Chapter XI: Planning a Campaign

The three turned then to the duty in hand.

But it was only a cursory examination of the surroundings that they made, since the doctor and the chief had both already been in that room and had investigated as far as it had been possible or even necessary.

Nick stood back and a little to one side while the two approached the dead girl upon the couch, and for a moment the chief stood looking down upon her with all that adoration which a strong man of middle age feels for a pure young soul such as Edythe Lynne’s had been.

Finally he turned to the detective.

“Mr. Carter,” he said, with slow solemnity, “what I said a moment ago is true. If you had come to me and told me that this girl was dead and that she had killed herself, and that you had seen her do it, I would have told you that you were a liar. She wasn’t the sort that kills herself; not much. So far as I am concerned, the examination is over.”

He hesitated a moment, and then added, with grave dignity:

“What I want to do now, is to find that man that did it. I want to find him.”

“Do you want to find him without fear or favor?” asked the detective quietly.

“I do, sir, without fear or favor. There ain’t no man in all the world that is big enough or great enough, or near enough to me in any way, to get one grain of consideration from me if he did this thing.”

“Very well,” said Nick, with quiet decision. “We will find him. I think that I can give you both my word that we will find him within twenty-four hours--or less.”

“Do you mean that, Mr. Carter?” the chief exclaimed.

“Yes, I mean it.”

“Would you mind telling me just why you are so plumb certain about it?”

For a moment the detective hesitated. Then he said:

“Chief--and you, doctor, also--if you will be satisfied with a partial explanation for the present, I will make it; but there are reasons, and weighty ones, too, why I would very much prefer to leave the full explanation till later. Will you be satisfied with that, and trust me?”

“I will,” said the chief.

“And I, also,” announced the doctor.

“Then I will tell you this much now: This is not the first time I have been in this room since Miss Lynne was killed.”

“Not the first time? Eh? What do you mean by that?” exclaimed the chief.

“That is what I am telling you.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Chief, before I went to the station house last night, or very early this morning, I had been here in this room. I knew then what you would find when you arrived here with your men.”

“Then why in blazes didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I thought it best to go about the matter in the manner I have done it; and results have demonstrated that I was correct about that.”

“Well, how did you get here, that’s what I want to know?”

“As you know, I was out here on other business last night. It was about two o’clock, or shortly after that, when I passed this way. It was soon after the snow had fallen, but just then no snow was falling at all.”

“Well, well, well?”

“As I was passing the gate I saw tracks in the snow; the tracks of a man and a woman, entering the place, and the tracks of the same man, made in leaving it. At that time the lock on the gate was securely fastened.”

“Fastened? Do you mean that?”

“Yes. It was I who filed through that chain in order to enter here and discover what had happened to the woman who had come into this place, and who had not gone out again.”

“I see. I see.”

“I made my way into the house by picking the lock of the door. I had my flash light with me. I made my way to this room by following the snow tracks on the rugs and carpets, for they had not melted. It was really colder in the house than outside of it.”

“And you found--this?”

“Yes. Just as you see it.”

“So you knew, right on the spot, that a man had come here with her. You couldn’t track him away from here, could you?”

“I have tracked him away from here, chief. I am almost ready to put my hands upon him; but I haven’t sufficient proof of it yet, and the important thing that I wish to impress upon you both, right now, is that not a word of what I have told you shall be uttered to any person for the present. Will you both agree to that?”

“Surely we will. But, have you told her father about it, Carter?”

“I have just said that not a word of it should be breathed to any person. That included Mr. Lynne, also.”

“Oh; I see. Well, he isn’t to know anything, either, until you get ready to tell it?”

“Not one single idea of any of it. He must not even suppose that I had any knowledge that preceded your own, chief.”

“And the--murderer! Do you really think you have got him dead to rights?”

“I really do, chief. I haven’t one single doubt of it.”

“Then all I’ve got to say is that you’re a wonder, Carter.”

“Oh, no, it was circumstance, and chance--largely chance--that made it possible, chief.”

“Then thank Heaven for the chance. Say, where are you going to get him? Here? Or in New York?”

“Here, if I can. If not here, then in New York.”

“Do you mean to tell me that the fellow is here in this town?”

“He might be here, or he might be lured here, but wherever he is--no matter where he may be, chief, I will get him. I promise you that.”

“Shake hands, Carter. You’re a man after my own heart. You do things, and that’s what I like. And don’t you think that it even occurs to me to be one bit jealous of it all. I am only thanking Heaven that you were here to do it. I wasn’t cut out for a detective. I’m all right as a policeman, but I know my limitations, thank the Lord. And say, Carter.”

“Well?”

“From this out, you take charge of things, will you? You be chief.”

“No; I won’t do that; but if a suggestion occurs to me I will make it to you, and you can give your orders as you see fit. That will be the better way, although I don’t now think there will be any occasion for such exercise of authority.”

“Maybe not.”

“But there is one thing that I want to do at your office at one o’clock.”

The chief looked at his watch and snapped it shut.

“That will be another half hour, yet,” he said. “What is it that you want to do then?”

“I want to sit at the telephone in your private office at the station house, and do some telephoning to one of my assistants in New York--and I want you to sit beside me and listen, without questioning, when I do it.”

“That’s all right. What else?”

“I want the doctor here to join with us in a little plot of mine, to help us out.”

“You may count on me, of course,” replied the doctor, who had been listening intently.

“Doctor,” said the detective, turning toward him, “I called upon Mr. Lynne at his home in the city this morning. It was my intention to tell him then, more or less, about what I had discovered here--while I was there, chief, your man came and made his report, but I don’t think he saw me.”

“Huh; that isn’t strange. He wouldn’t see the moon at night if he wasn’t told to look at it, and then he wouldn’t see all there was of it.”

“Well, Mr. Carter?” said the doctor. “You were about to suggest something to me?”

“Yes. When I went to Mr. Lynne’s house I found him preparing to come out here. He had made all his arrangements to start early. His errand was to take something from a private vault that is built under the north wing.”

The chief nodded as if he understood. The doctor looked surprised.

“When this news was made known to him,” the detective continued, “he asked me to come here with him, and it was while on the way out that he told me about the vault. Now, he intends to visit it before he returns to the city, and for reasons of my own I wish to be with him when he does so. I am quite sure that he will have no objections to that arrangement.”

“I don’t know about that,” interrupted the chief. “He has always been mighty particular about that vault, and it surprises me that he even told you of its existence.”

“Well, he did tell me. The point is this, doctor.”

“Yes?”

“I must go now, with the chief, to the station house to do that telephoning, for that must be attended to, first, if we wish to catch the murderer. Now, if you will play your part in this affair, so that we can ultimately bring the murderer here--we will say, face to face with Mr. Lynne himself--I want you, when we leave this room, to go at once to Mr. Lynne, feel his pulse, and say or do something which will make it imperative--imperative, mind you--that he shall go home to your house with you until I call for him there on my return from the station house.”

“I think I understand you,” said the doctor.

“Insist that you must look after his health; that he must have an hour or two of rest while the chief and I are busy about other matters. If he should insist upon returning to this house, come with him. Will you do all that till we return from the station house?”

“Surely. And even if you did not have another reason, the one you have given is already sufficient. He does need the rest and a tonic of some kind.”

“The tonic he will want is brandy, doctor.”

“He was never a drinking man,” said the chief.

“Nevertheless, give him brandy if he wants it, and if it should happen that he has learned to smoke while he was away, offer him a cigar.”

“No use,” said the chief, shaking his head.

“Oh, well, one doesn’t always know. For instance, chief, what would you say if you were told that Mr. Lynne is contemplating a second marriage?”

“I should probably call the man a liar who told it to me,” was the dry response.

“Nevertheless, chief, it is true.”

“What’s that? True? It can’t be. Why, I’ve heard him express himself rather forcibly on that subject, too.”

“Nevertheless, it is true. You have heard of Mrs. Hurd-Babbington? You have seen her out here, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she is the lady in question.”

“You don’t say so.”

“Yes. And it occurs to me that a man who will so thoroughly change his opinions on the subject of marriage might also learn to smoke. And now that we understand one another, shall we go to the station, chief? And will you do your part, doctor?”