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HOW MANY
CARDS P





HOW MANY
CARDS?
BY /
ISABEL OSTRANDER
\ \
AUTHOR or “THE ISLAND or INTRIGUE,” “SUSPENSE,”
“Asmzs T0 ASHES,” ETC.
NEW YORK
ALEXANDRIAN SOCIETY, INC.
1930


Copyright, 1920, by
Rom-r M. MCBRIDE (5' C0.

P r i n i e d i n t h e
United States of America

Published, 1920


652474
CHAPTI'E
II.
III.
IV.
\,J
VII.
VIII.
IX.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
\.»\u\
-a
>4
CONTENTS
EX-ROUNDSMAN MCCARTY MIXES IN .
THE VOICE ON THE WIRE
INQUIRIES . . . . .
THE TORN CARD . . . .
“WHo KILLED HIM?”
THE CIGARETTE CASE . . . . . . .
THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS . .
PAGE
12
25
36
50
78
30“ Iqu"
FROM THE LONG Aco . . . . . . .
“DONE FOR!”
ILSA . . . . . . .
ans or DIFFERENT FEATHER
BOLTED Doons . .
THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND .
THE LURE 0F CHANCE .. . . . .
WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS .
INTo THEIR HAan . . . . .
THE LETTER . . . . . . . . . .
THE NAME IN THE BOOK . . . . . .
GREENFIRE..
MICE AND MEN—AND TRIXIE BURNS .
McCAR'rY OPENS THE Po'r . . . . .
THETURN oEACARn . . . . . .
THE LAST HAND . . . . . . . .
106
121
136
150
166
183
199
216
230
241
254
266
279
293
310





HOW MANY CARDS?
CHAPTER I
EX-ROUNDSMAN mc CARTY MIXES IN
X-ROUNDS'MAN TIMOTHY McCARTY was tak—
ing one of the nocturnal strolls so habitual with hin.
as to have become almost instinctive since the far-off days
when, as Officer 804 and one of the finest, he had pounded
his beat.
It was a soft April night, starless, for the sky was still
overcast from a recent shower, and the odor of wet earth
and fresh, springing green things from the park across the
avenue blended pleasantly with the smoke of the cigar which
tilted upward from beneath his short, stubby, sandy mus~
tache.
McCarty’s meditations were pleasant, too, for earlier
in the evening he had come off victor in a strenuous debate
with his old crony, Dennis Riordan, of the fire department,
over old versus new police methods, and the memory of it
made his broad shoulders heave in a soundless chuckle.
All at once he paused in his measured, rhythmic tread,
his teeth clamped down. upon the cigar and his keen,
twinkling blue eyes narrowed. A block ahead of him,
keeping well in shadow, there slouched a figure whose type
had been well known to him in the old days and among
whose fraternity his own name had been mentioned blas-
phemously but with bated breath.
The figure was that of an undersized, narrow-framed
man who moved with the slow, crouching poise of a cat.
He wore no coat, but what appeared in the uttermost limits
1


2 HOW MANY CARDS?
of the rays of a street lamp to be a sweater, and his cap
was pulled so far forward over his eyes that the back of
his small, bullet-shaped head was plainly visible.
McCarty clutched his stout umbrella more firmly and
without obviously quickening his pace he nevertheless nar-
rowed the distance between the slim, slinking figure and
himself with every yard. Forgotten was the fact that he
had long ago retired from the force to live on the com-
fortable inheritance from his saloon~keeping uncle; he was
once again following his beat and there before his eyes
was a crook out to pull off a job!
The houses on the broad avenue which faced the park
were veritable miniature palaces, each one occupied by a
family whose rank in the social and financial world was
of almost national reputation, and before the richest of
these in the center of the block ahead the figure paused.
Instantly McCarty flattened himself as much as his girth
would allow against the wall of the house he was passing,
mentally anathematizing the newer style of American base-
ments which admitted of no protecting high entrances or
areaways; but after a moment it was evident that his
simple strategy had sufficed, for when he cautiously craned
his neck around the slightly projecting cornice the figure
had disappeared.
Save for the rumbling and lights of a ’bus approaching
from the opposite direction the avenue was deserted and
it was inconceivable that in that instant the crook could
have made off around the corner.
Moving with almost miraculous speed and silence, Mc-
Carty sped to the house before which the figure had paused
and one glance showed the meaning of his sudden disap-
pearance. The hOuse was of white stone, wider and more
imposing even than its neighbors, but like them with a
low, broad entrance door sunk three steps below the level
of the street, a smaller tradesmen’s entrance some distance
away and between them a row of wide, ornate windows.


EX-ROUNDSMAN McCARTY MIXES IN 3
The second one from the main entrance was open slightly,
just enough for a bit of the heavy lace of the curtain to
have been caught in the crack and for the tiniest ray of
subdued light to creep through.
“The carelessness of him !” McCarty grumbled to him-
self in disgust at this lack of thoroughness even in one of
his sworn enemies. “That light’s not moving; did he have
the nerve, I wonder, to turn on—l”
His speculations came to an abrupt end and he dived down
the shallow steps and crouched waiting to spring, for the
heavy window had opened swiftly with no apparent efiort
at silence, the curtain was whisked aside and the sinuous
figure wormed its way through and dropped the scant eight
feet which separated the sill from the level of the pave-
ment. . '
Instantly, before he could turn, a huge, stockily built form
hurled itself upon him and in his complete surprise he
was borne by sheer weight to the ground where he was
held and expertly frisked. ‘
The whole aiIair had been a matter of seconds and no
sound had come from either man save the quick, sobbing
breath of the captive and the heavier snort of McCarty,
but as the latter stuffed into his own pockets with one
hand the pistol, blackjack and skeleton keys which had
been the result of his search the other whined:
“Let me go, Mister! Honest t’Gawd, I ain’t done a
t’ing but just sneak in an’—an’ right out! I ain’t got noth—
in’ on me, youse knows that! Honest t’Gawd—”
McCarty’S answer was to drag the squirming, writhing
youth to his feet with a firm grip on the collar of his
sweater and with his other hand to pick up the umbrella
from where he had dropped it beside him and rap smartly
on the pavement for assistance. '
“Oh, don’t do that! Let me go before de bull comes,
mister, for de love 0’ Gawd! I swear it on me mudder dat
I didn’t have nothin’ to do wit—wit—what’s in dere!”


a HOW MANY CARDS?
Mixed with the whine of fear there was a rising note
of horror in the youth’s tones which made McCarty drag
him swiftly over to the nearest street lamp. The face
which the culprit raised shrinkineg to his was weak and
tremulous, with the shifting, rat-like eyes and pasty yellow
skin of the typical gangster, but there was something more
than the mere fear of being caught at housebreaking in
his eyes; mortal terror looked out from them and Mc-
Carty’s grip on his collar tightened.
“What’s in there ?” he demanded, giving the all but col-
lapsed figure a violent shake. “I don’t know where the
devil is Clancy, but what did you leave behind you in that
house P"
“I didn’t have nottin’ to do wit’ it, I’m tellin’ yousel
I just give it one look an’ beat it! De foist job I ever tried
to put over, an’ now—l”
Butv a tattoo of heavy footsteps came pounding along
the sidewalk and in another moment a blue-coated figure
dashed up to them.
“What’s goin’ on here? Somebody rapped. For the
love of heaven, ’tis you, Mac! And what have you there ?”
“What you should have had if you’d been on your beat,
Clancy !" McCarty retorted grimly. “A fine young sec-
ond-story worker that I’ve been trailing these four blocks
and more, and nabbed just as he was scrambling out of
the window of that white house there after he had fin-
ished his job.”
“I didn’t finish no job !" the youth cried desperately.
“Honest, I wasn’t in dere two seconds! If you was trailin’
me, mister, you know dat! I just give it a look an’ started
to make my getaway. 'Don’t send me to de chair !”
“Chair, is it ?" McCarty gave the policeman a significant
glance. “I’ve been trying to get out of him what he did
do in there while I was waiting for you to show up.”
“We'll take him along and find out,” Clancy declared
briefly.


EX-ROU'NDSMAN McCARTY MIXES IN 5
“No! Don’t take me back in dat house 1” the wretched
youth wailed. “I don’t wanna look at it again! I can’t—l”
Unheeding his protestations, they dragged him back the
few steps to the house, where McCarty pointed to the
opened window from which the subdued light filtering
through the lace curtain fell in a delicately patterned square
on the pavement.
“Who lives here?” he asked, as the policeman pressed
the button at the entrance door.
“Creveling, the millionaire,” Clancy responded.
“Not Eugene Creveling, the fellow who used to pull off
all those wild stunts -on Broadway a matter of ten or fif-
teen years ago ?" McCarty demanded. “They used to call
him Million-a-month Creveling!”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Clancy asserted.
“Must have been before my time. All I know is he’s got a
grand looking wife and barring the big entertainments they
give the house is the quietest on the block—Here, you!
Quit that or I’ll give you a rap that’ll put you to sleep l”
This to the struggling youth who now, utterly unnerved,
was sobbing wildly. “I wonder if they’re all dead in here!
Mac, go and try the other bell.”
McCarty obeyed but with no result. Save for the low
light glowing from the open window the huge house might
have been indeed a tomb.
“There’s nothing to it, Mac. We can’t get anything out
of this bird, either, now. You get a hold of him and I’ll go
i'n the way he did, through the window.”
McCarty gripped the shabby sweater collar once more
and Clancy jumped up, caught the sill and swung himself
over it, sweeping the curtain aside. It fell again into place
and for a minute there was silence.
A second ’bus rumbled past, a limousine or two and a;
prowling taxi, but none saw the two figures huddled tense
in the shadows.
“Say, what are you, mister; a dick r' the youth whined,


6 HOW MANY CARDS?
passing his sleeve across his slobbered face. “If you trailed
me like youse said, you know you didn’t hear nottin’! You
know I wasn’t dere long enough to croak him!”
“Croak who?” demanded McCarty.
“De guy in dere in de soup-an’-fish, wit’ his chest all
shot to pieces! You know I didn’t do it! Dere ain’t
a pill gone from my gat! If youse an’ de bull frames
me—!”
There came a rattling of bolts and chains on the inner
side of the huge entrance door and it divided and swung
slowly inward revealing Clancy standing grave-faced in the
aperture and behind him the wide marble staircase and rug—
hung gallery of an imposing rotunda.
“Come in,” he invited laconically. “I switched on these
hall lights myself, but there was some already going in this
room back here; come and see what I found.”
He led the way across the marble hall, rich in the mellow,
subdued colorings of the rugs and draperies under the soft
lights, but funereal with the huge, carved chairs ranged in
mathematical precision against the walls. McCarty fol-
lowed with the lagging, handcufied youth in tow.
The door of a room beside the staircase was open and as
they reached it all three paused for a moment on the thresh-
old. It was spacious in itself although small in comparison
with the vastness of the hall and was furnished as a study,
with two davenports facing each other projecting from
either side of the fireplace and a long Jacobean refectory
table between. Bookcases lined the walls, a massive writ-
ing table stood between two Windows at the rear and deeply
upholstered chairs were scattered here and there, each with
a smoking stand beside it, but McCarty’s eyes took in the
details with a mere glance.
His attention was riveted on the long figure clad in the
perfection of dinner clothes which lay stretched upon the
floor. The feet in their glistening pumps were upturned
and a gleam of white showed where waistcoat and shirt-


8 HOW MANY CARDS?
grabbed him and dragged him over to the light of that
street lamp and I saw then that he was scared clean through;
he looked as though he had seen a ghost! He’s telling the
truth, all right; that rat wouldn’t have the nerve to stick
up a kid coming home from the grocery on an errand for
its mother!”
“Did you frisk him?” asked Clancy.
“I did, and found a gat on him that’s like a toy cap pistol
compared to that gun lying there. Here it is.”
He produced the keys, pistol and blackjack which he
had taken from the thief and after one look at them Clancy
announced:
“We’ll send for the wagon and have him held as a ma-
terial witness; that junk he was carrying will send him up
for a stretch, anyway.”
After some search they located a desk telephone on the
writing table, concealed beneath a bell-shaped bronze orna-
ment and the policeman called up his precinct station house
and had the satisfaction of knowing that the message was
relayed to the borough headquarters.
“It’s too big entirely for them to handle,” declared Mc-
Carty contemptuously when the other had hung up the re-
ceiver. “I’ll put a call through myself to general headquar-
ters and tip them off. Maybe my old friend Inspector
Druet might be there and could happen along up here before
the gumshoes from the bushes have a chance to ball up the
game. It’s highly irregular, but I’m only a private citizen
now, by the grace of my uncle—may God rest his soul—-
and I’m free to do as I please.”
To Inspector Druet, seated at his desk in the homicide
bureau, there presently came over the wire a well-known
voice, husky with ill-suppressed excitement.
“Mac, you old scoundrel!” he exclaimed in affectionate
banter. “Where have you been keeping yourself, and what
are you doing this time of night?”
“I’m mixing in high society, sir.” McCarty’s tones were


10 HOW MANY CARDS?
his breast and fired it the powder would have been sprinkled
all over the front of him.”
As the automobile from the borough headquarters drew
up before the door McCarty dodged into the room next
to the study. It proved to be a breakfast room, and the
ex-roundsman whistled softly to himself as he cautiously
closed the door after finding and turning on the wall switch,
which made the single low light over the table burst into a
golden glow.
The table was laid for two and the remains of a supper
were spread upon it, while an empty quart champagne bottle
stood upon the floor and a second one reposed in the cooler,
in the bottom of which a small quantity of ice still remained
unmelted.
McCarty’s brows knit at the sight of it, and he pulled
out his watch.
“Quarter to three!” he muttered, then turned his atten~
tion to the table itself.
The food upon one plate was scarcely touched, but bread-
crumbs were scattered all about it and the wine glass was
empty. On the other hand, the second plate had been
cleaned save for fragments, half a roll lay beside it and
the glass was half full of dead champagne. Near at hand
was an ash tray containing the stub of a cigarette and an-
other unsmoked but broken in two lay in the center of the
table.
McCarty was turning away when almost imbedded in the
heavy pile of the rug just beneath the end of the cloth close
to the champagne bucket something shining caught his eye.
It was a broken bit of amber from the mouth-piece of a
cigarette holder. He picked it up and shamelessly put it in
his pocket.
The subdued purring of a second motor came to his ears
and he left the breakfast room and, hurrying across the
rotunda, flung open the house door. Inspector Druet ,was
descending the steps.


EX-ROUNDSMAN McCARTY MIXES IN 11
“Come in, sir,” McCarty urged superfluously. “The men
are here from borough headquarters and they are holding
a grand session in the room where Mr. Creveling was killed
—if it was Mr. Creveling himself.”
He led his former superior into the breakfast room and
pointed to the table.
“Wherever the servants and the rest of the family have
got to, there was two people had supper here to-night, as
you can see, sir. One of them was contented and pleased,
too interested to bother much with his wine, but ate a good
meal, though something interrupted him before he finished
smoking his cigarette and if he left the room then he didn’t
take it with him. The other was nervous or angry or
scared; couldn’t eat, crumbled his bread, drank his wine
to keep up his courage but broke his cigarette in two and
maybe his holder.—One of them is lying dead in the next
room and the other has gone. What’s the answer, sir? It’s
up to you.”


CHAPTER II
THE VOICE ON THE WIRE
HE inspector approached the table and gazed thought-
fully down upon its array of porcelain and silver and
glass.
“You’re getting to be quite in Wade Terhune’s class with
your deductions, Mac, but you’re right, I think,” he ob-
served. “If Creveling sat here, where the food is almost
untouched and the bread crumbled, it looks as though he
might have known what was coming to him, or feared it,
anyway. We’ll find out what enemies he had—3’
McCarty shook his head.
“I don’t think so, sir,” he said quietly. “I think it was
his visitor who sat in that chair. Mr. Creveling was host
and all the servants were gone unless they’re lying mur-
dered upstairs, so he must have waited on the table himself,
and you see the wine cooler is right close up to the other
chair. I found this near it on the floor.”
He produced the broken bit of amber and the inspector
scrutinized it carefully.
“Part of a cigarette holder, eh? A mighty slender one,
too, by the curve of this fragment. It looks as though a
lady—”
He paused as McCarty picked up the broken cigarette
from the table and silently handed it to him. It was but
little thicker than a straw and bore in tiny square gold let_
ters the initials E. C. C.
“They’re the same as on the platinum case in the waist-
coat pocket of the dead man in the other room there," Mc—
Carty remarked at length. “I’ve my opinion of a fellow
12


THE VOICE ON THE WIRE 13
that would call a thing like that a smoke, but no matter.
Did you take a good look at the supper table, sir?”
“No dope there, beyond what you pointed out.” Inspec-
tor Druet had turned away. “Let’s have a look upstairs
before the rest go to it.”
But he was too late, for even as he spoke the door of
the next room opened and heavy footsteps could be heard
crossing the rotunda and mounting the broad stairs. Like
conspirators, the inspector and McCarty waited until they
died away in the regions above.
“I wonder, now, what they did with the young crook I
caught climbing out of the window?” McCarty queried
aloud to himself.
“What’s that?” Inspector Druet demanded.
Briefly McCarty recounted the events of the night and
when he had concluded his companion started for the door
leading into the hall once more.
“We’ll have a look at the body and then join the rest
upstairs. This is at headquarters job all right, Mac, and
I’m going to take charge.”
“I thought you would, sir.” McCarty heaved a sigh of
satisfaction not unmixed with envy. “At least you’ll not
have Terhune with his scientific stunts and mechanical mind-
readers butting in on this case.”
“How about you yourself?” The inspector halted and
bent a quizzical gaze upon his companion. “Going to quit
before the end of the first round?”
“Quit?” McCarty flushed. “Well you know, sir, that
I’m not in it except maybe to testify against the lad for
breaking and entering. I’ve nothing to do with the mur-
der nor the solving of it.”
“But you’re itching for a chance, aren’t you, you old
scout P" The other smiled. “I’ll swear you in as a special
ofiicer to—rnorrow, just as I did on the last case you got
yourself mixed up in since you left the force. Come on,
now.”


14 HOW MANY CARDS?
McCarty’s eyes shone and he squared his massive shoul-
ders with proud elation as they entered the room where
the master of the house lay. He was officially at work
again, and the inhabitants of the instalment-plan suburban
colony in which he had invested his savings and from which
he drew his modest revenue might run the place to suit
themselves until the case was finished. He was back in
the old game!
When they opened the door of the study they found that
its only occupants were the dead man and the wretched
youth who still cringed in his chair, to one arm of which
he had now been securely handcuffed. At sight of the in-
spector’s face he uttered a sharp ejaculation and cowered
further down.
“Well, well !” Inspector Druet searched his countenance
keenly. “It seems to me we’ve met before, my friend.”
“No, sir! Youse got me wrong—l”
“Have I? We’ve got you mugged down at headquar-
ters ; I never forget a face. Have you done time? What’s
your name? Speak up!”
“Joe Bodansky,” the youth muttered sullenly. “I did
one stretch in de reform’tory ’cause de gang I traveled wit’
swiped some lead pipe, but I didn’t have nottin’ to do wit’
it! Dis is de foist toime—”
“Never mind; thought I had you right. I’ll get your
story downtown later.” Inspector Druet turned to Mc-
Carty and indicated the body. “Is this the way it was when
you saw it first, Mac?”
“Yes. I was the third one to see it as far as we know;
Joe, here, was first, then Clancy and then me. It don’t look
as if those flatfeet upstairs had disturbed it any except that
the gun was lying nearer to the hand, almost touching the
fingers—this way.”
McCarty stooped and moved the position of the pistol a
trifle.


THE VOICE ON THE WIRE 15
“He sure got his with a vengeance, didn’t he ?” the in-
spector remarked.
A quick gleam of light came into McCarty’s own eyes.
“Maybe he did, sir,” he vouchsafed.
“There seems to have been a bit of a struggle here;
look, Mac.” The inspector spoke suddenly.
The strip of tapestry which lay along the center of the
refectory table had been pulled awry at the end near which
the man had fallen and it was evident that only the heavy
lamp which stood upon it had prevented it from being
swept to the floor, but there were no other signs of dis-
order in the room.
“Yes, sir,” McCarty agreed somewhat doubtfully. “He
wouldn’t have had time to catch at it in falling, after that
shot hit him, but maybe whoever it was did it might have
twisted that table cover in rage or excitement before they
fired and killed him.”
“And you think Creveling was the sort of man to stand
calmly and wait without raising a hand to defend himself
while his guest worked his own nerve up to the point of
murder?” The inspector shrugged. “Come along, let’s
go up and see what the others have found out.”
The patrol wagon clattered up to the entrance at that
moment and Joe Bodansky, obviously relieved to be re-
moved from the immediate vicinity of the dead man, even
in so grim and forbidding a vehicle, was consigned to the
care of its officials.
After it had departed the inspector and his freshly ap-
pointed assistant mounted the great staircase to be met at the
top by Clancy and two detectives from the borough head—
quarters. The latter were none too pleased to find an in-
spector from the central office already on the job but they
concealed their chagrin with what diplomacy they could
muster.
“Nothing doing up here, Inspector,” the senior of the


16 HOW MANY CARDS?
twain announced. “We’ve looked in every hole and corner
to the very roof and there isn’t a soul about, living or dead.
N othing’s been disturbed, either, and except for two or three
of the servants’ rooms it doesn’t seem as if any of them
had been occupied for some time, not even the master’s own
apartments.”
“Mac, here, and I will just have a look around, anyway,
and join you and Sam and Clancy below, Pete,” Inspector
Druet responded. “The Commissioner has put me in charge
but I may need you both.”
“Did you send the young crook off in the wagon, sir P”
asked Clancy.
“Yes. He’ll be taken care of and I’ll want your report
on him later, but I understand you and McCarty are agreed
that he had nothing to do with the main crime, the murder.
—-Come, Mac.”
As the rest descended to investigate the lower regions of
the house, McCarty and the inspector crossed the wide cor-
ridor and entered the first room of a spacious suite on the
left. It was evidently that of the mistress of the establish-
ment, for the delicate lines of the furniture of the First Em-
pire, the fragile ornaments and soft hues of the priceless
rugs, all betokened a feminine influence, although the toilet
articles and similar objects of intimate daily use were miss-
ing and a slight smudge of dust lay here and there as if
the effort to keep the rooms in order had of late been
merely perfunctory.
“Looks as if the Missis had been away, all right,” Mc-
Carty observed. “I don’t read the society columns as regu-
larly as I might, not having moved in such circles as this
before, but I guess we’ll know where she is when the boys
of the press get hold of this for an ‘extra.’ ”
The rooms across the hall were no less richly appointed,
but as unmistakably masculine in appearance as the first
suite had been feminine. The furnishings were massive,
the color scheme of walls and rugs and draperies dark but


THE VOICE ON THE WIRE 17
boldly vivid, and despite its unstinted luxury the apartment
bore an air of studied simplicity. Its rigid orderliness pro-
claimed that it, too, had not been occupied recently, but it
was well aired and dusted as if in preparation for the im-
mediate return of the owner.
In the lounging-room which opened off the bedchamber
Inspector Druet approached an antique mahogany desk
which stood in one corner and opened one drawer after
another, while McCarty watched speculativer over his shoul-
der. They seemed to be filled with account books and mis-
cellaneous correspondence mostly of a financial nature, and
the latter was turning away when his superior paused with
his hand upon the knob of the small drawer between the
pigeon holes.
“Locked,” he remarked succinctly. “And there isn’t any
keyhole.”
“Then it works with a spring,” McCarty suggested. “Mil-
lion-a-month Creveling may not have dropped all his old
philandering ways when he married, but he’d scarcely be
likely to leave anything of a confidential nature in the place
where his wife would first of all be looking for it, granted
that she was of the looking kind.”
“We have no time to bother with it now, at all events,”
the inspector remarked after several futile attempts to open
the drawer. “I’ll have an expert up here the first thing in
the morning, but we had better be getting on through the
house now; it’s almost four o’clock.”
Together they continued their inspection of the upper
floors, but found nothing even remotely bearing on the in-
vestigation until they came to the topmost one, where the
servants’ quarters were evidently located. Here two con-
necting bedchambers and a third across the hall bore mute
testimony not only of occupation but of hurried departure.
In the first room dresses and aprons of a plain, service-
able quality were scattered about and in the adjoining one
the half-opened closet door and drawers of the bureau re-


18 HOW MANY CARDS?
vealed the habiliments of a butler dragged forth in obvious
confusion.
The room on the other side of the landing was fitted out
with a higher grade of furniture than the other two, worn
but comparatively luxurious, as though the articles might
have been relegated here from below stairs. An examina-
tion of the tailor’s tabs on the suits which filled the clothes
closet revealed that they had evidently been discarded from
Creveling’s own wardrobe.
“His valet, probably,” McCarty hazarded. “The butler
and one of the women servants must have occupied those
rooms across the hall.”
“That’s obvious,” retorted the inspector. “They may
have been here last night and made a getaway when the
murder was done, but if we can find the housekeeper’s books
we can get a line on who they were. The other rooms on
this floor don’t look as though they had been entered for
weeks—”
“What’s that— ?” McCarty suddenly raised a thick,
stubby finger in warning and cocked his ear.
“What?” the other demanded in curt tones.
“I thought I heard a sound downstairs, sir. Not all the
way, but on the first sleeping floor.”
“One of those flatfeet from borough headquarters, I
suppose,” the inspector grunted. “I didn’t hear anything;
you must be getting nerves, Mac! That big room at the
back may have been the housekeeper’s. Let’s have a look
at it anyway.”
Obediently McCarty followed his superior down the hall,
but as he did so be cast a swift glance at the stairs. Did
he or did he not see a flitting shadow pause immovable just
above the edge of the top step and then disappear?
Without comment he entered the room at the rear. The
furniture was of walnut in severe lines, the rugs dark and
spotless and the few pictures which broke the somber mo-
notony of the gray wallpaper were of sedate, classic subjects.


THE VOICE ON THE WIRE 19
A businesslike-looking desk stood near the window, but
it was quite bare, and no intimate touches of human occu-
pancy were visible save a tea—wagon covered with dusty
porcelains drawn up beside the cold hearth.
“The housekeeper’s room all right, I guess,” remarked the
inspector, as one after another he tried the drawers of the
desk. “These are all locked and I don’t see any keys about.
It is pretty obvious that nobody has been in here, either,
for some time. The whole thing looks funny to me, Mac.
Of course, the three servants whose rooms have been occu-
pied at least lately may have been left as caretakers while
the family were away, but why did Creveling come back
here just to give that little supper and get himself murdered
after it—what in the world are you doing now P”
For McCarty was lifting the desk carefully, first from
one side and then from the other and shaking it tentatively
when he had raised an end from the floor.
“Well,” he replied at length, “there would be little ob-
ject, wouldn’t there, sir, in locking an empty desk? Of
course, we could force the drawers but I’m thinking it's
small help you’d get from what’s in here in solving the
mystery downstairs. The locks are rusty, too, as you’ll no-
tice. Did you try the dressing-table?”
“Yes. The drawers are unlocked and empty. There’s
nothing more here, Mac; let us go down now and see what
the rest have discovered.”
But it was evident that no discovery of any significance
had been made.
Sam and Pete, the two detectives from the borough head-
quarters, together with the policeman, Clancy, were stand-
ing in a little group near the body of the dead man in the
study and the faces of all three bore an expression of stupe-
faction.
“Anything new turned up P” asked Inspector Druet crisply.
“No, sir. The kitchens are all in order, though it’s evi-
dent that they have been used lately, but not for the supper


20 HOW MANY CARDS?
that we found spread out in the next room.” Pete, the elder,
of the two detectives, replied: “That came from Mazza-
rini’s, the caterer; his boxes are down in the pantry now.”
“There’s food and ice left in the refrigerators,” the other
detective, Sam, volunteered. “But it’s not the kind of stuff
the likes of him would eat.”
He pointed with a grimy thumb at the dead man and was
evidently about to continue his remarks when the inspector
demanded:
“Have any of you boys been upstairs since we left you
on the second floor P”
“No, sir.” It was Clancy who answered. “There was
nothing to take us up there, and plenty to look over down
here though it is little enough that we found out!”
“You see, Mac?” The inspector turned with a grin to
McCarty. “I told you that you were hearing things when
you thought there was a sound from below while we were
on the servants’ floor l—Look here, Clancy, you’ve been on
this beat nearly six months; you ought to know about how
many there were in the household.”
“I think I do, sir, and I can’t get it through my head
where they’ve all gone to,” responded the officer. “To my
knowledge there were ten of them, not counting the house-
keeper; the cook was the butler’s wife, and besides there was
a footman, valet and houseman, then the kitchenmaid, house-
maid, parlormaid and laundress, and the lady’s maid, of
course. The valet I almost never saw, but it comes to me
now that the cook and the butler are the only ones I’ve
noticed around for some time.”
“What do you mean by ‘some time’ ?” barked the inspec-
tor.
“Weeks, anyway, sir; maybe a month.” Clancy shifted
uneasily from one foot to the other. “Not since a few
days after the last big entertainment the Crevelings gave.”
“When was that? What sort of an entertainment?”
“How should I know, sir ?” the officer replied to the last


THE VOICE ON THE WIRE 21
question. “ ’Twas a dinner or dance or something; awnings
and a red carpet spread out to the curb and an orchestra
playing till all hours, and a string of motor cars reaching
around into both side streets. Except when they give some
big society shindy like that the house is the quietest on the
block, as I was remarking to McCarty only to-night.—But
where is he ?”
Clancy had turned for superfluous corroboration to the
spot where the ex-roundsman had stood behind his chief,
to find that he had vanished.
“I thought that I heard the front door close just now,
sir,” Pete observed.
“You’re getting jumpy, like Mac,” the inspector laughed.
“You couldn’t drive him out of the house now that he’s
on the old trail again; wait till you boys retire and then
open the papers some fine morning and find a fresh murder
mystery staring you in the face and the force being raked
over the coals for not pinching the man who did it before
the first edition reached the press! There isn’t one of the
three of you who wouldn’t want to be back in harness with
a chance to clap his hand on the shoulder of the murderer!
-—Mac’s only poking around on his own account, but Clancy,
this looks bad for you; a prominent citizen shot to death in
his own house on your beat with an army .44 that could
be heard a mile off, and it took a cheap crook to discover
the crime!”
Clancy turned a rich crimson.
“Everything was quiet and the house dark when I went
my rounds up to near midnight, sir,” he said with dignity.
“We’d received no notification of the family being away or
any special watch being necessary. Besides, there’s a pri-
vate watchman employed on this block, the same as on the
others up and down the Avenue. It did come to me as
strange that I didn’t run into him, but I thought no more
about it. There’s many a night I don’t see him.”
“You say that the house was dark up to nearly twelve


22 HOW MANY CARDS?
o’clock,” repeated Inspector Druet. “When did you notice
first that it was lighted ?”
“At about a quarter before; I rang in at the box on the
next corner ten minutes afterwards, more or less.” Clancy’s
tone was cautious. “The faint little stream of light coming
from the window here on the first floor meant nothing to
me, for I’d often seen it till near dawn, and lots of the
ground floor windows are left open the night long in all the
residences on my beat this mild spring weather. I passed
regular, and not once did I hear the sound of a shot or any-
thing else, for that matter, but the motor cars going up
and down the Avenue.”
“What was the first you knew of this afiair, then?”
“When I heard a pounding on the sidewalk, as though
some one was rapping for help. That must have been a
little after two o’clock, and I was a couple of blocks away.
I saw two figures standing under the lamp post out there
and I came on the run. It was McCarty and the young
second-story crook that he’d nabbed crawling out of the
window here half a minute after he’d got in.” '
Clancy continued his narrative with impartial justice to
the ex-member of the force and much dramatic detail as
to his own finding of the body, and at its conclusion Mc-
Carty reappeared. He entered silently and took up a re-
spectful position in the background, his face guilelessly
stolid as the inspector went to the telephone and called for
the chief medical examiner, turning in a brief report to
headquarters.
“Did you find out anything, Mac?” asked Clancy anx-
iously in an undertone.
McCarty shook his head.
“What could you find out in an empty house ?” he coun-
tered evasively.
“Well, there’s a smell on you as though you had been to
some high-toned barber’s, and Pete thought he heard the
front door close awhile back.”


24 HOW MANY CARDS?
“ ‘Police’ l” he gasped. “What on earth has Eugene—?
I demand to see Mr. Creveling at once!”
“I am afraid that is impossible,” Inspector Druet re—
plied smoothly. “Will you answer my questions, please?
What brings you here at what you yourself have admitted
is an unusual hour?”
“ ‘Unusual’ l” the newcomer exploded. Then with an
obvious effort he calmed himself and responded in dignified-
resentment:
“I am George Alexander, Mr. Creveling’s banking part-
ner and the uncle and former guardian of Mrs. Creveling.
That should be sufiicient answer to you, sir. Will you in-
form me why I have been routed from my bed—?”
“Who sent for you, Mr. Alexander? Who told you to
come here P” The inspector’s tone was deferential but it
held a note of unmistakable sternness.
“That is a point upon which I should like to be in-
formed!” retorted the other. “I played my usual rubber
of bridge at the club, went to my rooms and retired at
eleven. A few minutes ago I was aroused by my telephone
and told that I was urgently needed here at once. I ex-
postulated but could gain no further information, so I
dressed and came.”
“Did you recognize the voice over the wire?”
Mr. Alexander paused thoughtfully and then replied with
conviction:
“No. It was that of a man, of course, but it was totally
strange to me, and when I demanded my informant’s iden-
tity he hung up the receiver. I am quite sure I have never
heard it before.”


CHAPTER III
INQUIRIES
HE inspector turned involuntarily and glanced at his
subordinate, but McCarty’s face was blandly inscru-
table.
“Mr. Alexander,” began Inspector Druet, “your inform-
ant was unauthorized by the police department, and we
have no more knowledge than you as to his identity, but
your presence here is more than welcome in this emergency.
Certain suspicious circumstances, the details of which you
will learn later, caused an investigation of the house between
the hours of two and three this morning by the regular of-
ficer on this beat. The premises were found to be deserted
although a light was burning and the remains of supper
for two are spread out in the breakfast room. In the study,
or den, there lies the body of a man in evening clothes shot
through the heart and it has been identified as that of Mr.
Creveling.”
“Eugene—shot!” the banker gasped. “Impossible! Good
God, I cannot believe it! Why, only yesterday we had a
long conference at the office-—! But who could have done
this thing i’”
“The pistol-an army .44—lies within touch of his fin--
gers,” replied the inspector.
“You mean to insinuate that he killed himself?” Mr.
Alexander bristled, but he seemed to shrink even more with-
in his light spring overcoat. “Ridiculous! What reason
could he have for such an act? His affairs were never in
better shape; the conference at the office yesterday was in
regard to a large loan we contemplated making which would
25


26 HOW MANY CARDS?
have brought us in highly advantageous returns and he had
no other problems or troubles, no entanglements of any
kind!”
“Come and see him for yourself.” The inspector turned
and led the way to the study with Mr. Alexander follow-
ing and McCarty bringing up the rear. As they entered
Clancy and the two detectives stepped aside exposing the
motionless form outstretched upon the floor, and with a,
shocked exclamation the banker recoiled.
“It is he!—But Eugene never killed himself! Of that
I am as sure as though I had been present when the deed
was done 1”
“Why are you so certain, Mr. Alexander?” the inspector
asked.
“There could have been no reason,” the other repeated.
“N 0 one ever loved life better than he or knew how to enjoy
it to the full. He had an unassailable position both in the
social and financial world, a beautiful wife, a host of friends
-—oh, it is unthinkable!”
“Yet the pistol is almost within his grasp,” Inspector
Druet reminded the banker. “Was he right or left-handed ?”
“Right, but any one could have placed the weapon there
after the crime was committed to make it look like a case
of suicide.” Alexander responded defensively. “Besides,
who telephoned to me, and why?”
“That we must ascertain later.” The inspector shrugged.
“Do you recognize the pistol, Mr. Alexander? Have you
ever seen it in Mr. Creveling’s possession?”
“I have not, sir.” The banker shook his head decisively.
“It may have been his, of course. A man whose home was
filled with valuable objects of art and whose wife’s jewels
constituted a huge fortune in themselves would be naturally
supposed to guard against burglary, but he could have had
no personal reason for such an article of self-protection.”
The sound of another motor car outside and the ringing
of the front door bell put a stop for the time being to any


INQUIRIES 29
though he wants an autopsy for form’s sake, and it’s just
as well. We’ll let it go at that for a day or two anyway
till we’ve something to spring on the Old Man. Where’s
Alexander?”
“In the next room. He wants a telegram sent at once to
Mrs. Creveling. It seems that she’s visiting a Mrs. Douglas
Waverly at Broadmead, Long Island.”
McCarty rapidly detailed the substance of his brief talk
with Alexander and of the message to be sent and one of
the detectives was despatched to the nearest telegraph of-
fice. The medical examiner’s assistant also took his depar-
ture after arranging for the removal of the body for a for-
mal autopsy and the inspector and McCarty returned to the
breakfast room.
“Mr. Alexander,” Inspector Druet recommenced his in-
terrogation without any preamble. “My friend, here, says
that you told him Mrs. Creveling had been visiting on Long
Island for several weeks and her husband living at the
club. Was he in the habit of returning here to his home to
give midnight suppers when it was virtually closed and
the staff of se'rvants away?”
George Alexander, whom they had found standing by
the table frowningly contemplating the débris of the sup-
per, turned and“ faced them at the question and its implica-
non.
“I know little of my late partner’s habits,” he replied stif-
fly. “In our banking business we deal with many foreign
powers among the representatives of which each have our
own especial clients, and not until all the preliminary nego-
tiations 'have been concluded do we have a general confer-
ence. Mr. Creveling and I are known to have arranged
several international loans of a confidential nature—you
know how such affairs creep out through the underground
channels of diplomacy—and it is quite probable that he
may have brought a prospective client here to-night rather
than to a restaurant or club in order to insure privacy. Is


30 HOW MANY CARDS?
it not at least probable also that after the departure of his
guest he may have been attacked by burglars? You gentle-
men of the police know that many an army pistol is now
in the hands of a member of what I believe you term the
‘underworld.’ ”
The inspector shrugged.
“The medical examiner who has just been here affirms
that Mr. Creveling shot himself,” he observed. “Mr. Alex-
ander, you said that Mr. Creveling had no troubles of any
sort. This may seem like an impertinent question but we
must know the truth, and it is bound to come out in the
end. Was he in no domestic difficulty? He and his wife
seem to have been virtually living apart and the house left
in the hands of caretakers—”
“Nothing of the sort !” the banker interrupted indignantly.
“I am of an older generation, an older school than was
Eugene, and their friends were not mine, but his wife was
my niece and I should have been the first to know of any
discord. To my mind they were a model, modern couple,
independent in thought and action, but mutually consider-
ate, and I can assure you that a very real affection existed
between them. My partner was a man’s man, caring little
for society although his wife reveled in it. This was per-
fectly understood by their friends and the house here was
frequently left in the hands of caretakers, especially in the
spring and autumn when my niece—Mrs. Creveling—made
a round of country house visits and Eugene preferred his
club to an empty house, naturally.”
“You say their friends were not yours, that they moved
in a different set,” the inspector interposed. “You must,
however, have heard your partner and your niece mention
from time to time those with whom they were most inti-
mate.”
Mr. Alexander’s lips closed in a tight line.
“Mrs. Creveling was twenty at the time of their mar-


INQUIRIES 31
riage and ceased to be my ward a year later; Mr. Creveling
and I seldom discussed anything but business.”
“How long have you and Mr. Creveling been in partner-
ship ?”
Mr. Alexander stroked his beard for a moment in evi-
dent hesitation before he replied:
“Since about the time of his marriage to my niece, al-
though his family and ours have known each other for
generations.”
“Had Mr. Creveling been engaged actively in any finan-
cial pursuits prior to that ?" Inspector Druet continued.
“I cannot say that he had, beyond speculating now and
then on the market,” the banker answered with yet more
obvious reluctance. “But I really do not comprehend the
significance of these questions at such a time as this. Mr.
Creveling was a very rich man, but naturally the prospect
of marriage made him ambitious to become something more
than a—er—mere art dilettante—”
“And Broadway spender ?” broke in McCarty irrepressi-
bly.
Mr. Alexander’s eyes shifted.
“I presume you refer to the unfortunate sobriquet of Mr.
Creveling’s college days, and which erroneously clung to
him for years after he had reached maturity,” he said.
“Irresponsible youth and the possession of too much money
have formed a dangerous combination before now but my
partner has been unknown in the bright light district, save
at an occasional theater party with his wife and their friends,
for several years.” .
“Mr. Alexander,” the inspector bent forward suddenly,
“when I asked you just now if you knew who Mr. and Mrs.
Creveling’s intimates were you evaded the question; in the
face of this tragedy they are bound to be discovered and
fully investigated. You said also that you seldom discussed
anything but business with your partner and that your


32 HOW MANY CARDS?
guardianship of his wife ended a year after their marriage.
Does that mean, too, that your social relationship with them
was interrupted? That, in fact, there was any estrange-
ment between you and them?”
“Most assuredly not l” The banker squared his some-
what narrow shoulders. “My niece made her home with
me prior to her marriage and the greatest possible affection
has always existed between us. As their only relative I
have been a frequent visitor here, but I have already told
you that their friends are in a different circle—3’
As he spoke the slow, measured tread of heavy feet in
the hall outside told of the temporary departure of Eugene
Creveling from his home, before his final return for the
brief scene in which he would be the principal but silent
actor, and involuntarily his late partner paused, shudder-
ing again.
The remaining detective from borough headquarters ap-
peared in the doorway, with Clancy behind him, and both
stood awaiting further orders.
“There’s nothing more for either of you to do here now,”
the inspector announced. “Sam, have your report sent in
to me downtown; Clancy, make your own to the Old Man
and I’ll look it over later. If that young crook tries to
get hold of a shyster lawyer, ask the Commissioner to stall
him and keep him quiet until I get back to Centre Street
myself.”
As the two men turned to go, McCarty went to the door.
“You’ll not be needing me now for a bit, Inspector ?” The
statement was a question asked with the ingratiation which
only the ex-roundsman could command. “I’ll have another
look over the ground—”
“Go as far as you like, Mac,” Inspector Druet responded
heartily, then turned once more to Mr. Alexander. “Who
were the Crevelings’ intimate friends, as far as you know?
This Mrs. Douglas Waverly, for instance, whom Mrs. Crev-
eling is visiting; do you know anything about her P”


INQUIRIES as
The banker smiled slightly in a somewhat relieved fash;
ion.
“She was born a Preston, of Washington.” He spoke as
though that was sufficient answer in itself. “Her husband
is the son of old Monro Waverly, the tight-fisted Scot who
developed a passion for speculation late in life, in the
’eighties, and amassed millions. Besides Broadmead the
Douglas Waverlys have a town house a block or two be-
low here. I have met them occasionally.”
“Who were the others in the Creveling set?”
“An Irish aristocrat, if there be such a thing left, named
O’Rourke and his wife who I believe has a title in her own
right but refuses to use it, at least in this country; then
there is a Mr. and Mrs. Ford, and I believe a Mrs. Culp or
Kip, or some such name—really, you must ask my niece—l”
“We’ll leave her out of it for the time being,” the inspec-
tor interrupted crisply. “You said that Creveling was a
man’s man; who were his associates aside from those in
his wife’s social circle?”
“He belonged to most of the best clubs in town, but I
am not in a position to tell you with whom he associated.”
The note of defense was again evident in the banker’s tones.
“If he had any hobby beyond an innate love of beautiful
things and a desire to acquire them I never learned it and
I have found that it is only through a knowledge of a man’s
hobbies or predilections that one can gauge the type of in-
dividual to whom he would naturally be drawn as a con-
genial companion."
Mr. Alexander halted suddenly as though he had said
too much, and the inspector glanced at him sharply.
“It did not occur to you to interest yourself in your part-
ner’s companions and mode of life outside of his family
and business?” he asked.
“Why should it have ?” the other countered defiantly.
“My niece’s married life with him appeared to be ideal ac-
cording to modern standards, our partnership was success-


34 HOW MANY CARDS?
ful and without friction of any sort and I was content.
My own social interests, as I have told you, lay with an
older, more staid school; a quiet round of golf or rubber
of bridge, an occasional opera night or evening with my
books or friends of my own generation; that for years has
been my life after banking hours, Inspector.”
Inspector Druet frowned thoughtfully.
“Conservative, eh? Why, then, Mr. Alexander, were you
willing to enter into partnership with a man who you admit
had no knowledge of business even if he was the husband
of your niece?”
Once more a dull flush swept over the features of the
dapper little man before him.
“I consider that question an impertinence, sir, but I have
no reason to evade a reply to it except a natural aversion
to discussing my private affairs with those for whom
they can have no possible concern. I have already told you
that prior to our entrance into partnership Mr. Creveling
had speculated occasionally in Wall Street. Since he was
to marry my ward I watched his operations and conceived
a sincere admiration for his acumen. I realized that al-
though he did not know the banking business I could trust
his judgment; he brought the necessary capital into our
concern and I the experience. It was an ideal combination
which to-night’s tragedy has so unfortunately broken.”
“I see.” The inspector nodded. “Was there any con-
nection, Mr. Alexander, between that partnership and your
niece’s marriage? To put it bluntly, was the partnership
a stipulation of the alliance? Mrs. Creveling was your
ward; had she any fortune of her own 1"”
“You go too far, sir !” Mr. Alexander’s eyes flashed.
“The marriage was a love match; because of that alone I
consented to it. Mrs. Creveling’s fortune was not great but
there is no older family “than ours in America, and had she
desired she could have made a far more brilliant alliance,
in spite of Mr. Creveling’s money. I——-I decline absolutely


INQUIRIES as
to answer any more of your questions until I learn my rights
in this affair. I do not understand the trend of this inter-
rogation, nor do I consider it pertinent to the crime you are
investigating—For it is a crime, no matter what your as-
sistant medical examiners or any other so—called officials of
the police department may assume. Eugene Creveling was
murdered!”
“I beg pardon, sir I” A voice whose studied deferential-
ity was- evident even in the Shocked accents which now
punctuated it was heard' behind them and both men turned.
In the doorway stood a thin, smooth-faced individual of
perhaps thirty—five and upon his austere, almost clerical
features deep concern struggled with curiosity and alarm.
“I have just returned—arrived, I should say—in accordance
with Mr. Creveling’s instructions, but he is not in his room.
I hope nothing is wrong, sir? I knocked but you did not
reply and I could not avoid hearing—”
“Oh, it’s you, Frank!” Mr. Alexander spoke with obvious
relief at the other’s appearance, although his tone was fit-
tingly lugubrious. “I regret to inform you that something
very terrible has happened to your master. This is an in-
spector from police headquarters—”
“Who are you?” Inspector Druet stepped forward.
“Mr. Creveling’s man, sir. Frank Hill is my name.” The
valet’s tone was still respectful, but there was a shade less
of deference in it, although he spoke nervously.
“When did you last see your employer alive?”
“At eleven o’clock this—last night, sir, in his rooms at
the club.”
“Where have you been since then?"
The man wet his thin lips and replied in a low, hesitating
voice:
“On a private matter. My time was my own, sir. I—I
had rather not say.”


CHAPTER IV
THE TORN CARD
MEANWHILE, McCarty had taken advantage of his
superior’s off-handed permission and slipped back
into the study immediately after the body had been re-
moved and Clancy and the detective had taken their de-
parture.
Save for the dark stains upon the rug where the shat-
tered form had rested and the strip of tapestry pulled awry
from its accustomed place upon the refectory table, there
were no visible signs left to the casual eye of the tragedy
which had so recently taken place within those four walls,
but McCarty closed the door carefully behind him and stood
for a moment with his back against it surveying the room.
The chairs with their adjacent smoking stands, the book-
cases, davenports, and every article of furniture which the
room contained, passed in swift but unerring detail before
his vision and he whistled softly.
A delicate spring dawn was filtering in through the
diaphanous curtains of the windows at the rear and turning
the golden glow. of the electric lights a sickly lemon yellow;
why had the shades not been lowered or the thick draperies
which hung on either side of the casements been drawn?
McCarty switched off the lights and striding over to the ‘
nearest window thrust aside the curtains and opened it.
The explanation for the disregard of possible onlookers
was instantly apparent, for a- sheer blank brick wall rose
before him about six feet distant. He glanced swiftly each
way and then withdrew his head, leaving the window open
that the gentle breeze might drift through the room. The
36


THE T ORN CARD 37
blank space, or alley, had no opening at either end and
had evidently been left when the Creveling residence was
built in order to give light to its rear windows.
Yet the house was practically in the middle of the block
and beyond that brick wall could lie only the back yards of
the buildings. which faced on the side streets. Had Crevel-
ing caused that high blank barrier to be erected on the edge
of his property for the- purpose of insuring absolute pri-
vacy to the rooms which looked out upon it? The front of
the house was no more carefully secluded from outside ob-
servation than were the others in the neighborhood; why
should the rear have been thus shut away- from prying
eyes?
His mind still busied with the problem, McCarty moved
slowly about the study measuring with a practiced gaze the
distance between the various articles of furniture until he
came to the long, narrow table between the two davenports
which flanked the hearth. Here he paused and taking the
edge of the twisted strip of tapestry between his forefinger
and thumb began almost mechanically to straighten it.
As he lifted it a gleam of something white against the
age-darkened wood of the table top caught his eye and,
thrusting the tapestry hastily aside, he disclosed a small,
highly glazed oblong upon which were spots of red. It
was a playing card, the nine of diamonds, but superimposed
upon its regular scarlet lozengers were tiny blotches of dull
crimson, unmistakable in their significance.
McCarty picked it up gingerly, and saw that it was torn
half across its face; the crimson spots were fast turning a
murky brown and a smudge which resembled the imprint
of a finger was plainly discernible near one side. The card
itself was of the most expensive grade of linen, gilt-edged,
and despite its sinister stains had obviously come from a
new deck. The back was of a peculiar design printed in
rich colors and gold after the manner of the ancient illumi-
nated text and McCarty studied it with minute care, fixing


38 HOW MANY CARDS?
the pattern in his mind. Then he crossed to the writing
table between the windows and opening a drawer selected
an envelope and placed the card within it.
This he slipped into his pocket and then began a close
and exhaustive search of the room, albeit he shook his head
dubiously as he did so. How that single blood-stained play-
ing card happened to have been slipped under the edge of
that strip of tapestry he could not fathom nor what its
significance might be, but he felt certain that the rest of
the deck would not be brought to light within those four
walls. His supposition proved to be a correct one, for he
found no playing cards or games of any description save
a set of rare old ivory chessmen which he unearthed from
a lower drawer of One of the bookcases. He took a final
survey of the room and opened the door to return to the
inspector, when just as he did so he beheld a dark, clerical
appearing form noiselessly pass across the hall from the
other side of the staircase.
It halted before the door of the breakfast room for an
appreciable minute as though listening intently, then opened
it and McCarty heard a deferential voice utter the conven-
tional: “I beg pardon, sir i”
There was a murmur of indistinguishable words and the
man passed within, closing the door behind him. In his
turn, McCarty advanced to it and listened, and so it came
that he heard the inspector’s questions and learned the iden-
tity of the intruder. At the valet’s refusal to state his
whereabouts during the night McCarty quietly entered.
“Possibly not.” The inspector’s curt tones held a hint
of menace. “Your preference, however, will not be con-
suited and I warn you that you had better be candid with
us now.”
“Perhaps,” Mr. Alexander’s thin, nervous tones broke
in, “it would be best to wait until Mrs. Creveling arrives— ?”
To McCarty’s keen gaze it seemed that a glance of warn-
ing shot from the eyes of Creveling’s late partner to the


THE TORN CARD 39
valet, but the latter’s demeanor did not change even as In-
spector Druet turned wrathfully upon the author of the
suggestion.
“I am conducting this inquiry, sir!” he thundered. Then
to the man before him he added: “Your employer has been
found dead, shot through the heart. Do you still persist
in your refusal— ?”
“Mr. Creveling dead!” The valet started back a step or
two. “I—I overheard Mr. Alexander say something about
‘murder’ as I stopped at the door just now, but I didn’t
think—! This is horrible! Who—who Shot him?”
He passed one hand across his lips as though to hide some
uncontrollable evidence of emotion, but his eyes were fixed
watchfully, unchangineg upon his interrogator.
“That is what we are endeavoring to ascertain,” retorted
the inspector. “Did you know of your employer’s inten-
tion to come here to his house last night?”
“Yes, sir.” The valet had hesitated for a shade of a
second. “I was here earlier in the evening; it was I who
received the caterer’s men and arranged the table for sup-
per.”
McCarty smiled to himself. The man Hill was on the
defensive and his very caution was proving his own un-
doing.
“Who was Mr. Creveling’s guest?”
The curt question seemed to vibrate on the air like the
echo of a single sharp note struck upon a gong and the
face of George Alexander tensed visibly as he waited for
its reply, but the valet merely Shrugged.
“I do not know, sir.”
“You did not remain, then, to wait upon the table?”
“No, sir. As I have said, I went to Mr. Creveling at his
clu .”
“You did not return here?”
“Not until ten minutes ago.” The valet’s voice rang out
firmly.


40 HOW MANY CARDS?
“When you saw Mr. Creveling at his club did he mention
who was to be his guest here? Did he at any time say
anything which would lead you to infer the identity of this
person?”
“He did not, sir.” Hill’s tone was still firm, but for a
moment his eyes shifted and then returned as inscrutable
as ever to those of the inspector.
“Where have you been staying since Mr. Creveling has
made his home at his club ?”
“Here, sir.” It was evident that the valet intended to
render no assistance to the inquiry beyond the terse and
literal replies demanded of him, but Inspector Druet per—
sisted.
“You were acting as caretaker also?”
“No, sir. Two of the other servants—Rollins and his
wife, the butler and cook—remained here for that; the
rest of the staff except Mrs. Creveling’s maid were dis-
missed when Mrs. Creveling went to the country and Mr.
Creveling to his clu .”
The inspector exchanged a significant glance with Mc-
Carty, who still hovered quietly in the background.
“Mrs. Creveling usually left home for such protracted
periods, and always dismissed practically her entire staff?”
Again there was that shade of hesitation and then the
valet responded:
“No, sir. The staff was usually retained at half pay
when it was intended to reopen the house again within a
short time, but I understand that this season Mr. and Mrs.
Creveling had made other plans.”
“What other plans?”
Once more the valet shrugged.
“I cannot say, sir, except that some mention was made
of traveling. I have received no instructions for the future ;
I feel sure, though, that I was not to be dismissed or Mr.
Creveling would have said something to me about it.”


THE TORN CARD 41
“How long have you been in Mr. Creveling’s employ-
ment P”
“For eleven years, sir.”
Inspector Druet suddenly changed the tenor of his ques-
tioning.
“The butler and cook are not in the house. When did
you see them here last i‘”
“Yesterday afternoon.” Frank Hill shifted his weight
from one foot to the other, the first sign of nervousness
which he had displayed throughout the interview save his
momentary shock at the intelligence of his master’s death
and the manner of it.
“They are not in the house now. Do you know where
they have gone ?”
“No, sir.” There was no surprise in the valet’s tone, but
a sort of defiant reserve beneath the slightly ironic defer-
ence which obviously nettled the inspector.
“You knew, however, that they were to be absent last
night? I want the story, Hill. No hedging!”
“Rollins, the butler, told me that Mr. Creveling had
given him and his wife a holiday, but they were to be back
early this morning, to prepare for Mrs. Creveling’s home-
coming.”
“ ‘Homecoming’ ?” repeated Inspector Druet sharply.
“You said just now—”
“I beg pardon, sir.” The quiet voice forestalled him.
“I meant to say that the house was not to be reopened again
with the staff this season. In a manner of speaking, it is
never closed when the caretakers are here, and some one is
always left in charge. I understood that Mrs. Creveling
was to return this morning with her maid for a few days
of preparation before starting upon her journey with Mr.
Creveling. The butler and cook, Yvonne—the maid—and
myself could, of course, have given sufficient service if no
entertaining were contemplated.”


42 HOW MANY CARDS?
The inspector meditated for a moment.
“Why did Mr. Creveling give the butler and cook a holi-
day yesterday, of all times, when he intended to receive
some one here for supper last night?” he asked finally.
“Supposing the meal were to be supplied from a caterer’s,
why did he not require the services of the butler to wait
upon the table?”
As though he realized the slip he had made the valet’s
eyes sought those of Creveling’s late partner, but Mr. Alex-
ander avoided them studiously.
“I can’t say, sir,” Hill responded at length. “Mr. Crevel-
ing told me nothing beyond my own instructions."
“Was it usual for your employer during his wife's ab—
sence to clear all the servants out of the house in order
to entertain here ?” -
At the question and its implication Hill’s color changed,
but his eyes once more met those of the inspector levelly.
“I do not know that Mr. Creveling ever did that, sir; I
mean, purposely. He frequently had one or more gentle-
men here to supper when Mrs. Creveling was away. Some-
times the butler waited upon them, sometimes I did. I
think he gave Rollins and his wife a holiday before I asked
permission to have the night to myself on this occasion.”
Inspector Druet evaded the issue of the valet’s own move-
ments during the hours which had passed since eleven by
asking:
“Did Mr. Creveling ever entertain ladies also on these
occasions?”
“During Mrs. Creveling’s absence ?” There was a note
of shocked incredulity in the servant's tones as if he could
scarcely believe that he had understood the question. “In-
deed, no, sir! They were strictly stag suppers.”
“Who were the gentlemen Mr. Creveling entertained
here, then ?” the inspector continued. “What were their
names?”
“Rollins can tell you that better than I can, sir,” Hill


THE TORN CARD 43
temporized. “He usually waited upon them, it was only
occasionally that I took his place and then the gentlemen
were sometimes strangers to me, business acquaintances of
Mr. Creveling’s.”
“You don’t know the name of a single gentleman who
ever had supper here with Mr. Creveling alone ?” The in-
spector’s tone had sharpened again.
“Of course, sir, a few of them. They were all personal
friends of long standing, those I did know; Mr. O’Rourke
has been here once or twice, and Mr. Waverly and Mr. Cut-
ter. I can’t recall them all at the moment, sir.”
McCarty, unable to contain himself longer, coughed with
elaborate ostentation and after a quick side glance at him
the inspector nodded.
“Mac, show this man where the body was found—No,
Mr. Alexander!” He added the last as the banker started
forward nervously. “There are a few more questions I
wish to ask you. Wait here, please.”
Mr. Alexander sank back with an air of hopeless vexa-
tion.
“Then I trust that you will be brief!” be snapped. “I
know nothing, as I told you in the beginning, which could
help you in any way and this ghastly affair has been an in-
expressible shock to me. When my niece arrives I must
meet her with the news of her tragic bereavement and as—
sume control of the situation as the head of the family and
I cannot do so without an opportunity to pull myself to-
gether, to—to bear up under my own natural grief—!”
The door closed upon the thin, testy tones and the thought
crossed McCarty’s mind that the banker’s emotion was
somewhat tardy in finding expression, but his grimly deter-
mined face gave no indication of the idea as he piloted his
charge to the study.
“ ’Twas there the body was found,” McCarty explained
as he pointed to the dark stain upon the rug, and then added
with seeming irrelevance: “What did they do, Hill, at these


44 HOW MANY CARDS?
stag parties you were telling the inspector about? Play
cards ?”
Before McCarty’s good-natured but keen scrutiny the
valet seemed to have lost a trifle of the assurance which he
had maintained in the presence of the inspector and now
he blinked, staring as if fascinated at the sinister spot upon
the floor.
“No. They just ate and drank and smoked.”
“What did they talk about?”
The man Hill raised sullen, resentful eyes at the ques-
tion.
“It was not my place to listen to the conversation,” he
responded tartly. “I served them when Rollins wasn’t here
to do it and minded my own business. That’s all I know.”
“You’ll find you’re minding your own business best now,
my man, if you’ll speak up and come clean!” McCarty ad-
monished sternly. “You told the inspector in there that
Mr. Creveling said never a word to you about last night
beyond giving you your instructions; what were they ?”
The valet moistened his thin lips.
“He told me that he was having a guest here for supper;
that I was to be here at six when the caterer’s men arrived
and arrange everything and then bring him a bag of clean
linen at the club at eleven.”
“And when did he tell you this?” McCarty’s eyes had
narrowed.
“Yesterday morning.”
“Where?”
“Here. He came for some papers before going down
to his office, and gave me some other instructions about
his clothes; he didn’t like the valet service at the club.”
“And what club was this where he was staying?” Mc-
Carty asked.
“The Marathon.”
“Why didn’t he stay in his own home if there were three
of you here to look after him ?” s


THE TORN CARD 45
The valet’s shoulders and eyebrows lifted expressively.
“I never asked him and he didn’t tell me, but I suppose
he liked the club better than an empty house; any gentle-
man would.” For the first time Hill looked squarely at his
inquisitor. “Who are you? A detective?”
“I’m a special officer on this case and my name’s Mc-
Carty,” the ex-roundsman replied. “You’ll be only saving
yourself trouble—”
“ ‘McCarty!’ ” Hill interrupted and there was something
very like consternation in his tones. “You’re the McCarty
who was in all the papers in connection with the Hoyos
case and the Glamorgan afiair ?”
“I am that!” There was no braggadocio in Timothy Mc-
Carty’s plain, matter-of-fact statement. “Now, Hill, how
long had you been in the house before you knocked at the
door of the room where the inspector and Mr. Alexander
were ?”
“Only a minute or two, sir.” The tone was almost eager
now and the habitual servility had returned to it. “I let
myself in at the tradesmen’s entrance with my own key
as usual and went upstairs to get a couple of hours’ sleep
before Rollins and his wife returned and it would be time
to bustle about and get the house in order for Mrs. Crevel-
ing’s coming. I started up the back way, of course, and
at the second floor I thought I’d stop and see if Mr. Crevel-
ing was in his room; he usually slept home instead of going
back to the club when he’d had any one here for a late sup-
per, and when I found nobody there I supposed maybe his
guest hadn’t gone yet and I’d better come down.and see
if they wanted any more Wine or anything. Mr. Creveling’s
private cellar is stocked up for two or three years yet to
come. I went down the front staircase and heard voices in
the room where I’d laid out the supper table, so I knocked.”
“You thought Mr. Creveling was still in there ?” McCarty
queried blandly. “I mean, when you stopped and listened
before you knocked?”


_46 HOW MANY CARDS?
The valet shot him a startled glance.
“I didn’t know what to think!” he blurted out after a.
moment’s hesitation. “I heard Mr. Alexander’s voice and
recognized it, of course, but for all I knew he might have
been the guest Mr. Creveling was entertaining. Then he
said something about ‘murder’ and a strange voice answered.
You know the rest, sir; I’m giving it to you straight!”
“You’ve been with Million-a-month Creveling for eleven
years,” McCarty remarked slowly, using the nickname with
deliberate intent. “That’s three years before his marriage.
You may have come through with all you know about to-
night’s affair, Hill, but you’ve only done it because we dug
it out of you. There’s a lot more you know about the man
you’ve been working for and I’m going to have it.”
“There’s been nothing since his marriage that all the
world don’t know, and precious little before that, thanks to
the reporters that were forever barking at his heels because
he was a free-handed spender and liked a good time !” the
valet retorted. “I’m not saying Mr. Creveling was any angel
in his y0unger days but there’s nothing you can hang on
him now.”
“I disremember just now what all the scandal used to
be about him but a look at the old newspaper files will
give me a line on that.” McCarty spoke as though to him-
self, but he watched the other narrowly. “ ’Twas the usual
thing, I suppose: wine and women and horses and cards.
The first of them at least he didn’t give up when he mar-
ried, by your own testimony, but how about the last? Has
Creveling been gambling heavy lately, that you know of?
Did he have any quiet little games here ?”
Hill shook his head decisively.
“He hasn’t touched a card in years, at least not that I’ve
heard of. He never even sat in at Mrs. Creveling’s bridge
parties. After he married and settled down he started
in antique collecting; not paintings so much but rugs and
tapestries and porcelains and rare old books. Regular pas-


THE TORN CARD 47
sion it got to be with him and he studied up on periods
and such, but then he was always a natural judge of good
things, Mr. Creveling was.”
McCarty pondered for a moment. The other man’s ex-
pression was as inscrutable as ever but there had seemed
to be a thinly veiled double meaning in his last remark.
Why had he been so obviously on the defensive since the
beginning of the interrogation? He was shrewd and in-
telligent above the average of his class; surely he must
realize the equivocal position in which he stood with the
inspector after his open defiance and refusal to state where
he had himself been during those crucial hours! McCarty
tried another lead.
“This house has a kind of a new look to it, in spite of
all the old things Creveling collected,” he observed. “When
was it built?”
“At the time of his marriage, sir; he built it for his
bride. There’s not a residence of its size on the Avenue
to compare with i .” The valet spoke with almost personal
pride.
“And ’twas him put up that high blank wall at the back ?”
asked McCarty. “Why?”
“I never heard him say, sir. I suppose he preferred it to
the back courts of the side street houses.” The reserve
deepened once more in Hill’s tones. “It may have been
Mrs. Creveling who suggested it; I cannot say.”
“Did anybody ever die here before?” McCarty’s own
tones had lowered.
“Die?” The valet started nervously.
“In this house, I mean. Has there been a death here
since it was built?”
“No, not until this !”
“That’s funny. I never heard of a new house with never
a death in it that sported a ghost before.” McCarty seemed
again to be reflecting aloud and for a moment there was
silence while the other eyed him askance. At length he


48 HOW MANY CARDS?
resumed: “You used your own latch key in coming in a.
while ago; who else has keys to the house?”
“I don’t know.” The valet spoke in evident relief. “Rol-
lins, of course, and his wife. The rest of the staff were
supposed to turn theirs in to the housekeeper when they
left, but they may have had duplicates made. The house-
keeper went back to Scotland at month ago when the estab-
lishment was closed and Mrs. Creveling started visiting,
but I don’t know what became of the keys.”
“I suppose you do know, though, what you’re letting
yourself in for by refusing to tell where you have been since
eleven o’clock?” inquired McCarty. “You are the last so
far as we know to have seen Creveling alive, you had a key
to come and go as you please and you won’t try to make
out an alibi for yourself. It’s liable to go hard with you.”
“Maybe,” Hill commented without bravado, but there was
a peculiar glint in his swiftly lowered eyes. “If you’re on
this case, Mr. McCarty, it’s for you and the inspector to
prove that I was here after eleven, not for me to prove that
I wasn’t. I know American law, sir.”
In spite of his respectful tone there was a covert chal-
lenge in it which McCarty grimly accepted.
“You’ve had reason to, maybe,” he retorted significantly.
“You’ve nothing more to add to what you’ve told the in-
spector and me ?—Then we’ll just go back—”
A heavy, dull thud sounding from the main hall broke
into his sentence and with a common impulse both men
turned to the door. McCarty reached it first and opening
it stepped mechanically outside just as the inspector and
Mr. Alexander issued from the breakfast room.
Across the rotunda, flooded with a mingling of pale sun—
shine and the more brazen electric lights, the four men be-
held a figure which momentarily held them spellbound. A
few steps from the main entrance doors which had just
closed behind her a woman stood looking from one to an-
other of them. Ash-blonde hair above deep violet eyes


THE TORN CARD 49
peeped from beneath her motor hood and her tall, statuesque
form, swathed in a long satin coat which revealed rather
than concealed its splendid lines, was drawn up to its full
height as she regarded them for a long minute in a silence
which none of them seemed inclined to break.
At last her lips moved and with perfect self-possession
she inquired slowly:
“What is it, please? What has happened to my hus-
band P”


CHAPTER V
“WHO KILLED HIM ?”
HE woman’s tones were low and well-modulated but
they seemed to soar to the topmost reaches of the gal-
leried rotunda in the momentousness of their question and
as they died away in a quivering silence even the matter-
of-fact McCarty felt a cold shiver as of apprehension.
It seemed an age before George Alexander with a little
nervous clearing of his throat advanced to meet her.
“My dear Myra!” There was mingled astonishment
and dismay in his voice and beneath it McCarty detected
that same undernote as of caution with which the banker
had previously addressed the valet. “How could my tele-
gram have reached you so quickly? I—we didn’t ex-
pect—i”
“I know nothing of any telegram, Uncle George.” Myra
Creveling’s voice still seemed strangely remote. “The cook
telephoned out to me—at least I believe it was Sarah—that
some accident had happened to Eugene. But who are these
men ?—-Frank, where is Mr. Creveling?”
After a brief' glance at the inspector and McCarty her
eyes had fastened themselves upon the valet and as he
opened his lips to reply the former stepped forward.
“You are Mrs. Creveling?”
“I am.” Her glance returned to Inspector Druet. “May
I ask who you are and what you are doing in my house?”
“Myra, my dear!” Alexander interposed hastily. “You
must prepare yourself for a great shock, a great grief! This
man is an inspector from the police department; Eugene
was found here dead!”
50


“WHO KILLED HIM ?” 51
For a moment her wide violet eyes stared deep into her
uncle’s and there came a sudden tensing of the lines of her
beautiful face but no outcry, no faintness, no other Signs of
normal emotion. Then from her stiffened lips there issued
one single question:
“Who killed him?”
McCarty glanced inadvertently at his superior. If the
supposed maid had telephoned to her mistress merely that
Creveling had met with some accident, why had his wife
on learning that he was dead instantly assumed that he had
been murdered?
Inspector Druet, however, did not take up that thread
at once. Instead he gestured deprecatingly but with unmis-
takable authority to a throne chair which stood between
two torch lamps near where she had halted and asked:
“At what hour did your cook telephone to you, Mrs.
Creveling?”
Obediently, almost mechanically, the lady seated herself
and loosening her cloak drew off her veil.
“At about five o’clock this morning, a trifle before the
hour, I think.” She put one hand to her forehead for a
moment, but there was no dazed look of shock in the direct,
clear gaze she bent upon her questioner.
“And that was all the message, that there had been an
accident? You asked for no particulars?”
“I had no opportunity. That was all the message that
was delivered to me. I did not receive it myself, the butler
at Broadmead where I was staying replied to the telephone,
then awakened my maid who in turn brought the news to
me. I understood that the cook—the only maidservant left
here—had said that I must come home at once, that some-
thing had happened to my husband.”
At about five! That had been the hour when Alexander
first made his appearance at the house, a few minutes after
McCarty had concluded his solitary second search of the
rooms upstairs. The agitated elderly gentleman had not


52 HOW MANY CARDS?
thought of sending the wire to his niece until a good half
hour afterward; it must have been a quarter of six, at least,
when the detective from borough headquarters reached the
nearest telegraph office to despatch the message. Why had
none of them thought to telephone direct to Broadmead in-
stead?
As McCarty asked himself this question he glanced inad-
vertently at Alexander just in time to intercept a look which
flashed between the banker and the valet; a deliberate mo-
tion of command with his eyes toward the room back of
him which he had just left, the room with the disordered
supper table still laid for two. McCarty’s own eyes turned
to Hill to find him slipping cat-like toward the door in a
movement which the man himself instantly checked.
Mrs. Creveling’s testimony was of utmost value at the
moment, but McCarty made up his mind to keep his own
attention upon this strangely assorted pair as well.
“You immediately aroused your host ?” prompted the in-
spector.
“My hostess,” Mrs. Creveling corrected him, still in that
monotonous, remote tone without obvious display of repres-
sion. “Mr. Waverly was not at Broadmead last night.—
Inspector, who killed my husband?”
Now indeed her voice had changed, but with no poignant
outburst of pent-up grief. It rang out hard and cold and
sharp as steel and behind it there was a stern, implacable
determination to know the truth.
“What makes you think that any one killed him ?” the in—
spector countered swiftly. “Your maid telephoned that an
accident had occurred and your uncle here has merely in-
formed you that Mr. Creveling was found dead.”
She shrugged and a faint smile as of scorn curled her
mobile lips for an instant before they settled again in that
unyielding line.
“What fatal accident could have befallen him in his own
home?” Her long, slim, white hands dismissed the pos-


“WHO KILLED HIM ?” 53
sibility with a gesture of finality. “My husband was in per-
fect health and there can be no question of suicide. I de-
mand to be told at once how he died.”
“He was found in the study or library which opens just
beside the staircase there, shot through the heart. The
weapon, an army .44, was within reach of his hand and there
was no living person in the house except those who discov-
ered the body,” Inspector Druet replied gravely. “Mrs.
Creveling, when did you last. see your husband alive ?”
“Last Sunday. He came down to Broadmead over the
week-end.” She broke off and asked quickly: “Who found
my husband? Was it Rollins or Sarah? Where are they ?”
Frank Hill, the valet, interposed.
“Mr. Creveling himself gave them a holiday yesterday,
Mrs. Creveling,” he said.
She darted a swift glance at him and nodded slowly, but
save for a slight tightening of her lips her expression did
not change for a moment. Then a quick thought came to
her.
“Then who— ?'
Her uncle divined the question before it was uttered.
“We don’t know. I was summoned, too, by telephone
some little time before you were, but it was a man who
called me, a stranger. I don’t remember ever having heard
his voice until early this morning.” He spoke hastily, al-
most furtively. “Eugene entertained some one at supper
here late last night, Myra, some client of ours probably—”
“Did you know that he intended doing so, Mrs. Crevel-
ing?” interrupted the inspector bruskly. “Do you know
who the person was?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she responded composedly. “I only know that if
my husband was shot he was murdered. I do not wish to
act in opposition to the authorities, but it is permitted I
believe that in a case like this I may engage private inves-
tigators to codperate with them?”


54 HOW MANY CARDS?
The inspector bowed but George Alexander started for-
ward.
“Myra! Such a step would be most—most unnecessary!
I am sure that the authorities are perfectly capable of
handling this terrible situation and that they know best. I
myself thought at first that it could not have been a case of
suicide, but the pistol lay within touch of his fingers. I—I
saw it myself ! If you drag in blundering private detectives
you will subject us to needless and distressing notoriety.
This shock has dazed you, you are not quite yourself, my
dear. If you will take time to think the matter over—”
“I have thought.” Mrs. Creveling favored her uncle with
a long inscrutable look and before it he seemed all at once
to shrivel and the lines of age which grooming and care
had kept smooth stood out in his pallid face. “I knew
Eugene better than any one in the world and I know that
the suggestion of suicide is absolutely untenable. I’m going
to find out who killed him, Uncle George, if I move heaven
and earth to do so. I have heard of a man, a scientific
criminologist I believe he is called, who is quite famous in
his way. I want him if he is to be had. His name is Wade
Terhune.”
A swift glance passed between the inspector and Mc~
Carty and the former shrugged with a slight smile. Mc-
Carty grinned in answer. So once more Terhune with his
little scientific recording instruments and trained analytical
mind was to be pitted against the routine methods of the
force and McCarty’s own efforts! It seemed a stroke of
fate that the ex-roundsman, the inspector and the crime
savant should be again upon the trail and the former looked
forward with grim humor to Terhune’s appearance on the
scene.
“Mr. Terhune has often been called in by the depart-
ment, and my special deputy, here, and I have worked per-
sonally with him on more than one case.” Inspector Druet
turned to Mrs. Creveling who still preserved her stoic calm.


“WHO KILLED HIM ?” 55
“I have the telephone number here of his private, unlisted
wire; shall I have him summoned for you?”
“Myra!” Mr. Alexander put in a final, futile remon-
strance. “Think well what you are doing! If Eugene were
really—er—murdered -I am sure the inspector is fully ca-
pable of finding the guilty man. These private detectives
are always looking for press notices and the notoriety will
be hideous! Do you realize—?”
“I realize everything, Uncle George, and my mind is made
up,” Mrs. Creveling replied with a quiet finality of tone
which brooked no further opposition. “I do not imply that
the police department is incapable of handling this—this
crime, but I want to feel that I myself am leaving no stone
unturned to discover by whose ‘hand my husband came to
his death. If the inspector will give you his number I wish
you would go and call up Mr. Terhune yourself for me.
Tell him to name his own price, anything, but to come at
once.”
When Mr. Alexander, accompanied by the inspector, had
retired to the study upon his reluctantly assumed mission
McCarty stepped forward with one eye still on the valet
and coughed deferentially.
“I’m the special deputy Inspector Druet put on this case
with himself, ma’am. McCarty’s my name. Is there any
one else you want sent for? Any relative or friend, I
mean?”
Once more Mrs. Creveling shook her head.
“Neither Mr. Creveling nor I have any relative beside
my uncle, Mr. Alexander,” she responded. “My maid will
follow on the next train from Long Island and the butler
and cook will probably return at any moment now as I
was expected home this morning in any event. I do not
want my friends about me, I want to be alone, to think.”
To think but not to grieve. One look at that stern coun-
tenance, as immobile as that of some goddess carved in
marble, would have shown to far less astute eyes than Mc-


56 HOW MANY CARDS?
Carty’s that Myra Creveling would permit no breakdown,
no unleashing of her emotions until her dominating pur-
pose was achieved. That she had jumped so hastily to the
conclusion her husband had been murdered pointed to the
probability that she also strongly suspected the identity of
the murderer but it would be futile to question her on that
score at the moment.
“Of course that’s only natural, ma’am.” McCarty spoke
soothingly. “Still I’m sure you’ll be wanting to give us all
the help you can and every minute counts now. In a case
like this where we’ve got practically no clew and nothing
to go on we’ll have to find out what we can from Mr. Crevel-
ing’s friends. I believe you said that Mr. Waverly was
not at Broadmead last night. Were any other of your
friends there? Mr. Alexander mentioned a Mr. and Mrs.
O’Rourke, a lady named Culp or Kip—”
“Oh, they are in our set, of course, but none of them
were at Broadmead,” Mrs. Creveling interrupted. “There
was no house party; I was just visiting there quietly for
a few days.”
“Where was Mr. Waverly last night? Was he expected
out at his home ?”
“No, he was at one of his clubs, I suppose. He tele-
phoned out before dinner that he would be detained in
town overnight. Mrs. Waverly and I were alone at Broad-
mead with the servants.” She paused and then spoke in a
quickened tone. “Mr. McCarty, you said just now that
you had no clews. If my butler and cook have been away
since yesterday, who was the man who summoned my uncle
and the woman who telephoned to me? If those calls could
be traced I should think you would have a very real clew
to material witnesses, at least.”
McCarty nodded gravely.
“We may be able to learn their identity, though ’twill be
no easy matter; they might have ’phoned from pay sta-
tions, you know, ma’am. ’Tis unlikely that either of them


“WHO KILLED HIM ?” 57
was the murderer, if murder was done. Mr. Alexander
must have been called up after four o’clock and you say
the message came to you a little before five. Now, Mr.
Creveling’s body was discovered a few minutes past two
and according to the opinion of the medical examiner he
must have been dead an hour before that; plenty of time,
you see, for the murderer to have got clean away. Does
the Waverlys’ butler know your cook?”
“It is possible; I’m sure I don’t know.” There was a
touch of hauteur in her tone.
“I was only wondering whether he recognized her voice
or whether the woman told him who she was,” McCarty
explained mildly. “Do you know a Mr. Cutter?”
The slender, white hands resting on the arms of her chair
gripped tensely at the sudden question, but she replied with-
out hesitation or surprise.
“Nicholas Cutter? Certainly. He is one of our closest
friends.”
“And the O’Rourkes and Fords and the lady named Culp
or Kip ?” McCarty persisted. “Will you give me their full
names and addresses, please ? Are they all in the same set ?”
“They are all in my immediate circle of friends, if that
is what you mean.” As if suddenly conscious of those- be-
traying hands she lifted them and let them fall idly into
her lap. “Of course, Mr. Creveling had many casual
friends of whom I know nothing, clubmen and business as-
sociates, but those you mention have been our social inti—
mates for years. Mr. and Mrs. Lonsdale Ford live at the
St. Maur apartments on Madison Avenue; Mrs. Baillie Kip,
if that is who you mean, has a house on East Sixty-third
Street, and Mr. and Mrs. john Cavanaugh O’Rourke have
taken the Hartington residence a few blocks above us on
the Avenue, here. The Waverlys’ town house is two blocks
south.”
McCarty had scarcely heard the last sentence. His face
flushed and with shining eyes he repeated:


58 HOW MANY CARDS?
“John Cavanaugh O’Rourke! Would you know, Mrs.
Creveling, if he came from the old country, from near Dub-
lin ?”
“Yes. He and his wife both came from there about six
years ago. She was Lady Margaret Sinclair.” The even
voice responded without show of interest.
“Little Lady Peggy!” McCarty murmured softly to him—
self. “She and the son of ‘the’ O’Rourke! To think of it!
The years do be sliding along fast 1”
He was apparently absorbed, although the light in his
eyes had suddenly misted, in jotting down the addresses on
the back of an old envelope and as he replaced it in his
pocket he looked up with a return of his deferential yet
businesslike air.
“Your housekeeper has gone back to Scotland, I under-
stand. Did she leave all the keys of the house with. you,
ma’am? Did the servants who were dismissed turn theirs
in ?”
“I suppose so. At least, Mrs. Jarvie gave me a small
box filled with keys all labeled. I can show them to you
later.” Mrs. Creveling rose as her uncle reéntered from
the study accompanied by the inspector. “Did you reach
Mr. Terhune, Uncle George? Will he undertake the case
for me?”
“He will be here as soon as his car can bring him,” Mr.
Alexander replied. “I fancy my call got him out of his
bed, however, for it isn’t quite eight o’clock yet and it will
take him a short time at least to dress. If you wish to re-
tire in the meantime to your own rooms and compose your-
self for your interview with him I am sure that Inspector
Druet will have no objection. We must not put too great
a strain upon you after this fearful shock.”
“There is just one more question I should like to ask
Mrs. Creveling now.” The inspector stepped forward hast-
ily. “Had your husband any cause to fear for his life?
To your knowledge had he any enemies, Mrs. Creveling ?”


“WHO KILLED HIM?” 59
McCarty did not hear the lady’s reply. The tail of his
eye which had never left the valet’s spare, black-clad form
caught him slinking toward a door on the other side of
the staircase and as the man disappeared within it he was
close upon the other’s heels. Hill moved swiftly with his
accustomed noiseless tread and so intent upon his errand
was he that he did not hear the careful but heavier steps
behind him. The door led into a rear hallway and the
two proceeded beyond the back stairs and around a turn-
ing past the pantries and kitchen toward the tradesmen’s
entrance.
A tall, angular, middle-aged woman was advancing along
the hall, and behind her appeared the shorter, more rotund
figure of a man evidently some years her senior. Both
were dressed in the simplest of outdoor attire and their
bearing betrayed their identity even before the woman
spoke.
“Don’t you remind us that we’re late, Frank!” she said
sharply. “We’ve had a dreadful night; fire in the flat below
Rollins’ sister’s, and never a wink of sleep for any of us!
I’m sure I wish Mr. Creveling would have his parties some-
where else and leave us in peace—!”
She stopped abruptly on catching sight of the stranger
behind the valet and her close-set eyes seemed boring him
through like gimlets. Before Hill could interpose the fat
elderly man spoke over her shoulder.
“Lizzie couldn’t ’elp the fire but Sarah will have ’er--
’Ullo! Who’s this?”
Hill darted a swift glance behind and for the first time
McCarty caught a glimpse of the man’s countenance with
the mask off. It was drawn and distorted and a gleam
of incalculable cunning shone from the narrowed eyes.
The next instant with a twisted smile he had stepped
aside.
“Perhaps you’d like to tell them yourself, sir.” He waved
his hand toward the newcomers. “It’s Rollins and Sarah.”


60 HOW MANY CARDS?
The two stood rooted to the spot as McCarty stepped
forward.
“Police Headquarters,” he announced bluntly. “You are
Sarah Rollins, the cook here? Did you telephone out to
Broadmead where Mrs. Creveling is staying during last
night?”
“Police 1” thewoman gasped in a shrill whisper. “What-
ever’s been goin’ on !—What would I telephone to Mrs.
Creveling for? I’m one that minds my own business and
makes no trouble l”
Unfeigned astonishment was blazoned upon her thin,
acidulous face but no sign of apprehension, and satisfied
that he had been answered McCarty-turned to her husband.
“You’re the butler? Did you telephone to Mr. George
Alexander about half-past four this morning?”
“ ‘Mr. Alexander’ l” Rollins repeated in evident stupefac-
tion. “At ’alf after four I was trying to settle to a bit of
sleep again in my bed at my sister’s. The house she lives
in took on fire at two, and we were all routed out in our-—
as we were, sir. I ’ad no occasion to telephone to Mr.
Alexander or any one else. What is it? What’s been going
on ’ere, robbery?” I
“Mr. Creveling was shot to death- here in his study some-
time during the night.” .McCarty watched the effect of his
words narrowly. “Do you know who was supposed to
have had supper here with him?”
“Shot!” It was the cook who uttered the exclamation
and her husband turned on her before she could continue.
“We know nothing about it!” His ruddy face had paled
and the assertion although- seemingly addressed to McCarty
was as obviously intended for the woman. “This is ter-
rible business, sir! ’Ow—’ow did it ’appen ?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out,” McCarty retorted
grimly. “Did you know why Mr. Creveling gave you a
little holiday yesterday ?”
“Why, yes, sir,” the butler stammered. “I’d asked ’im


“WHO KILLED HIM?” 61
for leave to run up to Boston overnight sometime this week
to see my brother-in-law on business, and yesterday Mr.
Creveling told me to go last night and take Sarah with me
if I liked; I understood that Frank would be ’ere to look
after the ’ouse.”
“Why didn’t you go to Boston, then ?" demanded Mc-
Carty quickly.
“Because my brother-in-law ’ad returned to the city. I
’phoned my sister to tell ’er we were going and she said ’e
’ad come home; that’s why we went to ’er flat ’ere instead.”
“And stayed overnight instead of coming back here to
your own rooms to sleep?” There was contemptuous in-
credulity in McCarty’s tones. “Why did you do that?”
“Because we talked late and my brother-in-law and I split
a bottle that he’d got ’old of somewhere.” Rollins spoke
sullenly and then as if in afterthought roused himself to
what was probably expected of him. “Mr. Creveling dead!
This is ’orrible, sir, ’orrible! A fine, free—handed gentle-
man he was. Did a burglar break in, do you think ?”
“I’m asking questions, not answering them,” McCarty
asseverated sternly. “If you’re not more frank with me
than this fellow here has been it’s likely to go as hard with
you as it will with him! Who had supper with Mr. Crevel-
ing here last night?”
“I don’t know, sir, strike me pink! No more does Sarah.
We’re paid to do our work and keep our place and we’ve
done both, as Mr. Creveling ’imself would tell you if ’e
was alive to do it. Mr. Creveling has entertained gentlemen
’ere now and again but we didn’t know he expected any one
last night. Has Mrs. Creveling been sent for, sir ?”
“She is here.”
“Here!” Sarah threw up her hands. “And her rooms
not in order, and me with all that lobster and stuff from
the caterer’s to clean up !--Let me pass! Police or no,
I’ve got my work to do. I don’t know anything about what
happened to poor Mr. Creveling, and you needn’t be afraid


62 HOW MANY CARDS?
I’ll run away. You’ll find me here when you want me!”
McCarty opened his lips as if to speak, then thought bet-
ter of it and obediently stepped aside, but he gazed after
the woman’s departing figure with a quizzical look in his
his twinkling eyes. When she had disappeared he turned
once more to the butler.
“How long have you and your wife been employed here?”
“Three years,” Rollins replied. “I’ve never worked for
a nicer family—in America, that is. Always extra ’elp when
they entertained and I could ’ave ’ad a second footman any
time I’d wanted to ask for one. This will be a bad job
for us, getting mixed up in scandal at our time of life,
and we’ve always been so particular about our positions
too !” -
“Where does this sister of yours live, Rollins ?” McCarty
cut short the flow of lamentation.
“Just across the park, sir, in West Ninety-fourth Street,
a door or two from Columbus Avenue. I’ll write the ad-
dress down for you.” The butler’s hands fumbled shakily
in his pockets. “Her name is Mrs. William Carroll and
she can tell you that both Sarah and me were with her all
night.”
McCarty smiled to himself. He would have surer proof
than that, for the engine and hose company which his par-
ticular crony, Dennis Riordan, adorned with his presence
was located in the same precinct; Denny would have the
best of reasons for knowing if there had been a fire at two
that morning.
“ ’Tis just a matter of form,” McCarty remarked. “Now,
Rollins, come clean! That stuff about keeping your place
is all right but you are in a position to know the truth and.
I want it. You’ve heard all the family conversation at table
whether you wanted to listen or not; did you ever hear Mr.
Creveling speak of any one he hated or who hated him?
Was there any one who would be glad to get him out of
the way?”


“WHO KILLED HIM ?” 63
Hill had followed the cook kitchenwards and RollinS’ gaze
traveled past his questioner to the shadowed turn in the hall
and he hesitated. Finally he spoke.
“Both Mr. and Mrs. Creveling was too ’ighly bred to
discuss their afiairs before any of the ’ousehold, sir. ’E
was a very forceful man and I’ve no doubt made enemies
but none that could ’ave wished ’im out of the way, though
there was one that ’e had ’igh words with one night not a
fortnight ago.”
“Who was that?” McCarty demanded. “One of his in-
timate friends?”
The butler nodded.
“It was Mr. Douglas Waverly, sir,” he said.


CHAPTER VI
THE CIGARETTE CASE
‘6 ELL, well! So we have our friend and confrére
Mr. McCarty with us once more! Are you going
to lend us your valuable assistance in this case ?”
A tall, spare, slightly bald, slightly stoop-shouldered fig—
ure detached himself from the group about the throne chair
as McCarty made his reappearance in the reception hall
and advanced a step or two with outstretched hand. There
was amused condescension in his alert, self-confident man-
ner and a hint of sarcasm in the crisp tones which made
the honest face of the ex-roundsman flush, but he responded
quietly as he shook hands:
“Inspector Druet has taken me on as special deputy, Mr.
Terhune. I happened to be on hand when the body was
discovered.”
“As usual, eh ?” The noted criminologist smiled a trifle
wryly. “Really, if the word had not been so much abused
I should call you an opportunist, my dear McCarty! I
have accepted Mrs. Creveling’s commission to investigate
the affair in her behalf and I presume that we can count
on your cooperation? If you were here when the crime
was first discovered perhaps you will be good enough to
give me the details; I have learned nothing as yet except
that Mr. Creveling was found shot in the breast and my
client refuses to entertain the theory of suicide.”
McCarty complied willingly enough but with certain
reservations. He led Wade Terhune first to the study and
described the finding of the body and the episode of the
64


THE CIGARETTE CASE 65
burglar but made no mention of the blood-stained playing
card, nor of the result of his second search of the rooms
upstairs. It would be time to impart that information to
the private detective when he had first laid the facts before
his chief.
In the breakfast room they came upon Rollins hastily re-
moving the débris of the supper which had ended so tragi-
cally and as Terhune paused to question him McCarty
slipped away and rejoining the group in the hall led In-
spector Druet aside.
“The cook and the butler are back, sir, and I think if
you don’t need me for a while I’ll be getting on; there are a
few things I want to look into. You’ll be holding that valet,
Frank Hill?”
“Of course, until he gives us some sort of an alibi that
we can establish; he’s our one best bet now unless you’ve
got some dope you haven’t told me about.” The inspector
glanced at him shrewdly.
McCarty’s eyes twinkled.
“I’ve had no time, sir, and besides I’ve nothing definite
as yet, but if you’ll be going back downtown soon I’ll come
in and make my report—When you frisk this man Hill at
Headquarters if you find a pair of gloves on him keep
them aside till I get there.”
“Gloves on a warm spring night!” The inspector’s own
eyes narrowed. “For a valet he must be some classy
dresser! There were none on him when he came to the
door of the breakfast room.”
“You’ll find them in one of his pockets, most likely,” Mc-
Carty remarked carelessly. “See you later, chief.”
As he turned to go the telephone in the study shrilled in
subdued insistence and Rollins appeared in the door of the
breakfast room, but at a sign from the inspector McCarty
was before him.
Crossing the study, he lifted the bronze ornament from
the telephone and held the receiver to his ear.


66 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Hello! Can I speak to Mrs. Creveling, please ?” It was
a man’s voice cultured in its intonations and yet with a
note of inherent grosSness.
“Who is it, sir?” McCarty asked cautiously.
“Mr. Douglas Waverly.”
McCarty pondered for a moment and then spoke with
his voice carefully modulated.
“Mrs. Creveling is indisposed. Can I take a message,
sir?”
“This isn’t Rollins talking! Is he there or Frank? My
wife just telephoned to me that some sort of an accident
had happened to Mr. Creveling, and I want to know if
'there is anything that I can do. Please convey that mes-
“ sage to Mrs. Creveling.”
“Very good, sir.” McCarty waited for a brief space and
then spoke into the mouth piece once more. “Mrs. Crevel-
ing is sending me down in person with a message, sir. It is
most important and she doesn’t want any one here just
now. Where can I find you?”
“At the Belterre Hotel.” The reply came after a mo~
ment of evident hesitation. “I’ll expect you in about half
an hour. Who the devil are you, anyway? What hap-
pened to Mr. Creveling?"
“I’ll tell you, sir, when I come.”
McCarty hung up the receiver and, returning to the hall,
made his way out by the tradesmen’s entrance. It was still
too early for much traffic but a huge green ’bus like some
monstrous beetle came lumbering past in the bright glare
of sunlight and as McCarty swung himself aboard he
glanced back at the house which he had just left. The
lower windows were shrouded and blank but at one of the
upper ones he caught a glimpse of a woman’s white face
staring down at him. As she caught his eye she withdrew
hastily and the curtains were drawn together.
Who could she have been? He had left Mrs. Creveling
still seated in the throne chair in the hall and he was cer-


THE CIGARETTE CASE 67
tain that the face he had seen was a rounder, more youth-
ful one than the thin, acidulous countenance of the cook.
Had some woman remained concealed in that house despite
the rigorous search of the men from borough headquar-
ters?
He felt an impulse to descend from the ’bus and return
to investigate, but a second thought restrained him; Mr.
Douglas Waverly had named a half an hour later for
their interview and he had stated with evident reluctance
that he was at the Belterre Hotel. McCarty had a theory
of his own as to that and he must reach his destination as
quickly as possible in order to put it to the test.
On alighting from the ’bus he entered the lobby of the
hotel but instead of approaching the desk to announce him-
self he strolled to the news-stand, purchased a paper and
dropped into a chair by the less conspicuous side entrance
of the huge hostelry. The lobby was astir with early risen
patrons departing upon the business of the day, but few
people entered from the street and these McCarty regarded
with swift appraisal from behind the screening folds of his
newspaper.
At length a taxi grounded against the curb and a stout
man alighted carrying a small bag which he impatiently
refused to deliver into the hands of the porter. McCarty
eyed him as he strode past and over to the desk where he
leaned across the counter and spoke to the clerk in a
hurried undertone. At the latter’s shake of the head the
newcomer scrawled his name hastily in the register and,
turning, followed a bell-boy to the elevator.
He was apparently about forty and the small, light blue
eyes set in his smooth red face reminded McCarty somewhat
irrelevantly of those of a pig. The latter waited for a few
minutes and then, rising, tossed his paper aside and walked
over to the desk. Two more arrivals had made their ap-
pearance and registered in the interim, but above theirs the
hastily written signature of the fat man stood out boldly


68 HOW MANY CARDS?
and McCarty smiled to himself. His theory had proved to
be a correct one.
“Will you be sending word to Mr. Douglas Waverly that
the man he expects is here?” he requested.
The dapper young man behind the counter raised his
eyebrows.
“What name ?” he snapped.
“I didn’t say.” McCarty smiled blandly at him. “You’ll
be sending the message as I gave it, please.”
His tone was quiet but there was a ring of authority in
it that the clerk recognized and with a shrug he turned to
the girl at the switchboard.
“You can go right up.” He returned to the counter once
more. “Suite eleven-four.”
McCarty alighted from the elevator at the eleventh floor
and knocked at the door of apartment number four.
“Come in.” It was unmistakably the same voice which
had talked to him over the wire at the Creveling house.
McCarty obeyed and his eyes twinkled anew as he glanced
about him. The room was in disorder with clothing and
newspapers scattered about and through the connecting door-
way he could see the bed with its covers thrown back over
the foot and its pillows rumpled. Before him the stout,
red-faced man stood attired in bathrobe and slippers.
“You’re from Mrs. Creveling?” the latter demanded.
“I’ve come straight from her house, Mr. Waverly, though
it’s questions I’ve brought, not a message.” McCarty’s man-
ner was respectful but the twinkle had died out of his eyes.
“If you’ll answer me straight I’ll not be keeping you long,
sir, from the sleep you must be needing.”
“Who are you?” Mr. Waverly turned a shade more
red. “What do you mean about my needing sleep? I don’t
believe you have come from Mrs. Creveling at all, you are
an impostor—l”
“They don’t call me that down at Police Headquarters,
Mr. Waverly,” McCarty interrupted, still quietly. “You


THE CIGARETTE CASE 69
only reached the hotel ten minutes ago, the ink is hardly
dry on your name in the register and finding you ready for
bed like this I thought you must need some sleep.”
“Police Headquarters l” The ruddy face paled. “That
fool clerk downstairs said that no one had called for me—”
“And no more they had, sir. I’ve been waiting down in
the lobby some little time for you to come in; I knew you
were never here when you telephoned.” McCarty paused
and then asked sharply: “Mr. Waverly, when did you
last see Mr. Eugene Creveling?”
“Why, the night before last, Tuesday,” the other stam-
mered. “What’s all the row about? Has he disappeared?
My wife said something about an accident, but if it is just
that he hasn’t turned up—”
“He’s turned up all right, sir; turned up his toes on the
floor of his study, shot through the heart!” McCarty
watched the effect of his announcement carefully.
“ ’Gene Creveling! Good God, it’s impossible!” Waver-
ly’s flabby jowls took on a purplish tinge and his pale blue
eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets. “You don’t
mean murder!”
“Looks like it, sir. The last time you saw him alive was
on Tuesday night? Where was this?”
“At Nick Cutter’s.” Waverly raised a thick, pudgy hand
to the folds of flesh which hung pendulous over his throat
as though the collar of his bathrobe had suddenly grown
too tight. “God! Creveling dead !——-I suppose you’re a
detective but why have you come to me?”
“To get the particulars of how you learned of the sup-
posed ‘accident,’ sir.” McCarty’s smile was disarmingly
candid. “You say your wife telephoned to you; where did
she get you on the wire?”
“She didn’t; I telephoned to her,” Waverly disclaimed,
ignoring the question. “I wanted her to bring Mrs. Crevel-
ing and motor in to town for lunch, meant to dig up Crevel-
ing, too, and drag him back to the country this afternoon.


70 HOW MANY CARDS?
Mrs. Waverly told me that a message had come between
half-past four and five o’clock this morning from Mrs.
Creveling’s cook, summoning her immediately to town, that
Mr. Creveling had met with some accident. They’re inti-
mate friends of ours and naturally I called up Mrs. Crevel-
ing at once to learn what had happened and to offer my ser-
vices. I never thought of anything like this! I can’t be-
lieve it even yet. My God, it’s horrible! Who—who could
have done it?”
He sank into a chair and reached shakily for the fresh
pitcher of ice water upon the table at his elbow. McCarty
waited until he had drunk deep and then as the pitcher clat-
tered back upon the table once more he observed:
“So the Crevelings are intimate friends of yours, sir?
How long have you known them?”
“Look here, what are you driving at! Creveling and I
palled around together for years before he was married and
he was a frequent visitor at our house. Naturally when
he became engaged my wife met Miss Alexander and since
their marriage they have been closely identified with our
immediate circle. My wife and Mrs. Creveling are almost
inseparable.”
“And you and Mr. Creveling, sir? Have you been get—
ting on together lately as well as you used to ?” McCarty’s
tone was ingratiating. “You’ll excuse me, Mr. Waverly,
but didn’t you and he have a quarrel not so long ago?”
“‘Quarrel’?” the other repeated, straightening himself
suddenly in his chair as though to meet an unexpected
thrust. “Great heavens, no! Who told you such a lie?”
“You didn’t have a dispute with Mr. Creveling in his
own house one night not a fortnight ago?” McCarty per-
sisted. “I don’t like to make mention of a lady—”
“By God, you’d better not !” Waverly roSe from his
chair with a threatening scowl. “I’ve stood about all of
this that I’m going to, my man! I don’t know where you’ve
got your lying information nor by what authority you come


THE CIGARETTE CASE 71
here to try to put me through a third degree but I’ll listen
to no more. Get out before I ’phone the office and have
you put out 1”
“I wouldn’t try it, sir, if I were you,” McCarty said
blandly. “I’d have to ask you to take a little ride downtown
with me and the head house detective here and tell the in-
spector in charge of the case what it was you and Mr.
Creveling almost came to blows about after that little sup-
per week before 1ast. I thought you’d rather keep out of
the notoriety and all; that’s why I came to you quiet like.”
“So that’s it l” Waverly’s lip curled. “Graft, eh?
Blackm—l”
“Don’t go too far, sir!” McCarty’s tone was ominously
quiet and there was a glint of steel in his eyes. “It’ll do
you no good to be calling names. I’ve got proof that two
weeks ago come to-morrow night you had supper alone
with Mr. Creveling in his house and high words passed be-
tween you over a lady; I’ve a witness who can testify as
to that. I’m not one to work up sensations for the press
to spring on the public and drag people that’s maybe inno-
cent into notoriety and scandal; ’twas for that I came
here to you, man to man.”
“Did your witness tell you the name of the lady who
was supposed to have been discussed on that occasion ?”
Waverly sneered.
“If that’s the way you care to put it, yes, sir,” responded
McCarty. “There were two ladies talked of, for the mat-
ter of that, but only one mentioned by name. You left the
house in a rage, I understand, yet Mrs. Creveling stayed
on as a guest at your country place and Creveling himself
spent the last week-end there.”
“That ought to be proof enough to you that there was
no trouble between us.” Waverly’s tone had become all
at once eager and conciliatory. “Sorry I misunderstood
your motive in coming here. I’m quite willing to tell
you all about that little argument with ’Gene Creveling for


72 HOW MANY CARDS?
I can see that it has been grossly exaggerated to you. I
don’t know who your witness is but I presume it is that
rascally butler Rollins; I warned Creveling to sack him
long ago. I did not leave the house in a rage as you have
been told, but in sheer disgust. If Creveling is dead I’m
damned sorry, but there’s no use blinking the facts; his
course of conduct hasn’t been exactly straight and narrow
and although we are none of us angels I took it upon my-
self as an old and intimate friend to remonstrate with
him and he didn’t accept it in the right spirit. That’s all
there was to it; it was all forgotten the next day.”
“And since then you’ve been on friendly terms with him,
Mr. Waverly?”
“Absolutely.”
“Your mutual friends can vouch for that, I suppose?
’Tis not that I doubt your word, sir, but the inspector may
want to check up my report.” McCarty paused and added:
“We know approximately the hour at which Mr. Creveling
came to his death and if you’ll tell me where you were
last night from eleven o’clock on, it’ll put an end to all
annoyance for you.”
“And if I don’t choose to do so?” The flabby face had
darkened again truculently.
McCarty shrugged.
“That’s up to you, sir.”
There was a pause and then Waverly spoke thickly.
“Have you the authority to keep it out of the papers?
I mean, if I tell you where I was and prove it to you, can
you keep it from reaching my wife’s ears? Oh, there was
nothing absolutely beyond the pale about it, but you know
what women are!” he added hastily. “Can I count on you
and your superiors to keep it quiet?”
“Well, sir, if your alibi’s sound it’s no concern of the
Department what you have been doing,” McCarty answered
cautiously. “Of course, I can’t guarantee that the reporters
won’t look you up, as having been intimate with Mr. Crevel-


74 HOW MANY CARDS?
the city and his activities had more than once come under
the scrutiny of the authorities on the lookout for new
forms of confidence games. How could he possibly have
wormed himself into even a nodding acquaintance with a
man of Waverly’s social standing?
“You fellows have heard of him, I imagine.’ Waverly
shrugged in his turn. “He’s quite a character around town
but I don’t believe you’ve ever had anything on him.”
“I’ve heard of him,” McCarty admitted briefly. “Did
you spend the whole evening with him, Mr. Waverly?
After you accepted his invitation and ’phoned out to your
wife, what did you do?”
“I went up to my town house, climbed into some dinner
clothes which I had left there and dropped in at the club.”
As if anticipating the inevitable question he expatiated:
“The Cosmopolitan Club. It was dead as a door-nail, no-
body there I cared to talk to and I drifted down to Sharp’s
Chophouse for a bite and then dropped in for the last act
of ‘The Girl from Paradise.’ ”
“All by yourself, Mr. Waverly? You were alone from
the time you left your house ?”
“Quite alone. I took a taxi directly from the theater up
to Venner’s apartment on Riverside Drive.”
“Who else was in the party there ?”
Again Waverly hesitated. He had been speaking more
and more slowly as though choosing his words with care
and now he raised his eyes half defiantly to those of Me-
Carty.
“Isn’t it enough for you if Venner corroborates my state-
ment? There were other people present who would find
themselves in just as awkward a position as I should be if
the thing came ou .”
“The ladies or the gentlemen?” McCarty asked.
“ ‘Ladies’ ?” Waverly leered. “They were show girls
from the ‘Bye-bye Baby’ company. I imagine they wouldn’t
object to a little free press-agent stuff, though Venner—!”
,


THE CIGARETTE CASE 75
He caught himself up sharply as though regretting the
admission and rose.
“I’ve nothing more to tell you. You can find out from
Venner himself whether or not I was in his rooms from a.
little before midnight until an hour ago, and as for that
little row with Creveling—Lord! We’ve been having ’em
for the last fifteen years or more over one thing or another.
If he’s been done in as you say, I’m inexpressibly shocked
and grieved to hear it as the rest of our crowd will be, for
he was the best of good fellows even if he did get out of
bounds occasionally, but I know no more about his death
than you do; not half as much, I fancy.”
“Just what do you mean by ‘out of bounds,’ Mr. Waver-
1y?” McCarty ignored the hint to go, and stood his ground
firmly.
“If your informant gave you the gist of our conversation
on the night of the supposed quarrel you ought to be able
to figure that out for yourself.” The thick lips parted in
an unpleasant smile. “You can’t expect a leopard to change
his spots altogether, you know. Not that ’Gene wasn’t
genuinely fond of his wife, but he always had an eye for a
pretty woman. I’d heard that he was going it a bit strong
over a new case and for Mrs. Creveling’s sake I thought I’d
try to pull him up before it came to her ears. That’s how
her name was dragged into the discussion.”
“And the lady in the case ?”
“I can’t tell you her name because I don’t know it, but I
wouldn’t if I did!” Waverly snapped. “You fellows go
too far! I’m willing to meet you half way, and I’m anxious
to do all in my power, of course, to help you find out who
shot Creveling but I’m damned if I would drag in the name
of any woman, especially in the case of a mere indiscretion
like this.”
“How do you know it was a mere indiscretion P” McCarty
demanded quickly.
“I knew Creveling.” The reply was terse. “He’d have


76 HOW MANY CARDS?
every art dealer and collector of antiques searching for
months for a certain Ming vase or ancient prayer rug and
when he secured it he scarcely gave it a second glance. It
was the same with beautiful women; he’d sit at their feet
as long as they were indifferent, but if they gave the first
sign of awakened interest—good night l”
“You are sure, then, that this affair hasn’t reached the
ears of his wife ?”
“Of course it hasn’t l” Waverly exclaimed hurriedly.
“She has always believed in him implicitly; that’s why I
wanted him to call a halt now.”
“Well, Mr. Waverly, I won’t trouble you any further
if you’ve no objections to my calling up Mr. Venner just as
a matter of form and verifying your statement.” McCarty
moved tentatively toward the telephone set in the wall.
Waverly smiled again and waved toward the instrument.
“Go as far as you like," he invited magnanimously. “Ven-
ner's number is Hudson 4052.”
McCarty repeated it into the "phone and after a brief
interval a deep voice growled at him over the wire:
“Hello! What is it P"
“I want to speak to Mr. Venner.”
“You’re talking to him now. Who are you?”
“Mr. Douglas Waverly told me that I could reach him
at your rooms,” McCarty said cautiously.
“Well, you can’t,” the voice responded. “He’s gone; left
about an hour ago.”
“He was at that little party of yours last night?”
“Yes. Who the devil are you ?”
McCarty hung up the receiver and turned to find Waver-
ly still smiling derisively at him as he drew a cigarette
from a diamond encrusted case and then proffered it.
“Smoke?” he suggested. “I hope you’re satisfied now,
my man. Of course I don’t want to be hauled into the
limelight of a murder case, but for 'Creveling’s sake I’d be
glad to help you if I could.”


CHAPTER VII
THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS
ENNIS RIORDAN, dragging a chair after him,
emerged from the engine house of Company 023 and
settled himself in the mild, balmy sunshine. Down the
vista of the street lined by tall flats the trees of the park,
their tops just burgeoning into feathery green, formed a.
delicate touch of color in the monotonous, faded brick and
stone and the fireman’s gray eyes rested upon them rumina-
tively as he reached for his pipe. Then his gaze shifted
with lively expectancy and the hand groping for his pocket
paused midway, for a familiar figure turned the corner and
strode toward him.
“What’s up, Mac?” he asked when the figure had ap-
proached within hearing distance. “I thought you were go-
ing down to Homevale to-day to evict that tenant of yours
that’s driving the neighbors crazy with his cornet practice.
You look as though you’d been making a night of it i”
“I have.” With the privilege of a constant visitor Mc-
Carty reached a long arm across the threshold, and, procur-
ing another chair, placed it with its back tilted against the
wall beside his friend. “When are you off duty the day ?”
“Not till six.” Dennis eyed the other with anxious solici-
tude. “How much did you lose ?”
“Didn’t I give up card-playing for Lent?” McCarty de-
manded reproachfully.
“You did, but well I know what that means as long as
you can find a quiet little crap game to horn in on, or any
one to flip the coins with you! ’Tis a crying shame, prop-
erty or no, for a man in the prime of life to have nothing
to do but gallivant around town looking for trouble and
78


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 79
many’s the time I’ve cursed your uncle, God rest his soul,
for leaving you the money that made you resign from the
force!”
His manner was almost maternal and McCarty chuckled
dryly.
“ ’Tis not always I have to be looking for trouble, Denny;
sometimes it falls on me, like that girl from the window of
the Glamorgan a couple of years ago.”
There was that in his tone which made Dennis’ chair come
down on all four legs with a clatter on the sidewalk.
“What!” he exclaimed with avidity. “Is there something
big on down at headquarters that the inspector has been
after asking you to lend a hand on? There’s been nothing
in the papers barring hold-ups that would make Dick Tur-
pin blush like an amateur—l”
“If there was you’d never know it; after you’ve satisfied
yourself that the championship is still safe for democracy
and the Giants aren’t developing sleeping sickness the news
of the day is finished for you,” McCarty observed with fine
scorn. “As for my resignation from the force I’ll have
you know that it’s been temporarily handed back to me and
that fellow out at Homevale can toot away till he’s black
in the face for all I care! I’m back on the job again.”
“What is it, Mac ?” Dennis’ tone was sepulchral from
suppressed excitement. “Why didn’t you let me know? I
was off last night—”
“I didn’t know it myself till I nabbed a young second-
story worker coming out of the window of one of those
grand houses across the park quicker than ever he went
in and learned what he’d found there. ’Twas the body of
the owner, him they used to call ‘Million-a-month’ Crevel-
ing along Broadway, with a bullet in his heart and a .44 be-
side him.”
McCarty detailed his nocturnal experience and Dennis
listened with bated breath to the point where, while the
search of the upper rooms by his crony and Inspector Druet


80 HOW MANY CARDS?
was progressing, the shadow had appeared behind them on
the staircase. Then he could contain himself no longer.
“Holy mother!” he ejaculated. “Was it a ghost or the
murderer himself, do you think, Mac ?”
“Whoever it was, ’twas no ghost, Denny, as you’ll see
later,” McCarty averred. “The drawers of the desk in the
housekeeper’s room were locked and when I lifted the end
and shook it I could hear something heavy, like books, slide
ing around inside; I noticed too that the locks themselves
were rusty. Mind that. There were no keys in the room
though we looked everywhere, so the inspector and I beat
it down to the study once more where Clancy was waiting
with the dicks from borough headquarters. They all said
they hadn’t been back upstairs again and the inspector
kidded me' about hearing things but I couldn’t get the
thought of that shadow out of my mind and as soon as I
could I slipped away and up to Creveling’s room once more ;
the sound that I thought I’d heard when we were on the
upper floor see'med to come from there.
“Everything looked just the same as when we had left
it but when I went over to have a second look at the little
drawer with the spring lock in the desk there were new
marks on it overlaying those our fingers had made; whoever
had followed us wore gloves, as you could see plain from
the oil the desk had been rubbed up with. Ghosts don’t wear
gloves, Denny.”
“Then who—?”
“I went over the same ground from room to room that
I’d been through with the inspector only a few minutes
before but I didn’t find anything else till I came to the
housekeeper’s room again,” McCarty continued, unheeding
the interruption. “The locks on the desk there were shiny
and dripping with fresh oil and when I lifted it, it was
lighter and nothing slid around inside. Somebody had
slipped up behind us and opened the drawers of both of
the desks, taking out whatever was inside; somebody who


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 81
knew how to work that spring lock. I didn’t find hide nor
hair of him, though, and I’d upset and broke a bottle of
perfum'ery in Mrs. Creveling’s room, bad luck to it! When
I got back down to the study Clancy snified it on me and
I doubt that I’ve lost the smell of it yet!”
He went on, telling of the arrival of George Alexander,
the valet, Hill, his own discovery of the bloodstained card
thrust under the tapestry on the table and the return of
Mrs. Creveling and finally the cook and butler.
“'And all you’ve got to go on,” Dennis summed up for
him, “is the bit of amber mouth piece the other man had
smoked with, the lone card and the marks of gloved fingers
on the desk upstairs.”
“Not quite. I’m asking myself a lot of questions, Denny,
for there’s more in a look sometimes or a chance word than
in all the finger-prints in the world. For instance, what’s
there be‘twe'."1 that valet and Mrs. Creveling’s uncle, George
Alexander? They tried their best to slip away for a little
confab together, but I kept my eye on them; there’s some—
thing they both know and each of them was afraid that
the other would let it out. Why did that valet Hill say he
had just ‘returned’ and correct it to ‘arrived’? If he had
nothing to conceal either on his own account or on Crevel-
ing’s why did ‘ have to drag out of him the little I learned?
Why wouldn’t he tell where he’d been all night? When the
inspector asked him if he knew Creveling was coming to
his house last evening ’twas on the tip of his tongue to
deny it when he remembered that he’d taken the things
from the caterer’s men himself for the supper and they’d
say so if they were questioned. It’s plain, of course, that
Creveling got rid of all the servants for the night so that
none of them should see who his company was but I’ve an
idea that Hill knows, all the same.” ,
“You don’t think—” Dennis chose his words with evi-
dent care. “You don’t think maybe it was a—a lady he
had to supper and she shot him after in a fit of jealousy ?”


82 HOW MANY CARDS?
“With a .44 that has a kick to it like an army mule?”
McCarty snorted. “Inspector Druet asked Hill if Creveling
ever entertained ladies in his home during his wife’s ab-
sence and the valet said no, that they were strictly stag
suppers, and he didn’t seem any too anxious to give the
names of any of the gentlemen who’d been present. He
said they just ate and drank and smoked and chinned with
never a little game to while away the hours; that Creveling
hadn’t touched a card in years.”
“Then how did that Nine of Diamonds come to be there
on the table?” demanded Dennis.
There was a pause and then McCarty replied slowly:
“I don’t know, unless some way it was a part of the grim
game that was played out to a finish between the two of
them in the study after supper.”
“A game of life and death, with Creveling losing the
odd trick.” Dennis nodded. “If you did not find the rest
of the pack lying around, maybe the one card was brought
by the man that killed him as a sign or a reminder.—Oh, you
needn’t be looking at me like that, Mac! Stranger things
than that are going on behind those white marble fronts
for all you know! But what was that high blank wall built
for at the back?”
“That’s one of the questions I’ve been asking myself,
like I told you.” McCarty cocked his ear at a newsboy’s
shrill call down the street and shook his head. “No. It’ll be
too early for the papers to get hold of it yet.—It’s funny
how they were all so sure, even his wife, that Creveling
had been murdered, and him with the pistol lying beside
him. It was only when Mrs. Creveling spoke of calling
in Terhune that her uncle backslid and pretended that he
thought it might have been suicide after all.”
“Terhune!” Dennis exclaimed. “For the love of the
saints, is he in on this, too ?”
“With both feet, and I misdoubt a couple of his little
scientific recording machines up his sleeve," McCarty


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 83
chuckled. “’Twould have done you more good than a
drop of the best to have seen his face when I came back
after talking to the cook and butler and found him in the
hall !”
“So ’twas Mrs. Creveling called him in and her uncle
didn’t want him.” Dennis was slowly digesting the' facts.
“Do you think this Alexander and the valet were in cahoots P
It looks as though the both of them were trying to shield
somebody, all righ .”
“I don’t understand the attitude of the whole lot of
them.” McCarty shook his head once more. “From the
minute Mrs. Creveling put her foot in the house there
seemed to be a kind of a silent battle going on between her
and her uncle; you could feel it in the air. He was trying
to run the whole affair to suit himself and she defying him
and getting her own way too, in the end—Say, Denny,
there was a fire in the neighborhood last night, wasn’t
there ?” _
Dennis stared.
“Sure, what night isn’t there, with the people packed in
flats like sardines in a box !—But what are you getting at,
Mac?”
“When was the fire and where?”
“Along about two, on the next block,” Dennis replied.
“An upset kerosene stove started it in a dressmaker’s place
on the ground floor where she was working late and it
spread to the basement before we could get it under con-
trol, but it didn’t get upstairs though the tenants were pretty
well smoked out. How did you know about it P”
“That’s where the butler’s sister, Mrs. Carroll, lives;
where he and his wife spent the night.” McCarty drew a
cigar from his pocket and chewed the end ruminatively.
“They’re queer birds. The cook would have talked, I’m
thinking, but her husband shut her up, though at that I
caught them in one lie—Before Sarah got sight of me
standing behind Hill she said to him that she wished Mr.


84 HOW MANY CARDS?
Creveling would have his parties somewhere else and leave
them in peace, but when I told them Creveling had been
shot the butler denied that either of them knew he expected
any one last night. In the next breath after Sarah learned
that Mrs. Creveling had already come home she bewailed
that the rooms were not in order and she had all the lobster
and stuff from the caterer’s to clean up. How did she know
there’d been lobster for supper if she hadn’t heard the order
given? Of course, all this has nothing to do with the murder
itself, but knowing so much it wouldn’t surprise me if they
knew or at least suspected who Creveling’s guest was, the
night.”
“Then what are they all shielding him for? Blackmail ?"
Dennis’ gray eyes snapped with interest. “From what you’ve
told me of them, Mac, ’twould hardly be loyalty would keep
them quiet; you’d think they each of them had a fish to
fry, by the looks of it !”
McCarty darted a quick glance at his companion.
“True for you, Denny, and I’m wondering if maybe this
fellow Hill isn’t trying deliberately to draw our fire by
refusing to tell where he spent the night, meaning to collect
privately from somebody for creating the diversion. Rollins
and Sarah are easy to handle but that valet is away above
his job and he’s been with Creveling since his bachelor days,
probably knows more about him than any one else in the
world. If we could only find the way to make him talk—”
“What about Mrs. Creveling?” interrupted Dennis sud-
denly. “F rom what you say, she took the news as cool as
a cucumber. Now I don’t pretend to know anything about
the workings of a woman’s mind, not being a damned fool,
but it don’t seem natural like for her not to scream nor
faint nor raise some sort of a ruction.”
“I don’t know.” McCarty held a match to his cigar and
then flipped it into the gutter. “She’s a determined Woman
and a strong one and she’s got her own suspicions, all right,
but she knows she can’t prove anything by herself; that’s


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 85
why she called in the biggest man in his line she ever heard
of—Terhune. She’ll waste no time keening the dead till
she’s caught the one that killed him, that is if there’s any
grief in her heart.”
“If there isn’t why should she be so anxious to get revenge
on the murderer?” asked Dennis.
“Well, if there’s one thing that’s stronger than grief it’s
hate, Denny, and I’m thinking Mrs. Creveling for all her
gentle ways would be a good hater. We got more than a
hint from her uncle’s testimony that there might have been
a commercial angle to that marriage and every one but him
is willing to admit that Creveling was no saint, neither be-
fore nor after, though her friends don't think she’s been on
to his philandering.”
“ ‘Her friends’ ?” Dennis repeated.
“Sure. I had a little talk with one of them just now
at the Belterre Hotel, the husband of the lady she’s been
staying with down on Long Island.”
He described his interview with Douglas Waverly and
the corroboration of his alibi over the telephone by Samuel
Venner, and Dennis whistled.
“So that’s the kind of a bird Creveling’s been traveling
with, is it? Fat and flashy and going to con. men’s parties
on the side! That crowd can’t be the real thing in spite
of their money, Mao, take it from me. What show was
it you said the girls at the supper- came from ?”
“The ‘Bye-bye Baby’ company.” McCarty glanced again
at his companion. “Why? Is it show girls that’s interesting
you now, at your time of life?”
The sarcasm passed unnoticed over Dennis’ hard head.
“It is not,” he responded equably. “And as to my time
of life I’ll have you remember I’m younger than you by a
year !”
“Eleven months,” McCarty protested. “But what about
the show ?”
“Nothing, only Terry Burns’s daughter is in it; Beatrice,


86 ' HOW MANY CARDS?
the little one. He was telling me only the other day that
there was no holding her back. She calls herself ‘Trixie’
now and threw over Eddie Kirby that’s well fixed in the
ice business for what she speaks about as a ‘career.’ Terry’s
as fine a fellow as ever promoted a fight in Harlem and
I’d hate to think of little Bea at a party like the one Venner
gave.”
“1 mind Terry and the family, though ’tis years since
I’ve seen any of them,” McCarty observed meditatively.
“If ’twas a daughter of mine—!”
“ ’Tis n0 daughter of either of us, thanks be!” Dennis
ejaculated devoutly. “So you got nothing out of this
Waverly except that there was another woman in the case
with Creveling ?”
“That, and a flash at his cigarette case.” McCarty
rose. “I’ll be getting on down town now; I want to go
home and clean up and see a couple of people before I
report to the inspector.”
“I’m off duty at six,” Dennis announced wistfully. “If
so be you want me— ?”
“I’ll give you a ring,” McCarty promised. “Terhune and
Inspector Druet and me being in this already we might as
well make a quartette of it, like old times. Have you got
a dress suit ?”
Dennis eyed him askance.
“I have not, and never another will I hire after the one
I rented for Molly’s wedding! It might have been the stufi
they used to clean it with, but then again it mightn’t, and
I’m. taking no more chances—!”
“Never mind; I’ve none myself,” McCarty said hurriedly.
“You’ll hear from me before six.”
He strode off toward the' modest bachelor quarters which
he occupied over the antique shop of Monsieur Girard but
upon reaching his own corner he halted abruptly. A news-
paper was spread on the step leading up to the apartment'
entrance and upon it an exceedingly long-legged young man


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 87
was seated twirling his hat on the head of the cane between
his hunched-up knees. His red head glowed brazenly in
the sun and he looked up with a boyish grin as McCarty
advanced reluctantly.
“Hello there, Mac! I thought you’d show up for a shave
and a clean collar now that you’re moving in society. If I
had your luck in falling over news I’d be city editor by now.
What’s the good word in the Creveling case ?”
“There’s none,” McCarty retorted promptly as Jimmie
Ballard, most ubiquitous of reporters, prepared uninvited
to ascend with him to his rooms. “Creveling was found
dead with the gun beside him; that’s the long and short of
it. You’d better be seeing the inspector—”
“Not a chance in the world and you know it!” Jimmie
laughed. “Come now, Mac, be a sport! We’ve got the
obituary salted down at the shop, of course, but I’ve got to
have a double column for the first edition of the after-
noon rag. Usual stall at the house; Mrs. Creveling pros-
trated, couldn’t see any one and had nothing to say for pub-
lication. All I know is that you and Officer Clancy nabbed
a burglar creeping out of the house and investigating found
Creveling’s body. Of course, you’re retired from the force,
you’ve nothing to do with the investigation and you’re only
a private citizen drawn by your own curiosity into the
case ?”
“You’ve got me right, my lad.” McCarty threw the butt
of his cigar out into the middle of the street and turned
to insert his latchkey into the door.
“Well then, you old fraud!” Jimmie made his point glee-
fully. “There’s no reason why you can’t give me your pri-
vate opinion. Do you think that young crook shot Crevel-
ing ?”
McCarty sighed and then his eyes twinkled with sudden
inspiration.
“There’s no getting away from you, Jimmie! Come on
up if you want to ; it’s no good denying that I’m interested


88 HOW MANY CARDS?
in the case for all I’m a back number and my curiosity that
you were talking about is still working. You started in as
a society reporter, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” Jimmie admitted with a. grimace as they
mounted the stairs. “I’d rather do the sob sister stuff any
day.—But what about that gangster you caught crawling
out of the window?”
“Is he a gangster?” McCarty asked cautiously.
“Surest thing you know; one of the Lexington Avenue
Blackjacks, though he’s only a kid. What little nerve he
had is gone and he’s bleating down at headquarters now
that it was the first job he ever tackled and he only did it
to prove to the rest of the gang that he was as good as
any of them. He declares he found Creveling dead on the
floor and that you can swear to it. How about it, Mac ?”
“Well, there was no silencer on the gun we saw lying
beside the body and the one I found on the crook when I
frisked him was loaded to the full,” McCarty replied slowly,
weighing each word. “I saw the fellow just ahead of me
on the Avenue skulking to the house and getting through
the window and I waited outside for him, but I didn’t hear
any shot. Come till I shave, I’ve little time to spare, for
I’ve got to catch the eleven-thirty train to Homevale, to
evict one of my tenants.”
jimmie grinned again at the palpable mendacity but fol—
lowed and perched himself on the foot of the bed where he
could view the bathroom through the opened door.
“You’re a busy little landlord, aren’t you ?” he jeered
good-naturedly. “Did you see anything while you waited
under the window?”
“Nothing but the legs of my young friend Bodansky com-
ing out faster than ever he went in and I didn’t have long
to wait, either; not more than three minutes.” McCarty
paused to draw the razor along the line of his square jaw
and then turned. “That obituary you’ve got set up will be


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 89
good reading if it goes back to the days when Creveling was
known as ‘Million-a-month’ along Broadway.”
“I was a cub then but I remember him and the crowd
he trailed with,” Jimmie remarked. “Didn’t see much of
him at society crushes until his engagement to Miss Alex-
ander was rumored.”
“She’s a fine looking woman.” McCarty turned again
to his task. “Are they a grand family, the Alexanders ?”
“Good blood in them; old stock but it’s run to seed. The
money went, too, during the past generation or so and 01d
George Alexander helped it along with a lot of fool specula-
tions. He must have been very nearly at the end of his
rope when Creveling married his niece and put him on his
feet again.”
“What do you know about the set they’ve been going
with ?” McCarty spoke with studied carelessness. “The
Waverlys, and Fords, and a man named Nicholas Cutter
and this Mrs. Baillie Kip, of East Sixty-third Street? I
can’t recall all the names I heard mentioned in connection
with them.”
“You heard an earful,” Jimmie assured him. “They’re
a pretty swift bunch but all well connected and there’s never
been any actual scandal about any of them. The Douglas
Waverlys are all right financially though he’s a rotter and
like Creveling his wife comes of a far better family than
he. If by the Fords you mean Lonsdale Ford and his wife,
they’re climbers; never heard of until a few years ago when
he bought a seat on the Exchange. It is a mystery how
they managed to get into that set, especially on a footing
with Nicholas Cutter, for he’s a dyed-in-the-wool aristo-
crat.”
“What does he do for a living?” McCarty asked.
“Nothing, though he is an honorary director of half a
dozen banking institutions. His father left him millions
but he doesn’t seem to care much for society beyond a


THE SHADOW ON THE STAIRS 91
Jimmie Ballard shook his head.
“No. Usually a woman is the center of any social clique
and Mrs. Creveling has been mentioned more often and
more prominently than any of her immediate friends, but
that is because of the position her family have held for so
long. I think the real leader of their crowd is Nicholas
Cutter.”


CHAPTER VIII
FROM THE LONG AGO
MCCARTY completed his cleaning up process in rather
an elaborate manner after the departure of Jimmie
Ballard. Arraying himself in a new suit which had hung
in his closet for more than two months awaiting an auspi-
cious occasion for its display, he spent valuable and anxious
moments over the selection of a necktie, which, while de—
noting prosperity by its evident costliness, should at the
same time convey a suggestion of conservative dignity. That
important decision made, he next debated with himself over
the rival merits of a silk hat which he reserved, as a rule,
for funerals, and a rakish fedora, but finally compromised
on his habitual derby.
Tenderly polishing the gold-headed cane that the Amalga-
mated Brewers’ Association had presented to his late uncle,
he caught up a pair of shiny black kid gloves in which he
had officiated as pall-bearer for that defunct gentleman, and,
satisfied that his sartorial equipment left nothing to be de-
sired, he left his rooms and started across the park.
For the moment the investigation into Eugene Crevel-
ing’s death and its attendant mystery had faded from his
mind. Instead it had reached back through the busy, hustling
years to the long ago when a raw-boned, ragged young man
and a curly-headed, ten-year—old scion of “the gentry”
fished the streams of a far-off green country in the camara-
derie which all anglers know, and a fat, rosy, dimpled prin-
cess of five came toddling down the lush hillside from a.
dilapidated castle to listen to stories of the Little People
in the gathering twilight.
92


FROM THE LONG AGO 93
Yet when he. had traversed the park and turned down
the broad Avenue sentimental reminiscence had been su-
perseded by a reversion to the stern realities of the present.
Old, heart-warming memories were all right in their place
but a crime had been committed and Special Deputy Mc-
Carty was out for evidence which might lead to its per—
petrator.
A block or two north of the Creveling house he stopped
before one, which, although smaller by half than the pala-
tial home in which Creveling had met his death, was built
upon the same general architectural lines. An electric
brougham stood at the curb and as McCarty descended the
steps to the entrance and reached out his hand to touch the
bell the door was opened from within by a lanky footman
and a trim little figure appeared on the threshold.
' ‘Nith raven-black hair coiled beneath a smart little blue
turban and eyes that were a still deeper blue set in the clear,
alabaster oval of her face the young woman paused and
regarded him with grave inquiry. The little princess grown
up!
McCarty flushed and swept off his hat, ignoring the fact
that the footman still held the door open, staring with all
his eyes.
“Mrs. O’Rourke?”
“Yes. What is it, please?” Her voice was low and clear
without a trace of impatience, but her gaze traveled past him
to the waiting car.
“Could you spare me a few minutes on a matter of great
importance, ma’am? I’ve come from Police Headquar-
ters—”
“Police—?” A little frown had gathered between her
narrow, straight brows. “Oh, I presume it is in connec-
tion with the sudden death of our friend Mr. Creveling?”
McCarty bowed again.
“You have heard from Mrs. Creveling?”
“Yes. Her maid was sent to me with a message not an


94 HOW MANY CARDS?
/' '\
hour ago—But come in; I can spare you a few minutes, of
course, but I am afraid that I will be of little assistance
to you. You are a detective?”
She added the question as she turned and led him past the
round-eyed footman into a cool, dim drawing-room, motion-
ing for him to take a seat.
McCarty regarded the fragile chair with some misgiving
and settled his bulk gingerly upon it before he replied:
“Retired, ma’am, and it’s only fair to tell you that I’m
not here officially, so to speak. I’m an old friend of the
inspector in charge of the case and he often calls on me
to help him out by gathering general information for him
when he’s too busy to go after the side issues himself.”
McCarty beamed disingenuously upon her. “I’m sorry to
be bothering you but the inspector wants me to see as many
of the Crevelings’ close friends as I can locate and find
out if they have any idea why he would take his own life.”
Mrs. O’Rourke drew a deep breath and her starry eyes
widened.
“I thought—that is, Mrs. Creveling’s message was to the-
effect that he had been shot!” Her tones vibrated through
the stillness of the room. “I did not know that it was
suicide. We—my husband and I—fancied that it was an
accident of some kind. It did not occur to us—-”
Her voice trailed off into silence and a faint wild-rose
color appeared in the creamy whiteness of her delicate face.
“The medical examiner says that Mr. Creveling killed
himself, but as a matter of form the inspector has to look
into every possibility, ma’am, especially as up to now they’ve
found no motive ~for suicide and Mrs. Creveling won’t be—
lieve he did_it himself,” McCarty explained. “Might I ask
you what message‘ she sent you?”
“It did not come directly from her but from a mutual
friend of ours who has come to town to stay with her
during her trouble.” Mrs. O’Rourke hesitated. “To a man
it may sound horribly frivolous at such a time, but a woman


FROM THE LONG AGO 95
would understand that the conventions must be observed.
This friend merely stated the fact of Mr. Creveling’s sud—
den death and requested that I arrange about mourning for
Mrs. Creveling. I was starting for the modiste’s when
you came.”
“Who is this mutual friend?” McCarty added as a quick
thought flashed across his mind: “Mrs. Douglas Waver-
1y?”
The lady nodded.
“My husband has gone to the house now to ofl'er his
services and I would have accompanied him, of course, but
Mrs. Waverly said that Mrs. Creveling was utterly pros-
trated and couldmot see me until later. It—it must be ter-
rible for her i”
McCarty r'egarded the exquisite, flower-like face oppo-
site in contemplative silence for a moment. There had been
a suggestion of horror in her hushed tones when she spoke
of the tragedy .but only in that quick almost immluntary
exclamation. had real feeling made itself manifest, and her
softly curving lips trembled for the. first time. It was evi-
dent that her sympathy went out in generous abundance
to the bereaved wife, but what of her attitude toward the
dead man whom she had called their friend? Beyond a well-
bred air of almost perfunctory regret he could discern no
trace of any emotion other than a sort of shocked repug-
nance at the manner of his taking off.
“Mr. Creveling was an intimate'friend of yours, ma’am ?”
McCarty asked.
“Of my husband’s,” she replied quickly. “Of course, we
were all in the same set and met constantly at social af-
fairs, but I naturally saw more of his wife. Mr. Crevel-
ing was esseritially a—a man’s man; I mean that his men
friends would know more of his personal affairs than any
of the women in his wife’s immediate circle.”
McCarty eyed her warily. Was it possible that there was
a significance in her words other than that she had intended


96 HOW MANY CARDS?
to convey? She had spoken of the women like herself,
those in his wife’s circle; but what of other women? Could
it be that unsavory rumors concerning the man now dead
had reached even her ears?
Under his steady scrutiny she began to fumble with her
glove and he noticed that her hands were little larger than
those of a child'. How tiny she was, and dainty, and Lord!
how pretty! Irrelevantly his thoughts flashed back to the
long ago. There was no trace'of the childish treble in her
low, softly vibrating tones, no' suggestion of the rosy, tousle-
headed baby in this well-poised woman with the colorless,
brunette beauty of Ireland’s highest type, and yet somehow
he saw again in her the little companion of far-off days.
Her voice breaking the silence brought him back sharply
to the problem of the moment.
“My husband will return at any minute and if you wait
for him I am sure he will give you any information in his
poWer, but I am afraid he' will be able to help you as little
as I can. It seems almost incredible that this should have
come to pass. Mr. Creveling had everything to live for;
a charming wife, money, friends, all that the world holds
precious. It is very sad.”
She made a slight gesture as if about to rise and termi-
nate the interview, but McCarty stayed her.
“It’s more than that, ma’am. I was with the inspector
when he talked with Mrs. Creveling and, as I said, she
won’t have it that he killed himself, not even by accident.
If a motive can’t be proved for suicide it’s apt to make a lot
of trouble for the Department' and bring notoriety on all
their friends.”
“You don’t mean that Mrs. Creveling fancies some one
actually killed her husband!” cried Mrs. O’Rourke in
shocked amazement. “She must be hysterical, the blow
has come so suddenly—l”
McCarty shook his head.
“I’ve seen many a hysterical woman when I was con-


FROM THE LONG AGO 97
nected with the force, mafam, and she was far from it.
I’d say Mrs. Creveling was the most level-headed one in
the whole business and she took the news without the
flicker of_ an eyelash. From the minute she heard he had
been shot she set her mind on finding his possible murderer
and she was so determined about it. that she’s called in the
biggest man in his line in the country, the criminologist,
Wade Terhune.”
“Terhune! I’ve heard of him, of course,” Mrs. O’Rourke
observed. After a pause she added: “No one can blame
her for wanting to be sure, to know beyond a shadow of
a doubt that her husband was responsible for his own death‘
when it occurred in such a dreadful, mysterious way, but
if the medical examiner as you say has proved that it was
a case'of suicide she is only harrowing herself needlessly.
Why should she think that any one would want to take Mr.
Creveling’s life ?”
“For the same reason that you say the idea of his killing
himself is almost incredible, as far as I can make out,
ma’am’; that he had no cause,” McCarty responded. “My
experience before I retired, though, taught me that there’s
many a trouble in a man’s life that no one knows anything
about. However, since this is a case of suicide the sooner
the inspector establishes a motive for it the quicker the
thought of its being anything else Will die out of Mrs.
Creveling’s mind and the more ready she’ll be to drop an
investigation that’s bound to bring annoyance to a lot of
innocent people. Your name and Mr. O’Rourke’s being
mentioned as among their best friends, the inspector sent
me to ask you in confidence if Mr. Creveling had seemed
to be troubled about anything lately and if he’d maybe
dropped a hint as to what might have been on his mind.”
“N o, I couldn’t say that Mr. Creveling betrayed any sign
that would lead one to think he was worried, much less
that he contemplated suicide,” Mrs. O’Rourke said slowly.
“If anything, he has seemed to be in more than his usual


98 HOW MANY CARDS?
spirits, but I have seen little of him during the latter part
of the season. Mrs. Creveling has been away, you know.
My husband ran into him frequently about town, I believe;
he would be better able to answer your question—Oh, here
he is now I”
The front door closed with a muffled jar and strong but
springy footsteps crossed the hall. The next instant the
curtains at the entrance to the drawing-room were thrust
aside and a tall young man stood looking in upon them.
7 McCarty caught his breath. If the chubby little Lady
Peggy had changed almost beyond recognition John Cava-
naugh O’Rourke had not. The same clean-cut, freckled,
sensitive face, the same thatch of brick-red hair still irre—
pressibly curly, the same clear gray eyes with the boyish
twinkle barely subdued in them! McCarty could with dif-
ficulty restrain the exclamation which leaped to his lips.
“Come in, John.” Mrs. O’Rourke rose from her chair.
“This man has been sent here by some official of the police
department to make inquiries about Eugene, to learn if we
know of any reason why he killed himself. I told him
that you would be able to answer his questions better than
1—,,
“There’s no answer!” Mr. O’Rourke came forward
frankly. “There doesn’t seem to be a reason in the world
why the old boy should have done himself in. But why
have you come to us?”
His tone was friendly and McCarty smiled broadly in
response.
“Well, sir, your name was given to the inspector together
with the Waverlys and Fords and several more as being
among Mr. Creveling’s closest friends and those most likely
to know if he was in any trouble. I’m not properly con-
nected with the force, though I was once, and the inspector
calls me in now and then to help him out with details he
hasn’t time for. I’ve already seen Mr. Waverly, but I
thought I’d come to you before any one else. If you’ve


FROM THE LONG AGO 99
seen Mrs. Creveling you’ll know what attitude she’s taken
in the matter and if in spite of the medical examiner’s re-
port she insists it couldn’t have been suicide—”
“I know.” Mr. O’Rourke nodded with a quick jerk of
the head, and added: “Look here, haven’t I seen you be-
fore? Your face is familiar, somehow, and your voice, but
I can’t place you.”
“You have, sir, and my lady, too, but ’tis long years gone.
That’s why I came to you first. All Mr.-Creveling’s friends
are likely to be dragged in if Mrs. Creveling persists in
disregarding the medical report and I wanted to save ‘the’
O’Rourke from what annoyance I could.”
“ ‘ “The” O’Rourke !’ ” The young man’s voice was sud-
denly husky. “No one in America has ever called me
that!”
“You were not ‘the’ O’Rourke when I left the old coun-
try, sir,” McCarty responded quietly. “Your father was
alive then, God rest his soul. You were just a bit of a lad
with a thatch of hair like a shanty afire who hunted and
fished with me many’s the time, and Lady Peggy, saving
her presence, was all petticoats and curls, and forever tum-
bling down—”
“Oh, and you didn’t tell me l” A warm, soft light glowed
in Mrs. O’Rourke’s eyes and she held her tiny gloved hand
out impulsively. “Who are you? I ought to remember— P”
“My name’s McCarty, ma’am, though ’twill mean nothing
to you, you were that young—~”
“But it means something to me !” O’Rourke clapped him
heartily on the shoulder. “Timothy McCarty, by all the
powers! Timmie McCarty, who knew all the deepest pools
and the thickest coverts, and where the Little People danced
at the turn of the moon! You came to New York to seek
your fortune—”
“And landed in the police force.” McCarty’s face grew
suddenly grave. “I’m retired now, and a landed proprietor
with tenants of my own, but now and again when my old


100 HOW MANY CARDS?
chief calls on me I take a hand in the game once more in
an unofficial way, of course. I happened along the Avenue
last night when the policeman on the beat discovered the
body of Mr. Creveling—’tis too long a story to go into
now but ’twill be all out in the afternoon papers—and when
the inspector got there he kept me on. If the motive for
suicide can be established—well and good. Mr. Terhune
can potter around with his microscope and his little scien-
tific machines as long as it pleases him and Mrs. Creveling
will authorize him, but the matter will be dropped from
the records of the department. If, however, no reason for
Mr. Creveling’s killing himself can be found and no actual
proof that he did do it beyond the opinion of the medical
examiner, then the inspector’ll have to have everybody that
knew him up on the carpet. That means notoriety for all
his friends and I thought if you could give me privately a
tip on why he maybe put himself out of the way I could
see that you and my lady would both be left out of it.”
McCarty paused expectantly and Mrs. O’Rourke’s eyes
traveled from him to her husband, but the young man shook
his head and with his hands thrust deep in his pockets turned
and began to pace the floor.
“That’s the deuce of it !” he muttered. “Creveling was
my friend and I am as anxious as any one could be to see
the mystery of his death cleared up, but I cannot for the
life of me conceive any reason why he should have killed
himself. It couldn’t have been any financial trouble for
he’s—”
“Well?” asked McCarty, for the other had caught him-
self up abruptly and stood staring down at the hearth rug.
“I—I understood that he was fixed for life; that his
father knowing his recklessness where money was concerned
had tied up a portion of his inheritance in a trust fund of
some sort so that he could not dig into the entire principal,
but I may be wrong. Alexander—George Alexander, his
partner—is in a better position to inform you on that score


FROM THE LONG AGO 101
than I am. Now that I think of it, it seems to me that
Creveling has been a bit queer lately; nO't despondent ex-
actly, but moody. Perhaps there was something preying
on his mind.”
Mrs. O’Rourke opened her lips to speak but closed them
again and McCarty saw in a sidelong glance that she was
still staring fixedly at her husband, who kept his eyes studi-
ously lowered.. A dull flush had risen beneath the freckles
and an odd note of constraint had come into his voice.
“It’s your opinion then that he met with financial re-
verses ?” McCarty affected to take no note of the change
in Mr. O’Rourke’s manner.
“I don’t say that; the fact is, that I have no opinion
whatever on the matter.” The young man raised his eyes
slowly. “I’ve known him for several years as one man
knows another in the same crowd, especially when their
wives are on an intimate footing, but nothing has ever hap—
pened to bring us closer together than on a basis of general
goodfellowship. He has never discussed his affairs with
me and he’d be far more likely to confide in Doug. Waver-
ly or Nick Cutter. You’ve seen Waverly, you say?
Couldn’t he suggest any motive for suicide?”
“No more than yourself, sir.”
“But you haven’t interviewed Cutter yet, have you?”
There was a singular note of eagerness now in the younger
man’s tones.
“No, sir; I’ve not had time.” McCarty picked up his hat
from the table where he had placed it and turned to Mrs.
O’Rourke. “I’ll say good day, my lady, and thank you
for seeing me. I’m sorry if I’ve troubled you—”
“I’m not ‘my lady’ here, you know.” She smiled faintly
as she gave him her hand. “You say that you’re not offi-
cially connected with the investigation into this dreadfully
sad affair, Mr. McCarty? It is a pity, for we shall both be
interested naturally in learning the truth; I mean the—the
motive for the suicide. At any rate, you will come to see


102 HOW MANY CARDS?
us again now that you have found us, won’t you? I have a
warm spot in my heart, as John has, for a friend from the
old country and there will always be a welcome for you.”
“ ‘Welcome?’ ” Mr. O’Rourke advanced and held out
his hand. “I should say there would be! We’ve got to
have a good, long talk about the old days, Timmie McCarty,
you rascal! You must come and dine with us soon, just
we three together, and we’ll celebrate the reunion in the
proper way. In the meantime, if there’s anything I can
do to help your friend, the inspector, to clear up this mat-
ter of poor Creveling’s death just let me know.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me!” He laughed genially. “I was ‘Johnnie’
when we went fishing together, aye, and poaching, too !—
Good-by. Don’t forget to drop in on us. whenever you can.”
McCarty took his leave of them, conscious that Lady
Peggy’s troubled eyes followed him questioningly to the
very door. There was more than one question in his own
mind also as he strode off down the Avenue. What sud—
den thought had wrought the change in “the” O’Rourke’s
manner? At first frankly admitting that he knew of no
reason for suicide on Creveling’s part, he had promptly
hedged and attempted by suggestion to shift the responsi—
bility of a reply to other shoulders, notably those of Mr.
Nicholas Cutter. Why? Had he indeed accepted suicide
as the solution of Creveling’s death or did he secretly in-
cline toward the conviction held by Mrs. Creveling?
Whatever his opinion in the case, it was evident that
his wife had her doubts, in spite of her air of amazed in-
credulity on learning of Mrs. Creveling’s attitude. That
slip she had made in saying that both she and her husband
would be interested in learning “the truth” and then chang-
ing it quickly to “motive for the suicide” had been slight
but significant, yet her surprise had been as genuine as
McCarty’s own at her husband’s hesitancy and change of
front.


FROM THE LONG AGO 103
What did she know or suspect? McCarty had had his
own reasons for disclaiming any official connection with
the investigation as well as for the assumption of unques—
tioning belief in the medical examiner’s' diagnosis, but had
Lady Peggy’s womanly intuition warned her of its fallacy
or was there something more tangible in her mind and that
of “the” O’Rourke, some doubt or suspicion which she was
surprised to find that her husband shared?
His mind busied with vain conjecture, McCarty passed
the Creveling house and continued south to Sixty-third
Street, where he turned east to the address given him as
that of Mrs. Baillie Kip. Jimmie Ballard’s description of
her as an unsuccessful social climber and the mystery of
her recent admission to the exclusive circle in which the
Crevelings had moved, made him curious not only as to
her personality but to observe her reaction to the news of
the tragedy. She could not be on as intimate terms with
the Crevelings as friends of years’ standing, but would she,
'too, scout the suggestion of suicide?
Her house was small, .a mere slice between two larger
ones, but gay with window boxes ablaze with color. An
express wagon was drawn up at the curb before it and as
McCarty reached the foot of the steps the door opened
and a man appeared bearing upon his hunched back a huge,
dark-green wardrobe trunk plentifully splattered with labels.
With a grunt he slammed it down upon the sidewalk and
turned to unhook the backboard of the wagon and the tag
fastened to the single handle at its top was directly beneath
McCarty’s eyes. In a glance he read the inscription writ—
ten neatly in small but wavering characters:
“Miss LETITIA FRosT
HOTEL FITZ—MAURICE
NEW YORK CITY.”
The front door was still open and a trim little maid in a
smartly frilled apron regarded him curiously as he mounted


FROM THE LONG AGO 105
rouge, in spite of the artistry of its application, stood out
in blotches against the unnatural pallor of her cheeks.
“At what time did this message reach you?” McCarty
stood his ground.
“About nine o’clock, I think. I had retired early but
passed a wretchedly wakeful night. I slipped on a—a rug
yesterday and fell, spraining my arm--” She broke off,
biting her reddened lips. “I must ask you to excuse me—!”
“Who sent that message, Mrs. Kip?” McCarty inter-
rupted sternly.
“I do not care to say; it was a confidential communica-
tion from a—a close friend of the Crevelings,” she stam-
mered, and then drew herself up. “Why do you ask me all
these questions? Who are you? My maid says you in-
quired for my companion Miss Frost.”
“Yes, ma’am. Will you tell me where she has gone?”
McCarty ignored the interrogations.
“To Chicago,” Mrs. Kip replied hastily. “A—a relative
of hers is ill and sent for her.” Then her manner changed
and as though impelled beyond the dictates of her own
prudence she asked, “How did it happen? Who shot Mr.
Creveling?”
“Himself, ma’am. When I saw Mr. Waverly this morn-
ing just before he sent you that message ’twas thought that
a murder had been committed, but it’s been proven that
Mr. Creveling died by his own hand.”
Mrs. Kip wavered and the color swept back in a warm
tide over her face.
“Suicide?” she murmured. “How—how dreadful! I
sympathize with Mrs. Creveling but I know nothing of their
affairs, nothing, and I refuse to be catechized further! My
maid will show you to the door.”


CHAPTER IX
“DONE FOR !”
MCCARTY smiled to himself as he left Mrs. Kip’s
house and started eastward. That shot in the dark
had found its mark; she had not denied that Waverly was
the sender of the message warning her of Creveling’s death,
and that he himself had been interrogated in connection
with it. But why had she been so warned? How was she
concerned and what had her relations been to the dead
man and to Waverly? Could it be that she was the woman
in the case, the woman because of whom they had quarreled
a fortnight before?
That she had been apprised of his possible coming and
knew that he was no reporter McCarty was well aware
despite her pretense. Why had she lied so hastily about
the whereabouts of her companion Miss Frost? But for
the lucky chance of his arrival at the moment that the trunk
was being removed he would in all probability never have
heard of the woman. Could the events of the night have
had anything to do with her sudden departure?
McCarty boarded a downtown Madison Avenue car, his
thoughts still busied with the queries which that brief in-
terview evoked. Mrs. Kip had protested against his inter-
rogation, but she had not dared to turn him summarily from
her door until she learned that suicide had been accepted
by the police as the solution of the mystery. Did she be-
lieve that Creveling had killed himself and was notoriety
all that she feared? The only statements she volunteered
were that she had retired early on the previous night and
106


“DONE FOR !” 107
the explanation of her bandaged arm. She had slipped on
a rug—but was that the true explanation?
She was pretty enough in a florid, overblown way and
there was a devil of mischief in her eye; just the type to
appeal to a man satiated with cold beauty and smothered
in conventions, yet she wasn’t the sort to lose her head.
McCarty was convinced of that. She had made a hard fight
for social recognition according to Jimmie Ballard and
now that it was won she would take care that no hint of
scandal jeopardized it. There was something vaguely famil-
iar about her, too, and McCarty had an almost photographic
memory. Where had he seen her before?
At the Fitz-Maurice Hotel he alighted from the car. It
was well on into the luncheon hour and the lobby of the
fashionable hostelry was crowded, but he shouldered his
way through the throng to the desk and asked for Miss
Letitia Frost. After an interval he was directed to the
elevator and upon one of the upper floors he was ushered
into a tiny rear suite, to find himself confronting a stout,
elderly woman with a high, thin nose and bright, dark eyes
whose darting glances were like those of some predatory
bird beneath a mass of elaborately coiffed white hair.
“I am Miss Frost. May I ask what your business is
with me?” Her voice boomed out with surprising depth
and austerity.
“Just to ask you a few questions, ma’am, if you’ll be
good enough to answer them,” McCarty replied meekly
with a disarming smile.
He was about to continue when the lady forestalled him.
“By what authority, if you please?” she demanded coolly.
“Your name is unknown to me—”
“By the authority of the Police Commissioner!” McCarty
interrupted, his usually impervious good nature deserting
him for the moment in the face of her arrogance. “You’ve
been acting, I understand, as companion for Mrs. Baillie
Kip.”


108 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Police!” Miss Frost gasped. “Oh, that horrible, 10W-
bred creature! I feared gossip and possibly scandal but
never, never this! What is it, sir? What has she done?”
“I didn’t say she had done anything, ma’am,” McCarty
said more mildly, for the sharp hawk-like face seemed to
have aged perceptibly in the last minute. “We just want
to get a line on her, that is all.”
“It is enough!” Miss Frost wrung her hands. “To
think that I should have been so misguided as to lend her
the prestige of my chaperonage, a woman who is—is ques-
tionable in the eyes of the police! I shall never be able to
hold up my head again—I, whose position in society has
always been unassailable in spite of financial reverses! My
reputation, my standing will be ruined—!”
“Not at all, ma’am, you can rest easy on that score. This
is confidential, just between the two of us. Your name
needn’t even be mentioned if you’ll tell me what you know
about her.”
Miss Frost glanced about her helplessly and then sank
into the nearest chair, with a fluttering gesture toward one
across the table.
“I know literally nothing about Mrs. Kip!” she disclaimed.
“Less, in fact, than on the day when I went to make my
home with her. The Frosts are one of the oldest families
in society and in my younger days—but I digress. For the
last ten years or more, Mr.—er-—McCarty, I have found
it necessary to augment my income by introducing to so-
ciety certain members of the nouveau riche who would other-
wise have been unable to obtain a foothold. I have been
instrumental in arranging some of the most brilliant alli-
ances of the past decade. You have heard of Senator Wel-
kyn ?”
McCarty nodded.
“His wife was an absolute failure in Washington four
years ago but I schooled her with the utmost patience and
last season succeeded in launching her triumphantly at New-


“DONE FOR !” 109
port.” Miss Frost continued nervously. “Finding that
she no longer needed my sponsorship, she presented Mrs.
Kip to me as the widow of a Western copper king. I have
blamed myself a hundred times since for not having looked
up Mrs. Kip’s antecedents with my usual care, but Mrs.
l/Velkyn’s minute details of her history and assurance that
they had been girls together convinced me that she was
quite—er—possible, especially as I had watched her pre—
vious unsuccessful attempt to break into society some years
ago and knew that she had held herself sedulously above
any hint of gossip.
“We came to a financial agreement last autumn and on
my advice she took the house in which she now lives and
where I went to reside with her. You must know the suc-
cess of my efforts in her behalf even in so short a time;
she is received at the larger functions everywhere and has
even achieved a degree of intimacy with such people as Mr.
John and Lady Margaret O’Rourke, the Douglas Waver-
lys, Nicholas Cutter and their set. I had intended to elimi-
nate the Waverlys in the course of time as my—er—client
penetrated still more exclusive circles, and was really using
Nicholas Cutter merely as a stepping—stone to that end for
he holds the open sesame everywhere, you know, but Mrs.
Kip did not prove tractable.
“For a long time I have felt uneasy about her. In the
first place she was most secretive about her financial af-
fairs. I was given to understand in a general way that she
had large holdings in the West from which she received
ample dividends, but I observed that those' dividends seemed
to fluctuate in value more irregularly than even the wild-
cat stocks in which my poor misguided father lost most
of his fortune years ago. At times Mrs. Kip would in—
dulge in the most reckless extravagances and at others
there would seem to be scarcely sufficient available funds
to maintain her comparatively small establishment and no—
tices would come from the bank that her account was over-


110 HOW MANY CARDS?
drawn quite alarmingly, but she would always manage to
recoup at the crucial momen .”
“How P” McCarty asked.
“That was one of the mysteries which gradually seemed
to arise about her, at least in my mind.” Miss Frost spoke
now with evident care. “I fancied she had influential
friends from whom she borrowed when necessary, but I
never could learn who they were. Another thing about her
which I could not understand, Mr. McCarty, was the rea-
son for her unexplained absences at most—most unconven-
tional hours. Usually I arrange a daily social program for
my clients as though they were débutantes, but Mrs. Kip
soon gave me to understand that she would exercise her
own judgment in such matters. I do not pry into the affairs
of other people, but when I am practically responsible for
their presentation to the right society I must be sure that
they do not jeopardize my reputation as well as theirs by
indiscretions, however innocent.”
“And Mrs. Kip was what you call indiscreet, ma’am?”
McCarty’s own words were carefully chosen.
The lady set her thin lips in a straight line.
“That is the mildest word with which I can describe her
conduct, Mr. McCarty, although I could not with actual
proof breathe a word against her personal character or repu-
tation. I only know that she would go out, sometimes in
the afternoon but more frequently at night, and remain until
all hours without a word to me as to her plans and the next
morning she would invariably appear haggard and worn,
in a state of nervous exhaustion bordering on prostration,
as though she had been through some feverish excitement.”
McCarty leaned forward with sudden interest.
“How often did she go on these expeditions of hers P”
“Only occasionally at first and at irregular intervals;
sometimes on several successive days, and then a week or
two would elapse before she went again. It seemed to me
at times as though she were fighting something and if I


“DONE FOR 1” 111
were not familiar with the habits and demeanor of a drug
addict through an unfortunate experience with a former
client I would have believed her a victim. I forebore to
question her at first, but of late her disappearances have be-
come more frequent, averaging several times a week; she
has totally forgotten or disregarded engagements for so-
cial functions for which I had been at infinite trouble and
pains to procure invitations for her, placing me in a most
embarrassing position. Indeed, it seems to me that she had
lost all ambition for her own advancement and was content
to drift. Her financial affairs, too, appear to have reached
a crisis and I felt that at last I should be compelled to
speak.”
Miss Frost was nervously clasping and unclasping the
arms of her chair and a fine network of veins stood out
upon her forehead.
“Did Mrs. Kip receive any messages or telephone calls
just before she went out on these occasions ?”
“Sometimes, but I never knew their nature nor from
whom they came.”
“Did she go alone 3’”
“Invariably.”
“And come home alone?" McCarty insisted.
“As far as I know.” Miss Frost shrugged. “She always
used her own latch-key and the servants were instructed to
leave the chain off the door but were never permitted to
wait up for her. I did once, but Mrs. Kip was displeased
and made a most distressing scene, practically accusing me
of attempting to interfere in her affairs. I should have left
her then but I realized that she was unnerved and not quite
herself and made allowances, too, for her lack of breeding.
However, I could not tolerate my position any longer after
this morning!”
“What happened, ma’am ?” McCarty heaved a sigh of
relief. “ ’Twas that I wanted particularly to see you about.”
“There was a musicale last night—the last of Mrs. Fales


112 HOW MANY CARDS?
Ogden’s Lenten affairs, and one of the most exclusive of
the season—and I had with the exercise of the greatest
diplomacy obtained invitations for Mrs. Kip and myself.
Late in the afternoon Mrs. Kip went out alone and on her
return informed me flatly that she had made another engage-
ment for the evening and would not be able to attend the
musicale. I was deeply affronted, but in my position, Mr.
McCarty, one must use the utmost tact at all times and I
did not protest, merely dispatching a last-minute excuse of
sudden illness to Mrs. Fales Ogden. Mrs. Kip did not dress
for dinner and about ten o'clock she called a taxi instead
of her motor and went out in the plain velvet tailor-made
and sables she had worn in the afternoon.
“My discontent in my position had been growing and I
was seriously considering the severance of my connection
with Mrs. Kip; her dereliction last night was the final straw
and I determined that this morning we must have a thor-
ough understanding. I could not sleep under the circum-
stances, so I know definitely at what hour Mrs. Kip re-
turned.”
She paused and McCarty eyed her expectantly. Mrs. Kip
had been at pains to impress upon him the fact that she had
retired early; had she gotten the uncompromising Miss Frost
out of the way that her lie might not be refuted?
“Well?” he urged, as the elderly companion was still
silent.
“Mr. McCarty, it was almost daylight! I heard her close
the front door downstairs and slide the chain into its groove,
although she did it as quietly as possible. Then she came
up the stairs, stumbling and catching at the balustrade as
though she were faint or ill. I arose and was on the point
of going to her when I remembered her displeasure on that
former occasion, so I merely opened my door and glanced
out into the hall. She passed without seeing me and I—I
was so shocked at her appearance that I could not have
uttered a word had I so desired!”


“DONE FOR !” 113
“What was the matter with her ?” McCarty demanded.
“Her sable scarf was gone, although she still held her
muff, and her velvet suit was torn and bedraggled.” Miss
Frost spoke with morbid relish and her dark eyes snapped
balefully. “She limped, too, and hugged one arm to her
side as though it hurt her. I should have gone to her as-
sistance at once had not something in her expression warned
me that she was not in any mood to brook intrusion. Pain
and rage and a look of vindictive determination were all
written in her face and I withdrew and shut my door. I
could hear her pacing the floor of her room until the day
broke when I fell asleep at last. I arose at my usual hour,
however, and came downstairs just in time to see her re—
ceive a note from the hands of a messenger. I was aston-
ished to see her up and dressed for she usually breakfasted
in bed, especially when she had been out—”
“Wait a minute, please,” McCarty interrupted her. “You
saw the messenger, you say; was he in uniform ?”
“No. I did not observe him particularly, but he appeared
'to be a shabby looking lad. Mrs. Kip bade me good morn-
ing in an absent-minded sort of way and instead of follow-
ing me into the breakfast room, went into the library with
the unopened note in her hand and closed the door. I
saw that her arm was clumsily bandaged and while I was
at breakfast the doctor was announced; she must have
summoned him before I arose. I slipped out into the hall
as he was leaving and asked him how Mrs. Kip’s arm was,
and he said that she had suffered a bad sprain and made
some reference to a fall which I did not understand until
later.”
“Was it about her slipping on a rug or something yester-
day ?” asked McCarty.
“Yes, as I remember!” Miss Frost glanced at him in
surprise and then went on: “Mrs. Kip came down again in
a few minutes and at my natural inquiry about her injury
she told me that she had slipped and fallen in her room


114 HOW MANY GARDS?
on her return the night before. She musr have seen in my
face that I knew the truth, for suddenly she flared out at
me with all the violence of an unrestrained, ill-bred nature
and a most disgraceful scene ensued !”
Miss Frost’s head with its elaborate puffs bobbed agitat-
edly and an indignant flush mottled her face.
“I had never realized before how thin was the veneer;
how utterly common she was! I can assure you, Mr. Mc-
Carty, that I have never been so insulted! Among other
remarks which I shall not repeat, she said that she was
not a child and was tired of my eternal spying; that I was
an interfering old busybodyl She actually dared to insinu-
ate that I was a—a sort of society grafter, an object of
charity, after all that I have done for her! I was simply
stunned, but when I pulled myself together to announce of
my own accord my immediate departure from her house
she forestalled me by demanding that I leave at once. She
actually dismissed me! Gave me notice, as though I were
a servant! W'ords cannot describe my humiliation, but if
I can build social reputations I can also demolish them!
Mrs. Baillie Kip will not find a door open to her three days
from now !”
“Hold on a bit, ma’am!” McCarty stemmed the out-
raged flow of words. “She got in a temper just because you
looked disbelieving at her excuse about her arm P”
“Well, no,” the lady conceded. “I was disgusted at the
insult to my intelligence and let her know what I had
seen. I think I also mentioned other occasions to which I
had taken silent objection and perhaps I expressed my
opinion as to being used as a cloak for actions which I did
not understand. When our interview terminated I packed
at once and came here.
“In strict justice to the woman I cannot say that her
manner was other than most circumspect when she was
under my eye; she was popular and had several admirers,
but there was no suspicion of a love affair. I did not know


116 HOW MANY CARDS?
police investigation in connection with this woman any of
the prominent families whose friendship I enjoy, especially
as I do not know what she has done!” Her voice rose
quaveringly. “I would never be able to obtain another
client !”
“But this is just confidential, between you and me.” Mc—
Carty smiled. “I know all about the Waverlys and
O’Rourkes and 'Crevelings, but as far as I can make out
Cutter is the only bachelor in their immediate set.”
“Mr. Cutter has been attentive to Mrs. Kip, but not
more so than to many another attractive widow or divorcée,”
Miss Frost observed. “No debutante has ever interested
him although he would be a splendid catch. One of my
few failures was an attempt to bring about a marriage be-
tween him and Gwendolyn Rossmore. I managed to send
her in to dinner with him three times in succession and you
would never believe the trouble I took to drill conversation
into that girl! Sports with the hors d’muvres, art with the
soup and fish, Maeterlinck with the entrée, opera with the
roast—but all for nothing! He is the most difficult—1’
“Ha-h’m!” McCarty looked somewhat dazed, but stuck
doggedly to his point. “About the gentlemen who paid at—
tention to Mrs. Kip. Who were the others, Miss Frost ?”
“Well, if you must know, F ales Ogden, junior, and Harry
Palladin and Jules Thoreau were among others but none
of them was serious and I am compelled to say that she
did not encourage them. Although I lived in the same house
with her we were never upon an intimate footing and I
c0uld not induce her to discuss the past, but I gathered
that widowhood was rather a release for her; she assured
me more than once that she would never marry again.”
“Well, ma’am.” McCarty rose. “I’ll not be detaining
you any longer now, nor will I give you away. Mrs. Kip
may be all right as far as we know, but we’ve reasons for
wanting to look her up and make sure. Good day to you,
ma’am.”


“DONE FOR!” 117
Leaving the agitated social sponsor, McCarty made his
way from the Fitz-Maurice to a modest quick-lunch estab-
lishment near the Grand Central Station. He had forgot-
ten all about breakfast in the excitement of the morning
and now he ordered a hearty meal, pondering as he ate
upon the information he had just gained. What could be
the explanation of Mrs. Kip’s mysterious conduct? What
dominating factor caused her to set aside the social ambi-
tion which had been her ruling passion for years, ignore
invitations for which she had long angled in vain, and steal
almost surreptitiously from her own house on secret er-
rands?
The questions multiplied in McCarty’s brain. Where had
she been on the previous night that she found it necessary
to lie about it? What was in that message which Waverly
had sent to her, and what was her connection—a rank out-
sider—with the set in which the Crevelings had moved?
That some community of interest drew them together was
plain, but what could there be in common between a gen—
tleman like John O’Rourke and a bounder like Waverly,
an aristocrat such as Mrs. Creveling and a climber of Mrs.
Kip’s type? Could the answer be found among the others
of their immediate circle?
It was almost three o’clock when, having finished his
meal, McCarty hailed a taxi and drove to the St. Maur
apartments on Madison Avenue. Mrs. Lonsdale Ford was
at home and would see him. Reluctantly he dropped in the
elevator the newspaper which he had purchased on leaving
the lunch-room and in which his interview with Jimmie
Ballard appeared with arrant embellishments, trusting that
a copy of it had not yet reached the eyes of the lady upon
whom he was calling, but his hope was a vain one. Even
as an obsequious Japanese butler ushered him into the
drawing-room the curtains leading to the library parted and
a slender, little woman with round, china-blue eyes and hair
like spun flax fairly precipitated herself upon him.


118 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Oh, you’re Officer McCarty, who found poor Mr. Crevel-
ing’s body!” she exclaimed in a high, babbling voice. “I’ve
been reading about you in the paper! Please, please tell me
how it happened! I tried to get Mrs. Creveling on the
’phone but she wouldn’t talk to me or else Stella Waverly
wouldn’t let her! I can’t get my husband until the stock
market closes and I’ve been just wild!”
“The Crevelings are great friends of yours, ma’am P”
“Of course! This is the most shocking thing!” She
seemed to speak in italics and her tone suggested that the
shock was more exciting than deplorable. “Lonny—my
husband—and Mr. Creveling have put through several deals
together and they were great pals! I think Mrs. Creveling
is just the sweetest thing; I’ve missed her horribly since
she has been out of town !—But did Mr. Creveling kill
himself? Of course, you found the pistol in his hand, the
paper says, but then there was that burglar you captured.
I think it was too brave of you for anything!”
McCarty eyed the doll-like face before him with its insipid
prettiness and his wonderment grew. “Sweet” was not a
term he would have applied to the strong, self-contained
Mrs. Creveling. What could there be in common between
her and this shallow, empty-headed little creature?
“ ’Tis the opinion of the medical examiner that it was
suicide, ma’am,” he said gravely. “We’re trying to find
out from Mr. Creveling’s friends if they knew of any rea-
son he could have for killing himself ; if he seemed in trou-
ble or low in his mind. When was the last time you or
your husband saw him?”
“I think Lonny saw him only yesterday, on business.
The last time we met him together was on Tuesday evening,
and we expected him last night but he didn’t appear.”
“He had an engagement with you?” '
Mrs. Ford bit her pouting underlip and for the merest
second the round, childish, blue eyes narrowed with a
shrewdness oddly foreign and incongruous to them.


“DONE FOR!” 119
“Not with us, and it wasn’t an—an engagement exactly.
My husband and I dined and spent the evening with Mr.
Cutter and they are such inseparable friends that we rather
thought he might drop in.”
A sudden remembrance of Douglas Waverly’s testimony
flashed across McCarty’s mind. The last time he admitted
having seen Creveling had been on Tuesday evening also,
at the house of Nicholas Cutter.
“’Twas at Mr. Cutter’s that you saw him on Tuesday,
then, wasn’t it?” he asked. “Who else was there P”
“The O’Rourkes and Mr. Douglas Waverly and Mrs.
Baillie Kip." Mrs. Ford spoke haltingly and the high treble
had lowered. “Mr. Creveling seemed in the very best of
spirits; he always was when he-—”
“When he what, ma’am ?” McCarty prompted quickly as
she paused.
The blue eyes fell and she began fiddling nervously with
the many rings which covered her small fingers.
“When he’d got something that he wanted.” The words
came in a little rush. “He had a perfect craze for antiques,
you know; musty old tapestries and faded rugs and books
that nobody ever heard of. This time it was a rug, I think,
with some queer unpronounceable name. He’d been after
it for months—”
“I see,” McCarty interrupted dryly. “Do you remember,
ma’am, whether him and Mr. Waverly had much talk to-
gether that night ?”
“Why, no !” The blue eyes opened wide once more. “I
don’t remember that they even spoke, but I wasn’t paying
any attention to them. I know Mr. Creveling left early,
very soon after Mr. Waverly came.”
“Is it a habit of Mr. Cutter’s to entertain so much in his
own house?”
Mrs. Ford stared at him and opened her lips to reply
when there came the sound of a key grating in the lock of
the hall door, and with a glad little cry she sprang up and


. 120 HOW MANY CARDS?
rushed from the room. McCarty heard the door open and
close, a mufiled exclamation :-—“Oh, Lonny!”—and then a
man’s voice rasped out hoarsely:
“You’ve heard, Nellie? You know? We’re done for,
girl! Done for!”


CHAPTER X
ILSA
S the significance of the harsh, despairing cry pene-
trated his mind McCarty half rose from his chair in
the Fords’ gawdy drawing-room and then sank back into it
again, for the woman’s voice rose sharply.
“The man is here! The nian who found the body—!”
The shrill tones ceased in a gurgle as though a hand had
been laid suddenly over her lips and a low mutter replied
to her, in which the only distinct words that came to Mc-
Carty’s ears were “confounded little fool!” Some ques-
tion evidently followed to which she replied in a sibilant
whisper andthen a tall, lanky man with hair thinning at
the temples and eager, harassed, brown eyes strode into
the room.
“What do you want ?” he demanded. “What are you
doing here ?”
“I’ve been sent by the inspector in charge of the investiga-
tion into Eugene Creveling’s death, sir,” responded McCarty,
rising.
“Well, what about it?” the other asked truculently. “We
knew him, of course, but why have you come to us ?”
“To find out if you could help us get at any reason for
his suicide,” McCarty explained, ignoring the antagonism
in Ford’s manner. “Mr. George ~Alexander says you were
a friend of Mr. Creveling’s and Mrs. Ford told me just
now that you and him have put through some deals to-
gether; you might know if anything had been preying on
the mind of him.”
“Suicide, eh?” Ford’s tone was cooler, as though he
had in a measure regained composure. “How the devil
121


12 HOW MANY CARDS?
should I know his afiairs if his own family don’t? Alex-
ander is a doddering ass, and as for my wife, she knows
nothing about my business; she probably heard some propo-
sitions discussed in a general way and jumped to conclu-
sions. You’ve got no right to come here and question her
or me either! We’ve nothing to say, and that’s the end
of it!”
“You saw Creveling yesterday—” McCarty persisted.
“How in hell do you know that !” Ford exploded sud-
denly and turned upon his wife who stood shrinkingly in
the doorway. “More of your infernal chatter, eh? Will
you never learn to keep your mouth shut!”
“You had a business conference with him,” McCarty in—
terposed firmly. “What was the nature of that business,
Mr. Ford? Why should your wife keep quiet about it 1"”
“Because it was a confidential matter!” the other re-
torted savagely. “A proposition between us two alone and
it had nothing to do with whatever happened last night;
we didn’t come to any decision, anyway. I’m sorry Crevel-
ing’s dead, of course, but if he killed himself he probably
knew what he was about. I don’t, and you’ve got a devil
of a nerve to come here and try to cross-examine my wife
merely because we happened to be acquainted with the
Crevelings! Go back to your inspector or the Police Com—
missioner himself if you like and say that if we are an-
noyed any farther 0r dragged into this there will be trouble.
I’ve got influence in this town !”
The man’s hands worked nervously and his blood-shot
eyes glared at McCarty as the latter nodded.
“Very well, sir. I came to you quiet like, as I’ve been
to most of Mr. Creveling’s other close friends to save them
the trouble and publicity of being subpoenaed if it comes
to that. You’ll appreciate the fact that we’ve got to estab-
lish a motive for suicide or there may be a lot more un-
pleasant notoriety for all concerned.”


ILSA 123
“We are not concerned, and I refuse to discuss the mat-
ter farther, sir! We know nothing of Creveling’s private
affairs and no motive for his suicide.” Ford gestured to~
ward the door. “Good afternoon !”
With a slight bow to Mrs. Ford, who stepped aside as
though in a daze to let him pass, McCarty left the room
and as he shot downward in the elevator the scene which
had just occurred impressed itself upon him with a new
and two-fold suggestion of mystery. Ford was evidently
beside himself, on the brink of desperation—why? His
cry of being “done for” together with Mrs. Ford’s warn-
ing that the man who had found “the body” was there
seemed to hold an unmistakable and damning significance,
yet his subsequent manner was a puzzle. It was almost as
though some other and quite irrelevant issue confronted
him, something beside which the manner of Creveling's
death was of small moment. His concern appeared chiefly
to get McCarty out of the way, heedless of the impression
he created. The look upon his wife’s face as McCarty
passed her, too, returned to the latter’s mind. Terror had
been written there and bewilderment as though a crushing
blow had descended upon her, yet she had displayed lively
interest rather than apprehension before the arrival of her
husband. Was she clever enough to have dissembled? He
remembered her odd hesitation, that momentary flash of
shrewdness which had darted from her eyes, but shook his
head doubtfully.
What was the matter with everybody, anyway? Alex-
ander, the valet, Mrs. Creveling, Douglas Waverly, Mrs.
Kip, and now the Fords! All of them seemed to be hold-
ing back, concealing something, blocking him at every step
of the way! Was it a conspiracy of silence, or had each
of them a separate secret? I
On a sudden impulse he turned westward once more to
Fifth Avenue and back to the Creveling house. It was


124 HOW MANY CARDS?
there the whole thing had started and there perhaps that
the key might be found.
“Mrs. Creveling is ill, sir. The doctor and her maid and
Mrs. Waverly are with her and I don’t believe she can see
you,” the butler informed him. There was an obvious in-
crease of servility in his manner and McCarty wondered
with an inward chuckle of amusement whether any intima-
tion of his former cooperation with Terhune were respon-
sible for the change.
“Please say I won’t keep her except for a minute and
I’ll not be bothering her with anything that will harrow up
her feelings,” McCarty announced. “I just want a little
general information.”
“It’s a terrible shock.” The butler lingered conversa-
tionally. “A fine gentleman to work for, Mr. Creveling
was; I doubt but that there’ll be great changes in the ’ouse-
hold now with ’im gone. Sarah and me’ll be looking for
another place as soon as things get straightened out ’ere,
and no mistake about it."
“Why P” McCarty demanded. “You’re not going to keep
on your positions with Mrs. Creveling?”
“Not any, sir !" Rollins shook his head emphatically.
“She’s a grand lady, but too interfering with the ’ousehold
accounts to suit people that ’as a reputation for being ’onest,
and she’s ’ard, sir: unfeeling, I’d call it. But you saw ’er
this morning, ’earing the news and never turning a ’air!
The way she treated Ilsa shows what she’d do to a body
she was down on!”
“Who’s Ilsa ?” asked McCarty quickly.
“A ’ousemaid, sir, and as pretty a trick as you’d find
in a day’s walk. Not that I ’old with square’eads, but she
was a winner and no mistake. Worked ’ere for four
months and most satisfactory, but when the jewels disap-
peared—!” Rollins drew himself up suddenly. “Yes, sir.
I’ll take the message, sir.”
McCarty glanced about for the source of the interrup-


ILSA 127
“She’s not too sick to see me now for a minute, I hope,
Doctor?” McCarty asked.
Before the former could reply Rollins appeared upon
the stairs.
“You can go up, sir,” he announced.
“Do not remain any longer than necessary, please, and
try to avoid exciting Mrs. Creveling if you can,” the physi-
cian admonished. “I have just given her something to
make her relax and sleep. She is keeping too tight a rein
upon herself; if we are not careful the tension will snap.”
“Just what do you mean, Doctor? Brain fever P” Mc-
Carty paused on the lowest step of the stairs.
“There is no such disease known in materia medica.”
The other smiled. “It exists solely in fiction, my dear sir.
No, Mrs. Creveling is in danger of nervous prostration.
Please make your interview with- her as brief as possible.”
McCarty promised and the physician turned to the door
which Rollins was holding open for him while the ex-
roundsman proceeded up- the stairs. He had learned little
of importance, owing perhaps to the reticence of the medi-
cal man, but the butler’s interrupted confidence had sug-
gested a new train of conjecture. It was the first he had
heard about the disappearance of any jewels. What had
Mrs. Creveling done to the housemaid, Ilsa, and what part,
if any, could the girl have had in the drama of the previous
night?
At the head of the stairs he found a trim but white-faced
young Frenchwoman awaiting him and was conducted to
the boudoir of the apartments he had visited twice during
the night on his search. There he found Mrs. Creveling
reclining upon a couch, with a startlingly thin, sinuous red-
haired woman coiled gracefully in a big chair beside her.
The latter glanced up at him in a bored, contemptuous man-
ner at his intrusion and McCarty caught a flash of green,
feline eyes and the curl of vivid, narrow lips.
“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am.” He paused before


128 HOW MANY CARDS?
I
Mrs. Creveling, who acknowledged his presence by a slight
motion of her hand toward a chair. “I wouldn’t have come
to you again to-day but there are a few things I’d like to
ask you-”
“I wish you to have all the information you may require,
Mr. McCarty.” She spoke still in the cold, level, self-con-
tained tones of the morning but with a drowsy under-note.
The doctor’s medicine was evidently beginning to take ef-
fect. “I want only to learn who killed my husband.”
“Yes, ma’am.” McCarty seated himself on the edge of
the chair and reluctantly relinquished his hat to the maid
who had followed and held out her hand for it. “Maybe
it’ll seem to you that I’m asking a lot of foolish questions
that have nothing to do with the case, but I’ll ask you to
answer them, just the same, without taking up- your time
now to explain. It’s come to our notice that some jewels
were supposed to have disappeared from your house some-
time during the past winter. Is this true, ma’am ?”
“Yes. The set of emeralds and diamonds which I had
taken from the vault at the trust company to wear at Mrs.
Fales Ogden’s pageant in February,” Mrs. Creveling replied
quickly, her apathy stirred by surprise at the question. “It
was reported to the police and one of the servants arrested
and held for trial, but she succeeded in obtaining bail and
then disappeared, forfeiting it.—You remember the woman,
Stella? She was a Swede and of quite striking appear-
ance.”
She had turned to her companion and the latter nodded
with a cynical smile.
“Quite too striking!” she murmured. “I am always sus-
picious of servants who appear out of the picture!”
“This lady is Mrs. Douglas Waverly,” Mrs. Creveling
explained as if in an afterthought. “She is quite in my
confidence and you may speak unreservedly before her.”
McCarty bowed, but addressed himself still to Mrs. Cre-
veling.


ILSA 129
“About this servant, ma’am: what was her name?”
“Ilsa Helwig.”
“What does she look like, ma’am ?”
“You can find her description at your headquarters, I
imagine,” replied Mrs. Creveling coldly. “She was a huge,
broad-shouldered, deep-chested woman with large hands and
feet and great, thick ropes of tow-colored hair wound about
her head. Her skin was very fair and her eyes blue, I be—
lieve. One would call her handsome, in a coarse way.”
There was a pause and then McCarty changed the sub-
ject.
“Did you recover your emeralds, ma’am ?”
“No. The police could find no trace of them but the
evidence was conclusive.”
“The very fact that the creature jumped her bail was
proof enough of her guilt, I should say,” observed Mrs.
Waverly. “It is astonishing that the police have not located
her if they are really making an effort to do so. Those
things were worth a small fortune, weren’t they, Myra?”
“Thirty thousand dollars,” Mrs. Creveling responded. “I
never cared particularly for them but an example should
haVe been made of the girl.”
“What was the evidence against her, ma’am ?” McCarty
inquired.
“No one else had an opportunity.” Mrs. Creveling set-
tled herself back languidly on her couch. “I had brought
the jewels home myself from the trust company vaults in
a plain brown morocco case, late one afternoon, several
days before the pageant was to take place, meaning to try
their effect with my costume. Its delivery was delayed by
the modiste, however, and it did not arrive until a few
hours before the affair. My maid, Yvonne, was ill and I
rang for Ilsa to assist me in trying it on. While Rollins
was taking the message to her I crossed the hall to Mr.
Creveling’s room, obtained the morocco case from him—
he had kept it in the small safe in his dressing-room for


130 HOW MANY CARDS?
me—and returning, placed it on my vanity table. Ilsa was
waiting in my room for me and had unpacked the costume.
All the other servants were below stairs, as was afterward
proved, and the housekeeper was out.
“Before I had time to try on the costume I was called
away for a moment and when I returned Ilsa was not there
and my jewels were gone; the case was empty when I
opened it.”
“Had you opened it before at the trust company or when
you reached home P" McCarty rubbed his chin thought—
fully. “When was the last time you saw the jewels, Mrs.
Creveling?”
“Just a few moments before, in my husband’s dressing-
room. When he took the case from his safe for me he
opened it; I remember mentioning that I meant to have
the stones reset almost immediately and he tried to pre-
vail upon me not to do so. They were very old and their
antique settings appealed to his artistic sense.” She spoke
in that curiously remote tone without a trace of emotion
in which she had alluded to her husband during the early
morning’s interview. “I snapped the case shut before I
left his rooms and crossed to mine, and the jewels were
most assuredly in it when I placed it on my vanity table.”
“What did you do when you found them gone and the
maid, too?”
Mrs. Creveling stirred as though to rouse nerself, and it
was with an obvious effort that she responded:
“But you see I did not discover the loss of the jewels
immediately. Ilsa returned in about five minutes with the
excuse that she had gone to her own room to take a head-
ache powder; I did not realize until I thought it over later
how strangely confused she appeared. I dressed in a
leisurely manner with her aid and it must have been twenty
minutes at least after I returned to my room that I opened
the jewel case. I must admit that her dissimulation was
admirable; she seemed as astonished and concerned as the


ILSA 131
most innocent person in her position would have been and
I hesitated to accuse her, but when the detectives arrived
I was compelled to tell them the exact circumstances of
my loss, of course, and Mr. Creveling’s testimony against
her completed the evidence. He did not wish to prosecute
her if she would return the emeralds, but I felt it a matter
of principle to see that she was punished.”
McCarty’s eyes rested speculatively upon the cold beauty
of the woman before him, noting the implacable lines about
the perfectly chiseled lips and the stern, unwavering gaze
which met his own, and he nodded to himself as though in
confirmation of some unspoken thought. If Mrs. Creveling
would show no quarter to a mere thief what revenge would
she not take upon the murderer of her husband? With
that strange pallor and the splendid lines of her immobile
figure as she lay there she looked more like some marble
statue of inflexible justice than a flesh-and-blood woman.
Was it the “principle” alone of which she had spoken that
kept her from breaking down now beneath the shock and
strain, or was it some deeper motive that impelled her,
deeper even than the reaction from natural grief would
have been?
“What did Mr. Creveling testify to, ma’am? Just that
the jewels were in the case when you took it into your
own room?” McCarty asked.
“No; that was a mere corroboration of my own state-
ment, but the door of his dressing-room was open although
I do not think that Ilsa knew he had returned to the house.
None of the other servants did, for he had let himself in
with his key and gone directly to his apartments just a few
moments before I went to him for the jewel case. After
I left my rooms and went downstairs he saw Ilsa slip out
with something concealed beneath her apron and go down
the back stairs, not up as she had claimed; he came to his
door and watched her, for the passing glimpse he had caught
of her face made him curious, it was so white and strained.


132 HOW MANY CARDS?
He was still standing there when I returned and would
have mentioned her strange demeanor to me then but he
thought he heard her coming, as he explained later, so he
closed his own door. I had passed on into my room with-
out seeing him.”
“He could testify, then, that none of the other servants
nor anybody else had entered your rooms during your ab-
sence,” McCarty commented. “I wonder, unless she was
more stupid than the average, that she didn’t know she’d
be caught 1”
Mrs. Creveling shrugged.
“I can only give you the facts, Mr. McCarty.”
“She denied everything, and stuck to her story when she
was accused ?”
“Naturally. I cannot imagine from what source she man-
aged to obtain the cash bail which her lawyers produced;
they claim it was in a package delivered to their office boy
together with typewritten anonymous instructions as to the
use to which it was to be put, and the boy corroborated
them, but he was unable or unwilling to describe the mes-
senger except in such a vague and general way that his
statement was practically worthless. After she was re-
leased on bail the woman simply disappeared and nothing
has been heard of her or the emeralds.”
“She did not have time to get them out of the house,”
McCarty remarked meditatively. “Was a thorough search
made?”
“She had ample time to slip them to some confederate at
the tradesmen’s entrance,” Mrs. Creveling retorted.
“Yvonne had been ill for several days and Ilsa had been
taking her place in attendance on me; she knew that the
emeralds were in the house and that I intended to wear
them that night and she had probably laid her plans well
in advance and only awaited her opportunity. The house
was utterly ransacked by the detectives and every one in
the household submitted to a personal search. You will,


ILSA 133
however, find all the details of the evidence in the police
record of the case. I confess I cannot understand what
bearing this could have upon the matter you are investigat-
ing.”
Her eyelids were drooping in spite of her efforts to
keep awake and McCarty rose.
“I won’t trouble you any longer now, ma’am. There’s
just one more question I’d like to ask you; why did you go
downstairs and leave the girl Ilsa there, with your jewel
case on your table ?”
“I must have forgotten it for the moment,” Mrs. Crevel-
ing admitted drowsily. “My private telephone in my bou-
doir was temporarily out of commission and Rollins came
to tell me that some one had called me on the one down-
stairs. Mr. Creveling has another private wire in his own
apartments so there are extensions to the main house ’phone
only in the guest rooms. Rollins went immediately into
the dining-room and I heard him talking to the footman
while they arranged the table for dinner, as I was return-
ing to my apartments.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I guess that about covers the in-
formation I was after.” McCarty turned to her companion.
“Mrs Waverly, what time did your husband telephone out
to you this morning?”
Her long, narrow eyes opened but she betrayed no other
sign of surprise as she replied indifferently,
“Sometime between eight and nine o’clock, I believe. I
really didn’t notice particularly but it was an unearthly
hour.”
“Did you know he was staying at the Belterre over night,
ma’am ?” McCarty persisted.
“Well, upon my word!” she drawled. “Am I to be cross-
examined now? I must confess I do not follow you, my
good man!”
McCarty reddened.
“ ’Tis not of importance,” he said hastily. “I was just


134 HOW MANY CARDS?
wondering if you knew Mr. Waverly was there why you
hadn’t called him up earlier and told him that an accident
had happened to Mr. Creveling, and Mrs. Creveling on her
way in to town all alone.”
“I did not accompany Mrs. Creveling to the city because
she was ready to start when I was awakened; she did not
even wait for her maid as the motor car was at the door,”
Mrs. Waverly explained. “Yvonne followed on the first
train, and I came in on the nine-twenty.”
“I see.” McCarty'looked around to retrieve his hat and
found the little French maid at his elbow. “Thank you.—
I won’t be bothering either of you ladies any further now.
Good afternoon, ma’am.”
He was turning toward the door when Mrs. Creveling
halted him with an imperious gesture.
“I have answered your questions. Have you nothing to
tell me P” she asked. “Have you no clew yet to the identity
of the person who took my husband’s life 3’”
“Nothing definite, ma’am; there’s hardly been time,” re-
sponded McCarty. “You will hear from Mr. Terhune or
us the minute there’s anything known.”
Out in the hall he paused, thinking that the maid would
follow, but instead the door was closed behind him and
he shook his head as he went downstairs. Had it been her
face which he had seen peering from one of the windows
above as he swung himself aboard the bus that morning?
It had been so quickly withdrawn that he could not be sure,
but he made up his mind to invent an excuse on his next
visit to question her.
Rollins was waiting in the lower hall to show him to the
door and ‘McCarty halted once more.
“That girl Ilsa you started to tell me about; what hap-
pened to her when the jewels disappeared?” he asked. “Did
Mrs. Creveling have her arrested P”
“Yes, sir, and ’eld for trial!” Rollins snorted. “It’s no
wonder she jumped ’er bail. She’d not ’ave ’ad a ghost of


ILSA 135
a chance to clear ’erself with the story they ’ad against ’er,
poor thing !"
“You don’t think she was guilty P”
“No, sir.” There was a trace of caution in the butler’s
tone now. “I wouldn’t swear to it, of course, not ’aving
any proof to the contrary, but if you ask me man to man
I don’t think she’d take so much as a pin. There isn’t one
of us as believes she did. It fair bowled Frank Hill over,
for ’e was sweet on ’er and no mistake, but even though
the jewels wasn’t found Mrs. Creveling would ’ave it that
Ilsa ’ad taken them and we all knew our place too well to
open our mouths and get dismissed without a character.”
“Then what became of the jewelry?” McCarty demanded.
“I don’t know, sir, strike me pink l” Rollins’ tone was
unmistakably sincere. “None of us can figger out what
’appened to it but we was all glad when Ilsa got bail, though
where it come from Gawd knows! It isn’t often that a per-
son in service ’as friends that can dig up ten thousand dol-
glarsl”


CHAPTER XI
BIRDS or DIFFERENT FEATHER
EAVING the Creveling house, McCarty for the second
time that day boarded a south-going ’bus, having ascer-
tained from Rollins that Mr. Nicholas Cutter lived on lower
Fifth Avenue near Washington Square, and as he rode
downtown he wondered somewhat grimly if further mys-
tery were to greet him‘ at his destination. Never had he
known a case with so many conflicting elements, so many
threads which led apparently nowhere, such an inextricable
tangle of tantalizing suggestions and false clews. Some
where among them, he knew, lay the solution to the enigma,
but it still eluded him. Would Cutter turn out to be as
much of a puzzle as the rest of them had been?
The number given him proved to be that of an old-fash—
ioned, square mansion of brick and brownstone situated
upon a corner and running back to an unusual depth upon
the side street, with a high wall bordering the strip of yard
which separated its extension from the house at the rear.
McCarty strolled past and examined the extension with
curious eyes. It resembled a conservatory, but the walls
and dome were formed of thick, opaque, rubbled glass, be-
hind which he fancied he could distinguish a network of
strong, protecting wires; surely, if there were plants in
there they were of extraordinary value to require such
guard, and must be of some species which needed no sun-
light.
The shades had been raised at all the windows of the
house but they were masked by heavy lace curtains behind
which some darker material hung in close folds and no
sign of life appeared about the establishment.
136


BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FEATHER 137
McCarty mounted the broad steps which led to the mas-
sive front door and sounded with a vigorous hand the
bronze knocker which faced him between the wide panels.
Its echo crashed upon his ears like the clang of a jail gate
and promptly the door swung open, revealing an elderly
figure in conventional black whose faded eyes blinked rapidly
in the rays of the setting sun as though unaccustomed to its
light.
“Mr. Nicholas Cutter. Does he live here P” McCarty
asked.
“Yes, sir.” The doorway was wide but the shrunken,
stoop-shouldered figure seemed consciously to fill it as Mc-
Carty made a move to step inside.
“I’d like to see him.”
“I will see, sir, if he is disengaged.” The servant’s tone
was gentle with old-fashioned courtesy rather than obse-
quiousness, but he still blocked the doorway. “What name,
sir 3’”
“Timothy McCarty, though ’twill mean nothing to him.
Just tell him that I’m here on a most important private
matter.”
“Come in, sir.” The man threw the door wider and
turning led the way with tottering but surprisingly quick
footsteps to a second door at the side of the dim hallway.
“I do not know that he will be able to see you, but I will
take your message.”
“Thanks,” McCarty said dryly. He was accustomed to
encountering efi’rontery, insolence and servility from the
domestic staff in the homes of the rich but the formal dig—
nity of this ancient retainer was new to his experience.
When the latter had disappeared the ex-roundsman
glanced wonderingly about him. The entrance hall had
been so dark that coming in from the glare of the street
he had been able to make out only vaguely the outlines of
enormous, oddly shaped chairs and settles and chests, the
great fireplace and curving staircase with a heavily carved


BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FEATHER 139
“Mr. Cutter has been expecting you, sir. Come this
way.”
McCarty followed, dumb with astonishment, as the other
led him across the hall and ceremoniously opened another
door. How could the man Cutter have anticipated his com-
ing? Was it sheer bravado or was Cutter informed by
the papers of the investigation and the names of those in
charge of it, and prepared to give him some facts which
would help in the solution of the mystery?
As he passed over the threshold he was aware at first
only of a rich, ruby glow falling on rows upon rows of ex-
quisitely tooled books which lined the walls, tipping with
gold the magnificent bronze groups that stood here and
there in the vast recesses of the room and gleaming softly
on warm-hued silken tapestries and mellow, deep-piled rugs
into which his own heavy-soled boots sank with what seemed
to him an almost profane pressure.
He started when the butler touched his arm and mur-
mured deprecatingly: “Your hat, sir,” and relinquished it
with the same feeling with which he would have handed
over his favorite blackthom at the entrance to some
museum.
Then all at once he was conscious of a tall, distinguished
figure advancing toward him with erect, soldierly bearing,
and a rich, musical, hearty voice with just a hint of amused
tolerance running through it exclaimed:
“I have been awaiting you, Mr. McCarty! Take this
chair and have a cigar; I think you’ll find these to your
taste.”
As though in a daze McCarty felt the grip of a soft but
vigorous hand, and found himself in the depths of a great
chair with the best cigar he had ever smoked between his
teeth and keen, inscrutable gray eyes smiling down at him.
“You’re Mr. Nicholas Cutter, sir?” he asked when he
could find his voice, and then at the other’s nod he added:
“You’ve been waiting for me? I don’t get you—P”


140 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Your former colleague, or—er—competitor, Mr. Wade
Terhune, has already paid me a call and he told me that I
might expect you shortly.” Mr. Cutter dropped indolently
into a chair and stretched out his long, slim legs luxuriously.
“I’m quite ready to tell you anything I can about our late
friend Eugene Creveling.”
So Terhune had been before him and left that ironic
warning, knowing that it would be repeated! McCarty
stifled a profane observation and his own honest blue eyes
traveled in swift appraisal over his companion. He saw a
man in the late forties with a dark, lean, almost ascetic
face and hair just graying at the temples; a man who bore
himself with the cordial but unconsciously aloof air of an
aristocrat and yet about whom there appeared to be an
alert tensity as of one habitually on guard. There seemed
to McCarty to be something vaguely familiar about that
expression; upon whose face had he encountered it before?
“You’ll excuse me for intruding on you, sir, but we’ve
hardly any clews to work on and ’tis only through Mr.
Creveling’s friends and associates that we can hope to get
a line on him,” McCarty began at last. “We’re trying to
find out what motive he could have had for killing him-
self.”
Mr. Cutter’s eyebrows went up and he put the tips of
his long, slender, tapering fingers together.
“So? The authorities have come to the conclusion that
it was suicide? That was not the impression I gathered
from Mr. Terhune.”
“Mr. Terhune is a private detective, sir; a scientific crimi-
nologist, he calls himself, and a wonder he is in some re-
spects with his little recording machines and such, but I’m
a special deputy on the police force and one of the old
school. Suicide the assistant medical examiner names it,
and as a suicide I’m investigating the case.” McCarty’s
tone was that of one harnessed to routine, but there was a.
speculative gleam in the gaze he bestowed upon his host.


142 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Yes, sir.” McCarty agreed gravely. “Who was the
mutual friend that brought you together ?”
“Mr. Douglas Waverly.”
“Him!” McCarty ejaculated. “And is be what you call a
connoisseur, too ?”
Mr. Cutter smiled with evident amusement.
“You have already interviewed him, I see—No. Mr.
Waverly is a good sportsman and a capital fellow but he
has no interest in—er—antiques. However, I fear we are
wasting your valuable time. As I said, I cannot conceive
why Mr. Creveling should have killed himself unless—”
“Unless what ?” McCarty leaned forward and his teeth
clamped upon his cigar.
“I was going to say, unless he had suddenly taken leave
of his senses,” Mr. Cutter replied, stirring uneasily in his
chair. “I would not have suggested it as a possibility but
now that I have permitted myself this indiscretion I must
tell you quite frankly that on several occasions of late Mr.
Creveling has seemed to be rather—er—peculiar. Not ex-
actly irrational, but he has let go, lost control of himself
over the merest trifles, worked himself up into a state of
ungovernable fury because of some small annoyance or
difference of opinion at which he would have laughed a year
ago-,,
“ ‘Difference of opinion?’ ” McCarty repeated. “With
whom, Mr. Cutter?”
“Oh, any one; I do not recall any particular instance, but
it has seemed as though he had been rather going to pieces.
I am telling you this in confidence; it may have been simply
a case of nerves, but in the light of what has occurred and
in the absence of any possible motive as far as I can imagine
it may be worth looking into.”
“It may that!” McCarty assented. “Do you know if
any of his other friends noticed the change in him? He
was here at your house last Tuesday evening, wasn’t
he?”


BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FEATHER“ 143
“Yes, poor chap! That is the last time I saw him alive.”
Mr. Cutter eyed him steadily.
“Did he show any of the temper that you’ve been telling
me about then before the others?”
“ ‘The others’ ?” Mr. Cutter’s straight brows lifted in-
quiringly. “Oh, you mean my other guests of the eve-
ning P”
“Yes. Mrs. Kip and the O’Rourkes and Fords and Mr.
Waverly. Did he act peculiar then P”
“I see you have quite a comprehensive list of our mutual
friends.” The other laughed shortly. “Mr. Creveling dis-
played no ill—temper, if that is what you mean, but it did
occur to me that he was preoccupied and laboring under
some sort of excitement.”
“Was he on good terms with every one?” McCarty per-
sisted. “Did you notice any coolness between him and one
of your other guests ?”
Mr. Cutter frowned.
“I did not. He appeared to be on excellent terms with
himself and the world. I may be all wrong, but his eccen-
tricities have assuredly become more marked of late and
isn’t it quite possible that he may have had a violent quar-
rel with some one over some unintentional or imaginary
injury, brooded over it until the tension snapped and in a.
moment of temporary aberration shot himself? I realize
how far~fetched such an explanation may appear to you,
but I can think of no other. He had everything to live for
and not an enemy in the world.”
“Did he have any delusions, now? Was he a crank on
any one subject that you can recall?”
“No. He was a man with more than the average self-
assurance; his egotism was marked, but if that were a gauge
of sanity I fancy that many of us would be in the hands of
alienists!” Mr. Cutter smiled, then his face grew grave.
“He was arrogant because he had been pampered and
spoiled from birth, and he never seemed able to realize


144 HOW MANY CARDS?
that any one had a right to cross his will, but we got on
wonderfully well together and his death will be a distinct
loss to me, at least.”
McCarty darted a swift glance at his host for although
the words had been uttered with the proper decorum there
was an odd note of risibility in the tone as though the
speaker were secretly amused at some unvoiced thought. but
Mr. Cutter’s face expressed only deep concern and regret.
The ex-roundsman realized that nothing further was to be
gained at the present interview without showing his own
hand and reluctantly dropping the stub of his cigar upon the
ash-tray he got up from his chair.
“Well, sir, I’ll not say the tip came from you, but I’ll
look into this matter of Mr. Creveling being maybe off his
head. I don’t mind telling you that it’s the first idea I’ve
got hold of that might bear out the medical examiner’s re-
port. Young and rich and popular and all as he was, it
stands to reason that he must have been nutty to do a thing
like that. By the way, Mr. and Mrs. Ford were here last
night, weren’t they?”
“Yes. They dined with me and we talked until an un-
conscionable hour. Clever fellow, Ford; one of the shrewd-
est operators on the street. Take a few of these cigars
with you if you liked that one,” Mr. Cutter invited cordially
as he held out a handful. “You won’t find any of the“ same
sort in the city for they are made especially for me. Look
in on me again any time you care to do so; I' shall be glad
to learn how your investigation is coming along.”
McCarty thanked him, reclaimed his hat from the aged
butler in the hall and departed. It was nearly six o’clock
and the early spring dusk was settling about him as he
made his way to the nearest public telephone booth and
called up Dennis Riordan.
“As soon as ever I can get into my regular clothes,” the
latter promised. “What was that you said this morning
about a dress suit ?”


BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FEATHER 145
“You’d not be needing it to-night,” McCarty chuckled.
“Don’t make it more than half an hour for if it’s not mis-
taken I am, we have a job like the old times before us,
Denny. I’ll be at the table in the corner, waiting for you.”
Ringing off, McCarty inserted another nickel in the slot
and calling Headquarters, got an eager and impatient in-
spector on the wire.
“Is that you, Inspector Druet P” he demanded cautiously.
“Where the devil have you been, Mac? Here I’ve been
waiting for your report—l”
“ ’Twill keep, sir, at least for a while, for I’ve nothing
definite, but I think I’m on the heels of something. You
mind that party you took up this morning on suspicion ?”
“Bodansky P”
“No, sir. The valet. Has he laid low or yelled for a
lawyer ?”
“He’s standing pat. Says he’ll ask for a lawyer when he
needs one and seems confident we’ll have to let him go for
lack of evidence. I had him up on the carpet for three
hours but no amount of grilling will get out of him where
he was during the hours between eleven and six.”
“Well, I guess he’s right!” McCarty observed. “If you’ll
take a little tip from me, sir, you’ll turn him loose.”
“ ‘Turn him—V What-t!” The wires fairly sizzled.
“Let him go, sir, at eight sharp to-night,” McCarty urged.
“Give him an idea that you’ve grand new evidence that
leaves him out of the case entirely and you don’t give a
damn where he spent the night. Get that through his head
and then throw him out, but not a minute before eight.
Have you Martin there, or Yost P”
“Martin. But what have you got under your hat, Mac P”
“My head, sir, and it’s a wonder ’tis still on my shoulders
with all the queer dope I’ve been getting this day !” res
sponded McCarty with fervor. “However, when you let
our bird out have Martin on the job. I’ll pick the fellow
up just outside and do you tell Martin, please, sir, to trail


BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FEATHER 147
’O’Rourkes—though God only knows how they come to be
mixed in that crowd !—take the Kip woman. She knew well
I was no reporter but she tried to bluff it out and put over
the lie that she was asleep in her bed all night and had
hurt her arm by a fall. She didn’t dare deny, though, that
’twas \Naverly sent her the message about what had hap-
pened to Creveling because she wasn’t sure of her ground,
and when. I sprung it on her that ’twas suicide it swept her
clean off her feet; if she don’t actually know it was murder
she’s got a mighty strong suspicion, and so have the rest of
them.”
“ ’Twas a fool move she made, quarreling with the old
dame she’d hired to boost her into society,” Dennis com-
mented. “Knowing the woman had something on her she’d
ought to have kidded her along to keep her mouth shut.”
McCarty shook his head.
“F 001 she may be, but she knew that the Frost woman
wouldn’t talk unless it was dragged out of her for fear that
notoriety would spoil her chances with another sucker; one
hint of scandal and her graft would be gone. As it was,
when I put it up to her she cleaned her own skirts by black-
ening the other woman’s. What was it that took Mrs. Kip
out of her house at all hours almost against her will? Black-
mail, or something like drink or dope that she couldn’t keep
away from? What kind of investments is her money tied
up in, that she’s flush one minute and broke the next?”
“Like a gambler.” Dennis nodded.
“Why did she break her dates and run a chance of get-
ting in Dutch with the very people she’d been trying to know
all these years?” pursued McCarty. “Why did she keep
that old leech around her at all if she knew the woman was
on to her; for a cloak ?—Of course, if all this has nothing
to do with Creveling’s death and her little game, whatever
it is, doesn’t come under the statutes I’m wasting time and
brains on her, but to-morrow she’ll come across with an alibi
for last night or I’ll take her downtown.”


148 HOW MANY CARDS?
“To-morrow will be another day,” Dennis remarked.
“What if we had a quiet talk with her now?”
“Because we’ve a little date of our own downtown,” re-
torted McCarty. “Now, there’s the Fords. She was ready
enough to talk until she let that slip about expecting to see
Creveling at Cutter’s house the night before, and then she
looked for a minute as though she could have cut her tongue
out. Why? Whatever it was, her husband was afraid of
her talking, too.”
“I should think when you heard him ask her if she knew,
and then say that they were done for, you would have called
it a day and run him in,” Dennis observed.
“When the two of them had a perfectly good alibi that
Cutter himself vouches for?” snorted McCarty. “Use the
brains that God gave you, Denny, and don’t be criticizing
your betters! I’m thinking Ford’s trouble was not as to how
Creveling died, but that he was dead, and ’twas not grief
that was consuming him, either!”
“Then what was it?” Dennis demanded, nettled at the re-
buke.
“That’s one of about a million questions I’m after ask-
ing myself,” admitted McCarty. “The Crevelings’ doctor
wasn’t any help, nor yet Mrs. Waverly.”
“She’s on to her husband’s gallivanting, though, that’s
plain.” Dennis attacked his second piece of pie with gusto.
“He said he’d be at the Belterre but she was taking no
chances on proving him a liar by calling up even to tell him
about Creveling. She’s probably got over the quarreling
stage and had rather let well enough alone.”
“And since when do you know anything about women?”
asked McCarty with scorn. “’Tis not in reason that she
could care enough for him to be jealous but the only time
a woman is not glad to have something to hang on a man
is when she’s in her grave. However, that’s neither here
nor there. Who put up that ten thousand dollars bail for
the girl Ilsa ? Where is she now? Who’s back of her? The


BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FEATHER 149
jewels don’t matter, but I tell you, Denny, I’d like a few
words with her!”
“Let her” go,” advised Dennis, quite as though the elusive
Ilsa were within reach of their hands. “ ’Tis not a thieving
housemaid you’re after but the man that shot Creveling.”
“The man that shot him may never be found,” McCarty
remarked and then at his companion’s stare of incredulity
he added hastily: “Cutter is the smoothest proposition of
them all. Of course, his alibi is as good as the Fords’ since
they were all together in his house, but why did he try to
steer me on to the idea of insanity as the reason for Crevel-
ing’s supposed .suicide? Just because it was the only way
to let everybody else out of responsibility, or knowing that
Creveling had no motive for killing himself, did he grab
that as the wool to pull over our eyes to keep us from going
over to the murder theory and investigating them all P”
“But you say he’s of a grand old family with money and
position and all; what’s he got to be afraid of in an inves-
tigation P” protested Dennis. “If Creveling was murdered
and he thinks he knows who did it why should he shield
him P”
“What is he doing, or the O’Rourkes, either, going around
with a crowd like that P” McCarty crooked his finger at the
waiter. “Mrs. Creveling was there with the- family tree
and so was Mrs. Waverly according to Jimmie Ballard, but
they both married plain upstarts and bounders for their
money as far as I can make out, and look at the rest of
the lot! Mrs. Kip, a climber and God knows what else
besides, the Fords as common as bog Irish and hanging on
by their eyelids, and George Alexander a has-been in spats
and a goatee! What is it makes them all hang together?
It’s not love of each other’s company for there never were
birds of such different feathers, Denny. What’s it that
binds them together? What’s the game? When I’ve found
that out I’m thinking I’ll be a long way to knowing who
killed_Eugene Creveling.”


CHAPTER XII
BOLTED DOORS
FEW minutes before eight o’clock that evening a
slouching figure strolled around the corner of a shabby
street not far from the wide avenue which bordered the
park and took up his stand midway the block. He leaned
nonchalantly against an area railing with a cigarette hang-
ing from his lips and his hat pushed far back on his head
so that the rays from a nearby street lamp fell full upon
his square-j awed but not uncomely face.
He might have been a respectable young artisan out to
keep a tryst with the girl of his choice or a mere idler of
the neighborhood, but there was a curious contrast between
the indolence of his attitude and the covertly alert expres-
sion in the gaze which he shifted alternately from the west-
ward corner to the precinct station house a few yards away.
The traffic of the day had ceased but the street was alive
with shop-keepers and denizens of the modest flats on either
side of the way, who, freed from the routine of work, were
thronging out for a breath of the balmy spring air. Two
figures, one tall and lanky and the other shorter and heavy-
set, rounded the corner, mingling with the passers-by, and
approached the youthful lounger. They passed with no
sign of recognition but as soon as they had gone a few paces
beyond he threw away his cigarette and sauntered off in
the direction in which they had first appeared.
A short distance from the door of the station house the
two newcomers halted, the taller facing it, the other with
his back turned squarely.
150


BOLTED DOORS 151
“Loosen up, Denny, and act careless like!” warned the
latter. “If you had whiskers you’d look for all the world
like a cat watching a mouse hole! ’Tis well you took up
fire fighting for you would never have made a first class
dick!”
“Is that so!” retorted Dennis. “I mind a time when you
mistook a murdering blackguard for a member of the British
aristocracy—not but what the two would be a possible com-
bination—and ’twas a blind man that beat you to the truth!
How can I tell it’s the right man we’ll be following when
he comes out of there, and me never laying eyes on him
before, if I don’t watch?”
“You could tell him with the tail of a glance,” McCarty
assured him. “He looks like a preacher that’s burdened
with the sins of this world and hasn’t been eating regular.
If I don’t miss my guess he’ll turn in this direction, so the
minute you see him begin to talk loud but you needn’t shout
enough to attract his attention and don’t call me ‘Mac.’
Just make him think you’re minding your own business.”
“And what’ll I be talking about?” Dennis demanded in
some alarm. “I’m no hand at speech—Glory be! Here he
comes!”
A tall, spare figure in clerical black had appeared in the
doorway of the station house and paused, gazing deliber-
ately up and down the street. Dennis shot out a lean arm
in a gesture that was intended to be argumentative.
“I’ll never believe it of Terry!” he declared in a loud, in-
dignant tone. “He’s not the lad to go back On his friends
and what’s the good of being a citizen and having a vote
if you can’t swing it to them that’ll put something your
way later P—He’s turned this way! N on; he’s comingI—As
I was saying, it’s the persuading tongue in his head that
Terry has, all right, and the boys are with him. If he says
he’ll carry the ward for a friend he’ll do it !”
“And if he goes around looking for a polling place in
the spring of the year he’s liable to be run in for a nut!”


152 .How MANY CARDS?
McCarty remarked disgustedly, for Frank Hill had passed
them and was striding toward the Avenue. “ ’Tis a fine
subject you picked for your discourse, but come on; I think
I know where our bird is headed for but he’s only calling
the inspector’s bluff and playing safe.”
With one accord they turned and started off in the wake
of that deliberate figure ahead and as they passed the corner
the slouching youth reappeared from: nowhere and trailed
along unobtrusively in the rear.
After that first comprehensive glance about him Hill
did not even look back, but walked on as though lost in
thought yet with a definite objective in view. He crossed
an intersecting avenue or two and then, on reaching the
fashionable thoroughfare on the farther side of which rose
the park wall, he turned north.
“Where’s he making for?” muttered Dennis.
“Where would any faithful employee be going when he’s
freed from being under an unjust suspicion but back to
the place where he works ?” McCarty returned. “I told
you he’d play safe. ’Tis the Creveling house, no less, that
he’s headed for now and there it is just ahead.”
They slackened their pace and were a full block behind
when Hill stopped at the tradesmen’s entrance of the white
stone house and pulled out his key. Flattening themselves
in the shadow of the same cornice beneath which McCarty
had effaced himself when he trailed the embryo burglar on
the previous night they saw him unlock the door and dis-
appear within.
“And now what?” Dennis demanded. “Here comes Mar-
tin; are you going to leave him to watch the place?”
“There’s a blank wall that surrounds the yard space at
the rear like a well with never a door nor an opening that
a man could crawl through as far as I could see this morn-
ing, but I’m taking no chances,” McCarty responded. “The
houses on both sides of the Crevelings are closed but there
might be a way he could get out, at that.—Martin!” he


BOLTED DOORS 153
added as the detective from headquarters approached. "‘Go
back a couple of blocks, cross the avenue and climb over
the park wall; creep along the other side of it till you are
just opposite the Creveling house—’tis that white one there
in the middle of the next block—and watch both doors.
You got a good look at Hill?”
“Sure; down at headquarters to-day, when the chief was
hauling him over the coals,” Martin replied. “Me and
Yost both give him the once-over. He ain’t ever been
mugged, I could swear to that.”
“Well, keep your eyes peeled and if he comes out again
give a squeeze to this and then trail him.” From beneath
his coat McCarty produced an object not unlike a small
motor horn and handed it to the other. “If he don’t come
out stay where you’ll be till you hear two quick honks of a
horn like that one, or we join you, if it’s morning. Under-
stand P”
“Right, Mac.” Martin grinned at Denny. “The chief
thought your side kick here would be with you. I could
tell a mile off, Riordan, that you were on the job !”
He walked off chuckling at Dennis’ discomfiture and
McCarty remarked consolingly:
“Never you mind, Denny, every man to his work and
it’s your own line you’ll be following to-night.”
“ ‘My own line’ ?” Dennis repeated. “You’re not think~
ing of starting a fire, are you, Mac P"
“No, but there may be a bit of wall-scaling to be done
and you’re the lad for it. ’Tis a hard place to reach, though,
and I’ve no mind to be nabbed by pig-headed householders
for breaking and entering. Clancy ought to happen along
soon on his beat and we’ll wait for him.”
“But why would this fellow Hill go back to the house
first if he’s got something else on his mind P” Dennis was
disposed to argument. “There’s little Creveling needs of a
valet now.”
“For an alibi; he’ll not be caught again without one,”


154 HOW MANY CARDS?
McCarty replied. “It was a woman’s voice, you know, that
telephoned out to the Waverly country place, and I’m think-
ing that ’tis maybe because of a woman that Hill won’t open
his mouth about where he was last night.” g
“It might not be the same woman, though,” Dennis sug-
gested helpfully. “Perhaps the woman that ’phoned was
put up to it by the man that killed Creveling.”
“The one that killed Creveling put nobody else up to
doing any of the dirty work, Denny,” McCarty said after
a pause. “ ’Twas a lone hand that was played last night;
the hand that held the pistol. Whoever did the ’phoning
found out about it somehow, and was playing a different
game.—There’s Clancy, now, coming out of that areaway
and wiping the mouth of him on the back of his hand!
The Force is not what it used to be when I was pounding
my beat !”
“How’re they coming, boys P” Clancy greeted them with
a cheerful grin. “Thought you’d be somewhere around,
Mac, and I might have known Riordan would be with you.
I know as well as you do that ’twas no suicide last night
but I’m glad the inspector took it out of my hands; it’ll be
a hard nut to crack !”
“We’ve been waiting for you, Clancy.” McCarty spoke
without preamble. “From what we observed just now you
seem to be on good terms with the help in the houses along
here; couldn’t you get the cook in one of those on the next
block to let us go through and into their back yard? We’ll
probably be wanting to come out the same way along about
morning, but if we don’t there’ll be nothing to kick up a
racket about. It’ll be just as well, though, if you pick out
one that don’t know the servants at the Crevelings’.”
“Sure, that’s easy!” Clancy exclaimed. “Getting you
through, I mean. As to keeping it from the help at the
Crevelings’, the cook at the de Forests’ two doors away had
a run-in with that Sarah, the butler’s wife, and she won’t
speak to any. of them. Her and me are real friendly and


156 HOW MANY CARDS?
a bang like the roof was coming off ! I waited but nothing
else happened and I made up my mind a policeman must
have shot a stray dog over in the park. It was only when
the papers came out this afternoon that I learned what it
really was.”
“Did any one else in the house hear it, too?” McCarty
asked.
“No; at least, none of the help did and the butler and
footmen said that the family talked about nothing else at
dinner and somebody said ’twas funny that the shot wasn’t
heard—I’ll be up until near midnight writing letters in the
servants’ dining-room in the front basement if you’re com-
ing back this way, and I’ve no doubt I can find a bit of
supper for you,” she continued hospitably.
They tha'nked her and when she had withdrawn into the
house Dennis asked:
“Well, Mac, what’s the game now?”
“Let’s get over in the next yard and pull the ladder with
us,” responded McCarty. “I want to have a look at the
rear of the closed house.”
They scaled the fence without difficulty and depositing
the ladder in the grass plot of the second yard they turned
to reconnoiter.
“Do you think, Denny, that you could get up to one of
the window sills on the third floor? You could see over
the Crevelings’ wall then.”
“Do I think I could walk up a pair of stairs with my eyes
shut?” retorted Dennis. “If ’twas for that you dragged the
ladder along, you can hoist it back again where it belongs.
With them sills and lintels sticking out the way they do,
a small boy could reach the roof!”
Without further speech he shed his coat and hat and be-
gan to clamber up as agilely as a monkey while McCarty
watched from below in a solicitude that was almost ludi-
crously maternal. At length he reached the third floor and
perching himself on a broad window ledge, peered over the


BOLTED DOORS 157
high wall into the blind alley at the rear of the Creveling
house.
“What do you see P” McCarty demanded in a hoarse
whisper.
“Nothing,” responded Dennis laconically. “ ’Tis as bright
as day, for the light is streaming out from the windows at
the back and the court, or whatever it is, is as bare as the
palm of your hand.”
“Do you see no sign of an opening?”
“There’s a back door to the house, but it’s closed tight.”
Dennis leaned over and craned his neck downward. “If
it’s in the wall you mean, there’s not so much as a loose
brick. Is that all you wanted to know?”
He prepared to descend but McCarty halted him.
“Not by a long shot, it isn’t! You’ll stay where you
are, Denny, my lad, until something happens or we’re sure
that it won’t, and you’d best be making yourself comfort-
able for it’s likely there’ll be a long wait ahead of you.
’Tis barely nine o’clock now.”
And a long wait it proved to be. Dennis shifted about
from time to time but stuck faithfully at his post and Mc-
Carty paced back and forth upon the narrow strip of sod
which lined the fence. An hour passed, then another, and
the lights in the rear of the neighboring houses began to go
out, one by one, but still there came no muffled honk from
the horn which McCarty had given to Martin and no sign
from the watcher above.
The back of the Creveling house had long since been dark
and no sound issued from it. McCarty began to feel an
inward misgiving. Had his train of reasoning been at fault?
There was so much to be done, so many loose threads to
be gathered up in this strange tangle of events. Was he
wasting precious time? Had he allowed himself to be
turned aside from the main issue by the chance hint of a
gossiping servant while the real slayer of Eugene Creveling
escaped?


158 HOW MANY CARDS?
He told himself miserably that he should have had them
watched, the whole lot of them! Mrs. Waverly and Mrs.
Creveling were out of it, and the O’Rourkes were not even
to be considered, but anything could be expected from the
rest of them! Even that alibi of the Fords might have been
cooked up between them and Cutter, though what com-
mon interest they all had in blocking the investigation—
“Whisht l” A sibilant command from Dennis broke in
upon McCarty’s pessimistic meditation and brought him up
standing. “There's a light just flashed up for a minute in
the third floor window nearest the farther wall! You’d
have seen it yourself if you’d not een sleep-walking! Look
up! There it is again!”
McCarty was already straining his eyes up into the dark-
ness and now he saw a tiny pin point of light gleam out
over the wall from the direction of the window indicated,
sweep across space like a streak of distant lightning and
vanish.
“Pocket electric torch!” he ejaculated softly, prancing
in the sudden excitement of renewed hope. “What’s going
on, Denny? I can’t see through a brick wall—l”
“For the love of God, stop your havering!” came from
above in a fierce, far-carrying whisper and McCarty sub-
sided, mentally cursing the increasing girth and lack of
physical practice which prevented him from reaching the
point of vantage held by his companion. He had not long
to remain in suspense, however, for almost immediately the
silence of the night was broken by the sound of a window
being stealthily raised.
Dennis gesticulated violently and then shrank back into
the concealment of the overhanging lintel while McCarty
gazed breathlessly but impotently upward.
There came a curious scratching noise which seemed to be
receding; the light flashed again fainter than before and
then came the sound of a soft thud. In an instant Dennis’
long arms and legs writhed out of the shadows and he


BOLTED DOORS 159
scrambled down with perilous haste to land at McCarty’s
feet.
“Some one—-a man—got out of that window, straddled
the wall and climbed down the back of that next house!”
he exclaimed. “He’ll be off across fences to the next street
north and we’ll lose him!” .
“Like hell we will !” McCarty seized the despised lad-
der and setting it against the fence of the de Forests’ yard
he swarmed up it and hanging by his hands, dropped with a
grunt to the ground. Dennis was after him in a twinkling
and they tore through the scullery and kitchen, nearly bowl-
ing over the astonished cook who met them in the front
hall.
Without a word to her they dashed out into the areaway
and once on the avenue McCarty paused only to produce
his horn and sound it twice before he set out on a run for
the northern corner.
The street was deserted save for the solitary figure of a
man walking rapidly eastward far down the block, and
without wasting speech or looking backward for their ally
they took up the trail.
It proved to be a straight one for several blocks and the
two following in the shadows exercised all the more cau—
tion for that, but the man appeared to have no suspicion
of their espionage. Intent only upon his errand the rapid—
ity of his stride increased until he all but broke into a run,
but at Third Avenue he halted abruptly.
“If he picks up a taxi by any chance of dumb luck we’re
lost!” McCarty panted. “There’d not be but one night
hawk along this way before dawn !”
But no taxi appeared and the car tracks stretched away '
blankly into the darkness. After waiting irresolutely for a
minute or two the man turned south and started oflc once
more with his quick, nervous stride and McCarty and Den-
nis trailed along but more cautiously still, for now their
quarry glanced constantly back over his shoulder.


160 HOW MANY CARDS?
He was almost two blocks ahead when he halted again
at the curb, and at the same moment there came to their
ears the hum and rattle of a car approaching from behind.
Without giving himself time to think McCarty sprang out
into the middle of the avenue and swung aboard the car as
it passed, while Dennis clung tenaciously to the upright
bar, heedless of the profanity of the outraged conductor,
and succeeded in scrambling up, narrowly missing a pillar
of the elevated railway structure.
McCarty had already produced two nickels and they made
their way to the forward part of the car, seating themselves
with hunched shoulders turned to the entrance.
“That was a narrow squeak!” breathed Dennis. “We’ve
lost Martin now if ever he was trailing behind. ’Twill be a
fine note if the car don’t stop for your man, Mac, or if he
changes his mind!”
“If you borrowed money the way you borrow trouble,
Denny, you’d not have a friend left in the world,” McCarty
observed. “The car’s slowing down now, and as for Mar-
tin I never knew him to get left yet!”
The car did indeed stop at the second corner, and as it
resumed its way Dennis could not resist a swift glance over
the few passengers behind.
“It’s Hill, all right!” he announced in a sepulchral whis-
per. “He’s dropped into a seat by the rear door and he
looks like the ghost of himself! Something must have hap-
pened him, the night, since he went back to the Creveling
house!”
“ ’Tis what’s on the mind of him, more like,” surmised
McCarty grimly.
“You think ’twas him killed—?”
“I do not!” McCarty interrupted. “If I did I’d have
my two hands on him now, and well you know it! Don’t
look around again till you hear the buzzer.”
To Dennis’ edged nerves the ride downtown seemed in-
terminable. Twice the buzzer sounded and twice his eyes


162 HOW MANY CARDS?
cigar counter engaged in conversation with the weary-eyed
clerk and it was evident that they were old acquaintances.
Dennis and McCarty had only time to withdraw into a
neighboring doorway when Hill reappeared and rounding
the corner started briskly westward. The others followed
just in time to see him almost collide with a second figure
which had been lurking in the deeper shadows of a high
stoop. Both sidestepped instantly and Hill continued his
way, but though he walked faster even than before his
shoulders hunched forward despondently, almost furtively,
and a certain elasticity seemed gone from his stride.
“Martin!” McCarty swore beneath his breath as the
figure approached them sheepishly. “So ’twas you pulled
that bonehead play! You’re a disgrace to the Force!”
“However in the world did you get here ?” Dennis de-
manded, adding with sly satisfaction: “You’ve scared off
our bird, all right! Any one could tell a mile off, Martin,
that you were on the job!”
“I rode down on the same car with you, on the fender at
the back,” Martin responded, chagrined. “How was I to
know he’d run into me like that? It’s just the luck of the
game. Shall I trail him, Mac? Maybe that clerk in the
drugstore is a kind of a go—between in whatever business
brought him out and he’s finished what he came for. He’s
certainly walking as though he was through in this neigh-
borhood.”
“And good reason !” McCarty commented. “However,
"tis no good palavering over. Trail him, Martin, but if he
starts uptown on a car or in a taxi he’ll be on his way back
to the Creveling house with nothing more doing to-night
as far as he is concerned, so you come back here. I’m going
to see what that clerk knows about him.”
The abashed Martin hurried off upon his task and Den-
nis and McCarty retraced their steps to the drugstore, where
the latter purchased three of the most expensive cigars in
the case and remarked casually as he lighted one:


BOLTED DOORS 163
“Thought I saw a fellow in here that I know just now
as we were passing; tall, thin fellow, dark, with a smooth
face—”
"Oh, you mean Mr. Hildreth ?” the clerk interrupted pleas—
antly. “He and his wife live just around the corner and
they trade here a lot.”
‘McCarty removed his foot hastily from the agonizing
pressure of -Dennis’ big brogan and nodded.
“That’s my friend, all right, but he can’t have lived in
the neighborhood long. They used to have a flat up on the
West Side. Mrs. Hildreth is a mighty fine-looking woman,
big and blonde—” '
“She’s a fine woman every way!” the clerk interrupted
again, his tired face lighting up with a smile. “They’ve
only lived around in Lanahan’s apartments a little more
than a month, but it’s easy to tell. She don’t come in often
herself but she’s always got a kind word about the chil-
dren,” he added irrelevantly. “I lost my own wife a year
ago.”
“Tough luck!” McCarty said sympathetically. “I’ll drop
in on the Hildreths one of these evenings. Which apart—
ment house is Lanahan’s P”
“Fifth from the corner; got a cracked yellow lamp over
the vestibule, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks. I’ll look in on you again when I’m down this
way. Good night.”
Out on the street once more, McCarty and Dennis made
their way to the house indicated without delay and halted
in the vestibule while the former scrutinized the cards in
the bell plate. '
“Here they are. Fourth floor,” he observed. “If Mrs.
Hildreth is the dame I think she is, she’ll not be answering
a ring at this time of night.”
“There’ll be no need, for some one’s left the door un-
latched.” Dennis pushed it open as he spoke. “You can
make some excuse to get her to let us in. Come on l”


164 HOW MANY CARDS?
In silence they mounted the creaking stairs, through an
atmosphere redolent of stale cooking, to the fourth floor,
and paused before the rear door upon which had been tacked
a card bearing the name “F. Hildreth,” written in a small,
neat hand.
“I guess the front flat is empty, for there’s no card up
and there was none in that space over the bell downstairs,”
Dennis whispered. “What are you going to do, Mac? Take
a chance and break the door down ?”
“Not if I can get in peaceable,” McCarty replied in a
whisper. “I'm going to be real sick, Dennis. Hold me
up!"
Emitting a loud and realistic groan, he leaned limply
against his friend with such suddenness that the surprised
Dennis was almost borne to the floor, but he recovered him-
self in time. Another groan welled from McCarty’s throat
and a third before finally there came the sound of foot-
steps within, the door was opened cautiously and a woman
peered out. She was tall and Junoesque in form with a
thick braid of fair hair falling over either shoulder and
great, soft, blue eyes darkened now with apprehension and
concern. Her loose, dark robe fell in almost classical lines
about her and ‘the light of the flaring gas jet in the hall
gleamed softly on her creamy throat.
Dennis gasped with astonishment and involuntary admira-
tion at the vision and stepped back while the woman asked
with just a trace of an accent:
“What is it? Some one is ill ?”
McCarty straightened and his foot reached out to the
door sill. .
“I want you, Ilsa Helwig—l”
But he was too late. At his first word a sudden change
came over her expression. Before his foot could intercept
it she had slammed the door in his face and they heard a
bolt shoot into its slide.
“We’ve got to work fast now; down with the door !”


BOLTED DOORS 165
McCarty cried and Dennis lunged, using his brawny shoul-
der as a battering-ram, at the same moment that the sound
of a subdued crash came from within. At first the stout
bolt resisted their efforts, but finally it snapped with a loud
report, precipitating them into a narrow, dimly lighted hall-
way. Two doors facing them stood open revealing their
emptiness at a glance, but a third at the back was closed
and they rushed toward it. It was bolted, as the entrance
door had been, but its flimsy fastening gave way at the
first onslaught and they found themselves in a tiny kitchen.
No other door led from it, but its single window was wide
open, a fire-escape showing beyond and a row of flower-
ing geraniums lay overturned, their red earthen pots shat-
tered.
At a bound they had crossed the room and craned their
necks out into the night. Lights were springing up in one
or two of the rear windows across the network of clothes-
lines, but no human figure was visible on the fire—escape nor
in the yard beneath.
“Well,” vouchsafed Dennis after a pause in which an
eloquent glance had passed between them. “I hope the next
time you tell any one they’re wanted you’ll have your hands
on them first! Martin did not make the only bonehead play,
the night!”


CHAPTER XIII
THE CURSE or SCOTLAND
HE “Hildreth” flat consisted only of four small rooms
and bath, the latter evidently converted from a clothes
closet, and McCarty and Dennis searched them thoroughly
but found no trace of the woman. The quick, double honk
of a motor horn in the street below came to their ears as
they were on the point of departure and they descended
to find a crowd of excited tenants gathered in the halls and
on the stairs, with a blue-coated officer pushing his way
through the throng.
“Get back, there! It’s all right, there’s no trouble. It
was just a bit of a row but it’s over now and no one hurt.”
The policeman winked broadly up at McCarty on the stairs
and then addressed the jabbering crowd once more. “Get
back where you belong and quit making a disturbance or
I’ll send for the wagon and run you all in l—Come down,
sir."
He led them out into the vestibule and slammed the door
after him.
“'Detective Sergeant Martin tipped me off,” he whispered.
“You’re former Roundsman McCarty, sir ?"
“Yes. Special deputy now under Inspector Druet,” Mc-
Carty explained briefly. “Woman on the fourth floor, rear,
under the name of Hildreth is wanted downtown and we
almost had her but she got away on the fire-escape. Take
Martin and search the yards and the roofs and if you find
no trace of her leave him on guard in the flat until he’s re-
lieved. Report by telephone to Inspector Druet at Head-
quarters.”
“Right, sir,” the policeman replied with immense respect.
“What’s the Hildreth woman like ?”
166


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 167
Before McCarty could answer Martin entered the vesti-
bule.
“Hill walked clear over to Fifth Avenue and waited all
this time for a ’bus,” he announced. “He’s just started
uptown and I came back according to your instructions,
Mac, but you were nowhere around and I couldn’t keep on
sounding this horn! All at once Hell broke loose here in
the house and I figured you were in it, somehow.”
McCarty explained grufily, adding a description of the
“Hildreth” woman, and Martin whistled.
“The Helwig girl to a T!” he exclaimed. “And that
valet—so that’s how the land lays! We’ll find her if she’s
on the block !”
After a few final orders McCarty, with Dennis in tow,
returned to the drugstore and nodding to the surprised
clerk he entered the telephone booth and called up Police
Headquarters. A long ten minutes elapsed before he re-
appeared, red and perspiring, and said in a hurried under-
tone to his companion:
“Yost is on his way up to the Creveling house as fast as
the inspector’s own car can take him. He’s to find out if
Hill is there and stand guard over him.”
“But why?” Dennis spoke cautiously out of the side
of his capacious mouth. “Why don’t he run him in again
and bring him up before the magistrate to-morrow to be
held for trial? You’ve got a clear charge against him now
of aiding and abetting that woman to jump her bail; that’s
what the legal sharks call it.”
“Instead, if it’s not too late for the first editions, the in-
spector is going to see that every morning newspaper car-
ries the word that he’s been released for lack of evidence
and is back at the Creveling house,” McCarty responded.
“Yost will be there to see that he don’t get out again or
send any messages and to trace and report any ’phone calls
that may come for him.” I
“I get you !” A light broke over Dennis’ face. “You


168 HOW MANY CARDS?
think the woman will maybe try to reach him there when
she learns that he’s out again and back on his job?”
McCarty nodded.
“She doesn’t know that he’s been in the neighborhood
here to-night, nor that he led us straight to her. He’ll
keep on believing that she’s safe enough and think we’re
only guarding him on his own; account.” He turned to the
clerk who' was watching them with curious eyes. “What
are your hours here ?”
“Eight to eight,” the latter replied, still staring.
“Where do you live?”
“Right up over the store. The janitor’s wife takes care
of my four kids but I wouldn’t feel easy about ’em if they
weren’t here in the same building with me.—-Say, who are
you fellows, anyway? It seems to me you’re asking a lot
of questions around here—!”
“And I’m liable to be asking a lot more!” McCarty in-
terrupted grimly. “We’re from Police Headquarters, if
you want to know.”
“ ‘Police—!’ ” The clerk gripped the edge of the show-
case. “Those—those Hildreths—?”
“Have you been on every night this week ?” McCarty in-
terrupted.
“Y-yes, sir!”
“Is there any other public telephone booth in the neigh-
borhood ?”
“None any place that keeps open all night.” The clerk
seemed to be gathering his dazed faculties.
“Do you have many calls from here between midnight
and early morning ?”
The clerk shook his head.
“Not unless somebody’s sick.”
“Did anybody come in here and use that ’phone last
night ?”
“Certainly; a lot of people early in the evening, but after
midnight!” He paused and his eyes widened. “No one


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 169
came in here to ’phone after that until—until half-past four
in the morning.”
“Who was that?” McCarty asked sharply. “Some one
’from the neighborhood that you know ?”
“It was Mr. Hildreth! I was surprised, for he looked
very bad and I thought that he must be sick and have come
in for some medicine, but he said that he only wanted to
use the ’phone. He went in the booth and closed the door
and I didn’t hear what number he called, but it must have
been a city one for he was only in there a minute. When
he came out he looked so pale that I thought he was going
to keel over and I offered him a bracer—er—just a heart
stimulant, of course. I fixed him up a dose with a dash of
strychnine in it and it seemed to pull him together. He
said he had been out of town on a business matter and
traveling all night to get back; that his train should have
been in at midnight but was delayed and he had to ’phone
to his partner at the earliest possible moment. It did strike
me as funny that he hadn’t telephoned from the station if
it was as important as all that, but I didn’t say so. I was
kind of sleepy, and it wasn’t any business of mine. He hur-
ried off home and I settled down for a nap in my chair
behind the cash register.”
“Did you see him again before he came in to-night?”
“No.” The clerk hesitated. “I don’t know what you’ve
got against the Hildreths and I’d hate to get them into any
trouble for they’ve been good customers here and pleasant
to deal with. I’d never believe a word. against Mrs. Hil-
dreth, anyway.”
“You said that she didn’t come in here often.” McCarty
eyed him quizzically. “When did you see her last?”
There was a pause and then the clerk replied with evi-
dent reluctance:
“Early this morning.”
“How early?”
“I suppose I’d better tell you; you fellows would find out,


170 HOW MANY CARDS?
somehow! It was just before five, less than half an hour
after her husband left. I told you I’d settled down for a
nap; well, I was roused by the bell that rings whenever the
door is opened and looked up to see Mrs. Hildreth come
in. She’s always as neat as wax, but this morning she
looked as though she had just thrown on her clothes every
which way, and she seemed excited, too, about something.
She asked in that soft foreign voice of hers if she could
use the telephone, and it must have been an out-of-town call
this time for she was in the booth nearly twenty minutes and
I heard money rattle in the slot two or three times. She
thanked me when she came out but didn’t try to explain
about the call the way her husband had about his.” He
paused and added: “I’ll tell you one thing I think, sir;
whatever it was that happened to make her husband look
more dead than alive it certainly put new life into her! She
walked out of the store as though she was treading On air !”
McCarty frowned thoughtfully. He had found confirma-
tion of his suspicions from a totally unexpected quarter and
one of the minor mysteries of the case was cleared up, but
it led him no nearer to the truth; rather by its very nature
it raised complexities which he had not hitherto consid-
ered.
“We may want you,” he said at last. “What is your
name?”
“Willis Udell, and you’ll find me here or in the flat over
the shop any time you want me!” the clerk declared. “I’ve
done nothing to be afraid of you fellows for, nor said a
word I can’t stick to, but I hope you are mistaken about
the Hildreths.”
He shook his head lugubriously after them as they left
the shop and when the door had closed behind them Dennis,
too, drew a deep breath.
“Well, that settles the two ’phone calls, anyway,” be com-
mented. “The whole thing is as plain as the nose on your
face, Mac! The man that killed Creveling was—”


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 171
“He was not in that shop this night!” McCarty inter-
rupted impatiently. “Come on till we hop a car and you’ll
hear what the inspector has to say about it! He’s waiting
for us downtown.”
But when they presented themselves at Headquarters In-
spector Druet appeared to be very much of the same mind
as Dennis. McCarty told the whole story of the night’s.
vicissitudes, sparing himself not at all in the recital for
permitting the woman known as “Mrs. Hildreth” to escape,
but the inspector did not censure him. Instead he listened
thoughtfully until the end and then brought his hand down
resoundineg on the desk before him.
“That is about the last link we needed in the chain of
evidence, I think!” he declared. “We’ll clean this case up
in record time now, Mac. Don’t worry about the woman;-
she won’t get away from us again now that we know she is.
in the city, and Yost has ’phoned that Hill is back in the-
Creveling house. He’s camped outside the fellow’s door
now.”
“Did you hear anything from Martin, sir?”
“No, but the officer on the beat up there on Third Ave--
nue called up to say that he’d followed your instructions,
but no trace of the woman was found. Martin’s watching
the flat, and I’ll see that both he and Yost are relieved in
the morning by the most reliable men connected with the
bureau. We’ll wait a bit to see if the woman tries to com--
municate with Hill and then gather him in.”
“On a charge of murder, sir?” McCarty’s tone was re-
spectfully inquiring, but there was a skeptical quality in it
that made the inspector raise his eyebrows.
“Of course! We’ve got the motive now. I thought be-
fore that it might have had something to do with black-
mail, but it’s revenge. He’s infatuated with the girl and
whether she’s guilty or not she is facing a long term in
prison, for the evidence against her together with the fact
that she jumped her bail would make any jury in the coun-


172 HOW MANY CARDS?
try convict her without leaving the box. Remember, it was
Creveling’s testimony before the magistrate which was most
damaging to her, proving it to have been virtually impos-
sible for any one else to have taken the jewels. I suppose
she and Hill both held it against Creveling and we can’t
tell the details yet of what happened last night, but they
must have had a violent quarrel for the man to have shot
his employer.”
“Wait one second, sir,” McCarty interposed quietly. “I
didn’t start working on this case to-night when I first tele-
phoned to you, but from the minute you took me on, and
there's a lot you haven’t heard yet. Some of it would seem
to point to Hill being guilty, but there’s more that he
couldn’t have had a hand in, and ’tis beyond reason that all
those society folk would put themselves out to shield him.”
“ ‘Shield him?’ ” repeated the inspector with a frown.
“What do you mean? What society folk, Mac ?”
“The whole kit and boodle of them!” McCarty waved his
hand expressively. “All the Crevelings’ friends except the
O’Rourkes! They’re every one lying or trying to hide some-
thing and hold out on us, or I’m a Dutchman l—But there’s
one thing: Hill was in the house long before he showed
himself at the door of the breakfast room, and when you
and me were going through the rooms upstairs and you
laughed at me, sir, for seeing and hearing things, I was!
If I’m not mistaken, ’twas Hill I heard down in Creveling’s
room when we were up in the servants’ quarters and Hill’s
shadow I saw on the stairs.”
He told in detail of his second and solitary search of
the rooms upstairs and the discovery that the desks in
Creveling’s room and that of the housekeeper had been
tampered with since their first examination, and Inspector
Druet nodded emphatically.
“That only makes it more certain, Mac. We won’t have
much trouble in sending Hill to the chair!”
“Maybe not, sir,” McCarty acquiesced noncommittally.


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 173
“Did you find that pair of gloves on him that I asked you
to look for when you got him down here ?”
“They were taken from his coat pocket at the station
house and that’s another strong bit of evidence against
him, for they are stained and reeking with oil.—Oil from
the pistol that killed Creveling l”
“Perhaps the same kind of oil that was used to clean
the gun if it was Creveling’s own, sir, and the can left
lying around handy,” McCarty suggested. “The oil might
have been used on those desk locks. Anyway, what has the
girl Ilsa and the jewels to do with a playing card P”
He produced the bloodstained nine of diamonds and laid
it before his chief.
“Where the devil did you get this, Mac ?”
“Under the edge of the strip of cover on the table right
beside where the body was lying, sir.” McCarty explained
the circumstances and added: “If Hill fired that shot, what-
ever would he be doing with that lone card, and why would
George Alexander be in league with him? Didn’t you see
the looks that passed between them and the way they tried
to get away for a quiet word together? The old man wants
to keep something dark, and ’tis not to save Hill from pun-
ishment for murdering his own partner and meal ticket !”
“No. It was to prevent notoriety, if anything,” the in-
spector remarked. “You must have noticed how ready he
was to accept the suicide theory which he had first rejected,
when he saw to what lengths his niece was prepared to go
to learn the truth. If he doesn’t actually know of any scan-
dal in Creveling’s immediate past he must suspect it, and
rather than have it unearthed, as it was bound to be if we
hadn’t so promptly discovered the identity of the murderer,
he preferred to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“So do the rest of them, it seems! Wait, sir, till you
hear.”
McCarty gave the gist of his interviews with Douglas
Waverly, Mrs. Kip, Miss Frost, the Fords and Nicholas


174 HOW MANY CARDS?
Cutter, but when he had concluded the inspector shook his
head.
“Whatever reasons they may have for holding out on you
as you suspect, Mac, it isn’t because of a guilty knowledge
of the murder. By your own showing the Fords, Cutter
and Waverlys have established alibis which no possible cir-
cumstantial evidence could shake, and you haven’t a thing
to connect Mrs. Kip with the affair. You can take what
that ex-chaperone of hers said about her with a grain of
salt; the old woman was mad enough at being sent packing
£6 have sworn Mrs. Kip’s life away, I’ll wager, and at that
she could tell nothing incriminating. You’ll find that Mrs.
Kip’s little mystery, whatever it may be, is her own affair.”
“Well, sir, ’tis your case and you know best.” McCarty
rose. “I’ve had no sleep since night before last and ’tis
getting on to morning. If so be you’ve no further instruc-
tions for me now I’ll go home and rest and be on the job
again bright and early.”
Inspector 'Druet laughed somewhat uneasily.
“Which means that I haven’t convinced you and you’ve
taken the bit in your teeth again! I’ve no instructions for
you, only suggestions; you know well that I have always
given you your head in every case you’ve worked on with
me since you resigned from active duty and I’ve never re-
gretted it, especially the last instance, Mac!” His face so-
bered. “Go ahead your own way and if you can prove to
me that I’m wrong I’ll be only too glad to acknowledge it,
but I tell you now that you haven’t a chance! The guilty
man—”
“Does that mean, sir, that you won’t take in Hill right
away?” McCarty interrupted quickly.
“No. We can afford to wait a bit and I told you we
would do so to see if the woman tried to communicate with
him; we might as well kill two birds with one stone and
we’ve proof now that she was an accessory both before and


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 175
after the fact. We’ll give her two or three days to try to
get in touch with him and I’ll notify you, anyway, before
we decide to rearrest him.”
“Thanks, sir." McCarty picked up the nine of diamonds
from the desk. “If you don’t mind I’ll be taking this along,
and by the way, if you run across Mr. Douglas Waverly,
take a look at his cigarette case; ’twill be worth your while.”
The inspector started slightly.
“You don’t mean—? See here, Mac, has that observa-
tion of yours anything to do with the cigarettes that we
found on the supper table and that piece of a broken amber
holder?”
“Not that I know of, sir, but ’tis thin and shaped like
this playing card here and there are nine diamonds stuck
in it; nine real diamonds arranged just like the spots on this
card.”
This time Inspector Druet’s laughter was frank and
hearty.
“You’ve still got your eyes out for something dramatic,
haven’t you? We’re not living in dime novel times, Mac,
and that card doesn’t mean anything. It might have been
lying on the floor there in the study for days; you saw
yourself that the house hasn’t been kept any too orderly
since Mrs. Creveling has been away. Hill may have no—
ticed it spattered with blood after he killed Creveling and
slipped it under the table cover without thinking; a man
is usually dazed after a crisis like that and apt to do a lot
of meaningless things in a mechanical sort ‘of way as the
records of the department show. You’ll find there’s some
such simple explanation of it and as for Waverly’s ciga-
rette case—! I suppose it’s no use to talk to you, though.
You’ll be seeing nines of diamonds wherever you look until
Hill goes to trial!”
McCarty’s expression did not change as he slipped the
card into his pocket once more.


176 HOW MANY CARDS?
“I’d like to see the rest of the pack this came from,” he
vouchsafed imperturbably. “Denny and I’ll be getting on,
then, sir. You’ll hear from me if anything turns up.”
The ride back uptown to McCarty’s room was a long
and tedious one and the conversation between the two
friends of a merely desultory nature, for Dennis was frankly
sleepy and McCarty felt the reaction from the excitement
of the chase. An unusual depression overshadowed his
natural buoyancy of spirit and he was too fatigued mentally
and physically to combat it.
The escape of the girl, Ilsa, from beneath his very hands
had been bad enough, but the stand the inspector had taken
in the case added ten-fold to the difficulties before him and
he could see no way out. Not for a moment would he ac-
cept the theory of Hill’s guilt, despite the circumstantial evi-
dence against him; slowly and almost without conscious
reasoning an idea had been forming in his mind ever since
he stood beside that disordered supper table and nothing
he had learned since had tended to eradicate it. Now with
little added in support of it, it was gradually strengthening
into conviction, albeit a vague and still obscure one.
“I’ll go on back to the dormitory at the fire-house,” Den-
nis announced as they left the car at last. “ ’Tis too late to
be breaking into my room at Molly’s for that youngster
of hers sleeps with both the ears of him wide open for fear
he’ll miss something and he’d scream fit to wake the dead.
I’m on duty from nine to six again to-morrow and then
off for twenty-four hours, so you’ll find me if you want
me.”
“Come on up to my rooms instead,” McCarty invited.
“ ’Tis after three o’clock and you’ll get little enough sleep
as it is. By the sainted powers—there’s a light in my win-
dows! Thieves !”
He had halted in astonishment, but now he broke into a
run and with Dennis at his heels sped to his own stoop.
The entrance door stood wide, and still swiftly, but with a


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 177
measure of caution, they stole up the stairs. There was
no key in the door leading to McCarty’s living-room, but it
stood ajar and at the sight which met their gaze through the
aperture McCarty halted again, this time in wordless in-
dignation.
Wade Terhune’s long, attenuated figure lay stretched out
comfortably in the best arm-chair with a tattered dream
book open and lying face downward across his knee and a
sizable heap of cigarette ashes in a china tray upon the table
beside him. While they stared, a delicate snore broke the
silence and McCarty’s face purpled.
That china tray had been his mother’s; its rightful place
was upon the mantel and tobacco had never profaned it
before! As to the dream book, its possession had been the
one shameful but fascinating secret in McCarty’s life; where
had that meddlesome, officious son-of-a-gun found it, and
how had he got in?
“Is it boarders you’re taking?” Dennis inquired inno-
cently. “ ’Twould be well for you if you had as good bolts
on your doors as the Hildreth woman had!”
“The gal! of him!” McCarty found his voice and mut-
tered wrathfully: “It would serve him right if I had him
took up for breaking and entering !”
He pushed Dennis unceremoniously into the room and
following closed the door with a resounding slam. Instantly
with no trace of sleep in them Terhune’s slightly prominent
eyes opened wide and he smiled with perfect self-posses-
SIOH.
“There you are at last, my dear McCarty! And Riordan,
too; so you are still hunting in couples? I have waited
for you some little time.”
He spoke chidingly and McCarty’s sandy mustache bris-
tled.
“I was not expecting you, sir. May I ask how you got
in?”
“Oh, I had no difliculty; both of your doors open quite


178 HOW MANY CARDS'?
readin with a skeleton key, and of course I could not wait
about outside.” Terhune waved airily toward the nearest
chairs and as though hypnotized Dennis sank into one of
them, but McCarty ostentatiously removed the china tray
from the table and substituted a familiar, battered one of
brass liberally patterned with verdigris.
“I hope you made yourself at home, sir!” he remarked
ironically, his grim eyes fastened on the book upon his un-
invited guest’s knee. “I see you found something to amuse
yourself with while you waited!”
“Ah, this elemental but highly entertaining little fore-
runner of our friend Freud?” Terhune smiled again in-
dulgently. “It is interesting to note how coincidentally
the interpretations which mere superstition has placed upon
the subconscious agree with the conclusions which science
has reached.”
He laid the book upon the table and McCarty hastily re-
trieved it and locked it in his desk.
“I don’t know any guy named Freud,” Dennis observed
unexpectedly. “Does he say that dreams go by contraries,
Mr. Terhune? I dreamed the other night that my step—
brother home in the old country, that’s drunk up two farms
and about eight droves of pigs already, was strung up by a
vig’lance committee and then cut down in time to save the
worthless life of him !—”
He paused to draw breath and McCarty took advantage
of the opportunity to suggest:
“You wanted to see me very particularly, Mr. Terhune ?”
“Yes, but merely to tell you that the little affair of Crevel-
ing is practically cleared up. It seemed to promise a nice
little problem at first but it proved to be a very simple mat-
ter after all.”
“Yes, sir?” McCarty replied cautiously. “So the inspec-
tor was saying down at headquarters just now.”
“Druet ?” Terhune frowned. “I cannot conceive how he
could have obtained the data which has come into my pos-


THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND 179
session! Even I would never have discovered the truth
had it not been for my years of profound analytical study;
an advantage which has not been attained by our excellent
friend the inspector. It must have been sheer guess work
on his part and yet I cannot imagine upon what grounds he
could predicate the fact of George Alexander’s guilt!”
“Alexander’s— ?” McCarty seemed to find some difficulty
once more with his speech and Dennis’s eyes almost started
from his head. “The inspector said nothing about Mr.
Alexander!”
“Ah, ha! I anticipated as much!” Terhune rubbed his
long, slim hands- together in complacency. “He is upon the
wrong track again, then, as usual. A good man, a steady,
reliable plodder, but prone to stubborn prejudices and too
obstinate to admit even to himself that he may be mistaken!”
There was just enough truth in this criticism of his su-
perior to sting McCarty and he retorted loyally:
“He wasn’t on the Wrong track in the last case on which
we all worked together, though, Mr. Terhune.”
The criminologist flushed darkly.
“My own hands were tied by the lack of information
which was willfully withheld from me!” he asserted hastily.
“But upon whom has Inspector Druet fastened his eye as a
possible suspect in this case?”
“He’ll probably tell you himself, sir, if you ask him,”
McCarty responded evasively. “Since you’ve come to me,
may I ask what evidence you’ve got against George Alex-
ander P”
“Absolutely conclusive evidence, my dear McCarty! Mo-
tive, opportunity, method, the means itself and the confirma-
tion of his subsequent mental reaction as betrayed by his
attitude.”
“Everything but the proof!” murmured Dennis irrepres~
sibly, but Terhune paid no attention to the remark.
“If you will both come to my rooms to-morrow evening
at eight o’clock—or rather this evening, for it is nearly dawn


180 HOW MANY CARDS?
-—you will learn all the details and unless I am very much
mistaken you will hear an interesting confession. I have
arranged a little experiment—”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Dennis interrupted firmly. “If ’tis going
to be anything like the last one you kindly invited me to,
you’ll have to excuse me. I’m not rightfully concerned
with this case anyway, being dragged into it by Mac, here,
just to keep him company, and I was not the same man
for weeks after you made me sit in the dark and listen to
that murder all over again!”
“We’ll both be there, sir!” McCarty declared. “If Mr.
Alexander confesses I wouldn’t miss being there for the
world and all! I suppose I may just as well lay ofi for
the day and get some sleep?”
Terhune smiled patronizingly as he rose.
“You are skeptical as usual, McCarty, I see. By all
means pursue your own line of investigation whatever it
may be, if it amuses you, but you may take my word for
it that you are wasting your time. I will leave you now,
for I have many preparations to make.”
“One minute, sir.” McCarty hesitated. “Would you an-
swer me one question that’ll maybe sound foolish to you but
that’s been sticking in my crop for some time, neverthe-
less? Your speaking of the years of study you’ve had
put me in mind of it that I’ve been intending to ask some-
body who might know about such things.”
“Certainly, my dear McCarty! I am only too glad to
help you to improve yourself.”
“Well, when you’ve come here on a serious matter like a
murder case it seems a silly thing to talk about, but could
you tell me, sir, if playing cards have any meaning?”
“Of course,” Terhune responded, amused. “From the
ancient necromancers down through the centuries they have
each. possessed an especial significance of one sort or an-
other to the gullible, but it is too lengthy a subject to go
into now. Is there any particular card you have in mind?”


182 HOW MANY' CARDS?
I'That is only ancient history, my dear McCarty!” Ter-
hune paused in the doorway.
McCarty’s face was very grave.
“Yes, sir, and history has a way of repeating itself, I’ve
heard. ’Twas no fool who said that first.”
When Terhune had departed he turned to Dennis, who
was gazing wide-eyed at him and added:
“N 0 quarter; you got that, Denny? ’Twas a notice to
Creveling that his time had come 1”


184 HOW MANY CARDS?
Dennis passed over the paper and McCarty read in flaring
headlines:
“Failure on Stock Exchange. Lonsdale Ford & Com-
pany Go to Wall. Many Small Investors and Speculators
Hard Hit in Crash.”
Below in smaller type appeared the story in detail, but
McCarty merely glanced through it. He was working
against time now; against the time when the inspector’s
dragnet might bring in the girl, Ilsa, or he might tire of
waiting and arraign Hill formally before a Magistrate on
a murder charge. A sudden inspiration had come to the
ex-roundsman and characteristically he determined to put it
at once to the test.
“So that was what Ford meant,” McCarty commented.
“Come on, let’s order; I’ll go over and have a little inter-
view with him before he leaves the house. I’m thinking
he’ll be more ready to talk now that it’s all come out than
he was yesterday.”
\They ate a quick breakfast and McCarty left Dennis to
proceed to the fire house with the understanding that the
latter was to call for him at his rooms at eight that night.
In the crosstown car he studied the Bulletin once more, but
not for the satisfaction of rereading his advertisement; the
reproduction of a photograph on the second page had caught
his eye.
It was that of a broad-shouldered man of about forty,
undeniably handsome at a casual glance, although closer
inspection revealed a slight but telltale fullness of the lips
and heaviness of jowl, and the eyes with their almost femi-
nine sweep of lashes did not seem to meet the gaze quite
squarely. There were incipient pouches beneath them, too,
and the smile which was intended to be dashing held the
suggestion of a leer. Under the picture was the name “Eu-
gene Christopher Creveling.”
Where, had he seen that face before? He had known it
on sight for that'of the man- stretched upon the floor of the


THE LURE OF CHANCE 185
study two nights ago, and yet McCarty felt a peculiar,
haunting sense of familiarity as of a living presence. Crev-
eling’s picture had appeared in the newspapers frequently
enough in connection with various escapades in the old days,
but it was not that. He could associate no sound of a voice
in connection with the face in his memory, recall no details,
but he knew that somewhere quite lately he had seen that
man alive.
He was still pondering over it when he reached the St.
Maur Apartments.
“Mr. and Mrs. Ford ain’t here, suh. They done gone
away; went last night,” the saddle-colored switchboard op-
erator told him.
McCarty smiled.
“No, they didn’t,” he said with easy assurance. “I know
all about Mr. Ford’s trouble and I’m not here to bother
him. He’ll see me, all right. Just say Mr. McCarty wants
a word with him.”
The boy hesitated, but the note of authority as well as
confidence which rang in the ex-roundsman’s tones im-
pressed him, and reluctantly he obeyed. There was a mo—
ment of evident indecision at the other end of the wire and
then he turned a relieved face to the' visitor.
“You can go right up, suh. I didn’t know—I had orders
not to announce nobody and Mr. Ford is a mighty positive
gentleman !”
“I know him!” McCarty grinned as he thought of his
reception on the previous day. “He’s out of luck just now
and his bark is worse than his bite.”
The same servant admitted him as on the day before, but
the smile was gone from his Asiatic countenance, and al-
though the drawing-room presented as bravely luxurious
an air, there was an atmosphere of forlorn bravado about it
which permeated even McCarty’s matter-of-fact sensibil-
ities.
“Well, what can I do for you now?” A toneless, in-


186 HOW MANY CARDS?
describably weary voice spoke just behind him and McCarty
wheeled, an uncontrollable gasp escaping him as his eyes
met those of Lonsdale Ford. Could this broken creature
with his twisted, bitter, tragic smile be the same man who
had so coolly and arrogantly ordered him from his presence
on the previous day?
“Mr. Ford! I—I hope you’ll not think I’d have intruded
on you now if I could have helped it, sir, but we’re still
working on the Creveling matter and I’ve got to obey or-
ders.”
“Oh, that’s all right, my man. One thing more or less
doesn’t make any difference now.” Ford motioned toward
a chair and then sank into another opposite, as though his
legs would no longer support him, yet he added with a
touch of the old savageness in his tone: “I didn’t shoot
Creveling, if it will do you any good to know it, but I wish
I had, and then put a bullet through my own brain! He’s
dead, but he was a damned cur! The papers are saying a
lot of rotten things about me this morning; that I played
my customers for suckers and God knows what else, but if
I was as white-livered as he I’d go and jump 05 the nearest
dock!”
“I’ve heard that intimated by more than you, Mr. Ford.
We never had the least thought of you being guilty, but
we think there’s some information it’s in your power to
give us that’ll maybe help a lot.” McCarty paused. “Of
course, if you don’t care to give it we can’t compel you
now—7,
“Oh, I’ll give it, fast enough !” Ford’s harsh, dry laugh-
ter rang out and then was as quickly suppressed. “I don’t
know whether it will help you or not, for I haven’t the
slightest idea who killed Creveling, but I’ll give you all the
information you want about the whole rotten bunch of
them! I kept my mouth shut yesterday because I had a.
sort of forlorn hope that they’d be white enough to tide me
over even after Creveling himself had welched, but when


THE LURE OF CHANCE 187
Cutter threw me down cold I made up my mind that I’d
show them all up and I will! They got the money—my own,
not my customer‘s’, but if I’d had it yet I could have weath-
ered the storm. I wouldn’t kick if the game had been
straight; I’m not a poor loser, but I’m convinced it was
crooked and I’ve been made the sucker. God! Even a
tin horn card sharp will stake you to cigarette money after
he’s stripped you of your roll!”
“Game?” McCarty repeated, a light beginning to glim-
mer through his consciousness.
“Of course. I was on my way to being a rich man even
in these skyrocketing days, but it’s all gone over that green
table of Cutter’s, damn him!” Ford stopped abruptly and
the rage in his face gave way to a look of sly derision.
“You fellows at headquarters are mighty smart but you
didn’t know that the biggest games in the city are pulled off
and have been for years in that respectable looking house
of his down on the Avenue! He is nothing more nor less
than a professional gambler, only he does things on a scale
that’s never been known before even in the Big Town.”
A gambler! The connecting link at last! It was the
gambling fever, the lure of chance which held this strangely
assorted group of people together. More potent than drink
or drugs, it had bound them in an association of silence for
mutual protection, and drawn gentleman and cad, aristocrat
and upstart into a degenerating democracy l—But why hadn’t
he guessed?
Then the memory of a chance remark of Dennis’ on the
previous evening returned to make his chagrin complete.
When he told his friend what he had learned from Miss
Frost about the Kip woman and how she had been broke
one day and flush the next Dennis remarked: “Like a
gambler !” Even then he had not tumbled to the truth!
It all seemed so obvious now in the light of this revela-
tion! Those two dissipated rounders, Waverly and Crevel-
ing, seeking to stimulate their jaded senses with the ex-


188 HOW MANY CARDS?
citement of the game; this money-mad Ford, to whom all
of life had been a gamble; John Cavanaugh O’Rourke, with
the hot, reckless, sport-loving blood of his forebears in his
veins, and Cutter sitting cold and inscrutable in the midst
of them! But what of the women? Where did they figure
in this scheme of things?
“I’m not yellow!” Ford went on. “I wouldn’t cry
‘crooked !’ just because I’d been stung, but looking back now
I can see how I was played, like a- trout in a stream, and
they’re doing the same thing to O’Rourke. They’ll clean
him and his wife, too, before they’re through—Cutter and
Waverly, and Creveling was helping it along when he got
his! He stood in, and I was just beginning to see it; that’s
why I went to him first when I saw what was coming. I
wasn’t a. beggar, I only wanted a loan of some of my own
back and Creveling had got most of it. He understood, he
knew I was on to the game and he told me he’d see me
through; made an appointment with me for Thursday and
then at the last minute took back his word, welched! He
thought he could bluff me, but I’d have gone back yester-
day and gotten it from him somehow, only somebody else
got to him first, with a .44!”
McCarty was scarcely listening. “They’ll clean him and
his wife, too!” were the last words which had pounded
themselves into his brain.
“Do you mean that Lady Mar—that Mrs. O’Rourke plays,
too? That Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Creveling and Mrs. Wav-
erly have been going up against a game like that?”
Ford laughed again, mirthlessly.
“They’re worse than we are! Not that my wife is an
inveterate gambler; as a matter of fact the poor kid hasn’t
any card sense at all and doesn’t even care for it. She only
piked along because I—I compelled her to.”
“You ?”
Ford nodded.
“Oh, I admit I’ve been a fool in more ways than one, but


THE LURE OF CHANCE 189
I’m coming clean to you now for I want you to understand
the situation and fix Cutter and his outfit!” he declared
frankly. “I was making money and we were happy enough
a few years ago with our own jolly little crowd, but when
I bought my seat on the Exchange Mrs. Ford got ambitious
socially. She met Mrs. Creveling at some charity affair
and got in with her, and Creveling introduced me to Cutter.
That was the beginning of it, and I don’t mind telling you
that I encouraged Mrs. Ford to travel with that bunch; I
thought I’d get in myself through them with big moneyed
interests and I didn’t realize I was practically using my
own wife as a capper, the way Cutter is using Mrs. Baillie
Kip. She’s just a kind of a grown-up little girl, my wife
is; she loves to spend money and be taken up by the swell
people and she never can realize that there might be an-
other motive behind the flattery of other men, rotters like
Cutter. He made a sort of play for her a year or so ago
and she came to me like a big kid and told me; I let him
know where he got off and after that she wasn’t bothered,
but they had it in for me. You see the game now, don’t
you, McCarty P”
McCarty nodded slowly in his turn and his expression
was very grim, but he waited without speaking.
“Mrs. Creveling and Mrs. Waverly are different; they
belong by right of birth and their old, withered family trees.
They don’t have to struggle to get anywhere and in another
way they are just as jaded as their husbands. They’ve
exhausted every allowable means of amusing themselves
and they turned to the game for what excitement they could
get out of it, and it got them—the fascination, I mean.
You’ve seen them, of course P”
“Yes, sir.”
“They’re both beauties; Mrs. Creveling in a cold, aloof
sort of way and Mrs. Waverly is a devilish; snaky vamp.
Both mighty attractive and each a different type; get me P”
“You mean that Cutter is using them both as steerers,


190 HOW MANY CARDS?
too ?” McCarty’s honest tones were filled with shocked
amazement. “Ladies like them, with positions in the high-
est society and more money than they can spend!”
“Oh, without their knowledge, of course, but their hus-
bands stood in with Cutter. I know, because they were
constantly at his house, at the so-called little intimate din-
ners and afternoon musicales he was supposed to give, but
which really masked the games which went on day and
night. The rest of us were rank outsiders asked only on
certain specified nights; only the Crevelings and the Waver-
lys met all the different exclusive little groups that gath-
ered there. That is the secret of Cutter’s success and his
immunity. You don’t think he made his millions out of
just our set, do you? He kept his crowds separate, with
those exceptions, and only catered to people who could no
more afford the scandal and notoriety of a raid than he
could. More than one poor devil has lost his last dollar
and shot himself in that room that looks like a conservatory
at the back of Cutter’s house, and I’ll wager that more
money has changed hands there in any given length of time
than at Monte Carlo for the same period! But no scandal
has ever attached to Cutter, his system was too perfect for
that; the poor devils who did themselves in were spirited
home and the papers made a big fuss later over their deaths
from accident or appendicitis operations, or some such lie.
Of course their families were as eager to conceal the truth
as Cutter; that’s where he played safe. The worst part of
it is that he is a real aristocrat, if there is such a thing in
this country; his family is one of the oldest and he has
always kept his social position impregnable, though I un-
derstand he inherited nothing but the house and some rot-
ten ancestor’s gambling instinct! People don’t daresqueal
on him for he has clients and victims among the connections
of every prominent family in the country. He thought I
wouldn’t dare, either, but I’ve got nothing to lose now.”
“I wonder he didn’t take that into consideration,” Mc—


THE LURE OF CHANCE 191
Carty remarked; “You say he refused to let you have a loan
to tide you over when he knew it meant ruin to you.”
Ford colored painfully.
“There was a personal matter involved and it warped his
judgment, I guess,” he mumbled. “My wife, you know.”
“I see.” McCarty strove to make his voice sympathetic,
but he was filled with loathing for the unprincipled weak-
ling before him. He’d borrow money, if he could, from a
man who had insulted his wife and if he couldn’t, sell him
out! The ex-roundsman’s foot tingled to administer a
kick to the cowardly sneak, but he must learn more. “If
Mrs. Waverly and Mrs. Creveling played just because they
were bored and Mrs. Ford because you wanted her to, why
did Mrs. Kip and—and Mrs. O’Rourke sit in the game?”
“Oh, Connie Kip is a born adventuress; a professional.
gambler in a way, like Cutter,” replied Ford carelessly.
“She’s too shrewd to jeopardize the social position she has
wormed herself into by any indiscreet flirtation, but the
cards are her means of a livelihood and I could swear I’ve
caught her cheating more than once though if Cutter knows
it he doesn’t mind her counting herself in on his graft for
she’s popular and useful to him as a steerer. It is through
her that he gets his clutches on the young asses in society
with more money than brains.”
“Was she at Cutter’s on Thursday evening P” asked Mc-
Carty suddenly.
“No, only the O’Rourkes. We expected Creveling but
he ’phoned that he couldn’t make it so we had a five-handed
game; tame enough, too, with neither Creveling nor Waver-
ly there. They were the plungers, and helping along Cut-
ter’s fleecing of O’Rourke, I suspect. I might have warned
him, I suppose, but I had my own fish to fry in trying to
win my money back from them or get a loan, and then
misery loves company, you know!”
“But Mrs. O’Rourke ?" persisted McCarty. “What pos-
sessed her to play?”


THE LURE OF CHA'NCE 193
but he felt that he had accomplished more in the past hour
than at any time since he had undertaken the case. He
was on the inside now, looking out, and although he had
learned nothing which pointed to the actual solution of the
crime there was a chance that the right thread was in his
hands at last.
During his interview with the bankrupt broker an idea
had come to him which completely revolutionized his earlier
plan of procedure and he lost no time in finding a telephone
booth and calling up headquarters. His later decision had
not been brought about by anything he had learned from
Ford, nor was it connected with Nicholas Cutter and his
sub rosa profession; it was the alternate thread in the tangle
which might lead to the truth.
Inspector Druet was already at his desk and informed
him that Yost reported no trace of the missing Hildreth
woman, and Martin, when he was relieved at the Creveling
house, said that Hill had betrayed neither protest nor sur-
prise at finding himself under guard, nor had he made the
least move to escape espionage. The report of the chief
medical examiner on the autopsy had come in also, and he
had reversed the opinion of his assistant; Creveling could
not have killed himself. It had been murder.
“Perhaps it’s just as well, sir.” McCarty’s tone was
humble. “I—I’ve changed my mind, thinking over the dope
you’ve got against Hill, and moreover I’ve dug up a few
things this morning that look like they might make the case
complete.”
“I thought so!” the inspector laughed jubilantly. “Good
old Mac! You’re not afraid to admit you’ve made a mis-
take, are you P”
“No, sir,” McCarty responded slyly. “Not being regu-
larly connected with the force any longer, promotion don’t
bother me and there’s nothing to hold me back when I’m in
the wrong from saying so, and starting over. I’ve been
thinking that as long as you’ve got the dragnet out after


194 HOW MANY CARDS?
that Hildreth woman and the stations and ferries and roads
watched so that she can’t make her getaway from the city,
we’re bound to land her in time and there’s no use in wait-
ing for her to try to get in touch with Hill before we run
him in again. I think I’ve got a way to make him talk after
a day or two in the Tombs, but I’d like to make the arrest
myself.”
“Go to it!” the inspector said heartily. “Your mind was
so set on it that he wasn’t guilty, I thought I’d give you a
few days to find out that you were barking up the wrong
tree, but the Hildreth woman is too clever by half to give
herself away by trying to communicate with him. Come
down here and I’ll have a warrant ready for you.”
“Couldn’t you send it up to me at the Creveling house ?"
McCarty asked. “I’m on my way there now, sir, and I
don’t want to lose any time.”
“All right. I’ll have it there in half an hour.” Inspector
Druet added: I‘Have you seen anything of Terhune ?”
“Yes, sir. He broke into my rooms last night and Denny
and me found him sitting there as calm as you please when
we came up from headquarters!” McCarty almost choked
over the recollection. “He’s invited us both to one of his
séances to-night.”
“I’ll see you there, then.” The inspector laughed once
more. “He has the case all doped out to suit himself, I
suppose, but he wouldn’t condescend to take me into his
confidence. It won’t matter to us, Mac, for if -he’s hit on
the truth we’ll have the bird safely caged beforehand. ’Do
you want us to keep the news of Hill’s rearrest out of the
papers?”
“No, but leave that to me, sir. I want to give a young
friend of mine, Jimmie Ballard of the Bulletin, 2. beat for
the first evening edition; after that they can all go to it,
and welcome, the' more publicity the better. It’s only that
jimmie’s done me a good turn in the shape of information
now and again and I’d like to put something his way.”


THE LURE OF CHANCE 195
“It’s all in your hands, Mac, so long as there isn’t any
slip in getting Hill under lock and key. One of the boys
will be at the house with the warrant almost as soon as you
are.”
But Mc‘CartyA did not at first turn his steps in the direc-
tion of the Creveling house. Instead he took a downtown
Third Avenue car and alighted at the scene of the Hildreth
woman’s escape on the previous night. The stout young
operative from the detective bureau who had relieved Yost
was seated in the kitchen, where the broken door and
smashed flower pots still bore mute evidence of siege and
flight. It was evident, too, from a hasty glance; around the
few barely furnished rooms of the little flat that Yost and
the policeman on the beat had made- an even more thorough
search of the premises for possible clews than McCarty and
Dennis had done.
Every drawer and box and receptacle of any sort had
been thrown open and its contents scattered far and wide;
even the bed had been ripped apart and the cheap up—
holstery of the parlor suite was cut and slashed to ribbons,
undoubtedly in a search for the stolen emeralds. Mc—
Carty looked everywhere but that which' he himself con-
scientiously sought was not forthcoming'—a gilt-edged pack
of playing cards with their backs printed in rich colors and
gold.
Half an hour later, accompanied with obvious reluctance
by another man, he presented himself at the Creveling house
and was admitted by Rollins, who eyed his companion some-
what uneasily before he spoke.
“Good morning, sir. There’s a—a person waiting ’ere
for you. ’E said as ’ow you’d be along presently.”
“That’s all right; I’ll see him in a minute. How is Mrs.
Creveling ?”
“Better, sir, the doctor says, but resting. Mrs. Waverly
and Mr. Alexander are upstairs with ’er.”
“I don’t want to bother any of them,” McCarty said hast-


196 HOW MANY CARDS?
ily. “My business is with the valet, Frank Hill. Will you
ask him to come here ?”
“Very good, sir.”
When the butler had departed upon his errand McCarty
turned to his companion.
“Go into the breakfast room, there, but leave the door
ajar. Listen to everything that is said and when I mall
you, come out. Understand ?”
“Yes.” The man moved over to the door indicated, shak-
ing his head disapprovingly as he went. “I don’t like this
business! It don’t seem fair to me, even if this fellow has
done what you say he has. It’s a dirty trick!”
As he disappeared a fourth- man slid around from an
angle of the stairs where he had evidently been waiting.
“Here, Mac. Here’s the warrant the Old Man sent up;
want me to stay and serve it for you?”
“No. Give it to me, Hecker, but you’d better wait with
Yost. G0 upstairs and bring him- down to the back hall as
soon' as I get into talk with Hill, and when I serve him you
can do the rest.”
The man withdrew and McCarty pocketed the warrant as
Hill, pale and worn but quite composed, appeared on the
stairs.
“Good morning, sir. You. wanted to speak to me?”
“Yes. Hill, what did you do when you were released
from the station house last night?”
“I came straight back here, sir. I—I hadn’t been given
any notice and I am still in service, for Mrs. Creveling is
keeping me on, at least till things are straightened out, sir.”
His tone was respectful but indifferent as though the reply
were a superfluous one.
“You’ve been here ever since; in the house, I mean ?”
“Of course, sir.” This time he spoke with mild surprise.
“Where do you stay on your time off, Hill?”
“I sleep here, sir; I haven’t any place of my own. I’ve
been right with Mr, Creveling all these years.”


THE LURE OF CHANCE 197
“Do y0u ever travel under. any other name than the one
you’re known by here?”
“Of course not!” There was just the proper touch of
scandalized indignation in his voice at the question.
“Do you know a woman who calls herself ‘Hildreth’ P”
McCarty shot the name at him and for a moment the man’s
pale eyelids quivered, but he gave no other sign.
“No, sir. I never heard of her, sir.”
“Then you didn’t know that that is an alias of Ilsa Hel-
wig’s, the housemaid who stole Mrs. Creveling’s emeralds
and jumped her bail?”
“"No, sir. Is it, indeed P”
“It is,” responded McCarty grimly. “And I suppose
you’re not stuck on her? You’re not known as ‘Mr. Hi1-
dreth’ down in the neighborhood where she lived before
we arrested her again last night? You- didn’t leave this
house last night between eleven and twelve by shinning
over the back fences and go- down there, only to run into a
dick from headquarters who was trailing you and get scared
off before ever you had a chance to see her?”
“I—I did not.” The shot had told and at McCarty’s men-
dacious statement of the woman’s arrest Hill had visibly
winced. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I
never heard of any woman named ‘Hildreth,’ and I wasn’t
out of the house last night.”
“Mr. Udell!” McCarty raised his voice firmly and the
shrinking figure of the night clerk from the Third Avenue
drugstore appeared in the door of the breakfast room.
“Who is this man P”
“It’s Mr. Hildreth, sir,” he stammered.
“You’d swear to it P"
“I’d have to, sir, it’s the truth—Oh, Mr. Hildreth, I
hope you’ll realize I’m not doing this of my own accord!
I hated to come and give you away like this—!”
“What have you to say, Hill P” McCarty cut the drug-
gist’s lamentations abruptly short.


198 HOW MANY CARDS?
Hill drew himself up, and staring straight into Udell’s
eyes he said distinctly:
“Nothing, sir. I never saw this man before in all my
life.” Then all at once he began to tremble uncontrollably.
“I haven’t seen Ilsa Helwig since she was taken away from
here under arrest! I don’t know any one down on Third
Avenue, I’ve never been there—l”
“Then how did you know this man came from there? I
haven’t said anything about Third Avenue! How did you
know it was near there the Hildreth woman lived P—You’re
under arrest, Hill, for the murder of Eugene Creveling!”


WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS 201
you against it, but I should have known how futile my
effort would be. Take my word for it, McCarty, you will
have to let the valet Hill go within twenty-four hours.”
“I’d not be surprised, sir,” McCarty responded quietly,
but there was a sudden twinkle in his eye.
Dennis tugged surreptitiously at his sleeve.
“What is it, moving pictures?” he asked in a rasping
whisper.
“Yes, of a sort, Riordan.” Terhune himself answered
with a smile. “You will merely see a series of numbers
projected on the screen, but I will explain them to you later.
I am using the old association test, McCarty, but in con-
nection with a new and improved tonoscope called the vibra-
toscope—Do you see this drum P”
He moved the screen aside as he spoke and displayed a.
large cylindrical case mounted upon a platform with sup-
ports at either end and a scale like a double foot-rule pro-
jected across but not touching its rounded side which was
perforated with slanting rows of almost infinitesimal holes.
Before it an upright brass arm held a needle pointer tipped
with a tiny flickering flame.
“Look at that, now!” exclaimed Dennis, impressed. “And
this vibrat—what you said, sir—what does it do P”
“It projects the vibrations of the human voice upon the
screen out there, much in the manner of the motion picture
machine,” responded Terhune. “The original tonoscope
merely registered the tonal quality, showing by a standard-
ized scale whether it was sharp or flat, but with this ampli-
fied vibratoscope the vocal manifestations of emotion may
be measured down to an accuracy of a hundredth of a tone
or even finer.
“The vibrations of the voice, as you see now while I am
speaking, cause that little flame on the needle to flicker,
diminishing with the lowered degrees of a single tone and
rising with its upward trend. Inside that cylindrical case
is a large drum which contains some thirty-six thousand


202 HOW MANY CARDS?
holes arranged in rows so as to repgesent a series of tone
shadings covering the entire range of the human voice from
a murmur to a shriek. In a tonoscope there are only
eighteen thousand holes which form merely an octave. Do
you follow me?”
McCarty was studying the apparatus closely but Dennis
nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he said somewhat uncertainly. “I’m quite a
ways behind but I misdoubt I’ll catch up when I see it
actually working on the screen. And we don’t have to hold
any little bulbs nor wires nor anything?”
“No, merely to listen and watch. I shall not ask you nor
McCarty to take any more active part in to-night’s test.”
“But just how does this work, Mr. Terhune ?” McCarty
asked.
“By the revolution of the inner drum you see,” explained
the criminologist. “I set it in motion when the test starts.
If the speaker sounds middle C—which in the original tono-
scope makes two hundred and fifty-six vibrations a second
——the line on the drum which has two hundred and fifty-
six holes will seem to remain stationary while all the other
rows are continuing to move; the line which stands still
points to that number on the horizontal scale and is then
projected on the screen. The numbers on the vibratoscope,
however, are differently graded. In action the process is
almost instantaneous, so that sound is seen at practically
the same time that it is heard—Ah, good evening, Mr.
O’Rourke!”
He stepped from behind the screen and drew its panel
hastily across after him so that the earlier arrivals were
for the time being hidden from the new-comer and Dennis
whispered confidentially:
“Honest to God, Mac, did you understand one single
word of all that discourse? I did not, but small matter of
that so long as ’tis not my voice that contraption is taking
account of! If I’ve only to watch the screen he can start


WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS 203
the show whenever he wants—What was it he said about
an association test? What kind of an association is it?
Are we all supposed to be members of the club?”
“No, you loon l” McCarty responded with a low chuckle.
“He means the association of one word to another; he men-
tions a word and you tell what it brings up in your mind,
what it means to you.”
“If it’s education he wants he could buy a dictionary for
the meaning of words,” Dennis remarked. “That is, pro-
viding he could pick out one that had the answer in he
wanted; I’ve never seen one ye .”
“ ’Tis to find out what’s on the mind of the person he’s
questioning,” explained McCarty patiently. “I’ve seen him
work it before, on the stepfather of that girl who was
supposed to have been thrown from the window of the
Glamorgan, only without any little recording machine.—
There’s Waverly and Cutter now! I wonder how many
more are coming ?”
A moment later the dry, precise tones of George Alexan-
der were heard and following upon his heels came Inspector
Druet.
“Our gathering is complete now,” Terhune announced.
“McCarty, come out from behind that screen. Gentlemen,
you all know the inspector’s deputy, Mr. McCarty, I think.
This is a colleague of his, Mr. Riordan—Now, if you will
all be seated in that row of chairs facing the projection
sheet I will explain the method of this little test; you will
find it almost childishly simple.”
Waverly turned with a subdued guffaw and a joking
aside to Nicholas Cutter, but the latter did not respond and
the gravity of his face remained unbroken as he advanced
and seated himself at one end of the row of chairs. Wav-
erly dropped into the next with O’Rourke beside him, then
Alexander, Inspector Druet and McCarty, with Dennis
bringing up at the farther end. Bassett entered only to
efiace himself silently behind the screen and Terhune took


204 HOW MANY CARDS?
the chair at one side, drawing a sheaf of papers from his
pocket.
“You will see merely a series of numbers on the screen,”
he began. “They will mean nothing to you and are intended
for my guidance, but I want you to keep your attention
focused upon them nevertheless, even while you are reply—
ing to my questions. Understand, gentlemen, there is noth—
ing arbitrary about this, for I have no authority to cross—
examine you even if I desired to do so, and you are of
course at liberty to reply or not as you choose. If my
questions seem to you to be unduly personal, please remem—
ber that this is merely a scientific experiment, a short cut
to minor details upon which we desire enlightenment and
which you may have forgotten or retained merely in your
subconscious memory. I am going to read to you, one at a
time, a brief list of words and after each I would like you
to reply in a single word if possible, telling me just what
impression that word has conveyed to you; not a definition
but an expression of the relative thought it brings to your
mind. For an elementary instance, if I mentioned the
word ‘feather’ you might associate it with ‘bird,’ or ‘hat,’ or
‘pillow,’ or ‘duster,’ or ‘quill pen.’ Do I make myself
clear?”
“Damned silly little game to me 1” Waverly grunted.
“Why not ‘Button, button’?”
“Perhaps that would not be inappropriate, Mr. Waverly !"
Terhune retorted in perfect good humor. “Are you ready,
Bassett ?”
“Ready, sir.” The reply came promptly from behind the
screen and immediately a low humming sound reached their
ears.
They all sat in silente while Terhune shuffled his papers
for a moment and then spoke:
“We will commence with you, Mr. O’Rourke, if you
don’t object.” At his first utterance a number had flashed
upon the projection sheet and mechanically the eyes of all


206 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Scandal.”
“Lies!” the young man exclaimed, flushing.
“Grief.”
“Tony.” The unexpected answer came promptly, as
though O’Rourke’s thoughts had been abruptly switched
into a new channel and his voice was filled with warm-
hearted tenderness and regret.
“Shot.”
“Had to be.” The fact that this was an impersonal test
had evidently been forgotten. “There was no other way.”
“Murder.”
“Nothing of the sort !" indignantly. “It was a mercy to
the poor brute!”
Wade Terhune folded the first paper, upon which as he
voiced his questions he had been making rapid annotations,
with alternate glances from O’Rourke to the projection
sheet.
“That will do, Mr. O’Rourke,” he said with a smile. “We
have been at cross purposes during the latter part of the
test, but your replies are significant, nevertheless. May I
ask who ‘Tony’ is, or was ?”
“My dog.” O’Rourke’s tones trembled slightly. “The
finest setter in the county—I brought him from home, you
see—and he was nearer human than anything that ever
ran on four legs! He was old and blind but my wife
wouldn’t hear of anything being done to him until to-day,
when the vet. said he was suffering from a cancer. I put
him out of his misery myself with a single shot.”
“I understand now.” Terhune selected another paper
from the slips he held upon his knee. “Mr. Waverly, can
we induce you to play in our little game next?”
“Go ahead!” Waverly responded, with a somewhat uneasy
grin. “It’s your move!”
Terhune’s tone fell again to a monotone.
“My first word is: ‘Creveling.’ ”


WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS 209
“Thank you. What, then, does the word ‘friend’ suggest
to you P”
“Eugene Creveling.” Cutter’s tone held just the decorous
touch of sorrow and regret.
“Trouble.”
“Mental and imaginary, if any,” he replied as though to
himself.
“Weakness.”
“Lack of restraint.”
The figures which appeared on the projection sheet now
were almost stationary, and when they changed at all varied
only slightly. It seemed to McCarty as though Cutter were
imitating, perhaps unconsciously, the monotonous pitch of
his interrogator’s voice.
“Attack.”
A bare moment elapsed before the reply but it was suffi-
cient to suggest a hint of hesitation.
“Paroxysm.”
“Guest.”
“Friend” This time there was no pause but the figures
changed and flickered before their eyes.
“Gun.”
Cutter turned with an apologetic shrug to Terhune.
“There’s only one thought which that word could bring
to my mind under the circumstances and the only one word
which expresses it is ‘whose’ ?”
Terhune nodded in comprehension.
“Passion.”
“Curios.” Cutter’s voice lifted in relief to its accustomed
level.
“Anger.”
“Rage.” Was there a shade of studied carefulness in
the precision with which the mere casual definition was
uttered?
(“Fear-7,
“Apprehension.


WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS 211
“Lineage.” The slight, elderly figure drew itself up with
unconscious hauteur in the big chair.
“Money.”
“Er—capital.” He wilted a little but his head with its
graying Vandyke beard was still held proudly erect.
“Loan.”
“Debt.” Alexander caught himself up with a sharply
drawn breath.
“Marriage.”
A pause ensued and then, faintly:
“Orange blossoms.”
To McCarty it seemed a trivial enough rejoinder and
yet for some reason it appeared to afford Terhune obvious
satisfaction.
“Prosperity.”
“Luxury.”
“Speculation.”
“Risk.” Alexander’s tones quivered a little but whether
from excitement or some other emotion McCarty could not
determine.
“Bankruptcy.”
“Loss.”
“Hypothecation.”
“Pledging—security.” Alexander swallowed with a vis-
ible efiort.
“Restitution.”
“Giving back—l” Alexander half rose from his chair.
“Really, Mr. Terhune, these words seem meaningless to me!
I find myself giving you mere definitions—which you stated
at the beginning you did not desire—because they awaken
no answering chord in my mind. Frankly, I don’t under-
stand what you are attempting to do!”
“You will in just a moment, Mr. Alexander.” Terhune
took his eyes for a fleeting second from the projection sheet.
“Tell me what comes to your mind with the word ‘book-
keeper.’ ”


212 HOW MANY CARDS?
“War,” Alexander responded promptly and then seemed
to stifl’en.
“Theft.”
“Jewels.” There had been another slight pause.
Terhune smiled but he shook his head.
“Exposure.”
“Disgrace!” The reply came in a mere whisper.
“Lower left-hand drawer.” It was the first time that
Terhune had suggested a phrase instead of a single word
and McCarty looked at him in amazement, but his eyes
were quickly drawn to the older man.
“I—I don’t know what you mean !” Alexander stam—
mered.
“What did Grayson, your bookkeeper, have in the lower
left-hand drawer of his desk 3’” Terhune suddenly dropped
all pretense of continuing the test, but in the tensity of the
moment no one save McCarty and Inspector Druet appeared
to note the fact. “What did you take from that drawer on
Wednesday afternoon and then put back again? You were
seen with it in your hands! You were seen when you re-
moved it a second time on Thursday, just before closing
hour. What was it, Mr. Alexander?”
“I don’t know! I don’t understand you!” Alexander's
fingers twitched nervously. “I—I took nothing from that
drawer—”
“Shall I tell you?” Terhune interrupted swiftly. “It
was Grayson’s army pistol. Where is it now? What did
you do with it?”
“I—I took it home—!” The voice quavered and died
away into silence and Alexander sat gazing as though fasci-
nated into the face of his inquisitor.
“For what purpose P” Terhune could not quite conceal
the hint of exultation which crept into his tones nor the
glance of triumph which he shot at the inspector and Mc—
Carty.
But as though by a miracle George Alexander seemed


WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS 213
to have recovered his poise and he braced himself in his
chair.
“I shall not tell you,” he spoke with quiet dignity. “I
perceive now that this evening's so-called scientific test has
been but a farce, a trick! As you have yourself stated, I
am at liberty to reply or not as I choose. In this instance
I do not choose.”
“Then suppose I tell you P” Terhune rose and towered
above the frail, dapper figure in the chair. “You have been
unfortunate in your speculations in Wall Street for years
and when your brother died and his will appointed you the
guardian of his daughter and her two hundred thousand
dollars, you were on the brink of ruin. Her money tided
you vover that crisis but you continued to speculate with
it until little by little you lost it all. You were at your
wit’s end, for she would soon have come of age and de-
manded the accounting you could not give, when Creveling
came along and wanted to marry her. She had no love for
him but he offered to go into partnership with you and you
brought all the influence and pressure to bear upon her that
you could command.
“Knowing the man’s dissolute chafacter and unsavory
reputation you nevertheless literally forced your niece into
the marriage. But your partnership has not been a success
and Creveling’s extravagance has depleted even his once
enormous capital. He demanded an accounting from you
of the money left in trust with you for his wife and you
are in no better position now to render such an accounting
than you were when she was a girl; worse, in fact, for
whereas she, for the sake of the family name, would have
hushed the affair up, Creveling has threatened to expose
and disgrace you, if not prosecute.
“He has been particularly abusive lately and you did not
know what to do; humiliation, perhaps prison, stared you
in the face. Did not a way out suggest itself to you, say,
on Wednesday, Mr. Alexander? You changed your mind,


214- HOW MANY CARDS?
though; you put the pistol back, but the next day you took
it out once more and this time it disappeared with you—-
the next day, a few hours before Mr. Creveling was found
shot.”
“This is infamous!” Alexander exclaimed. “You are
practically accusing me of the murder of my partner, my
niece’s husband! You go too far, sir—!"
“I am prepared to go farther!” retorted Terhune. “After
leaving your office you went directly to your rooms and
did not leave them until dinner time. You dined at your
club, played a rubber or two of bridge with your usual
group of friends, and returned to your rooms once more at
eleven. But you did not remain there, Mr. Alexander!
You went out again at midnight and did not reappear for
two hours or more. Where were you during that period?”
As though warding off a blow Alexander raised his hands
to his stricken face and in the gesture there was some-
thing at once so helpless and so deeply humiliating that
John O’Rourke sprang impulsively to his feet and placed
his hand upon the older man’s shoulder.
“Look here, sir!” he cried expostulatingly to Terhune.
“You are carrying things a little too far! I don’t know
what you mean about the pistol and all that, but I do know
Mr. Alexander and I know that what you are trying to
accuse him of is not to be thought of for a minute!”
Alexander looked up with a faint tinge of color in his
cheeks and a sudden flash of fire in his eyes.
“I thank you, my boy. After all, blood does tell, doesn’t
it?” Slowly he rose to his feet and confronted the crimi-
nologist. “I did take. Grayson’s pistol to my rooms on
Thursday afternoon; I did go out again that night at twelve
and I remained out for two hours or more. I do not pro-
pose to offer any explanation of my conduct to you; in fact
I decline absolutely to speak further in your presence but
if Inspector Druet and Mr. O’Rourke will accompany me
to my rooms now I will produce the pistol which Grayson


WADE TERHUNE EXPERIMENTS 215
can identify, and I shall account. for my actions to the
proper authorities !”
“You will explain here and now !” thundered Terhune,
but the inspector, who had also risen, touched his arm sig-
nificantly.
“I wouldn’t press him, if I were you,” he said rapidly
in an undertone. “If he can produce that pistol your case
falls to the ground, you know, and you’ll get us as well as
yourself in a mighty awkward position. I’ll go with him
as he suggests and ’phone the result to you.”
Terhune shrugged.
“I do not need nor desire any credit in this case, if that
is what you fear!” he said with- cold displeasure. “The
police department are welcome to whatever public acclaim
may be forthcoming, but having alone worked out the
solution of the affair to this point I should naturally like
to complete it!”
“Have you one scrap of real evidence against him, Mi'.
Terhune ?” asked Inspector Druet earnestly as he led him
aside. “The pistol that killed Creveling is down at Head-
quarters, you know. Have you one witness who can testify
that Alexander was near the Creveling house at the time
of the shooting? Remember his standing in the community!
Have you any proof at all against him?”
“Nothing tangible that I could bring to your bureau and
place upon your desk, perhaps!” Terhune conceded with a
sneer. “After all, the- case was extremely simple and being
quite assured of the outcome I am willing to leave the
mere details in your hands. My interest in- it was purely
psychological. Accompany him to his rooms by all means,
but guard him well for you will find that he is the guilty
man!”


218 HOW MANY CARDS?
that evidently remained in his thoughts. I have had access
to his private papers and account books which proved the
state of his financial affairs, and the office boy can testify
as to his actions with the pistol on Wednesday and Thurs-
day.” Terhune spoke with grim satisfaction. “You heard
him admit taking the pistol and also being absent from his
rooms at the time the murder was committed, although I
did not need his confession; the night elevator boy in the
bachelor apartment building where he lives was not asleep
as he thought.”
“Well, sir, ’twas remarkable the way you led up to it all,
and I’ll be waiting myself to hear from the inspector whether
the old gentleman breaks down and confesses or not.—
Come, Denny, we’ll be getting along.” McCarty edged to-
ward the door.
“I am glad to see, at least, McCarty, that you have an
open mind.” Terhune shook hands cordially. “It 'will be
rather humiliating to the inspector, I am afraid, but he will
have to admit that he was on the wrong track.”
“Yes, sir.” McCarty laughed. “I told you I’d not be
surprised if he had to let Hill go again! Good night, Mr.
Terhune.”
A drenching April shower was falling as they gained
the street but they trudged on beneath their umbrellas in
silence. Finally Dennis remarked- disgustedly:
“And so you’ve fallen for Terhune at last! Think shame
to yourself, Mac! That little he-goat with the beard may
have been selfish enough to sell his niece to the blackguard
who by all accounts is better dead, but he never killed him!
He wouldn’t soil his hands !”
“No more he did,” McCarty agreed placidly. “Still, it
amused Terhune and there’s no harm done. He most likely
took the pistol to blow his own brains out with if Creveling
kept his word and told how he’d made away with the money
left to Mrs. Creveling, and where he could have been when
the shooting took place is more than I know, but ’twas


INTO THEIR HANDS 221
Inspector Druet nodded briefly to his confrére and the
woman turned her great, blue eyes slowly upon McCarty
with a start of recognition.
“Who are you?” The inspector turned to the huddled
figure in the corner.
“Ada Hopkins.” The hand holding the handkerchief fell
to her lap disclosing a small, pinched, delicately withered
face. “I’m a seamstress, out by the day, and I have the
flat under Mrs. Hildreth’s-—Mrs. Hill's, I mean. I got
sick and she took care of me like an angel; nobody ever
did anything for me before in all my life! I knew she was
sad and in some kind of trouble, but she never told me
about it and I didn’t like to ask; if I didn’t mind my own
business I never could have kept my customers for twenty
years, going from house to house—!”
“Come, come!” the inspector interrupted. “Get down to
cases, Miss Hopkins. So you hid this woman when we
were after her the other night, did you P”
“Yes, sir, and I’d do it again !” The little creature flared
up suddenly. “She never laid a finger on anybody’s jewelry,
and as for accusing Mr. Hill of shooting that man—why,
he was home from a little past eleven o’clock Thursday
night until nearly three in the morning! That's what I’ve
come down here to tell you and I don’t care what you do
to me for helping Mrs. Hill!”
“So you knew she had skipped her bail, did you ?” asked
the inspector.
“Not till Friday night, but it wouldn’t have made any
difference to me; she was no thief, no matter what that
rich family said about her !—I’m working extra nights, mak-
ing a wedding dress for one of the girls in the neighbor-
hood and I ran out of white silk thread on Thursday night.
I went around to a little shop on Third Avenue that I knew
kept open late to get some more, and when I came back I
met Mr. Hill in the vestibule and we talked real pleasantly
all the way upstairs.”


222 HOW MANY CARDS?
“What time was this ?”
“Twenty minutes after eleven by the clock on my mantel
when I got back into my own rooms,” Miss Hopkins re-
sponded promptly. “I know, because I looked particular;
I was timing myself on that dress and I knew I’d have
to work until near morning. The floors and ceilings in that
Lenahan house are as thin as paper and I heard Mr. Hill
go into his flat and the sound of their voices talking for
hours while he tramped back and forth, shaking my chan-
delier. I was sewing away so hard that I neverrealized
how late it was getting till I heard him go out again. It
surprised me and I looked at the time to find it was five
minutes to three. I put away my sewing then and went
to bed.”
There was a pause during which the inspector’s eyes
slowly met those of McCarty and what he read there brought
a slight flush to his cheek.
“You are prepared to swear that Hill was in his rooms
all during the time you mention?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you know that the man who is charged with the
murder of Eugene Creveling is the same man you knew
first as Hildreth and then as Hill?” persisted the inspector.
“F rom the pictures of him that was printed in last night’s
papers, and this morning’s, too; I’d swear to him any-
where,” she retorted with spirit.
“What happened Friday night?”
“Well, I was busy putting sleeves in that dress, sir, when
along between twelve and one I heard a sound like people
going upstairs past my door real soft but I didn’t think
anything of it. I heard some one groaning, too, but I
wouldn’t open my door; I never want to get into any neigh-
bors’ rows! Then Mrs. Hildreth’s door slammed and I
heard her running toward the kitchen; she ain’t what you
might call light-footed!
“I dropped my needle and listened, then, and I heard


INTO THEIR HANDS 223
a terrible noise all at once; the crash of her door coming
down and a lot of pottery breaking. Something hit my
kitchen window and I ran in there just in time to see Mrs.
Hildreth come down the fire escape. She begged me to
hide her, and said it was the police but she hadn’t done any
wrong and she could explain. That was enough for me,
and I hid her, all right!” A little mischievous twinkle came
into Miss Hopkins’ reddened eyes. “The policeman and
your own smart young detective walked all ’round her and
never saw her !"
“What do you mean?” Inspector Druet demanded.
“I made a dummy of her !” she replied with evident satis-
faction. “There wasn’t a place you could hide a cat in my
rooms and I was at my wit’s end, when all at once I thought
of the form—the figure, you know, that I drape dresses on.
Quick as a wink I whipped that wedding dress off it,
dragged it over and stuck it in the closet and made Mrs.
Hildreth stand straight up on the skirt measuring plat-
form. I don’t know how I ever got that wedding dress on
her for it was an awful tight fit, her being so big, but I
managed it somehow, pulling the skirt down over her feet
and throwing a sheet over the top of her like I always do
over dresses on the form to keep them clean. When the
policeman and your detective come through my rooms I
was sitting on the floor, stitching away at the hem of that
skirt and they never so much as lifted a corner of the
sheet!”
McCarty coughed, but the inspector avoided his eye and
asked hastily:
“What happened after they had gone ?”
“Nothing. Mrs. Hildreth came down off the platform
and told me who she was and the story she’s come here to
tell you now and nobody knew she was in my rooms until
now. Ever since she read in the papers yesterday afternoon
that her husband had been arrested for that murder she
was near crazy, and this morning she couldn’t stand it any


224 HOW MANY CARDS?
longer, for she knew he would never speak and give away
where she was; he’d go to the chair first. She made up her
mind to come down here to you and nothing could stop
her.”
“Is this all true P” The inspector turned once more to
the woman before him. “Are you the wife of Frank Hill P"
“Yes, sir; I have brought with me my marriage certifi-
cate. It is most certainly true that my husband was at
home with me at the time the murder was committed and
true also that I did not touch the jewels of Mrs. Creveling.
I told all that I knew about that when I was first arrested
but what I suspect— P” she shrugged. “Who would listen
or believe P” \
“We'll listen to you, all right,” the inspector promised.
“Sit down and tell me everything. You are Swedish and
called yourself Ilsa Helwig, didn’t you, when you went to
work at the Crevelings’P”
“Yes, sir, it is, my name. I am of German parents but
always I have lived in Stockholm. In October I went as
housemaid to the Crevelings, and in january I married
Frank.” She paused and then added: “I have so many
times before told my story of what happened the afternoon
the emeralds disappeared, but perhaps you do not know.
As Mrs. Creveling testified, I was summoned to help her
dress for the pageant and had unpacked her costume when
\ she came into the room with the jewel case in her hand.
She put it down upon her dressing—table and then Rollins
came to say that some one wanted her on the telephone. I
had all day such a headache I was nearly crazy and I
thought I would have time to slip away to my room and
take a powder before Mrs. Creveling returned. I did go
up to my room, sir, not downstairs as Mr. Creveling swore;
I did not touch the jewel case. But who would believe P"
“Did you go directly back to Mrs. Creveling’s dressing-
room after you took your medicine P”
“Yes, but she had already returned, sir. No one was


INTO THEIR HANDS 225
more surprised than I when she opened the jewel case and
it was empty, but I—I never thought that I should be ac-
cused. I—it stunned me, I was for a time like one dead,
and then I began to think, and so did Frank.”
She paused once more and the inspector said impatiently.
“Well, what did you think?”
“Mr. Creveling is dead, sir, and it is not well to speak
against those who are gone, but why should he have sworn
to a lie about me ?” the woman asked simply. “Why did he
try to fasten on me the theft instead of doing all he could
to find out who really took the emeralds unless he knew the
truth and must hide it, no matter who suffered? Yet he
could not have been all bad, that man, for who sent to my
lawyers the money for my bond?”
The inspector bent forward over his desk.
“You think that Creveling himself took his wife’s em—
eralds ?” he cried. “Will you swear that neither you nor
your husband know where the ten thousand came from for
your bail?”
“I swear it, sir! It happened exactly as my lawyers told.
Frank and I had suspected from the time Mr. Creveling
said that which was not true about me, and he did not want
me prosecuted from the beginning, you know. That was
Mrs. Creveling’s doing; she is of ice, that lady. Ice and
iron !-—-But it does not matter about me. I can prove noth-
ing against Mr. Creveling and she must do with me as she
wishes. You have heard my good friend here; her word
has cleared my husband of the murder charge, has it not?
Oh, will you set him free?”
The inspector sent for Martin and dispatched him with
a note to the Commissioner. Then for the first time he
addressed McCarty.
“What do you think, Mac P”
McCarty cast a warning glance toward the two women
who were conversing together in the corner and replied in
low, quick tones:


226 HOW MANY CARDS?
“I’m thinking I’d like to go to the Tombs with the paper
that lets Hill out and have a talk with him.”
An hour later, as he made his way over to the gloomy,
turreted pile of gray stone, McCarty went carefully in
retrospection through the account of the theft which Mrs.
Creveling had given him. That she herself had conspired
with her husband to make away with her own jewels and
place the blame upon the girl was unthinkable, but that
Creveling might have abstracted them from the jewel case
in the temporary absence of both mistress and maid was
another matter. If the woman was to be believed, there
was no one else against whom suspicion could be directed,
for all the other servants of the household were together
downstairs—except the maid who was ill—and they could
testify for each other.
Creveling could have taken the jewels while they were
in his safe, of course, but in that case no one else could be
definitely accused. If Creveling had seen Ilsa slip away
after her mistress’ departure he might have seized upon
the psychological moment to dart across the hall and possess
himself of the emeralds, confident, if he considered it at
all, that when they were not found in the maid’s hands his
wife would not press a charge against her. Mrs. Creveling
herself had admitted that he did not want to prosecute the
girl and then there was the matter of the cash bail; ten
thousand does not drop from the skies!
But surely, in spite of his partner’s statement as to the
shrinkage of his capital, Creveling could not have been
brought so low financially that he must steal his own wife’s
trinkets. . . . Then a sudden thought halted McCarty in
the middle of a busy street, to the imminent danger of his
neck and the wrath of the traffic policeman. Urged to
action by the honk of a motor horn just behind his ear, he
sprang mechanically for the curb and continued his way
as though in a daze.
Creveling had opened the jewel case when he took it from


INTO THEIR HANDS 227
the safe to give it to his wife and she had mentioned that
she intended to have the stones reset almost immediately,
but he had tried to dissuade her .from doing so. Had his
disapproval been merely because their antique setting ap-
pealed to his artistic sense, as Mrs. Creveling said, or had
he another reason? Were the stones in those old settings
the same ones which she had placed in his charge only a
few days before?
There was another problem, too, in McCarty’s mind,
which bore more directly on the murder but he thrust it
for the moment aside. He had felt from the start of the
investigation that Hill held a possible key to the mystery if
only he could be persuaded to speak; would he break silence
now if he might thereby save his wife from going to trial?
When the former valet was ushered into his presence at
the Tombs McCarty beamed at him in a guileless, friendly
manner.
“Hello, Hill,” he began genially. “I guess you knew we
couldn’t hang that murder charge on you for long, didn’t
you ?” .
The man’s face was drawn and haggard and he raised
burning eyes to meet the clear blue ones which smiled at
him.
“What does that matter ?” he asked listlessly. “You’ve
found her—!”
“I did, but she got away from me Friday night,” McCarty
said frankly.
“Got away!” Hill clutched suddenly at a chair as if for
support.
“She’s down at headquarters now; that Hopkins woman
on the floor below you has been taking care of her but
she gave herself up when she heard that you were charged
with Creveling’s murder, so that she could prove your alibi.
—Heré! Buck up, man!” -
With a groan Hill had sunk into a chair and covered his
face with his thin hands. '


228 HOW MANY CARDS?
“That’s why you took me up !” he said. “You did it to
make her show herself! Oh, why did she do it? Couldn’t
she realize that I would rather have anything happen to me
than that she should be caught!”
“ ’Twas the very best thing that she could have done!”
McCarty asserted stoutly. “We’d have got her sooner or
later and what with her jumping her bail and all it might
have looked pretty black against her, but now since she’s
come clean, Hill, I don’t mind telling you that if your wife’s
story is straight I’m going to back her up. I’m going to
see what Creveling himself might have had to do with the
stealing of those emeralds!”
For an instant Hill looked up with a gleam of hope in
his eyes. Then they darkened sullenly and he shook his
head.
“It’s only another trick !” he muttered. “Why would
any one think that Mr. Creveling would take his wife’s
jewels? \Ne’d have had no chance to convince people with-
out proof, and Ilsa had better have kept quiet; it’ll only
go harder with her.”
“ ’Tis no trick l” McCarty protested. “I know that Crev-
eling needed money bad and those stones were worth thirty
thousand—”
“Money?” Hill interrupted him in surprise. “Why, we
thought he had given them to another—”
He stopped with his lips pressed tightly together, but
McCarty finished the sentence for him.
“To another woman, do you mean? Hill, I’m speaking
the God’s truth when I tell you that if you’ll come across
with all you know about Creveling I’ll do my best to clear
your wife of the charge against her and get the indictment
quashed. That can only be done by finding the stones or
proving who took them and what became of them. I’m will-
ing to. say right now that I don’t think your wife is guilty,
but you’ll have to help me prove it. Will you ?”
Once more Hill’s haggard eyes studied his face and after


THE LETTER 231
that the games weren’t altogether straight and that Mr.
Creveling and—and one of the other gentlemen knew as
much.” Hill hesitated. “Butlers and valets and ladies’
maids see more than their employers ever stop to think
about, and I watched people come and go in their crowd,
and they all ended the same; they’d come with a fortune
and maybe a beautiful wife that wasn’t known as well as
she’d like to be in society here, and they’d lose a little and
be allowed to win it back, piecemeal, with some more be-
sides and meantime the wife was being taken up and made
much of, and soon they’d be living beyond their income,
whatever it was, trying to keep up with the procession.
Then he’d plunge and lose more and win back more yet,
and so they’d play him until he risked everything and lost,
and that time there’d be no come-back. Of course, he’d
think they were bully good fellows until the showdown, and
she’d think she was having the time of her life and getting
in with the real people. I’ve seen all sides of it, sir, and
said nothing until now, but if some of the married men
only realized the dangers they were exposing their wives
to in letting them further their social advancement so—so
promiscuous like, with people they really don’t know any-
thing about, they’d think twice before they got in with a set
of so-called gentlemen gamblers. Mr. Ford was one of
the latest that got stung, I hear—but it was Mr. Creveling
you wanted me to tell you about!”
“And more than his gambling,” McCarty remarked. “I’ve
heard talk of his affairs with women, and of a quarrel with
Mr. Waverly not more than a fortnight ago. What do
you know about it ?”
“Only what the butler, Rollins, told me, sir, and that’s
not much. Of course, before Mr. Creveling married it was
just one affair after another and what with breach of
promise and divorce suits threatened or pergding, it was a
miracle he wasn’t shot long ago," Hill said frankly. “I
never saw him fall so hard, though, as he did for Miss Alex-


232 HOW MANY CARDS?
ander, and when they were married I thought he’d settle
down; he didn’t, for long, but he’s been so cautious and
discreet that even I couldn’t get a line on him. I suppose
you think it was funny that I stayed on with him after
they’d prosecuted my wife for stealing those jewels, but I
had a purpose, sir. She was innocent but they’d done her
a dirty trick and I meant to fight him the same way, if I
could. You see, I’m giving it to you straight. I stayed to
get something on him that I could hold over him and make
him either produce those emeralds if he’d taken them him-
self as we both thought, or else have my wife set free. He
had influence enough to do it even after she was indicted
if he had wanted to, and I meant to make him want to
worse than he had ever wanted anything in his life before!
Call it blackmail if you like, sir; my wife was facing prison
for something she had never done and I was near crazed
with the thought of it. Of course, I would have been dis-
missed or maybe arrested, too, if they had known that Ilsa
and I were man and wife, but we had meant from the start
to keep it a secret until spring and then leave and get a little
place in the country. I’ve got quite a bit put by and we
were going to open a sort of little tea-place for motorists——”
His voice broke and for a minute he seemed on the point
of breaking down, but McCarty waited without speaking,
and finally he gathered himself together and went on:
“I knew, even before Rollins told me of the words he
had had with Mr. Waverly, that Mr. Creveling had what
you might call another affair on; I haven’t been with him
all these years without learning his moods and I took it
that he wasn’t receiving any too much encouragement. He
was ugly for weeks past and there was no pleasing him,
but all at once he changed and began to act as if he owned
the earth. Whoever the—the lady was, he must have had
reason to think she’d begun to like him.”
“Then you don’t know who it was?” McCarty asked
bluntly. “This is no time for us to be quibbling about



234 HOW MANY CARDS?
it would be, but it was enough to bring him to terms, for all
that. He was working the same sort of thing on somebody
else that I was trying to do to him.”
“What do you mean P” McCarty stared.
“Blackmail, if you choose to call it that; anyway, he was
holding something over somebody else’s head—He came
to the house about ten in the morning from his club and
after changing his clothes he went to the telephone and
called up Mazzarini, the caterer, and ordered a supper for
two sent there that night. I was going through his suit
before hanging it up when I found a note in one of the
pockets and I read it, sir. The top part was in his own
handwriting and it began without any name so I couldn’t
tell who it was for, but the meaning was plain enough. It
was a command for some one to come there that night and
talk things over, and although it was worded politely enough
there was a threat between every line if you had eyes to see
it! He had signed it with just one initial—‘ .’—and the
person who got it had written seven words underneath and
sent it back to him.”
“What were those seven words P” demanded McCarty.
“‘I accept. Expect me half-past twelve,’ ” Hill quoted
slowly. “I didn’t know the writing and there wasn’t even
an initial signed to the answer, but I stuck it in my pocket
quick. I’d heard him tell Rollins and Sarah that they could
clear out until next day and I thought that meant that I
was to serve the supper, and my time had come at last!
He said he expected a gentleman guest for supper and
ordered me to wait at the house and arrange the table and
take the stuff from the caterer’s men, and then bring a
freshly pressed Tuxedo to the club at eleven o’clock. I did,
thinking of course that I was to return, and I could have
cursed him to his face when he told me I needn’t show up
until the next day.
“I went home to the little flat where Ilsa was hiding and
we talked it over. The note that I’d kept was enough if it


THE LETTER 235
was handled right to make him clear Ilsa’s name by bluffing
his wife some way and giving out that the jewels were
found even if he couldn’t produce them, but if I knew who
the man was that was coming I’d have Creveling so he
couldn’t even squirm. He had put through more than
one shady business transaction at those little midnight sup-
pers of his before, and I knew this must be nearer black-
mail than the others, if he wouldn’t have one of us there
even to serve the supper. It meant I’d be discharged if
he caught me in the house when he’d told me to stay away,
but I made up my mind at last to go back and risk it. It
was almost three o’clock but usually those conferences were
all-night affairs and I hoped to get just one look at his
guest without being seen.
“The house was all lighted up but I didn’t think any-
thing of that, and let myself in with my own key at the
tradesmen’s entrance. I kept as quiet as I could for fear
Mr. Creveling should discover me and it was well for me
that I did, for I heard heavy footsteps and men’s voices in
the kitchen and I had barely time to dodge into the scullery
when they came out and started down to the cellar; a police-
man that I recognized as the one on night duty around that
beat, and two men in plain clothes.
“I turned cold, for it came to me right away that some-
thing had happened to Mr. Creveling, and the letter I’d
found might be of no use in freeing Ilsa, after all! As soon
as they had gone down the cellar steps I hurried around to
the main hall and looked into the breakfast room and then
the study. There lay Mr. Creveling, dead!”
“Hill”-—McCarty interrupted the story—“did that gun
beside him belong to Mr. Creveling ?”
The valet shook his head.
“I never saw it before, sir, and I didn’t notice it particu-
larly then. I was staring down at the place where his face
had been, and I almost went crazy for a moment thinking
of Ilsa and that her last chance had gone!”


236 HOW MANY CARDS?
/"_'___'
“What did you do then?” McCarty asked. “Think care-
fully, Hill. Did you touch anything in the room? Did you
see any playing cards or anything lying around ?"
“I don’t have to think l” the other responded. “I’ll never
forget that scene as long as I live! I didn’t see any playing
cards or anything except just Mr. Creveling’s body and I
wouldn’t have soiled my hands by touching it for the world!
I don’t know how long I stood there with my brain whirl-
ing, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two,
and then I began to think fast. I saw I had two strings
left to my bow, after all. One was to find the man that
had been there and shot Creveling and hold what I knew
over his head to make him help me, as he could have if he
knew Mrs. Creveling and had any influence with her; the
other was to get Mrs. Creveling and her uncle there to-
gether as quick as I could and offer to hush things up if
they’d set Ilsa free. I knew that she’d stopped caring for
her husband long ago—hated him, in fact—and I thought
she would want to prevent scandal and notoriety before
anything else, just as Mr. Alexander would. He would be
glad enough that Creveling was out of the way so he could
handle the estate to suit himself.”
“You didn’t stop to think that it might have been suicide ?”
Hill laughed shortly.
“Not knowing Mr. Creveling the way I did! He wouldn’t
have had the—the guts to do it, sir! It takes long to tell
it but I just thought it all out in a flash. I could only find
out who had been there that night by tracing the writing at
the bottom of that note and I knew Mr. Creveling kept a.
lot of private letters in that secret drawer in his desk. Of
course I’d been through it often enough before, having
watched when he didn’t know it to see how he worked the
spring, but some of the letters were from gentlemen whose
names were strange to me and I hadn’t taken notice of the
writing. Then I remembered that there would be a thor-
ough search made for clews all over the house, and it came


THE LETTER 237 I
to me—what if Mrs. Jarvie had left a stray letter or memo-
randum or something in her desk that would show where
Ilsa was hiding? She was an old lady and though close-
mouthed was given to scribbling notes and diaries and such.
I supposed, of course, that the policeman and the other
two were the only living men in the house besides myself
and I started upstairs, when all of a sudden you and the
inspector came out of Mr. Creveling’s room. I sprang
back quick or you would have seen me. When you had
gone on to the next floor I slipped into Mr. Creveling’s
room, put on a pair of his gloves so that my finger marks
wouldn’t show and, opening the little drawer, I took out the
letters.
“I hoped against hope that I could sneak into the house—
keeper’s room before you got around to it in your search
but you nearly caught me on the stairs a second time and I
had to wait until you had gone down again. I knew that
she used to hide the spare key to her desk behind a loose
brick up in the fireplace and chanced that she had for~
gotten and left it there, which she had done. Her old house-
hold account books were in the desk together with a stack
of loose papers and I had to take the lot for I had no time
to sort them out. I don’t know how I ever got out of the
house without being seen, but I heard you all talking in
the room where Mr. Creveling’s body was lying and I
slipped out and made for home, where Ilsa was.
“She looked over the housekeeper’s books and papers and
sure enough, there were the receipts for some of the furni-
ture of our little flat, that I’d given Mrs. Jarvie the money
to pay for, with the address scribbled on it to where the
stuff was to be delivered, so Ilsa burned the lot. I read
over the notes I had taken from Mr. Creveling’s desk and
compared them with those seven words written at the bot-
tom of his letter. None of them were in the same hand,
but I kept two or three for Mrs. Creveling to buy with
Ilsa’s freedom; they showed plain that Mr. Creveling had


240 HOW MANY CARDS?
man of ’is years! I gathered that ’e didn’t regard Mr. Ter-
hune very ’ighly and wanted ’im off the case.”
McCarty nodded appreciatively.
“I shouldn’t wonder. I’ll wait here for Mr. Alexander.”
He seated himself in the nearest chair and ostentatiously
pulling a newspaper from his coat pocket he spread its
ample pages before him. Then as the butler still lingered
he added: “Don’t let me be keeping you from your work,
Rollins.”
The other opened his lips to speak, but thought better of
it and with a nod retired to the pantry. McCarty waited
for a few moments, then tossed his paper aside and cross-
ing the hall with noiseless tread he gently closed the door
through which Rollins had passed, and, turning, crept up
the main stairway.
There in the hall by Creveling’s door, upon its stand of
carved black wood stood a squat, bulging vase upon which
a grotesque dragon in dull red and gold appeared to be
endlessly chasing his own tail. From behind the closed
door leading to Mrs. Creveling’s apartments across the hall
came the murmur of feminine voices and McCarty wasted
no time in admiration of the specimen of ancient art. Un-
ceremoniously lifting the vase off the stand, he placed it on
the rug and examined the small circular inset of pinkish
marble upon which it had rested. It moved slightly be-
neath his fingers and pulling out his pen-knife he pried up
one edge. There in a shallow recess beneath lay a thin
packet of letters held together by a rubber band.
Two minutes later the vase was back in its accustomed
place and McCarty, with an expression upon his countenance
not unlike that supposed to have been worn by the cele-
brated cat that ate the canary, was letting himself silently
out the front door.


CHAPTER XVIII
THE NAME IN THE BOOK
“ T’S a pity you could not have stopped by for me on
your way down to headquarters, the day!” Dennis
observed reproachfully' as late that afternoon he stretched
out his lanky form in McCarty’s comfortably dilapidated
arm-chair. “Well you knew I was off duty until six this
evening and then on solid for twenty-four hours! I’d
have liked first rate to have seen Martin’s face when he
found how the dressmaker had tricked him with the Hill
woman inside that wedding gown instead of the dummy!”
“I only went down to report to the inspector, not think-
ing Mrs. Hill would show up so soon,” McCarty explained.
“But what do you think of those letters I found where Hill
had hid them under the vase'?”
He had recounted to his companion the tale of the mom-
ing’s adventures, and of all that he had learned about Cut-
ter’s establishment and those who frequented it, ending
with his visit to the Creveling house, and spread the letters
out on the desk before him.
“I’m thinking,” Dennis observed, “that our fine gentle-
man, Mr. Creveling, was a crook and a blackguard, and he
must have been flirting with that bullet a good while before
it finally got him. But all this don’t lead you any nearer
to who fired it, Mac. You’ve enough to do finding him
without chasing after those emeralds, too.”
“I’ve given my word,” McCarty responded soberly. “Hill
is the sly fox, but that galoot of a wife of his, for all she’s
a fine figure of a woman, is too stupid to be anything but
honest and if Creveling framed her it’s up to me to get
her off. As for the shooting, I’ve my own ideas about that
241


242 HOW MANY CARDS?
and I’m not springing them on even you yet, Denny. What
do you make of the handwriting of those seven words that
were added at the bottom of Creveling’s letter and sent
back to him P”
“If I was Terhune now, with his little magnifying glasses,
I might be able to tell you the color of the guy’s hair that
wrote it, and the maiden name of both his grandmothers,
but being as I’m not it’s little I make of it at all!” Dennis
regarded the double sheet of note paper critically. “I’d
never say, though, that he was the lad to murder anybody
for all the letters are kind of bold and dashing—See the
way that one straggles and this bit of a blot where the ink
dropped off the end of the pen? The hand that held the
pen was shaking, Mac, but the one that held the gun didn’t.”
“True for you.” McCarty folded the letters thoughtfully
and put them in his pocket. “But it may have been the
same hand for all that. It could have shook from excite-
ment or anger beforehand yet been steady enough when
the time came to act. But I’ve more to tell you, Denny:
there are so many loose ends to this case that I made up
my mind I’d give this day to pulling out of the tangle and
one of them led straight back here, under this very roof l”
“Here P” Dennis glanced around him at the shabby, home-
like room as though he expected something sinister to rear
its head in the familiar surroundings.
“To the musty old shop of the little Frenchman down-
stairs,” McCarty went on. “Do you mind I told you that
when I had the interview with Mrs. Kip on Friday I had a
kind of an idea I couldn’t shake off that I’d seen her be—
fore, and not so long ago, at that? I could not place her and
it’s been bothering me till this afternoon when I went to
see her again. While I was waiting for her to come down
I looked around the reception room a bit and what did I
see but an old cabinet with long~legged birds carved on it
and lettering like a laundry ticket in one corner, and I knew
it as well as I know the chair you’re sitting in this minute,


THE NAME IN THE BOOK 245
for no lunch did I have, and I’m going to drop in at the
O’Rourkes’ and come home after to talk to Girard.”
“The O’Rourkes’, is it?” Dennis asked as he reached for
his hat. “ ’Tis high society you’re moving in these days.”
“I knew them in the old country when she was a baby
and he just a broth of a boy, as I’m after telling you,”
McCarty remarked. “If there’s a drop of the old blood in
him, Cutter and his crowd will strip him of his last cent
and him thinking all the time that the game is a straight
one and them as clean sports as he. I’d not butt in now,
but they may scent scandal and exposure coming and make
a killing off him before they beat it. I’ve an idea that
Waverly is four-flushing financially just the way Creveling
was, and is in on a percentage of Cutter’s games. Anyway,
I’ll not let ‘the’ O’Rourke be stung if a word in his ear will
save him!”
But when McCarty stood in the genial, democratic pres-
ence of John Cavanaugh O’Rourke he did not find it so
easy to utter that saving word. Adroitly he turned the con-
versation from the mystery of Creveling’s death to a dis-
cussion of his friends and heard a eulogy of Nicholas Cut-
ter which left him at a loss as to how to proceed upon his
mission. After all, “the” O’Rourke was a gentleman and
McCarty had been but a gawky, out-at-elbows lout, bred of
the farms and byres. Would the former listen to a word
from such a source against one who, though a scamp and a
scoundrel, was nevertheless of aristocratic stock? The ex-
roundsman drew a deep breath and plunged.
“You were good enough when I talked with you last, sir,
to say I should let you know if there was any way you
could help to clear up the matter of Mr. Creveling’s death.
Will you answer me one question, not to be repeated to the
inspector but as man to man?”
“Of course, Timmie.” The old name came instinctively
to O’Rourke’s lips. “If that valet Hill, whom you have ar-
rested—?”


THE NAME IN THE BOOK 247
game and spoil their sport. I only wanted to warn you in
case anything might be wrong.”
“Thanks, old man, but there’s no need.” O’Rourke’s
good-nature was completely restored and now his merry,
boyish eyes twinkled with a sudden inspiration. “Tell you
what I’ll do to convince you; I’ll take you along and stand
sponsor for you at the next game if you like. Cutter won’t
mind as long as you are there unofficially and you can see
for yourself that everything is as right as can be. I’ll stake
you—,7
“I’d like to take you up on that some time sir, but I’ll buy
my own chips,” McCarty said with a chuckle which cov-
ered his own satisfaction at having gained his point. “If I
lose I’ll not be squealing at headquarters about it, but rais-
ing the rents again on my tenants—By the way, you played
there last Tuesday night, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Why ?” O’Rourke asked. “That was the last time
I saw ’Gene Creveling alive.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Baillie Kip and Mr. Wav-
erly were there too, weren’t they?” persisted McCarty.
“Yes.” There was a puzzled look in O’Rourke’s gray
eyes.
“That made eight of you, all told.”
“Yes, but we didn’t all play. I mean, not at the same
time,” O’Rourke amended. “Creveling dropped out early
and Waverly took his hand.”
“I see. Then they didn’t sit in the same game together.
Have they for the past couple of weeks ?"
“I don’t remember. I don’t think they have, at that.—
What the devil are you getting at, Timmie ?”
“just this, sir. Did they speak at all to each other on
Tuesday night?” McCarty asked bluntly. “Have you heard
nothing about there being bad blood between them lately ?”
“Why—no.” O’Rourke paused reflectively. “I’ve heard
nothing about any quarrel and they were usually thicker


248 HOW MANY CARDS?
than thieves, but it’s funny about Tuesday night. They
did not speak at all, now that I remember! Creveling was
away ahead of the game but he threw down his cards and
cashed in just after Waverly came. Cutter was banking,
of course, and while he settled up with Creveling, Waverly
talked to Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Kip. Then when Creveling
had said a general good night and gone, Waverly dropped
into his chair and the game went on.—I say, though, you
don’t mean that they could have had a serious quarrel!
That any one has been trying to connect Waverly with-—
with what happened to Creveling? It’s utterly absurd—l”
“Oh, no l” McCarty interrupted hastily. “We know where
Mr. Waverly was all Thursday night, even if there had
been any suspicion against him. There’s been some talk
of a quarrel, though, that involved somebody else and we
had to look into it, of course—Well, I’ll be getting along,
now, sir. If Mr. Cutter and the other gentlemen don’t
mind, I’d like mighty well to sit in one of their games.
’Twould be something to remember.”
“Oh, Cutter’ll be glad to have you; you’d be a friend at
court, you know, if your colleagues at headquarters got in-
quisitive about what was being pulled off, and if a friend
of mine from the old country wasn’t welcome to play with
the rest I’d quit the game myself !” O’Rourke laughed.
“But come and say hello to Margaret before you go; she’s
writing letters in her own little sitting-room but she’ll not
take it kindly if you leave without a word with her.”
The apartment into which McCarty was ushered was
hung all in pale, cool greens with great bowls of jonquils
standing all about and Lady Peggy appeared to his enrap-
tured gaze very like a spring flower herself in her softly
flowing lavender robe as she looked up from her desk and
held out her little hand with a smile of welcome.
“Good evening, Mr. McCarty. When are you coming to
dine with us as you promised ?” she asked. “We’ve years
of friendship that wasn’t lost but just mislaid to pick up


THE NAME IN THE BOOK 249
again, you know, and I’m hungry for a talk about the home
people and the home lan .”
McCarty flushed redly and his eyes fell. It was a minute
before he found his voice.
“Thank you kindly, Lady Peggy. I’d be honored to come
sometime when you’ve an evening to spare and my work is
done,” he stammered. “There’s none of my own left in the
old country now, and ’tis long since I stopped writing, so
I’ll have to ask the news of you.”
“I’ll have plenty for you!” she smiled. “Do you remem-
ber Father Culhane? I hear from him regularly and he
gives me all the gossip of the parish, from the price of pigs
to the latest baby 1”
Ten minutes of pleasant chatter followed and then Mc-
Carty tore himself determinedly away to get to the shop
beneath his rooms before Monsieur Girard had retired for
the night. He found a light glowing dimly from the rear
but the door was bolted and he rapped smartly upon the
glass panel.
Mincing footsteps sounded from within and a withered
little man opened the door and peered out.
“Ah, it is you, my friend! Entrez!” He bowed jerkily
and waved with a grand manner toward the back of the
shop, Where behind faded brocade curtains which once had
graced the boudoir of a king’s favorite he had arranged a
sort of study for himself. Here was his Voltaire and. his
box of long, slender, odoriferous cigars, his chess-board and
the ’cello from which haunting strains rose now and again
to McCarty’s rooms, to fill him with sentimental melancholy
or lively exasperation, according to his mood. Here, too,
Monsieur Girard kept his shop accounts and entertained
the few who came to see him, for he was an old man and
lonely.
“Say, Girard, a funny thing happened to-day!” McCarty
began. “I came to tell you about it earlier but you were
away.”


THE NAME IN THE BOOK 251
spindle-legged desk he took a small, flat volume. from a
drawer and ruffled its pages. “Ah, here it is! Monsieur
Creveling purchased it for Madame Kip on the twentieth of
October. Before that I had sent to her from him a scent
bottle and a fan or two—mere bijouterie. The cabinet was
his first gift to her of value and his last! Shall I tell you?
It is indiscreet, perhaps, that I gossip now, but it is a
piquant little histoire which might have come from the
pages of De Maupassant!” '
He paused with a reminiscent smile and McCarty, who
gathered only that he was on the trail of some new dope
which would be of possible use in the case, sat up straighter
in his chair.
“Let’s have it, Girard. He quit making presents to her,
do you mean? Why?”
“That is the histoire, Monsieur McCarty. ~Madame Kip,
she have no knowledge of the artistique, no love of beauti-
ful things as have most women, even of the people; it. is
the price only to her which matters! If a thing is of ex-
pense, voila, it is to be desired; if it is exquisite but of- little
value in money, she has not eyes to see!” There was im-
measurable scorn in his voice. “It is a month after the
gift of the cabinet to her that Madame comes to me and
brings back the two fans; she must have money, I must
sell them for her. Eh, bien, that is to me an affair of busi~
ness, but when I tell her their value she flies into a rage!
She had thought them worth much more and she accuses
me of trying to cheat her! I refuse then to sell them for
her, I show her -to the door, but she makes the apology and
in the end leaves them for what they may bring.
“Not two days later Monsieur Creveling comes; he de-
sires to know if I have found for him a vase to match one
which he has, and when my back is turned he sees the fans
in the case! He asks how it is that they are there and
me, what can I say? I cannot make of myself in his eyes
a receiver of stolen goods! He buys them, giving me twice


252 HOW MANY CARDS?
what I asked, twice what he paid before, and takes them
away, but his smile, it is not pleasant!
“I send the money to Madame Kip, saying only that it is
the price which I have received for her fans but the next
day she is here once more and this time her anger, it is
affreusel She says that I have ‘sold her out’ but I do not
comprehend; it is only her fans that I have sold! Alors,
Monsieur Creveling sends no more bijouterie to Madame
from my shop! It is droll, is it not?”
“It is that l” McCarty laughed, but his quick brain was
piecing together the story, fitting it into the mosaic of fact
and theory which he had formed. “Girard, you old devil,
I’ll bet you did it on purpose l—But she’s still a customer
of yours, isn’t she? Didn’t I see her in here after closing
hours one night not a month ago? She had on an evening
dress with a motoring cloak thrown over it and she came
in an open car with a man in a fur coat.”
Monsieur Girard nodded.
“It was she. Another friend of hers who is an occasional
customer told her of a snuff-box which had just reached
me from France. It was of gold set with amethysts of rare
color and said to be of the time of Louis the Just, and
since ther'e could be no doubt of its value, Madame must
have it! It was purchased for her that night, Monsieur, by
the man in the fur coat.”
“And who was he ?” McCarty asked. “Didn’t you know
him, too? Didn’t you get his name?”
“But, yes. He gave me a check and it was under his
name that I recorded the sale here in my book.” He turned
again to the flat volume and ran through its pages rapidly.
“Here, Monsieur McCarty! Come, you shall see it for
yourself.”
McCarty rose with alacrity and crossing to his host, bent
over the ledger and read the name written there in Mon-
sieur Girard’s small, fine hand. The next minute he started
back in amazement.


THE NAME IN THE BOOK 253
“For the love of the Saints!” he ejaculated. “And ’twas
not a month ago! Think of your putting it down in your
little book, so neat and certain! Many’s the time I’ve
thought to myself that it was the poor business man you
were, with everything higgledy-piggledy in your shop and
dust that you could scrape off with a knife, but I’ll take it
all back! Keep that little book safe, Girard, for it may be
of more use than you know!”


CHAPTER XIX
GREEN FIRE
McCARTY’S long years of training on the Force had
enabled him as a matter of habit to put aside what-
ever cases he was engaged upon and mechanically compose
himself for slumber when the time for needed rest came,
but that Sunday night was an exception and he lay wide-
eyed until dawn. As- he tossed and turned and thumped
his pillow in exasperation he seemed to be wrestling with
some almost personal problem which confronted him, and
no small phase of it was his promise to Hill to help clear
his wife of the charge against her.
The first light of morning revealed him haggard and
with a grayish pallor overspreading his usually ruddy, cheer-
ful countenance, but the firm set of his square jaw be-
tokened that he had arrived at some decision and character-
istically he rose to act upon it at once.
At headquarters he found that Inspector Druet had al-
ready preceded him and the latter’s morose greeting attested
to taut nerves and the bitterness of acknowledged failure.
“You saw the papers, Mac?” he demanded. “The Bul-
letin is the loudest of all in its outcry against us for charg-
ing Hill with- the murder and then having to let him go
again on the strength of 'his alibi. And you gave that
young pup Ballard the beat on it Saturday! That’s grati-
tude for you! We get no credit at all for finding Ilsa Hel-
Mg.’,
“And since when are you looking for gratitude from the
press, or even recognition P” McCarty shrugged. “Sure,
the loss of the emeralds and that girl’s jumping her bail
254


GREEN FIRE 255
are lost sight of in all the excitement about the murder, and
small wonder.”
“Well, if we’re at a standstill it is some satisfaction to
know that Terhune is, too!” A smile of grim humor
twitched the inspector’s mouth. “George Alexander is too
proud to explain publicly why that pistol belonging to the
bookkeeper was in his possession or I believe he would
prefer a charge of criminal libel against our celebrated scien-
tific criminologist.”
“At that ’twas not a bad case he made out against him,”
remarked McCarty.
“Only it fell down flat. We found that taxi driver yes-
terday afternoon; the one with the scarred face who drove
Alexander home from Columbus Circle. He substantiates
his story all right, and Terhune is hiding his sulks behind
his usual calmly superior air. I saw him last night and
lie intimated that he had something fresh up his sleeve.”
“Well, so have we.” McCarty smiled. “We’re not at a
standstill yet, sir.”
“There’s nothing up my sleeve but my arm,” the inspector
admitted frankly. “Every suspect we get in the case seems
to have an alibi pat.—Have you doped out anything since
yesterday?”
“I lost a good night’s sleep over it, sir, but maybe ’twas
not wasted after all.” McCarty drew a chair up to the
desk and seated himself. “I was 'that twisted and turned
in the case that I went back to first principles and thought
over everything in my mind from the minute I saw that
Bodansky lad skulking along ahead of me on the Avenue,
and I got an idea. What have you done with him?”
“Bodansky?” The inspector looked across at his col-
league in surprise. “He’s up in the precinct station house
waiting to be charged with attempted burglary.”
“Will you send for him, sir? I’ll explain while he’s on
the way down. I want to ask him a few questions along
a dinerent fine than we took with him before.”


256 HOW MANY CARDS?
Inspector Druet pressed the buzzer in his desk and when
his subordinate appeared, briefly gave the order. Then
as the door closed once more he sat back in his chair.
“Go on. What’s the idea? Don’t try to have him
charged, Mac, with a crime we can’t prove on him or this
time the press will howl for my official head!”
“They’ve howled for it more than once before, sir, but
it hasn’t fallen yet !” McCarty grinned affectionately at his
chief and then his face grew serious. “I’m not going to
bring any charge whatever against the young crook, but
instead with your permission I’m going to tell him we’ll
let him down as easy as we can if he’ll come across with a
little information.”
“ ‘Information’?” the inspector repeated with raised eye-
brows. “Didn’t I have him on the carpet down here for
three hours on Friday? Your own statement proves that
he couldn’t have fired that shot, and he beat it the minute
he found the body.”
“Yes, but why did he pick on the Creveling house in
the first place?” McCarty asked suddenly. “He was not
just sauntering along looking for a likely lay when I saw
him first; he was on the job and knew where he was going,
you can bet on that! He said it was his first trick and he
only tried to turn it to prove to the rest of the gang that
he was all there, but you know from experience yourself,
sir, that the yellowest crook will keep faith with his bunch
if he’s got the fear of God in him.”
“What do you mean ?” the inspector asked. “You don’t
think he was working alone then?”
“Alone, maybe, but he was not wandering along the
Avenue looking for the first open window to crawl through!
I don’t say he was working under orders but he’d either
been tipped off or else he’d found out there. were valuables
in the house and it is not any too well guarded just now.
Something steered him toward Creveling, sir, and I’m go—
ing to have it out of him!”


GREEN FIRE 257
But when Bodansky was brought in he did not at first
find the matter as simple as he had anticipated. The young
gangster seated himself docilely enough on the edge of the
chair to which the inspector pointed a peremptory hand
and his small, rat-like eyes darted swiftly from one to the
other of the two determined faces before him, but he car-
ried himself with an- air of self-assurance which had been
lacking in the first encounter.
“Look here, Joe, I suppose you know you’re in for
a stretch?” McCarty began impressively when a glance
from Inspector 1Druet put the interrogation into his
hands.
Bodansky grinned foolishly, but the gleam of shrewdness
lingered in his gaze.
“I ain’t done nottin’,” he averred doggedly. “ ’Course I
had de gat- an’ de jack an’ de keys on me, but it’s a foist
offense, barrin’ dat stretch in de reform’tory an’ I’ll get off
light.”
“What makes you think so?” demanded McCarty. “Do
you suppose your gang would bother to have any wires
pulled to get you off, you poor little runt of a white-livered
piker? That Lexington Avenue gang of cheap crooks have
only been kidding you if you think they stand in with the
ward boss, let alone anybody higher up.”
“I ain’t kickin’,” vouchsafed Bodansky, slumping com-
fortably forward in his chair with his bullet head outthrust
between his hunched shoulders like that of a turtle. “I’m
willin’ to take whatever youse can hand me. I didn’t have
nottin’ to do wit’ croakin’ Crawford—”
“Crawford?” McCarty caught him up sharply. “So you
knew Creveling as ‘Crawford,’ eh?”
The slumped figure stiffened suddenly and the rat eyes
shifted but he drawled:
“Creveling, was it? It’s all de same to me. I t’ought
youse called him ‘Crawford’ dat night, an’ I ain’t been read-
in’ de poipers regular since!”


258 HOW MANY CARDS?
He grinned again but his lips trembled and he raised a
slack hand to cover them.
McCarty seized the opportunity which the final remark
presented.
“If you had, you’d have known better than to take that
line with us, Joe. We’re on to it that Creveling was known
as ‘Crawford’ sometimes, and why, but we didn’t think
you were in on that deal. You’ll go up for something
more than attempted burglary now, my gossoon!”
A shade of terror darkened the pasty face and Joe Bo-
dansky writhed in his chair.
“I dunno what youse mean !” he whined. “Honest t’Gawd
I never heard of dat guy till I saw him lyin’ dere wit’ his
face gone! If he was known as ‘Crawford’ youse must’ve
said so den an’ dat’s how I got it! Honest t’Gawd—!”
McCarty turned to the dumfounded inspector and asked
cryptically:
“Shall we get the other one over from the Tombs and
face ’em, sir? We’ve got it now that the big fellow was
holding out on us about Joe here, and when he knows Joe
give him away—!”
A thin wailing cry broke in upon him and Bodansky,
shivering with fright, turned imploringly to the in—
spector.
“I ain’t no snitcher! I didn’t give him away! What are
youse trying to frame me for? If youse get him over an’
he t’inks I spilled on him youse had better send me up for
life, for he’ll see dat I’m croaked de foist time I show me
face in de street! I ain’t in on his game, on my modder I
ain’t! He don’t even know I’m wise to it!”
“Then come clean l” the inspector advised grimly. “Tell
us how you knew Creveling was Crawford P”
“It was all on account of dat skirt I got stuck on,” B0-
dansky admitted with evident reluctance. “I told youse de
Gawd’s trut’ when I said dat I’d never turned a trick be-
fore de night youse nabbed me comin’ out of dat window,


GREEN FIRE 259
but I stood in wit’ de gang an’ got my bit when dey. pulled
off anyt’ing, see? About two mont’s ago a guy was rolled
over on Madison Avenue; oh, I didn’t have anyt’ing to do
wit’ dat part of it, an’ I don’t know who did de rollin’ so
I ain’t afraid to open me trap about it! Anyhow, when de
split was made in Hogan’s back room I dragged down
twenty iron men an’ de foist't’ing I t’ought of was a gold
bracelet wit’ red stones in it over across. de way in Kosa-
kofi’s window. Me goil had been lookin’ at it an’ hintin’
around dat de guy dat owns de candy store where she
works would get it for hen—Say, how did youse get on to
Kosakoff, anyhow? He don’t even run a hock shop like
most of de odder fences do, an’ dat ticker repairin’ job is a
hell of a good blin .” >
He paused and the inspector shook his head, carefully
avoiding McCarty’s quizzical gaze.
“It’s nothing to you how we get our dope, Joe. Go on
with your story, and mind you give it to us straight!”
“De minute I got mine I beat it across de street to Kosa-
koff’s place, like I’m tellin’ youse,” Bodansky went on hur-
riedly with an' injured air. “It was late an’ he was just
puttin’ up his shutters, but I flashed me twenty an’ he let
me in. He was gettin’ de bracelet out of de window when
de door opens an’ in comes a regular swell. He’s got his
lid pulled down over his eyes an’ his coat collar turned up
like he’s scared of somebody seein’ him an’ right away I
says to myself, ‘Dis Kosakoif’s a fence, all right, an’ dat
guy’s some high-class crook.’
“Kosakoff gives him de 0-0 and shoves de bracelet into
my mitt, walkin’ quick around de counter but de guy looks
up an’ I see he’s no crook. He don’t seem to see me at
all but he turns up his nose like de joint was dirt an’ old
Kosakofi a dog. I’m pretendin’ to be lampin’ de bracelet,
see, but I’m wisin’ myself up to de lay-out. Old Kosakoif
has got de guy’s number all right an’ he’s tryin’ to get him
off down de odder end of de store so’s I won’t pipe what’s


262 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Sure, but he gets out in t’ree mont’s, an’ dey’re roundin’
up de organization again.” Bodansky pulled himself up
suddenly. “Say, I don’t know dat, I’m just talkin’ t’rough
me hat! I ain’t got not’in’ on Kosakoff, at dat. It ain’t a
crime for a swell guy to go over to de East Side to sell de
fam’ly jewels, an’ as for Spanish an’ Harry, dey might have
reformed, an’ gone dere peaceable, like I done, to buy some—
t’in’ for dere goils. I only got cold feet like I told you, an’
laid off de whole works. You can’t prove not’in’ by me!”
“You’ve gone too far to stop now, Joe l” the inspector
said sternly. “You come through with the whole business
or we’ll put you on the stand against Kosakofi. Who were
the other fences you saw going into his place P”
But Joe Bodansky’s suddenly aroused suspicion that, in
his own parlance, he was being “played for a come-on” had
crystallized into certainty with the eagerness of the inspec-
tor’s attitude and once more he slumped in his chair. A
film seemed to glaze his close-set eyes and when he replied
it was in the sing-song whine of the habitual crook.
“Ain’t I told you I only know ’em by sight? One of de
gang—I forgot which—pointed ’em out to me once, but he
might have been kiddin’ me! As for Harry and Spanish,
I never lamped ’em before in me life; I just got a hunch
it was dem from seein’ deir mugs in de papers when Bron-
heim was tried. Honest t’Gawd. . . .”
“Send him back, sir,” McCarty urged in a rapid under-
tone to the inspector. “You’ll get nothing more out of him
this day, and we’ve got a good lead as it is. I want to get
out on the job without losing any time.”
Late that afternoon McCarty presented himself once
more at the Creveling house and to his request for an in-
terview with Mrs. Creveling the butler brought an affirma-
tive and even cordial response.
“You can go right up, sir. I think Mrs. Creveling was
about to send down for your inspector, anyway, for there
was a scene this morning between ’er and that Mr. Terhune


GREEN FIRE 263
that I couldn’t ’elp ’earing most- of, and what I missed
Yvonne, the maid, told us at lunch. She ain’t satisfied with
’ow ’e’s conducting of the case, to put it mild, sir, and she
told Mrs. Waverly as ’ow she was going to find out what
progress you was making.”
As before, McCarty found Mrs. Creveling in her boudoir
but this time she was pacing the floor restlessly and a faint
spot of color glowed in either cheek while Mrs. Waverly,
curled up on the window seat, watched her with an inscrut-
able look in her long, feline eyes.
“I am glad you have come, Mr. McCarty.” Mrs. Crevel-
ing gestured imperiously toward a chair. “You were here
yesterday, I understand, but the doctor had counseled ab-
solute rest for me. I cannot rest, I shall not, until I know
who killed my husband! Have you come with news for
us ?”
“News of a kind for you, ma’am,” McCarty responded
with a deprecatory side-glance at the figure in the window.
“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to see you in private.”
“ ‘H ave to’ ?” Mrs. Creveling raised her eyebrows. “You
can say whatever you wish before Mrs. Waverly.”
“I’ve instructions from headquarters, ma’am.” McCarty’s
tone was respectful, but he shook his head firmly. “What
I have to say must be said to you alone, but of course,
you’re free to use your own discretion afterwards.”
Mrs. Waverly had made no move to rise and was listen-
ing with a supercilious amusement to the little tilt but Mrs.
Creveling’s eyes met those of McCarty in sudden question
and then she turned to her companion.
“If you don’t mind, Stella—? You see we are in the
hands of the authorities now—”
“Quite so.” Mrs. Waverly laughed and rose. “Send
Yvonne for me when the dark secret has been disclosed.
I’m going to take a nap.”
Without deigning to notice the presence of McCarty she
moved to the door and when it had closed behind her Mc-


264- HOW MANY CARDS?
Carty advanced to the table beside which Mrs. Creveling
had halted and drew from his pocket a leather case.
“For one thing, Mrs. Creveling,” he said gravely. “I’ve
come to bring you these!”
Before her amazed eyes he opened the case and poured
out upon the table a stream of huge, unset emeralds which
glowed with a rich but almost sinister vernal light.
“My emeralds!” she gasped. “I read in the papers that
Ilsa had given herself up but I did not know that these had
been recovered! She had pried them from their set-
tings—?”
“She never touched them, ma’am. She never even saw
them.” There was a stern note in McCarty’s tones. “Ilsa
is as innocent of theft as you are yourself.”
“Then who— ?” Mrs. Creveling’s eyes met his and the
flash of green fire from the jewels upon the table seemed
for an instant reflected in their depths. As though some
premonition of the truth came to her she shrank back and
sank slowly into the nearest chair. “It must have been Ilsa,
and I am determined that she shall be punished! The mere
restitution of these jewels is not enough; she must be made
an example—”
“The thief who stole them is beyond reach of your pun-
ishment, ma’am.”
Mrs. Creveling’s breath came pantingly.
“How do you know? What have you learned?” she de-
manded, and then as though afraid to hear his answer she
added hurriedly: “But it is absurd! No one else could
have taken them, no one could have entered my dressing
room during my absence. Mr. Creveling himself testified
to that! I had seen them with my own eyes when I closed
the case not five minutes before—l”
“ ’Twas these you saw, ma’am.” McCarty produced an-
other case, the replica of the first and opened it, disclosing
a necklace and stomacher of antique gold set with small
diamonds and large deep-green stones, whose color seemed


GREEN FIRE 265
dead and flat beside the warm glow of those lying loose
upon the table. “They’re a good imitation put back in your
own old settings, and ’twas done between the time you got
the real ones from the vault and the night you meant to
wear them."
“Do you mean that they were taken from my husband’s
safe?” Her voice was a mere whisper.
“Yes, ma’am, and by the only one who knew the combina-
tion; the same who entered your dressing room after Ilsa
had left it for a minute, and took the fakes after he learned
that you meant to- have them reset almost at once and knew
that you’d find out the truth.”
“What do you mean?” she cried. “Are you daring to
insinuate-— !”
“I’m not insinuating anything, ma’am, but I’ll speak
plainer if you like,” McCarty said grimly. “We’ve found
the man who made the fakes and he can testify that ’twas
Mr. Creveling himself who brought the original set to him
to have the emeralds prized out and copied. We’ve got the
fence—the receiver of stolen goods—who bought the real
stones from Mr. Creveling for twenty thousand dollars, and
he can prove who his customer was. Mr. Creveling saw
his chance and threw the blame on Ilsa, but he never meant
to have her prosecuted for it, I’ll say that for him; he only
thought to gain time. ’Twas your husband himself who
was the thief, Mrs. Creveling!”


CHAPTER XX
MICE AND MEN—AND TRIXIE BURNS
‘5 F course you’d be pulling off a thing like that when
I’m on duty and not with you for the fire works!”
Dennis mourned, when later still that afternoon McCarty
presented himself at the engine house and reported his re-
covery of the emeralds. “Whatever put you in mind of
that Bodansky again P”
“When I was going over the whole case in my head from
the very start I saw a kind of a picture before me of that
young crook slinking along to his job and it came over
me all of a sudden that ’twas not by accident he picked on
the Creveling 'house. I only wonder I never thought of it
before.” McCarty shook his head. “’Twas easy enough
to make him talk when I once got him going, and then I
took Martin and Yost and trailed up Third Avenue look-
ing for the little jewelry shop of my new friend Kosakoff.
We found it all right and him mending watches behind his
counter as meek and respectable appearing as the next one!
He had a gold pair of spectacles on himself, down on the
tip of his nose, and a full set of white whiskers that would
do credit to Santa Claus, and not the sharpest dick in the
business would have taken him for Bronheim’s right-hand
man.
“He made out to be hard of hearing at first and acted
the scared, bewildered old innocent to the life, knowing
nothing about anything and having his business ruined and
his good name took away from him because of some mis-
take of the hard-hearted police, but he sang a different tune
when I opened up on him. I took a chance and told him
266


MICE AND MEN—AND TRIXIE BURNS 267
that Spanish Lou and Diamond Harry had been run in and
were down at headquarters telling all they knew, and then I
sprung it that we were looking for those emeralds. He
swore by all the little fathers of Russia that he never saw
them nor heard of Crawford, but when Martin pulled out
the warrant and the bracelets he saw that the game was
up and made a grab down behind the counter. Then
Yost—”
“And where were you while them two lads were making
the pinch?” inquired Dennis.
McCarty grinned.
“I got to him before he reached his gun,” he remarked
modestly. “I took a glass case with me that was filled with
cuff-links and such, and there was a bit of a commotion
around the place for a while, but Kosakoff was willing to
talk when he woke up after the little nap he decided to take,
sudden, when he first hit the floor. Some more of the boys
had come over from the station house to keep the crowd
back and we got him into the room at the rear of the shop,
and made him come across.
“He knows who ‘Crawford’ was all right, though he
won’t admit it, nor that he had the least suspicion the em—
eralds were the same the papers were making such a holler
about when the girl was held for trial and jumped her bail.
It seems that a swell who gave the name of ‘Foster’ had
sold him a pearl necklace and some other junk and when
‘Crawford’ came he said ‘Foster’ had recommended him
there. Creveling had only meant to borrow those emeralds
from his wife, not steal them, for he arranged with Kosa—
koff to hold them for three months and agree to sell them
back to him for thirty thousand; he must have been in a
tight squeeze, for he only got two-thirds of what they were
worth, and then dug down for ten thousand for Ilsa’s bail
when his wife was determined to send her up.”
“Well, why wouldn’t she be?” Dennis asked. “Did Hill’s
wife make sheep’s eyes at you that you can see only her


268 HOW MANY CARDS?
side of it? It was tough luck, of course, her being innocent
and all, but Mrs. Creveling didn’t know that and you can’t
blame her for wanting the thief punished.”
McCarty shook his head.
“I’m not so sure, Denny, that ’twas a matter of principle
with her so much as protection. I’ve got an idea that after
she started the rumpus about the robbery and called in the
police she got more than a suspicion of the truth, but ’twas
too late to back down from the stand she had taken and
Ilsa was the goat. Mrs. Creveling is a hard woman, with
the hardness that comes only to the proud when something
has made them suffer and they don’t take it right. There’s
some that tribulation makes gentle and forbearing and some
that it turns to stone and she’s the last sort. I’m thinking
her husband broke her heart and if it hadn’t been for her
pride she’d have kicked him out long ago. "1‘ is not love
for him now that’s made her so set on finding his murderer,
but other women have been the cause of her suffering and
she suspects some woman is at the bottom of his being shot.
As long as all this notoriety and scandal have been brought
down on her anyway, she’s going to find that other woman
and make her suffer too, or I miss my guess.”
“And she had never a word of regret for allthe harm
she’d done Ilsa when you told her the truth?”
“Oh, yes.” McCarty/s lip curled. “It’s her own lawyers
that’ll help quash the indictment, and her own influence
through old Alexander that’ll smooth out the little matter
of bail jumping, and a handsome settlement she’ll make on
both Hill and Ilsa. I took the satisfaction of warning her
that the matter of settlement might be decided by the courts
if Ilsa brought action against her and I hinted that the both
of them more than suspected the truth. She’ll move heaven
and earth to keep it from coming out, of course, and I
shouldn’t wonder if them two was fixed for life.”
“ ’Twas a grand blufl you handed her about finding the
man that made the fake emeralds, and that he could prove


270 HOW MANY CARDS?
I found what I was after? Over on Staten Island, no less,
at a branch of the Tradesman’s and Artisan’s Bank.”
“You’ve the luck !” declared Dennis. “But who was this
guy ‘Foster’ that Creveling said had recommended him to
this Kosakofi? The one that sold a pearl necklace P”
“There’s no knowing, but it may turn out to be one of
the suckers who got cleaned out at Cutter’s poker table and
sold some stuff belonging to some woman of his family to
cover his losses. I figure out that he must have told Crevel-
ing and that put the brilliant idea into his head, for he
wasn’t the kind to think it up all by himself.”
“Well, I’ll say you worked quick,” commented Dennis.
“A matter of twenty-four hours and you’ve cleared up what
the best fellows in the detective bureau haven’t been able
to do in two months, but you’re no nearer yet to the man
who killed Crev—l”
“Denny, for the love of the saints, will you put on a new
record!” McCarty exclaimed in exasperation. Then he
glanced at his watch and chuckled once,more. “And put on
your regular clothes while you are about it, for ’tis nearly
six o’clock and you’re going to a party to-night.”
“A party, is it P” Dennis eyed him suspiciously. “If ’tis
another of Mr. Terhune’s little—”
“ ’Tis not. You’re going to a theater this night—a big
one on Broadway—t0 see what they call a musical comedy,
and you’ll be taking a lady out to supper afterwards; one
of the ladies in the show.”
“Not if I know it!” retorted Dennis firmly. “Have you
taken leave of your senses, Mac, at your time—”
“ ’Tis a wonder I’ve not, trailing around with you all these
years,” interrupted McCarty. “I thought we’d be going on
Saturday night but Terhune’s little moving picture inter-
fered; ’twas for that I mentioned a dress suit to you, but
it’s just as well to go as we are, for you’ll feel more natural.
I’ve bought the tickets already and left a note to be given
to the girl when she reaches the theater.”


MICE AND MEN—AND TRIXIE BURNS 271
“What’s it you’ve got up your sleeve, Mac?” demanded
Dennis. “What’s the name of the show and who is the
girl? I know well what you’re taking me along for, but
I’ll never in- the world be able to ‘talk to her!”
“If you think it is for conversation I’m inviting you,
Denny, I could just as well take a. deaf-mute, provided he’d
not got rheumatism in his fingers !” McCarty replied with
withering scorn. “As for the girl you’ve had her on your
knee many’s the time.”
“Me?” Dennis turned a scandalized face on his friend.
“I’ll have you know, Timothy Mc—”
“The show,” McCarty put in innocently, “is a fool thing
called ‘Bye-bye Baby.’ ”
“I’ve heard that name somewhere lately, besides seeing
it on the bill-boards,” Dennis reflected aloud. “wasn’t
somebody telling me—? Mac! ’Tis the show Terry
Burns’s daughter is in, her that threw over Eddy Kirby for
a stage career, as I was after telling you the other day!
’Tis little Bea herself we’ll be taking out for supper 1”
“It is,” McCarty admitted briefly.
“But why? Well I know you’ll not be taking an evening
off in the middle of a case to go gallivanting to the theater
nor yet to be seeing the daughter of an old. friend. What’s
she to do with the shooting of that man; Creveling?”
“Nothing, you loon!” McCarty exclaimed disgustedly.
“Do you mind how we came to be talking of her the other
day? I was telling you that some of the girls from that
same show were at the party Waverly attended on Thurs-
day night at Sam Vedder’s apartment. It come to me that
if little Bea wasn’t there herself she could introduce us to
one that was, and I’d like to find out how Waverly acted
that night; whether he was just having a good time without
a care in the world or if there seemed to be something on
his mind.—’Tis six now, and you’re off duty. Hurry up
and come on.”
But Dennis refused to be hurried and no stage door satel-


272 HOW MANY CARDS?
lite could have been at more pains with his sartorial ap-
pearance. McCarty left him at length to follow at his pleas-
ure and feturned to his rooms to add an extra touch or two
to his own attire and he was struggling with a new, tight
collar when the telephone rang.
“Hello!” he said curtly.
“Are you there, McCarty ?” Terhune’s voice came to him
over the wire. “If you are not busy I wish you would drop
in at my rooms this evening. A new phase of the case has
occurred to me which I would like to discuss with you.”
McCarty gave an exasperated wrench at the collar and
flung it on the floor.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he replied firmly, “but I’ve got an en-
gagement for this evening.”
“Then break it,” advised Terhune coolly. “This is of
the greatest importance. I have come to the conclusion
after careful study of the situation that the man who
killed—!”
Very softly and deliberately McCarty hung up the re-
ceiver and rolling up a bit of paper he stuffed it under the
bell on the top of the telephone. He was standing with a
smile of infinite satisfaction, listening to its persistent but
impotent whir when Dennis appeared at last.
They dined hurriedly at their favorite chop house and
reached the theater just as the orchestra was starting the
overture. From their seats in the third row Dennis craned
his neck around and surveyed the house, taking a profes-
sional interest in the arrangement of the exits while Mc-
Carty studied the program and snorted.
“A fine kind of a job- for Terry’s daughter !” he com-
mented. “She must be doing well, though; I see they’ve
given her a lot of parts. She’s a villager in the first act
and a model and a hunt ball guest—whatever that is l—in
the second, and in the' third she’s ‘Babette.’ ”
“That’ll mean she’s got a line to speak,” Dennis remarked.
“If we can’t spot her from the rest till then we’ll know her


MICE AND MEN—AND TRIXIE BURNS 273
when she opens her mouth, if she’s grown up to be like her
mother, God rest her soul! You could hear her to the Bat-
tery when Terry came home late.”
“We’ll know her, all right.” McCarty smiled slyly, but
Dennis had no time to inquire the reason for his certitude,
for the curtain ascended and mundane things were lost to
him.
“That’s her!” McCarty exclaimed after an interval.
“Third from your left.”
“That tall girl with a bunch of violets on her as big as
a platter and hair like brass in the sun ?” Dennis sniffed
incredulously. “You’re dippy, Mac! There was never a
blonde in the family.”
Nevertheless he watched her assiduously during that act
and the one which followed, and when in the third his pre-
diction was verified and Babette fed a line or two to the
comedian he sank back in his seat.
“True for you, Mac,” he muttered. “She could shoot up
like a water tower and bleach out the honest brown hair of
her but that’s the voice of Moira O’Malley Burns!”
Later he sat in solitary state in the taxicab from which
he had refused to budge at the stage entrance to the thea—
ter, while McCarty waited at the door and furtively scanned
the faces of the girls in plain or elaborate attire as they
emerged to hasten off alone up the street or be whirled
away in waiting cars, and he thought miserably of the hour
before him. How was he ever to talk to this strange,
changeling daughter of Terry, the fight promoter?
But when Miss Burns, with the grinning McCarty in
tow, appeared at the door of the taxi, she unexpectedly lifted
the anticipated burden from his shoulders.
“How de do, Mr. Riordan?” She touched his hand with
her gloved fingers and settled with a little whirl into the
seat beside him. “It was awfully good of you two old dears
to look me up. This is the first night I haven’t had a date
in a month! And I want to thank you so much for my vio-


MICE AND MEN—AND TRIXIE BURNS 275
do things right even if he is only a kind of a con. man, as
they say. This was my souvenir.”
She exhibited a gold card case attached to the chain of
her mesh bag and Dennis glanced swiftly at McCarty, but
the latter was examining the trinket admiringly.
“Sam told me about that party and some of the people
who were to be there,” he observed. “Several of your com-
Pally—,1
“Only the girls. He left it to Whitfield and she asked
eight of us. The men were all Sam’s friends: Chedsey, the
hardware man, and Danton—you know Danton’s Flesh
Cream ?—and Mayer of the Imperial Cloaks and Suits, and
Jeffrey Hunt and Roy Goodsell and Fales Ogden and a
couple of bookies whose names I don’t remember.” Trixie
paused for breath. “Lots of money and good sports, but
Ogden was the only real swell.”
Dennis stiffened and McCarty’s grip tightened upon his
fork.
“Sam said something about a fellow named Waverly,” he
remarked with studied carelessness. “Maybe he was one of
the bookies— ?”
Trixie made a little grimace.
“N 0, he wasn’t. Who doesn’t know Doug Waverly? Dis-
gusting beast, but he’s what you’d call a society swell, all
right. It’s funny Vedder spoke of him to you; trying to
make out he’s intimate with people that have got class, I
suppose. Waverly goes around with Ogden a lot but he
wouldn’t trail with a sporting man like Sam.”
“Then he wasn’t at that party last Thursday night ?” Mc-
Carty persisted. “Maybe he came after you left.”
“Well, he must have come with the milk if he did, for
we girls all left together at five in the .morning.” Trixie
stifled a yawn as she picked up her gloves. “I haven’t been
to bed before dawn in ages, and I’ve got to cut out the par-
ties soon for a while and get down to study on Whitfield’s
part."


278 HOW MANY CARDS?
though, if headquarters is taking an interest in him.—Say!
That’s the night his friend was shot—!”
“Oh, nothing like that!” McCarty laughed. “This is a
little matter about a private gambling establishment that
we’ve got the goods on. By the way, if you’re such a friend
of Waverly’s you must have sat in more than one game
with him; what’s his particular hunch, his mascot, his lucky
card? He’s got one, hasn’t he P”
“Sure he has!” Sam Vedder laughed. “He says it has
brought a streak of luck down through the family for gen-
erations; it’s the nine of diamonds !”


280 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Then I suppose I needn’t tell you who has decided to
find out at last what he is doing when he’s not home.” Mc-
Carty winked deliberately. “Now, we know all right, but
it’s our business to hand in a report that’ll let him out, see?
He was here last Thursday afternoon late, wasn’t he ?”
“I don’t know, but I can find out for you.” The man
looked his contempt for the shady private detective he be-
lieved the other to be. “I only come on at eight o’clock.
Mr. Waverly may have been here earlier but he came in a
little before nine o’clock.”
Nine o’clock! So another part of Waverly’s alibi was
untrue! He had said that he had gone directly from Sharp’s
Chophouse to see the last act of “The Girl from Paradise,”
and from there to Vedder’s apartment.
“Was Mr. Waverly alone? Did he stay long?” McCarty
asked.
"No, sir. He only remained about a quarter of an hour
and he was looking for some one.” The man spoke with
evident hesitation. “It may have been an appointment, but
I couldn’t say. Mr. Waverly seemed much annoyed, sir.”
“Was he in a temper ?”
“He was. It isn’t proper for us to discuss the members
of the club, sir, but a fat man like Mr. Waverly oughtn’t
to get himself all worked up the way he does. He’ll drop
dead some day right here and there’s bound to be unpleas-
ant comment in the papers. I thought myself that he would
have a stroke that night!”
“And who was he looking for?” McCarty saw the man’s
color change.
“I really don’t know, sir. I didn’t hear him say—”
“Oh, that’s all right.” McCarty laughed. “If it was
Eugene Creveling, the man who was shot that night, you
needn’t be afraid to say so. I’ve got a friend in the homi-
cide bureau down at headquarters, and he says they know
all about the quarrel between Mr. Waverly and Mr. Crevel-
ing and that it doesn’t cut any ice; they know the fellow


MCCARTY OPENS THE POT 281
that did the shooting and they’re going to spring it as soon
as they get a little more evidence.”
“Yes, it was Mr. Creveling whom Mr. Waverly was look-
ing for, and it was just as well he wasn’t here or there
would have been a scene,” the man admitted confidentially.
“Mr. Waverly was purple in the face and the language he
used wasn’t fit to be heard in the club, but it was quiet here
and few of the members were around. A telephone call
came for Mr. Waverly, though, and after he’d answered it
he calmed down.”
“What time was this P”
“Only a minute or so after nine; he couldn’t have been
here more than ten minutes then.”
“Who was the call from?”
“I don’t know, sir.” The man hesitated once more. “The
boy at the switchboard told me about it after, or I wouldn’t
have known he got a call. He must have sent for his car
right away, for in another five minutes it was at the door
and he drove off. I haven’t seen him since; he hasn’t been
around the club, at least not in the evening.”
“And how did he seem when he drove off P Was he over
his fit of temper?”
“Oh, quite. He chuckled when he took the wheel.”
“Then he drove himself? Which car did he take out
that night P”
“His fast roadster, sir. Yes, Mr. Waverly drove himself
and he told the man who brought the car down from the
garage that he didn’t know when he would send it back;
he’d call up if he wanted him to come anywhere for it.”
“Didn’t one of his own chaufieurs bring the car around,
then?”
“No. I think both of them are down at his country
place, and Mr. Waverly keeps the car in a public garage
when his town house is closed up.”
“What garage?” McCarty persisted.
“The Porter-Adams, up on East Eightieth Street.”


MCCARTY OPENS THE POT- 283
he had not closed his eyes on the previous night he felt in
no mood for sleep. The evidence which he had collected
was purely of a negative nature thus far, but as plainly as
though he had himself been present he could now trace in
his mind every incident of that fateful Thursday night.
But would he be able, when the moment came, to lay his
cards upon the table with enough circumstantial evidence
to carry conviction? Proof was not to be hoped for since
no living being but Creveling himself and. one other had
been within those walls when the shot was fired and Mc-
Carty knew that a confession was not to be thought of,
unless .
He reached his rooms at last, healthily fatigued after his
long walk to find that a note had been thrust under his
door. It was from Inspector Druet, and read in part:
“Dear Mac :
“Fine work recovering emeralds, but where have
you been? Why don’t you keep me posted on
movements? Tried to get you all evening. Think
I’m on track at last of man who killed—”
“May the devil and all his relations take him and his
‘tracks’ !” cried McCarty aloud and without troubling to
read further he tore the note in two and flung it in exas-
peration into the waste basket. Then he turned out the
light and went to bed.
The sun was high when he awakened and after a hasty
breakfast at the little nearby restaurant and a glance at
the papers he started downtown once more and across to
the Porter-Adams garage. He had purposely neglected to
shave and the old suit which he had donned was unpressed
and shiny as to seams, while the usual derby had been re-
placed by a shabby cap set at a decidedly rakish angle,
which concealed a long strip of perfectly superfluous sur-
gical plaster. He looked every inch a middle-aged mechanic.


CHAPTER XXII
THE TURN or A CARD
66 E’RE in for it now, but I don’t mind telling you,
Jack, that I think this is damned bad business 1”
Nicholas Cutter eyed his guest moodily across the dinner
table. “It is infamous of the authorities to attempt to in-
terfere with a man’s amusement in his own home among
friends! I tell you things are coming to a rotten state in
this country! How do you know that this outrageous de-
mand of the McCarty fellow isn’t just a trick to catch us
in the act ?”
“Because I know him,” John Cavanaugh O’Rourke de-
clared stoutly. “He’s a friend of mine from my boyhood
days and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me or my wife,
you can rely on that.”
“A gambling scandal wouldn’t affect you so much, my
boy; you’d be merely one of the players, but you forget
that these games have been taking place in my house and
I’ve been the banker. It would mean ostracism, ruin to
me to be hauled up in court like the keeper of a common
gambling house!”
“Timmie knows that, and he is protecting you because
you are a friend of mine,” O’Rourke replied.
“But how about Doug Waverly ? Why was that detective
chap so anxious to have him here? I tell you it doesn’t
look good to me !”
“I don’t know.” A little thoughtful frown gathered on
O’Rourke’s forehead, but he added loyally: “Whatever
his motive is, Nick, you can be sure it is only to avoid trou-
ble for us. I wish I could be as sure of all my friends as
I am of Timmie!”
293


294 HOW MANY CARDS?
“Oh, you Irish!” Cutter smiled, then he asked quickly:
“But what did you mean by that?"
“Oh, nothing; forget it.” O’Rourke shrugged. “I was
just thinking of ’Gene Creveling, that’s all. He was pretty
sure of his friends, wasn’t he, and yet some man broke
bread with him and then shot him down in cold blood.”
Cutter shuddered fastidioust and pushed back his chair.
“By Jove, you’re in a cheerful mood!” he exclaimed.
“I’ve been trying to get poor old ’Gene out of my mind all
day. If he didn’t kill himself, it is my opinion that we’ll
never know who did and there’s no use being morbid about
it. He has cashed in, but the game is still going on and
we’ve got to play.—Corne into the music room; I’ve had
the piano restrung and I want you to hear the tone.”
They passed from the dim, cloistered beauty of the high-
ceilinged Jacobean dining-room into a larger, more lofty
apartment, its walls a tracery of rich carvings that had
been brought panel by panel from a Florentine palace, its
chandeliers a glory of glittering crystals which were re-
flected in the sheen of the mosaic floor. Upon a raised
platform at the farther end of the room were grouped a
score or more of musical instruments of all ages, from an
ancient lyre to the most modern masterpiece of the piano
maker's’ art, and nearly all possessed, histories which had
made them coveted by museums the world over.
With an impatient gesture Cutter switched off all the
lights save that which glowed from a single low lantern be-
hind the piano and advanced to the platform, while O’Rourke
dropped into a chair at its foot and gave himself up in a
dreamy ecstasy to the wondrous tones which welled out
beneath the master touch of his extraordinarily gifted host.
He came to himself with a start when Cutter stopped
abruptly and whirled around upon the stool, exclaiming
while still the notes of the final chord pulsed upon the air:
“Damn it, this McCarty has something up his sleeve!
Why should he practically blackmail me into receiving him


THE TURN OF A CARD 295
and his confounded friends to-night? If he is going to
use his influence to keep us out of any mess on your ac-
count, as you are so confident he will, why doesn’t he do it
and not force himself on us? I don’t like it, and no more
does Doug. Have you seen him ?”
O’Rourke nodded.
“He’s like a bear with a sore head. Somebody has been
poking a nose into his private affairs and I’ve never seen
him in such a rage. I had my work cut out for me to
make him realize that it was to the interest of all of us to
be diplomatic to-night and extend a glad hand to our friends
of the police department. He promised finally that he
would come.”
“Who are the other two McCarty is bringing beside In-
spector Druet ?” asked Cutter. “It wouldn’t surprise me to
see the District Attorney and the head of the Vice Com-
mittee—”
“Oh, nothing like that!” O’Rourke laughed. “He didn’t
say, but I think we can safely leave the personnel of the
party to his discretion—There they are now, or Waverly!”
The muflled thud of the knocker had come faintly to
their ears through the opened door and Cutter rose with-
out a word and led the way toward the back of the house, to
the glass-enclosed extension which jutted out into the yard.
No flowers bloomed here, but the rarest and most beau-
tiful of all the objects of art with which Cutter had sur-
rounded himself were grouped in this exquisite room like
a collection of perfect jewels in a fitting casket. The rich,
somber hall through which they passed served but as a
background for the fairy-like brilliance which greeted them
on the threshold. Myriads of soft lights shone upon world-
famed paintings and were reflected in the long mirrors,
gleaming back in a thousand flashing facets from the crys-
tal and gold of the superb supper service spread out upon
the long sideboard; fauteuils and cabinets of marvelous
workmanship lined the walls, in strange contrast to the


296 HOW MANY CARDS?
plain mahogany table covered with green baize and the
equally severe chairs that surrounded it which occupied the
center of the room and which seemed by their mere in-
congruityto focus the attention.
The apartment was a familiar one to O’Rourke and he
stood a little to one side conversing with his host in a low
tone as the old man-servant threw open the doors and ad-
mitted the visitors.
“This is a pleasure, Mr. McCarty, I assure you.” Cut-
ter advanced to the foremost of the arrivals and held out
his hand. “If you had told me when you called the other
day that you were a devotee of our national indoor game
I would have gladly extended an invitation to you to join
us any time. We play quite frequently, you know.”
McCarty’s eyes twinkled with amusement at the audacity
of his host, but he turned with grave dignity to present his
companions.
“This is Inspector Druet, Mr. Cutter, and an old friend
of mine, Dennis Riordan, who is not connected with the
Force. Mr. Terhune I’m thinking you know.”
“We have met,” Mr. Cutter acknowledged somewhat
wryly as he shook hands. "I am glad to welcome you, gen-
tlemen; you know Mr. O’Rourke, I think.”
McCarty drew the latter gentleman aside under cover of
the general conversation which immediately followed and
asked:
“Where is Mr. Waverly?”
“He promised to be here, and I expect him any minute.”
O’Rourke looked at the other quizzically. “Say, do you
know anything about what made him so angry to-day ?”
“Was he upset like?” McCarty grinned.
“I thought he’d have a fit! You warned me over the
’phone that he would be in a bad humor, you know, and I
thought you must be at the bottom of it. I don’t mind
telling you, Timmie, that Cutter doesn’t half like the idea
of this little party to-night ; he is afraid you are up to some


THE TURN OF A GARD 297
trick, but I assured him that you wouldn’t try anything
of that sort on a friend of mine.”
There was a rising inflection in his tone as though he
were asking a question and McCarty responded to it gravely.
“It is a trick, in a way, sir, and I’m bound to admit it,
but it has nothing to do with the games that’s been going
on here. ’Tis a more serious matter, entirely, and this was
the only way to come at the truth.”
“ ‘A more serious matter’ P” O’Rourke repeated. “Good
God, you don’t mean anything to do with Creveling’s death ?”
McCarty nodded slowly.
“I’m telling you this in strict confidence, sir, not only be-
cause it’s your due since you helped us arrange this little
party, but because I want you to sit tight and say or do
nothing no matter what is said or done that you might take
exception to. You’ll realize that we’ve a purpose behind
it all and wait till we can explain more fully.” He paused
and added in a still lower but most impressive tone: “You
see, we know who killed Mr. Creveling, but we don’t know
why. Waverly does, and it’s the last link we need in the
chain against the guilty person. We’ve got to get the truth
out of him even if it takes a hell of a scare to make him
come across. You understand ?”
“Yes, I think I do, Timmie, but was it necessary to drag
us all in?” There was infinite reproach and chagrin in
O’Rourke’s tones.
“ ’Tis to keep you all out of anything further that I've
asked you all to be here to—night,” McCarty responded.
“Waverly’ll get the scare here, but he’ll do his explaining
afterwards, in private, and it’ll let the rest out that’s here.
I’m keeping my promise to you and doing whatever’s in
my power to prevent trouble from coming to all of you.”
“ ’Evening, everybody. Have I kept the game waiting?”
They all turned with one accord to the door, to find Doug-
las Waverly standing on the threshold. He appeared com-
posed and tried to smile, but a faint, mottled flush was


298 HOW MANY CARDS?
visible upon his flabby countenance and the veins on his
forehead stood out like whipcords. Nodding with cool
assurance to McCarty he acknowledged the introduction to
the others civilly enough and turned to the baize-covered
table where Cutter had already seated himself and was
busily engaged in stacking up the ivory chips.
The latter looked up with a smile of welcome which
quickly changed to a look of concern.
“Hello, Doug! Anything the matter? You look a little
seedy. You’re not ill, are you?”
Waverly shook his head but one pudgy hand went to the
left breast of his shirt front.
“Just a touch of the old trouble, but it’s been giving me
some rotten twinges to-day,” he admitted. “I’ll be all right,
of course; I’ve been running the old engine too long on
high, I expect.—What’s the limit to-night? We’ll have to
pike, I suppose.”
“Sit beside me, sir, on my left,” McCarty said in a hur-
ried undertone to O’Rourke as they all moved toward the
table.
The latter glanced at him in surprise, but obeyed without
comment, his eyes wandering to the others as they took
their places. Dennis Riordan marched to the chair at his
other side, next to that of Cutter, while Terhune in turn
seated himself on Cutter’s left and Inspector Druet on Me-
Carty’s right, leaving the only vacant chair between him-
self and the criminologist. Waverly looked about him,
shrugged and, pulling out the chair, dropped into it. As he
did so his face twitched for an instant and his hand went
again to his heart.
“Ten—dollar limit, gentlemen.” Cutter raised his eyes.
“Is that agreeable?”
Dennis shot an agonized glance at McCarty, but met with
an answering one which made him quail and add a hurried
assent to those of the rest. The game began. It went
slowly at first, O’Rourke taking the first jack-pot on three


THE TURN OF A CARD 299
queens, with two of which he had opened. McCarty eyed
Waverly curiously as the latter fumbled clumsily with the
cards in dealing; the fat man was breathing heavily and
his voice had seemed thicker than on their first meeting. Had
he fortified himself for the evening by an over-indulgent
incursion into his private stock, or was he laboring still
under the agitation of which O’Rourke had spoken?
As he laid down the pack to take up his hand the door
behind them opened once more and a high-pitched ripple
of laughter came to their ears with a little hysterical note
running through it.
“That stupid Gregory tried to keep me out, Nickie—
Oh !” Mrs. Baillie Kip, in an evening gown which dis-
played her full-blown form to perfection, paused in seem-
ing confusion on the threshold.
“Mrs. Kip!” Cutter left his place as the others rose and
advanced quickly toward her. “This is an unexpected pleas-
ure! I—we—you see—l”
“Tell him to let her stay!” McCarty whispered in a
hasty aside to O’Rourke, and passing Cutter bowed before
her.
“Good evening, Mrs. Kip. You’ve not forgotten me?”
“Mr. McCarty.” She laid an icy hand in his for a mo-
ment. “I had no idea that you were a friend of Mr. Cut-
ter’s, nor that I was intruding upon a stag affair. I un-
derstood that Mrs. Waverly would be here this evening
and I fancied that some of the other ladies were coming.”
“Won’t you stay, anyway ?” Cutter drew away from
O’Rourke and flashed a strange glance at McCarty, who
returned it with an almost imperceptible nod. “This is quite
an impromptu affair or we should have telephoned to you
and Mrs. O’Rourke and the rest, but it really doesn’t mat-
ter. Choose one of us to chaperone you, and join us, do.”
“We-ell.” Mrs. Kip flushed and dropped her eyes. “I
wouldn’t think of intruding in the game, but if you are
quite sure I shall not be in the way, I might be persuaded


302 HOW MANY CARDS?
which for a moment had lightened descended again with
almost tangible force and the hand was played out in a
strained silence broken only by the monosyllabic utterances
of the bettors.
Waverly won with a full house but his only comment
was a grunt. The mottled flush had deepened on his face
and a pulse throbbed perceptibly in his temple.
It was McCarty’s deal and as he picked up the cards Den-
nis drew a deep, convulsive breath as one about to plunge
into cold water and started a lengthy post mortem about
his last hand which strangely enough seemed suddenly to
interest Terhune and the inspector, also. They promptly
took issue with him and as the discussion waxed one of
McCarty’s hands stole in a lightning movement to his pocket
and back to the deck of cards which he held just at the edge
of the table.
He proffered them to Inspector Druet, who cut gravely,
and as he started to deal the argument died down as swiftly
as it had arisen. Mrs. Kip stiffened suddenly and Terhune,
glancing across at her, followed her gaze to the man at his
side. Waverly’s head had fallen forward on his thick neck
and his chin lay in folds over his collar.
“Your cards, Mr. Waverly.” Terhune touched his arm.
“Pardon,” Waverly mumbled, jerking his head back.
“Confoundedly hot in here! Cutter, old man, you needn’t
be afraid of a ray of light or a breath of air now; we have
the majesty of the law on our side 1”
He grinned lopsidedly up at Inspector Druet as McCarty
picked up his hand and scrutinized it. He held the seven,
eight, nine and ten of clubs and the eight of hearts.
“Who opens ?”
“I’m by.” O’Rourke regarded his hand critically and
Dennis reluctantly threw down his cards.
“I’ll open it.” Cutter pushed three chips into the center
of the table. “Anybody with me P”
“I will—er—trail.” Terhune followed suit.


304 HOW MANY CARDS?
fulness and swift-rising exultation. That which but a mo-
ment before had been a man was now but a thing, an inani-
mate substance incapable forever more of betrayal, for out
of his body with the passing of life had gone the secret
which would always have imperiled McCarty’s plan! It
had not been accident, not the normal result of his own
evil passions and dissipation which had stilled the heart in
that gross body, but the hand of God Himself that had been
laid upon it, and miraculously the way lay clear before
McCarty to a solution of which he had not even dreamed.
Alive, Waverly had been a menace but dead he was price-
less! The others did not yet realize the situation and Mc-
Carty gathered his forces for the greatest coup'of his career.
“One card, Mr. Waverly !” he cried and at the ringing
quality of his time an electrified start ran around the table.
“There is your card, your lucky card, but you lose with it
now! It is stained with the blood of the man you killed!
I arrest you, in the name of the law, for the murder of
Eugene Creveling!”
As he thundered the accusation to dead ears, to clay,
he had slipped quickly from the bottom of the deck the
nine of diamonds which, torn and blood-stained, he had
found beneath the strip of tapestry on the table beside the
body of Creveling and now he flung it down before that
which had been Douglas Waverly.
A moment of silence followed his denunciation and then
a stifled shriek from Mrs. Kip broke the hideous tension
and O’Rourke leaped to his feet.
“Waverly!” he cried. “For God’s sake, Waverly!”
“So that was the game, the real game!” Cutter kicked
his chair aside. “Doug, do you hear this maniac? Sit up
and answer him, or by Heaven—l”
“Wait!” Terhune had bent forward even as Inspector
Druet placed his hands upon the shoulders of that inert
figure, and together they raised it once more to an erect
position. The head fell back, revealing a face sufiused


THE TURN OF A CARD 305
with purplish blue, the close~set eyes half-open and glazing
in a fixed stare, the chin dropped hideously. Mrs. Kip
shrieked again and covered her own eyes, and Terhune ex-
claimed:
“The man is dead!”
The others crowded about and Inspector Druet pressed
his ear for a moment against the wide expanse of shirt
bosom. When he raised his head they read confirmation in
his eyes even before he spoke.
“Mr. Terhune is right,” he said solemnly. “We were
just a little too late!”
Mrs. Kip dropped her hands and her eyes, dark and wide,
gazed straight into those of McCarty. The next moment
she fell back limply in her chair.
“I’ve just one thing to say to you gentlemen, and a deci-
sion I’m going, with the permission of the inspector, to
leave to you.” McCarty stood on the hearth-rug in the
sumptuous library where he had been received on his first
visit to the house and surveyed Cutter and O’Rourke, who,
with Terhune, Inspector Druet and the still dazed Dennis,
were grouped before him.
It was an hour later. Mrs. Kip, hysterical and fainting,
had been sent to her home in the capable care of Cutter’s
buxom housekeeper, and back in that dark, silent room
where the last game had been played to a tragic finish an
immovable figure lay stretched upon a fauteuil beneath a
pagan prayer rug.
“A decision?" Cutter raised his eyebrows. “It looks
very much as though you had taken things into your own
hands. Waverly was my friend. He’s gone and he can-
not answer your charges, but in his place I should like to
know what grounds you have for them. That, at least, you
owe me since you chose to stage your farce in my house!”
“It was hardly straight cricket, you know, Timmie!”
O’Rourke spoke in a shocked, strained tone. “I don’t be-


306 HOW MANY CARDS?
lieve, though, that you’re the sort of man to make an ac-
cusation like that unless you thought you could substantiate
it!)
“Thank you, sir.” McCarty shot a grateful glance at
him and then squared his broad shoulders. “We can prove
that Douglas Waverly had a quarrel with Eugene Creveling
in that gentleman’s own house at a late little supper about
a fortnight ago, and we have a witness who listened to it.
The two of them are dead now, but you both know them
of old ; do I need to say what that quarrel was about in a
general way, though no names were mentioned? Waverly
threatened Creveling then and they’ve not spoken to each
other since. If you’ll look back, you’ll both recall what
happened in this very house a week ago to-night; how. Crev-
eling threw down his cards and left the game when Waverly
came. Can either of you remember one occasion when
they have talked friendly together in the last fortnight?”
There was silence while Cutter and O’Rourke looked at
each other and then McCarty resumed:
“I can go back further than that if it’s necessary; I can
show you the root of that quarrel months ago, and the
jealousy and all that branched out of it, but ’tis best buried
with the two of them. Last Thursday something happened
between them that brought things to a crisis. We’ll never
know what it was, perhaps, but we can guess. Creveling
invited Waverly to come to his house that night and have
it out and Waverly accepted.”
“But look here !” O’Rourke interrupted. “Creveling went
down to Broadmead, to Waverly’s country place over the
week-end ten days ago; he wouldn’t have done that unless
they were on speaking terms, at least.”
“But Waverly himself wasn’t there,” McCarty replied.
"-Ask Mrs. Waverly if you like; I did, over the telephone
this afternoon, and she said business had kept her husband
in town. Waverly must have thought for some reason that
Creveling had given him the slip, early on Thursday evening,


THE TURN OF A CARD 307
for he tore into the Cosmopolitan Club like a mad bull look-
ing for him, but Creveling ’phoned to him not to be late,
that he was expecting him at half—past twelve. Waverly
must have had it all planned out what he meant to do, but
he sent for his car then and drove all around town, waiting
for the time to come. Have either of you noticed in the
last few days the fresh-scarred curbstone in front of the
Creveling house? Waverly bent his mud-guard and twisted
his axle scraping against it when he finally drew up at the
place.
“There’s no use going into what happened between them
then, for we’ll never know that either, but they made a farce
of eating supper together and then the quarrel was renewed
in the library. For some reason Waverly flaunted that
card in front of Creveling—the nine of diamonds that I
handed him back an hour ago—and then the end came.
“Waverly must have left the house as if the fiends were
after him then and driven around like mad until nearly
morning. We’ve a witness who can testify to his dis-
traught condition- when he brought his car back to the
garage and that there was blood on him. When I questioned
him later at the Belterre Hotel—where he tried at first to
say he’d been all night, though I’d seen him go in myself
not half an hour before—he gave me another alibi and
the name of a man who could prove it, and it was only late
last night I found out from a third party that the man had
lied and he admitted it. I needn’t go any further, gentle-
men; that’s our case and we can prove every step of the
way.”
For a moment after he had finished there was silence and
then O’Rourke passed a shaking hand across his brow.
“Great God!” he groaned. “It seems incredible! I can’t
believe it of Waverly, and yet—! What do you say, Nick?”
“I don’t know what to say!” the other responded. “I
never thought it would come to that between them, but we
all know Waverly’s violent, uncontrollable temper; how he


308 HOW MANY CARDS?
beat that hunting mare of his to death with an iron trace
chain! It would be like him, granted sufficient real or fan-
cied justification, to go about revenge in a bull-headed rage
without counting the cost. God, it’s horrible!--But you
said a decision rested with us? What decision?”
“Just this, sir. I told Mr. O’Rourke over the ’phone
to-day that we’d got wind of certain things down at head-
quarters; we had, but not what he thought. I told him to-
night that I wanted to scare Mr. Waverly into telling me
what he knew of the motive for the murder of Mr. Crevel-
ing.” McCarty smiled to himself as he added: “I didn’t
tell, though, that I intended to let Waverly see that we
knew the truth and make him confess! I said that I was
here to do whatever was in my. power to keep trouble from
coming to all of you and I’m still. here for that purpose, but
we’ve others to consider now—two women.”
“Mrs. Kip—P” O’Rourke asked in a low voice.
“No, she’ll never speak. I meant Mrs. Creveling and
Mrs. Waverly. We’ve a great opportunity straight from
Providence! Mr. Waverly died of heart disease or a stroke
at the card table; we’ll let the doctor have his way about
that when we call him in. Was Creveling murdered or did
he kill himself? That is the question that we in this room
have got to answer to the world.”
“Gad, I never thought of that!” O’Rourke sprang from
his chair. “You wanted Waverly to speak, Timmie, but
you’d have a hell of a time finding anything out from him
now! We’ve got a chance to hush everything up and no
one need ever know! Poor little Stella Waverly will be
spared this crowning disgrace, after all the indignities he
has heaped on her for years—l”
“And Mrs. Creveling?” McCarty interrupted. “There’s
one that’ll 'have to be told, Mr. O’Rourke. Aside from it
being her right to know, she’ll never rest until she finds out
the truth and in her search for it she might drag in inno-


THE TURN OF A CARD 309
cent people and dig up things that are far better left
buried.”
“If you tell her you might as well tell the world!” Cut-
ter shrugged again. “Her sense of justice won’t be satis-
fied till she cries Waverly’s name from the house-tops when
she knows why they quarreled!”
“She’ll go after the—the cause of that quarrel, too, tooth
and nail, and though you couldn’t blame her, I must say
my sympathies are with Mrs. Waverly, for she’s the weaker
of the two. It would be one thing to live down the fact
that your husband had committed suicide and another to
have his memory branded as a murderer!”
“What if we were to tell Mrs. Creveling the truth and
persuade her to keep it a secret forever, for the sake of
the other woman who would suffer needlessly ?” McCarty
urged. “We could tell her the truth about the manner of
her husband’s death, but the cause—! Gentlemen, they
quarreled over a game of cards 1”


THE LAST HAND 313
Avenue to his, and made a pretense of eating the supper
which was laid out. I even tried to smoke a cigarette but
the amber holder broke in my fingers. It was after supper,
in the study, that he laid his cards on the table and I had
no choice. I was alone there with him, and it meant his
life against what was more to me than my own. You un-
derstand now, don’t you, Mr. McCarty ?”
“Yes.” He nodded very gravely. “All but about that
nine of diamonds.”
“That card! You found it?” She glanced quickly at
him and then away. “It was a lucky card, a mascot which
Mr. Waverly had given me. I knew its history; once be-
fore, the words ‘no quarter’ had been written across the
face of it and I took it with me to show that man, if his
intentions toward me were really as black as I feared, that
I, too, would give no quarter! I did show it to him, but
he countered by showing me my promissory notes and tell-
ing me that in the morning they would be in my husband’s
hands if I did not surrender. The card fell to the floor,
and afterwards—afterwards when he, too, lay at my feet I
looked down and saw it. I picked it up without thinking
what I was doing and it was stained with his blood! A
sort of horror seized me then and I thrust it under some-
thing, I don’t know what. I took my notes, laid the pistol
beside his hand and stumbled out of the house. I don’t
know how I got home; I don’t remember anything until I
found myself in my own room, and all that had passed
since I left—it seemed like a frightful dream.”
“And that’s all it is, Lady Peggy. A dream that you’ll
wake up from and forget when you’re back in the old coun-
try again,” McCarty said softly.
“Oh, what a friend you are!” Her eyes were shining
as she turned them to his once more. “But why didn’t you
denounce me? Why didn’t you speak when you knew? It
was your duty, you were an officer of the law !”