Heart to heart

Whatever sensation might have been produced by the refusal of Henry Cross to go into the particulars of his quarrel with Allen Chesterbrook was cut short by the entrance of Colonel Willowby, who came staggering into the apartment, looking years older than he had earlier in the morning.

“It is true, then!” he cried, gazing around at the assemblage. “Allen is really dead.”

Before he could say more, Henry Cross sprang forward and caught him by the arm. He appeared to forget entirely that which had just been on his mind.

“Calm yourself, Colonel Willowby,” he said, in tones of deepest sympathy. “Yes, it is true.”

“Where is he? Where did they take his life?—the scoundrels!”

“He is lying in the back room. But you had better not see him, sir. It is a fearful sight, and the doctor is just making an examination.”

“I must see the poor boy! They tell me he was stabbed through the heart. Who committed the atrocious deed?”

“They are trying now to discover the assassin,” returned Henry Cross, as he turned his face away. “The coroner is now holding an inquest.”

“An inquest! Are there no clews? Have they not set the police on the track?”

“There are no clews for the police to follow,” was the young man’s reply, and he still kept his face averted.

But the colonel had already broken away from him and was advancing toward the back room, where Doctor Rathmore was on his knees, concluding the examination.

“Allen, poor Allen!” The colonel bent down beside the corpse and pressed the now stone-cold hand within his own. “Poor boy, and on his wedding day! My everlasting curse on the one who committed this foul deed!”

The disengaged hand of the colonel went up as he uttered the malediction, and all present shuddered at its intensity. Henry Cross caught his breath, then his eyes filled with pity for that noble man who seemed so utterly broken.

“You had better go away,” he whispered. “You can do no good here and—and perhaps Maud needs you.”

“Yes, yes! Poor Maud! I took her home, and she has locked herself in her room, refusing admittance to every one. I must get a doctor for her, or the strain may result in brain fever or worse.”

“Yes, I would secure a doctor. He must give her an opiate, or something to quiet her nerves. I can well imagine what a fearful shock it was.”

“She did not seem to realize it at all; that is the worst of it,” returned the colonel brokenly. “Yes, I will go for the doctor, now that I know her affianced is dead. I had a faint hope it was not so—that he might be only wounded or hurt.” Colonel Willowby, with haggard face and bent form, moved in an uncertain way out of the room and was assisted down the stairs by Jackson, lest he fall and add another tragedy to that on hand.

As soon as the colonel had disappeared, Coroner Granby called up the doctor.

“You have examined the dead body, doctor?”

“I have made a thorough examination, and the cause of death is evident enough.”

“What is your finding?”

“Mr. Chesterbrook was stabbed in the heart with some sharp-pointed instrument, which entered the left lower chamber, close to the aorta, the principal artery. That is why the flow of blood is so abundant.”

“Then death was instantaneous?”

“Practically so. I find also a severe contusion on the back of the head, which tends to show that Mr. Chesterbrook, when stabbed, fell backward at full length.”

“Was the blow a direct one?”

“No, it was slanting, and the instrument, which I am told was that dagger beside you, slipped slightly over the bony structure covering the spot.”

“What is your opinion of the manner in which Mr. Chesterbrook was attacked?”

“To my mind, the person who struck the fatal blow must have stood a little to the left of his victim and thrust the dagger either over or under Mr. Chesterbrook’s left arm.”

“There are no other marks on the body?”

“None whatever.”

“Do you think Mr. Chesterbrook was in good health when he died?”

“I do. There is not the slightest trace of disease about the corpse.”

“That is all for the present.”

Coroner Granby looked up at the crowd, which now filled both the front room and the hallway beyond.

“Is there any one else present who would like to testify in this matter?” he called out loudly.

A deathlike silence followed. Many knew Chesterbrook, some were his personal friends; yet not one had a word to say that might tend toward a solution of the fearful mystery which surrounded his death.

“Inquest closed for the present,” called out the clerk, a moment later; and then a buzz of conversation followed.

When the clerk had made his announcement, Henry Cross forced his way through the crowd and up the stairs to his own apartment. Many gazed after him curiously, and more than one murmured comment was made over the way he had concluded his testimony.

The doors to his rooms were locked, but he quickly unlocked the nearest and entered the apartment. He drew a long and deep sigh when alone, and flung himself wearily into an easy-chair.

Below he could hear the crowd moving about. He knew that Chesterbrook had a number of relatives at hand who would act with the coroner in taking charge of the body and the dead man’s effects.

For a long time Henry Cross sat still, not moving a muscle, his gaze resting fixedly upon the wall paper on the opposite side of the room. Had he done right or wrong in appropriating that bit of paper which would reveal the ghastly truth of the mystery of the room below?

“How could she bear it,” he murmured at last, “she and her proud father, if the world knew the truth—knew his unworthiness, his cowardice?”

He sprang up. The mental vision of that thing lying below oppressed him. He could not remain in the rooms. He tore off his wedding garments, donned more suitable attire, and set out for a walk; whither he knew not, nor did he care.

He met Jack Hull in the lower hallway, but neither spoke or looked at the other. Yet Hull did not let the young man escape unnoticed.

“He knows more than he cares to tell,” he muttered. “But he is not my game, for all that.”

In an inside pocket of his coat, still wrapped in the newspaper, Jack Hull carried the slender, sharp-pointed dagger which had so suddenly ended Allen Chesterbrook’s career. Because of his friendship and knowing he could trust Hull, the coroner had allowed him to take it away for examination.

“A dagger and a hairpin!” murmured Jack Hull, as he walked thoughtfully toward the hotel at which he was stopping for the summer. “A dagger and a hairpin, and a case tumbling into my hands when I anticipated a holiday. I wonder what I can make of them?”

The hotel reached, the detective, who in his career had unraveled so many mysteries of half a dozen large cities, went directly to his room. The door was locked, off came his coat—for it was now two o’clock in the afternoon, and quite warm—and he lighted one of his favorite imported cigars. Then up and down he strode, from the door to the farthest window, his hands clasped behind him, and great clouds of smoke filling the upper portion of the room. The thicker the clouds the clearer became his thoughts.

“A woman—a woman with reddish-gold hair, by the specimens I raked from the carpet,” he murmured; “a golden-haired woman who uses crinkled hairpins. Now, who is she?”

He stopped short and placed his hand in his vest pocket. They were still there—the half dozen threads of long hair and the hairpin he had picked up directly under the dead man’s body. He took them to the light, turned them over, smelled them, and finally submitted them to a microscopic test. He looked disappointed.

“Humph! Nothing unusual about them, saving that both have some sweet scent on them. Perhaps a druggist could name the perfume, but it’s doubtful. Now the dagger.”

He put the hairs and the hairpin away and unrolled the newspaper, covered in blotches with Allen Chesterbrook’s lifeblood. He carefully wiped the shining blade, but did not wash it. Water might obliterate a clew which would be priceless.

At the inquest the coroner had looked at the blade with some care, but had found nothing about it to distinguish its owner. The blade was long, sharp, of polished steel, the handle slightly thicker, and covered with a curious sort of basket work, done in silver and bronze.

He closely examined the dagger from end to end, going over every inch of the surface as an engraver goes over a steel plate when giving it the finishing touches. The blade revealed nothing saving a slight dent and several scratches. Then came the hilt.

A few seconds later Jack Hull’s eyes brightened, and his mouth took on the semblance of a smile. He rubbed a portion of the basket work over the palm of his hand and looked again. There was no mistake; there were the initials—“V. H.”

“V. H.” He made a record of the letters in a notebook. Then he continued his examination. But there was nothing further to be learned.

“If I am right this ought to be plain sailing,” he said to himself. “A golden-haired woman, who wears crinkled hairpins, and whose initials are V. H. If there is such a person, it ought not to take long to discover her and her relation to Allen Chesterbrook. I’ll take a walk and make a few passing inquiries.”

Jack Hull never lost time. It was a matter of record that he had once worked for sixty-eight consecutive hours on a murder case in New York, and at the conclusion brought the criminal to the station house himself. He had slept for sixteen hours afterward, and awakened to find himself famous.

He put the dagger out of sight, donned a different suit of clothes and a different hat, and sallied forth. Only those who had noticed him very particularly remembered him as the man who had sat by Coroner Granby’s side during the hearing. Excepting those searching black eyes, he was an individual whose general appearance would attract scant attention.

In the barroom of the hotel Jack Hull fancied he might gain what he called a pointer. He walked in, called for a pony of brandy, and stood at the end of the long, polished bar while he looked at the beverage critically before tossing it off and lighting another cigar.

Besides the barkeeper, four men were present. One, a short, stout fellow, dressed in a checkered suit, and with a heavy watch chain dangling over his distended vest, was talking to the barkeeper about the merits of several race horses and their chances at the coming meet at the park. The three other men were lounging around a table in a corner, discussing the murder. The men were Ned Degroot, Ralph Gramercy, and Harry Longley. They had hastened from the church in time to hear the conclusion of the inquest, and, after viewing the body, had sauntered over to the hotel, at Degroot’s invitation, to have something and discuss the sad event.

“Yes, it knocked me endways,” Longley was saying. “That whole church full of people, and to have such news as that bawled out at the door! It knocked any stage business I ever witnessed.”

“It’s deucedly tough on poor Maud,” remarked Degroot. “They say she was struck dumb. I wanted to go to her, but I had to look out for some other women who went into hysterics—Alice Tombley and Lil Keith.”

“It was wonderful how Colonel Willowby stood it, with poor Maud at his side,” put in Gramercy. “Somehow, I really believe he felt it more than she did.”

“Oh, nonsense. Maud doesn’t carry her heart on her sleeve, that’s all,” retorted Degroot, still her champion. “But you may be sure she felt it just the same; that is, if her heart wasn’t completely stunned so she couldn’t feel anything.”

“I wonder what they’ll do next?” asked Longley. “So far the authorities have been unable to shed the least light upon the mystery.”

“Coroner Granby adjourned the inquest for the present, to give the detectives and the police a chance to investigate,” said Degroot. “But I doubt their ability to solve the perplexing problem. It is my opinion that that murder was the work of a cunning hand. Why, think of it; the authorities haven’t the first clew.”

“They have a dagger.”

“And that’s a common weapon, with, perhaps, a thousand just like it in the world.”

There was a brief silence, and Gramercy summoned the barkeeper. He took a cigar, and his two companions did likewise. Longley was just about to accept a light from Degroot when he paused, and pointed out of the window, through the open slats of the shutter.

“Who is that girl, Ned?” he asked. “I often see her on the street.”

“Fascinated by the golden hair, are you?” laughed Degroot. “She is the stenographer and typewriter down in the Lakeview Land Improvement office.”

“She’s a daisy, isn’t she? What’s her name, do you know?”

“No. But you can easily find out, if you’re smitten, Harry,” and Degroot winked his eye expressively.

“Her name is Violet Harding,” answered Gramercy, as he followed Longley to a spot where both might get a better look at the person who was passing. “She has a very neat figure, I must say. I wonder how she takes the news?”

“Why, did she know Chesterbrook?” asked Longley, in surprise.

“In a way, I believe. It was Chesterbrook who got her the situation at the Land Improvement office when she came to Lakeview a couple of months ago.”

The detective had disappeared. He had left the barroom, and was cautiously following the young lady with the golden hair.