weekly carries several columns of cards of professional gentlemen who are ‘at liberty.’ I’m not looking for any particular person; I’m looking for anybody who fits the description I have imagined. You see, if I am right, this fellow is not the principal in the case. What the case is, we have yet to discover; but I think this man is only a subordinate. He may not even know why he runs as he does!”
“I can’t believe that, Lavender,” I demurred.
“It’s very easy to believe,” he assured me. “If for no other reason, I believe him to be a subordinate because he shows himself. If the game is important—and it’s too mad not to be—the principal would not show himself so openly. He might be caught. Suppose instead of waiting upstairs in Ashenhurst’s room, I had been waiting for him in a passageway. I’d have had him, or seen where he went. I think the principal doesn’t care whether this fellow is captured or not. He’d rather the man wouldn’t be caught, of course, but it is not of great importance one way or another.”
“And this principal?” queried Ashenhurst.
“Is working elsewhere,” said Lavender.
“Elsewhere! Then why, for heaven’s sake—?”
Lavender shrugged. “Well, well,” he said, “I may be wrong. I’m no super-detective, Ashenhurst. It’s bad business, I know, to imagine a case and then twist the facts to fit it; but I assure you it’s as safe a gamble as any other method. Any way you tackle a case, you’re as likely to be wrong as right.”
“But, confound it, Jimmie!” I exploded, “why should this fellow show himself at all, in that crazy regalia?”
“Exactly,” agreed Lavender. “Why should he? There is only one conceivable reason that holds water: he wants to be seen. If a man paints himself black and parades the city between sandwich-boards, he’s bound to attract attention. Obviously then, he does it in order to attract attention. But whose attention does our friend want to attract? Just as obviously, he wants to attract Ashenhurst’s attention.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed that young man. “Well, he succeeded!”
“He did, indeed. Oh, I’m sure enough of my ground as far as I have gone. You live in Cambridge Court, and so this fellow runs in Cambridge Court. But other people live in Cambridge Court. You, however, sit up late; your window, at midnight, is the only one in the block that shows a light. There was no other light when I ran out last night, and I am sure there had not been for some time. Further, this fellow ran by four nights in a row—at least four. There may have been other, earlier nights when you didn’t hear the footsteps, but on four nights anyway, he ran past your window. The first two nights you did not look out; the third night you did. He heard your exclamation, and felt sure that he had attracted your attention. Last night was the test, as I read it; and last night we all looked out. And last night, he knew he had attracted you.”
“The deuce he did!”
“Yes,” I said, “how do you know that, Jimmie?”
“Because,” said Lavender, “I saw him look up. You fellows were excited, and were concentrating on a running statue. You didn’t exactly believe in it, but the statue was in your minds—naturally. So all you saw was a running statue—an impossibility. I knew perfectly well that it was not a statue, and was determined not to be too surprised by the sight. So I watched carefully; and as he fled past he looked up at the window—just a half turn of the head as he leaped, but he looked! I saw him! And your lights were out, and my head was half-visible; I took care that it should be. Ergo, our friend believes he saw you looking out, and today he knows that he has succeeded in attracting your attention.”
“Perhaps he saw us all,” I remarked.
“I hope not,” said Lavender vigorously, “and I think not. I kept you a trifle behind me, in deep shadow. You see, my own plans were laid.”
Ashenhurst whistled solemnly for a moment. “And what’s the next step?” he asked, at length. “Will he run again, tonight?”
“Oh, yes, I think he will run every night until something happens.”
“What?” we demanded in the same breath.
“I don’t know,” answered Jimmie Lavender.
Ashenhurst whistled again while he thought that over. “You make me nervous,” he said finally.
“You have a right to be nervous, perhaps,” Lavender nodded. “Although probably you are not in any serious danger. But Gilruth will stay with you every night from now until—well, until the thing happens, whatever it is—and I shall not be far away.”
There was a silence for a moment, during which Lavender looked hard at Ashenhurst. Suddenly he spoke.
“I don’t want to be impertinent, Ashenhurst, but is there any secret about you? Anything in your life that you wish to conceal? Anything somebody else would like to know?”
“Good Lord, no!” The student’s reply was prompt and final.
“You don’t conceal a treasure anywhere in your room, by any chance?”
Ashenhurst laughed loudly. “Not by a large majority!”
Lavender’s thoughts again revolved. Evidently something puzzled him very much. After a moment he began again.
“Do you ever go out at night?”
“Well, not very often. If you say ever, why, of course, I do, sometimes. But my exams are coming on, and I have to study pretty hard. I suppose I haven’t been out after supper for weeks. I’m not much of a social climber, anyway,” finished the student with a smile.
“And you are never home during the day?”
“Never except on Sundays. I work pretty hard at the office.”
“I’ll be hanged if I understand it,” declared Lavender, almost indignantly. “My idea is a very pretty one indeed, but I can’t make it work. There’s something missing; something wrong. Now what the devil can it be?”
“I assure you I’m not concealing a thing,” said Ashenhurst, with some dignity.
Lavender laughed good-humoredly. “I know you’re not, old man! If you were, it would simplify things, immensely. But how about this family—what’s the name?—Harden! How about the Hardens? What have they to conceal?”
“God knows,” replied Ashenhurst, mystified. “They’re as harmless an old couple as ever I met.”
“And the other roomers?”
“Same thing! Two old maids!”
“And the other floors?”
“Know ‘em only by sight; but they seem all right to me. An old man and his daughter downstairs—name of Palmer. Don’t know what he does. Not much of anything, I guess. Upstairs, family named Carr. They’ve got roomers, too—young fellow named Pomeroy, and another young fellow named Peterson. Steady workers, and go to bed early. Oh, the whole house is so respectable it’s almost discouraging!”
“It does seem rather hopeless,” admitted Lavender. “You don’t happen to know who occupies the houses just beside yours? Next door, both ways?”
“Seen ‘em, that’s all. All respectable!”
“It’s a respectable world,” said Lavender dryly. “Well, I must get to work, I suppose. I’ve a long day ahead of me. You fellows can do as you please, but I think you’d better separate during the day. Gilruth can join you after dark—and do it quietly, Gilly! Stay with Ashenhurst all night. I may show up before midnight, and I may not. I’ll be there if I think it’s necessary. And listen! Don’t let our stone friend see you as he gallops past! Keep your light out—and you, Ashenhurst, stare hard out of the window. Gilruth mustn’t be seen, but I want you to be seen. And neither of you are to leave the room on any account unless I tell you to.”
It