beyond all doubt.”
“I think I could do that,” I returned; “for though I can’t describe any peculiarity, I’m sure I’d recognize the same head.”
“You are?” and Hudson looked at me keenly. “Well, perhaps we’ll try you out on that.”
They had a definite suspect, then. And they proposed to experiment with my memory. Well, I was ready, whenever they were.
Norah and I went into the third room, Hudson making no objection. At another time we would have been deeply interested in the pictures and the furnishings but now we had eyes and thoughts only for one thing.
We looked behind the war map and saw the elevator door, but could not open it.
“The car’s down,” spoke up Hudson, who was watching us sharply. “I dunno will it ever be used again. Though I suppose these rooms will be let to somebody else, some time. Mr. Gately’s things here will be sent to his house, I expect, but his estate is a big one and will take a deal of settling.”
“Who’s his executor?”
“Mr. Pond, his lawyer. But his financial affairs are all right. Nothing crooked about Amos Gately—financially. You can bank on that!”
“How, then?” I asked, for the tone implied a mental reservation.
“I’m not saying. But they do say every man has a secret side to his life, and why should Mr. Gately be a lone exception?”
“A woman?” asked Norah, always harking back to her basic suspicion.
Foxy Jim Hudson favored her with that blank stare which not infrequently was his answer to an unwelcome question, and which, perhaps, had a share in earning him his sobriquet.
Then he laughed, and said, “You’ve been reading detective stories, miss. And you remember how they always say ‘Churches lay femmy!’ Well, go ahead and church, if you like. But be prepared for a sad and sorrowful result.”
The man was obviously deeply moved, and his big, homely face worked with emotion.
But as he would tell us nothing further, and as Norah and I had finished our rather unproductive search of the rooms, we went back to my office.
Here Norah showed me what she had taken from the waste basket.
“I’ll give it back to him, if you say so,” she offered; “but he could do nothing with it, and maybe I can.”
It was only a tiny scrap of pinkish paper, thin and greatly crumpled. I took it.
“Be careful,” warned Norah; “I don’t suppose it could show finger prints, but anyway, it’s a sort of a kind of a clew.”
“But what is it?” I asked, blankly, as I held the crumpled paper gingerly in thumb and forefinger.
“It’s a powder-paper,” vouchsafed Norah, briefly.
“A what?”
“A powder-paper. Women carry them,—they come in little books. That’s one of the leaves. They’re to rub on your face, and the powder comes off on your nose or cheeks.”
“Is that so? I never saw any before.”
“Lots of girls use them.” Norah’s clear, wholesome complexion refuted any idea of her needing such, and she spoke a bit scornfully.
“Proving once more the presence of what Friend Hudson calls a femmy,” I smiled.
“Yes; but these things have great individuality, Mr. Brice. This is of exceedingly fine quality, it has a distinct, definite fragrance, and is undoubtedly an imported article,—from France, likely.”
“Can they get such things over now?”
“Oh, pshaw, it may have been imported before the war. This quality would keep its odor forever! Anyway, don’t you believe we could trace the woman who used it and left it there? It must have happened yesterday, for the basket is, of course, emptied every day in that office.”
“Good girl, Norah!” and I nodded approval. “You are truly a She Sherlock! A bit intimate, isn’t it, for a woman to powder her nose in a man’s office?”
“Not at all, Mr. Old Fogey! Why, you can see the girls doing that everywhere, nowadays. In the street-cars, in the theater,—anywhere.”
“All right. How do you propose to proceed?”
“I think I’ll go to the smartest Fifth Avenue perfume shops and try to get a line on the maker of this paper.”
My door opened then, and the Chief of Police stood in the doorway.
“Will you come over, across the hall, Mr. Brice?” he said.
“May I come?” piped up Norah, and without waiting for the answer, which, by the way, never came, she followed us.
“We have learned a great deal,” began the Chief, as I waited, inquiringly. “And, now think carefully, Mr. Brice, I want you to tell me if the head you saw shadowed on the door, could by any possibility have been a woman’s head?”
“I think it could have been, Chief; we’ve been talking that over, and I’m prepared to say that it could have been,—but I don’t think it was.”
“And the shoulders? Though broad, like a man’s, might not a woman’s figure, say, wrapped in furs, give a similar effect?”
An icy chill went through me, but I answered, “It might; the outlines were very indistinct.”
“We are carefully investigating the movements of Miss Raynor,” he went on, steadily, “and we find she told a deliberate untruth about where she spent yesterday afternoon. She said she was at the house of a friend on Park Avenue. We learned the name of the young lady and she says Miss Raynor was not there at all yesterday. Also, we find that Miss Raynor was in this office after the calls of the old people we know about, and not before them, as Miss Raynor herself testified.”
“But——” I began.
“Wait a moment, please. This is positively proved by the fact that a check drawn to Miss Raynor by Mr. Gately follows immediately after the two checks drawn to Mr. Smith and Mrs. Driggs.”
“Proving?” I gasped.
“That Miss Raynor is the last one known to be in this room before the shooting occurred.”
“Oh,” cried Norah, “for shame! To suspect that lovely girl! Why, she wouldn’t harm a fly!”
“Do you know her?”
“No, sir; but——”
“It is an oft proven fact that the mildest, gentlest woman, if sufficiently provoked to it, or if given a sudden opportunity, will in a moment of passion do what no one would dream she could do! Miss Raynor was very angry with her uncle,—Jenny admitted that, after much delay. Mr. Gately had a revolver, usually in his desk drawer, but not there now. And,”—an impressive pause preceded the next argument, “Mr. Amory Manning is not to be found.”
“What do you deduce from that?” I asked, amazedly.
“That he has purposely disappeared, lest he be brought as a witness against Miss Raynor. He could best help her cause, by being out of town and impossible to locate. So, he went off, and she pretended she did not know it. Of course, she did,—they connived at it——”
“Stop!” I cried, “you are romancing. You are assuming conditions that are untrue!”
“I wish it were so,” and the Chief exhibited a very human aspect for the moment; “but I have no choice in the matter. I am driven by an inexorable army of facts that cannot be beaten back. What else can you think of that would account for Mr. Manning’s sudden disappearance?