PETERSON GETS BUSY.
It was after ten o’clock that evening when Margate returned to the
Clayton residence. He entered with a key by the way of the side door. A
glance at the windows while approaching the stately mansion told him
that most of the household were abed.
Margate hung his cap in the side hall and smoothed with his palms his
neatly plastered hair, effectively hiding the scar caused by Chick
Carter’s bullet many months before. He observed that a dim light was
burning in the library. Upon stepping quietly into the main hall,
moreover, he discovered the new butler.
Peterson was nodding sleepily in a chair near the main stairway. He
started slightly upon hearing the other, then quickly arose, rubbing his
eyes and bowing respectfully.
“You need not have waited for me, Peterson,” Margate said pleasantly,
pausing and regarding him intently.
“It’s the doors, sir,” said Peterson, explaining.
“The doors?”
“It has been my custom, Mr. Garside, sir, to be sure they are locked
before going to bed. I do not mind waiting up, sir.”
“I met a friend and remained longer than I intended,” said Margate,
smiling.
“I do not mind, sir,” repeated the butler.
“That’s very good of you. Has Mr. Clayton retired?”
“He has, Mr. Garside, sir.”
“How long did the detective remain here, Peterson?”
“About half an hour, sir, as I remember.”
“Did he bring any good news?”
“I cannot say, sir.”
“I thought that Mr. Clayton might, perhaps, have mentioned something to
you,” Margate observed, in an explanatory way.
“He did not, Mr. Garside, sir,” said Peterson humbly.
“I see there is a light in the library.”
“I left it for you, Mr. Garside, sir,” Peterson explained. “I thought
you might not wish to retire at once, sir, when you came in.”
“That was very thoughtful, Peterson, I’m sure, but I shall presently do
so. By the way, Peterson, I may be busy in my room to-morrow morning, in
case Mr. Clayton gives me any work to be done at that time,” Margate
added, steadily regarding his hearer. “There is something you can do for
me.”
“I will be very glad to do it, Mr. Garside, sir,” said Peterson, bowing
obsequiously.
“Very good. If Mr. Carter calls during the morning, I wish you would
quietly come to my room and inform me. There are a few questions I wish
to ask him about a personal matter--a purely personal matter, Peterson,
I assure you.”
“Yes, Mr. Garside, sir.”
Peterson’s ruddy face appeared incapable of any material change.
“Will you quietly do so?”
“I will, Mr. Garside, sir.”
“Thank you, Peterson. You are a very accommodating fellow. By the way,
here is something for which I have no great use,” Margate added,
producing a bank note and slipping it into the butler’s hand. “Favor me
by accepting it.”
Peterson smiled now, and appeared pleased.
“Thank you, Mr. Garside, sir,” he said, with some feeling. “Thank you
very much, sir.”
“There is more, Peterson, where that came from,” Margate remarked
significantly.
“I hope so, sir,” smiled Peterson. “I am glad to hear it, sir.”
“Any service you can do for me, Peterson, will always be well repaid.”
“No doubt, sir. Really, sir, I have not a doubt of it,” Peterson
vouchsafed.
“By the way, what about Madame Clayton this evening?” questioned
Margate, still pausing at the base of the stairs.
“She is just the same, Mr. Garside, sir,” said Peterson, at once serious
and solemn again.
“That’s too bad.”
“Too bad, sir, indeed.”
“The nurse is with her to-night?”
“Yes, Mr. Garside, sir.”
“Favor me, Peterson, by tapping on the door and asking her to step into
the hall. She gave me a prescription to be filled. I have done so and
wish to hand it to her,” said Margate, displaying a vial wrapped in
white paper. “I wish to say a word to her about it, something the
druggist mentioned.”
“I will call her, sir,” bowed Peterson.
“One moment.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you coming downstairs again?”
“Only to put out the lights, sir, and look after the doors.”
“Do so before you go up, then,” said Margate. “That will save you the
trouble of returning.”
“Very well, sir,” bowed Peterson. “Thank you, sir.”
Margate waited at the base of the stairs. There was a sinister gleam in
his eyes, a cruel smile on his lips. He thought he had rightly sized up
the butler. He felt reasonably sure that he could, if occasion required
it, rely upon Peterson for almost any service for which he was liberally
paid.
Peterson returned in about five minutes, and they went upstairs
together.
The butler extinguished the hall light, leaving the lower floor of the
house in darkness.
A dim light burned on the second floor.
Peterson tapped lightly on the door of a side chamber. It brought the
nurse into the hall--a slender girl in the twenties, with thin features,
reddish hair, and shifty gray eyes. She nodded and smiled, with a quick
glance at the private secretary.
“Thank you, Peterson,” Margate said quietly. “That’s all, my good
fellow. You may go up to bed. I will turn out the light in this hall for
you.”
“Very well, sir,” bowed Peterson, evidently unsuspicious. “Thank you,
sir. Good night, miss. Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Peterson.”
The butler turned away and vanished up the servants’ stairway.
Margate took the hands of the nurse, slipping the vial into one of them,
and for five minutes he remained in whispered conversation with her,
giving her such instructions as served his purpose. Then he extinguished
the hall light and went to his room.
Half an hour passed.
The silence in the crime-cursed house was unbroken.
Its gloom was relieved only by a faint thread of light under the door of
the chamber in which Madame Clayton was lying.
Then, for the hundredth part of a second, a swift gleam appeared on the
servants’ stairway. It shot downward, danced for an instant over the
stairs and wall, then vanished.
It appeared again in about a minute. It lingered for several seconds. A
figure was vaguely discernible in the gloom back of the swiftly moving
ray, a figure stealing noiselessly down the stairs--that of Peterson,
the house butler.
He crept down as silently as a shadow, as if he was far from being a
novice in such stealthy work.
He stole to the door of Madame Clayton’s chamber, crouching there in the
darkness, and peered through the keyhole.
He could see the form of the unconscious woman lying on the bed.
He saw, too, that of the nurse bending above her, watching her intently,
with an empty hypodermic syringe in her hand.
“Just in time,” thought Peterson. “Too late to prevent it, but not too
late to see what has been done. That may serve as well.”
He stole away as he had come, but not to return to his room. He remained
crouching near the top of the servants’ stairway, waiting patiently in
the inky darkness, minute after minute, until a tall, old-fashioned
clock in the lower hall struck one.
Then a beam of light from another quarter dispelled the gloom.
Margate stole out of his chamber and crept down the front stairs.
The nurse stepped into the hall and waited, holding a bundle of garments
under her arm.
Margate returned in about three minutes in company with two men--Dunbar
and Haley.
Peterson sat watching them from the top of the stairs.
He saw them enter the room, all three men, from which they presently
emerged with a heavy burden--the senseless woman.
Moving noiselessly, they bore her down the stairs and out of the house.
Peterson started up to follow them, then resumed his seat on the top
stair.
His way was barred and pursuit precluded by the nurse, still lingering
in the dimly lighted hall.