common. His shifty eye, never meeting yours for any considerable length
of time, made a very unfavorable impression on me. It is not that all
private detectives, or perhaps even a considerable number, in view of
the many in the profession, are of this class. But there are altogether
too many of his type and they are a decided menace to their branch of
the profession and to society in general. I refer to the type that
euphoniously "furnishes" evidence--but unscrupulously goes to the
length, if necessary, of actually manufacturing it. They are to their
profession what the yellow journalist is to mine, the quack doctor to
the medical profession--pariahs.
"Well," prodded Doyle, "tell us what you found."
Again there was no answer.
"Come--speak up. Tell us. You might as well tell now as to do it later."
Still he said nothing. Slowly Rascon drew from his breast pocket a
tissue-paper flimsy sheet, a carbon copy of some typewriting, such as
some agencies frequently use on which to make their reports to their
clients.
"Read it!" demanded Doyle.
Slowly Rascon read:
"June 20. Wilford case. Operative No. 1.
"I picked up Mrs. Wilford at the door of the apartment at
11:15 A.M. She took a taxi to the Piccadilly Hotel.
"There she went in and I followed her to the telephone. I
got into the next booth and tried to listen through the
partition, but I was too late. She left immediately.
"From the Piccadilly I trailed her to the Plaza, just above
Fifty-ninth Street, on Fifth Avenue. There was a touring-car
waiting by the curb. In it she met Mr. Shattuck.
"I had time to hail a taxi as they were preparing to drive
away and followed. They turned and went down-town. I followed
through traffic across the Bridge and through Brooklyn. On
the Parkway the touring-car pulled away from me, but not
before I was convinced it was headed for the Beach. I had the
number, 97531, and the description.
"At the Beach House I picked the car up again. Located the
parties at luncheon. I waited about. They did not start back
until four o'clock. I followed and he left her at the Subway
at the Grand Central.
"She returned to the apartment, about quarter to six.
"I waited outside until relieved by operative No. 6."
"Was that all that happened?" I asked quickly. "They merely rode down
to the beach and had lunch together?"
Rascon again did not reply. I could not even catch his eye as I asked
the question.
"Just a moment, Jameson," interrupted Doyle. Then, leading the
detective on, "Now, Rascon, what did your employer, Mr. Wilford, say
when that report was presented to him?"
Rascon colored at the question, as Doyle had evidently intended that he
should.
"He never saw it."
Doyle glowed with satisfaction, as though he were a lawyer bringing
out the facts by cross-examination. He nodded to Kennedy and me as if
we were a jury. Doyle was merely getting his facts into the record,
as it were. Already he had quizzed Rascon into a state of anger and
resentment out of which the truth might be expected to slip unaware.
"Never saw it?" thundered Doyle. "What do you mean?"
There was only silence from Rascon. Then, as Doyle threatened, he
answered, surlily, "Mrs. Wilford paid me for the report--that is, for
the copy of it."
A moment Doyle regarded him, then his virtuous ire rose into towering
wrath, even as though he had just heard the thing now for the first
time.
"She paid you for it! You dirty hound--that's blackmail!"
Kennedy interrupted. "Is it true?" he demanded, tapping the sheet of
paper which he had taken and read hastily to make sure that nothing had
been omitted in the first reading. "Did she meet Shattuck?"
The detective scowled to himself.
"Is it true--tell him," shouted Doyle, brandishing a menacing fist in
Rascon's face.
The detective, himself a bulldozer when he had the chance, was
bulldozed, even as a German might be frightened by a taste of his own
frightfulness.
"N-no," he stammered.
"But had you made similar reports to Mr. Wilford?" persisted Kennedy,
with some purpose.
"Oh yes--but not this one. She paid me for this. I played fair--I did,"
he almost whined.
"Hm! I see," measured Kennedy. "Mr. Wilford got similar reports--and
believed them?"
Rascon nodded a deprecating acquiescence. "I suppose so. He never
kicked or asked questions. I guess it was what he wanted to know--eh?"
It was not the flash of the detective's cynical lying that surprised
me, but Craig's remark and what might be implied in it by the narrowing
of Craig's eyes as he asked it and received the answer that he had
apparently expected.
I glanced at Craig hastily. What did he mean by the inflection of his
voice and by the look?
Hastily I tried to make it out. If the report of this Rascon had been
true, did it not seem to explain and motivate Honora? But, I reasoned
immediately, even if it were untrue and if Wilford believed those
reports he received and wanted to believe, was there not just as
compelling a situation?
The thing was important and dangerous for her, either way one looked at
it.
A few more questions and it was evident that Rascon, in spite of the
baiting that Doyle had given him, was pretty well on guard and in
control of himself and would admit nothing unless Doyle had documentary
proof or something just as good. Doyle, not wishing to disclose the
limit of his information, turned the interview short.
"That'll do," dismissed Doyle. "You may go, Rascon. I'll have more from
you later."
Rascon backed out, sheepishly, eager to get away.
"I'll have his license revoked," muttered Doyle, calming down after the
stormy quizzing.
Doyle's contempt for Rascon knew no bounds. As for Rascon, I knew the
method he had adopted. Once Rascon, or any of that breed, had a case
involving clients with money, he proceeded to nurse the case along,
to play one party to the case against the other. But I had not often
run across cases where the crooked detective, who is a pest despised
by all honest detectives even more than by other people, had been so
brazen about collecting all the traffic would bear from each side,
indiscriminately.
"Why not ask Mrs. Wilford herself about it?" I suggested, as neither
Kennedy nor Doyle said anything.
"Better not--yet," objected Doyle, hastily. "I want to watch her a
little herself. I particularly bluffed Rascon into not telling her a
word of this."
"Oh, that's all right," acquiesced Craig.
I understood. It was Doyle's clue. He had been honest about it. He
had not held back the information from us. But it was his to pursue,
he figured. As for Craig, I knew that he would gladly keep his hands
off the thing. Besides, there was plenty for us to do in carrying out
the line of action which Kennedy had adopted, leaving the less subtle
things to Doyle.
"How did you find out about this fellow?" asked Craig, after a little
while.
"You remember Celeste?" answered Doyle, as though he had not yet
finished telling us what he had come to tell.
"The maid? Yes?"
"I saw Rascon hanging about the apartment--trying to see Celeste. I
watched. The dirty dog was trying to sell some more of the stuff to
Mrs. Wilford, the whole thing--make a final clean-up under threat of
handing it over to me if she didn't come across. Well," he laughed, "I
got it, anyhow. She ought to thank me. I saved her some money."
I did not like his tone toward Honora.
"Well," he went on, "as soon as I got the lead I investigated. Now
I'm convinced that Celeste was the go-between in the transactions.
I've made Celeste confess. She paid him the money for Mrs. Wilford. He
handed her copies of the fake reports which he agreed to 'kill' if
enough was paid for them. Oh, it was a slick game, taking advantage of
a situation."
I glanced at Kennedy. "Do you think Celeste can be relied on?" I asked.
He saw that I meant the test of her susceptibility to suggestion and
her inaccuracy.
"Ah, very true, Walter," he remarked. "But the reports themselves are
incontrovertible. True or false--they were made. Some of them Wilford
must have seen. Others she must have paid for. But the fact remains, no
matter what Celeste may be."
Doyle had been waiting impatiently for us to finish. Finally he nodded
mysteriously, then stepped to the door. He opened it, and there in the
hall I saw Celeste herself, with McCabe. The detective and the girl
entered. Celeste stared about, not quite knowing what to make of the
whole affair.
"Celeste," began Doyle, with an easy familiarity which I knew the
French maid resented deeply, "you saw that man who was here and went
away?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know him?"
"I have met the gentleman--two or three times."
"What happened on one of these occasions?"
Celeste paused. But Doyle was a forceful persuader to those who
hesitated. Celeste evidently considered that she had best say
something. That I knew was the danger--her readiness to say something,
no matter what, to follow out some purpose in her own mind. However,
knowing her attachment to Honora, I felt sure, as she went on, that
what she was telling us was wrung from her by compulsion and was not
said merely as so many words.
"Madame she asked me to hand him an envelope."
"And what then?"
"In return I was to get one."
"Did you get one?"
"Yes, sir."
Celeste was saying no more than necessary.
"What was in it?"
The girl shrugged in her best Parisian. I may have been convinced that
she did know what was in the return envelope. But there was clearly no
way to prove it. We were forced to take her word on the matter. Doyle
himself realized that handicap.
"Now, Celeste," began Doyle again, passing over that uncompleted phase,
as though there was much he could have said, only refrained from doing
so to go on to the next point, "what about the belladonna?"
"She used it to brighten her eyes," returned the maid, as glibly as if
she had practised the reply.
"I mean--when did she use it last? Be careful. I know more than you
think."
"Yesterday," she replied, in a low voice, somewhat startled at Doyle's
assumption of omniscience.
"Why?"
"Her eyes were dull."
"She had been crying the night before--eh?"
There was no answer.
"Ah--then there had been a quarrel between Mrs. Wilford and her husband
the day before?"
Doyle's assurance, like a clairvoyant having struck a profitable lead,
overwhelmed Celeste. She said nothing, but it was evident that Doyle
had hit upon something at least approximating the truth.
"Did she threaten again to leave him?" persisted Doyle, now taking
further advantage.
"Oh--no--no--no! Madame would not quarrel. She would not leave
monsieur--I know it."
I glanced again at Kennedy. I saw that he placed no great reliance on
what Celeste said, unless it were substantiated in some outside manner.
It seemed to be about all we could get out of her, at least at this
time. Moreover, following Doyle's wishes, we decided to let him handle
both the Rascon affair and such watching and questioning of Celeste as
may seem necessary. Kennedy was not unwilling. To tell the truth, the
Rascon affair was indeed unsavory and a mess we could afford to let
alone.
"That's all, my girl, for the present," concluded Doyle. "Oh--by the
way--not one syllable of this to Mrs. Wilford. And if you breathe a
word I shall know it. It will go hard with you, you understand?"
She bowed and McCabe took her away. It had been all right while she
was with us. But the moment McCabe loomed up on the scene, it was
different. She tossed her head with offended dignity and marched off.
For some moments longer Doyle and we discussed the new phase of the
case. It was greatly to Doyle's satisfaction that we allowed him to
be unhampered in what he had unearthed. It had evidently worried him
to think of having us two amateurs dragging across the trail he had
uncovered.
Finally he left us, satisfied that he had done a great stroke of work.
For some moments after he was gone Kennedy was silent and in deep study.
"What do you make of it all?" I asked, breaking in on his thoughts, for
fear something might interrupt before I could obtain Craig's personal
impression.
"Very important, perhaps--not for any evidence it may furnish in itself
regarding what happened, for Rascon confessed that it was all faked,
but important for its effect upon the minds of those concerned."
Somehow I was not pleased at Doyle's discovery. In my heart I was
hoping for anything that would relieve the load of suspicion on Honora.
This did not.
"You see," went on Kennedy, "it's not always what people know, the
facts, that are important. Quite as important, oftentimes, are the
things that they think they know, what they believe. People act on
beliefs, you know."
Much as I hated to admit it in this instance, I was forced to grant
that it was true.
"That may be," I confessed, "but why did she pay? Isn't it likely that
it was a frame-up against her?"
Kennedy smiled as he realized I was defending her. "Quite the case," he
argued. "I suppose you know that some of these private detectives are
really scandalous in their operations?"
"Indeed I do."
"Then can't you understand how a woman who knows might be driven
desperate by it? Honora was well informed in the ways of the world.
She knew that people would say, 'Where there's so much smoke, there's
fire.' I'll wager that you've said the same thing, yourself, about
articles in your own paper."
I nodded reluctantly. It was a fact.
"Why, this private-detective evil is so bad," he went on, vehemently,
"that judges ordinarily won't take the testimony of a private detective
in this kind of case unless it is corroborated. And yet, in spite of
that fact, you can always find some one to believe anything, especially
in society, provided the tale is told circumstantially. She knew that,
as I say. And it must have been exasperating. It must have preyed on
her mind. No doubt, if you sift the matter down you'll find that it was
just this move on the part of her husband that killed whatever spark of
love there might have been glowing in her heart. Suspicion does that."
I decided not to pursue my own argument. I felt that the more I
attempted to defend or excuse Honora, the more Kennedy bent and
twisted the thing to some other purpose of his own. I could only trust
that something would come to the surface that would set things in a
different light.
Doyle had been gone some time and Kennedy was beginning to get a
little nervous over what was delaying Doctor Leslie with the materials
from the autopsy from which he expected to discover much that would
straighten out the tangle of what it really was that had occurred in
Wilford's office on that fatal night.
We had about decided to take a run over to the city laboratories to
find out, when the door opened and a hearty voice greeted us.
It was no other than Doctor Leslie himself, with an assistant carrying
the materials from the autopsy, as he had promised. The fact was that
he had not been so very long. Events had crowded on one another so fast
that we had not appreciated the passage of time.
As the attendant laid the jars down on Craig's laboratory table, Leslie
seemed to have almost forgotten about them himself.
"I've made a discovery--I think," he announced, eagerly. "Perhaps it's
gossip--but at any rate, it's interesting."
"Fire away," encouraged Kennedy, listening, but at the same time
preparing impatiently to plunge into the deferred analysis might now be
made.
"I stopped at the Medical Society," hastened Leslie. "Do you know,
it seems to be the gossip of the profession, under cover, about
Lathrop and his wife. News spreads fast--especially scandal, like the
talk of her knowing Wilford, which, thanks to some of Mr. Jameson's
enterprising fraternity, the papers have already printed. Well, from
what I hear, I don't believe that she really cared for Vail Wilford
at all. It seems that she was using him just because he was a clever
lawyer. As nearly as I can make it out, she had set herself to secure
the divorce and capture Shattuck--wealthy, fascinating, and all that,
you know."
"Shattuck--she!" I exclaimed.
Kennedy, however, said nothing, but shot a quick glance at me,
recalling by it our still fresh meeting with both Vina and Shattuck,
as well as the visit from Rascon. I remembered also that it had
been evident at our first meeting with Doctor Lathrop that he had
shown a keen interest in what his wife was doing. Had it been really
jealousy--or was it merely wounded pride?
Kennedy still did not venture to comment, but I saw that he was very
thoughtful and that his eyes were resting on the book of Freud which
we had been discussing some time before. What was passing in his mind
I could not guess, but would have hazarded that it had something to do
with Honora's dreams. At least the recollection of them flashed over
me. Had Doctor Lathrop been the lion in her path, in some way? What
had that dream meant? So far it had not been explained.
Little more was said, but after a few moments' chat with Doctor Leslie,
Craig set determinedly to work, making up for the time that had passed
without any laboratory addition to his knowledge of the case.
Leslie waited awhile, then excused himself. He had hardly gone when
Craig looked up from his work at me.
"Walter," he said, briskly, "I wish that you would try to find out more
about that story of Leslie's."
Seeing that I was merely in the way, as he worked, now, I was delighted
at the commission. I left him as he returned to the work of analyzing
the materials Leslie had brought. For, I reasoned, here was a new angle
of the case--Vina as the cause of all the trouble--and I was determined
to find something bearing on it to add as my contribution to the
ultimate solution.
VIII
THE POISONED GLASS
I went out, at Craig's suggestion, eager to discover something more of
the interesting bit of gossip which Leslie had hinted at about Vina and
Doctor Lathrop. In fact, the relations of this pair interested me only
slightly less than those of Honora and Vail Wilford.
Just where to go I was in some doubt, for I had not an extensive
acquaintance in the medical profession of the city, in which both
Doctor Lathrop and Doctor Leslie stood high in their respective fields.
However, I reasoned that Lathrop's social position offered a more
promising approach than even his professional connections. Thus, I
determined to reassume the rôle of reporter for _The Star_ which I had
often used before with success in ferreting out odd bits of information
of use to Kennedy.
Accordingly, I soon found that the best point of departure was _The
Star_ itself and to the office I went, hoping to find our society
reporter, Belle Balcom, whom I knew to be a veritable Social Register
and _Town Topics_ combined into one quick-witted personality.
"I suppose, Miss Balcom," I began, as I found her finishing a spicy
bit of copy in the reporters' room, while I sat on the edge of her
typewriter table--"I suppose you're following this Wilford case
closely?"
She nodded vivaciously. "There hasn't been much to follow yet," she
replied, eager to get whatever inside news she might for her society
column. "Professor Kennedy is on the case, isn't he? You ought to know
more about it than I do."
"Yes, he's on it," I replied, trying to head off any inquiry on her
part that might be embarrassing. "And already we know that it will be
quite involved."
"I know it," she asserted, and, as we chatted, I found, to my surprise,
that she did know about the people concerned in the case. "You see,"
she explained, when I ventured to express my astonishment, "it's my
business to be acquainted with what passes as 'news' to the readers
of the society page. And then, too, you know that scandal and gossip
constitute much of the small talk of the social set which figures in
the society notes. By the way, I suppose you know about that little
affair between Mrs. Wilford and Mrs. Lathrop out at the Brent Rock
Country Club?"
I was at once interested. It was exactly the sort of thing I had sought.
"No," I confessed. "But I can quite appreciate that an encounter
between Honora and Vina would be likely to be spirited--and add to our
knowledge of the case. What was it?"
Belle Balcom smiled breezily. For, whatever she might say about the
smart set, she had been writing their gossip so long that she, too,
quite appreciated a choice morsel of scandal. I have noticed that none
of my profession ever gets so blasé that a new piece of "inside" news
loses its charm--and I confess that in that respect I am quite like my
fraternity.
"It seems," she retailed, "that the Wilfords and the Lathrops were at
the club at a Saturday-night dance two or three weeks ago. Of course,
you know, the attentions that Mr. Wilford had been paying to Mrs.
Lathrop had been noticeable for some time, then, and had been the
source of a good deal of discussion and comment among various members
of their set."
"Of course," I encouraged.
"Well, it was just a bit more noticeable that night than at other
times. Mr. Wilford was with her practically all the time. Of course,
Honora Wilford had noticed it, not only that night, but many times
before. This time, though, she overheard one of the other women who
didn't know that she was so near, talking about it and laughing with
her partner."
"That was the last straw," I anticipated.
"Exactly. She waited until she saw Vail Wilford for a moment alone. As
luck would have it, he was going for a sherbet for Mrs. Lathrop at the
time. Mrs. Wilford was cutting. 'I suppose you realize that your wife
is present to-night,' she said, icily. 'At least one dance is customary
to let the world know that a husband and wife are on speaking terms.'"
"What did he say to that?"
"Oh, of course he mumbled that he had intended to dance with her
next--but he went on and got the sherbet. The next dance he was too
late."
"Then Hades popped loose," I ventured.
"You might say that. In the middle of the dance, Honora Wilford, who
had declined more partners during the evening than most of the other
women at the club had accepted, rose and deliberately walked across
the dancing-floor, ostentatiously bowing good night to every one as
she passed. You couldn't help noticing it. Even if any one had missed
it, the summoning of her car would have been enough. It pulled up at
the door of the club, with the cut-out open. It was scarcely eleven
o'clock, too, and no one was thinking of going home at that time. Not a
word was said. There was no scene. Yet that dance almost stopped."
It was interesting, perhaps important for the case, yet not precisely
what I had started out to find. "What of Doctor Lathrop?" I asked.
"What did he do?"
"He wasn't in the room at the time. He was down in the café. Wilford
tried to brazen it out and Vina acted properly surprised. She can be
quite an actress, too, when she wants to be. No, Doctor Lathrop didn't
pay any attention to it--that is, not so any one saw it. But Vance
Shattuck did. I remember him particularly that evening. Of course I
know many of the stories back in his life--and a good deal of what
they say about him now. He had been one of the partners Honora had
persistently refused, but they did sit out a dance together and I'm
sure it was she that ended the tête-à-tête, not he. He seemed to have
very little interest in any one else there, and I saw him taking in the
whole affair. Once he started forward, as if to offer to escort her
home, then checked himself. I think he seemed to be rather pleased than
otherwise at the turn of events in that little affair."
"Playing a deep game?" I suggested.
Belle Balcom shrugged. "I don't know--perhaps. Really, I thought
at the time that this was not a triangle, but the making of a fine
quadrangle--that is," she laughed breezily, "if you include Vance
Shattuck, I guess you would call it a pentangle."
"At any rate, all grist for the society-news mill," I smiled. "Doctor
Lathrop really knew of the incident, didn't he?--at least, learned of
it afterward?"
"I imagine so."
"You know the talk about the Lathrops?" I hinted.
"I think I do--and I knew it long before this case started people's
tongues wagging, too."
"I understand it wasn't Wilford, after all, that Vina was interested
in--but Shattuck himself."
"So they say. Society gets its geometry pretty mixed in some of these
angles," she laughed.
"But do you think there is anything in the story about them?" I asked.
"You're a very persistent interviewer," she returned.