THE REWARD
Cunningham and the fragrance of Rose Jacqueminot! Cunningham and a
yellow satin sachet embroidered in blue!
These words kept pounding in my brain and though I went over them in the
light of the facts which we had gleaned, I could see no plausible reason
for Cunningham's having committed that murder. He could have no possible
motive for wanting to harm Ruth since he did not know her, nor could I
believe, despite the gold and blue room, that he was in love with Cora
Manning. He had evidently never called on her at Gramercy Park or her
landlady would have described him to us, and it was not likely that
being engaged to Lee, Cora Manning would have received the advances of
other men, at least so I judged from the manner in which Ruth had spoken
of her.
Cunningham's explanations, too, had been eminently satisfactory, and had
cleared him even in McKelvie's eyes, as far as I could judge last night.
Besides, it wasn't as though Cunningham were the sole possessor of one
of those sachets.
McKelvie was in much the same position as that robber in "Ali Baba and
the Forty Thieves," of which I used to be fond in my childhood days,
that robber who led his chief to the cross-marked house only to discover
that all the neighboring houses were also cross-marked. As a clue, then,
the fragrance of Rose Jacqueminot and the yellow satin sachet were as
useless as the robber's chalk-mark.
It might also be that Cunningham's use of that particular fragrance, and
his acquaintance with a woman who also affected yellow satin sachets
embroidered in blue, was one of those coincidences that often occur in
life, where truth is in many cases stranger than fiction.
As McKelvie had truly remarked, the trails crossed and recrossed until
the right one was lost to view in the labyrinth of paths. As I looked
back over the facts we had learned I was amazed to find how little real
progress we had made toward the solution. It was all conjecture and
except for Dick's ring, we had no clues which could rightly be termed
such. And when it came to suspects, Lee and Dick and Cunningham ran a
close race, though the greatest amount of evidence pointed toward Dick,
since McKelvie was inclined to hold Lee guiltless, and Cunningham had no
adequate motive.
About two o'clock McKelvie called at the office and found me alone.
"Can you spare me a few minutes?" he inquired, as he glanced at the work
on my desk.
"I should say so," I returned quickly, pushing aside my papers.
"Anything new?"
"No, I've come to the end of my tether--"
"You don't mean that you're giving up the case?" I interrupted,
dismayed.
He laughed. "Giving up the case when it's just becoming exciting? You
don't know me, Mr. Davies," he cried, and his voice was exultant, his
eyes fairly dancing. "I was going to say that I have reached the point
where skirmishing in the dark is no longer satisfactory. I'm coming out
in the open and I'm going to fight him with the plan of campaign spread
out for him to read."
"You think that is wise?"
"Yes, decidedly so. I'm going to let him know I'm after him, and then
we'll watch him struggle to escape my net," he declared.
"Then you know who the criminal is?" I asked.
"No. I suspect, but I have no proof," he replied. "Ah, he's a clever
devil, that fellow, and we're just beginning to break below the surface
in this affair. Here's my scheme."
He drew from his pocket a folded sheet, opened it, and handed it to me
with the remark, "I've distributed copies of that around the city."
I looked at the sheet, which still smelled strongly of the printer's
ink, and saw that it was a hand-bill offering a reward of one thousand
dollars for any authentic information which might lead to the discovery
of the present whereabouts of Lee Darwin, last seen about four o'clock
at the corner of Twenty-fifth Street and Third Avenue, on the afternoon
of October the eighth. There followed a description of the young man,
accompanied by his photograph and the added announcement that the reward
would be paid by Graydon McKelvie, at No. -- Stuyvesant Square.
"Ought to bring results, eh? When some six million people become
interested in finding him we ought to locate him in short order."
"What makes you think he is in New York?" I inquired.
"Wilkins returned yesterday morning and reported that Lee never went
South at all. There is no trace of his having gone there. So I started
Wilkins at this end again. Last night when I got back from Cunningham's,
Wilkins was waiting for me. He had discovered that Lee had taken a taxi
as far as Third Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street. After that he vanished
completely. So the presumption is that he is still in the city."
"In the city and in hiding," I mused. "Yet you said the night we chased
the criminal, that in accusing Lee you were putting the true culprit off
his guard by making him think you had no interest in him. That would
imply Lee's innocence, yet what other possible motive could he have for
disappearing?"
"There are two reasons for his disappearance, as far as I can see. One
is the assumption that he is the criminal. This reason, as you remarked,
I have discarded. Lee did not kill his uncle. I'll tell you why I make
this assertion." He rose abruptly and took a turn around the room, then
halted in front of me again. "You saw and heard him at the inquest? How
did he impress you, as regards his character, I mean?"
"He struck me as being a rather passionate, quick-tempered chap, one who
also possessed the power of self-control. He has a frank face and clear
eyes. Also I've heard Mr. Trenton say in discussing him that he is a
fine, upright boy, and that he liked him very much indeed," I replied.
"Passionate and quick-tempered," repeated McKelvie. "Is he the type to
commit murder in cold-blood?"
"No. In a moment of passionate anger, yes, but not in cold-blood," I
returned with conviction.
"Just what I decided from the first, and as this murder was
premeditated, that let's him out. Now for the second reason for his
disappearance. He was engaged to Cora Manning, yet he denied knowing
her. When the coroner showed him the handkerchief he was in mortal dread
that he would recognize it as hers. Therefore he knew something of what
took place in the study, in which Miss Manning was involved. Or,
perhaps, he knew of her intended visit to the Darwin home. However that
may be, he knew something of importance. He left the inquest before all
the evidence was brought in, therefore he was in ignorance of the
verdict when he returned to the Club. Nevertheless he was a menace to
the criminal's plan to implicate Mrs. Darwin, for Lee would come forward
and tell what he knew the moment he learned of Mrs. Darwin's
predicament. What does the criminal do then? He decoys Lee from the Club
with a telegram, and keeps him a prisoner somewhere in the city, to
prevent him from giving evidence."
"What a fiend the man must be!" I exclaimed. "But how did he know so
quickly that Lee was a menace to him. The papers were hardly out by that
time," I added.
"Because he was at the inquest, and he deduced danger to himself from
Lee's actions," replied McKelvie. "That is, of course, he must have been
there to act so promptly since he has no confederate, I am sure. There
were any number of extra persons in the room. He could easily form one
of the curious, or disguise himself as a reporter, or any other
character that happened to occur to him. He is daring enough to have
impersonated the District Attorney himself."
I agreed. "But, in that event, when the man realizes you are after Lee
because you need his evidence, for of course he will see your reward,
won't he murder the boy to get rid of him? He seems to be capable of any
outrage."
"Unfortunately that is a risk I shall have to run. Now that I am
persuaded that the criminal is holding Lee a prisoner I've got to rescue
him, since the murderer is not likely to hamper himself with the boy
overlong--if he hasn't done away with him already. We have wasted much
valuable time following a false lead. Well, it can't be helped now, and
there is nothing to be gained by crying over spilt milk. Wilkins is
combing the East Side and I hope to have news in a few hours. From now
on it's a fight to the finish," he ended, exultantly. "I have shown the
criminal my hand. I want Lee, and the man I'm ultimately going to get
will do his best to balk me--if he can."
"Here's to our side," I said, catching his enthusiasm. "And remember
that I want to be in on anything that happens."
"Right. I won't forget you."
But he did, for I heard nothing further from him during the remainder of
the afternoon, which I spent in an endeavor to pin my mind to market
quotations which I considered merely trivial beside the problem that was
worrying me, and when I called his house that evening Dinah reported
that he had gone out and she had no idea when he would return.
Disappointedly I sought my favorite chair and my pipe, offering Mr.
Trenton a cigar, which he declined. He had been to see Ruth that
afternoon and as usual after such a visit he was very disheartened. I
tried to cheer him, but with little success, since my feelings coincided
so accurately with his own and I could ill bear the thought of Ruth in
that dreadful place day after day, with no hope of release. I finally
turned in, determined to forget my troubles in oblivion. But I could not
sleep. Over and over I reviewed the case, particularly the latest phases
of it, and wondered if Dick's ring in the secret room, where it
certainly had no business to be, might not serve as a clue upon which to
secure Ruth's release. Then my mind wandered to Lee and the girl of the
perfume, to Cunningham and the gold-and-blue room, until gradually it
seemed to me that a delicious fragrance pervaded the room, and I drifted
into the land of dreams.
And in that sleep I dreamed a weird and awful dream. I thought I stood
in the secret room behind the safe, which somehow resembled the
gold-and-blue room in Cunningham's apartment, and as I stood there
breathing the fragrance of Rose Jacqueminot a man dashed by me and
entered the study. He had a pistol in his hand and as he fired at
Darwin, whom I could see dimly in the distance, I heard a woman shriek.
Then the man came back, dragging a girl by the arm, and as he went by me
he dropped Dick's ring at my feet, and turned toward me such a face as I
hope never to see even in my dreams again. It was the face of a demon
distorted by passion, and it bore no resemblance to anyone I knew, or
rather, it was a composite of those concerned in the case, for he had
Dick's eyes, Lee's nose and chin, and Cunningham's red hair. A moment I
looked into his mad eyes and then I saw him raise his arm and fire at
the girl and I realized with horror that she was Ruth. With a cry I
flung myself toward him--and woke with my arms around my pillow.