UNEXPECTED CLEWS.
It was early afternoon when Nick Carter and Patsy arrived in the
aristocratic suburb in which Harriet Farley dwelt, and nearly under the
towering walls of St. Lawrence’s Church. Nick directed the chauffeur to
stop, however, nearly a hundred yards from the sacred edifice.
“You must drop us here, Miss Farley, and return home,” said he. “I will
take your telephone number and talk with you later.”
“Why are you averse to my going with you to the rectory?” she inquired,
with a look of surprise.
“Only because publicity is undesirable at present, if it can be
prevented. And it may be of advantage to me if my investigations are not
suspected,” Nick explained. “If you were seen returning with two men
after your visit this morning, curiosity might be aroused and inquiries
and comments would follow.”
“Very well, Mr. Carter, in that case,” Miss Farley said. “But you must
let me hear from you. I shall feel very anxious.”
“I certainly will,” Nick assured her, while he alighted with Patsy.
The limousine sped away, leaving the two detectives in a broad,
beautifully shaded avenue flanked on both sides with handsome dwellings,
each occupying spacious and finely kept grounds, evincing the opulence
and refinement of the residents.
St. Lawrence’s Church occupied a corner in the near distance. It was a
handsome edifice, somewhat back from the avenue, and flanked by a quiet
side street, and Nick rightly inferred that the rectory, the home of the
Reverend Austin Maybrick and his elderly housekeeper, was situated back
of the church, and fronted on the side street.
“We’ll turn back to the corner, Patsy, and go through the side street,”
he remarked, after briefly viewing the surroundings. “That will, unless
I am much mistaken, bring us to the rectory.”
“I’m with you,” said Patsy tritely. “What do you make of the case,
chief? Does it look bad to you?”
“Quite so,” Nick replied. “I did not increase Miss Farley’s anxiety by
telling her so, but I think Maybrick is in wrong, if not up against a
more desperate game than he can pull out of unaided.”
“It looks so, chief, for fair,” said Patsy, who had been informed of
Miss Farley’s disclosures.
“I must find out, if possible, just what his relations with Kate
Crandall have been,” said Nick. “Also, just what type of woman she is,
and of what she is capable.”
“It’s dollars to doughnuts that she figures in his mysterious absence.
Miss Farley evidently is too proud to say just what she thinks of the
woman. It’s long odds that she’s a bit fly and fancy, at least.”
“Quite likely,” Nick allowed. “There are some experiences, you know,
that women reveal only under desperation’s spur. Until driven to
desperation, it is characteristic of their sex to be silent, and
bitterly nurse their resentment. When self-restraint ends, however, and
desperation takes the ribbons, they go completely over the traces and to
any extreme.”
“That’s true, chief,” said Patsy. “Hell, it’s said, has no fury like a
woman scorned. I reckon, chief, it was Kate Crandall who called on
Maybrick Tuesday evening?”
“That’s an open question,” said Nick. “It is important that we shall
find a correct answer to it. The fact that the veiled woman, whoever she
was, remained alone with Maybrick in the library for an hour, indicates
that they were discussing a serious matter.”
“Sure thing, chief.”
“Evidently, too, their interview led to his withdrawing the five hundred
dollars from the bank the following morning. He may for some reason have
agreed to pay her that amount. The fact that he departed with two empty
suit cases, however, shows that he was expecting to receive something
from her, or from persons with whom he evidently had an appointment.
“His carrying a revolver, moreover, which is quite extraordinary for a
clergyman, indicates that he anticipated trouble. He may have got in
much deeper than he expected.”
“In over his head, chief, I’m thinking,” Patsy dryly vouchsafed.
“That now appears to be about the size of it,” Nick agreed.
They had rounded a corner of the side street while speaking, and then
were approaching the rectory. It stood on a plot of ground between the
rear of the church and an attractive estate occupied by a handsome
wooden dwelling. Both were somewhat back from the street, and an iron
picket fence divided the two estates.
As he was approaching the end of this fence where it met the sidewalk,
Nick recalled what Harriet Farley had said about Kate Crandall playing
the spy near the rectory. He paused to view the adjoining grounds. They
would have offered concealment for such a spy, and Nick’s impression
proved profitable.
“This way, Patsy, for a moment,” he said quietly.
He saw that there was no path at that point leading to the rear of the
house. The close-cut greensward showed faint footprints, nevertheless,
and Nick walked into the grounds some twenty yards, carefully inspecting
a narrow flower bed that ran parallel to and near the fence for a
considerable distance. He found, not exactly what he was seeking, but of
the same character.
He discovered several footprints in the dark soil of the flower bed, at
a point nearly back of the rectory and some thirty feet from it.
Contrary to Nick’s expectations, however, the imprints evidently had
been caused by the shoes of--men.
“By Jove, this opens a new field for conjecture,” said he, calling
Patsy’s attention to them. “We have heard nothing about male spies in
this locality. Only about the Crandall woman.”
“Gee! that’s right, chief, but these are men’s tracks,” said Patsy,
eagerly inspecting them.
“Undoubtedly,” said Nick. “There evidently were two of them. Note the
two different sizes, also that the depth of the soles is greater than
the heels, and that parts of each overlap themselves, all showing
plainly enough that the two men were crouching here and evidently
watching something, or some one, through the picket fence.”
“Sure thing. There are no prints in any other part of the flower bed.”
“There certainly were two men, Patsy, one of medium build, the other
quite a large man, judging from the size of their shoes,” Nick went on.
“Through this shrubbery in the rectory yard they could see only the rear
and one side of the house, including the end of the veranda and the
conservatory.”
“I get you, chief,” said Patsy. “Whomever they were watching must have
been in that locality.”
“There is nothing specially distinctive in these imprints, however,
aside from suggesting the size of the men,” Nick added. “We’ll keep them
in mind, nevertheless, while looking farther.”
“Looking where, chief?”
“In the rectory grounds,” said Nick. “If watching a person in the house,
they would have selected a nearer point. It’s a safe wager, then, that
they were watching some one--outside of the rectory.”
“Gee! that’s right, too,” said Patsy, quick to see the point. “Let’s
have a look.”
“We’ll go out and enter through the gate. We may slip a cog if we try to
scale these iron pickets.”
“I believe you. They’re as sharp as a trooper’s lance.”
Nick led the way to the street and to the gate entering the rectory
grounds. The housekeeper had not put in an appearance, and they
proceeded around the veranda to that side of the dwelling visible from
the adjoining estate. Carefully inspecting the ground in the meantime,
Nick soon discovered evidence confirming his suspicions. He found as
before, in fact, more evidence that he was expecting.
In some yielding earth between one side of the conservatory and the bend
of the library window, a space of about eight feet, were numerous
footprints obviously caused by the shoes of two women who had recently
been there.
The impressions were very unlike each other. One was that of a slender
shoe with a small, long heel that had sunk deep into the soft soil.
The other was larger and broader, with spreading soles and wide heels,
generally known as common-sense heels.
Crouching to carefully inspect all of these impressions, Nick made
other discoveries, from which he drew several important deductions.
“By Jove, this is still more curious,” he remarked, after a moment.
“What’s that, chief?” questioned Patsy, bending nearer.
“Two women have recently been here, instead of only one. The location of
some of the tracks indicate that they came to spy through the library
window and play the eavesdropper. It must have been in the evening,
therefore, for they would have been seen in daylight.”
“Surely.”
“Here are several bruised blades of grass broken off by them and trodden
into the soil,” Nick added, picking up a couple of them. “They are too
dry and wilted for it to have occurred as recently as last evening, yet
they are fresh and green enough to show that it could not have been much
longer ago. We can safely say night before last.”
“The evening when the veiled woman visited Maybrick.”
“Exactly.”
“Gee! you must be right, chief, though it’s fine figuring.”
“Here’s another curious point, Patsy.”
“Namely?”
“The two women, if their shoes have any significance, were of a
decidedly opposite class,” said Nick. “One wore a narrow, high-heeled
shoe, denoting a woman of fashion and means. The heels of the other were
broad, both badly worn, and there was a patch on one of the soles. The
patch has left its mark in some of these imprints, and the run-down
condition of both heels appears in the indentations left by them.”
“I see,” said Patsy. “It’s as plain as twice two.”
“This woman must be of an opposite class, then, from the other. She
wears patched shoes, with the heels half gone, indicating that she
cannot afford new ones.”
“That’s a sane-and-safe deduction, chief, surely.”
“Here is evidence warranting still another.”
“How so?”
“Note that all the imprints of the high-heeled shoes overlap and partly
obliterate those of the cheaper ones,” Nick pointed out. “Plainly, then,
the wearer of the former was here later than the other. They were not
here together, moreover, or their tracks would not be so intermingled.”
“I see the point, chief.”
“As near as I now can size it up, the poorer-clad woman, if her garments
corresponded with her shoes, arrived here before the other, and she may
have been the veiled woman who talked with Maybrick. The other may have
seen her, or suspected that she was in the library with Maybrick, and
she may have come here to watch them and overhear what passed between
them.”
“And the two men beyond the picket fence may have been watching both.”
“I think so.”
“Gee whiz!” Patsy said perplexedly. “All this increases the mix-up,
chief, for fair.”
“Decidedly,” Nick agreed.
“Why were two men and two women here? Can one of them have been the
Crandall woman?”
“I’m going to find out a little later,” said Nick, a bit grimly. “We
first will have a talk with Mrs. Soule, however, and see what we can
discover in the house. Miss Farley, though a bright and brainy girl,
may have overlooked something.”
Nick led the way to the rectory door and rang the bell. He was admitted
by Mrs. Soule, to whom he introduced Patsy and himself, and whom he
found to be an elderly, gracious woman of sixty, burdened with anxiety
concerning the missing rector and eager to do all in her power to aid
the detectives.
But she could add nothing to what she already had told Harriet Farley,
as imparted to Nick, nor give the latter the slightest clew to the
mystery. She could describe the rector’s veiled visitor only as a woman
of about Kate Crandall’s height and figure, and had not observed whether
she was well or rather poorly clad. She stated that the woman had merely
asked whether Mr. Maybrick was at home and would see a lady for a short
time, and that the rector had received her in his library.
“Are you sure that she spoke of herself as a lady?” Nick inquired. “She
did not say woman, did she?”
“No, sir,” Mrs. Soule insisted. “I am positive that lady is the word she
used.”
It was significant only in that Nick aimed to definitely learn, if
possible, which of the two women suspected of having been spying outside
bad had an interview with Maybrick, if either of the two.
A search in the rector’s desk, moreover, brought to light nothing
explaining his absence, other than, the revolver case mentioned by Miss
Farley.
A crayon portrait on an easel, however, showed Maybrick to be a
splendidly built, striking type of man, with a strong, smoothly shaved
face, a classic cast of features, and obviously a man of sterling
character and extraordinary mental vigor.
Nick lingered only to direct Mrs. Soule to do nothing about the matter,
but to answer inquiries by stating that Mr. Maybrick was away for a few
days, and the two detectives then departed.
There was a look of increasing determination on Nick’s strong, clean-cut
face, however, when they walked away and rounded a corner of St.
Lawrence’s Church.
“I’m going to find that woman, Patsy, or lose a leg in the attempt,” he
said bluntly.
“I’m with you, chief,” Patsy quickly declared.
“We’ll begin with getting Kate Crandall’s measure,” Nick added. “Miss
Farley told me that she has an office in the business section. I will
pay her a visit and see how she lines up.”
“Am I to go with you?”
“You are to remain outside,” said Nick. “I may decide not to expose my
hand, which would be to our disadvantage if she really is responsible
for Maybrick’s absence.”
“That’s right, too.”
“It may be necessary to shadow her, moreover, so you had better stick
round outside and await my instructions. There will be something doing,
I think, after I have interviewed this woman.”