The sinister mark
trunk on me back. She'd watched me strap it up, and then she went ahead
of me into a room off the hall, toward the front. When I come along,
she was standing over by the window, and there was a looking glass on
the wall right in front of her. She'd just held up her veil to look for
something on the little table there was there, and I saw her in the
glass, just for a second, before she pulled the veil down again." He
paused, and added, doubtfully, "Did the lady you was lookin' for have a
kind of a scar or something on her face, on--let's see--on this side?"
He touched his right cheek.
Morris suppressed an exclamation, and Peter leaned still farther
forward.
"What kind of a scar, Bill?" he asked, quietly.
"I don't know, exactly," answered the driver, hesitatingly. "The window
was on the other side and I couldn't see so very plain, but it seemed
to me there was some kind of a dark red mark on her cheek and down on
her neck. I can't be sure, but I thought there was. I only saw it for a
second. Does that help you any?"
"H'm'm----" said Peter. "Maybe. Maybe it will, Bill.... And you're
pretty sure there wasn't any one else in the apartment?"
"Well," said Bill, "I'll leave it to you. I didn't see nobody and I
didn't hear nobody, and when I took the trunk out, she was out on the
stairs already, and she asked me to make sure the door was locked. And
why would she be nervous about that, I asks you, if there was someone
inside?"
"Doesn't seem reasonable, does it?" said Peter, thoughtfully. "But I
don't quite see----You say the lady was in the bedroom when you passed
the door, but she was outside, on the stairs, when you took the trunk
out. How was that?"
"Why, I hadn't got the trunk just right on me shoulders, and I stopped
a second to shift it over. By the time I'd got it good, she'd come into
the hall from the front end, and she didn't waste no time getting the
door open for me. She seemed in an awful hurry and excited like. She
went on down the stairs a few steps to be out of the way of me'n the
trunk, and then she stopped on a sudden, and says, 'Oh, I didn't think!
You can't shut the door, can you?' And me bein' proud of me strength,
says, 'Sure I can,' and I backs around sidewise and starts to shut
the door, and darned if there wasn't a long trail of some kind of a
lady's white silk dingbat caught onto the bottom of the trunk and been
draggin' after me all the way down the hall, like a cat's tail."
Peter, hearing Morris draw in a sharp breath, cast a warning glance in
his direction. The cabman, unobserving, went on--
"I thought I was going to have to get the lady back to pull it off and
shut the door, but I give it a back kick and it landed free, and I
shut the door by my own self. The lady was standin' part way down the
stairs, awful impatient to be off (I guess, maybe, she was late for
her train), and she looks back and says, 'Try the door, if you will,
please, and see that it's fast.' So I did, and I guess that's about
all, except that I took her and the trunk to the Penn. Station, and
that's the last I seen of her."
"The Penn. Station. Good-night!" muttered Peter, disgustedly. "You can
go anywhere in the country, almost, from the Penn. Station." Then,
after an instant's thought, he said aloud: "That was funny, what you
said about the white silk thing following you along the hall like a
cat's tail, Bill. Where do you suppose you picked the thing up?"
"Must have come from the storeroom where the trunk was," said Bill,
readily. "Otherwise I'd 'a' seen it before I got to the door, if it'd
been layin' on the floor of the hall, I mean. Must have been behind the
trunk, too, down in the corner, where it was dark."
"Are you sure it fell entirely inside the door when you kicked it
loose?" asked Peter. "Try to remember, Bill. I have a particular reason
for wanting to know."
The man looked at him curiously, but replied at once--
"Why, it must have, I should think, but I can't be exactly sure. To
tell you the truth," with a note of apology, "I didn't care so much
where it went, s'long as it didn't trail along and make me ridiculous,
and I didn't look so very careful. The trunk was bearin' down on me
shoulders, and the lady was in a hurry."
"Yes," said Peter, absently, thoughtfully, and added, "How far down the
stairs was the lady when you shut the door, Bill? Two or three steps,
or more? Was she far enough up, I mean, to see the scarf drop?"
"No, she wasn't. I'm sure." This time the driver answered with
certainty: "She was half way down the first flight anyway, and me just
able to see her head over the rail."
"H'm--yes," said Peter, slowly. "Yes."
He considered for a moment in silence. Then he turned to Morris.
"Anything more you can think of that Bill might be able to tell us, Mr.
Morris?" he asked.
Morris shook his head, despondingly.
"All right then, Bill," said Clancy. "You've given us quite a lot to
think about, anyway, and we're much obliged to you. Just give me your
name and address, will you, in case anything should turn up that we
needed you again," and having entered the direction in his notebook,
he added, "Now beat it over to the Penn. Station and show us where you
left the lady."
"And this is for yourself," said Donald, leaning quickly forward and
slipping a bill into the man's hand.
The crisp slip of green-engraved paper must have been more effective
than the most advertised pure gasoline and motor oil, for no cab of its
size and condition had ever made better time than Bill's cab did in
getting to its destination. It was only a matter of moments when they
were gliding down the long incline to the station.
"This is where I left her," said Bill, as the cab, panting like an
animal, with the haste it had made, stopped opposite the express
windows, the lights of which showed yellow against the outer sunshine
and the blue of the gas vapours which strove to escape from between the
tall pillars of the carriage entrance.
The two young men leaped out of the cab and while Morris was paying the
man off, Peter asked, in a low tone,
"Did you see where the lady went when she got out of the cab, Bill?"
"No," the man answered, straightening his leg to shove the money Morris
had just given him into his trousers pocket. "She paid me as we were
runnin' down, and as soon as a couple of guys had jerked the trunk off,
I beat it."
"Well--all right, Bill," said Peter. "So long," and with a friendly
wave of the hand, the cabman, realizing that the curiosity which he
felt would probably never be satisfied, proceeded on his way, while the
young detective, followed by Donald Morris, began his investigations.
He made searching inquiries at every ticket-window in the great, softly
echoing main room of the station and at the express offices. He even
went down to the waiting room of the Long Island Railroad and enquired
there at all the possible places. No one remembered seeing, on the
previous evening, a lady answering the meagre description Peter was
able to give. Her costume was, obviously, conventional, and with her
veil down, there had been nothing about her to attract attention.
Among the hundreds of people passing every hour through the vast
station Anne Blake also had passed, leaving no trace.
CHAPTER X
A BIG TRUNK
"But Mary!" groaned Donald Morris in agony, as the two men, their
unsuccessful investigation over, stood for a moment in the vast
loneliness of the great station. "I don't mind so much that we've lost
all trace of her sister. It's Mary, Mary that I'm thinking about. Where
has she gone? What has happened to her?" The fearful tension of the
morning was apparent in every line of his weary white face. "Let Anne
go! She's nothing to me! But find Mary, Clancy! Find Mary! Put every
ounce of strength you have, every resource of your organization on it.
Spend any amount of money. Leave no stone unturned. I'm afraid--I'm
horribly afraid. She's----"
Clancy put a restraining hand on his arm, and even while he spoke he
was wondering if the same sinister idea which was creeping into his own
thoughts had already, by any possibility, found a place in Morris's
less experienced mind. It was hardly probable, Peter comforted himself
with the thought. A thing so far outside the experience of the young
sculptor would scarcely suggest itself. And if it did, it would be
necessary to combat it as long as possible, for in that direction,
Peter was sure, would lie madness for Donald Morris.
"We'll get on the job at once, Mr. Morris," he said, promptly,
reassuringly. "We'll search the city over to find any trace of her. She
didn't leave the apartment with her sister. We know that much, anyway.
If she took another cab----"
"She's almost certain to have done that," Donald interrupted, eagerly.
"She hated to walk through the streets, even for a short distance, and
all the railroad stations are a long way from Waverly Place."
"Well, if she took a cab, we'll find it," declared Peter, confidently.
"But it may take a little time. I'll have to go to the office now, and
get things started. You can't be any help about this part, and I'd
advise you to get a rest. You aren't used to this kind of thing, and
it's bound to knock you up. Go home and take it easy. I'll 'phone you
if there's any news or if there's anything you can do. Let's get a cab,
and I can drop you at your house on my way to the office. There are a
few things I'd like to have you tell me, and that way we won't waste
any time. How about it?"
"All right," answered Morris, wearily. "But I wish you'd let me go with
you. Somehow I feel----"
"Yes, I guess I know how you feel, all right," said Peter, "but it
won't be any good. You can't help, and you need to get quieted down.
Come on."
With sympathetic consideration he led Donald to a cab, selecting
one which had the front windows closed, so that they might talk in
privacy. As they turned into Seventh Avenue he said:
"Now tell me everything you know about Miss Blake and her sister. Every
little thing. You can never tell what might come in useful. How long
have you known them?"
"As you know, I've never met her sister, and know nothing at all
about her, except that they lived together, and I've always had the
impression that there was something--I don't know just how to put
it--something--well--wrong--about the sister," said Donald, slowly.
"Mary never let me come up to the apartment, and there was something
odd in her face whenever her sister was mentioned. Of course it
happened but rarely--and it's a hard thing to define. Perhaps a person
less interested would scarcely have noticed----"
Donald relapsed into thought. After a moment Peter said:
"And when was it that you first met Miss Blake?"
"About a year or so ago, it was," said Morris, rousing himself, his
eyes kindling. "I'll never forget it! It was at my sister's. I'd heard
a lot about Mary Blake, and had seen her several times on the stage,
of course. She seemed to me, even then, to be the most beautiful woman
and the greatest actress of our time. My sister, Mrs. Atterbury, prides
herself on knowing all the literary and artistic people, all the
eminent musicians and actors in town. It's almost a mild form of mania
with her. And most of them respond readily," with a little shrug, "but
for a long time she couldn't reach Mary Blake, and the fact piqued her
more than a little. Miss Blake's former manager, Arthur Quinn, guarded
her like a dragon. It was amusing to see Helena--my sister--trying to
cajole old Quinn, whom she knew well, into introducing her. It simply
couldn't be done. But when poor Quinn died, and it was known that Miss
Blake had signed up with Frederick Jones, Helena started to work on