  Twenty-four hours later Cray, the District Prosecuting Attorney, stood in the Waring study. The body of the master had been removed, and to Cray’s regret he had not seen it before the embalmer’s work had removed the red ring on the forehead. “It was a sign,” he said to Morton, who was moodily listening. “A sign like that, left by the murderer, always means revenge.” “You agree to murder, then?” Morton spoke eagerly, glad to have his theory corroborated. “What else? Look here, Morton; it’s got to be either murder or suicide, hasn’t it? Yes? Well, then, to which of the two do the greater number of clues point? Sum up. For suicide we have only the locked room argument. I admit I don’t know how any one could get in or out of this study, but, as I say, that’s the only sign of suicide. Now, for murder we have the absence of the weapon, the robbery of the money and the ruby, and sign of a circle on the dead man’s forehead. Wish I’d seen that. It wasn’t burnt on, for it disappeared after the embalmers took care of it.” “Oh, no, it wasn’t as deep as a burn. More like an impression left by a ring of cold metal or the edge of a glass tumbler.” “Very strange, and decidedly an important clue. For, here’s the queer part. The doctors declare the mark must have been made while the man was alive—now, how can that be explained?” “Give it up. It’s too much for me. But it was too small a circle to have been made by the tumbler on the water tray. I measured it.” “I know; that’s why I think it was a sign of revenge. Suppose the motive was revenge and the reason for revenge had something to do with a quarrel in which a small glass or cup figured. That’s the idea, though, of course, it needn’t have been a glass or cup at all, but something with a ring-like edge. Thus, there was a reason for the sign on the dead man’s face.” “I see; though I never could have doped it out like that.” “Oh, I don’t say it’s exactly what happened, but there must have been something of the sort, for what other hypothesis fits the case at all? We can’t imagine Doctor Waring branding his own forehead, and then killing himself, can we?” “No; and if he had, where’s the branding iron—to call it that—and where’s the dagger?” “That’s right. Now, I propose to treat the matter as a murder case, and look for the criminal first, and then find out how he entered the locked room afterward.” “Pooh! those locked rooms—” “You’re ’way off, Morton, when you sneer at a ‘locked room.’” “It was locked—I mean impenetrably locked. There is no secret passage—of that I’m sure. Your ingenious idea of removing and replacing a whole pane of glass was clever, I grant, but we’ve seen that not a pane has been lately reputtied. They’re all framed in old, dried, hard, and even painted putty.” “I know it. But some other such way might have been devised.” “Can’t think of any. We’ve examined all the window sashes and door frame—oh, well, so far as I can see the room was absolutely unenterable. But, notwithstanding, I’m going to work on a murder basis. Because inexplicable as that seems, there are even more insurmountable difficulties in the way of the suicide theory. Now, I suppose you’ve had the finger print expert in?” “No—I haven’t—not yet.” “Good Lord! What kind of a detective are you? Well, get him, and put him to work. What about footprints?” “Inside the room?” “Or outside, either. But inside, I suppose has been trampled by a score of people!” “You can’t get footprints on a thick rug,” the discomfited Morton grumbled. “Sometimes you can. And a polished floor will often show marks. What have you done, anyway?” “There was enough to do, Mr. Cray,” Morton flared back at him. “I have been busy every minute since I began, except for a few hours sleep.” “Over twenty-four hours since the alarm was given. You’ve put in at least twelve, then. What have you done?” “A lot. I’ve found out, to my own satisfaction, that—if it is a murder—Gordon Lockwood knows all about it.” “You suspect him?” “Either of the deed, or of guilty knowledge.” “And his motive?” “Money. That young man is over head and ears in debt.” “To whom?” “To shops—jewelers, florists, restaurants. All the debts a gay young blade would incur.” “You amaze me, Morton. Lockwood isn’t that sort.” “Isn’t he? You’re deceived, like every one else, by that icy calm of his. He stares haughtily, and appears above and beyond ordinary mortals, but he’s deep. That’s what he is, deep.” “Well, how did he do it?” “With his penholder. A smooth, sharp silver penholder. And he took the money and the ruby.” “And how did he leave the room?” “Don’t ask me that! That’s his secret. But, I’ve a notion he was in cahoots with that new Jap, the one that vamoosed. I theorize,” Morton waxed important as he noted the Prosecutor’s attention, “that the Jap had some grudge against Waring, and it was he who branded his forehead, and who contrived a way to leave the room locked behind him. Why, I read a story the other day, where a key was turned from the other side of a door by means of a slender steel bar through the key handle, and a string from the bar, leading down and under the door. Once outside, the murderer pulled the string, the bar turned the key in the lock, the bar fell to the floor and he dragged it under the door by means of the string.” “Ingenious! but it implies a door raised from the floor.” “I know. And this one isn’t. But it all goes to prove that there can be some way—some diabolically clever way to do the trick. And the Japanese are diabolically clever. And so is Lockwood. And if the two worked together they could accomplish wonders. Then Lockwood with his wooden face, could disarm suspicion. The Jap, let us say, couldn’t, so Lockwood packed him off.” “Interesting—but all theory.” “To be proved or disproved, then.” “Yes, but meantime, you are losing time on more practical investigation. Let’s look outside for footprints—I mean for any one coming or going from this side entrance.” “The French window? Nobody comes or goes that way in this weather; the path isn’t even shoveled. That’s used mostly in summer time.” “Nevertheless,” Cray opened the window door, “somebody has been here.” Morton looked out and stared hard. How had he come to neglect a matter of such importance. There were two plainly visible lines of footprints in the snow, one quite obviously coming toward the house and one going away from it. “There’s your murderer,” said Cray, quietly. “Oh, no,” but Morton wriggled uneasily. “It couldn’t be. No murderer is going to walk through crusted snow, to and from the scene of his crime, leaving definite footprints like those!” “That’s no argument. He might have come here with no intent of crime, and afterward, might have been so beside himself he couldn’t plan safely.” “Oh, well, get what you can from them,” said Morton, pettishly. “I suppose you deduce a tall man, with blue eyes and two teeth missing.” “Don’t be cheap, Morton. And, on the contrary, I deduce a small man. They are small footprints, and close together. The Japanese are small men, Morton.” “Well, these prints are more than twenty-four hours old, and they’re not clear enough to incriminate anybody.” “They haven’t changed an iota from the moment they were made. This cold snap has kept everything frozen solid. Look at the frost still on the panes, the icicles still on the window sashes, the ice coating still on all the trees and branches. In fact it has grown steadily colder since night before last, and until it begins to thaw we have these footprints as intact evidence. I will have them photographed.” “They are small,” Morton agreed after further examination. “And as you say, too close together for an ordinary sized man. It looks like the Jap.” “Beginning to wake up, are you? You’ve sure been asleep at the switch, Morton.” “Nothing of the sort, Mr. Cray. But I ought to have help. I’ve had all I could tackle, making the necessary first inquiries, and getting the facts straightened out.” “That business could have waited better than these other things. Now, there’s Crimmins, the lawyer arriving. Let’s interview him. But not in the study. Keep that clear.” They met Crimmins in the hall, and took him to the living room. The matter of the will was immediately taken up, and Mrs. Bates was asked to tell which desk drawer it was in. Accompanied by the lawyer and the secretary, Mrs. Bates indicated the drawer, and Lockwood opened it with his key. There were a few papers in it but no will. Nor could further search disclose any such document. “Who took it?” said Mrs. Bates, blankly. But no one could answer her. The others came thronging in, Cray’s urgent requests to keep out of the study being entirely ignored. “I knew it,” declared Mrs. Peyton, triumphantly. “Now, I guess you won’t be so cocky, Emily Bates—you or your ‘authority!’” Mrs. Bates looked at her. “I am the heir,” she said haughtily. “I assert that—but I cannot prove it until the will is found. It isn’t in your possession, Mr. Crimmins?” “No; Doctor Waring preferred to keep it himself. I cannot understand its disappearance.” “A lot of paper has been burned in this fireplace,” said Helen Peyton who was poking the ashes around. Morton hastened to look, for it seemed to him as if everybody was stealing his thunder. “Nothing that can be identified,” he said, carelessly. “No?” demurred Cray. “At any rate, it looks as if some legal papers were destroyed. This bit of ash is quite evidently the remainder of several sheets folded together.” But no definite knowledge could be gained outside the fact that much paper had been burned there. As no fire had been made since the discovery of the tragedy, it stood to reason the papers were burned by Doctor Waring himself or by his midnight intruder, if there were such a one. “Well,” Cray demanded of the lawyer, “if no will can be found, then who inherits the property of Doctor Waring? And is it considerable?” “Yes; Doctor Waring had quite a fortune,” Crimmins told them. “As to an heir, he has a distant cousin—a second cousin, who, I suppose would be the legal inheritor, in the absence of any will. But, I know he made a will in Mrs. Bates’ favor, and it included a few minor legacies to the members of this household and some neighbors.” “I know it,” Mrs. Bates said. “I’m perfectly familiar with all the bequests. But where is the will? It must be found! It can’t have been burnt!” “We’ve no right to assume that those paper ashes are the will, but I confess I fear it,” Crimmins announced, his face drawn with anxiety. “I should be deeply sorry, if it is so, for the cousin I speak of is a ne’er do well young man, and not at all a favorite of his late relative. His name is Maurice Trask and he lives in St. Louis. I suppose he must be notified in any case.” “Yes,” said Cray, “that must be done. But, please, all go out of this room, for the finger print experts and the photographers are coming soon, and every moment you people stay here, you help to cloud or destroy possible clues.” Impressed by his sternness, they filed out and gathered in the living-room. There they found a neighbor, Saltonstall Adams, awaiting them. “I came over,” he said, with scant preliminary greetings, “because I have something to tell. You in charge, Mr. Cray?” “Yes, Salt, what do you know?” “This. I was awake late, night before last—the night Doc Waring died, and I was looking out my window, and it was pretty light, with the snow and the moonlight and all, and I saw a man—a small man, creeping along sly like. And I watched him, he went along past my house down toward the railroad tracks. He had a bag with him, and a bundle beside. I wouldn’t have noticed him probably, but he skulked along so and seemed so fearful that somebody’d see him.” “Nogi?” said Gordon Lockwood, calmly, looking at the speaker. “Don’t say it was, and don’t say it wasn’t. But I went down to the station and the station master told me that that Jap of Waring’s went off on the milk train.” “He did!” cried Morton, “what time does that train go through?” “’Bout half past four. The fellow passed my house ’long about half past twelve, I should say—though I didn’t look, and he must have waited around the station all that time till the milk train came along.” “Is the station master sure it was Nogi?” asked Mrs. Peyton, greatly excited. “Said he was, and there’s mighty few Japs in Corinth, all told.” “Of course it was Nogi,” said Lockwood, and Morton snapped him up with, “Why are you so sure?” Lockwood treated the detective to one of his most disconcerting stares, and said, “You, a detective, and ask such a simple question! Why, since there are but a very few Japanese in this town, and since one of them left on that milk train, and since all the rest are accounted for, and only Nogi is missing—it doesn’t seem to me to require superhuman intelligence to infer that it was Nogi who took his departure.” “And who was mixed up in the murder of Doctor John Waring?” cried Morton, exasperated beyond all caution by the ironic tone of Lockwood. “And, unless you can explain some matters, sir, you may be considered mixed in the same despicable deed!” “What matters?” Gordon Lockwood asked, but his already pale face turned a shade whiter. “First, sir, you have a large number of unpaid bills in your possession.” The secretary’s face was no longer white. The angry blood flew to it, and he fairly clenched his hands in an effort to preserve his usual calm, nor even then, could he entirely succeed. “What if I have?” he cried, “and how do you know? You’ve searched my rooms!” “Certainly,” said Morton, “I warned you I should do so.” “But, in my absence!” “The law is not always over ceremonious.” “Now, Mr. Lockwood,” Cray began, “don’t get excited.” Gordon Lockwood almost laughed. For him to be told not to get excited! He, who never allowed himself to be even slightly ruffled or perturbed! This would never do! “I’m not excited, Mr. Cray,” he said, and he wasn’t, now, “but I am annoyed that my private papers should be searched without my knowledge. Surely I might—” “Never mind the amenities of life, Mr. Lockwood,” Cray went on; “your effects were searched on the authority of a police warrant. Now, regarding these bills—” “I have nothing to say. A man has a right to his unpaid bills.” “But he has not a right to steal five hundred dollars in cash and a ruby pin, in order to be able to pay them!” This from Morton, and instead of replying to the detective in any way, Lockwood ignored the speech utterly, quite as if he had not heard it, and addressed Cray. “Was anything further found to incriminate me?” he asked. “Was there anything else to be found?” said Cray, catching at the implied suggestion. “That’s for your sleuths to say. I know of nothing.” “Well, there’s your round, sharp penholder. And the fact that you had keys to all desk drawers. Also the fact that only you and the Jap are known to have been in that part of the house that night. These things were not learned from the search of your rooms; but your pecuniary embarrassment, which was discovered, all go together to make a web of circumstances that call for investigation.” “Don’t beat about the bush!” exclaimed Lockwood, his lips set, and his eyes staring coldly at the District Attorney. “I’d far rather be accused definitely than have it hinted that I am responsible for this crime.” “But we haven’t sufficient evidence, Mr. Lockwood, to accuse you definitely, that’s why we must question you.” “Sufficient! You haven’t any evidence at all!” “Oh, we have some.” With a turn of his head, Cray summoned a man who stood at the hall door. The man came in, and handed Cray a report. “H’m,” the attorney scanned the paper. “We find, Mr. Lockwood, fresh finger prints on the chair which stood near Doctor Waring’s desk. Facing the Doctor’s chair, in fact, as if some one had sat there talking to him. Did you?” “No; I never sat down and talked to him. I was always waiting on him in the matter of bringing books or taking letters for transcription, and in any case, I either stood, or sat at my desk, never in that chair you speak of.” “This man will take the finger prints of all present,” the Attorney directed, and one and all submitted to the process. Old Salt Adams was greatly interested. “But you can’t get the prints of Friend Jap,” he said. “Like’s not, he’d be of more importance than all of us put together. Me, now, I can’t see where I come in.” Yet, after time enough had passed to complete the processes, it was learned that the finger prints on the shiny black wood of the chair under discussion were indubitably those of Gordon Lockwood. Also, there were other prints there, slightly smaller, that Cray immediately assumed to be those of the missing Japanese. Lockwood looked more supercilious than usual, if that were possible. “How can you identify the prints of a man not here?” he asked with an incredulous look. “Supposition not identification,” said Cray, gravely. “But we’re narrowing these things down, and we may yet get identification.” “Get the Jap back,” advised Old Salt Adams. “That’s your next move, Cray. Get him, check up his finger prints and all that, and best of all get his confession. There’s your work cut out for you.” “Find Doctor Waring’s will,” Mrs. Bates lamented. “There’s your work cut out for you. I am not unduly mercenary, but when I know how anxious Doctor Waring was that I should inherit his estate, when I realize what it meant that he drew this will before our marriage, so urgent was his desire that all should be mine, you must understand that I do not willingly forego it all in favor of a distant relative, whom, Mr. Crimmins tells us, Doctor Waring did not care for at all.” “I should say not!” and Crimmins looked positive. “It will be an outrage if Mr. Trask inherits the estate already willed to Mrs. Bates. I stand ready to do all I can to see justice done in this matter.” “But justice, as you see it, can only result from finding the will,” said Cray. “Yes,” agreed Crimmins, “and the whole matter opens up a new train of thought. May not the distant cousin, this man Trask be in some way responsible for the destruction of the will and the death of the decedent?” “It is a new way to look,” Cray agreed, with a thoughtful air; “and we will look that way, you rest assured. We will at once get in touch with this cousin, you will give us his address, and learn where he was and how employed on the night of Doctor Waring’s death. We still have to face the problem of an outsider’s exit from a locked room, and though it seems more explicable in the case of a member of the household, yet a new suspect brings fresh conditions, and perhaps fresh evidence, which may show us where to look. At any rate, we must speedily find Mr. Maurice Trask.” |
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