me, Mr. Whiting," said Mr. Maxwell; "as I said, I am unable myself to work actively in the matter. But you must surely know that I'm entirely in sympathy with your feeling, and that I wish as much as you do, to bring the villain to an accounting. If you will instigate and conduct the search, I will defray any expenses incurred, and thus, in a way, do my share."
"All right, Mr. Maxwell," said Whiting, with enthusiasm. "I only wanted your sanction to go ahead with my plans. King, I hope you will help me. Mr. Hunt, may I also count on you?"
"Of course," said Hunt, "but I tell you frankly, Mr. Whiting, that I cannot believe, as the rest of you do, in the entire innocence of that English Earl!"
"And I want to say," said Irene Gardiner, "that while I cannot share Mr. Hunt's actual suspicion of the Earl, I do think we ought to verify his story by some evidence other than his own."
"That's just what we're going to do, Irene," said Tom Whiting; "if we spot that car and nail the man we want, that's going to prove the Earl a real detective, and worthy of his own Scotland Yard!"
To my surprise, Miss Gardiner turned white, and trembled as if beneath a blow. Even as I watched her, I saw also that Miss Lathrop was watching her, stealthily but closely.
Irene endeavored to speak further, but was unable to do so. Her quivering lips would utter no word, and as we looked at her in amazement, unable to guess what had so stirred her, Nurse Lathrop arose and taking Irene's arm, led her from the room.
"Whatever's the matter with Irene?" exclaimed Mr. Whiting. "Anybody would think she was shielding the man in the motor-car, instead of Milly! I tell you the whole thing hinges on that man, and I'm going to find him!"
"Will it,—will it be necessary to consult the police?" said Miss Maxwell, timidly, a little alarmed at Whiting's emphatic manner.
"Certainly not," said Mr. Maxwell. "Mr. Whiting's determination, and the skilled assistance of Mr. Hunt and Mr. King, can track that car quicker than all the police in the county. Go on, my boys, and may success go with you! But I will leave all questions of method and procedure to your judgment. I'm quite sure I could not help you; and if you'll excuse me, I would rather not take part in your planning."
I felt sure that this decision of Mr. Maxwell's was largely induced by his recognition of his sister's wishes. She was shrinkingly averse to having herself or her brother drawn into the actual investigation of the crime, and I think her gentle heart would have preferred that the criminal go unpunished, rather than take part in or even have cognizance of the sordid details of the search.
And so I went with Tom Whiting and Mr. Hunt to the library to discuss what we should do first.
The memory of what had happened there made it a ghastly place to converse in, but the fact that it was the scene of the crime, seemed to stir Whiting's mind to even a more intense determination to succeed in his quest.
"I propose," he said, "that we three canvass the neighborhood, and see if we can find anyone who saw that car Monday night."
"It may be a car belonging in the neighborhood," I suggested.
"Then we must find that out. At any rate this idea will do for a start."
We agreed to this, and after some further confab, in which Tom was the main spokesman, and Hunt took a very uninterested part, we set out on our preliminary search.
Later on Whiting and I returned to Maxwell Chimneys, and found there a note from Hunt, saying that he had discovered nothing of consequence.
"Let's leave him out of it," said Whiting to me; "he's no sort of a detective, anyway, unless he's working on his own individual theory. What did you find out, King?"
As we mutually discovered, we had found out considerable. Sifted out and checked up, the evidence seemed to be, that the car described by the Earl was neither fiction nor imagination.
Mr. Plattner, the neighbor on the right,—though the country houses sat some distance apart,—had seen that car come from the village of Hamilton at about ten o'clock on Monday night. He had chanced to notice it because of its great speed, and he described it as a long gray car with several men in it.
Mr. Allen, the neighbor on the other side, had seen the car pass his house, going very fast, at some time after ten. His description was the same, and we couldn't doubt the identity of the car seen by the Earl and by these two neighbors. This made it pretty positive that a fast car had come up from the village at ten, had turned in and stopped at the Maxwells', and had gone on along the main road by or before half-past ten.
The definiteness of this seemed to Whiting to be a long step toward our goal, and my half-formed doubts had no weight with him.
"But the man in the car couldn't have gone up on the veranda by that little outside staircase, without Miss Gardiner seeing him," I said.
"Don't you be too sure that Irene didn't see him," said Whiting; "that girl knows a whole lot more than Mildred about things, but there's no earthly use in trying to get anything out of her. Irene Gardiner is a sphinx and a sibyl and a siren and all such things, but as a witness she's absolutely worthless! She doesn't want to tell anything, and wouldn't tell it if she did! But she knows! O Lord, yes, that girl knows a lot!"
"Not guilty knowledge!" I cried.
"Depends on what you mean by guilty. She didn't shoot Philip, of course, but she knows a thing or two about who did."
I made no reply to this, for I was beginning to realize that I could not speak restrainedly when I tried to defend Irene. So Whiting went on.
"Now let's go down to the village and see if that car didn't stop at the inn before coming up toward Mr. Plattner's. It would be a most natural thing to do."
So to the inn we went, taking for the purpose a little runabout from the Maxwell garage.
The ample-faced inn-keeper listened to our questions and then said thoughtfully: "Yep, I do seem to remember that there car. It stopped here along about half-past nine or a little later on Monday night. But I never once thought of connectin' that up with the Maxwell murder! Land! do you think them men did it?"
"Did the men come in? How long did they stay?" said Whiting, impatiently.
"No, they didn't come in; they didn't hardly stop, as you might say. They jus' whizzed up here, stopped a minute, and asked me where the Maxwell place was."
"They did!" we cried, in amazed duet.
"Yes sir, they did! and of course I told 'em, and never thought of it again. Good land! so they wuz the murderers, was they?"
"We don't know," said Tom, "but we're going to find out, and we want you to help us all you can. Can you describe the car?"
"Well, of course, I'm mighty used to cars, as cars go,—but I couldn't just say the make of that one. It was long, extra long, I should say,—and gray,—darkish gray. It was a touring car, and there were four young fellows in it beside the chauffeur. Now, that's jus' about all I know about it."
"Do you know the number?"
"Well, I didn't look at it purposely, but I 'most always glance at a number on general principles. But all I can tell you is, that the first two figures were sixes. The other three I couldn't swear to, though I'm 'most sure one of them was a four. Of course I only caught a glimpse of it, as they swung away, but I'd know that car again anywhere!"
"Well! we may want you to identify it, if we can find it anywhere. What were the men like?"
"I didn't notice them much. It was the chap that sat by the driver that asked me where the Maxwells lived. He was a big man, one of the biggest I ever saw, and with a big, deep voice and a off-hand way,—kind of like a Westerner. The whole crowd was off-hand; kind of laughin' and carryin' on, but I didn't pay much attention to 'em. If I'd a thought anything about it, I'd a thought they was some friends of the Maxwells, but I didn't even think that. If you hadn't brought it up, I'd never have thought of that car again! How are you going to find it?"
"That's just what I don't know," said Whiting, gloomily;