A NAMELESS, HOMELESS WAIF
Although Prentiss had gone to New York in search of information
concerning Johnson, the local police of Hilldale were by no means idle.
They searched and researched the premises of Greatlarch, both in the
house and about the grounds. The room that Johnson had occupied they
studied over and over, in their efforts to learn something further of the
man’s personality. They left his few belongings where they found them,
deducing nothing beyond the general facts of a business man on a hasty
trip.
The entire absence of letters or personal papers was peculiar in
itself, but there was no conclusion to be drawn from it. The fact
that his clothing was new and unmarked was thought to be a suspicious
circumstance, but it led to no definite suspicion.
It was a favorite remark among the detectives that Sherlock Holmes could
have deduced the whole man from his few articles of luggage, but Sherlock
Holmes was not there, and the men who were there only looked at the
things blankly and without inspiration.
The same with Miss Anne Vincent’s room.
Day after day they surveyed the beautiful appointments there. Again and
again they drew back the heavy silk hangings that fell round the head of
the bed and scanned the bed anew. The sheets with their crimson stains
had been removed, but were still kept at the Police Station as possible
evidence.
The wall safe, from which the great ruby had presumably been stolen,
was examined frequently, and all the details of Miss Anne’s personal
belongings had been studied to no avail whatsoever.
There were the two rooms, one above the other, the rooms, all agreed, of
victim and criminal, yet from neither room could a single fact be deduced
that was of helpful significance.
Police reconstruction of the crime,—for they took no cognizance of
suicide or of spooks,—set forth that Johnson had spent the entire night
in preparation for his crime, and in waiting for dawn to bring his chosen
moment. That he had, as soon as the watchman went indoors, unlocked Miss
Anne’s door with some clever sort of key, had killed the lady, stolen
the ruby, and then, relocking the door with his patent contraption, had
easily made his way out of the front door, when the family were still
asleep and the servants busy in the kitchen quarters.
Almost superhuman cleverness they conceded this criminal, but, they
argued, only such diabolical ingenuity could have perpetrated such a
mysterious crime.
Their decisions were arrived at by elimination. There was no other
suspect, there was no other means of procedure. The only thing to do was
to catch the man. This, they hoped, Prentiss would accomplish.
But the Burlington Hawkeye returned from an unsuccessful search.
His report, given to Homer Vincent, in the presence of Brewster and
Brown, was disappointing in the extreme.
“There isn’t any Henry Johnson,” he declared, looking both crestfallen
and defiant at once. “I went to the address you gave me, Mr. Vincent,—the
address he gave you, and they declared they never had heard of him there.
Then I visited those two jewelry firms, of which he left you the cards,
and they said they had never heard of any Henry Johnson in connection
with ruby manufacturing. They spoke of a Mr. Markham or Markheim who
made synthetic rubies, but that was of no interest to me. I begged them
to search their books and records to find Johnson’s name. They were most
obliging but utterly unsuccessful.”
“What else did you do?” Brewster asked.
“Oh, lots of things. I went to the stores where he must have bought his
coat and hat, but I couldn’t trace any sale. This is not to be wondered
at, of course. I only tried it on a chance. But that umbrella, now. That
is a new one. I wish I had taken it with me. However, I went to the store
it came from and asked what monograms they had put on umbrellas recently.
Not an H. J. amongst them! As I say, I didn’t really hope to find out
these things, but I took a chance.”
“You did well, Mr. Prentiss,” Homer Vincent assured him. “Where there’s
nothing to find out, you can’t, of course, find out anything. But I’m
surprised that the jewelry firms repudiated all knowledge of him. Do you
suppose he was entirely a fake? Do you suppose he came here merely to rob
and murder, and that the ruby story was all made up?”
“I do suppose just that, Mr. Vincent,” Brewster declared. “And probably
his name wasn’t Johnson at all—”
“There’s the umbrella,” put in Prentiss.
“I know,” Brewster assented, “but that may have been made for a Hiram
Judkins or a Hugh Jennings.”
“That’s so,” said Vincent, thoughtfully. “Or perhaps he stole the
umbrella somewhere.”
“Yes, the umbrella gets us nowhere,” and Prentiss sighed. “I feel as if
I’d accomplished nothing, and yet it is something to have learned that
the Johnson name was assumed—”
“Not necessarily,” objected Brown. “You see, he may be named Henry
Johnson all right, and yet have made up all the ruby business.”
“If he came here with intent to rob and murder, he most certainly didn’t
announce his true name,” Brewster declared, and his words carried
conviction.
“Then,” Vincent summed up, “we have a criminal with a definite purpose,
who came under an assumed name, and carried out his plans successfully to
the smallest detail. I remember, now, his asking me rather particularly
as to the watchman’s rounds and all that. But, of course, I never
suspected anything wrong.”
“Of course not,” Prentiss said. “Now I’d like to see that butler of yours
again.”
“Surely,” said Vincent, and rang for Mellish.
That worthy came in, and contrary to his habitual calm, he exhibited a
hint of suppressed excitement.
“Will you look what Hoskins found, sir,” he said, holding out his hand
toward Vincent.
As all could see, he held a long amber and ivory cigarette-holder.
It was one of those extremely long ones that are affected by the
ultrafashionable.
“Where was this found?” Vincent asked, looking at it attentively, and
then passing it over to Prentiss.
“Hoskins found it, sir, out in the grounds. Or maybe the gardener found
it and gave it to Hoskins. But it’s the one Mr. Johnson used, sir, and I
opine he lost it as he hurried on his way.”
“You remember it?” Prentiss inquired of the butler.
“Oh, yes, sir. I noticed it when Mr. Johnson used it at the table, sir.
After dinner, he took no cigar, but took a cigarette, which he fitted
into that outlandish thing, sir!”
Mellish’s scorn of the eccentric implement was evident on his face.
“They’re quite fashionable now,—I’ve seen them in use,” said Brown, with
an air of wide experience. “And see, here’s the H. J. monogram again! The
fellow’s initials must be H. J. whether his name is Henry Johnson or not.”
“Unless he stole this thing and the umbrella from the same party,” argued
Prentiss. “Wonder if we could trace the cigarette-holder. It looks rather
valuable, and a specialty shop, where such a thing was doubtless bought,
might remember the buyer.”
“Keep it carefully,” Brewster admonished him; “it’s a good bit of
evidence,—maybe a real clue! Where was it found, exactly?”
“I don’t know the precise spot,” Mellish said; “but I opine it was
somewhere on the east lawn. The gardener is working there today.”
“Would that be on his way out of the grounds?” Brown inquired.
“It might be,” Vincent returned, slowly. “Or, he may have been walking
about outside—”
“Killing time until the dawn broke!” Brown exclaimed. “Oh, I’m sure we
can get a line from that thing. It’s most unusual,—not common at all.”
“You go down to New York then, on this errand,” Prentiss said; “I don’t
want to go right back there.”
“All right, I’ll go,” Brown agreed, rather liking the idea.
“And I thought, Mr. Vincent,” Prentiss continued, “you might recall some
more data about the synthetic rubies. You see, even if he faked that
whole ruby proposition, at least he must have known enough about the
matter to make a good showing before you and your sister. You would have
known if he had been a mere layman. He couldn’t have made you believe he
was an expert without knowing a good deal about the processes and all
that.”
“That’s true,” Vincent agreed. “But, knowing little or nothing of the
subject myself, I daresay I was not in a position to be critical of his
explanations and descriptions.”
“I opine,” Mellish said, speaking deferentially but with a look of pride
at his master, “that Mr. Vincent is not so ignorant of these things. You
remember, sir, there was another gentleman here not more than a month
ago, who also wanted to interest you in the making of imitation rubies.”
“Why, yes, that’s so,” Vincent said; “I had forgotten that. But I daresay
the market is full of such things. The process, recently invented,—or
perhaps I should say discovered,—has doubtless been taken up by various
would-be lapidaries. Well, does all this get you anywhere, Mr. Prentiss?”
“We have only one goal, sir, the whereabouts of the man who called
himself Henry Johnson, whether that is his true name or not. I think no
one can doubt he killed Miss Vincent, even though we cannot yet determine
his exact method. But given this mysterious visitor, his mysterious
disappearance, and the immediate discovery of the robbery and murder,
we cannot think otherwise than that he is the criminal. He may not have
intended murder, in the beginning. He may have used the ruby chatter
to induce Miss Vincent to exhibit her splendid jewel,—of which he must
have known,—and then, when he endeavored to steal it and make away, very
possibly she awoke and would have made an outcry, had he not silenced
her. Burglars often commit murder because of a sudden danger of exposure.”
“That is all true, Mr. Prentiss,” Vincent agreed; “I had not thought
of that sequence of events at my sister’s bedside. It may well have
been just as you suggest. Granting his ability to get in and out of
that room,—and you have suggested an explanation of that,—I feel sure
there can be no doubt of Johnson’s guilt. Now, we must find him. It is
imperative. Can any one suggest any further or more far-reaching plan?”
“It is hard to circumvent such fiendish ingenuity as that man has
showed.” Brown spoke vindictively. “We have, of course, inquired at all
the near-by railway stations. I assumed he might have walked to some one
of them and boarded a train there. But we find no trace of such a thing.”
“More likely,” Brewster said, “he walked to a near-by town, and after a
rest and a breakfast walked on to another, and so on, until he was far
enough away to take a train without fear of detection. In a large town he
could do that, but not in one of our small villages.”
“There are many ways he could escape,” said Vincent, looking wearied,
as if tired of their futile conversation. “He could lie low for hours
anywhere, and then go on by night. Or he could beg a ride in a passing
motor, or in a farmer’s cart. At any rate, he did get away, he did get
beyond our ken, and if we find him, it will not be by simple search, but
by some deduction or conclusion based on some bit of evidence. I know
little of these things myself, but I supposed detectives worked from
small clues.”
“We are supposed to,” Prentiss declared, frankly, “but I must confess
there are fewer clues in evidence in this case than in any I ever saw
before.”
“There’s this,” and Brown held up the long cigarette-holder.
“Yes,” agreed Vincent, “there’s that. Now, that’s just the sort of thing
I mean. Can’t you experts gather anything from that?”
“I gather that he had sharp teeth,” Brown said, smiling a little, “for
the amber mouthpiece is a good deal scratched.”
“He did have strong teeth,” Vincent remarked, “and very white ones. But
I can’t see how that will help you to find him. Perhaps, after all, you
may have to give it up, and put it down among the unsolved mysteries of
history.”
“Not yet,” Prentiss declared. “I’m by no means ready to lie down on the
job, and if Mr. Brown will run down to the city and try to trace the
fancy cigarette doodaddle, I’ll try some few little manœuvres I have in
mind up here.”
“Try all you like, gentlemen,” Vincent directed them. “Use every effort,
call upon me for whatever money you need. I will refuse no sum in reason
to bring about the discovery of my sister’s assassin. But, I must
ask you to report to me only when you have some worthwhile news. This
interview today was, of course, necessary, but until you have equally
important information, continue your search by yourselves, or report to
me through Mellish here.”
The detectives, of course, agreed, and the interview was brought to a
close.
At dinner that night, Rosemary asked her uncle what the detectives had
accomplished.
“Very little,” he returned. “They have concluded Henry Johnson killed
your aunt, which we were practically certain of all along. They have
learned, they think, that Henry Johnson was an assumed name, which is an
obvious conclusion. They have practically admitted that they have doubts
of being able to find him, which is no surprise to me. The murderer in
this, as in most cases, is far cleverer than the detectives, and can, of
course, easily outwit them. A criminal who can plan and carry out such
a scheme as this man has done is no ordinary evil-doer. He is a genius
in crime, and such are not usually apprehended. Now, let us drop the
subject, Rosemary, for I have had all I can stand of it for one day.”
The subject remained dropped between the two, for there were no new
developments to bring the detectives for another report to Vincent.
They were continuing their efforts to find Johnson, they were hunting for
new clues or evidence, but all their endeavors were futile.
Even Brown’s assiduous hunt for the shop where the cigarette-holder had
been bought was to no avail. Such holders he found, but could get hold of
no dealer who had monogrammed that one.
Days at Greatlarch followed one another in much the same routine as
before the tragedy. The household routine, that is. The two Mellishes and
their under-servants admirably kept up the high standards that Miss Anne
had instilled in the _ménage_, but the family, as represented by Homer
Vincent and Rosemary, was far from a happy one.
Each day, it seemed to the girl, her uncle grew more and more reserved,
more absorbed in his books and music. She did not resent this, in a way
it was a relief not to have to entertain him, but Rosemary was very
lonely and very sad.
It was on one of their silent evenings, when Vincent mused over a book
and Rosemary tried to interest herself in a bit of needlework, that he
said:
“Child, have you any belief in spiritualism?”
His tone was gentler, more interested, than common, and Rosemary
hesitated before she answered. She didn’t want to express herself
contrary to his own views, and yet the girl had never felt any faith in
the supernatural.
“Table-tipping or spooks?” she said, trying to turn it off lightly.
“Don’t be flippant. I mean this idea of Mrs. Lamont returning to the
scene of her tragic death.”
“Oh, that. No, Uncle, I can’t say I do believe she does that.”
“And yet it may be. Why may not the souls of the dead return?”
“Oh, they may, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it, have you?”
“What would you say if I said, Yes, I have?”
“I’d say, Tell me all about it.”
The subject was a distasteful one to Rosemary, but she would willingly
have talked on any topic, so glad was she to have her uncle talk to her
at all.
“Well, a queer thing happened last night,” he began. “I was wakened out
of a sound sleep by a sort of light in my room. A strange, hovering
light, that seemed to sway and waver and at last shaped itself into the
semblance of a human form. Rosemary, it was your Aunt Anne.”
“No!”
“Yes, child, it surely was. I felt no fear; she waved a gentle hand as
she came nearer to me. ‘Brother,’ she said, ‘it is all right. Do not seek
my slayer, I am happy in my new life.’ And then, Rosemary, she seemed to
vanish slowly, and as the phantom shape was nearly gone, I heard a few
more fleeting words, that sounded like a promise to play the Wild Harp
tonight.”
“Tonight! Antan! Oh, Uncle Homer! You believe it was really her spirit?”
“If the harp plays tonight and I hear it—I shall have to believe,” he
replied, in a solemn tone.
And that night the Wild Harp did play. Rosemary was awakened soon after
midnight by the low, wailing strains. She wondered if her uncle heard it,
too.
She lay in her bed listening to the weird music, and wondering if it
could be possible her dead aunt was responsible for it.
She could not believe it, nor could she believe it was the work of the
spirit of Mrs. Lamont.
But then, she asked herself, what is it? What can it be?
She rang a bedside bell which brought Francine to her.
“What is it, mademoiselle?” asked the French girl. “What is it that I can
do for you?”
“Listen, Francine, do you hear the Wild Harp?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. Is it not beautiful—so faint, so sweet!”
“Who is playing it, Francine?”
Rosemary fully expected the girl would assert it to be a phantom that
made the harmonies. But, to her surprise, Francine said, “Of a truth, I
do not know,—but I think it is Mr. Mellish.”
“Nonsense! Go to bed!” and Rosemary had to smile at the girl’s
foolishness.
But the next morning she referred to it before her uncle.
“Yes, Rosemary, I heard it,” he said, “and I believe it was the spirit of
your aunt who made the music. Do not you?”
“No, Uncle, to be truthful, I do not.”
But Rosemary regretted her frankness, for Homer Vincent turned grim and
moody and scarcely spoke again that day.
But at last came the news of Bryce Collins’ arrival in New York, and
Rosemary’s heart beat high with hope and joy.
His letters had given no hints as to the results of his quest, but he
had written that he had results, which he would detail on his return.
Rosemary eagerly desired to accept this as an omen of favorable news,
but her forebodings were not happy ones and she felt an undercurrent of
despair that grew stronger as the time of his homecoming drew near.
And when at last she saw him, when he came to Greatlarch, and, taking her
in his arms, kissed her gently, she knew in her heart that his tidings
were not happy ones.
“Tell it at once, Bryce,” Homer Vincent said, curtly. “I know from your
manner you bring no good news.”
“I do not,” Collins said, his face dark with sorrow and his eyes sad and
somber. “Yes, I will tell you at once, but do not hurry me, Mr. Vincent.
I will tell you as it happened to me.”
“You found the asylum?”
“Yes, with no trouble at all. But it was not at the address you gave me.”
“Ah, they have moved?”
“Perhaps so; but they told me they had never been at the other address.
However, I found them. They have full and complete records,—they
willingly let me study them. The present head of the institution is not,
of course, the one who was there when Rosemary was left there. Nor is he
the immediate successor. They have had several in his place, as the years
went by.”
“You found the entry of Rosemary’s admission to the asylum?”
“Yes, I did. And I learned,—this is the strange part,—that she was placed
there by your brother Carl.”
“Before his marriage?” Homer Vincent fairly blurted out the words.
“Yes, two years before.”
“Then that means—”
“There is no use blinking the facts. It means that Rosemary is the child
of your brother Carl, but was not born in wedlock.”
“An illegitimate daughter of my brother—then a Vincent after all.”
“No, a nameless, homeless waif,” Rosemary moaned, and as she swayed from
her chair, Collins ran to catch her fainting form and held her in his
arms.
“I’m all right,” she said, struggling to preserve her self-control; “only
it seems this last blow is more than I can bear. Uncle Homer, I will
leave your house tomorrow. You shall not be burdened with the disgrace of
a nameless child,—a child of shame!”
“Who was her mother?” Vincent asked.
“It is not known,” Collins replied. “The records so far back are
imperfect. And I could find no one who remembered the circumstance. All
the attendants are changed since that time. It was by the merest chance I
came across the book that contained the entry of her admission. There was
no mistake about that. She was left there by Carl Vincent, an American
citizen travelling for pleasure. Her birth-date was given and her name
stated as Rosemary Vincent.”
“And two years later, my brother and his wife adopted this child,—the
daughter of my brother!”
“Three years later. After he had been married a year.”
“I cannot stand it,” Rosemary cried, and without another word, she fled
from the room.
“There is no doubt about this?” Vincent asked.
“Not the slightest,” replied Collins, hopelessly.
“What is to be done?”
“I do not know.”