THE CRIME AND THE MEANS.
"Yes, Chick, it's as simple as two plus two, and we'll presently try to
bag a part of our quarry. But first of all, I want a bit of
corroborative evidence which I expect to get from that Hindoo snake
charmer, Pandu Singe."
"Going there first, Nick?"
"Yes; it will not take long. Then I think we shall have the strands for
a rope strong enough to hold that she-devil who murdered Mary Barton,"
grimly added Nick.
These remarks were made while the carriage containing the two detectives
was speeding through the city streets, then bright with the light and
life of the early evening.
"What a dastardly crime it was, Nick," observed Chick.
"It was the crime of a treacherous demon."
"With jealousy the chief motive, eh?"
"No doubt of it."
"Yet her venomous arrow found the wrong mark."
"That's just the size of it," said Nick. "In the light of what you saw
and heard on the stage that night, it is plain that Cervera is
passionately in love with Venner."
"Surely."
"You remember that you saw him talking with Violet Page, and then
observed Cervera in the opposite wings, angrily watching something or
somebody out of your range of view. Plainly enough, now, she was
watching Venner and the singer."
"No doubt of it," declared Chick. "And she looked fit to use a poniard
then and there."
"Jealousy," growled Nick. "She had been secretly watching Venner. She
had discovered his love for Violet, and decided that the girl was a
rival to be feared. Her fiery Spanish blood would shrink at nothing. She
went the limit, and tried to murder her rival. In so doing, however, she
but killed another."
"She must have worked adroitly to have accomplished what she did."
"It may not have been so very difficult," replied Nick. "She was on the
stage each night, and also that infernal snake den. She quietly learned
which of the venomous reptiles would best serve her deadly purpose, and
then found an opportunity and a way by which to secretly steal it."
"A hazardous job at that," muttered Chick.
"The jealousy of such a woman fears nothing," Nick rejoined. "To lure
the desired snake into a box, and then take it home and confine it in
the jewel casket, may have been done quite easily."
"It must have been done before the company closed its engagement."
"No doubt," admitted Nick. "Then Cervera was too crafty to use it at
once. She waited nearly a week. Then she dressed herself in cheap
attire, put on a thick veil, and lay in wait for her rival's maid and
companion, to whom she gave the package and her instructions regarding
it."
"What first led you to suspect the crime and the means, Nick?" inquired
Chick, curiously.
"Several facts," explained Nick. "The girl's sudden death seemed
peculiar. The jewel casket beside her was empty, at once suggesting that
something had been removed or fallen from it. Yet nothing was to be
found."
"That's true."
"The paper wrapper was punctured with a pin in many places, the holes
running even through the lining of the casket. That fact, too, was
suggestive. People are not in the habit of doing up parcels and then
punching them full of holes with a pin."
"Well, hardly."
"Cervera made those holes, Chick, in order that her venomous captive
might not expire for want of air."
"No doubt of it, Nick. But what do you think led Mary Barton to open the
package after having been told not to do so?"
"Curiosity, perhaps," replied Nick. "Or possibly she considered the
circumstances to be so strange that she felt that she had a right to
open it. Be that as it may, it is plain that Mary Barton sat down on the
park seat, after leaving Boyden and there briefly considered the
matter."
"How do you arrive at that deduction, Nick?"
"From the tiny tinge of fresh blood about one of the pinholes on the
interior of the lining," explained Nick. "The stain must have come from
the point of the pin, and when the pin was drawn out of the box, not
when it was thrust into it. In the latter case the pin point would have
been cleansed before passing through the lining, and the stain would
have been on the outside rather than the inside."
"Surely."
"Then it at once became plain that Mary Barton, while sitting there, had
thrust her hat pin through one of the previously made apertures,
possibly aiming to discover in this way what the box contained, and in
so doing she probably pricked the confined reptile."
"Ah, I see," nodded Chick. "All this strongly indicated that something
might have been confined in the casket."
"Yes, certainly. Not thus learning what the box contained," continued
Nick, "Mary Barton decided to open it. The moment she raised the lid the
snake, probably angered by its wound and long confinement, instantly
struck at her hand, snake-fashion, and buried its fangs in her wrist."
"Hence the tiny, red spot which you so quickly discovered."
"Precisely."
"Very shrewd of you, Nick."
"Greatly frightened, the girl probably fainted, and fell to the ground,"
added Nick, in conclusion of the deductions by which he had solved the
remarkable mystery. "The snake instantly scurried away through the
grass, and left no trail behind him. Before the girl could recover from
her swoon, the deadly poison had done its work. The venom of some of
these India snakes is horribly rapid in its action."
"That's true," cried Chick. "I saw one at the theater that evening, the
venom of which would kill a man in ten seconds. A wee bit of a cuss at
that."
"Probably this was one of the same breed," said Nick, grimly. "At all
events, I am sure that murder was the crime, and a snake the means."
"And Sanetta Cervera the criminal."
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," declared Nick.
"And what do you expect to learn from the Hindoo?"
"I wish to know, in corroboration of my suspicions, whether Pandu Singe
has missed any of his infernal reptiles."
"Ah, I see."
"If he has, my theory is surely correct, and we next must fix the guilt
upon the guilty," said Nick, firmly. "I shall arrest Cervera this very
night, providing the Hindoo informs me that-- Ah, here we are at his
door. Come into the house with me, Chick, and we'll see what he has to
say."
They had stopped before an ordinary brick house on the East Side, and
Nick quickly mounted the steps and rang the bell. The summons brought a
corpulent English woman to the door, from whom Nick learned that the
Hindoo and his interpreter were still there.
"Doesn't Pandu Singe speak English?" inquired Nick.
"Dear me, no!" exclaimed the landlady, with a mute yet visible
laugh--visible in that her convolutions of flesh became observably
agitated. "Not the first word, sir. He talks only a blooming jargon fit
for snakes and spiders and that like."
Nick laughed agreeably, having a request on his tongue's end.
"He has moved his beastly den o' reptiles into my cellar to stay till
next season, sir, a 'orror I'd not stand for a minute, so I wouldn't,
only he pays me very 'andsome for the same."
"Then he intends remaining here all summer, does he?"
"He do," replied the woman, with startling terseness after the
foregoing.
"I wish to see him briefly on business," said Nick. "Go and ask him if
he will receive us."
The landlady complied, returning presently and inviting the two
detectives into the house. She led the way to a rear room off the hall,
at the door of which stood a swarthy foreigner, who bowed and smiled as
the callers approached.
"'E's the hinterpreter," vouchsafed the landlady, in a wheezy whisper.
Nick nodded understandingly.
Reading by the light of a lamp on a table in the room sat the Hindoo
snake charmer himself, clad in a rich, loose robe of Oriental fashion.
He arose with much deliberation and dignity when the detectives entered,
and gravely bowed in greeting, while his interpreter hastened to place
chairs for the visitors.
Through the interpreter Nick quickly explained his business, and saw a
look of surprise appear on the face of Pandu Singe when inquiries were
made about the loss of a snake.
It took Nick but a short time to learn what he desired. Precisely as he
expected, the Hindoo had missed one of his snakes about ten days before,
one of the most venomous and dangerous of the lot.
Hearing no reports or complaints about the missing reptile, however,
Pandu Singe had come to the conclusion that the snake had died in the
den and then been devoured by one of his companions in captivity. So the
Hindoo had let the matter drop, and had said nothing about it.
Nick did not disclose the true occasion for his inquiries, but invented
a satisfactory explanation, and at the end of a quarter of an hour the
two detectives departed and entered their waiting carriage.
"Rather a dignified chap, after all, that Pandu Singe," laughed Chick,
as they settled themselves on the cushions.
"True," admitted Nick, thoughtfully. "Do you think, Chick, that we could
make up to pass for those two swarthy Orientals?"
"Could we!" exclaimed Chick, promptly. "Well, Nick, I should say that we
could."
"I think so, too."
"You could do the snake charmer, all right, and easily gabble a lingo
that would pass for his."
"Well, rather," laughed Nick.
"And if I was wise to the game you wished to play I easily could act as
the interpreter, and run the conversation correctly on my own hook."
"No doubt of it."
"Do it? Why, surely we could," repeated Chick "Why did you ask?"
"I think it may yet become necessary or desirable to make a move of
that kind," replied Nick.
"Why so?"
"Because, as I have suspected all along, I still think there is some big
game in the wind, with the Kilgore gang back of it, and that the murder
of this Barton girl may have some connection with it, or at least give
us a clew to it."
"Egad! I hope so, Nick."
"We soon shall see."
"Going after Cervera now?"
"Yes; at once," said Nick, with grim austerity. "We shall find her at
home, as usual. She'll not imagine that I can have got on her track as
quickly as this, so no doubt I can easily land her. Before midnight I
want bracelets on the white wrists of that Spanish dare-devil."