The Bartlett Mystery

There remained one last move, but it was a perfect one in most ways. Would Fowle keep his mouth shut? Voles cursed Fowle in his thought. Were it not for Fowle there would have been no difficulty. Carshaw would never have met Winifred, and the girl would have been as wax in the hands of Rachel Craik. He caught hold of Winifred’s arm.

“If you scream I’ll choke you!” he said fiercely.

Shaken by the chloroform mixture, benumbed as the outcome of an unprotected drive, the girl was physically as well as mentally unable to resist. He coiled her hair into a knot, gagged her dexterously with a silk handkerchief – Voles knew all about gags – and tied her hands behind her back with a shoe-lace. Then he adjusted the hood and side-screens.

He did these things hurriedly, but without fumbling. He was losing precious minutes, for the telephone-wire might yet throttle him; but the periods of waiting at the ferry and while crossing the Hudson must be circumvented in some way or other. His last act before starting the car was to show Winifred the revolver he never lacked.

“See this!” he growled into her ear. “I’m not going to be held by any cop. At the least sign of a move by you to attract attention I’ll put the first bullet through the cop, the second through you, and the third through myself, if I can’t make my get-away. Better believe that. I mean it.”

He asked for no token of understanding on her part. He was stating only the plain facts. In a word, Voles was born to be a great man, and an unhappy fate had made him a scoundrel. But fortune still befriended him. Rain fell as he drove through Hoboken. The ferry was almost deserted, and the car was wedged in between two huge mail-vans on board the boat.

Hardened rascal though he was, Voles breathed a sigh of relief as he drove unchallenged past a uniformed policeman on arriving at Christopher Street. He guessed his escape was only a matter of minutes. In reality, he was gone some ten seconds when the policeman was called to the phone. As for Petch, that valorous knight-errant crossed on the next boat, and the Hoboken police were already on the qui vive.

Every road into and out of New York was soon watched by sharp eyes on the lookout for a car bearing a license numbered in the tens of thousands, and tenanted by a hatless man and a girl in indoor costume. Quickly the circles lessened in concentric rings through the agencies of telephone-boxes and roundsmen.

At half past nine a patrolman found a car answering the description standing outside an up-town saloon on the East Side. Examining the register number he saw at once that blacking had been smeared over the first and last figures. Then he knew. But there was no trace of the driver. Voles and Winifred had vanished into thin air.

Mrs. Carshaw, breakfasting with a haggard and weary son, revealed that Senator Meiklejohn was at Atlantic City. He kissed her for the news.

“Meiklejohn must wait, mother,” he said. “Winifred is somewhere in New York. I cannot tear myself away to Atlantic City to-day. When I have found her, I shall deal with Meiklejohn.”

Then came Steingall, and he and Mrs. Carshaw exchanged a glance which the younger man missed.

Mrs. Carshaw, sitting a while in deep thought after the others had gone, rang up a railway company. Atlantic City is four hours distant from New York. By hurrying over certain inquiries she wished to make, she might catch a train at midday.

She drove to her lawyers. At her request a smart clerk was lent to her for a couple of hours. They consulted various records. The clerk made many notes on foolscap sheets in a large, round hand, and Mrs. Carshaw, seated in the train, read them many times through her gold-mounted lorgnette.

It was five o’clock when a taxi brought her to the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, and Senator Meiklejohn was the most astonished man on the Jersey coast at the moment when she entered unannounced, for Mrs. Carshaw had simply said to the elevator-boy: “Take me to Senator Meiklejohn’s sitting-room.”

Undeniably he was startled; but playing desperately for high stakes had steadied him somewhat. Perhaps the example of his stronger brother had some value, too, for he rose with sufficient affability.

“What a pleasant rencontré, Mrs. Carshaw,” he said. “I had no notion you were within a hundred miles of the Board Walk.”

“That is not surprising,” she answered, sinking into a comfortable chair. “I have just arrived. Order me some sandwiches and a cup of tea. I’m famished.”

He obeyed.

“I take it you have come to see me?” he said, quietly enough, though aware of a queer fluttering about the region of his heart.

“Yes. I am so worried about Rex.”

“Dear me! The girl?”

“It is always a woman. How you men must loathe us in your sane moments, if you ever have any.”

“I flatter myself that I am sane, yet how could I say that I loathe your sex, Mrs. Carshaw?”

“I wonder if your flattery will bear analysis. But there! No serious talk until I am refreshed. Do ring for some biscuits; sandwiches are apt to be slow in the cutting.”

Thus by pretext she kept him from direct converse until a tea-tray, with a film of paté de fois coyly hidden in thin bread and butter, formed, as it were, a rampart between them.

“How did you happen on my address?” he asked smilingly.

It was the first shell of real warfare, and she answered in kind: “That was quite easy. The people at the detective bureau know it.”

The words hit him like a bullet.

“The Bureau!” he cried.

“Yes. The officials there are interested in the affairs of Winifred Marchbanks.”

He went ashen-gray, but essayed, nevertheless, to turn emotion into mere amazement. He was far too clever a man to pretend a blank negation. The situation was too strenuous for any species of ostrich device.

“I seem to remember that name,” he said slowly, moistening his lips with his tongue.

“Of course you do. You have never forgotten it. Let us have a friendly chat about her, Senator. My son is going to marry her. That is why I am here.”

She munched her sandwiches and sipped her tea. This experienced woman of the world, now boldly declared on the side of romance, was far too astute to force the man to desperation unless it was necessary. He must be given breathing-time, permitted to collect his wits. She was sure of her ground. Her case was not legally strong. Meiklejohn would discover that defect, and, indeed, it was not her object to act legally. If others could plot and scheme, she would have a finger in the pie – that was all. And behind her was the clear brain of Steingall, who had camped for days near the Senator in Atlantic City, and had advised the mother how to act for her son.

There was a long silence. She ate steadily.

“Perhaps you will be good enough to state explicitly why you are here, Mrs. Carshaw,” said Meiklejohn at last.

She caught the ring of defiance in his tone. She smiled. There was to be verbal sword-play, and she was armed cap-à-pie.

“Just another cup of tea,” she pleaded, and he wriggled uneasily in his chair. The delay was torturing him. She unrolled her big sheets of notes. He looked over at them with well-simulated indifference.

“I have an engagement – ” he began, looking at his watch.

“You must put it off,” she said, with sudden heat. “The most important engagement of your life is here, now, in this room, William Meiklejohn. I mentioned the detective bureau when I entered. Which do you prefer to encounter – me or an emissary of the police?”

He paled again. Evidently this society lady had claws, and would use them if annoyed.

“I do not think that I have said anything to warrant such language to me,” he murmured, striving to smile deprecatingly. He succeeded but poorly.

“You sent me to drive out into the world the girl whom my son loved,” was the retort. “You made a grave mistake in that. I recognized her, after a little while. I knew her mother. Now, am I to go into details?”

“I – really – I – ”

“Very well. Eighteen years ago your brother, Ralph Vane Meiklejohn, murdered a man named Marchbanks, who had discovered that you and your brother were defrauding his wife of funds held by your bank as her trustees. I have here the records of the crime. I do not say that your brother, who has since been a convict and is now assisting you under the name of Ralph Voles, could be charged with that crime. Maybe ‘murderer’ is too strong a word for him where Marchbanks was concerned; but I do say that any clever lawyer could send you and him to the penitentiary for robbing a dead woman and her daughter, the girl whom you and he have kidnapped within the last week.”

Here was a broadside with a vengeance. Meiklejohn could not have endured a keener agony were he facing a judge and jury. It was one thing to have borne this terrible secret gnawing at his vitals during long years, but it was another to find it pitilessly laid bare by a woman belonging to that very society for which he had dared so much in order to retain his footing.

He bent his head between his hands. For a few seconds thoughts of another crime danced in his surcharged brain. But Mrs. Carshaw’s well-bred syllables brought him back to sanity with chill deliberateness.

“Shall I go on?” she said. “Shall I tell you of Rachel Bartlett; of the scandal to be raised about your ears, not only by this falsified trust, but by the outrageous attack on Ronald Tower?”

He raised his pallid face. He was a proud man, and resented her merciless taunts.

“Of course,” he muttered, “I deny everything you have said. But, if it were true, you must have some ulterior motive in approaching me. What is it?”

“I am glad you see that. I am here to offer terms.”

“Name them.”

“You must place this girl, Winifred Marchbanks, under my care – where she will remain until my son marries her – and make restitution of her mother’s property.”

“No doubt you have a definite sum in your mind?”

“Most certainly. My lawyers tell me you ought to refund the interest as well, but Winifred may content herself with the principal. You must hand her half a million dollars!”

He sprang to his feet, livid. “Woman,” he yelled, “you are crazy!”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE BITER BIT

Mrs. Carshaw focused him again through her gold-rimmed eye-glasses. “Crazy?” she questioned calmly. “Not a bit of it – merely an old woman bargaining for her son. Rex would not have done it. After thrashing you he would have left you to the law, and, were the law to step in, you would surely be ruined. I, on the other hand, do not scruple to compound a felony – that is what my lawyers call it. My extravagance and carelessness have contributed to encumber Rex’s estates with a heavy mortgage. If I provide his wife with a dowry which pays off the mortgage and leaves her a nice sum as pin-money, I shall have done well.”

“Half a million! I – I repudiate your statements. Even if I did not, I have no such sum at command.”

“Yes, you have, or will have, which is the same thing. Shall I give you details of the Costa Rica cotton concession, arranged between you, and Jacob, and Helen Tower? They’re here. As for repudiation, perhaps I have hurried matters. Permit me to go through my story at some length, quoting chapter and verse.”

She spread open her papers again, after having folded them.

“Stop this wretched farce,” he almost screamed, for her coolness broke up his never too powerful nervous system. “If – I agree – what guarantee is there – ”

“Ah! now you’re talking reasonably. I can ensure the acceptance of my terms. First, where is Winifred?”

He hesitated. Here was the very verge of the gulf. Any admission implied the truth of Mrs. Carshaw’s words. She did not help him. He must take the plunge without any further impulsion. But the Senator’s nerve was broken. They both knew it.

“At Gateway House, East Orange,” he said sullenly. “I must tell you that my – my brother is a dare-devil. Better leave me to – ”

“I am glad you have told the truth,” she interrupted. “She is not at Gateway House now. Rex and a detective were there last night. There was a fight. Your brother, a resourceful scoundrel evidently, carried her off. You must find him and her. A train leaves for New York in half an hour. Come back with me and help look for her. It will count toward your regeneration.”

He glanced at his watch abstractedly. He even smiled in a sickly way as he said:

“You timed your visit well.”

“Yes. A woman has intuition, you know. It takes the place of brains. I shall await you in the hall. Now, don’t be stupid, and think of revolvers, and poisons, and things. You will end by blessing me for my interference. Will you be ready in five minutes?”

She sat in the lounge, and soon saw some baggage descending. Then Meiklejohn joined her. She went to the office and asked for a telegraph form. The Senator had followed.

“What are you going to do?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m wiring Rex to say that you and I are traveling to New York together, and advising him to suspend operations until we arrive. That will be helpful. You will not be tempted to act foolishly, and he will not do anything to prejudice your future actions.”

He gave her a wrathful glance. Mrs. Carshaw missed no point. A man driven to desperation might be tempted to bring about an “accident” if he fancied he could save himself in that way. But, clever as a mother scheming for her son’s welfare proved herself, there was one thing she could not do. Neither she nor any other human being can prevent the unexpected from happening occasionally. Sound judgment and astute planning will often gain a repute for divination; yet the prophet is decried at times. Steingall had discovered this, and Mrs. Carshaw experienced it now.

It chanced that Mick the Wolf, lying in Gateway House on a bed of pain, his injuries aggravated by the struggle with the detective, and his temper soured by Rachel Craik’s ungracious ministrations, found his thoughts dwelling on the gentle girl who had forgotten her own sorrows and tended him, her enemy.

Such moments come to every man, no matter how vile he may be, and this lorn wolf was a social castaway from whom, during many years, all decent-minded people had averted their faces. His slow-moving mind was apt to be dominated by a single idea. He understood enough of the Costa Rican project to grasp the essential fact that there was money in it for all concerned, and money honestly earned, if honesty be measured by the ethics of the stock manipulator.

He realized, too, that neither Voles nor Rachel Craik could be moved by argument, and he rightly estimated Fowle as a weak-minded nonentity. So he slowly hammered out a conclusion, and, having appraised it in his narrow circle of thought, determined to put it into effect.

An East Orange doctor, who had received his instructions from the police, paid a second visit to Mick the Wolf shortly before the hour of Mrs. Carshaw’s arrival in Atlantic City.

“Well, how is the arm feeling now?” he said pleasantly, when he entered the patient’s bedroom.

The answer was an oath.

“That will never do,” laughed the doctor. “Cheerfulness is the most important factor in healing. Ill-temper causes jerky movements and careless – ”

“Oh, shucks,” came the growl. “Say, listen, boss! I’ve been broke up twice over a slip of a girl. I’ve had enough of it. The whole darn thing is a mistake. I want to end it, an’ I don’t give a hoorah in Hades who knows. Just tell her friends that if they look for her on board the steamer Wild Duck, loadin’ at Smith’s Pier in the East River, they’ll either find her or strike her trail. That’s all. Now fix these bandages, for my arm’s on fire.”

The doctor wisely put no further questions. He dressed the wounded limb and took his departure. A policeman in plain clothes, hiding in a neighboring barn, saw him depart and hailed him: “Any news, Doc?”

“Yes,” was the reply. “If my information is correct you’ll not be kept there much longer.”

He motored quickly to the police-station. Within the hour Carshaw, with frowning face and dreams of wreaking physical vengeance on the burly frame of Voles, was speeding across New York with Steingall in his recovered car. He simply hungered for a personal combat with the man who had inflicted such sufferings on his beloved Winifred.

The story told by Polly Barnard, and supplemented by Petch, revealed very clearly the dastardly trick practised by Voles the previous evening, while the dodge of smearing out two of the figures on the automobile’s license plate explained the success attained in traversing the streets unnoticed by the police.

Steingall was inclined to theorize.

“The finding of the car puzzled me at first, I admit,” he said. “Now, assuming that Mick the Wolf has not sent us off on a wild-goose chase, the locality of the steamer explains it. Voles drove all the way to the East Side, quitted the car in the neighborhood of the pier, deposited Miss Bartlett on board the vessel under some plausible pretext, and actually risked the return journey into the only part of New York where the missing auto might not be noticed at once. He’s a bold rogue, and no mistake.”

But Carshaw answered not. The chief glanced at him sideways, and smiled. There was a lowering fire in his companion’s eyes that told its own story. Thenceforward, the run was taken in silence. But Steingall had decided on his next move. When they neared Smith’s Pier Carshaw wished to drive straight there.

“Nothing of the sort,” was the sharp official command. “We have failed once. Perhaps it was my fault. This time there shall be no mistakes. Turn along the next street to the right. The precinct station is three blocks down.”

Somewhat surprised by Steingall’s tone, the other obeyed. At the station-house a policeman, called from the men’s quarters, where he was quietly reading and smoking, stated that he was on duty in the neighborhood between eight o’clock the previous evening and four o’clock that morning. He remembered seeing a car, similar to the one standing outside, pass about 9.15 P.M. It contained two people, he believed, but could not be sure, as the screens were raised owing to the rain. He did not see the car again; some drunken sailors required attention during the small hours.

The local police captain and several men in plain clothes were asked to assemble quietly on Smith’s Pier. A message was sent to the river police, and a launch requisitioned to patrol near the Wild Duck.

Finally, Steingall, who was a born strategist, and whose long experience of cross-examining counsel rendered him wary before he took irrevocable steps in cases such as this, where a charge might fail on unforeseen grounds, made inquiries from a local ship’s chandler as to the Wild Duck, her cargo, and her destination.

There was no secret about her. She was loading with stores for Costa Rica. The consignees were a syndicate, and both Carshaw and Steingall recognized its name as that of the venture in which Senator Meiklejohn was interested.

“Do you happen to know if there is any one on board looking after the interests of the syndicate?” asked the detective.

“Yes. A big fellow has been down here once or twice. He’s going out as the manager, I guess. His name was – let me see now – ”

“Voles?” suggested Steingall.

“No, that wasn’t it. Oh, I’ve got it – Vane, it was.”

Carshaw, dreadfully impatient, failed to understand all this preliminary survey; but the detective had no warrant, and ship’s captains become crusty if their vessels are boarded in a peremptory manner without justification. Moreover, Steingall quite emphatically ordered Carshaw to remain on the wharf while he and others went on board.

“You want to strangle Voles, if possible,” he said. “From what I’ve heard of him he would meet the attempt squarely, and you two might do each other serious injury. I simply refuse to permit any such thing. You have a much more pleasant task awaiting you when you meet the young lady. No one will say a word if you hug her as hard as you like.”

Carshaw, agreeing to aught but delay, promised ruefully not to interfere. When the river police were at hand a nod brought several powerfully built officers closing in on the main gangway of the Wild Duck. The police-captain, in uniform, accompanied Steingall on board.

A deck hand hailed them and asked their business.

“I want to see the captain,” said the detective.

“There he is, boss, lookin’ at you from the chart-house now.”

They glanced up toward a red-faced, hectoring sort of person who regarded them with evident disfavor. Some ships, loading for Central American ports at out-of-the-way wharves, do not want uniformed police on their decks.

The two climbed an iron ladder. Men at work in the forehold ceased operations and looked up at them. Their progress was followed by many interested eyes from the wharf. The captain glared angrily. He, too, had noted the presence of the stalwart contingent near the gangway, nor had he missed the police boat.

“What the – ” he commenced; but the detective’s stern question stopped an outburst.

“Have you a man named Voles or Vane on board?”

“Mr. Vane – yes.”

“Did he bring a young woman to this ship late last night?”

“I don’t see – ”

“Let me explain, captain. I’m from the detective bureau. The man I am inquiring for is wanted on several charges.”

The steady official tone caused the skipper to think. Here was no cringing foreigner or laborer to be brow-beaten at pleasure.

“Well, I’m – ” he growled. “Here, you,” roaring at a man beneath, “go aft and tell Mr. Vane he’s wanted on the bridge.”

The messenger vanished.

“I assume there is a young lady on board?” went on Steingall.

“I’m told so. I haven’t seen her.”

“Surely you know every one who has a right to be on the ship?”

“Guess that’s so, mister, an’ who has more right than the daughter of the man who puts up the dough for the trip? Strikes me you’re makin’ a hash of things. But here’s Mr. Vane. He’ll soon put you where you belong.”

Advancing from the after state-rooms came Voles. He was looking at the bridge, but the police-captain was hidden momentarily by the chart-room. He gazed at Steingall with bold curiosity. He had a foot on the companion ladder when he heard a sudden commotion on the wharf. Turning, he saw Fowle, livid with terror, writhing in Carshaw’s grasp.

Then Voles stood still. The shades of night were drawing in, but he had seen enough to give him pause. Perhaps, too, other less palpable shadows darkened his soul at that moment.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SETTLEMENT

The chief disliked melodrama in official affairs. Any man, even a crook, ought to know when he is beaten, and take his punishment with a stiff upper lip. But Voles’s face was white, and in one of his temperament, that was as ominous a sign as the bloodshot eyes of a wild boar. Steingall had hoped that Voles would walk quietly into the chart-room, and, seeing the folly of resistance, yield to the law without a struggle. Perhaps, under other conditions, he might have done so. It was the coming of Fowle that had complicated matters.

The strategic position was simple enough. Voles had the whole of the after-deck to himself. In the river, unknown to him, was the police launch. On the wharf, plain in view, were several policemen, whose clothes in nowise concealed their character. On the bridge, visible now, was the uniformed police-captain. Above all, there was Fowle, wriggling in Carshaw’s grasp, and pointing frantically at him, Voles.

“Come right along, Mr. Vane,” said Steingall encouragingly; “we’d like a word with you.”

The planets must have been hostile to the Meiklejohn family in that hour. Brother William was being badly handled by Mrs. Carshaw in Atlantic City, and Brother Ralph was receiving a polite request to come up-stairs and be cuffed.

But Ralph Vane Meiklejohn faced the odds creditably. People said afterward it was a pity he was such a fire-eater. Matters might have been arranged much more smoothly. As it was, he looked back, perhaps, through a long vista of misspent years, and the glance was not encouraging. Of late, his mind had dwelt with somewhat unpleasant frequency on the finding of a dead body in the quarry near his Vermont home.

His first great crime had found him out when he was beginning to forget it. He had walked that moment from the presence of a girl whose sorrowful, frightened face reminded him of another long-buried victim of that quarry tragedy. He knew, too, that this girl had been defrauded by him and his brother of a vast sum of money, and a guilty conscience made the prospect blacker than it really was. And then, he was a man of fierce impulses, of ungovernable rage, a very tiger when his baleful passions were stirred. A wave of madness swept through him now. He saw the bright prospect of an easily-earned fortune ruthlessly replaced by a more palpable vision of prison walls and silent, whitewashed corridors. Perhaps the chair of death itself loomed through the red mist before his eyes.