“And now a question,” Darrell interpolated. “This Rita, then, has left for Europe?”
The girl nodded.
“Then if a letter arrived at the Arcadyville postoffice addressed to one Iris Shaftsbury — say from London — Madame Bosquette would have forwarded it to the Hotel Ardmore, New York City, whence it would have gone straight back to London again, following Rita Thorne? Is this not correct?”
She nodded.
“And for this reason, therefore, you know nothing of what was meant in the handkerchief message by the phrase ‘you have letter from London?’”
Again she nodded. “Nor will I probably know for several weeks, if Rita is traveling very rapidly.”
“Much that was obscure is clear now,” commented Darrell. “A great deal in fact.”
“But not all,” the girl continued. “There are further points. Last night at which time you accused me of going to murder this Napoleon Foy, I went instead to the Blackstone Hotel to see Sir Clyde Miffleton. I had no business to go upon that ankle, but I overestimated my ability. The hotel had called me at my request and informed me that Sir Clyde had just arrived and would remain in Chicago only two days. I managed to get there and told Sir Clyde the entire story of the Gubbio, showing him my papers and bill of sale. He laughed Bosquette’s petty efforts to scorn, and told me that if I would bring the Gubbio to-day and it proved to be as described, he would have a check ready for me for twenty-five hundred dollars. So much for that phase of last night. I left here at ten o’clock and was with Sir Clyde in the parlors of the Blackstone Hotel at the time Foy was killed, and returned to the apartment here very ill from the use of my ankle.”
Darrell gazed ruefully back of him at the plate, which lay in a hundred pieces upon the floor.
“And all of your efforts to secure the benefit of your father’s lucky purchase are destroyed utterly. It is too bad.”
“Well,” she said, “let us forget it, Jeffrey. Reconstructed, the Gubbio will be worth nine hundred dollars. And that is better than nothing. Please — please — do not worry about it. I knew perfectly what I was doing when I broke it over that demon’s head. Let us think no more about it. I will telephone Sir Clyde that the plate has been broken almost beyond repair. And we will not harass our minds about it. Have I made everything clear? Are there not a few final questions you would like to ask?”
“There are two,” replied Darrell reflectively. “A trivial one and an important one. The first is this: How did you know, when I brought the Schimski clock back to you, that that was your Uncle Jarndyce’s clock rather than the servant’s clock, since each was presumably a cheap alarm affair? I will go so far as to tell you that when I learned that the Blonde Beast of Bremen was mixed up in this strange case, I dropped in with that clock at the place of a young clockmaker friend of mine, and had it taken apart and examined for signs of a jewel or a document inside. There was nothing.”
“Nothing?” she repeated wonderingly. She shook her head slowly. “Even to me it is all Greek. Remember — I have not the letter from London which supposedly explains this affair.” She paused.
“But as to how I knew it to be uncle’s alarm clock. A year ago I was up here in Chicago, and John Cooper took me over on Ritchie Court to see uncle, who was sick in bed. While we were all visiting, John laughingly bet me that the tiny diamond in my locket was glass instead of a diamond, and to prove he was wrong I took down the clock from above uncle’s bed and cut a fine, triangular scratch at the very edge of the glass face. When you brought the Schimski clock to me, I recognized the scratch I myself had made. That is all.”
“I see. Now for the more important question. How did John Cooper Jarndyce know that you were at the Bradbury here on Independence Boulevard, under the name of Rita Thorne?”
“I can explain that,” she said, “very quickly. It appears that on the night of the afternoon when John Cooper was supposed to have died, he tiptoed upstairs from his storeroom retreat, called Arcadyville by long-distance phone and asked for me. My aunt recognized his voice at once but was unable to explain the circumstances connected with my departure lest the town telephone operator listen in. All she could do was to tell him to call Miss Rita Thorne at the Bradbury, on Independence Boulevard, Chicago. Whereupon he rang me by phone. I had just arrived. I answered. John told me in guarded language the perpetration of his great hoax had at last begun, and warned me not to be taken in by what I should see or hear.
“He then told me how he had just rung Arcadyville by long distance, and how aunt had told him to call Rita Thorne on Independence Boulevard, Chicago. He asked me why this was, and what I was doing in Chicago. I told him how I was here in my friend’s apartment under her name to outwit old Gaston Bosquette whom John himself remembered from days when Bosquette caught him in his apple orchard and flogged him with a whip. John did not seem to wish to prolong the conversation, and after suggesting that I remain altogether away from the scene of activities of his hoax, hung up.
“Then it was that I remembered with sudden consternation the matter of the life insurance which I had renewed, and I wondered if by any possibility that could place John Cooper in any false light. I rang him back — but only the empty buzzing of the bell rewarded me. Either he dared not answer the phone lest somebody recognize his voice, or else he had gone back downstairs to his secret retreat.” The girl stopped. After a considerable pause she added:
“And there you have the entire story of this case — at least as much of it as I myself have. Until yesterday morning when you brought me the message bearing the initials J. C. J., I did not dream but that John was still in hiding. Then I realized that some complication had taken place in his affairs — but what it was I could not fathom. I could only follow implicitly his instructions, and cleave to my promise to him not to divulge to anyone of what I knew. For my understanding, you see, depended upon this mysterious letter from London which is now following Rita Thorne.”
There was a further long silence after her final words, a silence in which Darrell sat with eyes half closed and brow creased into fine wrinkles. At last he looked down at the girl and spoke.
“The explanation of this thing is getting a bit nearer than it was before I heard your story, but it is still out of reaching distance. I have an explanation which I think will hit the case to a nicety. But first I want to get some information about this man Bross — this undertaker. Bross is an American name — and yet he is mixed up in a case in which the Blonde Beast, a German, is a leading light. Furthermore, if my explanation is correct, a death certificate must have been signed, and I want to find out the name of the doctor who signed that certificate. We must find out not only how the conspiracy was worked, but also exactly what the conspiracy was. So first I’ll proceed to use the phone. Are you quite comfortable, little girl?”
She lay back on the davenport and pushed back the jet curls from her white forehead.
“Quite comfortable — although a little nervous perhaps from all the excitement we’ve had.”
He patted her pillows into shape, and, rising, went over to the telephone.
In the space of fifteen minutes — the result of two conversations over the wire, one of which was held with the offices, at least, of one Dr. Bigley, and the other with the now no longer active United States Bureau of Intelligence in the Federal Building — Darrell ascertained two highly interesting items of information. The first uncovered the fact that “Doctor Bigley,” who had signed the burial certificate, was no longer practicing — had disappeared.
But it was the second call that brought a flash to Darrell’s eyes, and a startled exclamation from Iris. The undertaker Bross’ real name was Brossmeier; he had been under espionage during the war, and he had had a nephew in the German army — a nephew whose name was Carl von Tresseler!
CHAPTER XVIII
The Man Who Was in Havana
AS Darrell turned from the telephone and sat down in a chair beside the davenport on which Iris rested, the girl coul
d not repress her startled thought.
“Von Tresseler — the man who was just here — but what can he have to do with John Cooper — with — ”
“I’ll tell you — and I think I’m on a hot trail,” said Darrell. “The case, to me, takes on a structure which may not be correct in every respect, but which I’m sure fits pretty closely. First, Carl von Tresseler, when he fled to Chicago and escaped the police here — and, I’m sorry to say, eluded me, numskull that I was, made straight across the city for the only haven of refuge left to him, considering that the police were watching every street, rooming house and depot in Chicago. That haven of refuge was his uncle, Herman Adolph Brossmeier, who went in America under the less German name of Harold Adelbert Bross. Brossmeier hid his nephew in his establishment, and in the ensuing days while they waited for the police to relax their vigilance, he happened to broach to Von Tresseler the mad hoax which your cousin, John Cooper Jarndyce, was preparing to perpetrate on the seventh of June and thereafter.
“At once the ingenious brain of Von Tresseler perceived the possibility of a great swindling scheme which could be worked out of this affair, providing everything went through without a hitch. Not only did he propose the elements of the swindle, but, in fact, he engineered it, for the less acute brain of his uncle who had never made anything of himself other than a small neighborhood undertaker had probably thus far seen only a chance to earn five hundred dollars or so.
“The beauty of it all,” Darrell went on, “was that the victim himself was the one who perfected the mechanism of the hoax. All they needed to do was to follow John Cooper’s own plans, just as he outlined them. If anything by any possibility went wrong, Bross had a written and signed statement from John Cooper admitting that the thing merely was a huge practical joke.
“But nothing went wrong. Everybody fell a victim to the ingenious deception; they came to the chapel and reverently viewed the body. Many more attended the funeral. Some great, imposing-looking rascal from the ghetto, hired to weep, wept so vociferously that those present, informed in a low voice by Brossmeier that this was Mr. Noah Buckman, John’s granduncle who called them up, could do nothing else than refrain from intruding their questions on the bereaved. And is that not typical of a funeral — of all funerals? Does not everyone sit silent, too polite even to ask his neighbor who those present are? At any rate, everything went through smoothly. Brossmeier must have breathed a sigh of relief when the sermon was over and the coffin closed for good.
“And when at last the carriages of the funeral procession rolled from Greenwood Cemetery, the hearse now empty, the wax shell and its plaster body locked safely away in the Jarndyce family vault, Brossmeier and his co-conspirators knew that everything had passed off without a flaw.”
Darrell paused a moment and then went on.
“Late that night — at least after he had telephoned you — John Cooper Jarndyce was taken by force from his secret retreat in his bungalow. When, how, or where he was taken we do not know. Somehow — I don’t know how now — they got into this scheme this young doctor, Harry Irving Bigley, whose signature was required in order to get a burial permit. Likewise they got into the scheme your other cousin, Catherwood Jarndyce, who, if John Cooper Jarndyce died before reaching his twenty-eighth birthday, became heir on his own twenty-eighth birthday to the big fortune in stocks and bonds left by Edward Thurston Jarndyce.
“Every one of these men must necessarily have been in this scheme, and without knowing how they are connected to each other, or how the Jarndyce fortune was to be split up, I’ll wager that the king swindler of them all, Carl von Tresseler, is to get the lion’s share, and that without ever once entering into any relation with the rest of them.” Darrell looked at his watch. “My dearest girl — would you believe it if I were to tell you it is two o’clock? Time flies on us.” He put his watch away. “Now tell me something about Catherwood, for without Catherwood, the next heir in the event John Cooper died, this scheme could not possibly have been worked.”
Her answer was full and complete.
“Catherwood is a rather weak young man,” she replied. “He travels with a fast set, and spends a good deal of money. I cannot conceive of Catherwood himself having had constructive ingenuity enough to have built up any sort of a plot against John. He was — or at least he certainly made himself appear to be — in Havana at the time of the spurious death. No, strange as it may seem, I cannot conceive of Catherwood as being downright criminal enough to have entered a scheme such as this. He is weak, and yet” — she wrinkled up her brow — “and yet not bad.”
“But you will admit,” insisted Darrell, “that without his coöperation the abduction would profit no one anything. Catherwood is the one who profits — at least on the first of the coming August.” He paused. “What is his occupation?”
“As I told you,” she replied, “he is fast and travels with a fast set. He works for a big gambling syndicate. He accepts bets on races for this syndicate, so John explained to me. He receives a moderate salary and a percentage of the betting tickets which he writes out. He visits brokers — brokers who like to gamble — in their offices and writes out their tickets for them. Probably you can understand the business better than I. The name of the man who controls the syndicate is Mont Nevers.”
“Yes,” said Darrell, nodding, “Catherwood is what is known as a circulating bookmaker’s agent I also know of Mont Nevers. He is known as the handbook king. The other papers pan him pretty freely, but the Call is friendly to him.” He pondered. “Surely the very type of Catherwood’s occupation — an illegitimate one — presupposes that he could be involved in a criminal deal, does it not?”
She shook her head.
“To me it still does not. For Catherwood is just lazy. He wants to wear good clothes and put up an appearance. He is a — what you call — bookmaker’s agent simply because it allows him to live with a fast set and not do any arduous work.” She paused, thinking.
“John was always able to get Catherwood after two in the afternoon by calling Mont Nevers’ residence, whence they would connect him by a private wire with the place where they operate the returns on the races. After seven at night Catherwood can be called at his little bachelor apartment up in the Chetson Arms on Argyle Street. I have tried twice since receiving that mysterious message to get Catherwood, at the Chetson Arms, but each time he was out.”
“Then,” declared Darrell quietly, “we’ll try the Mont Nevers’ phone number this time, for the hour has come to exert pressure on the weakest link of this chain. If we force from Catherwood by the sheer weight of the evidence where John Cooper is being held as well as the names and locations of all the co-conspirators, we will round up some big quarry and round it up in the quickest way at that. I suggest that we ring Catherwood and request him to come to this apartment. The first thing you will do will be to deliver John Cooper’s cryptic message about the clock. Both of us — you in front of him and I hiding back of the kitchenette door there — will observe what his reaction is to this message. Then I will come out. That will be the show-down. And I tell you if Catherwood doesn’t talk after he learns the weight of the evidence against him, he has less brains than I give him credit for.”
“It is the only thing to do,” said the girl. “Poor Catherwood — to be drawn into such a band of swindlers. And yet — I can’t believe it.”
Darrell went to the telephone. He rang the home of Mont Nevers, the handbook king. Asking for Catherwood Jarndyce, a powerful clicking of a private switchboard followed and of a sudden he found himself connected with that young man. The owner of it, however, informed him querulously that he could not fill any appointments till four o’clock, when he was “off” for the day. So Darrell, giving him the address on Independence Boulevard, the location of the flat, and the curiosity-titillating information that news of great importance from his cousin Iris Shaftsbury awaited him there, hung up.
Then he went back to the davenport.
“The sh
ow-down,” he said, smiling grimly, “comes at four o’clock. I’m as curious to see Catherwood Jarndyce, the willing tool of this conspiracy, as I would be to see Carl von Tresseler, the brains back of it all.”
CHAPTER XIX
A Problem — With No Clue
SEVERAL occurrences of more or less importance served to break the tedium of the hours from two o’clock that afternoon to four o’clock when Catherwood Jarndyce arrived. That of least importance in the scheme of things was, perhaps, the return of the colored girl who came sneaking into the apartment with her key, looking apprehensively over her shoulder at every step.
Find the Clock Page 18
