mr. Norwood give you any other word for
me?”
“No, sir,” the butler responded with awakened servility
to his change of tone. “’E seems quite done in h’over
the 'orrible affair of larst night, and no wonder, sir! Did
the police h'inspector find out who did it, h’if I may ask?”
| McCarty turned and eyed him blandly.
“If he did, he's keeping it to himself,” he replied. “You
didn't happen to see anything of a stranger about when you
came home yesterday afternoon, did you?”
“Me, sir?” The butler's tone was as scandalized as
though the question bore an imputation of complicity in the


THE CAKE MARKED “NOEL’” 65
crime. “Certainly not, sir! The young French gentleman
was in the library and the maids in the kitchen. It was
after six and I was a bit late so I went directly about my
duties arranging the table for dinner. There was no sign
of anything unusual about, sir.”
During their brief, clattering subway journey the subject
was dropped but as they emerged and started along a
rain-swept cross street to the Norwood residence, McCarty
asked in apparent irrelevancy.
“By the way, when was the last time you saw Mrs. Jarvis
alive?”
“On Tuesday afternoon, late, sir,” the other responded
readily. “The poor lady was h'always runningh'in and h'out
of the 'ouse most informally when Miss Joan was at 'ome and
she and Mr. Jarvis were like own children to Mr. Norwood,
h'if I may say so. Mrs. Jarvis 'ad come to tell 'im some-
thing h'about Professor Parlowe, but Mr. Norwood was busy
in the drawing-room with an odd sort of person who 'ad
called and could not be disturbed, so I ushered 'er h’into
the library, to Captain Marchal.”
There was a note of lofty distaste in the butler's tone as
he mentioned his employer's visitor and McCarty observed
indifferently:
“I guess Mr. Norwood has all kinds of people calling
on him, if so he can get anything from them to add to that
museum collection of his.”
“Yes, sir,” the butler agreed resignedly. “When I
first h’entered 'is service I didn’t know what to make of it,
sir. Rough-looking characters, and some as you might call
outright jailbirds calling and being received-like gentry and
took h’into the drawing-room, but I soon got used to it,
h'although that museum h’always gave me a turn. And
now look what's come of it all, sir! But the woman that
called the other day, though h'ordinary, wasn't h’exactly


66 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
criminal in h’appearance; she was middle-aged and blousy,
with untidy hair and shabby black clothes, and h’English,
but not a Londoner, like me. Mr. Norwood talked with
'er for more than an hour, and Mrs. Jarvis didn't wait.
That was the last I saw of the poor young lady alive.”
“How did you know she had come to tell Mr. Norwood
something about Professor Parlower He is the toxicolo-
gist, isn't he, that Mr. Norwood went to call on yesterday
afternoon?”
The butler ncolded.
“I don’t know what you might call 'im, sir, but 'e's
the one Mr. Norwood went to see, and Mrs. Jarvis brought
'im the word. I was just h’about to knock and ask h’if
she would 'ave tea when the library door opened and Cap-
tain Marchal showed her out.
“‘Please tell Uncle Cal I couldn't wait, won't you?”
she says to the young French gentleman. “And in case
I forget to mention it to-morrow night, Captain Marchal,
do remind him of Professor Parlowe's experiment on Friday.
I know he wouldn't miss it for worlds, so I hurried straight
here to tell him of it myself.” That is 'ow I know, sir.
It's terrible to think of the poor young lady being dead now,
to say nothing of 'er 'aving been murdered in cold blood!
I'ope for h’all our sakes as 'ow the police h'inspector finds
out the truth.” º
McCarty echoed his sentiments, but in an absent-minded
tone. An idea had come to him born of the butler's idle
gossip which his first impulse was to cast from him as the
wildest improbability, and yet preposterous as it seemed in
the light of certain of the previous night's discoveries, other
hitherto insignificant details recurred to his mind which
appeared to give it weight almost against his will.
He pondered in silence until they reached their destina-
tion, when that presented itself which for the time being


THE CARE MARKED “NOEL’” 67
drove all former speculation and conjecture from his thoughts.
“Ah, it's you, Mr. McCarty!” Calvin Norwood greeted
him in unmistakable relief. “You came straight back with
Billings? Good! There has been a curious development
in the case and I knew you would be interested. Oliver
came to me privately and I persuaded him to let me send
for you, assuring him that you were discretion itself. He has
telephoned to Mr. Terhune and I am afraid it will be our
duty to take Inspector Druet also into our confidence when
he comes, but I was anxious for your opinion.”
McCarty's eyes sparkled. -
“A curious development!’” he repeated. “And what
might it be, Mr. Norwood?”
“Come into the library and Oliver will show you him-
self.” -
They found Oliver Jarvis alone in the somber room star-
ing down at the table before him on which stood two card-
board boxes, open. There was a curious tenseness in his
drooped figure and the face he turned to them at their
coming had aged ten years overnight. It was pallid and
deeply lined, his blue eyes dull and sunken and the last
traces of youth seemed to have vanished utterly from him.
“Good-morning, McCarty,” he bowed. “It was good of
you to come. I thought I could keep this thing quiet, but
in view of the circumstances Mr. Norwood has shown me
that it would be inexpedient. I only want to keep it from
the press, if I can; not on my own account, although there
will be notoriety enough, God knows, but because of her.”
“I know, sir,” McCarty responded quietly. “The boys
will get nothing from me, you can bank on that. What is
it that's come up?”
With a gesture Jarvis indicated the table and McCarty
advanced and looked into the larger of the two boxes.
There, banked in wads of soft, white oiled paper, he beheld


68 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
a huge, circular, frosted cake, its top elaborately iced in
the highest perfection of the confectioner's art.
“A birthday cake!” he exclaimed.
“Not birthday, Christmas,” Jarvis corrected him, gravely.
“That word “Noel' traced in pink icing in the center means
‘Christmas” in French, you know.”
“Does it, now!” McCarty still stared. “It’s a trifle
early for the compliments of the season, but what has it
to do with the case?”
“I found it on the top shelf of the closet in my wife's
dressing-room this morning,” Jarvis replied slowly. “If
you will look at it closely you will see that it is slightly
dusty and the decorations are crumbling in places; it was
evidently not made this year and I do not know how long
it has been in my wife's possession, nor for what purpose
she preserved it. I have never seen nor heard of it before.”
“It looks like a tombstone!” McCarty shivered. “For
all it's a fancy-looking affair and must have cost a lot of
money, I thought it was only wedding cakes that people
preserved a bit of, for a keepsake.”
“Exactly,” Calvin Norwood remarked drily. “That is
what puzzles us both.” -
“And 'twas in Mrs. Jarvis' dressing-room you found it?”
McCarty pursued.
Jarvis nodded.
“I suppose I had no right to enter her apartments after
Inspector Druet had locked them up and taken away the
keys, but I didn't stop to think of that,” he admitted. “I
walked the floor all last night, racking my brains for a
solution of this frightful thing, and when morning came I
could not endure it any longer. I felt that I must get into
that dressing-room again myself and search for some clue.
to the vile wretch who had murdered her! Then I re-


THE CAKE MARKED “NOEL’” 69
called that I had a duplicate set of keys to my wife's apart-
ments in my desk, and used them.
“The dressing-room was just as we had left it, of course,
all in the wildest disorder and confusion and although I
searched with the utmost care I found nothing, until I came
to examine the closet which opened from it. The lower
portion was filled with wearing apparel but on the top shelf
far back in one corner behind bundles of disused clothing
and that sort of thing I discovered these two boxes.
“The cake astonished me for I could not imagine where
it had come from, nor why my wife had not told me of it,
but when I opened the second box I felt as if the very ground
had given way beneath my feet! I boasted last night to
all of you that my wife's life was an open book and that
she possessed no secrets from me, but now—my God! I
don't know what to think!”
The second box was smaller than the first and compara-
tively flat. It contained what appeared to be square sheets
cut from ordinary wrapping paper and covered with raised
characters of a yellowish, brittle consistency like dried
dough. ***
“What in the world—” McCarty picked up the
topmost sheet to examine it more closely when Norwood's
voice, fairly cracking with excitement, sounded over his
…thoulder.
“Don’t you see what it is? An anonymous letter, the
simplest and yet most ingenious that could possibly be
contrived! The words are formed by letters of the alpha-
bet made of Italian paste, which have been glued to the
paper. They are sold practically everywhere for use in
soups. The wonder of it is that it has never occurred to
anyone before to make use of such a method, for the ingre-
dients are easily obtainable, and at the same time it abso-


70 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
lutely baffles any attempt to trace it. This is unique in
the annals of crime!”
“It is that!” McCarty agreed soberly. “”Tis a trick that's
never been tried before and an uncommon clever one.
But what's he got to say for himself?—‘All is known. Pay
or I tell. First warning.’—Look here, sir! You've no
idea what this means?”
He had turned to Oliver Jarvis and the younger man
burst out passionately:
“What can it mean, except that my wife was being black-
mailed? Good God! Evelyn blackmailed! Yesterday I
would have knocked any man down who dared suggest such
a foul thing, and now I am trying to make myself believe,
to accept ” He broke off and turned away with clenched
hands, only to whirl swiftly about upon, them. “Under-
stand this, though! My wife has been guilty of no wrong!
Whatever it was for which she was being persecuted, what-
ever revelations may come of which we are ignorant now,
I would stake my life upon it that my wife is an innocent
victim! You knew her, Uncle Cal; you know that no
secret could have weighed upon her conscience, she could
have done nothing deliberately which would have placed
her in a position where it would have been necessary for
her to buy the silence of blackmailers!”
There was an agony of entreaty in his tones as though
despite his loyal defense of the woman he loved, a doubt
had arisen within him which he felt helpless to combat alone,
and Calvin Norwood responded heartily:
“We know that, dear boy! Evelyn was the soul of
honor and truth. No one who had ever come within range
of her sweet, gentle influence could doubt that for a mo-
ment. Whatever difficulty she found herself in was not
of her making, we may be sure of that. Oh, why did she
not come to us frankly, when this trouble started? If


THE CARE MARKED “NOEL’” 71
she felt some natural hesitation in approaching you, her
husband, why did she not confide in me?”
“There's nothing in this that names Mrs. Jarvis her-
self,” observed McCarty reflectively.
“But that is only the first.” Norwood pointed to the
box. “There are two more. Read them.”
McCarty took up the second crackling sheet and read:
“Does lady forget date of next Sat. night? 5ooo under
rose bush yard then or all told.”—Humph! he got down
to business then, all right!” he commented. “There's a
rose bush in your back-yard, Mr. Jarvis?”
“Yes. An old-fashioned moss rose. We brought the
slip from Scotland, and planted it together—” his voice
faltered.
“I’ve no wish to pry into your private affairs, sir,” re-
marked McCarty after a pause. “But you said last night
that Mrs. Jarvis never kept a large amount of money in
the house. Five thousand dollars is quite a sum. Would
she be able to lay her hands on that much at any time
without consulting you about it?”
Jarvis pondered for a moment and a startled expression
came over his face.
“Why, yes,” he stammered at length. “That is, during
the past year. I—I transferred some of her holdings to
her, negotiable bonds and securities that formed a part
of her inheritance from her guardian, Mr. Chartrand.”
“Why did you do that?” McCarty noted his hesita-
tion. “Did she ask it of you?”
“Yes, but I–I thought nothing of it at the time,”
replied Jarvis, adding hastily, “but read the last, McCarty.
It is evident that my poor wife rebelled in some way at
the exorbitant demand.”
“‘Lady can and will,” McCarty read slowly. “1,000
under bush 26 each month Small price safety. Will tell
*


72 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
all first time money not there. Final warning.” It’s
blackmail, all right, and it looks as though Mrs. Jarvis must
have fell for it, sir, unless the feller got cold feet. You had
no threatening letters yourself, I suppose, nor offers to
sell you any information?”
“Certainly not! I tell you I had no possible intimation
of such a thing until I came upon those boxes this morning.”
The earnestness in Jarvis' tone was unmistakable. “My
first impulse was to destroy their contents utterly, to put
them forever from my mind, but the next instant I realized
that could never be. I should know no peace, night or
day, until I had sifted the matter to the bottom and learned
the truth.” \
“Did you speak of them to any of the servants? That
girl, Margot, for instance?”
“No, I telephoned Mr. Terhune but, of course, I had
to speak guardedly and I don't think he gathered how ur-
gently I required his presence. I did not wait for him
anyway, but came over at once to consult Mr. Norwood.
I’m sure the cake must have had something to do with it,
too; this cake marked ‘Noel' »
“Good-morning, gentlemen.” Terhune's even tones
sounded from the doorway and they turned as he entered
with Inspector Druet close behind him. “Ah, McCarty,
you here? Still interested in last night's little affair, I
see.”
The observation was none too good-natured, and the
ex-Roundsman flushed.
“I’m here because Mr. Norwood asked me, sir. Good-
morning, Inspector.” He turned pointedly to his old supe-
rior. “Mr. Jarvis has come on something that'll surprise
you here. It's a little matter of blackmail—”
“What?” The Inspector and Terhune both advanced
and the latter's keen eye seized upon the evidence before


THE CARE MARKED “NOEL’” 73
them. Taking up one of the papers, he glanced swiftly
over it.
“Communications, of macaroni paste!” he exclaimed.
“Mr. Jarvis, what does this mean?”
Jarvis explained and the newcomers listened in silence
while he told them of his discovery and showed them the
crumbling Christmas cake and the three missives.
When the account was finished Inspector Druet turned
again to the door with an air of finality.
“If there is anyone who knows about this affair beside
the blackmailer himself, it is the maid, Margot,” he an-
nounced. “I wasn't satisfied with her explanations last
night, but now I am going to get the truth from her if I
have to put her through the third degree. Wait here, please,
all of you.”
With his departure Terhune turned reprovingly to his
client.
“If you had put me in possession of these facts imme-
diately upon their discovery, Mr. Jarvis,” he began, “I
should have been able to handle the situation far more
advantageously than now, when it is practically taken out
of my hands. The obvious course will be to look into your
wife's finances at the earliest possible moment, but there
are other steps xy
Norwood drew McCarty aside.
“What do you make of it?” he asked anxiously. “I
cannot believe that such a shadow rested upon her, and
yet 22 -
“Wait till we hear what the girl's got to say for her-
self,” McCarty advised, adding somewhat irrelevantly,
“What's become of your secretary, sir, the young French-
man?”
“He is somewhere about; in the museum, I fancy,”
Norwood reponded, with a trace of obvious discomfiture.


CHAPTER VII
THE THREE WARNINGS
&&. HAVE known for nearly a year that Madame was in
I trouble,” Margot began. “Deep trouble, which
grew greater as time passed, but I never dreamed that
danger threatened her or I should have told Monsieur, I
swear it! No one can ever know how heavenly kind Madame
has been to me, how much I loved her. Madame was second
only to the good God himself! After the Germans came
and my home was destroyed, my parents killed before my
eyes and I fled with others to England, Madame found me
and was, oh! so good! She brought me to this great country
with her, and I–I would have given my life for her, Messieurs!
When she bade me be silent and speak to no one of the trouble
which had come to her, I vowed that not a word would ever
pass my lips. It is the thought that I might perhaps have
saved her had I disobeyed which is tearing my heart!”
She paused with her hands clasped convulsively at her
breast while the slow, heavy tears gathered in her eyes.
Oliver Jarvis was staring at her as if transfixed but Inspector
Druet moved impatiently, and she forced herself to con-
tinue.
“It was just two days before Christmas last year, when
the box came. Not that one—” she pointed to the recep-
tacle containing the huge cake, “but another covered with
white glazed paper with gilt edges and corners, such as con-
fectioners use, only there was no name upon it nor card
75


76 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
within. It arrived late in the afternoon, I remember, when
Madame, worn out with the last of her Christmas shopping,
was having tea alone in her own sitting-room. Henri called
me and placed the box on my hands and I took it to
Madame. Many gifts had arrived during the day and be-
lieving it to be just another like the rest, Madame opened it.
“The cake was very beautiful then, Messieurs, snowy
and fresh and imposing; it appeared fit for a fête, a banquet,
and I exclaimed over it until some—how do you say!—some
intuition born of Madame's lack of response made me glance
at her face. Mon Dieu! I shall never forget her nor the
horror in her eyes as she sat there in her low chair staring
at the innocent cake upon the table before her as though it
were some monster! For a long time she did not speak and
then when her voice came it was so changed that I scarcely
recognized it as hers. -
“Where did this come from, Margot?” she asked of
me. “There may be some mistake. Go to Henri and find
out how it came here.”
“But Henri could only tell me that a messenger—a
young boy, not in uniform—had brought it and had said
quite distinctly that it was for Meeses Oliver Jarvis. Henri
had signed no receipt and the boy had gone instantly away
without waiting.
“When I returned to Madame's sitting-room to tell her
I found that she had torn the box all apart in her search for
some name, some message, but none was there. For a long
time she did not speak and I waited, not knowing what to
do for it seemed that Madame was almost in a trance. At
last she roused herself and said:
“‘Margot, find another box and we will put the cake
away. It is just a-a joke which someone has played on
me, but Monsieur must know nothing about it. Do you
understand? Do not mention it to Henri again or to any


THE THREE WARNINGS 77
of the other servants. Not a word of this must reach Mon-
sieur's ears.’”
As the girl paused Jarvis wrenched his eyes from her
face as though with a visible effort and turning, walked
abruptly to the window where he stood with his back to the
others, staring out unseeingly at the driving downpour of
rain.
Margot gazed after him with a sort of dumb appeal, as
if mutely imploring pardon for the pain she was inflicting
upon him, but he was oblivious to her glance and sighing,
she resumed:
“I took this box which you see here—and which had
come but that morning with a purchase of Madame's—
placed the cake in it and put it away as she directed, in a
corner of the highest shelf in the closet in her dressing-room.
Madame did not speak of it again, but from that moment a
change came upon her. I, watching her, could see it as no
one else could. Through all the holiday entertainments
she was feverishly gay, but it was as if the heart had gone
out of her, and often when I came with her coffee in the
morning, I knew that she had not slept." I did not com-
prehend why the mere gift of the cake should have so
changed Madame, but as time went on it grew more marked.
Only in the presence of Monsieur was Madame like her old
self, but when she was alone with me one could see the effort
it cost her.
“She never disturbed the cake but many times I have
seen her eyes straying to that closet and it seemed always
that she listened and waited. Once, about two months
after its arrival I ventured to ask Madame if I should not
throw the cake away, pretending to come upon it in the closet
as though I had only then remembered it, but she ordered
me quite sharply not to touch it nor refer to it again and I
obeyed.


78 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Another month passed and Madame was at last re-
covering her spirits and forgetting, I think, the shock of
whatever that strange gift had meant, when just after
Easter it came; the first of those letters mystérieux! It
was not in an envelope but had been slipped between two
squares of cardboard and wrapped in plain brown paper,
with no name or address upon it. One night at ten o'clock
as I sat mending and waiting for Madame to return from
a dinner, Etta, the housemaid, brought it to me. She had
been out for the evening and said that when she reached
the basement vestibule she found a man waiting there in
the darkness. He told her he had rung the bell but no one
responded; that he had been sent to deliver the packet to
Meeses Jarvis, and he placed it in her hands. Etta brought
it to me and I did not tell her that the man had lied, but
he had not rung the bell.
“I felt a sad misgiving but I dared not keep the packet
from Madame and when she returned I gave it to her.
She grew very white, but said no word as she tore the
paper, lifted a square of cardboard and glanced beneath it.
The next instant she fell in a crumpled heap to the floor.
She had fainted.
“I called no one, though I was very frightened, for I knew
Madame would not want anyone to be told. I did not
pry, Messieurs, but as I worked over her I could not avoid
seeing the paper which lay beside her on the floor, nor
reading those words of macaroni paste letters. When
Madame opened her eyes at last and looked into mine she
saw that I knew. -
“She told me then that she was in trouble, that there
was something which she could not explain to me, but
Monsieur must never, never know. If any more messages
I must bring them straight to her, and I must give
promise that I would not allow one word of it to


80 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
that it was made of macaroni paste, like the first, but not
what words the letters formed.
“I feared Madame would be ill again but in the morning
she was stronger and in the days that followed she seemed
more cheerful and almost gay. Two weeks passed, and
then one morning Madame came here to see Mademoiselle
Joan, through the little door in the wall. When she returned
I saw the old hunted look in her eyes and in her hand she
held a packet like the others. It had been tossed over the
wall at her feet as she came back through the garden.”
“Over the wall!” repeated Jarvis. “Then the people
next door—”
“They had gone away for the summer, Monsieur,”
Margot interrupted quietly. “The house was closed and
boarded up. You and Madame were planning then to go
to Maine—” -
“I remember. That was early in June. But my wife
changed her mind suddenly and refused to leave the city;
she insisted on remaining here all during the hot weather
in spite of my remonstrance, doing war work—” Jarvis
paused with a groan and his eyes fell again upon the letters
on the table. “I understand, now! That wretched money
had to be under the rose bush on the twenty-sixth of every
month; she dared not go away! Oh, my poor girl, if she
had only told me the truth! I would have forgiven any-
thing! Had there been murder itself on her hands, she
was my wife and I would have defended her against all
the world!” *
“I know nothing of any money, Monsieur, save that
demand for it in the first letter,” Margot said. “I do not
know whether Madame paid any or not; she took me no
further into her confidence. But no more letters came that
I heard of after that third one and in the early autumn,
as you know, Monsieur, Madame began talking of going
--


THE THREE WARNINGS 81
2.
to France. 'I thought Madame had destroyed the letters
until one day, a short time ago, I came upon a second box,
sealed, beside the one which contained the cake upon the
shelf. I did not dare speak of it to Madame; indeed I did
not want to! She was so happy at the prospect of leaving
America that I had no desire to recall her trouble which I
believed was safely past. And then, only last Wednesday
night, it descended upon her again.” -->
“Last Wednesday!” Calvin Norwood repeated, aghast.
“But that was the night of your little dinner, Oliver!
The evening was a great success and I have never seen
Evelyn in better spirits! What could have happened then?”
“Was it another letter?” demanded Jarvis. “Did any-
one try to see her, any intruder?” —
“I do not know, Monsieur. I saw no letter, no one.
Ionly know that when it was all over and the guests departed,
I went to Madame's room to arrange her for the night and
found her huddled upon the hearth before the little grate
fire in her sitting-room in a worse state of collapse than I
had ever seen her. She did not hear me when I spoke to
her, did not seem to know me when I touched her, and the
face she lifted to mine was like the face of one already dead;
all but her eyes! They were bright and gleaming with a
—a terrible light in them! Mon Dieu! But I was frightened!
It was your knock upon her door that aroused her, Monsieur.
She replied to you quietly enoug 72
“I remember!” Jarvis murmured brokenly. “She told
me that she had a headache and had just taken a sleeping
powder and I bade her “good-night’ without disturbing
her. If I had only known!”
Margot shook her head sadly.
“Madame had taken no powder. I got her to bed at
last, but I dared not leave her. She never knew that I
rested all night on the couch in her sitting-room and many


82 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
times I rose and went in to her. She was lying staring
straight up at the ceiling and that terrible look never left
her face until just at dawn, when sleep came to her at last.
Isat beside her then, watching, and once she started up with
a wild cry but my hand upon her arm quieted her, and she
slept again.”
“Did she say anything when she started up like that?”
asked Inspector Druet suddenly. “Was it just a cry or
could you distinguish any words?”
“I think, but I cannot be sure, Monsieur, that she cried
out something about “letters.’ It returned later to my mind
and I wondered if she could have meant those three strange
messages which had caused her so much suffering and which
I had hoped were forgotten. In the morning I crept away
to my room, fearful to have Madame find me there when
she wakened, lest she think I had been spying upon her.
She slept late but when she rang for her coffee the gentle,
sane look had returned to her eyes, only behind it lay the
deep trouble which she could not hide from me. And it
never left her! She tried to deceive me; even yesterday
when she pleaded a headache, she was so bright, so fever-
ishly animated that I felt it was not true. That is why,
when she did not ring for me and I found her gone I was
almost mad with anxiety! I feared in my heart that harm
had come to her because of this secret trouble, this black-
mailer, and as the hours lengthened and she did not return
I was beside myself! The house stifled me and I went
into the garden where Monsieur came upon me. The instant
I saw his face I knew that the trouble which had been
hanging over Madame for so long had come at last!”
“Margot, you are keeping something back!” Inspector
Druet advanced sternly. “Why haven't you told us the
whole truth?’”
“But I have, Monsieur, I swear—”


THE THREE WARNINGS 83
“Don’t lie, girl! Your mistress was killed in her own
dressing-room, strangled to death after a struggle which
practically wrecked the room! And her death occurred
before six o'clock last night; we have the Medical Examiner's
word for that.”
“There is some mistake, Monsieur.” Margot eyed him
calmly. “When I went to Madame's rooms at half-past
six she had gone, but all was in order. The dressing-room
was undisturbed.”
“Do you realize, my girl, that in persisting in such a
story you are drawing suspicion upon yourself? The room
was ransacked, your mistress killed and her body removed
from the house, and you are still attempting to claim that
the room was in order immediately thereafter, when we
ourselves found it later bearing unmistakable signs of the
struggle that had taken place!” S--
“I claim it only because it is the truth, Monsieur,” Mar-
got reiterated. “Why should Ilie about a thing which must
certainly have been discovered? Had I not many hours
before you came in which to put the room in order if I desired
to conceal the fact that a-a struggle, such as you say, had
taken place there? I swear that all was as usual when I
entered at half-past six and again an hour later when I laid
out Madame's garments for the night, and took the lingerie
and work down to the basement dining-room to mend. If,
when you came, you found the room ransacked I know noth-
ing of it. I did not leave the basement again until I went
into the garden.”
The girl spoke with respectful repression but her voice
quivered, an angry light darted from her eyes and in each
pallid cheek a small, scarlet spot burned.
Inspector Druet shrugged and motioned toward the door.
“Very well, my girl, if that's the line you mean to take,
we are wasting time here. I want you to come with me.”


84 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“I am under arrest, Monsieur?” She drew herself up
proudly.
“Not yet,” the Inspector retorted significantly. “You’re
coming back to the other house and see for yourself how
useless it is for you to persist in your lies. You've told us
half the truth; you’d better come across with the rest or
it will be the worse for you.”
Margot bowed her head. _*
“I will be ready, Monsieur.” Then all at once she
looked full and steadily into his eyes. “But I have not
lied! I have told the truth—all, all the truth. I swear
it on Madame's memory!”


CHAPTER VIII
THE RETURN of JoAN Norwood
T Inspector Druet's suggestion Oliver Jarvis accom-
panied him and the maid back to his own house.
Terhune, murmuring something about the interests
of his client, prepared to follow and Norwood turned to
McCarty.
“Don’t you want to come, also? I am going whether
the Inspector desires my presence or not. I am Oliver's
closest friend and I do not propose to be barred from this
investigation by any jealousy on the part of the police.
I’ll show them yet that my life-long study of crime is of
more value than their haphazard, bull-dozing methods!
How about it, Mr. McCarty?”
“Thanks, sir, but I’ll not be going over there again.
'Tis different with me, and being as I’ve left the force I
don't want to get in Dutch with the Inspector by butting
in. If you don’t mind, I'll wait here for you. There are
one or two little points sticking in my mind and I’d like
to look over the ground again.”
“The museum? Go as far as you like,” responded his
host affably. “Victor will unlock the door for you if he's
not there already. But don’t leave till I return; I want
to talk this all over with you.”
Left alone, McCarty, approached the table where the
blind secretary's typewriter stood and selecting a page or
two at random from the scattered notes examined them.
85


86 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
The subject-matter was unintelligibly scientific to him but
the typing itself was as precise and cleancut as though the
young man's sight were unimpaired. A book printed in
the Braille system for the blind lay open beside the ma-
chine; it was in some foreign language, presumably French;
but the spacing of the lines denoted poetry, and McCarty
whistled softly to himself as he replaced it.
Leaving the library he made his way down the hall,
treading as lightly as his solid weight permitted. The
museum door stood ajar and through the narrow aperture
he could see a man's form bent over a case in the far corner
between the fireplace and the window. Tiptoeing, McCarty
had reached the threshold before the figure turned revealing
the thin, keenly sensitive countenance of Captain Marchal.
“Who is it?” he asked in a high strained voice.
“'Tis me, Captain; Timothy McCarty, that had dinner
here last night with Mr. Norwood and yourself.”
The Frenchman bowed gravely.
“You will forgive my surprise, Monsieur McCarty. I
did not hear you enter.” His tone was unfailingly courteous
but there was a shade of hauteur in his bearing as though
he resented the intrusion upon his solitude.
“I’ve been having a little talk with Mr. Norwood and
the rest of them in the library but they've all gone over
to Mr. Jarvis' house now, and Mr. Norwood told me I could
look about a bit in here,” McCarty explained.
“Here?” The secretary raised his eyebrows. “You will
find nothing more here, Monsieur, to be of use in solving
this most terrible affair. Were you not with the others
last night? Do you not know that the crime was com-
mitted in Madame Jarvis' own home?”
He spoke with an eagerness which made McCarty's
eyes narrow speculatively but the latter replied in bland
nonchalance.
|


THE RETURN OF JOAN NORWOOD 87
“Still, 'twas here we found the body and I thought I’d
have a look at that window by daylight, but if I’m dis-
turbing you, Captain—?”
“Not at all, Monsieur.” The secretary closed the case
with a snap. “I was but rearranging some fingerprint
records. If I can be of any assistance to you »
“Fingerprints!” McCarty interrupted. “I didn't know
Mr. Norwood collected them, too!”
“He has here everything pertaining to the identifica-
tion of criminals and the investigation of crime.” Captain
Marchal pointed toward a distant corner. “You see those
astronomical instruments and charts upon that stand?
With them Monsieur Norwood can calculate what autumn
day corresponded in luminosity at dusk with a certain day
in spring and in this way he can study if necessary the scene
of a crime in autumn in order to discover if this or that
could be seen at a certain day in spring.”
“Can he, now?” McCarty rubbed his chin. “Have
they not enough evidence on the earth to help them find
a crook, without dragging in the heavens, too? Many’s
the time I’ve looked through a telescope at a nickel a throw
on the Island, but devil a thing could I see, though once
'twas because I had my hat hung on the end of it. Mr.
Norwood will be beating Terhune yet at his own game.
Howsomever, 'tis fingerprints I'm asking after, Captain
Marchal. Is it only criminals he's kept a record of?”
The secretary shook his head with a trace of impatience.
“No; at one time I believe Monsieur Norwood had a
toquade, a hobby of collecting those of his friends also, but
he is now more interested in handwriting specimens. Per-
haps, Monsieur, you would desire to have me show to
you P”
He turned suggestively toward another case, but McCarty
held his ground:


88 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“No, Captain; it's the fingerprints I’d like to see. Has
he a record of Mrs. Jarvis', by any chance?”
“It is possible, Monsieur; I do not know.” The secre-
tary shrugged. “Of the many impressions which Monsieur
Norwood took he has retained comparatively few for his
collection and I have not yet started to catalogue them.”
He opened the spring lock of the fingerprint case with
a small key which he carried and stepped aside.
“Voilà, Monsieur. You will perhaps desire to look
them over for yourself. I have no data concerning them
so I cannot be of assistance, but if there is anything else
in which I can aid your search you will find me in the
library.”
He bowed and departed, but McCarty spent little time
over the case in which he had evinced such interest. He
fingered a few of the slides and molds tentatively, then closed
the case and tiptoeing to the door, examined the lock with
minute care. Upon its surface about the keyhole a few very
fine angular scratches caught his eye and he nodded to
himself in satisfaction. The seemingly untenable thought
which had presented itself to him during his talk with the
butler on the way to the house was strengthening in prob-
ability with each point gained, yet he would have hesitated
to lay it before anyone else for serious consideration, so pre-
posterous would it have appeared.
A glance from the window showed him that the ladder
still remained propped against the ledge as it had been left
the night before, and leaving the museum he descended the
back stairs to the passageway leading to the yard.
Viewed through the slanting curtain of rain the ladder
seemed even more frail and insecure than it had previously
as it trembled and creaked in each gust of wind. Umbrella-
less, McCarty turned up his coat collar and advancing, shook


90 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES -
the bending supports of the ladder emitted a warning crack
and McCarty with a quick swing of his shoulder dropped
the bag of bricks with a squelching thud and crash into the
mud below. The sudden release from weight made the light
ladder rebound so swiftly that the climber was almost jarred
from his place, but he held on tenaciously. It had been a
close call, but he had pushed his experiment to the limit
of safety and for a moment he clung there gazing down with
immense satisfaction at the bricks tumbling in all direc-
tions from the burst bag.
He had proved his theory, even though he had all but
broken his neck in the effort and his purpose was
achieved.
Gingerly he felt his backward way down once more and
as his feet found the solid ground at last he heard the voice
of his host, Calvin Norwood, from just behind him:
“Well, McCarty, upon my soul!”
“Yes, sir.” McCarty turned hastily. “I near broke
your ladder.”
There was more satisfaction than regret in his tones
and Norwood peering at him from beneath his umbrella
remarked drily:
“So I observe. Why on earth were you carrying a load
of bricks up to the museum?”
“’Twas just a bit of an experiment, sir,” McCarty ex-
plained. “A fine mess I’ve made of your yard with the
bricks, too! I’d no notion the bag would burst so easy!”
“Well, never mind. Come into the house and let us have
a talk.” At arm's length Norwood held the umbrella over
his dripping guest and drew him into the passageway.
“You will be the better for a drop of something, too, man;
you're soaked to the skin!”
McCarty was nothing loath and in a few minutes he was
seated with his host before the cracking library fire, a steam-


THE RETURN OF JOAN NORWOOD 91
ing glass at his elbow and a fragrant cigar poised at an
argumentative angle between his lips.
“What do I think of the Inspector?” he repeated in
response to a query just voiced by the other. “He’s the best
man on the force to-day, sir. There's not much gets by him,
though to them that don’t understand his way of getting
results he might seem a trifle bull-headed. I worked under
him on many a case and it's seldom he falls down.”
“‘Bull-headed'!” Norwood repeated in his turn. “I
should say he was! It has never before been my privilege
to watch the inner workings of the police force from the
inception of a case, but I must admit I am disappointed.
These sledgehammer methods of Inspector Druet are cer-
tainly not getting him anywhere now; for all his bullying,
Margot is sticking steadfastly to her statement that Mrs.
Jarvis' dressing-room was undisturbed at eight o'clock last
night and her manner is so convincing that if I had not
seen the state it was in later with my own eyes, I declare
I would be inclined to believe her.”
“They’ve found nothing else, sir, in the dead lady's
rooms?” asked McCarty after a meditative pause.
“Nothing. I don't know what use the Inspector has
made of the glove you gave him last night—the one your
friend found on the top of the ladder—but I don't believe
it will prove of any value in the investigation.”
“No, sir?” McCarty's tone was a question and as the
other did not reply he went on: “”Tis an expensive one,
of foreign make, and it might be easy traced to the shop
that sold it.”
“But think of the number of men who walk into a shop,
buy a pair or two of gloves and take them away with them,”
Norwood objected. “There would be no possible way of
tracing them unless they were regular customers, and then
that glove, although originally good, was so worn and


92 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
soiled that it may have been kicking around some garage
for weeks and changed hands many times. For some
reason, Inspector Druet had turned his attention when I
left from Margot to the housemaid, Etta, but bullying won’t
have any effect on that girl.”
“Etta?” McCarty bent forward suddenly, both hands
outspread upon his knees. “The one that had her face
tied up, that was sick all yesterday?”
Norwood nodded.
“There's no sign of her toothache this morning, but
when the servants over there were told the truth—they
had to be, of course, when the body was brought home—
she collapsed. Everyone who came in contact with Mrs.
Jarvis loved her, you know, and though this girl had given
her a good deal of trouble, she seems after all to have wor-
shiped her mistress, like the rest.”
“What kind of trouble?” McCarty asked quickly.
“Well, she was insubordinate, and hot-tempered and
sullen by turns. I’ve heard Mrs. Jarvis speak of her dif-
ficulties with her to my niece, Joan. I don’t think she
would have kept the girl in her service but for the fact of
her relationship to the cook. She had to let Dick go.”
“Who is Dick?”
“Etta's brother. Oliver employed him for a time as
second man, but he was utterly no good; lazy, impudent,
drank up everything he could lay his hand on and drove old
Henry nearly crazy. Oliver told me he was surprised and
touched this morning at the grief Etta displayed, but it
evidently hasn't modified her temper. Inspector Druet
tried to cross-examine her about yesterday, making her
repeat what she told us all last night and she flared up at
him like a spitfire and then refused point blank to answer
another question.” Norwood chuckled. “He’ll have his
hands full with her.”
-


THE RETURN OF JOAN NORWOOD 93
“Mrs. Jarvis knew your friend Professor Parlowe, didn't
she?” McCarty remarked somewhat irrelevantly.
“Yes. It was she who brought me his invitation to
join him in his experiment yesterday,” the other responded.
“I was engaged when she dropped in on Tuesday afternoon
to tell me of it, but she spoke of it particularly on Wednesday
evening after her dinner party. She was always so in-
terested, poor dear child, in whatever interested her friends.
That was one of her greatest charms.”
McCarty removed his cigar and knocked the ash off
carefully on the hearth.
“Mr. Norwood, who was present at that dinner?”
“Let me see. It was just a small, informal affair, you
know. Beside Oliver, his wife and myself there were the
Blakes, the Gardners, Mrs. Hilton and the Fowlers, all
intimate members of their circle.”
“Who are they; those people?” persisted McCarty.
“What are they like?”
“The Blakes are a bridal couple; he's off to the front
in a fortnight.” Norwood explained indulgently. “The
Gardners are elderly; they were friends of Oliver's family.
Mrs. Hilton is a young widow, and the Fowlers are the
powder-works people. All quite above suspicion in this
affair, McCarty, I assure you.” -
º “What did they talk about, during the dinner?” McCarty
accepted the final observation with a nod. “You remem-
ber, sir, 'twas just after you'd all gone that Mrs. Jarvis
herself went to pieces, if that girl Margot is telling the
truth. If she'd no warning from outside and nobody else
got to her, there must have been something said that brought
her trouble back to her again; something to do with that
matter of blackmail.”
“That is quite impossible!” Norwood declared. “The
conversation was of the most general character, as I remem-


94 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
ber it, and it could not have had the most remote bearing
on whatever this secret trouble is which was preying on the
poor young woman's mind. She seemed as cheerful and
happy—” -*
He broke off and McCarty, watching him, saw a shadow
cross the older man's face.
“Was she so?” he asked. “Didn't her manner change
at all during the evening, Mr. Norwood? Was she just as
gay at the end as she was when the dinner started?”
“No; I can't say that she was,” the other admitted.
“It did occur to me that she grew very quiet all of a sud-
den; not sad nor troubled but just silent and abstracted.
It was during dinner, but I cannot remember what the sub-
ject under discussion was at the moment. It could only
have been some pleasant triviality. . Whatever caused Mrs.
Jarvis' change of mood was merely passing, for she quite
recovered her spirits before the evening was over.”
“Before I played the fool with that ladder awhile ago,
I was talking to Captain Marchal in the museum.” Mc-
Carty lowered his voice and glanced cautiously about him
but the secretary had not been in evidence since their return
to the house. “He tells me that you once made quite a
collection of your friends' fingerprints. Did you ever by
any chance, sir, take an impression of Mrs. Jarvis’?”
“Why, yes.” Norwood glanced up in surprise. “I
didn't keep the slide, of course, but the enlarged photo-
graph of it is there with the rest. What do you want it
for?”
“Oh, I just thought I'd like to see it,” McCarty responded
diffidently.
“Didn't Victor show it to you?” Norwood arose. “Come,
then, and I will. I collected scores but kept just twenty-
five aside from those of interest from a criminological stand-
point. I remember distinctly the occasion on which I


THE RETURN OF JOAN NORWOOD 95
obtained Mrs. Jarvis’ fingerprints; she didn't want me to
take them for some inexplicable reason, and her husband
teased her unmercifully about it.”
... As he spoke, he had led the way down the hall to the
museum and McCarty asked:
“When was this, Mr. Norwood?”
“Oh, about four years ago; just after their return from
abroad. Here are the photographs. As you see, each one
is plainly marked on the back—” -
He shuffled through the handful of prints which he took
from the case McCarty had previously examined and the
latter waited expectantly, but his host shook his head.
“This is very odd. Mrs. Jarvis' prints are missing,
and they are the only ones that have been mislaid. I told
you I had twenty-five such records; there are only twenty-
four here, and hers are not among them.” He eyed his
companion in bewilderment. “I–I don't know what to
make of it!”
“Maybe 'tis in some other part of the case, mixed up
with those slides,” suggested McCarty. There was a curious
tenseness in his manner. -
“No; it is not here, anywhere. Really this is most
extraordinary! I was showing it, together with the others
to Professor Parlowe only the other day. I must ask Victor
at once—”
“Uncle Cal! I’ve come home!”
At the sound of the fresh, clear, young voice incongru-
ously joyous in that room where tragedy and death had
stalked but a few short hours before, both men turned to the
doorway.
On the threshold there appeared a pretty, fair-haired
girl, her blue eyes dancing with mischievous delight, her
hands extended for the welcome she knew would greet her.
Just behind her stood a tall, broad-shouldered masculine


96 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
figure, with hair as light as hers and a small blonde mustache
lifted in a half smile.
“Joan!” Norwood's voice was hushed but filled with
emotion as he advanced to the girl. “My dear, what
brought you home? You—you cannot have received my
letter so soon!”
“I haven’t had a line from you in days, but I wanted
to surprise you!” She faltered and with a little gesture
drew her companion forward. “Uncle Cal, I've something
to tell you, and, oh! I want you to be happy about it, because
I am!”
“Then you don’t know? You haven’t heard?” Norwood
stammered, ignoring in his troubled preoccupation the signifi-
cance of her words. “My poor child—”
“I haven't heard anything!” The gay, heedlessly
joyous tones interrupted him. “But just wait till you hear
my news! Uncle Cal, this is Eric Vivaseur, and though
you've never met him before I know you are going to be
very good to him because I—I have promised to be his
Wife!”


* CHAPTER DY
THE SECOND GLOVE
ge 3 WAS a fine time to be springing a fiancé on the
old man!” commented Dennis Riordan, as the
glowing embers from his pipe sizzled on the still
wet pavement. “This is his unlucky week for fair; a
murdered body found in his museum, and a man with a name
like a dime novel tacked on to the family. How did he take
it?”
“Dazed, like,” McCarty responded. “He shook hands,
but his mind was not on it, and whilst I was trying to make
a getaway without being noticed, the young lady came out
of her happy trance and saw there was something wrong.
‘What is it, Uncle Cal?’ she asked in a kind of a frightened
whisper.
“‘Come into the library, both of you,' Norwood said.
‘McCart 2
“I’m going, sir,’ I told him. “I’ll look in on you later.’
And I beat it, the young man staring after me in a vacant
sort of a way and well he might! From the reception he
got he must have thought he was in a bughouse family.”
It was late afternoon and a pale, watery sun had struggled
through the clouds. McCarty had been unable longer to
resist the lure of friendly confab and he and Dennis stood
just within the door of Engine House oz3 while he took a
last regretful pull at his cigar stump and then flung it into
the gutter. As they turned to climb the stairs to Dennis'
quarters above, the latter exclaimed:
“By the powers! Is it tramping across country you've
97


98 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
been, on a day like this? Your boots are an inch thick with
mud!”
“Are they so?” inquired McCarty with dignity. “I
must have got it in the Norwood yard this noon when I was
fooling around with the ladder.”
“The ladder? And what were you doing with it?”
“Carrying a load of loose brick up to the museum window,”
responded the other, adding in immense satisfaction, “I
figured my own weight and I added the bricks by guess,
in what our friend Terhune would have called a scientific
experiment, and the ladder all but broke under it, just as
I thought it would.”
Dennis nodded comprehendingly.
“If you'd asked me, I could have told you without your
risking your neck and your new suit that that ladder never
bore the weight of two people at once, and one of them
dead, last night,” he observed. “In spite of Terhune's
theory and the lock of black hair caught on the window
frame, Mrs. Jarvis' body was never brought in that way.”
“I’m not so sure,” McCarty retorted enigmatically.
“But there's a lot of things in this case that contradict
each other flat, and it's what them that's most concerned
haven't done and said, more than what we've got out of
them, that makes it such a puzzle. Do you mind the way
I used to work backward, now and again when I was on
the force? That's the way I’d tackle this case, now, if I
had the handling of it.”
“It looks to me as if they'd said altogether too much,”
Dennis demurred. “A pack of lies, I'd call most of it.
Why is this girl Margot sticking to it that the dressing-room
was in order at eight o'clock when at twelve we found it
looking as if the German army had been through it?”
“For a simple reason that hasn't struck the Inspector
nor yet Terhune; she may be telling the God's truth,”


THE SECOND GLOVE 99
returned McCarty dryly. “There's a lot can happen between
eight and twelve.”
“For the love of Pete!” Dennis' eyes bulged. “Do
you mean that the poor lady wasn’t killed at all when we
thought? That maybe it all happened whilst we were
sitting there in the dining-room at Mr. Norwood's, talking
so grand and scientific about crime, and that poor thing
being laid out under the very roof–" ~2
“Hold yourself, Denny,” interrupted his companion.
“I didn't say that. 'Twas the state of the dressing-room
I was remarking on. Mrs. Jarvis, dead or alive, might
have been gone from it and it still be in order at eight o'clock.
The attempt at robbery, or the upsetting of the room to
make it look like robbery, could have taken place any time
between then and half-past ten, when the cook and the
butler came home.” --~~ -
“You think somebody put up a game? That there was
no robbery at all?” Dennis' tone was awestruck.
“I don’t know what to think about it,” McCarty replied
frankly. “There were the two girls, one upstairs in bed,
the other sewing in the basement; that is, if you can be-
lieve them. It's not likely that one or the other would
hear nothing, though 'tis a solidly built old house, with
the walls a foot thick. Of the two of them, the one up-
stairs stood the best chance of hearing what went on, being
nearest, but whatever they know, they're keeping quiet.”
“Mac, what were you getting at when you said that
Mrs. Jarvis might have been gone from that room dead
or alive? You don't mean she walked out of it? That
she wasn't killed there, but maybe over in the other house,
after all?” -* *
“Corpses don't dress themselves,” retorted McCarty.
“If you remember, Denny, when we found the body in
the museum, it was dressed in a dark purple silk, and the
º,
57400,


100 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
scarf that had choked the breath out of her was blue. Mar-
got told us about getting Mrs. Jarvis undressed and into
that wrapper thing before she left her in the afternoon
and we all saw it there in the bedroom later. Is it likely
that Mrs. Jarvis laying down with a sick headache and
hearing a burglar fumbling around in the next room would
have waited to dress herself again before investigating, or
would the burglar after he'd killed her have gone to the
trouble? There's another thing, too. What was Margot
doing in the back-yard late at night when we surprised her?”
“Getting the air, she said,” observed Dennis. “She
was worrying about Mrs. Jarvis »
“Then why wasn't she waiting for her by the front door,
if she expected her to come home that way from the dinner
party?” demanded the other. “Why was she skulking in
the yard unless she knew or suspected that her mistress
had gone over to the other house?”
“Then she's in on the whole deal, the blackmail and
all?” Dennis cried. “What has it all to do with Norwood
and his house?”
“That's what we’ve got to find out. It's my opinion
that when the girl discovered her mistress gone, she looked
to see what clothes were missing so as to tell what she had
worn. Well she knew Mrs. Jarvis would not go out to
dinner in that plain little dress and as she was nowhere
in the house, Margot must have figured that the only place
she could have gone with no coat or hat was through the
little door in the fence to the Norwoods.”
“But why?” Dennis shook his head dubiously. “Why
should she lie to the maid and sneak over there like a thief
when she'd been used to running in and out at all hours
with never a question?”
McCarty shrugged.
“Ask me another,” he invited, “Why did she get rid


THE SECOND GLOVE 101
of all her own servants for the afternoon except the one
that was sick, and even invent an errand for Margot? / Why
was she so anxious that Mr. Norwood should go to his friend
Professor Parlowe at that particular time? I’d not be
surprised to hear it was she suggested to him to let his own
butler off to see his brother, that's in the hospital.”
Dennis rose from the side of his cot upon which he had
perched himself and his voice shook with suppressed excite-
ment.
“The secretary; that Frenchman! She didn’t try to
get him out of the way!” he exclaimed. “Mac, do you
think they had a date over there at Norwood's? He couldn't
have killed her! It would have taken more nerve than
he's got, blind as he is, for him to have walked in that room
with us after, and stood around waiting for us to discover
the body! Though at that, if you remember, he didn't
want to go with us, only old Norwood insisted and told
him to his face that he'd not been like himself all evening!
Do you suppose—” - - -
“I don't suppose anything,” McCarty observed. “I’m
trying to get at the facts. If she did go over to the Nor-
wood house for any private reason the secretary may have
had nothing to do with it and him being blind may never
even have known she was there.”
“Then she went to meet someone else, that's a cinch,”
Dennis grasped at another straw. “I thought last night
that nobody but a crazy loon would murder a woman and
then cart her body from one house to the next for no earthly
reason before making his own getaway. But look here,
Mac; if she was murdered in the Norwood house, who
was it got in her dressing-room later? Maybe she was
killed for something the murderer thought she would have
on her and not finding it, he took a desp'rate chance and
went over and burgled her house!”


102 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“And what would he be after?” McCarty asked in wither-
ing scorn. “That stale Christmas cake or the macaroni-
paste letters? Would the fellow be thinking that she car-
ried them around with her, that he decoyed her to the Nor-
wood house and murdered her for them?”
“Maybe 'twas for something else, entirely; something
that he did find, after, in her dressing-room,” suggested
Dennis, brightly. “What does the Inspector and Mr.
Terhune say about it?”
“I’ve had no speech with either of them, barring a little
note that I found at my rooms this afternoon, asking me to
call at Mr. Terhune's to-night.” McCarty paused, and
added carelessly, “I’ll have to send my regrets, I'm think-
ing; I’ve got another date, with a lady.”
For a full minute Dennis stared at his friend, then shook
his head lugubriously.
“Well, they say there's none like the old ones,” he ob-
served cryptically. “I’m surprised at you, though, Mac.
To begin sparking and holding hands at your time of life—”
“I’m holding no hands!” interrupted McCarty in haste.
“”Tis only the movies I’m taking her to; by the grace of
God it’s too late in the year, or I’d be let in for a trip to
Coney.”
Native delicacy struggled with curiosity for a moment
and then Dennis asked:
“And who is your lady friend, if it's not too private
a matter?” -
McCarty grinned.
“It's Miss Etta Barney.”
* Dennis greeted the announcement blankly but in the
pause that ensued a light broke over him.
“Etta!” he exclaimed. “The Jarvis' housemaid! Well
I knew you'd something up your sleeve, but a fine couple
you'll be, and her with her face out like a balloon—”


THE SECOND GLOVE 103
.
~
“Barring its natural shape, her face is all right,” an-
nounced McCarty. “”Twas so covered with bandages
last night that you couldn't tell whether it was swollen
or not but to-day you'd never believe there'd been a thing
the matter with her. 'Tis the quickest toothache cure that
ever I see.” |
“You’re thinking maybe she faked it?” Dennis chuckled.
“What would you with your blarney be finding out that
the inspector couldn't?” -
“There's more ways than one of killing a pig!” retorted
McCarty inelegantly. “He tried bullying her and got
nothing but a flare-up of temper for his pains. Of course,
she may know nothing but I thought it was worth a chance,
so after I left Mr. Norwood's this morning I walked around
the block to the Jarvis house and rang the basement bell.
Etta answered the door and she was suspicious and fighting
mad at first but I kidded her along; told her what a brute
the Inspector was and not to mind him, that I had no con-
nection with the force and that I’d liked her spirit, and the
way she stood up to him and—aw, well, the upshot of it is,
she's going to the movies with me to-night.” -
“And a dance she'll lead you, my bold Don John!”
predicted his companion. “If she knows anything, it'll
take more than a Saturday night movie to get it out of
her!”
“I’ll find out, if it means keeping steady company!”
McCarty declared. “After I'd made the date with her
I went and got some lunch and then strolled back to the
Norwood house. The Inspector had left for headquarters
but young Mr. Jarvis was on hand and Terhune, too. Miss
Joan had taken to her bed, sick with the shock of hearing
of her friend's death, but the fiancé, Vivaseur, was still
there and ’twas wonderful the way they'd all cottoned to
him, even Terhune; he'd made a regular hit with him;


THE SECOND GLOVE 105
remarked. “How are you, Riordan? Have you two been
busy solving last night's little affair?”
He spoke in bantering good humor, but McCarty noted
the lines of worry and fatigue in his former superior's face
and advanced quickly to him.
“I was wishful, to have a talk with you, sir. Would
you like to step around to my rooms?”
The Inspector nodded and turned to Dennis.
“I’ve just arranged with the lieutenant here to let you
off for to-morrow evening,” he announced. “Mr. Ter-
hune has planned a little experiment at his rooms and he
wants you to be present with the rest.”
“I’ll be no party to it, sir!” Dennis declared in some
alarm. “I’m a fireman, not a dummy for him to try out his
scientific stunts on. What's on my mind is my own busi-
ness and has nothing to do with what happened last
night; I'll not have him dragging it out of me with his
little recording machines!”
“Don’t mind him, sir. He'll come, right enough,”
McCarty assured the Inspector as they left the firehouse.
“He’s as wild as the rest of us to get at the truth of the
case. Not that I'm wanting to butt in, but it's got me
going worse than the Rowntree affair last year.”
“Has it?” Inspector Druet darted a keen, sidewise
glance at him. “What do you think of it, Mac, anyway?”
“That there's more than one holding out on you, sir,”
replied McCarty frankly. “Though who it was got in
the Jarvis house, nor how the poor creature's body came
to be on the operating table in Mr. Norwood's museum
instead of the skeleton is more than I can figure out.”
“You don't subscribe to Mr. Terhune's theory, then?”
“Well, there's difficulties in the way of it, sir.” McCarty
remembered his mud-bespattered legs and gave his over-


106 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
coat a surreptitious tweak in the back. “You’ve the
glove that Denny found on the ladder?”
“Yes.” The Inspector paused abruptly and then added,
“It was you who notified Oliver Jarvis over the telephone
of his wife's death, wasn’t it?”
“It was. That is, I didn't say what had happened.
When I got him at his club I just told him Mr. Norwood
wanted to see him right away.”
“How did he take it?” asked the other, as they halted
on the doorstep while McCarty produced his keys. “Was
he alarmed?”
“No, but surprised, like, as anybody might have been,”
the ex-Roundsman threw open the door. “There, sir!
First flight up and mind the gas bracket in the wall; I've
scraped my own head on it many's the time.”
* Inspector Druet obeyed instructions and presently they
were seated in McCarty's shabby, comfortable front room
with an open box of cigars between them and live coals
sputtering cheerily in the grate.
“How long had Jarvis been at the house when I got
there?” the inspector reverted to his subject once more.
“Only a few minutes, sir. Mr. Norwood himself met
him at the door and he said he’d come as quick as a taxi
could bring him and asked what was the matter. His voice
sounded concerned, like, but not alarmed; not as if he
was afraid of some trouble come to himself. Mr. Norwood
told him an accident had happened to his wife and then
broke down and sent him on into the museum. 'Twas
Mr. Terhune told him finally.”
“Did it appear to affect him very profoundly?”
“Affect him’?” McCarty repeated, regarding the other in
puzzled surprise. “You saw him yourself a minute after,
sir. He went stark crazy when he looked at her face and
turned on Mr. Norwood. We had to pry him loose! He


THE SECOND GLOVE 107
accused the poor old gentleman of having killed her, but
the next minute he came to his senses and apologized, and
then he broke down himself and fell on his knees by the
table; that was when you came in.” —-
There was an unspoken question in McCarty's attitude
as though he could not grasp the significance of the In-
spector's trend, but the latter did not leave him for long
in doubt.
“Mac,” he said, “is Oliver Jarvis one of those whom
you think is holding out on me?”
“Mr. Jarvis? No, sir! Wasn't it himself that found
the Christmas cake and those letters made of macaroni
paste? He could have destroyed them and no one the
wiser except Margot, and she would never have breathed
a word of them if she hadn’t seen it was all up. Instead
of hiding or getting rid of them, he's as anxious as anyone
to find out the meaning of it all. No, I'd hardly think
Mr. Jarvis was keeping anything back.”
Inspector Druet smiled, then his face grew thoughtful
and almost stern.
“If neither of the two maids admitted to the Jarvis
house the person who ransacked the dressing-room he
must have got in himself, and he didn't force an entrance,
because there are no marks; he let himself in with a key.
Who would be likely to have a key to that house?”
McCarty drew a deep breath.
“You don't mean that 'twas Jarvis himself—” he
began.
“I know I can trust you, Mac. I don’t want this men-
tioned to anyone until I have completed my investigation
along this line. If you remember, when Jarvis described
his movements of yesterday, he said that he had an appoint-
ment with his attorneys immediately after lunch, and had
gone from there to the French consulate, where he was


108 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
detained until past seven. As a matter of fact he did not
reach his attorney's office until three, left at four-thirty
and did not show up at the French consulate until after
six. So much for his alibi.”
“But why should he-” McCarty floundered help-
lessly. “There's no sense to it, sir! His own wife—”
. “Nevertheless, he makes no attempt to account for
that hour and a half.” The Inspector shrugged, and then
leaned forward. “I’ll tell you something else, Mac. You
asked me just now about the glove that Riordan found
on the ladder outside the museum window. Here it is;
and here's the mate to it!”
Before McCarty's amazed eyes he drew from his pocket
a pair of oil-stained brown gloves and threw them on the
table. Then he added:
“I found the second one this afternoon, among Oliver
Jarvis' motoring togs, in his own room!”


110 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
He paused expectantly and Dennis rose to the bait.
“'Tis as clear as your own the night, but much good
that'll do if his unholy contraptions work crooked. Do
you mind the time he all but accused you because in one
of the stunts he pulled you got excited and your pulse or
something registered a hundred and eighty in the shade?
I’m in no condition to have any tricks pulled on me, and
although I’m not a religious man and well you know it,
Mac, I misdoubt that this is tempting Providence on a
Sunday evening.” ---
“After the quiet little games you've sat in of a Sunday,
I guess you'll not be getting further odds on your chances
in the next world by what you'll be doing to-night,” McCarty
commented with withering sarcasm, “Come on, now. I
want a word with Mr. Terhune before the show starts.”
It still lacked twenty minutes of the hour appointed
when they reached the apartments of Wade Terhune. A
tall, lanky, studious-looking young man admitted them
and his pale, nearsighted eyes blinked behind their huge-
rimmed glasses as he beheld McCarty.
“How are you, Bassett?” The latter extended his
hand cordially. “”Tis like old times to be in on another
of Mr. Terhune's scientific try-outs. We're a trifle early,
I'm thinking—” -*
“That's all right, Mr. McCarty,’” the assistant responded.
“Mr. Terhune thought you might come before the rest and
he told me to send you right into the consulting-room.”
Dragging the reluctant Dennis in his wake, McCarty
proceeded down the hall and rapped smartly upon a door
at its farther end.
“Come in. Ah, it is you, McCarty!” Terhune glanced
up from a coil of silk-covered wire which he was manip-
ulating in the center of the great, bare room. “Good
evening, Riordan. Don't mind that! You haven’t hurt it.”


IN THE DARK 111
“That” was a screen which the unfortunate Dennis in
his effort to render himself as inconspicuous as possible,
had knocked over. Behind it was revealed a long table
on which stood a row of glass retorts not unlike huge
thermometers. Each contained a thin tube of ruby-colored
liquid and the outside glass was spaced off in degrees. A
series of separate wires led from the table to the floor and
disappeared beneath a rug. Upon the wall above the table
a huge square frame jutted out, enclosing what appeared
to be a chart of some sort upon which long perpendicular
lines had been marked, the spaces between headed with
numbers, ranging from one to seven. Separate wires ran
from the bottom of the frame to the base of each retort.
With a muttered ejaculation Dennis drew hastily away
from the mysterious mechanism he had so unexpectedly
exposed and Terhune turned to McCarty with a slight
smile.
“You spoke of one of my scientific experiments last
year as a ‘séance,’ my dear McCarty. The test we are
going to use to-night will be somewhat like one.” He ges-
tured to the circle of chairs which surrounded him. “I
have had very little time in which to prepare my apparatus,
but I do not expect a conclusive result to-night, just a mere
indication to prove that my hypothetical reconstruction
of the affair has a basis of fact. I’m sorry that you could
not come last night, for I wanted an opportunity to talk
over a certain phase of the case with you prior to this experi-
ment, but, after all, I fancy that you and I are not working
from different angles in this case.”
“I’m not working on it at all, sir; I'm an innocent by-
stander,” McCarty asserted blandly, ignoring Dennis' eye.
“Of course, I'm interested in it being as I was on hand,
when the body was found, but I've no more idea who mur-
dered the poor lady than a blind man.”


114 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
the slightest sound until the test is completed, but to listen
very closely and attentively. Captain Marchal, will you
sit here, please? I remember that at the dinner on Friday
night which had so tragic an aftermath I promised to arrange
to have you present at the next scientific experiment upon
which I might be engaged, but I confess I little imagined
under what circumstances I should keep my word.”
His tone was sympathetic, with just the right blend
of cordiality and courteous deference, yet McCarty glanced
sharply at him. The allusion to a blind man returned to
his mind and as its significance dawned upon him his eyes
sought the face of the secretary. He found it resolutely
composed, but haggard and weary with an almost waxen
pallor. Unutterable sadness, the numbed reaction of shock
and a settled melancholy he read there, but no sign of the
disquiet of a secret knowledge as yet unrevealed, at which
the criminalist had hinted.
As requested, the young Frenchman had seated himself
at Dennis' left and beside him Terhune placed Oliver Jarvis.
Then Calvin Norwood, Vivaseur, Inspector Druet and
McCarty, the latter at Dennis' right, completed the circle
of seven. When they had seated themselves, Terhune,
standing well outside the circle, reached over Norwood's
shoulder and picked up the wire. _-
“Mr. Norwood, will you kindly hold this bulb lightly
in your right hand, with the fingers closed over the top,
the palm encircling it and the thumb underneath? That
is it. The bulb, I may add, is perfectly harmless, an ordi-
nary rubber sphere filled to a certain degree with gas and
covered with an absorbent substance. Now will each of
you please take up the bulb nearest you on the wire and
hold it in the same manner, with the right hand only? Re-
member that under no condition must any of the bulbs be
dropped until the test is at an end. I am going to ask


IN THE DARK 115
s
you also to submit to being blindfold to ensure your un-
distracted concentration.” -
Bassett produced the folded white cloths and Terhune
made the rounds of the circle carefully adjusting each
bandage. He started tactfully with Oliver Jarvis, at Cap-
tain Marchal's left and finished with Dennis, at his right.
The Frenchman divined his action and smiled faintly in
acknowledgment.
“I am already blindfold, is it not so?” he remarked
quietly, adding something which McCarty failed to hear,
for Dennis' muttered declaration intervened:
“Never again unless I’m caught napping and subpoenaed!”
he asserted in a sepulchral undertone to his friend. “The
wire's across my knees and I can feel it sending a cold
thrill to the marrow of me! Mac, if anything should happen,
the Firemen's Benevolent Association—”
“Shut up, you loon!” McCarty growled. “Whist, now,
and listen. You're worse than a woman!”
Dennis received the scathing rebuke in injured silence
and Terhune's quiet, level tones sounded once more from
somewhere behind them.
“Try, please, to concentrate, to fix your minds only
on what you will hear, and to visualize the scene I am about
to describe to you. All ready, Bassett? Lights out!”
Utter blackness succeeded the gray film before McCarty's
eyes and in the tense silence which ensured the chair at
his left creaked audibly.
“We are now in a room with which you are all familiar.”
Terhune's voice had sunk to a droning monotone. “It
is large with a very high ceiling, a fireplace at the side,
and four windows at its farther end, reaching to the floor.
Cabinets and glass cases line the walls and above them are
shelves containing various bottles and jars, while still
higher, against the walls themselves, are hung assortments


116 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
of odd weapons, knives, clubs and firearms. In the center
of the room is a long table covered with a red and yellow
blanket which is stained in dark patches of brown.”
As he paused Dennis drew a stertorous breath which
ended in a gulp as McCarty's elbow dug viciously into his
ribs. The rest sat as though spell-bound.
“It is twilight and the corners of the room are in shadow.”
The monotonous voice went on. “Dusk is creeping in
at the windows and the wind is rising.”
Was it the imagination which Terhune had so often
accused him of lacking, or did a faint moaning as of wind
in the chimney actually come to McCarty's tingling ears?
“The door opens. See! A man enters. His face is
in shadow but he paces softly, impatiently up and down.
He halts. He is listening, waiting. Now he resumes his
pacing. The dusk deepens—” _-----
This time there could be no mistaking his senses, and
McCarty felt the hair rise upon his tingling scalp. He
had heard a key click in a lock, felt a light current of air
as a door opened and the sound of footsteps on bare, pol-
ished floor came plainly to his ears, halting and then con-
tinuing again. Moreover, a faint odor of tobacco assailed
his nostrils; tobacco of a peculiar blend which seemed
strange and yet vaguely reminiscent.
The little group sat tense and motionless, and in the
utter stillness the echo of measured footsteps seemed to
beat upon McCarty's brain. That odd, halting, hesitant
yet curiously rhythmic triad; where had he heard it before?
It ceased as he pondered and the low, steady voice droned on:
“He stops once more and listens. He hears light foot-
steps on the stairs of the passageway, the rustle of a gown.
A woman stands in the door, he advances to her—”
“A-ah!” A harsh, shuddering cry, like that of a tor-
tured animal broke in upon the monotone. It rose from


IN THE DARK 117
j
somewhere within the circle, quivered on the air and died
away, but McCarty could not have told from which side
it had come. He was straining every sense to grasp the
intangible, elusive sensation which had stolen upon him
even before that cry had cleaved the air. z -
Above Terhune's voice there had sounded the patter of
light footfalls, the soft, sibilant rustle of silk, and now
another odor, pungent and cloyingly sweet, obliterated the
tantalizing scent of tobacco. It was a rare and exotic
perfume, and as it mounted, heady as new wine to his brain,
McCarty seemed to stand once more beside that still form
upon the table and again the blind secretary's horror-stricken
cry rang in his ears: “The scent of the Rose d'Amour! It
is Madame Jarvis!”
“They meet. We cannot hear what they say, for their
voices are low, but his tones are impassioned, hers quiet
and restrained. See! He is urging, pleading with her;
she refuses to listen, refuses to take him seriously, to fall
in with his mood jy
A woman's voice, high, and sweet, and clear as a rippling
brook echoed in soft laughter through the room and then
the words came with startling distinctness:
“Really, I don't know what in the world to say—”
“Her laughter maddens him!” Terhune's voice broke
in upon that other eerie once, and his droning note had
changed. Into its monotone there crept a breathless quality
as of suspense, and it rose in a crescendo of swift, dramatic
fervor. “He tries to take her in his arms, but she re-
pulses him, at first gently, then imperiously. He becomes
enraged, she defies him! See! He is advancing upon her
with menace in every line of his crouched figure! She tries
to elude him, to escape, but he seizes her! They struggle,
she is fighting for her life!”
He paused abruptly upon the final word, and before


IN THE DARK 119
room and opened one of the windo But see! A long
strand of black hair is wound about the button on his
coatsleeve; it catches on a broken sliver of wood on the
window frame as he leans out and clings there as he closes
the window without fastening it and turns jy
The footsteps with their curiously hurried yet hesitating
gait passed so close that McCarty felt that he could have
reached out and touched the man, but a strange numbness
held him in leash. *
With straining ears he followed the subdued, diminishing
tread until it died away and in another moment a dull,
grating thud ensued.
“The man has descended to the yard, raised the ladder
and placed it against the window ledge. Now he re-enters
the house, mounts the stairs, closes the museum door and
departs. Do you hear him? He is walking down the
hall toward the front of the house. His footsteps die away
in the distance; he has gone! But here in this room that
motionless figure lies beneath the blanket while the shadows
creep nearer and nearer, the gloom deepens and night
comes.” -
“Evelyn!” A deep-throated cry, hoarse with anguish,
pulsed upon the air and ceased in a moaning gasp as Ter-
hune called out in brisk, normal tones:
“Lights, Bassett! Gentlemen, the experiment is over!”


CHAPTER XI
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
OR a full minute McCarty blinked dazedly in the
F sudden glare of light. His thoughts in their abrupt
transition from the realm of mental suggestion to
manifest reality failed at first to co-ordinate and he sat as
one emerging from a trance.
Then gradually he became aware of moving figures and
subdued voices about him. Wade Terhune was standing
over Oliver Jarvis holding a glass to his client's lips while
Norwood hovered solicitously about, visibly shaken by
the ordeal through which he had passed but in obvious
indignation.
“Sorry to have knocked you out like this, Mr. Jarvis.”
Terhune's smooth tones rose above the general stir. “I
tried to prepare you »
“It was brutal!” Norwood interrupted. “If this is
your science, Mr. Terhune, this wretched clap-trap to
reconstruct a scene of horror, as false as it was cheaply
melodramatic, and force a bereaved man to undergo such
wholly unnecessary torture, the old third-degree methods
of the police are infinitely preferable! Try to put the
whole abominable thing from your mind, Oliver! We know
that what we have listened to here to-night is sheer rot;
Evelyn was killed in her own apartments, poor child, and
all this elaborate farce cannot twist the facts to prove a
baseless theory!”
Jarvis shook his head and rose, steadying himself with
a hand on the older man's arm.
120


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 121
.
.
“No, Uncle Cal. I have the utmost confidence in Mr.
Terhune and he must pursue the investigation in his own
way. I knew in advance what was going to take place
to-night and I gave him permission to use that phonographic
record of Evelyn's voice. I thought I had steeled myself
to endure the sound of it, but I must have overestimated
my strength and the realism of the whole thing swept me
off my feet. Do you think, Mr. Terhune, that your test
has been productive of the result you anticipated?”
“I cannot tell until I have examined the records,” Ter-
hune responded, unruffled by Norwood's tirade. “I will
confer with you early in the morning, before the funeral.
You must try to rest to-night and steady your nerves, for
the utmost we may already have accomplished can at best
be only circumstantial and the most difficult task still
lies before us.”
A new voice at McCarty's right caught his attention and
he turned to find the Englishman, Vivaseur, in animated
conversation with Inspector Druet.
“By Jove, it was immense!” His face was flushed and
his gray eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “No wonder
this chap is celebrated at home as well as in the States for
his amazing work! The crime was a hideous affair, of course,
and I'm cut up about it on Miss Norwood's account and
all that, but as I didn’t know the lady I could approach
this thing from a more impersonal, analytical point of view
than the others. The illusion was perfect! I don't mind
telling you, Inspector, that it quite gripped me. Gad,
what an actor the fellow would have made!”
“Mr. Terhune's methods are unique and he has ob.
tained some creditable results from them,” Inspector Druet
responded somewhat dryly. “We don't always agree with
him in theory, but he has given the department some
valuable pointers in more than one case.”


122 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
Vivaseur stared, then laughed.
“Quite so. I'd forgotten that Mr. Terhune was a free
lance. Naturally your methods differ. It's been ripping,
though, to be in one of his tests; haven't the least idea
what he was getting at, but I wouldn't have missed it for
worlds!”
Terhune had left his client and McCarty's eyes followed
him as he started toward the screen when Captain Marchal
suddenly barred his way.
“May I be permitted to congratulate you, Monsieur?”
His tone was quiet, with no suspicion of a sneer, and yet
there was a quality almost of challenge in it which brought
the other up standing. “As a grim little playlet of the
Grand Guignol, produced in darkness, it would have been
admirable; as an exposition of the case upon which you
have bent your distinguished efforts it is of a surprisingly
novel point of view. Mes compliments!”
“I am glad you were interested, Captain!” Terhune
smiled steadily. “To make use of your comparison, the
drama is not yet finished; it still lacks a climax, but that
will come.”
“When it does, let us hope that it will not prove an
anticlimax,” Marchal shrugged slightly. “Is it that we
are no longer required here, Monsieur? We may depart?”
“Yes. The experiment is finished.”
Captain Marchal's heels clicked with military precision
as he bowed and turned to Calvin Norwood while Terhune
advanced toward the screen. McCarty rose to follow
when a voice close at his side made him pause.
“Please let go of the bulb, Mr. Riordan,” Bassett was
urging patiently. “It is all over. Mr. Terhune has fin-
ished with the experiment and I want to take up the appa-
ratus now. Mr. Riordan!”
But Dennis was oblivious. He sat rigid, with his eyes


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 123
squeezed tightly shut and an expression on his face of one
who had been set apart from the things of this world. One
hand gripped the arm of his chair and the other clung
tenaciously to the rubber sphere on the wire.
“Denny, for the love of God, come out of it!” McCarty
shook him vigorously. “Is it hypnotized you are? Open
your eyes, you big chump, and leave go of the bulbſ”
“Eh?” Dennis drew a deep breath and relaxed limply,
blinking with the air of a suddenly awakened somnam-
bulist. “Did he get away? Where's the corpse?”
“Laid out these two days and well you know it, if you'll
get your wits about you!” retorted McCarty, jerking the
bulb from his friend's grasp. “A fine exhibition you're
making of yourself!” -
“But I heard it, the murder and all!” Dennis affirmed
in an awestruck whisper. “Mac, where the devil was I?
What’s come to me!”
“You’ve been listening to Mr. Terhune's little spiel,
with phonographic accompaniments and a little cologne
and cigarette smoke thrown in for good measure,” responded
the other. “”Twas all a trick, man, but it got me, too,
for a minute. We'd better be getting on our now; the
rest are all leaving.”
Terhune, emerging from behind the screen, caught the
reluctant note in his former colleague's tones and came
forward.
“Wouldn't you and Riordan like to wait and learn the
result of the experiment? Bassett and I are going to check
up the records now and we will find out if our man has
betrayed himself.”
“Thanks, sir, we'd like nothing better than to stay for
the finish.” McCarty accepted promptly before Dennis
could speak. “’Twas a remarkable stunt you pulled off
the night, Mr. Terhune. If it's not asking too much,


124 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
º
would you tell us later how you worked some of it? The
fight, and all?” -
“Go and see for yourselves while I get rid of these people.”
Terhune waved toward the alcove. “The properties are
all there, behind the curtains, and I’ll explain their use to
you later.”
“Come on!” McCarty seized Dennis' arm and pulled
him to his feet as their host turned to his departing
guests.
Reluctantly Dennis permitted himself to be led to the
alcove, but when the curtains parted he recoiled.
“There's another of them!” he gasped. “Let me get
out of this! What with spooks and murders I’ve been through
plenty this night to turn me gray, and if I'd known that
thing was here the saints themselves could not have got a
blindfold on me!”
He pointed with a trembling finger at a skeleton which
lolled lackadaisically in a chair grinning up at him, but
McCarty dragged him past, and over to a table against the
farther wall.
/“Do you see this cigarette end and the ashes in the tray?
hat's where the smell of tobacco came from. And look!”
He picked up a tiny crystal atomizer and pressed the bulb
gently, releasing a fine spray of perfume. “That's the
scent Mrs. Jarvis herself used, God rest her soul! Don't
you remember it? It was clinging to her yet when we
found the body.”
Dennis sniffed experimentally.
“One perfumery smell is like another to me except the
stuff the barber douses me with when I’m not looking,”
he remarked conservatively. “What's the bolt of silk for,
and that sand-paper paddle?”
“To make the sound like the rustling of her dress and
the tearing of it in the struggle,” hazarded McCarty. “I


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 125
don’t know, though, about the opening of the window, nor
the ladder 22
“I used this heavy bookcase door to simulate the open-
ing of the casement.” Terhune's voice sounded from
just behind them. “This board scraped along the mantel
shelf produced the effect of the ladder grating against the
window ledge. It is quite simple, you see.”
“But the skeleton, sir?” Dennis ventured.
“I borrowed that from an artist friend of mine, to get
the real sound of rattling bones, at the moment when I
described the substitution of the body for the skeleton,”
explained Terhune. “Bassett imitated the footsteps; he
is light on his feet and I rehearsed him carefully this after-
noon.”
“And the struggle, sir? I could have sworn I heard a
man grunting and muttering and breathing hard, and a
woman's voice raised in that fierce, choking cry at the
end,” McCarty declared. - -
“You did. It was a talking machine record made es-
pecially for me yesterday by two professionals at the studio
of the company from which I purchased my machines in
here.” He led the way back into the consulting-room and
motioned toward the cabinets on each side of the hearth.
“The first woman's voice that you heard—the little laugh,
and the sentence: “Really, I don't know what to say’—
was the living voice of Mrs. Jarvis.”
Dennis crossed himself surreptitiously and even McCarty
started in awed astonishment.
“You mean, sir, it was a record she talked into herself?”
he asked.
“Yes. I learned from Miss Joan Norwood that one
evening a few months ago she and her uncle, Oliver Jarvis,
his wife, and several of their friends amused themselves.
by talking into a reproducing phonograph. She had pre-


126 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
served the records and I persuaded her to lend me the disk
upon which Mrs. Jarvis’ voice was recorded. The opening
sentence of her speech was all I could use, but it was star-
tlingly apropos.”
“It was all of that, sir,” Dennis averred solemnly. “’Twas
like black magic, the whole of it! But for what did we hold
on to them little rubber balls strung on the wire?”
“I’ll demonstrate that to you now. Ready, Bassett?”
“Yes, sir.”
The assistant, followed by Inspector Druet, appeared
from behind the screen.
“First of all, you must know that I timed my theoretical
reconstruction of the murder scene very carefully.” The
criminalist began. “You perhaps did not observe that a
double set of wires extended from the ring upon which
the bulbs were strung. One set ran under the rug to the
screen and the other led to the clock. It is a physiological
fact that nervousness superinduced by fear or a kindred
emotion betrays itself by dryness of the mouth, stricture of
the throat, irregular action of the heart and moisture and
contraction of the hands. It is to the latter that I have
confined myself exclusively during this test. Of course,
the result cannot be infallibly accurate, for allowances
must be made for the physical condition of each individual
which only a physician could diagnose, but we will obtain
at least a significant indication in each case.”
He walked over to the tall, Colonial clock which stood
against the wall and opened the narrow doors of its base.
The interior was brightly illuminated by electric lights in
seven long slender tubes of varicolored glass set against the
sides and back. A series of slender-pointed steel indicators,
like the hands of a clock, reached from each tube to a dial
beside it on which numbers from one to twenty were ar-
ranged in a circle.
-
--


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 127
“You will observe that the glass tubes are tinted the
seven chromatic colors of the prism, with violet as the
base, graduating through the different hues to red at the
top, and the extent of the illumination varies in each tube,”
Terhune continued. “The bulbs which each of you held
in your right hand were covered with a highly absorbent
composition and these tubes register the degree of moisture
exuding from your palms at given intervals. The actual
test was arranged to take just twenty minutes to com-
plete, from half-past eight to ten minutes before nine,
and I had rehearsed it, timing each sentence and pause
for the suggested action until I knew to the minute when
each phase of the scene I reconstructed was reached. The
indicators reaching out from the side of each tube to the
dial beside it records the exact moment when the degree
of exuded moisture, superinduced by mental suggestion,
increased. *-
“For instance, take bulb number one, which was that
held by my client, Mr. Jarvis. He is naturally in a feverish,
weakened condition and super-sensitive to suggestion.
The degree of moisture in the palm of his hand increased
steadily through the violet, indigo and blue stages to the
fourth—the green—where it remained until the tenth
minute of the test; the minute when the voice of his dead
wife sounded from the talking machine. Then the record
leaped two degrees, through yellow to orange, and there
remained. At no time did it reach the maximum—or
red—degree at the top of the tube.
“Number two—Mr. Calvin Norwood—shows but a nor-
mal degree of moisture until the third quarter of the test,
the struggle, when it increased slowly two degrees, but
became no more intense. Number three—Why, this is
indeed curious!” He pointed to the third tube, which was
illuminated to the very top. “The moisture excretions


128 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
here are abnormally profuse from the start and quickly
reached the maximum, but since the increase was steady
and not in spurts it indicates general nervousness rather
than the effect of emotional reaction. Bassett, who held
the third bulbf'’ ----
“Mr. Vivaseur, sº a"
“Ah, I thought so.” A gratified smile touched Ter-
hune's thin lips. “From his appearance I should have be-
lieved him to be in better physical condition than this
indicates, but his interest in the test was so keen that he
betrayed it from the start, despite his phlegmatic exterior.
Number four—that was yours, Inspector—remained abso-
lutely normal throughout, and McCarty—number five—
only registered one degree above normal. Our friend Rior-
dan, here, is evidently in better shape physically than Mr.
Vivaseur, but his record only falls one degree short of the
Englishman's. Your hand perspired with abnormal pro-
fusion from the start, Riordan.”
“And why wouldn't it, sir? I'm reeking from every
pore of me.” Dennis announced with dignity. “”Tis a
cold-blooded fish that could sit quiet and blindfold in a
room where there's murder being done, and not sweat
like a glass of of ice-water on a hot day!”
He glanced witheringly at McCarty, but the latter was
watching Terhune.
The latter with furrowed brow was examining the last
tube and when he spoke his usually level tones were charged
with suppressed excitement.
“The man who held the seventh bulb was normal at the
'start, but almost immediately his record jumped two de-
grees. That was even before I described the arrival of
the woman. Then it shot up three degrees—to the yellow
space—until the tenth minute of the test, when the voice
came from the talking machine. From that moment on


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 129
it gradually subsided to normal!” He paused and added
slowly: “I confess I had not foreseen this. Captain Mar-
chal must either have assumed quick control of himself
or—”
“Marchal?” The Inspector laughed shortly. “Oh, he's
out of it, Mr. Terhune! Your reconstruction of the murder
must have been all Greek to him.”
Terhune shrugged.
“Let us see what the other record reveals.” He sug-
gested, leading the way to the screen. “These glass retorts
register the contraction of the fingers on the bulb and the
degree and period of pressure which are in turn recorded
numerically upon the chart.” -
The spaces between the perpendicular lines on the large
framed chart upon the wall were covered now with irreg-
ular rows of figures illuminated from behind and the thin
thread of ruby-colored liquid in each retort had risen to
varying heights.
“I will not go into a maze of technical detail now as
to the process by which the pressure upon the bulbs is
transmitted and registered. It is too complicated and
if you are unfamiliar with the pulsometer invented by
Professor Wekerle of Buda Pesth, and in use by the crim-
inal investigators throughout the continent to record the
pulse beats of suspects under examination, an explanation
would be well-nigh unintelligible to you,” Terhune vouch-
safed. “I will merely read you the result recorded here.
“Mr. Jarvis held the bulb lightly at first, but his hand
contracted convulsively at the suggested entrance of his
wife and again at the sound of her voice. During the
struggle he gripped the bulb tenaciously, but from the
moment of the final death-cry his hand became limp. That
is perfectly natural and quite as I anticipated. Mr. Nor-
wood's fingers worked nervously about the bulb, alternately


130 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
energizing and relaxing until the struggle, when he, too,
squeezed the bulb in a sustained pressure, which gradually
diminished.
… “Number three—Ah! as I expected! Despite Mr.
Vivaseur's profuse exudations, denoting his absorbed interest,
he held the bulb lightly, as I had instructed, without the
slightest tremor or contraction until the end. However,
you, Inspector, were not as unimpressed as you would have
us believe!” He turned with a smile of triumph to the
official. “The voice, the struggle, the death-cry and even
the sixteenth minute of the test, when the suggestion
was conveyed of the strand of hair being caught on the
window casing, each made you start and tighten your
grip upon the bulb!”
“Possibly.” The Inspector admitted dryly. “Apart from
its theoretical value the little scene you staged for us was
realistic enough to make one forget momentarily that it was
a mere ingenious illusion.”
“And you, McCarty!” Terhune pointed to the fifth
record upon the wall. “You, at least, comprehend the
motive underlying my experiment, I see. When the cigar-
ette was lighted—”
“Yes, sir,” McCarty interrupted quietly. “I thought I
recognized the kind of a sweetish smell of that brand and the
gait of those steps coming and going reminded me, too, of
some I’d heard just lately. I knew then who you had picked
out as the murderer and ’tis small wonder if I squeezed that
bulb like a sponge!” -
“You registered surprise at the voice on the machine,
and sustained excitement during the struggle.” Terhune
pursued. “After that, however, you relaxed your hold
upon the bulb. The end of the test did not impress you as
the first had done. Still stubborn, eh, McCarty? Still


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 131
unwilling to accept any fact based on other than most obvious
evidence?” t
“Well, Mr. Terhune, I don't know, of course, what there
is back of all this,” McCarty responded cautiously. “You
see, I'm not on the case, sir, and I’ve no way of learning
how you doped it out.”
“I don't see anything particularly significant in all this,”
Inspector Druet remarked with a touch of impatience.
“What is the answer, Mr. Terhune?”
“We are coming to that,” Terhune replied. “The sixth
record is fairly obvious. From the beginning of the test to
its completion the bulb was compressed in a grip which never
relaxed an iota.”
“That was Denny,” observed McCarty. “He’d be holding
on to it now only we pried him loose!”
“The seventh and last record, however, gives us some-
thing vastly different.” Terhune's tones had quickened.
“Evidently our friend Captain Marchal also recognized
the odor of that particular brand of cigarette, for instinc-
tively his fingers tightened about the bulb. The pressure
increased at the suggested entrance of the woman and held
until the talking-machine record was turned on. Then it
relaxed utterly and after that there were several quick,
hard pressures; not nervous or spasmodic but more as though
he clenched his hand in anger. The choking death-cry,
the incident of the strand of hair catching on the window
casing, the placing of the ladder against the ledge and
the final retreating footsteps each caused him to grip the
bulb tightly in quite unconscious muscular contraction,
but the pressure reached its highest degree when I spoke
of that strand of hair. Gentlemen, I told you before this
little experiment was attempted that I expected nothing
conclusive from it, but merely an indication as to whether
-


THE WRITING ON THE WALL 133
tragic turn of affairs. It is unfortunate that we seem to
be invariably working at cross purposes, but as in the past
I think you will find my theory to be the true solution of
the affair. Scientific testimony is incontrovertible and in
spite of his self-control the man has laid bare his innermost
thoughts to us here in these records.
“He recognized the odor of his particular brand of cigar-
ettes—a brand practically unknown in this country—and
knew that his secret had been discovered. He betrayed his
emotions in the ensuing scene but with the Sound of his
victim's voice on the machine he pulled himself together
and realizing the vital need of caution in this test which he
now saw was directed solely at him, he deliberately relaxed.
However, he could not help that instinctive clenching of his
hand at the points which told most against him. There
cannot be the slightest doubt, of it, Inspector. Captain
Marchal is the murderer of Mrs. Jarvis.”


CHAPTER XII
“BACK FROM THE DEAD”
science!” Dennis announced as he and his com-
panion trudged homeward through the crisp night
air. “It’s small use the Inspector has for it either, if you
believe in signs.”
“Well, the Inspector has one theory of the case and
Terhune has another, and I have mine,” McCarty responded
noncommittally. “No two of them are alike and all of
them may be away off the truth, but the Inspector is right
in one thing, to my way of thinking; even if the murder
was not a direct outcome of the blackmailing the two are
connected, and I’d not be surprised if the same hand that
pasted those macaroni letters tightened the scarf about
the poor woman's throat. Terhune figured it out as I
did that she came to the Norwood house and to the museum
of her own free will, but right there our ideas of what actually
happened don't tally, in spite of the fact that I don't know
what she went there for, if 'twas not to see Captain Marchal.”
“And what is the Inspector's notion?” asked Dennis.
“Who does he think did the murder?”
McCarty shook his head.
“If he suspects anyone in particular, 'tis not the French-
man,” he replied evasively. “’Twas just to talk the case
over with me in a general way that he came to the engine
house for me yesterday.”
“And what about your trip to the movies last night?”
"I". had enough and to spare of the workings of
-
-
134


136 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
the detective bureau. He might have had an official hand
in the Jarvis case, instead of being as now, a mere looker-on;
tantalized by its possibilities, engrossed in the problem
and yet destined to stand aside.
His negotiations with the luckless householder who had
summoned him were brief and of an all but violent nature,
and he returned fuming to his apartments. There, thrust
under the door, he found a torn and not over-clean scrap
of paper which swiftly altered his mood.
“Mr. McCarty please call at once on Mr. Norwood.
Most important. Billings.”
For a moment he stared at the roughly penciled mes-
sage, glanced at the telephone, hesitated, then clapped on
his hat and made for the street once more.
He found Calvin Norwood pacing the floor of his draw-
ingroom with wrathful indignation in every line of his
small, immaculate figure.
“Well, McCarty, this is a pretty state of things!” he
exclaimed as they shook hands. “I sent for you because
you seem to be the only one concerned with this mysterious
affair who has an open mind and a grain of common sense
left. The police have ridiculed me and derided my efforts
to assist them in the past, but now they have surpassed
even their former record of stupidity and insolence! Do
you know that I am actually under surveillance? I, and
every member of my household, even to my niece and her
fiancé? It is monstrous, insufferable!”
“Is that so, sir?” McCarty observed innocently. “I’d
not be concerned about it, Mr. Norwood. The depart-
ment follows a regular routine in every case and it’s no
sign that you’re under suspicion of the murder; it's just
because the body was found here in your home. Belike
they'll shadow everyone connected with Mrs. Jarvis till
they've found out who killed her.”


“BACK FROM THE DEAD” 187
“But it is a direct imputation of suspicion!” the little
elderly man fumed. “Evelyn Jarvis was like a daughter
to me, my niece loved her as a sister, and as to Mr. Vivaseur,
he never even laid eyes on her! He is generous enough
to appear merely amused at the espionage to which he
has been subjected in entering and leaving this house, but
it is a hideously embarrassing position for both my niece
and myself. He is a member of one of the oldest noble
houses in England; in fact, there are only three lives be-
tween him and a dukedom, and although I am not a snob,
I was delighted that my little girl and the inheritance which
will be hers are to be allied to such a distinguished family.
It is infamous that in addition to her grief for her friend
she should be subjected to such indignity; it is enough
that the very threshold of her romance should be clouded
by tragedy! And now, to add to my general distress
of mind, Victor is down!”
“Down?” McCarty repeated.
“He is desperately ill; some sort of fever, I think. I
was afraid of it from the first, I thought that the shock of
the murder would be too much for him in his weakened
condition. It is a great pity, for he was rallying so bravely
from the horrors he has been through and the crushing blow
of his own affliction.” Norwood glanced nervously about
him and then bent forward confidentially. “When we
returned last night from Mr. Terhune's ghastly experiment
I saw that it had affected him, but good heavens! we were
all wrought up about it. It was the most harrowing exhibi-
tion of chicanery imaginable! However, I was so con-
cerned about Oliver that I gave little thought to Victor
and he retired to his room almost at once. *
“This morning when he did not appear at breakfast, I
sent up to inquire about him and Billings reported that he
paid no attention to the knock upon his door, but seemed


138 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
to be talking to someone in the room with him. I went
up immediately myself and found the poor lad tossing upon
his bed, muttering deliriously and in a high fever. I gave
him an opiate to quiet him and he is sleeping now, but I
do not know what his condition will be when he wakes.”
“You didn't send for a doctor, sir?”
Norwood hesitated.
“No,” he replied at length. “It will be necessary, of
course, if he grows worse, but I think I can bring him around
all right. A doctor would insist upon installing a nurse
at once, and just now I want no intruders in the house.
Besides, in his delirium, poor Victor's mind is naturally
dwelling on the crime and he utters rambling sentences
which might sound strange to an outsider's ears; I should
not care to have even the servants hear him, for they are
an excitable, hysterical lot. That is really why I sent for
you, McCarty. We are all due at the funeral this after-
noon, of course, and I thought that perhaps you wouldn't
mind sitting with him until I can return and relieve
you.” -
McCarty's pulse gave a sudden leap, but he responded
quietly:
“I’ll be glad to, sir. I’m sorry for the poor young man.”
“And you'll keep whatever you may hear to yourself?”
Norwood continued in nervous haste. “He seems to be
living over again in his feverish brain that hideous farce
we were forced to listen to last night, and Inspector Druet
or Mr. Terhune in their frantic endeavors to fasten the
crime on the first unfortunate person to give them a shadow
of an excuse would seize upon his senseless, incoherent words
as evidence upon which to base an odious suspicion. You
know as well as I do, McCarty, that the boy is utterly
innocent, but after last night's travesty of an experiment
and my discovery that the Inspector has deemed it necessary


“BACK FROM THE DEAD" 189
to place us all under surveillance I would believe them
capable of anything!”
“They'll get nothing from me,” McCarty promised.
“You know, sir, I’ve no connection with the investigation,
but I'm mighty interested in the case, all the same. What
do you think about it yourself, Mr. Norwood?”
“I don't know. I scarcely dare to let my mind dwell
on it.” He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. “When
I remember Evelyn as we have always known her; tender,
sweet, gentle, open-hearted and open-minded as a child,
and then remember those sinister letters and that anony-
mous Christmas gift—that cake which she preserved so
carefully and so secretly—I shrink from facing the pos-
sibilities of the truth. How little we know, after all, of
the innermost depths of those about us! Understand,
McCarty, I am not taking it for granted that her secret
was necessarily of a heinous or disgraceful sort, but the
very fact that she did not take her husband into her con-
fidence when the first threatening letter reached her, that
she submitted tamely to the blackmail imposed upon her,
is evidence enough that a secret existed which she was
compelled to guard at all costs. A week ago I would have
scorned such a suggestion; even now I cannot realize it,
I cannot reconcile it with my conception of the girl's char-
acter. It’s like a nightmare!”
“It is certain, then, that Mrs. Jarvis did pay the money
demanded from her?” asked McCarty. “Have they found
out yet how much was gotten out of her?”
“No, but the letters speak for themselves. The tone
of the last one shows that she must have communicated
with the blackmailer in some way, protesting against the
sum required and stating her inability to comply; she
probably put a note to that effect with whatever money
she placed under the rose bush on that night last May.


140 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
Do you remember how that last letter in macaroni paste
was worded?” N-
“I have a copy of all three of them here,” McCarty
produced his wallet. “The last one begins: ‘Lady can
and will. Iooo under bush 26 each month small price
safety.’ The one before that, the second one, asks: “Does
lady forget date of next Saturday night?” That must
have meant the twenty-sixth of the month. It must have
been on that date years gone that whatever it was hap-
pened about which Mrs. Jarvis had to pay for silence.”
Norwood shuddered. *
“Poor child! Why did she not let the truth be known
and brave the consequences? I am as sure as I am of my
own Joan that Evelyn had been guilty of nothing her hus-
band could not fully and freely have forgiven. She must
have gone through untold suffering and suspense last year!
I wonder that I did not notice the change in her which her
maid described, but I was engrossed in my own affairs.
It was just before my departure for France.” *-
“Was it a criminal case that took you over, sir?”
“The greatest in history.” Norwood smiled slightly.
“I went to inspect the devastation in certain areas in France
for a relief committee of which I am a director. I sailed
in June and returned in August, bringing Victor with me
to act as my secretary. He is the last of a very old family,
aristocratic but impoverished, and I became greatly in-
terested in him.”
“It was in September that Mrs. Jarvis first began talking
of going to France, wasn’t it?” asked McCarty.
“Yes. Oliver is barred from active service because of
a concussion of the brain which he suffered in a football game
at the university some years ago, but I think my description
of what I had seen in France influenced them both in their
decision to take up reconstruction work there. Poor Evelyn
-- *


“BACK FROM THE DEAD” 141
was so happy in anticipation of it, so filled with plans—”
he broke off and added after a pause: “That was why she
took so deep and sympathetic an interest in Victor and it is
only natural that her terrible death should have been such
a shock to him. Last night's ghastly business was the
final straw laid upon his overwrought nerves.” *-
“I’ll go up to him now, Mr. Norwood; shall I?” sug-
gested McCarty. “He might wake up and need something
or start raving again.”
“It would be best, perhaps, if you don't mind,” Norwood
assented with obvious relief. “Your lunch will be brought
up to you on a tray and I’ll show you what medicine to give
him if the delirium continues; that is all that can be done
for him, to try to keep him absolutely quiet until the fever
has run its course. I'm afraid it will be a long vigil for you,
McCarty, but I’m grateful to you for undertaking it.”
He led the way up one flight of stairs to a small but
cheerful room on the second floor.
“I put Victor in here, next to my own dressing-room
because it is nearest the head of the stairs,” he explained.
“I wanted to save him as much groping about as possible.
Come in. See, he is still asleep.”
In the semi-gloom of the drawn curtains the figure on
the bed lay motionless save for the spasmodic rise and fall
of the coverlet across his breast. As McCarty bent over him
a broken sigh fluttered from the parted lips and they twitched
but no words came.
Norwood whispered instructions about the medicine and
withdrew and the volunteer nurse settled down to his vigil.
The face of the unconscious man, relaxed and shorn of
the mask of stern repression and control which it habitually
wore, was haggard and tragic in its revelation of suffering.
All the agony, mental and physical, of his affliction and the
inferno through which he had passed was written there, and


“BACK FROM THE DEAD” 143
\
C. The speculations of the watcher were interrupted by a
low knock upon the door.
“H’Ive put your lunch h’on a table in Mr. Norwood's
dressing-room, sir,” Billings announced. “Ow is the Cap-
tain, h’if I may arsk?”
“He’s coming along all right, Billings.” McCarty tip-
toed ponderously from the room and closed the door behind
him. “Rest is all he needs now, and plenty of it.”
“He was right bad this morning, sir. Gave me a turn,
it did and no mistake, to 'ear 'im talking to 'imself when h’I
came to call 'im. H'I would 'ave taken my h’oath there
was two of them in 'ere, sir!”
The butler's manner was full of portentous gravity,
and McCarty drew him into the dressing-room.
“What was he saying?” he demanded. --
“Well, sir, h'I've said nothing to Mr. Norwood, but
the poor young gentleman was ravin’ first in that foreign
lingo and then in h’English and he kept sayin' h’over and
h'over: ‘Blind! Who would believe? I cannot speak!’
And then, sir, 'e cried h'out in quite a terrible voice that
turned my blood cold in my veins: ‘It is you who killed
her!' 'Ow I got downstairs, sir, is more than I know for
my legs give under me—”
“Is that all?” McCarty turned to the table with affected
indifference. “He didn't know what he was saying, of
course. That's only the murder on his mind, like it is on
all of us. He's got a touch of fever, and dreaming all kinds
of things about it, but he'll wake up himself again and none
the worse.”
McCarty ate a hasty luncheon and returned to the sick-
room with the butler's words ringing in his ears. Was the
accusation which had issued from the lips of the uncon-
scious man mere idle raving, or had he indeed some secret


144 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
knowledge of the crime which he dared not divulge for
lack of proof?
Victor Marchal still lay as he had left him, but after
an interval his sleep became troubled once more. Strange
visions peopled his wandering mind, past horrors returned
and for a nerve-racking hour McCarty listened with bated
breath while the other, now in English and now in French,
made graphic by his tone and expression, led his men once
more into the battle which had cost him his sight and lived
again the hours of his Gethsemane in No Man's Land.
Then the cause of his delirium changed. A softer ex-
pression stole over his worn features, a faint smile of inef-
fable pathos hovered about his lips and he murmured so
softly that the words were scarcely audible:
“Mais je t'aime! It cannot harm thee for thou wilt
never know. In thy divine pity and kindliness thou art
as blind as I to the worship in my heart which I may not
speak! Only to myself may I whisper thy dear name.
Evelyn! Evelyn!”
McCarty stiffened in his chair. Terhune had been right!
There was no mistaking the note of hopeless love in those
faint tremulous tones, but the words themselves belied
the criminalist’s theory. Here was no eager, jealous, de-
stroying passion, but a humble adoration. Abashed, the
watcher drew back as again the feeling of honest shame
possessed him for the part which he was playing and in
that moment the smile faded from Victor Marchal's lips
and a spasm of grief contorted his face.
“Dead! But I shall not speak! That one service I
may render, that the secret shall never be known. Only
when I am sure of that other, then it shall be between us!”


CHAPTER XIII
THE BLACK WALLET
W W YHEN Calvin Norwood returned he found McCarty
still seated by the bed and Victor Marchal
sleeping deeply.
“The fever is broken, I think, sir. His forehead is cool
and damp,” announced McCarty in a cautious whisper.
“I managed to get a dose of that medicine down him about
an hour ago like you told me, and he's been lying there
like a child ever since.”
“Good! He will rest quietly now for an hour or two
at least.” Norwood turned again to the door. “Come
downstairs and we can talk.”
With a relieved glance at the unconscious man, McCarty
followed his host from the room and down to the library.
That silent hour which had ensued since the astounding
revelations had reached his ears had brought a swift inspi-
ration and a plan which he meant to put into immediate
execution. He was no diplomatist, however, and while
he cast about in his mind for a way to broach his subject,
Norwood interrupted his train of thought.
“How was he, McCarty, before you gave him the med-
icine? Pretty bad, eh?” He spoke perfunctorily, but
his eyes gleamed with unconcealed anxiety behind their
huge-rimmed glasses. -
“Yes, sir. He wandered some, like anybody does in a
fever,” McCarty admitted. “He wasn't what you'd call
violent, though. I’ve seen them when they'd want to
throw themselves out of bed entirely.”
145


146 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Did he talk much? What did he say?” His eager-
ness betrayed itself, now in his tone and McCarty responded
with deliberation.
“Well, the half of it was French, Mr. Norwood, and
that let me out. For the rest, one minute, he'd be thinking
he was back fighting in the war again, and the next he'd
be puzzling his poor sick brains about the murder, but
'twas all in a jumble, like, and you could hardly make head
or tail of it. Do you think he'll be all right now the fever's
broke?” -
“Unless he's in for a complete nervous breakdown.”
Norwood moved somewhat impatiently in his chair. “But
tell me what he said about the murder. Did he allude
to last night?”
“Not in so many words. I don't remember rightly just
what he said, sir, it was all so mixed up, but he seemed to
be wondering who could have done the murder and once
he said something about how kind she’d been to him, men-
tioning no names,” McCarty lied blandly. “I’m thinking
the war is on his mind as much as the murder, if you ask me.”
“Hah!” Norwood emitted a snort of evident satisfaction
and relief. “I’m glad the poor fellow has turned the cor-
ner, anyway. Now, if Mr. Terhune and Inspector Druet
will leave him alone and not excite him with their fool
tests and questions, he may pull himself together in a few
days. I appreciateyour remaining with him to-day, McCarty.
I knew you were too sensible to take any stock in the ravings
of a sick man, but I wouldn’t say as much for those who
are conducting the case. We were shadowed even at the
funeral and I don’t mind telling you that I’m getting con-
foundedly tired of it!”
“So it's all over, sir; the funeral?” McCarty asked.
“How is Mr. Jarvis taking it?”
“He bore up splendidly, considering the frightful strain


148 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
by means of which the notorious Doctor Venner disposed of
his invalid wife's rich relations, the furrier's knife which fig-
ured in the Rankin case, and many more came to me through
various channels. When we were so tragically interrupted'
the other evening I was on the point of showing them to
you.”
“Couldn't you ” McCarty hesitated. “Would you
feel like showing a few of them to me now, sir, and telling
me their history? I suppose after what's happened you’ll
want to fight shy of the museum for a while, but I’ve a tre-
mendous interest in it. Many’s the time in days gone that
I heard of your collection but never did I think I'd see it
with my own two eyes.”
“I promised Joan that the museum would be kept locked
until her marriage next month.” Norwood hesitated.
“She vowed that unless I gave her my word she would not
remain under my roof; she feels a nervous horror of the
whole thing, you see. However, she won't be home for an
hour or so yet—I persuaded her to allow Vivaseur to take
her for a short run out into the country in his car after the
funeral for she has been cooped up for days, crying her eyes
out and I don’t want her ill on my hands, too. I'll be glad
to show you a thing or two which will interest you, McCarty,
and I assure you that in spite of what has occurred I feel
no qualms about entering the museum where the result of
my life work is stored. Come along.”
As they passed down the hall McCarty asked suddenly:
“Did you come across that missing finger-print photo-
graph yet, sir; the one of Mrs. Jarvis' impressions?”
“No. It slipped my mind completely and I forgot to
ask Victor about it,” his host admitted. “However, as I
told you, it can only be mislaid.” -
He produced his key and opened the door and together
they stepped into the room. The pale wintry rays of the


THE BLACK WALLET 149
westering sun slanted obliquely in at the tall windows,
gleaming mistily on the glass tops of the cases already veiled
with a film of dust and a stale, musty odor prevailed, as of
an apartment long untenanted.
“Phew! The room was aired thoroughly on Saturday,
but it is stuffy in here already,” Norwood advanced and
opened one of the windows wide, then turned and took from
its hook upon the wall a length of knotted rope. “This is
the Ogilvy noose. The valet had cleverly fabricated a lot
of circumstantial evidence to convey verisimilitude to the
suicide theory, but he made one fatal error; the peculiar
formation of the knot proved conclusively that the aged
millionaire could not have adjusted it himself. Moreover
it has a certain odd twist, as you can see, which was found
to be the species of knot used in staking down balloons
prior to an ascension, and investigation disclosed the fact
that early in life the valet had been an exhibitor at county
fairs; a parachute jumper. A nice bit of detail, wasn’t
it?”
“It was that!” McCarty examined the rope with an air
of absorbed professional interest and handed it back.
“How long have you had it here, sir?” -
“Since the conclusion of the trial, eighteen months
ago,” Norwood responded. “Here are some of Doctor
Venner's typhoid germs which were found secreted in his
bathroom after the fourth mysteriously coincidental death
from that disease in his household in as many months. He
had placed the germs in the water cooler and his insistence
upon having that article installed directed the first suspicion
against him. A friend in the District Attorney's office
who knows of my hobby procured the specimen for me last
summer. This is the furrier's knife of which I told you.
I do not believe that an implement with a keener blade than
than this exists. It was sewn into the ermine collar of an


150 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
evening coat designed for Mrs. Judson Grey in such a manner
that the point would penetrate the fur and pierce the n
near the jugular vein when the garment was fastened./ A
sudden death in the family sent Mrs. Grey into mourning,
however, and she gave the coat, unworn, to her niece.
The unfortunate girl died in a taxi on her way to the theatre,
as you may remember, and the ensuing investigation placed
the blame on the establishment which had made the coat,
but it is very generally surmised who the real culprit is.”
“It’s a wicked-looking knife, and no mistake,” com-
mented McCarty. “Did you add it to your collection lately,
Mr. Norwood?”
“About two months ago. This five-dollar gold piece
is one of those made by the Delmore counterfeiting gang.
It came into my possession purely by chance.”
“When was this, sir?”
“In October.” Norwood looked his surprise at the per-
sistency of the question. “Why are you so interested in the
dates, McCarty?”
“Because I know you've no time to be showing me all
your collection now, Mr. Norwood, and the relics you've
got just lately are what I'd rather know about than those of
cases long past and gone. There was one thing you men-
tioned last Friday night whilst we were all having dinner
with you.” McCarty paused and then added: “You were
going to show it to us, you said, sir, but instead we came
on the murder. I don’t recall what it was exactly but
'twas something you told us held the only clue to a mystery
that had set New York by the ears a good while ago. You'd
only got it within a few days—”
“Of course! The Hoyos wallet!” Norwood's face lighted
eagerly and he turned to a tall cabinet against the side wall
between the fireplace and the corner where stood the case of
finger-prints. “It has not entered my mind since the dis-
*


THE BLACK WALLET 151
covery of poor Evelyn's body. You remember the affair,
don't you? It was a nine days' wonder a decade ago.
Hoyos was a foreigner of somewhat obscure antecedents but
supposed wealth who was breaking into society of a sort by
means of Wall Street. There were rumors of wild parties
on his yacht and one night he disappeared from on board;
weeks later his body was found in the river, fearfully muti-
lated, and the case was never cleared up. But where can
the wallet be? I was sure that I put it here.”
While he talked Norwood's slim, nervous fingers had
been running over the assortment of documents and note
books with which the narrow shelves were filled and now
he stood back gazing in perplexity about him. -
“Perhaps Captain Marchal has moved it?” suggested
McCarty. -**
“No. He didn't know where I had placed it and he
never touches this cabinet, for its contents are of no use
to him in cataloguing the collection. He cannot see to
read the notes and other papers, you know, and these blank
books are filled with my own private memoranda of the
different cases in which I have specialized. No one ever
touches them but myself. I cannot understand it!”
“Maybe you put it somewhere else yourself, sir, by
mistake.” McCarty had approached and stood looking
over the other's shoulder. “What did the wallet look
like?” -
“It was the usual-sized bill folder, of very fine grained
black seal worn brown at the edges, and contained two
letters ” Norwood broke off. “What can have hap-
pened to it? I know I did not touch it after I put it away
here last Tuesday afternoon; I never mislay anything and
I had no occasion to open this cabinet again until Friday,
just before I went to Professor Parlowe's. Then I came
to get out some data on a recent poisoning case that I wanted


152 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
to discuss with him, and the wallet was here. / distinctly
remember seeing it, for an idea came to me to take it along
and show it to the Professor; I decided not to do so, be-
cause he is only interested in poisoning cases—he is an
eminent toxicologist, you know—and when he is engrossed
in an experiment he resents bitterly the introduction of
any other topic. I closed the door of the cabinet but did
not lock it; in fact the key is still here in the lock as you
can see for yourself, McCarty. Someone must have taken
it out during the excitement following the discovery of
the murder! But who would have any interest in it? The
case has been shelved and forgotten, even by the authorities.”
“If you are sure it has been taken, sir, whoever did it
must have known where to look,” observed McCarty. “Did
you show the wallet to anyone after you got it or tell them
where you had put it?”
“No, but anyone familiar with the museum and my
method of arranging its contents knows that I keep all
documents and papers here.” Norwood ran his fingers
through his hair. “But what am I saying? What pos-
sible object could anyone I know have in taking it? Of
course, it being a wallet, someone who had access here may
have though that it contained money and may have appro-
priated it. It could have been seen through the glass
door and the key was there in the lock.”
“Who could have got in here?” McCarty asked. His
eyes had narrowed swiftly and there was a note of sup-
pressed eagerness in his tone which the other was too en-
grossed in his fresh problem to be cognizant of. “Didn't
you say Captain Marchal was with you in here that after-
noon just before you left to call on your friend the professor?
Didn't Captain Marchal come back after you'd gone to put
away some notes he'd been copying?”
“Not copying. Victor cannot see to read notes, you


THE BLACK WALLET 153
.
must remember,” Norwood replied testily. “I said he had
transcribed them.) During the last month, while he was
familiarizing himself with the use of the typewriter I went
ahead with my own preparation of a monograph on the
various objects in my collection and talked my subject-
matter into a dictagraph for Victor to transcribe in his
leisure moments. The dictagraph is in the library beside
his typewriter and the cylindrical records for it are kept
in the drawer of that cabinet over there. He took a record
or two to work on while I was away that afternoon and the
papers he put back were those upon which he had typed
what the machine had dictated to him. When I spoke
of anyone who might have access here I was thinking of
strangers; those detectives from Headquarters or the Homi-
cide Bureau or the men who came with the Chief Medical
Examiner to take the body away.”
“You’ll not be finding any of them monkeying with
petty larceny!” remonstrated McCarty loyally. “Who
knew that you had the wallet, anyway, Mr. Norwood?
who did you tell?” .
“No one. That is, only a few of my most intimate
circle,” the ether amended. “I wasn't sure of obtaining
it until it was actually in my hands. The woman had
been dickering with me for her price, but I was afraid until
the last moment that she would back out of her bargain.”
“What woman?” - -
“The one in whose possession the wallet had been all
these years; a former stewardess, I believe, on Hoyos'
yacht.” -
“And you got the wallet from her last Tuesday?” A
swift memory of what the butler had told him darted across
McCarty's mind. “Did she bring it to you late in the
afternoon? Was it her you were talking to in the parlor
and could not be disturbed when Mrs. Jarvis called to tell


154 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
you about the experiment the professor was going to make
on Friday?”
• “Yes. How did you know?” Norwood paused and
then added impatiently: “That has nothing to do with
the disappearance of the wallet, however. I shall make
a thorough search for it to-morrow, and question Victor
as soon as he recovers, but I am convinced that it has been
taken!”
“You said that you told a few people about it, sir?
Who were they?” McCarty persisted, his breath quickening
a trifle in spite of his effort to appear calmly indifferent.
“Did you write to anybody about it?” -
“Only my niece, Joan, and that was a week before the
wallet actually came into my possession; when the woman
first approached me with her offer to sell it, in fact. Victor
knew about it, of course, and Billings may have heard us
discussing it at the table. But this is absurd! He has a
superstitious horror of the museum and couldn't be induced
to come in here on a wager. Besides, the wallet and its
contents would be of no use to him.” Norwood hesitated.
“I cannot think—”
“Did you speak of the wallet to the Jarvises?” McCarty
interrupted suddenly.
“I may have done so. Yes, I believe that I did.” Nor-
wood's tone was constrained.
- “Before the woman brought it to you or after, sir?”
“Afterwards. That is, I–I think it was. I cannot re-
member exactly.” There was a furtive reluctance in his
reply which did not escape McCarty's ear, and he asked
quickly:
“Wasn't it at that dinner party you told them of it?
The dinner they gave in their own home on Wednesday
evening?” -
“It may have been. Yes, I am under the impression that


THE BLACK WALLET 155
it was.” Norwood's perturbation was manifest and he
added nervously. “However, that is beside the point.
You are probably right, McCarty. A thing like that doesn't
disappear by itself and no one would have the slightest
reason for removing it. I must have mislaid it in the
excitement following the murder—”
“Mr. Norwood.” McCarty faced him and gazed steadily
into his shifting eyes. “When you told the Jarvises about
getting this wallet and the letters or whatever was in it did
the rest of the people who were there at the dinner hear it
too?”
“Naturally, since I told of it at the table,” Norwood
responded in unguarded haste. “Nobody was particularly
interested, however, beyond mere idle curiosity about an
old, forgotten case. I don’t remember discussing it with
anyone else, and if I did it doesn’t matter, McCarty. Now
that I think it over I can see that I must have mislaid it
myself. I will doubtless find it to-morrow.”
He closed the cabinet door and turned with an air of
finality as if to lead the way from the museum, but
McCarty lingered.
“What was in those letters, sir, that were in the wallet?
You said yourself that they were the only real clue to
the mystery of how the man came to his death. Who wrote
them?”
“I don't know!” Norwood wheeled about irascibly.
“The woman who sold them to me claimed that they were
written by someone who had good reason to want Hoyos
out of the way, but naturally she would not disclose their
contents until I had paid for them. I was obliged to take
them blindly at her valuation and trust to luck that I had
not been swindled.” º,
“But you read them after, sir!” McCarty exclaimed.
“You must know what was in them! You couldn’t have


156 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
put them away with never a look after being so anxious
to get them and paying out good money—”
“I was called away,” Norwood demurred hurriedly.
“I—I did glance over them the next day, but the ink had
faded and the writing was almost illegible. It would have
been necessary to study them under a magnifying glass,
and I hadn't time then. That was Wednesday, you see,
and on the following day something or other occurred which
put them out of my mind. I did not think of them again
until the wallet caught my eye when I went to get the memo-
randum to take with me to Professor Parlowe's. For all
I know they may have been a mere fraud and the woman
an impostor. People know my weakness and have tried
to swindle me before this. I—I haven’t the least idea what
the letters contained or who is supposed to have written
them.”
He raised his eyes defiantly to meet McCarty's steady
gaze and read there the futility of his attempt at evasion.
He had lied and the other knew it. A dull, mottled red
crept into his cheeks, but with a shrug he turned once more
and led the way to the door and this time McCarty followed
in silence.


158 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
finding out who's responsible for it,” McCarty paused and
added slyly: “especially if he and his relations are being
trailed whenever they poke their noses out of doors.”
“We’ve drawn a blank there so far, I'll admit.” Inspec-
tor Druet thrust the sheaf of reports which he had been
fingering into a pigeonhole. “Not that I expect to learn
anything incriminating from that quarter, but I’m taking no
chances on overlooking a possible clue. Jarvis is the man
I'm after, Mac; I have no direct evidence as yet, but I am
having his record looked up and to-day I requested from
him a detailed accounting of his wife's estate. If I’m not
mistaken, he won't find that an easy thing to produce.”
“You mean that he's taken her money?” McCarty
asked. -
‘I can't call it that, since she gave him power of attorney;
turned the whole thing over to him, in fact, although last
spring she did get about twenty thousand back on the plea
of war charities, he says. But I have discovered that dur-
ing the past two years he had lost heavily in stocks; been
on the wrong side of the market almost continually and his
broker's books show that he has made desperate efforts
to recoup lately. This proposed trip to France was in my
estimation only a stall to keep his wife in ignorance of the
true state of their finances as long as possible. He didn't
dare refuse to turn over the twenty thousand to her, of course,
for fear of arousing her suspicions, but that money which she
has been paying out to blackmailers, comparatively small
as the amount was, considering her original fortune, might
have been a life-saver for him.”.
“And what do you think of the blackmail part of the
business?” *
“One of the boys started for New Orleans on Saturday
night, and I have two female operatives working now
among Mrs. Jarvis' friends and associates,” the Inspector


THE TWENTY-SIXTH OF MAY 159
responded significantly. “Whatever the affair was which
she went to such lengths to keep under cover, I am satis-
fied that it had nothing to do with the murder. I’m with
our friend Terhune there, but the rest of his theory is all
rubbish. I mean to have a talk to-morrow with Miss Nor-
wood; she may know something as she was the dead woman's
closest friend.”
“She's got money, hasn't she?” asked McCarty irrel-
evantly. “The old man—her uncle—said something to-day
about her inheritance.”
“Yes. We got a line on both families. Calvin Norwood's
brother married the daughter of old Wexley, the steel rail
magnate, and Miss Norwood is quite an heiress. But what
took you there to-day, MacP’” Inspector Druet bent a
quizzical eye upon his visitor. “Have you got anything
up your sleeve? I knew you couldn't keep out of the case
if your life depended on it! You wouldn't bother with
Norwood, though, if you didn’t think there was some clue
to be found in that house which we had overlooked.”
McCarty smiled broadly:
“Not in this case, sir, but in some that are long past,”
he replied with a show of candor. “You know it was to
show us through his museum that Mr. Norwood got Mr.
Terhune to bring Denny and me there to dinner the other
night and almost the first thing we came on was that body
under the blanket and it was all off. I wanted to see what
he has in his collection, though, and hear the story of it
and this afternoon I got him to give me what you might
call a private view. Some of the stuff he's got there is
mighty interesting; I'd like to get the dope on one or two
of those old cases, even if they are dead ones. That Hoyos
matter, for instance. I don't suppose, now, you could let
me have a peep at the records? It's ten years past, and well
I know you’ve enough and to spare on your hands with this


162 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
bet anything I had on that. There was no other woman
in the case and that's the only thing the wife would per-
ps have not forgiven, sir.”
“As a wife, but there are other kinds of disgrace, that
she might have repudiated him for.” The Inspector paused.
“I won't go into that until I have something definite to
work on, but Jarvis' mother was a von Rohne, of the family
of Berlin bankers, and if you take a look at some of the
records of the Department of Justice, Mac, you'll find that
the German taint in the blood of more than one supposedly
solid American family is working for treason. Understand,
I have no proof, but if it develops that Jarvis was actually
giving financial aid here to some underground work of his
mother's people, he might well be afraid of his wife's knowl-
edge. Remember, he was unaware of any secret in her
own life; he thought her above reproach in every way
and knew her to be intensely patriotic. That is only one
supposition of mine, but other motives would cover that
point. -
“As to his going to his wife's dressing-room at that hour
instead of at night, it may be possible that he could not
wait. He may not have placed her jewels in the safe.
deposit vault a few days earlier as he claimed, but have
taken them then to realize money on, and she came upon
him in the act. He may have had desperate need of that
money before night. I know this sounds as if I were trying
to build up the wildest sort of evidence to support my
theory, but every slight clue in our possession points to
him and we cannot afford to overlook any possibility.”
McCarty's manner showed that he was still unconvinced.
“Why did she get up and put on that plain, dark dress
and how did the blue silk vºl or scarf or whatever it was
happen to be so handy to strangle her with?” he asked.
“If you ask me, sir, it lookes suspicious; her giving the


THE TWENTY-SIXTH OF MAY 163
servants the afternoon off and getting her own maid out
of the way on an errand and making that excuse about
the headache and all.”
The Inspector nodded.
“I think you are right there, Mac,” he agreed. “If
it was her husband she found ransacking her dressing-room,
the surprise must have been mutual. You remember
Margot's story of her mistress' sudden collapse on Wed-
nesday night after her dinner guests had gone? I think
that in some way we haven’t discovered yet imperative word
reached her from the blackmailers, hinting at some drastic
steps to be taken before she sailed for France and perhaps
making an appointment for Friday afternoon which she
did not dare to ignore. She arranged that no one should
know of her errand and was preparing for it when the in-
terruption came.”
“And what's your own idea, sir, as to how the murderer
got her body to the museum and why he went to all that
trouble for nothing?” McCarty demanded bluntly.
“Wouldn't he know that when the state of the dressing-
room was seen 'twould be supposed the murder was com-
mitted there? If 'twas Mr. Jarvis himself, what did he
take his old automobile gloves along with him for, much
less drape one over the ladder to advertise the fact that
he’d been there?”
“Well, this is what happened, as I figure it out now.”
The Inspector relighted his cigar and settled forward in
his chair. “When he had killed her, his first thought was
naturally to save himself and divert suspicion from the
actual scene of the crime. It isn’t easy to hide a human
body, but he thought of old Norwood's museum, which
sometimes wasn’t entered for days at a time. It was
too dark for anyone in the rear of the adjoining and oppo-
site houses to see the outlines of a person passing through


164 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
the yards and he chanced it. He carried the body to the
Norwood yard, hid it under a bush, entered the museum
by means of the ladder, opened the door and coming down
the stairs and out through the passageway, carried the
body back up that way to the museum. That glove is a
nice bit of detail, but I think I know the answer to it. Jarvis
knew what a shark Norwood is on fingerprint evidence and
he took the gloves along to prevent leaving any traces
when he forced the catch of the window. Something—
perhaps hearing the blind secretary moving about—must
have frightened him away before he could remove the
ladder and retrieve the glove which he'd dropped.”
McCarty brought his hand down on the arm of his chair
with a resounding thwack.
“You’ve hit it, sir!” he exclaimed. “It’s been in my
mind from the first that the one who climbed the ladder
to the museum brought the glove to keep from leaving
finger marks behind, but in their hurry I thought they only
snatched up one glove instead of the pair, and then got
excited and dropped it. If 'twas Jarvis, as you say, why
did he take a chance on Mr. Norwood, perhaps, coming
in and catching him in the museum with the body?”
“He probably knew that Norwood had gone to Professor
Parlowe's, just as he might have learned from his wife
during lunch that all their own servants would be out for
the afternoon.” The Inspector's mollified tone betrayed
his gratification at McCarty's belated approval. “I don't
think, however, that he knew of Norwood's little dinner
party that night or that he meant to exhibit his museum
to two such celebrated sleuths as you and Terhune, to say
nothing of Riordan; I think Jarvis banked on the hope
that the body would not be discovered until the following
day, and that after he had established an alibi against
any possible future questioning he could get home and


166 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
McCarty promised and as the Inspector departed, settled
himself to a perusal of the closely typed sheets which Yost
had placed upon the desk before him.
The first which came to his hand was a personal descrip-
tion of the dead yachtsman.
“Leonidas Hoyos, aged approximately thirty, nationality
unknown but believed to be of Greek-Hungarian extrac-
tion,” he read: “Medium height, smooth shaven, black
hair, fair complexion, gray eyes, full red lips, straight nose,
rounded, slightly receding chin. Flashy clothes, expensive
jewelry. No scars or other identifying marks.”
There was at first glance nothing to arrest his attention
in that, yet McCarty read it carefully several times over
before laying it aside. The next document was a report
of the official investigation into Hoyos' antecedents. Noth-
ing could be learned of him prior to the summer of 1906
when he had presented himself at a prominent brokerage
house in Wall Street as a prospective client, with credentials
and letters from equally noted concerns on the Bourse and
London Exchange. He maintained luxurious bachelor
apartments on Madison Avenue, kept two cars and a
retinue of servants and during the following winter suc-
ceeded in gaining admittance to membership in one or two
of the clubs noted more for their sporting tendencies than
their exclusiveness. He plunged heavily in Wall Street,
netted huge profits and early in the spring of 1907 purchased
from the Carmichael estate a steam yacht which he re-
christened The ‘Muette.’
Then followed records, attested to by the captain, stew-
ards, stewardess and members of the crew of several
coastwise trips in which men about town and women known
to the festive bright-light district had figured conspicuously
and champagne and gambling for high stakes had been the
order of the day. In May The Muette had anchored in


THE TWENTY-SIXTH OF MAY 167
the Hudson a few miles north of the city and its owner had
given only occasional dinner parties on board.
The report ended abruptly with a list of Hoyos' financial
holdings; stocks, bonds, securities and deposits in various
banks. McCarty glanced over them casually, noted the
total and then took up the minutes of the Coroner's inquest.
It was a voluminous record and he turned first to the ver-
dict; accidental death. That, he remembered, had ended
the case officially as far as the public was concerned, but he
had not forgotten the storm it aroused in the press, nor
rumors in the department that the investigation was not
to be immediately shelved.
He skipped the verbatim testimony of the witnesses and
had settled back in his chair to read the final summary when
the opening sentence made him start forward in astonish-
ment with round eyes and quickened breath.
On the twenty-sixth of the month, in the late afternoon,
Hoyos had come aboard, ordered dinner for two and sent
the dingey back to the wharf to meet his guest. At eight
o'clock a woman arrived, heavily veiled, and was ushered to
the saloon where Hoyos awaited her. The steward withdrew
and no one witnessed their meeting nor could anyone sub-
sequently furnish a description of the woman, for Hoyos
took extraordinary precautions against having her seen from
the moment of her arrival. He countermanded the order
for an elaborate dinner which he had given, directed that a
single course with several bottles of champagne be placed
in the dining-saloon, and then dismissed the stewards for the
night.
Sounds were heard later of a bitter quarrel, with the
woman weeping and Hoyos fairly shouting in rage. The
noises ceased, however, and quiet ensued until close on to
midnight when two pistol shots were heard, followed by two
heavy splashes in the water. -
*


168 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
Investigation showed that the saloon was empty, the man
and woman had both disappeared and an open window
with blood upon the sill and Hoyos' own pistol lying on the
floor nearby were the only indications of what had occurred.
The authorities were notified and an investigation was
instituted but there was no trace of either Hoyos or the
woman until about three weeks later, on the fourteenth
of June when a police boat patrolling the lower bay picked
up a man's body which was identified by means of the
clothing and initialed jewelry as that of Leonidas Hoyos.
The body itself was greatly mutilated, presumably by con-
tact with passing river craft, and an autopsy was unable
to determine the presence of a bullet wound but the
conditions of the lungs did not indicate death by drowning.
The woman's body was not recovered.
For long after he had finished, McCarty sat staring
at the papers clutched in his hand, while two sentences formed
of macaroni paste letters danced before his mental vision.
“Does lady forget date of next Saturday night?” and “Iooo
under bush 26 each month small price safety.”
The twenty-sixth of each month! And it was on the
twenty-sixth of May, ten years before, that the mysterious
tragedy of The ‘Muette’ had occurred. The wife of Oliver
Jarvis had been a mere child then, in far away New Orleans.
What connection had there been between her and the
unhappy woman who had been Hoyos' guest, or Hoyos
himself? Was it only a strange and unlooked-for coin-
cidence, or had he indeed stumbled upon a real clue? Was
he alone upon the right path which should lead through
the maze of evasions and contradictions to the truth?


CHAPTER XV
A LONE HAND
-- HERE'S little any man can tell about a woman
whether he's married to her or not,” observed
Dennis sententiously. “'Tis well for us, Mac,
that we've always steered clear of them. Look at Mrs.
Jarvis, now, with all her good works and the sweet ways of
her that everyone who knew her talks about; who'd think
she could have been mixed up with the murder of a dirty
roystering Dago ten years gone? For she was mixed up
in it, I’d bet the half of my insurance policy that you've
struck it! No matter if she was only a girl then and never
North in her life, ’twas to keep that business on the yacht
secret, no less, that she was paying out hush money.”
It was Tuesday morning and by special condescension
on the part of the Lieutenant, McCarty and Dennis were
seated in his private office at the engine house where the
ex-Roundsman had been regaling his friend with a résumé
of the previous day's discoveries.
Dennis' enthusiastic acceptance of McCarty's theory
brought an expansive glow to the latter's heart, but he
merely nodded in affirmation.
“It fits in with what little evidence we have, leaving
out the ransacking of the dressing-room,” he responded.
“You mind the sudden collapse that came to her on Wednes-
day night after her dinner party, and Mr. Norwood's re-
mark that she'd been gay at first and then kind of quiet
for a while?' 'Twas no message from the blackmailers that
169


170 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
reached her, Denny, but Mr. Norwood's own words, when
he told her of the Hoyos wallet and the letters that were
in it, that struck her all of a heap in the midst of her
pleasant little party, and she was quiet because she was
thinking, and thinking hard. She made up her mind then
to get that wallet, and ’twas that she was after when she
went to her death in the Norwood museum!”
“By the powers! Then 'twas not to meet anybody
at all—” *
“No. The meeting was an accident, like, to both of
them, whoever the other party was.” -
“A mortal accident to her, poor thing.” Dennis hesi-
tated. “If 'twas not the blind young secretary who met
her and killed her—and what you heard him say yesterday
in his sickness goes to show that he didn't do it—who was
it? What was the other one doing in the museum and
how did he get in?”
“You’re not asking much, are you?” McCarty demanded
witheringly. “I’ve the answer to your last question,
though it slipped my mind to tell you before. On Saturday
morning before I experimented with the ladder, I gave a
look to the lock on the museum door. There were some
little fine scratches around the keyhole; I’d seen the like
when I was on the force in more than one housebreaking
case and I was on in a minute. There's only one thing
that makes scratches like that, and only one thing in a
burglar's kit of tools that'll open a Yale lock; a “spider.’
Whoever it was got into the museum, broke in, in spite
of Marchal there in the library, and he knew just how to
go about it. I think from Marchal's ravings that he heard
something of what went on, and why he didn't butt in
and stop the murder is a mystery to me, but there's more
than that to be cleared up.”
“There is that!” Dennis agreed. “Why would any-


A LONE HAND 173
&
knew I hadn't made any mistake! Oliver Jarvis is the
man!”
“Is that so, sir?” McCarty remarked, unmoved.
“You’ve found out what he's been doing with his wife's
money, then?”
“Better than that! We've got a witness who saw him
leaving his own house at six o'clock on Friday afternoon,
and located the taxi chauffeur who picked him up five minutes
later just around the corner and drove him to the French
consulate at top speed. What do you say to that?”
“’Twas good, snappy work, sir, but it don't prove any-
thing.” McCarty's chin was a trifle out-thrust. “He may
have been in the house and yet not seen his wife or gone near
her dressing-room—” -
“Mac, what's the matter with you?” the Inspector de-
manded, disgustedly. “You’re getting to be as stubborn
as a mule! You can't get around facts, man, and every
fact we've got hold of points to Oliver Jarvis.”
“Except that according to your one witness, the dressing-
room was in order until eight o'clock or after,” McCarty
remarked.
“Margot's story was a lie!”
“Was it so, sir?” McCarty's tone was quiet, but his blue
eyes snapped. “Have you considered it for a minute as
maybe true, in spite of the fact that it would upset your
theory? Suppose Mrs. Jarvis was not carried out of that
house, but walked out, after getting rid of her own servants
so that nobody should know where she'd gone; suppose she
took one of husband's gloves with her, meaning to take the
pair, so that her finger marks would not show in what she
was going to do? Suppose she went through the yards, put
up the ladder and climbed it, forced the museum win-
dow—”
“You’re crazy, Macl” the Inspector stared. “Why


174 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
should Mrs. Jarvis have gone secretly to a place where
she was always welcome? What could she have been
after?”
“I’m thinking it was a black wallet with a couple of
letters inside,” McCarty responded simply.
“Look here! What are you getting at?” The Inspector
struck his desk smartly with his open hand. “It’s a fool
notion, but you’d better come across with what is on your
mind. I suppose you mean that she was murdered in the
museum, after all?”
McCarty nodded solemnly.
“Well, she wasn't,” the other asserted flatly. “You’ll
be as bad as Terhune next, trying to say that Marchal killed
her! What is this rubbish about a black wallet?”
“”Tis not rubbish about her being blackmailed, is it,
sir? Nor yet that she seemed to be happy lately, as if a
load were off her mind, only to collapse on Wednesday after
the dinner party; after learning from Mr. Norwood that he'd
just bought a wallet that held the only clue to a certain
crime that's never been cleared up. Unless I’ve got the
wrong bull by the horns, that wallet had something to do
with why she'd been blackmailed, and she made up her
mind to get it if she had to steal it. That's all, Inspector.
I don't pretend to say who killed her, nor why, but whoever
it was, he picked the lock of the museum door with a spider;
the marks are there for you to see.”
Inspector Druet snorted in good-natured contempt.
“There were letters in this wallet? What was the crime
they were supposed to furnish a clue to?”
“The Hoyos matter, sir. You asked me yesterday what
souvenir of it Mr. Norwood has and I told you none. It's
gospel truth, too, for the wallet has disappeared. He
swears it was there in the museum at three o'clock on Fri-
day afternoon, before he left for the professor's house.”


A LONE HAND 175
“The Hoyos case! Ten years back, and Mrs. Jarvis
only came to New York five years ago!” laughed the In-
spector. “You’ll have to think up a better one than that,
Mac' Old Norwood probably mislaid the wallet himself,
if it ever existed. When did he miss it?”
McCarty hesitated.
“Only yesterday, sir,” he admitted. “But none except .
your own men and the medical examiners were in that room
till it was locked up on Saturday night. 'Twas taken away
by the fellow that killed Mrs. Jarvis—”
“No, Mac. You're away off,” the Inspector interrupted,
shaking his head. “You had good common sense when you
were on the force, but you're letting your imagination run
away with you. Whatever Mrs. Jarvis was blackmailed
for, it had nothing to do with any crime nor with her
death.”
“Well, sir, I've nothing to do with the case; I'm only
giving you a tip and you can take it or leave it, as you see
fit.” McCarty spoke with dignity. “If your operative
that's gone to New Orleans would work along the lines I’ve
told you, and try to find out what connection there was
between this man Hoyos and Mrs. Jarvis or her family
you might learn something that would bring you around to
my way of thinking.”
“I’m afraid not, Mac. There isn't a shadow of evidence
to support such a theory and a million reasons why it would
be impossible on the face of it. I thought you had something
up your sleeve yesterday, when you came nosing around
about that old Hoyos record; but I didn't think you would
fall for any such wild idea as this. Old Norwood must have
hypnotized you with his fool collection, but if you want to
monkey with the case at all, come down to earth! Facts
are what we're after, not crazy theories, and we're working
for practical results.” -


178 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
especially since the war started, and for a long while she
was out of a position. That was when she lodged here
with me. She couldn't get anything to do at sea and
finally she took a position as assistant to the matron of
the orphan asylum over on the heights. She lost it, though,
three or four months ago and I never laid eyes on her until
she came last week and paid me every cent she'd owed me.
I don't believe she would go to sea again now, sir.”
“Still, this is such a fine easy berth that she might con-
sider it,” McCarty urged discreetly. “The manager of the
agency said she was just the one for the job and you'd
like to put it her way, I'm sure. She can do no more than
refuse it.”
“That's true,” the woman agreed. “She told me she
was staying with a friend, a Mrs. Williamson over on Park
Avenue near a Hundred and Seventeenth Street, but that
she was going away somewhere for a rest at the seaside.
Kate has a rare craze for the ocean, sir, which is natural,
since she's spent most of her life on it. That's why I think
perhaps she might ship with you in spite of the money
that's come to her, but I can’t tell you rightly where to
find her, for I don’t remember the house number she gave
me. She said she'd write, anyway, when she got settled
somewhere.”
McCarty thanked his informant and took his departure,
threading a devious way across the city to Park Avenue.
There a prolonged scrutiny of the mail boxes in various
vestibules in the neighborhood of One Hundred and Seven-
teenth Street at length vouchsafed the name he sought,
and he pressed the bell.
The entrance door clicked promptly in response, and he
mounted the stairs to find a buxom young woman facing
him in the dim hallway, with a baby in her arms and a
toddler clinging shyly to her skirt.


180 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
At that moment the face of Joan Norwood, pale now
and clouded with troubled agitation, appeared over his
shoulder and she cried:
“Oh, Mr. McCarty! I'm so glad you've come! I–I
want your help!”


182 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
mind,” Vivaseur interrupted quickly. The momentary
patronage was gone from his tones and he spoke with tact-
ful deference. “We came to you because of your influence
with the authorities and because Miss Norwood feels, as I
do, that if anyone succeeds in solving the mystery of her
friend's tragic death, it will be you, my dear fellow!”
“I’m not on the case, sir,” McCarty responded quietly.
“I’ve no longer any connection with the force, as you know,
and it's little the influence I have there.”
“But we know your record!” Vivaseur's smile was
winning in its frank, boyish admiration. “Mr. Norwood
has told us of your ripping work on a case only last year,
and Miss Norwood felt that if you would interest yourself
in this affair you would stand a greater show of success
than that scientific johnny. He's been about messing things
up generally to-day and the old gentleman is in a fearful
heat about it.”
“Inspector Druet has charge of the investigation,”
McCarty remarked in a slightly mollified voice.
“Yes. Quite so.” Vivaseur shrugged. “I don’t want
to cast any aspersions on your late profession, McCarty,
but after all it is the individual and not the system that
counts, don't you think? Your very conscientious Inspector
is raising the deuce with all of us, and one of Miss Nor-
wood's motives in coming to you was to enlist your influence
to have this espionage to which we are being subjected modi-
fied a trifle. I have no personal objection, though, by Jovel
I wish they’d be a bit more subtle in their methods. All the
chaps at the club are spoofing me about the johnny who is
trailing me. However, it is a serious annoyance to Miss
Norwood and her uncle and we fancied if you put in a
word—”
McCarty shook his head.
“That's the ordinary routine work of the department,


“It was NOT MY DoING” iss
>
sir, in a case like this. I couldn't interfere, but likely the
Inspector will put a stop to it himself soon, for he told me
only yesterday that he expected nothing from it.”
Miss Norwood leaned forward in her chair.
“That isn't the real reason why I persuaded Mr. Vivaseur
to bring me here to-day, Mr. McCarty,’” she said earnestly.
“Of course, this being followed about is annoying and makes
Uncle Cal very difficult to live with, but I wouldn't mind
anything if I could only feel that some progress was being
made in the investigation, if only we could know who really
killed poor Evelyn Jarvis. Oliver has the utmost faith in
Mr. Terhune, but his suspicion of Captain Marchal is un-
just and utterly without foundation. It is almost cowardly
to attack a person in the Captain's position, suffering as
he is under such a terrible affliction and absolutely inno-
cent! I had hoped that the authorities would make some
headway, but they seem even more willfully blind than
Mr. Terhune. Inspector Druet is actually trying to build
up a case against Oliver Jarvis himself! They are both
dreadfully wrong and the thought that precious time is
passing, and that the fiend who killed my friend may escape
scot free is driving me almost frantic! I loved Evelyn as
if she were my own sister and I shall not rest until her
murderer is discovered and brought to justice!”
“He will be,” McCarty announced with a certain grim-
ness. “Of course, Mr. Terhune is a very celebrated man,
but his methods are not those of the department and naturally
I've more faith in the old system. The Inspector may be
on the wrong track, but he'll never give up until he learns
the truth, I’ll say that for him.”
“And then it may be too late!” Miss Norwood wrung
her hands. “Mr. McCarty, I know you have retired,
that you're a private citizen now, but that leaves you all
the more free to conduct an investigation of your own,


186 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
tioned in his presence. I can't help feeling that he knows
or suspects something, but he acts almost afraid to speak.”
McCarty nodded slowly.
“I’ve a notion that I know what's troubling him,” he
commented. “But go on, miss. There was something
else—”
“Captain Marchal,” she paused. “You know how ill
he was yesterday; he seems to be quite himself again to-day,
but terribly weak and shaken, and his manner is so con-
strained and queer that even Mr. Vivaseur noticed it and
he has never had even five minutes’ conversation with
him.”
“Rather!” the Englishman ejaculated. “Of course, I
admire him tremendously and all that for what he has done,
and I’m no end sorry for him in his affliction, but my word!
he is an uncomfortable sort of chap to have about! He has
his ears cocked, if you know what I mean, as if he were
listening to something no one else can hear, and those
sightless eyes of his seem to follow one about in the most
extraordinary way. Gives one a deucedly odd sensation,
don’t you know.”
“I believe you, sir!” McCarty responded with emphasis.
“Did he know ’twas me sat with him yesterday, I
wonder?”
“Yes. Uncle Cal told him and he seemed to be rather
annoyed about it, and anxious to know if he had given
you any trouble,” Joan Norwood responded. “Then Mr.
Terhune came and insisted upon seeing him this morning.
They had an interview in the drawing-room and I think
Mr. Terhune must have virtually accused him, for I saw
Uncle Cal listening in the hall and all at once he burst in
upon them and there was a fearful row, he defending Cap-
tain Marchal and abusing Mr. Terhune in the most violent
manner and finally ordering him out of the house. After


“IT WAS NOT MY DOING” 187
he had gone Uncle Cal persuaded the Captain to go to
bed and rest, and he did look frightfully ill when I passed
him on the stairs, but he pulled himself together and came
down again at lunch time, although he ate nothing. I
can feel his queer, strained attitude, just as Mr. Vivaseur
can, and although his manners are perfect, as always, it
makes me uncomfortable, ill at ease. He was never like
this before. Then, right after lunch, the worst thing hap-
pened of all.”
“And what was that?” McCarty asked eagerly. . . .
“Oliver Jarvis came and said that he expected to be
arrested for the murder himself! That Inspector Druet
had been questioning him in such a way he could not help
but realize he was suspected, preposterous as it appeared,
and he wanted Uncle Cal to arrange his affairs for him in
the event of his being taken into custody. We all thought
he was crazy at first, that his grief had affected his mind,
but he told us enough to convince us the Inspector was
actually laboring under the delusion that he had killed
poor Evelyn. You see, they have discovered a discrepancy
in his story of where and how he spent Friday afternoon.
He had told them that he went directly from his attorneys
to the French consulate, when, as a matter of fact, there
was an interval of an hour and a half just at the time when
the murder is supposed to have taken place, which he said
nothing about.”
“Why doesn’t he tell the truth now?” McCarty spoke
with studied carelessness.
“Because it would make the case look even blacker
against him, in the Inspector's eyes.” Miss Norwood hesi-
tated and then went on quickly: “You see, they’ve discov-
ered that he went back to his house that afternoon; some-
one saw him leave and take a taxi to the consulate. If he
admitted now that he had quarreled with his wife—”


188 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Quarreled with her?” McCarty ejaculated.
“Yes. That is what has made his grief so difficult to
bear, poor boy, and he simply couldn't speak of it to any-
one before. It was just a tiny quarrel, but the thought
that they parted in coolness after five years of ideal happi-
ness is driving him almost mad! It was about money, too.
Oliver has lost a huge amount in the last year or two on
the stock market, and some of it was his wife's. She knew,
of course, and never blamed him, but she was almost fanat-
ical about this reconstruction work in France, and wanted
to throw nearly all of her remaining capital into it. Oliver
did not think it wise, under the circumstances, and they
had a final argument about it on Friday after lunch. Oliver
says he kissed her good-by, but it was a cold sort of kiss
and she did not respond. It worried him all during his
interview with his attorneys and afterward he went up and
walked in the park and fought it out with himself.
“He told us that his first impulse was to give way to
her wishes, but his recent experiences in Wall Street had
shaken his confidence in himself and his ability to make
money, and common sense dictated that his wife's fortune
must be conserved; that she must be protected and provided
for, even against her quixotic desires. He longed to make
up with her, though, and started home, but in the very
vestibule of the house he stopped himself, afraid lest in his
softened mood if she pleaded with him he would give in
to her against his better judgment. If the person who
saw him apparently coming out of his house had been
watching a minute or two earlier, they would have seen him
arrive, pause in the vestibule and then turn and go down
the steps and away. That is the truth, Mr. McCarty,
but you can realize what little hope he would have of con-
vincing Inspector Druet of it.” -
A sound note remotely resembling a chuckle issued from


“IT WAS NOT MY DOING” 189
McCarty's lips, but the next moment his gravity had re-
turned.
“Not now, maybe, but I don't think there's danger of
his arrest; not right away, at least. The Inspector is
cautious by nature, and he'll not risk charging Mr. Jarvis
with the murder till he's got more evidence than that to
go upon. I don’t know but I'd tell the truth, at that, if
I was Mr. Jarvis. It'll give the Inspector something to
think about and if it could be proved to him that Mrs. Jarvis
knew of her husband's speculations and the loss of her
money the theory he's been working on would be knocked
into a cocked hat.”
“Oh, do you think so?” Miss Norwood cried. “I’ll tell
him! Mr. Terhune advised him to admit nothing, but
privately I think that is just because he is sure of his own
case and wants to make his truimph all the more effective
by permitting the police to blunder, no matter what mental
anguish it causes his client.” - - -
This time McCarty's chuckle was unrestrained.
“A grand-stand play! 'Tis like him!” he affirmed.
“However, miss, if you can persuade Mr. Jarvis to go
straight to Inspector Druet with his story, just as you’ve
told it to me, ’twill be better for him in the end. Tell him
to be sure and explain how he lost the money and Mrs.
Jarvis not blaming him, and to say that it's by McCarty's
advice he's making a clean breast of it. I’ve small in-
fluence, as I told you, but the Inspector knows me and he'll
at least take the trouble to investigate before he goes any
further.”
“I can persuade Oliver, I am sure.” Miss Norwood's
voice was buoyant with relief, but her expression changed
'swiftly as she added: “Now I want to tell you about Evelyn
herself, Mr. McCarty. My uncle told me about the cake
marked ‘Noel' and the macaroni-paste letters which were


190 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
found hidden in her room, but I suspected even before the
cake could have been sent to her that there was some old
trouble in her life that clouded her happiness, and last spring
I was almost certain, from something she let fall in an un-
guarded moment, that she was being hounded by someone
but I did not think of blackmail. Remember that I was
closer to her than anyone in the world except her husband;
possibly even more in her confidence in some ways, for she
did not feel the need of so much self-repression with me.
“I cannot recall the moment when I first began to suspect
that Evelyn had some secret trouble, but I found her sad
and depressed often in the past few years without any
apparent cause, and one subject seemed forever back of her
mind, predominant over everything else; how alone each
one of us stood in this world no matter how much love we
were surrounded with, and the martyrdom of being unable
to reveal oneself fully. I thought at first that it was just
a morbid mood, but it recurred so persistently that at length
I begged her to tell me what was troubling her. She broke
down and cried terribly, but it seemed to relieve her and she
put me off with vague excuses.
“That was some time before the holidays last year, but
immediately after Christmas I noticed the change in her.
She was afraid, Mr. McCarty; I did not know of what, but
she lived in a constant state of nervous apprehension which
increased as time went on until she became actually ill.
That was in May, I think. I was sitting with her one day
when she fell into a little doze and then started up in terror.
“Go away!” she cried, flinging her hands out as if to ward
off something. “It was not my doing! Must the shadow
of it follow me always, always!”
“I spoke to her and she quieted at once and murmured
something about a bad dream but she could not deceive me.
*


“IT WAS NOT MY DOING” 191
The hunted look in her eyes was too real and it was the
same look, only intensified, that I had seen for months past.”
Eric Vivaseur stirred in his chair.
“Don’t you think, my dear girl, that you may be exag-
gerating a trifle?” he suggested. “Isn't it because of what
has come to light now, don't you know, that you attach too
much significance to it? That whole affair of the cake and
those letters is a bit thick, really! I should fancy it was some
sort of bally practical joke, if you know what I mean. A
blackmailing johnny in real life wouldn't go about it in such
a silly fashion, now would he? It simply isn't done, you
know.”
He appealed to McCarty, but the latter shook his head.
“There's stranger things than that pulled off, sir,” he
remarked. “I’m afraid there’s no doubt of it that Mrs.
Jarvis was being blackmailed, and ’twas far from being a
joke!”
“But on what score?” the other demanded. “I say,
have you any idea, McCarty, of what possible secret could
be in the lady's life? From what I have heard of her, she
seems to have been quite all right. Have you discovered
the slightest shadow on her past?” -
McCarty regarded the Englishman meditatively for a
moment and then replied with an assumption of candor.
“No, Mr. Vivaseur. I’ve no notion of what it could be
but I’m going to do my best to find out.”
“I am sure you will.” Miss Norwood rose and held out
her hand. “I feel so relieved at having had this talk with
you, Mr. McCarty, and to hear that you mean to carry on
the investigation. I know that you will succeed, you will
learn the truth; and we shall welcome it whatever it brings.”
“I’ll try hard enough,” McCarty assured her. “You’ll
let me know, miss, if anything else happens?”


192 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
She promised and they departed, McCarty following his
guests to the head of the stairs.
“I say, here's a letter for you.” Vivaseur called back
from below. “I’ll toss it up to you—Ah! Sorry it fell
shortl Good-afternoon.”
When the door had closed behind them McCarty picked
up his letter and returned to the sitting-room, where he
dropped into a chair and sat for long buried in deep cogita-
tion. Miss Norwood's story had not wholly surprised him,
but with its termination a thought had come which, wildly
improbable as his earlier inspirations had been, yet held him
fascinated by its sheer audacity.
Dusk had fallen when he at last remembered the letter
in his hands, and stirring up the dying coals upon the hearth,
he tore open the envelope.
“Deer Mr. McCarty,” he read. “Are you busy tonight?
I will be at the basment door at half past 8. I am in troubel.
Yours truly, Etta.”


CHAPTER XVII
ONE WORD
McCarty's coming at the hour designated that night.
Her buxom figure drooped and her face in the flaring
light of the street lamp looked swollen and distorted as
from much weeping.
“Good-evening, my dear,” McCarty saluted her with
marked gallantry. “I got your note and it's proud I am
that you sent for me in your trouble, whatever it is. Would
you come for a little walk, maybe?”
He had noted that she wore her hat and cloak and at
his words she nodded and slipping out of the area door,
closed it noiselessly behind her.
“Yes. We can’t talk here, and the house gives me the
creeps, anyway. It was good of you to come, Mr. McCarty,
but I dunno as I did right to send for you. He'd half kill
me if he knew I was giving him away, even though you’ve
nothing to do with the police now. Still we've got to
know what to do or I'll go crazy with the worry of it!”
“If it's a police matter I can put you right on it in no
time. There's no trick of the trade I’m not on to,” McCarty
replied promptly. “Is it a friend of yours that's in trouble?”
“It’s my brother, Dick.” The words came low and half
unwillingly from her lips and McCarty with difficulty re-
pressed a whistle of astonishment.
Her brother! Norwood's description of the young man
I' was a very pale and agitated Etta who awaited
193


194 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
returned to his mind: “lazy, impudent, drank up every-
thing he could lay his hand on xx
“I’ve heard of him,” he said slowly. “Mr. Jarvis em-
ployed him as second man at one time, didn't he?”
“Yes, and you’ve heard no good of him, I’ll be bound!”
Etta retorted fiercely. “Dick never had a fair show! He's
not really bad; not any worse than a lot of other young
men, but he's had hard luck and he can’t keep a steady
job and it gets him crazy to think of the soft snap the rich
have of it, while he and the likes of us have to slave and
take their abuse just for enough to eat and something to
put on our backs! Dick tried to go straight, but some-
thing always seemed to go wrong. When he worked for
the Jarvises old Henry, the butler, was jealous of him and
forever complaining to the master. Of course, Dick wasn’t
going to stand having all the old man's work put off on
his shoulders and take his jawing too, besides! Then
Henry told Mr. Jarvis that Dick was drinking up his
whisky, which was a lie, but Mr. Jarvis wouldn't listen and
discharged him.”
“And now he's in trouble?” McCarty suggested to stem
the flow of reminiscence.
“Yes, through no fault of his own. He got in with a
gang over on the East Side; not gunmen, but tough, young
fellows that—that put notions in his head and showed
him easy ways of getting money.” She hesitated. “I’ve
begged him on my knees to cut loose from them, but what
was the use? There was no one to give him a job or a
good word. I went to Mrs. Jarvis to see if she could get
her husband to give him another trial, but she wouldn’t
do anything for me; that Margot had her wrapped around
her little finger and she had no more use for me than she
had for my brother, though my aunt was cook in the Jarvis
family before Mr. Oliver ever knew she was alive!”


ONE WORD 195
The vindictive resentment in the girl's tone was a reve-
lation, but McCarty commented soothingly:
“’Twas hard lines on the young fellow. But what's
happened to him?”
“The other night a watchman at some foundry was
beaten up and a lot of brass work, fixtures and such, was
stolen.” Etta dropped her voice and glanced half-fearfully
over her shoulder as she spoke. “The police traced them
to a place downtown, a fence who made a business of buying
up such stuff and asking no questions. He talked quick
enough to the police, though, and said it was the gang Dick
belongs to that turned the trick. I dunno whether it was
or not, but Dick wasn’t in on it, that I can swear! How-
ever, the watchman woke up in the hospital and identified
two of the crowd as them that had set on him, describing
another that sounded enough like Dick to be his brother.
The fellows wouldn’t squeal and tell who'd been with them
and so the police went scouting around and last night they
—they found Dick and arrested him!”
“Well,” observed McCarty after a pause. “My advice
to him would be to get a good lawyer that stands in, maybe,
with the Prosecutor, and a couple of witnesses that don't
come too high. You can get them to swear to anything
for from five up.”
“You wouldn't be doing much, would you, and Dick with
no money nor nothing!” Etta jeered sarcastically. “Be-
sides, he had nothing to do with it. He wasn't with
them that night and didn’t even know what was coming
off!”
McCarty glanced shrewdly at her.
“Then why don’t he tell the police where he was?”
“He-he can’t. That's the trouble, and I dunno what
to do. I know where he was, all right, but if I was to tell,
it would get him in worse trouble, and me, too.”


196 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
At her words a sudden light flashed across McCarty's
brain and he demanded:
“When was it that the foundry was broke into? Last
Friday night?”
The girl made no reply, but he could feel her tremble
violently as she withdrew her arm from his.
“You might just as well tell me, my dear, for I can find
out from Headquarters, and remember, I'm your friend.
I told you'd I’d stand by you. "Twas last Friday night,
wasn’t it?”
“Y-yes!” Etta began to sob wildly. “I’ll not tell you
any more, so don’t ask it of me! I never meant to let out
that much, but you dragged it from me!”
“You don't have to tell me,” McCarty retorted. “’Twas
your brother who ransacked Mrs. Jarvis' dressing-room and
you that let him in to do it, wasn't it? You’d put up a
job between you—”
“We had not!” The girl turned upon him with flashing
eyes. “Dick was sick! Cigarettes and drink and the tough
life here in the city was getting him and he wanted a chance
to go West and start all over again, but where was the money
coming from? He's all I’ve got, and I didn’t mean to see
him die here or maybe go up for turning some cheap trick
like pinching a few bits of brass! He'd as much right to a
fresh start as anyone and if the Jarvises had been the open-
handed kind he would have gone to them. They’d never
missed the few dollars, and 'twould have been only decent,
him being the cook's nephew, and all. But we knew he
didn't stand a chance of getting a cent from them, and here
they were going off to Europe this week and turning me out
with a reference, maybe, but nothing to show for the year
and more I’ve slaved for them! Margot was going with
them, Margot was the pet, but I was no more than the dirt
under their feet! My aunt was to get a pension, but they’ve


ONE WORD 197
turned her against Dick, too, and she'd have nothing to do
with him.
“Dick and me, we talked it all over and I was near wild,
for his health had been breaking fast lately. A few of
the trumpery pins and things that Mrs. Jarvis used to leave
around so careless on her dresser would have paid his way
to the coast and set him up in the billiard parlor he's been
wanting to run, but I wouldn't hear of it first off when he
spoke. I told him to come back the next night and we'd
think up some other way, but in the meantime that sneaking
Margot went to Mrs. Jarvis with some tale about me break-
ing a homely old vase in the drawing-room and I got scolded
right in front of her. That settled it for me, and I thought
that if I could get her in trouble it would only be paying
her back!”
“I see,” McCarty nodded. “You thought if anything
was missed she'd be accused of taking it. You didn't know
your brother was going to pull the dressing-room to pieces,
nor yet did you figure on the murder—”
“Oh-h!” Etta gave a little scream and clutched con-
vulsively at his arm. “Mr. McCarty, as God is my judge
we had nothing to do with that! I never liked Mrs. Jarvis
for the way she put Margot before me, but I’d not have
harmed a hair of her head, nor Dick either! He's that
tender-hearted he wouldn't hurt a cat, for all his rough ways,
and Mrs. Jarvis was gone before ever I let him into the house.
I can swear to that for I stayed by him every minute he was
there, keeping watch that Margot didn't hear anything and
come snooping around. Except for her down in the front
basement the house was empty.” -
“And what time was it when you let your brother in?”
McCarty asked. “You’d better tell me the whole thing,
Etta, till I see if I can’t fix a way out of it for you. Aiding
and abetting a burglary is a serious matter, but I’ve influence


198 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
at Headquarters yet and you don't want to keep silent and
have your brother sent up for something he didn't do.
That toothache business was a bluff, wasn’t it?”
“Partly, but I was sick, anyway, with the thought of
what I’d agreed to. I must have been crazy, looking back
on it, but I’d been getting more and more sore about Margot
and the way I was going to be turned off. I knew there'd
be no one home Friday night but the two of us, and when
she brought up my supper I told her I was going to sleep so
as to get rid of her. Dick came at nine, and I was waiting
for him up at the front door. I let him in quiet and then
all at once a different feeling came over me and I begged him
to give it up and go away; I saw 'twas wrong, what we had
planned.
“But Dick had been drinking to nerve himself up and he
wouldn't quit like that. He was bound to go through with
it, and upstairs he went with me after him. I took him
through Mrs. Jarvis' rooms to the dressing-room and then
I went back to the door leading into the hall to watch and
listen for Margot. Mrs. Jarvis wasn't there, anywhere.
Whatever had happened to her, she'd been gone long before.”
“And Margot didn't hear the racket when your brother
began upsetting things?”
“No. My heart was in my mouth, but 'tis an old house
and the floors are thick. When I heard the bang of a
chair going over Iran back and stopped him. He was mad
with rage at not finding anything except the gold stuff on
the dresser, and he didn't dare take that, not knowing how
to get rid of it without letting the gang in on it. 'Twas
all I could do to calm him down and make him go quietly,
but I got him out at last, and I never was so thankful for
anything in my life! I was glad even that he'd got nothing,
and we'd no theft on our souls! I hadn't the nerve to go


200 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“They will. Tell the Inspector I said for you to go
straight to him and that he would fix it to get you both out
of the scrape.”
Etta wavered, but McCarty called all his powers of per-
suasion into play, and when he left her at the basement door
of the Jarvis house a half hour later he had wrung from her
a reluctant promise to go with her confession to Inspector
Druet on the following day.
“Twice I’ve scored on him!” he chuckled to himself
as he turned up his collar once more and started across town.
“And neither time did I have to lift my little finger! The
news came to me; first young Jarvis' alibi and now the matter
of the dressing-room. The Inspector has the department
behind him and Terhune has his science, but I’ve my luck,
praise God, and it's going strong!”
An hour later, as engine oz3 honked its way wearily
into the firehouse after a futile dash to a false alarm, Dennis
swung himself down from his appointed place to find McCarty
confronting him, suitcase in hand and the light of purpose
in his eyes.
“You’re off on a trip, the night?” Dennis regarded
him wistfully. “My eyes have been bothering me again
from smoke and only to-day the Lieutenant said he could
fix it for me to lay off for a week and rest up. If you'd
given me the word, Mac, I could have been with you.”
“'Tis hardly worth while,” McCarty rejoined. “I’m
off to Atlantic City on the midnight train and if I get what
I'm after I'll be back to-morrow night or the next day.
Save up your eyes, Denny, till next week for I’m thinking
we've a longer trip ahead of us then. I just stopped in to
tell you that I'm on my way to see Kate Stricker.”
“The woman that sold the wallet to Norwood!” Dennis
stared. “You’ve located her then? Good for you!”
McCarty nodded.


ONE WORD 201
“And shot the Inspector's grand little theory full of holes,”
he supplemented complacently. “Wait till you hear what
happened since I left you this morning!”
He recounted the events of the day and Dennis listened
in absorbed interest, thrilling in sympathetic indignation
at Inspector Druet's attitude and jubilant over the thought
of that official's coming surprise.
“You’ve put it over on him, though 'twas none of your
doing!” he declared when the story was finished. “You
had the right hunch about Etta, too. I hope it's still working
now that those little matters are cleared up and you're out
for the real dope!”
“None of my doing,” McCarty repeated musingly.
“That's what Mrs. Jarvis said.”
“What's that?” Dennis asked, startled.
“It’s what she said when Miss Norwood was sitting by
her that time last spring that I just told you about, when she
started up from her bed. ‘It was none of my doing,' and
‘why must the shadow of it follow me?” If I can get the
truth from that woman to-morrow—”
“Taking into consideration the amount of brains he's
provided with, I don't wonder that English fellow would
have believed that whole blackmailing stunt to be some sort
of a practical joke,” Dennis interrupted, intent upon his
own train of thought. “That cake, now. Margot said
that when it came the bare sight of it all but made Mrs.
Jarvis faint. Yet what was there in the gift of it that should
have warned her of what was coming? 'Twas the same as
other big fancy cakes, wasn't it, except for that foreign
word on it, that you say means ‘Christmas'?—What's got
you, MacP”
For it was McCarty's turn to stare, with dropped jaw
and eyes into which a sudden light had gleamed.
“By all the saints, you’ve struck it!” he ejaculated.


202 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“You’ve hit the nail on the head, Denny! Twas not the
cake at all but the one word on it that told Mrs. Jarvis the
past wasn't buried as deep as she'd thought! Noel! It
means Christmas, all right, but what else would it stand
for, to her?”
“Ask me another!” invited Dennis. “If the black-
mailing blackguard wanted to remind her of something by
the one word, why did he go to all the trouble of fixing up
the cake? Why didn't he write it to her, or maybe spell
it out in those macaroni letters?”
“'Twas the art of him, Denny! The damned cleverness
of him! To anyone else 'twould look just like a fine Christ-
mas cake, the way it did to all of us until this minute, but
to her it meant that someone had raked up what she was
trying to forget. "Twas the only way he could get that
word to her without anyone else being the wiser. Terhune
had him right; 'tis no ordinary strangling thug we're up
against but a shrewd, crafty devil that planned every move
ahead and knew just how to play on her fears. She must
have been as helpless in his hands as a bird in a snare, poor
thing!”
“He did not plan the last move far ahead, that's a safe
bet,” Dennis remarked. “If 'twas him found her there in
the museum he acted quick enough then on the spur of the
moment, without giving her time to scream once!”
“And 'tis because of that we'll get him, Denny,” pre-
dicted McCarty. “There was never a clever crook yet that
didn't over-reach himself sooner or later, and this is the
one time he didn't look ahead; that is, if 'twas him. That's
one thing I can’t get through my head yet; why the black-
mailer should have spoiled his own game by killing the source
of the income. There's just one answer that would fit it,
but you'd think me stark crazy if I was to spring it now.”
“I’m not Inspector Druet,” Dennis reminded him re-


CHAPTER XVIII
GREEKS MEET
HE middle-aged individual with sandy mustache and
twinkling blue eyes, who registered the following
morning as Timothy Mack at the Oceanside Cottage
in Atlantic City, had little of the look about him of the tired
business man seeking rest. His jovial converse with the
austere landlady and the gusto with which he lighted the
most expensive cigar from the showcase upon the counter
led her to conclude, as she later confided with some mis-
givings to the clerk, that he was “out for a time.”
Her announcement that she maintained no bar and the
house was locked up promptly at twelve was received with
smiling good-nature, and after a brief survey of the diminu-
tive, cell-like room to which he had been assigned the new-
comer settled himself in the lobby to finish his smoke and
await developments.
Oceanside Cottage was one of the army of small boarding
houses which, crowded shoulder to shoulder, flanked the
less pretentious avenues leading from the beach. Its slightly
weatherbeaten exterior would have been the better for a
fresh coat of paint, but the lobby was brave in its expanse
of bright red carpet and glistening oak furnishings.
The latest arrival experienced a panicky feeling that he
had invaded a manless Eden as he surveyed the groups of
females of indeterminate age and uncompromisingly prim
demeanor who passed before him. The description Billings
had given of Calvin Norwood's visitor dwindled to meager
204


GREEKS MEET 207
the tumbling waves beneath and after a moment passed
through the entrance gates and out upon the long jetty.
An exhibition building, closed now for the season, stood
at the furthermost end of the pier facing the infinite waste of
the ocean, and behind this structure the woman vanished.
McCarty lighted a fresh cigar and clinging tenaciously to
the rail in the lee of a stucco pillar, waited for a decent
interval, but she did not reappear, and finally he strolled
around the corner of the building. His quarry was seated
on a bench close to the rail, gazing seaward with an un-
winking stare and seemingly oblivious of his presence.
He hesitated, coughed deferentially, then seating himself
on the end of the bench farthest from her, pulled a news-
paper from his pocket and proceeded to study her over
its top.
All at once she turned and fixed him with a disconcertingly
level stare.
“It won’t do you a bit of good to follow me,” she an-
nounced calmly. “I’ve no use for fresh old flirts that ought
to know better.”
McCarty gasped.
“I’m sorry, ma'am.” Injured dignity sounded in every
syllable. “I’m a stranger and wanted to come out on this
pier, but I didn't know it was allowed till I saw you going
through the gate. If my cigar annoys you, I'll go away.”
He made as if to rise but his scandalized look was inimi-
table and the woman laughed frankly.
“Oh, I don't mind a whiff of tobacco! I thought you
were one of those smart blighters that give me the hump
down here, fancying every woman, will fall for a smirk and
a line of jolly. Stay where you are, if you like. It’s a little
bit of all right out here, isn't it?”
“It’s grand, ma'am. Barring a day now and then at
Coney I'm not what you might call familiar with the sea.”


208 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
McCarty's shocked expression had given place to a beaming
smile of disarming frendliness. “This pier, now, might be
the deck of a ship.”
“Without the rolling and pitching.” The woman squinted
knowingly at the horizon. “We’re in for a touch of heavy
weather, I should say. You'll see something then, sir,
that's well worth your trip.”
“You’re fond of the sea, ma'am. I'm city bred myself
and sociable, like. There's a sort of lonesomeness about all
this water to me.” McCarty waved a comprehensive arm.
“I hate cities!” The woman shuddered and her eyes
fell upon the newspaper which McCarty had purposely
held so that the flaring head-lines might come within her
range of vision. “You may be more lonely in them than at
sea, and they're filled with dirt and poverty and dreadful
happenings.”
“There's bound to be both the good and the bad cropping
out where a lot of people are crowded together,” McCarty
observed sententiously. “But if there's a criminal instinct
in anybody it's as liable to make him act on sea as on land.
You've heard no doubt, ma'am, of dreadful happenings on
board all kinds of ships, from yachts to liners?”
“I—I suppose so.” Her voice was lowered and her
florid cheek had paled as she turned and stared once more
steadily before her. “I don’t hold with horrors myself.”
“No more do I,” McCarty conceded. “That is, not as a
rule, but I’ve been reading about this murder that took
place in New York a few days ago. You've seen the account
of it, ma'am?” -
“You mean the—the woman that was found strangled
to death in some sort of museum?” she asked. “I haven’t
looked at to-day's paper. Did they find out who did it?”
“Not yet, ma'am. Would you be having a look at this?”
He offered his newspaper, but just as she reached for it his


GREEKS MEET 209
fingers relaxed ever so slightly, and the wind tore it from his
loosened grasp and bore it over the rail. “Too bad! We'll
get another, though, on the boardwalk. There's rare news
to-day; they've found out that the poor lady was not
murdered in her own home and the body carried across yards
and put in the museum, as was said all along. She went
there herself, unbeknownst to anyone, and ’twas there she
was killed.”
“In that place?” The woman shuddered again. “It
was some sort of collection of crime relics belonging to a
rich, batty old man, wasn’t it? I got that far with it the
other day before I chucked it. I don't mind a bit of spicy
reading now and then, but Lor’ſ that made my flesh creep,
and no mistake! What would a lady like her be doing in
that chamber of horrors?”
“They do be saying she went there for something the
old man had bought just lately to add to his, collection,”
McCarty replied innocently. “Something to do with a
crime she had knowledge of long ago.”
“What!” The woman clutched at the back of the bench
to steady herself as she turned and faced him once more,
and he saw a dawning horror in her hard eyes. “Did to-
day’s paper say that?”
“It did,” McCarty lied. “”Tis hinted she was afraid
of the truth coming out and her name being connected with
it.”
“Did it mention what the object was that the lady was
after?” His companion demanded in a tone which trembled
despite her self-repression.
“Let me see!” McCarty rubbed his chin reflectively.
“Yes. 'Twas a wallet; a man's black wallet with a couple
of letters inside.”
The woman drew in her breath with a sharp little hiss
and there was a pause before she laughed shakily,


GREEKS MEET 211
for the letters? Were they found on the body? Why
hasn't there been a word about them in the papers before
now?”
“They've not been found. In fact, they’ve only just.
been missed. 'Twas known they were safe in the museum
an hour before the murder and no one's been in since that
would have touched them, so it's easy to dope out that who-
ever broke in and killed her, did it to get possession of the
wallet and took it away with him.”
The woman laughed scornfully.
“It’s easy to dope out anything if you have enough
imagination and nerve!” she remarked. “If that is all
they have to go upon, they’ve a bloody lot of cheek, I say,
to go smirching a lady's name by trying to connect it with a
forgotten scandal, just because the old duffer can't find
his precious relic! They must be hard put to it for a scape-
goat!” - -
Her voice had grown raucous and there was an ugly,
sullen light in her eyes which hardened her expression
immeasurably. McCarty took a long shot.
“But remember the letters themselves,” he said slyly.
“Though they're gone, their contents is known. They'd
tell the whole story, and show the lady's connection with the
CaSC 22
“How would they?” the woman shrilled. “There's
no one alive cares tuppence for the letters!. They both
died that night—”
“Papers? New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washing-
tion and Pittsburg morning pape-rs!”
A small, piping voice sounded close beside them and with
a muttered imprecation McCarty turned. A diminutive
newsboy, shivering and clutching his few remaining papers
tightly beneath, one arm, stood hopefully regarding them.


212 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Yes. Give me a morning paper, boy!” The woman
exclaimed. “Any one will do, if it is the last edition.
Here you are, and never mind the change!”
McCarty opened his lips to speak but it was too late.
The boy was scurrying off with his unexpected largesse and
the woman sat scanning her paper with an eagerness which
gave place to blank astonishment merged in mounting
wrath.
McCarty waited in silence until she crushed the paper
in her hands and turned once more to him.
“Who are you?” She spoke quietly but her voice shook.
“My name is Timothy McCarty yy
“I thought so! I thought you were one of that crew
sent to hound me!” She twisted the paper convulsively
and flung it over the rail. “I ought to have known, in spite
of your smooth-spoken way, when you began talking about
—about happenings on yachts! There is not a word in the
news concerning a-a black wallet, and I don’t know what
you mean »
“You’re Kate Stricker, aren't you?” McCarty demanded,
with a sudden note of sternness in his voice.
“Oh! yes. I'm Kate, all right, as you could see by the
register where I’m stopping. I didn't come down here to
hide!” she declared in scorn. “I was stewardess on The
Muette when Mr. Hoyos—when the accident happened, and
I gave my testimony full and free at the inquest. If I’d
been wanted, the police could have laid a finger on me
any time in the past ten years. I don't know anything
about any wallet, or letters, and I never laid eyes on the old
duffer that owns the museum, or the lady who was murdered
there!”
“Slow with that!” McCarty cautioned. “Remember
the butler laid eyes on you when you went to the Norwood


GREEKS MEET 213'
house to sell the letters, and he can back up Mr. Norwood's
testimony.”
“Pooh!” The woman snapped her fingers. “From what
I read this past week, the old governor's so wild to be of
importance in the case that he'd swear to anything, and show
me a butler who can't be bought over! When it comes to
that, I can prove where I was every minute of last week
and my witnesses are as good as his! There was no other
woman employed on The Muette in those days but me,
and though I’d small liking for the master I wouldn't
touch his dirty letters! If any were palmed off on that
balmy old duffer it was a sell, and the woman claiming to
be me, if there was one, was a blooming impostor! I've
read about you, too, if you’re the ex-Roundsman who was
there when the body was found. You can go back to them
who sent you down here, Mr. McCarty, and tell them that
Rate Stricker is ready to face them, and any charge that
suits their fancy!” *
McCarty waited patiently until the tirade had ceased
and then he asked quietly: -
“How about the money you’ve come into lately? Where
did it come from?”
“That's my affair!” she flared, then hastily as if realizing
the weakness of defiance, she added: “I-I saved it.”
“From your salary at the orphan asylum?”
“Let them prove it wasn't.” She rose. “I’m not on the
stand yet, and I’ll answer no more of your questions!
When the time comes I'll be ready, no fear!”
McCarty got slowly to his feet and remarked as if in
afterthought:
“So you had no liking for the man Hoyos.”
“I had not,” the woman responded. “He’s dead, but he
was a beast if ever there was one. He got his just deserts,


214 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
I say, and the only pity of it was that the poor young thing
died with him! I know nothing about this other murder,
or the wallet or any letters, and if you have no warrant for
me, I'll thank you to let me pass!” -
McCarty shrugged and stepped back, but as she moved
he made a final effort.
“You’re mistaken in thinking anyone sent me. I’m
not connected with the force any more and if you'll tell me
the truth and what was in those letters, I can promise you
the police won’t bother you about selling them. If not,
I'll have to go to Headquarters.” -
The woman smiled in triumph.
“So that's it! You don't know, eh, and you've come
here on your own to pump me! I'm sorry, Mr. McCarty,
but as I never heard of the letters until now, I can’t tell
you what's in them. Go to Headquarters and tell them what
you please. I've said my last word.”


CHAPTER XIX
THE SECOND SHOT
cCARTY paid a call upon the chief of police,
met his amazed landlady's resentful reminder
that she took no transients with the payment
of a full week's board, and caught the early afternoon
train for New York. During his brief return to Ocean-
side Cottage he had caught no further glimpse of Kate
* / Stricker, but concluded that she was planning a getaway
"... no less precipitous than his own.
The local police would take care of that contingency,
however, and as McCarty settled himself in the train a
glow of satisfaction pervaded him, despite his defeat of
the morning.
Albeit fruitless otherwise, his interview with the ex-
stewardess on the pier had in one illuminating flash re-
vealed to him a possible means of breaking down the bars of
her reticence. If, at their next meeting, he were in a posi-
tion to convince her of a certain fact, in addition to a guar-
anty of her personal immunity, he felt assured that she
could be prevailed upon to tell all that she knew.
He had already satisfied himself upon one point. What-
ever the letters contained which she had guarded for so
long and parted with only through dire necessity, she had
had no share in the blackmailing scheme. Her astonish-
ment at learning of the murdered woman's effort to obtain
possession of the wallet and her disbelief that it was the
cause of the tragedy were too real to be feigned. Granting
that premise, the letters themselves could not have been
215


216 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
the instrument held over Mrs. Jarvis' head, in fear of
which she had submitted to the extortionate demands made
upon her. Some other form of exposure must have threat-
ened in connection with her secret; some other evidence
must still exist to provide a link between her and the event
of ten years before.
The hours passed swiftly and his journey came to an
end as he still pondered over the fresh aspect of the prob-
lem. The storm which threatened at Atlantic City had
preceded him here, and he emerged from the station in
a blinding swirl of snow, to engage a taxi and sit with
grim, resentful eyes upon its swiftly mounting meter until
his own door was reached.
There, huddled under the shelter of the cornice, he found
a sodden, blue-nosed messenger boy.
“Is your name McCarty?” the latter mumbled stupidly.
“It is. You've something there for me? Come up-
stairs, lad, and warm yourself while I see is there an answer
wanted.”
The boy stumbled after him up the stairs and McCarty
built up a roaring fire in the grate before he took from
the numbed fingers the envelope which they held out to
him.
The superscription was a mere hasty scrawl in an un-
known but obviously feminine hand, and he broke the
seal. Then, for a long minute he stood staring, while
the words danced before his eyes and his stout heart missed
a beat.
“Dear Mr. McCarty,” he read again, scarcely crediting
the evidence of his vision, “Captain Marchal is dead.
Please come at once as soon as you receive this. Joan
Norwood.”
Dead! McCarty checked the flow of wildly futile sup-
positions which thronged his brain and summarily bundled


THE SECOND SHOT 217
the messenger out into the storm once more. The street
was almost deserted, but finding the taxi in which he had
come fortuitously halted near the corner saloon, McCarty
haled forth its chauffeur and shamelessly bribed the latter
to break all speed records to the Norwood house.
A trembling and awestruck Billings admitted him, who
when he turned toward the library where he had hereto-
fore been received, waved him back.
“Not there, sir! That's where he was found! The
drawing-room, please, sir.”
The butler's usually ruddy face was a pasty gray and
there were dark, sinister spots upon his vest.
“What's that? Blood?” asked McCarty sharply.
Billings shuddered.
“Yes, sir. I helped lift him and I’ve had no time to
change.”
“Was it murder?”
“Don’t ask me, sir! The pistol was by him—here's
Mr. Norwood, now.”
“McCarty, my dear fellow!” The elderly little man's
voice shook and the hand he extended quivered also, as
if with a palsy. “You have heard? I tried to get you
twice on the wire, but no one answered. Poor Victor!
Poor persecuted, overwrought lad!”
“What happened? I heard only that Captain Marchal
was dead.”
“He has killed himself! That sharp attack of fever
must have weakened his defenses, sapped his last remaining
ounce of strength with which to fight the acute melan-
cholia that threatened ever since his sight was destroyed
and which the man Terhune's unfounded suspicions have
brought to a crisis. But come! You shall see for yourself.”
He led the way to the library and McCarty followed,
but on the threshold both paused. The room was bril-


218 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
(' \
liant, lighted and in the unaccustomed glare each :
nifican - - rominence and photog”P
detail leaped into P 2- -3 That the
itself in l n McCarty's mind. -
* *tantaneously upo d been V10-
habitually ble of the room ha
ordered ensem The huge
lently disar. evident at a first glance.
*nged was it cut off the
center table had been slewed around so that it cu lier
corner where sº-d the secretary's desk, and the .
and book racks which had adorned it were thrown . :
the floor. A heavy leather chair, overturned, comple
the barrier and the hearth rug was crumpled and º:
Upon the couch before it a quietºfigure lay, with a . t-
cloth covering the face, and after a Sminute Calvin No
wood advanced toward it and lifted the ºloth.
“You see?” he murmured. \ - l
McCarty nodded without speaking, for V despite the º:
apprenticeship on the force which had ha Edened *:
similar scenes, he felt an unaccustomed lum rising in eed
throat. The pallid face with the tortured stratrºn and n
of self-repression gone was singularly boyish ind .
the vacant eyes softly closed and a faint elusive imile bil
the ghost of a happy thought hovered about the immobile
lips. Upon the breast over the heart a small c
stain appeared, flecked with grains of powder. -
“My poor boy! If only we had not left him º:
Norwood replaced the cloth with tender hands and Mc ed
saw the slow tears of age standing heavily in his fad."
eyes. “If only we had realized his condition and guard”led
him from himself!” *
A little group of men who had been in earnest consultſ".
tion in the embrasure of the farthest window turned, *
with an exclamation one of their number stepped forward”
“Macl I sent Yost for you not five minutes ago! Wha
do you think of this affair?” up-
... 1
It was plain that Inspector Druet meant to ignore their ed


220 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Here on the floor.” Inspector Druet moved one end
of the center table and made room for McCarty to squeeze
through the aperture. “He must have sent it crashing off
the desk, but it landed right side up as you see, although
the ribbon is broken.”
“How could he have done that?” speculated McCarty.
“”Twould take the sweep of a pile-driver to knock that
heavy machine over.”
“Oh, he probably staggered against the desk in his
frenzy and tilted it so that the typewriter slid off; then
the desk righted itself again. You see how all the papers
he had been working on are scattered around.”
McCarty eyed the litter and nodded slowly.
“And just where was the body found?”
“Here.” The Inspector measured off a space upon the
rug. “From what I have been able to gather, he was
lying with his feet toward the table and his head almost
touching the wall paneling. The body should not have
been moved until my arrival, but it was placed upon the
couch, by Miss Norwood's orders, I believe, even before
I was notified.”
There was stern reproof in the Inspector's tones and
McCarty turned to Calvin Norwood.
“Who discovered the body?”
“My niece and her fiancé,” the latter responded. “Poor
Joan was inexpressibly shocked and I found her on the
verge of collapse when I returned. Here is the pistol with
which Victor killed himself. It was lying within reach of
his fingers. He kept it in that drawer of his desk which
you see open now. It was his own, you know; he brought
it from France with him.”
McCarty took the weapon which Norwood had picked
up from the corner of the table and handed to him. It was
a Service pistol, of a caliber little larger than those with


222 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
came and admitted us, but he had only just returned to
the house himself and hadn't had time to switch on the
lights or build up the fires. Eric—Mr. Vivaseur—waited
here in the drawing-room while I ran upstairs to remove
my out-door things, and Billings brought him a brandy
and soda.
“We Sat here and chatted for a few minutes and then
all at once I remembered Captain Marchal and sent Billings
to see if he were lying down, for I feared that he might
be ill again. Billings said that he was not in his room, and
I crossed the hall to the library in search of him. It was
still dark in there, but I pressed the electric switch in the
wall and the first thing I saw when the lights sprang up
was the big table pushed out of place and the chair over-
turned.
“I must have cried out, I think, for Mr. Vivaseur came,
and Billings, and then—then we saw him lying there!”
She paused and covered her face with her hands and
Vivaseur rose, coming forward solicitously.
“Don’t, dear! You can't help the poor chap now, you
know, and you will really make yourself ill. I suppose
they have told you how we found the body?” He turned
to McCarty. “His fingers were almost touching the pistol
as if it had just fallen from his hand. I saw at a glance
that it was all over, of course, but Miss Norwood could
not believe it and begged us to do something for him.
Billings and I got him up on the couch between us, which
it appears we should not have done, for your Inspector
johnny was in a hat about it when he came. I fancy it
is another of your official regulations, but it seemed rather
too awful to leave the poor chap lying there like that. Miss
Norwood wanted to summon a physician but I managed
to convince her that it would be useless; then her next
thought was for you, and we despatched the messenger.”


THE SECOND SHOT 223
“Who called up Headquarters?” asked McCarty.
“Billings. Excellent man, that. Keeps his head about
him.” Vivaseur shrugged. “I don't mind admitting that
the thing knocked me a bit, at first. I’ve seen a lot of
the chaps go west in the first two years of the fighting,
but this was a different matter. However, Billings took
charge, and then Mr. Norwood himself returned.”
“Was the cook out, too, this afternoon, and the house-
maid?” McCarty rubbed his chin. “How was it, miss,
that Captain Marchal came to be left all alone in the
house?”
“Cook has gone, bag and baggage; she left this morn-
ing,” Miss Norwood explained. “It just happens that
my own personal maid is away on a vist to her mother
in the country. The housemaid prepared lunch and after
she and Billings had cleared it away, I permitted her to go
out for the afternoon, supposing that Billings would be
here, but my uncle had already sent him on an errand.
I went out myself, first to an intelligence office to secure
another cook and then to visit old Mrs. Lyle Fremont,
who is ill and had sent for me. Mr. Vivaseur called at
her house and brought me home.”
“Mrs. Lyle Fremont,” McCarty repeated. “Wasn't
it with her that Mrs. Jarvis was to have dined the night
she was killed?”
Joan Norwood nodded.
“Yes. She won’t have a telephone, you know, and
she never knew why Mrs. Jarvis failed to keep her en-
gagement until she read of the murder in the papers next
day.”
“Mr. Norwood himself was out all the afternoon?”
McCarty chose his words with evident care.
“He was downtown with Oliver Jarvis, at his attor-
ney's, helping him to arrange his affairs and make out a


224 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
statement of his operations with his wife's money for In-
spector Druet,” Miss Norwood replied. “He went home
with Oliver afterward and stayed until six o'clock.”
“And did he come back by way of the little door in the
fence?”
“No!” she shuddered. “That door is bolted and barred
forever!”
“Oh, I say!” Vivaseur expostulated. “You don't mean
to insinuate, my dear fellow—”
“I’m insinuating nothing, sir,” McCarty said hastily.
“I’m just wanting to know where everybody was. Mr.
Norwood says that Captain Marchal acted queer this
morning. Did you notice it, miss?”
“He was more nervous and excited, and that strained,
listening attitude of his, of which we told you yesterday,
seemed more accentuated, but somehow I did not dream
that it meant anything more serious than perhaps a return
of the fever. If only we had realized his mental condition
we could have taken steps to prevent this terrible thing!
I, for one, shall never forgive myself!”
Vivaseur laid a hand upon her arm and gently forced
her into a chair as she broke down and sobbed hysterically,
and at that moment Inspector Druet appeared in the
doorway.
“The Medical Examiner has gone,” he announced. “It
is a clear case of suicide and there is nothing more for us
to do about it.”
McCarty advanced to him and asked in a lowered tone:
“Has the body been removed yet?”
“No, they're waiting for the undertaker now.”
“Then, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to go back
in there and look around a bit,” McCarty remarked. “I
wonder what he’d started to work on this afternoon when
the fit took him?”


THE SECOND SHOT 225
“Go as far as you like!” The Inspector stepped aside
to allow him to pass, and then followed him to the library
door. “Say, Mac, that girl, Etta Barney, came down
to see me this morning, and later on Oliver Jarvis showed
up. Their stories are straight enough, too, as far as I’ve
have been able to discover, and they both said that you sent
them. It looks as though my theory of the murder was
away off and I’ve got to start all over again.”
It was as near an apology as Inspector Druet had ever
been called upon to make, and McCarty flushed darkly.
“Oh, well, sir, it's like many another case, that seems
a puzzle you'd never get the answer to, and then all of a
sudden you'll light on one little clue that'll make the whole
thing as plain as day.”
“I can't quite see that idea of yours yet, Mac, though
there may be something in it, at that. Terhune will be
in fine feather now.”
“Will he so?” McCarty paused, and the Inspector pointed
significantly to the still figure upon the couch.
“Of course. This suicide will be an admission of guilt
in his estimation and his theory will be vindicated. Well,
I’m going to get a statement from these people as to where
they all were this afternoon, to file in my record, and then
I'll call it a day. So long, Mac.”
“Good-night, sir.” He turned as if to go to the dis-
mantled desk in the corner, but as soon as the Inspector's
footsteps had died away down the hall, he walked swiftly
to the couch and bent over the body. He did not remove
the cloth from the face, but devoted his attention to the
blood-stained and powder-flecked clothing about the wound
and when he straightened after a prolonged scrutiny, it
was with a low whistle of surprise.
For several minutes he stood lost in profound medita-
tion, then slowly and cautiously he began a circuit of the


226 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
room. A glint of steel half-buried in the deep pile of the
rug under the center table caught his eye and stooping,
he picked up a huge pair of long-bladed, bronze-handled
library shears. He examined them minutely and then
with a guilty glance toward the door he wrapped his hand-
kerchief about the points and thrust the shears hastily into
his hip pocket.
To any possible observer his behavior during the next
ten minutes would have been highly mystifying. He
dropped lumberingly down upon his knees and searched
every inch of the rug about the spot where the shears had
fallen, then raised himself until his eyes were on a level
with the table top and scanned its polished surface aslant
beneath the light. What he discerned there evidently
gratified him, for he grunted with satisfaction as he pulled
an envelope from his pocket and holding its gaping orifice
beneath the table edge, carefully ran his finger over the
surface. Creasing the envelope together at the top, he
returned it to his pocket and rising, continued his search.
“You here still, MacP’” Inspector Druet paused in the
doorway some twenty minutes later, to find McCarty
beside the opened drawer of the desk, staring with knitted
brows at the paper which he held in his hand.
“Yes, sir. Will you have a look at this?”
The object of his scrutiny was apparently a sheet of
blank typewriter paper with a signature scrawled half-way
down the page and the Inspector regarded it with raised
eyebrows. The signature, in a straggling, uncertain hand,
was that of Victor Marchal.
“What do you make of it, sir?”
“Nothing.” The Inspector yawned. “He was probably
practicing how to write his name over again since he became
blind and threw the paper back into the drawer. There's
nothing to that, Mac.”


FROM OUT THE PAST 229
a change. “Mr. Messager lives out on St. Charles Avenue;
I'll write the address for you. The first vice-president is
here, if you would care to see him instead.”
The stranger declined, and receiving the proffered slip
of paper, he departed, followed by his companion.
“Look here, Mac, you’ve not told me a word of what
we're after!” the latter complained. “Who is this Justin
Messager, and what for are we trailing a feeble old man
that'll likely have us thrown out for intruding on him?”
“He was a crony of Pierre Chartrand, and Chartrand
was the guardian of Evelyn Beaudet as was, Oliver Jarvis'
wife,” McCarty responded. “Is it beginning to get through
your thick head? Chartrand was the only one belonging
to her and he's dead, but his most intimate friend is our
next best bet.”
“Thick I may be,” Dennis conceded in some resent-
ment, “but not being a mind-reader, it's not clear to me
why a pal of the old man would know a secret that was
kept from the girl's own husband. Have it your own
way, but when we pick ourselves up after being chucked
out, it'll be me that heads the next expedition, and that
to a place where you can get one of the fizzes that put this
burg on the map. My throat is like a dry-dock after that
train.”
“If we do get the gate,” McCarty promised, “I’ll stand
treat.”
The business section of the city once passed, St. Charles
Avenue revealed itself as a thoroughfare of stately homes,
and before one of the most imposing of these they alighted
and then paused, scanning the house with speculative
eyes. -
“Look at the shades all down,” Dennis commented.
“”Twould be just your luck, Mac, if he'd died on you!
From what that Willie-boy at the bank said—”


230 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Come on!” McCarty interrupted firmly. “Now re-
member we're sent here by Mr. Jarvis, and don't act as
if you’d come to lift the silver!”
The aged negro butler who replied to their ring bobbed
his woolly white head obsequiously as he took the note
which McCarty produced, but seemed dubious as to his
master's reception of them. However, he ushered them
into a huge, dim drawing-room, where massively carved
furniture was arranged stiffly against the wall and the
pendants of the antiquated crystal chandelier tinkled to
the vibration of the ex-Roundsman's heavy tread.
Dennis seated himself gingerly in the nearest chair and
looked about him with professional interest.
“'Twould make a grand fire-trap!” he remarked. “With
the floors all oily and that gallery around the hall out there
to act as a flue, if you'd give it two seconds' start and a
lick of wind, 'twould go up like tinder.”
“Is it a fire we’re here for, or information?” demanded
McCarty sarcastically. “Whist, now, somebody's coming.”
Slow, shuffling steps sounded upon the stairs, accom-
panied by the stumping of a heavy cane, and a thin, quer-
ulous voice exclaimed:
“Easy, Robert, easy! Ouch!—No, don't drag! There!”
The steps drew nearer and a gaunt, bowed old figure,
crowned by a shock of snowy hair, appeared in the door-
way leaning upon the old butler's arm.
He peered with curiously bright, searching eyes at his
visitors as they rose, but did not speak until the servant
had deposited him carefully in a chair and withdrawn.
“Mr. McCarty?” He looked from one to the other of
them, and the ex-Roundsman bowed. “In this note which
you have brought to me from Mr. Oliver Jarvis, of New
York, he requests me to give you any information at my
disposal. I presume he means concerning his wife, of,


FROM OUT THE PAST 233
away like that from everybody all the four or five years
before she met Mr. Jarvis?”
The old man hesitated, still regarding his visitor fixedly.
At last he spoke, but slowly, as if choosing each word with
Care.
“She was not shut away. She merely preferred her
quiet home and devoted herself to her guardian. After a
year or two she began going about more, and frequently
visited my niece at her home on Lake Pontchartrain. In-
deed, it was at South Point that she met Mr. Jarvis.
But as I told you, I have absolutely no information such
as it appears he desires. Except for the unusual and most
unfortunate circumstances I should not have discussed the
lady at all with you. I know nothing concerning her with
which her husband is not already fully acquainted; her
life was simple in the extreme, and if he will let me know
personally the nature of this document which he has found
I will be glad to satisfy him upon it.”
“I’ll tell him, Mr. Messager.” McCarty rose and sig-
naled to the absorbed Dennis with a glance. “Thank
you for seeing me, sir. I’m sorry to have bothered you, but
Mr. Jarvis could think of no one else who had known his
wife so long and so well. You'll hear from him soon, no
doubt. Good-day, sir.”
“Phew!” whistled Dennis when the house door had
closed behind them with a dignified thud. “The drinks
are on you, all right, for even though we didn't get thrown
out by the scruff of the neck, we was told to make ourselves
scarce if ever looks could do it!”
McCarty's lips moved, but no words came and he walked
as if in a trance, staring straight ahead of him with eyes
that were round with wonder.
“All right! Keep mum if you want to!” Dennis re-


234 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
marked sourly. “It’s little you got from the old one
that'd make conversation. Whatever that murdered dago
was to her or her family you'll get no word of it from the
likes of him.” -
“He told us more than a word, if you'd been listening
for it.” McCarty found his voice at last. “According
to young Jarvis, his wife was twenty-seven. That would
make her sixteen or seventeen when she left the convent.
Did you get when that was, Denny? Eleven years ago
next spring!”
“And what then?” asked Dennis vacantly.
“Oh, nothing! Nothing at all except that 'twas eleven
years ago come spring that our friend Hoyos got his, that’s
all!”
“Mac' And she was sick for a long time afterwards!
Over study, the old fellow called it!” Dennis' mind had
started to work. “She wanted to take the veil and then
when her guardian wouldn’t let her do that, she shut her-
self away from everyone! Sixteen or seventeen is no babe
in arms; I wonder if that Hoyos was ever in New Orleans?
He seems to have had a taking way with women, but the
back of my hand to him for a thorough-going blackguard
dead or alive!”
“Don’t go getting yourself worked up about it till we
know where we're at,” McCarty counseled. “We’ve
nothing yet to bank on, remember. If Messager knew
anything he'd not tell it, and we’ve got to have the straight
dope on this.”
“Where'll you get it?” Dennis demanded. “Chartrand's
dead and if there was anything that he didn't tell young
Jarvis when he married her, he'd not have breathed it
now.”
“Who is it, do you think, Denny, that young girls tell
their secrets to?”


236 THE TWENTY six clues -
Riordan. We've come from New York to have a little talk
with you if you'll be so good.”
“New York!” she faltered, and her eyes darkened with
apprehension. “Oh, I–I remember reading about you in
the dispatches! You were both there when—”
“When the body of Mrs. Jarvis was discovered?” Mc-
Carty supplemented quietly as she hesitated. “We were,
ma'am, and it’s because of that we're here now.”
“Have they found out who did it?” Her voice was a mere
whisper, and she clasped her hands convulsively.
“No, ma'am. That is, they’ve pretty well decided who
the guilty party is, but they’ve not laid hands on him yet.”
McCarty ignored Dennis' stare and went on earnestly.
“Since Mrs. Jarvis' death some papers have come to light
among her things which show there was something in her
life before ever she'd met and married her husband that she
never told, something that she'd have gone to any lengths
to keep secret.”
Mrs. Sawtelle dropped limply into a chair.
“This—this is not possible!” she stammered. “I knew
her well and I cannot believe it! But how did you hear of
me? Why have you come?”
“To learn the truth, ma'am. You and she were girls
together at the Convent of the Blessed Name. You know
why she left so suddenly, and why she was sick for so long
and then shut herself up like a nun and wouldn't even go
to your wedding, though you were closer to her than a sis-
ter—”
“Oh, stop! Stop!” She put her hands over her ears as
though to shut out the sound of his voice. “I do not know
what you are talking about! We were friends, yes, but it
was just a girlhood companionship. She left the convent
because of illness and was a semi-invalid for a long time.
That is why she did not appear at my wedding and why 2x


238 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Not if it helps her murderer to go free.” McCarty's
tone was suddenly stern.
“Her—murderer!” Mrs. Sawtelle gasped. “You don't
mean—it cannot be! She told me he was dead!”
An irrepressible gurgle emanated from Dennis' throat,
but McCarty remained seemingly unmoved.
“Dead he may be, but there's another knew her story.
Another who has blackmailed her out of thousands in the
past year and who finally killed her—”
“Oh, God!” the young woman breathed. “What shall I
do?”
“Tell us the truth, ma'am, and help us to find him,”
McCarty urged. “You can do your friend no good now by
keeping still and if she could know she would want you to
speak. 'Twill be on your soul if her murderer escapes and
as for her husband, half the truth is worse for him than the
whole of it.”
Mrs. Sawtelle paced slowly to the window, where she
stood for long gazing out over the rolling lawns to the blue
waters of Lake Pontchartrain, while McCarty and Dennis
waited in silence. At length she turned and her face,
though pale, was composed and resolute.
“You are right. If she came to her death because of
the secret which she has guarded, then I must break my
promise to her. Mr. Jarvis was not her first husband. She
ran away, eloped over the convent wall with a fascinating
stranger, after a month of as tempestuous and romantic
a wooing as ever a girl had. This was in the autumn of
nineteen-six when she was only sixteen.
“The convent is situated on the bank of the Mississippi
about fifty miles above New Orleans, and a month before,
a beautiful yacht had dropped anchor within sight of our
school windows. Sometimes a small boat came ashore
and we caught glimpses of a tall, handsome, dark man in


240 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
up the river. He never knew that I had been in her con-
fidence but he had aged ten years in a few months. When
the summer vacation came Evelyn had returned but she
was desperately ill and for a long time her life was despaired
of. She grew slowly better, however, and one day she told
me the whole dreadful story.
“Leonidas Hoguet had taken her up the river to an
obscure landing where they were married by an itinerant
preacher, and at first she had been wildly happy but it
only lasted for a very few weeks. He tired of her soon
and used to leave her alone on the yacht for days together
while he drank and dissipated in river towns. At last he
deserted her in a hotel in Memphis and she made her way
home.
“Her guardian forgave her and kept her secret, but he
searched the country for Leonidas Hoguet. He never found
him and when spring came, poor Evelyn forgot her pride
and everything else, and ran away a second time, to go to
him. How she found him I never knew, for she would tell
me little about that time. She could never bring herself
to speak of it except to say that he was dead. She had
managed to reach him and had been with him when he died.
“I think you know the rest; how she shut herself away
from everyone for more then three years. She could not
bear to come to my wedding and I quite understood but
later I persuaded her to put the past behind her and take up
her life again. I had her with me a great deal and it was here
that she met Oliver Jarvis, who knew my husband at college.
“He fell in love with her at first sight and I was so happy
when I saw that she, too, had begun to care. She wanted
to tell him the truth, but her guardian forbade it and she
married him without speaking. He took her away and I
have never seen her since. At first her latters came regularly,
each one telling of her great happiness, but after a time they


242 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
The smile vocalized in a chortle, and McCarty responded:
“'Twas no empty brag! The thing that hit me at the
last minute is the last proof I needed to put him there; the
last little link between that blackmailing devil and the death
house! We've got him now, Denny; got him at last!”


CHAPTER XXI
SIGNED, “VICTOR MARCHAL.”
|
ALVIN NORWOOD was seated in solitude before the
( hearth in his library on Saturday night, trying to
shut his ears to the occasional murmur of voices
from the drawing-room where Joan and her lover were
making plans for the future. He was trying hard not to
listen too for another familiar sound; the light, halting
step of the blind secretary.
No light save the glow of the fire lifted the shadows of
the room and in a far corner the silent, shrouded typewriter
loomed, a tangible reminder of the brave spirit which had
sought to carry on through the darkness and fallen only
when reason failed.
So deep was Norwood in his mournful reverie that he
was oblivious to the ringing of the front door-bell and
glanced up only when Billings appeared on the threshold.
“Mr. McCarty, sir.”
“My dear fellow!” Norwood sprang up and extended his
hand. “Where have you been for the past week and more?
I’ve tried twice to see you.”
“Have you, sir?” McCarty shook hands and dropped a
trifle wearily into the chair his host indicated. “I’ve been
out of town—only got back a couple of hours ago—and
I’ve not had a decent night's sleep but one since I left. I
thought I'd look in on you and hear the news.”
“There is none.” Norwood seated himself once more and
sighed gloomily. “Since poor Victor's death I seem to be
losing my grip on things. I cannot help a feeling of hope-
243 -


SIGNED, “VICTOR MARCHAL” 245
admiration for Evelyn, that I know. In spite of Terhune's
sensational successes in the past, it is my opinion that the
man is a bluff, pure and simple. The case has baffled
him, just as it will everybody in the end, and he has taken
the easy way out by thrusting the blame upon a man who
is no longer here to defend himself. If Victor were only
alive I would never cease my efforts to learn the truth, for
that is the only way his name can be cleared. But I am an
old man and I recognize the inevitability of defeat, as
Inspector Druet will in time. Mark my words, McCarty,
the mystery of Evelyn Jarvis' murder will never be
solved.”
“Perhaps not, sir. There's many another that hasn't
been, like the Hoyos case.” He rose. “Well, I'll be getting
on back to my rooms. It’s strange not to see Captain Mar-
chal here, and his typewriter still there in the corner and
all!”
“Yes!” Norwood groaned. “I find myself constantly
listening for his step, and the click of the machine. I'm
going to get rid of it at once; I cannot bear to have it about!”
McCarty hesitated.
“I wonder would you lend it to me, sir, for a few days?”
he suggested at length. “I’ve a lot of letters to send
out and I’m not handy with a pen. I'll take good care of it
and bring it back safe.”
“Of course you may take it. Keep it, if you will; I
never want to see it again!”
“No, thank you, sir. It’s just the loan of it I want,
and if it's all the same to you I'll get a taxi and take it right
along with me now.” -
“By all means.” Norwood, too, had risen and now he
pressed the bell. “Billings will send for one for you. I
don't know what condition the typewriter is in after its
fall. However, if you will telephone on Monday to the


SIGNED, “WICTOR MARCHAL” 247
Despite his sleepless night he was up betimes and nine
o'clock found him once more at Headquarters.
“Mac, you old rascal, where have you been?” the Inspector
greeted him with obvious relief and pleasure. “I don't
mind telling you that I’m stumped; the Jarvis case is one
too many for me!”
“Is it, now?” McCarty asked solicitously. “How did
your man make out in New Orleans?”
“He drew a blank!” The Inspector smote his desk in
exasperation. “One of the best boys we have in the de-
partment, too. He interviewed everyone who was in a posi-
tion to know anything about Evelyn Beaudet or her family;
the Mother Superior of the convent where she was educated,
the attorneys who settled her guardian's estate, old business
associates of her father, friends of her mother and several
people who came in touch with the girl herself socially
before her marriage. There isn’t the slightest evidence of
any secret connected with her, and yet we know she was
paying blackmail!”
“And the female operative you’ve had working among
her acquaintances here?” McCarty probed. “Did she
find out anything?”
“Nothing whatever. I’ve even given your theory a
try-out but old Norwood claims that the wallet is only mis-
laid and I can’t find any trace of the woman who sold it to
him. She represented herself as a stewardess on the Hoyos
yacht and I’m having the original one looked up, but she
seems to have dropped completely out of sight.”
“I saw Mr. Norwood on Saturday night,” volunteered
McCarty. “He don't seem much ‘interested in the pro-
ceedings since Captain Marchal is gone. I don’t suppose,
sir, that there’ve been any new developments in that case?
It's settled the poor lad killed himself?”
“Of course he did; there has never been a doubt of
-


248 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
that from the first,” declared the Inspector. “One shot
might have been fired from the pistol long ago, or it may
not have been fully loaded.”
“Then you didn't find where the other bullet went?”
McCarty queried.
“No, and it was a waste of time looking. Before you
appeared on the scene I had picked up the ejected shell
where it lay right at the feet of the body but no other shell
was found; that in itself would prove that only one shot
was fired there. He killed himself, all right, and Terhune's
a happy man that he solved the murder to suit himself,
but I won't accept his solution until every other possibility
fails.”
“You’re thinking, then, there's a chance he may be
right?”
“Damn it, man, I don't know what to think!” the
Inspector cried. “It is more than two weeks since the woman
was done to death and I’m no nearer the truth than when
I started. You know what the department is, Mac. There
are plenty waiting for my head to fall, and I’m not getting
any younger! I can’t afford to lay down on this. The
papers are putting up a howl as it is over the delay in nailing
someone for the crime; they’re not particular who, but they
need the copy. Besides that, the Jarvises are too prominent
and the case itself had too many sensational details for the
public to lose interest in it and let other things crowd it
out of mind until some explanation is made. The Commis-
sioner gave me a pretty broad hint the other day that it
was time to show results and you know what that means.
If I don’t make good on this I’m a dead one!” *
“You’ll make good on it, sir!” McCarty burst out, the
last trace of his resentment gone before the look of despair
on his former Superior's face. “I was going to spring it
on you to get even with you for giving me the laugh the


250' THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
-
only named the people who were present at Terhune's experi-
ment two weeks ago. You can’t mean that one of them
murdered Mrs. Jarvis?”
“It is likely?” McCarty snorted. “I want them all
there, though, when the blackguard that did it shows him-
self. You'll come, sir?”
“Mac, I don't know whether to believe you or not, but
you've got me where you want me,” the Inspector laughed
somewhat uncertainly. “If you won’t speak now, you won’t,
and I’ll have to trust you. I'll be there with Martin and
Yost.”
“At eight then, sir, and see that they're heeled.”
McCarty picked up his hat. “I don't expect any rough
stuff, but you never can tell. Good-by, sir.”
Leaving Headquarters he telephoned to Wade Terhune
tendering an invitation to his séance that evening, and
thoroughly enjoyed the amused and skeptical tone of the
great man's acceptance and promise to bring his client.
Next he journeyed across town to the private detective
agency of one James B. Shane, whom he familiarly addressed
as “Jim” and with whom he was in close consultation for
more than an hour. One o'clock found him consuming
pie and coffee at a nearby lunch counter, after which repast
he presented himself at the Norwood house.
“Uncle Cal has gone with Oliver out to Mrs. Jarvis’
grave.” Joan explained as she greeted McCarty in the
drawing-room. “We were both so sorry not to have seen
you on Saturday night; weren't we, Eric?”
. She appealed to the Englishman who exclaimed as he
shook hands.
“Rather! We couldn't imagine what had become of you
last week, but we hoped you were working on the investiga-
tion. I say, were you?”
“A part of the time,” McCarty responded. “I’ve not


252 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
bring forth. He betook himself to the fire-house where
Dennis had returned to his duty and the mask which he
had worn all day slipped from him.
“It's done, Denny!” he cried gleefully. “It’s all over
but the shouting!”
“Is it the murderer you mean!” Dennis spoke in an
awestruck whisper. “You’ve got him, MacP"
“You mind Jim Shane, that was roundsman in my pre-
cinct when I was on my first beat?” McCarty ignored the
question. “Well, he's running a private-detective bureau
now and on the Thursday before we started for New Orleans
I put him to work on a little job for me that has turned the
trick!”
“Before we went to New Orleans!” exclaimed Dennis.
“You knew then who the fellow was that murdered Mrs.
Jarvis?”
“I knew the truth of it when I stood beside that poor,
blind Frenchman's body, God rest him, but I couldn't have
proved it, and if I had spoken I'd have been put away for a
lunatic,” McCarty responded gravely. “Instead of being
like most cases, where you hold a million loose threads and
don’t know where they lead to, I had the answer but not the
way to connect it up. Are you on day or night duty
now?”
“Day,” Dennis responded eagerly. “My nights are my
own and if there's anything doing this evening I'll be on the
job. But who is he, MacP You've held out on me long
enough—”
“You’ll know to-night.” McCarty regarded him quiz-
zically. “Are you wishful to take part in another little
scientific experiment?”
Dennis quailed, then squared his shoulders doggedly.
“I’m not, and well you know it, but if it's going to be
the finish, you can count me in. What is it you are going


SIGNED, “WICTOR MARCHAL” 253
to do now, MacP Hand Terhune all the credit, like you
did in that other case last year?”
“Not this time,” McCarty smiled. “I’m holding this
séance myself in my own rooms at half-past eight, and
there'll be no dinky little machines to take records of every
breath you draw.” *** ****
“Séance’l” Dennis shivered. “Isn't that what they
call it when some medium throws a fit and brings back the
spirits of the dead?”
“It is, and that's what I'm going to do.” McCarty
paused, and then added: “Not throw a fit, I don't mean,
but it’s a spirit I’m going to bring back from the dead all
right; a spirit as evil and black as the devil himself, Denny,
with more than one murder on the vile soul of him! 'Twas
you yourself first put me on his track, though little you knew
it, and to-night we'll resurrect him.”
Dennis crossed himself fervently.
“I always said you'd get whoever you were after, if you
had to go to the next world to find him, but I never thought
to see you do it,” he said. “Spooks or no, I'll be there,
Mac, with bells on!”


CHAPTER XXII
McCARTY's SéANCE
a strange and unwonted aspect that evening. The
sooty hearth had been scrubbed until it shone,
cigar boxes, stray matches, newspapers and the usual litter
to be found in the wake of the undomesticated male had
miraculously disappeared and an unnatural and self-con-
scious state of cleanliness and order prevailed.
McCarty, too, seemed abnormally solemn as he greeted
Inspector Druet and ushered his two assistants into the
small inner bedroom.
“You’ll wait here, boys,” he announced. “No smoking,
mind, for there'll be a lady present and besides I don't want
the rest of them that's coming to know you're here till I
give the word, but when I do, look sharp!”
“You’ve got everything arranged?” the Inspector asked
in a hurried undertone.
McCarty nodded.
“There'll be no hitch. I'm only asking one thing of
you, sir; don't interrupt me no matter what I say, and for
the love of God, don’t contradict me! I'll be using your
name pretty free, but you'll see in the end that 'twas right
and proper I should if you’ve only the patience to wait for
it.”
“I’ll give you your head, Mac,” promised the Inspector.
“I wish you would put me wise as to what is coming off,
Tº: bachelor quarters over the antique shop presented
254


256 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
The arrival of Vivaseur and Calvin Norwood, the former
frankly curious, the latter laboring under an agitation which
he strove in vain to conceal, precluded further talk, and
Dennis subsided. The newcomers were scarcely seated
when Wade Terhune accompanied by his client Oliver Jarvis
appeared upon the scene.
McCarty had arranged the chairs so that they formed a
rough semi-circle facing the bedroom door and now he
stepped before it and cleared his throat.
“You all know that I’ve no longer any regular connection
with the police department,” he began, “but now and again
when Inspector Druet needs me I go back as a special officer
on his staff. I’ve been working on this investigation with
him and he wants me to tell you what progress we've made.
That's right, isn't it, sir?”
He appealed to the Inspector and the latter nodded
speechlessly in confirmation.
“To do that I’ll have to go back a good bit and I'll
ask you to bear with me, for it's all a part of the story. A
matter of eleven years ago, in nineteen-six in a convent
away down south on the Mississippi River, there was a young
girl of sixteen or thereabouts who fell in love with a man
she flirted with over the wall. He was a dark, handsome
fellow calling himself Leon Hoguet and he'd come ashore
from a grand yacht anchored just off the bank. One night
the girl ran away and married him, but he turned out to be
a roystering blackguard and deserted her in less than three
months.” -
Oliver Jarvis uttered a sharp exclamation beneath his
breath and the others stared, spellbound, but McCarty
continued as though unconscious of the impression his open-
ing words had created.
“The girl went back heartbroken to her guardian in New
Orleans and he took her in and hid the scandal of it. He


258 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
touched the food that had been laid out for them, but from
the empty bottles scattered around Hoyos must have tanked
up on enough champagne to float the whole boat. Later,
going on toward midnight, the quarrel broke out again louder
than before, the girl crying fit to kill herself and the man
shouting and swearing like the brute he was.
“The stewardess on board had her own reasons for hating
Hoyos and when she heard the girl's sobs she felt sorry for
her, and crept up and listened at the door.
“The girl was pleading first to be taken back, and the
stewardess said 'twould have moved the heart of a stone,
but he just sneered at her and cursed and finally she demanded
her rights as his wife. Then he up and told her where she
got off, the blackhearted devil! He'd married other women
before her, two or three of them under as many different
names, and she had no more legal claim on him than a
stranger.
“The girl screamed once and then was quiet and the
stewardess thought she must have fainted. After a time she
heard Hoyos advising the girl in a cold, sneering way to go
back where she came from and not stir up a scandal that
would only bring disgrace on herself. All of a sudden he
stopped in the middle of a sentence, there was a scuffle
and the crack of a revolver.
“The stewardess near fainted, herself, outside the door
but the next thing she heard a kind of a choking cry from
Hoyos and two heavy splashes in the water.”
He paused as Oliver Jarvis with a groan buried his face
in his hands. Norwood clutched the arms of his chair and
even Vivaseur's ruddy face had paled slightly, while a frown
of discomfiture had gathered on Wade Terhune's brow.
“If you remember the Hoyos case you all know what
happened; how weeks later a mutilated body was fished out
of the river and identified as Hoyos' through his clothes and,
-


McCARTY'S SéANCE 259
the jewelry with his initials on it. The girl was supposed to
have been drowned for no trace was found of her and no one
knew who she was.
“Because she hated Hoyos so and sympathized with the
girl, the stewardess never told what she'd overheard and right
after the shooting she remembered a wallet with a couple of
letters in it that was in a desk in his cabin. She'd taken a
peep at them and was afraid they might help in the girl's
conviction if she was caught, so before the police boat came
she took the wallet and hid it among her things.
“The girl wasn't drowned, however; she got safe ashore
and although the Inspector hasn’t been able to prove it
yet, he's got an idea how it happened, for it is on the records
in Hoboken that about that time a barge captain was arrested
trying to dispose of a ruby ring worth thousands. He
swore that it had been given to his wife by an old woman,
richly dressed, that they pulled out of the river on the night
of June first and that in return they provided her with dry
clothes and money for a railway journey. The police couldn't
prove him a liar for he and his wife and the crew had the
description of the old lady down so pat they never suspected
'twas the girl from The Muette that was being shielded,
nor that the date of the rescue had been changed.
“She got back to New Orleans and after a terrible, long
sickness she shut herself up in her guardian's house like a
hermit for a matter of two or three years. But she was
young and the horror of it wore off and after a while she
began to care for somebody else, a rich New Yorker that
was down there on a visit. To be fair to her, she wanted to
tell him the truth but her guardian forbade it—she'd sworn
to him that Hoguet was dead but told him no more—and
she married the Northerner without saying a word of the
past.
“You all know who I'm talking about, but I'll have to


McCARTY'S SéANCE 261
desperate straits for money. She had heard of Mr. Nor-
wood and his museum, and that he paid big prices for relics
of crime, and the idea came to her to sell him the letters.
She didn’t think that after so many years had passed the
identity of the young girl could be proved from them, and
she'd not be hurting anybody.
“Mr. Norwood bought them from her three days before
the murder and told all about them at the dinner at Mr.
Jarvis' house on Wednesday night. Mrs. Jarvis was near
crazy, for she knew that at any time Mr. Norwood might
discover by accident that they were in her handwriting and
it would be all up with her. She made up her mind that she'd
have to get those letters and on the Friday afternoon she
got rid of all her servants, put on the little dark dress with
the veil around her head, and started out through the
yards for the museum. She would have a clear field, for she
had persuaded Mr. Norwood to visit his friend the professor
and he'd told her the butler would be out. I guess she didn't
figure much on Captain Marchal disturbing her, on account
of his blindness, and the cook and housemaid wouldn’t
see her, with the kitchen shades drawn and the lights turned
On.
“There was no way Mrs. Jarvis could get into the museum
except by climbing the ladder and forcing one of the windows,
and she remembered that Mr. Norwood was a shark—begging
his pardon!—on finger prints, so she decided to take a pair
of her husband's old motor gloves with her and put them
on. In her hurry, however, she only grabbed up one and
that she dropped on the ladder. She knew where Mr.
Norwood had likely put the wallet, in the tall cabinet
where he kept most of his papers and documents relating to
crime. -
“She got in the museum, all right, and it's my belief


264 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Can—can this be true?” Calvin Norwood's shaking
lips could scarcely frame the words. “But how did he get
in the museum?”
“I’m coming to that,” responded McCarty. “We haven't
found out yet how he got out of the river years ago nor
where the body came from that was dressed in his clothes
and with his jewelry and all, but the Inspector can prove that
Hoyos found it mighty convenient to disappear just then and
start all over again; not only on account of the girl but
because his luck had gone against him in Wall Street and
he'd forged some big checks to cover his losses. We're
still working on his record during the past ten years but we
know that he's traveled under different names and been
in a lot of shady transactions. It’s a safe bet that he didn't
know the little convent girl he'd tricked into marriage was
an heiress or he would have stuck to her till he'd got her
fortune away from her. He must have been a surprised
man when somehow, a year ago, he found out that she had
become the wealthy and prominent Mrs. Oliver Jarvis.
“He sent her the cake in order to get the word ‘Noel'
to her notice in such a fashion that no one except her would
guess what it meant and to pave the way for the blackmail
later.” -
Wade Terhune laughed sneeringly.
“He evidently did not count upon your phenomenal
guessing powers, my dear McCarty! To the merely scien-
tific and I may add uninspired mind it would seem a far cry
from Leonidas Hoyos to a frosted Christmas cake, but I
have no doubt that you can supply the connection?”
McCarty's face reddened at the taunting tone, but he
replied quietly. -
“Perhaps I can, sir. You’ve heard, I dare say, of nick-
names, and the like. You'd hardly think, perhaps, that a
man like Hoyos would be called pet names—”


THE BETRAYING WOICE 265
“What utter rot!” Terhune's coolness was deserting
him. “It is only a certain type of man whose personality
invites nicknames and your Hoyos is not of that breed.
Are you trying to show that the man was called “Noel’?”
“Not trying to, Mr. Terhune; I am showing it.”
McCarty drew himself up. “Now, if you'd been saddled with
a name like ‘Leonidas' it stands to reason that your friends
wouldn’t be twisting their tongues over it except on special
occasions. They’d be cutting it short and calling you “Leon,’
most likely. Supposing the girl that loved you found out
by accident that those four letters turned backwards spelt
‘Noel,’ which means Christmas, and decided for a reason
to call you that, 'twould not be such a far cry, after all.”
“Preposterous!” Terhune exclaimed. “That is the most
ridiculous, far-fetched thing you’ve tried to insult our
intelligence with to-night. You surely cannot expect us
to accept it!”
“Far-fetched’ is right.” McCarty smiled. “For it's
from New Orleans I fetched it, sir, from the lady who was
Evelyn Beaudet's best friend when they were girls together
at the convent.”
“Loretta Sawtelle!” exclaimed Oliver Jarvis.
“The same, sir. She'd helped the elopement along and
'twas she told me how the pet name of ‘Noel” came about.
When the girl he married found that his name spelled a
word meaning ‘Christmas’ she called him that because
Christmas was also her birthday; and a fine birthday
present she got in him, but no matter!
“You see, when he sent her the cake last year, the whole
point was that she must still think he was dead and that she
had killed him and somebody else who knew was threatening
to squeal on her for murder. It worked, too, only along
about October he must have found bigger game and decided
to let up on blackmailing her; maybe he put a message in


266 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
macaroni paste under the bush telling her so, but that's
only another guess, Mr. Terhune. Anyway, if he learned
that she was planning to go abroad he must have been just
as well pleased to get her out of the way, for the new scheme
he had in mind would have brought him in touch with her
world.
“Those macaroni-paste letters were masterpieces, at that,
for they took in the whole alphabet from ‘a’ to ‘z’. He
was thorough, that Hoyos, I'll say that for him! Thorough,
but in one thing just an hour too late! However, I'm
coming to that.
“He quit blackmailing her, and then he, too, heard
about those letters being still in existence and that Mr.
Norwood had bought them for his collection. He wanted
to get them as badly as Mrs. Jarvis did, for they would be
absolute proof to hold over her head in case he ever needed
in the future to use his power over her. He managed to get
possession of a key to the Norwood house but the door to
the museum itself he opened with a spider.
“What happened when the two of them met there we don't
have to guess entirely, for unknown to either of them at
the time there was a witness, a third party who listened in
on the scene long enough to hear about the secret Mrs.
Jarvis had kept all those years. He crept away kind of
stunned with the news, his only thought being to keep her
from ever suspecting that he knew. Then that night her
murdered body was discovered and he was nearly out of
his head with self-reproach, thinking how he might have
prevented her death if only he hadn't gone away and left
them there in the museum together. He had one clue to
the man; the sound of his voice which was forever ringing
his ears, and all that next week he kept thinking he heard
Jain and blaming his brain for the tricks it was playing


268 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“Inspector, is McCarty speaking by your authority?
Do you, too, hold to this ridiculous assertion?”
For a moment the Inspector's eyes searched his self-
constituted spokesman's face and what he read there evi-
dently satisfied him, for he replied with a ring of finality
in his tones:
“I do. Mac knows what he's about, Mr. Terhune;
just give him the floor, please.”
The others subsided and McCarty explained:
“You see, the poor young lad betrayed himself; he
showed his suspicions too plainly before he was convinced
enough to act on them and Hoyos—we'll call him that
still, though now I could put another name to him—got
to him there in the library when he was all alone. There
was a struggle and Marchal managed to get the drawer
of the desk open and pull out his pistol to defend himself
with but Hoyos wrested it out of his hand. Marchal
must have broke away from his grasp then and ran from him,
for when Hoyos shot him the first time ’twas from a distance
of several feet. He fell and then the bright idea came to
Hoyos.
“He knew that everyone else in the house was out and
he'd have all the time in the world to do what he wanted to.
He extracted the second cartridge shell from the pistol and
picking up this pair of shears from the table, he cut off the
top of the shell with the blades of it and took out the bullet.
Then he clamped the two pieces of the cartridge together
again, using the heavy bronze handles of the shears like a
pair of pincers, and putting it back in the pistol he went
up close to where Marchal was lying and fired a second
shot—a blank one—directly into the wound, scattering the
powder all over it.
“He put the empty shell of one cartridge at the feet
of the corpse, dropped the pistol by his hand, pocketed the


270 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
him, what they call a premonition. He was in deadly fear
for his own life from that minute, not that he was afraid
of death but that it would come on him before he had a
chance to denounce the murderer of Mrs. Jarvis.
“He’d followed some of them to the door, maybe, and
then made a rush for his typewriter and in blundering around,
knocked it off the table. The crash of it was the last straw
to his frazzled nerves and a kind of a panic seized him, a
frenzied determination to get that statement written as if
every minute was going to be his last. He couldn't lift the
typewriter because of an injury to his arm and shoulder
which he got in the war, but he grabbed a sheet of paper and
squatted down on the floor and wrote out his message.
Then he found a pen, signed it, and put it in the desk where
'twould be the first thing seen when the drawer was opened.
He never knew that the ribbon on the typewriter was broken
by the fall and that no writing appeared on the papers at
all but just his signature.
“There was something else in that drawer too; a photo-
graph of Mrs. Jarvis' finger-print records, that she'd let Mr.
Norwood take long ago, and that Marchal had got out of
the museum and hid the morning after the murder, to shield
her if she'd left any marks and anyone suspected what had
brought her there.
“I’ve said there was nothing on that sheet of paper
except his signature, and that's all that did show to the naked
eye. Now I’ve turned up my nose at microscopes and such
as playthings for the amateur and little I thought I'd ever
come to one, myself, the sight that God gave me being plenty
for my needs in the past, thanks be! But when the Inspector
and I gave that paper the once-over we found little dents
in it, and put it under a magnifying glass. Then we saw
that it had been put through the typewriter and knowing
the ink ribbon of it had been broken when it crashed to the


CHAPTER XXIV
THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
McCarty sat side by side with their chairs tilted com-
fortably back against the wall of the firehouse, smok-
ing in silence.
Their conversation had been desultory and flagging for
their thoughts were busied with a subject neither of them
broached. The distant whine of a hand-organ, the honk
of motor cars, voices of children and the grating syncopation
of a phonograph from an open window across the way alike
fell on deaf ears.
At length Dennis took the plunge.
“I see by the papers that Hoyos went to the chair this
morning.”
McCarty nodded solemnly.
“He got his, and if ever a man deserved the trip through
the little green door, he did.”
“There's a hint that he made a confession at the last,”
Dennis observed.
“I would not put it past him.” McCarty spoke with all
the policeman's contempt for a squealer. “The coward that
would strangle a woman and shoot a blind man would be
apt to spill his soul when the end came.”
“True for you.” Dennis sucked at his pipe. “You told
me once—it was the night when you showed him up—that
'twas me first put you on the track of him. How did I?”
A slow grin widened McCarty's lips.
I' was a soft, still night in early June and Dennis and
272


THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES 273
“When I first told you about Miss Joan bringing him
home you said he had a name like a dime novel. It did seem
too high-sounding to be the real thing. You gave me another
tip, too, later on. When I described how I doped it out that
Mrs. Jarvis was not killed in her own home but went across
to the Jarvis house alive and well, you said that she sneaked
over ‘like a thief.” And that's just what she had done,
Denny, for she went to steal that wallet with the letters.”
“What became of it anyway?” Dennis asked.
“'Twas found in Vivaseur's rooms at the hotel; Hoyos',
I mean.” -
“Well, there's one thing!” Dennis knocked the ashes
from his pipe and ground out the live embers with a capa-
cious boot. “Your séance beat anything Terhune ever got
up, with all his little machines! Man, 'twas grand when that
Stricker woman stood up in the doorway and called Hoyos
out of his name! But I don’t see how you ever got her to
come across with the admission that she’d sold the letters.”
“She knew 'twould come out anyway and it was satis-
faction to the soul of her to denounce him. When I had
that first talk with her on the pier at Atlantic City I knew
if I could once convince her that he was alive and she could
help punish him for a crime she would talk, quick enough.
She's a good, strong hater, that Kate!”
“Who's this coming?” Dennis squinted down the street,
where from the corner a tall figure was approaching with a
firm, familiar tread.
“'Tis the Inspector, no less!” McCarty rose eagerly.
“Good-evening to you, sir! What brings you walking our
beat?”
“I was passing by and stopped in at your rooms.” In-
spector Druet smiled. “When you weren't there I knew
where I would find you! 'Evening, Riordan. Don’t dis-
turb yourself.”


274 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
“There's another chair just inside the door.” Dennis
swung it out with a long arm. “There! We was just talking
about the Hoyos case, sir, seeing as he was electrocuted this
morning. Was it true that he made a confession before they
turned on the juice?”
“Yes. We have it down at Headquarters now. He told
a good bit about his life but a lot of it is colored to put him
in as good a light as possible. There are parts that ring
true, however. His father was a baker in Vienna, his mother
a seamstress from Greece.”
“That accounts for the cake, the macaroni paste and the
Greek name Leonidas,” McCarty nodded. “He flew high
from the bakeshop, didn't he?”
“Yes. He was the manager of a gambling casino at a
resort on the French coast before he came to this country.
He doesn't say much about those early years here or where
he got the money to start his Wall Street speculations which
enabled him to buy that yacht he had down on the Missis- t
sippi. He tells, though, how he found and palmed off that
body as his after the affair of The Muette; seems quite
proud of it as a smart trick. The girl shot him through the w
shoulder, you know, not seriously and he easily swam
ashore. Alongside the railroad which runs by the river
he came on the body of a trackwalker who had evidently
just been hit by a train. He walked on—it was near the
dawn—when he came to a little shanty with overalls and
underwear flapping on a line in the yard. That gave him
an idea and he took what he needed, then went back and
stripping the body of the trackwalker, dressed it in his own
things even to the jewelry and dumped it into the river.
He tied a stone to the dead man's clothes—I guess he'd
been pretty badly mussed up by the train—and dropped them
in after him. Then he dressed himself in what he had taken
from the line and started off barefoot with what money
-


THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES 275
:
}
he'd thought it prudent to keep out of the roll the dead
man was floating down stream with.
“He is silent about what happened to him during the
next ten years and how he discovered the girl again in Mrs.
Jarvis, while about the blackmailing he merely says that we
doped it out right. He claims that he really loved Miss
Norwood and meant to marry her honestly as his first and
legal wife was dead, but that is merely a play to the gallery.
How did you find out so much about his actions after he
became Vivaseur, MacP’’
“Through Jim Shane, that used to be on the force, too.
He's running a private-detective agency now and I put him
on the job before ever we started for New Orleans. It was
clever of Hoyos to fix up that grand English name and
accent and family tree for himself and sport around on the
money he blackmailed Mrs. Jarvis out of with that swell
Long Island bunch where Miss Norwood was visiting.”
McCarty paused and his face clouded. “That was almost
the dirtiest part of the whole job I had to do; to kill that
girl's faith and bring misery to her.”
“It’s not half the misery she'd have had if she'd married
him,” Dennis remarked.
“I know. She told me after that he had wanted her to
elope with him. That was because he didn't dare face Mrs.
Jarvis, you see, until he'd got the girl for himself. She says
that he suddenly changed his mind the very day she brought
him back and introduced him to her uncle; and good reason,
too. He'd gone back to town over night and murdered the
woman who might have stood in his way so he'd nothing
to fear except a too curious search of his record, and old
Norwood was not the man for that.” McCarty paused to
light a fresh cigar from the stump of the old one, and con-
tinued: “When Norwood wrote his niece about buying
the Hoyos letters she told Vivaseur, of course, and he


276 THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES
determined to get them. He stole her latch-key from her
so that he could get in the house and he must have been
watching it closely that Friday afternoon to have seen
Norwood go out and figured that the coast was clear. I’ll
bet he was a surprised man the day to walk into the museum
and find Mrs. Jarvis waiting for him!”
The Inspector nodded.
“He only killed her when he was convinced that she
would spoil his game with Miss Norwood,” he said. “If
it hadn't been for you, Mac, he would have gotten off scot
free, for I was on the wrong track entirely. I was a stubborn
fool not to listen to you in the first place, and I don't mind
admitting it before Riordan here. I never felt so low-
down in my life as when I had to sit there in your rooms
with Terhune and that crowd and hear you give me the credit
for what you had pulled off all alone while I laughed at you!
You had your revenge that night and you saved my official
head. I’ve not forgotten it.”
“Well, sir, you had your notion of the case and I had
mine,” McCarty said simply. “I was just as stubborn as
you, and ’twas just by accident that my notion happened
to be the lucky one. It’s only strange, with all the clues
we had, that we didn't hit on the truth sooner.”
“There were a lot of minor indications, of course,” the
Inspector admitted. “But there were just seven real
clues. Did that ever strike you?
“Seven?” McCarty looked up. “You mean that cake
marked ‘Noel,” the three warnings in macaroni paste, the
two poor bits of notes in the wallet and the statement of
Captain Marchal? Sure, there were more clues than that,
sir; there were twenty-six.”
“Twenty-six clues!” the Inspector echoed. “What are
you getting at, MacP I never heard of the others.”
McCarty laughed.


THE TWENTY-SIX CLUES , 277
“Indeed, and you did! They were the first things ever
you learned in your life and the clues you mention are all
part of them!” Then as Inspector Druet still looked his
mystification McCarty explained naively: “All seven of the
clues were made up of them, sir—the letters of the whole
damned alphabet!”
THE END
If you have enjoyed reading this book we suggest that you
read “The Clue in the Air” by the same author. In it you
will again meet McCarty, Tim and Terhune. Critics, every-
where, have agreed that “The Clue in the Air” is one of the
best detective stories of all time.


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