you, too, Mrs. Brainard," he added, turning to acknowledge her congratulations also. "I am glad I have been able to be of service to you."
"Won't you come back to the house for dinner?" urged the Captain.
Kennedy looked at me and smiled. "Walter," he said, "this is no place for two old bachelors like us."
Then turning, he added, "Many thanks, sir,—but, seriously, last night we slept principally in day coaches. Really I must turn the case over to Burke now and get back to the city to-night early."
They insisted on accompanying us to the station, and there the congratulations were done all over again.
"Why," exclaimed Kennedy, as we settled ourselves in the Pullman after waving a final good-bye, "I shall be afraid to go back to that town again. I—I almost did kiss her!"
Then his face settled into its usual stern lines, although softened, I thought. I am sure that it was not the New England landscape, with its quaint stone fences, that he looked at out of the window, but the recollection of the bright dashing figure of Gladys Shirley.
It was seldom that a girl made so forcible an impression on Kennedy, I know, for on our return he fairly dived into work, like the Z99 herself, and I did not see him all the next day until just before dinner time. Then he came in and spent half an hour restoring his acid-stained fingers to something like human semblance.
He said nothing about his research work of the day, and I was just about to remark that a day had passed without its usual fresh alarum and excursion, when a tap on the door buzzer was followed by the entrance of our old friend Andrews, head of the Great Eastern Life Insurance Company's own detective service.
"Kennedy," he began, "I have a startling case for you. Can you help me out with it?"
As he sat down heavily, he pulled from his immense black wallet some scraps of paper and newspaper cuttings.
"You recall, I suppose," he went on, unfolding the papers without waiting for an answer, "the recent death of young Montague Phelps, at Woodbine, just outside the city?"
Kennedy nodded. The death of Phelps, about ten days before, had attracted nation-wide attention because of the heroic fight for life he had made against what the doctors admitted had puzzled them—a new and baffling manifestation of coma. They had laboured hard to keep him awake, but had not succeeded, and after several days of lying in a comatose state he had finally succumbed. It was one of those strange but rather frequent cases of long sleeps reported in the newspapers, although it was by no means one which might be classed as record-breaking.
The interest in Phelps lay, a great deal, in the fact that the young man had married the popular dancer, Anginette Petrovska, a few months previously. His honeymoon trip around the world had suddenly been interrupted, while the couple were crossing Siberia, by the news of the failure of the Phelps banking-house in Wall Street and the practical wiping-out of his fortune. He had returned, only to fall a victim to a greater misfortune.
"A few days before his death," continued Andrews, measuring his words carefully, "I, or rather the Great Eastern, which had been secretly investigating the case, received this letter. What do you think of it?"
He spread out on the table a crumpled note in a palpably disguised handwriting:
To Whom it May Concern:
You would do well to look into the death of Montague Phelps, Jr. I accuse no one, assert nothing. But when a young man, apparently in the best of health, drops off so mysteriously and even the physician in the case can give no very convincing information, that case warrants attention. I know what I know.
An Outsider.
Chapter XXI
The Ghouls
"H-M," mused Kennedy, weighing the contents of the note carefully, "one of the family, I'll be bound unless the whole thing is a hoax. By the way, who else is there in the immediate family?"
"Only a brother, Dana Phelps, younger and somewhat inclined to wildness, I believe. At least, his father did not trust him with a large inheritance, but left most of his money in trust. But before we go any further, read that."
Andrews pulled from the papers a newspaper cutting on which he had drawn a circle about the following item. As we read, he eyed us sharply.
PHELPS TOMB DESECRATED
Last night, John Shaughnessy, a night watchman employed by the town of Woodbine, while on his rounds, was attracted by noises as of a violent struggle near the back road in the Woodbine Cemetery, on the outskirts of the town. He had varied his regular rounds because of the recent depredations of motor-car yeggmen who had timed him in pulling off several jobs lately.
As he hurried toward the large mausoleum of the Phelps family, he saw two figures slink away in opposite directions in the darkness. One of them, he asserts positively, seemed to be a woman in black, the other a man whom he could not see clearly. They readily eluded pursuit in the shadows, and a moment later he heard the whir of a high-powered car, apparently bearing them away.
At the tomb there was every evidence of a struggle. Things had been thrown about; the casket had been broken open, but the body of Montague Phelps, Jr., which had been interred there about ten days ago, was not touched or mutilated.
It was a shocking and extraordinary violation. Shaughnessy believes that some personal jewels may have been buried with Phelps and that the thieves were after them, that they fought over the loot, and in the midst of the fight were scared away.
The vault is of peculiar construction, a costly tomb in which repose the bodies of the late Montague Phelps, Sr., of his wife, and now of his eldest son. The raid had evidently been carefully planned to coincide with a time when Shaughnessy would ordinarily have been on the other side of the town. The entrance to the tomb had been barred, but during the commotion the ghouls were surprised and managed to escape without accomplishing their object and leaving no trace.
Mrs. Phelps, when informed of the vandalism, was shocked, and has been in a very nervous state since the tomb was forced open. The local authorities seem extremely anxious that every precaution should be taken to prevent a repetition of the ghoulish visit to the tomb, but as yet the Phelps family has taken no steps.
"Are you aware of any scandal, any skeleton in the closet in the family?" asked Craig, looking up.
"No—not yet," considered Andrews. "As soon as I heard of the vandalism, I began to wonder what could have happened in the Phelps tomb, as far as our company's interests were concerned. You see, that was yesterday. To-day this letter came along," he added, laying down a second very dirty and wrinkled note beside the first. It was quite patently written by a different person from the first; its purport was different, indeed quite the opposite of the other. "It was sent to Mrs. Phelps," explained Andrews, "and she gave it out herself to the police."
Do not show this to the police. Unless you leave $5000 in gold In the old stump in the swamp across from the cemetery, you will have reason to regret it. If you respect the memory of the dead, do this, and do it quietly.
Black Hand.
"Well," I ejaculated, "that's cool. What threat could be used to back this demand on the Phelpses?"
"Here's the situation," resumed Andrews, puffing violently on his inevitable cigar and toying with the letters and clippings. "We have already held up payment of the half-million dollars of insurance to the widow as long as we can consistently do so. But we must pay soon, scandal or not, unless we can get something more than mere conjecture."
"You are already holding it up?" queried Craig.
"Yes. You see, we investigate thoroughly every suspicious death. In most cases, no body is found. This case is different in that respect. There is a body and it is the body of the insured, apparently. But a death like this, involving the least mystery, receives careful examination,