AN UNDERWORLD PHOENIX

THE interview with Rannie had wrought a change in the detective's immediate plans, and he resolved not to hold any further conversation with Richard Lorne until he had secured additional data upon which to work. The theory first advanced by Miss Risby was now seemingly corroborated by several inadvertent statements of the crippled boy's, trivial in themselves but of importance when considered with the rest of the evidence.

Everything depended, of course, upon the establishment of a motive. But granted that there were no insurmountable obstructions to the theory, the possible means used to bring about the death of Mrs. Lorne was clear; and the idea which Odell had formed as to the murder of Julian would be as consistent whether Lorne or any other member of the household were guilty.

Then, too, Lorne as well as anyone else might have filed the heavy wire cables which held up the portrait, hoping to encompass Gene's death, and thus defer perhaps indefinitely the accounting of his inheritance which would have been demanded in another month. Titheredge was Lorne's life-long friend; and he as well as the latter's wife had doubtless been satisfied with the statements made from time to time of the administration of the various properties ​without dreaming of the necessity of verifying them; statements which might very easily have been doctored by a desperate man who constantly hoped to recoup on the market and thus cover up his peculations.

At a first glance it had seemed inconceivable that the man should have sawed through the top step of the stairs and then deliberately have precipitated himself down them next morning; but on second thought Odell began to see the possibilities. Lorne might well have planned that episode to throw suspicion from himself in the inevitable investigation, meaning merely to roll down the stairs uninjured, and then have miscalculated his fall. If he were indeed guilty, his dissimulation to Titheredge and his professed determination to call in the police rebounded against him as evidence of his craftiness. He would have had ample time to tamper with the stairs after the attorney went to sleep, and by keeping him there as a guest his own alibi was established.

Then a quick revulsion of feeling came, and Odell reminded himself sternly that he had not one shred of real evidence against this man, nothing but the vague suspicions of the trained nurse and his own specious imaginings. Time above all things was essential in this case, and he could afford to waste none of it on idle speculations.

One seemingly inconsequential thought still rankled in his brain—the hint which the mysterious Gerda had given him concerning insanity. He knew better than to approach her now for further enlightenment, for he had read the finality in her manner during their first interview; but if he had some weapon to wield over her and force her confidence. … If he could learn her purpose there, discover the identity of the man upon whom she had looked ​with murder in her eyes from the top of the stairs. …

A sudden inspiration flashed blindingly across his consciousness. If it could be true, it would explain much; and yet. …

"Sergeant, I think she's planning a getaway." Smith appeared suddenly before him.

"Who?" Odell roused himself from his meditations.

"Miss Cissie. She has been moving briskly back and forth in her room for the last hour, slamming bureau-drawers and the closet-door; and she is humming to herself as if she was mighty pleased over something. I thought I'd better let you know in case you were going out."

"All right. If she leaves the house trail her; and take Blake or Shaw along. By the way, what was the address of that apartment house she went to yesterday looking for that Mrs. Gael?"

"Number 120-A West Ninety-third Street. But what's the idea of taking Blake or Shaw along, Sergeant, if I trail Miss Cissie?"

"Because in the event that she keeps an appointment one of you will have to escort her home and the other take Farley Drew to Headquarters." Odell smiled. "That is the only date she will leave this house to keep, and it may be our best chance of locating him unless she had the right dope in going to that other woman's apartment yesterday. I'm going out now, but I'll be back before night in any event. Don't take your hand off your number for a minute, Smith."

In the lower hall, however, he was arrested as on a similar occasion two days before by the sound of youthful voices in the drawing-room, and after a moment's hesitation be knocked upon the door.

​It was opened by Nan, the younger daughter of the house, and looking beyond her, Odell saw a tall, good-looking young man rise slowly from the davenport.

"Oh, did—did you want to see me?" The girl's tone was surprised and a trifle confused. "Is there anything that I can do?"

"Look here, is this Sergeant Odell?" The young man had advanced with a certain truculence in his manner.

"Yes, Tad." Nan turned again to the detective, and he noted the blush which crept up into her cheeks. "This is my—our neighbor, Mr. Traymore."

"I'd like a word with you, sir," young Mr. Traymore announced. "I'm a lawyer—at least I'm going to be—and I know enough about the legal side of an investigation like this to be assured that you can't keep the whole household prisoners here till you have made up your mind who is at the bottom of the things that have been going on—"

"Oh, Tad!" the girl interrupted in faint remonstrance.

"I mean what I say," Tad went on doggedly. "This man has got you all buffaloed, but they can't hold you in your own home on suspicion; they have got to get a warrant and arrest you, if they want you detained; and they must show some grounds for that. This young lady says that you have given orders no one is to leave the house."

"Not at all," Odell replied gravely, although his mouth twitched a bit at the corners. "Miss Chalmers is free to come and go as she wishes; but of course, under the circumstances, anyone who leaves the house will be strictly watched and guarded until their return."

"I don't mean that. I want Miss Chalmers to come to my mother's, next door, and stay. She isn't safe here; no ​one is, after what has been going on, and you know it. If the others want to stick along and risk being killed, that is their own affair; but I'm not going to have Nan—Miss Chalmers—subjected to such danger."

"Indeed, Mr. Traymore. Have you any legal right to remove her? I understand that Miss Chalmers is not yet of age; does her guardian consent to her taking up her residence elsewhere?"

"I haven't asked him." Tad appeared slightly taken aback. "No one has a right to keep her where her life is in danger. She insists on staying to look after her stepfather, when any ordinary nurse could do that."

"I won't leave him, and that is all there is about it!" declared Nan with sudden spirit, her dark, gipsy-like face aglow. "I love Dad almost better than anybody in the world, and I won't run away while he is ill and needs me. Don't mind him, Sergeant Odell; we're always quarreling. Did you wish to talk to me?"

"Yes, for just a moment; but first I want to assure your friend that you are as safe here as constant care and watchfulness can make you. I do not think it would be wise for you to take up even a temporary residence elsewhere unless actual danger threatens you from a source which we cannot control; for others of the household might wish to avail themselves of the same privilege."

"In that case," said Tad, rising, "I suppose I had better take myself off. I hope, Sergeant, that you will be able to take care of her; but it is a horrible thing to think of her being here! Good-by, Nan."

Woman-like, she permitted him to get as far as the entrance door before she ran after him, and the detective ​smiled in spite of himself. There had been an engaging quality about the young man's boyish yet very earnest outburst, which had enabled Odell to read his character more clearly than hours of grilling examination would have revealed; and he felt with relief that here at least was one person more or less intimately connected with the household whose complexities need not be taken into account.

Nan returned as the front door thudded, her soft eyes sparkling and the dusky roseglow still suffusing her face; but color and light alike died from her expression as she closed the door carefully behind her and approached the detective.

"Rannie says that you have proof that my mother—" Her voice faltered and stopped. Then suddenly a swift cry burst from her lips. "Is it true that they were murdered, my mother and Julian?"

"I am afraid there is no possibility of a doubt," Odell returned gravely. "I have heard all that the rest of the family and the servants can tell me, Miss Chalmers; and now I have come to you. You experienced the same fears, the same vague suspicions as the others after your brother's death, did you not?"

"Yes, but I didn't really suspect; none of us did, I'm sure. I only felt nervous and afraid of something I couldn't see, as if I were a little bit of a girl again and woke up in the dark." She drew a deep breath. "I cannot imagine who would wish to harm us; I can scarcely believe that this dreadful thing is true. But, but granted that it is, the most awful part is that someone beneath our roof—"

Her voice had sunk to a mere whisper and once more it failed her.

​"I realize how difficult it is for you to face, but there is no alternative." The detective spoke very gently. "Some one of the household is guilty, and it is my business to discover the identity of that person before another tragedy comes. I will not distress you by asking for details which the others have already given me of the events of the past month; but there is just one question I should like to put to you, and I want you to think back very carefully before you reply. Can you recall the slightest incident, the most trivial remark on the part of anyone, no matter who, which might lead you now to think that they possessed some personal knowledge of the truth?"

For a moment Nan reflected, while Odell watched the ever-changing play of expression on her childishly mobile face. The mingling of horror and grief gave place to a look of forced concentration, as if, in obedience to his request, she was indeed reviewing each tragic episode in her mind and striving to recall a possible clue. All at once a startled gleam quivered like a flame from her eyes and she caught her breath sharply. Then the light dulled and she shook her head.

"No, Sergeant Odell. There was nothing, nothing that anyone said or did at any time which could have made me think such a thing."

Ten minutes later as the detective went briskly down the steps of the house he mentally catalogued that flitting expression for future reference. It was the only point which his interview with Nan Chalmers had elicited, yet it was a pregnant one. She had remembered something, some act or word on the part of one of those about her which con​veyed a startling possibility to her mind, and she had as quickly and instinctively hidden it from him.

After a hasty lunch he made his way to the address which Smith had given him, and found himself facing a somber, old-fashioned apartment house of the cheaper grade, one of a long row identical with it which stretched the length of the block. He entered the vestibule, scrutinized the soiled cards inserted in the slots below the mail-boxes, and at length rang the janitor's bell.

After an interval heavy, shuffling footsteps sounded from within and the door opened, disclosing a fat, middle-aged woman with a good-natured if somewhat loose-lipped smile, which froze at sight of the stranger.

"If you've got me up all them stairs to try to sell me somethin'—", she began, but Odell cut her short.

"I haven't. I'm looking for a Mrs. Gael who used to live here, and if you can tell me anything which will help me to locate her I will make it worth your while."

The woman sniffed.

"Process-server?"

"No; a friend of hers." Odell smiled. "We've been unable to find out where she went from here, and it occurred to me that possibly you would know if you are the janitress. She has simply dropped from the sight of all her friends."

"Well, I wouldn't wonder." The woman sniffed again. "I guess if I had to be took off to a place like that I wouldn't want folks to know, either. Not that you'd ever have thought it for a minute to look at her or talk to her; but if I'd known she wasn't right you'd never have got me alone there in the flat with her."

​"Wasn't right!" Odell repeated when he could stem the flow of words. "What sort of a place was she taken to?"

"A loon'tic asylum!" the woman replied with morbid relish. "You could have knocked me down with a feather when I heard it. She told me she was goin' to a san'tarium to rest, though she hadn't done nothin' while she lived here but moon around the house; and she had hardly any callers, only one gentleman as I know of, and him not often. It's funny her friends didn't look her up before, if they was so concerned about her."

"But where was she taken? What sanitarium?" The detective's thoughts were racing now. "On whose advice did she go?"

"How should I know? I ain't never one to poke my nose in the tenants' affairs. She was sad-like when she came, and she kept gettin' droopier and droopier as time went on, but she was always soft-spoken and quiet, and I never saw her do anythin' funny; no more did Agnes, her girl that come in by the day. Except for her, Mis' Gael was all alone. It was after that gentleman who called now and again had been here for the next to the last time that Mis' Gael sent for me and told me she was goin' away to the san'tarium, but she'd be back in a few weeks. She left the next day, and my man helped put her trunk in the taxi. That very afternoon a movin'-van backed up to the door, and the boss of it showed me an order to take out all her things and put them in storage. Her rent was paid up in advance till the end of her lease, so I had nothin' to say; and I ain't heard of her since."

"Who told you that the sanitarium to which Mrs. Gael ​was taken was a lunatic asylum?" Odell drew a wallet from his pocket and ostentatiously selected a bill.

"The gentleman, sir; the one that used to call on her." With an effort the woman wrenched her fascinated gaze from the wallet. "I never did hear his name, but I guess he was a relation. He come in that afternoon before the movin' men was through, just as I was havin' words with the boss of them about scratchin' my hall wall-paper, and he drew me to one side and told me Mrs. Gael was crazy. He said she had been for a long time, and her family had made up their minds now to put her where maybe she'd be cured. You could have knocked me down—"

"What was this gentleman like?"

"Well, about forty, sir, I guess. Kind of handsome he was; but he looked like he'd done most everything there is and a lot of it hadn't agreed with him. He was a gentleman, though; you'd only to look at his clothes and that elegant scarf-pin to tell that. Not that it would be my taste to be wearin' a thing shaped like a skull—"

"A skull?" repeated the detective.

"The pin, sir. Some kind of a pearl, it looked like, and it must have cost a lot of money, but it was just the shape of a skull. It give me a turn to look at it." The woman paused for breath and then rattled on: "Well, after the gentleman talked to me he went up to the flat where Agnes was wonderin' what was goin' to happen next; and he told her just what he told me. After he'd gone she came down and said he had got her a fine job out in Chicago and given her the money to get there. I guess she went; for I ain't seen her again, either."

"When did all this happen?"

​"About nine months ago, sir. The flat's rented again now to a family named—"

"Never mind." Odell pressed the bill into her hand. "I think Mrs. Gael's friends will be able to locate her now."

"Thank you, sir. There was a young lady here askin' for her yesterday, too, my man tells me. I hope Mrs. Gael gets well; there's a lot that's crazier-actin' than her walkin' around loose."

Odell glanced at his watch as he descended the steps. It was a quarter to three. If he made a quick subway connection he would reach the financial district just in time to catch Dilke—

As he returned the watch to his pocket he glanced idly at a figure loitering by the curb and his train of thought snapped. The figure was shabby and uncouth, and the eyes which stared out at him from the thin, sickly yellow countenance were deeply sunken. The man uttered a low imprecation and turned to run; but in another moment Odell's hand gripped his shoulder and swung him about so that they stood face to face.

"Well, Tony! So you weren't burned, after all, when you set fire to the boathouse!" The grip tightened. "Why did you kill Pete?"

"I didn't! Honest to Gawd, I didn't!" Tony cringed. "When I woke up he was sittin' there dead in the chair, an' you an' de other guy was gone. So help me Gawd!"

"Come along and tell that to the Old Man down at Headquarters." Odell signaled a passing taxi, and thrusting in his cowering captive he followed. "Two-forty Center Street, and step on the gas!"

​As the chauffeur obeyed Tony passed a shaking hand across his unshaven lips.

"I'm wise dat I gotta do a stretch for stickin' up youse an' de other guy an' keepin' youse hid in dat boathouse, but I never croaked Pete."

"There'll be a little charge of incendiarism tacked on that will hold you on another count, too, my friend," Odell promised grimly.

"Come again?"

"Burning down that boathouse to conceal the body."

"Nottin' doin'. Dat was a accident. De dope got to Pete, an' when I see he's croaked I falls back against dat table an' over goes de lamp. I'm still cloudy from de dope an' all I got sense enough ter do is beat it.—Say, mister," Tony leaned forward slyly, "if youse was wise dat Pete was dead before youse an' de other guy made your getaway, youse are hep dat I didn't croak him; an' it's a safe bet Pete an' me didn't drag youse an' yer look-out ter dat Gawd-forsaken hole ter nurse youse bot' back ter healt'. Youse is a square guy; will youse say a good word fer me wit' de Old Man if I put youse wise ter de main squeeze in dat little game, de swell dat paid us ter keep youse out o' de way?"

"Can that," Odell responded laconically. "You don't know where to find him yourself or you wouldn't have been hanging around that street. Who told you to look there for him—Sims?"

"Youse is on." Tony drew back disconsolately in his corner. "I may do a stretch but dey'll go up wit' me, de two o' dem! Dis ain't de foist job I done fer dat guy, but Sims was always de go-between, an' I never laid eyes on ​him till he showed up yes'day wit' Sims at de boathouse. Dat's Gawd's trut'."

"What other jobs have you done for him? Come clean, Tony. How do I know you didn't dope that whiskey to get away with Pete's roll and the rest that you were both to be paid?"

"Youse wouldn't frame me?" Tony's hoarse voice rose to a whine. "I kin prove dat Pete bought dat whiskey off a hick an' de laud'mun in a drug-store in de burg near where we was at But I'll come clean, all right; if I'm goin' up, I'm goin' ter have conp'ny! De guy dat Sims works fer is a blackmailer, see? Gets somet'in' on rich kids an' makes 'em cough up. When dey puts up a kick Sims comes after me, an' I rocks 'em ter sleep an' sits beside de cradle till dey wakes up an' comes across. Dey t'inks it's just a hold-up an' kidnappin' job o' mine an' never gets wise dat de big guy is back o' it; but dey coughs up just de same an' never squeals fer fear de other bus'ness will come out; an' I divvy wid de main squeeze t'rough Sims."

"You made use of that boathouse before?"

"Nix. We never took none o' dem out o' de city, an' I t'ought it was bad dope ter do it wid youse, but we had our orders. We kept 'em in a loft over by de river; I kin take youse dere—"

"No. Here we are at Headquarters; you can tell the Old Man where it is." As he opened the door of the taxi Odell put a final question. "Why did you look for Sims or his employer up in Ninety-third Street?"

"’Cause I couldn't find Sims; an' I had ter get ter him right away an' tell him youse an' de other boid had flown an' Pete croaked. I went up ter dat place wid Sims more'n ​once, an' I suspicioned it was maybe one o' de joints where de main guy hangs out when he's layin' low. I never lamped which bell Sims rung; but I t'ought I'd loaf around ter-day ter see if I could get a flash at one o' 'em." Tony shivered miserably as his captor piloted him up the broad stairs. "I've wised youse up to all I know, honest to Gawd!"