CHAPTER XX
THE TRYST
AT Headquarters after Tony was led away, Odell learned that although no trace had yet been discovered of the fugitive Farley Drew, his henchman Sims was safely under lock and key. He had been picked up an hour before at the Grand Central Station just as he started to board a train for the West, and so far had maintained a dogged silence as to the whereabouts of his erstwhile employer; but Captain Lewis expressed the opinion that a few hours of the gentle art of persuasion as practiced by his subordinates would overcome Sims's reticence.
The chief of the bureau had one item of interest to impart, however: the mysterious telephone call to the carpenter shop on the day before the portrait fell had been definitely traced to the Meade house.
Odell pondered on this latest bit of intelligence as he made his way to the office of The Wall-Street Gazette. If Lorne had not been at home between three and four o'clock on the previous Wednesday afternoon, a fact which could easily be established, then he must either have had a confederate in the house, or the theory which the detective had so carefully built up must inevitably fall to the ground.
Reaching the editorial rooms of the newspaper, Odell sent in a hastily scribbled card to the chief, and was ushered immediately into a tiny cluttered office, where a lanky, sandy-haired individual untied his long legs from about the swivel chair and literally fell upon his visitor's neck.
"Barry Odell, you confounded old sleuth, where have you been keeping yourself? The fellows were all asking about you at the class reunion dinner in June, but all I could tell them was that you were too busy hunting crooks to think of the old days."
"I have been busy, Jim," Odell responded quietly; but a slight flush had mounted to his usually impassive brow. "How are all the fellows? I'd like to have seen them again."
"Then why the deuce didn't you show up? You got the announcement card, didn't you?" Jim Dilke pushed his guest into a chair and proffered a box of cigars, which he took from a drawer in the desk. "You needn't be afraid to try one; they're the kind I keep for our advertisers."
"Thanks." Odell accepted a cigar, lighted it, and settled back in his chair. "Yes, I got old Whip's announcement; but—well, I didn't graduate with the rest of you, you know, and our ways lie far apart now."
"It is you and your insufferable, stiff-necked pride that widened the path," Dilke declared with spirit. "I don't know why in thunder, when your old man died and you had to quit the university after the freshman year, you didn't stay on instead, and let some of us see you through. You could have paid it back."
Odell shook his head.
"I had to go to work then," he replied. "There were others to be taken care of, you may remember; and I don't borrow.—Whipple is the head of his corporation now, isn't he? Pretty good for a chap at twenty-nine."
"Oh, well, you know how a fellow can climb in one of those mushroom Western towns." Dilke leaned forward in his chair. "He is here now; I'll call him up, and we three will go and have a little dinner to-night somewhere."
"Sorry, but I can't make it," Odell interrupted again. The fact is, I'm on a case just now."
I might have known it," Dilke exclaimed ruefully. You've come to me for some dope, I suppose. What is it? Has some Wall-Street magnate murdered his mother-in-law?"
"Not quite that." Odell smiled. "I would like to know though, Jim, what a certain broker has been doing on the Exchange lately."
"Who? We've got 'em all stuffed, mounted, and catalogued," announced his friend. "The little old Gazette doesn't miss many tricks."
"The man"—Odell eyed the glowing tip of his cigar studiously—"is Richard Lorne."
"Lorne? Great Scott, you don't mean to say you're on that case?" Dilke's chair creaked perilously. "What does it mean; wholesale murder or a practical joke?"
"What do you know about it?" Odell demanded in his turn.
"Only what everybody knows who has two cents for a paper and can read," the other retorted. "Didn't you know yourself that it was all out in the early edition of the evening papers? Here, have a look."
He swept an armful of newspapers across the desk, and after a glance or two at the staring headlines Odell laid them aside.
"I suppose the boys couldn't be kept off it much longer in any event," he commented. "I can't talk about it now, Jim, but there isn't any joke about it. I'd like to get a line on what Lorne has been doing to the market during the last two months."
"What the market has been doing to him, you mean." Dilke laughed. "It is a wonder he isn't wiped out; for he was caught short a month or so ago in that Mexamer Oil slump for a devil of a lot, and we expected him to go under pronto; but he managed somehow to tide himself over. He must have worked a miracle."
"He was in so deep, then?"
"Deep? He's been playing the wrong side of the market almost steadily for the past six months. Odd, too; he's a pretty shrewd operator as a rule, but roughly speaking, I should say he had lost nearly half a million since the first of the year." Dilke paused, blew a smoke-ring, and regarded his friend thoughtfully. "I suppose I musn't ask what his financial condition has to do with the fact that his wife's body is to be exhumed for an autopsy and strange things are hinted concerning the death of his son?"
"Of course you may, Jim." Odell laughed. "As a matter of fact, it has no direct bearing on the case; it is what we call the routine work, getting a line on the family finances and who controls them. You're too old a bird in the newspaper game yourself to take any stock in the innuendoes of the press when we won't give out any authentic dope to fill their columns. I know it seems piking of me to show up only when I want your help; but one of these days I'll take a vacation and well have a little reunion of our own."
He rose and laid the stub of his cigar on the ash-tray.
"I'm only too glad to tell you anything I can, old man." Dilke held out his hand. "I'll fix you up a statement of Lorne's recorded stock deals for the past few months, if you like. I can get it to your rooms late to-night or to-morrow morning."
"I wish you would," Odell responded as they shook hands. "I can slip it into my report for my chief and save a lot of time. So long, Jim."
Leaving his friend, he made his way to the office of another newspaper farther uptown, a big metropolitan daily, where he spent more than an hour going over the files of two years before. He came at last upon that for which he had been seeking—a reproduction of a photograph—and he whistled softly as he studied it. One phase of the problem which had been an enigma from the first was now made clear.
Dining early, he returned to Headquarters for an hour's chat with Captain Lewis, but found that there had been no further developments since his previous visit. Sims still refused to talk, and the earth seemed to have opened and swallowed Farley Drew.
Miller, whose day of rest appeared to have obliterated all trace of the hours of torture when he lay bound and gagged in the launch beneath the boathouse, had reported for duty; and after telephoning to Smith, Odell set out once more for the Meade house in company with the operative.
Blake and Shaw had been relieved at their post outside by two other plainclothesmen; and Odell stopped to give them a word of instruction, when Miller suddenly touched his arm.
The tradesmen's entrance—a door in the high brick wall of the yard, which opened from the side street—^had swung in cautiously, and as Odell drew his men quickly around the screening corner of the house a muffled female figure appeared, heavily veiled and swathed in a cumbersome cloak despite the warmth of the September night. It appeared to hesitate for a moment, then turned and struck off down the side street to the eastward; while from the door of the yard a second figure, that of a man, emerged and followed stealthily.
"Smith is on the job," Odell commented in a low tone. "That means Miss Cissie has started out to keep her appointment. Come on, Miller."
In spite of her bulky attire the woman ahead walked with a lithe grace, and she appeared to be in no uncertainty as to her route. The trail led east to Park Avenue, north for several blocks, then west to Fifth Avenue, where at the corner she jumped into a taxi, which moved off without waiting for any instructions.
No other disengaged motor was in sight; but just as Odell and Miller overtook Smith, who had momentarily hesitated, an ancient hansom cab drawn by a spavined horse drew up at the curb, and a husky voice addressed them.
The three piled into the cab and a few words from Odell sent them off in full pursuit of the taxi, whose tail light was fast disappearing to the north. Then began a long and tortuous chase which winded the horse before a half-mile had been covered. Fortunately, at this crisis am empty touring car made its appearance; it was evidently a private machine, but the chauffeur was not unwilling to make a bargain, and the detective and his operatives were again upon their way.
Through side streets they wove as on a shuttle, shooting around corners, circling and doubling on their tracks until the city had been traversed from river to river; but ever the trail led northward. The park was passed, and the cheaper shopping district of what had once been known as Harlem. Vacant lots appeared with increasing frequency between the solid rows of towering apartment houses; and at last they came to the anomalous region where the farthest tentacles of the city reached, and brick and stone gave way to frame cottages, for the most part in the final stages of dilapidation.
"Why would Drew—if it's he she's come to meet—ask her to trail away out here?" Smith muttered. "Why didn't he meet her where they could lose themselves in a crowd?"
"Because in that crowd there would probably be one of our boys looking for him," Odell replied succinctly. "He must know by now of Sims's arrest and that we're after him with the whole Force back of us. What happened between the time I 'phoned you and Miss Cissie's getaway?"
"Nothing. She came down to dinner all flushed up, and her eyelids were puffed as though she'd been crying; but I hadn't heard a sound from her room all the afternoon. At the table she complained in a low tone—for my benefit outside of course—of feeling ill, and said she would go to bed at once. I don't believe she ate very much, for I could hear her aunt urging her to try just a little soup. She went right back to her room, and after you 'phoned I went to the upper hall. Her light was going, but there wasn't a sound until she suddenly opened her door. I had just time to get behind the curtains of that bay window when she looked carefully about and then closed the door again. She repeated that performance three times; and finally I guess she was sure I had quit for the night, for she sneaked out and down the back stairs to the yard. I was right on her heels, as you saw; but I don't think she knew it."
"She's not running any chances, though, that she can avoid.—Look! Her taxi is stopping in front of that little cottage with the vines all over it." Odell bent forward and touched the chauffeur's shoulder. "Shoot past and on for a couple of blocks and then through to the next street. I think the grounds reach all the way back. We'll make a racket as though we were out on a joy ride."
The two operatives took their cue; and they whirled by to a chorus of cheerful yowls and snatches of song. Through a bumpy, unpaved side road they plowed their way, turning down once more on the back street, in silence now, with the engine barely humming.
"Here's the place," Odell announced. "Pull up and wait by that open lot there, where the empty roadster is stalled. Will you take a chance on putting out your own lights?"
"Surest thing you know!" the chauffeur responded with alacrity. "If there's liable to be any rough work and you want me, why, that's my middle name."
Odell thanked him, and with Miller and Smith at his heels pushed through the rank undergrowth of the neglected yard until they came to a narrow path which led to the back door of the vine-covered cottage. Save for a low light which streamed from a broken-shuttered window at one side, the place was dark and seemingly deserted, and the taxi in which Cissie Chalmers had come was nowhere to be seen.
"Slip around under that lighted window and listen, Miller. It is too high from the ground for you to see in, but you may hear something," Odell commanded.
"Say, this door's unfastened," Smith announced in a sepulchral whisper as the other operative slipped away in the darkness.
"If Drew is in there he evidently doesn't anticipate a flank attack," Odell returned. "He's planned for a rear getaway in case of trouble. Remember that little roadster in front of the open lot?"
"Sure; but what's his game with the girl? If he knows we've got Sims his only chance is to get clean away; and he wouldn't want to be hampered with a petticoat."
"He knows that no third degree in the world will make Sims talk; and remember he still thinks Miller and I are up in that boathouse guarded by Tony and Pete. In his estimation all we've got on him is that attempt to blackmail Gene; and he will be safe from prosecution if he marries into the family, don't you see?" Odell explained hurriedly; adding as Miller reappeared around the comer, "Well? Did you hear anything?"
"If s an elopement," Miller declared. "There's a fellow and a girl in there, but no one else, I don't think. They're arguing, him for a justice of the peace and her for a minister; but it looks like he's winning out."
"All right; we'll waste no more time," Odell observed grimly. "Smith, go 'round to the front door; have your gun handy. Knock and stamp as loud as you can, and demand admittance in the name of the law. They won't bother you; but stay there until I whistle; then come back and lend a hand."
Smith disappeared in his turn around the corner of the house; and in another moment the silence was broken by the tramp and scuffle as of many feet, a resounding clatter of fists on wood, and a bellowed command.
Odell drew his pistol and a pocket electric flash, and motioning Miller to one side of the kitchen door, took up his position at the other. The light in the side window had been suddenly extinguished; and now above the clamor from the front of the house Odell caught the sound of stumbling footsteps within, and once a woman's frightened, convulsive sob.
The kitchen door swung inward, and a man's figure appeared supporting that of a woman who clung to him desperately. As he stepped down from the rickety porch a piercing shaft of light glared into his face, and Odell's voice commanded:
"Up with your hands, Farley Drew!"
"You!" Drew emitted a string of oaths; but he thrust the girl roughly from him and retreated a step or two, slowly elevating his hands in the air. His debonair insouciance was gone, and in the glare of the electric torch his face showed a distorted mask of evil passions.
"You thought Miller and I were safely under guard at that boathouse, didn't you?" Odell paused to blow a blast upon his whistle. "It didn't occur to you that it might be burned to the waterline; that Pete was dead and Tony at Headquarters telling all he knows.—Oh, would you!"
For with the realization of what this intelligence meant Drew had suddenly lowered his hands and rushed for his antagonist. Cissie Chalmers was struggling like a little wildcat in Miller's embrace; but Smith came dashing around the corner of the house just as with a mighty crashing of the undergrowth their chauffeur bounded with a joyous whoop into the fray.
Drew fought with the strength and ferocity of despair; but he would have been no match for Odell alone, and the struggle was a short-lived one. Handcuffed and snarling curses, he was dragged to where the two cars waited in the roadway.
"Miller, you can drive that roadster, can't you?" Odell asked. "Smith can stand on the running-board and see that your passenger behaves himself; for I'm going to give you two the job of taking Drew to Headquarters. I'll escort Miss Chalmers home."
Cissie gave a sharp cry of despair as the roadster glided off, then drew herself up and, disdaining Odell's hand, stepped into the tonneau of the touring car and seated herself. He got in beside her, and the chauffeur took his place behind the wheel. When he received the address he emitted a low whistle.
"Great Cæsar! The murder house!" he exclaimed. "Say, did that guy—"
"Oh, it is a lie!—A lie!" The indignant cry was wrung from Cissie, but she instantly recovered herself and uttered no further word until the Meade house was reached.
There Odell detained her with a firm hand upon her arm until he had settled with the obliging chauffeur; then he accompanied her up the steps and rang the bell.
The door was opened almost immediately, but not by Peters. Gerda stood there, and her eyes sought Cissie's face with a look of stern questioning; but the girl wrenched her arm from Odell's grasp and with a sob rushed past the maid and up the stairs.
Odell closed the front door behind him and faced Gerda beneath the brilliant hall light. The woman raised her eyes steadily to meet his, but something she read there made her catch her breath sharply.
When he spoke it was with gentle gravity.
"I want a word with you, Mrs. Gael."