A VITAL QUESTION.
“You heard what I said over the phone, Mr. Carter?” Lynne said, turning
about and facing the detective. They were in a room which opened off
from the library of the mansion.
“Yes,” said Nick, “I heard.”
“You will go out there with me?”
“I am not sure,” replied the detective. “I have been thinking about it
since I heard you assure them that I would come. I have been up all
night, Mr. Lynne, and have driven a good many miles in my car since dark
last night--and I am not at all sure that I can be of any benefit to
you.”
“But--Mr. Carter, if I particularly request it? If I assure you that
money is no object to me in this matter, and----”
“Neither would it be any object to me, Mr. Lynne,” the detective
interrupted him. “If I go there at all, it will be in behalf of justice
to the beautiful girl who was your daughter.”
“That is precisely why I wish you to go, sir. I hope that you will
consent to do so.”
“I will consent to go with you on one condition, Mr. Lynne,” was the
reply.
“What is that?”
“That during the ride out there you will freely and frankly reply to
any and every question I may ask you, without offense, without
considering any of them an impertinence, and with an eye single to
discovering the truth about this mystery--and I warn you that I may ask
questions that will both startle and offend.”
“Very well, sir; I accept the condition.” He spoke with a quiet dignity
now that entirely changed the man; that made him appear for the first
time just as Nick Carter had expected to find him.
“And there is one more, Mr. Lynne; a very small one this time.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“It will be nearly an hour before I will be ready to start. My own car
is in front of your door, and my two assistants are waiting for me. I
must drive with them to my house. If you care to pick me up with your
car, there, in just three-quarters of an hour from now, I will be ready
to accompany you.”
“So be it, Mr. Carter. At eight-forty-five, then, I will call for you.”
Nick got into his own car in silence, and said nothing at all until,
with Chick and Patsy, he was in his own house, where he led the way at
once to his study. Then----
“Lynne has asked me to take the case--or, rather, he has asked me to
drive out there with him, and I have consented. I will tell you both,
frankly, that I do not know what to make of Mr. J. Cephas Lynne. He
puzzles me. He is, all at once, almost as interesting as the crime. I am
going out there with him in his car, more for the purpose of studying
him at close range, and to see him on the ground where the crime was
committed, than for any other reason.”
“You don’t mean to say----” Chick began, but the detective interrupted
him.
“No, I do not mean to say anything, Chick, only that this case has
developed strange possibilities, some of which are almost unthinkable.
Now, let’s not discuss generalities. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to
get the opinion of either of you, concerning the crime itself, and how
it was brought about, and before I start I want both. Chick, I will have
the result of your thoughts first.”
“I’ll ask a question before I give it, then.”
“Very well.”
“Have you questioned Lynne as to the manner in which his daughter was
supposed to have passed the evening, last night?”
“No; I have not.”
“So you have no idea as to that?”
“None whatever, more than you have, judged by her costume. She was at a
function of some sort, somewhere, or, at least, dressed to attend one,
whether she went to it or not. Now, Chick, let us hear what you have to
say.”
“Well, it isn’t very much--only a general thought on the subject.”
“I know.”
“The house out there has been closed for at least two months. Miss Lynne
would never have gone there of her own accord, at such an hour. If there
had been some article there that she wanted to get, she would have
selected another hour for going; therefore she made the journey at the
behest of another person.”
Patsy nodded emphatically, and Nick said:
“We both indorse that.”
“The question arises then,” said Chick, “as to who would have influence
enough over her to persuade her to do such a thing? What manner of man
could have done it? Was it a relative? Or was she persuaded to go there
by some person who may have had a hold of some kind over her father, and
was she persuaded to go there because she believed she was serving him?”
“No; I don’t think that last,” replied the detective.
“I’d like to speak my little piece right here and now,” said Patsy,
rather sharply for him.
“Well?”
“Edythe Lynne was persuaded to visit that house last night by a lie. No
matter what she imagined the reason to be, it was a lie, and it was
sufficient to her to compel her to do something that she would never
have thought of doing had not her feelings been wrought upon almost to
the point of hysteria.”
“Good,” said Chick.
“Go on, Patsy,” said Nick Carter.
“Now, what kind of a lie could have been told to her to take her to that
house in the company of a man at the dead of night? What man could tell
her such a lie, and make her believe it? What man, who could tell her
such a lie and make her believe it, would yet be closely enough related
to the family to make that house the object of the night call? And why
did she hesitate so long in the automobile before she consented to
enter the house, after she arrived there?”
“You answer those questions yourself, Patsy,” said the detective.
“I’ll answer it like this: My present belief is that Edythe Lynne went
to Pleasantglades with her own father, and that when she got inside the
house and found that she had been lured there by a lie, and that it was
her father who had lied to her, she killed herself.”
“No, Patsy, no,” said the detective sharply.
“Wait. That after she had done so, her father realized the terrible
predicament he was in; the impossibility of explaining it
satisfactorily; the talk and the scandal that the whole affair would
make, and, in short, that he then prepared the evidence we found to
point to a deliberate suicide.”
“Patsy, part of your theory sounds good; the rest of it is not to be
thought of,” said Nick. “I am now of the opinion, myself, that she went
there with her father, and that---- No, I can’t say it yet. But all
this, lads, leads us to just one thing, and that is what I asked you to
this room to listen to.”
Both assistants looked eagerly at their chief, and he continued:
“Is J. Cephas Lynne, as we know him, her father? Was he her father?”
Chick and Patsy looked at each other, then back again at the detective.
“I am going out there in the car with the man to study him,” the
detective continued. “I want you both to start out at once, wherever you
please, to get for me all the information, that is obtainable regarding
both, the father and the daughter. I want you to dig up every scrap of
information you can find about both of them. Was he her father? Find
that out for me beyond the shadow of a doubt either way, before I
return. That is all.”
The detective glanced at his watch, and turned away.
“I’ve got fifteen minutes before he arrives here,” he said, and left
them to themselves in the study.
Ten minutes later he came out of a cold plunge, put on a complete change
of clothing, shaved, and at the time appointed was ready for the arrival
of Lynne’s car.
It came, about five minutes late, and the detective ran down the steps
to meet it before it had stopped before the door.
The day was bright, cheerful, and sunny, and the weather was almost
warm; under ordinary circumstances a better day could not have been
selected for such a journey.
Nothing was said between the two men beyond a greeting, when Nick first
entered the car, which was driven by one of the Lynne chauffeurs; but as
it was a limousine body, the passengers could talk in comfort and at
their ease as it sped along.
“Now, Mr. Lynne, are you ready?” Nick asked presently.
The man looked around at the detective quickly, with a half-startled
air; he had evidently been absorbed in his thoughts; and he asked:
“Ready for what?”
“For the questions that I wish to ask.”
“Yes, I think so. What are they, Mr. Carter?”
“There are many of them, and some are what you might call intimate,”
warned the detective.
“I agreed to your conditions, Mr. Carter, therefore I am prepared to
reply to any and all the questions you care to ask me--provided I can do
so.”
“Were you out late yourself last night?”
“I was.”
“What time did you arrive at your home?”
“At three this morning.”
“You used one of your cars?”
“Yes. I went----”
“Wait. Just reply to my questions.”
“Very well, Mr. Carter.”
“Who was your companion?”
“My--companion?”
“Yes. In the car you used last night. Who was your companion? You had
one, did you not, Mr. Lynne?”
The man turned and looked closely at the detective for a fleeting
instant before he replied; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, as if
there were no help for introducing a disagreeable topic, or one that he
would have preferred to keep out of the conversation, he said:
“Yes, Mr. Carter, I had a companion with me last night; a lady--the lady
who is soon to become my second wife. I have long been a widower, Mr.
Carter.”
“Thank you. The lady’s name, if you please?”
“Is it necessary to bring her into it, Mr. Carter?”
“Unless it should prove to be necessary, you may be assured that she
will not be brought into it, Mr. Lynne. But I must know all the facts
connected with last night. Will you tell me the lady’s name, and where
she may be found, if that is necessary?”
“Really, Mr. Carter----”
“I warned you, sir, that some of my questions would be intimate.”
“Very well. The lady’s name is Mrs. Madge Hurd Babbington. I need not
tell you her address, since everybody in society knows that.”