The Mark of Cain

“You consider him mixed up in it, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but I know the police are still hinting at his possible connection with the matter and the Press, you know, will try to hang the crime on to somebody worth while. They don’t want to suspect highwaymen or Swedish passers-by, if they can get a man higher up. Now, do they?”

“I can’t say. I’ve only just begun on this case, and I wish I’d been called sooner. It’s a great thing to get in at the beginning – ”

“Yes, when the clues are fresh. Well, if I can help you in any way, call on me. Landon is my friend, but if he’s innocent, investigation won’t hurt him, and if he’s implicated, he ought to be shown up.”

Alvin Duane went away, full of new theories. If Kane Landon did kill his uncle, here were several bits of corroborative evidence. If Mrs. Black was an old friend of his, and they had pretended otherwise, that was a suspicious circumstance in itself. And if they were both entirely innocent and unconnected in any way with the murder, why did they meet secretly in the library instead of openly at the Trowbridge home? These things must be explained, and satisfactorily, too.

Also, what was in the package that she went there to give him? Lindsay had said it was about the size of a brick, but flatter. Was it, could it have been a handkerchief of Stryker’s? Duane’s brain was leaping wildly now. Supposing these two conspirators were responsible for the murder. Supposing Kane had been the subject of his uncle’s dying words, and had himself committed the deed, might it not be that the adventuress (as he already called Mrs. Black) had brought him a handkerchief of the butler’s in deliberate scheming to fasten the crime on Stryker! That Landon had left it there purposely, and that Stryker discovering this, had fled, in fear of being unable to prove his innocence.

All theory, to be sure, but well-founded theory backed by the recorded facts, which Duane had studied till he knew them by heart.

Then the telephone caller who said “Uncle” was really the nephew, and the “stephanotis” and Caribbean Sea were jokes between the two, or as was more likely, figments of the stenographer’s fertile brain.

On an impulse, Duane went to see Miss Wilkinson, the stenographer, and verify his ideas.

“You’re sure it was a man’s voice?” he asked her.

“Sure,” she replied, always ready to reiterate this, though she had been quizzed about it a dozen times.

“Do you think it could have been Mr. Landon?”

“Yes, I think it could have been Mr. Landon, or Mr. Stryker, or the President of the United States. There isn’t anybody I don’t think it could have been! I tell you the voice was purposely disguised. Sort of squeaky and high pitched. So can’t you see that it was really a man with a natchelly low voice? You detectives make me tired! I give you the straight goods that it was a disguised voice, and so, unreckonizable. Then you all come round and say, ‘was it this one?’ ‘was it that one?’ I tell you I don’t know. If I’d a known whose voice it was, I’d a told at the inquest. I ain’t one to keep back the weels of justice, I ain’t!”

“Never mind the voice then. Tell me again of those queer words – ”

“Oh, for the land’s sake! I wish I’d never heard ’em! Well, one was stephanotis, – got that? It’s a very expensive puffume, and the next man that asks me about it, has got to gimme a bottle. I had a bottle onct – ”

“I know, I know,” said Duane, hastily, “that’s how you came to know the name.”

“Yep. Now, go on to the Caribbean Sea.” The blonde looked cross and bored. “No, I don’t know why anybody invited Mr. Trowbridge to the Caribbean; if I had I’d been most pleased to tell long ago. But somebody did. I heard it as plain as I hear you now. Yes, I’m sure it was the Caribbean Sea, and not the Medtranean nor the Red Sea nor the Bay of Oshkosh! So there, now. Anything else this morning?”

“How pettish you are!”

“And so would you be if everybody was a pesterin’ you about them old words. Can I help it if the man talked Greek? Can I help it if he squeaked his voice so’s I couldn’t reckonize it? I gave my testimony and it was all recorded. Why can’t you read that over and let me alone, I’d like to know!”

But after a pleasant little gift of a paper, fresh from the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Miss Wilkinson grew a little more sunny tempered.

“No,” she said, in answer to Duane’s last question, “I can’t quite remember whether the voice said he had set a trap or somebody else had set one. But I’m positive he said one or the other. And he said the trap was set for Mr. Trowbridge, – whoever set it.”

CHAPTER XII

A NEW THEORY

Alvin Duane had to report to Avice and to Judge Hoyt the result of his interview with Lindsay.

The detective had an idea that Avice would be far from pleased at the possible incrimination of Kane Landon. Duane knew that Miss Trowbridge was reported engaged to Judge Hoyt, but he had seen and heard her in conversation with the judge, and to his astute observation she did not seem desperately in love with him. This, to be sure, was none of his business, but he greatly desired to find out just where the affections of his young employer lay. Moreover, he had a slight suspicion that the girl was a little jealous of the beautiful widow’s attractions, but whether this jealousy was directed toward Landon or the judge he did not know. And he chose his own method of discovering.

Avice came to his office by appointment to learn his news. Duane greeted her, looking admiringly at the slender figure, so pathetic in its dull black draperies. But there was a vivid color in the girl’s cheeks, and a sparkle of excitement in her eyes, as she sat down, eager to learn the latest developments.

“Mr. Duane,” she said, “I see by your very manner that you learned something from my unknown friend, Mr. Lindsay.”

“I did,” and Duane looked mysterious and important.

“Well, tell me! I am all impatience!”

Pursuing the plan he had formulated to himself, he said, impressively, “I’ve a new theory.”

“Yes,” said the girl, breathlessly.

“I think Mrs. Black is the criminal,” he declared, bluntly.

Avice almost laughed. “How absurd!” she said. “Why, Mrs. Black was with me all that afternoon.”

“That’s just it! She stayed and kept you at home on purpose. I don’t mean she actually committed the murder, but she instigated it.”

“And who was her accomplice?”

“Stryker, the house man, of course.”

Avice began to be a little interested. She had never really liked Stryker. He seemed to her shifty and deceitful. “But how?” she asked.

“Easy enough. The man simply took a knife from the kitchen, followed his master to the woods, and waylaid him.”

“How did he know Uncle Rowly was going to the woods?”

“He telephoned him at his office to go to Van Cortlandt Park. You remember the stenographer said the man who telephoned called Mr. Trowbridge ‘Uncle’.”

“And Stryker did that?”

“Yes; to be misleading.”

“But Stryker didn’t know Kane Landon had come on from the West.”

“Yes, he did. Landon telephoned the night before. You were all out and Stryker took the message.”

“How do you know?”

“I have ferreted it all out from the other servants. The facts, I mean, – not my deductions from them.”

“Have you spoken to them about Stryker?”

“No; I wanted to speak to you about it first.”

“Mr. Duane, I will be frank with you. I don’t want Kane Landon suspected of this crime. I know he is innocent. I know, too, that some evidence seems to be against him. But that is only seeming. He is entirely innocent. Now, if Stryker is innocent, also, I don’t want to direct suspicion to him. And it doesn’t seem to me you have any real evidence against him.”

“But, my theory is that he was only a tool in the hands of the principal criminal.”