How Many Cards?/Chapter 13

HE "Hildreth" flat consisted only of four small rooms and bath, the latter evidently converted from a clothes closet, and McCarty and Dennis searched them thoroughly but found no trace of the woman. The quick, double honk of a motor horn in the street below came to their ears as they were on the point of departure and they descended to find a crowd of excited tenants gathered in the halls and on the stairs, with a blue-coated officer pushing his way through the throng.

"Get back, there! It's all right, there's no trouble. It was just a bit of a row but it's over now and no one hurt." The policeman winked broadly up at McCarty on the stairs and then addressed the jabbering crowd once more. "Get back where you belong and quit making a disturbance or I'll send for the wagon and run you all in!—Come down, sir."

He led them out into the vestibule and slammed the door after him.

"Detective Sergeant Martin tipped me off," he whispered. "You're former Roundsman McCarty, sir?"

"Yes. Special deputy now under Inspector Druet," McCarty explained briefly. "Woman on the fourth floor, rear, under the name of Hildreth is wanted downtown and we almost had her but she got away on the fire-escape. Take Martin and search the yards and the roofs and if you find no trace of her leave him on guard in the flat until he's relieved. Report by telephone to Inspector Druet at Headquarters."

"Right, sir," the policeman replied with immense respect. "What's the Hildreth woman like?"

Before McCarty could answer Martin entered the vestibule.

"Hill walked clear over to Fifth Avenue and waited all this time for a 'bus," he announced. "He's just started uptown and I came back according to your instructions, Mac, but you were nowhere around and I couldn't keep on sounding this horn! All at once Hell broke loose here in the house and I figured you were in it, somehow."

McCarty explained gruffly, adding a description of the "Hildreth" woman, and Martin whistled.

"The Helwig girl to a T!" he exclaimed. "And that valet—so that's how the land lays! We'll find her if she's on the block!"

After a few final orders McCarty, with Dennis in tow, returned to the drugstore and nodding to the surprised clerk he entered the telephone booth and called up Police Headquarters. A long ten minutes elapsed before he reappeared, red and perspiring, and said in a hurried undertone to his companion:

"Yost is on his way up to the Creveling house as fast as the inspector's own car can take him. He's to find out if Hill is there and stand guard over him."

"But why?" Dennis spoke cautiously out of the side of his capacious mouth. "Why don't he run him in again and bring him up before the magistrate to-morrow to be held for trial? You've got a clear charge against him now of aiding and abetting that woman to jump her bail; that's what the legal sharks call it."

"Instead, if it's not too late for the first editions, the inspector is going to see that every morning newspaper carries the word that he's been released for lack of evidence and is back at the Creveling house," McCarty responded. "Yost will be there to see that he don't get out again or send any messages and to trace and report any 'phone calls that may come for him."

"I get you!" A light broke over Dennis' face. "You think the woman will maybe try to reach him there when she learns that he's out again and back on his job?"

McCarty nodded.

"She doesn't know that he's been in the neighborhood here to-night, nor that he led us straight to her. He'll keep on believing that she's safe enough and think we're only guarding him on his own account." He turned to the clerk who" was watching them with curious eyes. "What are your hours here?"

"Eight to eight," the latter replied, still staring.

"Where do you live?"

"Right up over the store. The janitor's wife takes care of my four kids but I wouldn't feel easy about 'em if they weren't here in the same building with me.—Say, who are you fellows, anyway? It seems to me you're asking a lot of questions around here—!"

"And I'm liable to be asking a lot more!" McCarty interrupted grimly. "We're from Police Headquarters, if you want to know."

"'Police—!'" The clerk gripped the edge of the showcase. "Those—those Hildreths—?"

"Have you been on every night this week?" McCarty interrupted.

"Y-yes, sir!"

"Is there any other public telephone booth in the neighborhood?"

"None any place that keeps open all night." The clerk seemed to be gathering his dazed faculties.

"Do you have many calls from here between midnight and early morning?"

The clerk shook his head.

"Not unless somebody's sick."

"Did anybody come in here and use that 'phone last night?"

"Certainly; a lot of people early in the evening, but after midnight!" He paused and his eyes widened. "No one came in here to 'phone after that until—until half-past four in the morning."

"Who was that?" McCarty asked sharply. "Some one from the neighborhood that you know?"

"It was Mr. Hildreth! I was surprised, for he looked very bad and I thought that he must be sick and have come in for some medicine, but he said that he only wanted to use the 'phone. He went in the booth and closed the door and I didn't hear what number he called, but it must have been a city one for he was only in there a minute. When he came out he looked so pale that I thought he was going to keel over and I offered him a bracer—er—just a heart stimulant, of course. I fixed him up a dose with a dash of strychnine in it and it seemed to pull him together. He said he had been out of town on a business matter and traveling all night to get back; that his train should have been in at midnight but was delayed and he had to 'phone to his partner at the earliest possible moment. It did strike me as funny that he hadn't telephoned from the station if it was as important as all that, but I didn't say so. I was kind of sleepy, and it wasn't any business of mine. He hurried off home and I settled down for a nap in my chair behind the cash register."

"Did you see him again before he came in to-night?"

"No." The clerk hesitated. "I don't know what you've got against the Hildreths and I'd hate to get them into any trouble for they've been good customers here and pleasant to deal with. I'd never believe a word against Mrs. Hildreth, anyway."

"You said that she didn't come in here often." McCarty eyed him quizzically. "When did you see her last?"

There was a pause and then the clerk replied with evident reluctance:

"Early this morning."

"How early?"

"I suppose I'd better tell you; you fellows would find out, somehow! It was just before five, less than half an hour after her husband left. I told you I'd settled down for a nap; well, I was roused by the bell that rings whenever the door is opened and looked up to see Mrs. Hildreth come in. She's always as neat as wax, but this morning she looked as though she had just thrown on her clothes every which way, and she seemed excited, too, about something. She asked in that soft foreign voice of hers if she could use the telephone, and it must have been an out-of-town call this time for she was in the booth nearly twenty minutes and I heard money rattle in the slot two or three times. She thanked me when she came out but didn't try to explain about the call the way her husband had about his." He paused and added: "I tell you one thing I think, sir; whatever it was that happened to make her husband look more dead than alive it certainly put new life into her! She walked out of the store as though she was treading on air!"

McCarty frowned thoughtfully. He had found confirmation of his suspicions from a totally unexpected quarter and one of the minor mysteries of the case was cleared up, but it led him no nearer to the truth; rather by its very nature it raised complexities which he had not hitherto considered.

"We may want you," he said at last. "What is your name?"

"Willis Udell, and you'll find me here or in the flat over the shop any time you want me!" the clerk declared. "I've done nothing to be afraid of you fellows for, nor said a word I can't stick to, but I hope you are mistaken about the Hildreths."

He shook his head lugubriously after them as they left the shop and when the door had closed behind them Dennis, too, drew a deep breath.

"Well, that settles the two 'phone calls, anyway," he commented. "The whole thing is as plain as the nose on your face, Mac! The man that killed Creveling was—"

"He was not in that shop this night!" McCarty interrupted impatiently. "Come on till we hop a car and you'll hear what the inspector has to say about it! He's waiting for us downtown."

But when they presented themselves at Headquarters Inspector Druet appeared to be very much of the same mind as Dennis. McCarty told the whole story of the night's vicissitudes, sparing himself not at all in the recital for permitting the woman known as "Mrs. Hildreth" to escape, but the inspector did not censure him. Instead he listened thoughtfully until the end and then brought his hand down resoundingly on the desk before him.

"That is about the last link we needed in the chain of evidence, I think!" he declared. "We'll clean this case up in record time now, Mac. Don't worry about the woman; she won't get away from us again now that we know she is in the city, and Yost has 'phoned that Hill is back in the Creveling house. He's camped outside the fellow's door now."

"Did you hear anything from Martin, sir?"

"No, but the officer on the beat up there on Third Avenue called up to say that he'd followed your instructions, but no trace of the woman was found. Martin's watching the flat, and I'll see that both he and Yost are relieved in the morning by the most reliable men connected with the bureau. We'll wait a bit to see if the woman tries to communicate with Hill and then gather him in."

"On a charge of murder, sir?" McCarty's tone was respectfully inquiring, but there was a skeptical quality in it that made the inspector raise his eyebrows.

"Of course! We've got the motive now. I thought before that it might have had something to do with blackmail, but it's revenge. He's infatuated with the girl and whether she's guilty or not she is facing a long term in prison, for the evidence against her together with the fact that she jumped her bail would make any jury in the country convict her without leaving the box. Remember, it was Creveling's testimony before the magistrate which was most damaging to her, proving it to have been virtually impossible for any one else to have taken the jewels. I suppose she and Hill both held it against Creveling and we can't tell the details yet of what happened last night, but they must have had a violent quarrel for the man to have shot his employer."

"Wait one second, sir," McCarty interposed quietly. "I didn't start working on this case to-night when I first telephoned to you, but from the minute you took me on, and there's a lot you haven't heard yet. Some of it would seem to point to Hill being guilty, but there's more that he couldn't have had a hand in, and 'tis beyond reason that all those society folk would put themselves out to shield him."

"'Shield him?'" repeated the inspector with a frown. "What do you mean? What society folk, Mac?"

"The whole kit and boodle of them!" McCarty waved his hand expressively. "All the Crevelings' friends except the O'Rourkes! They're every one lying or trying to hide something and hold out on us, or I'm a Dutchman!—But there's one thing: Hill was in the house long before he showed himself at the door of the breakfast room, and when you and me were going through the rooms upstairs and you laughed at me sir, for seeing and hearing things, I was! If I'm not mistaken, 'twas Hill I heard down in Creveling's room when we were up in the servants' quarters and Hill's shadow I saw on the stairs."

He told in detail of his second and solitary search of the rooms upstairs and the discovery that the desks in Creveling's room and that of the housekeeper had been tampered with since their first examination, and Inspector Druet nodded emphatically.

"That only makes it more certain, Mac. We won't have much trouble in sending Hill to the chair!"

"Maybe not, sir," McCarty acquiesced noncommittally. "Did you find that pair of gloves on him that I asked you to look for when you got him down here?"

"They were taken from his coat pocket at the station house and that's another strong bit of evidence against him, for they are stained and reeking with oil.—Oil from the pistol that killed Creveling!"

"Perhaps the same kind of oil that was used to clean the gun if it was Creveling's own, sir, and the can left lying around handy," McCarty suggested. "The oil might have been used on those desk locks. Anyway, what has the girl Ilsa and the jewels to do with a playing card?"

He produced the bloodstained nine of diamonds and laid it before his chief.

"Where the devil did you get this, Mac?"

"Under the edge of the strip of cover on the table right beside where the body was lying, sir." McCarty explained the circumstances and added: "If Hill fired that shot, whatever would he be doing with that lone card, and why would George Alexander be in league with him? Didn't you see the looks that passed between them and the way they tried to get away for a quiet word together? The old man wants to keep something dark, and 'tis not to save Hill from punishment for murdering his own partner and meal ticket!"

"No. It was to prevent notoriety, if anything," the inspector remarked. "You must have noticed how ready he was to accept the suicide theory which he had first rejected, when he saw to what lengths his niece was prepared to go to learn the truth. If he doesn't actually know of any scandal in Creveling's immediate past he must suspect it, and rather than have it unearthed, as it was bound to be if we hadn't so promptly discovered the identity of the murderer, he preferred to let sleeping dogs lie."

"So do the rest of them, it seems! Wait, sir, till you hear."

McCarty gave the gist of his interviews with Douglas Waverly, Mrs. Kip, Miss Frost, the Fords and Nicholas Cutter, but when he had concluded the inspector shook his head.

"Whatever reasons they may have for holding out on you as you suspect, Mac, it isn't because of a guilty knowledge of the murder. By your own showing the Fords, Cutter and Waverlys have established alibis which no possible circumstantial evidence could shake, and you haven't a thing to connect Mrs. Kip with the affair. You can take what that ex-chaperone of hers said about her with a grain of salt; the old woman was mad enough at being sent packing to have sworn Mrs. Kip's life away, I'll wager, and at that she could tell nothing incriminating. You'll find that Mrs. Kip's little mystery, whatever it may be, is her own affair."

"Well, sir, 'tis your case and you know best." McCarty rose. "I've had no sleep since night before last and 'tis getting on to morning. If so be you've no further instructions for me now I'll go home and rest and be on the job again bright and early."

Inspector Druet laughed somewhat uneasily.

"Which means that I haven't convinced you and you've taken the bit in your teeth again! I've no instructions for you, only suggestions; you know well that I have always given you your head in every case you've worked on with me since you resigned from active duty and I've never regretted it, especially the last instance, Mac!" His face sobered. "Go ahead your own way and if you can prove to me that I'm wrong I'll be only too glad to acknowledge it, but I tell you now that you haven't a chance! The guilty man—"

"Does that mean, sir, that you won't take in Hill right away?" McCarty interrupted quickly.

"No. We can afford to wait a bit and I told you we would do so to see if the woman tried to communicate with him; we might as well kill two birds with one stone and we've proof now that she was an accessory both before and after the fact. We'll give her two or three days to try to get in touch with him and I'll notify you, anyway, before we decide to rearrest him."

"Thanks, sir." McCarty picked up the nine of diamonds from the desk. "If you don't mind I'll be taking this along, and by the way, if you run across Mr. Douglas Waverly, take a look at his cigarette case; 'twill be worth your while."

The inspector started slightly.

"You don't mean—? See here, Mac, has that observation of yours anything to do with the cigarettes that we found on the supper table and that piece of a broken amber holder?"

"Not that I know of, sir, but 'tis thin and shaped like this playing card here and there are nine diamonds stuck in it; nine real diamonds arranged just like the spots on this card."

This time Inspector Druet's laughter was frank and hearty.

"You've still got your eyes out for something dramatic, haven't you? We're not living in dime novel times, Mac, and that card doesn't mean anything. It might have been lying on the floor there in the study for days; you saw yourself that the house hasn't been kept any too orderly since Mrs. Creveling has been away. Hill may have noticed it spattered with blood after he killed Creveling and slipped it under the table cover without thinking; a man is usually dazed after a crisis like that and apt to do a lot of meaningless things in a mechanical sort of way as the records of the department show. You'll find there's some such simple explanation of it and as for Waverly's cigarette case—! I suppose it's no use to talk to you, though. You'll be seeing nines of diamonds wherever you look until Hill goes to trial!"

McCarty's expression did not change as he slipped the card into his pocket once more.

"I'd like to see the rest of the pack this came from," he vouchsafed imperturbably. "Denny and I'll be getting on, then, sir. You'll hear from me if anything turns up."

The ride back uptown to McCarty's room was a long and tedious one and the conversation between the two friends of a merely desultory nature, for Dennis was frankly sleepy and McCarty felt the reaction from the excitement of the chase. An unusual depression overshadowed his natural buoyancy of spirit and he was too fatigued mentally and physically to combat it.

The escape of the girl, Ilsa, from beneath his very hands had been bad enough, but the stand the inspector had taken in the case added ten-fold to the difficulties before him and he could see no way out. Not for a moment would he accept the theory of Hill's guilt, despite the circumstantial evidence against him; slowly and almost without conscious reasoning an idea had been forming in his mind ever since he stood beside that disordered supper table and nothing he had learned since had tended to eradicate it. Now with little added in support of it, it was gradually strengthening into conviction, albeit a vague and still obscure one.

"I'll go on back to the dormitory at the fire-house," Dennis announced as they left the car at last. "'Tis too late to be breaking into my room at Molly's for that youngster of hers sleeps with both the ears of him wide open for fear he'll miss something and he'd scream fit to wake the dead. I'm on duty from nine to six again to-morrow and then off for twenty-four hours, so you'll find me if you want me.

"Come on up to my rooms instead," McCarty invited. "'Tis after three o'clock and you'll get little enough sleep as it is. By the sainted powers—there's a light in my windows! Thieves!"

He had halted in astonishment, but now he broke into a run and with Dennis at his heels sped to his own stoop. The entrance door stood wide, and still swiftly, but with a measure of caution, they stole up the stairs. There was no key in the door leading to McCarty's living-room, but it stood ajar and at the sight which met their gaze through the aperture McCarty halted again, this time in wordless indignation.

Wade Terhune's long, attenuated figure lay stretched out comfortably in the best arm-chair with a tattered dream book open and lying face downward across his knee and a sizable heap of cigarette ashes in a china tray upon the table beside him. While they stared, a delicate snore broke the silence and McCarty's face purpled.

That china tray had been his mothers; Its rightful place was upon the mantel and tobacco had never profaned it before! As to the dream book, its possession had been the one shameful but fascinating secret in McCarty's life; where had that meddlesome, officious son-of-a-gun found it, and how had he got in?

"Is it boarders you're taking?" Dennis inquired innocently. "'Twould be well for you if you had as good bolts on your doors as the Hildreth woman had!"

"The gall of him!" McCarty found his voice and muttered wrathfully: "It would serve him right if I had him took up for breaking and entering!"

He pushed Dennis unceremoniously into the room and following closed the door with a resounding slam. Instantly with no trace of sleep in them Terhune's slightly prominent eyes opened wide and he smiled with perfect self-possession.

"There you are at last, my dear McCarty! And Riordan, too; so you are still hunting in couples? I have waited for you some little time."

He spoke chidingly and McCarty's sandy mustache bristled.

"I was not expecting you, sir. May I ask how you got in?"

"Oh, I had no difficulty; both of your doors open quite readily with a skeleton key, and of course I could not wait about outside." Terhune waved airily toward the nearest chairs and as though hypnotized Dennis sank into one of them, but McCarty ostentatiously removed the china tray from the table and substituted a familiar, battered one of brass liberally patterned with verdigris.

"I hope you made yourself at home, sir!" he remarked ironically, his grim eyes fastened on the book upon his uninvited guest's knee. "I see you found something to amuse yourself with while you waited!"

"Ah, this elemental but highly entertaining little forerunner of our friend Freud?" Terhune smiled again indulgently. "It is interesting to note how coincidentally the interpretations which mere superstition has placed upon the subconscious agree with the conclusions which science has reached."

He laid the book upon the table and McCarty hastily retrieved it and locked it in his desk.

"I don't know any guy named Freud," Dennis observed unexpectedly. "Does he say that dreams go by contraries, Mr. Terhune? I dreamed the other night that my stepbrother home in the old country, that's drunk up two farms and about eight droves of pigs already, was strung up by a vig'lance committee and then cut down in time to save the worthless life of him!—"

He paused to draw breath and McCarty took advantage of the opportunity to suggest:

"You wanted to see me very particularly, Mr. Terhune?"

"Yes, but merely to tell you that the little affair of Creveling is practically cleared up. It seemed to promise a nice little problem at first but it proved to be a very simple matter after all."

"Yes, sir?" McCarty replied cautiously. "So the inspector was saying down at headquarters just now."

"Druet?" Terhune frowned. "I cannot conceive how he could have obtained the data which has come into my possession! Even I would never have discovered the truth had it not been for my years of profound analytical study; an advantage which has not been attained by our excellent friend the inspector. It must have been sheer guess work on his part and yet I cannot imagine upon what grounds he could predicate the fact of George Alexander's guilt!"

"Alexander's—?" McCarty seemed to find some difficulty once more with his speech and Dennis's eyes almost started from his head. "The inspector said nothing about Mr. Alexander!"

"Ah, ha! I anticipated as much!" Terhune rubbed his long, slim hands together in complacency. "He is upon the wrong track again, then, as usual. A good man, a steady, reliable plodder, but prone to stubborn prejudices and too obstinate to admit even to himself that he may be mistaken!"

There was just enough truth in this criticism of his superior to sting McCarty and he retorted loyally:

"He wasn't on the wrong track in the last case on which we all worked together, though, Mr. Terhune."

The criminologist flushed darkly.

"My own hands were tied by the lack of information which was willfully withheld from me!" he asserted hastily. "But upon whom has Inspector Druet fastened his eye as a possible suspect in this case?"

"He'll probably tell you himself, sir, if you ask him," McCarty responded evasively. "Since you've come to me, may I ask what evidence you've got against George Alexander?"

"Absolutely conclusive evidence, my dear McCarty! Motive, opportunity, method, the means itself and the confirmation of his subsequent mental reaction as betrayed by his attitude."

"Everything but the proof!" murmured Dennis irrepressibly, but Terhune paid no attention to the remark.

"If you will both come to my rooms to-morrow evening at eight o'clock—or rather this evening, for it is nearly dawn—you will learn all the details and unless I am very much mistaken you will hear an interesting confession. I have arranged a little experiment—"

"I'm sorry, sir," Dennis interrupted firmly. "If 'tis going to be anything like the last one you kindly invited me to, you'll have to excuse me. I'm not rightfully concerned with this case anyway, being dragged into it by Mac, here, just to keep him company, and I was not the same man for weeks after you made me sit in the dark and listen to that murder all over again!"

"We'll both be there, sir!" McCarty declared. "If Mr. Alexander confesses I wouldn't miss being there for the world and all! I suppose I may just as well lay off for the day and get some sleep?"

Terhune smiled patronizingly as he rose.

"You are skeptical as usual, McCarty, I see. By all means pursue your own line of investigation whatever it may be, if it amuses you, but you may take my word for it that you are wasting your time. I will leave you now, for I have many preparations to make."

"One minute, sir." McCarty hesitated. "Would you answer me one question that'll maybe sound foolish to you but that's been sticking in my crop for some time, nevertheless? Your speaking of the years of study you've had put me in mind of it that I've been intending to ask somebody who might know about such things."

"Certainly, my dear McCarty! I am only too glad to help you to improve yourself."

"Well, when you've come here on a serious matter like a murder case it seems a silly thing to talk about, but could you tell me, sir, if playing cards have any meaning?"

"Of course," Terhune responded, amused. "From the ancient necromancers down through the centuries they have each, possessed an especial significance of one sort or another to the gullible, but it is too lengthy a subject to go into now. Is there any particular card you have in mind?"

"Yes, sir. The nine of diamonds."

"Ah, that is another matter!" The interest quickened in Terhune's tone. "That card has a definite place in history. The Curse of Scotland."

"The curse of—what, sir?" McCarty exclaimed.

"That is the term which has been applied to the nine of diamonds for several centuries and there are various explanations for it but it is not definitely known from what source it was originally derived." Terhune warmed to his subject. "In one ancient game called 'Pope Joan' it is the "pope' and therefore the symbol of Antichrist; in another, 'comette,' it was the chief card. Comette is a game with terrific odds which was played for tremendously high stakes and ruined many of the best families in Scotland when it was in vogue there."

"I'd like to know how 'tis played," observed Dennis wistfully. "Any game that could separate a Scotchman from his money ought to make a clean-up among the Irish!"

"But has the nine of diamonds no other meaning, then?" asked McCarty, in vast disappointment.

"Oh, yes," Terhune reassured him. "As a curse, it is supposed to go back to the nine lozenges on the Dalrymple arms, as the Earl of Stair was responsible for the massacre of Glencoe, but the most probable tradition concerning the origin of the sinister name is that the Duke of Cumberland, while he was drunk and gambling on the night before the battle of Culloden, wrote across the face of the nine of diamonds the relentless order to his cohorts that no quarter was to be given to the enemy on the morrow."

"'No quarter!'" McCarty repeated, and the old buoyant note had returned to his tired voice. "No quarter! That means that they were to be killed outright, with no mercy shown them, doesn't it?—Thanks very much, Mr. Terhune! I've prayed for a nine of diamonds many's the time to fill a straight, or a flush, or a full house, but never did I know before that there was a curse attached to it!"

"That is only ancient history, my dear McCarty!" Terhune paused in the doorway.

McCarty's face was very grave.

"Yes, sir, and history has a way of repeating itself, I've heard. 'Twas no fool who said that first."

When Terhune had departed he turned to Dennis, who was gazing wide-eyed at him and added:

"No quarter; you got that, Denny? 'Twas a notice to Creveling that his time had come!"