The Washington Square Enigma Read online

  “I admire your pluck,” commented Harling, gazing at her with admiration. “It was more of the gameness such as you showed last summer in Frisco Bay.” Then he quickly changed the subject. “But let me ask another question: How could you be sure, each day, that you were getting in ahead of Bond? Suppose you had come in and found him there?”

  She smiled. “Very simple. In the first place, Bond’s movements were almost like clockwork in their regularity. And, in the second place, Mr. Morningstar made it a point to reach the vicinity of the house much earlier in the afternoon. If, by any chance, Bond should enter the house earlier than his custom, Mr. Morningstar was to walk past and mark the iron post on the steps with a piece of blue chalk.” She paused. “Is it all plain? You would not dream I was such a schemer, would you, Mr. Harling?”

  “Indeed, no,” he replied, his eyes roving up and down her slim, silk-clad form and her yellow-gold ringlets. “Perhaps this is what is really Dutch courage — rather than the popular conception. But please go on. I am keenly interested.”

  “Well,” she continued, “we followed our little plan successfully for a number of days, I leaving this residence every day in my Rollinson coupé at about a quarter after one, and putting the machine up at a garage on Chestnut Street which you referred to. From there I always walked around the block to Delaware Place, and let myself into Number 63 with a key which Mr. Morningstar had tried out one night and found to fit the old-fashioned door. This done, I would secrete myself in the closet. Every day close on to three o’clock, Bond’s key clicked in the door. A moment later he would enter the room and drop into the old wooden chair near the table. Then would follow a long session in which he would sit patiently waiting — for something or someone. Always he waited just about an hour; then I could hear the click of his watch and his sigh as he would rise up and stamp out of the house again.

  “But now I come to the event of today,” she went on hurriedly. “Yesterday my machine broke down right on Dearborn Avenue, while I was on the way. I failed completely to reach the vicinity of Washington Square in time to enter the house ahead of Bond. I had to give it up, of course. But, to my consternation, Mr. Morningstar came to the house, here, later in the afternoon, and informed me that he, too, had been unable to reach Washington Square: he had been held on the other side of the city by the big river fire, when the oil up and down the Chicago River became ignited. Every bridge, you recall, was up, yesterday afternoon; no one in the city was able to cross from the South Side to the North. And, as a result, neither Mr. Morningstar nor myself had any data whatever to give to each other.”

  “And that day — yesterday,” put in Harling, grimly, “was the day on which Bond met his death. The newspaper itself admits they do not know just how long he had been dead.” He shook his head gravely. “Life is always like that, it seems. At crucial times, our plans always miscarry. But please go on.”

  “There isn’t much more to relate,” she said. “When I entered the house today at about ten minutes to two, I found Bond lying dead on the floor. A big bruise was on his temple. But sticking in his eye and piercing his brain was nothing other than my ornamental hat pin which I had been careless enough to leave on the floor of the closet day before yesterday, after it had come loose and fallen from my hat. I was horror-stricken. I would have flown from the place without any delay, but I had presence of mind enough to realize that the hat pin would be the means of connecting me with the crime. It was a specially made, hand-carved Chinese dragon, given to me by Courtenay himself a month ago on my birthday. It had been fashioned by an imported jade worker in the employ of one of the big downtown jewelry stores. Around the neck of the fantastic creature was a little, gold collar, with my name on it. What could have been more incriminating?”

  “So you tried to draw it out, rattled as you were, and succeeded, instead, in breaking off the green jade portion of the pin. That’s plain,” Harling added. “But the head of the dragon, and its gold collar? I found the tail — but what became of the head?”

  Her face fell. “Whoever wielded that hat pin had previously found it by going into the closet and stepping on it in the dark. The force of the person’s foot had crunched off both the head and the tail. I located the incriminating head before I left. It had been forced far down into a crack in the closet floor. I could not dislodge it to save my life. It was inbedded firmly, rigidly, beyond any hope of recovery with the mere fingers. So I did the only thing I could before I left the place: I stamped a splinter of wood down into the crack, just above the imbedded head, to conceal the gleam of the gold collar. Then I made a hasty search for the tail. It was missing. My courage was oozing away rapidly — in the room with that horrible sight — and — and I fled. That’s all.”

  Harlinges brow wrinkled up: “There is something odd about that tail. From the point in the closet where someone’s shoe crushed the dragon into three distinct pieces, the tail appears to have wiggled its way over into the shadow of the dead man’s cuff, where I picked it up.” He paused, then asked curiously: “But why were you so fearful of being incriminated? Couldn’t this Mr. Morningstar have borne out your story?”

  “But don’t you see,” the girl put in earnestly, “that Mr. Morningstar, not having reached the scene of Washington Square himself, yesterday, cannot testify in a court of law that I myself didn’t reach there, no matter how much he may believe what I have told him. If enough of that ornamental hat pin to identify the owner had been secured by the police, I would be in a desperate situation. They would have proof of motive plus opportunity. It is the custom of the police to convict — not to acquit. And I have no alibi for the time yesterday afternoon that my machine was stalled on Dearborn Avenue.”

  “Well, you have saved yourself a great deal of unpleasantness,” commented Harling, “for between your carrying off the main body of the jade carving and your blocking up the crack where the head is lodged, the police can never discover that it is a dragon. From the tiny fragment which I sold to the negro boy, it is impossible to make any venture as to whether it’s a lizard, a chameleon, a dragon or what it is. And even if they decided it was a dragon or a lizard, you can be certain that that jewelry store has sold many more similar pieces of jade and silver work.” After a momentary pause, he went on: “But now one big, final question: What theory have you as to why Bond met his death at the hand of your cousin? And how do you account for the use of the ornamental hat pin itself as a weapon? Have you stopped to consider, my dear girl, that since you never reached Washington Square yourself, yesterday, you have only the word of your Mr. Morningstar that he did not reach the same neighborhood? Do you actually know that he was on the wrong side of the river in the big river fire? I make no accusation, only a suggestion. Think it over.”

  CHAPTER XII

  THE CLUE THAT FAILED

  AT HARLING’S point-blank questions, the girl stared into the fire a long time, as though reluctant either to accept the peculiar suggestion he had put forth, or to voice certain sentiments. Finally, however, she spoke.

  “My first belief,” she said quietly, “as I saw the body lying on the floor of the room, was that this crook had met Bond, that they had quarreled and that in some sort of a scuffle the closet door had been thrown open, giving him a glimpse of the hat pin; whereupon he had seized it and thrust it into his opponent’s eye. It seemed the most logical thing to believe, Mr. Harling. But, after I had snapped off the top of that terrible pin, and jammed the splinter of wood over the dragon head wedged in the closet crack, and started to leave the place — to go back to my garage, to get my car, to get as far away from that horrible scene as possible — a peculiar thing happened. The sun peeped from behind the gray clouds for a bare second. One of the great, glass casement windows of the Newberry Library, far across Washington Square, was open and swinging outward. It caught the sun’s rays for that bare instant, threw them across the park and over the surface of the dusty table which stood in the room. And there, for perhaps the hundredth part of
a second, I saw imprinted in the dust of the table, a hand — a right hand with the index finger missing from the second joint. And — ”

  “And — ” Harling put in, leaning forward.

  “And Courtenay Vandervoort, my cousin, is without the second joint of his right index finger. It was shot off in a hunting accident two years ago. In that bare fraction of a second, I, of all persons in the city, learned that Courtenay had been a visitor to that house before myself.”

  For a long time, neither one spoke. Harling was thinking deeply upon the girl’s revelations. Her logic was complete; convincing. He now saw full well what the results would have been to her had the incriminating jade carving been found and had she been unable to prove her whereabouts during the hours her machine was stalled the day before. She would have been in a worse position than he, himself, for in her case the police could have established a motive for a most violent quarrel. And he was more than puzzled, too, by the fact that her cousin, the former owner of the ruby itself, had been a visitor in that deserted house. Finally he roused himself and spoke.

  “Everything is plain now,” he assured her. “I was unlucky enough to get in that back way as you slipped out the front, and to wander squarely into the thick of things. It was fortunate for me, though, that I was able to climb onto the rear of your coupé as I fled through to Chestnut Street. What delayed your leaving the neighborhood, Miss Vanderhuyden?”

  “More mechanical trouble,” she said, laconically. “At least, so the men in the garage on Chestnut Street claimed. I thought my heart would leap from my throat in the long fifteen minutes — more like fifteen hours — that they tinkered with the coupé. And when I heard the indisputable siren of a police car — sounded just once — for some momentary traffic trouble — and looked up toward Clark Street and saw a big, yellow police Cadillac scooting up Clark toward Washington Square, something seemed to tell me instinctively that I had come away just in time — that the police were going to the place in response to some mysterious information from somewhere. I tried to calm my — ”

  The telephone bell on the library table jangled raucously. The girl’s face paled for an instant; then she drew over the cradle-base, and raised the instrument to her ear.

  “Yes, this is Miss Vanderhuyden talking,” she said, after a pause. “Yes, I have heard of it from a peculiar source. Will you come to my home at once, Mr. Morningstar? There is much — oh, so much! — that I must tell you.”

  She replaced the instrument and turned to Harling. “It was Mr. Phelps Morningstar, my investigator. He has just told me of all the excitement that has just happened on Washington Square, but the puzzling part of it is that he does not seem to understand how I got out in time. It seems that he failed to see me come down the steps. At any rate, he is coming here at once, and we three will talk matters over. Believe me, Mr. Harling, rather than have you wanted by the police I will tell them everything, even though my story will not be accepted.”

  Emphatically he shook his head: “You will do nothing of the kind. We are both victims of a circumstantial net — and if you can keep me hidden somewhere until the thing blows over, I’ll make a run for it and get far, far away.” He smiled wearily. “And all this, on account of a wonderful ruby — a ruby full of purple fire!”

  She nodded. Then she rose and opened the drawer of the library table, removing a small, pasteboard box from it. “Some few years ago, when Grandfather was alive, a big exhibition of the famous jewels of the world — in imitation only — was held at the Art Institute. After the exhibition was over, Grandfather purchased, for a few dollars, the duplicate, in purple glass, of the Vanderhuyden ruby. You can get a splendid idea from this facsimile of the size and cutting and weight of the original. But of course the wonderful purple fire that pours from the other, under artificial light, is lacking here.” She opened the lid of the box and handed him the object it contained.

  With interest, he fingered the massive, shiny, intricately cut piece of purple glass. By a stretch of the imagination, he could picture what the original might be like, sparkling and scintillating with the purple fire that must emanate from such a weight of pure, crystal alumina born in the core of the earth. He turned it this way and that, weighing it in his hand. But his examination of it was interrupted by a long ring at the bell of the residence. A few seconds later, someone tapped deferentially on the door of the library. When the door opened, at Trudel’s command, the figure of little Santi, framed in the opening, announced:

  “Meestaire Phailps Morningstar.”

  A man entered the room. As Harling looked up from his examination of the imitation ruby, his jaw fell open and he stiffened with surprise. The newcomer was dressed in a neatly tailored blue serge suit; his hands were gloved, and his feet were clad in patent leather shoes. But his hair was of flaming red — a thatch of hair which only that day had surmounted a gray flannel shirt and a suit of poor clothing. It was no other than Red Saunders, the down-and-outer who shuffled up and down Washington Square during the afternoons.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A LITTLE DISCUSSION ALL ‘ROUND

  TO TRUDEL VANDERHUYDEN, there could have been no doubt that the newcomer into the library was as astounded as the man with whom she had just been talking. She stared with obvious bewilderment at him as he stood stock-still in the doorway.

  “Great Scott!” he ejaculated, looking toward Harling. “Why — man alive — how did you get into this place? How — ”

  This must have proved more surprising than ever to the girl. With a quick look toward each of the other two occupants of the room, she spoke in the red-haired man’s direction: “Do you mean to tell me that you two men already know each other? Why — why I was just about to introduce you to Mr. Harling here — Mr. Ford Harling — who saved my life last summer when I was touring the West.”

  Morningstar, or the erstwhile Red Saunders, crossed the room quickly and thrust out his hand to Harling: “Then I’m pleased to meet you once again, Mr. Ford Harling; but I’m thinking that you’ll all have to give me some explanations before I can make head or tail of this thing.”

  So, when he had seated himself in one of the great leather armchairs of the room, Trudel closed the library door, and again related what she had just told Harling in detail. When she had finished, Harling told for the second time how he had gone into the empty house to secure a piece of brass chandelier or electric fixture; how in fleeing he had discovered the whereabouts of the green jade carving, which corresponded to the fragment in his pocket; how he had finally returned to the Vanderhuyden residence, only to find himself face to face with a girl he already knew. He omitted, for the present, his unfortunate adventure in the Madison Street restaurant, and, at the conclusion, waited to hear what the other would say.

  Morningstar scratched his chin. “You’ve both cleared up matters pretty well for me,” he stated slowly, “so I’ll have to tell you now, Harling, that you gave me a beautiful jolt when you informed me this afternoon that you had been searching Chicago over for an S. P. Bond, senior. Can you imagine my feelings? It was Samuel P. Bond, senior, himself whom I was interested in.” He was silent a moment, ruminating. “I could see with half an eye that you were down and out,” he went on, “and I’d have staked you on the spot to the price of a meal and the carfare to go to Evanston tonight, only I didn’t dare let you know I was anything but a tramp myself. I was playing a cautious game, and couldn’t give myself away to anyone around that parklet. All I had on me was several large bills; so I slipped down to the edge of the square and hurried across Clark Street to a Greek fruit store, where I got one of them changed.”

  Morningstar turned to Trudel: “I had seen you go up the steps of the old house, just before I dropped into a conversation with Harling,” he said. “But just at the instant the storekeeper was making change for me, and my eyes were off Number 63, you must have come out of that house and hurried around the corner of Dearborn Avenue; for, after the police descended on the place, I hung around a lon
g time, wondering why your presence wasn’t discovered by them.”

  Morningstar turned to Harling in his explanation: “When I got back to the row of benches with some loose change to slip you, you were gone. Fifteen minutes later, the yellow police Cadillac drew up to the house I was watching, and, with the thousand things I’ve been doing in the case since then, I’ve forgotten all about you until just now when I marched into this room and found you sitting here.”

  For several minutes, none of the three spoke, each thinking upon the peculiar mechanism, the wheels within wheels, which had caused their respective paths to become so complexly interwoven. Finally Morningstar broke the silence, glancing in Trudel’s direction:

  “This information which you give me about the imprint of the hand on the dust of the table is startling, to say the least. Since I shed my old tramp suit, I’ve been hopping around, doing some examination on my own hook, but I haven’t been able to get on the inside of Number 63. The police don’t love me very much. Thanks, however, to the keeper of the Police Department morgue, who knows me, I’ve had a chance, at least, to look over Bond’s dead body. Now, regarding this hand-print. It’s a clue — a red-hot one; but it’s a clue that’s entirely gone by this time. Now that all those prying bluecoats and plainclothesmen have wandered in there and upset everything in the place, there wouldn’t be the vestige of a hand imprint or dust, either. Incidentally, it was visible to you only as the sun reflected from the open casement window of the Newberry Library across the park.

  “That’s an unfortunate feature,” Morningstar went on. “If that beam of sun had only been in existence at the moment the police entered the place, some bright copper might have detected the hand-print. Then Harling wouldn’t have been the sole and only suspect in the case.” He stared at the rug a few seconds. “Good Lord, what wouldn’t we give to know what took place between Bond and Vandervoort! It might have been self-defense, at that. But as for you, Miss Vanderhuyden, it’s fortunate that you got that green dragon away. I could never testify in court that you failed to reach Washington Square yesterday — for a friend was with me all the time I was stalled on the other side of the river in the big fire. No one, I’m afraid, could have helped you out.”