The Poisoned Pen Part 28

"Perhaps you'd rather see one instead?" interrupted the house detective, eagerly scanning Craig's face.

"Indeed, nothing could please me more. What is it--a 'con' man or a hotel 'beat'?"

McBride looked about to make sure that no one was listening. "Neither,"

he whispered. "It's either a suicide or a murder. Come upstairs with me. There isn't a man in the world I would rather have met at this very instant, Mr. Kennedy, than yourself."

We followed McBride into an elevator which he stopped at the fifteenth floor. With a nod to the young woman who was the floor clerk, the house detective led the way down the thickly carpeted hall, stopping at a room which, we could see through the transom, was lighted. He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and inserted a pa.s.s key into the lock.

The door swung open into a sumptuously fitted sitting-room. I looked in, half fearfully, but, although all the lights were turned on, the room was empty. McBride crossed the room quickly, opened a door to a bedroom, and jerked his head back with a quick motion, signifying his desire for us to follow.

Stretched lifeless on the white linen of the immaculate bed lay the form of a woman, a beautiful woman she had been, too, though not with the freshness which makes American women so attractive. There was something artificial about her beauty, the artificiality which hinted at a hidden story of a woman with a past.

She was a foreigner, apparently of one of the Latin races, although at the moment in the horror of the tragedy before us I could not guess her nationality. It was enough for me that here lay this cold, stony, rigid beauty, robed in the latest creations of Paris, alone in an elegantly furnished room of an exclusive hotel where hundreds of gay guests were dining and chatting and laughing without a suspicion of the terrible secret only a few feet distant from them.

We stood awestruck for the moment.

"The coroner ought to be here any moment," remarked McBride and even the callousness of the regular detective was not sufficient to hide the real feelings of the man. His practical sense soon returned, however, and he continued, "Now, Jameson, don't you think you could use a little influence with the newspaper men to keep this thing off the front pages? Of course something has to be printed about it. But we don't want to hoodoo the hotel right at the start. We had a suicide the other day who left an apologetic note that was played up by some of the papers. Now comes this affair. The management are just as anxious to have the crime cleared up as any one--if it is a crime. But can't it be done with the soft pedal? We will stop at nothing in the way of expense--just so long as the name of the Vanderveer is kept in the background. Only, I'm afraid the coroner will try to rub it in and make the thing sensational."

"What was her name?" asked Kennedy. "At least, under what name was she registered?"

"She was registered as Madame de Nevers. It is not quite a week now since she came here, came directly from the steamer Tripolitania. See, there are her trunks and things, all pasted over with foreign labels, not an American label among them. I haven't the slightest doubt that her name was fict.i.tious, for as far as I can see all the ordinary marks of identification have been obliterated. It will take time to identify her at the best, and in the meantime, if a crime has been committed, the guilty person may escape. What I want now, right away, is action."

"Has nothing in her actions about the hotel offered any clue, no matter how slight?" asked Kennedy.

"Plenty of things," replied McBride quickly. "For one thing, she didn't speak very much English and her maid seemed to do all the talking for her, even to ordering her meals, which were always served here. I did notice Madame a few times about the hotel, though she spent most of her time in her rooms. She was attractive as the deuce, and the men all looked at her whenever she stirred out. She never even noticed them.

But she was evidently expecting some one, for her maid had left word at the desk that if a Mr. Gonzales called, she was at home; if any one else, she was out. For the first day or two she kept herself closely confined, except that at the end of the second day she took a short spin through the park in a taxicab--closed, even in this hot weather.

Where she went I cannot say, but when they returned the maid seemed rather agitated. At least she was a few minutes later when she came all the way downstairs to telephone from a booth, instead of using the room telephone. At various times the maid was sent out to execute certain errands, but always returned promptly. Madame de Nevers was a genuine woman of mystery, but as long as she was a quiet mystery, I thought it no business of ours to pry into the affairs of Madame."

"Did she have any visitors? Did this Mr. Gonzales call?" asked Kennedy at length.

"She had one visitor, a woman who called and asked if a Madame de Nevers was stopping at the hotel," answered McBride. "That was what the clerk was telling me when I happened to catch sight of you. He says that, obedient to the orders from the maid, he told the visitor that Madame was not at home."

"Who was this visitor, do you suppose?" asked Craig. "Did she leave any card or message? Is there any clue to her?"

The detective looked at him earnestly for a time as if he hesitated to retail what might be merely pure gossip.

"The clerk does not know this absolutely, but from his acquaintance with society news and the ill.u.s.trated papers he is sure that he recognised her. He says that he feels positive that it was Miss Catharine Lovelace."

"The Southern heiress," exclaimed Kennedy. "Why, the papers say that she is engaged---"

"Exactly," cut in McBride, "the heiress who is rumoured to be engaged to the Duc de Chateaurouge."

Kennedy and I exchanged glances. "Yes," I added, recollecting a remark I had heard a few days before from our society reporter on the Star, "I believe it has been said that Chateaurouge is in this country, incognito."

"A pretty slender thread on which to hang an identification," McBride hastened to remark. "Newspaper photographs are not the best means of recognising anybody. Whatever there may be in it, the fact remains that Madame de Nevers, supposing that to be her real name, has been dead for at least a day or two. The first thing to be determined is whether this is a death from natural causes, a suicide, or a murder. After we have determined that we shall be in a position to run down this Lovelace clue."

Kennedy said nothing and I could not gather whether he placed greater or less value on the suspicion of the hotel clerk. He had been making a casual examination of the body on the bed, and finding nothing he looked intently about the room as if seeking some evidence of how the crime had been committed.

To me the thing seemed incomprehensible, that without an outcry being overheard by any of the guests a murder could have been done in a crowded hotel in which the rooms on every side had been occupied and people had been pa.s.sing through the halls at all hours. Had it indeed been a suicide, in spite of McBride's evident conviction to the contrary?

A low exclamation from Kennedy attracted our attention. Caught in the filmy lace folds of the woman's dress he had found a few small and thin pieces of gla.s.s. He was regarding them with an interest that was oblivious to everything else. As he turned them over and over and tried to fit them together they seemed to form at least a part of what had once been a hollow globe of very thin gla.s.s, perhaps a quarter of an inch or so in diameter.

"How was the body discovered?" asked Craig at length, looking up at McBride quickly.

"Day before yesterday Madame's maid went to the cashier," repeated the detective slowly as if rehearsing the case as much for his own information as ours, "and said that Madame had asked her to say to him that she was going away for a few days and that under no circ.u.mstances was her room to be disturbed in her absence. The maid was commissioned to pay the bill, not only for the time they had been here, but also for the remainder of the week, when Madame would most likely return, if not earlier. The bill was made out and paid.

"Since then only the chambermaid has entered this suite. The key to that closet over in the corner was gone, and it might have hidden its secret until the end of the week or perhaps a day or two longer, if the chambermaid hadn't been a bit curious. She hunted till she found another key that fitted, and opened the closet door, apparently to see what Madame had been so particular to lock up in her absence. There lay the body of Madame, fully dressed, wedged into the narrow s.p.a.ce and huddled up in a corner. The chambermaid screamed and the secret was out."

"And Madame de Nevers's maid? What has become of her?" asked Kennedy eagerly.

"She has disappeared," replied McBride. "From the moment when the bill was paid no one about the hotel has seen her."

"But you have a pretty good description of her, one that you could send out in order to find her if necessary?"

"Yes, I think I could give a pretty good description."

Kennedy's eye encountered the curious gaze of McBride. "This may prove to be a most unusual case," he remarked in answer to the implied inquiry of the detective. "I suppose you have heard of the 'endormeurs'

of Paris?"

McBride shook his head in the negative.

"It is a French word signifying a person who puts another to sleep, the sleep makers," explained Kennedy. "They are the latest scientific school of criminals who use the most potent, quickest-acting stupefying drugs. Some of their exploits surpa.s.s anything hitherto even imagined by the European police. The American police have been officially warned of the existence of the endormeurs and full descriptions of their methods and photographs of their paraphernalia have been sent over here.

"There is nothing in their repertoire so crude as chloral or knock-out drops. All the derivatives of opium such as morphine, codeine, heroine, dionine, narceine, and narcotine, to say nothing of bromure d'etyle, brom.o.f.orm, nitrite d'amyle, and amyline are known to be utilised by the endormeurs to put their victims to sleep, and the skill which they have acquired in the use of these powerful drugs establishes them as one of the most dangerous groups of criminals in existence. The men are all of superior intelligence and daring; the chief requisite of the women is extreme beauty as well as unscrupulousness.

"They will take a little thin gla.s.s ball of one of these liquids, for instance, hold it in a pocket handkerchief, crush it, shove it under the nose of their victim, and--whiff!--the victim is unconscious. But ordinarily the endormeur does not kill. He is usually satisfied to stupefy, rob, and then leave his victim. There is something more to this case than a mere suicide or murder, McBride. Of course she may have committed suicide with the drugs of the endormeurs; then again she may merely have been rendered unconscious by those drugs and some other poison may have been administered. Depend on it, there is something more back of this affair than appears on the surface. Even as far as I have gone I do not hesitate to say that we have run across the work of one or perhaps a band of the most up-to-date and scientific criminals."

Kennedy had scarcely finished when McBride brought his right fist down with a resounding smack into the palm of his left hand.

"Say," he cried in great excitement, "here's another thing which may or may not have some connection with the case. The evening after Madame arrived, I happened to be walking through the cafe, where I saw a face that looked familiar to me. It was that of a dark-haired, olive-skinned man, a fascinating face, but a face to be afraid of. I remembered him, I thought, from my police experience, as a notorious crook who had not been seen in New York for years, a man who in the old days used to gamble with death in South American revolutions, a soldier of fortune.

"Well, I gave the waiter, Charley, the wink and he met me in the rear of the cafe, around a corner. You know we have a regular system in the hotel by which I can turn all the help into amateur sleuths. I told him to be very careful about the dark-faced man and the younger man who was with him, to be particular to wait on them well, and to pick up any sc.r.a.ps of conversation he could.

"Charley knows his business, and the barest perceptible sign from me makes him an obsequious waiter. Of course the dark man didn't notice it at the time, but if he had been more observant he would have seen that three times during his chat with his companion Charley had wiped off his table with lingering hand. Twice he had put fresh seltzer in his drink. Like a good waiter always working for a big tip he had hovered near, his face blank and his eyes un.o.bservant. But that waiter was an important link in my chain of protection of the hotel against crooks.

He was there to listen and to tip me off, which he did between orders.

"There wasn't much that he overheard, but what there was of it was so suspicious that I did not hesitate to conclude that the fellow was an undesirable guest. It was something about the Panama Ca.n.a.l, and a coaling station of a steamship and fruit concern on the sh.o.r.e of one of the Latin American countries. It was, he said, in reality to be the coaling station of a certain European power which he did not name but which the younger man seemed to understand. They talked of wharves and tracts of land, of sovereignty and blue prints, the Monroe Doctrine, value in case of war, and a lot of other things. Then they talked of money, and though Charley was most a.s.siduous at the time all he overheard was something about 'ten thousand francs' and 'buying her off,' and finally a whispered confidence of which he caught the words, 'just a blind to get her over here, away from Paris.' Finally the dark man in an apparent burst of confidence said something about 'the other plans being the real thing after all,' and that the whole affair would bring him in fifty thousand francs, with which he could afford to be liberal. Charley could get no inkling about what that other thing was.

"But I felt sure that he had heard enough to warrant the belief that some kind of confidence game was being discussed. To tell the truth I didn't care much what it was, at the time. It might have been an attempt of the dark-visaged fellow to sell the Ca.n.a.l to a come-on. What I wanted was to have it known that the Vanderveer was not to be a resort of such gentry as this. But I'm afraid it was much more serious than I thought at the time.

"Well, the dark man finally excused himself and sauntered into the lobby and up to the desk, with me after him around the opposite way. He was looking over the day's arrivals on the register when I concluded that it was about time to do something. I was standing directly beside him lighting a cigar. I turned quickly on him and deliberately trod on the man's patent leather shoe. He faced me furiously at not getting any apology. 'Sacre,' he exclaimed, 'what the--' But before he could finish I moved still closer and pinched his elbow. A dull red glow of suppressed anger spread over his face, but he cut his words short. He knew and I knew he knew. That is the sign in the continental hotels when they find a crook and quietly ask him to move on. The man turned on his heel and stalked out of the hotel. By and by the young man in the cafe, considerably annoyed at the sudden inattention of the waiter who acted as if he wasn't satisfied with his tip, strolled through the lobby and not seeing his dark-skinned friend, also disappeared. I wish to heaven I had had them shadowed. The young fellow wasn't a come-on at all. There was something afoot between these two, mark my words."

"But why do you connect that incident with this case of Madame de Nevers?" asked Kennedy, a little puzzled.

"Because the next day, and the day that Madame's maid disappeared, I happened to see a man bidding good-bye to a woman at the rear carriage entrance of the hotel. The woman was Madame's maid and the man was the dark man who had been seated in the cafe."

"You said a moment ago that you had a good description of the maid or could write one. Do you think you could locate her?"

The hotel detective thought a minute or two. "If she has gone to any of the other hotels in this city, I could," he answered slowly. "You know we have recently formed a sort of clearing house, we hotel detectives, and we are working together now very well, though secretly. It is barely possible that she has gone to another hotel. The very brazenness of that would be its safeguard, she might think."