Chapter III

The red-haired boy with the slightly twisted nose who had become a member of the Colton household as the only fee to a particularly baffling murder case, shifted from one foot to the other in an ecstasy of joy, listening intently and eagerly as the blind man talked. When Thornley Colton had finished, he could contain himself no longer.

“Gee! I’m gettin’ to be a reg’ler detective. Yuh reelly want me to trail him?” He asked the last anxiously, fearful lest he had heard wrong.

“Yes,” smiled the problemist. “Shadow him.”

“B’lieve me, Mr. Colton.” The boy’s eyes were round and serious. “If I locate that nigger, I’ll show him Nick Carter ain’t got nothin’ on me. An’ I’ll find him, too!” he boasted.

“There’s a Hindu somewhere around,” nodded Colton. “He doesn’t amount to much, except as a trail to the real criminal, but I expect him to do a certain thing, and I want to make sure of it. That’s all.”

“I’ll get him,” chirped the boy, and, pulling his cap down over his ears, he darted from the room.

Colton snapped out the light and sat puffing his cigarette in the darkness. For half an hour he did not move, except to light a new cigarette. Sydney Thames entered with a slip of paper in his hand, and Colton switched on the light again.

“Three boats leave this week,” announced Sydney. “The _Bordeaux_ to-morrow, the _Trevoila_ Thursday, and the _Paris_ Saturday.”

“I think that last is about it,” mused Colton, his thin fingers beating a devil’s tattoo on the arm of his chair.

“What?”

“The date of the thief’s departure for Europe.”

“The date of----,” gasped Sydney.

Thornley Colton nodded. “He’ll have time for that one after he finds out that the next trick he’s going to play hasn’t thrown me off the track. He doesn’t realise--yet--the possibilities of blindness; he doesn’t understand that the things which deceive the ordinary man only make facts clearer to me.” Colton pushed the desk-button that would summon the automobile at any hour of the twenty-four. “Let’s take in a matinée, Sydney,” he said, rising.

That afternoon, and that night, not a word was said regarding the remarkable thefts at the shop of Osmuhn & Son. Thornley Colton had apparently forgotten all about it. Early the next morning he answered an anxious query from Osmuhn by saying that he was hard at work, and immediately after he idled away two hours in his music-room. At ten o’clock the telephone rang, and the puzzled Sydney heard the following one-sided conversation:--

“Hello, Shrimp. English valet, eh? Funny! What! Invalid who has a Hindu servant that wheels him out every afternoon at four o’clock? Hindu went away alone at ten o’clock this morning? Where? Good! Good! That’s all now. Go to one of your moving-picture shows for the rest of the day.”

There was a broad smile on his lips as he hung up the receiver.

“What is it?” asked Sydney.

“Just another example of how a clever man will accomplish his object in a clever way. Look up Irotette’s number, will you? I haven’t got it on my list.”

“The caterer?”

“Yes.” When Colton got the connection, and gave his name, there was no doubt of his standing with New York society’s biggest caterer. “I want a favour,” he said, when the head of the firm was at the other end of the wire. “An exceptionally intelligent-looking coloured man just applied for a night’s work at Mrs. Marle’s reception to-night. You took him? I thought you would, for I know the difficulty of getting good men for a big affair like that. Now for the favour. Can you fix it so that his work will allow him the freedom of the rooms? Thanks!”

Sydney started to ask a question, but the blind man forestalled him. “To-morrow you’ll know all about it,” he promised.

Sydney realised that Colton would not say a word till the time came, and, under protest, he accompanied the problemist to the Marle reception that night. Colton apparently enjoyed every minute of the time, but Sydney, as usual, was on edge continuously, for his fear of pretty women amounted almost to an obsession. Even the wonderful personality of Mrs. Marle, who went from one guest to another, as though she had not a care in the world, and as though the disappearance of the ruby had never occurred, was not able to put him at his ease.

Promptly at eleven o’clock next morning Colton summoned his car. “We’re going to make a party call on Mrs. Marle,” was the way he answered Sydney’s question.

“Didn’t you get enough last night?” groaned Thames.

“Quite,” nodded the blind man, “but did you notice that bright-looking serving man with the coal-black eyes? Mrs. Marle pointed him out to me. He is the Hindu whom I spoke to Irotette about.”

“Hindu?” ejaculated Sydney. “Why should a Hindu be serving ices at a fool reception?”

“Because he had a little job to do. I’m going to call on Mrs. Marle this morning, and see how he did it,” replied Colton, as he pulled on his gloves.

When Mrs. Marle appeared, Sydney Thames had hard work to repress a gasp of astonishment. Last night she had been happy, cheerful. Now she was haggard, there were circles under her eyes, and her hand trembled as she held it out.

“An unexpected pleasure, Mr. Colton.” She tried to say it graciously, but her voice shook, and there was a piteous look in her eyes.

Thornley Colton spoke quietly, evenly. “The ruby, please.” The words struck the astounded Sydney like a pistol-shot.

The woman choked a sob in her throat, and swayed slightly. Thornley Colton led her gently to a chair.

“I didn’t take it!” she cried brokenly. “I didn’t! I’m _not_ a thief! I found it in my jewel-case last night. I don’t know how it got there--and Helen saw it, too!” The last words came in a sobbing gasp.

“Of course you didn’t take it!” declared Colton. “You haven’t even got it!” She looked up, searching his eyes to find the truth she had prayed for during the long hours of the night.

“You mean it! You know!” Her hand was on his arm; pleading, joy unutterable was in her voice.

“I didn’t think that you would find it until this morning,” Colton said contritely. “It was placed there last night by an accomplice of the real thief. I knew it would be. The thief realised that he must throw some dust in the eyes of all of us. He failed to understand that dust wouldn’t affect my eyes. The ruby you have is only an imitation, but it would have served its purpose. Let me have it.”

“Yes! Yes! Take it!” The hysteria of reaction was in her voice; she held out her left hand, and the red stone gleamed as the folds of the covering handkerchief fell away from it. “I must tell Helen--I asked her to call up Mr. Osmuhn.”

“I’m going to see him now,” Colton told her, and he hurried out, followed by her tremulous thanks.

The elder Osmuhn seemed on the verge of nervous prostration when they arrived at the shop. He jumped from the chair in his glass-enclosed office, and fairly ran to meet them.

“I’ve been trying to get you for fifteen minutes!” he said hoarsely. “Mrs. Marle has the ruby. Henry has just gone there. I never thought----.”

“I have seen Mrs. Marle,” said Colton sharply. “You should know her better than that. The ruby she had was a mere imitation. Here it is.”

Osmuhn snatched it eagerly, glanced at it, and groaned. “But how did she get this stone?” he demanded. “It is exactly the same weight and cut as the Thousand Facets of Fire. She saw the ruby three months ago!” There was suspicion in his voice now. “She is the only one in New York who did see it! No one could have made an imitation so exactly in the few hours since the original was stolen. And her story of the disappearance was so impossible!” Hours of brooding over the loss of the stone had apparently done their work.

“Don’t you believe your son’s story of the necklace disappearance?” asked Colton impatiently.

“But _she_ has a passion for jewels. The ruby must have destroyed----.”

“If she had stolen it, she would have had more sense than bring this new suspicion against herself. I’ll get the thief, also the ruby and necklace. But I’ll get him in my own way and my own time. You’d better wait. Good day!”

Leaving the head of the house of Osmuhn & Son staring, mouth agape, he left the shop. Thornley Colton never had patience with men who couldn’t see through a ladder when God had given them eyes.

“Telephone-booth, Sydney,” the blind man said, when they were out of the shop. “I’m going to put joy into the heart of Shrimp. Then we’ll kill a few hours before the next act. This is a show with long intermissions.”

The next three hours seemed the longest Sydney Thames had ever spent. They went to an up-town restaurant, and Colton ate as though there was not another thing worth thinking about in the world. Sydney was a flutter of impatience. He couldn’t enjoy his food; the music of the orchestra grated on his nerves; the waiter angered him by his continued hovering. But Sydney knew the futility of questioning the blind man. He knew that each apparently irrelevant thing the blind man had done would lead logically to the finish of the case. But what was the finish? Who was the thief? Where were the jewels that Thornley Colton expected to get by waiting?

At last the crystalless watch told the blind man that the time had come. “We’ll take a little walk along Ninety-first Street,” he said. “I expect to meet a white-haired invalid in a wheel-chair, with a Hindu servant. Watch for him.”

They reached Ninety-first Street, and strolled along casually; two idlers out for an afternoon walk. Suddenly Sydney saw the invalid.

“A man in a wheel-chair was just brought out of that brownstone house a block up the street. The man wheeling him is coloured.”

“Don’t notice him,” warned Colton.

They walked slowly toward the on-coming wheel-chair. Sydney tried his best to appear as calm as the blind man, but he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. What was going to happen? The street, for a block, was deserted, save for them, the two others, and a ragged street gamin, who was speeding along the smooth pavement on roller skates.

Sydney could see the man in the chair plainly now. His long, white hair almost touched his shoulders, the white beard swept his breast, and came up almost to his eyes. His legs were wrapped tight in a red blanket, and a shawl was thrown over his shoulders.

Only five feet separated them. As they stepped out to let the chair go past, the gamin, with a wild whoop, came speeding up in back of the chair, head down. He skated straight at the Hindu servant, struck him, and bowled him over. With a shriek of joy he continued on his way after staggering Sydney Thames as he brushed past him.

Colton leaped forward with a cry of mingled anger and sympathy. His hand on the round iron handle of the chair kept it from going over, and he grasped one of the big knobs at the handle-ends to steady himself as he helped the muttering servant to his feet.

“Little devil!” snapped the invalid, in a high-pitched, querulous voice. Then, as Thornley Colton stepped in front of him: “Thank you, young man.”

“He should be arrested,” declared Colton emphatically. He held out his hand. “I am blind,” he apologised. “Will you shake the hand of another of the afflicted? My secretary described you to me as you came along.”

“Well, you’re no worse off than I am,” cackled the man in the chair. “I see too devilish much! Good day.”

Colton bowed and stood aside. The impassive-faced servant pushed the chair down the side-walk.

“It’s a crime the way those gamins carry on,” muttered Sydney, when they had walked a hundred yards or so in silence.

Colton chuckled. “I’ll have to tell Shrimp how good his disguise was,” he laughed.

“Shrimp!” echoed Sydney in amazement.

“Certainly.” Thornley Colton grinned broadly. “He was on hand to give our Hindu friend a bump when the proper time came.”

“In Heaven’s name why?”

“So that I could locate the probable hiding-place of the ruby and the necklace when the time came for hiding them there. Also, to give me a chance to shake the hand of the man who stole them. Davidson is the invalid’s name. Quite a character, isn’t he?”