THE MISSING HAT
That very evening, as I was sitting quietly in my office, trying to
divert my mind from the murder by reading, my boy came in and told me
that there was a lady in the waiting-room who wanted to see me.
There was something so peculiar about the way he imparted this very
commonplace information that my curiosity was aroused; but I refrained
from questioning him, and curtly bade him show the lady in.
When she appeared I was no longer surprised at his manner, for a more
strange and melodramatic figure I have seldom seen, even on the stage.
The woman was tall and draped, or rather shrouded, in a long, black
cloak, and a thick black veil was drawn down over her face. Her costume,
especially considering the excessive heat, and that the clock pointed to
9.15, was alone enough to excite comment; but to a singularity in dress
she added an even greater singularity of manner. She entered the room
hesitatingly, and paused near the threshold to glance apprehensively
about her, as if fearing the presence of some hidden enemy. The woman
must be mad, I thought, as I motioned her to a chair and sat down
opposite to her.
With a theatrical gesture, she threw back her veil, and to my
astonishment I recognised the handsome, rotund features of--Madame
Argot! She smiled, evidently enjoying my bewilderment.
"Meestair Docteur, I no disturb you?" she inquired.
"Certainly not, madame; what can I do for you?"
"Ah, meestair," she whispered, looking towards the door, "I so afraid
zat my 'usban' 'e come back and fin' me gone; 'e terribly angry!"
"Why should he be angry?" I asked.
"He no like me to speak viz you. He no vant me to show you zis," she
answered, pointing mysteriously to her left shoulder.
"What is it that he doesn't want me to see?"
"I go show you," and, opening her dress, she disclosed two terrible
bruises, each as large as the palm of my hand; "and zat is not all," she
continued, and, as she turned round, I saw that a deep gash disfigured
one of her shoulder-blades.
I was really shocked.
"How did this happen?" I inquired.
"Oh, I fall," she said, smiling coquettishly at me.
"A very queer fall," I muttered.
The wound was several days old and not serious, but, owing to neglect,
had got into a very bad condition.
"Ah, zat is better," she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief, when I had
thoroughly cleansed the cut. I was just preparing to bandage it up, when
she stopped me.
"No, meestair; not zat! My 'usban', 'e see zat, 'e know I come here, and
zen 'e angry. Ze vashin' and ze salve zey make me better!"
"But look here, my good woman," I exclaimed, indignantly; "do you mean
to say that your husband is such a brute that he objects to your having
your wound dressed--a wound that you got in such a peculiar way, too?"
Her manner changed instantly; she drew herself haughtily up, and began
buttoning up her dress.
"My 'usban' 'e no brute; 'e verra nice man; 'e love' me verra much."
"Really!"
"Yes," she asserted, "'e love me much, _oh oui, je vous assure qu'il
m'adore_!" and she tossed her head and looked at me through the thick
lashes of her half-closed eyes; "'e man, you know, 'e sometime jealous,"
she continued, smiling, as if his jealousy were a feather in her cap.
"Well, Madame Argot; that cut should be looked after, and, as it is in
such a place that you cannot properly attend to it yourself, you must
come in here every day, and I will dress it for you. Your husband
cannot carry his devotion so far as to object to your covering it with a
clean piece of linen, so I advise you to do that."
"Alla right, meestair, and zank you verra much. I come again ven I
can, ven my 'usban' 'e go out sometime," and, after carefully wrapping
herself up again, she sallied forth with infinite precautions.
Of course, the woman is a silly fool, and eaten up with vanity, but
she had been pretty roughly handled, and that she should consider
such treatment a tribute to her charms, seemed to me perfectly
incomprehensible.
After reading for some time longer, I decided to go to bed, and,
therefore, went into the front room to turn the lights out. Having done
so, I lingered near the window, for the temperature here was at least
several degrees cooler than the room I had just left. Although it was
still early, the street appeared to be completely deserted, not a
footfall was to be heard. As I stood there, half hidden by the curtain,
a queer muffled noise fell upon my ears. It seemed to come from outside,
and I moved nearer to the window, so as to try and discover what it
could be. As I did so, a white face, not a foot away, peered suddenly
into mine. I was so startled that I fell back a step, and before I
recovered myself the creature was gone. I rushed out into the hall,
and, unfastening the front door as quickly as I could, dashed into the
street. Not a soul was in sight! The slight delay had given the fellow a
chance to escape. Who could it have been? I wondered. A burglar, tempted
by my open window? Or Argot, perhaps? This latter supposition was much
the more alarming. What if he had seen his wife come out of my office? I
thought of the murdered man, and shuddered. Notwithstanding the heat, I
shut and bolted the window, and, as an extra precaution, also locked the
door which connected the front room with my office and bedroom. I had no
mind to be the next victim of an insane man's jealousy. All night long
I was haunted by that white face! More and more it appeared to me to
resemble Argot, till at last I determined to see Mr. Merritt and ask him
if we had not sufficient grounds to warrant the Frenchman's arrest.
But when the morning came, things looked very different. Fred's second
letter (which I have inserted in the place where it rightly belongs in
the development of this story) arrived, and the thought of May Derwent's
illness put everything else out of my mind. I might as well confess at
once, that with me it had been a case of love at first sight, and that
from the day I saw her at the Rosemere the dearest wish of my heart was
to have her for my wife. And now she was ill and another man--a man who
also loved her--had been summoned by her to fill the place I coveted.
The consciousness of _his_ devotion would uphold her during her
illness, and his company help to while away the weary hours of
convalescence. And here was I, tied to my post, and forced to abandon
the field to another without even a struggle. For I felt it would be
little short of murder to desert my patients while the thermometer stood
high in the nineties and most of the other doctors were out of town. But
if I could not go to my lady, she should, at any rate, have something of
mine to bear her company. Rushing out to a nearby florist's I bought out
half his stock. Of course, my gift had to go to her anonymously, but,
even so, it was a comfort to me to think that, perhaps, my roses might
be chosen to brighten her sick room. At all events, they would serve to
remind her that there were other men in the world who loved her besides
the one who was with her at that moment.
The afternoon edition of the _New York Bugle_ contained the announcement
that Mrs. Greywood had arrived in town that morning, and, on being shown
the body of the Rosemere victim, had emphatically denied that it was
that of her son. She thinks that the latter has gone off cruising, which
he has been expecting to do for some time past; and that, of course,
would explain his not having been heard from. The possibility of May
Derwent's having been, even indirectly implicated in the murder, was
thus finally disposed of. But I had been so sure, from the very first,
of the ultimate result of their investigations, that Mrs. Greywood's
statement was hardly a relief to me. Of course, I was very glad that no
detective would now have an excuse for prying into my darling's affairs.
Otherwise, I was entirely indifferent to their suspicions.
But these various occurrences helped to obliterate the memory of the
events of the previous night, and, as I had no time to hunt up the
detective, I decided to think no more about my strange adventure.
I was rather late in leaving the hospital that afternoon, and when I
reached home my boy told me that several patients were already waiting
for me. I hurried into my office and sat down at my desk, on which a
number of letters had accumulated. I was looking these over when I heard
the door open, and, glancing up, my eyes fell upon--Argot! I stared at
him for a moment in silence. Could this reserved and highly respectable
person be my visitor of the night before? Never, I concluded. He stood
respectfully near the door, till I motioned him to a seat. He sat
gingerly down on the very edge of the chair, and, laying his hat on my
desk, pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. I waited for
him to begin, which he seemed to find some difficulty in doing. At last
he said:
"Meestair, I come about a verra sad zing."
"Yes?" I inquired.
"You 'ave seen my vife?"
I did not answer at once; then, as I was uncertain how much he knew, I
decided that it would be safest to confine myself to a bare nod.
"She is a verra fine woman, not?" he demanded, with visible pride.
"Very much so," I assented. What could he be leading up to, I wondered?
"But, helas," he continued, "she is a little--" here he touched his
forehead significantly, while he gazed at me less keenly from under his
bushy brows.
"Really, you surprise me," was all I said.
"She quite wild some time," he insisted.
"Indeed?"
"Yes; she do some strange zings; she verra good vife--sough--verra good
cook." He paused.
"What are you telling me all this for? What do you want me to do about
it?" I inquired.
"Eh bien, Meestair; it is because she vant to come to see you, and she
like you to be sorry, so she 'ave t'rowed herself down and 'ave 'urt
'erself. She lika ze mens too much," he added, fiercely, while a
malignant expression flitted across his face.
It no longer seemed to me impossible that this middle-aged butler and
the apparition of the night before could be identical, and there and
then I determined that in future a pistol should repose in the top
drawer of my desk.
"Perhaps your wife is slightly hysterical," I suggested.
Now, for the first time, my eyes left his face, and happened to fall on
his hat, which was lying brim upwards at my elbow. My astonishment, when
I noticed that the initials A. B. were printed in large letters on the
inner band, was so great that I could hardly control myself. I looked
for the maker's name--Halstead, Chicago, I made out. Could this be the
missing hat? It seemed incredible. Argot would never dare display so
openly such a proof of his guilt! But if he were demented (which I
firmly believed him to be) would not this flaunting of his crime be one
of the things one might expect of an insane man? I had been so startled
that it was some minutes before I dared raise my eyes, fearing that
their expression would betray me. I have absolutely no idea what he was
talking about during that time, but the next sentence I caught was: "She
vill, she vill come, but you jus' say, nonsense, zat is nossing, and zen
she go."
"Very well," I assured him, anxious to get rid of the fellow. "I quite
understand;" and, rising from my chair, I dismissed him with a nod.
My office was still full of people, and I think that seeing those other
patients was about the most difficult thing I ever did. But at last even
that ordeal was over, and I was able to start out in search of the
detective. I had a good deal of difficulty in finding him, and, after
telephoning all over creation, at last met him accidentally, not far
from the Rosemere. I was so excited that I hailed him from a long way
off, pointing significantly the while to my hat. By Jove, you should
have seen him sprint! I had no idea those short legs of his could make
such good time. We met almost directly in front of my door.
"What is it?" he panted.
Without answering, I took him by the elbow and led him into the house.
He sank exhausted into one of my office chairs.
"What's up?" he repeated.
"Well," I began slowly, for I meant to enjoy my small triumph to the
full, "I only wanted to ask you if you have yet found the missing hat?"
"No; have you?"
"No; I can't say I have." His face fell perceptibly. "But I know where a
straw hat bearing the name of a Chicago hatter, and with the initials,
'A. B.,' stamped on the inside band, can be found," I added.
"You don't say so? Where is it?" He spoke quietly, but I noticed that
his eyes glistened.
"I don't quite know where it is at this moment, but when I last saw it,
it was on this desk."
"On this desk, and you allowed it--" He paused, speechless with disgust.
"Certainly, I allowed it to be taken away, if that is what you mean.
However, you can easily get it again. It is not far off. But, I assure
you, I have no intention of appearing in the character of the corpse in
another sensational tragedy."
"Who brought it here?" demanded Mr. Merritt.
"Well, do you think that Argot would be a likely person?" I asked.
"Argot!" He was evidently surprised.
"Yes, Argot." And I told him all that I had lately discovered about
the couple, and of their separate visits to me. Neither did I fail to
mention the strange apparition of the night before, which had caused me
so much uneasiness.
He seemed much impressed, and stared gravely before him for some
minutes.
"You are really not at all sure that the white face belonged to Argot,
are you?"
"No," I acknowledged.
"Well, Doctor," he continued, after a slight pause, "it's a queer thing
that, just as you have succeeded in persuading me that a hat-pin is
hardly a masculine weapon, and that, therefore, I ought to look for a
murderess, and not a murderer, you, on the other hand, should have come
to the conclusion that a man is the perpetrator of this crime."
"Ah! but you see, Mr. Merritt, I don't believe the victim was killed by
a hat-pin. I think he was pierced through the heart by a skewer, which,
in a kitchen, Argot would have found under his hand."
"Well, Doctor, you may be right. Live and learn, I always say. I shall
at once call on the Argots, and have a look at this hat."
"Don't you think you had better have him arrested, first, and question
him afterwards? I am convinced he is insane, and likely to become
violent at any moment; we don't want any more murders, you know."
"That is all very well, Doctor; but I can't have the fellow arrested
till I have something to go on. The hat you saw may not be the one we
want; or, again, Argot may have found it."
"Well, if you insist on bearding him, let me go with you."
"Certainly not. You are young, and--well, not uncalculated to arouse his
marital jealousy, while I," patting his portly person, "am not likely
to cause him any such anxieties. Even age and fat have their uses,
sometimes."
"But he may try to cut your throat," I objected.
"One of my men will be just outside, and will probably get to me before
he has quite finished me." He had risen, and stood with his hand on the
door-knob.
"Look here, Doctor, I'd like to bet you that Argot is innocent, and that
a woman, and a mighty pretty woman, too, is the guilty party."
"All right, Mr. Merritt; I'll take you. I bet you fifty dollars that a
man committed this crime."
"Done!" exclaimed the detective, and, pulling out his pocket-book, he
recorded the bet with great care. He looked at me for a moment longer
with one of those quiet enigmatic smiles of his, and departed.
I watched him cross the street and enter the back door of the Rosemere.
A moment afterwards a shabby-looking man came slouching along and
stopped just outside, apparently absorbed in watching something in the
gutter. The detective remained only a minute or so in the building, and
when he came out he gave me a slight nod, which I interpreted as a sign
that Argot was not at home. He took not the slightest notice of the
tramp, and, turning north, trotted briskly up town.
As I watched him disappear, I wondered what made him so sure of the
Frenchman's innocence, and I tried vainly to guess who the woman could
be whom he now had in mind. Miss Derwent, I was glad to say, was out
of the question. He himself had proved to me by the most convincing
arguments that Mrs. Atkins could not be guilty. And who else was there
to suspect? For the criminal must have been an inmate of the building.
That was one of the few facts which the detective claimed was
established beyond a doubt.