The Diamond Pin

Bannard spoke sternly, and with such a straightforward glance that Fleming Stone said, "I beg your pardon – proceed."

"I went down to New York," Bannard resumed, "and I stopped at the Red Fox Inn for lunch."

"At what time?"

"About noon, or a bit later. I don't know these hours exactly for I had no notion I'd be called to account for them, and I paid little heed to the time. I had the money I wanted, Aunt Ursula had given it to me willingly, I could pay off my debts, and I meant then to live a less haphazard life. I was making all sorts of plans to make good, and so gain Iris Clyde's favor, and perhaps, later, her love. I've not told her of this, for next thing I knew, I was suspected of killing my aunt!"

"But I'm told that the detectives have inquired, and the waiter who served you at the inn, says you were on your way toward Berrien, not from it."

"Then that waiter lies. I was on my way back to New York. I lunched at the inn, and proceeded on my way. I reached town about three or later, and when I finally got back to my rooms, I found a telegram from Iris to come right up here. I did so, and the rest of my story is public information. Now, the murderer, whoever he may have been, came to the house long after I left it. Oh, I can't say that, for he may have been hidden in the house when I was there. But, anyway, he killed Aunt Ursula about the middle of the afternoon, so I supposed my true story would be sufficient alibi. But it hasn't proved so, and now, if they say the Inn people declare I was coming north instead of going south, as I was, then I can only say that the villain who did the deed is trying to make it seem to have been me."

"That's my belief," agreed Stone; "the whole affair is a carefully planned and deep-laid scheme, and concocted in a clever and diabolically ingenious brain."

CHAPTER XV

IN THE COLOLE

Fibsy stuck to half-witted Sam like a leech. The boy's theory was that Sam had stolen the pin, as he said, and that he had hidden it with the cunning of a defective mind, in a place most unlikely to be suspected. So Fibsy cultivated the lackwit's acquaintance and established friendly relations.

Agnes rather resented Fibsy's attitude, but his wheedlesome ways won her heart, too, and the three were often together.

In fact, Fibsy enlisted Agnes on his side, and convinced her that they must learn from Sam where the pin was hidden, if he had really stolen it.

It was difficult to get information from Sam himself, for his statements were contradictory and misleading. But, by watching him closely, Fibsy hoped to catch him off guard, and make him reveal his secret.

Sam babbled of the pin continually. As Agnes said, whenever he got a new topic in his poor, disordered brain, he harped on it day and night.

"Pinny, pin, pin," he would chant, in his sing-song way, "nice pinny, pin, pin, where are you? Where are you? Nice pinny-pin, where are you?"

It was enough to drive one frantic, but Fibsy encouraged it as a means toward an end.

And one day he found Sam down on his knees poking a sharp-pointed stick in between the boards of the kitchen floor. The cracks were wide in the old house, and Fibsy held his breath as he, himself unseen, watched the idiot boy diligently digging.

But it amounted to nothing. After turning out many little piles of dust and dirt, Sam rose, and said, dejectedly, "No pinny-pin there! Where is it? Oh, oh, oh —where is it?"

Fibsy had learned the workings of the queer mind, and he was sure now that Sam had hidden the pin, but not in a floor crack. The mention of that hiding-place had been made by Sam to turn suspicion from the real one, and then the idea had stuck in his head, and, Fibsy feared, he had forgotten the true place of concealment.

This would be a catastrophe, for it might then be the pin would never be found! So Fibsy stuck to his self-imposed task of standing by Sam, hoping for a chance revelation.

"Go ahead," Fleming Stone told him, "do all you can with Sam. I, too, feel sure he took the pin from the chair, where Miss Clyde put it. Find the pin, Fibsy boy, find the pin, and I'll do the rest."

Stone spent an entire morning in Mrs. Pell's room, going over her old letters and getting every possible light on her earlier life.

He learned that she had been born and reared in a small town in Maine, that she had married and gone abroad for a stay of several years, that after that she had lived in Chicago, and for the past ten years had resided at Pellbrook. Her husband had died fifteen years ago, and left her his great fortune, mostly in precious stones. Ten years ago, when she came to Berrien, she had taken all the jewels from the bankers' and had concealed them in some place of safety which was not known to any one but herself.

Her diary attested this fact, over and over again. But it gave no hint as to where the hiding-place might be.

Stone pondered long and deeply over the statement that the gems were in some crypt, and, as he thought, a great inspiration came to him.

"Of course!" he said to himself, "it is that! It can be nothing else!"

But he confided his new theory to nobody; he only began to ask more questions.

He quizzed Iris as to her Chicago visit, and wanted a detailed account of every minute she had spent there. Then he asked her more particularly about the house where she was taken in the little motor car.

"Let's try to find it," Stone said, "let's go now."

They started off in a runabout, which Stone drove himself. Knowing that the house might be in Meadville, they went that way.

Iris was unable to verify the route, so they went there on the chance.

"A wild goose chase, probably," Stone conceded, "but we'll make a stab at it. You see, Miss Clyde, I'm getting the thing narrowed down to a few main propositions. There is, first, a master mind at the head of all the mystery. He is the murderer, he is your caller, Pollock, he is William Ashton, he is the man you saw in Chicago, who attacked you that night in Mrs. Pell's room, who kidnapped you that Sunday – in fact, he is the man at the helm. He has underlings, but I do not think they are accomplices or confederates, they are merely hirelings. Now, of course, Pollock is not this man's real name, but we will call him that for identification among ourselves. This Pollock wanted the pin, we'll say, and not only the pin, but the paper, the receipt that was in the Florentine pocket-book, and that was definitely bequeathed to Mr. Bannard. That paper is quite as valuable as the pin, and he did get that."

"Why, that was just a receipt – "

"Yes, and the pin was just a pin! But we want them both, and therefore we want the man, Pollock."

"This is Meadville, but I don't see any house that could possibly be the one they took me to. It had rather high stone front steps, with brick uprights to them."

They soon went through the little town, but no such peculiarity was to be found.

"Don't give up the ship too easily," said Stone, smiling at Iris' frown of disappointment, "we haven't exhausted our resources yet."

A few inquiries showed him the office of Clement Foster, the insurance agent.

Here Iris saw a calendar exactly like the one that had been in the room where Flossie searched her.

After a little talk, Fleming Stone discovered that the agent had given out few of those calendars outside his home town, but he mentioned some names that he remembered.

"Do any of these people live in a house with high stone steps?" the detective queried.

"Lemme see; yes, Joe Young, over to East Fallville, has stone steps."

"With brick uprights?" asked Iris, eagerly.

"Yes, that's right. Nice little house it is, too. Right on Maple Avenue, the prettiest street in that village."

Thanking the agent, the inquiring pair went on their way, rejoicing. And sure enough the house of Joe Young proved to be the very one where Iris had been taken.

They went in, and after introducing himself Stone learned that Mr. Young was decidedly interested in the Pellbrook mystery, and that his father had built the well-safe in Mrs. Pell's room.

Moreover, Young had attended the inquest, and had kept in touch with all the developments so far as he could learn them.

But it was impossible to associate him with the kidnapping of Iris. He was too frankly interested and sympathetic to be suspected of playing a part or deceiving them in his attitude toward them.

"Where were you a week ago Sunday?" Stone asked him suddenly.

"Why, let me think. Oh, yes, my wife and I went over to Meadville and spent the day with her mother's folks. Yes, that's what we did. Why?"