In the darkened music-room Thornley Colton’s fingers wandered idly over
the keys, now improvising, now filling the room with the ever-living
soul of Beethoven, now swinging crashingly into Wagner; then his fingers
on the upper treble brought forth a strange discord of notes through
which ran a weird minor melody. The last seemed to please him, for he
repeated it, until Sydney Thames, who had been nervously pacing the
room, stopped in his tracks.
“What the deuce do you call that?” he demanded, the discords still
ringing in his ears. “It’s horrible!”
“Because it doesn’t agree with your orthodox ideas of music,” declared
Colton seriously. “That is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I
know. It is a Hindustan adaptation of the ‘Chinese Flute Song’ of _Siao
She_. It is a fitting accompaniment for this latest case of ours.”
“And just as understandable,” observed Sydney, walking up and down the
room again. Colton turned again toward the keys, and Sydney broke out
impatiently: “Why don’t you do something, Thorn? Two whole days have
passed since you found the man who stole the ruby, and you haven’t done
a thing! Osmuhn suspects Mrs. Marle, and she is on the verge of
collapse. You haven’t made an attempt to clear up the mystery. It isn’t
right! Osmuhn is rapidly losing his patience; his son must stand
helplessly by and see the mother of the girl he loves suspected; and the
thing is making a nervous wreck of Norvel. It is only a matter of days
when he will have to leave the business for good.”
“Osmuhn’s patience became exhausted last night,” Thornley Colton said.
“He advised me that he had lost faith in my efforts, and that he was
going to call in the police.”
“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Sydney. “That means that they will arrest Mrs.
Marle!” It only needed a woman in trouble to put the susceptible Sydney
Thames at sixes and sevens.
“I think even the police will hesitate before arresting a woman like
Mrs. Marle on mere suspicion,” the blind man declared.
The electric bell at the front door sent out its announcement.
“See who it is, will you? Shrimp is out on a little job for me.”
Sydney hurried out, and the problemist’s sensitive finger-tips felt the
face of the crystalless watch in his pocket. A frown furrowed his
forehead for a minute. He went into the library, and was sitting at the
desk which held the telephone when Sydney came back, followed by Henry
Osmuhn, junior.
“They are going to arrest Helen’s mother!” burst out Osmuhn the instant
he crossed the threshold.
Colton’s mobile face expressed sympathy. “I don’t think they will,” he
assured quietly.
“But they’re going to!” cried Osmuhn fiercely. “My father put the thing
into the hands of the police yesterday afternoon. The days of brooding
over the loss of the Thousand Facets of Fire have driven him half crazy.
The finding of the imitation ruby in Mrs. Marle’s possession, and your
refusal to explain what you are waiting for, have driven every bit of
commonsense from him. Detectives badgered her for two hours last night.
She is on the verge of hysteria. And Helen----.” He paced up and down
the room like a caged tiger, each word tumbling over the other as it
came from his lips; his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. The
sensitive-nerved Sydney Thames caught the contagion.
“It’s a crime to let those innocent women suffer, while you sit there,
calmly smoking a cigarette!” charged the secretary bitterly. He turned
away as the blind man’s lips curved in a smile. “He has known the thief
for two days!” he told Osmuhn, beside himself at the injustice of the
problemist.
“He knows the thief!” Osmuhn stopped dead in his tracks, staring
incredulously at Sydney. Then he whirled to face the blind man, who sat
quietly back in his chair, blowing smoke-rings towards the ceiling. “Why
don’t you have him arrested?” he demanded, voice high with excitement.
“Because I want to get the jewels,” answered the blind man.
“But a search, a confession, will----.”
“Do you suppose that a man with the daring and cleverness necessary to
accomplish those robberies would either confess or hide the stones where
they could be found?” he asked, a trifle impatiently. “I’m waiting for
the thief to hide the jewels in a place where I can find them. That will
be when he is about to start away. To arrest him before would mean an
endless search. You must understand that the thief who could commit
robberies like those is a wonderfully clever man. I know that he is
marvellous, for he is the only man I ever saw whose heart-beats failed
to show any emotion whatever.”
“Who is the thief!” asked Osmuhn soberly. All the excitement and
incredulity had gone from his voice now.
“A man who calls himself Davidson; an invalid who is wheeled around by a
Hindu servant for an hour or so each afternoon. He is never seen at
other times. He lives next door to Mr. Norvel, your diamond-expert.”
“So that’s how he knew!” cried Osmuhn, eye alight with understanding.
“Was he in France when Mr. Norvel’s accident occurred?” The question
Colton had put at the time of the ruby robbery flashed back in his mind.
The blind man nodded. “I am going to see him the minute my boy calls me
up and tells me that he is getting ready to start to the steamer
_Paris_, which sails at noon to-day.”
The jangling telephone-bell came as a period to the sentence. Colton
removed the receiver, listened a moment, said a single “All right,
Shrimp,” and rose. “The curtain is up for the last act,” he said
soberly. He pulled open a drawer of the desk and took out a
wicked-looking blued-steel automatic and slipped it into his side
coat-pocket.
“There won’t be any need of that?” Osmuhn asked nervously.
“The man we are going after isn’t the kind that holds his hands out for
the steel bracelets,” replied the problemist grimly.
“But you are blind!” cried Osmuhn. “You can’t see!”
The blind man’s smile was one of amusement as he answered: “If I had not
been blind, I wouldn’t have solved this case, and, if I’m not mistaken
in my man, my lack of eyes is going to do more toward his actual capture
than your keen ones. I have an idea you’ll see another mysterious
disappearance--of men this time.”
He slipped on his overcoat and led them out of the house and into the
waiting car, which had stood at the curb for the last half-hour. There
was not a word spoken by the three men until the car turned into
Ninety-first Street.
“Hadn’t we better stop at the corner and walk?” asked Osmuhn, as the car
continued on and swerved in toward the curb before the brownstone house.
Colton flicked his cigarette away and shook his head. “I guess Mr.
Davidson is expecting us. I’ve had Shrimp working pretty openly in the
last day or two. I think the thief will want to pull off one last
grand-stand play before he leaves.”
The red-haired boy who had been leaning against a tree at the other side
of the street ran over and hopped on the run-board.
“Kin I go in with yuh, Mr. Colton?” he asked eagerly, eyes shining with
excitement.
The blind man shook his head. “No, Shrimp,” he denied. “You go over and
telephone for the police. We’ll need them in a few minutes.”
The boy’s face showed his disappointment, but he tried bravely to keep
it out of his voice. “All right, sir,” he said, with an assumed
cheeriness that was pathetic.
Sydney opened the tonneau-door, and Colton alighted, his slim stick
before him locating the way up the wide stone steps. His lips were a
grim, straight line as he pushed the button, and Osmuhn saw him put his
hand in his pocket to assure himself that the automatic was ready for
instant use. The nerves of the junior Osmuhn were taut, and his muscles
tensed as the door swung back and the grave-faced Hindu that the
disguised Shrimp had bowled over two days before stood looking at them
gravely.
“What wish the Sahibs?” His voice was deep and rich. He had only
muttered when they had seen him last.
“Is Mr. Davidson in?” asked Colton politely. Sydney thought he saw a
gleam of fire in the Hindu’s dark eyes for an instant.
“Sahib Davidson is busied. He starts for the German baths at noon on the
boat.”
“It is highly important.” The blind man’s voice was suave.
From somewhere in the rear of the house came the piping, querulous voice
of the invalid: “Who the devil is it, Pinjur?”
“I know not, Sahib,” called the Hindu, in reply.
“The blind man who spoke to him two days ago when the boy of the street
nearly upset his chair,” enlightened Thornley Colton, and the ears of
the old man were keen, for they heard.
“Send him in!” snapped the squeaky voice. “And come in yourself. There’s
a very devil of a draft!”
The Hindu stood aside gravely as they entered, closed the door carefully
behind them, and, with a bowed invitation to follow, led the way down
the hall toward the library.
Osmuhn’s tense muscles relaxed, and a gasp of amazement came to his lips
as they stepped inside the semi-darkened room, and he saw the
white-haired, white-bearded old man Thornley Colton had declared was the
thief who had stolen the Thousand Facets of Fire and the diamond
necklace. Could this be the man, who, by some infernal magic, had caused
three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of jewels to disappear while
people watched them?
The old man drew himself closer to the desk, with his white hands on the
wheels of his steel-framed chair, and peered at them short-sightedly.
“What do you want, gentlemen?” he piped. “I haven’t but a minute. Have
I, Pinjur?” He darted a queer, bird-like glance toward the Indian
servant, who stood, straight-backed, before the one window that broke
the lines of high bookshelves surrounding the room. The Hindu bowed.
Colton advanced half a step toward the desk. “We want,” he said, slowly
and distinctly, “the Thousand Facets of Fire and the diamond necklace!”
The old man’s cackling laugh came from the white beard even before the
last word had been uttered. “You want the ruby, eh?” he squealed, his
hand falling on the desk before him. “He wants the necklace, too,
Pinjur.”
Osmuhn’s eyes turned toward the Hindu; he saw the Indian lift one
hand--then a rising curtain of mist seemed to hide him! Another rose
over the desk! In an instant the two had joined, and a solid wall of
fog, dense, impenetrable, hid half of the room.
“The mist!” he cried, falling back a step, the fear of the supernatural
in his eyes.
He saw Thornley Colton leap forward; saw him swallowed up--vanish
utterly. He could not move, nor could Sydney Thames beside him. They
both heard a weird, gurgling cry, an oath in a strange language. Then
the report of a pistol echoed through the room; the flash showed
yellow-pink through the mist.