The Mystery Girl

“Just so; and, granting that, will you suggest what may have become of the weapon that was used?”

“What was the weapon?” Lockwood asked, not so disturbed by the question as the Examiner had expected him to be.

“That is what puzzles me,” returned Doctor Marsh. “As you can clearly see the wound was inflicted with a sharp instrument. The man was stabbed just below his right ear. The jugular vein was pierced, and he bled to death. A plexus of nerves was pierced also, and this fact doubtless rendered the victim unconscious at once – I mean as soon as the stab wound was made, though he may have been alive for a few minutes thereafter.”

Gordon Lockwood gazed imperturbably at the speaker. He had always prided himself on his unshakable calm, and now he exhibited its full possibilities. It annoyed Doctor Marsh, who was accustomed to having his statements accepted without question. He took a sudden dislike to this calm young man, who presumed to differ from his deductions.

“I must say,” observed the mild-mannered Doctor Greenfield, “I knew Doctor Waring very well, and he was surely the last person I would expect to kill himself. Especially at the present time – when he was looking forward to high honors in the College and also expected to marry a charming lady.”

“That isn’t the point,” exclaimed Doctor Marsh, impatiently. “The point is, if he killed himself, where is the weapon?”

“I admit it isn’t in view – and I admit that seems strange,” Lockwood agreed, “but it may yet be discovered, while a way of getting into a locked room cannot be found.”

“All of which is out of your jurisdiction, young man,” and Marsh looked at him severely. “The police will be here soon, and I’ve no doubt they will learn the truth, whatever it may be. What instrument do you deduce, Doctor Greenfield?”

“That’s hard to say,” replied Greenfield, slowly. “You see the aperture it made is a perfectly round hole. Now, most daggers or poniards are flat-bladed. I’m not sure a real weapon is ever round. The hole is much too large to have been made by a hatpin – it is as big as a – a – ”

“Slate pencil,” suggested the Examiner.

“Yes, or a trifle larger – but not so large as a lead-pencil.”

“A lead-pencil could hardly accomplish the deed,” Marsh mused. “A slate-pencil might have – but that is a most unusual weapon.”

“How about a bill-file?” asked Doctor Greenfield. “I knew of a man killed with one.”

“Yes, but where is the bill-file?” asked Marsh. “There’s one on the desk, to be sure, but it is full of papers, and shows no sign of having been used for a criminal purpose. If, as Mr. Lockwood insists, this is a suicide case, the victim positively could not have cleaned that file and restored the papers after stabbing himself!”

“He most certainly could not have done that!” declared Doctor Greenfield.

Marsh examined the file carefully. It was an ordinary affair consisting of a steel spike on a bronze standard. It would without doubt make an efficacious implement of murder, but it was difficult to believe it had been used in that way. For the bills and memoranda it contained were, to all appearance, just as they had been thrust on the sharp point – and surely, had they been removed and replaced, they would have shown traces of such moving.

“Anyway,” Doctor Greenfield said, after another examination, “the hole in the side of Waring’s neck seems to me to have been made with an instrument slightly larger than that file. Surely, there are round stilettos, are there not?”

“Yes, there are,” said Lockwood, “I have seen them.”

“Where?” demanded the Examiner, suddenly turning on him.

“Why – I don’t know.” For once, the Secretary’s calm was a trifle shaken. “I should say in museums – or in private collections, perhaps.”

“Are you familiar with so many private collections of strange weapons that you can’t remember where you have seen a round-shaped blade?”

Examiner Marsh stared hard at him and Lockwood became taciturn again.

“Exactly that,” he conceded. “I have sometime, somewhere, seen a round-bladed stiletto – but I cannot remember where.”

“Better brush up your memory,” Marsh told him, and then the police arrived.

The local police of Corinth were rather proud of themselves as a whole, and they had reason to be. Under a worthwhile chief the men had been well trained, and were alert, energetic and capable.

Detective Morton, who took this matter in charge, went straight to work in a most business-like way.

He examined the body of John Waring, not as the medical men had done, but merely to find possible clues to the manner of his death.

“What’s this ring on his forehead?” he asked, looking at the dead man’s face.

“I don’t know – that struck me as queer,” said Greenfield. “What is it, Doctor Marsh?”

The Examiner peered through his glasses.

“I can’t make that out, myself,” he confessed, frankly.

Morton looked more closely.

There was a red circle on Waring’s forehead, that looked as if it had been put there of some purpose.

A perfect circle it was, about two inches in diameter, and it was red and sunken into the flesh, as if it might have been done with a branding iron.

“Not a very hot one, though,” Morton remarked, after suggesting this, “but surely somebody did it. I’ll say it’s the sign or seal of the murderer himself. For a dead man couldn’t do it, and there’s no sense in assuming that Doctor Waring branded himself before committing suicide. Was it done before or after death?” he asked of the two doctors present.

“Before, I should say,” Doctor Greenfield opined.

“Yes,” concurred Marsh, “but not long before. I’m not sure it is a brand – such a mark could have been made with, say, a small cup or tumbler.”

“But what reason is there in that?” exclaimed Morton. “Even a lunatic murderer wouldn’t mark his victim by means of a tumbler rim.”

Absorbedly, he picked up a tumbler from the water tray, and fitted it to the red mark on Waring’s forehead.

“It doesn’t fit exactly,” he said, “but it does almost.”

“Rubbish!” said Gordon Lockwood, in his superior way. “Why would any one mark Doctor Waring’s face with a tumbler?”

“Yet it has been marked,” Morton looked at the secretary sharply. “Can you suggest any explanation – however difficult of belief?”

“No,” Lockwood said. “Unless he fell over on some round thing as he died.”

“There’s nothing here,” said Morton, scanning the furnishings of the desk “The inkstand is closed – and it’s a smaller round, anyway. There’s no one of these desk fittings that could possibly have made that mark. Therefore, since it was made before death, it must have been done by the murderer.”

“Or by the suicide,” Lockwood insisted firmly.

Morton, looking at the secretary, decided to keep an eye on this cool chap, who must have some reason for repeating his opinion of suicide.

“Now,” the detective said, briskly, “to get to business, I must make inquiries of the family – the household. Suppose I see them in some other room – ”

“Yes,” agreed Lockwood, with what seemed to Morton suspicious eagerness. Why should the secretary be so obviously pleased to leave the study – though, to be sure, it was a grewsome place just now.

“Wait a minute,” Morton said, “how about robbery? Has anything been missed?”

Lockwood looked surprised.

“I never thought to look,” he said; “assuming suicide, of course robbery didn’t occur to me.” He looked round the room. “Nothing seems to be missing.”

“Stay on guard, Higby,” the detective said to a policeman, and then asked the secretary where he could interview the housekeeper and the servants.

Lockwood took Morton to the living-room, and there they found Mrs. Bates as well as the two Peytons.

Though her eyes showed traces of tears, Emily Bates was composed and met the detective with an appealing face.

“Do find the murderer!” she cried; “I don’t care how much that room was locked up, I know John Waring never killed himself! Why would he do it? Did ever a man have so much to live for? He couldn’t have taken his life!”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, Mrs. Bates,” Morton told her, “yet you must see the difficulties in the way of a murder theory. I’m told the room was inaccessible. Is not that right, Mrs. Peyton?”

Flustered at the sudden question the housekeeper wrung her hands and burst into tears. “Oh, don’t ask me,” she wailed, “I don’t know anything about it!”

“Nothing indicative, perhaps,” and Morton spoke more gently, “but at least, tell me all you do know. When did you see Doctor Waring last?”

“At the supper table, last evening.”

“Not after supper at all?”

“No; that is, I didn’t see him. I am training a new servant, and I watched him as he took a tray of water pitcher and glasses into the study, but I didn’t look in, nor did I see the doctor.”

“Did you hear him?”

“I don’t think I heard him speak. I heard a paper rustle, and I knew he was there.”

“The servant came right out again?”

“Yes; my attention was all on him. I told him exactly what to do during the evening.”

“What were those instructions?”

“To attend to his dining-room duties, putting away the supper dishes and that, and then to stay about, on duty, until Doctor Waring left his study and went to bed.”

“This servant had done these things before?”

“Not these things. He arrived but a few days ago, and Ito the butler, attended to the Doctor. But Sunday afternoon and evening Ito has off, so I began to train Nogi.”

“And this Nogi has disappeared?”

“Yes; he is not to be found this morning. Nor has his bed been disturbed.”

“Then we may take it he left in the night or early morning. Now the doctors judge that Doctor Waring died about midnight. We must therefore admit the possibility of a connection between the Jap’s disappearance and the Doctor’s death.”

At this suggestion, Gordon Lockwood looked interested. Whereas he had preserved a stony calm, his face now showed deep attention to the detective’s words and he nodded his head in agreement.

“You think so, too, Mr. Lockwood?” Morton asked, in that sudden and often disconcerting way of his.

“I don’t say I think so,” the secretary returned, quietly, “but I do admit a possibility.”

“It would seem so,” Mrs. Peyton put in, “if Nogi could have got into the study. But he couldn’t. You know it was locked – impossible, Mr. Lockwood?”

“Yes,” Gordon returned. “I heard Doctor Waring lock his door.”

“When was that?” asked the detective, sharply.

“I should say about ten o’clock.”

“Where were you, then?”

“Sitting in the window nook outside the study door.”

“Could you not, then, hear anything that went on in the study?”

“Probably not. The walls and door are thick – they were made so for the doctor’s sake – he desired absolute privacy, and freedom from interruption or overhearing. No, I could not know what was taking place in that room – if anything was, at that time.”

“At what time did you last see the doctor?”

“After supper I went with him to the study. I looked after his wants, getting him a number of books from the shelves, and selecting from his files such notes or manuscript as he asked for. Those are my duties as secretary.”

“And then?”

“Then he practically dismissed me, saying I might leave for the night. But I remained in the hall window until eleven o’clock.”

“Why did you do this?”

“Out of consideration for my employer. He was exceedingly busy and if a caller came, I could probably attend to his wants and spare the doctor an interruption.”

“Did any one call?”

“No one.”

“Yet you remained until eleven?”

“Yes; I was doing some work of my own, and it was later than I thought, when I decided to go home.”

“And you spoke to the Doctor before leaving?”

“As is my custom, I tapped lightly at the door and said good-night. This is my rule, when he is busy, and if he makes no response, or merely murmurs good-night, I know there are no further orders till morning, and I go home.”

“Did he respond to your rap last night?”

“I – I cannot say. I heard him murmur a good-night but if he did, it was so low as to be almost inaudible. I thought nothing of it. Since he did not call out. ‘Come in, Lockwood,’ as he does when he wants me, I paid little attention to the matter.”

“And you reached home – when?”

“Something after eleven. It’s but a few steps over to the Adams house, where I live.”

“Now,” summed up the detective, “here’s the case. You, Mr. Lockwood, are not sure Doctor Waring responded to your good-night. You did not see or hear him when Nogi took in the water tray?”

“No; I did not.”

“Mrs. Peyton did not see him then, either – though she imagined she heard a paper rustle. Nogi is gone – he cannot be questioned. So, Mr. Lockwood, the last person whom we know definitely to have seen John Waring alive, is yourself when, as you say, you left him at about – er – what time?”

“About half-past eight or nine,” said Lockwood, carelessly.

“Yes; you left him and sat in the hall window. Now, we have no positive evidence that he was alive after that.”

“What!” Lockwood stared at him.

“No positive evidence, I say. Nogi went in, but no one knows what Nogi saw in there.”

“Come now, Detective Morton,” Lockwood said, coldly, “you’re romancing. Do you suppose for a minute, that if there had been anything wrong with Doctor Waring when Nogi went in with the water, that he would not have raised an alarm?”

“I suppose that might have easily have been the case. The Japanese are afraid of death. Their one idea is to flee from it. If that Japanese servant had seen his master dead, he would have decamped, just as he did do.”

“But Nogi was here when I went home. He handed me my overcoat and hat, quite with his usual calm demeanor.”

“You must remember, Mr. Lockwood, we have only your word for that.”

Gordon Lockwood looked at the detective.

“I will not pretend to misunderstand your meaning,” he said, slowly and with hauteur. “Nor shall I say a word, at present, in self defence. Your implication is so absurd, so really ridiculous, there is nothing to be said.”

“That’s right,” and Morton nodded. “Don’t say anything until you get counsel. Now, Mrs. Bates – I’m mighty sorry to bother you – but I must ask you a few questions. And if I size you up right, you’ll be glad to tell anything you can to help discover the truth. That so?”

“Yes,” she returned, “yes – of course, Mr. Morton. But I can’t let you seem to suspect Mr. Lockwood of wrong-doing without a protest! Doctor Waring’s secretary is most loyal and devoted – of that I am sure.”

“Never mind that side of it just now. Tell me this, Mrs. Bates. Who will benefit financially by Doctor Waring’s death? To whom is his fortune willed? I take it you must know, as you expected soon to marry him.”

“But I don’t know,” Emily Bates said, a little indignantly. “Nor do I see how it can help you to solve the mystery to get such information as that. You don’t suppose anybody killed him for his money, do you?”

“What other motive could there be, Mrs. Bates? Had he enemies?”

“No; well, that is, I suppose he had some acquaintances who were disappointed at his election to the College Presidency. But I’d hardly call them enemies.”

“Why not? Why wouldn’t they be enemies? It’s my impression that election was hotly contested.”

“It was,” Mrs. Peyton broke in. “It was, Mr. Morton, and if Doctor Waring was murdered – which I can’t see how he was – some of that other faction did it.”

“But that’s absurd,” Gordon Lockwood protested; “there was disappointment among the other faction at the result of the election, but it’s incredible that they should kill Doctor Waring for that reason!”

“The whole case is incredible,” Morton returned. “What is it, Higby, what have you found?”

“The doctor,” Higby said, coming into the living room, “they have just noticed that although there is a pinhole in Doctor Waring’s tie, there is no stickpin there. Did he wear one?”

“Of course he did,” Mrs. Bates cried. “He had on his ruby pin yesterday.”

“He did so,” echoed Mrs. Peyton. “That ruby pin was worth an immense sum of money! That’s why he was killed, then, robbery!”

“He certainly wore that pin last night,” said Lockwood. “Are you sure it’s missing? Hasn’t it dropped to the floor?”

“Can’t find it,” returned Higby, and then all the men went back to the study.

“Anything else missing?” asked Morton, who was deeply chagrined that he hadn’t noticed the pin was gone himself.

“How about money, Mr. Lockwood?” said Doctor Marsh. “Any gone, that you can notice?”

With an uncertain motion, Gordon Lockwood pulled open a small drawer of the desk.

“Yes,” he said, “there was five hundred dollars in cash here last night – and now it is not here.”

“Better dismiss the suicide theory,” said Detective Morton, with a quick look at the secretary.

CHAPTER VII

THE VOLUME OF MARTIAL

The Medical Examiner, Doctor Marsh, the Detective Morton, and the Secretary of the late John Waring, Gordon Lockwood, looked at one another.

Without any words having been spoken that might indicate a lack of harmony, there yet was a hint of discord in their attitudes.

Doctor Marsh was sure the case was a suicide.

“You’ll find the stiletto somewhere,” he shrugged, when held upon that point. “To find the weapon is not my business – but when a man is dead in a locked room, and dead from a wound that could have been self-administered, I can’t see a murder situation.”

“Nor I,” said Lockwood. “Has the waste-basket been searched for the thing that killed him?”

Acting quickly on his own suggestion, Gordon Lockwood dived beneath the great desk.

Like a flash, Morton was after him, and though the detective was not sure, he thought he saw the secretary grasp a bit of crumpled paper and stuff it in his pocket.

“Now, look here, I’ll make that search,” Morton exclaimed, and almost snatched the waste-basket from the other’s grasp.

“Very well,” and Lockwood put his hands in his pockets and stood looking on, as Morton fumbled with the scraps.

He emptied the basket on the floor, but there were only a few torn envelopes and memoranda, which were soon proved to be of no indicative value to the searchers.

“I’ll save the stuff, anyway,” Morton declared, getting a newspaper and wrapping in it the few bits of waste paper.

“Did you take a paper from this basket and put it in your pocket?” the detective suddenly demanded.

Lockwood, without moving, gave Morton a cold stare that was more negative than any words could be, and was, moreover, exceedingly disconcerting.

“Look here, Mr. Morton,” he said, “if you suspect me of killing my employer, come out and say so. I know, in story-books, the first one to be suspected is the confidential secretary. So, accuse me, and get it over with.”

The very impassivity of Lockwood’s face seemed to put him far beyond and above suspicion, and the detective, hastily mumbled,

“Not at all, Mr. Lockwood, not at all. But you don’t seem real frank, now, and you must know how important it is that we get all the first hand information we can.”

“Of course, and I’m ready to tell all I know. Go on and ask questions.”

“Well, then, what do you surmise has become of that five hundred dollars and that ruby stickpin? Doesn’t their disappearance rather argue against suicide?”

Lockwood meditated. “Not necessarily. If they have been stolen – ”

“Stolen! Of course they’ve been stolen, since they aren’t here! I don’t see any safe.”

“No, Doctor Waring had no safe. There has been little or no robbery in Corinth, and Doctor Waring rarely kept much money about.”

“Five hundred dollars is quite a sum.”

“That was for housekeeping purposes. Whenever necessary, I drew for him from the bank that amount, and he kept it in that drawer until it was used up. He always gave Mrs. Peyton cash to pay the servants and some other matters as well as her own salary. His tradesman’s bills were paid by check.”

“Was the money in bills?”

“I invariably brought it to him in the same denominations. Two hundred in five dollar bills, two hundred in ones, and a hundred in silver coins.”

“In paper rolls?”

“Yes; it may have been injudicious to keep so large a sum in his desk drawer, but he always did. Though, to be sure, he often paid out a great deal of it at once. Sometimes he would cash checks for some one or give some to the poor.”

“Drawer never locked?”

“Always locked. But both the Doctor and I carried a key. He was not so suspicious of me as you are, Mr. Morton.” The speaker gave his cold smile.

“And as to the ruby pin, Mr. Lockwood?” Morton went on. “Are you willing we should search your effects?”

Lockwood started and for a moment he almost lost his equipoise.

“I am not willing,” he said, after an instant’s pause, “but if you say it is necessary, I suppose I shall have to submit.”

Morton looked at him uneasily. He had no appearance of a criminal, he looked too proud and haughty to be a culprit, yet might that not be sheer bravado?

Discontinuing the conversation, Morton turned his attention to the table in the window in the hall where the secretary so often sat.

He examined the appurtenances, for the table was furnished almost like a desk, and he picked up a silver penholder.

It was round and smooth and without chasing or marking of any sort, save for the initials G. L.

“This yours?” he asked, and Lockwood nodded assent.

“I ask you, Doctor Marsh,” Morton turned to the Examiner, “whether that wound which is in Doctor Waring’s neck could have been made with this penholder.”

Startled, Marsh took the implement and carefully scrutinized it. Of usual length, it was tapering and ended in a point. The circumference at the larger end was just about the circumference of the wound in question.

“I must say it could be possible,” Marsh replied, his eyes alternately on the penholder and on the dead man. “Yes, it is exactly the size.”

“And it is strong enough and sharp enough, and it is round,” summed up Morton. “Now, Mr. Lockwood, I make no accusation. I’m no novice, and I know there’s a possibility that this might have been the weapon used, and yet it might not have been used by you. But I will say, that I have much to say to you yet, and I advise you not to try to leave town.”

“I’ve no intention of leaving town or of trying to do so,” Lockwood asserted, “but,” he went on, “would you mind telling me, if I killed the man I was devoted to, how I left the room locked behind me?”

“Those locked rooms bore me,” said Morton, “I’ve read lots of detective stories founded on that plot. Invariably the locked room proves to be vulnerable at some point. I haven’t finished examining the doors and windows myself as yet.”

“Proceed with your examinations, then,” said Lockwood; “if you can find a secret or concealed entrance, it’s more than I can do.”

“More than you will do, perhaps, but not necessarily more than you can do.”

“Don’t forget that vanished Japanese,” prompted Marsh. “I’ve small faith in Orientals, and if there is a way to get in and out secretly, I’d question the Jap before I would Mr. Lockwood here.”

“So should I,” declared the impassive secretary himself. “And another thing don’t forget, Morton, after the Private Secretary, the next person to be suspected is the butler – that is in fiction, which I gather you take as your manual of procedure.”

Lockwood’s sarcasm drove Morton frantic, but he was too wise to show his annoyance.

“I shall neglect no possible suspect,” he said, with dignity.

And then two men came from the police, who said they were photographers and desired to take some pictures, at the Chief’s orders.

Lockwood left them, and went to the living-room where the household and a few neighbors were assembled.

“I’m glad to get out of that detective atmosphere,” he said, relaxing in an easy chair. “It’s bad enough to have the man dead, without seeing and hearing those cold-blooded police bungling over their ‘clues’ and ‘evidences.’”

“Tell me a little of the circumstances,” asked Mrs. Bates, who was present. “I can bear it from you, Gordon, and I must know.”

“Apparently, Doctor Waring was sitting at his desk, reading,” Lockwood began, with a faraway look, as if trying to reconstruct the scene. “He must have been reading Martial – for the volume was open on the desk – and the pages were blood-stained.”