THE WOMAN WHO FAINTED.
The incidents depicted had transpired quickly. Only about half an hour
had passed since the extraordinary crime was discovered, assuming it to
have been a crime, rather than the irresponsible act of a man mentally
unbalanced, as Detective Webber suspected.
Nick Carter did not have any faith in that theory, however, though he
deferred forming any definite theory of his own until he had looked a
little deeper into the circumstances. The startling news had spread
through the house by that time, as appeared in the numerous guests who
had gathered in the corridors, engaged in earnest discussions of the
case, and observed by the detective while the elevator sped up to the
fourth floor.
Nick was promptly admitted to the magnificent suite occupied by
Mademoiselle Falloni and her two maids, and the scene in her apartments
was about what he was expecting.
He found Mademoiselle Falloni completely prostrated by her loss. She was
lying faint and pale on a luxurious couch in the parlor, in the care of
her maids and a physician living in the house.
Madame Escobar, who had been called into the suite, was nearly as deeply
distressed, but she had greater command of her feelings. She was in
tears in an armchair.
Mr. Clayton, whom Nick had not seen since their dinner of a week before,
now appeared to have gained his composure, and evidently was remaining
there to do what he could to calm and encourage the two celebrated
vocalists, both of whom had been guests of the hotel during the previous
month of the opera season.
The only other person present was a stately, graceful girl in the
twenties, as beautiful as the ideal of an old master. She was very
pale, however, with such manifest anxiety for Clayton that Nick
immediately identified her as Clara Langham, the young lady to whom he
was engaged.
“Ah, here is Mr. Carter, now,” cried Clayton, hastening to greet the
detective. “We have been waiting for you, Nick. I have been trying to
calm the ladies, and have succeeded only by predicting the speedy
recovery of their jewels through your prompt work in this terrible case.
Let me introduce you and tell you about it, that no time may be lost.”
“I already am informed of most of the known circumstances,” Nick
replied, shaking hands with him. “Detective Webber and Mr. Vernon have
told me. Time, as you say, may be of value.”
Clayton hastened to introduce the three ladies. The two victims of the
crime brightened up perceptibly upon seeing the famous detective, though
still with irrepressible sobs Mademoiselle Falloni begged him to restore
her lost treasures, which Nick assured her that he would leave no stone
unturned to do.
Miss Langham greeted him more calmly, saying, with girlish earnestness,
nevertheless:
“I heard of the dreadful circumstances and that Chester was here, so I
came to comfort him. Oh, please, Mr. Carter, don’t think for a moment
that he is guilty of anything wrong. He is incapable of it. This is the
outcome, I am sure of that terrible experience of three months ago, of
which he has told you.”
“I think so, too, Miss Langham,” Nick replied.
“I am so glad to hear you say so. I felt sure of it the moment I heard
of the terrible crime.”
“I will do all that is possible, Miss Langham, I assure you.”
Clayton then introduced the physician.
“Doctor David Guelpa,” said he. “Shake hands with Mr. Carter, doctor. He
is the Hungarian specialist, Nick, who has quarters in Fifth Avenue.
Luckily he was in his suite on this floor, however, when Mademoiselle
Falloni was informed of the robbery. For she fainted dead away, and
since has been in hysterics. I sent for Doctor Guelpa, and he came
immediately.”
“I am pleased to know you, Mr. Carter, very pleased,” said the
physician, while they shook hands. “I long have known you by name. Very
pleased, sir, I am sure.”
Nick bowed and responded in conventional terms, at the same time viewing
the Hungarian specialist a bit curiously.
Doctor Guelpa was a man of medium build and apparently about forty years
old. He looked like a foreigner. His complexion was medium, also, and
his head was crowned with a bushy growth of reddish-brown hair, while
his lower features were covered with a mustache and a profuse crinkly
beard of the same obtrusive hue.
He wore spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and bows, the lenses of
which were unusually thick, and he blinked frequently in a way denoting
near-sightedness and a slight nervous affection. He spoke with a slight
foreign accent, moreover, but was a man of pleasing address and evident
gentility.
Nick turned almost immediately to Clayton, however, saying while he took
a chair:
“That we may lose no time, as you say, we will get right at this matter.
I have sent for two of my assistants. While waiting for them, Clayton,
I wish to hear your side of the story.”
“There is no side of it, Nick,” Clayton earnestly answered. “I am
outside of the whole business, barring the assertions of others that I
figure in the case, I deny that emphatically. I know nothing about the
crime, for such it is, of course.”
“You were in your private office when it was committed?” questioned
Nick, intently regarding him.
“Yes, certainly, as I have stated.”
“In company with----”
“I don’t know with whom,” Clayton interrupted. “I entered my office
about half past ten, intending to write several personal letters. I had
been there only a few moments when the door was opened, that leading
into the hall corridor, and an elderly, well-dressed man stepped in and
asked me to spare him a few minutes upon important business.”
“A stranger?”
“Yes. He mentioned his name, but I did not note it carefully and I
cannot now recall it.”
“What did he want?”
“I asked him of what his business consisted, and he said that he wanted
to confer with me about special hotel rates and accommodations for a
wealthy Persian prince, for whom he stated he was acting as an agent,
and who is coming to America incognito with his wife and a retinue of
servants.”
“You then consented to talk with him?”
“Yes. I suspected nothing, of course, and the proposition appealed to
me,” Clayton explained. “I invited him to be seated, and we entered into
a discussion on the matter. He appeared well informed and questioned me
along various lines bearing upon the subject, at the same time making
numerous entries in a notebook of the terms and other details that I
mentioned.”
“I see.”
“I anticipated that I might obtain a desirable and profitable patron,”
Clayton added. “Our interview lasted about twenty minutes, I should say,
and he then thanked me and departed, stating that he would see me
again.”
“And then?”
“I then returned to my desk and began my letters. Unable to recall the
precise address of the man I was about to write, however, I stepped into
the general office to get it from the bookkeeper. I then learned from
Vernon what had occurred, Nick, and that was the first I knew of it, and
all that I know of it.”
“You attempted, I understand, to find the stranger with whom you had
been talking.”
“Yes, naturally,” nodded Clayton. “When told so positively that I had
taken the jewel cases, it quickly occurred to me that I might find it
necessary to establish an alibi. The stranger is the only person who can
corroborate my assertions. I rushed out of the office to find him,
therefore, but he had disappeared.”
“That is unfortunate,” said Nick. “Not that I personally doubt your
statements, Clayton, but because his corroboration of them would dispel
misgivings from the minds of others, some quite closely associated with
you.”
“I realize that, Nick, most keenly,” Clayton said gravely.
“It seems utterly incredible to me, nevertheless, that Mr. Clayton has
misrepresented anything, or is capable of such a crime,” Doctor Guelpa
remarked, quite forcibly. “I really will never believe it.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Clayton said quickly, bowing.
“Describe the man with whom you talked, Clayton,” Nick directed.
“He is an ordinary type of man, Nick, apparently about sixty years old.
He has dark hair and a full beard, sprinkled with gray. He is quite tall
and of rather slender build. He talked and appeared like a gentleman.”
“He wore a full beard, did he?”
“Yes.”
“It’s ten to one, then, that he was disguised.”
Doctor Guelpa laughed audibly.
“I hope you don’t imply, Mr. Carter, that one in every ten men that wear
a full beard is in disguise,” said he jestingly. “I have, as you see,
quite a profuse growth of whiskers.”
“Not at all, doctor,” Nick replied, smiling. “Under the circumstances
involved, however, I always distrust bearded men.”
“Yes, yes, to be sure,” nodded the physician. “I appreciate the point,
of course.”
“Can you recall in the stranger, Clayton, as you now remember him, any
characteristic in voice, figure, or manner of speech, resembling that of
either of the masked men whom you encountered three months ago?” Nick
inquired.
“I cannot say that I do, Nick.”
“Well, one fact is obvious,” said the detective. “If you are not
mentally wrong, Clayton, and I see no indications of it, and if your
statements are true, of which I personally have not the slightest doubt,
this crime was committed by a man closely resembling----”
Nick was interrupted by a quick, insistent knock on the hall door.
Mademoiselle Falloni’s maid, who then was standing near by, hastened to
open it.
Madame Escobar uttered a cry, with countenance lighting, and started up
from her chair.
“Courage!” she cried, addressing Mademoiselle Falloni. “Some one brings
news--good news, perhaps! Courage, Helena!”
Instead, however, a stately woman in black swept into the room, a
remarkably handsome woman in the fifties, but whose hair was prematurely
gray, and the gravity of whose refined, almost classical face denoted
that her life had not been one of all sunshine. She was fashionably clad
and in street attire.
Clayton sprang up to meet her, crying impulsively:
“My mother! I did not dream it was you.”
The woman stopped short, gazing at him with wide eyes and an expression
of dread on her white face.
“What is this I hear, Chester?” she cried, as if oblivious to the
presence of others. “Tell me quickly. Tell me quickly, my son! You
suspected of crime, of----”
“No, no; nothing of the kind,” Clayton hurriedly cried, both hands
uplifted. “A crime has been committed, but I know nothing about it. The
criminal was a man so like me that----”
Clayton caught his breath and stopped short.
The woman had reeled as if struck a blow, and every vestige of color had
left her face.
“Like you!” she echoed, gasping. “So like you that--that----”
Doctor Guelpa started toward her.
“Careful, madame!” he cried, with hands outstretched. “Be calm, or you
will----”
His warning came too late.
The woman’s eyes suddenly rolled upward. Her arms dropped lax at each
side. Before any observer could reach her, she fell unconscious upon the
floor, as ghastly as if the hand of death had suddenly claimed her.