THE SECOND BULLET Of GMJF. LIRKARY. LOU THE SECOND BULLET BY ROBERT ORR CHIPPERFIELD NEW YORK ROBERT M. McBuiDE fcf COMPANY 1919 Copyright, 1919 by ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY Printed in the United States of America. Published March, 1919 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA . . i II. WOMAN DISPOSES . . 13 III. WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT . . 25 IV. QUESTIONS . . . 38 V. A STRING OF PEARLS ... 50 VI. THE CARTRIDGE SHELL ... 62 VII. LIES 75 VIII. A BRIBE THAT FAILED ... 88 IX. WITHOUT ALIBI .... 99 X. THE CONSERVATORY DOOR . . .in XL "!F I HAD ONLY KNOWN!" . . 123 XII. AN UNSEEN WITNESS . . . 135 XIII. WHERE DEATH LURKED . . . 147 XIV. Miss ADARE GOSSIPS . . . .158 XV. THE SECOND BULLET . . .171 XVI. THE WARNING . . . .183 XVII. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW . . 195 XVIII. IN THE NIGHT 206 XIX. WHERE THE CANDLE FLICKERED . 218 XX. THE TORN CARD . . . .231 XXL THE WOMAN FROM FRENCH LICK . 242 XXII. THE YELLOW STREAK . . . 253 XXIII. THE KNOCK UPON THE DOOR . . 264 XXIV. JACQUES BENOIT LAUGHS LAST . . 275 2129644 THE SECOND BULLET Chapter I. THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA. "X "IT THO is she, anyway?" Beatrice Ledyard placed ^7^7 her coffee cup upon the tabouret and raised her hazel eyes with a curious feline glint in them to her mother. s My dear Trixy, what a question !" Mrs. Ledyard waved a plump hand deprecatingly. "I've been talking of Mrs. Hartshorne, and the invaluable aid she has given us in pre- paration for the Red Cross bazaar " "I know, but is she going to take charge of a booth her- self? Is she going to appear in any capacity ?" Trixy pur- sued. "Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that in all the six months she has been here in Eastopolis Mrs. Hartshorne has never appeared at any more public function than church?" "You don't mean that she might possibly be afraid of meeting embarrassing acquaintances from the past, do you Trixy ?" a guileless voice asked sweetly from a low chair by the fern-banked hearth, and Bebe Cowles helped herself lazily to another lump of sugar. "It would be simply fasci- nating to find that we had an adventuress in our prosaic exclusive midst." "I mean that she has managed in this short space of time to get in with all of us and yet we know no more about her 2 THE SECOND BULLET than if she had dropped from the clouds. Who and what was Mr. Hartshorae? When did he die, if he is dead, as she claims? Did Mr. Hartshorne ever really exist?" "Aren't you a trifle hard on her, Trixy? Of course she's made a slave of every unattached man in our set, but we're bound to get some of them back on the rebound! At any rate, it seems a bit late in the day to begin asking awkward questions." Bebe shook her golden head. "Your mother would never have taken her up, I am sure, had there been anything well, baffling about her. Of course, we all fol- lowed dear Mrs. Ledyard's lead-" If Mrs. Ledyard divined a hint of amused malice in the childlike tones she rose majestically above it. "I am not in the habit of committing social errors," she asseverated. "Anyone qualified to discriminate could see at once that Mrs. Hartshorne's breeding is unassailable and I think it is scarcely in good taste, Trixy, for you to utter vague insinuations against such a charming woman. If she avoids thrusting herself forward in public affairs it is due to her modest, retiring disposition ; an attitude all too rarely encountered in these days. As for me, I don't know what I should have done without her on the National Defense Committee, to say nothing of the French Orphans and the Armenian Relief " "I'm insinuating nothing, mother ; I am merely curious." Trixy was the only person living who dared to interrupt her mother. That dominant lady writhed. "I grant you that she has not attempted to establish an actual intimacy with any of us ; rather, she has held us at arm's length. But may not that be as much against her as in her favor? As to her social position among us, of course, she has made herself indispensable to you in your war work and to Dr. Ferrine in parish matters; but the ladder of charity has THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA 3 been used by every climber since our social system was organized. Aside from the fact that she has been abso- lutely silent about her antecedents, has she mentioned a single person of whom we have ever heard outside Easto- polis?" "My dear, you are allowing your sudden prejudice to carry you to absurd lengths," her mother responded coldly. "I trust you will not permit your manner to betray it when she drops in later for bridge. Mr. Swarthmore is bringing her on from the Gaylors' dinner, you know." "Neely Swarthmore doesn't appear to share your sus- pisions, Trixy," Bebe remarked slyly. Trixy darted a scornful glance at her bosom friend, but she responded quietly enough- "They are not suspicions, merely conjectures. There, the dining-room doors are opening!" "I was wondering if your father would ever let them escape !" Mrs. Ledyard began, but the voices of the three men who completed the sextette of the little dinner party traveled before them as they crossed the music room, and made her pause. "Marvelous! Most extraordinary business acumen for a woman!" The sleek, pompous tones of Wendle Braddock, President of the Eastopolis Trust Company, came unctuously to their ears. "She banks with us, you know, and I've at- tempted more than once to advise her in her financial deals, but events have proved the wisdom of her own decision." "I know it!" Colonel Ledyard laughed genially. "Had the same experience myself with her, as she trades through me. She's invariably on the right side of the market." "It is precisely this remarkable executive ability which makes her work in the parish invaluable," chimed in Dr. Perrine's rounded pulpit tones. "Extremely generous, too 4 THE SECOND BULLET ah, ladies! I fear we have kept you waiting, but the Colonel's reminiscences were so diverting " "Of whom were you speaking just now?" Trixy asked, moving significantly to make room for him on the daven- port beside her. "Of our dear friend Mrs. Hartshorne." The minister accepted her gestured invitation. "She has been of inesti- mable value in the parish." "So I understand." Trixy raised her eyebrows and after a moment added: "What church did she attend before coming here, Dr. Perrine ?" "Let me see." He balanced the tips of his fingers to- gether reflectively. "Was it St. Thomas's in New York, or St. Christopher's in? Dear me, my memory is really so bad!" "But surely she told you?" The sentence was more a statement than a question, yet it contained an inflection which increased the Reverend Dr. Perrine's discomfiture. "Well really, I she must have mentioned it, of course, but I confess it has slipped my mind. She has taken her place so modestly, yet so willingly, in affairs of the Church, that it quite seems as though she had always been a member of the congregation. Don't you agree with me, my dear Mrs. Ledyard?" "I do, indeed!" that lady responded with emphasis. "She will be here at any moment. You don't object to bridge I know, Doctor, in a worthy cause ?" "Mr. Braddock," Trixy's velvety tones had sharpened "we all know that Mrs. Hartshorne has deposited her sur- plus capital with your Trust Company. Would it be an indiscretion for me to ask you how those deposits were made? I mean, did she give checks on any similar insti- tution in another city, anything by which the source of that THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA 5 capital could be traced if the necessity ever arose for such a proceeding?" President Braddock's pendulous cheeks had reddened between his white side-whiskers. "My dear, I cannot imagine such a contingency. As I recall, Mrs. Hartshorne's deposits were made in cash and negotiable securities, but it is really a most extraordinary question !" "What on earth put such an idea into your head, Trixy?" demanded Colonel Ledyard. "Mrs. Hartshorne is a thoroughly estimable " "Father!" she interrupted him imperiously. "You your- self say that she is a sharper on the market, that she played it as if she had tips from the very brains directing each coup. What brokers did she deal with before coming to you, and where did she learn the game? On the Bourse or the London 'Change or in Walll Street? What do you actually know about her previous transactions ?" "Trixy!" her mother exclaimed in a scandalized voice, while the Colonel eyed his daughter in amazement. "Bless my soul, I never asked her! When a young woman comes to you with a brain like a steel trap, orders which make you sit up and take notice, and bona fide se- curities to carry them out, you don't ask her for references like a a housemaid, you know." "Exactly!" Trixy sat back with a satisfied air. "That is just the point I wished to bring out. Remember, I have nothing aginst Mrs. Hartshorne. But I know nothing about her ; nor do any of you. Without social or financial reference on her part, without on your part the slightest knowledge of who or what she really is, you have all taken her on trust merely because she has a Madonna face, an ingratiating manner and ready cash! Dr. Perrine is 6 THE SECOND BULLET usually most particular about the antecedents of his flock" "Most assuredly, my dear Miss Ledyard !" The minister raised his hands in shocked expostulation. "But there can be no question about Mrs. Hartshorne !" "Has there been, when she came here a stranger and has studiously remained one!" Trixy turned to the older men. "A minister or a social arbiter like mother may judge from mere appearance, but I ask you frankly if it is usual for financiers to accept a client without business references, solely on the face value of money and securities negotiable anywhere which might have changed hands a hundred times and in as many ways ?" "Certainly not !" Mr- Braddock retorted ; for the Colonel seemed beyond speech. "I myself received Mrs. Hartshorne and studied her, if I may say so. I am rather a keen judge of human nature, my dear young lady, and I am fully convinced that she is unassailable from any point of view." "So are all the men 1" Bebe Cowles' childish treble broke in. "Dear chivalrous things, and so infallible! What are references, anyway, except a tactful means of foisting upon gullible strangers an incompetent or dishonest person we wish to rid ourselves of? I'm referring, of course, as the Colonel did, to the hypothetical housemaid. I for one am perfectly content to be guided by the quick unerring judg- ment of a keen man of the world." She smiled up into Wendle Braddock's fatuous eyes. He was on the point of a gratified rejoinder when the butler threw open the wide doors leading into the hallway. "Mrs. Hartshorne! Mr. Swarthmore!" he announced, and stepped aside. Mrs. Ledyard rose with a sigh of relief to greet her guests, who entered together; a tall, dark-haired man of forty, whose well-bred, clean-cut countenance bore the un- THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA 7 mistakable lines of one who had traveled many roads, and beside him a delicately-molded, gracious figure, whose serene, confiding face bore the look of one to whom all roads meant a safe and welcoming haven. Mrs. Hartshorne was young, obviously in her early in- definite thirties. Her face was of quite a usual type, fair and softly oval, with tender sensitive lips, blue-gray eyes and brown hair simply banded about a small head. Nothing gave it distinct individuality save perhaps the small v-shaped scar beneath the left temple ; and yet beneath its gentle ap- peal there seemed to lie latent an expression of sphinx-like inscrutability. Mrs. Ledyard's greeting was more markedly effusive than usual. There followed a brief, awkward pause which, by a common impulse, everyone rushed to eliminate; everyone except Mrs. Hartshorne. She stood quietly at her ease, listening, nodding, smiling and looking about her from one face to another with a calm, steady gaze. If some intuition warned her that she had been the subject of discussion she made no sign. If, in the glances of at least two of the three men who had been her champions, she divined for the first time a shade of doubt, of questioning, she made no effort to disarm it. She turned coolly to her hostess and at once drew her into a conversation upon her pet charity. Cornelius Swarthmore strolled casually over to the two girls. "You're coming to mother's Red Cross dance Thursday evening, Neely?" There was command as well as entreaty in Trixy's tones, but he ignored them with a trace of im- patience. "You know how I loathe that sort of an affair, Trix. Jammed to the doors with every outsider who can scare up the price of a ticket to say they have been entertained here ! 8 THE SECOND BULLET I'll try to wedge my way through the crush for awhile, but it's bound to be a bore." "Not with that wonderful new jazz band Mrs. Ledyard has engaged!" Bebe cried enthusiastically. "Vallory's, you know. She had a frightful time getting him, for he is booked literally months ahead. He's the drummer and practically the whole show ; plays a dozen bing-bang instru- ments at once 1" "This jazz thing is being worked to death." As if aware of his rudeness, Swarthmore added hastily: "I hear that this Vallory is a wonder, though. I'm sure the affair will be a great success for the cause." "Whatever is the matter with you lately, Neely? Touch of liver or just plain grouch?" Bebe eyed him critically with her golden head atilt. Trixy had turned away. "You used to be as keen as the proletariat on any sort of an affair gotten up by Mrs. Ledyard." "I'm cutting it all out," he responded evasively. "Govern- ment contracts won't wait while a man plays the society game, my dear Bebe." "O patriotism !" she scoffed lightly. "What delinquencies are perpetrated in thy name !" "Isn't it splendid?" Mrs. Ledyard bore down upon them. "Mrs. Hartshorne has promised to come to the dance, after all." "How nice!" Bebe exclaimed sweetly. "But I thought Mrs. Hartshorne quite shunned all semi-public functions. Now of course we may count on you, Neely?'* "Trixy, my child, did you tell Hickson to set up the bridge table?" Mrs. Ledyard turned to her daughter, then to the group of men who surrounded Mrs. Hart- shorne. "Dr. Perrine, you won't frown on our playing a cent a point if half the winnings goes to the Canteen ?" THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA 9 "Shocking!" Dr. Perrine was obviously deaf to his hos- tess for the moment. "Used the money of small inves- tors, you say? Robbed the poor?" Wendle Braddock nodded, smacking his lips unctuously. "Converted it. He was President of the Riverboro bank. Speculated and lost, Zenas Prall said in his confession. Anyway, he went to Atlanta four years ago on a twenty- year term. They've let him out just recently on a plea of ill-health." "Poor devil!" the Colonel commented. "Pretty tough to go straight for fifty years of life and then come a cropper, isn't it?" "It is very sad !" Mrs. Hartshorne's lips dropped patheti- cally. "I don't remember hearing of the case; it must have come up before the war, when I was abroad. It is tragic for the poor man, of course, but then think of the small investors, the pitifully hoarded savings of the poor!" "You have lived abroad, then?" Trixy had passed her mother swiftly ; and although she spoke with assumed care- lessness there was a note of inquisition in her tones. "Yes. I have connections there." It seemed for an infinitesimal second that Mrs. Hartshorne faltered, but she offered no further revelation. "That is curious !" Trixy smiled, although her tawny eyes narrowed. "Somehow, I fancied you were from the West." "I have relatives scattered throughout that part of the country, whom I visited occasionally as a girl. Perhaps I have acquired some of their idioms. That may account for your impression, Miss Ledyard." Then catching sight of Hickson in the doorway bearing the bridge table Mrs. Hartshorne turned to her hostess with a little apologetic cry. "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I hope you will forgive me if I don't play tonight. I've such a wretched headache! I io THE SECOND BULLET, ; r really only stopped in for a moment Id drop Mr. Swarth- more and to ask you to excuse me, but I've been so inter- ested that I forgot to mention it." "Then stay and perhaps your headache will leave you," the Colonel suggested gallantly. Mrs. Hartshorne shook her head. "I only have them once in a blue moon, but when they come I have to give in absolutely to them. Every hour that I fight off one of these attacks means an added hour of suffering. I'm so very sorry " she held out her hand to Mrs. Ledyard, "but then I do want to feel really fit on Thursday night for your dance." "Perhaps you will permit me to drive you to your house?" President Braddock suggested, coming forward. "I don't play bridge, you know, and I am going your way. I should be delighted " "Excuse me, old man, but I'm taking Mrs. Hartshorne home," interrupted Swarthmore firmly. "I could only have played one rubber, anyway, for there's a chap from Wash- ington getting in at midnight whom I have to meet at the train. Mrs. Hartshorne, I accompanied you from the Gaylors ; and that surely establishes a prior claim !" He added the last sentence laughingly but with a signifi- cance which brooked no refusal. Mrs. Hartshorne made a little moue of consent. "I feel like a culprit, breaking up your game, Mrs. Led- yard," she sighed. "But really " "My dear, it's of no consequence," her hostess responded graciously. "I am only grieved that you are suffering. I would forego any mere card game to have you with us Thursday. However, as Mr. Swarthmore invariably loses, I think it is only fair that he should send me a nice check for my Canteen Fund." THE LADY AND THE ENIGMA 11 With mock chagrin Swarthmore promised and they took their leave. In the limousine his manner softened. He turned to his companion with a quick note of concern. "Why didn't you mention your headache to me ? Was it really your intention to rid yourself of me at the Ledyards'? You'll find I'm not to be dropped so easily !" Mrs. Hartshorne made no reply. She was leaning back against the cushions and her face was in shadow. As he bent toward her, he felt her form tremble convulsively. "Are you really suffering so much?" he exclaimed, with unmistakable tenderness. "Do you know, I fancied it was a ruse of yours to get away from " He paused and Mrs. Hartshorne suddenly covered her face with her shaking hands. "Oh, don't please 1" The cry seemed wrung from her. "Why should I have run away from the Ledyards? I am unnerved, unstrung ! My head oh, why did you not let me go alone?" "I'm sorry." He drew back stiffly. "It was purely selfish on my part ; I wanted to be with you. I thought Miss Ledyard might possibly have annoyed you." Her hands dropped and she laughed hysterically. "Miss Ledyard?" she repeated with a scornful bitterness which came strangely from her gentle lips. "What do a hundred Miss Ledyards matter? Let her be the first to give tongue " She caught herself up abruptly, then added quietly: "Do forgive me. I scarcely know what I am saying; this pain is maddening! Of course I I am glad that you are taking me home." She laid her hand upon his arm and Swarthmore seized it, quick to pursue his advantage- "Is it too late for me to come in just for a moment? 12 THE SECOND BULLET I will not be a selfish brute and keep you from your rest, but you are such an illusive person, and there is something I want to tell you " Mrs. Hartshorne gently withdrew her hand. "Not now, I I could not listen. I am really ill." "Then to-morrow?" he urged. "Surely you will be better? I do not mean to be importunate, but I have waited so long ! I may come to-morrow ?" Mrs. Hartshorne bowed her head and a little smile, hidden in shadow, played about her lips. "To-morrow." Back in the Ledyards' drawing-room Trixy, too, was smiling, but in triumph. "You heard, all of you! That headache didn't manifest itself until I began questioning her." "Trixy, I am astounded!" her mother exclaimed. "You were abominably rude. Not so much in what you said but your manner! I'm afraid you have offended Mrs. Hartshorne deeply." "What if I have?" the younger woman retorted cooly. "Her friendship or enmity is nothing to me." "Dear me ! This is all very distressing !" murmured Dr. Perrine. "Distressing? It is preposterous!" President Braddock blustered. "Mrs. Hartshorne is absolutely above criticism." "So are all of us!" Bebe laughed. "But it reaches us, sooner or later. It is a scandalous world, isn't it, Colonel Ledyard?" The Colonel had been silent, but on his usually genial brow a slight frown had gathered. "I don't know," he responded reflectively. "The woodpile looks innocent enough, but what if there were a little negro in it, somewhere, after all?" Chapter II. WOMAN DISPOSES. IT was nearly noon when Miss Rose Adare mounted the steps of Mrs. Hartshorne's small but perfectly ap- pointed house and rang the bell. She was a slender, vivacious young person, of the black- haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned type which betokens Hiber- nian ancestry of the higher order. The tilt of her small, tantalizing nose and the curve of her scarlet, delicately molded lips suggested a sense of humor balanced by the square little chin and cool level gaze. She frowned as she waited, tapping her foot impatiently. At length a trim housemaid opened the door. "Oh, it's you, Miss Adare. Mrs. Hartshorne hasn't been feeling very well. Matilde is with her now, and she is better. You can go straight up." With a nod, Miss Adare availed herself of the permission. Running up the stairs, she knocked lightly upon her client's door. Matilde, a thin, sallow Frenchwoman, admitted her and gestured unsmilingly toward the bed. The girl approached and a little exclamation of shocked surprise broke from her lips. "Oh, Mrs. Hartshorne! What is the matter? Jenny told me you had been unwell, but were better. I didn't dream you were as ill as this !" With an effort Mrs. Hartshorne drew herself up among 13 i 4 THE SECOND BULLET her pillows. Her face was drawn and haggard, her eyes deeply sunken. In each wan cheek a brilliant red spot burned. "Good morning, Rose. Do I look such a fright? It is just one of my old neuralgic headaches. The handglass, please, Matilde." The maid brought it without a word. Her mistress after one glance dropped it upon the bed beside her with a horri- fied gasp. "Heavens ! I don't wonder !" "Perhaps you won't need me today ?" Rose ventured. "Oh, but I do! I wanted to look particularly nice, and I must manage to pull myself together, somehow. I have heaps of correspondence to be answered." Mrs. Hartshorne turned to her maid. "You may go, Matilde." When the door had closed, she leaned forward eagerly. "Rose, you are such a marvellously clever little social secretary I wonder if you can help me with a bit of per- sonal advice. I am a nervous wreck and I know it ! Too many late hours and social activities ; I never could endure them. I look ghastly, hideous, and yet this afternoon I must be fresh and blooming. Can you tell me how to work a miracle ?" "If you'll forgive me for the suggestion, I would try a little rouge, Mrs. Hartshorne," Rose responded frankly. "You never would before, but no massage in the world will bring the right color now, or the blood to your lips." "Very well." Mrs. Hartshorne sank back with a sigh. "I suppose I must . . . Now let us get on with the notes. They are mostly invitations to be declined, as usual. You will know how to do it gracefully, without dictation." The girl smiled and turned to the small stand beside the bed. WOMAN DISPOSES 15 "You can trust me for that. Now, I'll just move these magazines to make room for my stationery and things good gracious!" As she swept the papers from the table an ugly blunt- nosed revolver of the "bull-dog" type stared wickedly up at her startled eyes. Mrs. Hartshorne reached out in haste and picking up the small weapon thrust it carelessly beneath her pillow. "Did it frighten you?" she laughed. "It isn't loaded. I'm so reckless about leaving jewels and money about the house that I keep it to scare away possible burglars. Do let us get the correspondence over with." The laugh had not sounded quite natural to the girl's alert ears, but the excuse seemed plausible enough and she commenced her rapid sorting of the mail without further remark, During the light scratching of the pen on paper, Mrs. Hartshorne lay spent and inert ; but when the first batch of notes was completed she asked suddenly : "Rose, has anyone been asking you questions about me? Any of your other clients, I mean ; the women in my own set? I'm rather curious 1" Rose paused, an unopened envelope in her hands. "About you, Mrs. Hartshorne? How could they? The most any woman asks me about another is whether she evades her tradesmen's bills or receives many love letters. And anybody could see with half an eye " "I don't mean that. I came here a stranger, you know, and people are usually so inquisitive." Her eyes carefully avoided those of the girl. "Well, I'll tell you," Rose replied. "When I began this work as visiting social secretary I made up my mind that nobody would get any information from me about any 16 THE SECOND BULLET clients. Not that there's usually anything worth while re- peating, but you know how little things can be twisted and turned and made to look like something entirely different. Attending to social correspondence is my business, not tattling." A discreet knock at the door punctuated her peroration and Matilde entered with a huge, ornate florist's box from the end of which protruded long spiky stems. She handed her mistress a note. Mrs. Hartshorne tore it open and read : Dear Lady: I trust that your indisposition has passed and you are your own happy, charming self again. May these few roses brighen and hasten your convalescence ! I wonder if you will -do me the honor of dining with me tonight at the Grosvenor? My messenger will await your reply. Yours faithfully, WENDLE BRADDOCK. She gave an amused glance at the box which Matilde had opened; the ponderous, florid roses were not unlike their giver. Then she pursed her lips thoughtfully. The Grosvenor was the most exclusive restaurant in the city, and Wendle Braddock had not been known to dine in public tete-a-tete with a woman since he had attained years and prominence. What could this invitation por- tend? "Take them out, Matilde," she pointed to the opulent roses "and put them no, ask Jenny to cut the stems short and place them in a low glass bowl in the dining-room. Now, Rose, lend me your pen, please! I must write this note myself." WOMAN DISPOSES 17 Matilde complied and her mistress wrote a few lines rapidly and sealed them. "Please give this to the messenger- That is all." She seemed disinclined for further conversation. Rose completed the last of the morning's correspondence in silence. Then she handed Mrs. Hartshorne the little pile of notes. "These are all, I think. Please tell me if they are all right?" But Mrs. Hartshorne waved them away. "You can always be depended upon to write the proper thing, my dear. Now I shall dress and try a little rouge, as you advise. Perhaps then no one will guess that all last night " she broke off, shuddering, with an inadver- tent glance toward the window. The girl's eyes folowed hers. But all she could see was the sedate rear wall of the neighbor's house, across a narrow strip of gardens, fresh in the tender green of early spring. At that moment Matilde entered again, and once more she bore a florist's box ; but this one was slim and dazzlingly white. When she opened it a loose mass of fragrant, deli- cate spring blossoms fell out upon the bed as if freshly culled from some old-fashioned garden. The card which accompanied them was Cornelius Swarth- more's. The message it bore was a simple one. I send these because they are like you. Until this afternoon. "Madame will have these ?" The tactiurn maid spoke for the first time, and although her tone was respectful enough it was curiously level and repressed. "In the drawing-room, Matilde." A smile of com- placency, almost of derision crossed the pale lips of Mrs. i8 THE SECOND BULLET Hartshorne, and she added as the maid departed: "That is all for to-day, Rose. Pray that I shall look well this afternoon 1" It was indeed a radiant young woman who entered the drawing-room at twilight and held out her hand to Swarth- more. The deftly darkened lashes lent an added brilliancy to her eyes and her serene, delicately flushed face bore no traces of the drawn haggardness of the morning. "You look wonderfully well !" Cornelius Swarthmore ex- claimed as he straightened after pressing his lips to her hand. "But then you always do, to me. By Jove, I believe that headache of yours was a ruse, after all !" "No really !" Mrs. Hartshorne protested as she motioned him to a chair and seated herself on the couch with her back to the rose-shaded lamp. "It has quite gone now, however. Thank you for your lovely flowers, but I'm afraid they're not a bit like me, although I love them. They be- long in some quaint old garden where their ancestors have been rooted for generations, and I I belong in far corners of the earth." "What do you mean?" he asked in quick concern. She shrugged. "I am a born nomad, I fear; a wanderer. I try to settle down, to fasten myself to a place by bonds of friend- ship and financial responsibility, and then the call of the wanderlust comes and I must answer." "That is foolish !" he smiled indulgently. "You are dis- satisfied because you are so much alone." "I detest huge public affairs- I am only going to the Red Cross dance tomorrow night because Mrs. Ledyard has been so kind and I do not wish to disappoint her." "I don't mean that," Swarthmore countered swiftly. "But WOMAN DISPOSES 19 you are not the type of woman to lead a solitary existence. You need a warm, human interest, protection, love " Mrs. Hartshorne shook her head, smiling a trifle sadly. "But suppose I tried that and it failed to hold me? Suppose the desire for new scenes came upon me again? No, it is woman as well as man, who travels fastest when she travels alone. I am restless even now ; my nerves are on edge. I think I shall go away very soon." "A woman alone; a woman like you!" Swarthmore rose and seated himself beside her. "Do you think, if you married a man with red blood in his veins, a man who loved you, that he could not hold you? Ah, my dear, why will you talk of going away? You know what I came here to tell you this afternoon, you mu>t have known it for weeks ! It seemed to me that you were purposely holding me off." "You mustn't, please!" Mrs. Hartshorne put both hands out protestingly. But he seized them and drew her close. "I must! You are so quiet and gentle and mouselike and yet there is something about you that drives a man mad! Shall I make a confession? At first I considered you merely a sweet, pleasingly attractive little woman; then, I don't know why, my eyes began to follow you and my thoughts! I looked for you everywhere and felt dis- appointed and savage if you were not there. And when you were, it was like a draught of champagne ! I began seek- ing you out, confiding in you, telling you my secret plans as I have told them to no one else on earth !" Mrs. Hartshorne made an ineffectual effort to free her- self. "You mean the government contracts? The padded bids and the undergrade stuff? But there was no harm in that, nothing exactly illegal. You told me so yourself; you said that everybody was doing it and you might as well get your 20 THE SECOND BULLET share of the profits- Why should you not have told me ? I was proud of your confidence !" A dull flush had mounted to Swarthmore's brow and his voice grew swiftly hoarse. "I don't want to talk about that now; I'm trying to show you what you mean to me. There've been other women, of course. Women who amused me for an hour and others whom I thought would look well at the head of my household, but none who combined every attribute in themselves as you do ! You drew me to you, held me as I am holding your hands now." "You are hurting me !" she murmured plaintively. "And Jenny is coming with the tea !" He released her ; and rising, walked to the window where he stood for a moment staring out into the fast-gathering darkness. "What an enigma you are!" he remarked at length. "I wonder sometimes if you know your power and use it with consummate art, or whether you are utterly unconscious of the effect you have upon men. We are all your slaves even that doddering, smug-faced old rascal Braddock." "Don't call him that!" she remonstrated sweetly. "I like him, he's so nice and fatherly. And besides, he's dining here to-night." "Is he?" Swarthmore turned upon her, his eyes smolder- ing. "Yes. He asked me to dine at the Grosvenor with him, but I did not feel quite up to going out, so I invited him here instead." "Why ?" he demanded savagely. "You are not the empty- headed sort to want scalps to dangle at your belt !" "He is coming to talk over my business affairs with me." Her eyes opened wide. "He advises me, you know," WOMAN DISPOSES 21 "He's put a few spokes in my wheels, senile as he is, but I've always managed to knock them out in time." Swarth- more muttered. "Don't you know that he is using your affairs as a mere excuse? That he's infatuated with you? Call him up and tell him you are too ill to see him, and then come and dine with me somewhere! I won't leave you until I've made you listen to me, until I've convinced you that your happiness lies in my hands !" The entrance of Jenny with the tea brought the con- versation to a less emotional pitch and for a time they chatted of mere social affairs, but when they were alone together once more Swarthmore moved determinedly to her side. "Why should we talk about these other people? What do they matter ? The only thing that counts in all the world is that I love you ! I want to make you my wife !" "How like a man !" she smiled. "You are very confident, Mr. Swarthmore ! Are you quite sure that you could hold me? What if the old gypsy longing came back and I wanted to go " "I would take you," he interrupted, "anywhere in the world! Out of the way places where you could never ven- ture without a protector ! You are searching for happiness ; I'll give it to you." Mrs. Hartshorne sighed. "How can you know me, when I don't know myself?" she asked softly. "I might let you persuade me you are very masterful and compelling, you know I might feel quite sure that you could really do all that you protest and make me happy. And then my mood might change and I would feel tempted to run away from it all a formal engagement, and everybody's congratulations and silly dinners even from you!" 22 THE SECOND BULLET "Will you marry me now, to-night?" he cried eagerly. "I'm not afraid of your moods once you belong to me. We'll cut out all the formal business and just run away as you wanted to, only we will go together. Will you, dear?" But Mrs. Hartshorne had not even heard. She was staring past him at the black expanse of the window where he had left the curtain drawn back. Her eyes were dark with terror and her face ghastly, so that the rouge stood out in blotches on her cheeks- As Swarthmore uttered a startled exclamation she gasped, and one hand flew to her breast, where her gown sagged oddly as if borne down by some unaccustomed weight. "What is it?" Swarthmore leaped to his feet. "What is the matter? You are ill !" "A face!" she whispered hoarsely. "A face at the window !" He turned and flung the sash high. Nothing was to be seen but the quiet deserted street slumbering in the warm fragrant dusk. "What sort of a face was it?" he asked closing the window and returning to her side. "There isn't a soul out there." "I don't know. A horrible, malign face like that of a beast ! A thief, perhaps ! Oh, I am afraid, afraid !" "But why should you be?" he bent low above her. "Burglaries are infrequent in this part of town; it is too well lighted and policed. Poor little woman, who wants to trot off to the ends of the earth and yet is afraid in her own home !" "But I I have several thousand dollars in cash in the house. I always do, it is an idiosyncrasy of mine. Some one may have known of it, I tell you!" Her voice was WOMAN DISPOSES 23 rising with a sharp note of hysteria. "Oh, I have reason to be afraid !" Somehow she found herself all at once in Swarthmore's arms, laughing and crying and clinging to him convulsively. He held her close, murmuring soothingly until her hysteria had subsided. Then he lifted her head and pressed his lips to hers. "You shall marry me, sweetheart! We will go away quietly if that is what you wish. No one need know. You are nervous, unstrung! You need someone to take care of you and shield you even from the things you imagine ! Tell me that you will !" Her fingers tightened like slim bands of steel upon his arms and a shudder swept over her- Then she forced her- self resolutely to calmness. "I will marry you, Neely." "When? To-night?" he cried joyously. "No, not to-night, but soon, within a few days." A little natural color had flooded her cheeks and her eyes glittered. "Only you must promise to keep it absolutely a secret until until it is over. You know how I shrink from publicity ; I could never endure the congratulations and all the fuss and bother !" "You won't have to, dear !" Swarthmore paused and then added, with an embarrassed laugh. "Do you know, I'm going to marry the loveliest little woman in all the world ; and I don't even know her name ?" "My name?" she exclaimed. "Why, 'Allie', of course!" "'Allie'?" Swarthmore repeated. "For 'Allison'? I thought that was " "My husband's name," she supplemented as he hesitated. "So it was, but mine is 'Alice'." "And how it suits you!" he cried rapturously. "Alice! 24 THE SECOND BULLET You said you would marry me in a few days, but when? You have warned me your mood may change, you know ! I'm not going to let you get away from me, I warn you, in turn. The motto of the Swarthmore family centuries ago in England was : 'What I ivant, I take. What I have none shall take from me! I have you now and I don't mean to lose you, Alice ! What day will you marry me, dear ?" She glanced up at him and then lowered her eyes swiftly. It might have been in modesty or to hide a certain gleam which had crept unbidden into them. "I will tell you to-morrow night," she murmured. "At the Red Cross dance." Chapter III. WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT. THE Ledyard dance was an overwhelming success. Everyone admitted it, from Hickson who had stood at the door with an expression of scandalized martyrdom and collected the purchased tickets of admission, to the Red Cross treasurer who ultimately received the hostess' check. The exclusive coterie which made up the smart set of Eastopolis mingled for once in amused toler- ance with the opulent but unelect which packed the Ledyard residence to the doors. Vallory's jazz band fairly surpassed itself in blare and din and eccentric antics, the floral decora- tions were superb and the supper worthy of a Savarin. But for that which followed so closely upon it, the func- tion would have been the most talked-of event of the year. Bebe Cowles, who had been an overnight guest of the Ledyards', rose somewhat languidly shortly before noon on the following day and gathering the draperies of her negli- gee about her, made her way to Trixy's room. Repeated tapping brought no response and at length she uncere- moniously opened the door and entered. The heavy curtains were still drawn to shut out the brilliant spring sunshine, but in the semi-obscurity she discerned the white expanse of the bed with Trixy lying inertly among her pillows. "I've been knocking for ever so long! Didn't you hear me?" Bebe asked in an injured tone. Then, perceiving 25 26 THE SECOND BULLET an untouched breakfast tray on the stand she added : "What is the matter? Don't you feel well, dear?" The girl in the bed neither spoke nor moved save that her eyes turned slowly to her visitor, but there was no sign of recognition in them. "Trixy! What is it! Speak to me!" Bebe almost shrieked. "Trixy, for heaven's sake !" A shudder swept the recumbent figure. "Oh, it's you, Bebe !" she said faintly. "I I must have been dozing." "Did you have a bad night?" asked the other, perching herself at the bed's foot and cuddling down into the silken coverlet. Without waiting for a reply she went on: "It wouldn't surprise me if you had, after all the champagne you drank at supper ! You so seldom touch it, and yet last night I saw you take glass after glass. It didn't affect you in the least, I'll say that for you, dear, but I was sure you'd have a frightful head this morning." "Yes, that must be it, of course ; the champagne !" Trixy spoke almost eagerly. "Rather disgraceful, isn't it? And yet do you know I wasn't conscious of what I was drinking; I felt parched with thirst and it was iced and pleasant. But where are the papers? Do ring for them Bebe." "I've been yawning over them in my room." Bebe un- curled herself reluctantly. "They've given the affair a write-up like the opening of the opera season." "There is nothing nothing else?" Trixy's face was averted as she spoke. "Nothing but the after-the-war political stuff. What should there be?" "Then never mind ; I don't want to see them," she hesi- tated. "I fancied there might have been a flurry in stocks. Father has seemed worried lately." WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT 27' "The market is steady enough. You'd better believe I looked at it first of all! If the bottom falls out of it, away goes little Bebe's alimony," observed that young person coolly. Then her volatile thoughts reverting to the previous evening, she exclaimed: "Wasn't the jazz band wonderful?" "It was atrocious 1" Trixy shuddered. "It seems as though I should never get the sound of it out of my ears 1" "It was a bit noisy. But that leader, Vallory himself! He seemed to play twenty things at once besides the big drum, and each of them made a different slam-bang racket. His hands simply flew!" "I didn't notice him particularly." "Well, I did, because in the midst of his craziest antics that melancholy expression of his never changed. It's a pose, of course, but it made me think somehow of Pagliacci. However, Trixy, if you don't mind my saying so, I think your mother used poor judgment in stationing the band so near the conservatory. People can't carry on a satisfac- tory flirtation in pantomime, and you couldn't hear your- self think in there !" "But you know what a crush it was; mother wanted to leave as much space as possible for the dancing." Trixy spoke with an obvious effort. "What was that?" "What?" "I thought I heard a noise out in the street." Trixy sank back again into her pillows. "Your nerves, darling," Bebe assured her comfortably. "But what do you suppose happened to the conservatory door last night? Freddie Gaylor and I tried to get in there after supper, but the door wouldn't budge. Did it stick or did your father lock his precious orchids away from the common herd ?" 28 THE SECOND BULLET "Oh, it stuck, I fancy," responded the other carelessly. "The key has been lost for ages." "Mrs. Hartshorne looked stunning, didn't she?" Bebe chattered on. "When she decided at last to emerge from her shell, she burst forth in a blaze of glory. I'll say that much for her. Did you ever see such a ravishing string of pearls? It's funny she never exhibited them before." She paused as if for encouragement but none being vouchsafed her, she asked suddenly: "Where was she at supper, by the way? I don't remem- ber seeing her then or afterwards. When did she go?" "Why do you ask me?" The cry seemed wrung from Trixy at last by her tortured nerves. "Why do you keep harping on her? I've endured all I can, Bebe! Don't dare speak of her to me again !" "Good heavens, Trixy, you look savage enough to kill her " "A-ah!" Trixy covered her lips as if to stifle the sound which issued from them. "Oh, well, if you feel that way, I suppose I had best go back to my own room!" Bebe shrugged. "I'm going to tell you one thing, though, for your own good ; you're show- ing your hand too plainly. If we hadn't played around together since we were babies I wouldn't speak, but I hate to see you making a fool of yourself ! Goodness knows we've no secrets from each other. I told you when I first fell in love with Hamilton and you were my maid of honor at the wedding. And you knew all about how happy I was then and how wretched he made me later! Don't you suppose I realize how you feel about Neely Swarth- more? The point is, there's no reason why the whole world should know that he jilted you for " "Bebe, will you go away, please?" Trixy sat up with 39 sudden strength, her tawny eyes flashing. "Will you leave me to myself for a while? I told you I could not endure any more!" "Of course I'll go!" Bebe sprang up, offended. "Only others beside myself may have observed you last night when you two met face to face in the hall." "What do you mean?" the other demanded. "I was sitting out a dance on the stairs with Freddie when Neely fairly rushed from the ballroom, with a per- fectly fiendish expression on his face, and started like a mad bull to jam his way through the crush to the cloak- room. It must have been about half -past eleven, for we had two dances more before supper, I remember. Neely came face to face with you and shouldered his way past without a word. You laid your hand on his arm, but he shook it off as though he didn't recognize you wasn't even conscious of your existence. You turned and stood looking after him, and one glimpse of your face just then would have given away the whole situation to anyone who wasn't quite blind !" Bebe paused, and then added : "You used to be so proud that I hate to see you humble yourself before any man, least of all Neely after the way he has treated you! You'll have your chance for revenge, of course, but you haven't spunk enough to take it, because you care too much. He'll come crawling back to you soon, never fear!" "How do you know ?" Trixy's tone was steady and oddly repressed. "What makes you say that, Bebe ? Why should he come back now ?" "Never mind what I know !" Bebe stuck out her little chin obstinately. "Everybody thinks Fm a chatterbox, but I know enough to keep out of mischief by holding my tongue once in a while! He'll come back, but oh! Trixy, don't 30 THE SECOND BULLET take him on again! I married a handsome rotter and I know what I went through! I couldn't bear to see you suffer that and worse than that when the truth is out." "What truth!" Trixy was white to the lips. "I don't know what you are keeping from me, but this I do know ; if Neely Swarthmore ever dared to to make love to me again, if he ever dared even to approach me, I think I should die of disgust and horror and loathing! I don't want 're- venge', as you call it; I only want to forget that he ever lived! You are right. I have been a blind fool, but my eyes are opened now. Care for him? From the depths of my soul I abhor him !" Weeping hysterically, she flung herself back upon her pillows and Bebe, her own resentment forgotten, had all she could do to comfort her. At that moment Rose Adare was mounting the steps of Mrs. Hartshorne's pretty little house. She rang, and this time there was no delay ; her hand was scarcely off the bell when the door flew open and Matilde, the usually taciturn Frenchwoman, stood before her. The maid's sallow face was even more pale than was its wont, but her eyes glittered with suppressed excitement and her bosom rose and fell rapidly with her panting breath. "I have been waiting for you, Mademoiselle Adare! You are late!" She drew the wondering girl within and closed the door softly. "I had another appointment and I thought it wouldn't matter; that Mrs. Hartshorne would probably sleep late after the dance. That is why I didn't telephone; I was afraid of disturbing her." "Come up now, if you please." Matilde turned and led the way to the staircase and Rose followed, puzzled by the woman's manner no less than by a vague feeling of op- WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT 31 pression which swiftly assailed her. Where was Jenny, and why did the usual silence of that well-ordered house- hold seem increased a hundredfold, deepening into some- thing strange and sinister and forbidding ? They paused before Mrs. Hartshorne's door. Rose raised her hand to knock when the Frenchwoman stopped her. "It will do no good. Look through the keyhole, Madem- oiselle." Rose drew back, her round eyes fairly starting from her head. "What do you mean, Matilde?" she whispered. "Some- thing something dreadful has happened to Mrs. Hart- shorne ?" "I fear that she is very ill," the woman responded slowly as if choosing each word with care. "She must have fainted when she returned from the dance. The door is locked, and I cannot make her hear me. Look, Mademoiselle !" Without more ado Rose stooped and peered through the keyhole. The next instant she recoiled and her handbag fell to the floor. Through the orifice she had beheld the head and shoulders of Mrs. Hartshorne, who appeared to be lying face up- ward upon the floor. The hair was arranged as it must have been on the previous evening and the marblelike neck, encircled by a string of huge pearls, arose from the shim- mering satin of a marvelous dance frock. "She she isn't !" The word would not come. "Madame has had fainting spells before which lasted for hours." Matilde shrugged. "But we must get help immediately! Why didn't you do so at once when you saw her lying there?" After the first shock the girl's alert brain had reacted and she gazed sharply at the Frenchwoman, 3* THE SECOND BULLET "It was only a moment before you came that I myself looked through the keyhole, Mademoiselle, and I thought that you would know best what to do. Jenny and the cook, they are impossible, they know nothing, and I preferred that you should be here." Matilde hesitated, then added in cool significance. "You see, Mademoiselle, it may not be a fainting spell, after all !" With a coldness at her heart, Rose seized the handle of the door and shook it violently, but with no result. Then backing off a few steps she hurled her lithe young strength against it. The door did not even quiver. The next instant Rose was flying down the stairs. She tore open the front door and stood for a moment on the steps gazing up and down the quiet street. A phy- sician's landaulet stood before the house across the way. Motor cars were coming and going, and a delivery boy went whistling past; but there was no sign of that which she sought. With an inarticulate mutter of exasperation Rose sped down the steps and toward the nearest corner, heedless of the curious glances cast after her. She had neared the intersection of the avenue when a blue-coated figure hove in sight, sauntering along in apparent aimlessness. He quickened his pace when he perceived the approaching girl. "Officer !" Rose exclaimed breathlessly. "You know Mrs. Hartshorne's house, number one thirty nine?" "Certainly, Miss." His tone was tersely interrogatory. "Come quickly, please. There's trouble there 1" The front door was open as she had left it. Speechlessly she pointed up the stair. The Frenchwoman still cowered in the hall before her mistress' room, but Rose gestured eloquently to the keyhole, and the policeman looked through it. WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT 33 One glance was sufficient. The officer backed away and then lunged forward, his huge shoulder meeting the door with a crashing impact. It strained at the first onslaught, bent under the force of the second and the third burst its lock and flung it back, sagging drunkenly on its hinges. The policeman entered with Rose close at his heels and Matilde behind her. Mrs. Hartshorne lay motionless as if asleep, save that her lids were not quite closed and beneath the hand which rested quietly on her breast a sinister dark stain appeared. The finger-tips of the other hand outstretched beside her, touched the handle of a small, blunt-nosed revolver. "A-ah! Madame has killed herself!" came from the Frenchwoman's lips. There was an incongruous note, al- most of exultation in the cry. Rose whirled upon her, her own eyes blurred with tears. "Then who locked the door and took away the key?" she demanded. "Oh, is she really dead, officer?" "Been dead for hours," he responded as he rose from his knees beside the recumbent form. The girl noted that he had removed his cap. "Where's your telephone ?" Matilde indicated the extension beside the bed and as he moved briskly toward it, Rose exclaimed softly. "Poor Mrs. Hartshorne! I can't believe that she did it herself! Matilde, how can you be so unfeeling? Mrs. Hartshorne thought you were devoted to her, and yet now you seem almost glad !" "I would have followed Madame to the ends of the earth!" The woman responded with suddenly aroused fervour. "I would have guarded her from all harm with my own life if that had been necessary. But if she has killed herself, what would you?" Rose had no time to ponder this enigmatic speech, for 34 THE SECOND BULLET the policeman turned from the 'phone with an exclamation of impatience. "Can't get any action here," he grumbled. "It must be switched off downstairs. Go and turn it." As Matilde, without a second glance at the still form of her mistress, left the room to obey, he approached Rose. "You don't belong here, Miss, though I've seen you come and go often. What are you doing here?" Rose explained and added her version of the morning's tragic discovery in a shaking voice, her tearful eyes re- turning as though fascinated to the still countenance of the dead woman. "I can't think why she should have done it!" she con- cluded with a sob. "Mrs. Gaylor, the client I've just come from, said Mrs. Hartshorne looked simply wonderful at the dance last night and 'radiantly happy'. Those were her very words ! Why should the poor thing have come home and shot herself ?" "The telephone extension is connected now." the calm voice of Matilde announced from the doorway. As the policeman turned once more to the instrument beside the bed Rose raised her eyes from the dead woman to the living. The suppressed excitement with which Matilde had greeted her on her arrival, the apprehension and dread she had evinced before the closed door, had dropped from her like a cloak when the actual fact of her mistress' death was established. Why was relief rather than grief sug- gested by her attitude? If she would have been willing, as she asserted, to give her life for Mrs. Hartshorne's preser- vation ? Her obvious lie recurred also to increase the perplexity in the girl's mind. When she greeted her at the door, per- haps in an unguarded instant of relief at her coming, WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT 35 Matilde had betrayed the fact that she had been waiting for her ; yet a few minutes later, when asked why, she had not summoned aid, the Frenchwoman asseverated that she had herself made the discovery only a moment before Rose came. She must have known for some time, perhaps hours, what awaited them upstairs. Why had she delayed sound- ing the alarm until Rose's arrival would have made dis- covery certain, or an evasion have later inevitably directed suspicion against herself? "Chief Burke is coming up with a couple of men from Headquarters," the policeman announced, hanging up the receiver. "The Coroner'll be here, too, in a little while. Now, Miss," he addressed himself pointedly to Rose "I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to wait. Will you go down to the parlor, please ? I want to ask the maid, here, a few questions." Rose obeyed, pausing only to pick up her hand-bag which lay in the hall. The drawing-room was dim and cool, and fragrant with the cloying perfume of some huge crimson roses which hung limply from a low glass bowl on the piano. The girl shuddered involuntarily. These were the roses which had arrived two days before, when she had found Mrs. Hartshorne ill, and had first seen that vicious little weapon which now lay within touch of those nerveless, rigid fingers above. Presently she heard Matilde coming downstairs; but without pausing the Frenchwoman descended to the base- ment, from whence shrill outcries announced that she had broken the news to the other servants. Rose wondered why the policeman did not appear, until she heard a chair scrape the hardwood floor of the hall overhead. She concluded that he had taken up his post outside the room of death. The minutes seemed very long as she sat there alone, but 36 THE SECOND BULLET at length Matilde and Jenny, followed by the cook and the little kitchen maid, filed into the room, evidently under orders. The Frenchwoman walked to the window, where she stood looking out with hard tearless eyes ; but the others seated themselves awkwardly in the nearest chairs. Jenny wept softly, but the cook gave herself up to voluble lamen- tations, while Sadie, the kitchen maid, sat with dropped jaw and protruding, lack-luster eyes, dumb with terror. The raucous cry of strawberry venders and the laughter of children on their way home from school came shrilly to Rose's ears from the street outside. At last the grinding of brakes before the door and a sharp peal of the bell told her that their vigil was at an end. Jenny admitted the officials and they trooped upstairs. Shortly afterward came the Coroner. Even the cook was hushed to silence, as they listened with strained ears to the subdued murmur of voices from above. No words were distinguishable until, after a pro- longed debate, heavy footsteps approached the stairs and a sentence, evidently flung back over the man's shoulder, reached the women huddled below. "If that's the case, Doctor, then Paul Harvey is the lad to handle it for us." The steps descended and a stout, grayhaired man with bristling mustache appeared in the doorway. "Where is the 'phone down here ? Come and show me the switch, one of you. I don't want to talk from the exten- sion." Matilde did not even turn, but Jenny complied, and the stern voice, softened now and almost fatherly, came once more to their ears : "Hello? Chief Burke talking. I want to speak to Paul . . . Hello, Paul, feel well enough to take on another WHAT THE DAWN BROUGHT 37 case right away? . . . Good boy! . . . Number one thirty-nine West Farragut Street . . . Big thing, all right, the biggest in years. Looked like a plain suicide at first, but it's a clear case of murder ... In ten minutes? Goodbye." Rose scarcely heard when the Chief of Police hung up the receiver and started once more up the stairs, for at the word "murder" Matilde swayed, caught vainly at the cur- tains to save herself, and fell in a crumpled unconscious heap upon the floor. Chapter IV. QUESTIONS. IT was within the allotted ten minutes that a modest green runabout drew up at the curb behind the Coroner's sedan and the Chief's impressive twelve-cylinder, be- fore the little house whose dicreetly curtained windows veiled a tragedy. The humming of the motor ceased abruptly and a young man sprang from behind the wheel and darted up the steps, through the crowd of excited, curious bystanders which had already gathered about the door. He was a tall, slender young man with a splendid breadth of shoulder and strong, clean-cut features. One looked twice before noting the slight halting limp and the shadows of ever-present suffering about the deep brown eyes. "That's the boy ! Come up here, Paul !" the Chief called from the head of the stairs, when Jenny had opened the door. "I've got something to show you." Paul bounded lightly up the stairs albeit an involuntary grimace of pain twisted his lips. The Chief threw an arm across his shoulder in fatherly fashion and drew him into the bedroom beyond. "Doctor Cravenshaw, this is Paul Harvey, son of Alfred Harvey, the former Commissioner, and one of the best! Paul is attached to the Force in a semi-official capacity as a special investigator and he's given us a lot of help ; rounded up the Reuhl counterfeiting gang and got Van Vrenken, the 38 QUESTIONS 39 diamond thief. We haven't put him on a murder case before ; there wasn't one big enough for him. That's why you haven't run into him until now." "I'm very glad to know you, sir." The Coroner shook hands cordially. "I've heard of your father, of course. Unless I'm mistaken, you will find this case big enough to tax all your powers." He stepped aside, revealing the body, and Paul, who had flushed deeply at the Chief's praise, advanced and dropped on one knee beside the rigid form, his keen eyes taking in every detail. "Mrs. Hartshorne herself," he commented. "I thought it must be when you 'phoned, Chief; you wouldn't have come rushing up in person if it had been just one of the servants. She has been dead for some hours, hasn't she, Doctor?" "Eight or ten, perhaps longer," the Coroner responded. "I'd like to call your attention to the posture of the body, Mr. Harvey. Looks like suicide, right enough, doesn't it, at first glance ? And yet " "There aren't any powder marks on the clothing about the wound." Paul interrupted him "That's one item for a starter. The shot must have been fired from several feet away, at least. And who arranged her gown so nicely about her feet and tried to close her eyes?" "Hah ! You got that, did you ?" The Coroner smiled. "I told you he would !" exulted Chief Burke. "Oh, well, the eyes of a corpse are usually staring wide, and when they are mere slits like these, it's a safe bet that somebody tried to close them," explained Paul half -apologe- tically. Then he bent still lower over the body. The two older men watched him in silence, forbearing to interrupt his examination by any advice of their own. 40 THE SECOND BULLET At length he sat back on his heels and looked up at them. "I can't make it out," he admitted frankly. "This is surely a unique murderer you have steered me up against, Chief. He kills the woman, puts the revolver in her hand to try to save himself from suspicion, and then an almost womanish sentimental pity takes possession of him. Know- ing that he's likely to be discovered at any moment, he stays long enough to close her eyes, arrange her skirt about her ankles and even places one of her hands across her breast, covering the wound." Chief Burke looked a trifle disconcerted and the Coroner laughed. "The Chief thought that, in falling, her elbow might have struck the edge of that chair there beside her, and her arm been flung across her breast, but I tried to show him how unlikely that theory was. In such a case, reflex action would have made the hand slip limply off the breast to the floor. No, the upper arm was resting on the floor when the fore- arm was raised and pressed across the body," Dr. Craven- shaw explained. "I'm glad that point did not escape you." "You have examined the revolver, sir?" Paul turned to the Chief. "Yes, one shot has been fired from it," the latter re- sponded. "She must have been killed immediately after her return from the Red Cross ball at the Ledyards'." "So that is where she had been," Paul nodded. "I've seen her name in the papers a lot, of course, in connection with society and war work and that sort of thing. She had time to take her cloak off and lay it over that chair by the way, have you examined it?" "The cloak? Yes. No evidence there." Nevertheless Paul picked up the luxurious fur-trimmed garment and looked at both sides of it closely before re- QUESTIONS 41 placing it with a slight shrug as of acquiescence. He turned again to the Coroner and remarked : "There doesn't seem to be very much blood, Doctor." "No, but the revolver is of small caliber and the lady may have been anaemic," Dr. Cravenshaw replied. "All that, of course, will be determined at the autopsy. I thought myself that the effusion was very slight; it has probably soaked up into the rug." "What time did Mrs. Hartshorne return? That ought to give you approximately the hour in which she met her death." Paul resumed to his superior. "Was she alone? Who let her in? Why didn't the sound of the revolver shot alarm the house?" "Don't know, my boy. I've let you in on the ground floor; called you up the minute Dr. Cravenshaw had come to the conclusion that it was a case of murder. I waited for you to come before questioning the servants but Officer King, here, who broke down the door, got a statement from the maid and the other young woman." "Hello, John!" Paul grinned in friendly fashion at the policeman who appeared in the doorway at mention of his name. "How did you come to get into this?" "It's my regular beat now, Mr. Harvey." Officer King returned the grin as he saluted. "I was coming along down the block when the young girl that does fancy letter-writing came running out to me and told me there was trouble here. Her story was straight enough, but I couldn't get much out of that Frenchwoman, Mrs. Hartshorne's maid." He told of the finding of the body and, when he had concluded, the Coroner prepared to depart. "I'll have the body removed in an hour," the latter observed. "Let me see, to-day is Friday and I have the autopsy to perform ; I'll call the inquest for Monday." 42 THE SECOND BULLET "All right, Doctor. I'll have all your witnesses on hand," the Chief assured him. "It may have been an inside job at that, but there's no telling yet. I'll call at your office later." The Coroner nodded and withdrew and Paul strode to a window and looked out. "No chance of anyone climbing up here; there isn't a vine or even a crevice to give him toe-hold." "And the windows were all fastened on the inside," sup- plemented Chief Burke. "The murderer, whoever he was, locked the door and carried the key away with him. That's how the maid, Matilde, found out something was wrong; she looked through the keyhole." "Let's go and have a talk with her now?" suggested Paul. "I'll go over the room thoroughly later, but I'd like to hear what the servants have to say for themselves, and the social secretary, too." Leaving Officer King still on duty they descended and found the servants grouped about Matilde, who lay upon the couch. Rose Adare was standing a little apart. "What's the matter here?" the Chief demanded, bruskly. "Matilde fainted." It was Rose who replied. "I am better now ; it is nothing." Matilde sat up weakly. "You wished to see me, Monsieur?" "This young man, here, would like to ask you a few questions. What is that small room across the hall ?" "The reception room, Monsieur." "We'll go in there. The rest of you wait here." The Chief turned to Rose. "Sorry to detain you, too, but it is necessary." "I understand." Rose was gazing at the slightly lame young man with sympathetic interest. "I don't mind wait- ing." QUESTIONS 43 The Chief led the way to the reception room and seating himself precariously in a fragile gilt chair, motioned Matilde to one on the other side of the table. Paul closed the door and began pacing the floor pausing only to shoot question after question at the Frenchwoman. "What is your name ?" "Matilde Benoit, Monsieur." "Where did you come from?" "From Peronne in the north of France, Monsieur. The war has perhaps destroyed all records " There was a note of mockery in the observation and Paul interrupted her peremptorily. "How long since you came to this country?" "Nine years, Monsieur. My last position was in New York with an old lady who died." "How long have you been with Mrs. Hartshorne ?" "Seven months, Monsieur; one month before we came here to Eastopolis." Her tone was demurely respectful now, but it was plain that she meant to give her interrogator no information that was not specifically required. Paul, realizing this, changed his tactics. "Tell me where you met Mrs. Hartshorne, and how you came to enter her employ." "In New York." Matilde hesitated. "When the old lady died I was worn out from caring for her ; I had to go to the hospital and when I came out I could get no work. At last I found a position in the linen room of a big hotel and there I met Mrs. Hartshorne. She took a fancy to me and engaged me for her maid." "What hotel was this ?" "The Belmonde, Monsieur." "Very good; we'll let that go for awhile." Paul halted 44 THE SECOND BULLET beside her so that in turning to him she was compelled to face the light. "Who accompanied Mrs. Hartshorne to the dance last night?" "She dined first at the house of Madame Gaylor. I think she went on with them to the dance." "At what time did she return?" "I do not know, Monsieur. Madame instructed me not to wait up for her." "Did one of the other maids open the door for her?" "Oh, no, Monsieur ! Madame took her own key." "And you heard nothing during the night?" "Nothing whatever. We were all asleep." Matilde paused, and added in sudden volubility. "If it is the revol- ver shot that you mean, Monsieur, it is not strange; the motor speedway runs through the next street and we are accustomed to the sound of bursting tires." It was the first observation she had volunteered, and there was a shade too much eagerness in her tone. "Tell me exactly what happened this morning. Did you notice anything unusual when you first came down stairs?" "But, no, Monsieur! It is Madame's custom to sleep always with her door locked. I descended and breakfasted with the other maids and then mended some of Madame's laces. I have orders not to disturb her until she rings, but that is ordinarily about ten, unless Madame is ill." Matilde's volubility had slackened and she spoke now almost haltingly. "She has not been well, lately, and I became anxious when the hour of eleven came and no sound from Madame's room. I went to her door and knocked softly, but there was no reply. It occurred to me then that per- haps Madame had not returned ; that she had stayed at the house of Madame Gaylor. It has not happened before, but Mademe has for some days been not quite herself " QUESTIONS 45 The woman paused with a quick catch of her breath and Chief Burke leaned across the table. "Go on!" he commanded in a voice of thunder. "What do you mean? 'Not quite herself '?" "But she was nervous, Monsieur. Fatigued and restless. The whim might have come to remain with her friends." The moment's respite had been sufficient. Matilde's tone was bland, although she spoke more slowly as if weighing each word. "I turned the handle, but the door was locked so I knew Madame was at home. I did not at the moment discover that the key was gone." "You made no other effort to arouse your mistress?" Paul took up the inquiry once more. "Not then, Monsieur. I knew that Mademosille Adare, the secretary, would come in one half -hour and I decided that I would wait until her arrival would make it necessary to disturb Madame. But Mademoiselle Adare was late and I became alarmed ! Suppose Madame were indeed ill ! I went again to her door and this time I saw a tiny point of light coming through the keyhole. I bent and looked ! Messieurs, you know what I saw !" "Why did you not give the alarm immediately?" "But there was no time, Monsieur. I thought that Madame must be ill, unconscious, and I flew down the stairs to tell the other servants and summon a doctor when at the moment Mademoiselle Adare rang the bell." "I see." Paul walked a few paces away and then wheeled. "Did you ever see that revolver before, the one lying be- side Mrs. Hartshorne's body?" "I do not know, Monsieur." "Look here!" Chief Burke brought his fist down on the frail table. "What do you mean, you don't know? Speak up and don't beat about the bush 1" 46 THE SECOND BULLET "Madame had a revolver, of course. I have seen hers many times, but how can I be sure that it is the same?" Matilde eyed the Chief calmly. "What was her object in keeping a revolver? Was she afraid of burglars?" he demanded. "What else, Monsieur?" Matilde shrugged. "Madame's jewels are of great value and always there is much money about the house." "Had she a safe ?" Paul intervened once more. "No, Monsieur. The jewels are in my charge and the money Madame hides in odd places. It is what do you say? a fad of hers. There will be a hundred dollar bill between the pages of a book; two, three hundred stuffed in a vase, as much as five hundred, perhaps, slipped behind a picture." Paul and the Chief exchanged significant glances. "You say you had charge of Mrs. Hartshorne's jewels. Have you a list of them ?" "Certainly, Monsieur. But the jewels themselves are in Madame's bedroom." "Who were Mrs. Hartshorne's closest friends?" Paul switched the subject of his inquiry abruptly. "All the haut monde how do you say? the best people of Eastopolis," responded Matilde promptly. "But elsewhere?" insisted Paul. "Have no old friends visited her? Has she never spoken of them or of her family ?" "Madame has had no visitors." A guarded look, like a veil, filmed the woman's over-bright piercing black eyes. "Nor has she spoken of old friends. Madame is not in the habit of discussing her affairs with me, but I have under- stood that her husband is dead and she has no near relatives." QUESTIONS 47 "Her letters surely she received letters from other places? Where did such letters come from?" "I do not know, Monsieur." There was a trace of hauteur in Matilde's tone. "I do not pry into Madame's mail." "But the post-marks? Have you never noticed a post- mark other than Eastopolis on a letter of hers?" "Never, Monsieur. I do not even glance at them !" she added pointedly. "I know nothing whatever of Madame." "That will do." Paul turned away. "You may go; but I shall want to ask you some questions later." Chief Burke stirred in his chair and made as if to speak, but he evidently thought better of it and Matilde left the room in silence. When she had gone he turned to the younger man. "What do you think of her, Paul? Cool customer, eh?" "She's holding out on us. There's no question of that, sir," responded Paul. "But whether it has any bearing on the actual murder or not remains to be seen. There never was a maid yet that didn't know her mistress' affairs better than that lady herself ; however, she may have a personal reason for keeping quiet. I'll get the Belmonde on long distance later and verify that part of her story, at least. Suppose we take the others now? That little secretary, or whatever she is, can wait. I'll finish with the house servants first." The interview with the cook was productive of no rele- vant facts. Hannah Weeks was her name; she'd been working in Eastopolis for twenty-seven years, and only three places at that. Mrs. Hartshorne had taken her straight from the Oakleys, when they gave up housekeeping five months before, and a nicer lady she'd never worked for ; kept out of her kitchen and never a complaint and paid 48 THE SECOND BULLET the bills without a murmur when they came in the first of the month. Whoever it was killed her, she Hannah would like to get her two hands on him. Sadie, the little kitchen maid, was still tongue-tied and staring. She had been engaged from an agency the same week that the cook had come and had scarcely ever laid eyes on her mistress except when she received her month's wages or had looked out of the front basement windows to see Mrs. Hartshorne go out in all her lovely clothes. She slept in the same room with Hannah at the top of the house and neither of them had wakened during the previous night. "What were you doing in the front basement?" Paul asked. "What is the room used for?" "It's a kind of a sittin'-room Mrs. Hartshorne had fixed up for us girls." Sadie's voice sank almost to a whisper and her hands commenced to twist nervously in the folds of her apron. "Matilde, she don't never go in there but the rest of us sits there when our work is done except when Jenny's feller comes." "Did you always watch your mistress go out?" Paul concealed a smile. "Oh, no, sir." Sadie's embarrassment increased. "But I like to see the lights and the automobiles and the people. I never get anywheres except to a movie now and again." There was unconscious pathos in her tone, and Paul would have dismissed her, but she appeared to hesitate. "Is there something you want to tell me?" Sadie shivered as if with a sudden chill. "No, sir, only oh, do you think 'twas a burglar killed her ? I there's folks that hang around " "Has anybody been hanging around here?" boomed the Chief, QUESTIONS 49 Sade jumped. "No-no sir!" she quavered. "I just thought " "Well, you get along and send Jenny in here," he ordered good-humoredly and as the frightened girl scuttled out he added to Paul. "Movie stuff! Can you beat it?" "I'm not so sure," the young man responded thought- fully. "Perhaps she has seen something that she is too scared to mention." The bell rang at this juncture and heavy feet mounted the stairs. The Chief joined them, but Paul still paced meditatively up and down the narrow space before the bay-window. Purely routine work as it was, this examination of the members of the small household might in a chance word lend a valuable clue, and yet he shook his head abstractedly. In that silent room upstairs, now echoing with the stamping feet of the Coroner's men, Paul had come upon a detail which had escaped the observation of the others and which pointed to an hypothesis so incredible that he strove to put it from his thoughts. This was no time for vague fantas- tic theories ! Facts were what he needed facts and yet more facts ; but the detail remained fixed before his mental vision. The footsteps, thudding in measured tread now, came slowly down the stairs and out the front door. Paul walked to the window. A covered wagon was drawn up where the Coroner's car had stood and a murmur that was almost a groan went up from the close-packed pha- lanxes of the crowd which had gathered as the men with their ominous burden appeared. Mrs. Hartshorne was leaving her pretty little house forever, Chapter V. A STRING OF PEARLS. rTTTELL, that's over!" The Chief settled his ^^ enormous bulk carefully into the absurd gilt chair once more. "Let's get through here ; I've got a lot to do downtown. Where's that girl Jenny ?" Jenny appeared, weeping afresh from the sight of her late mistress' tragic departure. She had come from the same agency as Sadie, at about the same time, and under- stood that Mrs. Hartshorne had just bought the house and moved in. Like the rest, she had slept undisturbed during the night, and knew nothing of the murder until Matilde came down and told them an hour or so before. "Only Matilde didn't say it was murder," she amended. "She said poor Mrs. Hartshorne had killed herself." "H'm!" vouchsafed the Chief. "You take the mail from the postman, don't you, Jenny ?" asked Paul hastily as if to forestall his superior. "Yes, sir." "You look at the post-marks, don't you ?" She nodded, wonderingly. "Did you ever see any letters with post-marks other than Eastopolis ?" "No, sir. I thought it was queer, Mrs. Hartshorne being a stranger here; but she said something once about her folks living abroad, and I guessed maybe they was all killed in the war." 50 A STRING OF PEARLS 51 "You liked Mrs. Hartshorne, didn't you?" "Oh, yes, sir !" The tears started again. "She was never cross and cranky like some, but always kind." "Always in good spirits?" "Happy, like?" Jenny hesitated, and mopped her eyes with a rag of a handkerchief. "Well, yes, sir, until just the last few days. She was sick and I think she was worrying about something, too. Anyway, she changed all of a sudden." "When did this change take place?" Paul halted before her. "You say within the last few days. What day?" "It was Tuesday evening." Jenny drew a long breath as if glad of the opportunity to unburden herself. "Matilde was out and I hooked Mrs. Hartshorne into her dress to go to the Gaylors' dinner party. She was excited and laughing, and told me I could take the flowers that had been in the drawing-room since the day before and put them down in our basement sitting-room because because I was expecting some company. She came back real early, much sooner than she usually does and the minute I let her in I saw that something was the matter. She just stood there after I'd closed the door as if she was sort of bewildered. Then she began to sway and I sprang forward to catch her, thinking she was going to faint, but she pulled herself to- gether. She looked as if she'd seen a ghost and she didn't even seem to know that I was there. 'It's come !' she said, as if she was talking through her set teeth. 'It's come.' '"What is it, Mrs. Hartshorne?' I asked her. 'Don't you feel well ? Can I get you anything ?' "That sort of roused her, and she said no, that she had a headache but would be all right in the morning, and she went on upstairs to her room, hanging on to the banisters as if she was afraid of falling. And I never saw a smile 52 THE SECOND BULLET on her face after that except when the gentlemen were here." "What gentlemen?" "Mr. Swarthmore, sir, and the old one, Mr. Braddock." The Chief's chair creaked ominously. "You don't mean the munitions man and the President of the Eastopolis Trust Company?" he interjected. "I guess so, sir. Leastways it was Mr. Cornelius Swarth- more a: d Mr. Wendle Braddock. I've taken their cards to her too often not to remember." Jenny picked up the thread of her narrative. "Wednesday morning Mrs. Hartshorne woke up sick, but she seemed all well again and looked lovely when Mr. Swarthmore came for tea in the afternoon. She was restless, though, and her nerves were all on the jump ; I could tell that when I served the tea to them in the drawing-room. Then Mr. Swarthmore left and Mr. Brad- dock came for dinner, and all through the evening I could see she was just keeping herself up. The next day yester- day she seemed awful excited, but anxious more than happy. She went out in the afternoon tell me, sir!" the girl broke off suddenly, "was she really shot with that little revolver of hers ?" "So we think," Paul replied cautiously. "You've seen it, then?" "Oh, yes, sir. She always kept it in her room, but yester- day she took it out with her." Again the Chief's chair creaked but Paul hastily inter- posed. "How do you know?" "She dropped it in the hall as she was going out. She had stopped to give me some directions and it slipped from under the moleskin cape coatee she wore and clattered down on to the floor. I jumped back, for I was always scared of A STRING OF PEARLS 53 it, but she said it wasn't loaded ; that she was taking it to have it repaired. She picked it up herself while I was getting up my nerve to touch it, and went on out." "Did you see the revolver again ?" "No, sir." Jenny shuddered. "Oh, how did anyone get in to kill her? I locked up real careful last night before I went to bed just like I always do, only I left the chain off the front door so that she could come in with her key. I'm particular about it because of there being no man in the house ; and it makes me nervous to have all that money lying around, to say nothing of her jewelry." "What money?" Paul eyed her sharply. "Hundreds and hundreds of dollars!" She lowered her voice as if awe-stricken at the sum she named. "The first I knew of it, I found a hundred dollar bill in a little ivory box on the drawing-room mantel when I was cleaning one day about two months ago. I took it to her, but she laughed and said she was always hiding money about, that it was all right. After that I found more in all kinds of places and I begged her to put it away, for if any of it was gone of course we would get the blame us girls, I mean. She said she wasn't afraid to trust us, and she wouldn't listen. But it made me nervous to think of it being in the house, even." "Did you ever speak of this money to anyone outside the household, Jenny ?" "No, sir." "Not even to your 'fellow', the one who calls on you here ?" Paul pursued. The girl's face flamed. "I should think not! But even if I had, Harry is all right! Why, his father is a bank messenger down at the First National, and Harry himself is under bond, as they call it; he's a delivery boy for Webster and Weil, the 54 THE SECOND BULLET jewelers. I said to him only yesterday afternoon " "Oh, he called on you yesterday, did he?" The Chief leaned forward. "He did not!" snapped Jenny. "I have no callers inter- ferin' with my work in the daytime! He came here with a package for Mrs. Hartshorne." "What was it?" "How should I know?" she tossed her head. "It was square and flat, and it must have been a present, because she looked surprised when I took it up to her. I didn't see what was in it." "Was this before she went out?" asked Paul. "No, real late; after six o'clock, for she was getting ready to go out to dinner and that Red Cross dance, and Miss Adare was here, attending to some letters." "Did you see Mrs. Hartshorne again?" "Only as she was going out. She was all muffled up in her cloak, but Miss Adare said she looked lovely, like a queen ! And to think of her now !" There were symptoms of returning tears and Paul hur- riedly dismissed her. "All right, Jenny. I won't ask you any more questions now. Will you tell Miss Adare that I should like to speak to her?" Rose entered quietly and took the chair indicated. The first shock of the morning's discovery had long passed and she had forced her thoughts back to her first meeting with the dead woman, striving to recall some incident which might throw light upon the tragedy. It came to her with an element of surprise that she really knew very little about Mrs. Hartshorne. "What is your full name, please?" It was the pleasant- faced, limping young man who addressed her. A STRING OF PEARLS 55 "Rose Adare." Her blue eyes crinkled at the corners. "I don't mind your knowing that, but before we go any fur- ther I'd like to know who I'm talking to!" The Chief chuckled in spite of himself, but Paul re- sponded gravely: "I beg pardon. I'm Paul Harvey, a sort of special investigator connected with the Police Force. This is Chief Burke." He waved his hand toward his superior and added: "Now, Miss Adare, you are a secretary ?" "Visiting social secretary," she corrected him. "Mrs. Hartshorne was a regular patron of yours?" "Since January, when Mrs. Ledyard recommended me to her." Rose nodded. "I've been coming here three times a week and sometimes oftener." "Have you ever encountered any house guests here?" "No, Mr. Harvey. There has never been anyone here except Mrs. Hartshorne herself and the servants." "You say a Mrs. Ledyard recommended you. Do you mean the wife of Colonel Amasa Ledyard?" "Yes. She is the leader of the set Mrs. Hartshorne be- longed to the smart society crowd of the city, you know." Paul nodded in his turn. "And in that set, who were Mrs. Hartshorne's most inti- mate friends?" Rose hesitated. "I don't believe she had any," she ventured at length. "Mrs. Ledyard took her up first and the rest followed suit, but Mrs. Hartshorne was just friendly. She wasn't es- pecially chummy with any of them and didn't seem to want to be, for beside the constant invitations to formal affairs which I have written declining for her, I've often heard her over the telephone, refusing invitations to little intimate luncheons and teas and card games. She was always will- 56 THE SECOND BULLET ing to attend functions for any charitable enterprise, though, except the big public ones; she'd work for those, and send checks, but she wouldn't ever go herself. That Red Cross dance last night was the first thing of that kind I've known her to attend." "She was popular with the men of her set?" Rose stiffened a trifle in her chair. "I really couldn't say. She was popular with everybody, if that is what you mean." "It isn't." Paul halted before her. "I'm not asking you for idle gossip or possible scandal, Miss Adare. This woman has been done to death; and in the interests of justice we must find out as much about her habits and associates as we can. A young woman in your position has unique op- portunities for observation, and this is no time to split hairs." "I realize that, Mr. Harvey, though as I said to Mrs. Hartshorne herself only last Wednesday morning, when she asked me if any of my other clients in her set had tried to pump me about her " "She asked that, did she? the Chief interrupted sharply. "Yes, sir." Rose turned to him. "I told her then that social letter writing was my specialty, not gossip, and that my old clients well knew they could never get anything out of me . . . Not that they haven't tried !" Paul jumped at the advantage offered by the naive ad- mission. "Who tried?" he asked. "Well, Mrs. Cowles, for one; Mrs. Bebe Cowles. And then lately Miss Ledyard." Rose paused and added quickly: "Of course, they were all more or less curious, Mrs. Hartshorne being a newcomer and alone, but there was A STRING OF PEARLS 57 nothing I could have told them, even if I had wanted to. In all her correspondence I have never seen a letter irom anywhere but Eastopolis ; and then only the most formal of social notes and tradesmen's receipts. It came to me like a slap in the face just before you called me in here, that I didn't know a thing about Mrs. Hartshorne! 1 hadn't learned a thing more about her private affairs, or her people, or where she came from, than I knew the first day 1 came to her." "That little v-shaped scar near the corner of her left eye ; you must have noticed it," Paul remarked when she had paused again for breath. "Did she ever offer any ex- planation of it?" "Yes. She told me it was a cut from flying glass in an automobile accident, but she didn't say where. It's an old scar, so it must have happened several years ago. I could tell she'd had treatment to get rid of it, but it was too deep." "Did you observe anything else about her?" "Well, she had the most beautiful hands I ever saw, poor thing! They were white and soft, but firm, and the fingers were long, and slim, and tapering, and as strong as wire. She had an odd trick, too, of curling the little finger of her right hand; she saw me noticing it one day and said it came from practising on the piano though I never heard her play. It was easy to see she had never done any hard work, not even played athletic games like golf or tennis." "Did she ever seem particularly interested in any one thing ; a fad, or hobby ?" "Nothing but money." Rose caught the look which passed between her interrogators and hastily amended her reply. "I don't mean that she was avaricious ! I never saw a wo- man so careless about her jewels ; and she said there was always a lot of loose money in the house. She paid my 5 8 THE SECOND BULLET salary promptly without any haggling, and she was more than generous, too, with her charity subscriptions." "But you say she was interested only in money ?" "I meant financial things; the stock market was a kind of a passion with her. I've heard her 'phone her broker, Colonel Ledyard, and give him orders for deals involving thousands of dollars. For all she was gentle and soft and womanly she had a head for business that many a man would envy." "Do you remember when she first spoke of the money she kept in the house?" "Yes, Mr. Harvey. It was on Wednesday morning when I found the revolver under a pile of magazines on the bed- stand, and nearly jumped out of my skin ! She laughed and said it wasn't loaded; that she kept it to frighten burglars away. That is how she came to mention the money." "Now, Miss Adare," Paul returned abruptly to his first line of attack, "there is one point which could not have escaped you. Mrs. Hartshorne, I understand, was a widow. Did she have any especial admirer among the men she knew ? Any suitor, let us say ?" Rose shook her head. "I I don't know. I heard gossip, now and then, among my other clients, and flowers were often sent to her while I happened to be here at different times sometimes two or three separate boxes in one morning ; but I never knew from whom they came." "And this gossip which you heard; did it concern any one man in particular?" Paul insisted. The girl's square little chin obtruded itself. "It was merely gossip, not scandal, Mr. Harvey, and I'd rather not say. I realize thoroughly how serious this case is, but it's all the more reason why I shouldn't drag A STRING OF PEARLS & anyone into notoriety through idle talk, to say nothing of losing my best clients." "You've answered my questions." Paul's gentle brown eyes grew swiftly stern. "Who was the man, Miss Adare? We won't betray your confidence, or drag him into any notoriety unless there is good reason for it, but I mean to know the truth." Rose pondered for a moment and then capitulated. "Oh, well, you're bound to hear it, anyway, from others, even if the papers don't hint at it ; they're likely to, for I've heard he's been more attentive than ever lately. It was Mr. Cornelius Swarthmore." Again Paul and his confrere exchanged glances, and the former once more abruptly changed the subject of his in- quiry. "Was it Mrs. Hartshorne's maid, Matilde, who first told you of what happened here?" "She told me to look through the keyhole," responded Rose without hesitation. "I did, and saw for myself, and then I got the policeman! There's one thing you may as well know, although I'm not insinuating anything more than I'm saying. When she let me in at the front door, Matilde told me she'd been waiting for me ; and I could tell then by her eyes that something was wrong. Afterward, when I saw poor Mrs. Hartshorne lying there and asked Matilde why she hadn't gotten -help at once, she said she had only looked through the keyhole herself a minute before I came." "That is in accordance with the statement she has just made," observed Paul. "It is not true, nevertheless," Rose returned calmly. "She had known it for hours ; it was written all over her ! There hadn't been any sound of her running down the stairs to let me in when I rang; my hand wasn't off the bell before 60 THE SECOND BULLET the door was open, as if she'd been standing there just on the other side of it. Moreover, now that I think of it, she said I would know best what to do ; that Mrs. Hartshorae might not have only fainted. Maybe, having been the first to find her, she was afraid of being accused of knowing more about it than she did." "Very likely," commented Paul drily. "You were here last night before Mrs. Hartshorne left to go out to dinner, weren't you?" "Yes. She sent for me to write some notes for her answers to invitations which required an immediate reply." "You said that flowers frequently came for her while you were present. Did nothing else of any greater value come? . . . Last night, for instance ?" Rose eyed the young man speculatively, and reading a partial knowledge in the significance of his smile, she re- sponded : "Yes, and last night was the first time. Oh, she'd had books and candies and things like that before, but never jewelry. A box came while I was finishing the notes and she cried out in surprise when she opened it. I don't wonder, for I've never seen anything so beautiful. No one in Eastopolis has anything to equal it. It was a string of pearls big, round, perfect ones with a kind of a milky gleam through them; the same that were about her neck, poor thing, when she lay dead there on the floor this morn- ing." "Did she mention who had sent them to her?" "No. There was a card with them a man's card, by the narrowness of it; but I don't know what name was on it." Paul paced meditatively across the room and back before he spoke again. A STRING OF PEARLS 61 "Miss Adare, when you came on Wednesday morning did you notice anything unusual about Mrs. Hartshorne? Any change in her from the time of yor.r last previous call?" "Only that she looked terribly ill. She said it was only a headache, but if the hand of death had been on her then she couldn't have been more white. She told me that she must look particularly well for that afternoon, and I advised a touch of rouge." "Do you know why she wanted to look so particularly well that afternoon?" The girl's hesitation was but momentary. "Well, she didn't tell me, Mr. Harvey, but as I was leav- ing I heard her giving orders to Jenny about a visitor com- ing for tea." Then, anticipating the inevitable question, she added : "Mr. Swarthmore." Chapter VI. THE CARTRIDGE SHELL. THE interview with Rose Adare concluded, Chief Burke departed for Headquarters, leaving Paul to undertake the examination of the Hartshorne house. Dusk had fallen when the young man completed the task to his own satisfaction and at eight o'clock he presented himself at the sanctum of his superior, who exclaimed aloud at his appearance. "Paul, you look done up! Don't go at it too hard, my boy; remember the collapse you had after the Reuhl case! Of course, this is the biggest thing we've been called on to tackle in years, but that's all the more reason why you should take care of yourself. I'm banking on you, the whole 'investigation is in your hands, and we can't afford to have you get sick and lay down on the job." "I won't lie down on it, Chief," Paul assured him as he sank wearily into a chair and placed a huge tin cash box on the desk before him. "You have arranged about the servants ?" The Chief nodded. "I did exactly as you asked. Jenny and the cook and that little kitchen girl have gone to their own homes ; here are the addresses if you want them. I'm having them looked up and they'll appear at the inquest. The French maid, Matilde Benoit, I'm holding for further examination. I cleared the lot of them out of the house after you left 62 THE CARTRIDGE SHELL 63 and stationed a guard there. Where've you been since six o'clock?" "Several places, but let us take this matter up, first." Paul produced a key and unlocked the box. "Here is Matilde's list and the jewels check up all right with it; not an item missing. There is no mention of the string of pearls, but as it only arrived last night she evidently hadn't time to add it to the catalogue. Quite a collection, Mrs. Hartshorne had ; roughly speaking, I should say it aggre- gated about twenty thousand dollars, exclusive of the pearls, of course. See! Eight rings, four brooches, a diamond wrist watch, three bracelets, a lavalliere, two pairs of ear- rings, and a diamond lorgnette and chain. They are not distinctive in design, though, and no one piece is of excep- tional value; they might have been purchased in any first class jeweller's." He removed a number of leather cases from the box as he spoke, and set them before the Chief, who rapidly com- pared their contents with the list in his hand. "All here," he commented, as he checked off the last article. "If it's necessary to trace 'em I'll put Lumsden on it, the lad who helped you in the Van Vrenken case. Did you locate all the loose cash ?" "I think so." Paul drew a huge roll of bills from the receptacle before him. "I've ransacked every box and trunk and drawer in the house, looked in every vase and ornament and run through all the books on the library shelves. Un- less she had some hidden in the coal or on the roof I've got it all ; seven thousand and two hundred dollars, to be exact." "Whew!" whistled the Chief as he examined the roll. "No wonder she kept a gun in the house and was afraid of burglars! Why didn't she bank all this?" 64 THE SECOND BULLET "I'm afraid we're going to ask ourselves a lot of questions about the lady before we discover who killed her." Paul shrugged. "Here are all the papers I found in the house ; receipted bills, bank books, memoranda and accounts, an engagement pad and a handful of invitations and social letters. Nothing in the lot that gives us the slightest clue and not one of them dates back before the sixth of last November. The trunks and barrels in the store -room con- tained only packing materials, straw and excelsior; there wasn't even an old newspaper among them." Chief Burke moved impatiently in his chair. "But weren't there some old photographs lying around?" "Not even a picture of the lady herself. We haven't a shred of evidence to connect her with any other place on earth except the statement of the Benoit woman that she was engaged from the Hotel Belmonde, in New York." "We'll ring them up now," the Chief announced, reach- ing for the telephone, but his young colleague stopped him. "I did, before I came down here. Matilde's story seems to have been straight enough. She or some woman of the same name and general appearance was employed at the Belmonde as supervisor of the linen room when Mrs. Allison Hartshorne arrived there on October seventh." "Where did she register from?" demanded the Chief. "From Eastopolis." Paul grinned faintly at his colleague's expression. "Gave me a bit of a jolt, too, for I thought she wasn't known here until six months ago. She stayed at the Belmonde until the fourth of November, when she left, taking the Benoit woman with her as maid. I'll take a run on to New York if it proves necessary, but I think we're going to find the solution of this thing right here in Eastopolis. I've traced her back to the very day she arrived in town." THE CARTRIDGE SHELL 65 "How?" The Chief eyed him keenly. "If you" found" nothing more definite in the house than you've told me " "Oh, I'm not holding out on you, Chief I" laughed Paul. "I looked up the real estate firm who negotiated the sale of the Farragut Street house to Mrs. Hartshorne. It was Brinkerhoff and Hammond. I got old man Brinkerhoff, the senior partner, on the 'phone at his home. He hadn't any trouble in recalling the deal after the 'Extras' that have been coming out all afternoon. Mrs. Hartshorne bought the house late in November and moved in on December first; she paid forty thousand outright for it, by check on the Trust Company of Eastopolis. She was then staying at the Granville Hotel here, Brinkerhoff told me. I stopped there on my way downtown and found she had registered with her maid on the sixth of November, so she must have come directly from New York." "What did they know of her there at tha Granville?" The Chief selected a gaudily banded cigar from the box at his elbow and sat turning it absently in his fingers. "I had a little talk with the manager. He wasn't anxious to get the sort of advertising for the hotel that this case would give it, but I persuaded him he'd better talk to me." Paul produced his own cigarette case from his pocket. "No one called on her there at first, though the suite of rooms she had taken was suitable for entertaining; to all intents and purposes she was a total stranger here. The rector of St. George's Church, Dr. Alvin Perrine, was the first person to send up his card to her, as far as the manager can re- member; I'll look the reverend doctor up later. After it was known that she had purchased the Farragut Street house and her name was mentioned in the papers on one or two charity subscriptions lists, Mrs. Amasa Ledyard called, then several other society women. It didn't take her long, 66 THE SECOND BULLET evidently, to get a foothold with the wealthiest people here. I'm going to interview a few of them to-morrow and get a line on her if I can." "But look here, Paul." Chief Burke clipped the end off his cigar with an emphatic snap. "That's good work as far as it goes, but it don't get us anywhere. I suppose she registered at the Granville as coming from New York ?" Paul nodded. "There, you see?" The Chief spread his hands in an eloquent gesture. "Got us running around in circles al- ready! We don't want the history of her past life! We want to know who got in her house last night or came in with her and shot her dead !" The younger man smiled patiently. He knew of his old colleague's intolerance of any but the most direct, bull-dog method of investigation and forbore to combat it openly, although pursuing the tenor of his own way which, as in previous cases, had brought success from failure. "Of course," he assented. "But if no one saw her come yy "How do you know they didn't?" the other interrupted. "I've made some preliminary inquiries in the neighbor- hood," explained Paul mildly. "The house on the left of hers, number one-thirty-seven, is occupied by two deaf old maid sisters named Larrabee, with a butler and two female servants. They all retired before eleven o'clock and heard nothing during the night. On the right, number one- forty- one belongs to the Wallace Davenports ; large family, oldest child at home a girl of fourteen, two sons studying avia- tion. Nobody there heard anything, either. Across the street the two houses directly opposite are occupied, but the two on either side of them are closed ; number one-thirty-six fpr sale arid one- forty-two boarded up. A family named THE CARTRIDGE SHELL 67 Fraser lives in one-thirty-eight, but they are quarantined ; their child has diphtheria. The Sargents live in one-forty ; old couple alone with a retinue of elderly servants. Their four sons are still in active service abroad. It was the same story. Nobody saw or heard anything." "Then there's only one thing to do now." The Chief thumped his desk in exasperation. "Find out what time Mrs. Hartshorne left the dance at the Ledyards' and who accompanied her ; then put him through the third degree !" "Mrs. Ledyard is one of the first I mean to interview to- morrow," responded Paul. "I don't want to antagonize her by rushing to her to-night. You've got to handle these people with gloves, you know ; they're sure of their position and can't be bullied into any admission they don't want to make as a less important person could be. There is only one thing in the world that all thde fair weather friends of Mrs. Hartshorne are thinking of now and that is how to keep out of the notoriety incidental to the case. If I'm to get any real information from them I've got to go at it in a diplomatic way." "Diplomacy be hanged!" ejaculated the Chief. "They don't run this town? I'll subpoena the lot and haul them down to the inquest !" "And you'll get from them a bunch of doctors' certifi- cates announcing the outbreak of some mysterious malady among the upper classes which will be incurable until the inquest is over." Paul shook his head. "Those who do appear will give only the briefest replies to the questions put to them, and they'll have convenient lapses of memory at the most important points. You said that the investiga- tion was in my hands, Chief. Let me go it alone for awhile." "We-ell," the other temporized. "How about this fellow Swarthmore ?" 06 THE SECOND BULLET "I'll look him up, of course!" Paul rose. "Leave it to me. I've got a few more points to go into to-night, but as soon as there is anything to report you'll hear from me. By the way, you examined that revolver or pistol, to give it its right name didn't you ?" The Chief stared up at him from beneath his low drawn brows. "What are you getting at, son ?" he inquired. "It is one of the new army types you know, with an automatic ejector," Paul explained blandly. "I don't think we are dealing with any ordinary murderer. A man who will fire a shot in a household of sleeping women and then stop, not only to close his victim's eyes and compose the body decently, but to find and carry away the empty car- tridge shell and so deliberately contradict the suicide evi- dence he had tried to create by placing the pistol itself in the dead woman's hands ; well, unless we are on the trail of a madman I think we will have our work cut out for us." "The cartridge shell!" repeated the Chief. "By Gad, .that's one on me ! It must be in the room somewhere !" "It isn't," Paul asserted as he picked up his hat and turned to the door. "I've gone over every inch of it, and the hall, too, thinking the shell might have rolled or been kicked out there ; but nothing doing. You'll hear from me to-morrow, Chief. Good night." Leaving his colleague gaping after him in wordless astonishment, Paul made his way to the street and hailed a passing taxi. "Number twenty-nine Cardinal Street." As he flung the address at the chauffeur and shut the door upon himself all weariness and fatigue seemed to have fallen from him. He sat leaning forward, alertly watching the string of lights dance past. The Chief had been right in one observation THE CARTRIDGE SHELL 69 at least; the next step in the investigation must be to dis- cover with whom Mrs. Hartshorne left the Ledyard resi- dence, and when. "Is Mrs. Gaylor at home?" he demanded of the super- cilious butler when he had reached his destination. The latter looked somewhat dubiously from the card on his salver to the young man. He hesitated for a moment. "Mrs. Gaylor can see no one," he announced at length, chillingly. "She has nothing whatever to say " "I am not a representative of the press," Paul interrupted him brusquely. "Please say that this is a matter of the ut- most importance. If not Mrs. Gaylor, then I must see a member of her immediate family." His manner brooked no denial. The butler, after another appraising glance, turned upon his heel and disappeared up the stairs. A subdued murmur of voices, as if raised in discussion, came to Paul's ears, and several minutes passed before the butler returned and reluctantly ushered him into a small reception room at the right of the hall. Paul seated himself, but scarcely had he done so when hasty footsteps sounded upon the stairs and a chubby, round-eyed young man with a suspicion of down upon his upper lip and palpable nervousness in his manner appeared in the doorway. "My mother is indisposed," he announced. "Is there anything that I can do for you? I am Frederic Gaylor." "Thank you, Mr. Gaylor ; I won't detain you long." Paul bowed. "My name is on the card which you are holding; but I should add that I am from Police Headquarters." "Police?" The youthful Freddie started like a frightened colt. Then, with an assumption of dignity, he drew him- self up and demanded : "What is your business here ?" "Simply to ask you a few questions, Mr. Gaylor. Of 70 THE SECOND BULLET course, you need not answer them if you prefer not to do so, but I am in charge of the investigation into the er, sudden death of Mrs. Allison Hartshorne, and it occurred to me that her friends would like to cooperate with me in avoiding as much notoriety as possible." "Notoriety? Lord, yes!" Freddie groaned. "That's what has broken mother all up Mrs. Hartshorne's death, I mean, of course, I really don't know why we should be dragged into it, we know absolutely nothing " "You will realize, however, that it is imperative for us to trace Mrs. Hartshorne's movements last evening," Paul interrupted him suavely. "She is known to have dined here. If you will answer my questions frankly it may obviate the necessity of Mrs. Gaylor's taking the witness stand at the inquest." "Witness stand! The mater?" Freddie's eyes goggled with horror. "It would kill her! Of course I'll tell you what little I know ; that is, if you really are from the police. I've been fooled twice to-day by reporters." Paul displayed his credentials from the Chief, then launched his first question briskly. "What time did Mrs. Hartshorne arrive last evening?" "At a quarter to eight ; we dined at eight, you know." "Who else was present?" "Just the Wadleighs and the Harringtons and my father and mother ; we all went on together afterward to the Led- yards' Red Cross dance." "Did you all leave there together?" "No. The Wadleighs went home early couldn't stand the crush and the Harringtons stayed later than we did. Mother had suggested to Mrs. Hartshorne at dinner that I take her home, but she had promised someone else, she didn't say whom," THE CARTRIDGE SHELL 71 "At what time did you reach the dance, Mr. Gaylor?" "It couldn't have been much before half-past ten; we only wanted to put in an appearance for an hour or two. I danced the first dance with her." Freddie's round cheeks paled. "Godl Think of it! And in a little while she was dead!" "Did her manner seem quite as usual during the eve- ning?" "Well, no!" Freddie hesitated. "I understand what you mean, of course, but it was quite the other way around, I assure you. Mrs. Hartshorne couldn't have had the slight- est premonition of of what was going to happen later, for she was more light-hearted and gay than I have ever seen her." "After that first dance with her did you observe who her later partners were?" "Oh, everyone in our set crowded around, of course, and her card was filled in a twinkling." The young man shifted nervously in his chair. "With whom did she dance immediately after you?" "She didn't dance; she sat it out." A faint twinkle lighted Freddie's eyes for a moment. "Old Wendle Brad- dock isn't keen on the light fantastic." "So Mr. Braddock was her next partner. And after him?" "I I really couldn't say. There was a fearful crush in the ballroom, you know. I caught an occasional glimpse of her during the next hour, but I don't remember seeing her after that." "The next hour," repeated Paul meditatively. "That would be about half -past eleven, wouldn't it? What time was the supper served?" "At midnight." 72 THE SECOND BULLET "And you did not see her then?" Freddie squirmed. "I don't remember; I don't think I did. I was seated at a corner table, anyway, facing the wall, and I didn't give more than a casual glance around at the supper room." "With whom were you seated?" "Mrs. Cowles and the Harringtons." Paul was silent for a moment and then abruptly shot the question : "Was Mr. Cornelius Swarthmore among those who crowded around after the first dance, to greet Mrs. Harts- home?" Freddie's immaculate shirt front crackled with the sharp intake of his breath. "I suppose so ; I don't think I noticed " "Mr. Gaylor!" Paul rose. "As I told you, my only object in coming here was to avoid bringing unpleasant notoriety upon anyone, but if you prefer to wait until the inquest ?" "I don't know why you should pick on me!" broke in Freddie sulkily. "I don't want to be made out a cad by dragging others fellows' names into a mess of this sort! Why don't you ask Swarthmore yourself?" Paul replied to the question with another. "There is a special reason, then, why you are reluctant to mention Mr. Swarthmore in connection with Mrs. Harts- home?" "Certainly not !" A dull red crept over Freddie's rotund countenance and he added in naive haste : "You'll find it out anyway, I suppose. It's been common talk in our set for weeks that he was more than usually interested in Mrs. Hartshorne ; I presume you knew it already or you wouldn't have brought his name up. Yes, he was one of the first THE CARTRIDGE SHELL 73 to ask for a dance. And he seemed surprised and hurt when she put him off. They had a little playful quarrel about it, as I remember." "Did you see them together later?" "No. Swarthmore left in about an hour; at least, I saw him making his way to the cloakroom." "Did you speak to him?" "No. I was seated on the stairs with with a young lady, when he came out from the ball-room and made a dive through the crush." "As if he were in a hurry?" Beads of perspiration stood now on Freddie's brow. "No! As if he were furiously angry, if you want to know! But it had nothing to do with Mrs. Hartshorne, I'm sure." "What makes you certain, Mr. Gaylor?" "Because in the ballroom doorway he collided with Wendle Braddock. They meet civilly enough, as a rule, when social exigencies demand it, although they've fought each other financially tooth and nail. But last night " "Last night ?" prompted Paul as the young man faltered. "Well, Neely Swarthmore has a brute of a temper, you know. It's common knowledge that he once beat one of his polo ponies to death for a misplay. Possibly an incident occurred between them in a business way yesterday to add the last straw to his enmity! At any rate, when Wendle Braddock shouldered him in the jam at the ball-room door something seemed to flame right up into his face. I thought for a moment he was going to forget Braddock's age and where they were, and strike the older man. But he didn't ; after that flash of rage he just threw back his head and laughed in Braddock's face. A nasty, sneering laugh! Then he bolted." 74 THE SECOND BULLET "And Mr. Braddock?" "He acted as though he didn't even see him. Whatever the deal was, Braddock must have gotten the best of it, for he went about beaming on everybody last night, more pompous than ever and exultant, like a sort of side-whis- kered Monte Cristo." "You did not actually see Mr. Swarthmore depart?" "No. I'm not hedging now, Mr. Harvey. I don't even know that he went to the cloakroom, only in that direction ; he was swallowed up in the crush." "Did you see Mrs. Hartshorne after that? Was she still as unaffectedly light-hearted? Freddie gazed wide-eyed at his interrogator and his voice sank to a whisper. "No. I did not see Mrs. Hartshorne again." Chapter VII. LIES. A string of pearls, I think you said?" Mr. Webster, f-\ senior member of the firm of Webster and Weil, * -^ jewelers, took off his glasses, wiped them methodically on a small square of cloth and replacing them, stared hard at the young man with the ingratiating smile who stood before him in his private office. "Sold on Thurs- day last?" "Delivered on Thursday." The smile faded abruptly as Paul added: "Mr. Webster, you cannot pretend that a transaction of such magnitude has slipped your mind! Thirty-odd thousand dollars is not paid every day for a bauble even in such an establishment as yours. Harry Donnell, one of your special messengers, is known to have delivered it at the Farragut Street house at half-past six on that day, and the case in which it came has your firm name stamped on the satin lining of the cover. That string of pearls was about Mrs. Hartshorne's neck when her body was discovered. I want to know who purchased them." Mr. Webster stroked his chin reflectively. "You place me in an extremely difficult position, Mr. er Harvey is the name? extremely difficult!" he said at last. "Much of our business is of a semi-confidential nature, and especially under these tragic circumstances our client would be highly incensed " "Not half as incensed as you will find the Chief of 75 76 THE SECOND BULLET Police, if you attempt to withhold information from him," 1 Paul interrupted blandly. "The next time a thief like Van Vrenken succeeds in substituting spurious stones for your best diamonds under the very eyes of your shop detectives you will not find it so easy to enlist the aid of the Depart- ment." Mr. Webster's bald head turned a delicate pink. "Van Vrenken?" He stammered. "But Chief Burke as- sured me that our having been among those duped by that rascal should be kept secret ! The reputation of our house depends upon it! How do you come to know ?" "Simply because I happened to be the man who caught Van Vrenken," replied Paul with a touch of impatience. "You?" The jeweler's manner changed swiftly. "My dear sir ! Why didn't you say so at first ? Any favor that I can grant you, under these circumstances " He slid from his chair and waddled over to the safe built into the opposite wall. He took from it a ledger almost as portly as himself. "If a sale was made such as you describe," he said, "it will have been recorded here. Our client will look to us, naturally, to keep the transaction confidential; but if the Police compel us to produce our books we have of course no choice in the matter. On this page, Mr. Harvey." With an inward smile at his informant's sophistry, Paul bent over the ledger and ran his finger down the column of figures. They ranged in amount from a few dollars well up into the hundreds, but not until he had reached the bottom of the page did he find recorded any sum approxi- mating that which he sought. The final entry was thirty- two thousand dollars, and after a quick glance at the article listed and the name of the purchaser, Paul closed the ledger. LIES 77 "Thank you, Mr. Webster," he said quietly, "that is all I wanted to know." Out in the flood of spring sunshine once more, Paul made his way to the Ledyard residence as if in a daze. Frederic Gaylor's statement on the previous evening had received surprising confirmation. Several points that had eluded the detective were now plain to him, but the new phase led to a chain of reasoning he was not prepared to accept. The argument he had used at the Gaylor's had evidently preceded him with good effect, for he found no difficulty in gaining an audience with Mrs. Ledyard. Indeed, that lady descended to the drawing-room with a promptitude which hinted that his call had not been unanticipated. "This is a most frightful thing, Mr. Harvey!" she ex- claimed. "I do hope you will be able to keep us all out of it! Of course I need not assure you that we know nothing of the shocking affair except what we have read in the papers, but the fact that the woman was received here as a guest in my home will bring the most disgraceful notoriety about our ears !" "Not necessarily, Mrs. Ledyard," demurred Paul. "Mrs. Hartshorne was received by practically all the best people in town. They must share with you what publicity may come although I understand you wtre her social sponsor " "By no means !" she corrected him in haste. "Dr. Perrine was responsible for her introduction to society here. She appeared at chuch, made lavish contributions to charity, and conducted herself in every way as if she were quite our sort. Dr. Perrine positively urged me to call upon her, and so did my husband ; she had started to operate extensively on the stock market through him and had placed 'a substan- 78 THE SECOND BULLET tial amount of capital in the Trust Company of Eastopolis through our old friend President Braddock. When I learned that she had purchased a home here and intended to settle down among us I felt it my Christian duty to call. If others of our set followed my example that was no affair of mine; I did not introduce her!" "Nevertheless I was given to understand you were Mrs. Hartshorne's friend," Paul asserted significantly. "Just because the lady has had the misfortune to be murdered it does not necessarily follow that she is guilty of any crime on the social calendar." "It will be a lesson to me, however, not to take up any- one else of whom I know nothing !" Mrs. Ledyard retorted. "The motive was not robbery, and it is sure to prove to have been something disgraceful! I cannot think why we should all have been so blind! Of course, Mr. Harvey, I should not speak so candidly to anyone else, but we are at your mercy and I feel that absolute frankness is our best course. I did give Mrs. Hartshorne the cachet of my ap- proval, I was among the first to open my home to her and I do not want to make myself ridiculous by admitting my mistake now to the world. It is a most deplorable situa- tion!" "A most unusual one," he amended. "Is it possible that in all your acquaintance with Mrs. Hartshorne she told you nothing of her life, gave you no inkling whatever of the past?" "Not a syllable," Mrs. Ledyard replied impressively. "It is almost incredible, I know, but she slipped into our lives here with so seemingly little effort that before we realized it she was quite one of us. My daughter was right ; Dr. Perrine should have looked into the woman's ante- cedents most carefully before he foisted her upon us ! But LIES 79 he was so sure that there could be no question about her. And President Braddock, also, when the discussion arose assumed such an unqualified stand in her favor that the significance of her reticence about the past did not appeal to me as forcibly as it should have done. Then, too, I am quite willing to admit that her charm of manner wholly dis- armed me from the first." "Mrs. Ledyard, when did this discussion take place?" Realizing her slip she hesitated, biting her lips. "I I really couldn't say, Mr. Harvey. Some little time ago." "Can you remember where it occurred?" At the hint of polite sarcasm in his tone she reddened. "Here in my own drawing-room. It was after a small informal dinner " Mrs. Ledyard paused. "Who was present?" "Really, I I cannot remember!" She drew herself up majestically. "I do not see the pertinence of your ques- tions, Mr. Harvey ! A mere, idle conversation in my home, among my family and an immediate friend or two, can have no bearing on the affair you are investigating." "Perhaps I may be able to assist your memory," Paul suggested, ignoring her protests. "Your daughter, Dr. Perrine, President Braddock and yourself you have already mentioned as having taken part in this discussion. It is reasonable to suppose that your husband also was present. Who else?" "Mrs. Cowles." The response came unwillingly enough. "Mr. Harvey, I simply must decline to pursue the sub- ject " "We will drop it if you insist." He assured her quietly. "Dr. Perrine and President Braddock will doubtless be able to recall the incident if subpoenaed for the inquest " 8o THE SECOND BULLET "I cannot imagine why you attach such extraordinary importance to so trivial a circumstance !" Mrs. Ledyard in- terrupted indignantly. "I understood your object in coming here was to aid us in avoiding notoriety, not to thrust it upon us! We none of us know anything whatever of Mrs. Hartshorne; an expression of personal opinion concerning her cannot be construed as evidence against us! Surely you are not mad enough to think that we had anything to do with the woman's death !" "No. But your coterie is a representative one, Mrs. Led- yard," he explained suavely. "A concensus of opinion ex- pressed here will enable me to gauge the attitude of the rest with whom Mrs. Hartshorne came in social contact. That is important. Surely you can remember now when this conversation took place ! Do you frequently bring to- gether just these three guests in particular?" "No, it was quite informal Mrs. Hartshorne herself dropped in later with Mr. Swarthmore for a game of bridge, but they did not stay, as Mrs. Hartshorne complained of a headache." She paused and added with obvious reluctance. "It was last Tuesday evening." "And who started the discussion?" Paul gave no evi- dence of the significance her admission held for him. "I haven't the least idea. I really paid little attention." "Was it not your daughter? If Dr. Perrine and President Braddock took issue with her " "My daughter was wholly indifferent to Mrs. Hart- shorne! From the first she has maintained the merest acquaintanceship with her," Mrs. Ledyard interrupted in unguarded haste. "She happened to ask Dr. Perrine what church Mrs. Hartshorne attended before coming here and when he professed ignorance she remarked upon the fact of how little we really knew of this woman whom we had LIES 81 accepted without social or financial credentials. That is really all there was to it, Mr. Harvey, and if you want the concensus of opinion, in which I must admit I shared, it was that Mrs. Hartshorne despite her reticence was a worthy and welcome addition to our community." "She did vouchsafe the fact that she was a widow, did she not?" Mrs. Ledyard sighed in audible relief at the change of topic. "Yes, and she intimated to me that her married life had not been an unqualifiedly happy one. I don't know how I gathered the impression certainly not in as many words from her but I fancied that her husband was much older than she, and somewhat of a care. I inferred that they had traveled a great deal, presumably for his health. That is really all I can tell you, Mr. Harvey." "Did you see her between Tuesday evening and your Red Cross dance on Thursday?" "Yes. I met her at the dedication of the playground for the children of St. George's church on Thursday afternoon. I was with Dr. Perrine, and she merely stopped to chat for a moment." "She was wearing a mole-skin cape coatee, was she not?" "Yes." Mrs. Ledyard glanced up in surprise. "I re- marked upon it, for the day was unusually balmy, but she said she had felt a slight chill." "She gave no evidence of it when she came to the dance in the evening with the Gaylors, did she?" "No. She looked remarkably well. They came late, and in the crush of of outsiders to be taken care of I did not think of Mrs. Hartshorne again after the first greeting." "You do not know when she left ? She did not take leave of you?" 82 THE SECOND BULLET "How could she? If you could imagine the crowd, Mr. Harvey! The house was packed to the doors! I did not even catch a glimpse of many of my personal friends whom I know were here. It was a charity affair and I had my hands full keeping everything running smoothly." "Are you sure you did not see her in the supper room? Please think carefully, Mrs. Ledyard; it is of the utmost importance." "Quite sure," the lady asserted in evident sincerity after a moment's thought. "I cannot recall seeing her again." And with this Paul Harvey was forced to be content. Promising to shield Mrs. Ledyard and her family as far as was possible from the publicity incidental to the tragedy, he took his departure and made his way to the imposing apart- ment house where Mrs. Cowles had established herself. It was evident that no fear of notoriety actuated her prompt reception of him. A lively interest sparkled in her eyes and she held out her hand with gushing warmth. "I've heard of you, Mr. Harvey; Mrs. Bainbridge told me all about the marvelously clever young man who re- covered her tiara from that notorious diamond thief; what was his name? I know you've come to ask me about Mrs. Hartshorne, but I don't know anything ; I only wish I did ! I'm simply dying of curiosity! Do sit down and tell me if you've discovered anything?" Paul smiled. "I sympathize with you, Mrs. Cowles; I'm curious, too. Mrs. Hartshorne seems to have been quite a person of mystery." "Well, it's a mystery to me how she ever succeeded in pulling the wool over Mrs. Ledyard's eyes ! If your right puts a large enough check in the collection, plate I LIES 83 don't think Dr. Perrine bothers very much about what your left hand may be doing, but Mrs. Ledyard usually looks out for that. We always follow her lead, you know; saves us a lot of trouble to discriminate. I suppose she is simply wild now to think what a fool she has made of herself!" Bebe gurgled joyously. "I rather fancy she won't be per- mitted to forget it very quickly! Personally, I liked Mrs. Hartshorne, but I found her a trifle dull, and so goody- goody; that ought to have made me suspect her, it wasn't natural. However, I thought it was only a pose to attract the men. Heaven knows, it worked, if it was ! There wasn't any age limit to her draft, from Freddie Gaylor to old Mr. Braddock!" "But I understand someone did voice a suspicion of her antecedents, and that very recently," Paul remarked. "Do you remember a conversation at the Ledyards' last Tuesday evening ?" Bebe's eyes opened wide. "You mean that outburst of Trix Miss Ledyard's? Oh, nobody took that seriously!" "Why not?" "Well, Mrs. Ledyard wouldn't admit the possibility of her having made a mistake in taking up Mrs. Hartshorne. She was bound to stand by her, and the men were all pre- judiced in her favor." "And you, Mrs. Cowles?" "It did seem rather odd, when Miss Ledyard put it to us so strongly, that we hadn't even attempted to find out anything about her, but I never gave it another thought until the 'Extras' came out about the murder." "What cause had Miss Ledyard for her suspicion of Mrs. Hartshorne?" Paul bent slightly forward. "Can you re* call in just what words she expressed her doubts?" 04 THE SECOND BULLET "Oh, she said we had all taken Mrs. Hartshorne on blind trust merely because she had a Madonna face, an ingra- tiating manner and ready cash." Bebe shrugged. "She didn't mean anything, really. I don't believe Trixy had an idea in her head that there might actually be something well, a little queer, about Mrs. Hartshorne. You know how it is when a person is jealous ; they just want to start some- thing." Bebe had spoken in unguarded candor, forgetful, for the moment, of the identity of her visitor, but Paul's inscrutable face betrayed nothing of the surprise her idle disclosure had caused him. So Beatrice Ledyard had been jealous of the dead woman ! There were only two men whose names had been mentioned as being other than the merest acquaintances of Mrs. Hartshorne. It was inconceivable that Miss Ledyard could have resented the elderly Mr. Braddock's chivalrous attention to the newcomer. He tried a shot in the dark. "But Mr. Swarthmore ?" "Oh, Neely Swarthmore is a beast!" Bebe shuddered. "Trixy was well rid of him, if she only knew it; I think her pride was hurt more than anything else to think a quiet, dove-eyed, designing widow should come along and take him away from her. Mrs. Hartshorne walked in at the Ledyards' right in the midst of that conversation, you know, and Mr. Swarthmore was with her. Trixy took the bit in her teeth, so to speak, and right there and then com- menced to question Mrs. Hartshorne about where she had lived before coming here. She received only evasive re- plies, of course, until Mrs. Hartshorne developed a sudden headache and went home." "They had come to fill in at bridge, had they not, she and Mr. Swarthmore?" LIES 85 "Yes. It was quite too bad of Trixy to spoil the eve- ning, for there was always a chance for excitement when Mrs. Hartshorne played; she had the oddest streaks of luck I've ever seen." "In what way?" Paul glanced up quickly. "She wa* not a consistent player, you mean?" "On the contrary. Her play was steady enough and in our baby, cent-a-point games her winnings were on an average with the rest of us. It was only when we played occasionally for high stakes that the cards seemed to run for her. She held the most phenomenal hands ; tricky ones, too, but she plunged on them and invariably won. Her finessing was marvelous. Why, if she had actually known what cards lay in each of her opponent's hands she couldn't have led more surely. You've heard, of course, of her brilliant coups on the stock market? She certainly had gambler's luck, although it deserted her in the end, didn't it?" Paul nodded gravely. "You were present at the Ledyards* Red Cross dance?" he asked. "Yes. Mrs. Hartshorne was a revelation, simply stun- ning!" Bebe caught herself up with a sharp intake of her breath. A deep flush brought out the rouge upon her cheeks in dabs of meretricious pink and a look of startled, belated caution crept into her ingenuous eyes. Paul was as instantly on the alert as though her mental processes were exposed to his searching gaze. Mrs. Cowles had been utterly unconscious of the insignificance of her admissions against her bosom friend Beatrice Ledyard, yet the mention of Mrs. Hartshorne's presence at the dance had put her instinctively on her guard. She was thinking not of her friend now but of herself. What had occurred 86 THE SECOND BULLET at the Ledyards' that night which for her own sake she must conceal? "You arrived before Mrs. Hartshorne?" he asked. "Yes. She came with the Gaylors." Her brief reply was in marked contrast to her previous loquacity. "Mr. Swarthmore had also preceded her?" "Yes. The Gaylor party was among the last to arrive." "Did you have any conversation with Mrs. Hartshorne ?" "No, I merely nodded to her. The crush was awful." Bebe stirred uneasily. "Were you near her at any time during the evening, Mrs. Cowles?" There was a perceptible pause before she responded in low, hurried tones: "No, I don't think so. I I didn't observe her; if I was." "Do you know when she left?" "No. I cannot recall seeing her after the early part of the evening " Bebe's breath caught again, uncontrollably. "You were seated at a corner table in the supper room with young Mr. Gaylor and the Harringtons," Paul re- marked with a new note of firmness. "You must have had a comprehensive view of the room. Where was Mrs. Hartshorne seated?" "I I didn't see her!" Bebe had taken swift alarm. "How did you know where I sat, Mr. Harvey ? And what in the world has it to do ?" "I am trying to fix the hour of Mrs. Hartshorne's de- parture," he explained patiently. "When was the last time you saw her, Mrs. Cowles?" "Oh, some little time before supper ; three or four dances, at least. She passed me in the conservatory." "Who was with lier?" LIES 87 "I don't know; I couldn't see" Bebe's heavily ringed hands were twisting now in her lap. "That jazz band was playing so loud you couldn't have recognized anyone by their voices." "Did you remain in the conservatory?" "No. I went and sat out the next dance with Freddie Gaylor on the stairs." "Then you saw Mr. Swarthmore leave ?" She nodded. "You've been talking to Freddie, haven't you? Yes, I did see him making his way to the cloak-room. I fancied from his expression that he was put out about something, but he is usually boorish, you know ; it is a sort of a pose with him. He abhors a crush and that crowd must have put his temper on edge." "Did Mr. Braddock, too, leave soon after?" "Oh, no ! He took Mrs. Ledyard in to supper and stayed until the last," Bebe responded eagerly at the change of subject. "I recall that particularly because he went all about looking for Mrs. Hartshorne. I gathered that he expected to take her home, but she must have slipped away early." "Mrs. Cowles," Paul leaned forward earnestly and stared into her shallow eyes, "did you see or hear anything at the dance which could possibly have any bearing upon the crime which followed it? Anything which however re- motely suggested a motive of enmity toward Mrs. Hart- shorne ?" Bebe's eyes wavered and fell, and the flush receded, leaving her face ghastly beneath the masking rouge. "No, Mr. Harvey. What could there have been to see or hear? As far as I know, Mrs. Hartshorne had not a an enemy in the world." Chapter VIII. A BRIBE THAT FAILED. AS the elevator bore Paul swiftly to the street level his thoughts were fixed upon the problem with which the volatile witness upstairs had presented him. What scene had occurred at the Ledyards' which she must conceal because of the part that she herself had played in it? He had made no mistake in reading her character. Vain, selfish, indolently pleasure-loving as she was, Mrs. Cowles possessed a highly developed shrewdness where her own interests were at stake; careless as to the result of her revelations concerning her friends, she yet instinctively guarded against placing herself in an equivocal position. Her statement that she had not been near Mrs. Hart- shorne at any time during Thursday evening had been con- tradicted by her admission that she had passed the other woman in the conservatory, and her denial that she recog- nized Mrs. Hartshorne's companion was as palpable a false- hood as her final statement. He had no doubt that in her own mind there lurked at least a suspicion of the possible motive for the crime. Why, too, had she herself mentioned Mr. Swarthmore's obviously angry mood as he forced his way through the crowd toward the cloakroom and then sought to belittle that anger by the suggestion that it was a mere irritation at the crush which hemmed him in? Was she seeking to dis- count anything Freddie Gaylor might have revealed to him I 88 A BRIBE THAT FAILED 89 Had she also witnessed that meeting in the doorway between Swarthmore and President Braddock ? So preoccupied was he when he reached the sidewalk that Paul took no heed of a small, slender, vivacious figure which all but collided with him. He would have passed on obliviously had not she hailed him shyly. "Good morning, Mr. Harvey." "Miss Adarel" He clasped her frankly extended hand. "This is fortunate, for I had meant to look you up later. Where are you going ?" She nodded laughingly toward the entrance of the apart- ment house he had just left. "To write some notes for Mrs. Cowles," she replied. "I'm early to-day, though, and I can turn and walk on a bit with you if you like. There's something I think I ought to tell you; it's just a little thing that Matilde said to me when we found Mrs. Hartshorne's body, but I can't make head or tail of it." "Thanks, I'd like to hear." He glanced quickly, ap- praisingly at her as she fell into step beside him. "Any- thing bearing on this affair, no matter how trivial, may be of inestimable help to me." "Well, when I realized that Matilde must have known what had happened long before I came, and just left Mrs. Hartshorne lying there without calling for help or giving the alarm or anything, I thought it was the most heartless thing I ever heard of ; and when we stood together looking down at the poor thing's body and she with never a tear in her eye I had to speak! I asked her how she could be so unfeeling after Mrs. Hartshorne thinking she was so de- voted to her. I told her she seemed almost glad of the terrible thing that had happened." "What reply did she make?" asked Paul. 90 THE SECOND BULLET "That's what I can't understand. 'I would have followed Madame to the ends of the earth!' she said, and her eyes seemed to burn right through me, she was so earnest. 'I would have guarded her from all harm with my own life !' She meant it, too, Mr. Harvey, and that's the strangest part of it, for she added with a sudden change to the coldest sort of indifference: 'But if she has killed herself, what would you?'" "Matilde seems to be somewhat of a fatalist," Paul com- mented. "You are quite certain, Miss Adare, that she meant that rather extravagant assertion of her willingness to sacrifice her own life for her mistress?" "She meant it as much as she meant anything in this world !" responded Rose solemnly. "She's a queer woman, that Matilde ! I am a pretty good judge of human nature, but I've never been able to size her up. She was respectful enough and did what she was told without a word and looked after Mrs. Hartshorne's comfort as though she took a personal interest in it, but she was always glum and repressed. It seemed to me sometimes as if she were hold- ing herself in, watching herself, for fear she'd make a slip. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I can't think of poor Mrs. Hartshorne without seeing Matilde standing there, looking down at her with that strange gleam in her eyes." "But her mistress' death probably affected .her more than she was willing to have you know," Paul observed. "She fainted later, didn't she?" "Yes," Rose responded with emphasis. "She fainted when she learned through Chief Burke's talk with you over the 'phone that he and the Coroner had discovered it wasn't suicide after all, but murder! Goodness knows I don't want to suspect anyone myself in such a terrible thing as this, much less cast suspicion on them, but I can't help A BRIBE THAT FAILED 91 feeling that Matilde knows, or thinks she knows, more about Mrs. Hartshorne's death than she'll ever tell. If she does, wild horses wouldn't be able to drag it from her!" "Miss Adare," Paul seemed scarcely to have heard the latter part of her speech. "You refuse to gossip, I know, but you are in a better position than anyone else whom I have encountered on this investigation to hear the com- ments of Mrs. Hartshorne's friends upon her death and the manner of it. If I could have an assistant on this case I would like to put her in your shoes. I wonder if you would be willing to really help me ?" Rose's eyes sparkled. "I'd give anything to!" she cried. "Mrs. Hartshorne was always kind to me and it is disgusting to see the way all those people who called themselves her friends are tumbling over each other now to get out of the way of a scandal. They couldn't praise her and flatter her enough when she was writing checks for their pet charities, but I haven't heard one good word spoken for her now that she's dead. I don't believe their remarks would help you, Mr. Harvey! But was it something in particular that you wanted me to try to find out for you ?" "Yes. I'm going to be absolutely frank with you. Of course, I've only begun my investigation, but so far I can't find anyone who is willing to admit that he or she recalls seeing Mrs. Hartshorne later than half-past eleven or so on Thursday night at the Ledyards' dance; no one seems to know when she left for home or who accompanied her. It seems inconceivable that she should have slipped away without a word to anyone. Now, don't you think," he lowered his voice persuasively, "that you might be able to lead the conversation around to that point when your clients mention the murder to you? They are bound to do so, 92 THE SECOND BULLET for all the papers mentioned you as the first to discover Mrs. Hartshorne's body and summon aid, and they will all be bursting with morbid curiosity. See if among them you cannot find one who saw her leave the Ledyard house and at what hour." "I'll try," promised Rose, somewhat dubiously. "I would be doing no one any harm with that kind of gossip, but suppose those who do know what time she left and who went with her have a reason for not talking about it? Perhaps someone in the neighborhood saw her when she came home; if she wasn't in somebody's private car she must have had a taxi, dressed as she was, and the sound of it in that quiet street late at night may have disturbed someone who was wakeful. Did you think to make in- quiries across the street, Mr. Harvey?" "I've canvassed the neighborhood pretty thoroughly," he replied with an inward smile at her naivete. "No one ap- pears to have seen or heard her, but as they even failed to hear the pistol shot later, that isn't to be wondered at. No, Miss Adare, I think you have a far better opportunity than I to get at the truth about this by starting from the other end; the time Mrs. Hartshorne was last seen at the Led- yards' house." "I'll do the best I can," Rose repeated as she paused and held out her hand. There was an absent-minded quality in her tone and she blinked as though a new idea had presented itself to her. "I must go back now or I shall be late. If I find out anything where can I let you know ?" Paul drew out a card case and scribbled upon an oblong of cardboard. "There is my telephone number," he said. "I am grateful to you, Miss Adare, and I shall look forward to hearing from you." A BRIBE THAT FAILED 93 He watched her buoyant little figure as she retraced her steps until she was lost to view in the mazes of traffic at the corner. He could not explain even to himself what un- precedented impulse had moved him to take her into his confidence and enlist her aid. Instinct rather than reason had assured him that she was to be trusted. Even at their first interview he had acquired a lively respect for her powers of discernment. He had spoken in all sincerity when he told her of his belief that she could help him, for only in learning at what hour and under what auspices the woman now dead had returned to her home could he advance a step forward in his investigation. And Rose Adare in her confidential capacity would have more real in- formation thrust upon her than he could hope to glean. Paul stopped for a chop and a cup of coffee at a nearby restaurant and then entered the telephone booth. The doors of the Eastopolis Trust Company had closed at twelve, it being Saturday, and Paul surmised that President Braddock would be in no state of mind to brave any of his clubs, where the sole topic of conversation and conjecture would be the murder which had shaken the social structure of the city to its foundations. He rang up the Braddock house and a quavering, ancient voice replied : "Mr. Braddock cannot be disturbed, sir." "Kindly tell Mr. Braddock that I shall only detain him for a few moments. I have a message on a private matter from the Chief of Police." There ensued evidently a hurried colloquy at the other end of the wire, for Paul caught the echo of an indis- tinguishable mutter which broke in upon the butler's high- pitched tones. Then the latter spoke again. "Mr. Braddock will see you, sir, if you can come at once." 94 THE SECOND BULLET The old mansion which had sheltered three generations of Braddocks was a venerable pile of brown stone situated on the corner of what had once been the most fashionable square in the city. It was still exclusive, for the property of the deserters who had followed the upward trend of a more modern day had been bought in by the old guard which still remained faithful to earlier traditions, and no bustling shop or towering office building had invaded its sacred precincts. Everything about it spoke of permanence, of a solid aristocracy as old as the nation and as secure, and to Paul as he mounted the steps and lifted the antique bronze knocker, there came an incongruous thought of that other house a mile or two uptown, impudent in its modernity but dainty and charming and exquisitely appointed; the house where a woman of mystery had sought sanctuary and found the end of all things. The butler was white-haired and tremulous with palsy, but he bowed with a consummate blend of deference and patronage to the representative of law and order, and led him up the wide staircase to a library or den on the second floor. A figure clad in a purple silk house-robe rose from the depths of an armchair beside the empty hearth. Paul was constrained to look twice before he recognized the Presi- dent of the Eastopolis Trust Company. The white side- whiskers straggled forlornly from the flabby, pendulous cheeks, which had assumed a pasty gray hue, and the sleek, portly body seemed oddly limp and shrunken, like a de- flated balloon. Braddock had aged in appearance ten years at least. As he peered at his visitor and waved him toward a chair he looked full seventy years instead of the sixty he had borne so jauntily. A BRIBE THAT FAILED 95 "You have come, of course, about the property of that unfortunate young woman." It was obvious that he had carefully rehearsed his opening remark. "I have been ex- pecting some such call from ah, Headquarters, and I have here a certified list of such stocks, bonds, securities and cash as she had placed on deposit with the Trust Company of Eastopolis. Our auditor will go over it with you at any time and make whatever disposition of it the authorities require under these distressing circumstances." He produced a long envelope which Paul pocketed gravely, without a second glance. "Thank you, Mr. Braddock. The Chief will need this, of course. But I have come to discuss a more intimate, personal phase of this case than the property left by Mrs. Hartshorne." The other shrank perceptibly into the depths of his arm- chair. "There I am afraid I cannot help you, Mr. Harvey. I know nothing whatever of the lady or her antecedents. She came to me and made a large deposit in cash and nego- tiable securities and bonds. Later I met her socially in the best houses. That is really all that I can tell you." "But when she deposited these funds with the Trust Company did not you ask or she offer any credentials or references?" There was courteous incredulity in Paul's tone. The older man winced. "No. It it was an error in judgment, perhaps, but I was deeply impressed by her keen business sense and grasp of the intricacies of finance. She was an experienced specu- lator on the stock market. I could see that at once ; keen, cool, and yet at times a daring plunger. Successful women operators are rare. For these reasons it did not occur to me to ask for credentials as ordinarily I would have." 96 THE SECOND BULLET "You met Mrs. Hartshorne frequently in society there- after, Mr. Braddock? Did you not think it strange that no one knew anything about her?" "I did not think of it one way or another!" Mr. Brad- dock retorted testily. "She was a charming young woman with poise, intellect, obvious breeding and independent wealth. She needed no other passport than those assets." "You became one of her closest friends, did you not?" asked Paul coolly. "I should scarcely go so far as to claim that honor! I was interested in the young woman in a paternal sense. I frequently advised her in her financial transactions and she relied upon my judgment. Naturally, I paid her the little perfunctory attentions which a man of the world extends to a charming woman whose hospitality he occasionally enjoys; flowers, and that sort of thing. That marked the limit of our acquaintanceship." "You knew of Mrs. Hartshorne's habit of keeping com- paratively large sums in cash in her house ?" Mr. Braddock nodded. "Yes. I have more than once remonstrated with her about it. It was a foolish, indeed dangerous proceeding. But it was an idiosyncrasy one of the little inconsistencies of her sex which it is impossible to combat. I thought of it at once when the horrible news of the tragedy came, but I understand that the motive is not believed to have been robbery ?" His voice trailed off into a tremulous silence. Paul re- marked sympathetically : "Her death and the manner of it must have been a pro- found shock to you, Mr. Braddock !" The other peered at him suspiciously from under lowered brows, A BRIBE THAT FAILED 97 "It was, naturally, after seeing the young woman bloom- ing with health and spirits only a few hours before the news came. I am not a well man, Mr. Harvey, as you see, and the affair has greatly upset me. If there is nothing more that I can do for you, and I really do not think that I can be of any assistance to the authorities may I ask you to excuse me?" "Just a moment, Mr. Braddock. You dined with Mrs. Hartshorne at her home on Wednesday evening. I should like to know what passed between you; what the topic of conversation was throughout the evening." "Really, young man, you go too far!" Wendle Braddock started from his chair in a spurt of resentment. His old pomposity of bearing returned ; but beneath it Paul divined an underlying note of dismay akin to fear. "Our discussion was confined solely to her private affairs; her investments and speculations. I advised her about certain proposed transactions. Nothing that we mentioned could have had any bearing whatsoever on the the tragedy." "Perhaps not." Paul had risen and stood gazing levelly into the older man's defiant, troubled eyes. "Was it also in your capacity of fatherly adviser, Mr. Braddock, that on the following afternoon you sent to Mrs. Hartshorne a string of pearls valued at thirty-two thousand dollars from Webster and Weil?" "Oh, my God !" The figure before him wilted suddenly, swaying toward him, and a pudgy hand gripped his arm imploringly. "Don't let anyone know ! God, man, it would ruin me ! I should be ridiculous, a laughing-stock, one more old fool beguiled by a designing female! Can you realize what the newspapers will make of it, and the directors of the Trust Company, to say nothing of my other associates ? It is that which has been killing me ! But I hoped against 98 THE SECOND BULLET hope that my purchase of the pearls would not be dis- covered !" "The press has no inkling of it as yet, Mr. Braddock; we do not give out the details of our investigation unless some point is to be gained by doing so." Paul spoke in cold disgust. He shook off the detaining hand. "Ah! Then you can fix it so that the matter will be kept quiet?" The whine took on an eager, crafty note. "It had no possible connection with the crime, you see, for the motive wasn't robbery. And I'll make it worth your while, young man ! I can put you in a position which will mean a big future " "Stop, Mr. Braddock!" Paul drew himself up until his slight form towered above the cringing figure before him. "You misunderstood me; I am not here to be bribed! If you want to keep secret the fact that you were the pur- chaser of that string of pearls, it would be well for you to make a clean breast of the whole affair. What were your relations with Mrs. Hartshorne?" Wendle Braddock gave one timorous, hunted glance at the door as if he feared the lurking presence of some un- seen listener. Then he straightened and threw back his shoulders with a touch of real dignity. "I had asked Mrs. Hartshorne to be my wife," he said. Chapter IX. WITHOUT ALIBI. YOU mean, Mr. Braddock, that a secret engagement existed between you?" Paul asked quickly. "Not exactly clandestine." Braddock sank wearily into his chair once more. In the reaction folowing his en- forced revelation he seemed more pinched and shrunken than ever. His voice was scarcely above a whisper. "There had been no time to make an announcement had we cared to do so, but it was her wish that the affair be kept absolutely quiet until until the ceremony." "You had only recently proposed to her?" "On Wednesday evening." His head sunk upon his breast and his thick fingers gripped the arms of his chair. "God, what a fool ! What a narrow escape ! If this thing had happened later afterwards the disgrace of it would have killed me! That I should have succumbed to a blind infatuation, at my time of life 1" "I take it that you did not speak in a moment of impulse." Paul interrupted his lamentations brusquely. "Mrs. Harts- horne was aware of your intentions?" "I I do not think so." He passed a shaking hand across his brow. "She had thought of me merely as a good friend, one to be trusted and upon whose judgment she could rely. I had considered the matter tentatively for some weeks. I had about decided to retire from active business ; and the companionship of a young and charming 99 ioo THE SECOND BULLET woman, such a woman as I believed Mrs. Hartshorne to be, would have given me a new interest in life. I had not meant to be percipitate, but a whisper of idle gossip and conjecture about Mrs. Hartshorne crystallized my deter- mination. It should have warned me. It would have, had I not been so deeply interested, but as it was I thought only of offering her my protection against the envious tongues which assailed her. "When I dined with her on Wednesday evening and she spoke of selling her house and going away, saying that she was depressed and lonely and had found no real friends among us but me, I I asked her to become my wife. She seemed amazed and touchingly pleased, but feared she was not clever enough to make me happy. She would feel safe and protected with me, on her part, but I must be very sure of my affection for her. I urged her to consent. The upshot was we arranged that I should retire at once. As soon as the affairs of the Trust Company could be adjusted and my successor installed we planned to be married very quietly and go on a long wedding trip to Japan and the Far East. She dreaded the fuss and bother of a formal en- gagement and elaborate ceremony, and I agreed with her. God! If I could have foreseen !" "You sent her the pearls next day and met her at the Ledyards' dance in the evening?" "Yes. She came late with the Gaylors, but promised me that I should take her home. We sat out several dances and then I relinquished her to other partners to avert gossip. I do not dance, nor will my liver permit me to indulge in midnight suppers. So after my talk with her I escaped from the crush with Colonel Ledyard and we went to his den for a quiet smoke. Mr. Harvey, I did not see Mrs. Hartshorne again." WITHOUT ALIBI 101 He added the last sentence with marked impress! veness. "What time was it when you retired to the den?" asked Paul. "About eleven, I think." Braddock glanced up, surprised at the question. "How long did you remain there?" "I should say twenty minutes or a half-hour. Mrs. Led- yard sent for the Colonel, and I went back to the ballroom. But Mrs. Hartshorne wasn't visible and that cursed jazz band was making such a hideous racket that I was glad to get out of earshot. I drifted to the smoking-room and got interested in a discussion with Judge Talbot and some others ; we must have talked for an hour or two before I went back to see if Mrs. Hartshorne was tired and ready to go home. I could not find her anywhere ! No one seemed to have seen her, but in that crush it would have been im- possible to keep track of anyone. I ascertained that she had not taken leave of her hostess and waited until the very last, hoping that she would reappear. When she did not, I was forced to conclude that she had either been taken ill or had grown tired, and being unable to find me had gone home alone." "Mrs. Hartshorne kept no car, I understand." "None. I had thought it odd, I remember, for she could well afford one; indeed, her home would have permitted her to live in a far more pretentious way than she did. But her tastes were simple and she preferred to use her capital and the larger part of her income to make more." "What did you do when you discovered her disappearance from the Ledyards?" "I came directly home here, myself, and endeavored to telephone her, but her house number would not answer. I supposed, of course, that her maids had long since retired 102 THE SECOND BULLET and that she herself was asleep, and I made no further effort to disturb her. I was wretched in the morning bad attack of liver and had to send for the doctor. It was afternoon before I was able to sit up. I was on the point of calling her up once more when when extras were shouted upon the streets." "What time was it when you returned to your home from the Ledyards?" "After two o'clock in the morning." Braddock moved uneasily in his chair. "It was an inexcusable hour to have telephoned, but I was anxious ; I could not understand Mrs. Hartshorne having left without making an effort to find me, unless she were ill. In the light of what did happen I understand it less than ever. What could have sent her home to her death? Who killed her?" "I hope to be able to answer those questions some day, Mr. Braddock." Paul smiled slightly and then his face grew grave. "Did your butler or valet wait up for your return from the Ledyards, or did you let yourself into the house?" "George is both valet and butler to me, for I have not entertained at home since my sister died. He always waits up for me, no matter at what hour I return." "He did so on Thursday evening?" Paul insisted. "Of course." Braddock's tone was sharp with surprise. "Did you retire immediately after attempting to get Mrs. Hartshorne on the wire, or did you go out again?" "At that hour? Certainly not, sir !" The pasty hue of the banker's countenance had turned a dull mottled purple. "If you are trying to connect me with that hideous affair, your inference is an outrage ! What with my touch of liver com- ing on and my anxiety over Mrs. Hartshorne, I had a very bad night. George slept in my dressing-room to be within WITHOUT ALIBI 103 call and I had him up a half-dozen times. He can testify to that, if my statement needs corroboration 1" "Mr. Braddock," Paul paid no heed to the other's indig- nation "did anyone learn of Mrs. Hartshorne's engage- ment to you? Could anyone have obtained an inkling of it?" "Not unless Mrs. Hartshorne herself told them, and I am sure she would on no account mention it. It was she, not I, who wished to keep it secret." He paused and then added with greater emphasis, as though to reassure himself : "No one could have even suspected it. I had been most guarded, most discreet in my attentions to her up to the moment of my proposal. There could have been nothing in the demeanor of either of us during the dance to suggest that the status of our relations had changed from the cordial friendship we had previously maintained." Paul leaned forward and gazed straight into his host's shrinking eyes. "Mr. Braddock, it has come to my attention through several sources that bad blood exists between you and Mr. Cornelius Swarthmore. Is this true?" "I I shouldn't go so far as to say that," Braddock re- turned cautiously. "He is of a younger generation, more pushing and progressive, and his financial methods are un- scrupulous, according to my more conservative point of view. I have blocked more than one of his schemes which I am convinced were not strictly on the level. But I could have proved nothing against him ; he is too wary. Naturally we are at swords' points in a business way, but as we are constantly encountering each other socially we have not permitted our antagonism to come to an open breach. I should call it merley a mutual, tacitly understood dislike." "Do you recall colliding with him in the ball-room door 104 THE SECOND BULLET at the Ledyards during the early part of the evening?" "Yes. It was when I had come from the den to look for Mrs. Hartshorne. I had not succeeded in finding her, and was on my way to the smoking-room as I told you, when I thought I would take a last glance about the ball- room. Mr. Swarthmore seemed to be rather in a hurry " he paused. "He was rude, was he not? Almost insulting in his manner?" Paul pursued. The other waved a magnanimous hand. "I ignored it. Swarthmore and his moods are of no moment to me. I was not in a frame of mind to be an- noyed by trifles." "You were aware, of course you must have been of his attentions to Mrs. Hartshorne?" Braddock's weak eyes snapped angrily. "They were no more than the attentions of others in our set. I should have warned her of what manner of man he was, and his reputation with women, had there been need, but I could see that she was not encouraging him. She was discretion itself. And her nature seemed so simple, so open ! How could I have been so taken in !" "The fact that she has been foully murdered by some person as yet unknown does not necessarily suggest that Mrs. Hartshorne was the designing adventuress you seem to believe," Paul commented with studied carelessness. "Good Lord, man, what am I to think? If the crime was not the aftermath of something in the past, what is it? And if some such secret existed and she were an honest wo- man, it was her duty to have told me when I offered her the protection of my name !" "And you have no curiosity as to the identity of her slayer?" Paul rose. "You will admit, Mr. Braddock, that WITHOUT ALIBI 105 for a man professedly in love, your attitude seems strangely lacking in interest." "It was not love, at my age !" protested the banker, bleat- ingly. "It was blind infatuation, I tell you ! Since the first shock of the news subsided I have been thinking the whole affair over, and I'm beginning to see that I'm well out of it! If I can only keep the fact of my serious intentions regard- ing the young woman from becoming public property, it is all I ask. The identity of the person who killed her, terrible as the crime was, is of no moment to me compared with the loss of my reputation, my dignity and my standing in this community. I cannot afford to have my name connected with this affair in any way, Mr. Harvey ! As it is, I shall undoubtedly be subjected to much invidious criticism be- cause I accepted her deposit at the Trust Company without credentials. That I am prepared to meet, but if anything more personal transpires I shall never be able to hold up my head again ! I hope most heartily that the affair drops from public notice and is forgotten as soon as may be !" "And the murderer ?" "The murderer be be confounded, sir ! I'm thinking of myself!" His voice dropped to a whine once more. "I've told you all I know, Mr. Harvey ; I've thrown myself abso- lutely on your discretion, your mercy! For God's sake keep my entanglement with the woman from becoming known ! I haven't the least idea who killed her or the mo- tive for the crime, and I don't want to know! I want to wash my hands of the whole affair and forget it, if I can ! I'm a sick man, Mr. Harvey. You'll do what you can for me?" "It may be necessary for you to repeat what you have told me to Chief Burke, but I think I can promise you that for the present at least your engagement and the gift of the 106 THE SECOND BULLET pearls to Mrs. Hartshorne will not be given out to the press." Paul rose once more. "If you can recall any hint which Mrs. Hartshorne may have dropped as to her past I hope you will communicate with me." "I shall do so, Mr. Harvey, but I doubt that I will be able to help you. Ever since the news came of the murder I have sought in my own mind for a possible clue, but none presents itself. I cannot remember a single reference to her past life from Mrs. Hartshorne's lips." Braddock rose also and held out a tremulous hand. "I I shall be eternally grateful if you will keep my connection with the whole frightful affair from becoming known." Paul bowed stiffly and withdrew. The same cold disgust which Miss Adare had voiced arose within him at the blatant hypocrisy he was encountering at every hand. The dead woman, for all her cleverness, had made no real impression against the adamant self-interest of those with whom she had sought to ally herself. With unconscious unanimity they seemed to have virtually arraigned themselves on the side of the murderer himself, to help him keep his secret, lest something noisome be unearthed which might con- taminate them. One more interview remained before Paul proposed mak- ing his report to the Chief and as he taxied toward the im- posing Bachelors' Club, where Cornelius Swarthmore main- tained apartments, he mentally correlated the result of the day's investigation. Mrs. Hartshorne had undoubtedly taken fright at the direct questioning of Beatrice Ledyard, had read in it the first gathering clouds of the storm of gossip and criticism which might demolish all she had built up and end by defeating what plan she had made and ostracizing her; she had decided to flee before it, to sell her house and strike out for fresh territory, when all un- WITHOUT ALIBI expectedly Wendle Braddock had offered a sure means of turning possible defeat to victory. And with the first taste of triumph, the cup had been dashed from her lips ! But by. whom? Why had she left the dance so secretly, and who had followed her and fired the shot which solved her problems for all time, leaving a greater, inexplicable one? Someone of all the scores who had packed the Led- yard house must hold the key to the enigma. "If you've come about the Hartshorne case, I've nothing to say," announced Cornelius Swarthmore brusquely. "I knew her, of course; showed her a certain amount of at- tention because she amused me. But what her history was and what enemies she may have had she kept to herself, at least as far as I was concerned. Do you want any fur- ther statement from me ?" "Several, Mr. Swarthmore," Paul retorted. "You escorted Mrs. Hartshorne to her home from the Ledyards' on Tues- day evening. Did you observe any abrupt change in her demeanor ?" "She complained of indisposition; a headache, I think." "Didn't this headache come on rather suddenly? Wasn't it occasioned by, or simulated because of, something which was said at the Ledyards?" Swarthmore raised his eyes to the detective and then abruptly shifted his gaze. "I don't remember that anything was said which might have disturbed her. The headache seemed genuine enough." "When you had tea with her at her home on the follow- ing afternoon did she seem to have quite recovered her health and spirits?" There was a pause and Swarthmore chuckled drily. "Quite. I assure you she had never appeared to better advantage." io8 THE SECOND BULLET "In what way?" Paul asked quickly. "She looked remarkably well, and seemed more vivacious than usual." Swarthmore spoke now in a guarded drawl. "Clever little woman, Mrs. Hartshorne! Must have over- reached herself, though. Too bad ! The clever ones do, now and again, don't they?" "'Over-reached herself?" Paul repeated the phrase with a rising inflection which demanded a reply. "Well, yes," Swarthmore shrugged. "Someone must have had it in for her rather desperately, don't you think, to do what was done on Thursday night ?" "You have formed an opinion, then, as to the manner of her death." "By no means!" the other contradicted hastily, adding with a touch of malice, "I do not profess to be superior to the Police Department." "When you called at her house on Wednesday" Paul ignored the other's thrust "did Mrs. Hartshorne tell you that she thought of leaving Eastopolis?" "She mentioned it, but I didn't think she was in earnest." "Mr. Swarthmore, did you see Mrs. Hartshorne between Wednesday afternoon and the dance at the Ledyards' on the following evening?" "No." "You met her there, however? Danced with her? Talked to her?" "She arrived late, but I had a little chat with her in the conservatory shortly before I left." The dissipated lines about Swarthmore's mouth hardened perceptibly. "I hate a mob like that. I took myself off early." "Mr. Swarthmore, did anything unpleasant occur between you and Mrs. Hartshorne during that interview? In other words, did you quarrel?" WITHOUT ALIBI 109 "I never quarrel with a lady." Swarthmore's drawl was insolently exaggerated. "There was no occasion, I assure you, in any event. We had a most interesting conversation, but aside from that the evening promised to be a bore and I left before supper; about half-past eleven, I think." "Do you remember jostling Mr. Wendle Braddock in the doorway of the ball-room? Were you not enraged about something at the moment ?" " 'Enraged', is scarcely the word, my dear sir." Swarth- more smiled. "I was irritated, annoyed by the crush. I don't recall Braddock particularly, but if he was in my way I probably swept him aside with little ceremony. By the way, how is Braddock taking this? By Jove, it must have floored him !" "Why? Were he and Mrs. Hartshorne such close friends?" Again the pause. Swarthmore laughed shortly. "Friends? The old fool was infatuated. Gad, I'd like to see his face now 1" "Are you sure, Mr. Swarthmore? Have you any proof of this infatuation?" "I have eyes," he returned brusquely. "He's been dancing attendance on her for weeks." "When you left the Ledyards' at half past eleven on Thursday night, where did you go ?" "I took a walk." For the first time he seemed to hesi- tate. "I wanted to get the odor of that perfumed menagerie out of my nostrils. It was a wonderful spring night and I strolled about for some time before returning to my rooms." Paul leaned forward. "For how long, Mr. Swarthmore? What time did you return ?" "I haven't an idea." He shrugged. "Not anticipating the i io THE SECOND BULLET fact that it might become necessary for me to establish an alibi I took no account of time." "Perhaps the night doorman here will remember," Paul suggested. "Oh, it was around two o'clock, I imagine." Swarthmore spoke carelessly, but his face flushed. "In the intervening two hours and a half you did not stop anywhere? Just strolled about?" "Precisely." "In what direction?" "There again I must disappoint you." His tone was coolly ironic. "My mind was engrossed in a forthcoming directors' meeting of my company and I took no note of the course of my nocturnal ramble. To save you the trouble of framing your question, I may add that it is quite conceivable I was in the neighborhood of Farragut Street ; I may even have passed Mrs. Hartshorne's house, although I don't re- call it. Damaging, isn't it?" Paul rose. "Did you encounter any acquaintance during your walk, Mr. Swarthmore?" "None. You'll have to take my word for it, but in the event that you don't you'll find me here. However, I can assure you that I didn't kill Mrs, Hartshornc," Chapter X. THE CONSERVATORY DOOR. it A ND that is where we stand," Paul concluded his /\ report to Chief Burke. "Some urgent message -*- * must have reached Mrs. Hartshorne or some sign warned her of trouble to cause her to slip away from the dance so quietly. That's the crux of the whole matter. Where did she go when she left the Ledyards' ?" "Home, of course!" The Chief stared. "You don't think she had an appointment, and went in all that regalia to keep it, do you ?" Paul smiled. "It is within the range of possibility," he retorted. "There are one or two little points you've missed, Chief." "Have I, indeed !" The other snorted. "Are you holding out on me, Paul, for a grand-stand play?" "No. You wouldn't have called me in on the case if you hadn't expected me to dig up a thing or two that escaped the rest of you," Paul responded good-naturedly. "I've got an idea that I want to test before I discuss it, that's all. Did the Coroner report yet on his autopsy?" "Yes. That's why I'm sure you are on a wrong steer if you think Mrs. Hartshorne went to any rendezvous after leaving the Ledyards' ; there wasn't time. Dr. Cravenshaw says she must have been dead since around one o'clock in the morning, maybe earlier. The bullet was a thirty-two and fits her pistol, all right. She got it straight through the ill 1 12 THE SECOND BULLET heart and must have died instantly, without even a gasp." Paul nodded. "I've got to fix the time she left the Ledyards'," he re- marked. "I'm going back there later to interview the servants; the maid in attendance in the ladies' dressing- room should know when Mrs. Hartshorne's cloak was re- moved. I want to get the general arrangement of the rooms, too. Some outsider must have approached Mrs. Hartshorne, and if they didn't come in on a purchased ticket I've got to find out how she could have been reached." "You are eliminating Cornelius Swarthmore, then, in spite of his lame account of how he passed the time after he left the dance?" the Chief asked in a disappointed tone. "Swarthmore is no fool," Paul returned. "He has had plenty of time to frame an alibi, and money to produce a string of witnesses if he had thought it worth while. His story sounds fishy, I admit, and if he were a different kind of man it would be conceivable that he had formed an opinion as to the real culprit and was trying to draw our suspicion in order to give them time to save themselves, but he's the ruthless, predatory type. Self-sacrifice is out- side his category. I've no doubt that he was as infatuated as Braddock; it is highly probable that he was jealous and quarreled with Mrs. Hartshorne in the conservatory, leav- ing the house in a rage and walking off his black mood for the next hour or two. If her death has cut him up any, he has schooled himself not to show it. He did not manifest the slightest regret or interest in the identity of the mur- derer; but he seemed to find cause for a grim sort of amusement at Braddock's expense." "I guess it lets him out," the Chief admitted grudgingly. "I suppose you saw the panning we got in the newspapers this afternoon for not getting results? If nothing further THE CONSERVATORY DOOR 1 13 develops we'll have to get the Coroner to hold Matilde at the inquest as accessory after the fact; she discovered the body and failed to give the alarm, and that will stall us along until she comes up for a hearing. But for the Lord's sake, Paul, start something! We've got the next election to think of !" "I'd like to have a little talk with Matilde. Will you have her brought up?" Paul asked. "You haven't been able to get anything more out of her, have you?" "No." The Chief pressed a buzzer on his desk. "She sticks to her story and nothing can shake her; coolest proposition I've tackled in many a day." Matilde, when she appeared, bore out this assertion. Her sallow face was impassively devoid of expression. She waited calmly with her beady black eyes fastened upon Paul. "You have told me that you were born in Peronne, Matilde," he began. "What year?" "In 'seventy-six, Monsieur." The reply was prompt. "You have relatives living?" "I do not know, Monsieur. There was an uncle and cousins before this war, but now !" she shrugged. "No one else ? No brothers or sisters ?" "No one else, Monsieur." Her eyes shifted and fell. "You came to this country nine years ago. On what steamer?" "On a private yacht, Monsieur," she paused. "The Belle- Elise of Monsieur Felix Courthier. I was maid to Madame." "What positions have you held since ?" "Several, Monsieur. I left Madame Courthier to go to a widow, Madame Elmer Smith of Chicago. For three years I was with her, then she went abroad to live. She H4 THE SECOND BULLET has married, I believe, an Italian." Again there was a pause and Matilde made a little helpless gesture with her hands. "After that there were many positions I cannot remember! One lady I did not please, another would not pay, another was indiscreet; I should have been witness in a divorce had I remained. What would you? Then I engage myself to Madame Merignac, the old lady who died last summer." "She was French?" "But no, Monsieur. She was of the South." There was a shade of difference in her tone and her eyes would not meet his. Paul asked quickly: "From New Orleans?" "I think that is the name of the city, but I am not sure." "You have never been to New Orleans?" Paul gazed at her steadily. "No, Monsieur." A faint color had crept into her cheeks. "Matilde, you were supervisor of the linen room at the Belmonde Hotel in New York when Mrs. Hartshorne en- gaged you, were you not?" "Yes, Monsieur." She raised her eyes at last. "Your position was not one which would have brought you ordinarily into contact with the guests. How did you meet her?" "There was a complaint about the quality of the linen on Madame's bed. I went to her apartments to attend to it and Madame was interested in me. She was most kind, most sympathetic ; she persuaded me to tell her of my diffi- culties, my illness, how impossible it had been for me to obtain the position to which I was accustomed. Madame liked me and took me for her maid." "You are quite sure, Matilde, that there had been a key THE CONSERVATORY DOOR 115 in the door of Mrs. Hartshorne's bedroom here prior to her death?" "It was there on Wednesday evening, Monsieur, for when Madame retired she locked herself in as usual ; she was forced to rise to admit me with her breakfast tray in the morning. I did not observe whether it was there or not when I prepared the room for Madame's return on Thurs- day night." With this Matilde was dismissed. Paul observed to the Chief: "I wish you would give Lumsden a complete description of Mrs. Hartshorne's jewels, sir, and let him go to New York and see if he can trace them ; find out if any of them were purchased there and also if she sold others along Maiden Lane." "I'll start him at once, but what's the idea?" the Chief demanded. "The jewels are the only link in our hands which connect her with the past. Just because she chose to make a mys- tery of it is no proof that we shall find the motives for this crime in her history." From Headquarters, armed with a blanket warrant, Paul returned again to the Ledyard residence. The same lugu- briously correct butler who had admitted him in the morn- ing opened the door, but stood blocking the entrance de- precatingly. "Mrs. Ledyard is not at home, sir." "I did not come to see Mrs. Ledyard. What is your name?" "Hickson, sir." The man evinced surprise not unmixed with discomfiture. "Hickson, I'm from Headquarters. Were you on duty here on Thursday evening?" ii6 THE SECOND BULLET "Excuse me, sir." Hickson's perturbation increased, but he spoke firmly. "I shall have to ask Miss Ledyard if I am to answer questions. Colonel Ledyard has not re- turned yet and in his absence and Mrs. Ledyard's " "Ask Miss Ledyard if she will see me." Hickson stepped aside with an air of defeat and ushering Paul into the drawing-room departed upon his errand. After a lengthy pause, there was a swish of silken skirts upon the stairs and a young woman, clad in a clinging gown of soft green, confronted the detective in the door- way. She was tall and slender, with a wealth of deep red hair and topaz eyes which reminded him of those of some tawny cat. Curiously feline, too, were her slow grace of movement and the poise of her lissom body. "I am Miss Ledyard. I was under the impression that my mother had told you all we knew of Mrs. Hartshorne this morning; that is, if you have come about the Hart- shorne case?" Paul bowed. "Mrs. Ledyard replied to my questions, but I should like some additional information." "I am sorry, but I am afraid that I cannot help you. I know no more than my mother." "You know that Mrs. Hartshorne's past before she came here has remained a mystery; you were the first to ques- tion it, Miss Ledyard, to ask why she had been received without credentials, merely because of her personality and financial assets. What cause did she give you after all these months for adopting such an attitude?" Beatrice Ledyard's eyes narrowed. Two pointed, very white teeth showed in the curl of her lip. "No cause whatever. The woman was merely an ac- quaintance to whom I had given absolutely no thought. THE CONSERVATORY DOOR 117 My mother was most enthusiastic about her work for war charities, and it suddenly occurred to me as strange that Mrs. Hartshorne should give her time and efforts, yet sedulously avoid being seen in large gatherings; it savored of concealment more than diffidence, for she was not at all a shy or self-effacing person. So I wondered, naturally. I trust that explanation is sufficiently comprehensive." She spoke coldly, but her tone shook with an emotion not altogether scorn or bitterness, which Paul was at a loss to fathom. "Quite, thank you." He smiled and then his gravity re- turned. "Mrs. Hartshorne appeared at the Red Cross dance here, however." "Yes. I nodded to her, but the crowd was so great that we did not actually meet." She made a motion as if to turn to the door. "Really, I cannot discuss this! The subject is too distressing. And I can tell you nothing, nothing! I am sure that if my father were at home he would not permit me to be so harassed and annoyed !" "I have no intention of annoying you further, Miss Ledyard," Paul assured her suavely. "There are a few questions I wish to put to your servants who were in atten- dance at the dance, but if you prefer it I will wait here until Colonel Ledyard returns." "Our servants?" she repeated. "The waiters for the supper were provided by a caterer " "But your butler officiated in his usual capacity, did he not? And one of your maids must have been in the ladies' cloak-room. They are the ones I wish to speak to." Miss Ledyard rang the bell and almost instantly the door opened and Hickson stood expectant on the threshold. Paul smiled to himself; it was apparent that this most ex- cellent of butlers was not above eavesdropping. ii8 THE SECOND BULLET "Hickson, this gentleman would like to ask you " his mistress began, but Paul intervened. "The maid first, if you please, Miss Ledyard." She bit her lips. "Which one would you care to see? The reception room downstairs was used as a cloak-room for the strangers who came and one of the house maids was stationed there to check their wraps. Our personal friends were taken up- stairs and my mother's maid attended them." "I wish to speak to the one who waited upon Mrs. Hart- shorne." Miss Ledyard turned to the butler. "Send Louise here." "And you need not wait immediately outside the door," Paul supplemented pleasantly. "Miss Ledyard will ring when she requires you." The chagrined Hickson withdrew and Miss Ledyard turned in sudden fury on her visitor. "How dare you give orders to our servants ?" she stormed. "My father shall complain of your insolence at Head- quarters." Paul drew a folded paper from his pocket. "I have here a blanket warrant for your entire house- hold, including the members of your family," he announced quietly. "Would you care to see it? I trust you will not make it necessary for me to use it." "A warrant !" she gasped. "Surely you you don't think we had anything to do with Mrs. Hartshorne's death !" "She was last seen alive in your house," he responded. "You must realize that under these circumstances, Miss Ledyard, a very serious interpretation would be placed upon any attempt of yours to block my investigation." "I have no intention of doing so!" she retorted, "I THE CONSERVATORY DOOR 119 merely wish to avoid any further personal annoyance!" A nervous tap sounded upon the door. "In that case," Paul smiled. "I will not detain you while I question your maid." "Thank you!" There was a glint of green fire in her smoldering eyes. "I prefer to remain. Come in, Louise !" Louise, pretty and vapid and quite obviously frightened out of what wits she possessed, sidled a step or two into the room and halted as if poised for instant flight. "You are Mrs. Ledyard's maid?" Paul asked in a re- assuring tone. She nodded, speechlessly. "You were in attendance upstairs upon the ladies who came to the dance last Thursday?" "Y-yes, sir." "You knew Mrs. Hartshorne by sight, did you not?" The girl shrank from him at mention of the dead woman's name and her colorless face went still more pale. "Oh, yes, sir! The the poor lady came here often." "You took her cloak from her Thursday night, did you not? Do you remember, Louise, what it was like?" Miss Ledyard's gown rustled as she made a swift move- ment of surprise. The maid's round eyes were staring at Paul as if hypnotized. "Yes, sir. It was a soft blue brocaded velvet with a big cape collar and cuffs of ermine. I couldn't forget it be- cause I had such a fright about it !" "What sort of a fright?" Miss Ledyard was tapping her foot impatiently at the triviality of his questioning, but Paul ignored her ill-humor. "I thought it was stolen, sir!" Louise faltered. "I hung it with the rest in the wardrobe of the corner guest room that was being used as a dressing-room. I'd been told to 120 THE SECOND BULLET stay there, but it got late and nobody else arrrived, and the music just drove me crazy, sir! When they were all at supper I stole down the back stairs and peeped in the big empty ball-room, listening; I couldn't have been gone more than five minutes. After the supper some of the ladies came up for a bit of powder, and one of them Mrs. Cowles, it was wanted her cigarette case, that was in the pocket of her cloak. I had hung Mrs. Hartshorne's cloak right next to it, but it was gone ! Mrs. Hartshorne's, I mean. My heart was up in my mouth, but Mrs. Cowles was going on so about the conservatory door " "What about the conservatory door?" Paul interposed swiftly. "It wouldn't open. She thought Colonel Ledyard had ordered it locked just after supper to prevent strangers from picking his orchids for souvenirs, and she was put out about it. I didn't let on before the ladies how frightened I was, but when they had all gone back to the ball-room I flew down to Mary, who was in charge of the other cloak- room, and asked her if the cloak had been brought down there. She said 'no' and I went back, so sick with fear I could hardly get up stairs, for with hundreds of strangers in the house I was sure it had been stolen and I would be to blame, of course, for leaving my post. I don't know how I ever got through that night, expecting every minute that Mrs. Hartshorne would come to claim her cloak and I would have to say that it had been taken. "But she didn't come, though everyone else did. When they had all gone, it finally came over me that she must have taken the cloak herself and gone home while I was downstairs that time during supper. It served me right for disobeying my orders, but I won't forget the worry of it to my dying day !" THE CONSERVATORY DOOR 121 She paused for breath, and Paul beamed upon her. "You are sure the cloak was taken during the supper hour; not just mislaid and removed later, when you went down to speak to Mary, perhaps?" "No, sir," she responded doggedly. "It was gone when I came back that first time, for I hunted high and low for it." "Thank you, Louise ; that is all I wanted to know. You may go." The little maid needed no second permission. As she slipped from the room Paul turned to Miss Ledyard. The tapping of her foot had ceased and she sat tense and im- movable. "Will you ring for the butler now, please, or shall I?" She motioned toward the bell, and he pressed it. "You did not see Mrs. Hartshorne, yourself, after the supper hour?" he asked. She shook her head and they waited in silence for the coming of Hickson. When he appeared, wearing a consciously virtuous ex- pression, Paul began without preamble. "What is the rest of your name, Hickson?" "Alfred George, sir." "English?" "Yes, sir. Twenty-eight years in this country, sir, and twenty of them in service here at Colonel Ledyard 's." He spoke with pride. "Married, Hickson?" "Widower, sir. Two sons at the front and the third, William, who is chauffeur now for Mrs. Ledyard, has a shattered knee from Ypres, sir." "What were your duties at the Red Cross dance here on Thursday?" THE SECOND BULLET "I took the tickets at the door, sir, and then generally overlooked the waiters from the caterer, and kept an eye on things." "How long were you posted at the door?" "Until eleven, sir, or a bit after. No one arrived later than that." "You remember Mrs. Hwrtshorne's arrival with the Gaylors?" "Perfectly, sir. That was about half-past ten." "Did you observe when she left?" "No, sir. I did not see Mrs. Hartshorne again after she entered." "Hickson, did you lock the conservatory door?" There was a pause during which Hickson glanced at his young mistress in surprise. "No, sir," he responded at length. "I heard nothing of it, sir. There must be some mistake." "You know nothing of its having been locked during or just after the supper hour?" "No, sir," responded the butler firmly. "And if you'll excuse me, sir, you must have been misinformed. The door may have stuck, but it wasn't locked ; there's been no key to it for a long time. It stood wide open when I went about putting out the lights after all the guests had gone." Beatrice Ledyard's tense figure relaxed suddenly and she uttered a cry of relief. "Here is my father, now !" Chapter XI. "IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN!" A KEY had rattled in the great entrance door which opened and closed with a slam and footsteps sounded down the hall. "Father, will you come in here, please?" Miss Ledyard's voice was high pitched and strained. "There is a man from Police Headquarters " "What's this?" Colonel Ledyard's bald head appeared in the doorway. "Bless my soul, we're not going to get mixed up in that Hartshorne affair, are we? Why didn't you call at my office, young man, if you want any information about Mrs. Hartshorne's stocks?" "That is not what I am here for, Colonel Ledyard." Paul turned to him. "My name is Harvey ; I am a special investigator called in on this case by the Chief of Police." "Well, Mr. Harvey, this is a most shocking tragedy, of course, but I cannot see what information you hope to gain here." The Colonel handed his hat and stick to Hickson and dismissed him with a nod. "As far as we have been able to discover, Mrs. Hart- shorne was last seen alive in your house," Paul explained patiently. "I have just learned approximately what time she left, but not the manner of her going 1 nor if she were ac- companied by anyone or alone." , "He says he has a warrant for our arrest 1" broke in Miss Ledyard half -hysterically. 123 124 THE SECOND BULLET "Bosh!" The Colonel's stout figure bridled like that of an angry game-cock. "This is preposterous! On what trumped-up charge have you come here to try to bluff us?" "Here is the warrant, Colonel Ledyard !" Paul extended the document. "I have no intention of serving it unless I meet with opposition to my necessary investigation here." "H'm !" The Colonel unfolded the paper and after glanc- ing hastily over it he handed it back as if it burned his fingers. He turned to his daughter. "Trix, I think you had better leave us. I will attend to this gentleman." "Yes, father." Her tone was submissive, but she moved slowly and with obvious reluctance to the door. "Now, Mr. Harvey," the Colonel began as soon as they were alone ; "What can I do for you ? I have no desire to impede the course of justice, but you are barking up the wrong tree if you look to get evidence here." "Nevertheless, I should like to examine the arrangement of such of your rooms as were used during the dance on Thursday night," responded Paul. "I wonder if you would be good enough to conduct me yourself? Could Mrs. Hart- shorne have departed by any other door than the front en- trance, in the event that she had wanted to slip away un- noticed?" "I never considered that. My wife did think it odd, when we were talking the affair over last night, that no one seemed to know when Mrs. Hartshorne left. There is a door leading from the conservatory down some steps into the strip of garden between the ball-room extension and the next house, but it has been locked and bolted since last autumn, and sealed with weather stripping to prevent the cold from getting in on my orchid collection." He turned to the hallway. "Come along, Mr. Harvey. I'll be glad to have you see for yourself." "IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN I" 125 Paul followed him through the succession of long stately apartments, noting the position of each. The windows were all on a level about ten feet from the ground outside and nowhere did balcony, ledge or trellised vine offer foot- hold for a possible intruder. "This is the ball-room." Colonel Ledyard threw open the wide double doors and pressing a switch flooded the great, high-ceilinged room with a myriad clusters of light which were reflected in the glassily polished floor. "The stage has been set up again, you see, at the farther end. We usually place the orchestra there, but for this big semi- public affair when every extra inch of dancing space was desirable, Mrs. Ledyard had the stage taken down, and stationed the music there in that alcove ; there was no need to worry about the acoustics for a jazz band." "And this ?" Paul motioned toward a doorway in the wall at a right-angle from the alcove. "The door to the conservatory." The Colonel waddled toward it as he spoke over his shoulder. "Do you happen to know whether it was locked during a part of Thursday evening or not?" Paul asked as he followed. His host turned with some heat. "I wish to heavens it had been!" he exclaimed. "My orchids have cost me thousands of dollars and were the pride of my life. And the best of them are ruined ! Some vandal trod them down. Look here!" He led* the way into the dim, cool, vault-like apartment and pointed to a mass of great purple and brown mottled bloom which hung wilted and dying from crushed, broken stems. "I've nursed them as a mother would a child!" he lamented. "Sat up nights with them to keep the tempera- 126 THE SECOND BULLET ture just right and brought a horticulturist up all the way from Central America to try out a new method of grafting he had devised and now look at them !" But Paul gave no second glance to his host's hobby. He was gazing about the glass-domed room with its artis- tically massed flowers and narrow tiled paths winding cun- ningly about through aisles of arching palms. A minature fountain tinkled in the heart of the delicate greenery and rustic seats were tucked invitingly into secluded nooks and corners. Despite its beauty there was something sinister in the atmosphere, damp and heavy with the cloying mingled perfumes, which sent a chill to his bones. He shivered involuntarily. From where he stood with his back to the orchid bank, Paul faced directly upon the row of long French windows set so closely together as to give the impression of an un- broken wall of glass that looked out upon the strip of garden. At the farther end to the right stood a narrow closed door, doubtless the one of which Colonel Ledyard had spoken. Paul's eyes turned to the left, toward the larger, opened door which led into the ball-room. In a direct line with his gaze was the alcove and a stretch of the damask-hung wall. He turned again to the row of windows. "Where any of these open on the night of the dance?" "No. The ventilation came from a sliding pane of glass or two in the dome." The Colonel turned with a sigh from his mutilated orchids and started down the walk. "Come and examine the door for yourself. It hasn't been tampered with, you see. There's the padding and weather stripping I had put in last autumn, and the chain and padlock are still on, as well as the bolts. It could only have been opened if all that stuff were pried loose first." "IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN !" 127 Paul nodded as though satisfied and led the way himself back through the ball-room and into the entrance hall. "Thank you for your courtesy, Colonel Ledyard. I may have to trouble you again in a day or two, but I won't unless it's absolutely necessary." The Colonel waved a pudgy hand. "That is all right. Glad to give the authorities any assis- tance I can, but you won't find any clue here, Mr. Harvey, to what happened after the poor little woman reached her home. Frightful thing, upon my soul ! I can't think what the motive could have been ; she looked no more capable of a history than a a maltese kitten! Yet that reticence of hers ?" He broke off and added nervously: "I I hope the Chief of Police won't consider it necessary to lay stress upon the fact that Mrs. Hartshorne was last seen alive here. If the newspapers get wind of it and play it up Mrs. Ledyard will be simply prostrated. She has been under a severe nervous strain ever since the tragedy be- came known." "Unless the special article chap dopes that out for him- self, I can assure you that the Chief will not tip his hand off to the Press at this stage of the game," Paul smiled. "Good afternoon, Colonel Ledyard !" It was late at night before he found his way to the modest old-fashioned rooms where he kept bachelor's hall. The day's exertions had told upon his slender store of strength but his eyes glowed with unabated zeal from the shadowed rings which encircled them and his brain seethed with conflicting impressions which he strove to coordinate. Upon leaving the Ledyards' he had made a wearisome round of various taxicab companies of the city, but with no result. No cab had been ordered to convey Mrs, Harts- THE SECOND BULLET home to her home on the previous Thursday night and it was inconceivable that she should have left the dance and wandered about the street bare-headed and in her evening attire until she picked up a strolling night-hawk. Some private conveyance had taken her to her home, but whose, and after what possible rendezvous ? Paul slept fitfully at last, hammering still in his half -conscious moments at the problem which obsessed him. In the quiet of the early Sunday morning his telephone shrilled insistently and he obeyed its summons to find Chief Burke on the other end of the wire. "Hello, Paul? Feel all right to-day?" "Surely !" His voice rang out firmly "What's the news?" "That little kitchenmaid from Farragut Street has dis- appeared. Her aunt 'phoned in to Headquarters just now. You'd better jump down there and get what dope on it you can; it looks queer to me. You've got the address, Sadie Mullen, care Peters, sixteen Sherman Place." "I get you, sir ! I'll go at once and report to you later." Dressing hastily and snatching a cup of coffee at a nearby restaurant, Paul boarded a car for the address given. It proved to be a tenement of a model type, clean and airy, with straggling pots of geraniums on more than one win- dow-sill, and an air of respectability and civic pride despite its poverty. Paul mounted the narrow stairs and knocked upon the door labeled "Peters." A tall, gaunt woman with iron-gray hair and a look of strained anxiety in her faded eyes admitted him and ushered him into a tiny, spotless kitchen. "You are Mrs. Peters? I've come from Police Head- quarters to learn what you can tell me about your niece, "IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN!" 129 Sadie Mullen," he began pleasantly. "It's little enough, sir!" she motioned to a chair. "Do you mind speaking low? My husband's a night-watchman and he's just come home and gone to bed. I've told him Sadie was off for the week-end visiting friends, for she's like his own girl and I don't want him worried in case she turns up all right. I can't think what's got into Sadie! She's been like a crazy thing ever since she came home Fri- day night with the news that her lady had been murdered. You'd expect her to be sorry, and sick with the shock and fright of it, too, but not to carry on as if she'd had a hand in it herself, the silly girl 1" "What did she say?" Paul asked. "Nothing, at first, but just that somebody had killed Mrs. Hartshorne in the night. We couldn't get another word out of her, she was dumb and white and shaking till her teeth chattered. My husband got a paper before he went out to his job and that's how we learned the details of it. Sadie had come home a little after six but she wouldn't eat any supper and shut herself in her room. Along about mid- night she burst out crying something terrible, as if she'd held in as long as she could and had to let go, but although she hung on to me when I went in to her, I couldn't get a word from her except one thing she kept sobbing over and over ; 'If I'd only known ! If I'd only known !' " "Didn't she explain later what she meant?" "No, I got her quieted down finally and she went to sleep ; but she must have been dreaming of it, for she started up screaming more than once. She scarcely ate a bite all day yesterday and wouldn't talk to the reporters when they came, or the neighbors, but hid off in her room and cried softly to herself. She seemed to get better, though, by nightfall, but she only shook her head when we tried to 130 THE SECOND BULLET question her and she had that stubborn look in her eyes that I've learned to reckon with when she was a little girl. She gets streaks of that queer, mulish spunk when she will have her own way if it kills her, and I could see she'd made up her mind to something, but little I guessed what ! "My husband went to his job at eight o'clock last night, and I stepped out to a neighbor's, just a few doors away, leaving Sadie poring over the latest 'Extra' about the murder. When I came home I thought she had gone to bed. for her door was closed and there was no light in the room, but when I went to wake her for early Mass I found her gone !" "She left no note or message for you?" asked Paul. "No, sir. Her bed hadn't been slept in and none of her things were missing except the clothes on her back, but the room was strewn with feathers ; she had torn open her pillow and when I looked at it close I could see where she must have ripped it before and sewed it together again. Whatever it was she had hidden in there, she must have taken it with her." "I should like to see her room, please." Paul rose. "I haven't had time to straighten it yet," Mrs. Peters hesitated. Then crossing the kitchen, she threw open a door at the end. "The feathers will fairly choke you, sir !" The room was small, with a single window opening on a court, and furnished simply with a narrow iron bed, a chair and a combination pine bureau and wash-stand. A crisp calico curtain suspended from a shelf bulged with the gar- ments hanging from pegs beneath and a cloud of feathers from the torn pillow swirled with the opening of the door and settled again. Paul's darting glance took in every detail and rested finally upon the small mirror over the bureau. From all "IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN !" 131 sides of it protruded fan-like sheafs of pictures obviously clipped from newspapers and magazines ; reproduced photo- graphs of simpering girls and buxom sirens, effeminate youths and leering satyrs in evening dress. Paul gestured toward the improvised gallery and Mrs. Peters sighed. "The movies !" she explained. "Sadie's just crazy about them! She would have those pictures up there. I burned the first batch I saw, but she got on one of those stubborn fits of hers and threatened to leave home if she couldn't have them. After all, it seemed harmless enough. Sadie's a good girl, sir; I've never had any trouble with her. She don't seem to care about boys, or staying out late nights. And she never was deceitful before. She just loves pretty things, like any other young girl and she'd spend her last dime for the movies." "Do you know how much money she had with her when she went away last night?" "Seven dollars and forty cents," Mrs. Peters responded promptly. "I thought of that the first thing. She had just ten dollars left from her wages, paid two-and-a-half for a waist, spent five cents for carfare home from Farragut Street Friday night and five cents she lent me to make change to-day for the iceman." "What clothes are missing! What must she have worn?" "Her best." Mrs. Peters' lips set grimly. "A black hat she'd trimmed herself with little French flowers, all colors, that poor Mrs. Hartshorne had thrown away; a blue serge suit, the new white waist, an imitation seal neck-piece and gray-topped shoes with awful high heels. She couldn't have walked further than the car line in them. I don't know if she had gloves or not, but she must have carried her wrist THE SECOND BULLET bag; patent leather, it is, with a big green stone in the top. Sadie is great for style, for all she is shy and tongue-tied and kind of slow. I can't think where she could have gone ! She's only got two or three friends and I called them up from the drug-store before I 'phoned the Police. None of them had seen her." "Did Sadie come often to see you while she was employed by Mrs. Hartshorne?" "Every time she had an afternoon off," Mrs. Peters responded loyally. "She might go to see her friends for an hour or two, but she always came straight home to us first. There wasn't a wild notion in her mind, sir, and I brought her up strict; she don't know anything about badness or excitement or gay life except what she's seen on the screen, and she's nothing but a child at heart." "When was the last time she came to you before Friday night?" "The day before, sir. It was her Thursday off. She got home early, about half -past two, and trimmed that hat she must be wearing now. I went out with her to buy the white waist and she had dinner here and went back to Mrs. Hartshorne's." "What did she talk about, do you remember? Did she seem happy in her place ?" "Well, yes, though she hates kitchen work," Mrs. Peters admitted. "I want to make a waitress of her, but this is the first time she's been out in service and she had to begin at the bottom. She didn't talk about anything much on Thurs- day except Mrs. Hartshorne; what beautiful clothes she wore, and how lovely she looked when she went out, and how grand she kept her hands. Sadie was sick of having her own hands in dish-water all the time. My, how she ad- mired Mrs. Hartshorne ! To hear her talk, you'd think she "IF I HAD ONLY KNOWN !" 133 was the most wonderful creature in the world! I guess that's why she took on so awful about the murder, but it don't explain her running away like this." Paul picked up the limp pillow and examined it with no result save an incipient blizzard of down; the bureau drawers contained nothing but wearing apparel. Save for a hat or two and a box of sewing materials the shelf was bare. "Don't worry about her any more than you can help, Mrs. Peters." Paul took up his hat from the kitchen table. "I've no doubt that we can find her for you, but it may re- quire a few days. I don't think she has come to any harm." "I'll be thankful beyond words if you can get her back for me safe and sound and without her uncle knowing what she's done," Mrs. Peters responded. "He loves her like he would his own, but he's a hard man in some ways and often I've had to stand between his temper and her pig-headed- ness. You'll let me know, sir, as soon as you've got trace of her? I shan't have a minute's peace until I'm sure nothing's happened to her, and she's coming home !" Paul promised and took his departure. At Headquarters, Chief Burke listened to his report without comment until it was concluded when he observed : "Nobody could have got to her with any threat or bribe to keep her out of the way; that's a cinch if she wouldn't talk to anyone all day, not even the neighbors. Maybe she was afraid to talk to them ; afraid she'd tell how much she knew. There might have been something in that newspaper she was reading when her aunt went out that scared her into running away. But she won't get far on French heels and seven dollars !" "I don't know," Paul demurred. "She's long on deter- mination and she has a fixed idea in her head. Her dis- appearance isn't worrying me any ; I fancy I could lay my 134 THE SECOND BULLET hands on her to-morrow, but I want to give her a little more rope and await developments." "You could, could you?" The Chief snorted. "I'd like to know where you get that stuff ? You'll be telling me next that her running away had nothing to do with the murder !" "Something like that," grinned Paul. "Well, you'll find yourself wrong for once, my boy!" The Chief banged his desk resoundingly. "What did she have hidden in the pillow? She was envious of Mrs. Hartshorne, even to her hands, and starved for the kind of excitement she had seen in the movies. She got home early Thursday night and she might easily have let into the house somebody who fooled her with some silly romantic story or bribed her with money for pretty clothes. You can take it from me, Paul, there was remorse if not actual guilt in that cry to her aunt: 'If I'd only known!' Find her, and you'll get your first real line on who killed Mrs. Hartshorne?" Chapter XII. AN UNSEEN WITNESS. PAUL spent the rest of the day in routine work; "laying wires" as he would have expressed it. He arranged for a dragnet to be thrown out for the run- away kitchenmaid, but stipulated that if found she was not to be apprehended until he had been notified. The after- noon was occupied by a further and more exhaustive search of the Farragut Street house, and early evening found him again in his own rooms, going over for the hundredth time the tangled threads of the problem which he held in his hands. As in the early morning the telephone bell summoned him once more, but this time a clear, girlish voice, vibrant with scarcely controlled excitement, came to him over the wire. "Is that you, Mr. Harvey? This is Rose Adare. I think I've found what you are looking for; someone who saw Mrs. Hartshorne enter her house that night! It's a young woman and she's here in my home, willing and glad to talk to you if you can come right away." She added in a lower, hurried tone : "Be quick, Mr. Harvey ! I've had an awful time with her and she may change her mind." "What is your address?" he asked, hastily. "I'll be there as soon as a taxi can bring me." "Fifty-six Maple Terrace," she responded. "The subway will get you here quickest." 135 136 THE SECOND BULLET He adopted her suggestion and twenty minutes later stood in the vestibule of number fifty-six, one of the long row of attractive brick and stone apartment houses which composed the Terrace. When his name was announced at the switchboard he was requested to come up immediately, and Rose Adare herself awaited him at the door of her apartment. "Please go right into the drawing-room, Mr. Harvey. I live here with an old friend of my mother, but she is out now and we can have a private interview." She ushered him into a dainty front-room, draped in subdued colors and furnished with a few pieces of good old mahogany. A figure in a showy gown and wide sweeping hat rose from an armchair as he entered and Paul found himself confronting a handsome, sullen-eyed girl, with a rebellious twist to her full, red lips and an air half of de- preciation, half defiance. "Let me present my friend Mr. Harvey," began Rose. "This is Miss Daisy Bayne." "How do you do?" the girl said stiffly. "I suppose this is a game that you two have put up on me, but I don't care ; I'm glad enough to tell you what I saw if you won't let it go any farther and hurt me in my work. I'd never get another case if the doctors found out I'd been negligent in the last one, with the Fraser boy." " The Fraser boy' ?" Paul repeated eagerly. She nodded. "I'm a trained nurse. I was on night duty at the Frasers, number one-thirty-eight Farragut Street, on Thursday eve- ning." Paul motioned toward her chair and drew up another for himself. His brown eyes shone, but his voice was perfunc- torily cool. AN UNSEEN WITNESS 137 "Yes ? How long had you been on the case, Miss Bayne ?" "Since Tuesday night, alternating with the day nurse. The little boy he's six years old has a touch of diphtheria. I went on at seven o'clock Thursday, relieving Miss Wray. Donald, my patient, was restless and feverish the first part of the evening but by midnight his temperature fell and he went off into such a deep, natural sleep that I was sure the turning point had been reached. The family had given up the whole second floor to us and the sick-room was at the back ; the front-room looking out on Farragut Street was a sort of library and Miss Wray and I took turns sleeping there on a couch. "I stayed right beside Donald and never took my eyes off him for an hour or more, but he didn't stir. His fore- head was damp and he was breathing easily and the relief from the strain was beginning to make me drowsy. I thought that a breath of the cool night air and a sight of the street would wake me up and it didn't seem any harm to leave him for just a minute, though of course it was against my orders. "I stole into the library where Miss Wray was snoring on the couch and tiptoed over to the open window. The lights were all out in the houses across the street and only the street lamps were burning, but there was one directly opposite, between a hundred-and-thirty-seven, and nine. I only meant to stay for a minute, but the air was so clean and refreshing that I dropped on my knees by the window- sill and I guess I am afraid that I fell asleep." She faltered over the admission and paused, but Paul urged her on. "What awakened you, Miss Bayne?" "The sound of a motorcar in the street. It was a big limousine and it drew up before number one-thirty-nine, 138 THE SECOND BULLET Mrs. Hartshorne's house. I watched because I had read a lot about her in the society columns of the newspapers and I wanted to catch a glimpse of her. "The chauffeur shut off his engine and switched out his lights. That was the first thing that struck me as being funny, but the light from the street lamp was almost bright enough to read by. The chauffeur climbed down and dis- appeared in the shadow on the other side of the door and I thought he was lame " she caught herself up, flushing with momentary embarrassment as she remembered the slight limp with which Paul had entered, but he smiled pleasantly. "Go on, please, Miss Bayne. It wasn't I, I assure you." "Oh, I know that 1" She bit her lip. "It seemed to me that whoever was in that car, took a long time to get out of it. But when they moved beyond the shadow and up the steps of the house in the circle of light I could under- stand why. There were three of them, a man and two women ; one woman was in the middle and they were hold- ing her up, almost carrying her to the door. I thought she must be sick or or intoxicated, for her body sagged drunk- enly and the other woman and the man had all they could do to get her into the vestibule. They didn't ring and must have let themselves in with a key, though not a light sprang up in the house except just a tiny spark, like a match flame, before the front door closed behind them." "Was it the chauffeur who helped to carry the woman in?" asked Paul. "No. The man was tall and straight and wore a long ulster and a soft felt hat pulled low. The women were bare- headed and in opera coats ; I couldn't tell the color, but the one the sick woman wore was trimmed with white fur- ermine, I think and the other's was all dark. AN UNSEEN WITNESS 139 "The chauffeur started his engine and the car moved off, without lights, to a spot three or four doors down the street. Then he shut off the engine again and waited, and I waited, too. I know it was inexcusable but I forgot all about my patient and where I was in my interest in what was happen- ing over the way. It seemed like half an hour, though I suppose it couldn't have been more than a few minutes, before the door opened again and the man came out with the woman in the dark cloak. This time I made sure that they must all have been drinking too much, for this woman began to stagger now as she came down the steps. I've had more than one alcoholic case among society women, and I wasn't surprised. She reeled and caught at the balus- trade to save herself from collapse, but the man was right at her side and the chauffeur ran forward, too, to help; I saw then that he was very lame." "In which leg?" "The left, I think. They wanted to assist the woman, but she pulled herself together and walked to the car steadily enough. Then they all got in and drove off. I thought it was awfully queer, leaving the other woman like that with- out a light showing to prove that a servant or someone had been awakened to take care of her. I would have aroused Miss Wray and told her about it, but she is a regular mar- tinet for discipline and I was afraid she would scold be- cause I had left my patient, perhaps even report me to the doctor. I had to wake her up anyway, as it happened, and you can believe I didn't say anything about what I'd seen, because when I went back to the sick-room I found Donald black in the face and almost strangling! We had a hard time with him and although she didn't know I had left him, Miss Wray chose to put all the blame on me. When the danger point was past we had an argument about it and I 140 THE SECOND BULLET told the doctor he would have to put someone else on the case with Miss Wray ; I'd had enough of her tyranny !" "You gave up the case?" Paul asked. "When did you leave the Fraser house?" "About noon on Friday. I was so angry that I had almost forgotten what I had seen in the night. But just as I let myself out of the house a young woman and a policeman rushed up the steps of number one-thirty-nine across the way and disappeared inside. I remembered then what I'd seen and I knew something horrible must have happened, but I didn't dare linger about for fear I would be ques- tioned. I hurried back to the boarding house where I live between cases, and waited for the evening papers, but be- fore they came out there was an 'Extra' and I was shocked ! I hadn't dreamed, even when I saw the policeman, that it could have been murder! "I didn't know what to do then ; I felt as if I ought to come forward and tell what I had seen but I was afraid I would get in the papers and then the doctor would know I had been to blame for Donald's relapse well, not really to blame," she corrected herself hastily, "but that I had been careless with him and disobeyed orders. I wouldn't be trusted on another case if he knew, and I have my mother to support in the country, so you can see what a position I was in! "The murder puzzled me, too, for none of the papers mentioned the possibility of Mrs. Hartshorne having come home ill or under the influence of alcohol and I was posi- tive there had been no pistol shot while those other people were in the house or even after they had driven away. I thought of nothing else for hours until the truth finally came to me." She stopped with a shudder and Paul leaned toward her. AN UNSEEN WITNESS "You mean- "That it must have been her dead body which they carried into the house between them!" Rose Adare, who was seated a little apart, uttered a low exclamation; but Paul merely nodded. "And when you came to that conclusion, did you still hesitate to tell what you knew ?" "Yes." Miss Bayne hung her head for a moment and then looked up defiantly. "It wouldn't have done any good to Mrs. Hartshorne for me to have come forward, and I had to think of myself! It worried me, though, so that I wasn't fit for anything; another doctor wanted me on a case yesterday, but I was so nervous and upset that I couldn't take it. Then this morning Miss Adare, here, came to see me on a business proposition and said Dr. Davis had spoken of me to her in connection with it. I didn't recognize her as the young woman who had rushed with the policeman into the Hartshorne house and I be- lieved her." She spoke in an injured tone and Paul glanced at Rose, but the latter was gazing demurely down at her folded hands. "Dr. Davis was the physician in charge of the Fraser case and I was glad he had recommended me because that showed he didn't hold me responsible for little Donald's relapse, and the business proposition sounded feasible enough," Miss Bayne continued. "We talked it over and Miss Adare invited me to lunch and then we took a long walk and decided to have dinner together. Nothing was said about the murder at first, but speaking of Dr. Davis I mentioned the Fraser case and Miss Adare asked where they lived. When I told her 'on Farragut Street' it seemed to bring up the Hartshorne affair quite naturally and before 142 THE SECOND BULLET I knew it I was telling her everything. She brought me here and persuaded me that I ought to tell you, too, promis- ing me faithfully that you wouldn't get me into any trouble over it. You won't, will you Mr. Harvey? I'll never be careless on another case, and I've told you this of my own free will." "You won't get in any trouble, I promise you, Miss Bayne," Paul reassured her. "Now, to go back to that night. You say that your patient fell asleep about mid- night and that you watched over him for an hour or more before going to the library. Can you fix the time more definitely than that?" "It was after half -past one, because I looked at him then and he was still fast asleep. It was the time for his medi- cine but Dr. Davis had instructed me not to disturb Donald unless he were awake and restless." She paused. "I went into the library a few minutes later, and I couldn't have slept very long there at the window before the sound of the motor car aroused me, because when it had driven away again, I went back to the sick-room to find Donald chok- ing and called Miss Wray. It was only a quarter of three ; she put it down on the chart. I should say that car drove up to Mrs. Hartshorne's door between twenty minutes after and half-past two." "Could you tell the color of the car body?" "No, only that it was very dark. It must have been a high-powered, expensive car, though, for the hood was extra long and it looked massive, looming up there under the light from the street lamp." "You said that the woman who rode away in it was bareheaded and had on a long, dark cloak. Did you catch a glimpse of her face under the lamp? Do you think you would know her again ?" AN UNSEEN WITNESS 143 Miss Bayne recoiled. "Mercy, no!" she gasped. "She was tall and graceful, but you couldn't tell whether she was stout or thin muffled up in that loose cloak. And I never once saw her face, it was always in shadow. Her hair seemed dark under the lamp, but I couldn't be sure. I've told you everything about it that I remember and could swear to, Mr. Harvey ! May I go now? It's late and I I'm too nervous to talk about it any more." "Yes, I think I have enough information now to work on." Paul rose and held out his hand. "This would have been of inestimable benefit to me had you come forward sooner, but thank you for telling me now, at any rate ; you have cleared up one or two obscure points very nicely for me, Miss Bayne." The young woman shook his hand, bowed coldly to Rose Adare and departed. When the emphatic thud of the street door reached their ears, Paul turned with a smile of warm congratulation to his hostess. "May I ask what business proposition you suggested to that young person, and what stroke of positive genius put you on her trail ?" Rose laughed heartily. "I wanted her to start a rest cure with me; a sort of private sanitarium. She to treat the sick Heaven help them ! and I to manage the finances." Then her face grew grave. "I began thinking after I left you yesterday morn- ing, Mr. Harvey. I was wondering who on that street would be likely to have been up during the night and all of