THE MAN AT THE BROOK
Beside the brook stood a shabbily-dressed man, apparently fifty-five or
sixty years old. He wore an old rusty black coat and a soft hat with a
hole in it. His face was tanned and partly covered with a beard.
The man was acting in a manner to excite anybody's curiosity. He
carried a stick in his hand, and was poking around in the water with
it. Every once in a while he looked around, to see if anybody was
observing him.
Straining his eyes, Adam Adams saw a strip of white floating on the
water. Once or twice it disappeared. Finally the end of the strip
caught on an overhanging bush, and then the strange man withdrew his
cane from the brook.
As he turned around the detective dodged out of sight. Apparently
satisfied that he was not observed, the strange man leaned down at the
bank of the brook, took something from his pocket and placed it down on
the moist dirt. Then he took another object from his pocket and
repeated the operation.
"Can they be shoes he has in his hands?" mused the detective. "And if
they are, what is he doing with them?"
Hearing the slamming of a door at the mansion, Adam Adams drew still
further back among the bushes. A minute later he saw the man make a
long leap, clear the brook, and hurry away among the trees and
brushwood on the other side.
"Humph! Perhaps this is worth investigating," mused the detective, and
made his way to the spot the strange individual had occupied. On the
bank of the brook he saw the marks of the man's broad shoes and also
some prints made by smaller shoes. The latter prints were irregular,
and at once arrested the detective's attention. He smiled grimly to
himself.
"Clue number one!" he muttered.
Adam Adams looked around in the water. Soon he came upon the strip of
white, and, pulling on it, brought to light a white silk shirtwaist,
torn to ribbons in front and at one sleeve. He wrung the water and mud
from the garment and examined it. Inside of the collar band were the
initials, "M. A. L."
"Margaret A. Langmore," he murmured. "Those initials are hers. If the
shirtwaist was hers, how did that fellow get possession of it? And did
he place it here or find it here?"
Drying the garment as much as possible, he placed it in his pocket, and
continued his search around the vicinity. He spent fully an hour in
the locality, and then walked back the way he had come, and into the
mansion. There he found Thomas Ostrello in conversation with the
policeman.
"It is a terrible blow to me," the commercial traveler was saying.
"And to think I was here just the day before it happened! If I had
remained here over night, it might not have occurred at all!"
"Well, that's the way things happen," answered the policeman. "Once I
was at one end of my beat when a thief broke into a store at the other
end and stole sixteen dollars and two hams."
"And I suppose they blamed you for it."
"Sure they did. I was laid off for a week, without pay. If anything
happens it is always the poor copper who is to blame."
"Well, the family are not blaming you for this."
"They can't--especially as they've got the person who did the deed."
At this Thomas Ostrello shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know about that."
"You don't?"
"No. I'd hate to believe any girl could do such a fearful thing as
this." The commercial traveler paused. "I'm going to take a look
around. I suppose it's all right."
"Certainly, Mr. Ostrello," answered the policeman, and then the
commercial man stepped into the library, closing the door after him.
Adam Adams had passed into the dining room, just back of the library,
but had heard what was said. Now, looking through the doorway, which
had a sliding door and a heavy curtain, the latter partly drawn, he saw
the man glance around hurriedly, moving from one object to another in
the library. He looked under the table and the chairs, in the corners,
and even into the various bookcases. Then he came and knelt down
before the safe, and tried the knob of the combination half a dozen
times.
"He is more than ordinarily interested," reasoned the detective. "But
then it was his own mother who was murdered."
The commercial man continued his search until he had covered every
object in the room several times. He even looked behind the pictures,
and into the drawer of the table, something which had escaped the
coroner's eye when sealing up the desk. Adam Adams saw him shake his
head in despair. He took a turn up and down the apartment and clenched
his hands nervously.
"Gone!" he muttered to himself. "What could have become of it?"
He drew from his pocket a notebook he carried, and studied several
items carefully. A long sigh escaped from his lips as he restored the
notebook to his pocket.
As the commercial traveler moved toward the dining room, the detective
stepped into a side apartment, used in the winter as a conservatory.
He saw Thomas Ostrello make an examination of several places, including
a sideboard. Then the woman who had been placed in charge of the
downstairs portion of the mansion entered.
"Won't you have a bite to eat, Mr. Ostrello?" she asked.
"Perhaps so, later on. I do not feel like eating now. Can I take a
look at my mother's room?"
"Why, yes. I suppose you know where it is?"
"Certainly; I often visited her there when she was not feeling well."
He passed out without another word, and was soon mounting the
heavily-carpeted stairs. Once in the room, he closed the door tightly.
Coming up softly after him, Adam Adams tried the door and found it
locked. More interested than ever, the detective, just avoiding Mrs.
Morse, who was passing through the hallway, slipped into the adjoining
room, and finding, as he had imagined, a door between the two, applied
his eye to the keyhole.
This might mean nothing, and it might mean everything. He saw Mrs.
Langmore's son moving around the dressing room precisely as he had
moved around the library. He heard the bureau drawers opened and shut,
and then heard the squeak of a small writing desk that stood in a
corner, as the leaf was turned down. Then came a rattle of papers and
a sudden subdued exclamation. The desk was closed again, and the man
came out of the room, leaving the hall door partly open.
"Whatever he was looking for, he must have found it," reasoned the
detective. "Now, what was it?"
He waited in the hallway and heard Thomas Ostrello enter the dining
room. A minute later came the rattle of dishes. Then Mrs. Morse
confronted him.
"Back again, I see," she said rather sharply.
"Yes; I wish to have another talk with Miss Langmore," he returned,
and, brushing her aside, knocked on the girl's door, and was admitted.
The woman pursed up her lips.
"How very important some of those city lawyers are," she muttered.
"Think they know it all, I guess. Well, he'll have a job clearing her,
if what Coroner Busby says is true."
"Oh, I did not know you were coming back!" exclaimed Margaret. "Has
anything happened?"
"I want to know something about this, Miss Langmore," and he brought
out the torn and wet shirtwaist. "Is it yours?"
"Oh, certainly; but where did it come from? And it is all torn, too!
It was almost new when I had it on last!"
"When was that?"
The girl thought for a moment, and then turned pale.
"On the morning that--that--"
"That the tragedy occurred?"
"Yes. I don't know what made me put it on, but I did."
"And when did you take it off?"
"Why, let me see. Some time in the afternoon, I think. I--I fainted,
and it got dirty, and so I put on another and threw this in the clothes
closet."
"Are you certain you put it in the clothes closet?"
"Positive. Where did you find it?"
"Never mind that just now. Do you keep your shoes in that closet?"
"I do. But why--"
"Will you kindly see if all of your shoes are there?"
The girl ran over, opened the closet door, and began an immediate
examination.
"One pair is missing--a pair I use a great deal, too," she said a
minute later. "Oh, Mr. Adams, what does this mean?"
"I don't know--yet. While you are at it, you might let me know if
anything else is missing."
Margaret began a close examination of everything in the closet, the
detective watching her as keenly as he had before.
"She is either innocent, or else the greatest actress I've ever met,"
was his mental conclusion. "I think her innocent, but the best of us
get tripped up at times. If she is innocent, that evidence was
manufactured to prove her guilty. If only I had followed that man up!
I might have learned something worth knowing."
"Nothing else seems to be missing," announced the girl, at length.
"Very well; then don't waste time by searching further. By the way,
did you know Mr. Thomas Ostrello had arrived?"
"Yes; I told Raymond to telegraph for him. He used to call quite often
to see his mother."
"What about the other son--Dick?"
"I do not know where he is."
"Didn't he come here?"
"He came once. But he is a dissipated young man, and I do not think my
stepmother cared much for him."
"But she did think a good deal of the one who is now downstairs?"
"Yes, although they occasionally had their quarrels, just as we had
ours. Tom would plead for his brother Dick, who seemed to be always
wanting money. Once my father took a hand and said his wife shouldn't
give Dick a cent more, as he only squandered it. That made Tom angry,
and he had a quarrel with my father, and after that when Tom came he
would ask to see only his mother, although he and I remained on fairly
good terms."
"Tom was here the day before the tragedy?"
"Yes. I think he came to see his mother about some private business.
They had a long talk in her room, and she seemed to be quite excited
when he went away. I don't know what it was all about. But, Mr.
Adams, are you not hungry, and won't you have a lunch?"
"Thanks, I'll take a bite."
The lunch was served in Margaret's apartment, and the detective did
ample justice to it, for he never allowed business to interfere with
his appetite. As he ate, the girl watched him curiously.
"Mr. Adams," she said presently, "do you know, you do not seem a bit
like a detective to me--I mean like the detectives you read about--the
men going about in wonderful disguises and the like, and doing
marvelous things? And yet, I know you have a wonderful
reputation--Raymond told me about it."
At that he smiled broadly. "Wonderful disguises, eh? Well, I use them
when I think them necessary, and not otherwise. When I started out,
years ago, I used a great many more than I do now. To me a mystery of
this sort is a good deal like a cut-up picture that you give a child to
put together. First, you want to make sure you have all the pieces,
and then you want to sit down, put on your thinking-cap, and match the
pieces together. To you this is an awful tragedy," his tone softened
greatly, "to me it is another case, nothing more. Work such as I have
done is bound to harden a fellow, in spite of all of his finer
feelings. But I feel for you and you have my sympathy."
"And you will aid me? You said you would," she pleaded.
"I am going to do what I can--no man can do more."