The sinister mark
"Watcha da pail!" a voice protested, as its owner jumped to his feet
and jerked a bucket of water out of the way. He grinned at Morris's
rapid apology, disclosing two rows of strong teeth, shining white in
a ruddy and rather stupid Italian face. "Me scrubba da floor," he
explained the obvious. "White marb' maka lotta troub'."
Morris nodded, absently. "Miss Blake in? May I go up?" he asked,
hurriedly. Already his foot was on the stair.
"Sure," answered the Italian, indifferently, bending again to his work.
"Me tinka both in, awright."
The reply surprised and heartened Morris, to some slight extent
allaying his fears. The man was evidently the caretaker and might
know. At any rate, he could see Mary's sister, Anne, and find out----He
swore to himself that he would find out--that he would spare no means
and no person to get to the bottom of this--and with set jaw and racing
feet he dashed up the stairs.
He passed two landings, where gas burned dimly beside discreetly closed
doors, and in a moment reached the top of the last flight.
There was no light here save that which filtered through the
old-fashioned coloured glass of the skylight above the stair well, but
Morris did not hesitate, for there was only one door to Mary Blake's
apartment, the same plain white door at which, yesterday, he had
knocked so long and so fruitlessly.
His foot had scarcely touched the landing when his hand shot out and
grasped the small brass knocker. The sharp "clap, clap," as it fell,
resounded in the silence, and Donald waited.
No answer. Only grave silence within and the far-away roar of the busy
city without.
He tried again, and yet again. Within, the silence lay unbroken.
"No living thing beyond this door could fail to hear," Morris muttered
to himself. "No living--oh, God! What does her letter mean?"
He drew it from his pocket and looked at it, but the light was too dim.
He could not decipher again its hurriedly written pages.
He leaned against the edge of the door and thought as he had never
thought before. The words of the letter came back to him like fire, and
he clenched his teeth and groaned aloud.
"What shall I do? What can I do?" he whispered to himself in an agony
of apprehension--and as he leaned forward to knock once more, his eyes,
grown accustomed to the dimness, caught a glimmer of something white
which lay upon the threshold of the door.
He dropped to his knees and touched it. He felt it to be a small
portion--a corner of a scarf of soft, filmy silk, edged with fringe,
fine as thistle-down. It lay across the sill, caught by the closed
door. He pulled at it gently, but the door held it fast.
Swiftly his hand sought and found a paper of matches in his pocket. He
lit one, and as the tiny flame leapt into being he held it down toward
the bit of frail silk tissue.
Yes, he did recognize it. It was the scarf Mary had worn when last he
had seen her. These soft folds of silk had floated against his cheek
when--oh, God!--when he had kissed her.
Reverently he stooped to put it to his lips--and suddenly, with a cry,
he sprang to his feet.
With the last flicker of the match he had seen something which brought
his heart up, pounding in his ears.
Wildly he struck another match, and holding the end of the scarf in his
left hand, he bent and brought the wavering flame close to the place
where the scarf was held by the door.
Upon its pure silken folds, spreading toward him from under the door,
was an ugly dried blot of an ominous, dark red.
CHAPTER III
PETER CLANCY
Mr. Peter Clancy, early of the Metropolitan Police, late of the United
States Secret Service, and currently the active head of a small but
brilliant private detective agency, sat at his desk, yawning.
Except for a few bootlegging cases, the last few weeks had been
singularly uneventful, and on this bright spring morning the equally
bright red head of the young detective was full of visions of leafy
woods and murmuring brooks, where trout rose audaciously and leaped, a
flash of rainbow and silver, in the glancing sunlight.
"If nothing comes across to-day," he ruminated, dreamily, "I'll turn
over this righteous old burg to O'Malley's tender care, beat it out to
Jersey, and have a hack at the trout with Harry Carlisle, darned if I
won't."
The pleasant thoughts engendered by this determination were rudely
interrupted by the sharp ringing of the telephone at his elbow.
"Another lot of hooch unearthed," he muttered to himself disgustedly,
as he took the receiver off the hook and held it to his ear.
"Hello," he cried, with an unnecessary accent on the first syllable.
"Who wants me, Maggie? Oh, all right. I don't know him, but put him
on." An instant's pause, then--"Hello, yes. Peter Clancy speaking.
Yes?" a rising inflection on the last word.
Suddenly the expression of annoyance left his face. He listened
intently. His eyes narrowed to slits of flashing blue, his relaxed body
tautened in every fibre. Once or twice he shot a question into the
transmitter, but the entire conversation over the wire could have been
measured by seconds.
At the end--"Ninety-nine Waverly Place? I'm there!" he said, and
flinging the receiver upon its hook, he dashed into the street, picked
up a passing taxi, and made good his word.
The street door of Ninety-nine Waverly Place was ajar. Clancy,
flinging it wide as he reached the threshold, was greeted by a fluent
ejaculation in profane and picturesque brogue, winding up with--
"It's the divil and all that's in it at all, at all! Bangin' me in the
stomach with the whole side of a house!"
"Hello, Sullivan! What're you doing here?" cried Clancy, catching the
arm of the uniformed policeman with a gesture which was, in itself, a
hasty apology. "Anything to do with----" A motion of his head indicated
the upper part of the house.
The officer nodded, and through his suddenly assumed air of
preternatural sagacity there appeared a deep perplexity.
"Are you on it, yourself?" he asked, though he anticipated the
affirmative answer. "Mr. Morris called you up, I suppose," he
continued. "Said he was going to get the best man in New York, and I
guess he has, at that," with a complimentary grin. "Ye can't down the
Irish, eh, Mr. Clancy? Well, and what d'ye make of it?"
"Don't know many of the facts yet," Clancy replied, hastily. "Am just
going after 'em. But what are you doing down here? Why aren't----"
"He requested me very polite to lave him alone wid it," answered the
policeman, with so conscious an air of virtue that Clancy could almost
see the denomination of the large bill which he felt sure was in
Sullivan's pocket. "It was nothin' agin my duty to lave him," Sullivan
explained, elaborately, "since I know Mr. Morris be sight, him not
knowin' me and offerin' his card, which I had no need of at all, me
havin' been usher at the Opera, before I got too big for them little
uniforms they do be havin', and knowin' the Morris box like it was me
own ward. And I had to see the Captain when he come, didn't I, and give
him a hint of it before he wint upstairs?"
"Sure. You're all right, Sullivan," said Clancy, slapping the broad
blue shoulder. "Be a good scout, and give me a hint before I go up. But
be quick about it, will you? I don't want to keep Mr. Morris waiting.
Where did he find you?"
"Just down the block a piece. I was goin' on me way, when I heard
someone runnin' like hell behind me. 'Officer,' says he, 'come wid me,
quick!' and he grabs me by the arm and no more he says, wid me racin'
beside him puffin' to kape up, till we come to this door. Open it was,
and up the stairs we go together like the divil was chasin' us. When we
got to the top, 'Look,' says he, pointin' down, and no more words at
all, at all, which might have been he was lackin' his breath, same as
me. And I looked, and I couldn't see nothin' but somethin' white and
thin, like smoke, a'most, that was stickin' out from under the door.
You've heard about that?"
Clancy assented with a quick nod.
"Yes. He told me. So that's how he got you? That's what I wanted to
know. Find out the rest upstairs. Thanks. See you later," and Clancy
went up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Though his ascent was rapid, his foot fell quietly on the thick carpet.
Quiet, too, was his hand on the knob of the door. He had often found
that a sudden, unexpected entrance was effective in more ways than one.
This time, however, the effect failed utterly, for the door was locked.
Clancy, frowning slightly, raised and let fall the small brass knocker.
He heard someone moving inside the apartment, and almost immediately a
voice near the door asked:
"Who's there?"
At Clancy's reply, the door opened wide.
"Mr. Clancy!" ejaculated Donald Morris, accepting Peter's card with a
glance of verification. "I didn't think you could possibly get here
so soon. It was good of you----" He did not finish the sentence, but
quickly motioned the detective inside and closed the door.
The narrow hall into which Clancy stepped was rather dark, the only
light coming in from an open door at his right. Through this door
Morris immediately led the way, into a large living room, Clancy
following close at his heels.
As Morris stepped into the light, Clancy's quick eyes took in at a
glance his strong features and haggard aspect. This was a man not
easily alarmed, Clancy thought. It would take a good deal to upset his
balance, and, in search of enlightenment, his glance travelled swiftly
all about the room.
"Everything here just as you found it?" he asked, quickly.
Morris nodded. "All but this," he said, in a heavy voice, motioning
toward a table which stood near one of the windows.
Clancy swiftly advanced and looked down intently at that which lay upon
it. He touched it with his finger.
"You found this scarf across the door-sill," he said, meditatively. And
leaning closer he went on, "Stained.... Yes.... Blood?... Looks like
it. Could hardly be anything else.... Not much of it.... And you found
no----"
"There's no one, dead or alive, in the apartment," Morris interrupted,
hastily. He felt that he could not bear to hear the word which he saw
forming itself on the detective's lips. "The officer went all through
the place with me. It's empty, quite empty, though the janitor thought
both Miss Blake and her sister were here. And," with a motion of his
hand, "the place was as you see it."
Again Clancy looked carefully around the room. It was unusually large
and spacious, occupying the entire front of the old house. Simple, good
old furniture, well placed, gave it an air of comfort and elegance,
though there was not an unnecessary thing in the room. The three large
windows facing the south were covered by thin ecru curtains held in
place by a small rod at top and bottom, letting in the light but
obscuring the view of the ugly, tall buildings across the way.
Standing there, in that viewless room, Clancy had a swift sense of the
isolation of so many thousands of lives in this dynamic and vital city.
What could not happen in a secluded, quiet back-water like this? What
lives and deaths, with the teeming city surrounding them on every side?
The thought crossed his mind in a flash and was gone. He was not
concerned now with profitless generalities. He had been summoned here
to find out what had happened, and exactly what had happened, in this
present case.
There was not a great deal to go upon in this room; nothing especially
out of the ordinary save the stained scarf upon the table, and the
fact that the several drawers of a desk on the far side of the room
had apparently been ransacked, some of them being still open, their