I might deduce a sewing-woman; or a pipe, a man who smoked. But I don’t mean that—I mean the sort of thing you do. Please give us an example.” I fairly cringed at the thought of Fleming Stone being stood up to do parlor tricks, like a society circus; and so incensed was I that the line, “Butchered to make a Roman holiday,” vaguely passed through my mind. But as I saw Anne’s vivid, glowing face and her entreating eyes, I felt sure that no man on earth could deny her anything.
Stone appeared to take it casually. “Certainly, Mrs. Van Wyck,” he said, “if it will please you. I have never done such a thing, except in the interests of my work, but if you will give me a personal belonging of some one unknown to me, I will repeat to you whatever it may tell me concerning its owner.”
Though Beth Fordyce had said nothing during this latter conversation, I think she had never once moved her eyes from Stone’s face. Her large and light blue eyes looked at him with an absorbed gaze, and she spoke, tranquilly, but with a positive air.
“I will provide the article,” she said. “I have with me just the very thing. Excuse me, I will get it.” She glided away—for no other verb of motion expresses her peculiar walk—and disappeared through the door that led into the main part of the house.
“How lovely!” cried Mrs. Stelton, clasping her hands in delight. “And then, Mr. Stone, will you tell us how you catch robbers by their foot-prints?”
“Alas, madam,” said Stone, “robbers are rarely considerate enough to leave their foot-prints for my benefit. I know they have the reputation of doing so, but they are sadly remiss in the matter, and show a surprising negligence of their duty to me.”
“A sort of criminal negligence,” murmured Archer, and Stone grinned appreciatively.
Miss Fordyce returned, and as she crossed the room, her pale green gown trailing, she came towards Stone with a rapt expression.
“I can help you,” she said, “because I can evolve a mental picture of my friend, and project it to your mind by will-power.”
“Pray don’t trouble to do that, Miss Fordyce,” said Stone, unable to keep a quizzical smile entirely suppressed. “You force me to confess that I have no knowledge of the occult, and depend entirely upon my own very practical common-sense and logic. What have you brought me?”
“A fan,” answered Miss Fordyce, handing him one. “When I came up in the train this afternoon, a friend was with me during part of the journey. She lent me this fan, and I carelessly forgot to return it. As I know my friend very well, and you do not know her at all, it is a fair test.”
“Fine!” said Anne Van Wyck, her intense eyes darkening with interest. “Beth, that is just the thing. Now, Mr. Stone, tell us of the fan’s owner.” In her interest, Anne had moved nearer to Stone, and was breathlessly awaiting his words. The magnetic fascination of the woman is indescribable. I am positive that nothing on earth would have induced Fleming Stone to such an exhibition of his special powers of deduction, except Anne’s compelling desire that he should.
I saw, too, though it was almost imperceptible, the effort Stone was obliged to make to detach his attention from her and concentrate it on the fan he was holding.
“To approach this matter in my usual way,” he said quietly, “I shall have to ask permission to examine this fan under a magnifying glass. Have you one at hand?”
“Here is one,” said Morland, bringing a fine one from his father’s desk, at which action I fancied I saw a shade of annoyance pass over David Van Wyck’s face.
For a few moments, Fleming Stone examined the fan through the glass.
In idle curiosity I looked at the faces of those grouped about. Mr. Van Wyck was clearly annoyed at the whole performance; though Morland, under the influence of Mrs. Stelton, waited in delighted anticipation. Condron Archer looked supercilious and even murmured to me that he doubted the detective’s powers in such a test. Miss Fordyce wore the exalted air usual to people who affect the mystic. But Anne, the centre of the group, was surely enough to inspire Stone’s latent powers to the utmost. She waited with a suppressed eagerness that seemed to show implicit faith in the result, and she even touched the fan as she too scanned it for any enlightening details.
Fleming Stone returned the glass to Morland and the fan to Miss Fordyce. But it was Anne whom he addressed.
“The fan,” he said, in a quiet, narrative way, “belongs to a lady with dark hair and eyes and rosy cheeks, and a very perfect set of small, white teeth. She is healthy and rather robust, of a vigorous but not an athletic type. She is strong of muscle, but of rather a nervous temperament. She is thrifty and economical by nature, but proud and fastidious. Usually of decorous habits, but likes occasionally a gayer experience. She is refined in her personal tastes and artistic in dressing, though fond of bright colors. She is kind and generous-hearted, unmarried, and past her first youth. She lives in or near the West Eighties in New York City, and her telephone number has recently been changed to 9863 Schuyler. She is fond of embroidering with colored silks, she possesses a gown decorated with black spangled trimming, and she wears a very heavy ring on the little finger of her right hand.”
Stone finished as quietly as he had begun, but his listeners were more excited.
“I don’t believe a word of it!” Mrs. Stelton was saying, and of course Morland agreed with her.
But Beth Fordyce was speaking, almost as if in a trance. “It is every word true,” she said, with a far-away look in her eyes. “If you had known Leila, you could not have described her more perfectly! Don’t try to make me believe you are not occult! You are positively clairvoyant!”
“Nonsense, Beth,” said Anne impatiently. “Don’t talk such rubbish.”
“No,” said I; “occultism isn’t in it with this kind of work. Mr. Stone, that is the real thing. Are you going to tell your processes of reasoning?”
“Of course he is!” cried Anne. “That will be the delightful part of it. David, did you ever hear anything like it?”
Though Anne turned her lovely flushed face toward her husband, she received no answering smile.
“It doesn’t interest me,” he said coldly, and it is a tribute to Anne’s tact and cleverness that she quickly covered this awkward speech by turning to Stone, saying with utmost charm of manner, “Tell me all about it at once. I can’t wait another minute.”
“My dear Mrs. Van Wyck,” said Stone, seeming to address her only, “I am very glad to explain, if it interests you. You see, it’s very simple, for this fan has been used a good deal and naturally bears the impress of the lady who has used it. To begin with, it is a souvenir fan that was given to the lady when she dined in the restaurant of one of the large hotels in New York. It is of the inexpensive paper sort that is used for that purpose. But the name of the restaurant has been carefully scratched out, showing that the lady desired to keep and use it, but did not care to have her friends know where she obtained it. This shows that the lady is not amply provided with fans, and shows too that she does not often frequent the gay restaurants. The fan is bright scarlet and gold, and, since she liked it well enough to keep it, I assume that it suited her brunette coloring, and also that she is fond of bright hues.
She is nervous, because the fan shows that she has often picked at it—both its edge and its tassel—and has even frequently bitten it with her small, sharp teeth. You see, these lacquered sticks show clearly all marks and scratches, and this bar of metal that holds the tassel is much bent, showing a vigorous and healthy type. The fact that the fan has been used a great deal shows a robust and rosy-cheeked young woman, though not athletic, for athletic girls never use a fan. She is refined and fastidious in her tastes, for I notice a faint perfume of orris and violet. She is generous, for she gave away a fan that she found useful. And I think neither a very young girl nor a married lady would so long preserve a fan of this sort.”
“But how did you know where she lives?” demanded Miss Fordyce.
“That argues a lack of observation