THE CLEW AND THE TALISMAN.
The death of Custer Kipp, the nabob, startled the whole city.
For some time New York had been in the midst of a carnival of crime,
but this murder capped the climax.
No one thought of the other case, that got into the newspapers at the
same time.
The death of Jason Marrow in his little den near the mouth of the alley
did not take up half the space, and the reporters did not care to
discuss it.
But the life of the millionaire was published; his past was ventilated
so far as the reporters knew it, and they made out that he was one of
the pillars of the metropolis, and there were loud calls for swift and
certain vengeance.
Old Broadbrim was not to be found.
The inspector probably knew what had become of him, for he put
Hargraves and Irwin on the case, and intimated that for once the Quaker
detective would not stand between the pair, nor wrest from them the
laurels to be gained in the Fifth Avenue mystery.
Custer Kipp did not go to the morgue, but Jason Marrow did.
The surgeons went at him in the most approved style, and decided,
after more cutting than was necessary, that the man had died from
strangulation.
The forenoon of the day after the discovery of the murder on the
avenue, Old Broadbrim went back to Clippers' house.
The wiry little man received him with a good deal of excitement, and
immediately took a package of papers from his bosom.
"I found them--the papers which I knew Jason had hid somewhere in the
house," he exclaimed. "It took a long hunt, and I ransacked the whole
place, but here they are."
Old Broadbrim took a seat at the table and began to open the jumbled
papers.
"Where did Jason come from, Clippers?" he asked while he worked.
"I don't know. He would never tell me much about his past, but he had
traveled some. He had been around the world, and at one time lived in
Australia."
Just then something fell out of the package, and Old Broadbrim picked
it up.
It was the counterpart of the photograph Custer Kipp had shown him in
the library--the face of his deadly foe.
How had it come into Jason Marrow's possession?
Where did the occupant of the alley den get hold of it, and what did he
know of the man it represented?
Clippers stood over his friend, the detective, and folded his arms
while Old Broadbrim read the written papers found in the little house.
"It's strange, very strange," muttered the detective. "These may give
me a clew to the other mystery."
"Those documents, eh?"
"The documents and the photograph."
"It's an old affair, the picture, I mean."
"Yes, taken years ago, but the man may wear the same features to some
extent, and by this picture I may know him."
"Who do you think he is, Mr. Broadbrim?"
Old Broadbrim looked up into the face of Clippers.
"Perhaps the man who killed Jason Marrow," he said.
"Then, you are going to take the trail and beat Hargraves and Irwin to
the end of it?"
"I am on another trail," quietly spoke the detective. "I am not going
to bother the boys unless my trail crosses theirs--then I will play out
my hand boldly."
After reading over the papers left behind by Jason Marrow, Old
Broadbrim arose and thrust them into an inner pocket.
His face was as serene as ever, and nothing told that he had found what
might prove a clew.
From Clippers' house he went direct to the offices of the Cunard Line.
It was the day for the sailing of one of that line's boats for
Liverpool, and the detective was soon looking over the list of
passengers.
Suddenly his eye stopped at a name and rested there.
It was a name he had just seen in the papers he had read in Clippers'
house.
"Too late!" said the detective, as he turned away. "A few hours too
late. The murderer is gone. Ere this he is fairly at sea on the deck of
the _Campania_ and I--I am in New York!"
Old Broadbrim quitted the office and got once more into the sunlight.
Taking a cab, he hastened to the offices of the White Star Line, and
entered coolly but anxious.
He inquired at the proper desk when the next steamer of the line sailed
for Liverpool.
"The _Oceanic_ will leave her dock this afternoon."
The face of the detective seemed to flush with rising joy.
On the instant he engaged a cabin and walked out.
"We will see how the chase ends," said he, in undertones. "It may
prove a long one, but, thanks to Jason Marrow's story, I may not be
altogether on the wrong trail."
An hour later he stood once more beneath the roof of the murdered
millionaire.
This time he was met by Foster Kipp, the dead man's son, a young man of
twenty-five, with an open countenance, but eager and determined.
"I heard of this terrible affair in Albany, whither I went on some
business for father. It came sooner than he expected."
"He expected it, then?"
"Yes; once he confided to me that he had an enemy, and said he was
'blacklisted.' I never pressed him for particulars, for he was
reticent, but I firmly believe that the blow which fell last night was
the one he dreaded."
"It was," said the detective. "Your father was killed by a hand in
whose shadow he must have been for at least six months."
"Yes; nearly that long ago I found him in a faint on the carpet of the
library, for he had received a warning of some kind and I failed to
get the secret from him. It must be the old enemy--the one he made in
Europe."
"He traveled through the Continent, then?"
"I believe he made a tour of the world. I recall some of his
descriptions of places which are very far apart. But the most terrible
thing connected with this is that he should be killed in his own house,
deliberately strangled, while Nora was quietly reading in her _boudoir_
upstairs."
"It makes it the more mysterious. The murderer entered by the front
door and made his exit that way. He knew the mansion; he knew that your
father was at home and unprotected."
"It must have been thus. Had I been at home the blow would not have
fallen. He was killed on the eve of his sixty-fourth birthday. Why
didn't the monster permit him to round out the year?"
"Perhaps that was in the scheme."
"Heavens! I never thought of that!" cried Foster Kipp. "It must have
been a part of the diabolical game--to kill him before he became
sixty-four. I remember last year he received a letter which threw him
into a white rage, and tearing it up in this room he declared that he
would pass this day safely and live many years yet. But it was not to
be; the foe found him."
For half an hour longer the detective talked with the son and drew from
him all he knew about his father's past.
"I nominate you his avenger," said Foster, looking calmly into Old
Broadbrim's face, while they occupied armchairs near the desk in the
fatal library. "I send you out on this trail asking you to follow it
wherever it leads, through thick and thin, never losing sight of it
till you close in upon the murderer. Drag him from his hiding place;
stand him under the noose and then come to me for your reward. It will
not be small. Father left millions behind, and they are mine now--mine
and Nora's, and she joins me in this hunt for the murderer."
Old Broadbrim stood before the young man and looked into his white
face, earnest with anxiety and seamed with eagerness that seemed to be
devouring him.
"I believe, after talking with Nora, that the enemies are foreign
ones," continued Foster Kipp. "Father has within the last five years
received letters at intervals which came from some remote corners of
the world. One of them, I saw by a fragment of the envelope, came from
London, another from Paris and a third from Melbourne. This would seem
to indicate the restless nature of the enemy. But the trail leads
across the water, Mr. Broadbrim. I am sure of this. It may be a long
one, but you are equal to it."
Old Broadbrim stood at the door of the mansion and was looking into
Foster's face when he heard a sound in another room, and Miss Nora
bounded forward.
"What do you think?" she cried, stopping before the detective. "Is it
to be a trail across the water?"
"It looks that way, miss," was the answer.
"Then take this for luck--take it with the prayers of Nora Doon," and
she pressed into the detective's hand a little packet quite flat and
much smaller than his hand.
Old Broadbrim looked at it, but did not open it.
Placing it in his pocket he shook hands with Foster Kipp and Nora and
turned away.
Many a month was to pass ere they looked upon his face again.
Many a dark danger was to be met and surmounted, many a wild scene
passed through before he could look upon the sunlight of success, and
the path he had selected to tread within the last few hours was a path
of death.
In his little office the detective made hasty preparations for
departure.
He went in light marching order, but provided in many ways for the long
journey.
Booked for London, he packed his little grip, and on the street below
looked around upon familiar scenes perhaps for the last time.
He hastened to the White Star offices and went on board the vessel in
which he had taken passage.
In the little stateroom he made ready for the voyage, and sat down to
think a moment.
All at once the little packet which Nora Doon had placed in his hands
came to his mind, and he fished it from the depths of the inner pocket.
With a half smile at his lips the detective opened it slowly and then
the smile broadened.
He held in his hand a four-leaved clover, and on the paper upon which
it rested were "The best wishes of Nora Doon."
The detective tore the paper into bits, but carefully preserved the
little talisman.
Ten minutes later the steamer was moving from her dock and the famous
detective went up on deck.
He was on the longest and most exciting trail of his life; the chase
across the ocean had begun, and Old Broadbrim, as he looked out over
the water, wondered what the end would be.