The problem of Cell 13
knife, and finally Curtis seemed to agree to it.
"Then I suggested that the police be notified. I did this myself by
telephone, the men remaining with me all the time. I asked if they
could throw any light on the tragedy, but neither could. Curtis said
he had been out searching for a man who had the keys to a shed where
some gasoline was locked up, and it took fifteen or twenty minutes to
find him. As soon as he got the gasoline he returned to the auto.
"Reid and Miss Melrose were at this time in the auto, he said. What
had happened while he had been away Curtis didn't know. Reid said he,
too, had stepped out of the automobile, and after exchanging a few
words with Miss Melrose went into the inn. There he remained fifteen
minutes or so, because inside he saw a woman he knew and spoke to her.
He declared that any one of three waiters could verify his statement
that he was in the Monarch Inn.
"After I had notified the police Curtis grew very uneasy in his
actions--it didn't occur to me at the moment, but now I recall that it
was so--and suggested to Reid that they go on to Boston and send out
detectives--special Pinkerton men. I tried to dissuade them, but they
went away. I couldn't stop them. They gave me their cards, however.
They are at the Hotel Teutonic, and told me they could be seen there
at any time. The medical examiner and the police came afterwards. I
told them, and one of the detectives started immediately for Boston.
They have probably told their story to him by this time."
"What did the young woman look like?" asked Hatch.
"Really, I couldn't say," said the doctor. "She wore an automobile
mask which covered all her face except the chin, and there was a veil
tied over her cap, concealing her hair. I didn't remove these; I left
the body just as it was for the medical examiner."
"How was she dressed?" Hatch went on.
"She wore a long tan automobile dust coat of what seemed to be rich
material, and beneath this a handsome--not a fancy--gown. I believe it
was tailor-made. She was a woman of superb figure."
That was all that could be learned from Dr. Leonard, and Hatch and the
other men raced back to Boston. The next day the newspapers flamed
with the mystery of the murder of Miss Melrose, a beautiful Western
actress who was visiting Boston. Each newspaper watched the other
greedily to see if there was a picture of Miss Melrose; neither had
one.
The newspapers also carried the stories of Jack Curtis and Charles
Reid in connection with the murder. The stories were in substance just
what Dr. Leonard had said, but were given in more detail. It was the
general presumption, almost a foregone conclusion, that some one had
killed Miss Melrose while the two men were away from the auto.
Who was this some one? Man or woman? No one could answer. Reid's story
of being inside the Monarch Inn, where he spoke to a lady he knew--but
whose name he refused to give--was verified by Hatch's paper. Three
waiters had seen him.
The medical examiner had made only a brief statement, in which he had
said, in answer to a question, that the person who killed Miss Melrose
might have been either at her right, in the position Curtis would have
occupied while driving the car, or might have leaned forward from
behind and stabbed her. Thus it was not impossible that one of the men
in the car with her had killed her, yet against this possibility was
the fact that each of the men was one whom one could not readily
associate with such a crime.
The fact that the fatal blow was delivered from the right was proven,
said the astute medical examiner, by the fact that the knife slanted
as a knife could not have been slanted conveniently by a person on her
other side--her left. There were many dark, underlying intimations
behind what the medical man said; but he refused to say any more.
Meanwhile the body remained in the village where it had been taken.
Efforts to get a photograph were unavailing; pleas of newspaper
artists for permission to sketch her fell upon deaf ears.
Curtis and Reid, after their first statements, remained in seclusion
at the Teutonic. They were not arrested because this did not seem
necessary. Both had offered to do anything in their power to solve the
riddle, had even employed Pinkerton men who were now on the case; but
they would say nothing nor see anyone except the police. The police
encouraged them in this attitude, and hinted darkly and mysteriously
at clews which "would lead to an arrest within twenty-four hours."
Hatch read these intimations and smiled grimly. Then he went out to
try what a little patience and perseverance and human intelligence
would do. He learned something of Reid's little romance in Boston. Yet
not all of it. It was a fact, however, that Reid had called at the
home of Miss Elizabeth Dow on Beacon Hill just after noon and inquired
for her.
"She is not in," the maid had replied.
"I'll leave my card for her," said Reid.
"I don't think she'll be back," the girl answered.
"Not be back?" Reid repeated. "Why?"
"Haven't you seen the afternoon papers?" asked the girl. "They will
explain. Mrs. Dow, her mother, told me not to talk to anyone."
Reid left the house with a wrinkle in his brow and walked on toward
the Common. There he halted a newsboy and bought an afternoon
paper--many afternoon papers. The first pages were loaded with details
of the murder of Miss Melrose, theories, conjectures, a thousand
little things, with long dispatches of her history and her stage
career from San Francisco.
Reid passed these over impatiently with a slight shiver and looked
inside the paper. There he found the thing to which the maid had
referred.
"By George!" he exclaimed.
It was a story of the elopement of Elizabeth Dow with Morgan Mason,
Reid's rival. It seemed that Miss Dow and Mason met by appointment at
the Monarch Inn and went from there in an automobile. The bride had
written to her parents before she started, saying she preferred Mason
despite his poverty. The family refused to talk of the matter. But
there in facsimile was the marriage license.
Reid's face was a study as he walked back to the hotel. In a private
room off the café he found Curtis, who had been drinking heavily, yet
who, with the strange mood of some men, was not visibly intoxicated.
Reid threw the paper down, open at the elopement announcement.
"See that," he said shortly.
Curtis read it--or glanced at it--but did not make a remark until he
came to the name, the Monarch Inn. Then he looked up.
"That's where the other thing happened, isn't it?" he asked, rather
thickly.
"Yes."
Curtis rambled off into something else; studiously he avoided any
reference to the tragedy, yet that was the one thing which was in his
mind. It was in a futile effort to forget it that he was drinking now.
He talked on as a drunken man will for a time, then turned suddenly to
Reid.
"I loved her," he declared suddenly, passionately. "My God!"
"Try not to think of it," Reid advised.
"You'll never say anything about that other thing--the knife--will
you?" pleaded Curtis.
"Of course not," said Reid, impatiently. "They couldn't drag it out of
me. But you're drinking too much--you want to quit it. First thing you
know you'll be saying more than--get up and go out and take a walk."
Curtis stared at Reid vacantly for a moment, as if not understanding,
then arose. He had regained possession of himself to a certain extent.
but his face was pale.
"I think I will go out," he said.
After a time he passed through the café door into a side street and,
refreshed a little by the cool air, started to walk along Tremont
Street toward the shopping district. It was two o'clock in the
afternoon and the streets were thronged.
Half a dozen reporters were idling in the lobby of the hotel, waiting
vainly for either Reid or Curtis. The newspapers were shouting for
another story from the only two men who could know a great deal of the
circumstances attending the tragedy. Reid, on his return, had marched
boldly through the crowd of reporters, paying no attention to their
questions. They had not seen Curtis.
As Curtis, now free of the reporters, crossed a side street off
Tremont on his way toward the shopping district he met Hutchinson
Hatch, who was bound for the hotel to see his man there. Hatch
instantly recognized him and fell in behind, curious to see where he
would go. At a favorable opportunity, safe beyond reach of the other
men, he intended to ask a few questions.
Curtis turned into Winter Street and strolled along through the crowd
of women. Half way down Winter Street Hatch followed, and then for a
moment he lost sight of him. He had gone into a store, he imagined. As
he stood at a door waiting, Curtis came out, rushed through the crowd
of women, slinging his arms like a madman, with frenzy in his face. He
ran twenty steps, then stumbled and fell.
Hatch immediately ran to his assistance, lifted him up and gazed into
the staring, terror-stricken eyes and an ashen face.
"What is it?" asked Hatch, quickly.
"I--I'm very ill. I--I think I need a doctor," gasped Curtis. "Take me
somewhere, please."
He fell back limply, half fainting, into Hatch's arms. A cab came
worming through the crowd; Hatch climbed into it, assisting Curtis,
and gave some directions to the cabby.
"And hurry," he added. "This gentleman is ill."
The cabby applied the whip and drove out into Tremont, then over
toward Park Street. Curtis aroused a little.
"Where're we going?" he demanded.
"To a doctor," replied Hatch.
Curtis sank back with eyes closed and his face white--so white that
Hatch felt of the pulse to assure himself that the heart was still
beating. After a few minutes the cab stopped and, still assisting
Curtis, Hatch went to the door. An aged woman answered the bell.
"Professor Van Dusen here?" asked the reporter. "Yes."
"Please tell him that Mr. Hatch is here with a gentleman who needs
immediate attention," Hatch directed, hurriedly.
He knew his way here and, still supporting Curtis, walked in. The
woman disappeared. Curtis sank down on a couch in the little reception
room, looked at Hatch glassily for a moment, then without a sound
dropped back on the couch unconscious.
After a moment the door opened and there came in Professor Augustus S.
F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine. He squinted inquiringly at
Hatch, and Hatch waved his head toward Curtis.
"Dear me, dear me," exclaimed The Thinking Machine.
He leaned over the prostrate figure a moment, then disappeared into
another room, returning with a hypodermic. After a few anxious minutes
Curtis sat up straight. He stared at the two men with unseeing eyes,
and in them was unutterable terror.
"_I saw her! I saw her!_" he screamed. "_There was a dagger in her
heart. Marguerite!_"
Again he fell back unconscious. The Thinking Machine squinted at
Hatch.
"The man's got delirium tremens," he snapped impatiently.
III.
For fifteen minutes Hatch silently looked on as The Thinking Machine
worked over the unconscious man. Once or twice Curtis moved uneasily
and moaned slightly. Hatch had started to explain the situation to The
Thinking Machine, but the irascible scientist glared at him and the
reporter became silent. After ten or fifteen minutes The Thinking
Machine turned to Hatch more genially.
"He'll be all right in a little while now," he said. "What is it?"
"Well, it's a murder," Hatch began. "Marguerite Melrose, an actress,
was stabbed through the heart last night, and----"
"Murder?" interrupted The Thinking Machine. "Might it not have been
suicide?"
"Might have been; yes," said the reporter, after a moment's pause.
"But it appears to be murder."
"When you say it is murder," said The Thinking Machine, "you