THE STURGIS WAGER
A Detective Story
BY EDGAR MORETTE
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
CONTENTS
I. THE CABMAN'S FARE
II. THE WAGER
III. DOCTOR MURDOCK'S PROBLEM
IV. THE BANK PRESIDENT
V. A FOUNDATION OF FACTS
VI. THE ARTIST
VII. AGNES MURDOCK
VIII. THE PORTRAIT
IX. THE KNICKERBOCKER BANK
X. PIECING THE EVIDENCE
XI. A RECONSTRUCTED DRAMA
XII. THE BOOKKEEPER'S CONFESSION
XIII. THE LOST TRAIL
XIV. THE LETTER
XV. TWO LOVERS
XVI. THE ROENTGEN RAYS
XVII. THE QUARRY
XVIII. THE EXTENSION
XIX. THE UNDERGROUND PASSAGE
XX. THE LEAD-LINED VAT
XXI. THE DEATH CHAMBER
XXII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
XXIII. THE SPEAKING-TUBE
XXIV. CHECKMATE!
XXV. THE MURDER SYNDICATE
The Sturgis Wager.
CHAPTER I.
THE CABMAN'S FARE.
It was bitterly cold. The keen December wind swept down the crowded
thoroughfare, nipping the noses and ears of the gay pedestrians,
comfortably muffled in their warm wraps.
Broadway was thronged with the usual holiday shoppers and
pleasure-seekers. Cabs with their jaded steeds driven by weatherbeaten
jehus, and private carriages behind well-groomed horses handled by
liveried coachmen, deftly made their way through the crowds and
deposited their fares at the entrances of the brightly lighted theaters
or fashionable restaurants. A wizened hag, seated on the curbstone at
the corner, seemed to shrink into herself with the cold as she turned
the crank of her tiny barrel-organ and ground out a dismal and scarcely
audible cacophony; while an anxious-eyed newsboy, not yet in his
teens, shivered on the opposite side of the way, as, with tremulous
lips, he solicited a purchaser for his unsold stock. One could hardly
be expected to open a warm overcoat on such a night, at the risk of
taking cold, for the sake of throwing a cent to an old beggar woman, or
of buying a newspaper from a ragged urchin. Even the gaily decorated
shop windows failed to arrest the idle passers-by; for it required
perpetual motion to keep the blood in circulation.
The giant policeman on the crossing, representing the majesty of
the law, swayed the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians with the
authoritative gestures of his ponderous hands, and gallantly escorted
bands of timid women through the inextricable moving maze.
And withal, the cable cars, with their discordant clangor, rumbled
rapidly to and fro, like noisy shuttles, shooting the woof of the
many-hued fabric which is the life of a great city.
Presently from one of the side streets there came a cab, which started
leisurely to cross Broadway. The big policeman, with his eyes fixed
upon an approaching car, held up a warning hand, to which the driver
seemed to pay no attention, for the reins remained slack and the
listless horse continued to move slowly across the avenue.
Several people turned to look with mild curiosity at the bold cabman
who dared thus to disregard the authority of blue cloth and brass
buttons. Their surprise changed quickly to amazement and dismay when
their eyes rested upon him; for his head had fallen forward upon his
chest and his limp body swayed upon the box with every motion of the
cab. He seemed unconscious of his surroundings, like one drunk or in a
stupor.
At his side sat a young man closely muffled in his overcoat, and with a
sealskin cap pulled well down over his ears. His face was deathly pale.
Those who caught sight of his features saw that his bloodless lips
were firmly set, and that his eyes glittered with a feverish light. He
carried one hand in the lapel of his coat. With the other he shook the
inert form of the unconscious cabman, in a vain effort to arouse him to
a sense of the impending danger.
The situation flashed upon the gripman on the car. Instantly he threw
his weight upon the brakewheel, at the same time loudly sounding his
gong. The policeman, too, understood in a twinkling what was about to
happen, and rushed for the horse's head. But it was too late. The cab
was fairly across the track when the car, with slackened speed, crashed
into it.
Just before the collision, the young man in the sealskin cap sprang
from the box to the street. He landed upon his feet; but, losing his
balance, he fell forward upon his left arm, which still remained in
the lapel of his coat. He must have hurt himself; for those standing
near him heard him groan. But the center of interest was elsewhere,
and no one paid much attention to the young man, who, arising quickly,
disappeared in the crowd.
The cab, after tottering for an instant on two wheels, fell over
upon its side, with a loud noise of splintering wood and breaking
glass. The driver rolled off the box in a heap. At the same time,
the panic-stricken passengers on the car rushed madly for the doors,
fighting like wild beasts in their haste to reach a place of safety.
After the first frenzied moment, it became evident that, although badly
shaken up, the passengers had received no injuries, except such bruises
as they had inflicted upon each other in their mad struggle to escape.
By this time a crowd had collected about the overturned cab, and
several more policemen had come to the assistance of the first one, who
was now seated serenely upon the head of the cab-horse, a precaution
seemingly superfluous, for the poor beast, though uninjured, appeared
to be quite satisfied to rest where he lay until he should be forced
once more to resume the grind of his unhappy existence.
The cabman had been rudely shaken by his fall. He had lain as though
unconscious for the space of a few seconds; then, with assistance, he
had managed to struggle to his feet. He stood now as though dazed by
the shock, trying to understand what had happened.
"Are you hurt?" inquired one of the policemen.
The man, mumbling an unintelligible reply, raised his hand to a scalp
wound from which the blood was flowing rather freely.
At that moment two men forced their way through the crowd which a
circle of policemen had some difficulty in keeping at a distance from
the wounded cabman. One was a middle-aged individual, who gave his name
as Doctor Thurston and offered his services as a physician; the other
was a young man with keen gray eyes, who said nothing, but exhibited a
reporter's badge.
The physician at once turned his attention to the cabman; felt him,
thumped him, pinched him; smelt his breath; and then delivered his
verdict:
"No bones broken. The slight scalp wound doesn't amount to anything.
The man has been drinking heavily. He is simply drunk."
The horse had by this time been unharnessed and the cab had been lifted
upon its wheels again.
The reporter stood by a silent and apparently listless spectator of the
scene.
Doctor Thurston turned to him:
"Come along, Sturgis; neither you nor I are needed here; and if we do
not hurry, Sprague's dinner will have to wait for us. It is a quarter
to eight now."
The reporter seemed about to follow his friend, but he stood for an
instant irresolute.
"I say, Doctor," he inquired at last, "are you sure the man is drunk?"
"He has certainly been drinking heavily. Why?"
"Because it seems to me----Hello, we cannot go yet; the passenger is
more badly hurt than the driver."
"The passenger?" queried the physician, turning in surprise to the
policeman.
"What passenger?" asked the policeman, looking at the cabman. "Have you
a passenger inside, young feller?"
"Naw," replied the cabman, who seemed to be partially sobered by the
shock and loss of blood. "Naw, I aint got no fare, barrin' the man wot
was on the box."
The reporter observed the man closely as he spoke; and then, pointing
to the step of the cab, which was plainly visible in the glare of a
neighboring electric lamp:
"I mean the passenger whose blood is trickling there," he said quietly.
Every eye was turned in the direction of his outstretched hand.
A few drops of a thick dark liquid had oozed from under the door,
and was dripping upon the iron step. The cab door was closed and the
curtain was drawn down over the sash, the glass of which had been
shattered by the fall.
One of the policemen tried to open the door. It stuck in the jamb.
Then he exerted upon it the whole of his brute strength; and, of a
sudden, it yielded. As it flew open, the body of a man lurched from the
inside of the cab, and before any one could catch it, tumbled in a heap
upon the pavement.
A low cry of horror escaped from the crowd.
The cabman's passenger was a man past middle age, neatly but plainly
dressed.
As Doctor Thurston and a policeman bent over the prostrate form, the
reporter shot a keen glance in the direction of the cabman, who stood
staring at the body with a look of ghastly terror in his bulging eyes.
Presently the physician started to his feet with a low exclamation of
surprise.
"Is he dead, Doctor?" asked the policeman.
"He has been dead for some time," replied the physician, impressively;
"the body is almost cold."
"Been dead for some time?" echoed the policeman.
"Yes; this man was shot. See there!"
As he spoke, he pointed to a red streak which, starting from the left
side of the dead man's coat, extended downward and marked the course
of the tiny stream in which the life blood had flowed to a little pool
on the floor of the cab.
"Shot!" exclaimed the policeman, who turned immediately to one of his
brother officers. "Keep your eye on the cabman, Jim. We'll have to take
him in. And look out for the other man, quick!"
Then, addressing the cabman, upon each of whose shoulders a policeman's
hand was immediately placed, he asked roughly:
"Who is this man?"
The cabman was completely sober now. He stood, pale and trembling,
between his two captors, as he replied solemnly:
"Before God, I don't know, boss. I never saw him before."
The policeman looked at the man in blank amazement for an instant. Then
he turned away contemptuously:
"All right, young feller," he said, "you don't have to confess to me.
But I guess you'll have a chance to tell that story to a judge and
jury."
Then he proceeded to examine the dead man's pockets. They were empty.
"Looks like robbery," he murmured. "What is it, Jim? Haven't you got
the other man?"
Jim had not found the other man; for the pale young fellow in the
sealskin cap had disappeared.
The reporter was stooping over the body, while Doctor Thurston cut
through the clothing and laid bare a small round wound.
"Here is another bullet wound," said Sturgis, turning over the body
slightly, and pointing out a second round hole in the back of the dead
man.
He seemed to take great interest in this discovery. He whipped out a
steel tape and rapidly but carefully took a number of measurements,
as if to locate the positions of the two wounds. Then he stepped into
the cab; and, striking match after match, he spent several minutes
apparently in eager search for something which he could not find.
"That is strange," he muttered to himself, as he came out at last.
"What is it?" inquired Thurston, who alone had caught the words.
But the reporter either did not hear or did not care to answer. He at
once renewed his search on the brilliantly lighted pavement in the
immediate vicinity of the cab; examining every stone, investigating
every joint and every rut, prodding with his cane every lump of frozen
mud, turning every stray scrap of paper.
"Well, Doctor," he said, when at length he rejoined his companion,
"if you have done all that you can we may as well go. It is one of
the prettiest problems I have met; but there is nothing more for me
to learn here for the present. By the way, as I was saying when I
interrupted myself a little while ago; are you sure the cabman is
drunk? I wish you would take another good look at him. The question may
be more important than it seemed at first."
A few minutes later, the physician and the reporter were hurrying along
to make up for the time they had lost; the cab and the cabman had
disappeared in the custody of the police, and the cabman's grewsome
fare was jolting through Twenty-sixth Street, in the direction of a
small building which stands near the East River, and in which the
stranded waifs of the new-world metropolis can find rest at last, upon
a stone slab, in the beginning of their eternal sleep.
Broadway had resumed its holiday aspect; the wizened hag at the corner
still patiently ground out her plaintive discords; the tearful
newsboy, with his slowly diminishing armful of newspapers, continued
to shiver in the cold wind, as he offered his stock to the hurrying
pedestrians; the big policeman again piloted his fair charges through
the mass of moving vehicles, and the clanging cable cars started once
more on their rumbling course, as if the snapping of a thread in the
fabric of the city's life were a thing of constant occurrence and of no
moment.
A few tiny dark red stains upon the pavement were all that remained to
tell the story of the scene which had so recently been enacted in the
busy thoroughfare. Presently even these were obliterated by the random
stroke of a horse's hoof.
The ripple had disappeared from the surface. The stream of life was
flowing steadily once more through the arteries of the metropolis.