We climbed out of the car and had the shoe off in short order.
"Look!" cried Janet Cranston, in a frightened voice, from the back of the car.
The light of the phonometer had flashed up. A car was following us.
"There"s just one chance!" cried Kennedy, springing to the wheel. "We might make it on the rim."
Banging and pounding, we forged ahead, straining our eyes to watch the road, the distance, the time, and the phonometer all at once.
It was no use. A big gray roadster was overtaking us. The driver crowded us over to the very edge of the road, then shot ahead, and, where the road narrowed down, deliberately pulled up across the road in such a way that we had to run into him or stop.
Quickly Craig"s automatic gleamed in the dim beams from the side lights.
"Just a minute," cautioned a voice. "It was a plot against me, quite as much as it was against her--the nurse to lead me on, while the doctor got a rich patient. I suspected all was not right. That"s why I gave you the card. I knew you didn"t come from Burr. Then, when I heard nothing from you, I let the Giles woman think I was coming to Montrose to be with her. But, really, I wanted to beat that fake asylum--"
Two piercing headlights shone down the road back of us. We waited a moment until they, too, came to a stop.
"Here they are!" shouted the voice of a man, as he jumped out, followed by a woman.
Kennedy stepped forward, waving his automatic menacingly.
"You are under arrest for conspiracy--both of you!" he cried, as we recognized Doctor Burr and Miss Giles.
A little cry behind me startled me, and I turned. Janet Cranston had flung herself into the arms of the only person who could heal her wounded soul.
IV
THE MYSTIC POISONER
"It"s almost as though he had been struck down by a spirit hand, Kennedy."
Grady, the house detective of the Prince Edward Charles Hotel, had routed us out of bed in the middle of the night with a hurried call for help, and now met us in the lobby of the fashionable hostelry. All that he had said over the wire was that there had been a murder--"an Englishman, a Captain Shirley."
"Why," exclaimed Grady, lowering his voice as he led us through the lobby, "it"s the most mysterious thing, I think, that I"ve ever seen!"
"In what way?" prompted Kennedy.
"Well," continued Grady, "it must have been just a bit after midnight that one of the elevator-boys heard what sounded like a m.u.f.fled report in a room on the tenth floor. There were other employees and some guests about at the time, and it was only a matter of seconds before they were on the spot. Finally, the sound was located as having come probably from Captain Shirley"s room. But the door was locked--on the inside. There was no response, although some one had seen him ride up in the elevator scarcely five minutes before. By that time they had sent for me. We broke in. There was Shirley, alone, fully dressed, lying on the floor before a writing-table. His face was horribly set, as though he had perhaps seen something that frightened and haunted him--though I suppose it might have been the pain that did it. I think he must have heard something, jumped from the chair, perhaps in fear, then have fallen down on the floor almost immediately.
"We hurried over to him. He was still alive, but could not speak. I turned him over, tried to rouse him and make him comfortable. It was only then that I saw that he was really conscious. But it seemed as if his tongue and most of his muscles were paralyzed. Somehow he managed to convey to us the idea that it was his heart that troubled him most.
"Really, at first I thought it was a case of suicide. But there was no sign of a weapon about and not a trace of poison--no gla.s.s, no packet.
There was no wound on him, either--except a few slight cuts and scratches on his face and hands. But none of them looked to be serious.
And yet, before we could get the house physician up to him he was dead."
"And with not a word?" queried Kennedy.
"That"s the strangest part of it. No; not a word spoken. But as he lay there, even in spite of his paralyzed muscles, he was just able to motion with his hands. I thought he wanted to write, and gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. He clutched at them, but here is all he was able to do."
Grady drew from his pocket a piece of paper and handed it to us. On it were printed in trembling, irregular characters, "G A D," the "D"
scarcely finished and trailing off into nothing.
What did it all mean? How had Shirley met his death, and why?
"Tell me something about him," said Kennedy, studying the paper with a frown. Grady shrugged his shoulders.
"An Englishman--that"s about all I know. Looked like one of the younger sons who so frequently go out to seek their fortunes in the colonies.
By his appearance, I should say he had been in the Far East--India, no doubt. And I imagine he had made good. He seemed to have plenty of money. That"s all I know about him."
"Is anything missing from his room?" I asked. "Could it have been a robbery?"
"I searched the room hastily," replied Grady. "Apparently not a thing had been touched. I don"t think it was robbery."
By this time we had made our way through the lobby and were in the elevator.
"I"ve kept the room just as it was," went on Grady to Kennedy, lowering his voice. "I"ve even delayed a bit in notifying the police, so that you could get here first."
A moment later we entered the rooms, a fairly expensive suite, consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, and bath. Everything was in a condition to indicate that Shirley had just come in when the shot, if shot it had been, was fired.
There, on the floor, lay his body, still in the same att.i.tude in which he had died and almost as Grady had found him gasping. Grady"s description of the horrible look on his face was, if anything, an understatement.
As I stood with my eyes riveted on the horror-stricken face on the floor, Kennedy had been quietly going over the furniture and carpet about the body.
"Look!" he exclaimed at last, scarcely turning to us. On the chair, the writing-table, and even on the walls were little pitted marks and scratches. He bent down over the carpet. There, reflecting the electric light, scattered all about, were little fine pieces of something that glittered.
"You have a vacuum cleaner, I suppose?" inquired Craig, rising quickly.
"Certainly--a plant in the cellar."
"No; I mean one that is portable."
"Yes; we have that, too," answered Grady, hurrying to the room telephone to have the cleaner sent up.
Kennedy now began to look through Shirley"s baggage. There was, however, nothing to indicate that it had been rifled.
I noted, among other things, a photograph of a woman in Oriental dress, dusky, languorous, of more than ordinary beauty and intelligence. On it something was written in native characters.
Just then a boy wheeled the cleaner down the hall, and Kennedy quickly shoved the photograph into his pocket.
First, Kennedy removed the dust that was already in the machine. Then he ran the cleaner carefully over the carpet, the upholstery, everything about that corner of the room where the body lay. When he had finished he emptied out the dust into a paper and placed it in his pocket. He was just finishing when there came a knock at the door, and it was opened.
"Mr. Grady?" said a young man, entering hurriedly.
"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Glenn! One of the night clerks in the office, Kennedy,"