Barr Robert
From Whose Bourne
Stratton quickly glanced up the page of his notebook, and marked a little cross before the name of Stephen Roland.
"You had another disagreement with him before, if I might term it so, had you not?"
Mrs. Brenton looked at him surprised.
"What makes you think so?" she said.
"Because you hesitated when I spoke of it."
"Well, we had what you might call a disagreement once at Lucerne, Switzerland."
"Will you tell me what it was about?"
"I would rather not."
"Will you tell me this—was it about a gentleman?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Brenton.
"Was your husband of a jealous disposition?"
"Ordinarily I do not think he was. It seemed to me at the time that he was a little unjust—that's all."
"Was the gentleman in Lucerne?"
"Oh no!"
"In Cincinnati?"
"Yes."
"Was his name Stephen Roland?"
Mrs. Brenton again glanced quickly at the newspaper man, and seemed about to say something, but, checking herself, she simply answered—
"Yes."
Then she leaned back in the armchair and sighed.
"I am very tired," she said. "If it is not absolutely necessary, I prefer not to continue this conversation."
Stratton immediately rose.
"Madam," he said, "I am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken to answer my questions, which I am afraid must have seemed impertinent to you, but I assure you that I did not intend them to be so. Now, madam, I would like very much to get a promise from you. I wish that you would promise to see me if I call again, and I, on my part, assure you that unless I have something particularly important to tell you, or to ask, I shall not intrude upon you."
"I shall be pleased to see you at any time, sir."
When the sheriff and the newspaper man reached the other room, the former said—
"Well, what do you think?"
"I think it is an interesting case," was the answer.
"Or, to put it in other words, you think Mrs. Brenton a very interesting lady."
"Officially, sir, you have exactly stated my opinion."
"And I suppose, poor woman, she will furnish an interesting article for the paper?"
"Hang the paper!" said Stratton, with more than his usual vim.
The sheriff laughed. Then he said—
"I confess that to me it seems a very perplexing affair all through. Have you got any light on the subject?"
"My dear sir, I will tell you three important things. First, Mrs. Brenton is innocent. Second, her lawyers are taking the wrong line of defence. Third," tapping his breast-pocket, "I have the name of the murderer in my note-book."
CHAPTER VIII
"Now," said John Speed to William Brenton, "we have got Stratton fairly started on the track, and I believe that he will ferret out the truth in this matter. But, meanwhile, we must not be idle. You must remember that, with all our facilities for discovery, we really know nothing of the murderer ourselves. I propose we set about this thing just as systematically as Stratton will. The chances are that we shall penetrate the mystery of the whole affair very much quicker than he. As I told you before, I am something of a newspaper man myself; and if, with the facilities of getting into any room in any house, in any city and in any country, and being with a suspected criminal night and day when he never imagines any one is near him—if with all those advantages I cannot discover the real author of that crime before George Stratton does, then I'll never admit that I came from Chicago, or belonged to a newspaper."
"Whom do you think Stratton suspects of the crime? He told the sheriff," said Brenton, "that he had the name in his pocket-book."
"I don't know," said Speed, "but I have my suspicions. You see, he has the names of all the guests at your banquet in that pocket-book of his; but the name of Stephen Roland he has marked with two crosses. The name of the servant he has marked with one cross. Now, I suspect that he believes Stephen Roland committed the crime. You know Roland; what do you think of him?"
"I think he is quite capable of it," answered Brenton, with a frown.
"Still, you are prejudiced against the man," put in Speed, "so your evidence is hardly impartial."
"I am not prejudiced against any one," answered Brenton; "I merely know that man. He is a thoroughly despicable, cowardly character. The only thing that makes me think he would not commit a murder, is that he is too craven to stand the consequences if he were caught. He is a cool villain, but he is a coward. I do not believe he has the courage to commit a crime, even if he thought he would benefit by it."
"Well, there is one thing, Brenton, you can't be accused of flattering a man, and if it is any consolation for you to know, you may be pretty certain that George Stratton is on his track."
"I am sure I wish him success," answered Brenton, gloomily; "if he brings Roland to the gallows I shall not mourn over it."
"That's all right," said Speed; "but now we must be up and doing ourselves. Have you anything to propose?"
"No, I have not, except that we might play the detective on Roland."
"Well, the trouble with that is we would merely be duplicating what Stratton is doing himself. Now, I'll tell you my proposal. Supposing that we consult with Lecocq."
"Who is that? The novelist?"
"Novelist? I don't think he has ever written any novels—not that I remember of."
"Ah, I didn't know. It seemed to me that I remembered his name in connection with some novel."
"Oh, very likely you did. He is the hero of more detective stories than any other man I know of. He was the great French detective."
"What, is he dead, then?"
"Dead? Not a bit of it; he's here with us. Oh, I understand what you mean. Yes, from your point of view, he is dead."
"Where can we find him?"
"Well, I presume, in Paris. He's a first-rate fellow to know, anyhow, and he spends most of his time around his old haunts. In fact, if you want to be certain to find Lecocq, you will generally get him during office hours in the room he used to frequent while in Paris."
"Let us go and see him, then."
* * * * *
"Monsieur Lecocq," said Speed, a moment afterwards, "I wish to introduce to you a new-comer, Mr. Brenton, recently of Cincinnati."
"Ah, my dear Speed," said the Frenchman, "I am very pleased indeed to meet any friend of yours. How is the great Chicago, the second Paris, and how is your circulation?—the greatest in the world, I suppose."
"Well, it is in pretty good order," said Speed; "we circulated from Chicago to Paris here in a very much shorter time than the journey usually occupies down below. Now, can you give us a little of your time? Are you busy just now?"
"My dear Speed, I am always busy. I am like the people of the second Paris. I lose no time, but I have always time to speak with my friends."
"All right," said Speed. "I am like the people of the second Chicago, generally more intent on pleasure than business; but, nevertheless, I have a piece of business for you."
"The second Chicago?" asked Lecocq. "And where is that, pray?"
"Why, Paris, of course," said Speed.
Lecocq laughed.
"You are incorrigible, you Chicagoans. And what is the piece of business?"
"It is the old thing, monsieur. A mystery to be unravelled. Mr. Brenton here wishes to retain you in his case."
"And what is his case?" was the answer.
Lecocq was evidently pleased to have a bit of real work given him.
Speed briefly recited the facts, Brenton correcting him now and then on little points where he was wrong. Speed seemed to think these points immaterial, but Lecocq said that attention to trivialities was the whole secret of the detective business.
"Ah," said Lecocq, sorrowfully, "there is no real trouble in elucidating that mystery. I hoped it would be something difficult; but, you see, with my experience of the old world, and with the privileges one enjoys in this world, things which might be difficult to one below are very easy for us. Now, I shall show you how simple it is."
"Good gracious!" cried Speed, "you don't mean to say you are going to read it right off the reel, like that, when we have been bothering ourselves with it so long, and without success?"
"At the moment," replied the French detective, "I am not prepared to say who committed the deed. That is a matter of detail. Now, let us see what we know, and arrive, from that, at what we do not know. The one fact, of which we are assured on the statement of two physicians from Cincinnati, is that Mr. Brenton was poisoned."
"Well," said Speed, "there are several other facts, too. Another fact is that Mrs. Brenton is accused of the crime."
"Ah! my dear sir," said Lecocq, "that is not pertinent."
"No," said Speed, "I agree with you. I call it very impertinent."
Brenton frowned, at this, and his old dislike to the flippant Chicago man rose to the surface again.
The Frenchman continued marking the points on his long forefinger.
"Now, there are two ways by which that result may have been attained. First, Mr. Brenton may have administered to himself the poison; secondly, the poison may have been administered by some one else."
"Yes," said Speed; "and, thirdly, the poison may have been administered accidentally—you do not seem to take that into account."
"I do not take that into account," calmly replied the Frenchman, "because of its improbability. If there were an accident; if, for instance, the poison was in the sugar, or in some of the viands served, then others than Mr. Brenton would have been poisoned. The fact that one man out of twenty-six was poisoned, and the fact that several people are to benefit by his death, point, it seems to me, to murder; but to be sure of that, I will ask Mr. Brenton one question. My dear sir, did you administer this poison to yourself?"
"Certainly not," answered Brenton.
"Then we have two facts. First, Mr. Brenton was poisoned; secondly, he was poisoned by some person who had an interest in his death. Now we will proceed. When Mr. Brenton sat down to that dinner he was perfectly well. When he arose from that dinner he was feeling ill. He goes to bed. He sees no one but his wife after he has left the dinner-table, and he takes nothing between the time he leaves the dinner-table and the moment he becomes unconscious. Now, that poison must have been administered to Mr. Brenton at the dinner-table. Am I not right?"
"Well, you seem to be," answered Speed.
"Seem? Why, it is as plain as day. There cannot be any mistake."
"All right," said Speed; "go ahead. What next?"
"What next? There were twenty-six people around that table, with two servants to wait on them, making twenty-eight in all. There were twenty-six, I think you said, including Mr. Brenton."
"That is correct."
"Very well. One of those twenty-seven persons has poisoned Mr. Brenton.
Do you follow me?"
"We do," answered Speed; "we follow you as closely as you have ever followed a criminal! Go on."
"Very well, so much is clear. These are all facts, not theories. Now, what is the thing that I should do if I were in Cincinnati? I would find out whether one or more of those guests had anything to gain by the death of their host. That done, I would follow the suspected persons. I would have my men find out what each of them had done for a month before the time of the crime. Whoever committed it made some preparation. He did something, too, as you say, in America, to cover up his tracks. Very well. By the keen detective these actions are easily traced. I shall at once place twenty-seven of the best men I know on the track of those twenty-seven persons."
"I call that shadowing with a vengeance," remarked the Chicago man.
"It will be very easy. The one who has committed the crime is certain, when he is alone in his own room, to say something, or to do something, that will show my detective that he is the criminal. So, gentlemen, if you can tell me who those twenty-seven persons are, in three days or a week from this time I will tell you who gave the poison to Mr. Brenton."
"You seem very sure of that," said Speed.
"Sure of it? It is simply child's play. It is mere waiting. If, for instance, at the trial Mrs. Brenton is found guilty, and sentenced, the one who is the guilty party is certain to betray himself or herself as soon as he or she is alone. If it be a man who hopes to marry Mrs. Brenton, he will be overcome with grief at what has happened. He will wring his hands and try to think what can be done to prevent the sentence being carried out. He will argue with himself whether it is better to give himself up and tell the truth, and if he is a coward he will conclude not to do that, but will try to get a pardon, or at least have the capital sentence commuted into life imprisonment. He will possibly be cool and calm in public, but when he enters his own room, when his door is locked, when he believes no one can see him, when he thinks he is alone, then will come his trial. Then his passions and his emotions will betray him. It is mere child's play, as I tell you, and long before there is a verdict I will give you the name of the murderer."
"Very well, then," said Speed, "that is agreed; we will look you up in a week from now."
"I should be pained," said Lecocq, "to put you to that trouble. As soon as I get the report from my men I will communicate with you and let you know the result. In a few days I shall give you the name of the assassin."
"Good-bye, then, until I see you again," answered Speed; and with this he and Brenton took their departure.
"He seems to be very sure of himself," said Brenton.
"He will do what he says, you may depend on that."
The week was not yet up when Monsieur Lecocq met John Speed in Chicago.
"By the look of satisfaction on your face," said Mr. Speed, "I imagine you have succeeded in unravelling the mystery."
"Ah," replied the Frenchman; "if I have the appearance of satisfaction, it is indeed misplaced."
"Then you have not made any discovery?"
"On the contrary, it is all as plain as your big buildings here. It is not for that reason, but because it is so simple that I should be foolish to feel satisfaction regarding it."
"Then who is the person?"
"The assassin," replied the Frenchman, "is one whom no one has seemed to think of, and yet one on whom suspicion should have been the first to fall. The person who did Monsieur Brenton the honour to poison him is none other than the servant girl, Jane Morton."
CHAPTER IX
"Jane Morton!" cried Speed; "who is she?"
"She is, as you may remember, the girl who carried the coffee from Mrs. Brenton to monsieur."
"And are you sure she is the criminal?"
The great detective did not answer; he merely gave an expressive little French gesture, as though the question was not worth commenting upon.
"Why, what was her motive?" asked Speed.
For the first time in their acquaintance a shade of perplexity seemed to come over the enthusiastic face of the volatile Frenchman.
"You are what you call smart, you Chicago people," he said, "and you have in a moment struck the only point on which we are at a loss."
"My dear sir," returned Speed, "that is the point in the case. Motive is the first thing to look for, it seems to me. You said as much yourself. If you haven't succeeded in finding what motive Jane Morton had for poisoning her employer, it appears to me that very little has been accomplished."
"Ah, you say that before you know the particulars. I am certain we shall find the motive. What I know now is that Jane Morton is the one who put the poison in his cup of coffee."
"It would take a good deal of nerve to do that with twenty-six people around the table. You forget, my dear sir, that she had to pass the whole length of the table, after taking the cup, before giving it to Mr. Brenton."
"Half of the people had their backs to her, and the other half, I can assure you, were not looking at her. If the poison was ready, it was a very easy thing to slip it into a cup of coffee. There was ample time to do it, and that is how it was done."
"May I ask how you arrived at that conclusion?"
"Certainly, certainly, my dear sir. My detectives report that each one of the twenty-seven people they had to follow were shadowed night and day. But only two of them acted suspiciously. These two were Jane Morton and Stephen Roland. Stephen Roland's anxiety is accounted for by the fact that he is evidently in love with Mrs. Brenton. But the change in Jane Morton has been something terrible. She is suffering from the severest pangs of ineffectual remorse. She has not gone out again to service, but occupies a room in one of the poorer quarters of the city—a room that she never leaves except at night. Her whole actions show that she is afraid of the police—afraid of being tracked for her crime. She buys a newspaper every night, locks and bars the door on entering her room, and, with tears streaming from her eyes, reads every word of the criminal news. One night, when she went out to buy her paper, and what food she needed for the next day, she came unexpectedly upon a policeman at the corner. The man was not looking at her at all, nor for her, but she fled, running like a deer, doubling and turning through alleys and back streets until by a very roundabout road she reached her own room. There she locked herself in, and remained without food all next day rather than go out again. She flung herself terror-stricken on the bed, after her room door was bolted, and cried, 'Oh, why did I do it? why did I do it? I shall certainly be found out. If Mrs. Brenton is acquitted, they will be after me next day. I did it to make up to John what he had suffered, and yet if John knew it, he would never speak to me again.'"
"Who is John?" asked Speed.
"Ah, that," said the detective, "I do not know. When we find out who John is, then we shall find the motive for the crime."
"In that case, if I were you, I should try to find John as quickly as possible."
"Yes, my dear sir, that is exactly what should be done, and my detective is now endeavouring to discover the identity of John. He will possibly succeed in a few days. But there is another way of finding out who John is, and perhaps in that you can help me."
"What other way?"
"There is one man who undoubtedly knows who John is, and that is Mr. Brenton. Now, I thought that perhaps you, who know Brenton better than I do, would not mind asking him who John is."
"My dear sir," said Speed, "Brenton is no particular friend of mine, and I only know him well enough to feel that if there is any cross-examination to be done, I should prefer somebody else to do it."
"Why, you are not afraid of him, are you?" asked the detective.
"Afraid of him? Certainly not, but I tell you that Brenton is just a little touchy and apt to take offence. I have found him so on several occasions. Now, as you have practically taken charge of this case, why don't you go and see him?"
"I suppose I shall have to do that," said the Frenchman, "if you will not undertake it."
"No, I will not."
"You have no objection, have you, to going with me?"
"It is better for you to see Brenton alone. I do not think he would care to be cross-examined before witnesses, you know."
"Ah, then, good-bye; I shall find out from Mr. Brenton who John is."
"I am sure I wish you luck," replied Speed, as Lecocq took his departure.
Lecocq found Brenton and Ferris together. The cynical spirit seemed to have been rather sceptical about the accounts given him of the influence that Speed and Brenton, combined, had had upon the Chicago newspaper man. Yet he was interested in the case, and although he still maintained that no practical good would result, even if a channel of communication could be opened between the two states of existence, he had listened with his customary respect to what Brenton had to say.
"Ah," said Brenton, when he saw the Frenchman, "have you any news for me?"
"Yes, I have. I have news that I will exchange, but meanwhile I want some news from you."
"I have none to give you," answered Brenton.
"If you have not, will you undertake to answer any questions I shall ask you, and not take offence if the questions seem to be personal ones?"
"Certainly," said Brenton; "I shall be glad to answer anything as long as it has a bearing on the case."
"Very well, then, it has a very distinct bearing on the case. Do you remember the girl Jane Morton?"
"I remember her, of course, as one of the servants in our employ. I know very little about her, though."
"That is just what I wish to find out. Do you know anything about her?"
"No; she had been in our employ but a fortnight, I think, or perhaps it was a month. My wife attended to these details, of course. I knew the girl was there, that is all."
The Frenchman looked very dubious as Brenton said this, while the latter rather bridled up.
"You evidently do not believe me?" he cried.
Once more the detective gave his customary gesture, and said—
"Ah, pardon me, you are entirely mistaken. I have this to acquaint you with. Jane Morton is the one who murdered you. She did it, she says, partly for the sake of John, whoever he is, and partly out of revenge. Now, of course, you are the only man who can give me information as to the motive. That girl certainly had a motive, and I should like to find out what the motive was."
Brenton meditated for a few moments, and then suddenly brightened up.
"I remember, now, an incident which happened a week of two before Christmas, which may have a bearing on the case. One night I heard—or thought I heard—a movement downstairs, when I supposed everybody had retired. I took a revolver in my hand, and went cautiously down the stairs. Of course I had no light, because, if there was a burglar, I did not wish to make myself too conspicuous a mark. As I went along the hall leading to the kitchen, I saw there was a light inside; but as soon as they heard me coming the light was put out. When I reached the kitchen, I noticed a man trying to escape through the door that led to the coalshed. I fired at him twice, and he sank to the floor with a groan. I thought I had bagged a burglar sure, but it turned out to be nothing of the kind. He was merely a young man who had been rather late visiting one of the girls. I suspect now the girl he came to see was Jane Morton. As it was, the noise brought the two girls there, and I never investigated the matter or tried to find out which one it was that he had been visiting. They were both terror-stricken, and the young man himself was in a state of great fear. He thought for a moment that he had been killed. However, he was only shot in the leg, and I sent him to the house of a physician who keeps such patients as do not wish to go to the hospital. I did not care to have him go to the hospital, because I was afraid the newspapers would get hold of the incident, and make a sensation of it. The whole thing was accidental; the young fellow realized that, and so, I thought, did the girls; at least, I never noticed anything in their behaviour to show the contrary."
"What sort of a looking girl is Jane Morton?" asked Ferris.
"She is a tall brunette, with snapping black eyes."
"Ah, then, I remember her going into the room where you lay," said Ferris, "on Christmas morning. It struck me when she came out that she was very cool and self-possessed, and not at all surprised."
"All I can say," said Brenton, "is that I never noticed anything in her conduct like resentment at what had happened. I intended to give the young fellow a handsome compensation for his injury, but of course what occurred on Christmas Eve prevented that: I had really forgotten all about the circumstance, or I should have told you of it before."
"Then," said Lecocq, "the thing now is perfectly clear. That black-eyed vixen murdered you out of revenge."
