[Illustration: "JUST AS I THOUGHT"]
ASHTON-KIRK
INVESTIGATOR
By
John T. McIntyre
Author of "In the Dead of Night," &c.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
RALPH L. BOYER
PHILADELPHIA
1910
To my Friend
GRANT GIBNEY
INTRODUCTION
Ashton-Kirk, who has solved so many mysteries, is himself something of
a problem even to those who know him best. Although young, wealthy,
and of high social position, he is nevertheless an indefatigable
worker in his chosen field. He smiles when men call him a detective.
"No; only an investigator," he says.
He has never courted notoriety; indeed, his life has been more or less
secluded. However, let a man do remarkable work in any line and, as
Emerson has observed, "the world will make a beaten path to his door."
Those who have found their way to Ashton-Kirk's door have been of many
races and interests. Men of science have often been surprised to find
him in touch with the latest discoveries, scholars searching among
strange tongues and dialects, and others deep in tattered scrolls,
ancient tablets and forgotten books have been his frequent visitors.
But among them come many who seek his help in solving problems in
crime.
"I'm more curious than some other fellows, that's all," is the way he
accounts for himself. "If a puzzle is put in front of me I can't rest
till I know the answer." At any rate his natural bent has always been
to make plain the mysterious; each well hidden step in the
perpetration of a crime has always been for him an exciting lure; and
to follow a thread, snarled by circumstances or by another
intelligence has been, he admits, his chief delight.
There are many strange things to be written of this remarkable
man--but this, the case of the numismatist Hume, has been selected as
the first because it is one of the simplest, and yet clearly
illustrates Ashton-Kirk's peculiar talents. It will also throw some
light on the question, often asked, as to how his cases come to him.
A second volume that shows the investigator deep in another mystery,
even more intricate and puzzling than this, is entitled "Ashton-Kirk
and the Scarlet Scapular."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. PENDLETON CALLS UPON ASHTON-KIRK
II. MISS EDYTH VALE STATES HER CASE
III. THE PORTRAITS OF GENERAL WAYNE
IV. STILLMAN'S THEORY
V. STILLMAN ASKS QUESTIONS
VI. ASHTON-KIRK LOOKS ABOUT
VII. THE SCHWARTZ-MICHAEL BAYONET
VIII. THE NEWSPAPERS BEGIN TO PLAY THEIR PART
IX. MISS VALE TELLS WHAT SHE KNOWS
X. ASHTON-KIRK ASKS QUESTIONS
XI. PENDLETON IS VASTLY ENLIGHTENED
XII. ANTONIO SPATOLA APPEARS
XIII. A NEW LIGHT ON ALLAN MORRIS
XIV. MISS VALE UNEXPECTEDLY APPEARS
XV. MISS VALE DEPARTS SUDDENLY
XVI. STEEL AGAINST STEEL
XVII. WHAT HAPPENED ON THE ROAD
XVIII. ASHTON-KIRK TELLS WHY
XIX. THE TWO REPORTS
XX. ONE OF THE OLD SORT
XXI. ASHTON-KIRK BEGINS TO PLAN
XXII. ASHTON-KIRK IS ANNOYED
XXIII. THE SECRET OF THE PORTRAIT
XXIV. THE SECOND NIGHT
XXV. APPROACHING THE FINISH
XXVI. THE FINISH
ILLUSTRATIONS
"JUST AS I THOUGHT" ... FRONTISPIECE
"YOU DO NOT MEAN TO GO THERE"
HE RAPPED SMARTLY ON THE WINDOW
WHAT SHE SAW MUST HAVE STARTLED HER
Ashton-Kirk, Investigator
CHAPTER I
PENDLETON CALLS UPON ASHTON-KIRK
Young Pendleton's car crept carefully around the corner and wound in
and out among the push-cart men and dirty children.
About midway in the block was a square-built house with tall,
small-paned windows and checkered with black-headed brick. It stood
slightly back from the street with ancient dignity; upon the shining
door-plate, deeply bitten in angular text, was the name "Ashton-Kirk."
Here the car stopped; Pendleton got out, ascended the white marble
steps and tugged at the polished, old-fashioned bell-handle.
A grave-faced German, in dark livery, opened the door.
"Mr. Ashton-Kirk will see you, sir," said he. "I gave him your
telephone message as soon as he came down."
"Thank you, Stumph," said Pendleton. And with the manner of one
perfectly acquainted with the house, he ascended a massively
balustraded staircase. The walls were darkly paneled; from the
shadowy recesses pictured faces of men and women looked down at him.
Coming in from the littered street, with its high smells and crowding,
gesticulating people, the house impressed one by its quiet, its
spaciousness, and the evident means and culture of its owner.
Pendleton turned off at the first landing, proceeded along a passage
and finally knocked at a door. Without waiting for a reply, he walked
in.
At the far end of a long, high-ceilinged apartment a young man was
lounging in an easy-chair. At his elbow was a jar of tobacco, a sheaf
of brown cigarette papers and a scattering of books. He lifted a keen
dark face, lit up by singularly brilliant eyes.
"Hello, Pen," greeted he. "You've come just in time to smoke up some
of this Greek tobacco. Throw those books off that chair and make
yourself easy."
One by one Pendleton lifted the books and glanced at the titles.
"Your morning's reading, if this is such," commented he, "is
strikingly catholic. Plutarch, Snarleyow, the Opium Eater, Martin
Chuzzlewit." Then came a host of tattered pamphlets, bound in
shrieking paper covers, which the speaker handled gingerly. "'The
Crimes of Anton Probst,'" he continued to read, "'The Deeds of the
Harper Family,' 'The Murder of ----'" here he paused, tossed the
pamphlets aside with contempt, sat down and drew the tobacco jar
toward him.
"Some of the results of your forays into the basements of old
booksellers, I suppose," he added, rolling a cigarette with delicate
ease. "But what value you see in such things is beyond me."
Ashton-Kirk smiled good-humoredly. He took up some of the pamphlets
and fluttered their illy-printed pages.
"They are not beautiful," he admitted; "the paper could not be worse
and the wood cuts are horrors. But they are records of actual
things--striking things, as a matter of fact--for a murder which so
lifts itself above the thousands of homicides that are yearly
occurring, as to gain a place outside the court records and
newspapers, must have been one of exceptional execution."
"There is a public which delights in being horrified," said Pendleton
with a grimace. "The things are put out to get their nickels and
dimes."
"No doubt," agreed the other. "And the fact that they are willing to
pay their nickels and dimes is, to my way of thinking, a proof of the
extraordinary nature of the crime chronicled." The speaker dropped the
prints upon the floor and lounged back in his big chair. "There is
Plutarch," he continued; "the account of the assassination of Caesar
is not the least interesting thing in his biography of that statesman.
Indeed, I have no doubt but that the chronicler thought Caesar's
taking off the most striking incident in his career; that the Roman
public thought so is a matter of history.
"Countless writers have dwelt upon the taking of human life; some of
them were rather commercial gentlemen who always gave an ear to the
demands of their public, and their screeds were written for the money
that they would put in their pockets; but others, and by long odds the
greatest, were fascinated by their subjects. Both Stevenson and Henley
were powerfully drawn by deeds of blood. Did you know they planned a
great book which was to contain a complete account of the world's most
remarkable homicides? I'm sorry they never carried the thing out; for
I cannot conceive of two minds more fitted to the task. They would
have dressed every event in the grimmest and most subtle horror; why,
the soul would have shuddered at each enormity as shaped and presented
by such masters."
Pendleton regarded his friend with candid distaste.
"You are appalling to-day," said he. "If you think it's the Greek
tobacco, let me know. For I have to mingle with other human beings,
and I'd scarcely care to get into your state of mind."
The strong, white teeth of Ashton-Kirk showed in a quick smile.
"The tobacco was recommended by old Hosko," he said, "and you'll find
nothing violent in it, no matter what you find in my conversation."
"What put you into such a frame of mind, anyway? Something happened?"
But Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
"I don't know," said he. "In fact, I have been strangely idle for the
last fortnight. The most exciting things that have appeared above my
personal horizon have been a queer little edition of Albertus-Magnus,
struck off in an obscure printing shop in Florence in the early part
of the sixteenth century, and a splendid, large paper Poe, to which I
fortunately happened to be a subscriber."
A volume of the Poe and the Albertus-Magnus were lying at hand;
Pendleton ignored the dumpy, stained little Latin volume; its
strong-smelling leather binding and faded text had no attractions for
him. But he took up the Poe and began idly turning its leaves.
"It is a mistake to suppose that some specific thing must be the cause
of an action, or a train of thought," resumed the other, from the
comfortable depths of his chair. "Sometimes thousands of things go to
the making of a single thought, countless others to the doing of a
single deed. And yet again, a thing entirely unassociated with a
result may be the beginning of the result, so to speak. For example, a
volume of Henry James which I was reading last night might be the
cause of my turning to the literature of assassination this morning;
your friendly visit may result in my coming in contact with a murder
that will make any of these," with a nod toward the scattered volumes,
"seem tame."
Pendleton threw away his cigarette and proceeded to roll another.
"It is my earnest desire to remain upon friendly terms with you,
Kirk," stated he, with a smile. "Therefore, I will make no comment
except to say that your last reflection was entirely uncalled for."
Lighting the cigarette, he turned the tall leaves of the beautiful
volume upon his knee.
"This edition is quite perfection," he remarked admiringly. "And I'm
sorry that I was not asked to subscribe. However," and Pendleton
glanced humorously at his friend, "I don't suppose its beauty is what
attracts you to-day. It is because certain pages are spread with the
records of crime. I notice that this volume holds both 'The Murders in
the Rue Morgue' and the 'Mystery of Marie Roget.'"
"Right," smiled Ashton-Kirk. "I admit I was browsing among the details
of those two masterpieces when you came in. A great fellow, Poe. His
peculiar imagination gave him a marvelous grasp of criminal
possibilities."
Ashton-Kirk took up the "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater" and
turned the leaves until he came to "Murder Considered as One of the
Fine Arts."
"In some things I have detected an odd similarity in the work of De
Quincey and Poe. Mind you, I say in some things. As to what entered
into the structure of an admirably conceived murder they were as far
apart as the poles. The ideals of the 'Society of Connoisseurs in
Murder' must have excited in Poe nothing but contempt. A coarse
butchery--a wholesale slaughter was received by this association with
raptures; a pale-eyed, orange-haired blunderer, with a ship
carpenter's mallet hidden under his coat, was hailed as an artist.
"You don't find Poe wasting time on uncouth monsters who roar like
tigers, bang doors and smear whole rooms with blood. His assassins had
a joy in planning their exploits as well as in the execution of them.
They were intelligent, secret, sure. And in every case they
accomplished their work and escaped detection."
"You must not forget, however," complained Pendleton, "that De
Quincey's assassin, John Williams, was a real person, and his killings
actual occurrences. Poe's workmen were creatures of his imagination,
their crimes, with the possible exception of 'Marie Roget,' were
purely fanciful. The creator of the doer and the deed had a clear
field; and in that, perhaps, lies the superiority of Poe."
Ashton-Kirk sighed humorously.
"Perhaps," said he. "At any rate the select crimes are usually the
conceptions of men who have no idea of putting them into execution.
And that, upon consideration, is a fortunate thing for society. But,
at the same time, it is most irritating to a man of a speculative turn
of mind. Fiction teems with most splendid murders. Captain Marryat, in
Snarleyow, created an almost perfect horror in the attempted slaughter
of the boy Smallbones by the hag mother of Vanslyperken; the lad's
reversal of the situation and his plunging a bayonet into the wrinkled
throat, makes the chapter an accomplishment difficult to displace.
Remember it?"
Pendleton arose and opened one of the windows.
"Even the noise and smell of this street of yours are grateful after
what I have been listening to," said he. Then, after a moment spent in
examining the adjacent outdoors, he added in a tone of wonderment. "I
say, Kirk, this is really a hole of a place to live! Why don't you
move?"
The other arose and joined him at the window. Old-fashioned streets
alter wonderfully after the generations of the elect have passed; but
when Eastern Europe takes to dumping its furtive hordes into one, the
change is marked indeed. In this one peddler's wagons replaced the
shining carriages of a former day--wagons drawn by large-jointed
horses and driven by bearded men who cried their wares in strange,
throaty voices.
Everything exhaled a thick, semi-oriental smell. Dully painted
fire-escapes clung hideously to the fronts of the buildings;
stagnant-looking men, wearing their hats, leaned from bedroom windows.
The once decent hallways were smutted with grimy hands; the wide
marble steps were huddled with alien, unclean people.
A splendidly spired church stood almost shoulder to shoulder with the
Ashton-Kirk house. Once it had been a place of dignified Episcopal
worship; but years of neglect had made it unwholesome and cavern-like;
and finally it was given over to a tribe of stolid Lithuanians who
stuck a cheaply gilded Greek cross over the door and thronged the
street with their wedding and christening processions.
"Perhaps," said Ashton-Kirk, after a moment's study of the prospect,
"yes, perhaps it _is_ a hole of a place in which to live. But you see
we've had this house since shortly after the Revolution; four
generations have been born here. As I have no fashionable wife and I
live alone, I am content to stay. Then, the house suits me; everything
is arranged to my taste. The environment may not be the most
desirable; but, my visitors are seldom of the sort that object to
externals."
"Well, you have one just now who is not what you might call partial to
such neighborhoods," said Pendleton. "And," looking at his watch, "you
will shortly have another who will be, perhaps, still less favorably
impressed."
"Ah!" said Ashton-Kirk.
He curled himself up upon the deep window sill while Pendleton went
back to his chair and the tobacco.
"It's a lady," resumed Pendleton, the brown paper crackling between
his fingers, "a lady of condition, quality and beauty."
"It sounds pleasant enough," smiled the other. "But why is she
coming?"
"To consult you--ah--I suppose we might call it--professionally. No, I
don't know what it is about; but judging from her manner, it is
something of no little consequence."
"She sent you to prepare the way for her, then?"
"Yes. It is Miss Edyth Vale, daughter of James Vale, the 'Structural
Steel King,' you remember they used to call him before he died a few
years ago. She was an only child, and except for the four millions
which he left to found a technical school, she inherited everything.
And when you say everything in a case like this, it means
considerable."
Ashton-Kirk nodded.
"She is a distant relative of mine," resumed Pendleton; "her mother
was connected in some vague way with my mother; and because of this
indefinite link, we've always been"--here he hesitated for an
instant--"well, rather friendly. Last night we happened to meet at
Upton's, and I took her in to dinner. Edyth is a nice girl, but I've
noticed of late that she's not had a great deal to say. Sort of quiet
and big-eyed and all that, you know. Seems healthy enough, but does a
great deal of thinking and looking away at nothing. I've talked to her
for ten minutes straight, only to find that she hadn't heard a word
I'd said.
"So, as you will understand, I did not expect a great deal of her at
dinner. But directly across from us was young Cartwright--"
"Employed in the Treasury Department?"
"That's the man. Well, he began to talk departmental affairs with some
one well down the table--you know how some of these serious kids
are--and as there seemed to be nothing else to do, I gave my whole
attention to the interesting performance of Mrs. Upton's cook. I must
have been falling into a dreamy rapture; but at any rate I suddenly
awoke, so to speak. To my surprise Edyth was talking--quite
animatedly--with Cartwright, and about you."
"Ah!" said Ashton-Kirk. "That's very pleasant. It is not given to
every man that the mention of him should stir a melancholy young lady
into animation."
"Have you done anything in your line for the Treasury Department
lately?" asked Pendleton.
"Oh, a small matter of some duplicate plates," said Ashton-Kirk. "It
had some interest, but there was nothing extraordinary in it."
"Well, Cartwright didn't think that. I did not come to in time to
catch the nature of your feat, but he seemed lost in admiration of
your cleverness. He was quite delighted, too, at securing Edyth's
attention. You see, it was a thing he had scarcely hoped for. So he
proceeded to relate all he had ever heard about you. That queer little
matter of the Lincoln death-mask, you know, and the case of the
Belgian Consul and the spurious Van Dyke. And he had even heard some
of the things you did in the university during your senior year. His
recital of your recovery of the silver figure of the Greek runner
which went as the Marathon prize in 1902 made a great hit, I assure
you.
"But when he answered 'No' to Edyth's earnest question as to whether
he were acquainted with you, she lost interest; and when I promptly
furnished the information that I was, he was forgotten. During the
remainder of the dinner I had time for little else but Edyth's
questions. When she learned that you had taken up investigation as a
sort of profession, she was quite delighted, and before we parted I
was asked to arrange a consultation."
"She will be here this morning, then?" asked Ashton-Kirk.
Pendleton once more looked at his watch.
"Within a very few minutes," said he.