Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels Part 11

"Yes," repeated Edwards thoughtfully, "a peach."

A sudden swift flash of intuition, an inspiration, leapt into the young reporter's brain.

This girl, this peach, at all hazards he must save her life.

CHAPTER III

I MUST BUY A BOOK ON BILLIARDS

Kent turned to the Inspector. "Take me into the house," he said. Edwards led the way. The interior of the handsome mansion seemed undisturbed. "I see no sign of a struggle here," said Kent.

"No," answered the Inspector gloomily. "We can find no sign of a struggle anywhere. But, then, we never do."

He opened for the moment the door of the stately drawing-room. "No sign of a struggle there," he said. The closed blinds, the draped furniture, the covered piano, the m.u.f.fled chandelier, showed absolutely no sign of a struggle.

"Come upstairs to the billiard-room," said Edwards. "The body has been removed for the inquest, but nothing else is disturbed."

They went upstairs. On the second floor was the billiard-room, with a great English table in the centre of it. But Kent had at once dashed across to the window, an exclamation on his lips. "Ha! ha!" he said, "what have we here?"

The Inspector shook his head quietly. "The window," he said in a monotonous, almost sing-song tone, "has apparently been opened from the outside, the sash being lifted with some kind of a sharp instrument. The dust on the sill outside has been disturbed as if by a man of extraordinary agility lying on his stomach----Don't bother about that, Mr. Kent. It's _always_ there."

"True," said Kent. Then he cast his eyes upward, and again an involuntary exclamation broke from him. "Did you see that trap-door?" he asked.

"We did," said Edwards. "The dust around the rim has been disturbed. The trap opens into the hollow of the roof. A man of extraordinary dexterity might open the trap with a billiard cue, throw up a fine manila rope, climb up the rope and lie there on his stomach.

"No use," continued the Inspector. "For the matter of that, look at this huge old-fashioned fireplace. A man of extraordinary precocity could climb up the chimney. Or this dumb-waiter on a pulley, for serving drinks, leading down into the maids' quarters. A man of extreme indelicacy might ride up and down in it."

"Stop a minute," said Kent. "What is the meaning of that hat?"

A light gossamer hat, gay with flowers, hung on a peg at the side of the room.

"We thought of that," said Edwards, "and we have left it there. Whoever comes for that hat has had a hand in the mystery. We think----"

But Transome Kent was no longer listening. He had seized the edge of the billiard table.

"Look, look!" he cried eagerly. "The clue to the mystery! The positions of the billiard b.a.l.l.s! The white ball in the very centre of the table, and the red just standing on the verge of the end pocket! What does it mean, Edwards, what does it mean?"

He had grasped Edwards by the arm and was peering into his face.

"I don't know," said the Inspector. "I don't play billiards."

"Neither do I," said Kent, "but I can find out. Quick! The nearest book-store. I must buy a book on billiards."

With a wave of the arm, Kent vanished.

The Inspector stood for a moment in thought.

"Gone!" he murmured to himself (it was his habit to murmur all really important speeches aloud to himself). "Now, why did Throgton telephone to me to put a watch on Kent? Ten dollars a day to shadow him! Why?"

CHAPTER IV

THAT IS NOT BILLIARD CHALK

Meantime at the _Planet_ office Masterman Throgton was putting on his coat to go home.

"Excuse me, sir," said an employe, "there's a lot of green billiard chalk on your sleeve."

Throgton turned and looked the man full in the eye.

"That is not billiard chalk," he said, "it is face powder."

Saying which this big, imperturbable, self-contained man stepped into the elevator and went to the ground floor in one drop.

CHAPTER V

HAS ANYBODY HERE SEEN KELLY?

The inquest upon the body of Kivas Kelly was held upon the following day. Far from offering any solution of what had now become an unfathomable mystery, it only made it deeper still. The medical testimony, though given by the most distinguished consulting expert of the city, was entirely inconclusive. The body, the expert testified, showed evident marks of violence. There was a distinct lesion of the oesophagus and a decided excoriation of the fibula. The mesodenum was gibbous. There was a certain quant.i.ty of flab in the binomium and the proscenium was wide open.

One striking fact, however, was decided from the testimony of the expert, namely, that the stomach of the deceased was found to contain half a pint of a.r.s.enic. On this point the questioning of the district attorney was close and technical. Was it unusual, he asked, to find a.r.s.enic in the stomach? In the stomach of a club man, no. Was not half a pint a large quant.i.ty? He would not say that. Was it a small quant.i.ty?

He should not care to say that it was. Would half a pint of a.r.s.enic cause death? Of a club man, no, not necessarily. That was all.

The other testimony submitted to the inquest jury brought out various facts of a substantive character, but calculated rather to complicate than to unravel the mystery. The butler swore that on the very day of the murder he had served his master a half-pint of a.r.s.enic at lunch. But he claimed that this was quite a usual happening with his master. On cross-examination it appeared that he meant apollinaris. He was certain, however, that it was half a pint. The butler, it was shown, had been in Kivas Kelly's employ for twenty years.

The coachman, an Irishman, was closely questioned. He had been in Mr.

Kelly's employ for three years--ever since his arrival from the old country. Was it true that he had had, on the day of the murder, a violent quarrel with his master? It was. Had he threatened to kill him?

No. He had threatened to knock his block off, but not to kill him.

The coroner looked at his notes. "Call Alice Delary," he commanded.

There was a deep sensation in the court as Miss Delary quietly stepped forward to her place in the witness-box.

Tall, graceful and willowy, Alice Delary was in her first burst of womanhood. Those who looked at the beautiful girl realized that if her first burst was like this, what would the second, or the third be like?

The girl was trembling, and evidently distressed, but she gave her evidence in a clear, sweet, low voice. She had been in Mr. Kelly's employ three years. She was his stenographer. But she came only in the mornings and always left at lunch-time. The question immediately asked by the jury--"Where did she generally have lunch?"--was disallowed by the coroner. Asked by a member of the jury what system of shorthand she used, she answered, "Pitman's." Asked by another juryman whether she ever cared to go to moving pictures, she said that she went occasionally. This created a favourable impression. "Miss Delary," said the district attorney, "I want to ask if it is your hat that was found hanging in the billiard-room after the crime?"

"Don't you dare ask that girl that," interrupted the magistrate. "Miss Delary, you may step down."