Chapter XVII: Patsy’s Pointer

Nick returned to his assistants after his interview with Mr. Sanborn.

He was thoughtful and perplexed.

Mr. Sanborn had been unable to contribute a single idea or additional bit of information that would help Nick to a starting place.

“In all my experience,” said Nick, “I have never met with just such a case.

“All that we have is that a man has mysteriously disappeared at a most unexpected moment, and when his disappearance is likely to lose him all he had been striving for for two years.

“Those who know the man best, who for two years have been his intimate associates, cannot even suggest a notion as to what might be the cause of it.”

“It’s a great big stone wall,” said Patsy, “and we’re up agin’ it with our noses scratching against the rough edges.”

Patsy’s terse description caused them all to laugh.

“Chief,” asked Chick, “do you think that you know the whole of the life of this man, Ellison, here in New York for the past two years?”

“Perhaps not so well,” answered Nick, “as I might know if we had made a careful search into it. But, before Mr. Sanborn consented to his daughter’s marriage, and, subsequent thereto, he had inquiries made as to the young man and how he was living, what he was doing, and he became satisfied that there was nothing wrong in it.”

“Well,” said Chick, “it goes that a man don’t disappear as Ellison did without a reason.”

“That is true,” said Ida. “Had he left at any other time, or any other place, there would not have been so much in it.”

“What is your point?” said Nick, stopping in his pacing up and down and standing before Ida.

“What I mean,” said Ida, “is this. If Mr. Ellison had been in his room, say three months ago, reading, or smoking, or passing his time away until bedtime, and had been called upon by some one who came to see him, and, going out with him, had not returned, it might have been said that he had allowed himself to drift away without strong reasons. But to leave a house under the circumstances Mr. Ellison did, within two hours after his marriage, and just as he was prepared to take his place at the reception to receive his many wedding guests, shows that there must have been reasons so strong that he dare not pass them by.”

Nick nodded his head as if agreeing with this, and Chick said:

“And crime of some kind is at the bottom of those reasons.”

Nick turned sharply on Chick and asked:

“What do you suspect?”

“I suspect nothing,” replied Chick. “I am trying to say that nothing but a crime, or, a wrong, would make a man like Ellison leave as he did.”

“The reasoning is good,” said Nick. “Let us see. The most important thing that could occur to Ellison, as we know it, is the possible succession to the title and estate of his family. Now, the Earl of Kerleigh is alive, and there are three lives between him and Ellison. Suppose, for instance, that all of those four men were on a yacht and were drowned at one and the same time. That would make Ellison the Earl of Kerleigh and change him from an unimportant person to a very important person in England; in other words, changing the whole course of his life. It is hard to conceive anything more important to occur to Ellison. Suppose that the big cape man Patsy saw, brought him that information. While it would shock and excite him, there could be no reason why he should not tell his newly-made bride and her family, even if it were necessary for him to leave on the minute.”

“And that,” said Ida, “forces us to believe that there was some wrong or some crime back of this hasty departure.”

“I say, chief,” said Patsy, “did any steamer sail to-day since twelve o’clock?”

Chick jumped for the morning paper and quickly looked at the shipping news.

“No,” he said, “no steamer left port to-day after twelve o’clock.”

“What time does the next steamer go out?” asked Nick.

“Every one that leaves to-morrow,” replied Chick, “must sail before nine in the morning.”

“You have made a good suggestion,” said Nick. “I wish, Patsy, you would take care of that end of it, and see that every steamer is properly watched to-morrow morning.”

Patsy smiled with pleasure. The chief had acknowledged that he had made the first practical suggestion in the work.

“It comes down to this,” said Nick, “we must set out upon the theory that something wrong, some crime, some misfortune, or some complication, exists in the life of Ellison that is unknown to his best friends.”

“Chief,” said Ida, “I believe that that is to be found not here in this country, but in England.”

“Since he has lived so good a life here,” said Nick, “it would seem to be so.”

The famous detective stood still a moment and said:

“I must appeal to my friend, Inspector Mostyn, of Scotland Yard, again. Chick, write a cable to Mostyn and ask him to send all information that is queer about Ellison. Tell Mostyn what family he belongs to.”

He turned to Ida and said:

“I don’t suppose there is a man in England who knows as much about the noble families and their concealed histories as Mostyn does.”

“If you are to have a starting place at all,” said Ida, “I think you will find it in what Mostyn tells you, and----”

Ida hesitated a moment, and Nick asked:

“And what?”

Ida laughed in a somewhat doubtful manner and replied:

“And I am afraid that you will find that it is something in which one of my sex is involved. I have noticed that nearly all the trouble which a sprig of the nobility gets into, is because of some woman.”

There was a tap at the door. Patsy opened it and found there a servant, who passed in a letter, with the remark that it had just been received.

It was addressed to Nick.

Handing it to Nick, the famous detective opened it and said:

“It is the same handwriting.”

“The same as what?” asked Chick.

“The same writing as the note of warning of this morning.”

Reading it, he passed it to Chick, saying:

“Read it aloud.”

Chick read:

“‘A famous judge, having a man brought before him and listening to the charge made against him, asked: “Who is the woman?” If you are wise, you will take this as a pointer for the beginning of your new case.’”

The four detectives looked at each other, and then Nick took from his pocket the letter of warning of the morning, and together they compared the handwriting of the two letters.

“It is the same,” said Nick, positively.

“It was written by the same man,” said Chick.

“It is not the writing of a man, but of a woman,” said Ida.

Nick caught the two letters, and, carrying them to the window, where the light was strong upon them, carefully examined them.

“You are right, Ida,” he said, as he returned to the table. “Though the character of the writing is heavy and masculine, yet it is clear that a female hand wrote both notes.”

Chick took them up again and carefully examined them.

“Ida,” said Chick, “while you are undoubtedly right in this, it would seem to upset your theory that we must look for the reasons of this mysterious disappearance in the life of Ellison in England, prior to his coming to this country.”

Ida took up the envelope of the last letter, and, inspecting the postmark, replied:

“Yes, since a woman is involved, as these letters show, and she is in this city now. This letter was mailed this afternoon by three o’clock.”

Nick turned with a start.

“By three o’clock?” he asked. “Are you sure?”

Ida handed him the envelope, saying:

“Look for yourself. And it was from the General Post Office.”

“Then,” said Nick, “the writer of this letter knew of the disappearance as quickly as we did.”

“It’s my guess,” said Patsy, “before.”

“You mean,” said Nick, “that she was a part of it?”

“Perhaps,” said Patsy; “anyhow, she knew it was goin’ to take place.”

“And it is my guess,” said Ida, “that the woman who wrote this letter is not the woman that Ellison is mixed up with, but is a woman who is in love with Ellison and who wants to get the other woman in trouble.”

“How in the world do you figure that out?” asked Chick.

“I don’t figure it out,” said Ida. “I’m guessing, like Patsy.”

She looked up at Nick and laughed as she continued:

“It is a guess based on my understanding of my own sex.”

“It is something to pay attention to,” said Nick, “especially in a case so dark and difficult as this is. But, Ida, if we are to guess on the probable actions of women, we could do a great deal more guessing.”

“As for instance, how?” asked Ida.

“We might guess that the woman who writes to us wishes to strike the one Ellison married to-day, and that the job put up was to prevent the marriage taking place, but that it miscarried.”

“Oh, if you’re going to guess,” said Chick, “you can guess anything, but the real thing is to find the writer of these letters as a beginning.”

“See here, chief,” said Patsy, “are not we losing sight of one thing in thinking only of this mysterious disappearance?”

“In what way?” asked Nick.

“Well,” said Patsy, “what was the start of this game, anyhow? Wasn’t it a warning that the Sanborn house was to be robbed to-day?”

“If you’re never more wrong than you are in that, Patsy,” said Chick, teasingly, “you’ll always be dead right, my laddy buck.”

“You’re getting gay, Chick,” replied Patsy. “I’ve got a notion in my think box that I know where the start is in this case.”

The three turned with interest to Patsy, and Chick, inclined to jolly Patsy, said:

“Expatiate, my brilliant statesman, expatiate.”

Patsy turned to Chick with a merry twinkle in his eye and asked:

“Did it hurt yer much to cough that up?”

“Come,” said Nick, “say what’s in you, Patsy.”

“Well, see here, chief,” Patsy went on. “You say both these letters were sent by the same person.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the woman, if it is a woman, as Ida says, was dead right, wasn’t she, when she said it was goin’ to be tried on.”

“You mean the attempt to rob the Sanborn house of the jewels, the wedding presents?” asked Nick.

“The same,” said Patsy, eagerly. “Well, it was tried on, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then the moll what wrote this letter knew all about it beforehand, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” replied Nick, smiling as he recognized that Patsy was slipping back into his east-side talk as he always did when he grew very earnest.

“Well, then,” continued Patsy, “it goes, doesn’t it, that she must know the people what was goin’ to work it?”

“Yes,” replied Nick, eagerly, for he saw Patsy was getting to a point.

“And,” went on Patsy, “the moll has given you the warning that there was a woman behind Ellison’s runnin’ away?”

“Yes.”

“And she must know who that moll is?”

“Yes.”

“And if yer could get on ter her, you’d get a line on the whole biz, wouldn’t yer?”

“Yes.”

“But the thing is, Patsy,” said Chick, “to get to the woman who wrote the letters.”

“That’s what I’m gettin’ at,” said Patsy. “The chief knows that the man Lannigan, the swell cracksman of Philly, led off in this biz of tryin’ ter nip the jewels. And it’s dollars to doughnuts that Lannigan knows the moll what writ these letters. So, Lannigan is the startin’ point ter turn the lamps onto.”

Nick brought his hands together with a resounding clap and replied:

“You’ve hit it, Patsy, and you have given us what we have been fishing for, a starting place. Now, Chick, you and Patsy start right out and see if you can’t find Lannigan, and put him and his fellows under watch. Don’t lose them until you know all they’re doing.”

Without waiting for anything else, Chick and Patsy went out.

“I fancy, Ida,” said Nick, “that there will be a good deal of work for you to do in this case. You had better go home and spend the night in getting a good rest. What you have to do will depend upon what the boys will find out to-night.”

Ida went away, and Nick busied himself with a new make-up.