SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES
Damp and uncomfortable, he kept to the farther side of the street, and
slackened his pace as he drew near the dwelling which he realized was a
place replete with mystery.
He stood on the opposite sidewalk at length, and gazed across at the
frowning brownstone front. The place was utterly dark. Not the
slightest chink of light was visible in all its somber windows.
Aware that nothing is so utterly confusing to a guilty being as to be
confronted unexpectedly by a victim, supposed to be dispatched,
Garrison had come this far without the slightest hesitation. The
aspect of the house, however, was discouraging.
Despite the ache at the base of his skull, and despite the excited
thumping of his heart, he crossed the street, climbed unhaltingly to
the steps, and rang the bell. He had made up his mind to act as if
nothing unusual had occurred. Then, should either Dorothy or the
Robinsons exhibit astonishment at beholding him here, or otherwise
betray a guilty knowledge of the "accident" which had befallen him, his
doubts would be promptly cleared.
A minute passed, and nothing happened.
He rang the bell again.
Once more he waited, in vain.
His third ring was long and insistent.
About to despair of gaining admission, he was gratified to note a dimly
reflected light, as if from the rear, below stairs. Then the hall was
illumined, and presently a chain-lock was drawn, inside the door, the
barrier swung open, and the serving-woman stood there before him,
dressed with the evidences of haste that advertised the fact she had
risen from her bed.
Garrison snatched at his wits in time to act a part for which he had
not been prepared.
"I'm afraid it's pretty late," he said, "but I came to surprise my
wife."
"My word, that's too bad, sir, ain't it?" said the woman. "Mrs.
Fairfax has went out for the night."
This was the truth. Dorothy, together with the Robinsons, had left the
house an hour before and gone away in an automobile, leaving no word of
their destination, or of when they intended to return.
Utterly baffled, and wholly at a loss to understand this unexpected
maneuver. Garrison stood for a moment staring at the woman. After
all, such a flight was in reasonable sequence, if Dorothy were guilty.
The one thing to do was to avail himself of all obtainable knowledge.
"Gone--for the night," he repeated. "Did Mrs. Fairfax seem anxious to
go?"
"I didn't see her, sir. I couldn't say, really," answered the woman.
"Mr. Theodore said as how she was ailing, sir, and they was going away.
That's all I know about it, sir."
"I'm sorry I missed them," Garrison murmured, half to himself. Then a
thought occurred to him abruptly--a bold suggestion, on which he
determined to act.
"Is my room kept ready, in case of present need like this to-night?" he
said. "Or, if not, could you prepare it?"
"It's all quite ready, sir, clean linen and all, the room next to Mrs.
Fairfax's," said the woman. "I always keeps it ready, sir."
"Very good," said Garrison, with his mind made up to remain all night
and explore the house for possible clews to anything connected with its
mysteries. "You may as well return to your apartments. I can find my
way upstairs."
"Is there anything I could get you, sir?" inquired the woman. "You
look a bit pale, sir, if you'll pardon the forwardness."
"Thank you, no," he answered gratefully. "All I need is rest." He
slipped half a dollar in her hand.
The woman switched on the lights in the hallway above.
"Good-night, sir," she said. "If you're needing anything more I hope
you'll ring."
"Good-night," said Garrison. "I shall not disturb you, I'm sure."
With ample nerve to enact the part of master, he ascended the stairs,
proceeded to the room to which he had always gone before, and waited to
hear the woman below retire to her quarters in the basement.
The room denoted nothing unusual. The roses, which he had taken from
the vase to obtain the water to sprinkle on Dorothy's face, had
disappeared. The vase was there on the table.
He crossed the floor and tried the door that led to Dorothy's boudoir.
It was locked. Without further ado, he began his explorations.
It was not without a sense of gratitude that he presently discovered
the bathroom at the rear of the hall. Here he laved his face and head,
being very much refreshed by the process.
A secondary hall led away from the first, and through this he came at
once to the rooms which had evidently been set apart for Dorothy and
her husband. The room which he knew was supposed to be his own
contained nothing save comfortable furnishings. He therefore went at
once to Dorothy's apartments.
She occupied a suite of three rooms--one of them large, the others
small. Exquisite order was apparent in all, combined with signs of a
dainty, cultured taste. It seemed a sacrilege to search her
possessions, and he made no attempt to do so. Indeed, he gained
nothing from his quick, keen survey of the place, save a sense of her
beauty and refinement as expressed in the features of her "nest." He
felt himself warranted in opening a closet, into which he cast a
comprehensive glance.
It seemed well filled with hanging gowns, but several hooks were empty.
On a shelf high up was a suit-case, empty, since it weighed almost
nothing as he lifted up the end. He took it down, found marks where
fingers had disturbed the dust upon its lid, then stood on a chair,
examined the shelf, and became aware that a second case had been
removed, as shown by the absence of accumulated dust, which had
gathered all about the place it had formerly occupied.
Replacing the case he had taken from the shelf, he closed the closet,
in possession of the fact that some preparation, at least, had been
made against some sort of a journey. He was certain the empty hooks
had been stripped of garments for the flight, but whether by Dorothy
herself or by her relatives he could not, of course, determine.
He repaired at once to the rooms farther back, which the Robinsons had
occupied. When he switched on the lights in the first one entered, he
knew it had been the old man's place of refuge, for certain signs of
the occupancy of Mr. Robinson were not lacking.
It reeked of stale cigar-smoke, which would hang in the curtains for a
week. It was very untidy. There were many indications that old
Robinson had quitted in haste. On the table were ash-trays, old
cigar-stumps, matches, burned and new; magazines, hairpins, a
tooth-brush, and two calf-bound volumes of a legal aspect. One was a
lawyer's treatise on wills, the other a history of broken testaments,
statistical as well as narrative.
The closet here supplied nothing of value to Garrison when he gave it a
brief inspection. At the end of the room was a door that stood
slightly ajar. It led to the next apartment--the room to which
Theodore had been assigned. Garrison soon discovered the electric
button and flooded the place with light.
The apartment was quite irregular. The far end had two windows,
overlooking the court at the rear--the hollow of the block. These were
both in an alcove, between two in-jutting partitions. One partition
was the common result of building a closet into the room. The other
was constructed to accommodate a staircase at the back of the house,
leading to the quarters below.
Disorder was again the rule, for a litter of papers, neckties, soiled
collars, and ends of cigarettes, with perfumes, toilet requisites, and
beer bottles seemed strewn promiscuously on everything capable of
receiving a burden.
Garrison tried the door that led to the staircase, and found it open.
The closet came next for inspection. Without expecting anything of
particular significance, Garrison drew open the door.
Like everything else in the Robinsons' realm, it was utterly
disordered. Glancing somewhat indifferently over its contents.
Garrison was about to close the door when his eye caught upon a gleam
of dull red, where a ray of light fell in upon a bit of color on the
floor.
He stopped, put his hand on the cloth, and drew forth a flimsy pair of
tights of carmine hue--part of the Mephistophelian costume that
Theodore had worn on the night of the party next door. With this in
his hand, and a clearer understanding of the house, with its staircase
at the rear. Garrison comprehended the ease with which Theodore had
played his rôle and gone from one house to the other without arousing
suspicion.
Encouraged to examine the closet further, he pawed around through the
garments hung upon the hooks, and presently struck his hand against a
solid obstacle projecting from the wall in the darkest corner, and
heard a hollow, resonant sound from the blow.
Removing half a dozen coats that hung concealingly massed in the place,
he almost uttered an exclamation of delight. There on the wall was a
small equipment telephone, one of the testing-boxes employed by the
linemen in their labors with which to "plug in" and communicate between
places where no regular 'phone is installed.
It was Theodore's private receiver, over which he could hear every word
that might be said to anyone using the 'phone!
It tapped the wires to the regular instrument installed in the house,
and was thoroughly concealed.
Instantly aware that by this means young Robinson could have overheard
every word between himself and Dorothy concerning their meeting in the
park, Garrison felt his heart give a lift into realms of unreasonable
joy.
It could not entirely dissipate the doubts that hung about Dorothy, but
it gave him a priceless hope!