Chapter VI: A Vital Question

“You heard what I said over the phone, Mr. Carter?” Lynne said, turning about and facing the detective. They were in a room which opened off from the library of the mansion.

“Yes,” said Nick, “I heard.”

“You will go out there with me?”

“I am not sure,” replied the detective. “I have been thinking about it since I heard you assure them that I would come. I have been up all night, Mr. Lynne, and have driven a good many miles in my car since dark last night--and I am not at all sure that I can be of any benefit to you.”

“But--Mr. Carter, if I particularly request it? If I assure you that money is no object to me in this matter, and----”

“Neither would it be any object to me, Mr. Lynne,” the detective interrupted him. “If I go there at all, it will be in behalf of justice to the beautiful girl who was your daughter.”

“That is precisely why I wish you to go, sir. I hope that you will consent to do so.”

“I will consent to go with you on one condition, Mr. Lynne,” was the reply.

“What is that?”

“That during the ride out there you will freely and frankly reply to any and every question I may ask you, without offense, without considering any of them an impertinence, and with an eye single to discovering the truth about this mystery--and I warn you that I may ask questions that will both startle and offend.”

“Very well, sir; I accept the condition.” He spoke with a quiet dignity now that entirely changed the man; that made him appear for the first time just as Nick Carter had expected to find him.

“And there is one more, Mr. Lynne; a very small one this time.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“It will be nearly an hour before I will be ready to start. My own car is in front of your door, and my two assistants are waiting for me. I must drive with them to my house. If you care to pick me up with your car, there, in just three-quarters of an hour from now, I will be ready to accompany you.”

“So be it, Mr. Carter. At eight-forty-five, then, I will call for you.”

Nick got into his own car in silence, and said nothing at all until, with Chick and Patsy, he was in his own house, where he led the way at once to his study. Then----

“Lynne has asked me to take the case--or, rather, he has asked me to drive out there with him, and I have consented. I will tell you both, frankly, that I do not know what to make of Mr. J. Cephas Lynne. He puzzles me. He is, all at once, almost as interesting as the crime. I am going out there with him in his car, more for the purpose of studying him at close range, and to see him on the ground where the crime was committed, than for any other reason.”

“You don’t mean to say----” Chick began, but the detective interrupted him.

“No, I do not mean to say anything, Chick, only that this case has developed strange possibilities, some of which are almost unthinkable. Now, let’s not discuss generalities. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to get the opinion of either of you, concerning the crime itself, and how it was brought about, and before I start I want both. Chick, I will have the result of your thoughts first.”

“I’ll ask a question before I give it, then.”

“Very well.”

“Have you questioned Lynne as to the manner in which his daughter was supposed to have passed the evening, last night?”

“No; I have not.”

“So you have no idea as to that?”

“None whatever, more than you have, judged by her costume. She was at a function of some sort, somewhere, or, at least, dressed to attend one, whether she went to it or not. Now, Chick, let us hear what you have to say.”

“Well, it isn’t very much--only a general thought on the subject.”

“I know.”

“The house out there has been closed for at least two months. Miss Lynne would never have gone there of her own accord, at such an hour. If there had been some article there that she wanted to get, she would have selected another hour for going; therefore she made the journey at the behest of another person.”

Patsy nodded emphatically, and Nick said:

“We both indorse that.”

“The question arises then,” said Chick, “as to who would have influence enough over her to persuade her to do such a thing? What manner of man could have done it? Was it a relative? Or was she persuaded to go there by some person who may have had a hold of some kind over her father, and was she persuaded to go there because she believed she was serving him?”

“No; I don’t think that last,” replied the detective.

“I’d like to speak my little piece right here and now,” said Patsy, rather sharply for him.

“Well?”

“Edythe Lynne was persuaded to visit that house last night by a lie. No matter what she imagined the reason to be, it was a lie, and it was sufficient to her to compel her to do something that she would never have thought of doing had not her feelings been wrought upon almost to the point of hysteria.”

“Good,” said Chick.

“Go on, Patsy,” said Nick Carter.

“Now, what kind of a lie could have been told to her to take her to that house in the company of a man at the dead of night? What man could tell her such a lie, and make her believe it? What man, who could tell her such a lie and make her believe it, would yet be closely enough related to the family to make that house the object of the night call? And why did she hesitate so long in the automobile before she consented to enter the house, after she arrived there?”

“You answer those questions yourself, Patsy,” said the detective.

“I’ll answer it like this: My present belief is that Edythe Lynne went to Pleasantglades with her own father, and that when she got inside the house and found that she had been lured there by a lie, and that it was her father who had lied to her, she killed herself.”

“No, Patsy, no,” said the detective sharply.

“Wait. That after she had done so, her father realized the terrible predicament he was in; the impossibility of explaining it satisfactorily; the talk and the scandal that the whole affair would make, and, in short, that he then prepared the evidence we found to point to a deliberate suicide.”

“Patsy, part of your theory sounds good; the rest of it is not to be thought of,” said Nick. “I am now of the opinion, myself, that she went there with her father, and that---- No, I can’t say it yet. But all this, lads, leads us to just one thing, and that is what I asked you to this room to listen to.”

Both assistants looked eagerly at their chief, and he continued:

“Is J. Cephas Lynne, as we know him, her father? Was he her father?”

Chick and Patsy looked at each other, then back again at the detective.

“I am going out there in the car with the man to study him,” the detective continued. “I want you both to start out at once, wherever you please, to get for me all the information, that is obtainable regarding both, the father and the daughter. I want you to dig up every scrap of information you can find about both of them. Was he her father? Find that out for me beyond the shadow of a doubt either way, before I return. That is all.”

The detective glanced at his watch, and turned away.

“I’ve got fifteen minutes before he arrives here,” he said, and left them to themselves in the study.

Ten minutes later he came out of a cold plunge, put on a complete change of clothing, shaved, and at the time appointed was ready for the arrival of Lynne’s car.

It came, about five minutes late, and the detective ran down the steps to meet it before it had stopped before the door.

The day was bright, cheerful, and sunny, and the weather was almost warm; under ordinary circumstances a better day could not have been selected for such a journey.

Nothing was said between the two men beyond a greeting, when Nick first entered the car, which was driven by one of the Lynne chauffeurs; but as it was a limousine body, the passengers could talk in comfort and at their ease as it sped along.

“Now, Mr. Lynne, are you ready?” Nick asked presently.

The man looked around at the detective quickly, with a half-startled air; he had evidently been absorbed in his thoughts; and he asked:

“Ready for what?”

“For the questions that I wish to ask.”

“Yes, I think so. What are they, Mr. Carter?”

“There are many of them, and some are what you might call intimate,” warned the detective.

“I agreed to your conditions, Mr. Carter, therefore I am prepared to reply to any and all the questions you care to ask me--provided I can do so.”

“Were you out late yourself last night?”

“I was.”

“What time did you arrive at your home?”

“At three this morning.”

“You used one of your cars?”

“Yes. I went----”

“Wait. Just reply to my questions.”

“Very well, Mr. Carter.”

“Who was your companion?”

“My--companion?”

“Yes. In the car you used last night. Who was your companion? You had one, did you not, Mr. Lynne?”

The man turned and looked closely at the detective for a fleeting instant before he replied; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, as if there were no help for introducing a disagreeable topic, or one that he would have preferred to keep out of the conversation, he said:

“Yes, Mr. Carter, I had a companion with me last night; a lady--the lady who is soon to become my second wife. I have long been a widower, Mr. Carter.”

“Thank you. The lady’s name, if you please?”

“Is it necessary to bring her into it, Mr. Carter?”

“Unless it should prove to be necessary, you may be assured that she will not be brought into it, Mr. Lynne. But I must know all the facts connected with last night. Will you tell me the lady’s name, and where she may be found, if that is necessary?”

“Really, Mr. Carter----”

“I warned you, sir, that some of my questions would be intimate.”

“Very well. The lady’s name is Mrs. Madge Hurd Babbington. I need not tell you her address, since everybody in society knows that.”