Part 14 (1/2)

Nothing is known against her except that in that city she chose her companions from amongst a very fast crowd. There is also a rumor, which the Chicago detective has not been able to verify, that when she was about sixteen or seventeen years old, she eloped with an Eastern man, from whom she was almost immediately divorced. At any rate, she has been known for a good many years as Miss Day, and has lived at home with her father. The memory of her marriage, if indeed she ever was married, has grown so dim that a great many people, among whom may be numbered some of her intimate friends, have never heard of it, and vehemently deny the whole story. I hope, however, soon to find out the facts of the case.

Young Atkins met his wife last winter at Atlantic City, and at once fell in love with her. His father, who is a very wealthy contractor, was strongly opposed to the match. He was very ambitious for his son, and thought the daughter of a saloon-keeper, whose reputation was none of the best, was no desirable wife for his boy.”

”But they married in spite of him,” I said.

”Yes, and old man Atkins has become reconciled to them, and makes them a very handsome allowance.”

”How long have they been married?” I asked.

”Since the fifteenth of April,” replied the detective, ”and they were not married in Chicago, but in this city. I guess the lady was not over anxious to introduce her husband to her former pals.”

”I suppose you have searched her apartment for a possible clue,--the hat, for instance?”

”Yes, but as she has not been out since Wednesday, I have not been able to make as thorough a search as I should like. She is a shy bird, and I don't want to frighten her till I have a few more facts to go on. If she thinks herself watched she may become wary, while now, I hope she will make use of her fancied security to do something which may give us a lead.”

”Well, Mr. Merritt, I conclude from all this that, although you are unable to trace the possession of the key to Mrs. Atkins, nevertheless, your suspicions point towards her?”

”Certainly not. There is nothing to connect her with the tragedy, except the fact that one negro boy identified the corpse as that of one of her visitors. On the contrary, the more I look into this case, the less do I see how the lady could be involved in it. Let us suppose that she did kill the man. Where could she have secreted him during the twenty-four hours that must have elapsed before the body was finally disposed of?

The only place of concealment on the lower floor of her apartment is a coat closet under the stairs, and I doubt very much whether a small, unmuscular woman like Mrs. Atkins is capable of dragging so large a man even for a short distance.”

”But,” I suggested, ”the murder may have been committed in the hall, just a step from this hiding-place.”

”Yes, that is, of course, possible. But there is still another objection. The closet is so small that I do not believe a man could be got into it without doubling him up, and of that the body shows no signs. Besides, if Mrs. Atkins is guilty, we must believe her husband to be her accomplice, for who else could have helped her hide her victim?

Now, you must know that the Atkins men, both father and son, bear most excellent reputations, especially the young man, of whom every one speaks in the highest terms, and I do not think that a person unaccustomed to deceit could have behaved with such perfect composure in the presence of a corpse of which he had criminal knowledge.”

”But he did show some emotion,” I urged.

”Oh, yes; I know what you mean,--when he learned that the man was murdered on Tuesday night he seemed startled.”

”Well, how do you account for that?”

”I don't account for it. Why, Doctor, in a case like this there are a hundred things I can't account for. For instance, what was the cause of Mrs. Atkins's scream? You have no idea; neither have I. Why did she show such emotion at the sight of the corpse? I am not prepared to say. Why did she appear so relieved when she heard that the murder occurred on Tuesday? I can formulate no plausible explanation for it. And these are only a few of the rocks that I am running up against all the time.”

”But look here. If you really believe Miss Derwent and Mrs. Atkins both innocent, who do you think killed the man?”

”I don't know. Oh, I am aware that the detective of fiction is always supposed to be omniscient, but my profession, Doctor, is just like any other. There is no hocus-pocus about it. To succeed in it requires, in the first place, accurate and most minute powers of observation, unlimited patience, the capacity for putting two and two together.

Add to this an unprejudiced mind, and last, but not least, respect, amounting to reverence, for any established _fact_. Now, the only _facts_ we have as yet gathered about this murder are: that the man was young, dissipated, and was stabbed through the heart by some very small instrument or weapon; that his a.s.sailant was an inmate of the Rosemere; that the crime was committed on Tuesday night; and, lastly, that whoever placed the body where it was found must, at one time or another, have had the key to the outside door in his or her possession. Whatever else we may think or believe, is purely speculative. We presume, for instance, that the man was poor. As for the other facts we have gleaned about the different inmates of the building, till we know which one of them had a hand in this tragedy, we cannot consider what we have learned about them as throwing any light on the murder. About that, as I said before, we know mighty little, and even that little is the result of thirty-eight hours' work, not of one man alone, but of seven or eight.”

”Indeed!” I exclaimed.

”Now, both ladies deny that they knew the deceased, and perhaps they are right. It is, of course, possible that there was a third man in the building that evening, who was also tall, dark, and wore a pointed beard. It is not likely, however. Such a coincidence is almost unheard of. Still it is possible, and that possibility must be reckoned with.

Now, I must be off,” said Mr. Merritt, rising abruptly from his chair, ”and if you hear any more of the young lady's movements, let me know.

There's my address. In the meantime, thank you very much for what you have already told me.” And before I could get out one of the twenty questions that were still burning on my lips, the man was gone.

For some minutes I sat quite still, too miserable to think connectedly.

Alas! my fears had not been groundless. The poor girl was in even greater trouble than I had supposed. I believed the detective to be a decent chap, who would keep his mouth shut, but how dreadful to think that her reputation depended on the discretion of any man. Should it become known that she had received one young man alone in an empty apartment, while another was seen there at three o'clock in the morning, it would mean social death to her. Oh, for the right to offer her my protection, my services!