Jouret monopolized the conversation, giving no one a chance to edge in a word.
"This gentleman desires information in connection with the death of our neighbor Mr., or is it Dr., Darrow? I want you to a.s.sure him, as I will, that we have seen or noted nothing that could possibly throw light on the strange case."
The girl nodded, it seemed a little wearily, and Jouret was off on another conversational flight:
"I too am a man of scientific attainments," he chattered. "I am a biologist, toxicologist, doctor of medicine, a geologist, metalurgist, mineralogist, and somewhat of a mechanic and electrician. I have given long hours to the study of strange sciences in meta-physics, to which you men give too little attention. There are sciences which transcend any of this sphere. There is a higher astronomy. I neglected to say that I am an astronomer."
"Yes?" drawled Lees.
"Yes!" said Jouret emphatically.
The girl had adopted rather a theatrical pose, which disclosed considerable of her nether charms, and said nothing at all.
"When you find your man," volunteered Jouret, "you will find a madman." He said this ponderously and with a gesture meant evidently to be impressive.
"You believe a madman did it?" asked Lees, as Jouret paused, expecting a question.
"Undoubtedly. It was a paranoic with delusions of money, grandeur and a strongly developed homicidal mania. To me, that is the only sensible solution. I am quite sure that I am correct."
Lees arose to go and Jouret did not urge him to stay. He bowed Lees out and Doris bowed with him.
"She is a beautiful girl," mused Lees once he was outside.
Lees ran over in his mind the circ.u.mstances of his visit to Jouret. There was no doubt in his mind that Jouret"s shoes were too small to be number nines, and he reasoned that that fact might tend to eliminate Jouret. But he was not satisfied.
"I am going to get some gas," he told himself, "and then I am going to get two private detectives to a.s.sist me, for I"m going right back there. For the first time in my life I am going to be a Peeping Tom.
"There is no moon. The poplars will give us a view of all three floors of that house, if they leave their blinds up enough, and three of us can watch all three floors at once."
He phoned Ferguson that he might be busy for days, joined his pair of operatives from the detective agency and for some time the three operated on a well conceived plan.
It was probably a week later that Lees rendered a report to Perkins Ferguson, which for a time proved one of the strangest doc.u.ments in the weird case. It read:
"You will probably think I am crazy, and for this reason I am having this report subscribed and sworn to, jointly and severally. With my two detectives I have seen Miss Jouret, the girl I told you about over the phone, in three places at one and the same time. Not once but twice this has happened.
"Looking through the windows of the Jouret place at night, we saw the girl on the first, second and third floor of the house. We believed this due to a clever arrangement of mirrors. But figure this out:
"The next day she drove a car to town. We followed. She got out at one theater and entered. She did not come back, that we could see, but the car drove off. There was no chauffeur, and we thought we had discovered the driverless auto, until we looked and saw Miss Jouret still at the wheel.
"She got out and entered another theater. She did not come back, but the car drove off with her still at the wheel. She entered a third theater after parking the car and this time the driver"s seat and the tonneau was empty.
"Reverse the reel and you will see her coming out of three theaters and driving home. That is what happened. There must be three of her, all identical, but only one shows at a time. If it"s some of Jouret"s far-famed magic, I"ll say he"s some conjurer. The explanation is not yet forthcoming. We want to shadow Jouret, but he never goes anywhere. The girl has only been out the one time when she attended three matinees as described. Believe it or not.
"The next night we each-the two detectives and I-tried to steal a march on one another and called her up and asked her to go out. To our individual surprise, she agreed in each case. To our collective surprise, she kept all three dates on the same night. She walked through the trees in this vicinity with me. She also drove down the road in the auto with one of my detectives, and she went dancing with the other. She was in three places miles apart at one and the same time.
"We each brought her home within a half hour of the other and we are swearing to that. Either we are all hypnotized or else there are three identical Misses Jouret.
"Jouret himself treats us all wonderfully, gives us the run of the house, and tries to talk us to death."
The strange doc.u.ment was subscribed by Lees and the two detectives and was held by Ferguson pending developments.
The next report from Lees read:
"I had a chance to prowl around the Jouret house a little while waiting for Miss Jouret to dress. I met her twice in my ramblings and a few minutes later she met me again, this time in a different costume.
"I got a chance to search the woods back of Jouret"s house in the evening. I found a spot where the earth had been disturbed, and dug up a pair of shoes. They were number nines."
A fourth report from him read:
"We found the body of the crazed engineer. He had drowned himself in a lake. This eliminates him as a murder suspect."
Two weeks pa.s.sed with no new developments in the "Invisible Death" case except for the arrival of a letter demanding $1,000,000 and threatening the life of Perkins Ferguson if the demand was ignored. It was ignored, and only served to spur Lees and his detectives on to decisive action.
They decided to rush the Jouret house and kidnap Jouret with the idea of holding him until he agreed to explain the presence of the number nine shoes buried back of his house.
A low moon hung over the poplars when Lees rang the Jouret front door bell. One detective was guarding a side door and the other a back door.
Suddenly Jouret was seen to jump from a second-story window. As he did, a car driven by one of his Porto Ricans came along the drive and he leaped into it. Lees, first to see Jouret, called his detectives. They came running. Their car was waiting in the road.
The Porto Rican was seen to jump from the Jouret car just as it started south towards New York.
Lees took up the race. Both cars had plenty of power, but the Jouret car suddenly disappeared as a low humming noise began to break the stillness of the night.
One of the detectives was at the wheel. Lees, as usual, was giving orders:
"Keep close to that hum. Never mind that you cannot see the car. It is there all right. If you can gain on it enough, drive right into it."
"Righto!" shouted the detective. "We"re wise to him now."
The humming noise was taking on speed with every second. So was Lees" car. Soon Lees" car was making sixty miles an hour with the hum just ahead and barely audible.
Past traffic lights, over bridges and grade crossings the mad chase of the phantom continued.
Wildly racing through the night, missing other cars by a breath, the big, visible auto continued its pursuit of-what?
Careening, Lees" car rounded a curve, and, above the hum just ahead, they heard the shouted curses of their quarry. But he could not be seen. Lees could only see the road marked by his lights.
Mile after mile the wild, uncanny chase of the phantom continued.
Soon the lights of New York could be seen in the distance. The cars were forced to slow down somewhat. Suddenly there was a thundering crash ahead. A car was twisted in a ma.s.s of tangled wreckage.
Feminine and masculine shrieks blended as Lees" car piled up on the wrecked heap. A third car, becoming suddenly visible, rolled over and brought up at the edge of the road. From this car emerged the limping, cursing form of Jouret.
From the wreckage three painfully injured young men dragged and tore themselves. Then they leaped-ignoring their hurts-at the limping figure.
The fight was on. Jouret was heavy and powerful and proved an obstinate fighter, for he knew he was fighting for his life. He bit and clawed. He kicked with one uninjured leg and b.u.t.ted with his ma.s.sive head.
Lees and his detectives were fighting with no respect for the rules. Lees managed to get his two hands on the bull-neck of Jouret just as one detective connected a duet of blows to the man"s wind.