Part 13

I couldn't help it. You see, I was so frightened at what you all said, that I didn't know what to do. I came over to New York, with a vague idea of asking Mr. Price to help me. I stayed with Ethel all night, and somehow things seemed to look so black, I couldn't think of anything but to go to Carr. I went down to the steamer office to see about changing my tickets for an earlier date, or something, and I found the _Catalonia_ sailed to-day. I'm scratching this off to go back by the pilot. I had about two hours to get ready, so I bought a trunk and some clothes, went to the bank and got a letter of credit, and here I am. I don't know yet whether I'm glad or sorry to be here. But I know I could not stand it at Garden Steps another minute, with you and Anita both against me! Mr. Stone doesn't believe I did it, but he is doubtful of being able to prove my innocence, so I'm going to Carr, and you can address me in his care. He's my nearest relative, and it's right for me to go there. I cabled him from New York to expect me, and to meet me at Alexandria. I'd write more, but it's most time for the pilot to go, and I want to send a word to Mr. Stone. Of course, you will look after all my bills and affairs till further notice.

Pauline.

"Good Lord!" said Gray, "Think of that poor child going off like that, because she thought you and I were against her!"

"Well, aren't you?" asked Anita, an angry gleam in her eyes.

"No! never!" shouted Gray. "If Pauline is guilty a thousand times, I'm not against her! I'm _for_ her, Anita, for her, first, last and all the time! Come on, now, let's take Mr. Stone his letter."

They found Stone in the boudoir, the room where the ghastly crime had been committed. He spent many hours here of late; it seemed necessary for the furthering of his theory, and yet, whenever any one was admitted to his presence there, he was found sitting staring at the room and its furnishings, as if waiting for the inanimate objects to speak.

"A letter? From Miss Stuart?" he said, eagerly. "I hoped for one, by the pilot."

He opened it, and after a glance handed it over to Haviland.

It said, only:

My dear Mr. Stone:

Thank you for your belief in me, and forgive me for running away. And, please,--oh, I beg of you, _please_ drop the case entirely. Your further investigation and discovery can only bring sorrow and anguish to my already distracted soul. I have no time to write more, but assume that I have put forth any or every argument that could persuade you, and at once cease all effort to learn who is responsible for the death of my aunt.

Sincerely yours,

Pauline Stuart.

XX IN THE BOUDOIR

Apparently, Fleming Stone paid little attention to this letter from Pauline. Really, every word engraved itself on his heart, as he read the lines, and when he gave the paper to Gray Haviland, it was only because he knew he would never need to refresh his memory as to the message Pauline had sent him.

Stone also read the letter she had written to Gray, and his deep eyes clouded with pain at some of the lines. But he returned it to Haviland without comment, and then courteously dismissed the pair.

"He's bothered to death," said Gray, as they went downstairs.

"So'm I," responded Anita. "But nobody cares about me, it's all Pauline,--whether she's a----"

"Let up on that, 'Nita!" and Gray spoke warningly. "Don't you call Pauline names in my hearing!"

Anita, pouting, flounced away to her own room.

Fleming Stone remained in Miss Lucy Carrington's boudoir. He sat on a window-seat, and looked out across the wide gardens and the innumerable steps. There was not much snow now. Merely great wind-swept stretches, dotted with evergreen trees, and the carved stone of the terrace railings and balustrades.

Long, Stone mused over Pauline's letter. For a time, he gave himself up to thoughts of her in which consideration of crime had no part. He knew he loved her, loved her with all the strength and power of his great nature; with all the affection and devotion of his big heart; and with all the passion and adoration of his deep soul. He knew she was not averse to him. Knew almost, with his marvelous power of knowledge, that she cared for him, but he knew, too, that if he let his mind dwell on such alluring thoughts or visions, he could not work. And work, he must. Ay, work as he had never before, with an incentive he had never had before. And Fleming Stone's mind was troubled to know whether this love for Pauline would help or hinder this work he must do. And he resolved, with all his mighty will-power, that it should help, that he would control this surging emotion, so new to him, and would force it to aid and assist his efforts, and to triumph over all doubts or obstacles.

Again he concentrated his whole mentality on the room and its contents. He swore to wrest from the silent witnesses the story of the crime. This was not his usual method of procedure. On the contrary, he almost invariably learned his points from questioning people, from observing suspects, or quizzing witnesses. But, he realized the difference in essence between this case and any other in which he had ever engaged. He had no more questions to ask. He knew all any one could or would tell him. He knew all the facts, all the theories, all the evidence, all the testimony. And none of it was worth a picayune to him, except negatively. This case must be, and should be, solved by the application of his highest mental powers, by the most intense thought and, doubtless, by most brilliant and clever deduction from hints not facts, from ideas, not visible clues. To work, then! To the work that _must_ bring success!

Leaving the window-seat, Stone walked round the room, and finally drew up in front of the mirror the easy chair in which Miss Carrington had sat when she received the blow given by Bates. Whether she had sat here while taking the poison, no one knew. If Stone's theory was right, she had not.

By referring to the photographs taken of Miss Carrington after her death, Stone was able to reconstruct the scene correctly.

He placed the easy chair just as it had been when she sat in it. He assumed the position she showed in the photographs, and gazed at himself in the mirror, as she must necessarily have done.

Slowly, he went over that conversation reported by Anita Frayne. Never, for a moment, had he doubted the truth of that report. He was sure Miss Carrington had really said all the things Anita repeated, and the clear and indubitable explanation of those remarks would mean, he was sure, the solution of the mystery.

By way of interviewing his silent witnesses, he endeavored to reconstruct, in thought, Miss Carrington's movements that night. Pauline and Anita had left her, all three of them angry, at a little after twelve. Later, Estelle had left her,--that was about quarter to one. Then she had on her embroidered robe and some jewels. She was not then sitting at the dressing-table. Nor had she then, presumably, taken the poison. For the doctors insisted that she had swallowed the poison very near the hour of one, but after it rather than before, and had placed the hour of her death at two. So, Stone reasoned, Miss Carrington must have taken that aconite at pretty nearly the very time Anita heard her talking. It seemed to Stone incredible that there could have been a person present to whom Miss Carrington could have addressed those remarks, and who could have given or allowed her to take the deadly draught.

The idea that Pauline could have been this person was not among Fleming Stone's catalogue of possibilities.

Moreover, the fact of the one voice strongly impressed him. Another voice, however low, must have at some point of the conversation risen to an audible sound to a listener with normal hearing. Also, Anita had asserted that the speeches of Miss Carrington did sound as if addressed to different persons. It was not likely there were two or more intruders or visitors there at once, and slowly but surely Fleming Stone decided, once for all, that Miss Carrington was alone in that room at that time. This meant, not exactly soliloquy, the mode of address contradicted that, but it meant, to him, at least, that she was addressing some inanimate object or objects as if they were sentient.

His task was to discover those objects. His first thought was, as he sat in the easy chair before the mirror, that the lady had spoken to her own reflection. But the speeches, of which he had a memorandum, precluded this hypothesis. She would not say to herself "You are so fond of pearls," or "You have a beautiful face."

Abandoning that supposition, Stone methodically searched for something that might have been addressed.

Clearly,--that is, if he were on the right track,--the words "Henri, you are the mark I aim at!" could have been spoken to the Count's glove, which she held in her hand. In the same vein, assuming that the glove, to her, represented the Count himself, might have been said the speech about the ten thousand dollars, and the remark that he loved pearls.

Accepting these possibilities as facts, Stone went on to discover more. His method was to repeat to himself her very words and strive to see or sense something to which they might have been addressed.

"You have the most beautiful face I ever saw," he quoted softly and then, scanning the room, went on: "I only wish mine were as beautiful."

His eyes lighted on the picture of Cleopatra, which hung above the mirror of the dressing-table.

"That's it!" he cried, with instant conviction. "She looked at that beautiful face and then in the mirror, at her plain features, and she involuntarily cried out for the beauty denied her! Poor woman, to live all her lonely, hungry life, surfeited with wealth yet unable to buy the fairness she craved!"

Not doubting for an instant the truth of his conclusion, Stone checked off that speech and passed on to the next on his list. If he could account for them all, he would be sure Lucy Carrington met her death alone, and therefore by her own hand. Of course, she did not knowingly poison herself, but if persuaded that the prepared draught was some innocent remedy--oh, well, that was aside the point for the moment.

But, quoting the phrase, "To-morrow I shall be forever free from this curse of a plain face,--to-morrow these jewels may all be yours,"--even his ingenuity could suggest no meaning but a foreknowledge of approaching death. What else could free her from her hated lack of beauty? What but death could transfer her fortune of jewels to another? Of course it might be that marriage with her would give the jewels to Count Charlier, but the two speeches were consecutive, and the implication was all toward the fate that was even then almost upon her.

The remark about ten thousand dollars was unimportant, as she had recently willed that sum to five different people, and the reference to a change in her will that should cut out Pauline might have been merely a burst of temper. At any rate, Stone ascribed little importance to it then. He felt that he had learned enough to assume positively that Miss Carrington was not talking to a human being when Anita Frayne heard her voice. Then, he conjectured, as the maid was free of all suspicion on the poisoning matter, and as the two girls had left the room at a little after twelve, the weight of evidence was in favor of the poison being self-administered, no matter for what reason or intent. Granting this, there must be some trace of the container of the aconite, before it was placed in the glass. This must be found. If not, it proved its removal by some one, either before or after the poisoning actually occurred.

Eagerly, almost feverishly, Stone searched. Exhaustive search had long ago been made, but again he went over all the possible places. The ornate waste-basket beneath the dressing-table still held its store of dainty rubbish. This had been ordered to remain undestroyed. Stone knew the contents by heart, but in hope of an overlooked clue, he again turned the contents out on a towel. Some clippings of ribbon, a discarded satin flower, two or three used "powder-leaves," a couple of hairpins and a torn letter were the principal items of the familiar lot. Nothing that gave the least enlightenment.

Stone got up and wandered around. What had that poison been in before it was put in that glass?

The ever-recurring thought that some one might have brought it to the boudoir after preparing it elsewhere, he would not recognize. A sort of sixth sense convinced him that if he kept on looking he must find that clue.

He went into the bedroom. The beautiful appointments, replicas of Marie Antoinette's, seemed to mock at his quest. "We know," they seemed to laugh at him, "we know all about it, but we will never tell!"

Untouched since Estelle's deft hand had turned back its silken coverlets, the bed seemed waiting for some fair occupant. With a sigh at the pathos of it, Stone suppressed an involuntary thought of the incongruity of that gilded, lace-draped nest, and its pitifully unbeautiful owner. There was a profusion of embroidered pillows, and across the satin puff lay a fairy-like night-robe of gossamer texture, and coquettish ribbons. A peignoir of pink crêpe lay beside it, and on the floor a pair of brocade _mules_ waited in vain for feet that would never again slip into their furred linings.

There was nothing helpful here, and with a sigh Stone went on to the bath-room. Fit for a princess, the shining white and gleaming silver showed careful readiness. Embroidered towels, delicate soaps and perfumes were in place--all showed preparation, not use.

"If I were searching traces of Estelle, now," groaned Stone, despairingly, to himself, "I could find thousands. But Miss Carrington didn't come in here at all. But, whoever rinsed that glass did!" The thought caused Stone to start with eagerness. It was the fact of the glass being out of line with the other appointments of the wash-stand that had first attracted his attention to it. After the test, the glass had been returned to its place, now in strict position between a silver cup and a flask of violet water.

"Spoon in it," mused Stone. "Shows carelessness on the part of whoever put it there. Don't believe a spoon was in a glass, generally, in this celestial bath-room. If----"

His ruminations were cut short by a shock of surprise. Under the wash-stand was a small waste-basket. Had this been overlooked by the searchers? Not surprising, for thorough search had not been made in bedroom or bath-room, as in the room where death had taken place.

Stone mechanically looked over the contents of the little basket. There was only a scant handful of papers. But carefully spreading a towel on the floor he turned the basket upside down. Tremblingly he fingered the papers. The first was the wrapper that had contained a cake of French soap. At a glance, Stone saw the corresponding soap in its silver dish. Estelle had doubtless placed it there, casting away its paper.

But among the scraps was another paper--two more. They were,--they surely _were_ in creases like the folds of a powder paper!

With lightest touch, Stone unfolded them. There was one, about four inches square, that had been folded as if to contain a powder. This was white, and of a texture like writing paper. The other was of a paraffin paper, exactly the same size and shape, and in similar creases. Also there was a bunchy ball of tin-foil, that, when smoothed out, proved to be of identical shape and size with the other two.

There was no room for doubt. These were unquestionably the wrappers of the aconitine! Stone detected on the inside of the paraffin paper traces of the powder itself, and knew that a test would prove his discovery a true find.

Now, then, where did he stand? To his own mind, what he had found proved that Miss Carrington had herself gone to her bath-room, opened the powder, thrown the papers carelessly in the basket, and then, mixing the stuff with water, had taken it then and there and rinsed the glass and set it back on the shelf. It was all natural and plausible.

But, he well knew, others would say that, remembering her detestation of medicaments, Miss Lucy Carrington never did such a thing. Also, they would say, some one else, some one of whom Miss Lucy felt no fear, had mixed the draught, and had administered it, by means of some yet undiscovered but plausible misrepresentation.

And only too well he knew whose name would be associated with the deed!

Heavy of heart, he returned to the boudoir and sat in the easy chair, before the mirror.

New thoughts came surging. It was sure, now, that Miss Carrington took the aconitine in a glass of water, in her own apartments,--one of them,--and took it, if not knowingly or willingly, at least without any great objection or disturbance. Clinging to his theory that she was alone, Stone visualized her taking the draught by herself. Assume for the moment, an intended headache cure,--but no! If she took the aconitine alone and voluntarily, she knew it was poison, for she said "To-morrow I shall be freed forever from this homely face."

Did it all come back, then, to suicide? No, not with that glad face, that happy smile, that joyful look of anticipation. A suffering invalid, longing for death, might thus welcome a happy release, but not life-loving Lucy Carrington.

It was too bewildering, too inexplicable. Again and again Stone scanned the powder papers. They told nothing more than that they were the powder papers. That was positive, but what did it prove? To whom did it point?

Frowning, Stone studied his own face in the mirror before him. Desperately, he repeated again all the sentences on Anita's list.

At one of them he paused, even in the act of repetition.

He stared blankly into his own mirrored eyes, a dawning light beginning to flame back at him. Then, a little wildly, he glanced around,--up, down, and back to his almost frenzied, reflected face.

"Oh!" he muttered, through his clinched teeth, for Stone was not a man given to strong expletives, "it is! I've got it at last! The powder, the pearls,--the snake! My Heavens! the _snake_! Oh, Pauline, my love, my love--but who? who? Have I discovered this thing only to lead back to her? I _won't_ have it so! I am on the right track at last, and I'll follow it to the end--the end, but it shall _not_ lead, I _know_ it will not--to my heart's idol, my beautiful Pauline!"

XXI FLEMING STONE'S THEORY

Alone in the library, Fleming Stone and Detective Hardy were in counsel.

"I'm going to show you this thing as I see it, Mr. Hardy," said Stone. "I frankly admit it's all theory, I haven't a particle of human testimony to back it, but it seems to me the _only_ solution that will fit all points of the mystery. And I shall ask you to consider it confidential for the present, until I can corroborate it by unmistakable proofs."

Hardy nodded assent, his eyes fixed on the speaker in a sort of fascination.

This young detective had not been at all idle of late, but his work had amounted to nothing definite, and though he was himself convinced that Pauline Stuart was responsible for her aunt's death, he seldom exploited that view before Stone, having learned that it was an unwelcome subject.

"Here's the theory in a very small nutshell," said Stone, "but remember, you're not to mention it to any one until I give you permission. Miss Lucy Carrington took that powder, thinking it a drug that would make her beautiful."

"A charm? a philter?" Hardy's eyes seemed to bulge in his excitement.

"I'm not sure whether it was a fake magic affair, say, from a clairvoyant or fortune-teller, or whether it was a plain swindle from a beauty doctor or something of that sort. You know such people play on the credulity of rich patrons and get enormous sums and a promise of secrecy for a so-called beauty producer."

"But why would the beauty doctor or the clairvoyant person give a patient poison?"

"They didn't. They gave a harmless powder, and some evil-minded person added the aconite, secretly, knowing of the beauty scheme."

"Who did it?"

"That's yet to be discovered, but it will be easier if we can trace the one who sold her the nostrum. Now, listen while I reconstruct the scene. Miss Carrington, having dismissed her maid, goes to her bath-room, and takes the powder dissolved in water. These powder papers, which I found in her bath-room waste-basket, carry out that idea."

Hardy stared at the papers, but did not interrupt the speaker.

"Then, joyfully waiting the effect of the charm, she sits in front of the mirror to watch her features become beautiful. This is why she said to her own reflection, 'To-morrow I shall be freed forever from this homely face!' She gazed at the picture of Cleopatra above her dressing-table, and said 'Yours is the most beautiful face I have ever seen. I wish mine were as beautiful.' The remarks concerning Count Charlier were addressed to the glove which she held in her hand, a sentimental part of the whole performance."

"Mighty interesting, Mr. Stone, but pretty fantastic, so far."

Fleming Stone gave his slow, grave smile, that always betokened a surety of his own statements. "Wait a bit, Hardy, before you condemn this notion. I haven't finished yet. Now Cleopatra figures pretty strongly in this scheme. Look at these photographs taken after death. They show the lady exactly as she looked when she sat there. See, she is gazing at the picture of Cleopatra, too intently to be merely a casual glance. And, what do you think of this? She gazed at Cleopatra, and, holding the Count's glove, her mind and heart full of the Count, who would adore her when she achieved this looked-for beauty, she said, 'You are the Mark I aim at!' meaning, as Cleopatra had her Mark Antony, she, Lucy Carrington, aimed at the Mark of her choice,--the Count."

"If that's true, Mr. Stone, you are the wizard of the ages! How did you dope it out? What----"

"Now, wait a minute. This isn't the pipe dream you think it. But listen while I tell the rest in my own way."

"Listen! I should think I would! Go on."

"You know, these fakers give out these charms with all sorts of fool directions to impress the duped customer. As I say, I'm not sure yet whether it was a professional of the clairvoyant type, or a regular beauty doctor. But in either case, I've no doubt that Miss Carrington paid him enough to compensate for giving up his practice and leaving for parts unknown. For after the charm failed to work, of course she would expose the fraud."

"But the poison----"

"Never mind that for the moment, Mr. Hardy. Surely, if we can discover for certain how and why the dose was taken, it will go far to help us trace the criminal who added the deadly element to the powder. Now, continuing the Cleopatra idea, I am sure that the clever clairvoyante,--we'll assume that's what she was,----"

"She?"

"Merely to designate this faker person. Somehow I seem to see her as one of those crystal-gazing, frowsy-headed kimonoed females, who prey on the credulity of rich and foolish women,--well, let's call her that for the present, this clever clairvoyante somehow conceived the idea of offering to make Miss Carrington as beautiful as Cleopatra. Perhaps she had been here to see Miss Carrington on the subject, and that beautiful picture of Cleopatra put it into her head. But, assuming something of this sort, assume further that she directed Miss Carrington to robe herself, in a general way, like the queen in the picture. Note the pearls! Wouldn't this explain Miss Carrington's getting her pearls from the bank for this occasion? And wouldn't it explain her speech, 'You love pearls,' as being addressed to Cleopatra, to whom she was talking!"

"Go on, Mr. Stone! _Go_ on!"