“As long as I am back in the city,” continued Kennedy, while we stared
at one another, wondering what next move to make, “I think that I
had better take the opportunity to make some investigations in my
laboratory which would be impossible out at Westport.”
In the mean time Burke had been examining the burglar’s microphone,
turning it over and over thoughtfully, as if in the hope that it might
furnish some clue.
“It might have been possible,” he ruminated, “for some one to get into
the building at night if the night watchman was off his guard and he
had a key to the building. I suppose he might get out again, too, under
the same circumstances.”
“A good lead,” agreed Kennedy. “While you are finding the night
watchman and getting anything else along that line of reconstructing
what actually did take place it will give me just the chance I need.
Let us meet in two or three hours――say, at Mr. Hastings’s office. Let
me see, I believe your firm is Hastings & Halsey, isn’t it?”
“Hastings & Halsey,” repeated the lawyer. “You are quite welcome to
meet again there. You know where it is, on Wall Street?”
We noted the number and Kennedy and I hurried up-town to the laboratory
which we had left only a few short hours before.
Already there were waiting for him, by special messenger, the materials
from the autopsy which had been promised by the Westport coroner, who
for once had appreciated the importance of a case and had acted with
speed and decision.
Kennedy lost no time in throwing off his coat and donning his
acid-stained smock. For some minutes I watched him in silence as he
arranged his jars and beakers and test-tubes for the study which he
had in mind. He had taken some of the material and placed it over a
Bunsen burner in an apparatus which looked like a miniature still.
Another apparatus which he took from a cabinet was disposed on a table.
It seemed to consist primarily of three tubes. In one was a slit, and
through the slit evidently rays of light were caused to stream. Inside
I saw a lens. Each of the tubes seemed to radiate from a triangular
prism of some substance that looked like glass. Two of the radiating
tubes had an eye-piece and on one was a sort of scale.
As Kennedy made these rapid preparations he paused now and then to
study carefully the slivers of bright metal he had picked up from the
carpet in the state-room, while on a porcelain plate he placed the
powder which he had scraped from the brass fittings.
“I’m not doing you a bit of good here, Craig,” I remarked, at length.
“Isn’t there something I can do while you are working? I can come back
here in time to go down and meet Hastings and Burke with you.”
He paused a moment. “Yes,” he replied, “there is something that you
might be doing. I have been wondering just how intimate that little
Mexican dancer was with Marshall Maddox and whether Shelby actually
knew her in New York before he met her out at Westport the other night.
I think you might make some inquiries along that line, and by the time
you find anything you may find me more interesting also.”
Glad of the opportunity to be of service, for anything was better than
to sit about idle in the present high-keyed state of my nerves, I
started out.
My first impulse was to visit the New Amsterdam Club, one of the oldest
clubs in the city, of which I knew that Maddox had been a member.
I knew several men who were members, and I was sure that among them I
might find some one at the club at that time, and perhaps either from
him learn something of Maddox or at least obtain an introduction to
some one who did know.
I found that I had not acted without reason. In the big window that
overlooked Fifth Avenue, ensconced in the deep leather chairs, looking
out on the fashionable throng of shoppers who passed up and down the
Avenue, I found several men, among whom was Conigsby, whom I had known
for some time as assiduous first-nighter and man about town.
Conigsby welcomed me and I soon saw that the topic of conversation was
the reports that all had been reading in the papers about the mystery
that shrouded the death of Marshall Maddox.
“Peculiar fellow, Maddox,” commented Conigsby. “What do the boys down
on the _Star_ have to say about the case, Jameson?”
I had no desire to commit myself, yet I wanted to glean as much as I
could. For although we are prone to accuse the ladies of gossip, I
think most men will back me up when I say that there is no place for
the genuine article that cannot be beaten by a comfortable window in
a club where congenial spirits have gathered over a succession of
brandies and soda.
“It promises to be the great case of the year,” I returned, guardedly.
“So far, I understand there is much more in the life of Maddox than
even some of his friends suspect.”
At the mere suggestion of scandal all eyes were fixed on me. Yet I was
determined to speak in riddles and betray nothing, in the hope that
some of them might open up a rich vein of inquiry.
Conigsby laughed. “Perhaps more than _some_ of his friends
imagined――yes,” he repeated.
“Why, what was it?” inquired one of the group. “Is there another woman
in the case? I thought Maddox was divorced.”
“So he was,” returned the clubman. “I knew his wife, Irene, before they
were married. Really, it was a shame the way that man treated her.
I can claim no special virtue,” he added, with a shrug, “but then I
haven’t a wife――not so much as a friend who would care whether I was
here or in No Man’s Land. But Maddox――well, he was one of those men
who have worked hard all their lives, but in middle age seem to begin
sowing the wild oats they failed to sow in youth. You know the kind. I
guess he must have reached the dangerous age for men, if there is such
a thing.”
“What was it――chorus girls?” chimed in the other, ever ready for a
spicy bit of gossip.
“Yes――lately cabaret dancers――one in particular――at The White Light――a
little Mexican――Paquita.”
“What――Paquita?” chorused the group, and I could see by the inflection
that she was not unknown to several of them. “You don’t say. Well, you
must admit he was a good picker.”
“I rather suspect that his acquaintance cost him high, though,”
persisted Conigsby. “Paquita has a scale of prices. It costs so much to
take dinner with her. She’ll drive out of an afternoon with you――but
you must pay. There’s a union scale.”
“It takes dough to make tarts,” frivolously suggested another of the
group, forgetful of the tragedy that they were discussing.
Indeed, I was amazed at the nonchalant attitude they took. Yet, on
analysis, I concluded that it also might be significant. No doubt the
estimate of Maddox by his club members was more accurate than that of
the world at large.
“If it had been Shelby,” put in another man, “I wouldn’t have been
surprised.”
“Don’t worry,” interposed Conigsby. “Shelby Maddox is clever. Remember,
Shelby is young. Underneath his wildness there is ambition. I think
you’ll hear more of that boy before we are through. I know him, and
he’s likely to prove a chip off the old Maddox block. Nothing that
Shelby does would surprise me.”
“How about the other sister, Frances?” inquired another. “Do you know
her husband, Walcott?”
“Not very well. You’re more likely to find him on Broad Street than
Broadway. You know what I care for Broad Street. I’d never visit it
if my bankers were not down there. Walcott has a deuced pretty little
sister, though. I hear that Shelby is quite smitten.”
“Well, whatever you may think of him, I have seen Shelby Maddox with
Paquita, too. I’ll lay you a little bet that that little baggage knows
something about the case. Remember, the murder was on Shelby’s yacht.”
Conigsby shrugged. “Quite possible――another case of notoriety for The
White Light.”
“Notoriety for Paquita, you mean,” corrected another. “I hear she plans
to get back into musical comedy this fall. She’s not at The White Light
any longer.”
“Well, I think she’ll make good,” agreed Conigsby. “I wonder who the
angel is for her new show?”
The conversation was now hopelessly drifting, and I excused myself. At
least I had learned enough to give me an insight into another phase of
the life of Marshall Maddox.
Pondering what I had just heard, I decided to wander over toward the
café and theater district, and drop into the cabaret which they had
mentioned――The White Light.
As I entered the place in broad daylight I was struck by the sordidness
of it. Deserted except by those who were cleaning up for the coming
late afternoon and evening, it was positively tawdry. It needed the
glamour of bright faces and night life, and even then it must be viewed
through the bottom of a glass to wear even the semblance of attraction.
In the main dining-room of the café, grouped about the little dancing
floor before the platform on which sat the orchestra when things were
in full swing, stood innumerable little white tables. Just now there
seemed to be no one there except a man at the piano and a girl who was
evidently rehearsing her dance steps.
I paused for a moment and a waiter who had been arranging the tables
for the coming crowd moved over to tell me that the place was not yet
open.
I satisfied him that it was on other business that I had come, then
asked him whether Paquita was at The White Light any more.
“No, sir,” he replied, brusquely. “She hasn’t been here for several
days. I’ve heard that she has gone away to the country――has another
contract. It is a rehearsal for the girl who is to do her number that
is going on now. Is there anything I can do for you?”
I thanked him. It was not the waiter I wanted, but the proprietor,
Henri.
In a little office in the rear I at last discovered him, a rather
stout, genial Frenchman who had made a reputation as one of New York’s
restaurateurs to the _risqué_. I had known Henri once when I had the
assignment on the _Star_ that covered the theater and hotel district,
and I had no fear that he would not talk.
“Well, Henri,” I began cautiously, “I suppose you saw in the papers
this morning about your friend, Marshall Maddox?”
Henri, who was matching up checks showing the business done up to an
early hour of the morning, shrugged. “Monsieur was more the friend of
La Paquita than of me,” he returned, still matching checks.
“Still, he came here a great deal,” I asserted, taking a chance.
“_Oui_,” he agreed, “but it was not to see us. Always La Paquita, La
Paquita. So different from his brother.”
“Indeed?” I queried, quite overjoyed at the turn the conversation was
taking. “Then you know Shelby, too?”
“Ver’ well. Oh yes. He has been here. A fine fellow, but――it is all
right. Business is not for him. He is always ready for the good time――a
sport, you call it?”
I smiled. “Was he a friend of Paquita’s, too?” I hazarded, watching
Henri’s face.
He lifted his eyebrows a fraction of an inch. “No more than of the
rest,” he returned, with a deprecating gesture. “Pretty faces and
figures all look good to Shelby,” he added, with a smile; then,
seriously: “But he will settle down. We will see him here no more, some
day. Also I know his brother-in-law, Messtair Walcott. I do not like
him.”
“Why?” I asked, somewhat amused at getting his point of view.
“Too quiet. He will come in, not often, perhaps, bow, maybe speak, then
go away.”
I thought I “got” him. One must be a good spender to appeal to Henri.
I could not imagine Johnson Walcott as such. In fact, I could scarcely
imagine him coming to Henri’s at all.
“Paquita was quite intimate with Marshall Maddox, wasn’t she?” I
ventured again.
Henri brought into play his ready shrug. It was not for him to say
anything about his patrons, much less about the dead. Still, his very
manner gave the impression that his lips would not frame.
“Did any one ever seem to be watching him here?” I asked, the thought
of the sallow-faced man at Westport recurring to my mind.
Henri stopped matching his checks and looked up. Was he growing
suspicious of my disinterestedness?
“Such things are not unusual,” he answered, showing a fine assortment
of ivory beneath his black mustache.