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UNLATCHED DOOR


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Terror shook her. but she was putting up a brave ﬁght to
master it


THE
UNLATCHED DOOR
BY
LEE THAYER
\
Author of “The Mystery of the
Thirteenth Floor”


NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1920
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Copyright, 1920, by
THE CENTURY Co.
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36X 723
TO
F. J. G.
WITH THE LIFE-LONG LOVE
AND ADMIRATION OF
THE AUTHOR


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cIIAPTER
II
III
IV
VI
VII
VIII
IX
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
CONTENTS
GRAY EYEs AND BLACK . . . . .
FATE STEPS OUT OF THE SHADOWS
“ I DON’T KNOW WHAT To DO! " .
“ WHO DINED WITH MRs. RUTLEDOE? " .
SARAH CONNORs
CLUEs
A PAIR OF PUMPS
A LOSING GAME .
CAPTAIN O’MALLEY DEMONSTRATES .
HAMMOND RUTLEDGE
THE CORONER’s VERDICT
“You NEVER CAN TELL ”
A SECRET
AN S. O. S.
AsHEs To ASHES
PETER MAKES A DISCOVERY
AN UNPREMEDITATED JOURNEY
THE OTHER LADY .
“WHO SENT IT?” .
ELEANOR WENTWORTH .
WHAT DICK FOUND BY THE ROADSIDE
PAGE
15
25
33
47
56
62
69
80
87
95
. 102
. 109
. 113
. 124
. I32
. 140
. I52
. 160
. . . 167
“ DO YOU MIND IF I CLosE THE DOOR? ”
. 186
I75


Contents
CHAPTER
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
A COLD TRAIL
A LITTLE LIGHT ON THE PUZZLE .
“ SUPPOSING -—— JUST SUPPOSING ”
AN ALIEI?
SOME PARTS OF THE PUZZLE FALL INTo
PLACE .
PETER CLANCY TAKES A NIGHT OFF .
Two TELEGRAMS
A DETOUR—AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
AN UNACKNOWLEDGED WITNESS .
NORA’s STORY
A CROSS-EXAMINATION .
O’MALLEY DRAWS ASIDE THE CURTAIN
How PETER GUESSED
PAGE
. 196
. 211
. 220
. 225
. 236
. 247
. 259
. 269
R 274
. 284.
- 293
. 301
. 308


THE UNLATCHED DOOR


THE UNLATCHED DOOR
CHAPTER I
GRAY EYEs AND BLACK
ICHARD VAN LOO SCHUYLER was a
young man of large and variously assorted
wealth. His ancestors had helped to make the his-
tory of New York, from the period in which Old
Peter Stuyvesant stumped through its narrow,
crooked streets on his wooden leg. The family had
dwindled in size as the years went on, until now, ex-
cept for a few cousins scattered over the world, its
only representatives were the aforementioned Rich-
ard and his old Aunt Van Loo. The enormous for-
tune accumulated by thrifty Dutch ancestors had
been somewhat dissipated by Richard’s immediate
predecessors, but there was still enough solidly in-
vested wealth left to enable the young man to saun-
ter through life with ease and grace, taking all the
good things that came his way without thought or
care.
He was a good-looking young fellow, tall and
fair, with the broad shoulders and narrow hips of
a natural athlete. His manners were simple and
gracious and he made friends with such careless case
3


Gray Eyes and Black 5
unhappiness as he pursued his idle way along the
perfumed by-paths of the park, where the full young
green of the trees danced and ﬂashed in the merry
afternoon sun and the shining tulips lifted their
golden and scarlet cups, ﬁlled to the brim with
light.
Just ahead there was the, gleam of water through
the trees and a sudden dip of the path brought him
to the landing-stage where a few happy children in
the care of prim nurses were embarking for wild
adventure in the swan-boats. The pretty sight
brought a smile to his lips and he paused a moment,
~ watching the excited children.
One small tar in spotless blue with bright bobbed
hair ﬂying from under his nautical cap, was ex-
postulating violently with his nurse, a pained-look-
ing, serious young woman, who evidently felt her
responsibilities keenly.
“I won’t sit in the middle, Marie! ” he cried.
“ I ’ll be the lookout in the bow, like on the big, big
ship we came home on. This way -— see! ”
He sprang on the seat, which tilted violently un-
der the sudden capricious movement and he would
have fallen into the cold water if Richard, who
had been standing close by, had not caught him as
he fell.
“ Hold hard, Captain! " he said as he placed the
lad safely 0n the planks. “We don’t want any
‘ man overboard’ on this ship, you know! ”
The boy, who had been thoroughly frightened


Gray Eyes and Black 7
plain dark blue suit, though well cut, showed signs
of wear and the close-ﬁtting hat which sat so well
on her soft, dark hair was probably the last winter
hat to be worn in the whole city. He could not
help sympathizing with the little boy’s enthusiasm
for the “ pretty lady.” There was something
vaguely familiar about her face that troubled Rich-
ard. It was the sort one does not forget and he
was sure he had seen it before and been startled by
its beauty; but where?
Dick climbed the steep ascent to the driveway, a
puzzled frown on his face. The girl on the land-
ing-stage haunted him. He had seen her before,
recently, and without a hat. He distinctly remem-
bered the soft upward waves of dusky hair that
turned to bronze when touched by the sun.
He had walked on for some time, deep in thought,
when slowly, slowly a picture began to develop it-
self on the sensitive background of his conscious-
ness:
A dark window with heavy, rich drapery, framing
a face of arresting beauty. It all came back to
him now and he felt again the start with which he
had realized the necessary implication of her cos-
tume. It was black, with narrow bands of white
at throat and wrist, and a dainty white apron with
bib and shoulder-straps clasped the slender waist
and seemed to throw its arms about her neck.
“Oh, damn!” he thought with regret, as the


8 The Unlatchea' Door
vision came clear in all its details. “ She ’s only
a maid in the house next door. No wonder I
could n’t place her! ”
Richard Schuyler was not the type of man who
extends the ﬁeld of his ﬂirtatious below-stairs and
he tried resolutely to put those haunting gray eyes
out of his mind; but it cost him a conscious strug-
gle, much to his disgust.
“I’m not that sort of cad, I hope,” he said to
himself as his long, smooth strides carried him
swiftly northward.
It was growing late. The children were leaving
the park now and the air was turning colder. The
ﬁckle spring wind had changed and drew more
strongly from the east. A faint ﬁlm seemed to
have been breathed over the sky, so recently clear
and blue, and broad bands of purple were drawn
ominously across the glory of the setting sun. A
strange, heavy, gray light tinged with yellow ﬁltered
in level bars through the lower branches of the
trees, picking out with insistence the dips and hol-
lows of the uneven ground. In the open spaces
across the velvet grass tall buildings loomed, massive
and gray, in the cold rising mists, their windows
showing against the lurid sky faint points of green-
ish light.
The waters of the reservoir looked deep and
cold and Richard Schuyler shivered as he rounded
it at a swinging pace, which, rapid as it was, was
not sufﬁcient to keep the chill out of his blood.


Gray Eyes and Black 9
“A few little drinks will set me up all right,”
he thought. “I’m cold to the bone. And they
call this spring! We don’t have such a thing in
New York. It’s a sandwich of winter and sum-
mer with the thinnest possible spreading of spring
in between. Give me the fall every time. That ’s
something like! Colors like the rainbow and air
like wine. I ’11 trade you all of March, April, and
May for either October or November, and I’ll
have the best of the bargain at that. No mistake
about it! ”
, He raised his head as if to defy the contradiction
of an imaginary listener, but there was no one in
sight except two people pacing slowly forward at
some distance along the path.
The way led up a slight grade. His rapid stride
was beginning to close the distance between him
and the two advancing ﬁgures when the rise of a
few shallow steps brought them in sharp silhouette
against the sky. It was still light enough to see
quite clearly and, with a little start, he recognized
the girl. It was the maid next door, or the “ pretty
lady ”-—- Richard could hardly make up his mind
which to call her. -
“Thursday afternoon, and she’s walking out
with her best young man,” he thought as he drew
nearer. “Somehow it ’s hard to connect her with
that sort of thing. Her eyes were clever, intel-
ligent, as well as beautiful. Oh, I ’m a fool! Just
because they’re lovely in shape and expression,


10 The Unlatched Door
there 's no reason to think that there’s anything
behind ’em.”
He looked quickly at the girl’s companion and
drew in his breath with a low whistle. It was obvi-
ous, from the elegance of the man’s dress and car-
riage, that he was not at all the sort of person with
whom it was proper for a self-respecting serving-
maid to be “ out a-walking.”
“ She does n’t look that sort, at all! ” he thought
with conviction. And yet the man was evidently not
forcing his attentions on her, for she was walking
quietly by his side and talking to him earnestly.
Once the man threw out his hand with an appealing
gesture and the girl shook her head in violent nega-
tion.
Richard came nearer and nearer. His light shoes
with rubber-shod heels made little noise on the path
and the man and girl were quite unaware of his
presence. He would have turned aside, moved by
some vague feeling of intrusion (though he assured
himself that it was a delicacy quite unwarranted by
the circumstances), but no branching path led off to
right or left through the maze of shrubbery and he
was cold and in a hurry to get home. He felt sure
that she was too much engrossed in the man beside
her to notice him and there was little chance that
she would recognize him. If she did, what did it
matter? She could hardly imagine that he had fol-
lowed her after all this time! Probably never gave


Gray Eyes and Black 1!
him another thought, anyway. He was getting
more than a little absurd. ‘
And then— It all happened so swiftly that he
hadn’t a moment to consider the facts—that she
had probably brought it on herself—that it was
none of his business, anyway— and all those other
useful things one remembers — afterward.
The girl had stopped suddenly, bringing the man
beside her to a standstill. Schuyler could not hear
her words, but her stamping foot and passionate ges-
ture of dissent were unmistakable. Her companion
had asked her something and she had refused with
all the emphasis of which her small ﬁgure was capa-
ble. He said something more, leaning toward her
almost threateningly, and she threw up her little
head in deﬁance. As she did so she saw Schuyler,
who was within a few paces, and a look of startled
recognition ﬂashed in her eyes. The man, whose
back was turned, remained quite unconscious of
Richard’s close proximity. His low tones, vibrant
with emotion, reached Schuyler, who, however, did
not distinguish the words.
Then the girl said, “ No, no! I will not, come
what may! You have no right to try to force me
to do something against my will! ”
Richard was struck by the tone of her voice. It
was low and clear and her intonation was that of a
cultivated woman of the world. The thought
ﬂashed through his mind as the girl’s companion


12 The Unlatched Door
answered angrily and put his hand on her arm.
With a sudden movement, the girl released her-
self, passed the man, and dashed swiftly down a side
path leading toward the east.
The man turned quickly in pursuit —— and brought
up sharply against Richard’s brawny shoulder.
“I beg your pardon,” said Richard, politely, but
remaining in a position that effectively barred the
way. “ Very clumsy of me, I ’m sure. Pray accept
my apologies.”
The man, seen from the front, was a handsome
chap enough, very well, even richly, dressed, in a
picturesque sort of way. His soft, velvet-ﬁnished
felt hat was worn at a dashing angle and his whole
make-up suggested the amateur—actor or artist.
He was strikingly slender and not very tall and his
long, thin face and dark skin suggested a delicate
constitution. His dark eyes were blazing as he
faced Schuyler and his full mobile lips were bitter
with resentment.
“ It ’s quite all right, old chap,” he said, control-
ling his voice with an effort. “ Now let me pass, if
you please.”
“Certainly,” said Schuyler pleasantly, without,
however, giving ground, “ but are you sure I did n’t
hurt you? I’m such a blundering ass; never can
look where I’m going. One gets into all sorts of
trouble if one does n’t look ahead, don’t you know?
Quite sure you’re all right? ” He spoke with the
deliberation of inﬁnite leisure.


Gray Eyes and Black 13
“ Yes, quite sure,” said the smaller man, looking
angrily for any sign of relenting in the steady, tow-
ering form before him.
“It ’s good of you not to mind,” Richard said,
moving slowly aside at last.
The other darted past him without another word.
Richard followed the swiftly retreating ﬁgure at
a suﬂiciently brisk pace to keep it in sight. His
interest was strongly aroused. Soon the brightly
lighted avenue appeared close at hand and the dark
man’s pace slackened to a walk. The girl was no-
where to be seen.
Across the park entrance the stream of traﬂic
ﬂowed by ceaselessly, an endless ribbon, shiny and
black in the middle with the polished tops of cars
gleaming in the light, shot with an occasional dash
of green and yellow as a bus went by, and ﬂowering
at the edges into a varicolored border made up of
the soft hues of women’s dresses. If the girl had
mingled with this throng, and she undoubtedly had,
she was safe from pursuit.
As the two young men stepped from the gray-
green shadows of the park into the lighted street,
the smaller one, aware of Dick’s proximity, turned
with a laugh. All the anger had faded from his
face and was replaced by a quizzical humor which
was quite disarming. .
“I suppose you think you foiled the villain that
time, Sir Galahad,” he said, “ and you did put a
spoke in my wheel, I admit. But don’t you run


14. The Unlatched Door
away with the idea that the girl I was speaking to
is n’t all right. She’s as straight as a die, only—
well, I can’t tell you about it. ’T is n’t my story.
But I would n’t do her an injury for the world, not
meaning to, at least. I ask you to believe me; not
that that part matters, only —- well, you ’re a sport!
You did me good and proper and kept within the
rules! Do you mind? ” He held out his hand.
“No, I don’t mind,” said Richard, his strong
hand closing on the slender ﬁngers. “You’re a
sport yourself.” And he went home, chuckling
softly.


CHAPTER II
FATE STEPS OUT OF THE SHADOWS
“ HIS is where I leave you, fellows,” said Dick
Schuyler, with an exaggerated air of virtue, as
he looked at his watch, the hands of which seemed to
him to be tangled up somewhere between the num-
bers one and two. “ ‘ Early to bed,’ you know; and
it must be ‘ early to rise ’ for me to-morrow. I ’ve
an engagement to play golf with Blakeslie at
Meadow Bay and I promised to be out in time to
play around once before lunch.”
He stood in the brilliantly lighted doorway of one
of the swiftest of New York’s all-night restaurants,
swaying a little on his well-shod feet. He and his
friends had been “ hitting it up," as they would have
expressed it, since early in the evening. Their
spirits had mounted steadily from camaraderie to
exhilaration, and the uproarious protests which his
words elicited showed that they all now stood on
the dizzy heights of hilarity from which the slide to
oblivion and a morning headache would be sudden
and complete.
Long experience had taught Dick to recognize
this psychic moment which came sometimes early and
sometimes late in a gay evening, and to go not only
15


16 The Unlatched Door
while the going was good but also while it was still
practicable.
He therefore turned a deaf ear to all inducements
offered and, avoiding a clutching hand or two, with a
laugh and a wave of his gloves passed out through
the gilded doors.
The rain, which had threatened earlier in the eve-
ning, was now falling heavily. It came down with a
windless rush on the gaudy awning and showed in
perpendicular lines of silver against the blackness of
the night.
A gorgeous being in gold and scarlet with a ﬁgure
like a grenadier’s and a face like an archbishop’s
applied his great strength and intelligence to the
arduous task of calling a cab. Dick looked at him
gravely.
“It should be a magic carpet at least, 0 Genie,
to comport with your appearance,” he said as he
slipped a coin into the waiting palm and leaned back
against the cushions.
The man seemed puzzled and the cab waited.
“A-nny partic’lar place ye ’d loike to go, sor? ”
said the glorious one after a pause.
No answer.
“Maybe he only wants a dry place to rest in,”
said the chauffeur, with a grin. “I don’t mind as
long as the old machine goes on ticking. Shall I
move up? ”
“ He ’s one av our reg’lar customers,” replied the
other, rubbing his ear in perplexity, “but I don’t


Fate Steps Out of the Shadow: 17
happen to know where he lives. Wait a minut.”
The scarlet-and-gold cap disappeared into the
darkness of the cab. Richard Van Loo Schuyler
lifted the cap from the man’s head, examined it seri-
ously, and replaced it.
“Very pretty,” he said pleasantly. “Anything
more I can do for you? Oh, yes —” He put his
hand into his pocket and presented another tip.
“Now, may I please go home? I’m very young
and very tired and I ’d like to go to bed if you don’t
mind.”
“ Yes, sor, but where is your home, sor, if ye ’ve
no objection to tellin’ me? ”
“ Eighteen East Sixty Street,” Dick yawned
with -a grin at the distressed face so close to his.
“ Good night, 0 Jinn! ”
The door-man looked after him with a pained ex-
pression. “ And to think a nice lad would be callin’
me that! ” he murmured. “ ‘Good night, oh, gin,’
he sez — and me not touched a drop since the New
Year! ”
The car rolled smoothly away, its chains clashing
in a light, delicate rhythm which was very soothing.
Richard Schuyler dozed.
He was awakened at last by the stopping of the
car.
“ Here y’ are, sir,” called the cabman cheerfully
as he looked at his dial. “Two-thirty, sir, and
cheap at the price a night like this. Thank you, sir!
Good night, sir,” and the cab sped away.


18 The Unlatched Door
Dick swore softly as he missed his footing on the
curb and stepped into the rushing water of the gut-
ter, which poured in over the tops of his pumps. He
dashed rapidly up the steps, pausing in the shelter
of the vestibule to pull out his latch-key —
And at that moment Fate stepped out of the shad-
ows and touched his shoulder.
He shivered slightly as he stooped to ﬁt his key in
the lock. As his hand touched the door, he felt it
swing slowly inward under his ﬁngers. He straight-
ened in surprise and annoyance.
“ Carelessness! rotten carelessness! ” he mut-
tered. “ Jenkins has been at the sideboard again.
I ’11 discharge him to-morrow. Some one might
have run OH with poor old Aunt Van Loo in one
hand and the family plate in the other, and no one
the wiser! ”
The door swung open to its full width and Dick
stepped inside. The soft, rich perfume of roses
greeted his nostrils and he paused a moment.
“Some enamored chorus girl been sending me
ﬂowers? ” he speculated, smiling incredulously.
“ Or perhaps an old ﬂame of Auntie’s has turned
up. Don’t run much to ﬂowers in this house; that ’s
certain.”
He closed the door quietly as he spoke, groped his
way over to the right, and, after hanging his hat on
its accustomed peg, sat down on the broad wooden
seat of the hat-rack which was built into the wall.
He laughed a little as he kicked off his wet shoes.


20 The Unlatched Door
The match burned his ﬁngers.
Thoroughly sobered now, he groped for the light-
switch beside the settle. He noted, with a subcon-
scious feeling of unreality, that there was something
vaguely unfamiliar about the feel of the wall.
“ Good God! where is the infernal thing! ” he
cried softly in an agony of distress, rising carefully
to his feet. He turned about, shifting his position
with exceeding circumspection, and lit another
match.
The light ﬂashed up on a smooth surface of dull
crimson silk.
“ Am I going mad?” he muttered, sheltering the
ephemeral ﬂame with his hand, seized by a sudden
gripping, unaccustomed fear of the dark.
He swung slowly around, examining his surround-
ings. He felt the need of steadying his nerves be-
fore he looked again at what lay at his feet.
The place was familiar and yet unfamiliar. The
door was in the right place, so was the settle. The
dull gleam of the stair-rail, farther down the hall,
was where it should be. Even the black-and-white
tessellated floor was a memory of his earliest child-
hood. But the walls were all hung in dark red silk
and the long mirror in the opposite wall, which re-
flected dimly his staring white face, had no place in
his recollection.
Slowly the truth forced itself through his numbed
faculties: He was in the wrong house.
He cursed his careless habits as he hastily lit an-


22 The Unlatched Door
strong, beautiful creature had been violently cut oﬂ
while its tide was at highest ﬂood.
“ I must make sure,” he thought and, needing both
hands to steady himself, with an eﬂort that taxed
his will to the utmost, he blew out the match and in
the black darkness reverently placed his ear against
the heart.
A sudden soft whir startled the silence and the
deep voice of a clock spoke once, twice, and was still
again.
Shaken to the soul, Richard Schuyler held his po-
sition with all the courage at his command. N0
faintest stirring was discernible. He touched the
slender, bare wrist. It was cold and still.
He rose slowly to his feet and stood rigid, con-
sidering.
“ She is dead, quite dead,” he thought, “ of that
there can be no shadow of doubt. If I were to call
for help it could do her no good—poor thing!
And how to explain my being here? ”
He passed his hand over his damp forehead.
“If my head were only clearer —” Again he
paused.
“ An ugly business! Need I be mixed up in it?
What good would it do? If I could help at all —”
passionately. “ But I can’t. The most experienced
surgeon would be powerless. Somehow it seems
cowardly to leave her here like this. But there is
no other sane thing to do. I’m only an onlooker
here, as I have been all my life. The curtain has


Fate Steps Out of the Shadow: 23
been rung down and the audience must go. I won-
der what the play has been.”
Sighing, he turned aside, picked up his shoes,
whose position he had noted close in front of the
settle, took his hat from the wall, and stepped softly
down the hall to the door. He opened and closed
it quietly and put on his soaking pumps.
The rain was still falling heavily and there was no
one to be seen in the street. He ran swiftly down
the shallow steps and looked about him with a feel-
ing of bewilderment. The street lamp half-way
down the block shone dimly in a bluish blur. The
faces of the houses were all exactly alike in this light.
He knew that the one he had just left was next
to his, but in the confusion of his senses he could
not remember upon which side. He had, however,
the instinctive feeling, gained by long association,
that the house on the right was his.
He mounted the steps and tried to make out the
number wrought into the iron grille over the door-
head.
“I mustn’t make another mistake,” he thought
with a bewildering sense of nightmare upon him as
he sought in his pocket for matches. His hand
came out empty.
“ Must have dropped them in the excitement,” he
said. “Well, it can’t be helped. Perhaps I can
ﬁnd out this way.”
He leaped up on the railing of the steps and
reached upward and sidewise until his hand touched


24. The Unlatched Door
the ﬁgures cut in an iron shield. His ﬁngers traced
ﬁrst a one and then an eight.
“Thank God, I ’m home at lastl ” he said, and
with his latch-key he silently let himself in.


CHAPTER III
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO 00! ”
T was a long time that night before Richard
Schuyler slept. He tossed restlessly on his pil-
low, striving to shake oﬂ the horror of the tragedy
to which he had been a most unwilling accessory
after the fact. At last he .fell into a troubled,
dream-haunted slumber. He seemed to be driving
endlessly through rain as black as ink; and suddenly
it turned red and splashed, warm and horrible, in his
face. He tried to cry out, but a voice in his ear
whispered insistently: “You ’re not in this!
You ’re not in this! It ’s no affair of yours.” The
voice sounded cold, but he felt that it was a wise
voice, the voice of a friend. At last the rain
changed to a silver mist and in it he saw a face,
smiling through tears. The eyes were gray and
clear and they looked at him steadfastly, with a deep
appeal in their depths. And with the sudden relief
from horror he awoke.
The sun was shining brightly in his windows, for
he had neglected to draw the blinds. With a start
he turned over and looked at his watch.
“ Half-past seven! ” he exclaimed; “ and I prom-
ised Blakeslie to make the eight-forty for Meadow
25


26 The Unlatched Door
Bay! He said I ’d never do it, but I ’1! show him.”
As he leapt out of bed the memory of the hideous
events of the preceding night swept over him.
“ God! that was awful! ” he muttered, pausing on
his way to the door. “ Could I have dreamed it, I
wonder. It was in that house, behind that wall!
It must have been real.” And again the voice of
his dream whispered: “ It ’s no aﬂair of yours.
You ’re not in this.”
“ That’s true, thank God! It’s no affair of
mine,” he said as he entered his bath-room, threw oﬂ
his night-clothes, and stepped under the cold shower.
He rang his bell a few minutes later and in a short
time his man appeared. Dick remembered his un-
just suspicions of the night before and spoke almost
apologetically:
“ I forgot to tell you yesterday, Jenkins, that I ’m
taking an early train to Meadow Bay this morning.
I can’t use my car for a day or two—something
gone wrong with the ignition, William says. Tell
the cook to get me some breakfast in a hurry — any-
thing will do— and pack a bag for“ me, will you?
I ’11 be away over the week-end.”
“Very good, sir. Shall I call a cab, sir? ”
Dick was not usually fanciful, but somehow, after
his dream, he had a distinct aversion to cabs. The
experience of the night before made him feel that he
wanted the solid ground under his feet, and people,
honest common people, all about him. He looked
at his watch and made a rapid calculation.


"I Don’t Know What to D0!” 27
“ NO, I ’11 have plenty of time. I ’1! take the car
from the corner,” he said. “ Hurry along now.”
The household, used to the young master’s erratic
ways, responded nobly and with time and to spare
Richard Schuyler, suit-case and golf-bag in hand,
opened his door and stepped out into the morning
sunlight.
His pulse quickened as he passed the house next
door and glanced up at the heavily curtained win-
dows. What had happened, what was still to hap-
pen behind that conventional mask?
“ NO afiair of yours, no affair of yours,” the inner
voice spoke on— and was interrupted by a sudden
soft cry:
“ Mr. Schuyler! Mr. Schuyler! ”
He felt as if the hand of Fate had caught him by
the hair. Was it to be his affair after all? A sense
of the irrevocable turned him slowly about.
On the steps of the house he had just passed stood
the girl he had seen in the park on the previous day.
Her hands were clasped in terror against her breast
and there was a world of appeal in her eyes that
found an immediate response in his chivalrous heart.
He remembered now, with a feeling of sudden
shock, that it was in the window of this house he had
first seen her, and he noted again the black dress
and white apron that had seemed to him so incon-
gruous an adjunct to her delicate beauty.
“Can you come here for a moment?” the girl
called softly. “I’m in great trouble and I don’t


” I Don’t Know What to D0! ” 29
There can be no doubt! The blood —” She could
say no more.
Dick mastered his inner longing to keep clear of
the whole situation and threw caution to the winds.
“ Would you like me to attend to these things for
you? It ’s hardly a job for a woman. I ’m a
lawyer, or at least I ought to be, and perhaps —”
“Oh, if you only would! ” she cried gratefully,
her eyes ﬁlling with sudden tears of relief. “ I have
no right to ask it —”
“ I ’ll be glad to help you in any way in my
power,” he said gravely, putting his hand on the
doom
Theigirl still held the knob. She evidently felt
that she must break the shock as much as possible.
“ lt—it ’5 just inside, on the ﬂoor of the hall.”
He nodded reassuringly, and slowly she opened
the door. Baring his head, he followed and closed
the door softly. .
The hall was dim after the brilliant light of the
street, but the ﬁgure on the ﬂoor was easily discern-
ible. Dick set down his luggage just inside the door
and dropped his hat beside it.
The girl advanced slowly along the hall, one hand
against her breast; the other, tightly clenched, hung
by her side. Dick saw the struggle between a great
dread and an even greater courage and was moved to
admiration.
He stood quietly beside her for a moment, looking
again upon the ﬁgure so tragically eloquent in its im-


30 The Unlalched Door
mobility. There was no change apparent except
that the mass of roses now lay limp against the
marble whiteness of the breast. '
“So young, so full of life! ” The voice of the
girl seemed to stir the silence rather than to break
it. “ You knew her? ”
“ I had met her once or twice and seen her often.
It is not a face to forget.”
H No),
Even in the stress and exigency of the situation,
Richard Schuyler noted the apparently unconscious
effect of equality in the bearing of the girl, which as-
sorted strangely with her correct servant’s garb.
He put the thought away from him. That could be
considered later. He must keep his mind quite clear
and act as he would have done if the circumstances
had really been as she thought them.
He knelt beside the still form and gently touched
the wrist, which had lost its ﬂexibility. Rising, he
shook his head.
“ No hope at all,” he said. “ She must have been
dead for hours. When did you discover —”
“ I was a little late and I ran down the stairs and
was in the hall before I saw —-” She stopped an
instant to steady her voice and went on. “ For a
second I thought she had fainted. Then I came
nearer and saw the blood.” She put her hands to-
gether and clasped them so tightly that the knuckles
showed pearly white. “ I tried to cry out for help,
but my throat was so dry I could n’t make a sound.


“I Don’t Know What to Do!” 3!
I was stunned! Then I thought Of poor old Miss
MacLeod, the housekeeper, and what a shock it
would be to her. I knew the cook would be of no
use and there was no one else in the house. I looked
into the street and saw you passing. I knew you
could be kind and helpful,”— there was a faint,
elusive lightening of the gravity of the pale face for
an instant —“ so instinctively I called to you.”
“You were quite right to do that,” Dick said re-
assuringly. “Now, if you’ll show me where the
telephone is —”
“In the library,” she said, and with a mournful,
pitiful backward glance, she led the way through a
richly furnished drawing-room, to a room behind it.
She motioned toward a small desk in the corner
where a telephone instrument stood.
“ I can’t tell you how grateful I am, Mr. Schuy-
ler.”
“ I ’m very glad -to be of service, Miss —”
With a slight start she looked down at her dress.
“ My name is Nora,” she said slowly.
Richard Schuyler pulled himself together. He
was by way of forgetting social distinctions. He
sat down at the desk.
“ I’ll call the police;‘and a physician should be
notiﬁed. Doctor Gates lives just around the cor-
ner, unless there is some one else -—”
“ I don’t know who the family physician is. No
one has been ill since I came here. I should think
Mr. Rutledge would wish the nearest one called.”


32 The Unlatched Door
“And Mr. R'utledge—you said he was not at
home. Do you know how to reach him? ”
“ Yes. He left yesterday for their place in Tux-
edo. The number is Tuxedo nine-one-three-two.”
Dick took down the receiver and gave a number to
the operator. The girl hovered uncertainly beside
him. A faint sound of some one Stirring in the
rooms below startled them both.
“ I had forgotten about the others,” said the girl.
“ The cook does n’t matter, she never comes up-
stairs. But Miss MacLeod might come down at any
moment. She ’s old; it would be a terrible shock.
I think I ought to go up and tell her at once.”
“ By all means —— Hello, yes,”— He had turned
back to the telephone. When he looked again, the
girl had disappeared.


CHAPTER IV
“ WHO DINED WITH MRS. RUTLEDGE?”
“ OCTOR GATES will be here in a few min-
utes,” said Richard, rising as the girl returned.
“I’ve tried to get Tuxedo, but the wires are busy.
They ’11 call back as soon as they can get a clear line.
I ’ll wait and see you through this as well as I can.”
If, with reason, he expected a renewal of the girl’s
expressions of gratitude, he was to be disappointed.
She was looking at him steadily, searchingly. She
seemed almost not to be listening.
“Yes,” she murmured with an air of inattention.
There was something so odd in her manner that
Schuyler looked at her more attentively and saw that
she held in her hand a small packet. Her eyes fol-
lowed his and suddenly her indecision, which had
been quite apparent, vanished. She raised her head
and looked him full in the eyes.
“You have been so good to me, Mr. Schuyler,
and have helped me so much that I ’m going to ask
something more of you. You know,” with a little
smile, “ ‘ the best reward for having wrought
well —’ ”
“ ‘Is to have more to do.’ ” He completed the
sentence. “A maid quoting Stevenson! ” he
33


34 The Unlatched Door
thought; “ this is too absurd! ” And aloud,
“Well, what is it? ”
“ You ’ll promise to refuse if you think I am ask-
ing something that you should n’t do? ”
“ I promise.”
“ I have something here,” she said slowly,
“ something of great importance to me and of no
interest to any one else in the world. The police are -
likely to search the servants’ rooms, are they not? ”
“ Yes,” very gravely.
“I don’t want them to ﬁnd these. It would be
difﬁcult to explain their being in my possession and
it might ruin my whole future.—— Oh, I never
dreamed that anything like this could happen! It
seems like a nightmare!-—Will you take care of
them for me? I ’1! send for them as soon as I can.
Is it an impossible thing I am asking? It means
so much to me and there is no harm in it! It ’s my
own secret and an innocent one. You do believe
me? ”
He looked for a long time into the steadfast gray
eyes. At last, “ I do believe you,” he said and held
out his hand for the packet.
B-r-r-r! the telephone bell sounded. He sat
down at the desk, the packet still in his hand.
“ Yes.— Nine-one three-two? — Yes —- Mr. Rut-
ledge’s house? -— Mr. Rutledge, please.— What? ”
Richard put his hand over the transmitter. “ They
say he is not there,” he said, turning to the girl.


“Who Dinea' with Mrs. Rutledge?” 35
“ Not there? Why, he sent most of the servants
out last week and went down himself yesterday!
Mrs. Rutledge was tO follow to-morrow.”
Richard turned back to the instrument.
“Can you tell me where I can ﬁnd him? It’s
very important.” A pause. “ All right. Just a
minute. Hold the wire.” Again he turned to
Nora: “ They say he ’11 be there some time to-day.
They don’t know just when.”
“That’s strange,” she whispered back. “I’m
sure he was to have gone yesterday.”
“He might have changed his mind and come
home. Are you sure he is n’t still in his room?”
“ NO, the door was open when I ﬁrst came down
and the bed untouched.”
“ You don’t know any man he might have stopped
with over night? ”
She hesitated a second. “ No,” she said.
“ There might be some one but I should n’t know.
Who’s on the wire?”
Dick spoke into the telephone: “Will you tell
me who this is, please? ” A short silence. “He
says it’s Walters, the butler.”
“ Walters. He ought to know, if any one would.
Perhaps I ’d better speak to him.”
They shifted positions silently. The girl spoke
over the wire.
“Walters, this is Nora. Did n’t you expect Mr.
Rutledge last night?—What, not till to-day? ”


36 The Unlatched Door
Her intent frown showed that she was puzzled.
“ No,” in answer to some question, “he is n’t here
and I must ﬁnd him at once.”
Dick touched her shoulder. “Ask him if he
knows what clubs Mr. Rutledge belongs to.”
She sent the question spinning through the miles
of space and the answer came back in a breath.
“The Zodiac Club — the New Chemistry Club,”
She repeated. “ All right. Now listen carefully,
Walters. Something terrible has happened here.
I can’t tell you about it over the telephone, but I
must reach Mr. Rutledge immediately. Have him
call here the instant he comes. Don’t waste a min-
ute l — You understand? —— All right.”
She hung up the receiver. Dick was already run-
ning through the pages of the telephone book. His
face was intent and histhoughts in a whirl. Was
be mistaken, or was there an entire change in the
girl’s accent as she spoke over the wire? There
seemed to be a touch of a brogue, deliciously soft but
quite perceptible. It was all very confusing, but so
was everything else about this girl.-— Steadyl He
must n’t think about it now. Time enough later.—
He had found the numbers he sought.
The girl had risen and he took her place at the
instrument. After a maddening delay of connec-
tion and subsequent paging he elicited the informa-
tion that Mr. Rutledge was in neither club.
“ There is nothing more to be done now, I think,”
said Dick, at last rising. “ I ’11 put this in my bag,”


“ Who Dinea' with Mrs. Rutledge?" 37
indicating the package which he still held in his
hand. “ It will be safer there.”
He was preceding her toward the hall when she
stopped him.
“ Give it back to me,” she said, with sudden deci-
sion. “ I have no right to ask it of you. I ’11 tell
the truth and take the consequences, if necessary,
whatever they may be.”
He looked at her closely. “ You said that the
discovery of this might be serious to you? ”
“ Yes, it would be, but -—-”
“ And that the things are yours,” he continued as
if her answer had been a bare aﬁ’irmative.
“ Yes, they are mine.”
Dick considered a moment all the confusing points
that he had noticed in connection with this remark-
able girl, but there was something so honest about
her personality and so appealing that he found it
irresistible. Besides, he had given his word.
“ Then I see no reason —”
A heavy footfall sounded on the steps and the
door-bell rang loudly. With an air of ﬁnality Dick
slipped the packet into the inner pocket of his coat.
“ Probably the doctor,” he said warningly, and,
to give her a moment in which to compose herself
and to spare her as much as possible of the tragedy
in the hall, himself moved to open the door.
The doctor was a busy little man with a large and
very wealthy clientele, mostly neurasthenics. He
was not a little annoyed at having been called on this


38 The Unlatched Door
sort of case and wasted no time in proceeding with
his duties.
“ Been dead some hours,” he said, rising and dust-
ing his immaculate knees. “ Seven or eight, per-
haps more. The autopsy ought to ﬁx it pretty deﬁ-
nitely. If the coroner wants me he ’11 know where
to ﬁnd me. You in charge here? ”
“ For the moment, yes,” Dick replied coldly. To
his unprofessional eyes the man seemed callous.
“Then I’ll be going. Nothing for me to do.
Must n’t disturb anything, you know. Ah, here
come the police. I ’11 speak to them as I go out.”
Dick watched him as he stopped on the steps to
exchange a few words with a broad man in the uni-
form of a captain of police and a smaller man in
plain clothes who stood just behind. Then the doc-
tor ran on down the steps and Dick held the door
open for the oﬂicers of the law.
The large man passed Dick with a nod and the
smaller man followed.
“ Why, Peter! ” Schuyler’s exclamation was one
of surprise and pleasure.
“ Mr. Schuyler! For the love of Mike! What
are you doing here? ”
“Tell you in a minute. Come in and shut the
door.”
The police oﬂicer had removed his hat and now
stood looking gravely down at the evidences of a
great tragedy. His pleasant broad, pink face was
expressionless and his rather prominent light-blue


” Who Dinea' with Mrs. Rutledge?" 39
eyes under their rough thatch of bristling brows gave
no hint of the thoughts that lay behind them. His
hands were clasped behind his back and his great
chest heaved slowly and evenly.
Dick and the young detective came and stood be-
side him and for a long moment no one spoke. At
last the police ofﬁcer roused himself and motioned
for the two young men to follow him into the draw-
ing-room.
Richard glanced quickly about for Nora and dis-
covered her, a small black-and-white blur in the
shadows Of the library.
“ Do I understand that you are not Mr. Rut-
ledge?” said the ofﬁcer, in a deep, somewhat husky
voice.
“My name is Schuyler,” Dick replied and in a
few words explained that he had been called in by
one of the maids as he was passing the house.
“ The young woman in the back room? ” asked
the captain, without a glance in that direction. Evi-
dently the blue eyes saw more than they appeared to.
“ Yes,” Dick replied and told of the conditions in
the house as he had discovered them and of his un-
availing efforts to communicate with Mr. Rutledge.
“ How well did you know these people?” asked
the Ofﬁcer, looking at him sharply.
“ Only very slightly, hardly more than a bowing
acquaintance.”
“ And you ’ve never been in the house before? ”
Dick was startled by the abruptness of the ques-


40 The Unlatched Door
tion. Also, it was not easy for him to lie. Had it
not been for the precious secret which Nora had
entrusted to his keeping, he would have told the
whole story then and there. As it was, he hesitated
and then answered in some confusion, “ No.”
The oﬁicer regarded him for an instant, but if
there was any suspicion in his mind, there was no
trace of it in his voice when he spoke again:
“ I see, I see. Very kind of you to have done as
much as you have for mere acquaintances, I ’m sure,
Mr. Schuyler. Not every man would have been
willing to give up his plans even in these tragic cir-
cumstances. You were going out of town, I know.”
(Dick had said nothing about it.) “ Sorry, but I ’m
afraid I ’11 have to ask you to stay here for a short
time.”
“ Certainly, Captain,_if you wish it.”
“ My name ’s O’Malley and this is Peter Clancy,
one of the most promising detectives on the force —
eh, Pete? But you seem to be acquainted already.”
“ Yes, I ’ve known him since he was a boy,” said
Dick, putting his hand on Clancy’s shoulder. “ He
did great work in the Stone case when he was only a
shaver. I heard a lot about it at the time, for
Jimmie Stone and I went to college together. He
introduced us and Peter has done me many a good
turn since.”
“ Quite the other way around,” said Peter, blush-
ing with pleasure at the praise.
The glasses which Captain O’M-alley wore far


” Who Dined with Mrs. Rutledge?” 4.1
doWn near the broad tip of his nose stood out almost
horizontally from his face, giving it a quaintly hu-
morous expression. No one had ever seen him look
directly through them. With an habitual movement
he bent his head slightly and glanced at Dick medi-
tatively over their rims as he spoke.
“And now to business.” He sighed and looked
out at the window. “It’s a lovely morning,” he
went on, irrelevantly. Then, turning his back on
the glory of the spring sunshine, “Will you come
here, Miss? ” he said, slightly raising his voice.
The girl in the back room started from the shad-
ows and came slowly forward. Her face was very
pale, but her manner was quiet and controlled.
“ H-m-m. Pretty rough experience you had,
was n’t it? ” said O’Malley, in a kindly tone.
“ I ’ve got to ask you some questions, but I ’1! make
’em as short as possible. Let ’s all sit down and be
comfortable.”
Without apparent effort he managed to seat the
girl so that her face was full in the light from the
window.
Captain O’Mallcy was an able man, far more so
than many of his superiors in ofﬁce, but under a
somewhat brusque exterior he tried, not always suc-
cessfully, to hide an unusually simple and kindly
heart. His not infrequent failure to do so, com-
bined with his sense of fair play, had stood in the
way of his advancement in a service where the men
were taught to consider every suspected person guilty


4.2 The Unlatchea' Door
until proved innocent, despite the law to the con-
trary. He had a keen interest in the problems that
came in his way, but he had no very great profes-
sional ambition aside from doing his work as worth-
ily as possible. With this end in view, he proceeded
with his examination.
“Now, young woman, what is your name? ” he
asked and took out a note-book.
“ Nora Brady, sir.”
Dick started. The brogue again! There could
be no doubt of it this time.
“ Been here long? ” asked O’Malley.
“ About four months, sir.”
“ Where did you work before that? "
“ This is my ﬁrst place, sir.”
“ Lived at home before you came here, I sup-
pose.”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ It was you who discovered the body.” It was a
statement rather than a question, but the girl an-
swered,
u “Yes.”
“ Where are the other servants? ”
“ They have all been sent out to open the house in
Tuxedo except the town housekeeper —— Miss Mac-
Leod — and the cook. The cook sleeps in the base-
ment and does n’t even know "— she made a faint
motion of her hand toward the hall —“ and Miss
MacLeod is waiting up-stairs. I broke it to her as
gently as I could and told her not to come down till


” Who Diner! with Mrs. Rutledge? ” 4.3
she was wanted. She ’s pretty old and it’s ”—- her
voice broke —“ it ’s a terrible thing to see.”
“ You were quite right,” said the captain, approv-
ingly. “I ’ll get you to call her in a few minutes.
We can leave the cook till later. She ’s not likely to
be going out? There ’s no entrance at the back? ”
“ No, sir.”
Without a hint from his superior Clancy rose and
unostentatiously took up a position which gave him a
clear view of the street.
“Now, Nora,” said O’Malley, “just what time
was it when you came down-stairs?——do you re-
member? ”
“ It must have been a few minutes after eight.”
“ Was the door locked? ”
“The inside door was locked, but the vestibule
door was open.”
“ Was that customary? ”
“ I don’t know. Walters locks up usually, but he
has gone out to the country.”
Richard had been listening carefully to everything
she said. The brogue, though slight, was persistent
throughout, tingeing every word she uttered. How
could she do it under that stress— and why? It
was a perfect piece of acting, for he had no doubt
that the intonation and accent she had used in speak-
ing to him were her very own. What was her ob-
ject? In his bewilderment he lost .the next few
words. The sound of his own name brought him
back to himself.


4.4. The Unlatchea' Door
“ Mr. Schuyler has told me about that,” O’Malley
was saying, “ so I need n’t trouble you to repeat it.
And you heard nothing unusual in the night? No
sound about the house? ”
“ No, sir, but I ’d not be likely to, I ’m afraid. I
sleep at the top of the house in the front and always
have my door closed and my window open. The
sounds in the street would drown anything except a
very loud noise.”
“ And last night you Slept soundly? ”
“Yes, sir. I woke up after the rain started and
went to close my window, but the rain was n’t com-
ing in at all and I left the window open.”
“ So you heard nothing, not even when Mrs. Rut-
ledge came home? ”
“ No, sir. There are lots of cars stopping and
7 starting in the street nearly all night. You would n’t
get a bit of sleep if you did n’t get iised to them.”
“ Mrs. Rutledge had been out, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir.”
“ Do you know where she went? ”
“ To the theater, I think.”
“ At what time did she go? ”
“ Right after dinner.”
“ Did she dine alone? ”
A very slight pause.
“ NO, Sir.”
“ Mr. Rutledge was here at that time, then? ”
“ No, sir.”


” Who Dinea' with Mrs. Rutledge?” 4.5
“Who dined with Mrs. Rutledge, Nora? ” The
brusque Voke was kind but ﬁrm. _
“A friend of the family, a Mr. Cuthbert Pendle-
ton.”
“ Did he go to the theater with Mrs. Rutledge? ”
“ They went out together.”
“ But you don’t know whether he took her to the
theater and brought her home? ”
“ I can’t know for certain.”
“ Did Mrs. Rutledge have a personal maid? ”
“ She did have, but she discharged her a few days
ago.”
“ Had trouble with her? ”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ Did you act as maid for Mrs. Rutledge last
night? ”
“ I helped her dress, but she told me not to wait
up for her, as she might be late.”
“ That will be all for the present, Nora,” said
O’Malley, closing his note-book. “ Now, if you
will be good enough, I think we ’d better have the
housekeeper down. And Nora,” he continued as
she rose to comply with his request, “if there ’s a
back stairway bring her down that way.”
“I was going to. Thank you, sir, for thinking
of it.”
She started toward the back room and then turned
suddenly, her hands clasped in distress.
“ Oh, how much longer must we leave her


4.6 The Unlatched Door
there? ” she cried. “ It seems as if I could n't bear
it! ”
“It won’t be long now," said O’Malley, sooth-
ingly. “The coroner ought to be here shortly.
We notiﬁed him before we left. He’s been down
with a touch of the grippe, but he’ll be out to-day. -
It’s early yet. Don’t think about it. It ‘will be
over very soon.” '
The girl bowed her head as if in acceptance of
'the inevitable and as she left the room O’Malley
crossed it and carefully drew the curtains of the
doorway which led into the hall.


CHAPTER V
SARAH CONNORS
ILE Captain O’Malley was telephoning the
station, to ask for a couple of men, Dick
went over and joined the young detective at the
window. Clancy had remained silent and observant
throughout, with one wary eye on the street.
“ Any notion how long I ’ll be kept here, Peter? ”
asked Schuyler, quietly.
“ Only till the coroner gets here, I should think,”
answered his young friend in the same low tone.
“ NO possible reason for keeping you longer. You
can tell him what you know and beat it.” i
" I was going out to Meadow Bay for the week-
end. Do you think I ought to put it off? I don’t
want to if I can help it. I ’ve had to break a date
with Blakeslie twice, already, and he’ll be pretty
hot because I did n’t show up this morning as I prom-
ised. I have n’t had a chance to call him up yet.”
“ I think I can ﬁx it for you all right. You ought
to be able to get off by noon. Just keep an eagle eye
on the street for a minute and see that the cook
does n’t try to skiddoo and I’ll speak to the cap-
tain.”
Dick waited in keen suspense. If O’Malley let
47


48 The Unlatched Door
him go it would seem to prove that the Old captain’s
suspicions of him had not been aroused.
In a moment Clancy returned. “ All to the mus-
tard,” he said, with a touch of pride. “ O’Malley
says as long as I know all about you it ’s O. K. As
soon as the coroner comes you can answer any ques-
tions he may want to ask you and they won’t call you
for the inquest.”
Dick experienced a distinct feeling of relief.
“ Good for you, Pete! All right if I use the tele-
phone when the captain gets through?”
“ Surest thing you know.”
They heard the click Of the receiver being put back
on its book.
“By the way, Mr. Schuyler, how ’s Bill panning
out?” asked Clancy as Dick started for the library.
Dick turned with a smile. “ Best chauffeur I ’ve
ever had! ” he exclaimed. “ I don’t believe there ’5
a steadier man in the business. Good mechanician,
too. I’m mighty grateful to you for sending him
to me.”
“ Oh, that’s all right, all right,” said Peter, with
a wave of his hand. “ It was up to me to get Bill a
good job, anyway. His wife got me the ﬁrst one I
ever had and turn about ’s fair play.”
Dick was still at the telephone when Nora and the
old housekeeper appeared and passed into the draw-
ing-room. He quietly joined them there a few min-
utes later. The woman was seated in the chair that
Nora had recently occupied. Her back was toward


Sarah Connors 49
him and he could see nothing of her but her neatly
arranged gray hair and the upper part of her moth-
erly ﬁgure, dressed in conventional black. The edge
of a frilled black silk apron showing at the side of
the skirt and an old-fashioned white ﬁchu folded
about her neck gave a touch of quaintness to the
costume.
“I was nurse to Mr. Rutledge when he was a
baby,” she was saying in a low, somewhat tremulous
voice, “and I’ve been with the family ever since.”
A slight Scotch burr, almost eradicated by long asso-
ciation, still showed what her birthplace must have
been.
The short examination proceeded. There was
evidently very little to be learned from her, as she
had heard no unusual noises of any kind in the night.
She was obviously shaken by the tragedy, but was
taking it with as much self-control as one could ex-
pect from a woman of her years.
From his station at the window, Peter saw the
two ofﬁcers O’Malley had summoned, coming up the
street. He let them in and stationed one of them
in the hall, sending the other down to watch the base-
ment door. This arrangement completed, he re-
turned quickly and silently to the drawing-room.
As he entered, O’Malley was asking Miss MacLeOd
about the other servants.
She stated that she had engaged them all and that
she believed them to be absolutely trustworthy.
Mrs. Rutledge’s maid who had been discharged was


50 The Unlatched Door
a good girl, she thought. There had been high
words between them and Mrs. Rutledge had to let
her go. The maid was French and had been well
recommended; they had all been we]! recommended
except—i She broke off and seemed embarrassed.
“Except?” asked O’Malley, quiet but insistent.
Miss MacLeod turned her head slightly. The
captain followed her eyes.
“ You mean that Nora —”
“Nora is a good girl—I ’m sure of it!” said
the old lady, with conviction. “I liked her looks
from the start, but she had no references and I
didn’t like to take her. Mrs. Rutledge left too
many valuable things lying about and I was responsi-
ble.”
“How did it occur, then, that you engaged her
after all? ”
“I didn’t, as it happened. Mrs. Rutledge met
us in the hall as I was showing Nora out. She had
evidently seen Nora before, for she called her by
her name and took her into her own room at once.
She rang for me a little later and told me that Nora
was to stay. If Mrs. Rutledge was satisfied I was,
and Nora has been a very good girl, very biddable
and competent.”
Dick looked at Nora. Her lids were lowered and
her face was very white and still. Suddenly he saw
her head fall back. He sprang to his feet, but the
captain was before him.


52 The Unlatched Door
you can. They ’1! want to question her at the in-
quest. It will be this afternoon, probably, and the
poor child will be needing all her strength. She’s
been through an ordeal that would try anybody.”
Nora looked up at him with gratitude in her eyes.
As she passed Dick on her way out, She cast one
steady long glance in his direction but said nothing
and the two women left the room together.
When they had gone the old police captain heaved
a long sigh.
“ Rum thing, life! ” he said and considered for a
moment, pinching his lower lip between his thumb
and foreﬁnger. “You never can tell — about any-
body,” he continued, as if thinking aloud. “ Queer
. motives —”
There was a short silence.' Clancy was still too
new at the business and too much impressed with his
older colleague, whom be admired tremendously, to
hazard a remark.
“ Well, Pete,” said O’M'alley at length, with a
brisk change of manner, “looks as if you might get
a lot of experience out of this case. Now for the
once-over on the cook. Go down and see what kind
of a dish she ’11 serve up.”
The cook proved to be a heavy, soft-footed Irish-
woman, neither old nor young, with enigmatic, rov-
ing eyes set in a broad red face. She seemed terri-
bly frightened at sight of the oﬁicer in the lower hall
and could hardly be persuaded to enter the drawing-
‘room.


Sarah Connors 53
O’Malley advanced toward her, looking at her
closely. She tried to meet his glance, but in spite of
herself, her eyes shifted.
“ H-m-m,” said the captain after a moment;
“ well, well! ” Suddenly he caught her arm in an
iron grip. “Come here,” he said and drew her
quickly over to the hall door.
There was a soft clash of metal on metal as the
curtain rings slipped along the rod.
“ My Gawdl Oh, my Gawd! ” cried the woman,
her face suddenly ashen gray. She reeled where she
stood and great drops of sweat stood on her fore-
head. She turned and clutched O’Malley’s arm.
“I did n’t do it, honest to Gawd I did n’t do it! ”
she wailed.
“ Keep still! ” said the captain sternly. “No-
body ’s accusing you yet, Sarah Connors.”
The woman started as if she had been stung.
“Why do you call me that? ” she questioned in a
shaking whisper.
“Because it’s the name you went by-years ago
when you belonged to the Rollins gang. Don’t deny
it. You’ve changed, but I could swear to you any-
where,” said O’Malley, with conviction, as he drew
the curtains close again. “Now come over here
and tell me how you come to be in this house.”
The woman, whose knees were visibly giving way
beneath her, sank into the chair he indicated,
“Oi ’m an honest woman! ” she cried, wringing
her hands. “ Oi rayformed a long toime ago and


54. The Unlatched Door
Oi ’ve been sthraight iver since. Oi niver done
nawthin’ annyhow, except a little shopliftin’ on the
soide; and ye must know it, since ye ’re afther
knowin’ so much about me.”
The captain nodded. “I know all about What
you did. We’ll let that go for the present. ' Pull
yourself together, now, and tell us how you come to
be working in a respectable house like this.”
“ Rayspictable, is it! ” she said with a sniﬂ and a
hard, sophisticated look. “ Well, that’s as it may
be. Oi ’ve been in more rayspictable houses than
this, let me tell yez! Sich carryin’s-on! Oh, we
hear tings down-stairs and don’t make anny mistake
about that! ”
She was evidently recovering her conﬁdence or
had somehow found the courage to put up a good
bluff. ~
“ Oi ’1! tell yez how it all was,” she continued
hastily. “There was an awful dacint mathron in
that place —you know where — and she found out
that Oi could cook. ‘Howly mother 0’ Moike,’
she says to me wan day phwin she ’d tasted somethin’
Oi ’d made out o’ the common sthuff they do be
havin’ in thim places. ‘ Phwat in the wurruld does
a girrul loike you want to sthale fur, phwin ye can
cook loike that? How much money have yez made
by sthalin’? ’ she says. And to be sure, it wasn’t
much, fur it ’s aisy come aisy go in that graft, ye
know. Well, annyway, she made me see Oi could
make more money bein’ honest and she got me a job


Sarah Connors 55
phwin Oi lift. The people didn’t have annything
worth takin’ at me ﬁrst place and Oi kind 0’ got the
habit o’ lavin’ things alone and afther that Oi
worked me way up till annywan was glad to have
me. And now look at this,” she wailed suddenly.
“ Everything spoiled and me mixed up wid the police
agin! ”
O’Malley silenced her with a gesture and she
cringed and cowered away from him, her abject fear
returning. He asked her a few more questions, but
could get nothing from her except that she never
came up-stairs and an often reiterated statement that
she did n’t leave her room “ afther noine o’clock last
noight, swelp me Gawd! ”
The fact remained that she had been alone in the
basement all night and could have admitted any one
from the street without attracting attention. De-
spairing of getting anything further from her in her
present condition, O’Malley told Peter to give her
in charge of the officer in the basement.


CHAPTER VI=
CLUES
ETER CLANCY was eager to get back to the
scene of the mystery, now that they had learned
all that was possible for the present from the living
persons in the house. Having turned the soi-disant
Sarah Connors over to the tender mercies of Sulli-
van, the officer in charge of the lower regions, he ran
quickly up the basement stairs and found himself in
the butler’s pantry.
This small room, ﬁtted with the customary shelves
and appliances, had three doors. The one at his
left was a swinging door covered with leather and
had a small oval glass set in the upper half through
which could be seen a spacious dining-room, ﬂooded
with the sunlight from four long windows. The
door opposite the head of the stairs was the one he
had used in leaving the library. Behind it he could
hear a man’s heavy voice speaking over the telephone
and recognized it as belonging to Murphy, a very
intelligent oﬁicer, well known on the force, who had
been guarding the front entrance.
The door at the right was exactly like the dining-
room door and must lead directly into the hall,
Peter thought. Glancing toward the small glazed
aperture he saw that all the lights in the hall had
been turned on.
56


Clues 57
“ O’Malley on the scent,” he said to himself.
“ It ’s a fair treat to watch him at it. That man
never has been appreciated, ’cause he ’s so darn de-
cent and don’t use the third degree if he don’t have
to. If he ’d only put his heart into this job instead
of wasting so much time on his little machines and
things, he’d be at the top by this time.”
Peter paused an instant, looking through the 'tiny
window. All the hall, except that part hidden by
the stairway, was clear before him. He saw that
the outer vestibule doors had been closed, so that no
one could see in from the street. O’Malley was
standing so that Peter saw him in proﬁle, his heavy
ﬁgure bent forward, studying intently the still form
on the ﬂoor.
Behind the captain and facing the pantry door
stood Schuyler. His expression was intent and anx-
ious and as Peter looked he stooped suddenly, and
then straightened as the young detective came
through the door. Peter did not think much, at the
time, about the gesture so curiously checked, but later
on he was to consider it in all its bearings through
many anxious hours.
“ Not much to be determined about the body until
we can move it,” said O’Malley as'Peter came for-
ward. “ The 'wound is in the back and there are no
marks to be seen.—— Well, Murphy,” to the ofﬁcer
who had just appeared at the drawing-room door,
“ could you get him? ”
“ No, sir. I got his house on the wire and, by


58 The Unlatched Door
luck, the chauffeur answered the ’phone. He says
that Mr. Pendleton left town this morning on an
early train, for a house party somewhere in the coun-
try down near Philadelphia, he thinks.”
They spoke in hushed voices. The presence of
the beautiful dead creature on the ﬂoor ﬁlled even
the most hardened among them with a creeping sense
of awe.
“ Pendleton! ” exclaimed Clancy. “That’s the
man she went out with last night.”
O’Malley nodded and turned again to Murphy.
“Well,” he said sharply, “don’t they know the
name of the people he ’s stopping with or the town
he went to? ”
“N0, sir. He was only going to be gone til!
Monday and didn’t leave any address. All the
man knows is that he took Mr. Pendleton to the
Penn. Station about eight-thirty this morning.”
“ Funny,” said the captain, musingly. “ Pete,
you go in and see what you can do. I must ﬁnd out
where he is, at once.”
“All right, sir,” and Peter vanished reluctantly.
“No luck,” he said, returning after a fruitless
effort at the telephone. “Murphy found out all
there was to know.”
O’Malley, a man of few words, nodded silently.
He was holding something in his hand and Murphy
and Schuyler were looking at it with eager interest.
It was nothing of special signiﬁcance — just a partly
used paper of matches with the name of the United


Clues 59
Cigar Stores on the outside. There were millions of
papers exactly like it all over the country. The cap-
tain had found it almost hidden by the rug which lay
just beyond the body.
After a moment’s study, O’Malley took out a
large, ofﬁcial looking pocket-book, drew from it an
empty envelop and placed the matches inside, to-
gether with several short ends he had been holding in
the palm of his other hand. He turned to Murphy.
“ Go to the front window,” he said, “and watch
for the coroner. He ought to be here by this time.
We can’t do much till the body can be moved. Let
him in through the basement when you see him com-
ing. Now,” to Peter as Murphy disappeared,
“ we ’11 take a look around.”
“ Better make yourself comfortable in the parlor,
Mr. Schuyler,” said Clancy to his friend. “ No use
your sticking around here. It is n’t any too pleasant
a job if you are n’t in the business.”
He was glancing keenly about the hall and spoke
hurriedly, his mind already engrossed in the problem
before him.
Richard had been standing perfectly still on the
spot where Peter had ﬁrst seen him when he returned
to the hall. His rOle of disinterested spectator had
been carefully preserved, but his heart pounded
' heavily and the package which bulged the breast of
his coat seemed made of lead. There was no pos-
sibility of their searching him, especially with Clancy
to vouch for‘him, but he longed ardently to get away.


Clues 61
when there was the sound of a sudden movement in
the drawing-room.
“ Here ’s the coroner,” said Murphy, sticking his
head through the curtains. “ I’ll go down and let
him in.”
The two men rose to their feet and came back
down the brilliantly lighted hall.
“Come in_here, Mr. Schuyler,” said O’Malley,
taking Richard by the arm. “ You can talk to the
coroner at once and we won’t have to keep you any
longer.”
They entered the drawing-room, leaving Clancy
still hard at work in the hall. A brief explanation
from O’Malley, a few questions from the coroner,
and Dick was at last given leave to depart. He
thanked them both for their consideration.
“ I’ll just get my things from the hall,” he said,
as O’Malley led the coroner toward the scene of the
crime.
As they drew back the curtains, Peter Clancy was
discovered in the act of rising, just in front of the
settle. His face was eager and excited.
“ I found it back there in the shadow, O’Malley,”
he exclaimed, pointing under the settle. “It’s still
damp — see! ”
He stretched out his hand. In it lay the light
leather in-sole of a man’s shoe.


CHAPTER VII
A PAIR or PUMPS
E blood beat heavily in Richard Schuyler’s
ears as he let himself out at the basement
door. No circumstance of his easy, sheltered life
had prepared him in the remotest degree for an ex-
perience such as he had just undergone.
His nerves had been jumping in a most discon-
certing and unaccustomed way ever since he had ﬁrst
followed O’Malley into the hall, lured by a fatal
fascination and a desire to see if the matches he had
lost the night before had been dropped inside the
house. He had no reason to fear that the police
would be able to connect so non-committal a thing
with him, but he hoped that he had not left even that
faint clueyto link him to the crime.
O’Malley had gone outside at once and closed the
heavy vestibule door, leaving the hall in temporary
darkness. Then he had come back arrd turned on
the electric light, the switch being just inside and t0
the left of the door.
As the light ﬂashed up, Dick’s eyes darted swiftly
around the ﬂoor. O’Malley’s back was still turned
when Dick caught sight of the in-sole, lying now al-
most in plain sight just under the edge of the settle.
62


A Pair of Pumps 63
It would have been difﬁcult, if not impossible, to dis-
tinguish it previously in the dim light ﬁltering in
from the deep vestibule and through the glass panels
of the door, leaving the side of the wide hall almost
in darkness. It was black and lay on a black square
of the tessellated floor, but it was in a position that
made its discovery inevitable.
With one long stride Dick advanced and covered
it with his foot. His action was instinctive. What
he should do with it he did not know. The frightful
circumstances in which he was enmeshed, the horror
of the hideous dreams of the night before which still
held him in thrall, and all the complications Possible
and impossible which flashed through his mind, made
it imperative that he should do something. He was
absolutely certain from its position that it had fallen
from one of his pumps when he kicked them off --
loosened, in all probability, by the water into which
he had stepped. It could never exactly ﬁt any shoe
in the world but his own. There were bound to be
faint impressions of nail heads in the heel and slight
hollows made by the ball of his foot and the toes, for
the shoes were not new. They were, in fact, very
comfortable and he had worn them longer than was
his custom.
These thoughts darted through his mind as he
stood there. His position, just at the head of the
dead woman, was a natural one for an interested
bystander, but he could not maintain it indeﬁnitely.
If he could manage somehow to pick up the telltale


64. The Unlatched Door
bit of evidence and get it into his pocket unperceived,
he would be safe. He wished now with all his heart
that he had told the whole story of his midnight ad-
venture to the police at once, but the package that
had been intrusted to his care made him hesitate
until it was too late.
There was no one in the hall but the police cap-
tain — and the dead woman with the strange, mock-
ing smile on her scarlet lips. Richard felt more
afraid of her than of the man. What strange, fate-
ful story would those lips tell if they could speak?
How would they explain their expression of a Mona
Lisa and reconcile the pool of darkened crimson
with the quiet of the peacefully folded hands?
Under an almost hypnotic spell, he watched his
chance and the ﬁrst time O’Malley fully turned his
back, with every sense alert, Dick stooped swiftly
toward the ﬂoor — and caught sight of Peter Clancy
just emerging from the door at the end of the hall.
There was no time to complete the movement.
Peter’s eyes were full upon him. There was nothing
to do but wait.
Not long afterward Peter had suggested his going
into the drawing-room, making it clear by his manner
that Dick’s presence there was undesirable. O’Mal- -
ley was continuing his search at that end of the hall
and there was no probability that there would be
another chance to recover this little bit of worthless
leather for which at that moment he would gladly
have bartered half his fortune.


66 The Unlatched Door
stairs. They presented a striking picture as they
stood there, the light from an open door falling
athwart the two ﬁgures. Little Miss VanLoo was
plump and fair. Her face, though very old, was
soft and smooth and tinged with an almost girlish
ﬂush. Her abundant white hair was smoothly
parted and carefully arranged under a tiny cap of old
lace and lavender ribbons. The same creamy lace
was folded about her throat, over a dress of silver-
gray that whispered softly when she moved.
The servant on Whose arm she leaned was dressed
in black, relieved by bands of white at neck and
wrists. Her strong,'dark face suggested a touch of
Indian ancestry and her graying hair bore witness to
years of faithful service. She had been in the fam-
ily for nearly half a century and old Miss VanLoo
was rarely to be seen without her. In fact, she had
been accused by laughing friends of taking Susan
about with her as a foil to set her off; for the same
reason that one puts an ebony panel behind a price-
less bit of old china.
“ You look troubled, my dear,” the old lady
continued. “ Has anything happened amiss? ”
“Everything is all right, Auntie darling,” said
Dick, removing his hat and stooping to kiss her. “ I
was detained and had to come back for something.
I want to catch the eleven-o’clock train if I can and
I’ll have to hurry a bit, but if there’s anything I
can do for you before I go —”
“Nothing, my dear. Run along, now, and have


A Pair of Pumps 67
a good time. Susan will take me out for an airing a
little later. Good-by, my dear boy.”
The little old lady with her dark companion went
slowly on down the stairs and Dick raced up to the
next ﬂoor. His rooms had been put in perfect order
for the day and there were no servants about. He
threw his hat and bag on a couch and hastily pulled
open the door Of the closet where his boots were
kept. They were neatly arranged in a cleverly de-
vised rack through which he sought in a feverish
hurry. He had never realized before how many
shoes he had. They seemed innumerable. The
light in the closet was not good and he was so intent
on ﬁnding one particular pair that he spent several
moments of irritation before he remembered to
switch on the electric bulb in the ceiling.
The shoes seemed to jump at him out of the dim-
ness and he went over them pair by pair, at ﬁrst
conﬁdently and then with growing uneasiness. At
last conviction forced itself upon him. The ones he
sought were not there.
He switched off the light and, closing the door,
stood for a puzzled moment in the middle of the
room. What should he do now? Jenkins, of
course, would know what had become of them, but
how to account to that faithful servitor for his sud-
den reappearance and the demand for this one spe-
cial pair of pumps?
His throat was hot and parched with excitement.
“ I ’m taking this thing too seriously,” he said to


CHAPTER VIII
A LOSING GAME
FEW moments later Richard Schuyler, looking
from his window, saw a cab drive up and stop
in front of his door. From his own room he had
ordered it by telephone, and he breathed a sigh of
relief that it would not again be necessary for him
to pass on foot that fatal house next door.
He put his luggage into the cab, himself, ignoring
the driver’s proffered services. He was keyed to
such a pitch of nervous strain that he felt he could
not let any one else touch it; for, after considering
every possible hiding-place in his rooms, he had de-
cided that the package Nora had placed in his keep-
ing would be safer if it was in his suit-case, where he
could keep it under his own watchful eye. The serv-
ants in his house were old and trusted and had access
to virtually every drawer and cupboard. He had
never before in all his life had anything to conceal
and Jenkins had keys to all his bureaus and chif-
foniers.
He carried the incriminating pumps wrapped in
an unmarked paper (he had been careful about that)
under his arm. In the disordered state of his mind
it seemed to him that he could not get rid of them
69


70 The Unlatehed Door
too quickly and he had a confused notion of throwing
them from the cab somewhere on his way to the sta-
tion. He was still studying his plan as the cab
started, but he was not so much engrossed as to pass
Number 20 without an anxious glance.
It had already assumed the look of a house of
mourning and a group of eager young men with note-
books, conferring with an ofﬁcer at the basement
door, showed that the murder was literally out.
Dick leaned as far back as possible in the shadow
and the cab rolled eastward. It turned down Park
Avenue and Dick looked out warily. There were
people passing up and down the street as usual, but
some blocks farther down it looked virtually empty
and he thought this might be the place to put his
hastily conceived plan into execution.
He had placed the package of pumps on the ﬂoor
of the cab when he got in. It now lay close against
the left-hand door, directly behind the driver. The
cab continued its swift, smooth ﬂight and Dick
looked ahead, scanning carefully both sides of the
street. In a moment they reached the empty block
on which he had placed his hopes. Dick waited
until they were near the center. Then he pushed his
toe well under the package and cautiously turned the
handle of the door. He glanced quickly about.
Not a soul in sight. He opened the door quietly and
was about to kick the offending pumps over the run-
ning-board into the street, when he saw a small boy
dart out from one of the houses, following a ball


A Losing Game 71
which rolled into the middle of the street, almost to
the exact spot which Dick had destined his shoes to
occupy.
The obvious impossibility of his plan suddenly
flashed across Dick and he leaned back in the cab and
spoke sincerely:
“ You utter ass! You double-distilled damfool! ”
A mist seemed to melt away from in front of his
eyes and he was able to see the events of the last few
hours with some degree of clarity.
“ You, born and bred in New York, to think you
might be able to lose a big package like that,” he
gave it a vicious kick, “in the street and in broad
daylight! There would always be some bright-eyed
boy to spring out of the pavement and pick it up, of
course. What an idiot you are! ”
He had a habit, contracted through years of lonely
childhood, of talking to himself as if he were two
persons. One of him was always vastly superior to
and inﬁnitely removed from the foibles of the other.
“Nice little practical idea of yours, wasn’t it?
You were in a funk, Old chap, that ’s what you
were! ”
The other of him could not deny the soft impeach-
ment.
“And now what are you going to do? Leave it
in the cab, perhaps, to be ﬁshed out by some grinning
‘ red-cap.’ It would mean a handsome tip for him
and that would be about all.”
With a sigh, he opened his bag and deposited the


A Losing Game 73
as he looked up at the grinning face before him.
“ Why, hello, Billy! How are you? ” he cried in
a tone that he meant to be cordial. He had never
liked the plump young man who was unceremoniously
squeezing himself into the other half of the seat and
now he hated him inordinately.
The man had the proﬁle of a Greek god and in
real life there is nothing more expressive of conceit
and stupidity. He was an idle chap, a gossip, and a
bore, and he could not have appeared at a more in-
opportune moment.
“ I ’1! never be able to shake him,” thought Dick
disgustedly. Then, with momentarily recovered
hope, “ Where are you going, Billy? ” he asked.
Meadow Bay was a good way out. Perhaps —
“Why, Blakeslie asked me out for the week-end.
I ’m going to Meadow Bay.”
“That’s nice,” said Dick, with covert sarcasm.
“ So am I.”
Billy Porter was delighted. He would have some
one to talk at all the way. No one else had much
chance in conversation with this voluble young man
and Dick’s preoccupied silence passed unnoticed.
Suddenly Dick had a bright idea. Billy Porter
was one of the few young men in the world who did
not smoke. Dick bore the vain and sometimes mal-
icious monologue of his companion for some time
with all the patience at his command.
The tunnel was passed, the Harlem River crossed,
and after a time the railway freed itself from the


74 The Unlatched Door
alternate ﬂash and sudden darkness of cut and over-
head crossing and swept out into the open country.
The suburban towns with their self-consciously pic-
turesque stations were more or less frequent, but
there were wider and ever wider spaces of unoc-
cupied territory between. At last Dick’s over-
strained nerves could stand no more.
“ I’m dying for a smoke, Billy,” he said, rising
and picking up his belongings. “ You won’t mind if
I leave you. See you later.” And, heedless of the
surprise on his companion’s face, he gained the aisle
and walked rapidly toward the front of the train.
“This will be just the place,” he thought glee-
fully as the train ran into a long, deep cut. “ I ’ll
chuck those infernal pumps over on the rails and
they ’11 be ground to atoms.”
The platform of the car was unoccupied and Dick
set down his bag with a sigh of hope. In feverish
haste he unbuckled the straps and was about to push
up the catch when a voice behind him brought him to
a sudden stop and sent his heart down into his boots.
“ Say, Dickie, wait a minute. I ’ll join you,” and
Porter lumbered out on the platform, bumping his
golf clubs against the door as he closed it.
“I thought you didn’t smoke, old chap,” said
Dick, with a vaguely apologetic air.
“ No more do I,” answered Porter, “but I can
stand the smell of the beastly stuff as well as any-
body. No use your having to travel all the rest of
the way by your lonely little self.” He was quite


A Losing Game 75
cheerful and unsuspicious. Dick cursed him in his
heart, with every frill and variation of a full rep-
ertoire, but he gave no outward Sign of annoyance.
“ I was just about to get some cigars out of my
bag,” he said with apparent calm, “ but I think, after
all, I ’d rather have a cigarette.”
Resignedly he buckled up the straps and followed
his unwelcome companion to the smoking-car, where
Porter’s monologue was resumed as if it had never
been interrupted.
Dick sank far down in his seat, resigning himself
for the time being. Fate had stacked the cards
against him, but he had by no means given up his
purpose. He was no longer gripped by a panic fear
and his sporting instincts were thoroughly aroused.
By hook or by crook he would get rid of that in-
fernal package despite all the odds against it.
He had not been listening very closely to the long
story that Porter was telling, when suddenly his at-
tention was gripped and held.
“ What was that you said, Billy? ” he asked, and
Porter repeated his previous sentence.
“I had just seen his wife at the theater with
Pendleton, and, behold, there was Hammond Rut-
ledge going up the stairs to one of the private
rooms, with another man and two perfect peaches,
I should judge, though I saw only their backs. I
don’t know whether you are familiar with ‘Gui-
seppe’s ’ place, Dickie. You fellows who don’t care
what you eat, so long as it’s in the most gay and


A Losing Game 77
ran on, “ but everybody knows he has n’t any money
to speak of. Of course, with all those Mexican oil
wells that she inherited from her old Spanish father,
Hammond’s being poor did n’t rnake any diﬂerence,
I suppose. But he’s a good deal older than she is
and it ’5 no wonder that she got tired of him and
kept him on a short allowance.”
“ How do you know that?” asked Dick, with
ever-increasing interest. He despaired, for the
present, of telling his own story.
“ Oh, it’s common gossip. Everybody knows it.
And now she’s taken to running around with that
chap Pendleton and everybody ’s talking. She
does n’t seem to mind a bit and they say'Ham-
mond ’s as jealous as a ﬁend. Not that he cares for
her any more, but he’s proud and her recklessness
is driving him crazy. Anybody can see it. He
Won’t divorce her if he can help it, I suppose, on
account of the money. He don’t get much of it
now, but there ’s oodles and oodles of it and if she
dies he gets it all unless she’s made a will, for I
happen to know that she hasn’t a relative in the
world.”
Dick’s brows drew together sharply and with de-
termination he interrupted his companion.
“Look here, Billy,” he said, “what time last
night did you see him? ”
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Porter, care-
lessly. “Sometime after midnight I should think.
_H


CHAPTER IX
CAPTAIN O’MALLEY DEMONSTRATES
N the meantime events had progressed with a
hideous swiftness in the now shrouded and dark-
ened house of mystery. The coroner, though late
in coming, had proved quick and efficient. The sur-
geons, hastily summoned, had performed their task
and gone. They had ﬁxed the time of death some-'
where between midnight and four in the morning.
The autopsy showed no marks or wounds of any
kind, except one in the back, narrow but deep, slant-
ing slightly from left to right and piercing the heart
through and through. Death from such a blow
would have been instantaneous. So far, no weapon
had been found, but the surgeon’s report stated that
the one that had been used must have been a knife
or dagger, over six inches long and sharp at the
point and on one side. ,
Peter Clancy and Captain O’Malley stood for a
moment in the hall after letting the surgeons out,
discussing the results of the investigation. They
had had a busy day and the older man looked gray
and tired, but the young detective was as fresh and
alert as a pointer just loosed from the leash.
O’Malley was demonstrating something to his eager
pupil and assistant.
. 80


Captain O'Malley Demonstrates 8!
“You see,” he said, “the knife entered here,”
touching Peter on the back just below the shoulder-
blade, “ and went dowu this way,” drawing a line
with his stumpy foreﬁnger downward and toward
the spine.
“That means one of two things,” he continued.
“ Either the blow was dealt by a person with very
long arms, standing close in front of her, or the
murderer stood behind her and struck the blow with
his left hand. If he had used his right while stand-
ing behind her, the course of the weapon would have
been straight in or from right to left. You see that,
don’t you? ”
“ Sure,” answered Peter, eagerly. “ What we ’ve
got to look for is a left-handed guy with a motive,
or a long-armed gorilla with same outﬁt. I wish we
could be sure which.”
“ You look for a man who prefers to use his south
paw and don’t waste your time on the ourang-outang
theory,” said O’Malley, with conviction. “ Tell
you why, later. Now, the ﬁrst thing we ’ve got to
do is to ﬁnd out if anybody in this house could have
worn the shoe that this came out of.” He produced
the leather in-sole as he spoke. “ It ’s the best clue
we ’ve got and it ought to be a good one, at that.
See what you make out of it, Pete.”
Clancy took it in his hand and considered it in
silence for a minute.
“ It was still damp when we found it. That
makes it darned near certain that it was left here


82 The Unlatehed Door
during the rain last night. It didn’t start to rain
till nearly midnight and it stopped a little after three
this morning. Since the murder was committed
about that time, the probabilities are that the man
who wore that shoe knows a helluf a lot more about
the crime than he ’s going to wish he did when we
get onto his tracks.”
O’Malley nodded, “ Now, what else? ” he asked,
grinning at Peter’s excitement.
The young man felt the bit of leather carefully.
“There’s some marks of nails in the heel and it ’s
Worn smooth and shiny; probably wouldn’t have
come out, either, if the shoes had been new. Must
have been pumps, too, of course, by the same token.
And what ’s this? ”
He held the in-sole to the light.
“ Look here, O’Malley! ” he cried. “ Cast your
eigle-e on this!”
“I saw it at once,” rejoined O’Malley, calmly,
and Peter felt a little piqued.
“Well, the gold is almost gone,” he said defen-
sively, “and without it the name hardly shows at
all.” »
“ Can you make it out?”
Peter applied his magnifying-glass. “ There ’s
an ‘ O' and an ‘N’ on the ﬁrst line pretty plain,
and a little ‘o-n ’ under it, but the rest is all worn
away.”
He was puzzled for a minute. Then his face
brightened.


Captain O'Malley Demonstrates 83
“ I ’ve got it, Captain! —- part of it, anyway, and
the rest ought to be easy,” he cried. “The lower
line is the address, and the little ‘ o-n ’ would be the
last letters of ‘ London.’ All we ’ve got to do is to
ﬁnd a swell cobbler who says ‘ doncher-know ’ and
has a name ending with ‘O-N’ and we’ll get the
name of the beast that did the trick.”
Except for his initial experience when he was a
boy, in the aﬁair of the Thirteenth Floor, this was
Peter Clancy’s ﬁrst murder case and he was thrilled
with it, to the bone.
“ An English bootmaker, all right. But he may
possibly have more than one customer,” said O’Mal-
ley, with a quizzical glance over the tops of his
glasses.
“ Well, we know the size, and that ought to help,”
said Peter, doggedly.
“ It’s a real clue, anyway,” said O’Malley —-
rather patronizingly, Peter thought, “ and we ’1! fol-
low it up at this end right away. Come on up-
stairs.”
“It’s a gentleman’s shoe,” said Clancy as they
climbed the long flight of softly carpeted stairs.
“ There ’s only one place to look.”
“ The shoes were Old; they might have been
given to a servant,” O’Malley returned.
“ Sure they might,” agreed Peter. “They might
have been given to me, but could I wear ’em? That
pump was pretty close to an ‘A ’ and you can bet
your sweet life that you don’t have feet that narrow


84 The Unlatched Door
when you beat it up and down Stairs all day in one
of these palatial joints.”
Peter was several steps ahead of the heavier man
and he now opened the ﬁrst door he came to in the
upper hall.
“ Not in there,” O’Malley cautioned him.
“That’s her room. They’ve taken the body in
there. We’ll search that room later.”
The open door showed a room vast in its dimness.
On the bed, which stood directly opposite, lay a
shrouded ﬁgure, and over the head, in strange con-
trast to the frivolous French silken canopy, a silver
cruciﬁx glimmered in the gloom.
Clancy closed the door softly and the two men
went on to the front of the house.
One glance in at the open door of the front room
showed it to be the sitting-room or boudoir of a
woman of expensive and bizarre taste. The walls
were paneled with wood, painted a dull white and
hung with cloth of silver. The floor was covered
with a soft rug of solid black. The furniture was
all old Spanish, heavily carved, its dark wood
blackened with age. The silVer tone of the wall
was taken up in cushion and window drapery.
There was no color at all in the room except a great
splash of scarlet embroidery over the ﬁreplace which
seemed tO break the silence with a poignant cry.
Peter Clancy was not given to fancies, but an
irresistible throb of memory brought before him, as
in a vision, a still, white face with mocking scarlet


Captain O’Malley Demonstrates 85
lips. O’Malley, being older, was less affected by the
strange quality of the room.
“ Her husband, do you suppose? ” he asked, point-
ing to a large photograph in an ornate silver frame?
standing on a table near the door.
Peter looked attentively at the portrait. It was
that of a young man of remarkable beauty; there
was no other word for it. His dreaming dark eyes
looked out from a face perfect in its modeling, ex-
cept that the lips were perhaps a triﬂe too full and
the chin not suﬂiciently pronounced.
“ Don’t look to me like anybody’s husband,” said
Peter, with a worldly wisdom beyond his years.
“ Well, I suppose we ’1! know soon, now.
Funny he has n’t shown up before this. We ’d
better look at his rooms before he comes, if we can.
They must be on the floor above,” and O’Malley led
the way up the stairs.
The rooms on this ﬂoor were in striking contrast
to the rest of the house -- a man’s rooms, unmistak-
ably, and conventional to the last degree. After a
quick glance all about, Clancy and the captain made
a bee-line each for a closet door.
“ Here they are, Captain,” Peter called, and
O’Malley joined him at once.
They wasted no time on the various boots, high
and low, but proceeded immediately to examine a
row of light dancing-shoes at the top of the rack.
“The pair we’re looking for won’t be here, of
course,” said O’M'alley, rapidly removing one of the


86 The Unlatchea' Door
trees, “ but the maker’s name would probably be the
same. Let’s see —-
“William Fosdick, New York and London,” he
read after an instant’s pause.” “ That ’s not it.”
A sharp cry from Clancy caused him to turn
quickly.
“ Holy mother of Mike! We ’ve hit it ﬁrst
clip!” Clancy exclaimed, wild with excitement.
He had ﬁtted the telltale piece of leather into a
pump which he held in his hand. Save for a slight
difference in the shape of the toe, the lines of the
two soles coincided to a hair.


CHAPTER X
HAMMOND RUTLEDGE
“ APTAIN O’MALLEY! Captain O’Malley!
ye ’re wanted below! ” The voice of Murphy,
muﬂied by distance, came ﬂoating up through the
silence. He was nearer, just below on the stairs,
when he spoke again. “It’s himself,” he called
softly, as O’Malley appeared at the door. “ I just
let him in through the basement.”
“ Fix things up, here, and come down, Pete,” said
the captain, turning hurriedly back. “ Rutledge has
turned up at last. You ’1! want to hear what he has
to say,” and O’Malley followed the policeman down
to the main ﬂoor.
The man who awaited him was standing still in
the middle of the library. He had the dazed look
of one awakened suddenly from a painful dream,
the horror of which he had not been able to shake
off. He was very tall and well set up, with a com-
paratively short body and unusually long arms and
legs. He had a narrow, well-shaped nose, the
nostrils mobile like those of a well-bred horse,
deep-set dark eyes, proud lips, and a bold, clean-cut
jaw and chin. His black, stiff hair was already gray-
ing at the temples.
87


88 The Unlatched Door
“ Shall we go into the dining-room? It ’s lighter
there,” said O’Malley, after introducing himself and
Clancy, who had appeared almost immediately.
Rutledge nodded assent and in silence the three
men seated themselves at the heavy old refectory
table which stood in the center of the bright, sun-
shiny room.
“ I knew nothing until I saw it here.” Rutledge’s
voice was deep and troubled as he spread out the
afternoon paper he had been holding clenched in his
left hand. There were staring head-lines at the top
and he folded it together again quickly, with a move-
ment of horror.
The other two men were studying him closely.
Not a tremor of the strong dark face betrayed the
least previous knowledge of the crime.
“ I was on my way to the train when I heard the
newsboys calling an extra.” The frowning black
eyebrows made a straight line across his forehead
and Rutledge clenched his hands as if to hold fast
his self-control. He closed his eyes for an instant
and the muscles of his jaws contracted with the set-
ting of his teeth. His face showed a purposeful
reserve, but there was little in it of the expression of
a man bowed down with grief.
To give him a moment’s time O’Malley related,
in as few words as possible, the events of the morn-
ing, omitting, however, any mention of the clues that
had been discovered.
“ We tried to reach you, at every place the ser-


Hammond Rutledge 89
vants could suggest,” he concluded. “ The maid
seemed to think that you went out to Tuxedo yes-
terday — ”
“I was detained unexpectedly,” Rutledge inter-
- rupted hastily. “ I was on my way to the country
' when I—- ” he motioned toward the paper.
“ I see,” said O’Malley, quietly: and Rutledge
continued.
“ Some friends called me up just as I was leaving
and asked me to dine with them. It was late when
theparty broke up and I was not expected here, so I
spent the night at the Wilmont.”
“ And you reached there at about what time?—
do you remember?”
Rutledge eyed his interlocutor narrowly. “ I
don’t know exactly,” he replied after an almost im-
perceptible pause. “ It was late, somewhere be-
tween two and three, I think.”
“Just for form’s sake,” said O’Malley, smoothly,
“ we ’d like to know the names of your friends.”
The hesitation this time was more apparent.
At last Rutledge spoke.
“ There were ladies in the party,” he said slowly.
“ Is it necessary to give their names? ”
O’Malley replied with a counter question: “ How
many were there in the party? ” he asked.
“ There were Wallace Campbell, of Campbell
and Fitzgerald, two ladies and I.”
“ I think it would be advisable for you to tell us
the names of at least one of the ladies. In all prob-


90 The Unlatched Door
ability, it will not be necessary to publish it, so it can
do her no harm.”
Rutledge thought a moment. “ Can you assure
me that the papers won’t get hold of it? ” he asked.
O’Malley spread out his hands with a reassuring
gesture. “ We will conduct the case as quietly as we
can, in the interests of all concerned,” he said. “ It
doesn’t usually help the cause of justice much to
advertise what the police are able to ﬁnd out.”
Rutledge seemed relieved by the old man’s
friendly tone. “ I see no harm, then, in telling you
that Irene Clairmont was one of the party.”
“ The actress?”
H Yes."
“ And the other lady? ”
“ You implied that one name would be suﬂicient.”
“ Probably will be, but it’s our trade to ﬁnd out
all we can,” said O’Malley with a semi-apologetic
smile. He did not press the point. It ought to be
comparatively easy to ﬁnd out who the lady was, in
case it became necessary to know.
“Would you mind writing out the two addresses
for me, Mr. Rutledge?” he asked, drawing a small
pad from his pocket and laying a pencil beside it.
Peter understood the old man’s motive. Rutledge
picked up the pencil with his left hand and the
young detective held his breath. But Rutledge
passed the pencil over to his right hand and wrote as
requested. Peter looked at the paper as it lay on


Hammond Rutledge 9I
the table in front of him. The writing was cramped
and well-nigh illegible.
After a few more pertinent questions, O’Malley,
referring to his notes, asked quietly: “This Mr.
Cuthbert Pendleton who dined and went out with
Mrs. Rutledge last night was an old friend of the
family, was n’t he? ”
Clancy, who had been watching in intent silence,
saw a quick change come over Rutledge’s face. The
look, instantly suppressed, was one of ﬁerce and
malignant hatred.
“ Pendleton came here often,” said Rutledge, in
a controlled voice. “You might call him that,
yes.’,
“ What kind of a man is he? ”
“A sort of ‘ tame cat,’ ” Rutledge answered,
striving to speak quietly. “The kind of man
women like to have dangling about. It’s a common
species.”
He rose from his place and with long, panther-
like strides crossed to the window. He returned in
a moment, his face set like a mask. As he resumed
his seat, O’Malley spoke:
“ Do you think that Mr. Pendleton -— ”
“I ’d rather not talk about him,” said Rutledge,
grimly. “ He ’11 tell you all you want to know.”
“ But we have n’t been able to locate him,” said
O’Malley, with a watchful glance at the other man’s
face. “ NO one seems to know where he is.”


92 The Unlatched Door
Rutledge looked up sharply. “ That ’S strange,”
he said. His eyes took on the ﬁxed look of one
who considers remote and perplexing possibilities.
Peter, at the request of his superior, related his
conversation with Pendleton’s chauffeur.
“I don’t understand it,” said Rutledge, when
Clancy had ﬁnished. “His not leaving an address
was probably due to carelessness. Unless—”
He did not ﬁnish the sentence, and after a slight
pause O’Malley proceeded.
When questioned concerning the servants it ap-
peared that Hammond Rutledge knew nothing at
all about the cook except that she was a very good
cook, indeed. Mrs. Rutledge’s personal maid,
who had left a few days previously, he described as
a pretty little thing with a quick tongue and a violent
temper, whose impertinence had made it necessary
to discharge her. He had no idea where she had
gone. Anna MacLeod had been with the family
ever Since he, Rutledge, was born, and was absolutely
faithful and devoted.
“ And the girl, Nora?” O’Malley asked.
“I’ve only seen her about here for a few
months,” Rutledge answered. “ She ’s a quiet, soft-
spoken little Irish girl and as you have probably
noticed, of exceptional beauty. Mrs. Rutledge "—
he did not once speak of her as “my wife "—
“ seemed to like her very much.”
He paused a moment in thought. Then he said:
“In fact, there was something a little queer in


Hammond Rutledge 93
the way Mrs. Rutledge seemed to take to her. She
may be a good masseuse, perhaps. At any rate, she
and Mrs. Rutledge often spent more than an hour
together in Mrs. Rutledge’s room, with the door
locked. And now I remember an odd thing that
happened one day, not so very long ago. I had
come home early and was on my way up to my room,
when, in passing the open door of Mrs. Rutledge’s
boudoir, I chanced to see something in the room that
attracted my attention and stopped to look at it.”
He did not mention what the object was that
arrested him, but the expression of anger which
ﬂashed across his face brought suddenly to Peter’s
mind the man’s portrait which had so much interested
O’Malley and himself, and he had little doubt as to
the cause of Rutledge’s temper and the name of the
original of the photograph.
Rutledge had gone on without pause:
“ I heard Mrs. Rutledge in the next room, talk-
ing to some one. The other voice was low, but it
had a pleading note in it that was quite perceptible.
Then, very distinctly, I heard Mrs. Rutledge say,
‘You ’d better be careful, Eleanor. Remember,
you’re in my power.’ Her voice sounded angry
and I was surprised, a moment later as I went on up
the stairs, to see the girl Nora come out of the
room.”
“ Odd,” said O’Malley. “It was this girl who
discovered the body and gave the alarm.”
“ Yes, I know. It was in the papers.”


96 The Unlatched Door
master spoke to his old faithful servant as one true
friend to another. “ I have n’t said much — a man
can’t, you know. Sometimes I was afraid you
wouldn’t be able to bear it.” .
"His hand rested tenderly on her shoulder, but
Anna MacLeod drew back.
“Oh, I don’t care for myself! ” she exclaimed,
“You must know that. I ’m thinking only of you!
For what she has done to you — O heavenly Father!
for what She did to my boy—I hate her! ” She
clenched her hands, her strong, old face working
strangely. “She was a Scarlet Woman,” she said
ﬁercely. “ It does n’t matter now if you know.
I ’ve been sure of it all along! The suspiciOn I saw
in your eyes when you came home last night was well
founded.”
Her voice had risen by imperceptible degrees.
With a peremptory gesture Rutledge laid his hand
across her lips.
“ Hush, Anna,” he said again, his stern eyes upon
hers. “ Be careful what you say! ”
He crossed the room in two long strides and
softly opened and closed the door. The hall was
empty.
When he turned back, Anna MacLeod was stand-
ing still where he had left her. The long habit of
self-restraint of the trained servant schooled her to
repression and her face had assumed most of its
habitual stern quietude.
“ My bairn, my poor bairnl ” she said again, and


The Coroner’s Verdict 97
as she said it her stern old Scotch face softened and
she gave him such a tender, loving look that he
stooped suddenly and kissed her. She was pleased
and surprised and ﬂushed a little under the unex-
pected caress.
“I think you’re the best friend I have in the
world, Anna,” he said with feeling, “ and I want to
see that you ’re well taken care of, whatever hap-
pens. I ’11 have to close the house here. I could n’t
stay in it nor leave you in it now, since this awful
thing has happened.” A long shudder ran over him
from head to foot, but he had himself in hand in an
instant.
“Would you like to go out to Tuxedo to stay?”
he continued. “ I ’11 close the house there, but I’ll
leave Michael Flannery and his wife in charge.
They ’d make you comfortable.”
“It’s kind of you, sir,” she replied, “and like
you, but I never got on with they two. They ’re
Irish, and the Scotch and Irish don’t mix. I’ve
been thinking all this long day, what I would do.
I’ve an old friend, a widow woman, who keeps a
very nice lodgings in East Seventy-eighth Street just
off Third Avenue. She’s had a bad year and has
several rooms vacant. I’d be comfortable there
and maybe you ’d come to see me at times.”
“ Indeed I will, Anna! I ’11 come often,” he as-
sured her. '
A few moments later, having given the necessary
instructions for paying off the other servants and so


.98 The Unlalched Door
forth, he left her, a fervent “God be wi’ you, my
bairn,” still ringing in his ears.
As he came down the stairs he was aware of a
commotion in the hall below. He heard O’Malley’s
voice raised angrily and several indistinguishable
sentences, spoken excitedly in a voice he had not
heard before. Evidently something untoward had
happened. There was the sound of running feet
and he followed the noise down into the basement.
Entering the kitchen at the back, he saw two
policemen standing in the middle of the ﬂoor, staring
at each other blankly. They turned as he came into
the room.
“You can search me,” said one with a gesture of
despair.
“ What is it? ” asked Rutledge, sternly. “ What
has happened? ”
“The cook, sir!” He opened his hands and
spread out his arms. “ She jist wint! ”
Through the open door at the back of the room
O’Malley could be seen standing beside the fence,
half-way down the yard. He turned a worried, dis-
comﬁted face as Hammond Rutledge came toward
him.
“ I wish to hell I ’d known about this! ” cried the
old man, pointing to a half-open door in the fence.
“ They told me there was no way out at the back.”
“ Who told you that? ”
“ The girl Nora! I suppose I ought to have seen


The Coroner’s Verdict 99
for myself. I did look out of the dining-room win-
dow, but I don’t believe any one could have seen it
from there. There ’s not a bit of difference between
the door and the rest of the fence and this damn vine
hid the latch.”
He pointed to a large Old Wistaria vine in full leaf
that came up from the ground between the door and
the house and hung in masses all along the top of the
fence.
“She might not have known it was there,’ said
Rutledge, referring to Nora. “I didn’t, myself.
I only rent the house and I don’t believe I’ve ever
been out in the yard before.”
O’Malley gave him a quick glance. It was difﬁ-
cult for a man of the people to understand the de-
tachment of a wealthy master from all of the con-
cerns and surroundings of his servants.
“ How do you suppose there ever came to be a
gate here?” asked O’Malley. " It is very unusual
in a city bloc .”
“ I don’t know,” said Rutledge. “These houses
were built some time ago and some of them must
have had many owners. Perhaps this house and
Number Twenty-two were at one time owned by
friends or relatives whOse children played together.
Something like that, I imagine. What are you do-
ing about following up the cook?” His tone was
severe and O’Malley was on the defensive at once.
“ Clancy has gone over to ﬁnd out what they know
,
864949 A


100 The Unlatched Door
in the next house. He’ll bring in all the returns
and do it quicker than two could. Here he comes
now.”
“ She went out that way, all right, all right! ” said
the young man, panting with haste and excitement.
“ The family have gone to the country and there was
no one on deck but an old caretaker, pounding her
ear in the kitchen. She says the servants in the two
houses were friends and used this gate a lot. Their
butler was sweet on one of the maids here. The
cook went through nearly an hour ago— said she
wanted to get out to meet a friend. It was n’t her
day off and she did n’t want any one to know she was
going. The old dame didn’t get wise to anything
because they all do it. She ’s been in the back part
of the house all day and did n’t know that there was
any trouble over here. Would n’t it jar you! ”
O’Malley looked very much crestfallen. “ She ’s
got an hour’s start,” he said, as they returned to the
kitchen, “but we ought to be able to ﬁnd her. Here,
Sullivan, you have n’t got much sense, but you know
what she looks like better than anybody here; at
least you know how well she can cook, don’t you?”
He pointed to two empty beer mugs and the remains
of a hearty meal, which stood on the table. “She
treated you ﬁne, did n’t she? ”
“ She’s a dom foine cook, Oi ’11 say thot for her
and she give me a pippin of a lunch,” said Sullivan,
and he added defensively: “ Oi was towld to watch
the basement dure, and Oi done it all noight.


The Coroner’s Verdict - 101
Oi ’ve sat most of the entoire day on wan chair, wid
me fate on another roight across the dure. Oi
won’t say thot Oi moight n’t ’ve dozed a bit afther
lunch, but a cat could n’t ’ve gone in or out widout
wakin’ me, Oi slape thot loight. And, annyway, no
wan towld me there was annythin’ agin her.”
O’Malley felt that he, himself, had been remiss
and was n’t inclined to let Sullivan down too hard.
“All right,” he said crisply, “ that ’11 be about all
from you. Now beat it over to headquarters and
tell them to put the best man they’ve got in on the
job; and get a move on!” And Sullivan, glad to
be let off so easily, “ beat it ” as directed.
It was growing late and the cabs that were to take -
the remaining witnesses to the coroner’s oﬂice were
already at the door. The old housekeeper presently
came down the steps, leaning on Hammond Rut-
ledge’s arm, and Nora followed close behind. Her
beautiful face was pale but composed.
The coroner had had a busy day and was tired.
He had called the inquest for that afternoon, late
as it was, for he wanted to go down to Atlantic City
for Saturday and Sunday as he had previously
planned, to recuperate from his late illness. The
examination, therefore, was brief, and the hastily
summoned jury brought in their verdict almost im-
mediately:
“ Wilful murder, at the hands of a person or per-
sons unknown.”


CHAPTER XII
“ YOU NEVER CAN TELL "7
T was nearing midnight and all the tragic house'
lay bathed in silence and darkness save for a
light that burned high and clear in the dining-room,
where, behind drawn blinds, two men sat talking
earnestly.
The body of Inez Rutledge had been removed
early in the evening and, except for the two men, the
house that had been a witness of her fate was empty.
The old housekeeper, with bag and baggage, had
departed early in the evening. Hammond Rut-
ledge, having made the necessary arrangements for
the removal of his wife’s body, had gone to a hotel
for the night.
The girl Nora had seemed a little vague as to her
plans. She had given an address in old Greenwich
Village, with the statement that any mail or mes- .
sages would be forwarded to her by a Mr. Vincent
Quartley who lived there, if directed to her in his
care.
“ I ’m not altogether easy in my mind about that
girl,” said O’Malley, leaning his heavy arms on the
old refectory table and looking over his glasses at
Clancy, “ and I ’m having her shadowed.”
102


“ You Never Can Tell ” 103
"There was something doing between her and
Mrs. Rutledge; that’s pretty plain,” said Peter,
“but there was nothing suspicious in her room. I
searched it to beat the band, before she left. It
did n’t take long. She had the usual servant’s out-
ﬁt and not much of it, at that.”
“I know,” said O’Malley, ruminating over his
cigar. “ Maybe it’s because she’s so pretty and
innocent-looking, but I can’t think she had anything
to do with the actual crime. I’m too old, though,
to be bulldozed by a pretty face. And you never
can tell by appearances. Why, this morning, com-
ing down in the subway, there was an old chap sat
next to me reading the paper. He had on a shiny
frock coat, green with age, and he wore regular
‘ Uncle Sam’ chin whiskers, the kind you wouldn’t
expect to see outside of Brooklyn. And what do
you think he was reading? ,You ’11 never guess. I
looked over his shoulder, as you will, you know, and
he was reading ‘ What Every Bride Should Know ’!
“ No, you never can tell,” continued the captain,
supplementing Peter’s laugh with a short, thick
chuckle. “ We ’ve got to ﬁnd the motive somehow,
and I can’t see how this girl stood to gain anything
by Mrs. Rutledge’s death. The object evidently
was n’t robbery, as Mr. Rutledge and I went all over
the house together and he assured me that nothing
had been taken. Anyhow, and Whatever the motive,
I have a hunch that this job was pulled off by a man.
Nora might have been a confederate, of course, so


v " You Never Can Tell” ' 105
after a moment. “Got one just like it, myself,”
and he drew from his pocket a paper, the exact
counterpart of the other, except that it had not been
used.
“Give me a light,” said O’Malley, suddenly.
“My cigar ’s gone out. No, not that paper, you
fool! Your own, and don’t get ’em mixed.”
Peter, blushing at his carelessness, pulled a match
from his own paper, struck it, and extended the
light. The old man deliberately blew it out.
“ What ’s the great idea? ” asked Clancy, slightly
annoyed.
“Now light me another,” said the captain, and
blew out the second match.
“ Once more,” he said.
“I don’t get you,” said Peter, holding out the
third match.
Captain O’Malley took it in his own hand, relit
his cigar, and puffed contentedly.
“ You’ll make a hell of a ﬁne detective, Pete! ”
he taunted. “ Look at your paper of matches.”
Peter complied angrily. He was young and eager
and the older man’s air of superiority rankled. He
laid the two papers side by side on the table, com-
paring them. Suddenly his face cleared?
“ Gee, I ’ve got to hand it to you, Captain! ” he
cried. “You old Sherlock Holmes! Of course!
I see it now!”
He grinned delightedly.
“ I take up the matches so,” he said, demonstrat-


106 The Unlatched Door
ing with his own. “I pull off a match and strike
it like this,” suiting the action to the word.
“But this gink, he took the matches, every one,
from the left side of the paper. There are only
one, two, three, four, ﬁve, six here, and they ’re all
on the right-hand side. That means that he must
have held the paper in his right hand and pulled ’em
off and struck ’em with his left. No right-handed
man would ever do that. You try it.”
“I have,” said O’Malley, drily. “It struck me
when I ﬁrst looked at them. That’s why I said to
can the gorilla idea. It was a man that did the
trick and he ’s left-handed. The direction of the
wound and those matches prove it.”
“ But, O’Malley,” obje'cted Peter, on his mettle,
“a woman might have taken the matches there to
look for something.”
“ Possibly,” admitted the captain, “ but she ’d be
much more likely to use a box. There are lots of
them in the kitchen, but I could n’t ﬁnd any papers
of matches except in Mr. Rutledge’s rooms. And
you seem to forget the man’s insole that ﬁtted that
same gentleman’s shoe.”
Peter was dashed. “Of course,” he muttered,
and added, “ but Mr. Rutledge writes with his right
hand.”
O’Malley drew a book toward him from the far
end of the table.
“I looked it up while you were up-stairs,” he
said. “ Read that.”


CHAPTER XIII
A SECRET
T an early hour, for him, Richard Schuyler said
“ good night ” to his cordial host and the other
guests and sought his room. He had enjoyed his
afternoon on the golf course; for youth is youth and
reacts quickly to the stimuli of open air and exercise.
There had been a good deal of merriment at lunch
and dinner over the fact that he drank nothing but
water. He turned it aside by saying that he was
getting fat and was going into training and could not
be enticed from the straight and narrow path even by
the pink deliciousness of a Bacardi cocktail.
It was partly due to this unwonted abstemious-
ness, perhaps, that a great weight seemed to fall
upon him as he opened his door. He had a pre-
sentiment of evil which could not be shaken off. The
darkness of the moonless night brought back with
terrible force the events of the past hours and he
was thankful that the lights in the room had already
been lit.
He had locked his bag again after taking out his
evening clothes. The servants might possibly think
it odd if they noticed it, but of course that did not
matter.
He divested himself of his outer garments and
went over to the bed for his pajamas, expecting to
109


110 The Unlatehed Door
ﬁnd them folded, as usual, below the edge of the
smoothly turned sheets.
“ Oh, you chump! ” he said to himself; “you for-
got to take ’em out of the bag.”
He searched in his trousers pocket and soon
found his keys. His bag lay on a low stool in one
corner of the room. The light from the shaded
lamp on the table fell short and he had a moment’s
trouble with the key, but the lock turned almost im-
mediately and he lifted the lid.
“I’ll get rid of you yet,” he said to the parcel
containing his pumps, which lay in one corner.
“I’ll get rid of you yet,” he repeated with deter-
mination, “ so watch yourself! ”
He pulled out his pajamas as he spoke and caught
hold of the dressing-gown which lay beneath them.
As he jerked its heavy silken folds from the bag,
something that had been caught in them fell with
a light metallic sound to the polished ﬂoor.
“ What— oh, the devil! ” he cried, and dropped
to his knees.
The packet that Nora had given him to take care
of for her had burst its bonds in falling and lay open
before him.
It had evidently been wrapped in haste and the
string had parted or come untied. Stooping to pick
it up, he had a vivid vision of the girl’s wonderful
face when she handed it to him, and he tried with all
his loyal manhood not to see what was in it. But
the paper was stiff and its contents slippery, and as


412 The Unlatched Door
With a steady determination he curbed a strong
desire to open the case. What he had seen had
been entirely by accident. He would do nothing, of
his own will, to violate the girl’s conﬁdence. He
would see her at once when he went back to town and
tell her what had happened. He owed that tO him-
self, and perhaps she would explain. He hoped,
with a hope so acute that it surprised himself, that
she would and that her explanation would prove
simple and convincing.
He slipped the leather case from its wrapping.
“ Somehow, I don’t know why, I ’d stake my life on
that girl’s honesty,” he said. He shook out the
cloth and laid it on the table beside the miniature of
Inez Rutledge.
“My God! ” he whispered. “Oh, my God! ”
The cloth was a long strip, torn off irregularly
from some garment. It had been folded lengthwise
and the part that lay exposed had been inside and
hidden until now,
On its white surface lay a dark red streak or
smear, narrow and sharp at one end and at the other
broad and bleared, as if the cloth had been used to
wipe something, something narrow and thin, and
covered with blood.


CHAPTER XIV.
AN s o s
FTER one horriﬁed look Richard Schuyler,
with a convulsive movement of fear and loath-
ing, caught the extreme end of the cloth and folded
it together so that the stain was hidden. His mind
was in chaos and his only instinctive desire was to
hide from even his own staring eyes this damning
piece of evidence.
He laid the miniature of Inez Rutledge face down
upon the cloth and, steeling his nerves, be carefully
wrapped it, together with the leather case, as nearly
as possible in the way in which it had been delivered
to him, securing the string with two square knots.
There should be no danger of its giving way again.
When he had ﬁnished, he replaced it in his bag, which
he locked. There seemed to be no safer place for
the moment.
Shivering with cold and excitement, he slipped on
his dressing-gown and sat for a long time, thinking.
The more he thought, the less clear the situation ap-
peared. In what conceivable circumstances could an
honest, innocent girl have come into possession of
such a combination of evidence?
Schuyler, for so young a man, was an unusually
II3


114. The Unlatchea' Door
keen judge of character and rarely found himself
at fault. There had been something equivocal in the
very ﬁrst circumstances of his knowledge of Nora,
and everything he had learned of her since had been
mystifying in the extreme; and yet the force of her
personality was such that he could not bring himself
to consider seriously the possibility of a guilty par-
ticipation on her part in the tragedy at Number 20.
The fact of his own innocent complicity in the same
dark event also had its weight.
“ Circumstantial evidence is the most undependa-
ble thing in the world, as I know from my own ex-
perience,” he said to himself at last. “ I ’11 give her
the beneﬁt of the doubt, to the last ditch. I’ll ar-
range to leave here in some natural way, the ﬁrst
thing in the morning. Then I’ll see her somehow
and make her open this infernal package in my pres-
ence, on the plea that she must assure herself that
the contents are intact. That ought to be easy when
I explain how it came open while in my care. If she
refuses, it will mean much. If she does n’t I ought
to be able to learn something from her face, even if
she will not explain. I won’t do anything to defeat
the ends of justice, once I ’m convinced; but it would
take a lot to make me think -—”
Dick Schuyler tossed restlessly on his pillow, plan-
ning and arguing throughout the long night. He
rose before the household was astir and went out
for a walk. That it was not wholly to quiet his
nerves was evinced by the purposeful way in which


An SOS 115
he set Off in ‘a deﬁnite direction from the house.
The nearest village was over a mile away, but he
covered the distance in record time and it was still
early when he entered the telephone booth of its
largest drug-store and closed the door carefully.
There was a long wait before he made his connec-
tion and the voice at the other end of the line sounded
sleepy: “Hello, yes. What is it?”
“Hello. Is that you, Jimmie? This is Dick
Schuyler.” '
“Dick!” The voice took on an accent of sur-
prise. “What the devil do you mean, calling me
out of bed at this hour of the morning?”
“You’re lazy, Jimmie. It’s after eight and I
could n’t bear it any longer. This is an S O S.”
“ The devil it is! What ’s the matter, and where
are you? ”
“ I ’m supposed to be at Blakeslie’s, but I ’m talk-
ing from a booth in the nearest drug-store. Now
listen, Jimmie. I came down here expecting to have
a peaceful week-end and who do you think turned up
on the train? —— Billy Porter, no less! ”
“Oh, Lord! ” The tone was one of heartfelt
commiseration.
“You get me, I see, old man. I stood it yester-
day and last night, but I can’t face to-day and to-
morrow listening to that empty-headed Adonis talk-
ing, talking, talking till you wish you were dead. He
sticks like a burr and there’s no way out but to
vanish.”
/


I 16 The Unlatched Door
“ I know, old chap. I ’ve been there myself.
What do you want me to do? ”
“You’re a good scout, Jimmie! I knew you ’d
help me out. Call me up at Blakeslie’s in about an
hour—the number is Meadow Bay seven-two—
got that? And tell me that the contracts for the
Whittlesey business must be signed to-day. Blakes-
lie knows that I ’ve been anxious to get that settled
so I could leave town, and he won’t get wise to the
fact that I can’t stand his taste in guests. No use
to hurt anybody’s feelings if it can be avoided.”
“ All right, Dickie. I ’m on, old man. Meadow
Bay seven-two. Call you in an hour. So long.”
“So long, and thank you, Jimmie. You’re a
brick! ”
“Don’t mention it, Dickie. If you stopped ask-
ing your legal adviser to help you out of some scrape
or other, I ’d think your love had grown cold. This
one ’s easy. Good-by, old scout. Call you later.”
Dick Schuyler smiled a little as he hung up the
' receiver. Jimmie Stone was a man to be trusted
and he might have to ask his advice later. At pres-
ent he meant to keep his perplexities, as far as pos-
sible, “ under his own hat.”
In spite of his conﬁdence in his friend, Dick was
rather silent all through breakfast, which the men
of the house party took together in the sunny break-
fast-room. He was chaffed a good deal about his
reformed habits, as evinced by his abstemiousness
of the night before and his early-morning walk, but


dn SOS 117
he bore it with a smile of conscious superiority.
They were just leaving the table when a servant en-
tered and announced that Mr. Schuyler was wanted
at the telephone.
Dick answered with alacrity and a few moments
later was making his regretful excuses to his host.
On looking at the time-table it was found that he
had just missed the nine-forty-seven train, but Blak-
eslie assured him that the next one would give him
ample time to reach Jimmie Stone’s ofﬁce before
noon, which would be closing-time on Saturday.
Dick chafed inwardly at the delay, but had to
possess his soul in patience. He was on the door-
step with his luggage, which included the precious
bag, long before the car which was to take him to
the station put in an appearance. He breathed a
sigh of relief as he settled himself at last in the train
and concentrated his mind on the course he must
pursue in unraveling the mystery connected with
Nora, which occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of
everything else. His own troubles had been so rele-
gated to the background that he had forgotten the
very existence of the pumps in his bag. So en-
grossed was he that he lost all sense of the passage
of time and it was with a start that he came back to
earth as the train pulled into the Grand Central
station.
A short time later a cab stopped in front of Num-
ber 18, East Sixty—Street and Richard Schuyler
alighted. The closed entrance and darkened win-


118 The Unlatched Door
dows of the house next door ﬁlled him with a sense
of awe which he mastered with an effort.
“ I must know where she is,”-— that pronoun had
but one antecedent now in Dick’s mind —“ and
Clancy is my best bet. She may have left here, but
the police ought to know where she ’s to be found.
A little interest on my part would seem natural in
the circumstances,” he thought as he rang the base-
ment bell of Number 20.
“ Clancy ’s here, all roight, and he’s alone, too,”
said Murphy, in answer to Dick’s questions, “but
he’s turrible busy. Oi dunno if he’ll see yez, Mr.
Schuyler, but Oi ’ll ask. Jist wait here a minute.
“Yez can come up, sor,” he called an instant
later, from half-way down the stairs. “He’s in
the dinin’-room, through the dure at yer left as ye
go up.” .
Peter Clancy had had a busy morning. He and
O’Malley had given the house the “ once over” the
evening before, but the time was short and Peter was
not satisﬁed. Now there was not a room or a
closet, not a drawer or a cupboard that had not been
subjected to the closest scrutiny. So far as he could
tell, everything seemed to be in order and he had
Mr. Rutledge’s assurance that no valuables were
missing. How far he could trust that gentleman’s
word he was not sure. Hammond Rutledge ap-
peared sincere in his desire to have the murderer
brought to justice, but——
“There ’s one piece of evidence that must be in-


120 The Unlatchea! Door
mane that was already standing upright above his
broad forehead and bright-blue Irish eyes. His
words fairly tumbled over one another.
“ Gee! Think of my getting hold of a case like
this at my age! Ain’t it great? I suppose it ’s be-
cause the captain’s a friend of my old boss, Mr.
Gregory, Mr. Jimmie Stone’s partner, you know.
He ’s boosted me from the start-off and I’ve just
got to make good! But here I am running on, hell-
bent for election, and you broiling! ”
He turned as he spoke and moved down the long
room to the windows, leaving Dick within easy
reaching-distance of the coveted in-sole, which lay for
the moment unprotected on the table. Could Peter
by any wild possibility suspect him? Was his un-
wonted garrulity a blind and this opportunity a trap ?
If so, Dick was no such fool as to fall into it. There
was no one else about and Peter, to use his own ex-
pression, would undoubtedly “ get him with the
goods.”
An inspiration seemed to come to Dick as Peter
struggled with the heavy sash. He saw, as in a
vision, the red ﬁre kept going night and day in the
great range in his own kitchen, where he used to play
on the rainy days of his lonely childhood. It seemed
to wink at him with an expression of friendly and
helpful assurance. He made up his mind then and
there as to the ultimate destination of his incriminat-
ing foot-gear and concentrated all his faculties on
his other engrossing problem.


An SOS 121
There was no suspicion apparent in Clancy’s face
as he came back down the room. His eyes were
eager and excited, but he did not even glance at the
table. He had asked for no explanation of Schuy-
ler’s reappearance. Perhaps he had forgotten.
“ I was called back to town suddenly,” Dick vol-
unteered, “ and thought I’d see if you were here.
I can’t help being awfully interested in this whole
thing, but I won’t take up your time if you’re too
busy. Have you found out anything you can tell a
fellow? ”
“ Nope,” said Peter, “ not a thing so far; that is,
not anything that looks like the chair for anybody.
The cook vamoosed yesterday afternoon and we
have n’t caught her yet, so we don’t know how much
she’s in it. She’s got a bad record, all right, but,
as O’Malley says, ‘you never can tell.’ She might
be onto the whole show, and then again she might be
little violet, though I must say she don’t look it.
Rutledge turned up, all right, but we have n’t got
that Pendleton chap yet.” He did not mention it,
but the fact was that all this information had been
in the morning papers, as Dick well knew. Peter
had the air of taking his inﬂuential friend as much
as possible into his conﬁdence.
“What’s become of the other servants?” Dick
asked in a matter-of-fact manner. “ Are they still
here? ”
“The old lady went last night to stay with a
friend,” Clancy answered in a preoccupied tone.


122 The Unlatched Door
His back was turned and he was copying something
from the open directory.
A silence followed. Only a short one, it is true,
but too long for Dick’s taut nerves.
“ And the young girl, Nora? ” he asked, trying to
keep the anxiety out of his voice.
Peter closed the book and turned toward him.
“Oh, yes, the little housemaid,” he answered ab-
sent-mindedly. “ She went last night, too.”
Dick could scarcely restrain his impatience. He
must see Nora at once, but how was he to ﬁnd out
where she was, without exciting suspicion? Dare
he venture another question? Peter seemed to be
preoccupied. Anyhow, Dick was desperate. He
must risk it.
“ Pretty little thing, was n’t she?” he hazarded,
casually. “ I suppose you did n’t get anything more
out of her before she left? ” The upward inﬂection
demanded an answer.
Peter roused himself. “Her?” he said. “Oh,
no, nothing of any importance. You don’t know
anything about her, do you, Mr. Schuyler?”
“What do you take me for, Peter?” said Dick,
sharply. “What should I know about a maid-serv-
ant?”
“ Aw, I didn’t mean any oﬂense, Mr. Schuyler;
you ought to know that,” said Peter, laughing.
“ But she was a pippin, all right, and you would n’t
be the only swell she knew, at that.”
“What do you mean, Peter?” asked Dick, show-


An SOS 123
ing what he considered a warrantable amount of in-
terest.
“ Why, you heard, yourself, that she had known
Mrs. Rutledge before and now here’s something
funny: she’s given a forwarding address, care of
Vincent Quartley, son of old Tremont Quartley, the
millionaire. Can you beat that? Some class to her
friends, eh, what?”
Richard expressed his astonishment. “And you
don’t know where she’s gone, further than that?”
he asked in conclusion.
Perhaps Clancy felt that his youth and a sym-
pathetic audience had betrayed him into saying too
much. “ Oh, there ’s nothing specially against her,”
he replied, non-committally. “ I guess she ’s all
right. Now I’ve got to beat it, Mr. Schuyler, if
you don’t mind.”
Dick did n’t mind in the least. He had found out
all that he could hope to for the present and the
atmosphere of the house seemed surcharged with
menace. It had taken all his courage to remain
when he remembered the full implication of the con-
tents of his bag and he felt a great relief when from
his own door-Step he had bidden Peter good-by.


CHAPTER XV
ASHES TO ASHES
HE day dragged by on leaden feet. Dick had
seen his little aunt and explained his unex-
pected return by saying that he did not feel well and
hated to be a spoil-sport out at Meadow Bay. He
quieted her concern with the assurance that it Would
wear off soon and that he was n’t going to be ill and
did n’t need a doctor. He had a little trouble in
convincing her, for any sort of illness was most un-
usual with him and she had sent up several times
during the afternoon and evening to see that he was
comfortable.
He had “set his stage” carefully, with drawn
curtains and a coverlid on the couch, under which
he was always lying when a servant knocked. His
nervous anxiety had the effect, often seen in young
and very healthy persons, of making him extremely
hungry. But he curbed his appetite and sent down
his tray without too suspicious a depletion.
His feigned illness made it possible for him to
keep his room and to prevent the unpacking of his
bag, which he could not let out of his sight. The
present disposal of Nora’s packet was comparatively
easy. He had wrapped it again in stout paper, tied
it with heavy twine, had sealed all the knots with
124


Ashes to ﬁshes 125
sealing-wax and buttoned it in an inner pocket. He
would keep it under his hand, as it were, until the
banks opened on Monday, when he would put it in
his own safe-deposit box. ' It would have to lie there
until he could ﬁnd the girl, return it, and perhaps
possess its secret.
The shoes were much more bulky and would have
to remain where they were until he could ﬁnally dis-
pose ofthem. That should be this very night, he
swore to himself.
The evening wore on. The noises in the street
subsided to a dull, muﬂied throb, as if the great city
were a monster asleep, its regular heart-beats broken
occasionally by an evil dream as a ﬁre siren shrieked
its way through the night.
All the house was still. Dick had listened to the
footsteps of the servants as they ascended to their
rooms, and told them off, one by one. It was an
old-fashioned household and the servants, compara-
tively few in number, all slept on the top ﬂoor.
He waited a long time after they were all ac-
counted for and at last cautiously opened his door.
He had slipped off his shoes and, with a small electric
torch in one hand and his incriminating pumps in the
other, he stole quietly down the stairs.
He held his breath as he passed his aunt’s room,
for the old lady always slept with her door open. A
small patrician snore reassured him and this danger
over, he advanced more conﬁdently.
It had been years, perhaps, since he had been in


126 The Unlatched Door
the basement of his own house, but he remembered
its arrangement perfectly. The ﬁrst big room was
the servants’ dining- and sitting-room. The next
door was that of a huge store-closet where he had
often rummaged for forbidden delicacies when a
boy. Behind was the big, comfortable kitchen. He
crossed it and examined the windows to see that the
blinds were down. Even then he did not switch on
the lights. The servants were regular in their habits
and the glow, shining through the shades, might be
seen and noted from outside.
The thin ﬁnger of light from his torch played
about the room. The great range in its cavern of
red brick lay over to his right. He could see the
gleam of its well-blackened side and was across the
room in an instant.
“Good Lord! ” he exclaimed. “What the devil
is this? ”
On the wide top of the range lay a sheet of white
oil-cloth of unsullied purity. Instinctively he put
out his hand and touched it, though he was already
certain of what he would ﬁnd. The range was stone
cold.
“Now, what do you think of that?” muttered
Dick, under his breath. “I know that a ﬁre was
kept here night and day, winter and summer, all
through my kid days. I could swear it.”
Puzzled and dismayed, be swept the torch all
about the room, really examining it for the ﬁrst time.
On the opposite side stood a large gas-range. The


Ashes to Ashes 'I 27
,
big kettle on it, not yet cold, bore witness to its con-
stant use. It had been installed, perhaps several
years ago, before he had taken over the management
of his affairs and he had known nothing of it.
He stood still in the middle of the room, his heart
filled with a grotesque despair. He looked from the
package of shoes to the gas-range and back, and
suddenly he began to laugh. The absurd fatality
attending his every effort to dispose of the innocuous,
incriminating things touched his sense of the ridicu-
lous. He had visions of himself as an old man being
followed everywhere by a pair of patent-leather
pumps and saw them dancing a last fandango before
the gate of his ancestral vault.
“I’ll be damned if you shall! ” he said, giving
them a shake. “ I ’ll get rid of you somehow. You
see if I don’t! It may be nonsense to think that
you might be dangerous, but I’ve got my back up
now and somehow —”
He had left the kitchen and was walking slowly
down the basement hall toward the front of the
house.
“ I’ll attend your obsequies, not you mine,” he
laughed; “you see if I don’t! Dust to dust, for
yours, ashes to—by Jove! -—ashes! That’s the
great idea! If everything in this part of the house
is n’t utterly changed there should be plenty of ash-
cans in the hidie-hole under the front steps. The
furnace was allowed to go out only yesterday, I
know, so ‘ here ’s hopin’.”


dshes to Ashes I 29
held his breath as the heavy footsteps passed up-
ward over his head.
“ The night-watchman,” Dick thought as the
sound of a door handle being turned reached his
ears. “ Suppose he carries a ﬂash! ”
The little door had complained bitterly when he
opened it and he did not dare close it. He backed
cautiously in the circumscribed space, struck one of
the ash-cans, lost his balance, and sat down suddenly
in the midst of a heap of soft ashes.
There was the sound of running feet on the steps
above and Dick gave himself up for lost.
“ Meow! s-st! ” A large black cat dashed be-
tween Dick’s feet and shot out through the bars of
the gate just as the watchman reached it.
“ So it was you makin’ all that noise, was it? ”
commented the ofﬁcer, apostrophizing the vanishing
shadow. “ Ye ’re as much of a moight-hawk as Oi
am. We ’re in the same boat, so good night and
good luck to yezl ”
He tried the gate lock as he spoke, found it fast,
and with a rattle of his night-stick across the bars,
proceeded on his way.
Dick sat, peaceful and contented, in the ash-can
until the retreating footsteps died away to silence.
“ Thank Heaven he did n’t have a ﬂash, and God
bless the whole feline race! ” he said as he picked
himself out of the ash-can. “Why wasn’t he on
the job last Thursday night? ”— meaning the watch-


130 The Unlatched Door
man, not the cat. “ If he had been; the door of
Number Twenty would have been safely closed and
the history of my young life would have been
different. Can’t blame him, altogether, for shelter-
ing himself somewhere in some cozy, tempting bar
on such a beast of a night as that was. That ’s what
happened, without any doubt. Well, it can’t be
helped now; what was written was written. And I
might never have seen Nora again—been just as
well for me, perhaps.” He stood thinking for a mo-
ment and then started into action.
“Now for the requiescat in pace,” he said and
dropped the package containing the pumps into a
partly ﬁlled can. With a heave and strain of his
broad shoulders he lifted a full can and dumped a
great heap of ashes on top of them, burying them
deep. A cloud of ﬁne dust came up in his face and
he choked and spluttered.
“The last despairing kick of an ill-spent life,”
he muttered, wiping the dust from his eyes. “I
guess that ’11 be about all from you! ” And with a
glow of relief he returned the ash-cans to their
former positions, closed the little vault door, closed
and locked the basement door, and crept cautiously
back to his room.
He spent nearly an hour of unaccustomed toil
brushing his clothes beside an open window, and
afterward wiped all traces of ashes from the ﬂoor
and furniture.
“Old Job had nothing on you except the sack-


Ashes to Ashes 131
cloth,” he said tO his reﬂection in the mirror. “ It ’s
you for the shower and plenty of it! ”
A little later, clean and refreshed, with mind at
ease as far as his own troubles were concerned, Dick
turned off his light and slept the sleep of healthy,
tired youth.


CHAPTER XVI
PETER MAKES A DISCOVERY
T an early hour on Monday morning a short,
wiry young man, with a thick shock of red
hair, paused before the door of a small but ex-
clusive-looking shop in one. of the side streets just
off Fifth Avenue.
On the glass panel of the door appeared in neat
characters the words “ John Hobson, New York and
London,” and beneath these words a small shield,
displaying a golden boot, was supported by a lion
and unicorn.
The young man opened the door and entered.
“ Mr. Hobson not in yet?” he asked of the dap-
per shopman who was carefully arranging on a small
Shining mahogany table a pair of exquisitely ﬁnished
riding-boots. There was no other evidence in the
room of the nature of John Hobson’s contribution
to the comfort and adornment of the city’s élite.
The shopman raised a bored, sophisticated eye:
“ I told you on Saturday afternoon that he would, in
all probability, not be in before ten this morning,”
he answered with an insufferably superior air. This
was not a client, evidently, and he was not paid to
be polite to any one else.
Peter Clancy shrugged his shoulders. “Well,
132


Peter Makes a Discovery 133
you know he might be in a bit early once in a while,
me Lord. :You don’t mind my breathing the same
exalted atmosphere with yourself till he shows up, do
you? I know I ’m not worthy, I ’m only a common
chap, myself, but I can tell a duke in disguise when
I see one and I ’1! try not to make any social errors.
I could never climb all the stairs to your elevated
station, but I do just love to see a scion of the no-
bility at work. Some work! You must be plumb
worn out dressing the shop. And when you get it
all done, then you have to look pretty all the rest of
the day. It must be a helluf a life, but I can see it
suits you. Beautiful ﬁt your coat ’s got in the
back.”
The shopman turned in fury. “ I don’t know who
you are —” he began.
“ You ’re right there, Bo; you don’t and that ’s the
truth. Only a real little bright-eyes like you would
have been wise to that great and shining fact. But
you ’ve been so ﬁne and dandy to me that I ’m going
to tell you the story of my life. Now listen —-”
Peter paused as a bulky shadow darkened the door.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, “look what the wind ’s
blowing in! —John Bull himself, and no mistake.”
“It ’s Mr. Hobson at last,” said the shopman,
with obvious relief. “ Good morning, sir,” and he
bu-stled forward fussily.
Clancy was before him. “ Mr. Hobson,” he
said, “ may I speak with you a moment? It ’s very
important and I won’t keep you long.”


'134. The Unlatched Door
The fat little man gave Peter a sharp glance from
between his creased eyelids. “ I have n’t the pleas-
ure of knowing you, I think,” he began suavely.
“ Just what his lordship was saying,” interrupted
Clancy, putting his hand on Hobson’s arm and turn-
ing him about so that their backs were toward the
expectant clerk. With a practised twitch of his coat
he exposed for a ﬂash a small bright object pinned
to the breast of his waistcoat.
“May I see you alone for a minute?” he con-
tinued, almost without a pause.
Hobson’s ruddy color changed slightly. “ Cer-
tainly, certainly! ” he said. “Just step this way.”
Peter followed the older man up a short ﬂight of
stairs at the back of the room, to a private ofﬁce on
a mezzanine ﬂoor built over the ﬁtting-rooms.
“Be seated, sir,” said Hobson, with a worried
look,” and tell me in what way I can serve you.”
Clancy drew from his pocket a large envelop,
opened it, and placed the enclosure on the table.
“ Did that come from a shoe made by you?” he
asked quietly.
Hobson examined the bit of leather closely.
“ Yes,” he said at last. “That ’s our mark, though
it ’s almost worn off. What about it?”
Peter looked his relief. He was right so far, at
any rate. “I have a good reason for wanting to
know who these shoes were made for,” he said, “ and
I ’m going to ask you to help me.”
“Of course I’ll be glad to do anything in my
I


Peter Makes a Discovery I 3 5
power,” replied Hobson, non-committally, “but this
isn’t much to go on. It’s a rather unusual size,
abOut a seven A, but I have more than one client who
wears that size.”
Peter’s face fell a little. “I did n’t think many
people had feet as narrow as that,” he said.
“ Oh, yes; some even narrower. It ’s one of the
marks of aristocracy and I cater to the best clawses,”
said Hobson, with evident pride. “Is there any
one in particular that you might suggest my looking
H
Two engaging Irish eyes smiled on the Briton.
“ I was going to ask if I might look over your list
of clients,” Peter said. “ You must have some such
thing— an order-book or something.”
The old bootmaker seemed a little disappointed.
A bit of scandal, now and then, is relished by the
most snobbish of tradesmen. He rose reluctantly
and, after a moment’s manipulation of the lock,
opened a large safe and brought from it a loose-leaf
order-book. He spread it on the desk beside Clancy
and stood looking over the young man’s shoulder
while the latter slowly turned the pages.
The names of John Hobson’s clients were ar-
ranged alphabetically and after each name was a
record of size and a memorandum of the style and
date of purchase.
Peter, aware of watchful eyes, ran through the
entire list. Among the C’s was a Baltimore man
who wore a seven A, but Clancy’s ﬁnger did not


136 The Unlatched Door
pause. When he came to the R’s at last he was
careful not to retard his progress, but he examined
each entry with close attention.
“ Randolph, Raymond, Reynolds, Rothsay, Ruth-
erford.” He turned the page.
There were no more R’s. He went on mechani-
cally, puzzled and disappointed:
“ Sandford, Sands,”— the moving ﬁnger stopped
in spite of itself —“ Schuyler,” Clancy read below
his breath, “ Richard Van Loo. Size 7A,” and al-
most at the bottom of the list of purchases, under the
date of September twenty-second of the previous
year, “ 1 pr. pumps, patent leather.”
The moving ﬁnger, having marked, moved on.
Peter Clancy was not on familiar terms with Omar
or he would have quoted “ Nor all your tears wash
out a word of it.”
With a pang of memory he saw his friend Richard
Schuyler Standing in a brightly lighted hall beside
Captain O’Malley, whose back was turned. He saw
him stoop forward suddenly, and as suddenly stand
upright again as he, Peter, came through the door.
It was just after that, Peter knew, that he had
found the in-sole that now lay beside the book the
leaves of which he was mechanically turning. It
was under the settle, to be sure, but might easily
have been sent there by a deft kick from the place
where Schuyler had been standing.
Clancy gulped and turned white. He remem-


Peter Makes a Discovery 137
bered all at once that Mr. Jimmie Stone had always
said that Dick Schuyler was the best “south-paw
pitcher” in the world.
Could it be? He grew sick with horror at the
thoughts that were whirling through his brain. He
knew little of this old friend of his former employer,
except that he had always been most pleasant and
kind from the days of their ﬁrst acquaintance, when
Peter was at the age to be very sensible of friendly
notice. He knew nothing of Schuyler’s personal
character. Could there have been something be-
tween him and the beautiful woman who lived so
close at hand? And Rutledge was certainly not on
Hobson’s books. That would seem to let him out,
Peter thought. And he had been so sure!
He closed Hobson’s order-book and rose to his
feet. Mastering his conﬂicting emotions with an
effort, he turned an apparently unperturbed face to
meet Hobson’s interested eyes.
“Well, it’s a funny thing, Mr. Hobson,” he said
quietly, “but my man does n’t seem to be here, as
far as I can tell. How can you account for that?
I was pretty sure when I came here that I would ﬁnd
one special guy on your books, and he is n’t among
those present. You ’re sure this insole came out of
one of your make of shoes?”
“ Absolutely certain,” answered Hobson, with con—
viction. “ Of course they might have been ordered
in London by any one who spent much time abroad.”
Peter’s spirits rose suddenly. A great weight


138 The Unlatchea' Door
seemed to be lifted from his chest and his breath
came more easily. Why hadn’t he thought of it
before? Rutledge had been abroad a great deal.
That might easily be the solution of the difﬁculty.
He clapped the old man on the back with expansive
friendliness.
“You ’re a wise old bird! ” he said. “ Of course
they might have been made over there! I sure am
obliged to you for all you ’ve done to help me out.”
“No trouble at all, sir. Glad to be of service to
the police at any time. If y0u could tell me the
name you are interested in, I could cable our London
shop.” ,
Peter smiled. Hobson’s curiosity was very 0b-
vious.
“Not necessary to trouble you to do that, thank
you. We ’11 cable Scotland Yard and have it looked
up quietly. No use raising a suspicion when we
might be barking up the wrong tree. We are n’t
placing any bets yet and there ’s nothing sure in this
world but the undertaker’s income. Now I’ll beat
it and I’m much obliged to you. If you ever get
into trouble you let me know and I promise to see
you through. Good-by, and good luck to you, sir.”
Peter ran rapidly down the short ﬂight of stairs.
His cheerful spirits had returned.
“ Adios,-Clarence,” he said as he passed the ele-
gant shopman. “ I ’ve just been informing the old
~gink up-stairs that your uncle, the old duke, has
cashed in his chips and that he has been entertaining


Peter Makes a Discovery 139
a dukelet unawares. He dropped dead when I told
him, so you’d better go up and see to the remains.
SO long, old sport,” and Clancy dashed out into the
street.


CHAPTER XVII
AN UNPREMEDITATED JOURNEY
“ ELL, that’s safe for the present, at any
rate,” said Richard Schuyler to himself as
the great doors of the Challoner National Bank
swung to behind him. “ I wish I knew what to do
next. Nothing to be done, I suppose, until I hear
from her. If she ’s straight, and I ’m dead sure She
is, she ’11 write at once to relieve me of responsibility.
Only I wish I could see her, and see her now.”
He shrugged his shoulders as if they carried an
ill-adjusted burden. The sense of security from
personal danger which had gained for him a much-
needed night’s rest had been superseded, in the early
morning hours, by an overwhelming feeling that the
girl whom he —yes, he had to admit it to himself
— the girl in whom he was growing more and more
interested as the hours went by was involved in the
meshes of a web of circumstance which caught and
held her fast.
That she was not what she seemed to the casual
observer he had long ago made up his mind. No
one could talk to her for any length of time when
She was off her guard without being convinced of
her birth and breeding. But why the play-acting
I40


ﬂn Unpremeditated Journey 141
and why the position she was in for a girl of her
qualities? Oh, and why all the rest? ‘
He strode northward along Fifth Avenue deep in
thought and unmindful of the passing throngs. “ If
only I could see her now, at once! ” His troubled
thoughts went round in a circle and like a nervous
horse under too tight a check-rein, he threw up his
head with a sharp jerk. “I’m not much good at
waiting; in fact, I think it ’s the worst thing I do.
There’s nothing that cramps my style to the same
extent.”
He was so engrossed that he was almost run down
by a cab as he started across Fortieth Street. The
chauffeur called out to him angrily as he jumped back
to the curb and Dick pulled himself together and
proceeded with more attention to the exigencies of
his surroundings.
He glanced at the stream of people passing up
and down. How pretty and fresh the women looked
in their light spring attire! But there was n’t a
face under its gaily ﬂowering hat that could com-
pare with hers, he decided, uncomfortably. If he
could only see her and clear the whole thing up per-
haps he could get her out of his mind.
Just then a gallantly held little ﬁgure in blue serge
attracted his attention and he quickened his pace.
The girl was nearly a block ahead and he could not
be sure, but her size, the boyish suppleness displayed
by her rapid movements, and the crown of thick
chestnut-colored hair which curled from under the


14.2 The Unlatched Door
brim of her small hat were all strongly suggestive of
Nora. Though he walked swiftly, he had passed
the Public Library and nearly reached Forty-second
Street before he caught up with her. Here the foot-
passengers were stopped by the cross-town trafﬁc and
in a breath he was by her side.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, raising his hat.
The face which was turned quickly up to his was
brilliantly frescoed with red, white, and black. It
was a piquant face despite its disﬁguring make-up,
but no more like Nora’s than a stage ﬂower is like a
real one.
“ Hel-lo! ” the girl said with the grin of a street
gamin as she noted the points of the young man be-
side her. “ Where ’ve you been, Cutie? I have n’t
seen you for a long time.”
With a thrill of disgust at his precipitancy Dick
murmured something which was meant to be apolo-
getic and explanatory and dashed across the street,
through the moving trafﬁc, at the imminent risk of
his life.
“You ’re obsessed, you idiot! ” his inner con-
sciousness admonished him sternly. “ I ’m ashamed
of you at your time of life! You see her every-
where. It’s nonsense, I tell you.”
He walked on aimlessly up the avenue, abstract-
edly answering an occasional greeting of friend or
acquaintance. The beautiful shop-windows, with
their cleverly displayed wares gathered from the
ends of the earth, did not capture even a passing


An Unpremea'itated Journey 14.3
glance. A mass of mountain-laurel in a ﬂorist’s win-
dow did attract his attention for a moment, but only
because it ﬁtted into his thoughts, which were still
and always of Nora and the puzzle she presented.
He had just passed the noble facade of St.
Thomas’s Church when his preoccupation suddenly
vanished at the sight of a young man who was
crossing from the east at the next corner. There
was something familiar in the slender ﬁgure and this
time he knew he was not mistaken. It was the
young man whom he had seen talking to Nora in the
park. There could be no doubt about it.
Dick walked slowly forward, considering how'he
could turn to his own advantage this stretching out
of the long arm of coincidence.
The slim young man, crossing through the stream
of motors, did not see Dick. Reaching the west side
of the street in safety, he set down upon the pave-
ment a bag he had been carrying and turned to look
up the avenue.
Dick’s quick eye traveled swiftly from the light
top-coat on the man’s arm to the bag at his side.
The end of the bag was toward Dick and with a
start he noted the initials, small but plainly marked,
upon it.
“V. Q.” he read under his breath. “Unusual,
both of them. And old Quartley’s house is just
around the corner. This must be Vincent Quartley,
the man whose address she gave. He knows where
she is.”


144. The Unlatchea' Door
A lumbering bus with “ Penn. Station ” conspicu-
ously displayed across its forehead, bore down
through the maze of traffic and drew up at the curb.
“V. O.” picked up his bag and, stepping aboard,
proceeded to mount the winding stair to the roof.
On a sudden overwhelming impulse Dick dashed
across the sidewalk and caught the hand-rail as the
bus started. He swung lightly to the step and met
the bus guard’s reproachful eye.
“ It ain’t the last bus to-day, ye know,” the man
admonished, pointing to several more which followed
close behind. “ No, ye can’t go up. All full above.
Ye ’11 have to go inside.”
Dick entered the almost empty interior and sat
down on the front seat facing the door. Somehow
he must speak to Quartley and ascertain if possible
where Nora could be found. The suspense was too
much for him. He simply could not wait on the
chance that she would write, if he could see her
sooner in any other way.
The bus groaned and bumped southward. Many
of the occupants of the roof descended at Thirty-
ﬁrst Street, where the route turned west, but Quart-
ley was not among them. Evidently he was going
to the station. Dick decided that it would be best
to try to talk to him there in comparative quiet.
He waited until he saw the Slender young man
alight in front of the great pillars of the station and
then followed him through the entrance and down
the broad stairs.


dn Unpremeditated Journey 14.5
His tickets must have been obtained in advance,
for Quartley made at once for the train gate. The
train was made up and Quartley passed through the
gate without pause and descended to the platform.
“ Tickets, please,” said the guard, effectually bar-
ring the way as Dick started after his quarry.
“ I ’ll get it on the train,” said Dick hurriedly, at-
tempting to pass.
“Ye ’ve time enough to go back to the ofﬁce be-
fore the train leaves and I can’t let ye aboard with-
out. Sorry,” said the guard politely.
Dick gave a rapid glance at the list of stops dis-
played at the gate. He was ready now to follow
Quartley to the ends of the earth if necessary. The
route was a familiar one, as one of his distant cousins
Whom he often visited lived out on that line.
He made a rapid calculation. “ Medway. That
ought to give me enough time,” he thought, and
dashing back to the ticket oﬁ’ice, hurriedly secured a
railway ticket. It was a long-distance train, but
there was no time to secure a Pullman reservation.
He would have to trust to luck.
A moment later, his ticket duly punched, he ran
rapidly down the iron stairs and walked forward
along the train, glancing in at the windows of the
cars, which were already lighted for the tunnel. He
soon spotted his man, comfortably seated in one of
the Pullmans and already engrossed in the morning
paper.
Dick retraced his steps, found the Pullman con-


14.6 » The Unlatehea' Door
ductor, and enquired anxiously for a reservation.
Dick’s quality and condition were obvious to a man ‘
of trained perceptions.
“ Plenty of room,” said the conductor, pleasantly.
'“ Just get in anywhere. Fix you up as soon as the
train starts.”
The car Dick wanted, he had already remarked,
bore the euphonious name of “ Arethusia ” in large
gold letters on its side. He therefore entered
“ Arethusia ’s ” narrow portals and passing along
the scantily peopled car, ensconced himself just be-
hind his unsuspecting prey.
Now that he had gone this far, Dick was at a
loss as to the best method of procedure. The train
roared through the echoing tunnel and out into the ’
maze of manufacturing towns beyond and still Dick
pondered.
At last Quartley threw aside his paper and picking
up a magazine strolled forward to the smoking-com-
partment. In this movement Dick saw a heaven-
sent opportunity both to get a much-desired smoke
and to obtain a seemingly casual interview.
When he entered the compartment a few minutes
later he blessed his lucky stars, for Vincent Quartley
was the only other occupant. That young man was
gazing with half-closed eyes at a great mass of tall
chimneys in the distance rising from a picturesque
tangle of buildings half hidden in mist and smoke.
He did not turn as Dick quietly seated himself op-
posite, and it was several minutes before Dick spoke.


14.8 The Unlatchea' Door
“Not so awfully, but we played ball together a
lot. You might have heard him speak Of me. My
name ’5 Schuyler — Dick Schuyler.”
“ Not Richard Van Loo Schuyler! ” The expres-
sive dark eyes were clouded for an instant and his
voice, when he spoke again was perceptibly colder.
“ I don’t remember hearing Amos speak of you, but
your name is quite familiar; and, of course, I ’m glad
to meet you.”
The change in Quartley’s manner was so very ap-
parent that Dick, reﬂecting rapidly, decided to take
the bull by the horns.
“ I ’m afraid no one will want to know me after
a while,” he said. “I’m getting more notoriety
than any innocent bystander deserves or could relish,
out of that horrible Rutledge affair. I suppose
you ’ve read about it in the papers. Awful, was n’t
it? ”
Quartley nodded without speaking and Dick
leaned forward, ﬁxing him with intent eyes.
“ It was strange,” he said slowly, “ that the young
lady about whom we had— shall I say a difference
of opinion?— was mixed up in that also.”
“She was n’t ‘ mixed up’ in it! ” said Quartley,
hotly. “She was as innocent a bystander as your-
self.”
“About that we have no difference of opinion,”
replied Dick, sincerely. “ But she has been un-
fortunate; that much is clear.”
“ I should say she had been, poor girl! ” Quartley


.412 Unpremeditated Journey 14.9
looked out at the window, his face softening inde-
scribably. “She’s gotten herself into a devil of a
mess. But she’s all right now. I’ll straighten
things out for her and I’ll make her see reason.
I ’m sure I can convince her.”
“You are going to see her soon, then?” To
save his life Dick could not have kept the excitement
out of his voice.
His vis-a-vis looked at him narrowly. “You
seem more interested than the circumstances war-
rant, Mr. Schuyler,” he said coldly. “After all,
Miss—the young lady’s aﬂairs can be no concern
of yours. Pardon me if I put it too bluntly.”
“I know that my interest is diﬂicult for you to
understand,” said Dick, “ and, unfortunately, I can’t
explain. Believe me, I would if I could. I saw
the young lady under very trying conditions, as you
know, and I have a very great admiration and re-
spect for the way she bore herself.”
He paused a moment and then went on:
“Clancy, the detective who was called in, happens
to be an old friend of mine and I managed to get it
out of him that you are the only person who knows
Miss Brady’s address.”
“You and he are both mistaken,’ said Quartley
ﬁrmly. “I know no one of that name.”
Dick had an inspiration. “It’s the name she
gave the police. I don’t believe, myself, that it is
her own.”
Quartley frowned but said nothing and Dick re-
’


150 The Unlatched Door
sumed: —“ I ask you to believe that something has
happened which makes it very important, for her
own sake, that I should see her at once. You, and
no one else, so far as I can ﬁnd out, know where she
is. I ask you to tell me and I assure you, on my
honor, that it is best I should know.”
Quartley’s frown deepened and he satfor several
minutes lost in thought. At last he raised his head
and looked Dick full in the eyes.
“This meeting was not accidental, as you would
have had it appear; was it, Mr. Schuyler? ” ‘
Dick bit his lip and considered an instant before
he answered frankly, “ No.”
“ I can’t decide this for myself,” said Quartley,
slowly, after a slight pause. “ I ’ve given my word
to keep her whereabouts a secret and I can’t break
it. Would a few hours’ delay be serious, do you
think? ” He spoke very gravely.
“ I don’t know,” said Dick, after thinking it over.
“It’s so involved that I can’t be sure; but I don’t
think it would matter, except to me,” he added with
a whimsical smile. “I may go crazy in the in-
terval.”
“ I think we ’11 have to risk that,” said Quartley,
his face becoming slightly less serious. “I’ll see
her to-night and let you know at once if she is willing
to see you. I take your word for the importance
of it.” He sighed as he looked at Schuyler’s mag-
niﬁcent physique. “I dare say I can make her see
it.”


An Unpremeditated Journey 151
The train slowed down and stopped. Quartley
smiled. “I think this is your station, Mr.
Schuyler,” he said with meaning.
“By Jove, Medway! So it is,” Dick grinned.
“I thought Medway would be about far enough
out.”
The other man held out his hand. “ I ’m trust-
ing you in a very important matter, Mr. Schuyler,”
he said. “But I believe you ’re straight. I’ll do
my best for you. Good-by.”
“ Good-by,” said Dick, catching the slender ﬁngers
in his strong grasp. “I said you were a sport!
Good luck to you.”
He stood on the platform until the train was lost
to sight. Then he went into the station to enquire
for the next train back to town.


CHAPTER XVIII
THE OTHER LADY
“ ELL, and that’s that,” said Captain O’Mal-
ley, succinctly, as the Postal Telegraph and
Cable boy, who chanced to be a decrepit old man,
closed the door behind him. “ I don’t see that we
can do much more with his Nibs until we get an
answer from that cable. If Hobson ’s never made
any shoes for Hammond Rutledge, we’ll have to
look further for the owner of the ones this came
out of,” tapping an envelop against the edge of his
desk. “That ’s one pair of shoes that I’d hate to
have ﬁt me, by George! The man who wore ’em
knows all about the crime or I ’m a ‘ Chink.’ ”
“ You feel sure about that, Captain, don’t you? ”
queried Peter Clancy, drawing in a long breath of
cigarette smoke and looking keenly at his chief
through narrowed lids. The discovery that Rich-
ard Schuyler was a patron of John Hobson still
worried him. He had kept his knowledge to him-
self, for O’Malley had rather rubbed in his slowness
in picking up the signiﬁcance of clues and he was on
his mettle. He had a strong desire to protect his
friend and an even stronger one to work this out for
himself and, if it amounted to anything, to spring
152


The Other Lady 153
it on the old man when it should be more completely
developed.
O’Malley shifted in his chair and glanced up at
Clancy from the corner of a quizzical eye. He had
great hopes for this boy and all his generous mind
was bent on giving him the best training possible.
He would taunt and jeer at him when that was nec-
essary and hold out a helping hand when that should
be required.
“ I thought we had that all settled in our minds,
Pete,” he said in answer to Clancy’s question.
“ The in-sole was wet, you know, and Rutledge
wears the same size. I thought we ’d be seeing him
comfortably seated in the chair in a few weeks and
lots of glory coming to us. There’s a motive for
him all nicely ﬁxed and plain for any jury to see.
And, oh, my lad, jealousy and love of money make
people do stranger things than this! ”
He drew a note-book from the drawer of his desk
and laid it open on the ﬂat top.
“I sent Smith to interview Campbell and Irene
Clairmont and this is his report. They both say
that they think Rutledge left them at about one
o’clock in the morning. But he did n’t show up at
the Wilmont, where he spent the rest of the night
till after four. Do you get that? Smith says Miss
Clairmont is a great little talker and he had no
trouble in getting everything he wanted out of her.
He just made suggestions to her and she started her
face going and then went oﬂ and left it; did n’t seem


154. The Unlatched Door
to realize how much she was giving away. I guess
there’s no doubt that Rutledge is very thick with
the other woman in the party, the one whose name
he kept to himself. Of course Smith got it from
Miss Clairmont.”
“Good work!” exclaimed Peter. “Who was
it?” _
“ Why, it ’s another actress,” answered O’Malley;
“ a girl named Alice Dalton.”
“Not the Alice Dalton that made a hit in the
‘ Youngest Sister ’ at The Strollers’? ”
“That ’s the one. Her name’s familiar, of
course. It’s plastered all over the place. But I
don’t keep up with these young players. Do you
know anything about her, Pete ? ”
“ I ’ve seen the show and it ’s a peach! She plays
the part of a sixteen-year-old and looks it, on the
stage at least. She’s a wonder,” Peter added en-
thusiastically. “She made me spill a few, and you
can take it from me it has to be something pretty
good to get me going these days. My waterworks
are n’t what they used to be.”
O’Malley laughed. “Age will tell; won’t it,
Pete? Well, I think the next job for you is to see
her and ﬁnd out what she knows. But be care-
ful—” He broke off as a gray-capped head was
thrust in at the door. “Thanks, Jerry,” he said,
taking some letters from the postman.
Ripping them open with an envelop-cutter and
sorting the contents he continued: “ You’ll have


The Other Lady 155
to be a wise boy, Pete, remember, to get the truth
out of her if she ’s sweet on Rutledge.”
Clancy took two or three turns up and down the
room. O’Malley went on reading his mail. He
had just opened a long, legal-looking enveIop when
Peter heard him chuckling to himself.
“ Say, Pete, what do you think?” The old man
was fairly hugging himself with pleasure.
Clancy’s quick, nervous stride ceased. “Never
think if I can help it. What is it, Captain?”
“ My patents are allowed at last, Pete!”
“You don’t mean it! Gee, but I ’m glad! ”
“ Yes, here they are. Look at this. It’s going
to make people sit up and take notice! If I can
only market it right, I can leave the old desk ”— he
thumped it with a heavy closed ﬁst —“ and never
come back to it any more.”
Peter caught the old captain’s excitement.
“Great stuff!” he said, clapping his chief on the
back. “ If it works out right you could resign from
the force and set up a private detective agency and
I know one little red-headed darling that would go
in with you. Between us we’d make it,nervous
work to be a crook in this burg. Here’s to the
Dictrola! I think we ought to go out and drink its
health.”
O’Malley laughed as he folded up the precious
document and put it in an inside pocket. “We’d
better keep on the job we’ve got, Pete. It isn’t
easy, but it ’s sure. Let ’s get back to cases.”


156 The Unlatehed Door
Clancy sobered instantly. “ Right you are, Cap-
tain,” he said. I
He dropped into the chair at the corner of the
desk and, leaning on his elbow, ran his ﬁngers
through his hair. The old man watched him in
silence, his big ﬁngers playing with an unopened let-
ter. At last Clancy looked up and caught O’Mal-
ley’s eye.
“ Captain,” he said, “ tell me honestly— do you
think Rutledge killed his wife?”
“Well, there you are,” said O’Malley, spreading
his hands and tipping back in his swivel chair. “ Of
course things point that way now; but there’s lots
of things to be considered. He comes in here most
every day and seems keen on ﬁnding the criminal.
Might do that anyway, of course — probably would
if he has any sense, and he ’s a long way from being
a fool. He has a lot to gain by her death, we can’t
blink that; but, Pete,” he dropped his head and
looked at the young man keenly over the tops of his
glasses, “just get this from me and don’t forget it.
The man who falls in love with any particular theory
in a case, and takes it for better or worse, will be
a bum detective all his life. If you get to the place
where you can’t change your mind, you’d better
crawl six feet under and pull the daisies up over you.
An open mind is the best asset in any business. Just
roll that up in one of your darned little cigarettes
and smoke it! ”


CHAPTER XIX
“WHo SENT IT?”
O’MALLEY switched on the powerful electric
lamp which hung above his desk and hitched
his chair over to the right, making room for his
young disciple. The increased light brought out
every detail of the papers lying in front of him.
O’Malley picked up a card and handed it to Clancy
without a word.
Peter whistled again as he turned it over in his
ﬁngers. He hooked his foot around the leg of a
chair just behind him, drew it forward, and dropped
into it, his eyes still ﬁxed on the card. Then he
glanced at the torn envelop and a blank half sheet
of paper which lay on the desk, and back to the
card.
“Who sent it? Can you make out, Captain?”
he asked at last, his voice vibrant with controlled
excitement.
O’Malley, who had been studying the envelop,
pushed it over to Peter.
“ Disguised hand, that’s plain, and badly done,”
he said. “Hard to read, too. It’s almost a
wonder that it came at all.”
He hurriedly drew a wallet from his pocket as
he spoke and, taking a paper from it, laid it beside
I60


” Who Sent It?” 161
the envelop. The paper bore two addresses and
nothing more. Peter recognized it at once. It was
Hammond Rutledge’s writing and he realized what
was in O’Malley’s mind.
“ Don’t look much alike, do they?” said
O’Malley, after a tense pause. “Maybe the dis-
guise is better than I thought; or perhaps they are n’t
the same at all. What do you think, Pete?”
“ The e’s are peculiar and they ’re made the same
in both. Otherwise, I can’t see any resemblance.”
Peter subjected the paper and envelop to a close
scrutiny. Then he turned back to the card. It
was a man’s ordinary-sized visiting-card. On one
side was written in a small hand:
1 1 :30
Seaport
Fairﬁeld
Mrs. Ralph Tooker 9
and on the other side, engraved in old English let-
ters, was the name “ Cuthbert Pendleton.”
“ Somebody’s putting it up to us, all right, all
right! ” exclaimed Peter.
“Yes,” O’Malley replied quickly, “and it looks
as if some one wanted Pendleton found and found
soon. But they don’t want to appear in this.
That’s what made me think of Rutledge. This is
meant to be a straight tip to us and it’s up to us
to make the most of it. How far have you got? ”
“ Seaport and Fairﬁeld must be the names of two


162 The Unlatchea' Door
towns and Mrs. Ralph Tooker, whoever she may be,
lives in one of them, probably.”
O’Malley had risen and now stood in front of a
bookcase. He spoke over his shoulder. “With
you there. Now, what about the ‘ eleven-thirty ’? ”
“The way it ’s_written makes me think it’s the
time of some train.”
“ Same here,” said O’Malley. He had returned
to the desk and placed on it a heavy book. “'S-S-S,”
he murmured to himself, running his ﬁnger down a
column at the back of the Century Atlas. “ Um-m.
There are three Seaports here, one in Massachusetts,
one in North Carolina, and one in New York.”
“ Now let ’s ﬁnd Fairﬁeld,” said Peter, hurriedly.
He could hardly restrain his impatience with the
slow movements of the older man.
“Only two Fairﬁelds and one of ’em ’s in New
York. Let ’s try the New York map ﬁrst. Make
a note of this. ‘ Fairﬁeld, eleven-Q-ten.’ ”
O’Malley ﬂuttered the leaves. “And Seaport—
why, Seaport ’s eleven-Q-ten, too! They must be
close together. Looks as if we might have landed
right, ﬁrst jump! ”
“Let me ﬁnd the map for you, Captain,” and,
without waiting for permission, Peter pulled the
book across the desk and turned it right side up for
himself with a quick twirl of his hand.
“Here we are!” he exclaimed excitedly after a
moment’s study, pointing to the map. “Here’s
’Seaport on the north shore of Long Island and


“ Who Sent It? ” 163
there’s Fairﬁeld about in the middle. Pendleton
went to the Penn. Station on Friday morning.”
He fairly ran over to his own desk and rummaged
in one of the drawers. “ I thought I had one,” he
said, returning with a time-table in his hand.
He spread it out on the captain’s desk. “Look
here. There’s a train to Seaport at eleven-thirty
all right, but I can’t ﬁnd Fairﬁeld.”
“May not be on the railroad,” and O’Malley,
who had been looking over Peter’s shoulder, turned
back to the Atlas. “ Damn it! the railroads are n’t
marked on this map!”
“ There may be one -——” Peter had unfolded the
time-table —" yes, here ’s a map and —- here ’s
Fairﬁeld, not on the railroad.”
“ Probably a stage runs over. There are a lot
of towns like that on Long Island,” said O’Malley.
“I’ve been in some of ’em. They’re as quiet as
the dead. You’d think they were a million miles
from New York.”
“I’ll bet our man ’s there!” exclaimed Peter,
exultantly, with his ﬁnger on a tiny dot. “ Shall I
go and get him?”
“Wait a minute, boy. There’s nothing to be
gained by going off half-cocked. Let ’s think a sec-
ond.”
Clancy, with the air of a dog straining at its
leash, waited perforce.
“ If Pendleton ’s there, why do you think the card
has his name on it, Pete? ” asked O’Malley, at last.


164. The Unlatched Door
“Why, I ﬁgure it out that it ’s a memo that he
meant to leave at his home and that he dropped it
somewhere.”
“ If he wanted to make a get-away, why would he
leave any address? ”
Peter was Staggered for an instant. “ Maybe he
did n’t write the Stuff on the back. Might have been
his card somebody used purposely. I’ll bet there
were plenty of his pasteboards at Rutledge’s, from
what we found out. It ’S a little crumpled, too;
see. Don’t look like a fresh card.”
“ Yes, I noticed that,” said O’Malley, but he took
the card from Clancy nevertheless and examined it
again. Then he compared the writing on the back
with that on the envelop and with the addresses
which Rutledge had given him.
“You see, it does n’t look like either of those,”
said Peter, pushing his thick hair back from his fore-
head. “I don’t know What to think, exactly, but
I’ve got a hunch that we’d better chase the thing
up while the going is good. What do you think,
Captain? I’ll beat it out there right away, if you
say so, and ﬁnd out who Mrs. Ralph Tooker is and
where She comes in, anyhow.”
“ Ye-e-s,” said O’Malley, slowly, “ I guess you ’d
better go. There ’s another thing I can’t make out,
though. This says ‘eleven-thirty,’ but Pendleton’s
chauffeur says he left early Friday morning. He
was gone when we ’phoned, you remember, and that
could n’t have been much after ten.”


” Who Sent It?" 165
“The chauffeur wouldn’t have seen him get on
the train. He could n’t have left the car.”
“That ’s right, but it looks funny for a man to
make as early a. start as that to catch an eleven-
thirty train. Well, anyhow, see how soon you can
get one.”
“I’ve looked already,” said Peter. “There’s
one at one-nineteen. That doesn’t leave me any
too much time. I ’ll grab a sandwich as I go. Can
I take these? ”
“I want the card and envelop,” said O’Malley.
“ Going to see what I can ﬁnd out about the writing
on ’em. It will mean almost as much to know who
sent ’em as to ﬁnd Pendleton himself. You see that,
don’t you, Pete? The person who sent ’em sus-
pects Pendleton; or has a grudge against him and
wants us to suspect him. It will be v-e-r-y valuable
to know the why and wherefore of it. Might send
us off on a new tack altogether; who knows? So
I ’1! keep these, with your kind permission, my lad.”
He picked up the two articles as he spoke. “You
can have that, if you want it,” he continued with a
smile, pushing the half sheet of note-paper over to
Clancy as he spoke. “You are such a great sleuth
you ought to be able to get along with that.”
Peter took it up automatically. His young
amour propre was stung by the taunt. He turned
the paper over in his hands. It was a plain sheet
of cheap note-paper with no marks of any kind, not
even a water-mark. It had evidently been torn


166 The Unlatched Door
from a double sheet. There was nothing at all un-
usual about it except that it had a ﬁne mottle of blue
and red ﬁbers under the surface and it did not match
the envelop, which was made of better paper and
was plain gray with a crash ﬁnish.
Peter gave O’Malley a side glance and saw that
the old man’s eyes were upon him, and he thought
that they were ﬁlled with an amused mockery difﬁ-
cult for so young a professional to bear. He said
nothing, however, but folded the paper in the or-
iginal creases and put it carefully in his pocket-book.
Then he said, shortly, “Well, anything more?”
“No,” answered O’Malley, smiling. “Get on
the job as fast as you can.”
“ All right,” said Peter, starting for the door.
“And good luck to you, my lad! ” O’Malley’s
voice was very kind.
“Thank you, Captain, Peter grinned. “So
long! ” And like a ﬂash he was gone.
H


CHAPTER XX
ELEANOR WENTWORTH
ICHARD SCHUYLER had not long to wait
at Medway for the train which would take
him back to town. He spent the time pacing rest-
lessly up and down the long platform, heedless Of
the curious eyes of the baggage-master and the sta-
tion loungers. He swung upon the train before it
came to a full stop and, ensconced in the smoking-
compartment Of the Pullman, consumed cigarette
after cigarette in rapid succession. He was ﬁlled
now with a longing to be back in his own house.
There might be a letter waiting for him, perhaps,
which would put an end to this intolerable suspense.
With every moment the sense of Nora’s possible
danger increased and her gray, appealing eyes grew
clearer and clearer to his inner vision.
Just how the danger was to be averted by seeing
her was not so plain, but he had a feeling that if he
could once get a clear grasp of all the circumstances
which enmeshed her, he would be able effectively to
protect her. That she was innocent he felt instinc-
tively, but it became more and more an imperative
need of his soul to know. 7
The rhythmic click of the train wheels passing
167


168 The Unlatched Door
over the rails grew slower at last and Dick started
from his seat and was on the car platform as the
train rolled into the station. With all speed he
ascended from the twilight of the lower level to the
broad daylight and sunshine of the spacious ter-
minal.
AS his cab rolled up the long incline and turned
into the street, he caught a glimpse of Peter Clancy,
running at full speed down the footway.
The sight threw him into a tremor of apprehen-
sion. His mind was full of Nora and he had no
doubt that his keen young friend was already on her
trail. There was every probability that Vincent
Quartley would soon be with her, to protect and
advise her, but the thought only brought to Dick a
feeling of discomfort that he was ashamed to an-
alyze.
The cab bumped over the uneven pavement of
Seventh Avenue, turned eastward on a compara-
tively empty cross street and threaded its way
through the maze of traffic on Fifth Avenue. The
driver showed the true American instinct for taking
chances and getting ahead and even Dick could not
criticize the rapidity of their progress.
Number 20 looked more dead and forbidding
than ever to his excited imagination as he ran up
the steps of his own house and inserted his key in
the door. He had a feeling that the gloom was
spreading from it like some contagious disease and
almost dreaded the news he was so anxious to get.


170 The Unlatchea' Door
Saturday, May 6, 19—.
MY DEAR MR. SCHUYLER:
I cannot tell you how sincerely I appreciate your gener-
osity and kindness in taking charge of the little package for
me yesterday and I hasten to relieve you of the responsibility
of keeping it. If you will be so very good as to send it, ex—
press collect, to this address, I shall be more than ever grate-
ful. I did not have time to pack it very well and if it is not
too much trouble, I would ask you to slip it into a box, as
the articles are somewhat fragile.
I am most sensible of your consideration for me in my
anomalous position, which I could see that you partially un-
derstood. I have had a sharp and terrible lesson and am
through with all masquerading, forever. I therefore Sign
myself
Yours most gratefully,
ELEANOR WENTWORTH.
The letter was written on the ﬁrst and fourth
pages of a folded sheet. The signature was at the
very bottom of the last page, leaving no room for
the address. In the corner the word “Over” was
written very small. Dick opened the sheet and
found:
Please address, Altonville, Pa.,
Care Mrs. John B. Adams.
“ Altonvillel ” repeated Dick aloud. “Why,
that 's only about twelve miles from Caxton! I ’ve
driven over there with Anne Wallace lots of timess
Rotten roads; but a bully little town, I remember.”
He dropped into a chair and sat studying the


172 The Unlatched Door
“Yes. I haven’t had any lunch, but I’ve not
much time to spare. I ’m driving out to Mrs. Wal-
lace’s and I don’t want to be very late getting there.
Have a lunch put up for me and I’ll eat it on the
way. And pack a bag for me. Don’t know just
how long I may stay—probably not more than a
couple ofdays. But get William ﬁrst of all; and
be as quick as you can, Jenkins, will you?”
While he was waiting for his car Dick ran down-
stairs and explained to Miss Van Loo that he had
decided to drive out to his Cousin Anne’s for a few
days. The stillness and peace of the bright room
calmed his nerves. Every article in it, from the old
carved ivories on the teak-wood cabinet to the little
old lady sitting in front of the small open ﬁre,
seemed unchanged since his babyhood. Even the
attitude of detachment which Miss Van Loo showed
toward the only member of her race who had gone
outside the pale of family tradition to marry a man
who was n’t a New Yorker, was as it had always
been.
“If you want to go to your Cousin Anne again,
Richard, of course I can have no objection,” she
said, with her quaint, precise enunciation, “ but ex-
actly what you and she can see in the sort of buried
existence she leads, I cannot imagine.”
Dick laughed as he kissed her and bade- her
good-by.
A short time later he had crossed to the Jersey


174 The Unlatched Door
way was long and at least two hours before he
reached his destination night had dropped a dark-
blue curtain, spangled with stars, across the glories
of the setting sun.


CHAPTER XXI
“DO YOU MIND IF I CLOSE THE DOOR?”
“ E ’RE planting corn - thisv morning, Dick.
Want to come and help?”
Anne Wallace stood beside the gleaming break-
fast-table, drawing on a pair of heavy gauntlet
gloves. She was a tall, distinguished-looking woman
of forty with the mark of health and an open-air
life on her serene face which concerted well with the
severe lines of her smartly cut short corduroy skirt
and open-necked tan blouse. “ We ’re short of
men,” she continued, “ and I ’m delighted, for
there ’s nothing I adore so much as driving the trac-
tor. Arthur is n’t crazy about my doing it, but he
can’t object if he is n’t here. Too bad he was called
away just at planting-time.”
“ I ’1! bet you ’re worth any two men on the place,
Anne,” Dick said, laughing at her enthusiasm.
He liked this cousin better than any one else in
the world except Aunt Van Loo. She was so sane
and had chosen with such simple directness the man
and the life she loved. She always accepted his
sudden visits with the same matter-of-fact cordiality,
and he knew he would not be asked for an explana-
tion of anything he might do.
I75


176 The Unlatched Door
Dick ﬁnished his fourth waﬂle and glanced at the
tall old clock in the corner. “I’ll go out and see
you started on your adventurous day,” he said, ris-
ing, “but I’m afraid I sha’n’t be much help.” It
was still early — too soon, he assured himself, to go
to Altonville.
“ Racing-cars are more in your line, I know,” said
his cousin as they made their way out to the ﬁeld,
“but this old thing is far more useful. When
we ’re planting I call it ‘Boaz’ and when we ’re
reaping I call it ‘Ruth.’ So you can take your
choice as to its sex. Good morning, Enoch,” she
broke off, addressing a tall, weather-beaten old man
who came toward them. “ You see we’re long on
Bible names here, Dick,” she said in a lower voice.
The old man nodded brusquely to the mistress and
her visitor, with an exaggerated air of independence.
He glanced disapprovingly at her gauntleted hands.
“ Seems to me them ’s mighty good gloves you ’re
wearin’ fur this kind 0’ work,” he said.
“But the levers blister my hands, Enoch,” she
returned, almost apologetically.
“Yer hands ’11 git well, but you’ll have to buy
new gloves,” said the old man, severely, and he
busied himself with the tractor.
Anne Wallace turned to Dick, with a quizzical
smile. “ I ’11 give you two guesses as to the state
Enoch was born in,” she said in an undertone.
"‘ I ’11 give you back one of them,” laughed Dick.
“He comes from Maine! ”


“Do You Mind If I Close the Door?" 177
“ Right the ﬁrst time, Dick! Now I’m Off.
Can’t stay around all day, exchanging airy persiﬂage
with the idle rich. Can you play by yourself with-
out getting into trouble, until lunch?”
“Don’t bother about me, dear girl,” answered
Dick, heartily. “I may run about the country a
bit in the car you affect to despise. It’s too beau-
tiful all around here to waste. Better let Enoch
‘ tract’ and come with me.” He felt perfectly safe
in saying that much.
“Not to-day, thanks, dear boy. See you at
lunch,” and, guided by a small, skilful hand, the
lumbering machine started down the ﬁeld.
Dick’s car consumed the distance between Caxton
and Altonville in a short time, and as he passed
through the quiet streets he looked everywhere for
Peter Clancy, but there was no sign of that young
man’s presence.
He drove direct to the post-ofﬁce, that hub of
village life the axle of which turned-so slowly from
the propulsion of the outside world.
From its small, partly glazed frame the narrow,
bewhiskered visage of the postmaster peered curi-
ously at the stranger.
“ ‘ Mrs. John B. Adams ’? ” he repeated Dick’s
question slowly. “Why, there was another citiﬁed
young man askin’ for her yestiddy. I guess he come
to see the young lady that’s stoppin’ there. He
was a small, dark chap and a fancy sort 0’ dresser.
Friend of yours, maybe?”


I78 The Unlatched Door
“ I think I know the man you mean. Is he still
here? ”
“ Yep, I think so. Stayin’ at the Morton House.
Nice place to stop at, too,” with evident pride.
“Many more strangers in town?” Dick’s tone
did not betray his anxiety.
“ Not as I knows on and I guess I knows ’most
everybody that stops here over night. There was
a man come in on the ﬁve-seventeen train Sattidy.
He ’s lookin’ for a, site for to build a creamery—
need it here, too. Fine lot 0’ cattle we have ’round
here.” The postmaster was rambling on when Dick
checked him with a reiterated query as to the where-
abouts of Mrs. John B. Adams.
“Yes, sir, of course I kin tell you where she
lives,” the old man came back to the question in
hand. “Her and me went to school together.
Sh’d think I’d oughter know. Great piece 0’ luck
her gettin’ the young lady for'a boarder. I heard
tell the young lady drove through here with some
friends a year or so ago. Got off the main road to
the west and stopped to Ettie Adams’s to ask the
way. Think they stayed to lunch there and the
young lady liked the place so much she come back.
Everybody that comes here usually likes to come
back, I notice.”
“ I should think they would,” said Dick, heartily.
“ You were saying that Mrs. Adams —”
“ Yes, Ettie Adams she needs the money all right.


"Do You Mind If I Close the Door?” 179
She ’s a widow woman. Poor John died four years
ago, come July. Now, was it July? Mebbe it was
June —”
Dick’s patience was sorely tried, but he prompted
pleasantly, “And she lives —? ”
“Eh, jest so! I think it was June, after all.
But anyhow, never mind. She lives down Caxton
Street. Wait a minute. I’ll show ye.”
The head disappeared and its owner, passing be-
hind the rows of glazed pigeon-holes and through a
small door at the back, joined Schuyler at the street
entrance.
“ iYe turn that corner to the right — that ’s Main
Street—and the next street on the left, the one
that comes in on a bias, that’s Caxton Street,” said
the postmaster, indicating with pointing foreﬁnger.
“ Ettie Adams lives in the fourth house on the right-
hand side. It ’s a little white house with a big vine
over the front porch. Ye can’t miss it.”
“I’m sure I can’t. Much obliged to you,” said
Dick, as he jumped into his car.
The postmaster watched him speeding away.
“That’s a grand little auto he ’s got,” the old man
murmured to himself, wondering at Schuyler’s al-
most instantaneous disappearance. “ Even Orin
Long’s Cadillac could n’t touch it in a hundred miles.
Wonder who he is.”
Dick had entered the village by the Caxton road
and he seemed to remember the little white house


180 The Unlatched Door
covered with the wealth of climbing vine. He
counted the houses as he made his way back. Yes,
that was it— the fourth house on the right.
His heart beat loudly as he knocked on the front
door. How would his unexpected appearance be re-
ceived?
A heavy footfall sounded in the hall and the door
was opened by a large, comely woman with a pleas-
ant, smiling face.
“Yes, sir. I think Miss Wentworth ’s in,” she
replied in answer to Dick’s query. “ If you’ll tell
me'your name —”
Dick handed her a card. She wiped her ﬁngers
on her clean, blue gingham apron before she took it,
gingerly.
“Just step into the parlor, sir,” she said hospita-
bly, opening a door at his left, “ and make yourself
at home.”
The room was small and contained an overwhelm-
ing amount of furniture of many geological periods.
There were countless littl'e ornaments, all carefully
arranged and absolutely dustless. It was pitiful to
think of the amount of labor it must take to keep it
thus scrupulously clean. The shades were down so
that the sunshine should not fade the matchless red
roses in the Brussels carpet. It was quite evidently
the best room and rarely opened save on great oc-
casions. It felt as if the last time had been for the
funeral of “poor John four years ago, come July,”
or was it June?


”Do You Mind If I Close the Door?” 181
At a quick, light step on the stair Dick turned and,
with quickened pulse, faced the door.
She had been in his thoughts and in his dreams
for days, but it seemed to him now that he had never
before realized her loveliness. The plain blue linen
frock she wore accentuated the graceful lines of her
ﬁgure, and her face —“ There are no words for a
face like that,” Dick thought. “ No artist but God
could have thought of anything so beautiful! ”
“ Mr. Schuyler! ” she exclaimed in her sweet, low
voice, advancing toward him. “How could you
get here so soon? I wired late yesterday after-
noon.” I
She had given him permission to come, then.
That thought made him feel more secure.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for not waiting for
your wire, Miss Wentworth,” he said. “ I am visit-
ing my cousin Mrs. Wallace in Caxton and your let-
ter came just before I left New York. Her place is
only a few miles from here and I thought I might
just as well make sure that you received your pack-
age safely.”
“ You are more than kind, Mr. Schuyler,” she
said, her face suffused with bright color. “You
have shown me so much consideration; I can never
thank you sufﬁciently for it.”
“There is n’t the slightest need,” said Dick,
gravely. “Any man in my place would have done
as much and probably would have done it better.
I’m afraid you may think I have been very care-


182 The Unlatched Door
less. I want to tell you why I asked Mr. Quartley
for your address. Do you mind if I close the
door? ”
“ No,” she answered faintly. All the color had
left her face and she sank into a chair. “ You—
you have n’t lost it? ” she questioned anxiously as he
returned from closing the door.
For answer he drew the packet from his breast
pocket and laid it in her hands.
“ But it was n’t like this when I gave it to you,”
she said. “ All those seals —”
The light in the room was dim, but Dick’s eyes
had become accustomed to it and he could read
clearly the trouble in the face upturned to his.
Brieﬂy he explained the accidental opening of the
package and his desire that she should assure her-
self, in his presence, that the contents were intact.
“ I am deeply regretful that it happened,” he con-
cluded. “ I can’t help feeling that I have, most un-
willingly, betrayed a trust.”
“Oh, indeed no, Mr. Schuyler!” She responded
hurriedly. “ I know it was n’t wrapped securely; I
never was any good at that sort of thing, and I was
in a great hurry. I ’m certain that everything in it
is all right. There is n’t the slightest necessity of
my assuring myself of it.”
Dick took a penknife from his pocket and opened
the blade. -
“You’ll let me judge of that, I’m'sure.” His
face was very serious.


“Do You Mind If I Close the Door?” 183
He took the packet from her unresisting hand,
and, cutting the cords, laid it in her lap.
Her strong, supple hands moved swiftly among
the wrappings and drew out the small leather case
and the miniature.
“ They are quite all right,” she said, rising to her
feet.
The wrappings slid to the ﬂoor.
She opened the small leather case and held it Out
to him.
“That was my aunt, who brought me up,” she
said softly. “ Was n’t she beautiful? ” Her voice
was very tender.
Dick bent his head and looked at the lovely,
austere old face. Except for the white hair, the
coloring and features were like Nora’s, but the ex-
pression was quite different. They might have
loved each other, those two, but they could hardly
have thought alike on many subjects, Dick decided.
“ A beautiful face,” he said as he handed the por-
~‘trait back to her. “ I have almost never seen one
more lovely.” ~
Nora looked at it again with saddened eyes be-
fore she closed the case.
Dick watched her in silence for a moment. What
he had to do now was Very difﬁcult, but it must be
done for her own sake, and—he realized it now
with a pang of sudden self-comprehension -- it must
be done for his sake, too. He would never have
another moment’s peace until he felt sure that this
/


184 The Unlatehea' Door
girl, of all girls in the world, was free from danger.
“Miss Wentworth,”—- his voice was quiet and
very grave —“I told you that I saw a miniature
when the packet fell open. You must know that I
could not fail to recognize it. I ask nothing better
than to serve you. Please believe me when I say
that. Could I not be of more use to you in some
remotely possible event if I understood clearly your
relations with Mrs. Rutledge?” ‘
“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered.
Her straight brows contracted slightly above the
troubled luster of her eyes.
Dick stooped and, picking up the folded cloth
from among the papers on the ﬂoor, held it out with
the clean side toward her.
“ Would you mind telling me where you got
this?” he said and turned it slowly over in his
hands.
F rowning still more, she took the cloth from him
and gazed at it for a long moment in silence. Then
her face changed and she glanced at the miniature
of Inez Rutledge which she still held in her hand
and back again at the cloth. The color, like a great
tide, ﬂooded her face and then receded, leaving it
deathly pale. '
She looked up at him swiftly and their eyes met
and held. For a long time they stood thus, face to
face. Then slowly her eyes took on a look which he
found difﬁcult, if not impossible, to analyze. Anger,
blazing anger, was there, and grief—and terror,


CHAPTER XXII .
WHAT DICK FOUND BY THE ROADSIDE
. ICK drove slowly back to Caxton, his mind full
of sadly troubled thoughts. He had no doubt
that many would consider him, as he had often char-
acterized himself, “ a double distilled damfool,” but
he was more than ever convinced that Nora (he still
called her that to himself) was the innocent victim
of circumstances. There was something clean and
ﬁne about her, or perhaps it was the force of her
great beauty, which compelled conﬁdence in her in-
tegrity.
He was terribly upset by the idea that She might
have thought he was trying to trap her. Indeed, it
seemed to him that his actions might easily have been
thus misconstrued and he could not blame her for
being angry with him. But there was a note of
scorn which puzzled him not a little. Perhaps, after
all, that was natural, too, in the circumstances.
“ You,” She had said. “ I trusted you! ” Well, he
would n’t go back to town until he had convinced her
that her trust had not been misplaced. He vowed
this most solemnly, deep down in his heart.
He would give her time to think it over and would
see her again, to-morrow if Possible. Surely be
186


What Dick Found by the Roadside 187
would be able to make her see how much he wanted
to help her!
He was depressed and unlike himself all the rest
of the day.
The next day he drove back to Altonville, which
was a larger village than Caxton, to make some pur-
chases for Anne. He kept a sharp lookout for
Peter while executing his commissions, but he did
not see or hear of him. The red light of Peter’s
head could hardly have been hidden under a bushel
and his presence would have caused comment in so
small a place. Dick felt hopeful, therefore, that
he had been wrong as to Peter’s probable destina-
tion.
With the product of his raid stored in the capa-
cious back of the car he returned down Caxton Street
and stopped at Mrs. Adams’s little house.
The large lady’s unsophisticated expression when
she told him that Miss Wentworth was not at home
assured him that her statement was more than a
ﬁgure of speech.
“She ’ll be back to dinner,” said Mrs. Adams,
hopefully; “and I’ll be glad to have you stay, if
you’d care to. She went for a walk with Mr.
Quartley and maybe he ’1! stop to dinner, too.
That ’d make a nice little party of you young peo-
ple. It’s always a pleasure for us country folks to
talk to city people,” she added wistfully.
Dick was very sure that his presence would not
add to the gaiety of the occasion, so he thanked Mrs.


188 The Unlatchea' Door
Adams heartily for her proﬂered hospitality and
left with a heavy heart. Quartley had Nora’s con-
ﬁdence, he thought bitterly; he could see her as often
and for as long as he wished. Dick drove slowly
out along the uneven road, not caring much for any-
thing in the world since he must wait at least another
day to clear up matters with Nora.
He had traversed over a mile when once again, at
the top of a hill, he saw two ﬁgures silhouetted
against the sky. They were Quartley and Nora.
He recognized them at once and cursed inwardly at
the thoughts suggested by their friendly proximity.
The two ﬁgures disappeared over the top of the
hill as Dick’s car started slowly up the long incline.
If he had known of another way around, he would
have turned back, but the road lay straight before
him and there was no point in dodging the issue.
He would slow down in passing them and would be
guided by circumstances. Quartley had seemed
fair-minded and might possibly have taken Dick’s
part, though the odds were against it. Anyhow, it
was on the knees of the gods.
He was nearing the top of the hill when, much to
his surprise, Quartley appeared, topping the rise,
and came toward him, alone. Walking with hands
in pockets and with head bent low, the young man,
even from a distance, had the appearance of one who
had just received a crushing blow.
Dick met and passed him, but Quartley did not
raise his eyes from the road. His brow was dark


What Dick Found by the Roadside 189
and angry and he seemed oblivious to all external
things.
Dick’s thoughts ﬂew forward to the girl. Where
was she and what was she doing; and why had she
been thus cavalierly abandoned on the lonely coun-
try road? She was safe enough, no doubt.
Dick’s foot, almost of its own volition, pressed
down the accelerator and the car, with a sudden
roar Of the double jet, shot forward over the top
of the hill. He did not see her on the road and,
realizing that he might miss her, he cut out the
engine .and under the pressure of the brakes the
little car rolled slowly and silently down the gentle
slope.
The rough banks at the side of the road were
thickly studded with bushes and trees. Dick’s quick
eyes darted hither and thither among them and in a
moment he caught a glimpse of a huddled little mass
of white under the low-sweeping branches of a tree
on the high bank at the left. He ran his car well off
to the side of the road, crossed over, and, clearing
the bank with one great leap, was by her side in an
instant.
Nora lay, a crumpled, pitiful little heap, on the
grass. Her head was buried on her arm, which
rested against a boulder. She gave no Sign of being
conscious of his presence. She was weeping silently,
as a boy weeps, her slender, strong young body
racked with suppressed sobs.
A great wave of sympathy surged through Dick


190 The Unlatched Door
Schuyler, leaving him trembling. He would have
given worlds to take her in his arms and comfort
her. But he only laid his hand gently on the edge
of her skirt as he dropped to his knees beside her.
“ Miss Wentworth,” he exclaimed softly, “what
has happened? Oh, please, please don’t cry like
that! ”
She made no answer and Dick waited, perplexed
and Silent for a moment.
“I feel like a blundering brute,” he said at last.
“ I know I ’m probably the last person in the world
you want to see. But I can’t leave you like this!
I ’11 just go over here a little way and leave you to
yourself. Call me when you feel quite all right
again and I ’11 take you back to the village. I won’t
even speak to you if you don’t wish it.”
He waited a moment, but she did not reply except
by a slight movement of the hand which lay in her
lap. The gesture might have meant anything and
Dick chose to construe it as a permission to remain.
He stepped a pace or two away from her and
leaned on a tall rail fence which bordered the ad-
joining meadow. He had no wish, even inappear-
ance, to intrude on her grief, but, though his back
was turned, he was poignantly conscious of her every
movement.
The violence of her emotion spent itself at last
and She sat up and dried her eyes with a gesture of
ﬁnality, but her face was very sad.


What Dick Found by the Roadside 191‘
“ Oh, I can’t bear this world! ” she cried. “ It’s
so cruel— and ugly.”
It was the ﬁrst time she had spoken to him and he
noted with a thrill of happiness her tacit acceptance
of his presence. He looked down across the silver
green of the slanting ﬁelds.
“ I know,” he said softly. “ Sometimes it would
be unbearable if it were not for the clean winds and
the kind stars, and the faces of little children.”
She looked up at him as he went toward her, her
eyes still limpid with unshed tears. The corners of
her lovely mouth suddenly curved upward and her
smile seemed to Dick “ a bow of promise.”
“The part that’s been written for me ought to
be easy to learn,” she said. “It apparently con-
sists principally of the lines: ‘ You ’re very kind to
me, Mr. Schuyler, very kind and considerate.’ ”
Dick laughed with a boyish relief at this evidence
that she was no longer hurt and angry.
“It ’s quite the other way about this time,” he
cried. “It’s you who are being kind in ignoring
the horrible mistake I made yesterday.” Her face
turned very grave and Dick went on hurriedly: “ I
mean the mistake I made in putting the case to you
so awkwardly that you could easily think I had
doubts as to the nature of your connection with an
overwhelmingly horrible and tragic event. Believe
me,” he went on earnestly, “ I have felt in my heart
from the very ﬁrst that you were the innocent vic-


192 The Unlatchea' Door
tim of circumstance. I had no wish whateverrex-
cept to be of service to you in a situation the gravity
of which you might, quite possibly, not realize.”
His tone was so sincere and his eyes were so frank
and honest that no one but a narrow-minded pes-
simist could have doubted his good will. Eleanor
Wentworth, who was far from being that, met his
earnest gaze with equal frankness.
“ I’m sure you think you mean exactly what you
say, Mr. Schuyler,” she said, “ and I am more grate-
ful than I can express if you can have any faith in
me after all that has occurred. I’m not sure that
any one who knew what you know and no more
would be justiﬁed in believing in me, things look so
black against me. I reasoned it all out last night
and made up my mind that I would tell you every-
thing if ever I should see you again. I felt that
you had the right to suspect me and that I owed it
to your kindness to make my position clear. Some-
time I want to tell you the whole story, but to-day
I ’m so upset that unless you wish it —-”
She was going on to say more, but Dick checked
her with a motion of his hand. He was one live
mass of thrilling emotions, in which the happiness
and relief at her willingness to take him into her con-
ﬁdence, and an ardent curiosity to hear what she
was at last willing to tell him, contended with a great
wave of youthful, unpractical chivalry. He did not
wish to tell her now, when their relations seemed on
the point of reaching so satisfactory a footing, that


What Dick Found by the Roadside 193
he, who had unwillingly assumed the air of an in-
terrogator, had, himself, something to conceal. He
was not the sort of man to accept her conﬁdence
without returning it. Besides, in the bottom of his
heart, he had always been assured of her truth and
honor. And so he interrupted her.
“ But I don’t suspect you! ” he cried in distress.
“ I don’t care a hang how things look! No one with
eyes 'in his head could connect you, in any ugly way,
with a hideous crime. The notion is too absurd!
I only wanted to show you your danger and to pro-
tect you if there was any need. You have seen
nothing since you have been here to worry or dis-
turb you? ” He was still thinking of Peter Clancy.
The girl seemed startled. “ NO,” she said.
“ What could there be to alarm me in this little out-
of-the-world place? ”
“ Nothing, nothing, I suppose. And you have n’t
heard anything from New York? Mr. Quartley
felt that you were safe here? ”
She winced a little at the mention of Vincent
Quartley’s name but replied as before, “ NO.”
“Then, apparently, you are quite safe, and there
is no need for me to understand more than I do
now, and unless something occurs — and I pray God
it never may —— to make you feel that for your own
sake you need to conﬁde in me, I am glad to wait
as long as you wish. I would not, for the world,
have you think that I should willingly pry into af-
fairs which concern only yourself. This horrible


What Dick Found by the Roadside 195
ceding car till it was lost to sight and then he
emitted a long, low whistle of surprise.
It was the man who was looking out for a cream-
ery site— the one who “had come in on the ﬁve-
seventeen train Sattidy.”


CHAPTER XAIII
A COLD TRAiL
NE source of Dick Schuyler’s many anxieties
would have been eliminated if, when he saw
Peter Clancy running down the incline at the Penn-
sylvania Station, he had been able to follow him with
something more dependable than his alarmed im-
agination.
“Nora Brady” and her fortunes were far from
the mind of the young detective, as, after unsus-
pectingly passing Dick, he ran on down the footway
and made the best possible time to Seaport, arriving
in that quaint old village by the middle of Monday
afternoon.
The stage for Fairﬁeld met the train and Peter,
with an eye to the procuring of incidental informa-
tion, took his place by the side of the driver. The
man proved to be a typically taciturn Long Islander
and the data which Peter was able to gather was
not very voluminous, especially as he did not care to
make his questions too pointed.
All that he could ﬁnd out for certain was that a
man, answering more or less accurately to the de-
scription of Pendleton which Fox had Obtained, had
arrived at Seaport in time for the ﬁrst stage trip on
196


A Cold Trail 197
the Friday morning following the murder. The
person in question had taken the stage to Fairﬁeld,
but had apparently been familiar with the place; at
least he had not applied to the driver for informa-
tion. As far as Peter could ascertain, the tight-
lipped old man had not seen Pendleton (if it were
indeed he) again. This fact convinced Peter that
Pendleton had in all probability not left the place,
and his spirits rose accordingly.
“ Can you tell me whereabouts in Fairﬁeld Mrs.
Ralph Tooker lives?” asked Peter as the scrub-oak
and pine wood through which they had been passing
gave place to plowed ﬁelds and green meadows. In
the near distance the roofs of a scattered handful
of houses showed among the trees and a small white
church spire pricked upward into the tremulous blue
of the soft spring sky.
“ Wall,” replied the stage-driver, shifting his pipe
from one corner of his mouth to the other and point-
ing with his whip, “ ye c’n almost see Ralph’s house
from here. It lies off there to the east’rd of the
church. The road branches there and it’s about a
quarter-a mile out on the Old Patience Holler road;
er mebbe it’s a leetle mite more ’n that, but it ain’t
fur. It ’s an old white house, sits with its end to-
wards the road. They ’s a big sickimore grows
right up against it. Be ye goin’ there? ”’ he asked,
eyeing Peter curiously.
“Well, yes,” answered Peter. “Thought I
might be able to do a little business with her.”


198 The Unlatched Door
“What line you in? Sellin’ books, I guess.
Wall, she ’s more likely to buy ’em than anybody else
in Fairﬁeld. They say she ’s got stacks of ’em
a’ready.”
“ Glad to hear you say that,” said Peter, a little
proud of his new occupation. “ What kind does she
like best?”
“Oh, novels and such trash. She must buy as
many as two or three every year. They do say as
she ’s got one room with ’most as many books in it
as they is to the Public Libbery in Seaport.”
It was the ﬁrst bit of information the old man had
volunteered. Obviously, Mrs. Ralph Tooker’s
literary tastes were a matter of pride to the isolated
villagers.
The horses plodded on down the sandy road.
SOon they turned into the one long village street,
which ran east and west and was fairly well paved,
and stopped of their own accord in front of the
post-office. The driver lumbered slowly to the
ground and stretched his long, lanky frame. One
or two loungers at the post-office door looked curi-
ously at Peter as he jumped nimbly down and, with
a wave of his hand and a cheery “ So long, old
sport,” started off at a rapid pace in the direction
of the “ Patience Holler road.”
Peter had chafed inwardly all the way from Sea-
port at the slowness of his progress and had wished
often that he had taken the time to hunt up a garage
and hire a motor, but there were no disengaged cars


A Cold Trail 199
at the station and the prompt departure of the stage
had proved too tempting. The place the old driver
had pointed out as belonging to Ralph Tooker
looked very near to the church when seen from a
distance, but it seemed to Peter, plodding through
the heavy sand, a very long time before he descried
a charming old house, almost embedded in budding
lilac and syringa bushes, standing on a little eminence
at the side of the road and knew from its position
and the towering tree beside it that it was the one
he sought.
“ Not that I know anything about ‘ sickimores,’ ”
thought Peter, as he knocked at the door, “but I
suppose that’s one. Funny trunk it has. Looks
more like the neck of a giraffe than the trunk of a
tree. Kind of pretty, though, at that.”
He drew in a long breath of the fragrant air and
stood looking about him for a moment. The sound
of a hand on the door-latch caused him to forget all
the beauties of the softly colored country-side and he
whirled about swiftly as the door swung open.
An old man with snowy hair and beard stood just
inside, leaning heavily on a crooked cane. He
peered up at Peter through pleasant, watery little
blue eyes.
“Good afternoon,” said Peter, in his winning,
twinkling Irish way. “This is Mr. Ralph Tooker,
is n’t it?”
“ I swan, you ’re right there! ” exclaimed the old
man, smiling. “Though I don’t know how you


14 Cold Trail 203
of the young detective and they searched the old face
before him with a determination that would not be
denied.
Tooker’s glance shifted uneasily from his wife to
’Clancy and back. At last he spoke:
I “ You ’d better tell him all about it, Mirandy. I
ain’t goin’ to get mixed up with the police at my
time of life for no handsome dude that ever
breathed. I told you there was somethin’ queer
about him, but y0u would n’t listen to me.”
Mrs. Tooker made a little sound, something be-
tween a sniﬂ and a groan, but said nothing.
Peter’s impatience was growing to unmanageable
proportions. Much time had been lost already and
Pendleton’s trail would soon be stone cold. It must
be picked up at once.
“Mr. Tooker,” he said, turning to the less ob-
durate of the two and putting all the force of his
personality into his words, “this man Pendleton is
wanted in New York on a serious charge and we ’re
going to get him if he’s above ground. I know
he’s been here and I’m going to ﬁnd out why he
came and when he left, if he ’s really gone, and all
the rest of it. If you tell me at once all you know
about him it’ll be best for you both. If you hide
anything it’ll be a serious offense against the law.
YOu are old enough to be wise to that. Come on;
spill what you know and let’s get it over! ”
The old man’s glance shifted from his wife’s de-
termined eyes to Clancy’s threatening ones. Peter


204. The Unlatchea' Door
took a neat pair of shining hand-cuffs from his pocket
and 'sat playing with them. The action was too
much for the Old man’s inexperience to withstand.
He gripped the chair arms tighter.
“I’ll tell you all about it, since she won’t,” he
said. “The man you want was here, all right.
I ’ll lay to that. He said his name was Smith, same
ez you did, and I thought at ﬁrst you might be a
relation of his, though I must say you don’t look
much alike.” r
Peter slipped the hand-cuffs back into his pocket
and leaned forward, accepting his unlikeness to
Pendleton with a nod and a short grin.
“ Has he really left here?” he asked.
“ Yep; came and left on the same day.”
Friday! And this was Monday afternoon. The
cold trail would be no more difficult to follow for a
slightly increased delay and he must ﬁnd out every-
thing that could be discovered here. His questions
came, quick and sharp, like the rattle of a machine-
gun:
“ DO you know where he went?”
“Ain’t no idea. He went over to the village
again to meet his wife in the afternoon —”
“ His wife! ” Peter exclaimed.
“Yep. Been expectin’ her all day. He went
over to the two-o’clock stage to meet her and he
seemed awful worried when she did n’t come. He
was nervous and unsettled-like all day. Couldn’t
sit still a minute. We heard him walkin’ round the


A Cold Trail 205
room up-stairs, and down to the parlor we ’d turned
over to ’em, and back again.”
Peter was listening with breathless attention,
piecing facts and theories together in his mind.
“And when he came back the second time what
did he do? ”
“ He told Mirandy that he found he ’d have to go
back to the city right away. He ’d paid in advance
for the rooms and board for over Sunday and he
did n’t want none of it back, so there was n’t no kick
comin’ from us. He took his valise and left; and
that’s all I know.”
The woman had remained silent and frowning
throughout.
“ How long had you known Pendleton, or Smith,
if that’s what he called himself?” asked Peter.
“Never seen him in our lives till about two or
three weeks ago. He came through here in a swell
automobile. He was on his way to New York, but
he took the wrong road, east of here about three
miles. They ain’t no sign-post there and this road ’s
as good as the main road for nearly a mile. He’d
run out o’ gasolene just beyond here and come in to
ask if he could use our ’phone. Mirandy talked to
him. I was out to the barn. She told me about it
afterwards. I swan, she didn’t talk about much
else for a week. She had a notion he looked like
Marmaduke Montmorency in ‘Trevelyan Towers,’
and I must say they was a resemblance. YOu can
see for yourself.”


206 ' The Unlatched Door
~He rose and, shuffling over to a large, old-fash-
ioned bookcase ﬁlled with brightly bound novels, he
selected one and returned.
“ See that,” he said, holding out the book, opened
at the frontispiece.
Peter had never seen Cuthbert Pendleton, but he
felt an inward throb of recognition when he looked.
at the picture. It portrayed a superlatively hand-
some hero bending to kiss a truly beautiful heroine
and the face of the man was very like the Silver-
framed portrait that he and O’Malley had remarked
in the boudoir of Inez Rutledge.
“Yes,” he said, Still piecing his facts together,
“ it does look very much like him. But you say that
he was only going through. How did he happen to
come back?”
“Wall, it was this way,” said Tooker, avoiding
his wife’s eye. “It seems when he come in to
’phone, he was mighty much taken with the place and
asked Mirandy if we ever took boarders. She told
him we never had. It ’S out o” the way here and
not much to attract city folks. Nothin’ to see but
farms and nothin’ to do but work ’em, and them city
people ain’t keen on that, I notice. They ain’t even
any passin’ on the road to speak of, it’s so sandy.
Mirandy showed him all over the place. She’s
proud 0’ the way she keeps it and she likes all the
old things She found up attic, used to belong to my
grandfather. He liked ’em too, it seems, and asked


A Cold Trail 207
her if he could come out sometime and stay here
where it was quiet and he wouldn’t be bothered
with meetin’ people he knew.”
“ I see,” said Peter.
“ It took Lem Davis quite a while to get out here
with the gasolene and Mirandy come out to the
barn and we talked it over. The upshot of it was
that we agreed to take him if he wanted to come.
He said he ’d ’phone from the city to let us know.”
“Did he say anything about his wife then?”
asked Peter.
“ I don’t think he did. Did he, Mirandy? ”
The woman, thus pointedly appealed to answered
sullenly, “ No,” and relapsed into silence again.
“ Go on,” said Peter, turning back to Tooker and
the old man continued:
“ He called up last Thursday evenin’ when we was
eatin’ supper and asked if he and his wife could come
out for what he called the ‘week-end.’ I didn’t
know what he meant at ﬁrst, but I found out he
wanted to come out Friday and stay over Sunday.
I had no objection. He ’d agreed, beforehand, to
pay well and we don’t see an awful lot 0’ real money
in these parts. He was too handsome for my taste,
but it was easy to see he was rich, so I said ‘ yes.’ ”
“Were n’t you surprised when he came out
alone? ” asked Peter.
“ Yes. But he told us right off that his wife was
kep’ at home by somethin’ or ruther and would be


A Cold Trail 209
“ It ’s in the village just beyond the post-ofﬁce on
the main street, on the left-hand side 0’ the road.”
“Thanks. That sounds easy. Now, do you
know anything about the trains in from Seaport? ”
“ No,” said the old man, shortly. “We don’t
hardly ever go into the city.” He was obviously
worried, now that Peter was on the point of leaving
him alone with his wife. There was a storm brew-
ing in that lady’s eyes that boded ill for him,
Peter picked up his hat and took his leave.
Tooker followed him. The woman remained in her
place.
“Whydid n’t you come across with the dope at
once?” Peter asked when they were out of ear-
shot.
“Wall, he’d told Mirandy some cock-and-bull
story that appealed to her and made her promise to
say nothin’ about his havin’ been here, case any one
sh’d ask. She guaranteed I wouldn’t, neither, but
I ain’t goin’ to be mixed up with the police, not if
I can help it. He’ll have to look out for himself.
Ain’t got no claim on me. What’s he been doin’,
anyway? ”
Peter looked at him darkly. “ You read the
papers and you ’ll probably ﬁnd out,” he said. And
with a hasty good-by he walked rapidly down the
road.
The old man stood at the gate for a long time,
looking after him. He was in for a quarrel with
I


210 The Unlatchea' Door
his romantic wife, he knew, and dreaded to return
to the house. It was almost dark when at last he
shrugged his bent shoulders and, with a sigh, turned
back up the worn brick path.


CHAPTER XXIV
A LITTLE LIGHT ON THE PUZZLE
T was nearly six o’clock when Peter found himself
again in Fairﬁeld. The post-oﬂice and the two
or three small shops were closed. Almost all of the
simple inhabitants were engaged with their early
suppers and the street was virtually deserted.
Peter saw the garage as soon as he reached the post-
oﬁ'ice and crossed over to it conﬁdently. He was
sure that this was the place where he would pick up
the trail, but, to his disgust, the big door and the
little office door beside it both were closed and
locked. He was still shaking the handle of the lat-
ter when he became aware of a small boy, batting a
ball against the wall of a barn farther down the
street. Peter hailed him.
The lad left his play reluctantly, but his round,
freckled face brightened as Peter called out:
“ You ’re some little batter, kid. I ’1! bet you ’ll be
on a league team when you get a little older.”
“ Aw, g’wan! ” said the boy, blushing with pleas-
ure.
“ Yes you will, sure as shootin’! Say, kid, where
does Lem Davis hang out when he ’s at home? ”
The boy pointed a grimy foreﬁnger. “ You go
down to that next street and you’ll ﬁnd his house
211


A Little Light on the Puzzle 213
been any cops in the woods. He was in an awful
hurry, your friend was.”
“ Did he make his train all right?” asked Peter,
with apparent unconcern.
“Train? He wasn’t tryin’ to catch no train.
Did n’t he tell you about it? ”
“ No, he only told me what a good driver you
were,” lied Peter, glibly. “ I saw him in town and
supposed he came in on the train. How else could
he have gotten there?”
Lem Davis tilted his cap over one car as he
scratched his head. So talented a driver could man-
age even a “ ﬂivver ” with one hand.
“Well, if he was goin’ to NOO York,” he said,
“ why was he so set on catchin’ the boat, d ’ye sup-
pose? ”
“What boat?” asked Peter, keeping down his
excitement with difﬁculty.
“ Why, the N00 Brighton boat. Ain’t no other
from Seaport.”
“ Connecticut!” thought Peter. “ Once across,
and I suppose he thought the world was his. Well,
we’ll see! ” And aloud:—~“ Seems a roundabout
way, but he ’s a queer guy, anyhow. Didn’t you
think so? ”
Davis chuckled. “ He sure was an odd ﬁsh, and
then some; and a prize little cusser, you can take it
from me. I thought I was pretty good at it. Been
raised on a farm where they worked with mules and
them critters don’t understand anything else. But I


214. The Unlatched Door
had to pass when I heard what he said when he
found we’d missed the last boat. I would n’t-a»
missed it for the world. He looked so pretty, I
was surprised ez I would-a been if he’d been a
girl! ” He laughed again at the recollection.
“ So you missed the boat,” said Peter, joining in
his companion’s merriment to the best of his ability.
“What did he do then?”
“ I offered to take him back to the station free of
charge. It was on my way and I couldn’t help
sympathizing with a man that could cuss like that.
But it was over an hour to train time and he said he
guessed he ’d wait in the village. I left him down
by the dock, lookin’ at the old boat, tied up for the
night, and that ’s the last I seen of him.”
Darkness was falling swiftly on the straight white
road but there was still sufﬁcient light for Peter to
see the face of his watch.
“Seven o’clock,” he said, putting it back in his
pocket. “That train leaves at eight-thirty-three,
don’t it? ”
“Yes, but you can get onto it a little earlier if
you like. It makes up here.”
“ Any place near the station where I can get some-
thing to eat? I ’m hungry as a bear.”
“ What, ain’t you had no supper? Well, I sh’d
say ye must be hungry. No, they ain’t no place near
the station, but Al Brown ’S got a nice little hotel
down to the village. Take ye down there, if ye say


A Little Light on the Puzzle 215
so, and ye c’n ride up in the bus from there to the
train.”
“Suits me to death,” said Peter, as the lights of
the village began to show through the dusk.
“ Shoot along.”
They bumped across the railway track and then
rolled smoothly down the long hill to the village and
stopped before the door of a quaint little old hotel
near the water.
The salt air blew keen and fresh from the Sound
and Peter ﬁlled his lungs with enjoyment. “ Makes
me hungrier than ever,” he said, and, dismissing
Davis with a hearty “good night,” he entered the
lighted doorway. I
While waiting for a hasty meal to be prepared,
Peter amused himself with an apparently uncon-
cerned examination of the hotel register. There
was only one entry under the date of the previous
Friday.
“ Rawlins,” he read aloud. “ Fred Rawlins.
Wonder if that’s my old friend Freddie, used to
keep a motor-boat somewhere out along this shore.”
“Don’t think so,” answered the clerk, leaning
over the desk to look at the name. “This Fred
Rawlins’s a travelin’ salesman for the Excelsior
Drug Company. He always stops here when he ’s
in town. Known him a long time, but I’ve never
heard him say he had a boat. Ain’t you goin’ to
register, sir?”


A Little Light on the Puzzle 217
showed a cheerful willingness to help him, but he
could not remember having seen any one answering
to Pendleton’s description.
“ I mostly notice strangers, too,” he concluded,
“and there ain’t so many leaves here on this train,
not this time 0’ year, and especially Fridays.
They’re mostly comin’ the other way. I think I
would ’ve remembered your friend if he ’d bought a
ticket Offen me.”
Peter was somewhat discouraged. However,
Pendleton probably had a return ticket or had bought
one on the train. At any rate, he could do nothing
more that night and must hurry back to town.
Fortunately the agent was also the telegraph
operator and though the ofﬁce was closed he oblig-
ingly agreed to send in a wire for Peter. It read:
William O’Malley,
137 West 2— Street, N. Y.
Will be at your rooms about eleven to-night. Have Fox
there if possible. P. C.
As soon as the train was well under way Peter
looked up the conductor and had a long talk with
him and afterward they consulted the brakeman.
They had both been on the train on the previous Fri-
day, but neither of them had any recollection of see-
ing such a man as Peter described. The train had
been nearly empty and they felt sure that there was
no such person aboard.
Peter at last returned to his seat in the dingy


218 The Unlatched Door
smoking-car and, pulling his hat down over his eyes,
concentrated all the force of his mind on the problem
before him. He took all the little bits of the puzzle
and pieced them together this way and that, this way
and that. Little isolated groups ﬁtted into line here
and there, but there were great gaps in the whole
and he sought in vain for the pieces to ﬁll them. He
felt sure that if he could only succeed in getting hold
of a few more of the irregular blocks, he would be
able to guess what the complete picture must have
been.
He took from his pocket-book the blank sheet of
paper which had enclosed the card that had sent him
on this wild-goose chase and looked at it for a long
time from between narrowed lids.
“ O’Malley ’S right,” he said to himself. “It’s
almost as important to ﬁnd out who sent this as to
ﬁnd Pendleton himself, especially if Pendleton proves
to have had nothing to do with the actual crime.
Was n’t sent by any friend or well-wisher of his —
unless -—” ‘
So many possibilities presented themselves to his
quick imagination that his thoughts became con-
fused. He frowned and shook his head.
“ I don’t get you -— not yet, at least,” his thoughts
ran on. “ But I ’m going to! ”
He looked again at the blank paper. His brows
were knit in concentrated thought. Suddenly his
face cleared. “ By George! ” he exclaimed in-
wardly, “I have a hunch that I know where you


A Little Light on the Puzzle 219
came from; but I can’t see where that gets us to. It
doesn’t seem to ﬁt in and O’Malley would only
laugh at me, probably. I’ll keep what I think
under my hat until I ’ve had a little more time.”
Peter was still in a brown study when the train
pulled into the station.


CHART ER XXV
“ SUPPOSING — JUST SUPPOSING ”
“ H, there you are at last! ” said Captain O’Mal-
ley, answering Peter’s knock. Come in, lad,
I and shut the door.”
A man who had been drowsing in an arm-chair
roused himself as Peter entered.
“Well, young Sherlock Holmes, I suppose you
found my man,” he said somewhat grudgingly.
“ No, Fox, I did n’t. The bird had ﬂuey-ﬂoey,”
grinned Peter.
“ I was afraid of that,” said O’Malley, resuming
the chair he had been occupying beside a heavy table
on which reposed a mechanical model and some
tools. “ Come on, tell us all about it.”
Peter drew up a chair opposite his chief and Fox
took one at the end of the table. The latter
watched Peter with unwinking eyes as he told his
tale.
Fox was a broad, comfortable-looking man with
a round, innocent face. Dressed in plain dark
clothes with a turn-down collar and black bow tie,
he looked more like a dissenting parson than any-
thing else. - There was nothing about him to suggest
his occupation and it was partly for this reason, per-
haps, that he was unusually successful.
220


"SuppOsing—Just SugPosing” 221
He leaned back in his chair when Peter had ﬁn-
ished and put the tips of his plump ﬁngers together.
“What do you think, Fox?” asked O’Malley,
turning to him. “Where d’ you suppose your man
got to?”
“ Well,” answered Fox slowly, “put yourself in
his place. If he was anxious not to attract atten-
tion, what would he do? Being well known in New
York, he could n’t lose himself here very well.
Taking an awful chance, from his point of view.
He was making for Connecticut, that ’s sure. He
probably had no reason to think that anybody was
on his trail if he kept out of the way. I still think
he crossed to Connecticut in the morning.”
“ Where ’d he stay over night?” asked Peter.
“Oh, lots of places. A good-looking guy like
that could get himself taken into ’most any house
where the woman was boss. You could see that by
the Tookers. Might have walked on out the road
till he came to a likely-looking house and put up
some bunk about the hotel being too noisy or com-
mon or something. I ’1! bet he could make a woman
believe anything. I ’ve seen his photo’ and I know
the kind. Or, perhaps, if he was scared enough, he
roosted in a barn all night, but the other ’s more
likely.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Peter. “ I thought
of that, but I could n’t ﬁnd out much there to-night
and it seemed best to beat it back and put you two
Wise up to date.”


222 The Unlatchea' Door
O’Malley nodded and was about to speak when
Fox broke in angrily:
“ Now see here, Cap, are you going to give this
job over to Clancy or not? It ’s O. K. with me your
sending him out to-day While I was at PendletOn’s
country joint, but you gave me the job of ﬁnding him
and I can do it, too, if you give me a fair chance.
How about it?”
O’Malley looked at Peter.
“ Sure! ” Peter cried. “ I don’t want to butt in.
I ’ve told you all I could ﬁnd out, so you just toddle
along and grab the guy according to your own
theory. Does that go, O’Malley? ”
“ I think Fox’s idea is a good one and worth fol-
lowing up,” said O’Malley, and, as Fox rose to go:’ .
“You take your time and get Pendleton. I don’t
care how you do it, but get him! ”
“ Somebody’s nose out of joint? ” asked Peter as
the door closed on the retreating ﬁgure of Fox.
O’Malley grinned. “ He ’s been grouching here
all the evening. Says I play favorites; only he
didn’t dare to put it in plain words. But he ’s a
good man at his job, as good as a bloodhound and
with about as many ideas outside of tracing crim-
inals. Now, what do you make out of this Pendle-
ton business? ”
“Well,” Peter answered slowly, “seems pretty
clear that he and Mrs. Rutledge had planned a quiet
little party in the country together and she ”— he


” Supposing — Just Supposing " 223
shrugged his shoulders —“ was unavoidably de-
tained.”
“ Yes,” said O’Malley, “ that much seems pretty
clear. The servants in town thought she was going
to Tuxedo and she might have been planning to bribe
that girl, Nora, she was so thick with, to say that
she stayed in town. It would have been a simple
thing to work. Fairﬁeld is an awfully out-of-the-
way place and if she’d worn a heavy veil or some-
thing she wouldn’t have been recognized on the
train; and they took the precaution of traveling
separately. That part seems easy enough. But
what do you think scared him off? ”
“The afternoon papers go out on the train I
took,” said Peter, meaningly. “ I saw them put off
at the post-office. It was just after that time, you
remember, that he rushed back to Tooker’s, grabbed
his bag, and left. That seems to let him out of any
mix-up with the murder, don’t it? ”
“ Ye-s,” said the captain, and went on with pauses
between his words, “it would seem to—certainly
——at the ﬁrst glance. I wonder how smart he is.
Supposing, just supposing, Pete, that he had found
— at the last minute — when his plans were all made
-— that she would n’t go with him, after all. Sup-
pose they quarreled —”
“ Um-m-m,” murmured Peter.
“ After the thing was done he ’d be terribly fright-
ened. He ’d lose his nerve — that kind has n’t any


224 The Unlatched Door
to spare -— and want to get out Of town quick. No-
body knew about Fairﬁeld. He could go out there
and have time to pull himself together.”
“But the card,” objected Peter.
“I was just coming to that,” rejoined O’Malley.
“As soon as he got hold of himself a bit, he ’d re-
alize that the worst thing he could do was to dis-
appear. We did n’t get the card till Monday.
What was to prevent his sending it by a Pullman
porter or somebody to be mailed in town? It was
sure to be followed up and the evidence mostly points
to his innocence; that’s positive.”
“ But why would he disappear again when he saw
the papers?” asked Peter, shrewdly.
“Case of funk when he saw the thing in print,
maybe, or he may have wanted to carry the thing
still further. Might have thought it would appear
that he was afraid of what her husband might ﬁnd
out about their relations and took to the woods ac-
cordingly.”
“I think you’ve got it there,” said Peter, after
a short pause. “I think that’s what really did
happen.”
O’Malley glanced at him over his glasses with a
twinkle in his eye. “Well, you may perhaps be
right, at that, son,” he said. “ I only said ‘sup-
posing.’ ”


CHAPTER XXVI
AN ALIEI?
“ AW, suh. Cain’t nobuddy see Miss Dalton
widout dey has an appointment, suh.”
The burly, white-coated ﬁgure completely blocked
the doorway of a large, Old, pillared and balconied
house in West Twenty-third Street.
Peter Clancy smiled up into the ebony face before
him. “ But I must see Miss Dalton. It ’s very im-
portant.”
The negro shook his head. “Sorry, suh, it’s
ginst de rules. If you writes or ’phones an’ gits an
appintment it ’1! be all right, suh.”
“But I have n’t time to do that. I’ll tell you
what. Just wait a minute.”
Peter took a note-book from his pocket and tore
a sheet out of it.
“May I see you on an important matter in the
interests of Mr. Hamilton Rutledge?” he wrote,
and signed it “ Peter Clancy, Detective.”
He slipped the sheet into an envelop, which he
sealed and handed to the watchful negro.
“ Take that to Miss Dalton,” he said with a crisp
note of authority in his voice.
It was a tone with which, for generations, the
negro has acquiesced. The man took the note and
225


226 The Unlatchea' Door
promptly vanished. He returned almost imme-
diately.
“Miss Dalton is dressin’, suh,” he said, “but
she’ll see yuh, efn yuh don’ mine waitin’ a leetle
while, suh. She says yuh mus’ come up to the li-
berry, suh.” '
Peter followed the man up the broad, old-fash-
ioned stairway and was ushered into a large room at
the front of the house and left to himself. He had
heard a great deal about the theatrical profession
in general, and about this woman, who had taken
New York by storm, in particular, and looked about
him curiously.
The room occupied the entire Width of the house
and its Size, combined with the height of the ceiling
and the three broad French windows, gave it an
atmosphere of airy serenity. All around the room
bookcases had been built in to the height of the
tall mantel. They, as well as the rest of the wood-
work, were painted a dull ivory white. Above
them, against the warm tan of the wall, hung a few
old Japanese prints which Peter thought very ugly
indeed. The furniture was covered with a quaintly
ﬂoWered old English chintz and looked fresh and
comfortable. In one of the windows stood a huge
copper jar ﬁlled with pink dogwood. There was
nothing in the entire room which accorded with
Peter’s preconceived ideas of the proper setting for
a theatrical star and he was vaguely disappointed.
“ It ’s awfully nice and quiet, somehow, though,”


A” Alibi? 227
he thought as he sank into the depths of a winged
chair. He looked at his watch. It was almost
twelve o’clock. “Seems kind of late to be getting
up, but I suppose that goes with her job.” His
thoughts ran on the interview before him for some
time and then went back to the events of the morn-
ing.
He had been very busy following up a theory of
his own which had seemed at ﬁrst impossible, then
improbable, and at last so startlingly hopeful the
more he thought of it that he found it difficult to
control his excitement. I
“I’ll keep an open mind or break a leg, but if
I’ve stumbled on something that O’Malley never
thought of — Geel ”
A light footstep in the hall brought Peter back to
the present and to his feet in the same instant as a
slight ﬁgure appeared at the door.
“ You wished to see me? ”
The voice was the same that had thrilled Peter
across the footlights, but the appearance of the girl,
or woman, who stood before him was not at all what
he had expected. In the ﬁrst place, she was much
older than she had seemed on the stage and in the
bright morning sunlight looked her age, which must
have been about thirty. Her small, oval face was
very pale and in her great, gray eyes there was a
look of wistful sadness that made its own appeal.
“ I‘m sorry to butt in,” Peter said in his gentlest
manner, “but there’s nobody that can help us out


228 The Unlatched Door
but you and there are one or two things we ’ve got
to know.”
“ Something that I can tell you? ” she questioned,
looking at him intently.
“ Yes. Something that I hope you ’ll be glad to
tell us.”
“ You‘belong to the police?” she asked a little
faintly.
Peter pushed back his coat just sufﬁciently to dis-
close his badge and pulled it into place again.
“You needn’t be scared,” he said reassuringly.
“We are n’t such awful people when you come to
know us.”
“You don’t look very formidable,” said Alice
Dalton, answering Peter’s smile. “Won’t you sit
down?”
She sank into a low chair beside a table as she
spoke and leaned her head on her hand. She looked
frail and tired. Peter seated himself opposite to
her in a position to observe her closely.
“We are investigating the facts in the Rutledge
case. Maybe you know that already,” Peter began.
“Of course I’ve read about it in the papers.”
Was there a hint of hostility in the clear, vibra'nt
voice?
“ Mr. Rutledge has given us instructions to leave
no stone unturned —- those were his words —— in ﬁnd-
ing out who committed this crime.”
“ Naturally.”
“ Well, Miss Dalton,” Peter went on, shifting his


An Alibi? 229
position slightly, “in turning over the stones we
come bang onto the fact that nobody, unless it is
you, knows where Mr. Rutledge was between the
hours of say one o’clock and four on last Friday
morning.”
She started back in real or feigned surprise.
“But no one could suspect Mr. Rutledge!” she
cried distressfully. “It would be too horrible and
absurd.”
“Still,” said Peter, soothingly, “ his friends
would be glad to prove that he was not in his house
during that time. Now, I put it to you: wouldn’t
they?”
“ But the papers said that he was with a party Of
friends until after midnight and then went to the
Wilmont.”
“ Yes, that’s what Captain O’Malley gave out.
You see, he’s different from the ordinary ﬂy-cop.
He’s got his own methods and he ’s careful not to
let the reporters spill the beans if he can help it.
The fact is, Miss Dalton, that Mr. Rutledge did n’t
get to the Wilmont till four in the morning. Miss
Irene Clairmont and Mr. Campbell both say that
the party broke up somewhere about one. Now,
where was he all that time?” \
Miss Dalton’s head, with its heavy crown of light
brown hair, was bent low. Her eyes rested on her
slender hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap.
She did not answer.
“You must see that it’s important,” urged


An Alibi? 231
“ Yes. It was almost four when I reached
home.” The wistful gray eyes met his steadily.
“ I would have gone to you at once if I had known
that there was the least suspicion of Mr. Rutledge.
I have known him for a long time. He’s very
wonderful,” she added softly.
Peter sat silent a moment, lost in thought. Then
he spoke abruptly:
“Was it a private car or a public taxi you used,
Miss Dalton? ”
Still she met his eyes. “It was a taxi,” she an-
swered.
“ Did you pick it up at Guiseppe’s? ”
She considered a moment. “ No, I think it was
the same cab we took from the theater. I’m quite
sure that Mr. Rutledge told the man to wait.”
“ I suppose you did n’t notice the number.”
N N0.!’
“ You can’t tell me what the driver looked like?
It would be just as well if we could ﬁnd him.”
“ Surely my word is enough! ” Alice Dalton threw
her head up proudly. “ I ’m not used to having it
doubted.”
“ Oh, I believe you,” said Peter, easily; “but it ’s
just as well to get two witnesses if we can, you
know.”
Alice Dalton’s face brightened. “ My house-
keeper was still up when we came in,” she said
eagerly, “ and she saw Mr. Rutledge with me. I ’1!
'call her.”


232 The Unlatched Door
“ That ’s good! ” exclaimed Peter. “That’s
ﬁne. And by the way, could you give me some
paper? I ’d like to write out a short statement for
you and her to sign. Save a lot of trouble, you
know.”
Miss Dalton pulled open the table drawer beside
her. “There ’s none in there. What am I think-
ing of! ” she said and shut it quickly.
She went over to a table by the window and took
some paper from the drawer.
“Won’t you sit here?” she said. “The light ’s
better. And have you a pen? ”
Peter drew one from his pocket. “ Yes, thanks,”
he said, and Miss Dalton quickly’left the room, clos-
ing the door behind her.
Peter waited until he heard the soft footfall de-
scending the stairs. Then he turned hastily back to
the table beside which they had been sitting.
Quickly and noiselessly he drew open the drawer.
He had caught a glimpse of something inside as
Alice Dalton shut it which caused his heart to jump
up against his breast-bone. It was only a ﬂash-—
of course it might not be anything—-
In one end of the drawer was a large leather
scrap-book and in the other a heap of newspaper
clippings. Some of the smaller ones, for safe-keep-
ing, had been lightly pasted on pieces Of note-paper.
From under the clippings there protruded the ob-
ject which had caught his eye. He pushed the slips
of paper back and disclosed a long, narrow paper-


An Alibi? 233
knife with a carved ivory handle. He tested the
blade. It was sharp at the point and on one side.
When Miss Dalton returned Peter was sitting
quietly at the window, writing.
“This is my friend and housekeeper, Miss Fos-
dick,” she said, introducing a prim-looking maiden
lady. “This gentleman wants to ask you a few
questions, dear.”
Peter acknowledged the introduction with a bow.
“ I won’t take but a minute of your time, Miss Fos-
dick,” he said, “ and it ’s only a matter of form, any
Old how.”
The tall, angular old woman nodded.
“ Miss Dalton wants you to tell me at what time
she came in last Thursday night.”
The woman, in apparent surprise, glanced side-
wise at her mistress.
“ Tell him, dear,” said Alice Dalton.
“She didn’t get in till a few minutes before
four,” answered Miss Fosdick, severely.
“Was anybody with her? ”
“ You don’t suppose that she ’d be going about at
that time of night alone! ”
“ Did you know the gentleman? ”
6‘ YCS'IJ
“Martha, tell him who it was. I want him to
know,” said Miss Dalton.
Thus urged, the woman answered reluctantly:
“ It was Mr. Hammond Rutledge.”


CHAPTER XXVII
SOME PARTS or THE PUZZLE FALL INTO PLACE
ETER was late at headquarters next day; so
late, indeed, that O’Malley was fuming about
the office when he at last appeared. Peter’s face
was ﬂushed and his eyes were dancing as he wished
O’Malley a good morning.
The older man replied with a grunt only.
“Hello! ” cried Peter. “What’s eatin’ you,
Chief? ”
“Nothing,” said O’Malley, crossly. “ What
kind of an hour is this for you to be blowing in?
When did you get up this morning, anyway?”
“ I did n’t,” answered Peter, unabashed.
“What (1’ you mean, you did n’t? ” asked O’Mal-
ley. A faint twinkle was dawning in his eyes.
“Just what I say. I could n’t get up this morn-
ing for the simple reason that I didn’t go to bed
last night.”
“What were you doing?” queried the captain,
somewhat molliﬁed. It was impossible to hold out
for long against Peter’s good spirits.
“I was busy— thinking, among other things—
and say, O’Malley, I ’ve got something to tell you! ”
“ All right, but listen to me ﬁrst. Several things
have been doing while you ’ve been chasing the bats
236


Some Parts of the Puzzle Fall Into Place v.237
around your belfry. Rutledge showed up this
morning as usual, to ﬁnd out if there was any news.
I wish you’d been here to see what you thought
about the way he acted. He was undoubtedly wor-
ried about something and I made some remark about
it to see what he’d say.”
“Yes?” queried Peter, eagerly.
“Well, he passed it off by making out that he
was upset about his old nurse. Just been to see her
and thought she was going off her nut or something.
Pretty thin to account for nervousness in that kind
of a man, but a poor excuse is better than none.”
“ Gee! ” exclaimed Peter, sorrowfully. “ I wish
I ’d been here.”
“ Yes, and that ’s not all,” said O’Malley, show-
ing, for him, considerable excitement. “Thank
heaven, they ’ve found that damn cook at last.”
“ NO! ” exclaimed Peter.
“Sure they have! You need n’t be so surprised.
Did you think she could make a fool of the whole
force forever? ”
“ Some of ’em are that already, by act of Provi-
dence, as the insurance policies say, without any help
from her. I don’t mean you, Chief, of course,”
Peter added hastily. “You know what I think of
you, or you ought to by this time. GO ahead. Spill
it. Have you seen her yet? ”
“ No,” said O’Malley. “ They just brought her
in a few minutes ago. She’s inside there now,”
with a jerk of his head toward the wall at his right,


238 The Unlatehea' Door
“howling her head off. I thought I’d wait a bit
for you. You had just ﬁve minutes leeway when
you breezed in.”
“You ’re a brick, Captain! ” cried Peter, appre-
ciatively. “You certainly have treated me white
on this job and I ’11 never forget it, you can take it
from me! ”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said O’Malley, slightly
embarrassed. “I’m getting old and I need help
now.”
“ Rats! ” said Peter, feelingly.
O’Malley laughed. “Well, shall we have her
in, now that you ’ve shown up at last?”
“ Sure! ” replied Peter. “ Shoot! ”
Sarah Connors, when ushered in by her two blue-
coated captors, was alternately sullen and truculent.
It had taken all the oﬁicial powers of persuasion,
both material and spiritual, to induce her to come
with them; a fact evinced by two long red scratches
on Murphy’s cheek and a rapidly swelling bruise
over Sullivan’s eye.
“She hit me a wallop wid a rollin’-pin,” the lat-
ter had explained to O’Malley, “and then made a
dive for Murphy and clawed him like an auld back-
alley cat.”
The lady’s hat was on one side and a red rose,
glowing with a color unknown to horticulture, bobbed
over one eye. She was shouting maledictions as the
door opened, but She quieted down a little under
O’Malley’s stern blue eye.


Some Parts of the Puzzle Fall Into Place 239
“ Shut down on the steam-siren business and listen
to me,” he said ﬁercely. “We ’ve had about
enough trouble with you already and we don’t pro-
pose to stand for any more gonsense”
O’Malley proceeded to browbeat the woman into
submission and Peter spoke in a low voice to Sul-
livan.
“Where ’d you ﬁnd her, Mike?” he asked curi-
ously.
“ Well, ye ’d niver guess,” chuckled Sullivan.
“We’ve combed this old burg over wid a foine-
tooth comb. Every man on the force has a descrip-
tion of her pasted in his hat and divil a hide or hair
of her could we foind until wan noight late O’Neil
run plump into her. It jist happened to be under an
arc-light and it jist happened that O’Neil had known
her a long toime befoore, whin she belonged to the
Rollins gang. It jist happened, ye ’11 say, but 1 calls
it ‘ Allah ’—- naw, I mean ‘ Kismet ’— Oh, hell!
Which wan of thim plays is it that manes Fate? ”
“ Never mind, Mike, so long as you got there with
both ‘ fate.’ But where had she been hanging
out? ”
Sullivan laughed again. “ As I said befoore,
_ ye ’d niver guess, so I ’1! tell ye. Ye know that swell
nunnery some 0’ the rich Catholic dames has on
Fourty-fourth Street, ’way over by the river? Well,
it was there she ’d been from the toime she’d lift
us to mourn her loss. It seems she used to cook for
wan o’ the ladies befoore she got to be a nun.”


240 The Unlatched Door
I
“ Sarah Connors got to be a nun, Mike? ”
“ Oh, hell, no! Befoore the lady joined up.
This sister had been tryin’ to get Sarah to come up
and cook fer the bunch, so little Sarah had every-
thin’ her own swate way. All she had to do was to
bate it up there, give ’em some aisy song and dance,
and get on the job. They’re so good they’d swal-
low annythin’. And I ’ll bet they was awful plased
to have such a stiddy woman around. She stuck on
the job the whole toime. Niver Wint out at all.
Most anny wan ’d be satisﬁed wid that koind if they
was to be had! She only slipped out this wance be-
cause wan 0’ the nuns was sick and they was no wan
else to sind for the medicine she had to have.”
“Seems a shame to get pinched when you ’re on
an errand of mercy,” said Peter.
“Well, that’s as it may be,” said Sullivan the
practical. “ ‘Pinch whoile the pinchin’s good’ is
my motto.”
“ And good enough, at that. But listen -”
Sarah Connor’s replies to O’Malley’s questions
had at last become coherent.
“ An’ why would n’t I lave,” she was saying sul-
lenly, “ wid yerself rakin’ up all the ould toimes that
I thought was dead and buried? This is a free.
counthry, ain’t it? Well, there was nawthin’ to
kape me in that house, so I jist lift.”
“ Don’t you understand that your going as you did
lays you open to the worst kind of suspicion? ”


24.2 The Unlatched Door
for? He was no friend 0’ moine, to get himself
pinched and all! Oh, Gawd! what ’11 I do! ”
Her harsh voice rose to a scream and she glanced
about like a rat in a trap.
“Hush!” cried O’Malley, ﬁercely. “Cut that
yelling out! Be quiet, I tell you! ”
But the woman only screamed the louder. It was
impossible to calm her and O’Malley, realizing, per-
haps, that all good cooks are bound to be tempera-
mental and despairing of getting anything out of her
in her hysterical condition, gave it up at last and
ordered the two policemen to take her back to her
cell.
“ We can keep her as a material Witness,” he said
to Peter when the screams had died away to silence.
“After She ’s cooled down we may be able to get
something out of her, if she knows anything. She
and Rollins made a pretty clever team years ago and
his experience hasn’t reformed him any, whatever
she may pretend hers has done. If he is n’t caught
pretty soon, I have a hunch that we ’d better let the
woman go and put a ﬁrst-class man to watch her.
She and Rollins were very thick in the old days and
he would probably communicate with her sooner or
later, or she with him, if they were in this together,
and we could get ’em both. What do you think,
Pete? Would you like the job?”
Peter looked at his chief for a moment with an
enigmatic smile in which were blended admiration,
conﬁdence, affection— and something else.


Some Parts of the Puzzle Fall Into Place 24.3
“Let me spin my little tale 0’ woe,” he said at
last, “ and then I ’m ready to get on the job any way
you think best, Captain.”
“ All right, Pete. Fire ahead. What have you
got on your chest, anyway?” said O’Malley, curi-
ously, seating himself at his desk.
Peter went over to the door, locked it, and, re-
turning, sat down by the old captain. He cleared a
space on the corner of the desk and in silence took
from his pocket a large wallet. From this he pro-
duced two blank half sheets of paper of a pale gray
with a faint mottle of red and blue ﬁbers. One half
sheet had been folded once in the middle. The
other was crushed and crumpled, but had been care-
fully smoothed out. The old man’s heavy breath-
ing was audible as Peter ﬁtted the two sheets to-
gether. The rough and notched edges, where the
double sheet had been torn apart, ﬁtted with meticu-
lous exactitude.
“By gad! ” said O’Malley, softly. “It’s the
other half of the sheet that was used to enclose
Pendleton’s card! Where did you ﬁnd it, lad? ”
Peter tried his best to maintain a mien of un-
ruﬂled calm, but a little smile of triumph crinkled the
corners of his eyes. '
“ Tell you in a minute, Captain,” he said.
“ Look at this ﬁrst.”
From the wallet beside him he drew a letter and
a small white paper packet, closed with a druggist’s
fold. This he opened and disclosed a man’s linen


24.6 The Unlatchea' Door
the room. Here he made a deep incision with a
heavy, sharp pocket-knife and carefully and silently
proceeded to saw a section from the flimsy lath-and-
plaster partition just above the base-board, taking
pains to cut through on his side of the studding,
only.
He had just succeeded in removing, in one piece,
a small rectangle of the wall, when his quick ear,
which had been intensely on the alert, caught the
sound of a footfall on the stairs. He desisted in-
stantly and sat back on his heels, listening.
The door of the next room opened and closed
quietly and there followed the usual noises made by
a person moving about a room. They could be
heard very distinctly and Peter nodded his head in
satisfaction.
Dusk fell and night came slowly on, and still
Peter crouched with his ear to the opening he had
made in the wall.


CHAPTER XXVIII
PETER CLANCY TAKES A NIGHT orr
DAY, two days, a week, nearly two weeks,
dragged by, and still the public, which had
been previously thrilled and shocked by the sensa-
tional accounts of the murder of the beautiful Mrs.
Hammond Rutledge, waited in vain for news of the
arrest of the criminal or criminals. The papers
made witty and satirical comments on the acumen
and resourcefulness of the metropolitan police.
O’Malley, to whom it was an old experience, read
them without a quiver. It was against his principles
to make unnecessary arrests and to cause undeserved
suffering. He could be ruthless and merciless in
exposing a real criminal, but he would not descend
to the ordinary police methods in order to silence
the criticism of the papers or to furnish food for the
morbid excitement of the reading public. The opin-
ions of the world made little difference to him, for
he lived largely outside his immediate surroundings
and had no professional ideals except to serve the
ends of justice to the limit of his ability. He was,
therefore, not at all dismayed when he found that
Rutledge had employed a ﬁrm of private detectives
to join the hunt for Cuthbert Pendleton.
“Rutledge being so keen on having Pendleton
247


24.8 The Unlatched Door
found does n’t necessarily mean that he thinks Pen-
dleton committed the murder,” said O’Malley to
Peter one morning, when that young man had
dropped in as usual to make his report. The old
captain’s eyelid ﬂuttered down to his cheek and was
slowly lifted again.
“ I know what you mean,” rejoined Peter. “ Of
course he is not just exactly in love with our hand-
some dodger. But what ’s the matter with Fox,
that he has n’t been able to catch him? Seems
funny, don’t it?”
“Yes, it’s a queer start, any way you look at it.
But Fox ’11 ﬁnd him if he ’s gone so far it ’d take nine
dollars to send him a post-card. I’ll bet on Fox
against all the private detectives in the world.”
“ Me, too,” said Peter, simply.
“ Well, anything new with you since yesterday? ”
asked O’Malley, noting with concern Peter’s loss of
color.
“ No, nothing but what I’ve told you. I ’m
morally certain, but we’ve got to get the goods! ”
The young man’s face was tired and worn.
“Sure, we’ll get ’em,” said O’Malley, heartily.
“ I have n’t a doubt about it now! ”
“Have n’t you, Captain?” cried Peter, eagerly,
a new light coming into his face. “ Have n’t you
really? I was almost beginning to think —”
“Oh, cut it out, Pete! You can’t expect to get
the thing piped in a day. You’re tired, that ’s
what ’5 the matter with you. Why not take a night


Peter Clancy Takes a Night Of 24.9
Off? I ’1! ﬁx it for you. Take the job over myself,
if nobody else will satisfy you. NO reason to think,
specially, that anything will come through to-night,
is there?” '
“ No,” answered Peter, reluctantly; “ only every
day must help our chances, I should think, from the
way things are shaping up. I suppose one night, just
now, would n’t matter and I will admit the thing’s
getting on my nerves some.” ‘
“ Then you cut it and take a chance to-night, Pete.
That ’s settled. Forget everything about it and
leave it to me. Go to a show or something and
get to bed early. You’ll be fresh as a daisy to-
morrow. Can’t afford to let the future pride of the
force go on the rocks now!” The old man’s tone
was satirical but very kindly.
“ All right,” said Peter after a short pause.
“I’m on; and thank you, Captain. I don’t know
why, but this job gives me the creeps, somehow.
And by the way,” he added, brightening, “I ’ve got
a real date for to-night that I thought I couldn’t
keep. Maybelle and Bill Stubbs asked me to feed.
It ’s their wedding anniversary and there’s sure to
be a good time. NO blues around where Maybelle
is.” -
“That ’s the very thing,” said O’Malley, cor-
dially. “ I ’1! take your place. Be quite a treat to
me. No trouble about my getting in and out with-
out being seen, is there? ”
“ Not a bit. Here are my keys. If you go in


250 The Unlatehed Door
about dark there ’S no danger of meeting anybody.
I’ve done it lots of times. Rankin ’ll be on the
outside up to eight, anyway, and Warren comes on
at six in the morning. Better leave just after that,
before the people in the house get up. Gee! but
it ’s bully of you to do this for me! ”
Peter went home and spent the rest of the day in
making up the sleep he had been losing. When
evening came he awoke refreshed. All his buoyant\
spirits had returned and he whistled merrily as he
dressed.
A little later he rang the bell of the private door
of a garage on Sixty Street near Lexington
Avenue and was admitted at once.
“ My woid! It’s good to see you, Pete! Seems
like old times. Where you been keepin’ yourself all
this while? Have n’t laid eyes on you for a month
0’ Sundays. Bill ’s in there gettin’ himself all dolled
up for the party. Only you and me, but he ’s the
fancy dresser for you, specially Since he ’s been
workin’ for your Mr. Schuyler. Wait till you see
him.” .
The speaker was a snappy little young woman
with a turned-up nose and merry eyes. Her hair
was dressed in the latest mode and from beneath a
large blue apron there appeared a considerable
amount of bright-yellow silk stocking and a pair of
very high-heeled Slippers with huge buckles.
“Looks as if you were dressed up like a plush
horse underneath that apron, yourself, Maybelle.


Peter Clancy Takes a Night Oﬂ’ 251‘
You got nothing on old Bill,” said Peter, laughing.
“ I remember the swell hats you used to wear when
we both worked in Stone’s office. Gee, but they
were birds! ”
“ Aw, cut it out, Pete! You ’re makin’ fun 0’ my
taste.-— Bill! ” she called, “ here ’s Pete, showed up
at last! ”
“ All right! Hello, Pete! Be out in a minute.”
The man’s voice was cordial, though slightly impeded
by shirt studs.
“ Don’t hurry yourself,” Peter called back.
“I’m having a bully time ﬂirting with your wife.
Can I help you with the cats, May?”
“Sure, come along. You’ll say I’m some cook
when you get your ivories into my ongtrays. You ’ll
be like the girl that said she ’d take everything from
the soupcon to the demi-tasse, includin’ the hordoov-
ers. I like cookin’. Comes to me kind 0’ natural,
somehow. But it sure does n’t do a thing to your
hands. It ’s a lot harder on ’em than stickin’ plugs
in a switch-board. That ’s the only thing about this
job that I don’t like.”
“ But you’re happier even at that, aren’t you,
Maybelle? ” asked Peter as they passed out into the
tiny, neat kitchen.
The girl paused for a moment and then answered
solemnly: “ You ’ve said a mouthful, Pete.
There ’s nothin’ like it in the world. Bill ’5 — well,
they made him up and lost the pattern. But here,
get busy,” she went on in a lighter tone. “Grab


252 The Unlatched Door
that roast lamb with this-here towel and chase it onto
the table. I ’11 bring the rest.”
When they returned to the little dining-room, Wil-
liam Stubbs was already seated at the table. He
did not rise when his wife came into the roomas a
man socially trained would have done, but the look
he gave her was one which many a wealthy woman
would have envied.
The dinner proceeded happily and there were
toasts t0 the year-old bride and groom which were
drunk as heartily as if the ebullition of the beverage
had been bubbles instead of froth.
When the last mouthful of bride cake had been
eaten and praised, the table was cleared by the smart
little wife, while the men enjoyed their cigarettes.
“Leave the dishes till Pete goes and I’ll help
you with ’em,” said William as they rose from the
table.
“ Yes, do, May. I ’ve got to get to bed early to-
night, promised O’Malley I would,” said Peter.
“ So I ’11 have to beat it pretty soon.”
“ Surest thing you know! ” Maybelle acquiesced.
“ Go on into the parlor and I ’ll be there in a min-
ute.”
~William Stubbs turned up the strong, unshaded
electric light in the little parlor and Peter looked him
over, admiringly.
“Gee, Bill! some class to you! ” he exclaimed.
“ I got the fancy vest when you were sitting at the
table, but the effect of all those plaids on your coat


254 The Unlatched Door
“ What (1’ you mean, ‘ they fell from the Skies? ’ ”
asked Peter with growing impatience. “ Never
heard of the angels wearing patent-leather pumps.”
William laughed. “ Ain’t you the joker, Pete?
No, I did n’t just exactly mean skies. What I did
mean was an ash-can. I was going into the house
to report one morning, about two weeks ago, and I
seen a package fall out of one of the ash-cans they
was emptyin’ into the wagon. It was done up so
tight, I thought it might be something pretty good,
so I copped it and these was inside.”
“ Well, anyhow, they don’t ﬁt you,” said Peter,
quietly, “ so I don’t call it much of a piece of luck.
Let ’s have a look at ’em.”
Bill obediently kicked one off, with a sigh of re-
lief, and handed it to Peter, who examined it inside
and out.
“ Let’s see the other one, Bill. If it’s in as
good shape as this, I might sell ’em for you and you
could buy a pair that was big enough. I think I
have a friend that might pay you a fancy price for
’em, considering their being second-hand.”
“ Couldn’t buy a pair as good with the money,
I ’1! bet," said Bill, handing Peter the other shoe and
wriggling his released toes.
“Why, the in-sole ’S gone out of this one! ” said
Peter, in an odd tone.
“ What differ does that make? The sole ’s good
and smooth, at that. Would n’t hurt no one but a
tenderfoot.”


256 The Unlatehed Door
destination. Locking the door of the ofﬁce, he
dashed to the safe, knelt down, and spun the knob of
the combination. He missed count once in his im-
patience and had to start over again. At last the _
handle gave a satisfying click and the heavy doors
swung open.
Rapidly Peter pulled out one of the drawers
and from it took the object of which he stood in
need.
He carried it over to the desk, unwrapped the
shoes, and placed them directly under the light. In
the in-sole of one of them was the almost obliterated
name of John Hobson. With a puzzled frown on
his face Peter put the in-sole which he had taken
from the safe into the other pump. It ﬁtted down
to the last nail-head.
Peter’s frown deepened and he stood for a long
time regarding the consummation of his efforts to
return to its original habitation the clue he had
placed so much hope on. ,
The heavy silence of the room was broken sud-
denly by the noise of feet in the corridor and a hand
turned the knob of the door and then shook it vio-
lently.
“ Who ’s there? ” called Peter. Crossing quickly
over to the safe, he slipped the shoes inside and
closed the doors.
“ It’s Fox,” a voice replied. “Is the captain
there? ”


CHAPTER XXIX
TWO TELEGRAMS
HE days and nights which had seemed so long
to Peter Clancy had for Richard Schuyler
passed almost in one breath. He had resolutely
put behind him every unpleasant thought, and the
long, warm spring days and still, jeweled nights had
ﬂown on wings.
He was exultant over the spontaneous friendship
which was growing up between his cousin and E!-
eanor Wentworth, the seeds of which were sown
during the ﬁrst call that Anne Wallace made with
him at his earnest solicitation. The two women
had much in common and in the simple, unconven-
tional way of the open country they saw each other
almost every day.
Eleanor Wentworth’s naturally happy disposition
had responded buoyantly to so much pleasant
friendliness and she had shaken off, to a large ex-
tent, the sadness of her ﬁrst days in Altonville.
Her laugh rang again, true and clear, and her voice
with its fascinating little break had regained its lilt.
Nora had not again referred to the circumstance
which had brought Dick from New York and he was
content to await her pleasure, though his curiosity
burned as brightly as ever. The more he saw of
259


260 The Unlatehea' Door
her, the surer he was that the explanation, when it
came, would be complete; and he had made a com-
pact with himself that it should be spontaneous.
No word of his should sully the brightness of their
days together or turn her thoughts back to circum-
stances which it was better, in her obviously nervous
state, that she should forget.
Dick Schuyler had recognized for some time that
he was irretrievably in love, but if Anne Wallace
knew it also, she was too wise a woman to give any
sign. She had chaperoned unobtrusively Whenever
it seemed necessary, and for the rest she had left
things in Dick’s honest, capable hands.
“Dick ought to marry, anyway,” she thought.
“ It would be the best thing in the w0rld for him;
and the girl is beyond price.”
So the days sped by without a cloud and Dick
kept himself well in hand; for, though he was as
sure of his own feelings as he would have been had
he known Eleanor from the beginning of the world,
there was a quiet dignity about her and a reserve
which restrained him from too ardent an appearance
of pursuit.
“After all,” he said to himself, humbly, “I may
not be at all the sort of chap she c0uld care for.
I’m an idle beast and I know she hates that. I
swear I’ll ﬁnd something decent to do, whatever
happens. What was it she said the other day? -—
something about eating your share of the world’s
food without making any return for it. Doesn’t


Two Telegrams 261
seem a sporting thing to do. She laughed when she
said it, and it was about some one else, but it hit me
right where I live. There must be a useful job
somewhere, even for an ass like me. If she ’d help
me ﬁnd it —”
He was driving his swift little car along the now
familiar road from Caxton to Altonville. Eleanor
had seemed a little distrait the day before and he
was wondering if anything had occurred to trouble
her as he sped along the village street and stopped
at Mrs. Adams’s door.
“She just went over to the post-ofﬁce, I think,
Mr. Schuyler,” said that large lady, in answer to
Dick’s query. “ I thought that was where she was
going, but I’m not quite sure. Anyhow, she’ll be
back in a little while. You’d better come in and
wait.” .
“Thank you, Mrs. Adams. I think I ’1! just run
around by the post-ofﬁce and pick her up if she ’s
there,” said Dick, turning away.
But the friendly old soul laid a restraining hand
on his arm. “ Won’t you come in, Mr. Schuyler? ”
she asked hesitatingly. “ I ’d reelly like to speak to
you for a moment, if you ’ve the time.”
“ Why, certainly,” said Dick, surprised.
“What’s the trouble?”
He followed her into the little parlor, where she
sank heavily down on a spindly chair which creaked
under her weight.
“ I don’t suppose it ’s any 0’ my business,” — the


262 The Unlatchea' Door
kind old face was both troubled and uncertain—
“ and maybe She would n’t like my speakin’ of it to
you. In fact, I’m sure she would n’t —-”
“Then you mustn’t, Mrs. Adams,” said Dick,
gravely. “Her wishes are law to me.”
“I know it,” said Ettie Adams. “I seen how
things were with you, almost from the Start.
You’ll forgive me for sayin’ so, won’t you? I’m
an old woman, but I don’t keep my eyes Shut like
some folks and I see more than most, I sometimes
think. Maybe on account 0’ John and me. We
cared a lot about each other, and it is n’t over ’cause
he ’s dead, you know. It makes me want to kind 0’
help young people; and I know you could straighten
things out for Miss Wentworth if She ’d only tell
you that what ’s troublin’ her now is that she needs
some money.”
“What! ” exclaimed Dick, thoroughly shocked
and surprised. Never in all his life had he felt that
need.
“She ’S been expectin’ a check for the last week
and it has n’t come. She told me about it last night.
I don’t just understand it, but she got a letter day
before yesterday and she come dancin’ in to me
lookin’ happy as a bird and she says, ‘ Good news, at
last, Mrs. Adams! This will make everything all
right,’ she says, wavin’ the letter in the air. ‘I
know you’ll be glad for me, even though it means
I ’11 have to leave you,’ she says. And I was glad
of anything good comin’ to her, bless her pretty


264. The Unlatched Door
“ All right,” said Dick, following her through the
sunny dining-room and into the kitchen. “ Thank
you so much.— Hello, Anne.— Yes, this is Dick.
What is it? ” _
“A telegram for'you,” the voice came back over
the wire. “ Shall I read it to you, old dear? ”
“ Yes, please.” ’
There‘was an instant’s pause.
“It’s from New York.” Anne’s voice sounded
in his ear. “ ‘ Can you come at once clear up some
matter in re R. case. Very important. Great
favor to me ’; and it’s signed ‘ P. Clancy.’ ”
She listened, but no answer came back.
“ All right, Dickie?”
“ Yes, yes. Quite all right, Anne. Means I’ll
have to go back to town right away, though. And
you were giving me such a bully time! ”
“ It ’s too bad, Dickie, but you ’11 come back soon,
won’t you? Is Miss Wentworth there? I’d like
to speak to her.”
“ No, she ’s out, but Mrs. Adams says that she ’11
be back soon. Shall I tell her to call you? ”
“ No, never mind, old dear. I’ll call her again
later. Are you coming right over?”
“In a few minutes, Anne. I may bring Miss
Wentworth over to lunch; will it be all right? ”
“Of course, Dickie! Au revoir.”
“Au revoir, Anne.”
“ There, you see! ” cried Dick, turning from the


Two Telegrams 265
instrument to Mrs. Adams, who was hovering in the
background; “I have to go back to New York my-
self this afternoon and I ’11 make her come with me
if I have to kidnap her.”
Dick was anxious and excited. What new de-
velopments had there been in that awful tragedy?
And had this telegram from Clancy any relation to
Nora’s sudden desire to get back to New York?
It did n’t seem probable. She had, apparently, been
overjoyed at her news. No, he decided, there could
be no connection. And then the thought of the
long, beautiful ride with the girl Of his heart over-
laid all other considerations.
He jumped into his car and raced around to the
post-Ofﬁce just in time to see Eleanor coming out
with empty hands and a look of intense disappoint-
ment on her face. It cleared a little when she saw
Dick.
“ Come and jump in!” he cried, waving his cap
with one hand and opening the little door beside him
with the other.
“ Now,” he went on as the girl seated herself,
“I’ve some hustling to do if I’m to get to New
York before dark.”
“ I—-I didn’t know you were going back to-
day,” she said slowly.
“ Neither did I till about a minute ago. Just had
a telegram. It ’s going to be a long, lonely ride,
too. Wish I could induce Anne Wallace to come


266 The Unlatched Door
back with me but it ’s no use. She ’S so in love with
her old farm you could n’t pry her loose with a crow-
bar.”
The girl at his side sat silent.
“ Miss Wentworth,” Dick continued, as if struck
by a sudden thought, “ how much! longer are you go-
ing to stay here? Did n’t Mrs. Adams tell me yes-
terday that you were thinking of leaving her soon? ”
Eleanor hesitated an instant. “Yes, I did think
of going to-day,” She said, “ but I rather think, now,
that I ’d better put it off.”
“ Oh, Miss Wentworth! ” he exclaimed,
“ would n’t it be jolly if you were to drive back with
me! It ’s a beautiful road. I could show you one
view that would be worth the ‘price of admission all
by itself. It would be a real charity, honestly it
would. You can’t imagine how I ’ve wished for
some one to enjoy it with me every time I ’ve driven
out to Caxton. It is n’t over a hundred miles. If
we started by two or three, even, we'could easily
make it before dark. Oh, be a sport! Say you ’11
come! ”
“ It would be heavenly I know. But —”
“ ‘ But me no buts,’ ” Dick laughed. “ I ’m ‘ sot
on it,’ as they say here. You can pack up in a hurry,
can’t you?”
“ Oh, yes, that won’t take long.” She was still
hesitating, but Dick’s offer seemed to her an answer
to prayer.


Two Telegrams 267
“It’s settled! It’s settled, and we won’t talk
about it any more,” Dick 'cried, as exultant as a
small boy who has gained his point.
They had reached the little white house with the
wistaria vine which was just bursting into bloom.
“ Run in and get ready,” he said, opening the door
for her. “We’ll stop at Anne’s for lunch so you
can say good-by to her.”
“But I haven’t said I’d go!” laughed Nora.
All the trouble had left her face.
“You don’t need to say it, just do it,” grinned
Dick, delightedly. “I ’11 have faith and you must
have the works.” Then, suddenly sobering: “I
won’t insist if you really don’t care to come, you
know.”
“Yes, yes, I do want to come! It will be won-
derful. And I’m grateful to you, Mr. Schuyler.
You ’re very kind to me! — my favorite line! ” She
smiled happily back at him and ran up the stairs.
A little later Dick came out, carrying a large suit-
case which he strapped on the running-board of the
car. Almost immediately Nora ran down the
steps, dressed in the plain blue suit in which he had
ﬁrst seen her. Her small hat was drawn down
tightly over the dark beauty of her hair and her
face was as happy and expectant as a child’s. She
had never seemed to Dick more adorable.
They waved a gay good-by to Mrs. Adams, who
stood at the door to see them off. When they had


268 The Unlatchea' Door
disappeared down Caxton Street, the kind old
woman went back to her work with a sigh and a
smile.
As the door closed on her ample ﬁgure, the lace
curtains in the window of the front bedroom of the
house opposite, which had been stirring strangely
for the last few minutes, dropped into their ac-
customed folds, and the man who was looking for a
creamery site ran out at the front door.
He gave one anxious glance down Caxton Street
and then proceeded with surprising rapidity to the
only garage the village contained. One look at the
superannuated touring-car and the comparatively
new but much-used ﬂivver, which were the only cars
for hire, was enough for him.
After that he stood in the garage door for a
moment, wiping his heated forehead. Then he
went over to the telegraph oﬂice and sent what the
telegraph girl thought an unnecessarily long and
most uninteresting wire about two chickens which
had ﬂown the coop. It was addressed to some one
named O’Malley, who lived in New York, and con-
sequently could, she thought, have little interest in
fowls.


CHAPTER XXX
A DETOUR—AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
“ HERE!” cried Dick Schuyler, bringing the
car to a standstill. “ Is n’t that worth com-
ing a bit out of the way for?”
“ Oh!” breathed Nora; “it’s wonderful! won-
derful! ”
She looked down across the steep hillside, where
the russet pink of budding oaks melted into the de-
licate green of beech and maple. Below the wood,
the wide valleys, dotted with tiny farm-houses
sparsely set, swept far away in soft undulations to
a rim of purple hills. They had climbed by almost
imperceptible grades through a thick woodland and
coming suddenly to the crest of the bill, they saw
the wide world spread before them, not with the
distant and uninteresting effect of a map but with
the intimate charm of kindly companionship.
Dick loved this view, but he had seen it before.
All his attention was centered in the rapt glory of
Nora’s face. ‘
“The peace of God! ” she whispered, her hands
against her breast.
So they sat for a long time silent, drinking in the
beauty of the scene. At last she stirred and looked
' 269


A Detour—and Its Consequences 271
. past, do you?” he had asked. “I know a bully
little inn we’ll reach about seven and you can tele-
phone your friends from there when to expect you.”
“ I ’m only going to a boarding-house where I ’ve
stayed before,” Nora replied, “and there’s always
plenty of room there in the summer. But it would
be just as well to telephone, I suppose.”
She was having such a heavenly, care-free time
that she hated to think how soon it would be over
and was quite willing to put off its expiration for an
hour or two. Half-past eight, or nine, even, was
early on these long spring evenings.
So she had gladly acquiesced in the proposed de-
tour and felt now that she would like to stay for
hours, gazing at the enchanting prospect. But at
last Dick thought that they must be getting on and,
glancing at the declining sun, she agreed with him.
Dick turned the car back into the rough road and
guided it carefully down the long descent. The tall
trees closed around them, shutting them together
away from the world. Silence fell between them,
the silence of a friendship which had suddenly be-
come too close for the necessity of words. The
engine purred contentedly, the evening wind whis-
pered softly in the tree-tops. A brood of quail
pattered down the road ahead of them and then,
with a great whir of wings, disappeared into the
thick undergrowth of budding laurel and blossoming
wild azalea. '
“That’s it—I know now!” Dick exclaimed,


272 The Unlatched Door
breaking the long silence. “That’s what it is,”
and he pointed to a great mass of fragrant bloom
beside the road.
“ What is it, that it is, that is that, as the French
say?” questioned Nora, her eyes crinkling at the
corners.
“ You ’ve alWays made me think of the mountain-
laurel,” said Dick, quietly, his eyes on the steep
curve of the road, “only it has no fragrance. The
wild azalea is better. Hardy, though it looks
fragile, and beautiful; and so sweet.”
His voice was low and he did not look at the girl
beside him. She sat very still, her ungloved hands
clasped in her lap; and slowly the color mounted in
her face.
They wound down a steep ravine and crossed a
narrow bridge over a brook that whispered to itself
and laughed as it ran as if it knew some happy secret.
After they had climbed the hill beyond, the charac-
ter of the road-bed improved.
“It’s good from here on to the main road and
I can let her out a bit,” said Dick, in a matter-of-
fact tone, suiting the action to the word.
The little car leapt forward as if to prove its
mettle and the trees swung by them in a mist of
mauve and green.
“ Mr. Schuyler,” said Nora, “ I ’ve been thinking
that I’d like to tell you now what I ’ve wanted to
tell you ever since the ﬁrst day when you came to
Altonville.”


A Detour—and Its Consequences 273
Dick started in surprise and looked down at her.
Her eyes were ﬁxed on the road far ahead. Her
head was thrust a little forward and the wind made
by their swift passage had twisted loose a lock of
hair and was smoothing it back over her ear with
loving ﬁngers.
“But why now?” asked Dick, gently. “ It was
to be on your account, you remember, not —”
There was the sharp pistol crack of a bursting
tire. The car, going at full speed, skidded vio-
lently, Struck a heap of sand at the side of the road,
lurched, and was thrown heavily over on its side.
Dick felt himself hurtling through the air. Black
darkness fell—and nowhere in all the world of
consciousness was there such a person as Richard
Van Loo Schuyler.


An Unacknowledged Witness 275
thing else in the wide, beautiful world. There was
a little catch in it as it went on:
“ I was afraid, at ﬁrst, that you were dead; only
your heart was still beating and I hoped —-”
The thought of what she had been through cleared
the last mists from Dick’s brain and he sat up
quickly.
“ I ’m all right now,” he said conﬁdently.
“ Don’t worry about me another instant! ” Their
faces were close together and his eyes looked deep
into hers. “ And you, are you safe? I could never
forgive myself if —”
“There is n’t a thing the matter with me—just
a few bruises that don’t matter at all—and my
ankle caught somehow, but it is n’t broken; I ’m sure
of that.”
“ Oh! ” cried Dick, in deep distress. “ I believe
that you are hurt! ” ‘
“ No, no; really I ’m not. I fell in a lot of sand,
luckily for me. I can stand on my feet; see.”
Dick had risen to his feet also and was looking
searchingly into her face. He could just distinguish,
in the dim light, the brave little smile which strove to
be reassuring.
“Tell me honestly,” he said, gently but ﬁrmly;
“do you think you can walk? We ’re a long way
from a lemon here and —”
“ Don’t you think a car might come along pretty
soon and pick us up? ” she interrupted.
Dick bit his lips. “ You are hurt, you poor,


278 The Unlatched Door
“Yes. My God! I love you!” he answered
ﬁercely, tightening his hold on her shoulders.
She did not wince, but straightly her eyes met
his.
“And I love you,’ she said solemnly.
A quiver shook his whole frame. He closed his
eyes and drew in a long breath. Then, slowly, he
bent his head and touched her lips softly. And
their two souls flowed together as when two rivers
meet and mingle and become one great ﬂood, sweep-
ing onward to the sea.
i
When, at length, they again became conscious of
their surroundings, night had fallen and a cold wind'
was whispering through the trees.
With a great wrench Dick brought his mind back
to a practical consideration of their plight. The
blood had ceased to ﬂow from the cut on his head,
which proved to be slight, and he felt himself again
—more than himself, indeed. He felt like a god
— strong, tireless, invincible. He stood up and
stretched out his arms as if to embrace the world.
“There ’S no chance of a/car on this bad road in
the dark, I’m afraid,” he said, smiling down at
Nora, “but I can carry you to the Back of Beyond
if need be. Come.” And he Stretched out his
hands to her.
She took them and rose to her feet with a gay
little laugh.


An Unacknowledged Witness 279
“How far is it to the nearest house, O Hercu-
les? ” she said.
“ Not more than a couple of miles, I think,” he
answered carelessly.
“ And you think you could carry me all that way!
Indeed, you don’t know how heavy I ’d be! ”
“ I could carry you in my arms all the rest of my
life and you ’d never be a burden.”
He stooped and lifted her from the ’ground.
“ No, no! ” she said. “Let me try to walk. I
promise you, if it hurts too much, I ’ll tell you. Put
me down. Please! ”
His eyes laughed into hers. “You ’ll tell me —
honest Injun? ”
“ Honest Injun.” She repeated the childish
formula.
“Then I think we ’d better get on,” Dick said.
He kissed her once more and placed her gently on
her feet.
“I think we would, indeed,” she said smiling;
“but what about your darling little car? Are you
going to leave it just as it is?”
“There ’s nothing to be done with it now, an-
swered Dick, looking down at it as it lay grotesquely
on its side. “ As soon as we can get to a telephone
I ’1! have my chauffeur drive out in the other car and
see what can be done with this one. He ’s a man of
parts, William is. You ’11 like him. He’ll attend
to everything. He ought to be able to get out here
9)


280 The Unlatched Door
by daylight. We ’11 have to spend the night at some
farm-house and you’ll need some things —”
“If you can ﬁnd that little bag of mine among
the debris, I’ll have everything I want,” Nora in-
terrupted. “Oh, there it is, just off to the right in
front of the car.”
Dick recovered the bag, which was a very light
one. Then, his arm about Nora and her hand on
his shoulder, they turned their backs on the wrecked
car and went slowly down the quiet road. The
moon had risen clear and full and, except where the
trees threw black shadows across it, the way was
plainly discernible. They proceeded carefully,
stopping every little while. to rest. Sometimes,
when the road was rough, he carried her like a child,
cradled in his arms. And as they Went they talked,
opening their hearts to each other.
The tragedy which had brought them together
was uppermost in their thoughts. Nora wanted to
go on with the explanation she was about to make
when the accident had occurred, but Dick would not
allow her to do so until he had told her the whole
story of his midnight adventure. She breathed a
little sigh of content when he had ﬁnished.
“ I thought it was something like that,” she said.
“What?” he asked, with a start of surprise.
“ You thought —”
“ Let me tell you something,” she said quietly,
“ and you ’ll understand why I was so deeply hurt
at your questioning me about the strange things


An Unacknowledged Witness 281
which seemed to link me with that horrible crime.”
She paused a moment and then went on: “On
that dreadful morning following the murder, after
that kind old police ofﬁcer had sent me up to my
room, I felt faint again, probably partly because I
hadn’t had any breakfast. I thought I’d better
go down to the kitchen and get a cup of tea, and
just as I was passing along the hall on the second
ﬂoor I heard the street doors slam shut and almost
immediately the lights in the lower hall ﬂashed up.
I stopped and looked over the banister and saw——
all that passed. I knew from your movements and
from the look on your face that you were trying to
conceal something from the police. I was dread-
fully puzzled and concerned, remembering the pack-
age I had given you. I waited and watched there
in the dark. I couldn’t help it. When you went
into the drawing-room I hoped you were safe, but
I stayed on, knowing you would come back for your
hat and bag. Then I saw the young detective stoop
down and look under the settle. My heart almost
stopped because I knew that whatever you had tried
to hide was there. In a minute he stood up again
and held something to the light. I could see it
plainly —— the in-sole of a man’s shoe.”
“Good God! ” exclaimed Dick. And then
gently, “Sit down and rest a little while, sweet-
heart.”
They had reached a small clearing, ﬂooded with
mellow moonlight. When they had seated them-


282 The Unlatehed Door
selves by the side of the road, Nora leaned against
Dick’s Shoulder and went on:
“I remembered then, all at once, that when I
went to my window, on the previous night, to see if
the rain was coming in, I saw a man standing just
in front of the house. I didn’t think anything of
it at the time, for he moved on immediately and
turned into the next house —yours.”
She paused.
“And you trusted me! ” said Dick. “ You
did n’t think for an instant that 1—” '
“Of course not! I knew you better, even then.
I don’t care now if you know ”— she laughed a little
happy laugh that sung its way into his heart —“ that
I used to watch for you to come and go. I liked
the way you looked. There was something so—
Oh, I’m not going to make you conceited!” She
turned her face to his and they smiled gaily into each
other’s eyes. “ And then, that evening in the park
when Vincent Quartley was trying to make me go
back to Greenwich Village and take up the old life
again, you were so eﬂecti've, though you did n’t un-
derstand.”
“ Tell me a little bit about Quartley, dear. You
know I was horribly jealous of him for a while.”
“ Were you? ” Nora laughed. “ I rather hoped
you would be.”
“Brute!” said Dick. But he didn’t look as if
he really meant it.
Nora’s face became grave. “Vincent Quartley


An Unacknowledged Witness 283
is a dear; really he is. And he cares for me, a lot:
I found out that day you saw me crying by the side
of the road. He had just asked me to marry him
and when I told him I could n’t he took it very hard.
It almost broke my heart. And I do love him, Dick.
He’s a ﬁne man. He hasn’t held it against me,
either. He has found some work for me to do.
That is why I was so anxious to get back to town.
He ’s a good friend and I think I would have mar-
ried him, only —”
“Only?” said Dick, with a happy, rising inﬂec-
tion.
“ Only, even then, as they say in books, I loved
another.”
There was a short interruption of the conversa-
tion. Then Dick said:
“ You spoke of the old life, dear. What old
life? ”
“ Are you sure you want to know the secrets of my
horrible past? ”
“ Of course I do, you absurd child! I ’m burning
with curiosity, though it won’t make any difference.”
“ No, it won’t, my clear,” she said gravely. “ But
I ’m rested now. I ’ll tell you as we go.”


CHAPTER XXXII
NORA’S STORY
H
“ T’S rather a long story,” Nora began, and
I’m afraid I’ll have to begin at the beginning,
to make you understand it all.”
Dick listened without interruption while she told
him of her childhood and of the fascinating little
mother who had been an actress in one of Daly’s
companies and had died when Nora was a little girl.
She told of her father, a New England college pro-
fessor, and that he had died soon after her mother,
of a broken heart.
“I was brought up by the aunt whose portrait
you saw,” Nora went on. “We lived in Framing-
ham and I went to Miss Parson’s school there. It
is a very well-known school and girls go there from
all over the world. It was there that I ﬁrst knew
Inez Rutledge.”
Dick looked down at her quickly but said nothing
and Nora continued:
“I knew her very well, for we were both im-
mensely interested in the pageants and amateur
theatricals which were part of the course. I had
always been a good mimic and I used to imitate our
old maid-of-all-work, Rosy Brady, so that Aunt
234


286 The Unlatched Door
“ I found a cheap room in old Greenwich Village
and in the studio of a fellow-student I met Vincent
Quartley. She showed him the miniature I had
painted of Aunt Louise and he thought it promising
and offered to get me some commissions among his
friends. That was early last winter. I thought I
had enough money to go on then, not having had
any experience of how much it costs to live in New
York and I told him I’d like to wait until I had a
little more training. Then, toward the middle of
the winter, there was a terrible slump, I think you
call it, in the stock-market and the dividends I should
have had on January ﬁrst did n’t come. I didn’t
tell any one but wrote to my aunt’s lawyers in Hart-
ford. They wrote back that the stock was good and
would be sure to pay more dividends by spring; that
I had better keep it and not worry.”
She laughed a little sadly. “ I asked Mr.
Quartley, then, to get me some commissions if he
could, but he did n't know of my necessities and
nothing came of it. Pretty soon my money was all
gone and I did n’t know what to do. I watched it
dwindle and thought and thought. I was peculiarly
alone in the world, without any close relatives, and
I could n’t borrow money when I had no certainty
of being able to repay it.”
“ Poor little girl! ” said Dick, pityingly.
He picked her up in his arms and carried her for
a while, her cheek against his. They did not speak


Nora's Story 287
again until Nora insisted upon his putting her down.
Then she said:
“ And now we come to the adventure! One day,
while riding in the street-car, I heard two hand-
somely dressed women talking. They were rather
common and spoke so loudly that I could hear al-
most every word. They were remarking upon the
difficulty of getting servants and one of them said,
‘ I pay my parlor maid ﬁfty dollars a month and she
has a good home and no expenses and still she is n’t
satisﬁed.’ I didn’t hear any more. I knew that
was one thing I could do and I made up my mind,
then and there, to be such a housemaid as had never
been seen before on sea or land. It was the only
decent and honest thing to do. It amused me to
think how startled my prospective mistress would be
at my perfections. I would make it a stage part,
I said to myself, and I would play it as beautifully
as it could be done.”
Again she laughed, but Dick did not smile.
“You know,” she went on amusedly, “ you
would n’t believe how difficult it is for a girl, brought
up as a ‘ lady’ to get a place as a servant. I did n’t
know how to go about it, but I tried an agency ﬁrst.
They asked for recommendations, and, of course, I
could n’t produce any. Then I went through the
papers and answered advertisements. It was the
same story. At last I saw an advertisement for a
parlor maid and it gave the initials H. G. R. and the


288 The Unlatched Door
address, Number Twenty East Sixty Street.
You know, from Miss Mac Leod’s story, what hap-
pened. When I saw Inez I was so startled that I
couldn’t speak. She took me into her room and
I told her frankly all my troubles. She was kind and
offered me money, but I wouldn’t take it. I felt
sure that I must ﬁnd a place somewhere, when I was
willing to do any kind of work which was fairly
honest.”
She looked up at Dick with the crinkle of amuse-
ment in the corners of her eyes which he loved so
well, but the thought of her unprotected loneliness
bit so deep that he could not take the situation as
cheerfully as she did.
“ So she insisted on your staying there as a house-
maid,” he said with a touch of bitterness in his voice.
He was thinking that all the time he was living in
careless comfort, with only the thickness of a wall
between them. '
“Yes. Since I would n’t have help in any other
way, she did insist. She said she would be able to
make things easier for me and safer than in any
place taken haphazard. She meant to be kind.
I ’m sure she meant to be kind, poor girl, but she had
changed a good deal—or I had been too young,
when I ﬁrst knew her, to realize the possibilities of a
nature like hers -— and at last we had a bad quarrel
over her miniature.” '
“ You painted the one you gave me to take care


290 The Unlatchea' Door
Even Vincent Quartley, with all his friends, would
have found it impossible to get commissions for me,
and he was my best hope. It was only the day be-.
fore, you remember, that I met him in the park. It ‘
was quite by accident—I would n’t have seen him
for the world —but we met face to face and I had
to speak to him. He ’d been so kind to me, and so
understanding, that when he asked me why I had
disappeared from Greenwich Village and what I
was doing, I told him. I thought he would see it as
a lark and sympathize with my clever idea for tiding
things over. But he didn’t, not a bit. He was
very stern about it; said he ’d lend me all the money
I needed.” Dick winced and Nora went on hur-
riedly: “Of course I would n’t take it, and I told
him that I couldn’t leave, anyway, without giving
notice; no decent servant would. That made .him
awfully mad, Dick, and he was insisting some more
when you came up. 'In the face of everything it
seemed suicidal to let it all come out in the papers.
And the hideous notoriety of it all! It seemed as if
I could not bear it! ” -
“And so you trusted the miniatures to me— a
perfectly sensible idea,” said Dick.
“Yes, and you were so sweet about it all! I’ll
never forget it.”
“ It was nothing, nothing, sweetheart. Any one
who would n’t trust a face like yours would have to
be blind. But now, let ’S get back to the main thread
of your thrilling narrative. You said that you and


Nora's Story ' 291
Mrs. Rutledge had a quarrel about the miniature.
Why was that? Was n’t she pleased with it?”
“Oh, yes. She was quite crazy about it; but,
Dick, she was going to give it to Mr. Cuthbert
Pendleton.”
“The deuce! ”
“Yes, I gathered it from something she let drop
and I made her own it. She was —well, Dick, she
was pretty horrid about it; said she had me in her
power, and more, rather ugly things. It didn’t
make any difference to me. I would n’t let her do
so compromising a thing if I could help it. I know
Mr. Pendleton was too vain and foolish not to show
it and boast of it. So I took the miniature to my
room and hid it in my trunk with that of Aunt
Louise. When I went to get them to give to you, I
wrapped them both in the paint rag —”
“A paint rag! ” interrupted Dick. “Good
Lord! Then the red smear -—”
“ Was paint, of course, you dear old goose! ”
Dick stopped still in the middle of the road and
looked at her. She was laughing and in a moment
his laughter joined hers and they stood together in
the moonlight with locked hands, rocking to and
fro in uncontrollable, hysterical merriment.
“ Fool that I am,” Dick choked out at length,
“never to have thought of it! I was so horriﬁed
that I did n’t really look at it carefully. The shape
of the mark and the color were so suggestive --”
“ I know. I looked at it again after you ’d gone,


292 The Unlatched Door
the day you brought it back to me; but it was only
made by a brush full of brown madder. There was
so much of it because, I remember, Inez had knocked
a brush off her dressing-table and it had fallen on
my little palette. Was n’t it fate that it should have
fallen into that dark red paint and not into any other
color?” I
“ Yes, it was fate; for if it had n’t been so exactly
the color of blood I might never have had the
temerity to seek you out, but-should have sent the
package to you with a note of explanation,— per-
haps. No, I should have found some way of seeing
you again! I won’t think that anything in heaven
or earth ever could or ever will part us.”
The moon lost sight of Nora just then and there
was but one long shadow on the road. The old
moon was quite used to the antics of shadows and
she was not at all surprised when the shadows were
two again, drifting down to the deeper shadows,
where the trees cuddled about the little farm-houses
at the cross-roads.


CHAPTER XXXIII
A CROSS-EXAMINATION
APTAIN O’MALLEY tilted back in his swivel
chair, glancing sidewise with frowning eyes at
the man who sat beside him. The man himself was
very uncomfortable. He ﬁdgeted about in his chair
and rolled his cigar from one corner of his mouth to
the other.
“ I don’t care what yOu think, O’Malley,” he was
saying defensively, “ even you could n’t have helped
yourself. In that jay town there wasn’t anything
to be had but a ﬂivver with one lung and an old
Cadillac of the vintage Of eighteen-sixteen that ,
limped in the off hind leg. Schuyler had a Peerless
Eight that ran like a bird; and what was I to do?”
He threw out both hands with a gesture of appeal
to all the gods to witness the hopelessness of his sit-
uation.
“I suppose the possibility of a get-away in that
little Peerless Eight never occurred to you in all the
two weeks or more that you knew it was there,”
growled O’Malley.
“ You sent me out to watch the girl, did n’t you? ”
The man rose and, kicking his chair out of the way,
stamped impatiently up and down the ofﬁce. “She
did n’t have anything to get away in -—”
293


A Cross-Examination 295
ber it wasn’t your fault that the beans Were n’t
spilled.”
O’Malley, looking with a sardonic smile after the
man’s dejected ﬁgure, heard a loud exclamation and
saw Brown jump back across the threshold.
“ Look out there! Where the hell do you think
you he going? For God’s sake be careful! If
you ’d made me drop this -—-”
It was Peter Clancy’s voice, raised to the highest
pitch of tense excitement and it was Peter’s agitated
face which appeared immediately at the door. He
was carrying a good-sized package with exceeding
care.
“ O’Malley! ” he cried, ignoring Brown alto-
gether; “ O’Malley! I’ve got it! My God, I’ve
got it at last! ”
O’Malley had risen ponderously from his seat.
“ Need n’t stay any longer on our account, Brown,”
he said with a hurried wave of his hand. Then, as
Brown vanished, he crossed the room with remark-
able speed, closed and locked the door, and turned
back to Peter.
“ Were you right, my lad? ” he asked almost in a
whisper.
Peter had dropped into a chair, still hugging the
parcel in his arms. He stared at O’Malley with
ﬁxed, expressionless eyes, and slowly nodded his
head.
“ It’s here,” he said in an awe-struck voice.
Then suddenly his self-control broke. The boy—


298 The Unlatched Door
Nora drew in her breath sharply and glanced anx-
iously at Dick. His face was imperturbable and he
answered quietly: “ I don’t know” why you
think —” ~
“I don’t think, I know," O’Malley rapped out
angrily. “ We ’ve got the goods on you, all right.
Look here, if you don’t believe me.”
With a quick motion of his hand he lifted the
cover from a box which stood at his elbow and
turned the contents out on the table.
“ Oh, my Lord! Those infernal shces again!”
groaned Dick. “ Is n’t it the limit:' ” ~
“You admit that they’re yours, then?” ques-
tioned O’Malley, Sharply.
“Oh, thunder, yes! They’re mine, all right.
Where ’S the sense in denying it? And I would n’t
now if I could. Who found ’em?—— Peter?”
“Yes, Pete found ’em and sorry the lad was to
do it, Mr. Schuyler. Now, what have you to say
for yourself? You ’re taking a serious thing rather
lightly, let me warn you.”
“Oh, I’m not taking it lightly, Captain, believe
me!” said Dick. “If you knew the amount of
worry those miserable pumps have caused me, you ’d
be sorry for me. I ’1! tell you the whole story and
I ’ll be glad to get it off my chest.”
Peter leaned forward with anxious interest and
O’Malley’s eyes never left Dick’s face while he told
the tale of his misadventures. The captain sub-
jected him to a rigid cross-examination, but Dick re-


O’Malley Draws Aside the Curtain 303
with that crime alone.” He met Rutledge’s glance
fearlessly, eye to eye, and in the tone of one who
brooks no denial he continued: “ Will you be good
enough to take my chair and try to listen with some
degree of self-control to the evidence we have
found?”
O’Malley was so obviously right in the stand he
took that Rutledge pulled himself together with a
great effort of the will, though his hands were still
clenched and his face ravaged with ﬁerce anger. He
put a stern constraint upon his emotions and went
slowly to the chair behind the table. He had ap-
parently quite forgotten Nora and Dick, who sat
still and silent just beyond the range of the light.
O’Malley waited until Rutledge was seated, then
he turned, crossed the room quietly and drew back
one of the curtains which concealed the entrance to
the adjoining room. Rutledge leaned far forward,
expecting to see Pendleton’s hated face, but nothing
moved in the room which was dimly lit and appar-
ently empty.
The old captain faced about and slowly raised
his hand.
There was an instant’s strained silence, followed
by a faint whirring sound. Then a voice spoke
softly, an old voice, low and trembling.
“ Hush, listen,” it said, as if the person speaking
were thinking aloud. “ Was that her voice? —- No,
not yet.”
A pause.


304. The Unlatehed Door
Hammond Rutledge, whose eyes had been striving
to pierce the dim shadows of the back room, turned
a startled glance upon O’Malley and half rose from
his chair. O’Malley shook his head slightly, en-
joining silence, and the old voice went on: ——
“ So late, so late! Oh, my poor laddie, my poor
bairnl” The tone changed to one of hate and
scorn: “The Scarlet Woman, decked with gold
and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand
the golden cup full of abominations —”
The voice trailed off to silence. Rutledge started
to his feet.
“Anna!” he cried. “Poor old Anna! Is she
there? What is it? How -—”
“ It ’s an invention of my own,” O’Malley spoke
rapidly. “ Clancy got the records. She knew
nothing about it. He ’s been getting them for the
last two weeks and We’ve pieced them together.
We ’ve suspected for some time, but he only got the
conclusive ones this morning. Listen.”
From an indistinguishable murmur the old voice
rose again:
“Watch! Watch and wait.— Hush, there they
arel—Ah, look at her, the traitress! How long,
0 Lord, how long! —- Her poison is like the poison
of a serpent. If the poor laddie tried to reason
with her she would not hear. She’s like the deaf
adder that stoppeth her ears.
“Look. What is that little paper he’s giving


O’Malley Draws Aside the Curtain 305
her? And she smiles at him.— Mischief! I can
tell it by their faces.— Ah-h-h! .
“ I ’ve seen enough.”
Then, very slowly and solemnly:
“ Send forth thy sickle and reap, O Lord, for the
hour to reap is come.
“The sickle—here, in the drawer, at my hand
—God has appointed me, his servant, to render
unto her double according to her works: in the cup
which she mingled to mingle to her double.— As
the wax melteth before the ﬁre, so let the wicked
perish! ”
A heavy silence fell upon the room. Hammond
Rutledge sat tensely still, his face buried in his
hands. Again there was a soft whir.
“ I waited up to help you, Mrs. Rutledge,”— the
voice was slightly louder and very stern —“ and I
saw, through the door there —” The voice paused
as if some one else had spoken, then rose again:
“Stop, oh, stop, woman, while there is yet time!
Repent! ”
Another silence, then, very quietly, “ Shall I take
your cloak, madam ---”
A long, heavy sigh. -
“The great wine-press of the wrath of God—
and there came out blood from the wine-press—
It is done.—— Thou hast destroyed the wicked.—
Dead.—— Dead— in her full strength, being wholly
at ease and quiet.— Sleep.—- Sleep.


O'Malley Draws Aside the Curtain 307
springing forward. “ I can’t bear any more! She
did it for me! —- Oh, Anna, Anna —”
O’Malley caught his arm. “ She found peace at
last,” he said softly. “Listen.”
Faintly and tremulously the voice came again,
with the trusting tone of a little child:
“ Now I lay me down tO sleep.—- If I should die
— before — I -— wake —” A faint murmur and
all was still.
Rutledge looked appealingly at O’Malley, who
nodded quietly.
“ She died this afternoon,” he said.


How Peter Guessed 311
couldn’t think where it came from for a second,
and then I remembered. It seemed awfully queer,
but I couldn’t make it ﬁt in, anyway I studied it.
The old lady looked and acted innocent enough, and
there was nothing out of the way in her room when
I examined it. I knew she must be pretty nearly
batty ‘on religion because there were stacks of tracts
and things like that in her room. There was one
called ‘The Seventh Commandment’ that was all
underscored and almost worn out with reading. I
could n’t see why at the time and it was n’t till much
later that it really put any idea into my old bean.
The whole thing seemed too far-fetched. But then
I got another jolt when Captain O’Malley handed
me the sheet of paper that Pendleton’s card was en-
closed in. You tell ’em about that, O’Malley.”
And the old man told them the whole story of his
receipt of Pendleton’s card and of Peter’s subse-
quent trip to Fairﬁeld, which resulted in the pursuit
and ﬁnal discovery of Pendleton.
“ Pete and I both made up our minds, when we ex-
amined the evidence closely, that he had nothing to
do with the actual crime,” concluded O’Malley;
“ but we were n’t absolutely certain which way the
cat was going to jump, the clues were so mixed up,
and we have kept Pendleton under surveillance till
to-day. I don’t mind telling you, for your personal
satisfaction, Mr. Rutledge, that the man’s a wreck.
He was so afraid of what you would do to him if
you found him that he dodged around from pillar to


314. The Unlatched Door
blood that I’d wiped off Miss MacLeod’s skirt.”
Nora drew in her breath with a little gasp of
horror. Peter continued: .
“ You remember the drop of blood on the ﬂoor
of the hall, near the stair wall, Mr. Schuyler, and
the smear still farther down toward the pantry
door? Well, I' thought at the time that made it
look like an inside job, because otherwise the mur-
derer would have beat it out of the front door and
not have gone that way at all. You see that, don’t
you?”
U Ygs.”
“ So I ﬁgured it out that, supposing the old lady
had had a strong enough motive (and her affection
for Mr. Rutledge and her anger against any one
who was injuring him might have been strong
enough for almost anything especially if the poor
old lady was off her nut), then what could have been
easier than for her to slip down the back stairs and
watch through the little window in the pantry door
for Mrs. Rutledge to come home? I was nearly
sure that Pendleton was with her and it was n’t hard
to imagine what Miss MacLeod might have seen.
There was a drawer just inside the pantry door, full
of spoons and forks and knives. There were sev-
eral carving-knives and among them this one.”
He pulled open the table drawer and showed one,‘
long, pointed and very sharp.
“ What could have been easier than to take this
out, and use it; and after it had been washed, who


316 The Unlatched Door
left hand, besides using that hand in preference to
her right for everything else, so we made sure there
was no mistake. In the meantime Captain O’Mal-
ley felt that we had enough to go on to make it a
necessity to watch her closely, so I took over the
inside half of the job. Gee, it was ﬁerce work! ”
Peter took out his handkerchief and wiped his
heated forehead.
“I took the room next to hers and made a hole
in the wall through to the paper on the other side
and listened there night after night. She talked to
herself, sometimes all night long, and pretty soon
I was sure she was crazy. She prayed and prayed,
and sometimes it was as if the god she prayed to
was in the room with her. Then, about a week ago,
she began to go back over things that had happened
long ago, just as if they were going on then. She
talked and waited for some one to answer and then
went on again. It was spooky, I can tell you, be-
cause I knew that she was alone all the time. Then
things began to come through that I was sure had a
bearing on what we were trying to ﬁnd out and I
brought the captain’s Dictrola model that he ’d just
ﬁnished and cut a hole clean through the wall in a
place I knew would be hidden by her bed. It
didn’t have to be very big and She never saw it.”
Peter sighed wearily and spread out his hands.
“And that’s all, I think. We cut out of the rec-
ords all the prayers and mutterings and made it as