John T. McIntyre

“ Of course, an odd murder or so is to be expected in the ordinary course of events; but one hardly counts upon one's intimates being concerned in them. It is disconcerting."
He crossed his legs and pursed up his lips.
"If you don't mind," added he, "now that I have expressed myself, I'll listen to the details of whatever you have in view."
"There is not a great deal to tell," said Ashton-Kirk. "A man has been murdered in Christie Place. It happens that I have an interest in the matter; otherwise I would not think of dipping into it."
Pendleton looked at him reproachfully. ”

“ Miss Vale sat staring at the speaker dumbly for a space; then she asked in a dry, expressionless way:
"And do you really think this is what happened?"
Ashton-Kirk shook his head.
"No," said he. "I merely mentioned it to show you that it is difficult to be sure of anything in a matter like this until," with a smile, "you are sure. It is one of the things that may have happened; but it is also open to question. A criminal whose crime has been discovered does not ordinarily linger upon the scene. You had just fled with the terror of the thing fresh upon you. ”

“ For some time after Miss Vale had gone, Ashton-Kirk stood at one of the windows and looked down at the sordid, surging, dirty crowd in the street. The worn horses went dispiritedly up and down; the throaty-voiced men clamored strangely through their beards; children played in the black ooze of the gutters; women bundled in immense knitted garments and with their heads wrapped in shawls, haggled over scatterings of faded, weak looking vegetables. The vendors grew frantic and eloquent in their combats with these experienced purchasers ”

“ Ashton-Kirk nodded, and replied.
"And it was he who shrieked when the door of the showroom opened. The out-cry of a deaf-mute, if you have ever heard one, has the same squawking, senseless sound as that of a psittaceous bird like the parrot or cockatoo."
"But," said Pendleton, "the fact that the man who scrawled these signs upon the step was a deaf-mute, scarcely justifies the eccentricity of the thing. Why did he not use a pencil, as you have done?" ”

“ CHAPTER XV MISS VALE DEPARTS SUDDENLY
For a moment there was a silence between the two men; then Ashton-Kirk said, dryly:
"Miss Vale has, apparently, not been altogether frank with us in this matter."
"You think then—" began Pendleton in a voice of terror. But Ashton-Kirk stopped him.
"I think many things," said he. "But they are neither here nor there. Facts are what count. Put the circumstances together for yourself and see where they lead you. Miss Vale has been from the first mixed up more or less in this crime. She explained. ”

“ He was still struggling with this feeling when he became aware that she had paused; and, also, that Ashton-Kirk was once more gripping his shoulder with a warning hand. Becoming instantly alert, his senses perceived a stoppage of everything; the clocks seemed to tick more faintly, he could no longer hear the woman breathe. There was an instant that roared with silence; then came the soft, steady padding of feet descending the stair.
Then he heard the girl release her breath in a great, trembling exhalation; the rustle of skirts came quick and sharp in the darkness ”

“ Pendleton gazed at the pictures that remained upon the walls. Two were of fine looking houses of the colonial type; the third was the portrait of a man—a man of repulsive, sneering face, heavy with evil lines and with unusually small eyes.
"If they had destroyed that one it would have had some meaning to me," commented Pendleton. "But, as it is, I hardly think I follow you."
"The meaning that I find," replied Ashton-Kirk, "lies in the fact that the pictures violently used were those of General Wayne only. Mark that fact. That they were deliberately selected for destruction is beyond question." ”

“ But justification came into his eyes, and his hands began to gesticulate eloquently.
"Karlson is a Swede," with contempt. "The Swedes know the science of music; but they are hard; they are seldom artists; they cannot express. And when one of this nation—a man with the ice of his country in his soul—tried to instruct me how to play the warm music of my own Italy, I called him a fool!"
"I see," said the investigator.
"I am to blame," said Spatola, contritely. "But I could not help it. He was a fool, and fools seldom like to hear the truth." ”

“ It was a large, square place, and, as Miss Vale had said, literally stuffed with odd carvings, pottery of a most freakish sort, and weird bric-a-brac. Two large modern safes stood at one side, behind a long show case spread with ancient coins. At the end of this case was a carpeted space, railed in and furnished with a great flat-topped desk. Upon the floor at the foot of the desk, and with three separate streams of blood creeping away from it, lay the huddled, ghastly figure of a man.
Pendleton, though he had been warned, felt his breath catch and his skin grow cold and damp. ”

“ Pendleton shook his head in the gloom.
"I'm afraid not," said he, hopelessly. "Somehow a weak man makes a great appeal to the woman who has grown to care for him. He arouses her mother instinct. And Edyth is so strong that her pity—"
"May induce her to do her utmost to see him through this trouble," interrupted Ashton-Kirk. "But it may not carry her much further. When once the thing is over, a reaction may set in. Who knows?"
But Pendleton refused to be comforted. For a long time they talked of Edyth Vale, Morris, and the killing of Hume. ”

“ At any rate his natural bent has always been to make plain the mysterious; each well hidden step in the perpetration of a crime has always been for him an exciting lure; and to follow a thread, snarled by circumstances or by another intelligence has been, he admits, his chief delight.
There are many strange things to be written of this remarkable man—but this, the case of the numismatist Hume, has been selected as the first because it is one of the simplest, and yet clearly illustrates Ashton-Kirk's peculiar talents. ”

“ A volume of the Poe and the Albertus-Magnus were lying at hand; Pendleton ignored the dumpy, stained little Latin volume; its strong-smelling leather binding and faded text had no attractions for him. But he took up the Poe and began idly turning its leaves.
"It is a mistake to suppose that some specific thing must be the cause of an action, or a train of thought," resumed the other, from the comfortable depths of his chair. "Sometimes thousands of things go to the making of a single thought, countless others to the doing of a single deed. ”

“ In this one peddler's wagons replaced the shining carriages of a former day—wagons drawn by large-jointed horses and driven by bearded men who cried their wares in strange, throaty voices.
Everything exhaled a thick, semi-oriental smell. Dully painted fire-escapes clung hideously to the fronts of the buildings; stagnant-looking men, wearing their hats, leaned from bedroom windows. The once decent hallways were smutted with grimy hands; the wide marble steps were huddled with alien, unclean people.
A splendidly spired church stood almost shoulder to shoulder with the Ashton-Kirk house. ”

“ She paused in her pacing, and turned upon him a startled look.
"You do not mean to go there—to Christie Place," she said.
"I may as well. I may be of use." He looked at her for a moment steadily, then asked: "Do you know of any reason why I should not go?"
Instantly the startled look vanished; a smile lit up the pale face, wanly.
"Of course not," she cried. "You are interested in dreadful happenings—I had forgotten that. I suppose you are really quite delighted; and instead of my craving pardon I should be expecting praise, for putting you in the way of this one." ”

“ As I have no fashionable wife and I live alone, I am content to stay. Then, the house suits me; everything is arranged to my taste. The environment may not be the most desirable; but, my visitors are seldom of the sort that object to externals."
"Well, you have one just now who is not what you might call partial to such neighborhoods," said Pendleton. "And," looking at his watch, "you will shortly have another who will be, perhaps, still less favorably impressed."
"Ah!" said Ashton-Kirk.
He curled himself up upon the deep window sill while Pendleton went back to his chair and the tobacco. ”

“ No woman is what she seems to be to the man who loves her. Miss Vale is not so difficult to please as you thought. I fancy that her engagement to young Morris proves that."
"There you have it," cried Pendleton. "That's it, Kirk! I've stood aside, considering myself unworthy, and allowed a fellow to slip by me who is as colorless as water. Allan Morris is no more fit to be her husband than—" at loss for a simile he halted for a moment, and then burst out: "Oh, he's impossible!"
"So far as we have tested him, certainly," agreed Ashton-Kirk, "he has shown no great strength of character." ”

“ Mercer," said Ashton-Kirk.
"Dr. Mercer is at dinner," explained the man with the lantern. "He don't like it much if he's disturbed at such times."
"We will wait until he has finished; we are in no great hurry."
The man seemed puzzled as to how to act. With the light held aloft so that not a feature escaped him, he examined them closely. Apparently he could see nothing with which to find fault; and so he sighed in a perplexed fashion.
"He does not care to have people wait for him," complained the man. "He gets very angry if he is worried by such things while dining." ”

“ There was a small, gasping exclamation from the wire, a sort of breath-catching flutter of sound such as a person might utter who had been running hard. Then Edyth Vale, her voice shaking and filled with fear, said:
"Oh! Is that you! I'm glad—glad!"
"Get a firm grip on yourself," advised Ashton-Kirk. "If anything has happened we can no doubt remedy it." ”

“ They cut into a broad asphalted avenue, which eventually led them through the north suburbs into the country. The April dusk was settling upon the fields as they raced along; in the isolated houses, lights were beginning to twinkle; there was a swaying among the trees and roadside bush; the hum of the flying car must have been borne long distances; for far away people raised their heads from the finishing tasks of the day to look at it as it flashed by.
Pendleton lay back comfortably digesting his dinner, and ticking off in his mind the case which engrossed him so much. ”

“ Hume's intimates? What do you know of them?"
Isidore Brolatsky shifted in his chair; his long fingers began to drum upon his knees.
"I have known of the matter of the Whistler portrait," said he, "but I never knew anything more about it than what I read in the newspapers. It happened before my time."
"I'm not accusing you," said Stillman. "I'm asking you about Hume's friends."
The clerk considered.
"There was no one that I ever saw or heard of that you could call his friend, exactly," said he at length. "He made game of people too much to have any I guess." ”

“ Within twenty minutes Ashton-Kirk ran down the steps and sprang into the powerful looking car that awaited him; and well within the half hour he rang the bell at the marble palace built by the steel magnate during the last years of his life. A heavy-eyed man servant admitted him with astonished resentment. Miss Vale, looking very tall and very pale, met him in the hall. ”

“ Ashton-Kirk looked vastly pleased.
"Excellent," said he to Pendleton. "We'll have a look at the place before it has lost the atmosphere of the crime." Then to Osborne: "May we go up?"
"Sure," answered the other readily. "Only don't pull things around any. That young fellow that they've elected coroner is awful touchy about such things. He wants to be first always."
"Nothing of importance shall be disturbed," promised Ashton-Kirk. Then motioning Pendleton to follow, he ascended the flight that led to the second floor.
It was narrow and dusty, as Miss Vale had said. ”

“ Tobin, that you are of that sort."
"A man who has disappeared as completely as this one has done," stated Tobin, "is out of the reach of even the best of friends."
"Have you not heard from him since the murder?"
"No," replied the other with a readiness that carried conviction.
"Then you will, and before long." Ashton-Kirk arose and stood looking into the old man's face. "Perhaps it will be to-night; but it will be by to-morrow night at latest. And when you do you can best show your friendship for him by telling him not to be a fool." ”

“ Tobin smiled and returned:
"An Irishman always has a good deal of respect for the fighting strain, no matter if it be in a man, or a beast, or a bird. Old Nick himself must be a grand, two-handed man, and as such we must give him credit. And 'twas the same way with this felly Hume. He had real fighting blood, so he had; and sorra the man ever undertook to impose on him the second time."
"And as a true Celt, you held this to be a credit mark," laughed Ashton-Kirk. ”