Part 9

At any rate, I went, resolved to take the consequences of my deed, whatever they might be.

The address given me proved to be a large and handsome apartment house. At the office I inquired for Mrs. Altonstall and being informed that she was at home, I sent up my card, for I judged that the most open and straightforward measures were the best.

A moment later I was informed that Mrs. Altonstall would see me, and entering the elevator I went at once to her apartment.

The general effects of grandeur throughout the house and the elegance of Mrs. Altonstall's own room, made me wonder afresh if I could by any possibility be on the track of a criminal. Surely, the criminal classes did not live in a style implying such respectability and aristocracy as these surroundings seemed to indicate. But of course I realized that a woman who could commit murder was not necessarily found among the criminal classes, and indeed, being an exceptional individual, might be looked for in any setting.

But when my hostess entered, and I saw a sweet-faced, middle-aged lady, of gentle manner and gracious mien, walk toward me, I felt the blood rush to my face, and I stood consumed with dismay and confusion.

"Mrs. Altonstall?" I said, conquering my embarrassment.

"Yes," she said, in one of the sweetest voices I ever heard. "This is Mr. Landon? you wanted to see me?"

Surely with such a queen of women as this, frankness and truth were the only lines to follow.

"Yes, Mrs. Altonstall," I said; "I am a lawyer, and I am at present investigating a serious case. In connection with it, there has been found a key, which I have been informed belongs to you. Will you kindly say if this is so?"

As I spoke, I handed her the key. I need not say that at the first glimpse of that serene, gracious face, all thought of her implication in our affair instantly vanished. Presumably, too, the key was not hers, there had been a mistake, somehow.

As she took the key, she looked at me with a bewildered surprise. "Why, yes, Mr. Landon," she said, "this is my key. May I ask where you obtained it?"

I hesitated, for it seemed a terrible thing to tell this queenly lady where her key had been found. And yet the situation was so inexplicable, that I must solve it if possible.

"I will tell you in a moment, Mrs. Altonstall," I said, slowly, "but first I must ask you if you know Mr. Robert Pembroke?"

"Robert Pembroke?" she repeated; "no, I never heard the name. Who is he?"

The unruffled calm and the straightforward gaze that met my own eyes, so frankly, was so convincing of her absolute veracity, that just for an instant the thought flashed through my mind that it might be merely the perfection of acting.

But the next instant I knew better, for no human being could so simulate utter ignorance of a subject, if she had guilty knowledge of it. Moreover, since she knew nothing of Robert Pembroke, I instantly concluded not to tell her of the tragedy, but to inquire further concerning the key.

"Since you do not know him, Mrs. Altonstall, let us not discuss him. Will you tell me how you lost possession of this key, since it is yours?"

"I gave it to my lawyer, Mr. Leroy," she replied. "It was necessary that he should get some of my papers from the Safe Deposit Company, and it has been arranged that he shall have access to my box on presentation of my key. I am a widow, Mr. Landon, and as I have various financial interests, it is necessary for me frequently to employ the services of a lawyer. Mr. Leroy attends to all such affairs for me."

"Do you mean Mr. Graham Leroy?" I asked, very gravely, for the introduction of his name stirred up all sorts of conjectures.

"Yes," she replied, "he is an able lawyer, as well as a kind friend."

"I'm acquainted with Mr. Leroy," I responded, "and I quite agree with your estimate of him. When did you give him the key, Mrs. Altonstall?"

"About four or five days ago; last Saturday, to be exact. There was no immediate haste about my papers, he was to attend to the matter at his convenience. May I ask where the key was found?"

I disliked extremely to rehearse the details of the case, and I knew it was in no way necessary. Of course the key belonged to this lady; aside from her own word, the bank had told me so. But her question must be answered.

"It was found in the apartment of Mr. Robert Pembroke," I said; but immediately added, as she looked slightly startled, "I think, however, it is a matter of easy explanation. Graham Leroy is also Mr. Pembroke's lawyer, and he must have dropped the key there while calling on Mr. Pembroke."

"Unpardonable carelessness," she said, and I saw that the sweet placid face could assume an expression of indignation upon occasion.

"That, madam, you must say to Mr. Leroy. I am sorry to have troubled you in the matter, and I thank you for your courtesy to me."

"But you will leave my key with me?" she said, as I was about to take leave.

"I think I cannot do that, Mrs. Altonstall," I said, "as it was entrusted to me by official authority. But I promise to return it to Mr. Leroy, which, I trust will be satisfactory to you."

The lady agreed to this, though a little unwillingly, and I went away, newly perplexed at this most recent development.

So then, Graham Leroy had been in possession of this key. So then, he must have left it in Robert Pembroke's bedroom. He would not have done this purposely, of course, therefore he must have dropped it there without knowing it. It was found on Robert Pembroke's bed. Not under the pillow,--the suggestion that it had been under the pillow was mere supposition. It might have been dropped on the bed from the pocket of one leaning over the sleeping man.

But Graham Leroy! the thought was preposterous!

And then again, the old, ever insoluble question,--how could he get in?

But really it was scarcely more impossible to conclude how he got in, than to imagine Graham Leroy getting in at all, except in correct and ordinary fashion.

My brain worked quickly. To be sure, he might have dropped the key in that room when calling there, as he did, on Tuesday night.

But I had asked Charlotte when Mr. Pembroke's bedroom had last been swept, and she had told me that she had swept it Wednesday morning, and had then emptied the waste basket. This had seemed to me to prove that all the clues I had found, had been brought into the room after that sweeping. But again, the key being found in the bed it had nothing to do with the sweeping of the room. However, Charlotte could not have made up the bed without seeing the key, so the only possible deduction was that Mrs. Altonstall's key had been left in Robert Pembroke's room after noon of Wednesday, the day he was murdered!

It was all too much for me! I had undertaken to trace the clues that I had myself found, but if they were to lead me to such extraordinary discoveries as this, I felt I must appeal to more practical detective talent.

But Leroy or not, at any rate it turned the tide of suspicion away from Janet. This was joy enough, of itself, to compensate for any horrible revelation that might come in the future concerning Leroy or anyone else.

Somewhere in the back of my brain two dreadful words that the Coroner had used were hammering for admittance. These were _connivance_ and _complicity_; if Leroy entered the apartment on Wednesday night at any hour he was let in by either Janet or Charlotte.

At that moment I realized the truth of the line, "that way madness lies."

I pushed the thought from my mind with all my will power, and hastening my steps, for I had walked from Fifty-eighth Street, I went rapidly homeward.

I reached home about six o'clock, and found that George Lawrence was there, and that Laura had invited him to stay to dinner. I was pleased at this, for I hoped that by the casual conversation at table I could learn something of Mr. Pembroke's past life and acquaintances.

I concluded to say nothing about my discoveries of the afternoon, but to advise them of my decision to continue my search for a real criminal; a housebreaker or burglar, who could have committed the crime for the money, which he stole, and who must have contrived some way to get in through a window.

During dinner, although Laura endeavored to keep away from the all-engrossing subject, which she disapproved of as table conversation, I gave a slight outline of the effort I intended to make.

George Lawrence seemed greatly pleased with my ideas. He agreed that there must be some one, somewhere, besides himself and Janet who could be shown to have a motive, and he offered to assist me in looking over his uncle's private papers for some letter or other evidence which might indicate this.

"Simply to make a statement of the case, but for no other reason," said George, "I will agree with you that the facts, as known, seem to implicate Janet. But as she is utterly incapable of such a thing, and as the idea of Charlotte being involved in the matter is absurd, the criminal must be somebody else, and we must find him or her. I say 'him or her' because the inspector declares that the hat-pin indicates a woman's deed, and, as we are utterly at sea regarding the individuality of the criminal, we are, I think, justified in assuming either sex. It is, of course, not beyond the bounds of possibility that Uncle Robert had a feminine enemy."

"Once we can establish a motive," I said, "we shall have something to work upon in our hunt for evidence."

"And yet motive isn't everything," said Lawrence, with a grim smile; "for if Janet had a motive, as you say, an equal one must be attributed to me, as I am an equal inheritor of Uncle Robert's fortune."

I looked wonderingly at the young man. "The motive attributed to Miss Pembroke," I said "would probably not be her desire for inheritance, so much as the desperate difficulties attending her life with her uncle."

This seemed to surprise Lawrence, but he only said carelessly: "It doesn't matter what motive they assign to Janet, for she didn't have any motive, and she didn't do the deed. But, for the moment, I'm speaking not of facts or even possibilities, but of contingencies which might arise. It might be claimed that I had a motive, from the mere fact that I am one of my uncle's heirs."

"But you couldn't get in, George," said Janet quickly. "Your latch-key was of no use when the chain was on."

"That's true enough, Janet, and we all know it; but, as I say, we're speaking of a hypothetical case. And you know, if we're going to hunt for some other person with a motive, we're bound to admit that he got into the apartment somehow. Therefore, to eliminate the possibility of being myself a suspect, I'll merely state, as a matter of fact, that my alibi is perfect. I can prove, should it be necessary, that I was far away from Sixty-second Street at the time of Uncle Robert's death, and can account for my time all through the night."

I liked Lawrence's way of putting these things, and began to think his clear-headed views on the matter would be of assistance to me, even though he had no taste or talent for detective work.

"Just what is an alibi?" asked Janet, with a perplexed air.

"It means," I answered, "proof by witnesses of a person's whereabouts at a given time."

"Oh!" said Janet. "And where were you last night, George?"

Lawrence smiled as he answered: "I'm not in the witness box now, Janet, but I don't mind telling you that I dined and spent the evening at the Warings'."

"Oh, did you?" cried Janet. "And you took Milly to a matinée in the afternoon. I know, because she told me about it before. You're getting awfully fond of her, aren't you, George?"

"Yes, I like Miss Waring extremely," said Lawrence, and though he spoke as if he meant it, a certain sadness came into his eyes, and I suspected that Miss Waring did not reciprocate his regard.

But though the young man seemed suddenly _distrait_, and did not attempt to continue our previous conversation, Janet, on the contrary had brightened up wonderfully. Being in a mood for making inferences, I deduced that George Lawrence was more interested in Miss Waring than Janet desired him to be, and that she was pleased rather than otherwise at George's lack of enthusiasm about the lady. Thereupon the sudden fear that Janet was in love with her cousin assailed me. This aroused what was of course an unreasonable jealousy on my part, for I had not the slightest actual foundation on which to rest the hopes I was rapidly building. I eagerly watched the two cousins after that, to discover if there was anything more than cousinly affection on either side.

XV

WHO IS J. S.?

Whatever the cause, Janet's spirits were undeniably lightened.

"I wish I could help," she said. "Here is our problem: to find somebody who wanted to kill Uncle Robert, and who was able to get into the apartment and do so."

"That's the case in a nutshell," declared George; "but I confess I don't know which way to start."

Although I had made up my mind not to refer to the letter from Jonathan Scudder, which Crawford had shown me, yet I thought I would introduce the subject of J. S. and see if Janet would volunteer any information regarding the letter.

So, since both cousins had declared their willingness to consider the problem, I said: "As you say you don't know which way to start, Mr. Lawrence, suppose we take up the clue of the torn telegram. Do you think that J. S. who sent that message might have kept his appointment, and come last night, although no one knew it?"

"How could he get in?" asked Lawrence.

"That remains to be explained; but just granting for a moment that he did get in, why not turn our attention to discovering who he is and what his errand was?"

"All right," agreed Lawrence, "but how shall we set about it? We know nothing of the man, not even his real name."

"What do you think, Miss Pembroke?" I asked, turning to Janet; "do you think it would be possible for us to learn the real name of J. S.?"

The girl looked at me with troubled eyes, but the expression of her mouth denoted determination. Even before she spoke, I knew that she was not going to tell of the letter she had read that morning. The letter was addressed to her uncle, but it had been opened. The reasonable explanation of this was that it had come in that morning's mail, as indeed its postmark proved, and that Janet had opened and read it; this latter supposition being probable, because the letter had been found in her room. To be sure after the death of her uncle, she was next in charge of the household affairs, but it would have been more commendable of her to have given her uncle's unopened mail to his lawyer or to some one in charge of his estate.

When she spoke, as I had fully expected, she made no reference to the letter.

"As I have told you," she said slowly, "my uncle often used to speak of J. S., and when we asked him who it was, he said John Strong."

"But we know he didn't mean it," said Lawrence; "and also, Mr. Landon, although I do not know his real name, I'm positive that J. S. is the man who was my uncle's business partner many years ago. In fact my uncle has said to me that this partner thought that half of Uncle Robert's fortune should be given to him, or bequeathed to him by will. My uncle said he had no intention of doing this, but I gathered from his remarks on the subject, that his partner was continually making fresh efforts to obtain some of my uncle's money."

"Then, in view of all this," I said, "is there not at least reason to look up this J. S. who sent the telegram, and see if he might not be the man whom your uncle called John Strong?"

I looked directly at Janet as I said this, and though she returned my gaze at first, her eyes fell before my questioning glance, and her voice trembled ever so little as she said; "yes, let us do that."

"It is a very good idea," broke in sister Laura, who was quick of decision and who rarely hesitated to express her opinions. "This John Strong may have been delayed, and reached the apartment very late at night. Then there may have been a stormy interview, and, unable to get what he wanted from Mr. Pembroke, John Strong may have killed the old gentleman, taken the money that is missing from the desk and gone away."

"Sister dear," I said, "your theory is fairly plausible. If you don't mind I'll ask you to elucidate it a little further. Just how did John Strong get into Mr. Pembroke's apartment?"

"Why," returned Laura, "Mr. Pembroke was expecting him, and as it was late, and the others were in bed, he got up and let the man in himself."

"Yes; I understand," I went on; "and now, then, after this wicked Mr. Strong had committed his dreadful deed, who let him out, and put the chain on the door?"

There was a dead silence. I had chosen my words most unfortunately. I had spoken rather quizzically, only with the intention of showing Laura how absurd her idea was; but my final question, instead of merely confuting her theory, had also suggested a dreadful possibility! For if anybody had put the chain on after the departure of the mythical Mr. Strong, it must necessarily have been one of the two living occupants of the apartment!

Janet turned white to her very lips, and as a consequence, even more dreadful thoughts flashed into my mind. She had read a letter that day from the man who had sent the telegram. There was practically no doubt of that. When I had asked her concerning this man just now, though she had not denied, yet she had not admitted the knowledge which she must have possessed. And now when the faintest hint was breathed of a possible complicity of some one in the apartment with this mysterious J. S., Janet was so agitated as to turn pale and almost quiver with apprehension!

I was strongly tempted to tell of the letter the Inspector had shown me, but I could not bring myself to do so, for far deeper than my interest in the case was my interest in this girl; and if that letter must be brought forward against her, it would have to be done by some one else and not by me. My evidence about the chain on the door had already wrought irremediable damage, and hereafter my efforts should be devoted to showing evidence that should prove Janet Pembroke innocent, and not of a sort which should make her seem to be guilty!

"How would you advise trying to find this man?" asked George Lawrence, after a somewhat awkward pause; "the address on the telegram was East Lynnwood, but it would be difficult, even with a directory or census report to find a name of which we know only the initials."

"Yes," agreed Laura, "there are doubtless men in East Lynnwood whose initials are J. S. Indeed, I should say those are perhaps the most common initials of all. You see, so many men's names begin with J."

"And it may not be a man at all," suggested Lawrence. "Women's names often begin with J,--like Janet for instance."

"But my initials are not J. S.," returned his cousin, "and besides, I didn't telegraph to uncle Robert."

Again the girl surprised me, for she spoke in a light tone, as if almost amused at the idea.

"But it might have been a woman," she went on, "which would explain the hat-pin."

I was thoroughly perplexed at Miss Pembroke's words. She knew the J. S. of the telegram was the Jonathan Scudder of the letter. She knew therefore that J. S. was not a woman. Why was she so disingenuous? Was she shielding J. S., and did she know far more about the tragedy than I had supposed? At any rate, I could see she was determined not to tell of the letter she had read, and I was determined that if I should ask her concerning it, it would be when alone with her, for I would not subject her to possible humiliation before others.

"We certainly can do nothing in the matter without knowing more of J. S. than we do now," I said, with an air of dropping the subject; "and I doubt, even if we should find him, that it would help us to discover the mystery."

"I don't believe it will ever be discovered," said Laura. "It looks to me like one of those mysteries that are never solved. For whoever it was that was clever enough to get into that house, when there wasn't any way to get in, would also be clever enough to evade detection."

George and Janet both looked at Laura as if startled by her remark. The fact that they were startled startled me. If they had known the clever individual whom Laura merely imagined, they couldn't have acted differently. But all this muddle of impressions on my mind really led to nothing. "If I'm going to do any detecting," I said to myself severely, "it's time I set about it, and not depend on guessing what people may mean by the expressions on their faces--especially faces capable of such ambiguous expressions as the two before me."

Determined, therefore, to lead the conversation into channels that would at least put me in the way of learning some facts about the previous life of the Pembrokes and of George Lawrence, I spoke generally of ways and means of living in New York. I learned that Janet had the tastes and inclinations of a society girl, but that, owing to her uncle's restrictions, she had been able only slightly to gratify these inclinations. She was fond of concerts and theatres, of going shopping and calling, and yet had never been allowed the money or the freedom to pursue these pleasures. My heart sank as I realized how everything the girl said would tell against her should she ever be called to the witness box.

Young Lawrence, it seemed, had similar social tastes, but even when he lived with the Pembrokes had been more free to go and come than his cousin. And, of course, since he had lived alone he was entirely his own master. He was a member of various clubs, and seemed to be fond of card-playing and billiards, in moderation. I also learned, though, I think, through an inadvertence, that he dabbled a little in Wall Street. It seemed surprising that a young artist could support himself in comfortable bachelor quarters and still have money left with which to speculate. This would not be in his favor, had there been a shadow of suspicion against him; but there could be no such suspicion, for even with his latch-key he could not get in at the door. He could hardly be taken for a professional housebreaker; and, besides, he was prepared to prove an alibi. I had little faith in this mythical personage we had built up with a motive and an opportunity, and as I reasoned round and round in a circle I was always confronted by the terrifying fact that a disinterested judge would suspect Janet and that, were I disinterested, I should suspect her myself. And so the reasoning went on in my excited brain, till I felt that I must go for a long walk in the cool night air as the only means of regaining my own clearness of vision.

Soon after dinner, then, I announced my intention of going out.

Lawrence said that he would spend some hours looking over his late uncle's papers, and Laura declared that she would tuck Miss Pembroke in bed early for a good night's rest.

I started out by myself, and, swinging into Broadway, I turned and walked rapidly downtown. This was my custom when I had serious matters to think of. The crowded brightness of the street always seemed to stimulate my brain, while it quieted my nerves. I hadn't gone a dozen blocks before I had come to two or three different conclusions, right or wrong though they may have been.

The first of these was a conviction that Janet felt more than a cousinly interest in George Lawrence. But this I also concluded might be caused by one of two things; it might be either a romantic attachment or Janet might suspect her cousin to be guilty of her uncle's death. If the first were true, Janet might have been in league with George and might have opened the door for him the night before. I was facing the thing squarely now, and laying aside any of my own prejudices or beliefs, while I considered mere possibilities.