Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: The gem lay between them, a splash of crimson flame]
The Paternoster Ruby
_By_ CHARLES EDMONDS WALK
Author of "The Silver Blade," "The Yellow Circle," etc.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
BY J. V. McFALL
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1910
Published, October 22, 1910
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
TO
M. H. W.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE SHERIDAN PARK MYSTERY
II THE PRIVATE SECRETARY
III SOME DISCOVERIES
IV THE RUBY
V THE HIDDEN SAFE
VI AN EXTRAORDINARY ERRAND
VII HOW THE ERRAND ENDED
VIII MAILLOT'S EXPERIENCE
IX TRACKS IN THE SNOW
X THE SECOND STORY
XI A PACT
XII THE CIPHER
XIII DISCLOSURES
XIV RIDDLES
XV A WOMAN'S SCREAM
XVI THE FACE IN THE ALCOVE
XVII PRISON DOORS
XVIII A FIGHT IN THE DARK
XIX BELLE
XX GENEVIEVE'S MISSION
XXI SHADOWS
XXII ASHES OF OLD ROMANCE
XXIII BURKE UNBOSOMS
XXIV CONFESSION
XXV "THIMBLE, THIMBLE--"
XXVI THE CIPHER SOLVED
ILLUSTRATIONS
The gem lay between them, a splash of crimson flame . . . _Frontispiece_
Diagram of second floor
The door opened a few inches, to reveal the figure of Alexander Burke
Cipher
Cipher (repeated)
"I'll shoot," she announced in a tense tone, "so help me, I'll shoot"
"Uncle, Uncle, sit up! Don't go to pieces this way"
Cipher (repeated)
THE PATERNOSTER RUBY
CHAPTER I
THE SHERIDAN PARK MYSTERY
With a screaming of brakes, the elevated train on which I happened to be
jerked to a stop, and passengers intending to disembark were catapulted
toward the doorways--a convenience supplied gratis by all elevated roads,
which, I have observed, is generally overlooked by their patrons. I
crammed the morning paper into my overcoat pocket, fell in with the
outrushing current of humanity, and was straightway swept upon the
platform, pinched through the revolving gates, and hustled down the
covered iron stairway to the street. Here the current broke up and
diffused, like the current of a river where it empties into the sea.
This was the first wave of the daily townward tide--clerks, shop-girls,
and stenographers, for the most part intent upon bread and butter _in
futuro_. The jostling and crowding was like an old story to me; I went
through the ordeal each morning with an indifference and abstraction born
of long custom.
The time of the year was January, the year itself 1892. A clear, cold
air with just enough frost in it to stir sluggish blood, induced one to
walk briskly. It was still too early in the day for the usual down-town
crowd, and I proceeded as fast as I wanted to, allowing my thoughts to
dwell undisturbed on the big news topic of the day, which I had just been
reading. And so I did, as I strode along, with the concern of one whose
interest is remote, yet in a way affected.
So the great wheat corner was broken at last! The coterie of operators
headed by Alfred Fluette had discovered to their dismay that the shorts
were anything but "short," for all day yesterday the precious grain had
been pouring into the market in a golden flood. Grain-laden vessels were
speeding from Argentine, where no wheat was supposed to be; trains were
hurrying in from the far Northwest; and even the millers of the land had
awakened to the fact that there was more profit in emptying their bins
and selling for a dollar and sixty cents a bushel the wheat that had cost
them seventy-six cents, than there was in grinding it into flour.
It was another pirate of the pit who had brought disaster to the
bulls--no other than that old fox, Felix Page, himself a manipulator of
successful big deals, and feared perhaps more than any other figure on
the Board of Trade.
But his spectacular smashing of the memorable corner has passed into
history. While Fluette's brokers were buying and sending the price
soaring--skyrocketing is more descriptive, though--Felix Page was selling
in quantities that bewildered and, since it was Page, alarmed the bulls.
Insurance on the lakes had ceased with the advent of winter; the
granaries of the world were supposed to be scraped clean; so it seemed
that he must be rushing headlong to certain destruction. Still, seeing
that it was Felix Page who was doing most of the selling, Fluette's crowd
was nervous.
And the sequel, in all conscience, warranted their anxiety. For more
than a week Felix Page's iron-prowed ships had been crushing and smashing
their way through the ice, opening a way for other ships; yesterday they
had steamed into port with their precious cargoes, demoralizing the bull
clique with a deluge of golden grain.
Page settled; he had sold five million bushels, and he delivered the
goods. This was the opening fissure. Fluette was soon overwhelmed, and
today he and his crowd would be holding a melancholy wake over the corpse.
This, however, is not a story of stupendous battles in the arena of
Commerce. I have merely gone behind my proper starting-point by a matter
of ten minutes or so--no more--to lay before you one of those
inexplicable coincidences which, when they are flung at us, shake us from
our self-possession. The stage was already set for me; serenely
unsuspecting, I was headed straight toward it.
Police headquarters was my destination, and I had no sooner stepped
across the threshold than I was told that the Captain was wanting to see
me at once. So I went direct to his private office, where he was deep in
conference with a party of four men, who, in spite of a general air of
gloom which seemed to envelop them, looked like a quartet of prosperous
brokers. It occurred to me that they might have been struck by the stick
of the spent rocket.
As the Captain abruptly broke off an earnest speech to wheel his chair
round and address me, the four men stared at me with a curious,
unwavering interest.
Fancy how I was staggered by the first words. My chief thrust a card in
my direction, on which was pencilled a street number.
"Go to this address at once, Swift," said he. "It looks like murder--old
Page."
"Page!" I almost shouted. "You can't mean Felix Page!"
"What's the matter with you? Know anything about it?"
My stupefaction was pronounced enough to excite his wonder. I assure
you, we are not often astonished at the Central Office.
I caught my breath and shook my head. Of course, I knew nothing about
it. But it was something besides the amazing, unexpected intelligence of
Felix Page's death that struck me right between the eyes. With the
mention of his name, my mind cut one of those unaccountable capers which
everybody has at some time in his life experienced.
The names of Felix Page and Alfred Fluette had been before me in one way
or another for days; I had followed the remarkable wheat deal with about
the same degree of interest that animated everybody else who was not
immediately concerned; but not until this moment had it impressed me that
I knew something respecting Page which had not appeared in the papers in
connection with the corner. What was it?
But I could not remember. This was the scurvy trick my mind was playing.
I stood there staring at the others, and they sat staring at me. A
question was halted provokingly upon the very tip of my tongue, which,
despite a most earnest whipping of memory, remained obstinately elusive.
Felix Page! What particular, unusual circumstance was associated in my
mind with that name? Why should it come to flout me at this juncture
without revealing itself?
My ineffectual effort to remember was cut short by my chief. He scowled,
manifestly in perplexity at the way the news had affected me.
"These gentlemen," he said, with a gesture indicating the funereal
quartet, "were more or less associated with Mr. Page; he don't seem to
have had any close friends; but they can tell me nothing. Whatever line
you pick up, you must find the end of it at the scene of the crime--the
house. The address is on that card.
"Here 's all I know about it: It must have happened sometime during the
night; the report came in from Sheridan Park station about daylight.
Three men from there, Patrolmen Callahan and O'Brien and a plain-clothes
man named Stodger, are at the house holding two suspects until somebody
shows up from the Central Office. Stodger 's in a stew; can't seem to
make head nor tail of what's happened.
"You hurry, Swift," he curtly concluded; "this is too important a matter
to waste time over."
So it was. I saluted and hastily left him.
My brain was still in a whirl; my musings and the blunt, surprising
announcement had come too close together for me to regard the supposed
crime with unshaken equanimity. Then, too, I was still vainly striving
to drag from memory's hiding-place the tantalizing circumstance which I
somehow felt was pregnant with possibilities in the light of the
financier's death. What on earth was it? I thought of everything else I
had ever heard or read about the man.
But I was young--not only in the service, but in years as well--and this
was one of my first hard rubs with that heartless old pedagogue,
Experience.
Felix Page had enjoyed--I use the word advisedly--a widespread reputation
for eccentricity. The word, I held a secret conviction, was merely a
polite euphemism to cover his unscrupulous nature. Many acts of his were
condoned, or even laughed at, which would have been nothing short of
outrageous if performed by another. He had been widely exploited as a
"character"; in reality he had been a merciless old skinflint, with a
supreme disregard for the rights or pleasures of others.
Still, it is not to be denied that his eccentricity did reveal itself in
certain ways. After business hours he retired to a forlorn old mansion,
where he lived alone, without kindred (if he had any) or servants, save
for an ancient dame who came of mornings to prepare his breakfasts, and
to discharge, under his nagging supervision, the few domestic duties
necessary to meet his requirements.
Something like a half-hour after leaving the Central Office, I arrived at
the Page place. Stodger, a short, fat, good-natured chap, was awaiting
my arrival--evidently with some impatience, for he was stamping to and
fro before the gate for warmth. As soon as he learned my business he
conducted me up to the house.
On the way he gave me a hasty account of the crime, concerning which he
frankly and whimsically confessed to be very much at sea.
A description of the house and grounds is in order. The location was all
that could be desired, and would have been an ideal place of residence if
rehabilitated from its sorry condition of neglect. The house faced the
north end of Sheridan Park, a glimpse of whose lagoons could be caught
here and there among the leafless trees. It sat well back from the wide
boulevard, and, surrounded as it was by fine old elms and beeches and
maples, it reminded me of some antiquated English country home, such as I
have seen in pictures.
There were any number of chimney clusters; but the general air of the
place was extremely cold and forbidding. Notwithstanding it was
mid-winter and that an inch or more of snow lay on the ground, there was
not a wisp of smoke above any of the chimneys to indicate the welcome
presence of a fire below.
A high iron fence extending along the front of the property was divided
by a carriage entrance and a smaller gate for pedestrians. The former,
barring the way to a weed- and grass-grown drive, was hermetically sealed
by rust; while the other was just as permanently fixed open by the
accumulation of earth and gravel about its lower part. Two parallel rows
of ragged, untrimmed privet designated the tortuous way of the drive to
the unused _porte-cochère_.
"Nasty case," Stodger was imparting, in queer staccato sentences.
"Shouldn't have much difficulty, though; responsibility lies between two
men. Here all last night. Nobody else. Callahan and O'Brien holdin'
'em. One 's Page's private secretary; fellow named Burke--Alexander
Stilwell Burke. Peach of a monicker, ain't it? Has all three sections
on his cards.
"The other 's a young lawyer chap; calls himself Royal Maillot. I can't
pry out of either of 'em what _he_ was doing here."
"And nobody else, you say?" I asked when he paused.
"Nope--so _they_ say. Either one of 'em might have done it. They 're
down on each other for something; glare at each other like--like--you
know--cat and dog."
"Go on."
"Well, this fellow Burke--Alexander Stilwell--he comes to our shack some
time after two this A. M. Told the desk-sergeant old Page 'd been
croaked; wouldn't say anything more. Dippy? Say! Acted like somebody
'd slipped him a round o' knockout-drops. Sure thing, he did. Would n't
budge till old Grimes sent me back with him. I 'm only a license
inspector, too. This is what I--h'm-m--I butted into. Dev'lish cold,
ain't it?"
He had opened the front door and ushered me into a deep, wide hall. A
broad stairway, with carved oak balusters, rose on one side to a landing
which formed a sort of balcony over the rear end of the hall, and thence
continued up to the second story.
With his concluding words, Stodger pointed up to the landing, through
whose balusters I could see a hand and a part of a motionless human form
stretched out at full length upon the floor.
"Felix Page--b'r-r--dead as a door-nail," Stodger now added. "Slugged
over the head with a heavy iron candlestick; find it lying there by him.
Think of all that wheat--and them ships crunching through the ice. Say,
it's pretty tough, ain't it? He was--but would you rather make an
examination first? Or shall I go on?"
I smiled at the man's air of vast importance, which discriminated not at
all between grave matters and light. With his queer "hum's" and "haw's,"
his funny little exclamatory noises and quick, jerky manner of speech, he
reminded me of a jolly diminutive priest who had just dined well. Never
was mortal freer of affectation. And his cheerfulness? It was as
expansive and as volatile as ether. His buoyancy was a perpetual,
never-failing tonic for doubt and discouragement, and I have yet to
witness him confronted with a situation that could in the least dash his
spirits.
He awaited my reply to his question with an air which suggested that
nothing less important than the well-being of his very existence was at
stake.
"Tell me what you have learned," returned I. Things usually acquire a
more comprehensible aspect when you have a few facts by which to measure
and weigh them, and I wanted to hear Stodger's story.
"Yip!" he cried cheerily. "Might as well sit here as anywhere else;
nobody to disturb us."
Weighted as he was with surplus flesh, his agility was amazing. He
wheeled round and plumped down on an oak bench, not unlike a church pew,
which stood against the panelled stairway beyond the newel. As I
followed I drew my overcoat closer about me, for the hall was cold and
dismal.
"This fellow Burke--Alexander Stilwell; queer chap. Close-mouthed?
Say!"--he squared around and tapped my chest with an impressive
forefinger--"a clam 's real noisy compared with him. Fact. Watched me
steady all the time I--you know--looked at the body."
Stodger stopped abruptly, with the manner of one to whom has occurred a
sudden brilliant idea. He thumped one fat knee with a pudgy hand, and
whispered with suppressed eagerness:
"By jinks, Swift! I have it! I 'll get Burke--Alexander Stilwell. Let
him talk--in there"--with a violent gesture toward the opposite side of
the hall--"library. What say? There's a--you know--alcove--curtains. I
'll hide behind 'em and listen; if he don't tell the story just like he
did to me, why, we 'll call the turn on him. See?"
For various reasons I thought the idea not a bad one, and said so.
Stodger was off up the stairs like a shot. He went nimbly round the
prostrate figure on the landing without so much as a look toward it, and
disappeared.
He and another man appeared, after a while, at the back of the hall,
having evidently availed themselves of a rear stairway.
I surveyed the private secretary with much interest, and must even now
confess, after no inconsiderable study of the human face, that I have
never since beheld one that was so utterly baffling.
He was a slender man of medium height, and of an age that might have been
anything between twenty and fifty; his eyes, hair, brows, and lashes were
all of a uniform shade of pale yellow--excepting that the eyes had a
greenish tint--while his face and thin, nervous hands wore a dead,
unwholesome pallor.
The effect was extraordinary. The ageless face looked as if it did not
know how to conform to or mirror any inward emotion; and furthermore, one
was never precisely positive whether or not the pale eyes were following
one, for they somehow, in their uncertain fixedness, suggested the idea
that they were windows behind which the real eyes were incessantly
vigilant. So it was when Stodger introduced him; I could not tell
whether he was watching me or my colleague--or, in truth, whether he was
watching either of us.
"Mr. Burke, Mr. Swift," said Stodger, with a grand air--"Mr. Alexander
Stilwell Burke." Then, in a hoarse aside to me:
"Little matter I want to look after; just 'tend to it while you two are
talking."