_Treasure Trove._
"You see the murder of Breckinridge was an unexpected complication in
the plans of the gang," McCormick explained, when the girl's first
intense horror at the knowledge of the slayer's identity had been
partially overcome. "They had never before gone so far as to take
life. Breckinridge had the reputation of being pretty swift and he's
been mixed up in more than one scandal. He must have been meat for
the Atterbury gang until he revolted, but he made a big mistake then.
Instead of going to the police and braving a public inquiry, or coming
to me, he chose to play a lone hand against the blackmailers, and
lost. He traced the ringleaders to the Atterbury house and attempted
to confront them single-handed. How he managed to elude the watchdog
isn't known, but he got in through a dining-room window which Welch had
left unfastened. It was only after the murder that the crook who played
butler was so careful to lock up the house at night.
"Breckinridge had unfortunately taken a bracer or two before he
started on his foolhardy expedition and when he found himself face to
face with Wolvert he let his feelings get the better of him and in his
resentment blustered out how much he knew against the gang. If he had
only realized it he was confirming his own death-warrant, for he had
found out too much to go free. Wolvert didn't wait to consult the head
of the gang, Mrs. Atterbury, but seized a knife from the sideboard and
a fight for life began. It must have been a silent one and quickly
over, for no one heard it except Welch who slept on the ground floor
at the back. He arrived on the scene in time to see Wolvert plunge the
knife in Breckinridge's breast.
"Afterward, in desperation, they consulted as to the best method of
disposing of the body and Wolvert suggested taking it up the road and
leaving it. Welch tied up the dog and then went off to a junk dealer
and fence whom he knew, and hired a horse and cart which he brought
back to the gate.
"Wolvert, meanwhile, had gone to tell Mrs. Atterbury the truth and it
must have been at that time you discovered the body, Miss Westcote.
"When Welch returned, the two men between them carried the body wrapped
in an old rug down to the gate, where they loaded it on the wagon and
drove to the secluded spot on Vanderduycken Road."
"The body must have been discovered very soon," the girl murmured with
a little shiver. "I heard the extras announcing the murder in the
early afternoon."
"It was found at dawn. The junk dealer's wagon had been seen and it
was traced down finally and spots found which the chemists proved were
human blood. The man wouldn't confess who had used his wagon, though he
was put through the third degree. He claimed that if it was out at all
he had known nothing of it and easily proved his own alibi.
"The case was at a standstill when one of Breckinridge's friends, to
whom he had hinted that he was being besieged for hush-money came to
me. With what I already knew of the Atterbury gang I put two and two
together, but the police were not far from the truth. If we hadn't
forestalled them it would only have been a matter of hours before they
knocked at the gates on the North Drive and in the cellar of the house
they would have found convincing proof; pieces of a rug, blood-stained
and charred, where an unsuccessful attempt had been made to destroy it
in the furnace. Shreds from the same rug were found twisted about the
buttons of the dead man's coat, and clotted in his wound.
"But let us have done with that, Miss Westcote," the detective added
hastily as he saw her pale lips quiver. "There are still a few points
to be cleared up in my mind. How did you get all that information about
the outside members of the gang?"
"From one queer abbreviated note and two cipher letters," the girl
responded. "The note was the first and I remember it word for word.
It read: 'Five thousand sheep no go. Bulls instead. Pink wash fed.
Clearing den. Tail comet yellow.' I couldn't understand it then, but
later when I had solved the cipher letters I realized the general drift
of it. It evidently meant that five thousand dollars could not be
gotten out of somebody although I don't comprehend the significance of
the word 'sheep.'"
"Slang among them for shearing the sheep, or blackmail," McCormick
explained. "What did you make out of the rest of it?"
"That the police were after them, and detectives had communicated with
the federal authorities at Washington," she went on. "The writer was
clearing for Denver and he advised Mrs. Atterbury to 'tail' or trace
the movements of 'The Comet,' that she was 'yellow' or crooked."
"Well done!" The detective thumped the desk in his enthusiasm. "There's
a place here for you if ever you want to take it, Miss Westcote! That
letter was written by 'Red' Rathbone."
"What does he look like?" the girl asked suddenly.
"Tall and shambling, bright red hair," McCormick replied with an
inquiring look. "No eyebrows or lashes; they were burned off in a
prison fire the last time he was sent up. Got a curious way of
carrying his head on one side----"
"Then I know him, too!" she exclaimed. "His soubriquet 'Red' reminded
me. He must have been the manservant who opened Mrs. Atterbury's door
to me on my first visit! I wonder I did not think of him when I read
the cipher letters."
"What were they?"
"I have them here." She produced two papers from her handbag and placed
them before him. "The first is a copy of a letter which Mrs. Atterbury
dictated to me."
"'My dear Shirley,'" read McCormick. "'Your letter received. Send me
ten of the thousand circulars quoting sheep prices for March. Home
market good this week for forty or fifty and even more points rise if
my brokers handled the situation properly.' H--m! I don't quite get it."
"You will if you read every third word, eliminating the two between."
The girl rose and bent over the desk. "You see? It really means:
'Received ten thousand sheep. March good for fifty more if handled
properly.'
"I was convinced that this could only be read aright by choosing
certain combinations of words, and I tried all that I could think of,
backward and forward, until I came upon the key."
"Good Lord! So somebody named March fell for a ten thousand dollar jolt
and was willing to disgorge fifty thousand more under pressure, eh?
Let's see what the rest of it says." He picked out the words slowly
with a thick forefinger: "'Laramie game up. Comet sold us out to pink.
Bud killed her; safe on way Japan. Red held in Denver, alibi straight.
Meet Professor Chicago Saturday, he has instructions. New substitute
success, blockhead but conscientious. No danger discovery so use this
code in letting us know result Westcote affair. End.' So she calls you
a blockhead, does she? Whoever 'Shirley' may be, he didn't meet the
professor after all, for I got to him first."
"Yes. 'Shirley' replied to her in the same code. This is his original
letter. Mrs. Atterbury dropped it in the hallway and I took possession
of it. Stripped of the superfluous words, it reads:--'Professor caught
Chicago. Held on old Hamilton verdict but McCormick getting evidence
new trouble. Marked letters seized. Hear Westcote sanitarium for good.
Nothing doing, refuses communicate. Trust nobody, but lie low. Business
dead. End.'"
"They felt the net closing!" McCormick brought his great fist down upon
the desk. "One by one we were gathering them in: Red in Denver, the
'Professor' in Chicago, Mortimer Dana here--"
"Oh, then it was you?" cried the girl. "Mrs. Dana came rushing to the
house one day crying out that her husband was caught, but they quieted
her and sent her away as quickly as they could, to avert suspicion
from themselves, I suppose. She fled the city, but I don't know where
she went--"
"To Bermuda," the detective interrupted grimly. "She's coming back,
though, under escort. She fought the extradition like a wild-cat, but
I think she will be in a communicative mood when she reaches here, and
if she tells us a few things I want to know, I'll see that she gets off
comparatively easy. She wasn't in it as deep as the rest."
"There is one person I would help if I only could." The girl hesitated.
"I don't know what she has done, or how closely she is allied to the
gang, but she did as much as she dared for me. I mean poor little Miss
Pope. She is in trouble enough about her brother as it is, and she is
so timid and long-suffering!"
"Don't you worry on her account, Miss Westcote." McCormick smiled
beneath his short-clipped mustache. "If I can get you off scot free
I ought to be able to handle her case. She went to Mrs. Atterbury,
innocently enough, as a visiting seamstress and they roped her in, just
as they thought they were doing with you, to collect money from their
victims. When she found out the truth she was in too deep herself to go
to the police, but she was too broken-spirited to be of any further use
to them. They didn't let her out of sight, though, you may depend on
that. She's free from them at last."
"Suppose--suppose they try to drag me in after all, if any of them
makes a confession." The girl's pallid face whitened still more, but
the detective laid a reassuring hand on her arm.
"If the police find Betty Shaw, the girl with the scar, they'll find
her in British Columbia, with a husband and an alibi, won't they? If
the Atterbury gang try to bring Ruth Westcote into the case, there's
no shred of evidence left to connect her with it or prove that she or
any of her people ever had dealings with them. That birthmark was your
salvation, for not one of those from whom you accepted the blackmail
would dare swear under oath that you were the same girl. Wolvert's wife
has already confessed but made no mention of you."
"Wolvert's wife!" The girl repeated aghast, yet a light was breaking
over her and it scarcely needed his reply to confirm it.
"Yes. The woman you knew as Madame Cimmino. She served her time in the
West, for pulling off an insurance swindle some years back. She is
known, and wanted, pretty much all over Europe. Wolvert is the black
sheep of a good family, half-English, half-Spanish; Welch is a former
heavy-weight pug, gone to the bad, but Mrs. Atterbury herself is the
real wonder of the lot. She is the widow of old Jonas Atterbury, one
of the shrewdest financiers that ever bucked the market. She went
through the money he left her and then, as luxury was as necessary to
her as the air she breathed, she went after it in the one way that
her brilliant, unscrupulous mind suggested. We'll never know how she
fell in with the gang or became their leader, for she's not the sort
to confess, if she was put on the rack, but it's a safe bet that she
planned every successful coup they've made in the last five years, and
she was foxy enough to realize what an asset her social reputation was
in averting suspicion. Her aristocratic neighbors on the North Drive
must have had a sensation when they read the papers after the raid!"
"And Professor Stolz?" the girl asked.
"A thorough-going scoundrel, of brilliant attainments but with a
crooked twist in his brain. He was expelled from the faculty of
the University of Leipzig for trying to sponsor fake antiquarian
discoveries and raise money for research work that was never attempted.
Doctor Bayard is another scientist gone wrong, and the rest are all
more or less well known for their criminal operations. You certainly
showed your pluck, Miss Westcote, when you tackled single-handed the
most dangerous bunch of crooks on record! It was enough of a miracle
that you escaped with your life, but to have succeeded in what you set
out to do, and annihilated their organization besides is an achievement
almost beyond belief! I take off my hat to you!" The Chief beamed upon
her. "I thought I knew something about the detective game, but you
can give me cards and spades and then beat me to it! Don't forget my
offer; if ever you want to go into the business, there's a partnership
here for you."
"Thank you," Ruth Westcote responded demurely. "I have already agreed
to become a partner in a different concern and I think it is going to
be a success!"
Her eyes, soft and glowing with a new, tender light turned to those of
Herbert Ross, and he smiled back at her.
"It ought to be," he said, "for it is founded on the greatest thing in
the world!"
* * * * *
"Young man!" Madame Dumois fixed her gold _pince-nez_ more firmly
on her high arched nose and glared at the guileless individual who
stood before her. "It is a good three weeks since I sent for you, to
find out if you had made any headway with my case, and your McCormick
person informed me you were out of town. What have you got to say for
yourself?"
"Quite a good deal, if you will listen, Madame Dumois." Herbert Ross
smiled ingratiatingly. "I only learned of your message yesterday, when
I returned. Very important business called me away; I wonder if you can
guess what it was?"
"The missing young woman?" she demanded eagerly.
Ross nodded and the smile broadened into a boyish laugh.
"Yes! The young woman you employed me to find!"
"And you have found her?" She eyed him warily, puzzled by his manner.
Ross's face changed and he drew down his lips lugubriously at the
corners, but the twinkle remained.
"She is a most elusive person!" he sighed.
"I don't need you to tell me that!" the old lady retorted bitterly.
"And I cannot see any cause for levity! I would not have believed your
Mr. McCormick capable of finding a lost canary, but I admit I expected
more of you!"
"You have heard no news of the young woman for whom you are searching?"
he asked.
A faint spot of color appeared in her faded cheeks and her keen, gray
eyes snapped.
"Nothing that I consider authentic. Why do you ask that, Mr. Ross?"
"Because I was under the impression that her natural guardian had
communicated with you." He spoke in bland surprise.
"'Her natural guardian!'" she repeated indignantly. "Her natural
guardian is a natural born fool, as I've often told him to his face!
But it appears to me that you have learned more about this affair than
I meant you to. Just what do you know?"
"That you returned from Europe to find your only brother in a
sanitarium, his home closed and his daughter missing. You interviewed
him, but he would give you no satisfaction, and knowing something of
the independent character of the young lady----"
"Independent!" Madame Dumois drew a deep breath. "She defied me when
she was three years old! The only member of the family who dared to
stand up to me!"
"Knowing that she possessed the courage of her convictions," Ross
continued, "you made up your mind to find out for yourself where she
was and what she was doing."
"What she was up to!" The old lady corrected him grimly. "Never since
she was born have I known what she was going to do next!"
"I have seen your brother, Mr. Westcote, and I am happy to be able to
tell you that his health is much improved."
"I gathered that from his letter--" A flash of her old humor crossed
her face. "He called me a meddlesome busybody, and that is more spirit
than he has shown in years! I don't know how you have found out all
this, but I cannot say that I am sorry. I did not care to put myself
or my family affairs at the mercy of a detective agency, that was the
reason why I would not tell you my motive in seeking her, yet I trust
and like you, Mr. Ross."
"Thank you," he responded gravely.
"Now, if you will only find this perverse, incorrigible, young woman
for me--"
"What if I have?" his eyes danced. "I did not say that I had failed,
Madame Dumois."
"You have--you have found her?" The old lady gasped, and her sharp eyes
blurred. "She hasn't gotten into any trouble, Mr. Ross? Where is she?"
"At home." He caught the two trembling wrinkled hands in his. "At our
home, breaking in the new cook I believe. I have come to take you to
her."
Madame Dumois looked long into his happy face and the color slowly came
back to her own. A dry smile hovered about her lips, and then broke
into a chuckle.
"Well! I do not usually indulge in slang, but that is one on the
lawyers! I won't have to change my will again! When I quarreled with my
brother and made up my mind that Ruth had disgraced the family by this
unaccountable disappearance, I added a codicil in your favor. You were
the best type of young American I had encountered in many a long day,
and as the choice lay between you and a cat asylum, I decided on you.
Now it is all in the family, and I am proud of you both. She is the
most provoking, self-willed, irrepressible young woman in the world,
and the dearest! Take me to her!"