The Secret Toll

Forrester glanced around the room once more. The cookstove appeared to be without a fire and there were no signs of food. He wondered.

Turning again to Lucy, Forrester said, "Strange about the ghost that haunts that tree, Lucy. Did you ever hear of anyone being murdered around here?"

"No," she replied. Then added, after a slight pause, as she rose and walked toward the door, "Guess you have found out all I can tell you, Mister. You'd better go now – before my dog comes back."

The uncanny atmosphere of the place, the nearby snakes in their glass prison, and the weird conversation regarding ghosts and singular forms of worship, had given Forrester a very uncomfortable feeling. He knew now why Green had temporarily lost his nerve, for he was quite willing to take the woman's undisguised hint about his own immediate departure. Slipping his notebook into his pocket and putting on his cap, Forrester thanked her for the interview and hurriedly passed through the door, which was slammed on his heels.

CHAPTER X – CROSSED THEORIES

The long drive into the city from the North Shore delayed Forrester so that he did not reach the Nevins' home until the funeral services had ended, and though he joined the cortège which followed the remains of the banker to the cemetery he did not have an opportunity to speak to his mother about the letter which the girl had entrusted to him. At dinner, however, he passed the letter across the table to his mother with the remark:

"There's a note I was requested to bring to you – and in which I am very much interested."

Mrs. Forrester withdrew the letter from its envelope, adjusted her glasses and glanced at the writing. Hastily she turned to the signature and exclaimed, "Why, it's from Helen!" Then, turning to Josephine, added, "You remember Mrs. Lewis, my dear. Her husband was appointed to the vice-presidency of a New York bank about two years ago. She wrote to me several times and then our correspondence gradually dropped off. I was thinking of her only recently, and wondering how she was getting on in New York."

"We remember her perfectly, Mother," broke in Forrester, impatiently. "We want to know what the letter says."

"We!" echoed Josephine, surprised. "I'm sure I'm not especially interested."

Mrs. Forrester glanced through the note. "It is a letter of introduction," she explained, looking over her glasses at Forrester. "How odd! Helen asks me to do what I can to make Miss Mary Sturtevant's stay in Chicago a pleasant one. Strange that she did not write me directly."

"Oh," breathed Josephine, smiling wisely at Forrester.

"Does she say who Miss Sturtevant is?" queried Forrester.

"The daughter of some very dear friends of Helen's. The Sturtevants are an old New York family, she says. I'm quite sure that I have heard of them."

"May I be permitted to inquire," said Josephine, roguishly, "how Mr. Robert Forrester came to be the bearer of this note, and wherefrom springs his intense interest?"

Forrester colored, then frowned severely upon his sister.

"I met the young lady through an accident this morning. When she learned who I was she asked me to bring this letter to you. She had intended presenting it in person, but learned after arriving that we would not be moving to 'Woodmere' for some days."

"My! What a simple and straightforward explanation," smiled Josephine. "Why not tell us all about it, Bob?"

Forrester scowled at his sister, and sipped from his water glass to gain time to collect his thoughts. He was not sure at this time just how much he ought to tell. He set the glass down and briefly related how his car had frightened the girl's horse, leaving it to be assumed that she had at that time given him the letter.

"What an extraordinary coincidence!" exclaimed Mrs. Forrester. At that moment her attention was distracted by a question from the maid, and Josephine, leaning toward Forrester, whispered, "Some time I want to hear the whole story, Bob. It's so romantic!"

Happily for Forrester's peace of mind the conversation drifted to other things, and as soon as dinner was over he hurried to his favorite corner in the library. He wanted to think, not alone of Mary Sturtevant and her vague connection with the mystery, but of the negress, Lucy, and the perplexing new aspect she had given to the case. There seemed no apparent alliance between the two, yet both were strangely, though obscurely, associated with it. Forrester had no sooner lighted his pipe, however, when the door-bell rang, and a moment later a servant announced that two men wished to see him. For an instant he was startled, yet it did not seem likely that the "Friends of the Poor" would approach him in this open way.

"Did they give any names?" he asked.

"No, just said they were from the police department, sir," was the reply.

"Oh!" exclaimed Forrester, relieved. "Send them in."

Two heavily built men entered the room. They were strikingly alike in their general appearance; tall, broad shouldered, with big feet, large hands, and smooth-shaven, plump, ruddy faces. Forrester thought as he looked at them that there was small wonder so many criminals escaped. The average city detective was a type! Easily recognized and therefore readily avoided.

"Is this Mr. Forrester?" inquired one of the men.

"Yes," answered Forrester, as he rose from his chair.

"Well," continued the man, "my name's Cahill, and this is my partner, Detective Sergeant O'Connor. We come from the detective bureau."

"I'm glad to know you both," returned Forrester, smiling. "Sit down, please," and he indicated nearby chairs. The two detectives seated themselves and Forrester passed the humidor before returning to his chair. The three men puffed their cigars in silence for a time, the detectives evidently enjoying the flavor and aroma of Forrester's excellent cigars, while he awaited the explanation of their visit.

"We came to see you about this 'Friends of the Poor' matter," began Cahill, who appeared to be the spokesman for the pair. "My partner and me are working on the case."

"Making any progress?" inquired Forrester, fully convinced in his own mind, however, that they were not.

"Well, we are, and we arn't," answered Cahill. "You see, O'Connor and me were in the police auto the other night – the night you tipped us off. We're both some shots, and we felt pretty sure we had hit that car we were chasing. So we've been scouting around the West Side garages looking for a car with bullet holes."

"Why the West Side?" questioned Forrester, inwardly amused as he thought of Humphrey's arraignment of the detectives' methods.

Cahill smiled wisely at O'Connor, and O'Connor smiled significantly back at his partner.

"You see," explained Cahill, "we know crooks' ways pretty well. When anything gets pulled off we can tell from the method used just about where to look for our men. We have felt pretty sure all the time that this was some Black Hand bunch from the Dago settlement on the West Side. It's the same line of approach. The only difference is that they're operating a little higher up than usual, and choking the guys off quietly with some kind of gas, instead of filling them full of lead from a sawed-off shotgun. The idea's the same, only they're getting a little more ambitious – that's all."

"And about the car," prompted Forrester, still amused at the trend of the detectives' theories.

"That's just the point," continued Cahill. "Today we located a car with half a dozen bullet holes in the back in a garage out on Grand Avenue. Grand Avenue, you know, is full of Dagos all the way from the river. The garage man said it was left there late Tuesday night by three young Italians. Now, do you get the idea?"

Forrester did, and he was astounded at the news.

"You mean," he queried, "that you ascribe this whole affair to some West Side Black Hand band, and that this car proves your theory?"

"Sure thing!" assented Cahill. "O'Connor and me have been working on this case for months. Sometimes we thought we had a clue, and then again we didn't. We have suspected Black Handers from the first, but we couldn't exactly get a line on them. That tip you gave us Tuesday night started things right. Now we know where we're at. There's three detectives in overalls in that garage right now, and if those guys come back for their car the whole thing'll be cleared up in a jiffy."

"What makes you think that this is the car you wanted?" persisted Forrester, still doubting the correctness of the detectives' theories.

"Headquarters has no report of any other car being shot at by the police. And this car was left late Tuesday night. Get the idea?"

Forrester pulled reflectively at his cigar. He was overwhelmed. The suspicions he had entertained regarding the weird negress, the girl on the horse and her colored servant, were knocked flat. The half-formed theories he had been building up around them were completely shattered. The growing pride he had felt in his own detective talents was crushed, and the discoveries in which he had exulted were rendered valueless. After all, the hard-headed, plodding, unimaginative city detectives knew their business best. There was really no mystery or romance to crime; no clever men pitting their brains against those of astute detectives. The criminal class was nothing more than the police claimed it to be – just a stunted, unnatural, evil-smelling plant, with its roots buried deep in the sordid, filthy dives and foreign settlements of the West Side. Forrester was disappointed; deeply disappointed. In spite of the danger, worry and uncertainty, the thing had gotten into his blood during the last few days. It had fired his imagination, stirred his latent energies, and awakened his brain. And now the whole elaborate structure which had been slowly building up toward the skies collapsed in one moment to reveal nothing save a few murderous thugs concealed in the cellar.

Forrester heaved a sigh.

"Relieved, eh?" chuckled Cahill. "Thought the police were no good, and that you had to kiss ten thousand bucks good-by?"

Forrester laughed. Now the humor of the situation struck him. Green's long study of the problem, his careful tabulation of information and secretly developed theories, were in the same class with Humphrey's suggested scientific solution, and Forrester's own investigations and conjectures. No wonder the Chief of Detectives had said, "Novices only hamper us."

"No," explained Forrester, in answer to Cahill's comment, "I hadn't exactly lost faith in the police. But I will say this: I have recently made some peculiar and interesting discoveries on my own account, and now you have practically knocked the foundation from under them with your very matter of fact solution of the mystery."

"We ain't solved it yet, remember," objected Cahill. "We've simply got a line on the right people, and in due time we'll get our hands on them. We may still have to ask you to help us. That's what we dropped in for this evening."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Forrester.

"Well, you see it's this way," explained Cahill. "If those Dagos come back to the garage between now and Saturday, we'll have them. But if they get wise that we found the car, they may chuck it and steal another one. In that case we'll sure get them at the oak tree up there on the North Shore Saturday night. What we want you to do is to put that money in the tree at the time we tell you to, so that we will be ready."