CHAPTER XVIII.

BY THE HAND OF A WOMAN.

The detectives approached the building from the opposite side of the street, keeping their eyes on the third-story windows. The officer saw them, and approached.

“I thought you’d come back,” he said. “It’s a case worth looking up. I could get no satisfaction up there. Had to return to my beat too quick.”

“Did you see the jar fall?” asked Nick.

“I did not,” was the reply, “but a woman who was passing said it was thrown from the second window on the right of the entrance, third floor. She said she saw a head and an arm out of the window as the jar fell.”

“What do they say up there?”

“That the room is not occupied.”

“What sort of folks are in that building?”

The policeman shrugged his shoulders.

“Tough,” he said.

“Well, we are going up,” said Nick.

“I’ll wait about here,” said the officer, who knew Nick and his assistant quite well. “Let me know if anything happens.”

The two passed on up the stairs. They had, however, been seen talking with the policeman. As they reached the third floor, a rough voice asked:

“What do you fellows want up here? You’d better be making yourself scarce if you want to keep your shape.”

The speaker was meanly dressed and generally foul in appearance.

“I take it,” said Nick coolly, “that you are the janitor.”

“What is it to you who I am?” demanded the other. “Get out!”

Nick turned to his assistant.

“Call the policeman,” he said. “We’ll cool this chap off in jail.”

“What have I done?” whined the janitor, seeing that he had made a mistake.

“You might have thrown that jar down on the boy, for all I know,” said Nick, with a wink at Chick.

“What would I do such a thing for?” asked the frightened janitor.

“For money,” replied the detective.

“Was it a murder?” asked the janitor, trembling.

“It looks like it might be before long.”

“Then the woman did it!” said the janitor.

“The woman?” repeated Nick. “What woman?”

“Why,” was the reply, “the woman who rented the room yesterday, and who went off just a little while ago.”

“Just after the boy was killed?”

“Yes, not five minutes after.”

“What sort of a woman was it?”

“Oh, I didn’t notice her particularly. One of the sort that live here, I take it,” answered the janitor.

“Young or old?”

“Middle-aged, I guess.”

“Did you rent the room to her?”

“Yes, yesterday afternoon.”

“What did she say about her occupation?”

“I asked no questions, sir. It is not always best to do so.”

“Well, give us a look at the room.”

The place was small, and cheap, and dirty. In the way of furniture it contained only a flat bed, a spotted washstand, a chair, and an old dresser. The detectives sent the janitor away, much to his disappointment, and made a careful study of the place.

“Here’s more red hair,” said Chick. “I wonder if this is bleached?”

Examination showed that it was. Nick took several articles from the chest and the top of the dresser and carried them away with him.

“If the room was hired for the purpose of getting rid of the boy,” said Chick, as the detectives walked away, “why should it have been taken yesterday? The boy was not in the game at that time.”

“He was sent along that street because the window was there with a murderous heart behind it. The room was not hired because there was a plot against the boy at that time. Presently we shall doubtless know why it was engaged, and who the tenant was.”

“The whole case is a wonder,” said Chick. “I confess that I don’t know what to make of it. And it seems to me that we are not progressing very rapidly.”

There was an inscrutable smile on the face of the detective as he asked:

“What’s your notion of getting on with a case?”

“Why, getting a clue to work on.”

“You don’t see one here?”

“Why, there’s a woman with bleached hair, and a young man who calls himself a reporter, and the chief of the Great Diamond Syndicate, and all that, but we don’t know where to look for them.”

“There are two women with red hair,” said Nick, with a laugh.

“Two?”

“Exactly.”

“Then the woman who killed Townsend did not occupy that room back there?”

“I think not.”

“Hair is different, eh?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Well, there’s the chief of the syndicate. We know he exists, but how are we to get to him?”

“They will all come in a bunch, like sheep,” said Nick, “and the Great Diamond Syndicate will be wiped off the continent.”

“You’ve got me guessing,” said Chick.

At noon the two detectives found themselves at Maynard’s bedside.

He was unconscious, and talking wildly.

“Has he mentioned any names?” asked Nick of the nurse.

“Not a single one.”

Then Nick turned to the doctor.

“Will he live?” he asked.

“I think so. He is young and strong, and may recover, but he may have to learn his alphabet again.”

“That is another trade-mark of the Great Diamond Syndicate,” mused Nick. “Hartley, who was one of their American agents, advocated beating people on the head until they came from the hospital mere imbeciles.”

Things looked suspiciously favorable to the syndicate at that time. As Chick had stated there was no clue to the whereabouts of the persons wanted. Maynard was unconscious and the elevator boy was in the same condition.

On leaving the sick room, Nick hastened to the Townsend residence.

It was a sad-faced family he met there, and for a time he delayed the important questions he had come to ask. It seemed like making little of their sorrow to trouble his parents with matters of the law at that time. Finally he called the father aside.

“You understand how difficult it is for me to break in on you at this time,” he said, “but there are questions which ought to be asked now.”

“I will do my best to answer them,” said the father.

“You have heard your son speak of one Julius Mantelle?”

“Occasionally.”

“Do you know where the fellow lives?”

“At the Hotel Cumberland, I think.”

“Have you ever met this man Julius.”

“Once.”

“Describe him, please.”

“Very dark, with broad nostrils, like a negro, thick lips, black curly hair. He speaks English with a slight French accent. I didn’t like the looks of the man.”

“What about his eyes?”

“Like a snake’s.”

“Did you know that your son had an appointment with him last night?”

“I did not.”

“Or with any one?”

“Not that I knew of. Is this man Mantelle suspected?”

“Well, he was about the café where your son and Maynard took supper after the rehearsal. I desire to locate him. Do you know where this rehearsal was held?”

The detective was given a number of West Fourteenth Street.