"Yes. Perhaps, as you remember so much, you recall the fact that the first two keys were given to the relatives. Miss Marian Callender and her niece believed that Ned had Perry"s keys in his pocket, which would mean there were but the two. The Callender ladies are the sole surviving relatives, or, anyhow, the nearest ones. But I"ve saved my bit of good news from head-quarters till the last. They "phoned that there are duplicate keys. I thought I recalled something of the sort.
Not sure but I suggested making them myself. That pretty millionairess girl might get herself engaged a third time, and if there were any more dead men found with latchkeys in their pockets, sample specimens might be very handy for our fellows."
Sam Yelverton finished with a laugh; but I couldn"t echo it. I thought of Odell, of Grace Callender"s lovely face and her young, spoilt life.
I remembered the cruel nicknames "Belladonna" and "Poison Flower." If even the police prepared for a third tragedy, in case she thought again of marriage, no wonder the poor girl refused the man she loved.
"Will duplicates do for you, or do I lose my stage-box?" the big man asked.
I said aloud that I thought duplicates would answer my purpose, and silently to myself I said that they must do so.
Ten minutes later a policeman of some rank (what rank I couldn"t tell, he being my first American specimen) brought in a parcel of considerable size. It contained many affidavits concerning the Callender-Graham tragedy; and on the top of these doc.u.ments was a small, neatly labelled packet containing two keys.
The larger was entirely commonplace; and even the smaller one was at first glance a rather ordinary latchkey, of the Yale order. To an experienced and observant eye, however, it was of curious workmanship.
"Not a Yale, you see," said Yelverton, taking a magnifying gla.s.s from a small drawer of his tidy desk and pa.s.sing it on to me. "What do you make of the thing?"
"Foreign, isn"t it?" I remarked carelessly.
"Yes, we thought so. German--or Italian. Both the brothers had travelled abroad. On a Yale you would read the words "Yale paracentric," and a number. There"s neither name nor number on that."
He flung a gesture toward the key in my hand.
"May I take it away and keep it till to-morrow morning, to work out my plot with?" I asked. "The big one I don"t care about. I give you my word I"ll send this back in twenty-four--no, let"s say twenty-five hours. I have an engagement for the twenty-fourth hour."
"All right," replied Yelverton good-naturedly. "You might bring the box-ticket with you. Ha, ha!"
"I will," I laughed. "And as to the dossier, may I sit somewhere out of your way and glance through it in case there"s anything we can work up to strengthen the realism of our scenario? Of course, we"ll guarantee to use nothing that might recall the Callender-Graham case to the public or dramatic critics."
"You can sit in the outer office and browse over the bundle till lunch-time, if you like," said Yelverton. "There"s a table there in a quiet corner. I shall be off on business before you finish, I expect.
See you later--at the Felborn Theatre, your first night. Wish you luck."
I thanked him and got up. Carr Price followed suit.
"Weren"t you a bit premature mentioning the Felborn?" he reproached me in the next room, beyond earshot of Mr. Yelverton"s secretaries and stenographers.
"No," I rea.s.sured him. "To-morrow, at this time or a little later, you"ll know why. Meanwhile, don"t worry, but take my word--and a taxi to the theatre. Tell Felborn I"m on the spot, and there"s a truce between Odell and me, an armistice of twenty-four"--I pulled out my watch--"no, twenty-two and a half hours. Ask him to lend me his private office to-morrow morning from nine till ten o"clock. After that time you and he had better hold yourselves ready to be called in to discuss dates."
"You"re either the wonder child of the British Empire or its champion fool," remarked Price somewhat waspishly, as he prepared to leave me alone with the Callender-Graham dossier.
"You"ve got till to-morrow to make up your mind which," said I, sitting down to my meal of ma.n.u.scripts in order not to waste a minute out of the twenty-two and a half hours which remained to me. It would not have been wise to add that I didn"t know which myself.
Many of the papers I pa.s.sed over rapidly. Others gave me information that I couldn"t have got from Odell without a confession of ignorance, or from the Misses Callender without impertinence. Among the latter was one summarising much of the family history; and, profiting by some smart detective"s researches, I learned a good deal about Miss Grace Callender and her almost equally interesting aunt.
Even before the girl reached the age of sixteen, it seemed, she had begun to have offers of marriage. After her parents" death, when she was not quite fifteen, she had lived for a while with Miss Marian Callender at the house in Park Avenue left to her by her father. She had been taught by French governesses, German governesses and English governesses, but all had failed to prevent a kind of persecution by young men fascinated with the child"s beauty or her money. At last Miss Callender senior had sent her niece to a boarding-school in the country where the supervision was notoriously strict, and had herself gone to Italy, her mother"s native land, for a few months" visit.
Eight or nine years before this Marian Callender had fallen in love with an Italian tenor, singing with enormous success in New York. The lady"s half-brother--Grace"s father--had objected to the marriage, and for that reason or some other the two had parted. Gossips said that the singer, Paolo Tostini, had not cared enough for Marian Callender to take her without a _dot_; and all she had came from her millionaire half-brother. At Graham Callender"s death Marian"s friends were surprised that she was left a yearly allowance (though a magnificently generous one) only while she "continued unmarried and acted as Grace"s guardian." In the event of Grace"s marriage, the girl was free to continue half the same allowance to her aunt if she chose. This was generally considered unjust to Marian, and the only excuse for the arrangement seemed to be that Graham Callender feared Paolo Tostini might come forward again if the woman he had jilted were left with a fortune.
The police of New York had apparently thought it worth while to ferret out further facts in connection with the singer, who had not again returned to America. They learned that the once celebrated tenor had lost his voice and had spent his money in extravagance, as many artists do. He was living in comparative poverty with his father (a skilled mechanician and inventor of a successful time lock for safes) and his younger brother in Naples at the time of Miss Marian Callender"s visit to Italy, and Grace"s school life. Although these facts were inquired into only after some years had pa.s.sed, and the two brothers Callender-Graham had died, Marian"s movements must have been easily traced, for it was learned that she had openly visited the Tostinis at their small villa between Posilipo and Naples. The family had also called and dined at her hotel, where they were not unknown. After that their circ.u.mstances had apparently improved, and it appeared not improbable that Marian Callender had helped her late lover"s people.
When she returned to New York it was to find that Grace was being bombarded with love letters at school, and that the hotel in the village near by had for its princ.i.p.al clients a crowd of young men whose whole business in life was lying in wait for the heiress. In consequence, Marian brought her niece back to the house in Park Avenue; and soon after, before the girl had been allowed to come out in society, Antonio, the younger brother of Paolo Tostini, arrived in New York. His business was that of an a.n.a.lytical chemist. He had first-rate recommendations, and was an extremely brilliant, as well as singularly good-looking young man, some (who remembered the tenor) thought even handsomer than Paolo. Antonio Tostini, thanks to his own ability and the introductions he had from Miss Callender and others, got on well both in business and society. No one was surprised, and no one blamed her, when Marian Callender threw the clever young Italian and Grace Callender together--except that the girl was young to make up her mind, and her dead father had favoured a match with one of the disinherited cousins.
From these rough notes, crudely cla.s.sifying Antonio Tostini"s courtship of Grace Callender, I gathered that the young Italian had fallen desperately in love with the girl. He had a.s.sured friends whom they had in common that even if, to marry him, she were obliged to give up her fortune, he would still think himself the happiest man on earth to win her. Grace"s aunt, who had tried to keep the girl out of other men"s way, evidently favoured her old love"s brother. She chaperoned a yachting party, of which Grace and Antonio were the most important members, a party in which the Callender-Grahams were not included, though they wished for invitations. This match-making effort on Marion"s part stifled all suspicion that she discouraged Grace from marrying in order to retain a charming home, a large, certain income, and all kinds of other luxuries for herself. She had taken Grace"s refusal of Antonio Tostini almost as hard as he had taken it himself.
She had even been ill for several weeks when for the third time Grace had sent him away, and he returned in despair to Italy. It was not long after this affair (the dossier informed me) that, in accordance with her father"s desire, the girl engaged herself to Perry Callender-Graham, and Marian consented to the inevitable. Her affection and support during the tragic experiences that followed had given great comfort to Grace, and, so far as was known, Antonio Tostini had had the good taste never to appear on the scene again.
Here were many details which I had been anxious, but not decently able, to learn, as the Misses Callenders" shipboard friendship had confined itself to lending me books, telling me what to do in New York, inviting me to call, listening to talk about the war or the play, and allowing me to snapshot them on deck.
Having looked through the dossier, I took my departure with the key.
It was only a duplicate, yet I couldn"t rid myself of a queer, superst.i.tious feeling for the thing, as if it were offered to me by the unseen hand of a dead man.
I taxied back to my hotel and mentioned to a clerk that I wanted to see houses and flats in the direction of Riverside Drive. Could he direct me to an agent who would have the letting of apartments in that neighbourhood? If my foreign way of expressing myself amused him, he hid his mirth and looked up in a big book the addresses of several agents.
I had not cared to be too specific in my questions, but I chose the address nearest the street I wanted, taxied there, found the agent, and inquired if there were anything to be let. It was the street in which Perry Callender-Graham and Ned, his brother, had met their death.
"I have been recommended to that particular street by an American friend in England," I said. "He has told me that it"s very quiet.
There are several apartment houses in it, are there not?
"Yes," replied a spruce young man who looked willing to let me half residential New York. "But it"s a favourite street; I"m afraid there"s nothing doing there now. As for houses, they"re all owned, or have been rented for many years. A little farther north or south----"
"Hold on," I pulled him back. "Somebody might be induced to let. My friend was telling me about a charming flat--oh, apartment you call it?--in that street which a friend of _his_ took---let me see, it must have been three years ago or thereabouts. Anyhow, not later. He had reason to believe I might get that very flat. Stupid of me! I can"t remember the number or name--whichever it was--of the house. I know the flat was a furnished one, however; and if your agency----"
"Oh, if the apartment was furnished, and changed hands three years ago, there"s only one it _could_ be, if you"re sure it"s in that street?"
"I"m sure," I replied. I staked all on that sureness, though logically---- But I would not let my mind wander to any other deduction than the one to which, for better or worse, I pinned my faith.
"We had the letting of a furnished apartment in the Alhambra, as the house is named, put into our hands three years ago on the 30th of last month," said the youth, referring to a book. "To my certain knowledge no other furnished one was to be had in the street at that time, and there hasn"t been since. Isn"t likely to be either, so far as I can see. That was the grand chance. German-American lady and gentleman, Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Lowenstein, going unexpectedly to Europe, and glad to get rid of their apartment to a good tenant at a nominal price."
"You found the good tenant?" I asked.
"We did, sir--or the tenant found us. Wanted a furnished apartment, not too large or expensive, in a quiet street, quietness the great consideration. Above all, the proprietors mustn"t want to use the place again for at least five years. That just fitted in, because our clients were anxious to let for seven years; the husband had a business opening in Hamburg. The new tenant took the place for that period; and as there"s a long time to run yet, I shouldn"t have thought there was much hope for you. However, your friend may have private information."
"Does the new tenant live there altogether?" I wanted to know.
"Only comes up from the country occasionally. Expensive fad, to rent a New York apartment that way. But what"s money _for_? Some people have it to burn."
"Quite so," I admitted. "Have you ever met the tenant?"
"Only once--when the apartment was engaged; fixed up in one interview.
The rent comes through the post."
"It must be the apartment my friend talked about!" I exclaimed.
"Can"t be any other. Is the name of your friend"s friend Paulling?"
"Why, yes, I have the impression of something like that. By the way, I might be able to find an old photograph, to make quite sure. Would you recognise it?"
"I might--and I mightn"t. Three years is a long time."
"Well, I"ll do my best through some acquaintances," I finished. "If we"re speaking of the same person, you may be able to introduce me and save the delay of communicating with my friend in England."
Each was flattering himself on his discretion, the whole catechism having been gone through without the question on either side, "Is the person a man or a woman?" Eventually we parted with the understanding that I should return later if, after looking at the Alhambra from the outside, I fancied it as much as I expected to do. And then I was to bring the photograph with me.
So far so good. But the next steps were not so simple.