“Miss Silber's father? Has Miss Silber a father?” Trant interrupted.
“He is hardly worth mentioning, Mr. Trant,” the younger Edwards explained. “He must have suffered at some time from a brain trouble that has partly deprived him of his faculties, I believe. Neither he nor the housekeeper, who is not in Eva's confidence, is likely to be able to help us in this matter.”
“The man may have slipped out of the house unseen, Mr. Edwards.”
“Quite impossible,” Cuthbert Edwards asserted. “Miss Silber lived in a little house west of Ravenswood. There are very few houses, none within at least a quarter of a mile of her. The ground is flat, and no one could have got away without being seen by me.”
“Your story so far is certainly very peculiar,” the psychologist commented, “and it gains interest with every detail. Are you certain it was not this second interview with your father,” he turned again to the boy, “that made Miss Silber refuse you?”
“No; it was not. When I got back yesterday and learned from father what had happened, I went out at once to Eva at her home. She had changed utterly! Not her feelings toward me, for I felt certain even then that she loved me! But an influence—the influence of this man—had come between us! She told me there was no longer any question of her marrying! She refused the explanation she had promised to make to me! She told me to go away and forget her, or—as I wrote you—to think of her as dead!
“You can imagine my feelings! I could not sleep last night after I had left her. As I was wandering about the house, I saw the evening paper lying spread out on the library table and my eye caught her name in it. It was this advertisement that I sent you, Mr. Trant! Late as it was, I called up the newspaper offices and learned the facts regarding its insertion. At daybreak I motored out to see Eva. The house was empty! I went round it in the mud and rain, peering in at the windows. Even the housekeeper was no longer there, and the neighbors could tell me nothing of the time or manner of their leaving. Nor has any word come from her to the office.”
“That is all, then,” the psychologist said, thoughtfully. “‘The 17th of the 10th, 1905,’” he reread the beginning of the advertisement. “That is, of course, a date, the 17th of the 10th month, and it is put there to recall to Miss Silber some event of which it would be sure to remind her. I suppose you know of no private significance this date might have for her, or you would have mentioned it.”
“None on the 17th; no, Mr. Trant,” young Edwards replied. “If it were only the 30th I might help you; for I know that on that date Eva celebrates some sort of anniversary at home.”
In Search of the “Hammering Man”
Trant opened a bulky almanac lying on his desk, and as he glanced swiftly down the page his eyes flashed suddenly with comprehension.
“You are correct, I think, as to the influence of the so-called ‘hammering man’ on her movements,” the psychologist said. “But as to her connection with the man and her reasons, that is another matter. But of that I cannot say till I have had half an hour to myself at the Crerar Library.”
“The library, Mr. Trant?” cried young Edwards, in surprise.
“Yes; and, as speed is certainly essential, I hope you still have your motor below.”
As young Edwards nodded, the psychologist seized his hat and gloves and his instrument case, and preceded the others from the office. Half an hour later he descended from the library to rejoin the Edwardses waiting in the motor.
“The man who inserted that advertisement—the ‘hammering man,’ I believe, of whom we are in search,” he announced briefly, “is named N. Meyan, and he is lodging, or at least can be addressed, at No. 7 Coy Court. The case has suddenly developed far darker and more villainous aspects even than I feared. Please order the chauffeur to go there as rapidly as possible.”
Coy Court, at which, twenty minutes later, he bade young Edwards stop the motor, proved to be one of those short intersecting streets that start from the crowded thoroughfare of Halsted Street, run squalidly a block or two east or west, and stop short against the sooty wall of a foundry or machine shop. Number 7, the third house on the left —like many of its neighbors, whose windows bore Greek, Jewish, or Lithuanian signs—was given up in the basement to a store, but the upper floors were plainly devoted to lodgings.
The door was opened by a slattern little girl of eight.
“Does N. Meyan live here?” the psychologist asked. “And is he in?” Then, as the child nodded to the first inquiry and shook her head at the second, “When will he be back?”
“He comes to-night again, sure. Perhaps sooner. But to-night, or to-morrow, he goes away for good. He have paid only till to-morrow.”
“I was right, you see, in saying we had need for haste,” Trant said to young Edwards. “But there is one thing we can try, even though he is not here. Let me have the picture you showed me this morning!” He took from the boy's hand the picture of Eva Silber, opened the leather case, and held it so the child could see.
“Do you know that lady?”
“Yes!” The child showed sudden interest. “It is Mr. Meyan's wife.”
“His wife!” cried young Edwards.
“So,” the psychologist said swiftly to the little girl, “you have seen this lady here?”
“She comes last night.” The child had grown suddenly loquacious. “Because she is coming, Mr. Meyan makes trouble that we should get a room ready for her. Already she has sent her things. And we get ready the room next to his. But because she wants still another room, she goes away last night again. Rooms come not so easy here; we have many people. But now we have another, so to-night she is coming again.”
“Does it now seem necessary for us to press this investigation further?” Cuthbert Edwards said, caustically.
As he spoke, the sound of measured, heavy blows came to them down the dark stair apparently from
