A 922,214





X’ &
C/º





MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
By ARTHUR M. CHASE

In this new mystery, the author of THE PARTY AT
THE PENTHouse and DANGER IN THE DARK develops an
ingenious and original case in which the identity of the
victim is as much a mystery as the identity of the mur-
derer.
At the outset, the reader is introduced to a highly
dramatic tragedy in a fashionable New York hotel.
Pierre Leland, notorious playboy and bon vivant, is
murdered. The circumstances of the crime are revealed.
Next the scene shifts to a Pullman coach of a trans-
continental express, bound across the Texas deserts to
California. Another crime, brutal and sinister, is com-
mitted. What is the connection between these two? Who
are the people on this train, isolated from police ma-
chinery?
Characteristic of this popular author, the incidents of
this swift-moving story are cleverly and vividly drawn.
There is a wealth of humor and satire in the depiction
of the varied individuals that find themselves drawn to-
gether on that ill-fated Pullman car. There is, too, an
abundance of thrills and a professionally neat puzzle to
keep the reader constantly guessing.
By the Same Author
THE PARTY AT THE PEN THOUSE
DANGER IN THE DARK


“The Dodd, Mead imprint has long been a pretty
good hallmark in detective and mystery stories.
When you see one with that publisher's name on the
back, you can usually depend on it. Somewhere in
the editorial offices of that firm is some hard-faced
Legree who understands the rather exacting re-
quirements.” Saturday Review of Literature.
Each year thousands of detective-story manu-
scripts are submitted to American publishers. Only
by the most careful selection can a standard such as
Dodd, Mead has set be maintained. Now in order
to aid the reader in choosing a mystery of whose
merit he may be certain in advance, the “hard-
faced” editors are placing a red badge on those de-
tective stories which they are willing to recommend
unreservedly to the most discriminating reader.
ſpoºkabi
Red Badge Books
MYSTERY
DETECTIVE


º OF A
MISSING MAN
ARTHURMCHASE
D O D D, M E A D & C O M P A N Y
N E W Y O R K


CoPYRIGHT, 1934
BY ARTHUR M. CHASE
all Rights Reserved
no part of this Book May be REPROduced in any FORM
WITHour PERMission IN writing FROM THE author.
P. R. I n tº e d 1 n T H E U n i t e o st a t e s o F. A. M. E. R. I c. A
BY T H E v. AI L-BAL Lou PREss, Inc., B 1 N G H.A.M to N, N. Y.



KITT Y
and
TE D





CONTENTS
PART I–CAUSE
chapter
I
II
III
V
VII
VIII
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
MURDER NUMBER ONE
“BROTHER, CAN You SPARE ME A DIME?” .
PART II—EFFECT
Miss Townsend's INsoMNLA .
TRAGEDY on A PULLMAN .
—AND Robbery - -
A HollywooD STAR SHUNs PUBLICITY .
Missing PERSON
UNWANTED PAJAMAs .
OFF THE TRACK . . . . . .
FILLING IN THE PICTURE .
CALL FOR THE POLICE
A SCREEN ACTREss Is UNSCREENED .
CALL FOR MR. LELAND
FITTING THE PUzzle ToGETHER .
Miss LE GRAND RECONSIDERs
PLIGHT OF A BLACKMAILER
GoLDSTEIN CHASEs A THIEF .
A TRAPPED Wolf
PAGE
13
27
37
5o
61
7o
8o
93
. IOS
. I 18
. I35
. I 52
. 167
. 18O
. Igo
. 205
. 215
WHo KILLED THE PASSENGER IN THE PULLMANP 228
[vii]






PART I
CAUSE





.
CHAPTER I
MURDER NUMBER ONE
FROM the moment Barclay Leland entered his
brother's apartment, he knew that something was
going to happen. It was an idea which, swooping
into his mind apparently from nowhere, beset,
haunted and obsessed him.
God, how he hated this brother of his! How, all
his life, from the days when they were boys to-
gether, he had suffered through him, had feared
him, and, behind the mask with which he had con-
cealed his suffering and his fear, had hated him.
Pierre, big, dark, hairy, beetle-browed, sprawled
in an easy chair idly drinking. Pierre drank morn-
ing, noon and night, yet he was never drunk.
Barclay, ill at ease, sat facing him, and listened to
the jarring, jeering voice that had the power to
sting him like the flick of a whip. Watched, too,
the heavy jaws and chin that were always blue-
black, no matter how clean-shaven, and the eyes
that were cold and unwinking like a snake's.
As Pierre lazily flicked the ashes from a cigarette,
a gleam of lamplight fell on the rings of his left
[3]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
hand. What sardonic caprice, Barclay wondered,
impelled him to wear two heavy gold wedding
rings, souvenirs of two wives, one dead, one di-
vorced, both jeered at and browbeaten and bullied
out of matrimony with Pierre. One of them, the
girl who had died, had been Barclay's playmate
when they were children. There had never been an
engagement, but an understanding began to estab-
lish itself. Then came Pierre, overbearing, tem-
pestuous, who pushed his brother out of his path
and carried off the prize. And Barclay had endured
the misery of seeing her eyes gradually opened, and
her realization of the mistake she had made. Some-
times he would wake up at night thinking of Pierre
and her until red flashes would shoot before his
eyes. It was of this first wife they were speaking.
“As I've been saying,” Pierre rumbled, “I’m
broke; flat, stony broke. Like all the world I’ve
got on the wrong side of the market, and this time
I'm in for a smash. Brokers will sell me out, what
I've got left, in the morning; so I’ve got to have
some cash, my dear brother.”
“Yes,” said Barclay, wetting his lips.
“Not a lot, but a sizable amount,” Pierre con-
tinued heavily. “Sixty thousand will keep me go-
ing.”
“Well,” said Barclay uneasily, “can you get it?”
[4]


MURDER NUMBER ONE
Pierre poured himself a drink, drained it, and
paused.
“I can,” he said at last, “from you.”
Barclay shook his head. “You know,” he pro-
tested, “I haven’t got that much—available.”
Pierre fixed him with a cold stare.
“I know you have,” he said shortly. “When my
first wife died, Marie of always lamented memory,
a very peculiar thing came to light. In her will she
left to her dear friend and brother-in-law—that's
you—something over a hundred thousand dollars
in gilt-edged bonds. Well, the joke was on me, for
you got the best part of her little estate. I’ve never
complained though, never even mentioned it. But
now that I’m in trouble, I think under the cir-
cumstances, a request for help from brother to
brother is not unreasonable.”
Barclay shook his head. “Not that money,” he
muttered.
“I know you’ve got it,” said Pierre mockingly.
“You’re a modest, saving soul. Even allowing for
depreciation the stuff's worth a good sixty thou-
sand.”
Again Barclay shook his head. Then there came
into Pierre's face an expression Barclay remembered
from the time they were boys and his brother was
preparing to twist his arm until he cried.
[5]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
º:
“I’ve always felt,” said Pierre, with a mocking
smile, “that Marie's peculiar preference for you, in
her will, put me somewhat in the rôle of the in-
jured husband. To what extent I was injured—
well, about that I’ve kept my mouth shut.”
“Be careful what you say,” cried Barclay
suddenly. “Don’t you throw any slurs on her
memory.”
“People know you were sweeties before I married
her. As to what you were afterward—”
“Don’t go on,” exclaimed Barclay, his lips
twitching. There was a hammering in his temples,
and those flashes began to dart before his eyes.
“Of course I’ll go on,” replied Pierre with a
sneer. “I’ve got to have money. What's a dead
woman's reputation to me! You come across, or I’ll
spread stories that will tumble your white idol off
her perch.”
Suddenly Barclay felt welling up from his very
inmost roots an impulse that swept aside all fears,
inhibitions and restraint like straws in a flood.
The impact of those hours at night when he had
raged or cried over Marie struck him like an electric
shock. With one leap he was on his feet and tower-
ing over his brother. And in the flash while their
eyes met, he saw in Pierre's eyes something he had
never seen there before—fear.
[6]


MURDER NUMBER ONE
A heavy bronze candlestick on a table beside him
seemed to leap into his hand. One frantic swing
with all his might, a thud, and Pierre, struggling
to rise from his chair, slumped back like the pro-
verbial poled ox.
For some minutes Barclay, the candlestick
gripped in his hand, stood as motionless as that still
figure which, with eyes upturned, so that the whites
showed, sprawled in front of him. The light from
half a dozen lamps glowed softly over the room,
on the upholstered chairs and lounge, on the thick
carpet that deadened footfalls, on the curtains, the
pictures, the books. Everything was quiet, rich,
luxurious; the habitation of a modern cliff-dweller,
near but remote from the roaring tides of life that
swept all day and most of the night through the
street far below. Everything in the room was as
it had been except that thing before him.
There was little blood. A crimson smear on the
temple, where the candlestick had struck, spread
slowly. But was he dead? Was he dead, Barclay
asked himself in agony, fixing his gaze on the face
turned up to his as if those parted lips could an-
swer?
Barclay knew that he was dead. With trembling
hands he held a mirror before his brother's lips.
There was no moisture. There was no sound or sign
[7]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
of breathing. But more than that Barclay could
not force himself to do: he could not touch the
huddled, sprawling figure; feel its pulse; listen for
its heart-beats.
And the emotion that came sweeping over him
with waves of deathly nausea, with clammy sweat,
was not remorse, but fear. He had killed a man.
What does the Law do to one who has killed a man?
Grisly visions, from newspaper stories he had read,
of processions to the death chamber began to form
in his mind.
When his legs could hold him no longer he sank
into a chair, and with his head in his hands tried
desperately to think. Should he raise an alarm? Give
himself up? With a shudder he knew he couldn’t
do that. Mechanically he looked at his watch. It
was nearly four o’clock; and, as if he were recol-
lecting something from another life, he remem-
bered that Pierre, who never from choice went to
bed until the night was well over nor got up before
noon, had insisted that they two should spend long
hours playing Russian Bank.
Had anyone recognized him when he came to
this apartment? Perhaps not. The hotel was big and
crowded. He remembered passing through the
lobby when it was alive with people; shooting up-
ward in an elevator with half a dozen strangers;
[8]


MURDER NUMBER ONE
and walking down the corridor to Pierre's rooms
without meeting a soul. He rarely came to this
place; perhaps no one had noticed him, or would
remember just one stranger where hundreds were
going to and fro.
He felt driven to get away, secretly and at once.
But first, what possible precautions could he take
to conceal any traces of his presence in this room?
Prompted by some hazy ideas gathered from detec-
tive stories, he put on a pair of gloves, and walked
about on tiptoe, trying to identify the things he
might have touched during the course of the eve-
ning. Cigarette butts he threw into the open fire.
The glass from which he had drunk, he washed,
and then, with a vague notion that he was obliterat-
ing his finger-prints, rubbed it with vaseline. And
wherever he thought his fingers might have rested,
he applied vaseline. The playing cards he pocketed.
The candlestick he wrapped in paper, to be car-
ried away with him.
Then, with the hope of still further throwing
the police off the scent, he tried to leave evidence
that the motive for the murder had been robbery.
With this idea in mind he ransacked Pierre's closets,
his bureau, his desk, tumbling things about, and
scattering clothing and papers on the floor. In a
drawer of the desk he discovered a leather wallet
[9]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
stuffed with bills—tens, twenties and a few fifties.
This he slipped into his pocket with the hasty
thought that perhaps he was Pierre's heir anyway,
or if not, that robbery was a lesser crime than
murder.
At last he was ready to leave, and putting on his
overcoat and hat, picking up his stick, and hiding
the candlestick under his coat, he took one last
frightened glance around—a glance, however,
which avoided that supine figure in the centre of
the room. Then he opened the door, peered out,
slipped through the doorway, and closed the door
noiselessly behind him. Down the long, empty,
brightly lighted corridor, which reminded him
somehow of a ship's passage-way, he stole on tip-
toe, his heart in his mouth for fear that one of the
doors he was passing might open suddenly, or that
he might encounter a night watchman on his
rounds.
From the fourteenth floor, one hundred and
fifty feet above the ground, how should he reach
the street undetected? Certainly not by the ele-
vator, where any passenger at this hour would be
marked; but by the stairs which, inside fireproof
walls, led downward. Breathlessly, noiselessly, turn-
ing, peering, listening, he descended twenty-four
half-flights. Then his heart sank when he found his
[Io]


MURDER NUMBER ONE
way barred by a gate. But it was there to prevent
people from coming up, not to keep them from go-
ing down. The catch slipped back; he passed
through the barrier, and went on to the ground
floor.
At last the lobby—now for it. But there was no
one about except a clerk, with his back turned, at
the hotel desk toward the far end of the room.
Trying to walk and not to run, Barclay crossed to
the revolving door, pushed through, and felt the
air of out of doors as if it were a cool hand laid on
his forehead.
In the gray light of early dawn he hurried along
through streets which, empty of the movement
and noise of crowded traffic to which he was ac-
customed, looked unfamiliar, strangely wide and
tremendously long. Sometimes a lone taxicab
whirred past, or a milk cart came clop-clopping by.
When an occasional policeman sauntered toward
him, Barclay felt his heart race with sickening
speed.
Without knowing what route he had followed,
and with no definite goal in sight, he came at last
to Central Park. He entered one of the winding
paths, and soon the breathless haste and choking
terror that had been driving him on abated in some
measure. It was peaceful here, under the trees; it
[II]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
was quiet; and he felt remote and away from peo-
ple. That was what he wanted most, to get away
from people. Along the drives traffic lights changed
from red to green and from green to red with
ghostly precision, as if troops of phantom, invisible
cars were stopping or speeding along the empty
roads. Not a footfall sounded on the walks. The
Park was so quiet, the noises of the city were so
hushed that he could hear the puffing of a loco-
motive away across the river in New Jersey.
Crossing a rustic bridge he paused, glanced warily
around, and dropped the candlestick into the dark
water below. Then on he went, until at last he came
to a rocky mound where he sat down, and drew
breath. The sky to the East steadily brightened, and
against the light the silhouettes of buildings stood
out flat as if cut from cardboard. To the westward
the long line of gigantic apartment houses, with
turrets, towers, pinnacles and peaks like a fantastic
architectural dream, grew clearer and brighter,
until at last windows here and there began to
sparkle like molten gold, and it was day.
[12]


CHAPTER II
“BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE ME A DIME?”
A FEW hours later Barclay Leland was sitting under
a wide-spreading arbor which was covered partly
by the branches and leaves of an enormous grape-
vine, and partly by an old and equally enormous
wistaria. Far above appeared the sky, cloudless, im-
measurably distant, incredibly blue. Warm sun-
shine streamed through the leafy roof, dappling
benches and the floor of the arbor, and quivering
on half a dozen recumbent figures near him.
Sprawled on their backs, huddled on their sides, in
shabby, faded overcoats and clumsy, worn-out
shoes, they slept away the idle hours like the wild
animals in the menagerie not far away.
While his thoughts were focused most of the
time on himself and his plight, Barclay was oc-
casionally aware of his surroundings, and now and
then cast a glance at the recumbent figures. It
must be terrible, he thought, to be without food
or shelter, and above all without money in the
midst of a city where something to eat, to wear,
a shelter at night are denied to those who possess no
[I3]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
money. But worse than hunger and cold for these
unemployed, now become the discarded rubbish of
a civilization that not so long ago boasted of them
and the millions of workers like them, must be the
endless, weary hours with nothing to do. Walking
one dreary mile after another with no goal in view;
standing idly on street corners; sitting on benches
and gazing at nothing, thinking about nothing.
And while, on a pleasant October morning like this
one might find forgetfulness in sleep not too un-
comfortable even on a hard bench, what would
these men do in a few weeks when cold winds, ice
and snow were upon them? The squirrels and the
sparrows chattering and twittering in the trees
about would be fed then, but how about these for-
lorn people?
On the other hand, he thought, after all, these
men's anxiety and suffering were only about their
simple, elemental wants, food and shelter, while
threatening him were disgrace, punishment, per-
haps death. He wondered, after last night, if he
would ever sleep soundly again. And he peered fear-
fully around to see if along one of the paths a
policeman were approaching.
A little earlier he had slipped out of the Park,
breakfasted hastily at a lunch counter, and re-
turned. Somehow, in this place, where the delicate
[14]


“BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE ME A DIME?”
greens and pale yellows of autumn foliage were
flooded with sunshine, he felt quieter, less in dan-
ger. He had bought a morning paper, but there was
nothing in it, of course, about last night. Too soon
for that. Now he smoked an occasional cigarette
nervously, and waited.
On a bench near him sat a shabbily dressed man
who was eating pieces of dry bread which he took
from a paper bag. Barclay looked at him occa-
sionally and speculated as to where he had obtained
his food; from a baker's perhaps, or a restaurant.
But he was concerned to notice that the shabby
person shot sidelong glances at him. Finally the man
rose, and strolled over to Barclay.
“Brother,” he said, “could you spare me a
cigarette?”
Barclay opened his gold case, and offered it to
the stranger.
“Thanks,” the latter replied, lighting a cigarette
and inhaling deeply. “You see,” he continued, “I
didn’t touch you for the proverbial dime. Al-
though,” he added, “a dime wouldn’t find any
neighbors in my pockets.”
Barclay proffered a quarter.
“Thanks again,” said the stranger. “I can use it.”
Partly to forget temporarily the constant nerv-
ous dread that someone would come up behind and
[I5]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
touch him on the shoulder, Barclay motioned to
the seat beside him. The stranger accepted the in-
vitation.
Holding the quarter in his outstretched palm
the latter remarked: “This means a night's lodging
for me. Well, in my time I’ve spent more than that
many dollars for one night at dozens of first-class
hotels—the Waldorf, the Traymore, Biltmores
from here to the Coast.”
“What did you do?” inquired Barclay.
“High-pressure salesman. Sell anything—stocks,
good or phony, bonds, real estate, automobiles. Oh,
I was pulling down my twenty-five thousand per
before the crash. But, hell, nowadays you can't sell
anything in a world where there are no buyers.”
“It’s pretty hard,” was Barclay's comment.
“Yes, it's tough,” the stranger agreed, and looked
moodily at his shoes, from which socks protruded.
“But I’m a kind of philosopher,” he added pres-
ently. “Today you’re up; tomorrow you’re down.
That's life, so why worry? Now you look as if
things weren’t so bad with you.”
Barclay repressed a shudder. “I have enough to
get along on,” he murmured.
“What's your line?” asked the stranger with un-
compromising frankness.
“Well, I have no particular occupation,” Barclay
[16] .


“BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE ME A DIME?”
==
replied. “I have a small income that is sufficient.” -
“My God,” exclaimed the stranger bluntly, but
without bitterness, “you don't work, and have
enough. I don’t work, and I have nothing.”
At the back of Barclay's mind an idea was form-
ing that was so daring, possibly so dangerous, that
it frightened while at the same time it fascinated
him.
“I suppose,” he began cautiously, “you enjoy the
good things of life, luxuries, and all that kind of
thing?”
“Me, I love 'em,” replied the stranger emphati-
cally. “Wine, women and song, I love 'em all. Good
food, soft beds, fine clothes, why, they’re the breath
of life to me.”
Barclay proffered another cigarette, and con-
sidered his next step anxiously. Then he held his
breath. Someone was coming up the path to the
arbor. But as the figure drew near, he saw that it
was only a little, elderly, old-fashioned-looking
lady. She glanced about her, and for an instant her
bright, penetrating eyes rested on Barclay and his
companion. Then she turned away and passed on.
Barclay breathed a sigh of relief; she was no one
he had ever seen before.
“Suppose,” he said at last, “you were put in the
way of enjoying those pleasures again.”
[17]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“If it was in the daytime, and a cop was around,”
was the prompt reply, “I’d fall on the neck of the
feller who made the offer, and hug him. If it was
night time, I might knock him over the head and
take what he had anyway,” he added, with a glint
in his eyes.
Barclay moistened his lips several times.
“If you were offered enough money to go away
somewhere, and enjoy yourself as you like—good
food, soft beds, fine clothes—you know; would it
appeal to you?”
“After the way I’m living?” cried the other
scornfully. “Brother, for a hundred dollars I’ll go
to the gates of Hell; for two hundred, I’ll go
through them; for a thousand, I’ll kick the Devil in
the pants.”
Still Barclay hesitated. This hastily forming plan
of his was enticing, but there was a risk connected
with it.
From somewhere on the edge of the Park came
the sound of a hand-organ, which, mellowed by
distance, was pleasant and musical. The usual
Italian hand-organ stuff—Funiculi, Fumicula, and
Santa Lucia. Oh, how he longed to flee away, to
Italy, anywhere, to escape the fear that clutched
at his throat, the dread that at any instant a hand
might be laid on his shoulder. Then he became
[18]


“BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE ME A DIME?”
aware that his companion was watching him
sharply.
“Well,” said the latter, “I guess you’re not work-
ing up these fairy tales about what I would do if I
had money, for nothing. What's the proposition?”
Barclay swallowed a little, and then decided to
take the leap.
“Under certain conditions,” he said slowly, “I
would be willing to give you some money, quite a
lot, so that you could change this wretched life
you're leading to the kind you enjoy—good food,
soft beds, and all the rest of it.”
“Yeah,” replied the stranger, as Barclay hesitated,
“and what’s next?”
“The conditions are,” Barclay continued, “that
you take passage today on a ship, under another
man's name. There's a steamer for Bermuda to-
day,” he added, fluttering his newspaper nervously.
“That’s the place to go—first-class hotels, lovely
place, lie in the sand, plenty to eat and drink. What
do you think of it?”
“I think,” said the other coolly, “that there's a
string tied to it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if the man whose name I’d take is you,
then I want to know what I’m getting in for. You
look nervous, brother; who are you scared of?”

[19]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Process-servers,” Barclay replied suddenly.
“Process-servers?”
“Yes, I won't pay my wife alimony,” declared
Barclay, the unmarried, improvising rapidly. “They
can put you in jail in this State, you know, for re-
fusing to pay alimony. The business is very wearing
and distressing to me, and I want to throw the peo-
ple who are after me off the scent. Well, you take
the money I’ll give you, and my clothes—”
“Your clothes,” ejaculated the other. “Ye
gods!”
“And you engage passage to Bermuda,” Barclay
hurried on. “Your name, er—John Smith, is on the
sailing list and that's that. John Smith has gone to
Bermuda, where he can’t be molested for alimony,
and I’ll be free to leave New York without being
arrested.” -
“And what about me?” the other objected.
“What'll I do if one of these process-server birds
gets to me?”
“But you don’t look like me,” Barclay protested.
“Although we’re both tall, and slim, and blond, we
don’t look very much alike.”
“No,” said the other, whose face had not been
shaven for several days, “we don’t, exactly.”
“You don’t look like me, you aren’t me,” Bar-
clay persisted. “It’s partly to get my name on the
[20]


“BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE ME A DIME?”
steamer's sailing list I'm making you this offer, and
partly because I want your clothes.”
“My clothes!” exclaimed the stranger, with an
expressive glance at his disreputable garments.
“Yes, as a disguise. You see, I shook a process-
server a while ago on Fifty-ninth Street—ran away
from him when he tried to poke a paper into my
hand. Well, he's likely to pop in on me any min-
ute.”
The stranger studied the ground with a thought-
ful stare.
“John Smith isn’t your real name,” he remarked.
“No, I’ll tell you the real name if we make the
deal.”
“Don’t I need to know more about you: your
address, some facts about you and your family, if
I’m doubling for you?” asked the other slyly.
“My dear man,” Barclay exclaimed, “you need
to know nothing about me, and you're not doubling
for me. You just enter my name on the ship's pas-
senger list. If you're questioned, you just happen
to have the same name, but you’re a different per-
son. Anyone can see that.”
The stranger gave Barclay a long, cool stare.
“How much money is there in this?” he asked.
“A thousand dollars,” said Barclay recklessly.
“Sold; you’re on,” exclaimed the stranger rising.
[21]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Where do we make the change? Might try one of
these Park lavatories.”
“You go ahead, I’ll follow,” said Barclay.
Presently, if one of the sleepers on the benches
had been awake, and noticed, he would have seen
the two men returning. But now the unshaven
man was sprucely dressed and carried a walking
stick, while the other wore a soiled and shabby suit
and broken shoes.
“Okay,” said the unshaven one, in a low voice.
“I’ll carry out my part of the bargain; I’m a square
shooter, you can bank on that. Your name’ll be on
the passenger list of the Monarch of Bermuda. Good
luck; so long.”
With a strange sensation Barclay watched his
own clothes recede and then disappear, as the
wearer strode rapidly away. There, he reflected,
went his decoy; and in the haste of the transaction
he had forgotten even to ask the man's name. Then
he settled down on a park bench and considered
the situation. How fortunate that he had come
down from the country the night before, on a sud-
den summons from Pierre; checked his bag at the
station; and gone at once to his brother's hotel.
None of his acquaintances, so far as he knew, were
aware that he was in New York. If the stranger
carried out his part of the bargain, and Barclay had
[22]


“BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE ME A DIME?”
faith that he would, the name of Barclay Leland
would appear on the ship's passenger list. When the
police began to look for the brother of the mur-
dered man, as they undoubtedly would, there, right
under their noses, so to speak, would be the name
of Barclay Leland as one of the passengers on a ship
sailing to Bermuda. There would be wireless dis-
patches to the ship, cables to Bermuda. The false
Barclay Leland would be investigated, perhaps ar-
rested and brought back. There would be a delay
of several days, or a week. In the meantime he, the
real Barclay Leland, would slip out of sight, away
from New York, and in some other place he would
buy a new outfit of clothes, and then keep on, far
away. He had plenty of money, thanks to that
wallet of Pierre's he had appropriated. In a few days
he would be thousands of miles away, and his alibi
would be unassailable.
At lunch time he slipped into a cheap restaurant
where his shabby clothes would not look out of
place. Then, nerving himself for the ordeal, he
bought an afternoon paper. Ah, there it was, on the
front page:–
PIERRE D. LELAND
PROMINENT CLUBMAN
FOUND MURDERED IN HIS ROOM
AT THE HOTEL ST. RITZ.
Well-Known in New York Society
[23]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Barclay's hands trembled as he read some of the
details that no one knew so well as he. The article
ended with the bald statement that the police were
working on the case. The vision that this conjured
up of keen-faced men already on his trail sent him
slinking back to the least-frequented part of the
Park. And there he remained until dusk came on,
and lights began to glow like balls of silver among
the trees. Only then did he abandon his occupation
of sitting, now on one bench, now on another,
slumped like a typical down-and-outer, and occa-
sionally, as someone approached, hiding his face be-
hind a newspaper. As he slunk out of the Park he
had a sensation, once or twice, of being followed.
But when he stopped and turned around quickly,
no one whose actions were suspicious was visible in
the gathering darkness. After all, the sensation
might be another phase of the tricks his nerves were
playing, like the dread which accompanied him,
constant as his shadow, that someone would come
up behind and lay a hand on his shoulder.
[24]



PART II
EFFECT





MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
She could see in her mind's eye the headlight cut-
ting the darkness, gleaming on the curving rails, on
walls of canyons, on cactus-studded hillsides, on oc-
casional half-wild cattle startled from their sleep.
She pictured the long line of coaches roaring and
rumbling behind the engine, and like a vast and
bulky serpent winding and twisting through rocky
defiles. They rounded curves with screeching
brakes; thundered across culverts. And throughout
all that mass of hundreds of tons of steel and ma-
chinery flying through the night, only a few people
were, she thought, like herself awake. She counted
on her fingers:—the keen-eyed crew in the cab of
the engine; possibly a couple of night workers in
the mail car; a few trainmen. But all the rest, scores
of souls, were asleep. In the coaches ahead where
lights were dim and the air close and hot, they
sprawled wearily and uncomfortably on the seats.
In the diner she supposed that waiters and cooks
together must slumber on mattresses spread on the
floor. And in the Pullmans where dim, cavernous
alleys ran between the swaying curtains, bodies
were laid on the shelf-like berths, their owners sunk
in that semi-death which takes up nearly a third of
one's time on earth—sleep.
Switching on her light, Miss Townsend noted
that it was nearly two o'clock.
[28]


MISS TOWNSEND’S INSOMNIA
From her pillow she looked up at a sky like black
velvet spangled with silver stars. Each of those tiny
points of light was a huge sun, and each sun with
its satellites was whirling through space. There
were millions of suns rushing at incredible speed
across unbelievable distances. Did their paths some-
times converge, she wondered, so that they were
near each other, some of them, for a brief million
years or so, before they parted and swept on
through lonely distances? They were, on a great
scale, like human lives on a little scale, she thought.
In each case the individual sun and the individual
life followed some mysterious but apparently im-
mutable law. Both suns and lives were complete
entities; but as their paths crossed and recrossed the
paths of other suns and other lives, what reactions,
what changes, sometimes took place! For example,
in this car with her were men and women who came
from all over the country, who were of various
stations, with diversity of habits, dispositions, his-
tories. They would live together for a short space,
and then separate. But who could be sure, thought
Miss Townsend, waxing philosophical, that from
this chance meeting of strangers something might
not happen that would cross the wires, so to speak,
of their different fates—mix up lives, change their
future?

[29]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
To see whether a little concentration would con-
quer her stubborn sleeplessness, she began a mental
catalogue of her fellow passengers.
And after a journey which already had lasted
thirty-six hours, being a woman whose observation
was keen and whose interest in other people was
lively, she had formed some definite impressions.
First, at the end of the car toward which her feet
were pointing, in a compartment, was that middle-
aged, rather aristocratic-looking man who re-
minded her faintly of someone she had seen.
Next to him, traveling sumptuously in the
drawing-room, was the movie actress. Even one
who patronized the movie as infrequently as
Miss Townsend did had seen Sybil Le Grand, the
heroine of such plays as Bad Broadway, She Led
Him On, etc. Her favorite and tremendously
popular rôle, the tough girl, she acted with perfect
naturalness. There had been a party in Miss Le
Grand's quarters that night, with those accompani-
ments of clinking ice, laughter, hubbub of voices,
which the attempt to prohibit a free and inde-
pendent people from doing something they want
to do has rendered so familiar. As the evening wore
on, gaiety seemed to give way to dissension, so
that when the drawing-room door was opened
sounds of angry voices had escaped. But about one
[3ol


MISS TOWNSEND’S INSOMNIA
o'clock the party broke up; there were good-nights,
not too subdued, footsteps along the aisle, and then
silence.
Number Eleven, the section next to Miss Town-
send's was empty. But across the aisle in Lower
Twelve was the most adorable widow: lustrous
black eyes like big ox-heart cherries, a Cupid’s bow
mouth, discreetly lipsticked, a figure slender almost
to thinness. What a picture she had made when
she boarded the train at New Orleans, wearing a
coquettish little hat with a veil, a black-and-white
costume, a jet necklace on an alabaster neck. And
she had a charmingly Southern voice. How some
great, strong man would yearn to gather her into
his arms with a murmured “I will protect you al-
ways, little woman.” And what were the coquetry
and feminine appeal for except that some great,
strong man should so yearn?
Next to her, as a telling illustration of the brutal
contrasts life's hit-or-miss arrangements often af-
ford, was that big, uncouth Texan rancher. He had
been taken aboard at some small town west of
San Antonio, and his departure from there seemed
to be something of an occasion. At least he was ac-
companied to the Pullman steps by a deputation
who, like the gentleman in question, wore absurdly
top-heavy ten-gallon hats, and clothes that smacked

[31]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
of the soil. One of these, to whom Miss Townsend
had addressed a question as to the significance of
the crowd, had responded with a solemn shake of
the head, and an expectoration which hit the rear
wheel of the Pullman with marvelous accuracy.
Another, more communicative, had volunteered the
information that “Henery Holt is a bad man, a right
bad man, when he gits started.” But what was
necessary to start Henry on a career of badness was
not disclosed.
He had gone to bed late, she knew that, for al-
most the instant he retired behind the curtains a
raucous and thundering snore broke forth. The
noise, which rendered her contest with sleeplessness
still more difficult, filled Miss Townsend with
anguish. But presently it ceased, and, as she judged
from sounds as of a large and clumsy body mov-
ing, and sundry heavings of her curtain, he had
left his berth. Whether he had returned or not she
could not say, but at least the snores had stopped.
Well, the stars were shining; the train was speed-
ing westward; and in Lower Nine of the Placidia
lay she, Matilda Townsend, spinster, still awake.
Oh dear, now why should that repulsive old crea-
ture be aboard? Along the floor of the car came a
slow scuff, scuff, scuff. She knew who that was—
the pathetic, and rather dreadful-looking old man
[32]


MISS TOWNSEND’S INSOMNIA
from Lower Three. Owing to some paralytic infir-
mity he could not lift his feet, but slid them along
as if he were skating. His face did not look as if it
were skin-covered flesh and bone, but in color and
texture as if it were chopped out of dark gutta-
percha, in chunks. His hands were noticeable for
their size and for a very large and heavy ring, dia-
monds and an emerald, which he wore. “So hor-
rible,” thought Miss Townsend, “on that corpse-
like finger, like a ring on a mummy's hand.”
Scuff-scuff—the steps passed slowly. Scuff-scuff,
the sound died away. Now what on earth could
take that old man toward the rear of the train at
two o'clock in the morning?
Well, he lived, so to speak, in Lower Three, and
above him, in the upper berth, was sleeping that
son, or secretary, or attendant, or whatever he was,
whom Miss Townsend, not ignorant of modern
slang, labeled “that perfect smoothie.” From his
glossy, smoothly plastered hair and gleaming teeth
to his spats and shining shoes he was impeccable,
so far as appearance went. But there was something
about his soft voice that seemed to insinuate more
than it said, something about his silken manner
that put Miss Townsend on her guard.
But nearer than these strange creatures in Num-
ber Three were other neighbors. Next to her in
[33]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Number Seven, and diagonally across in Number
Eight, were two ladies whom for obvious reasons she
termed the Big Bore and the Little Bore.
Farther down the car, in numbers Six and Five
respectively, were a vulgar little drummer who
wore screaming ties, and a blond, middle-aged
man who bore a faint resemblance to the occupant
of the compartment.
In Number Two was an author whose livelihood,
as he had told her proudly, depended upon mass
production of literature. He wrote for periodicals
which he designated as the “wood pulps,” and his
products were detective stories, adventure stories on
sea, sky and land, and Westerns. Mass production
demanded speed and industry. Scarcely had the
train left the station at New Orleans when the
clatter of his typewriter burst forth. He wrote
furiously; he rushed from his seat to the diner, fol-
lowed by his mouse-like wife; food seemed to shoot
from his plate to his mouth; he talked always as if
he were pressed for time.
Finally, in Number One were a couple whose
name, Miss Townsend was sure, must contain some
reference to the precious metals—Goldman, Gold-
feind, Silverstein—for their display of rings, neck-
laces, earrings, stickpins, more rings sparkling with
jewels, was overpowering. How these two, with a
[34]


MISS TOWNSEND’S INSOMNIA
combined weight of nearly a quarter of a ton, were
compressed at night into one lower berth without
the aid of a hydraulic press, was beyond Miss Town-
send's imagination.
She had reached the end of her list and, turning
wearily in her berth to obtain a more comfortable
position, threw out one arm. Her hand touched the
curtain, but what startled her was the fact that be-
yond the curtain she felt something solid. Now
there should be nothing but empty space outside
the curtain of one's Pullman berth; yet Miss Town-
send's restless hand had pressed the curtain, not
against the unresisting air, but against something
that was hard and resistant. Tales she had heard of
thieves who slip their hands under pillows and ab-
stract valuables popped into her head. Instinc-
tively she grasped her hand-bag, then lay still, and
waited. She had read and been thrilled by stories
in which someone, waking in the dark, where noth-
ing could be seen, nothing could be heard, felt in-
stinctively the presence of another person in the
room. There was no audible movement, no sound
of breathing, above the roar of the train, yet
Miss Townsend had a distinct impression, and it
quickened her pulse, that someone was there, right
close to her, just outside that curtain. For a long
time she lay still and waited. Then slowly and cau-
[35]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
tiously she pressed her hand against the curtain. It
gave. Relieved by this, she sat up in her berth as
noiselessly as might be and peered through the
opening of her curtains. And then she was aware
of a strange thing: instead of the dim lights which
burn through the night in all well-regulated Pull-
mans, she was gazing into a black void.
What was happening in this darkened car, she
wondered, while her heart beat quickly? Why
should something steal noiselessly past her berth?
Was there danger abroad? Something sinister in
these stealthy movements? She lay back on her pil-
low to consider; and the more she thought the
wider awake she became.
Resolutely Miss Townsend snapped on her light,
found it was half-past two, and gave up her battle
with insomnia. She was beaten, and she admitted it.
So she took out her bottle of luminol tablets, swal-
lowed a couple, and presently fell sound asleep.
[36]


CHAPTER II
TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN

Owing to the sleeping pills Miss Townsend slept
late, so late in fact that she missed that morning
activity which is part of life in a Pullman. Curtains
shake and bulge, shoeless feet suddenly appear, and
disheveled figures in dressing-gowns, or unabashed
in collarless shirts, drift to their respective dressing-
rooms. Miss Townsend, in fact, had barely time to
reach the diner after the last call for breakfast had
resounded through the car.
So it happened that, stepping briskly through her
Pullman on the way back to the observation car, she
came abreast of the compartment occupied by the
aristocratic-looking middle-aged man, just in time
to be an eye-witness of an incident that was to be
memorable.
“Ah’m goin’ to open de do’,” said the porter,
with a flash of white teeth. “Dat gemman sho’ is a
sound sleeper. Ah’s been knockin’ on de do' off an’
on fo ever so long.”
He inserted his key in the lock, fumbled with it,
and opened the door wide. Suddenly he gasped, and
>
[37]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
then slowly, as if he were the victim of some
sort of transformation, his chocolate complexion
changed to ashy gray, and his eyes became mostly
eyeballs. Without a sound he stepped back a pace
or two, and pointed with a trembling hand.
Miss Townsend gave one swift glance into the lit-
tle room. With his pajamaed legs trailing on the
floor, and his head lolling in a sickening fashion on
one side, there hung the aristocratic-looking
middle-aged man. He seemed to be suspended by
the cord of a dressing-gown round his neck from
some part of the mechanism of the upper berth.
With the movement of the car his body swayed
gently.
“Quick!” cried Miss Townsend. “Get help!”
The porter emitted a sound between a groan and
a grunt.
“Run, bring a doctor. Call the conductor,” Miss
Townsend insisted.
The first person to appear, and he arrived on
the instant, was the traveling man whom she had
noticed on account of his outrageous neckties. He
was wearing this morning a yellow shirt and collar
with a crimson tie, a color combination which
shrieked to heaven. Pushing through the doorway,
he gave one look at the hanging figure.
“Golly,” he exclaimed, “what's going on here!”
-
[38]


TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN
To Miss Townsend’s astonishment, he stepped up
to the figure, and felt one of the hands.
“Stone cold,” he muttered. “He’s gone.”
Then, to the porter, he said sharply:
“George, Henry, whatever your name is, snap
out of your trance. See if there's a doctor on the
train, although probably he can’t do anything. And
bring the conductor. Quick, now.”
Miss Townsend would gladly have withdrawn,
but by this time the narrow passage outside the door
was packed with excited people. She was hemmed
in where she stood, and became an unwilling wit-
ness to the peculiar actions of the drummer. As if
suicides were a daily part of his business he nosed
about, rarely touching anything, but occasionally
laying his hand on some object which he transferred
to his pocket. Once Miss Townsend saw him pick
a scrap of paper from the berth. Again, he landed
with a grunt on the floor at her feet.
“What's that?” she asked.
“Scrap of cloth,” he replied.
The conductor, a fat man with a large Masonic
emblem dangling from his watch-chain, came
crowding into the room, followed by the Pullman
conductor and a brakeman.
“Know who he is?” asked the traveling man.
“No. How should I know who he is?” replied the
[39]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
conductor peevishly.
“Haven’t you got his name?”
“No, only the number of his ticket—J364,732,
New Orleans to El Paso.”
“Well, J364,732 doesn't need a doctor, but you'd
better get one anyway.”
“He’s here,” replied the conductor majestically.
“And we'll clear the room. Everybody out, please.
Everybody out.”
No one left the scene of the tragedy more will-
ingly than Miss Townsend. Feeling a little shaky
about the knees, she returned to her section, but no
sooner had she seated herself than the mass-produc-
tion writer of fiction plumped down beside her.
“A plot,” he rumbled in a pitch that was sup-
posed to be confidential, “a plot has tumbled out
of the sky right into my lap.”
“What do you mean?” asked Miss Townsend.
“I see it all, I see it all, madam,” declared the
other precipitately, as if ideas came to him faster
than he could find words to express them. “That
poor fellow in there is a victim of unrequited love.”
“Dear me, how do you know?” Miss Townsend
protested.
The other nodded solemnly.
“Take it from me, Lemuel Bunyard, author of
any kind of fiction the pulp magazines will use.
[40]


TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN
I write under three moms de plume, and my art
gives me an insight, an insight into human nature,
my dear lady. Take it from me, Miss Le Grand is
mixed up in this.”
Miss Townsend raised her eyebrows.
“There was a party in her drawing-room last
night,” said Bunyard with an impressive air.
“I heard it,” replied Miss Townsend drily.
“The man—er, I do not know his name, but I
will call him the defunct stranger—attended.
There were highballs, gaiety, feverish gaiety, in-
trigue, passion, disappointment, and—suicide.”
“Do these affairs begin and culminate so rap-
idly?” asked Miss Townsend with distaste.
“What do you mean, madam? What do you
mean?”
“I happen to know that Miss Le Grand boarded
the train at San Antonio at about eight o'clock last
evening. This party you speak of was over soon
after midnight.”
“True,” said Bunyard, crestfallen. “That's a
short time for passion to rise and decline to self-
destruction. But I have it,” he exclaimed, brighten-
ing. “They knew each other before. It gives me an
idea for a story—Heart-break in a Pullman.”
He hurled himself away, and an instant later the
clatter of his typewriter burst forth.
[41]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Immediately after his departure the widow with
the Cupid’s bow mouth slipped into the vacant seat.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, “it’s so sad about that
po’ man in yonder.”
Miss Townsend nodded.
“I just keep wondering why he did it. Do you
know,” she asked suddenly, “I didn't expect a
suicide, but I was thinking there might be a kill-
1ng.
“Good gracious,” exclaimed Miss Townsend,
“why a killing? Who would kill anybody?”
“Haven’t you heard?” asked the widow, with the
pleased air of one who has something worth while
to impart.
Miss Townsend shook her head.
“Oh, there was a terrible rumpus last night in
the smoking-room. A big, fierce-looking Texas
rancher got on the train at a little place called
Hacienda. In fact, he has the berth right next to
mine, and I’m simply scared to death of him. Well,
he got to drinking corn whiskey, and wanted the
other men to join with him. They all did except
this po’ Mr. Jones who is dead, a very mild, peace-
ful kind of gentleman, who said he didn’t like
whiskey, and politely refused. The rancher was
drunk and quarrelsome, and he took Mr. Jones’ re-
fusal as an insult. He became very abusive, and
[42]


TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN
called all kinds of names, of which ‘dam’ Yankee”
was the least unpleasant. Finally he pulled out a
great big revolver like a cannon, and some of the
other men just had to push Mr. Jones out of the
smoking-room and rush him away.”
“How disgusting!” exclaimed Miss Townsend.
“Perfectly dreadful. Some of these Texas ranch-
ers are wild people, and dangerous too. The man
who told me about it said it was really a close thing
for Mr. Jones, and he said he'd seen more than one
man killed by somebody who was fighting drunk
like that Texan.”
“Such things should not be allowed,” cried Miss
Townsend indignantly.
“I agree with you,” cooed the widow. “You’re
perfectly right. That young Mr. Strang—he travels
with his po'old father, who is partially paralyzed—
told me the whole story. He made it very dramatic,
and although he did not say so, I know he risked
his life to save po’ Mr. Jones. Don’t you think he's
a charming, fascinating sort of man?”
Miss Townsend looked hard into the soft, dark
eyes. “Are you speaking of this Mr. Jones?” she
asked.
“Oh, dear me, no,” the widow protested. “Why,
however did you get such an idea? I meant young
Mr. Strang.”
[43]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“I’m afraid I have not had sufficient opportunity
to judge,” Miss Townsend replied tartly.
The widow fluttered away, and Miss Townsend
fell to looking out of the window. The train was
crossing a wide, barren, sun-drenched plain from
which rocky hills of varying shades of red and brown
rose abruptly. Farther away were mountain peaks,
some delicate blue, some violet, others purple, but
each outlined sharply against the cloudless desert sky.
Miss Townsend sat drinking in the weird desolation,
the grim solitude, the gorgeous coloring of this wild
land, and as she looked she listened absent-mindedly
to the rhythm of the car wheels beneath her. She
had noticed how frequently those racing wheels
would fall into a rhythm, would play a tune.
Clickety - clickety, clackety - clackety, clickety-
clickety, clack - clack - clack. Of all things, they
were beating out the measure of that gay jig, “The
Irish Washerwoman.” How incongruous, with that
poor, still figure of the man who had killed himself
riding just above the rollicking wheels.
Someone slid into the seat beside her. She turned
and found herself facing the flashily dressed little
drummer.
“Excuse me, ma'am,” he began. “Am I disturb-
ing you?”
“Not at all.”
[44]


TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN
“Because, you see,” he continued, “I thought I
might like to ask you a few questions; partly be-
cause your berth is at this end of the car; and
partly—and in my line of business I’m a pretty
good judge of people—I guess you've got the kind
of eyes that see a lot of what they look at, and the
kind of brain behind your eyes that registers.”
“Really,” said Miss Townsend, “you flatter me.”
“No,” he replied simply, “I’m not joshing.”
He looked about him, and lowered his voice. “Do
you mind my asking if you heard or saw anything
last night that seemed—well, queer?”
“Just what do you mean?”
“People moving about, or noises that you
couldn’t explain.”
Miss Townsend took her time in replying. “I did
notice,” she replied finally, “that the old man who
shuffles when he walks passed my berth.”
“That old skee, hey? Which direction was he go-
ing?”
“He came from farther forward in the car, and
went on toward the rear.”
“Did you hear him come back?”
“No,” said Miss Townsend, “I did not hear him
come back.”
“Have you any idea what time it was when he
went by?”
[45]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“I do happen to know, because I was suffering
from sleeplessness and looked at my watch several
times, that it was somewhere about two o'clock.”
“So that old guy scuffled along to the rear of the
car about two o'clock, and you didn't hear him
come back. Well, that's worth remembering. Now,
did you notice anything else, ma'am?”
“There was a party, rather a noisy one, in the
drawing-room.”
“Yes, there was a party all right. He-the man
who is dead, you know—he was in it.”
Miss Townsend looked at him severely.
“You sound so unfeeling,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve got feelings all right, but I don’t show
em,” he returned unabashed. “Well, as you were
lying awake, did you notice anything else?”
“I don’t know that I ought to mention it,” she
replied, “but that very tall Texan who occupies the
berth across the aisle from me snored for a while
in a really dreadful manner. Then the snoring
stopped, and I judged from the sounds I heard that
he had left his berth.”
“Which direction did he go?”
“I am not at all sure. But I thought I heard a
slight noise, after he left his berth, from the rear
of the car. Still, I am not certain, and so far as
I know he may have climbed back into his berth.”
>
[46]


TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN
“Did he snore any more?”
“No.”
“Well, if that kind of a bird is asleep, he snores.
And if he don’t snore, he ain’t sleeping. Now, did
you hear him before old Scuff-Scuff came by, or
after?”
“A little before,” Miss Townsend replied. “I
don’t know how long, but say fifteen minutes.”
“We’re getting on,” said the traveling man.
“Now was there any other little thing you can re-
member?”
“Well, yes,” said Miss Townsend. “The really
queer thing happened just before half-past two. I
had meant to report it to the conductor, but the
er, accident to that unfortunate man upset me so
that I forgot all about it.”
“And what was that?”
“I was sleepless, and restless, and once, when I
threw out my arm toward the outside of my berth,
my hand pressed against the curtain. Usually, when
you push the curtain, it gives; but this time it didn't
give. There was something hard and solid close to
my curtain.”
“Golly!” exclaimed the traveling man. “What
was it?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see through the cur-
tain.”
[47]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“No, of course not. But what did you think it
Wash”
“I thought it was the body, possibly of a man,
who might try to sneak his hand into the berth
and take my pocketbook.”
“And then what?”
“I held tight to my pocketbook and waited.
After a few minutes I tried the curtain again, and
it gave, just as a curtain should do. Then I peeped
out through the opening between the curtains.”
“What did you see?” inquired the traveling man
eagerly.
“Nothing. The aisle was in total darkness. All
the lights were out, which struck me as very
strange.”
“They were out, all right,” said the drummer
with a mysterious air. “And they were out for a
purpose, too.”
Miss Townsend turned squarely round to face
him.
“I suppose you realize that you have asked me a
great many questions, and that I have answered
freely and pleasantly. Now, turn about is fair play,
so I am going in turn to ask you a question.”
“Fair enough.”
“Well, what is your reason for wanting to know
what I saw and what I heard last night?”
[48]


TRAGEDY ON A PULLMAN
The traveling man stared straight ahead for a
moment. Then he turned and as he faced Miss
Townsend she noticed that his flippant, hail-fellow-
well-met air had utterly disappeared.
“I will tell you,” he said in a low voice, “but it's
in confidence between you and me. That man in
the compartment did not kill himself; he was mur-
dered.”
[49]


CHAPTER III
—AND ROBBERY
Miss Townsend recoiled with horror.
“Yes,” said the other gravely, “just as sure as my
name is Dan Durkin, he was done in.”
“I can hardly believe such a thing possible on a
civilized train—I mean on a train in a civilized
country,” she gasped. “But how do you know he
was murdered?”
“There was an attempt,” Durkin replied seri-
ously, “to make the thing look like suicide. The
cord of the man's bathrobe was knotted about his
neck, and one end tied to a metal bar over the upper
berth. Possibly, if the train crew had taken the
body down before a careful examination was made,
somebody’s plan might have worked, and Sidney
Jones's death would have been set down to suicide.
But that’s a silk cord, and the knot jammed before
the noose was tight enough to strangle him. He
couldn’t possibly have died that way.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Miss Townsend.
“And another bit of evidence that points toward
murder,” Durkin continued, “is some marks on
[5ol


—AND ROBBERY
both sides of his throat—discolored now, you know.
They look like finger marks. I think someone
strangled him to death and then tried to make it
look like suicide.”
“How horrible, how simply horrible!” cried
Miss Townsend.
“Yes, it’s a nasty business. There were one or two
other things that look suspicious. The bed had been
occupied, and the lights were turned out. Now a
man who is going to kill himself would hardly go
to bed first; and he would hardly take the trouble
to turn off the lights after he was ready to commit
suicide.”
“Dear me,” Miss Townsend exclaimed, “I wish I
had taken another train.”
“Well, the man, whose name I find is Sidney
Jones, is dead, and he's been dead some time. A
doctor looked him over, and while he couldn’t place
the hour when the man was killed without an
autopsy, he thinks it might be seven or eight hours
ago. So now the question is, who killed him? And
that’s the reason I asked you so many questions.”
“But why do you ask questions?” inquired Miss
Townsend suddenly.
“Because,” returned Durkin briskly, “I-knew
you were a smart lady. And sure enough you’ve told
me already some things the police will want to
[51]


—AND ROBBERY
there is a murderer among one's fellow passengers is
almost unendurable.”
Durkin nodded sympathetically.
“I keep thinking about that unfortunate Mr.
Jones,” she continued. “He must have a family who
ought to be notified. Who is he? Where does he
come from?”
“Well, that's a funny part of this business,” Dur-
kin replied. “He was certainly traveling light as far
as information about himself goes, and that's a fact.
There are no letters, no cards, no papers, nothing to
speak of. The conductor has his ticket from New
Orleans to El Paso; but nobody seems to know
where he came from or anything about him. He
mentioned to one or two people that his name was
Sidney Jones.”
“Dear me,” exclaimed Miss Townsend, “do you
suppose nothing can be done?”
“When we get to El Paso the police will take
charge of the case.”
He leaned over toward Miss Townsend's ear.
“Miss—er—” he began.
“Townsend.”
“Right. Now you happened to be passing the
door when the porter opened it. There's something
I’d like to find out, but Theophilus Snow—great
name for a porter—is too rattled to remember.
[53]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Would you say that door was locked, or not?”
“How could I tell?”
“Well, did the lock click, or didn’t it?”
Miss Townsend furrowed her brows.
“No,” she said decisively, “it did not click.”
“Attagirl!” exclaimed Durkin admiringly. “I
knew you had all your wits about you, all the time.”
Suddenly, from the forward end of the car,
where the two opulent-looking Jews had been sit-
ting complacently facing each other like a pair of
stout turtledoves, a commotion arose, nay an up-
TOar.
“Police! Help! Thieves! I’ve been robbed. Po-
lice!” yelled the man.
“My God!” ejaculated Durkin. “Ain’t this a rest-
ful trip?”
The fat Jew lumbered into the aisle followed by
his wife.
“Call the conductor,” he shouted, “call the con-
ductor!”
“Hey, what's the matter?” cried Bunyard, tum-
bling his typewriter into the seat in front of him.
Heads popped up; people rose; there was a tense
moment. The stout man continued to vociferate
for the conductor. The porter appeared from some-
where so suddenly that his white uniform coat was
half on and half off. The Pullman conductor ar-
[54]


—AND ROBBERY
rived. Passengers from other cars rushed in until
the aisle was blocked. At last the conductor came,
pushing through the crowd, puffing violently.
“Well,” he said unhappily, “what's the trouble
now?”
“Mister conductor,” cried the Jew, “my name is
Goldstein. This is my wife. Look at her, I ask you.”
“I’m looking,” replied the conductor.
“Did you look at her last night?” shouted Gold-
stein hysterically.
“Why, probably,” returned the conductor,
mystified.
“Last night she wore”—began Goldstein, as if he
could hardly contain himself. After swallowing
hard, and looking as if he might burst from apo-
plexy, he started again.
“Last night she wore one beautiful link bracelet
with diamonds and emeralds, two diamond and
platinum snake bracelets, a wrist watch with a dia-
mond and platinum strap, a necklace of diamonds
with a big Oriental blue-white diamond as a
pendant, a clip of ruby and diamonds on the right
bosom, a clip of emerald and diamonds on the left, a
ring with a pigeon-blood ruby, a ring with a pearl
as big as a pea, earrings with pearls set with dia-
monds, and she had a gold mesh bag with a diamond
clasp!”
[55].


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
It was an inventory of such crushing opulence
that the bystanders gasped.
“Now look at her!” screamed Goldstein. “She
ain’t got one of 'em left. I’ve been robbed.”
“But, Solly,” protested Mrs. Goldstein, “I got
some rings left.” She extended her hands.
“Shut up!” roared her husband. “You make me
sick. The only reason you got those is your hands
are so fat you can’t get them off.”
Mrs. Goldstein burst into tears.
“Well I’ll be dogged,” exclaimed the conductor.
“I never seen such a trip.”
Here one of the bystanders, Strang—the tall,
dark young man whom Miss Townsend had men-
tally characterized as a “smoothie”—took a part
in the proceedings.
“But, Mr. Goldstein,” he suggested suavely, “are
you sure they have been stolen?”
“Am I sure?” cried Goldstein, fairly dancing up
and down. “Am I sure? What do you think, young
man?—I threw ‘em out of the winder?”
“I mean,” the other returned smoothly, “are you
certain they haven’t been mislaid, perhaps in your
baggage; or fallen down under the berth?”
Goldstein was doubtful, but the conductor seized
upon the idea as if he were drowning and this were
a StraV.
[56]


—AND ROBBERY
“Sure thing,” he cried. “Here, porter, pull these
seats out, and be lively.”
The seats were pulled out, and the porter, with
his head on the floor, examined every inch of space
underneath. The contents of the Goldsteins’ bags
were unpacked, unfolded, flapped, before a hushed
and tense audience. Goldstein, feeling that he oc-
cupied the centre of the stage, held forth.
“You see,” he explained, “Mrs. Goldstein, when
she ain’t wearing her jewelry, puts it in a chamois
bag, and carries it inside her clothes. And by nights
she hides the bag under her pillow. So this morn-
ing I gets up and eats a good breakfast, thinking
she's got her jewelry, which is worth, ladies and
gentlemen, a hundred thousand dollars at mark-
down prices, and then some. And she, the damn
fool, eats a good breakfast too, thinking I’ve got
‘em.”
“But, Solly,” his wife protested tearfully, “you
know you got up first, and when I saw they was
gone, I thought you'd took 'em.”
“Shut up, will you?” cried her spouse. “You make
me sick.”
The Goldsteins’ berth was searched to such an
extent that a missing pin would have been dis-
covered. The seats behind were searched. The seats
across the aisle were searched.
[57]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Young Strang again took a hand in the proceed-
ings.
“I suggest that the bedclothes taken out of this
berth be looked over. The bag might have been
caught inside a pillowcase.”
A deputation accompanied the porter to investi-
gate the soiled clothes. As he went, Theophilus pro-
claimed with a haggard air:
“Misfawchuns always comes in threes. We’ve
done had a suicide, and a robb’ry. My Lawd, w”at
nex’?”
There was no result from the search of the bed-
ding.
“All right,” cried Goldstein loudly, “I want a
policeman.”
“What do you want a policeman for?” replied
the conductor. -
“I want everybody searched.”
The conductor waved his hand helplessly toward
the window. “If you'll look out there in the desert,
you can’t hardly see a house. How in hell can I
get a policeman for you?”
“All right,” cried Goldstein even more loudly
than before. “I want everybody searched.”
“I’m no policeman,” protested the conductor.
“I’ve got no authority to search passengers.”
[58]


—AND ROBBERY
“When do I get a policeman?” Goldstein per-
sisted.
“When we get to El Paso. I’ll wire ahead.”
“All right,” Goldstein declared. “And if you
don’t get that jewelry back for me, I’ll hold this
railroad responsible just as sure as my name is Solo-
mon J. Goldstein.”
The conductor held a murmured conversation
with the Pullman conductor. Presently they took
themselves off, accompanied by the unhappy The-
ophilus, whom they required for further investiga-
tion. As they left, the conductor muttered that he
had been railroading for forty years and knew his
job and all the ins and outs of it, including wrecks,
washouts, and hold-ups; but such a doggoned mess
as this trip he never did see, and it just had him
buffaloed.
Comparative quiet returned to the Pullman so
inaptly named the Placidia. But Goldstein was un-
able to keep still. He moved up and down the
aisle, staggering from side to side with the motion
of the car. Finally he came to a stop by Miss Town-
send.
“Ain’t it terrible?” he queried. “Ain’t it just ter-
rible—a whole hundred thousand stolen off a man
like that?”
[59]


CHAPTER IV
A HOLLYWOOD STAR SHUNS PUBLICITY
Miss SYBIL LE GRAND, Hollywood star, with a
“Look-folks-who's-here” air, undulated into the
observation car. She was a platinum blonde to such
an extent that her hair looked like flax of a delicate
texture. Her eyebrows had been plucked, and their
painted substitutes arched high on her forehead. As
a foil to her smooth, almost café au lait complexion,
her lips were magenta, of the same shade as her
fingernails. Sinking into a chair beside Miss Town-
send she crossed her million-dollar legs as negli-
gently as if they had been anyone's everyday legs.
Catching the elder woman's eye, she began, in the
unmusical accent of trans-Appalachia:
“I’m s'posed to be on a rest trip. Nerves, you
know. But after what happened last night, right
next door to me, and this robbery, well—my
Gawd.”
From her bag she drew a long ivory and gold
holder, lit a cigarette, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Whatever makes people want to commit sui-
[61]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
cide,” she announced, “is beyond me. He seemed
like such a nice fellow, too. A perfect gent'man I’d
call him.”
“You knew him?” asked Miss Townsend.
“Why, no,” the other returned promptly. “Just
met him casually on this trip. I got on, you know,
at San Antone.”
“I remember,” murmured Miss Townsend.
From the corner of her eye she saw that the
other's large and lustrous orbs were veering in her
direction. They were undoubtedly large and lus-
trous, and might in pictures be languorous, or pas-
sionate, or whatever was required; but Miss Town-
send's keen glance noted something cold and
watchful about them.
The Star shifted a little nearer.
“Do you know,” she said confidentially, “there's
a lot of gossip going about in this damned train?”
“Dear me,” replied Miss Townsend.
“Yeah. And I think that nosey little drummer is
at the bottom of it.”
Miss Townsend raised her eyebrows.
The Star shifted nearer.
“They’re saying,” she whispered, “that Mr. Jones,
in the compartment next to mine, didn't kill him-
self. They’re saying he was murdered.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Miss Townsend.
[62]


A HOLLYWOOD STAR SHUNS PUBLICITY
“Yep. It gives you the creeps. I hope it ain’t so,
but you never can tell. Life's full of surprises.”
Miss Townsend detected a wary look in the other
woman's eyes.
“As I was saying,” said Miss Le Grand, “there's
gossip going around the train. It's dirt, you know.
But as I’ve learned by experience, the way to fight
fire is to start another fire. So, as you seem to me
the most intelligent lady around here, I just thought
I'd tell you my little story, so as you could set peo-
ple right if you want to, and get a chance.”
She smiled widely, showing two rows of perfect
teeth.
Miss Townsend wondered how it comes about
that movie stars are endowed with such wonderful
teeth, and whether they are selected in the first
place and then win their way to fame by reason
of their teeth.
“You see,” said Miss Le Grand, “I threw a little
party in my room last night. It happened this way.
After dinner I met up with Mr. Jones and his friend
Mr. Davidson, and another gent'man named Mr.
Strang. He's the son of that old man who can't lift
his feet. So after a while I invited the boys to my
room, and we all had a few drinks, quite a few.
Well, you know how men act at these parties;
some get gay, and want to sing; some get quarrel-
[63]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
some; and some get am’rous, you know.”
Miss Townsend, mid-Victorian, did not respond.
“Well,” said Miss Le Grand easily, “I can handle
men. I know 'em from the ground up. So finally we
all settled down to a nice friendly game of contract.
But along toward the end there was an argument,
and quite a lot of noise, and I guess some of it might
have drifted out into the car.”
Miss Townsend admitted that such was the case.
“It wasn't anything, not worth squabbling about.
Mr. Jones, he said his friend Mr. Davidson who was
playing against him revoked. Davidson said he
didn’t. There's the penalty, you know—two tricks;
and that lost Davidson and his partner, Mr. Strang,
game and rubber. Well, there was a rumpus, and
Davidson wouldn't play any more. In fact he made
a fool of himself, for he just lost his temper and
mixed all the cards up so that nobody could tell
whether there'd been a revoke or not. But shucks, it
wasn’t anything. And we all parted the best of
friends, and that's Gawd's truth. And to think that
was the last time I ever saw Sidney Jones alive.”
Miss Le Grand lit another cigarette.
“I don’t mind telling you,” she continued, “that
while I’m all for publicity and notoriety for Sybil
Le Grand usually, I don’t just now want to get
mixed up with a mess involving a suicide or a mur-
.
.
[64]


A HOLLYWOOD STAR SHUNS PUBLICITY
der. I’ve got a big contract pending with Perfect
Pictures, and until that's settled Sybil has got to
walk the strait and narrow. So, Miss—”
“Townsend.”
“—Miss Townsend, I’ve given you the straight
dope, and if you hear anyone pushing me into this
mess, I’ll consider it a favor if you'll turn them in
some other direction.”
Miss Townsend smiled and nodded.
Goldstein entered the car, followed by his de-
jected wife, whose despoiled appearance, contrasted
with her former splendor, gave Miss Townsend a
lively idea of what a looted idol might look like.
“Say,” remarked Miss Le Grand briskly, “that's a
funny one, too. Why in hell does he let his wife go
round all decked out like a jewelry store, and not
expect to be robbed? Oh, well, I bet he's got his
stuff insured for twice what it’s worth. I know that
kind of bird; I work for them.”
Presently Miss Le Grand brightened as two men
came into the car.
“Hello, boys!” she cried. “Pull up chairs and sit
down. I’ve just been giving Miss Townsend here
the low-down about last night. Miss Townsend—
Mr. Strang and Mr. Davidson.”
Strang was tall, dark, suave, with a face that sug-
gested a mask. The other man, Davidson, was slen-
[65]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
der and sandy-haired, and in build, and to some
extent in features, resembled the deceased Sidney
Jones as she remembered him. -
“Such a dreadful thing to happen,” said Strang.
“Poor Jones, he seemed like an awfully nice fellow,
from my casual acquaintance. I just met him on
the train, yesterday.”
“I got to talking with him the day before, when
we left New Orleans,” chimed in Davidson.
“Didn't strike me as the kind of man who would
kill himself.”
“Oh, that suicide story is out,” declared Miss Le
Grand impatiently. “They say now that someone
killed him.”
“Who says that?” asked Strang.
“Well, it's all over the train. The porter knows
it, and the Pullman conductor; and that funny
author, Bunyard, is pounding away on his type-
writer now for dear life, writing a story with all the
lurid details.”
“Well,” remarked Strang coolly, “I’ll want to
know more before I believe such a story. Looked
like a plain case of suicide to me.”
“It’s just too bad, and rotten luck for the rest of
us,” Miss Le Grand said. “I suppose when we get to
El Paso the police will make an investigation. But
[66]


A HOLLYWOOD STAR SHUNS PUBLICITY
anyway our skirts are clean. I was just telling Miss
Townsend here about our friendly little game last
night.”
“Oh, that,” said Strang smoothly, “that was noth-
ing.”
“No gambling, no high stakes,” declared Miss Le
Grand, turning to Miss Townsend. “All just for
fun, you know. Ten cents a point, wasn’t it?”
Miss Townsend felt, although she could not have
told why, that the two men thought Miss Le Grand
was being indiscreet. The movie star's next remark
added to that impression.
“And that party broke up with everybody
friendly and good pals.” -
“Of course, there was that unfortunate affair in
the smoking-room—” Strang began, rather hastily,
and stopped.
“You mean that row with the drunken rancher?”
asked Davidson, who heretofore had said very little.
“Yes.”
“An ugly customer, especially when he was
drunk and fighting mad,” exclaimed Davidson.
“Jones wasn’t to blame, of course,” said Strang,
“although he would have been wiser to forget his
principles and take some of the fellow's rotten
whiskey like the rest of us.”
[67]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“That gun the Texan pulled out was a wicked-
looking thing,” Davidson chimed in. “Size of a
small cannon. He boasted that just the wind from
its bullet would knock a man flat.”
“Oh, a fellow like that is dangerous enough,”
Strang added. “He’s perfectly lawless, and will kill
regardless of consequences when he is aroused.”
Miss Townsend felt that these people were in-
sincere. Although no one made direct reference to
the fate of the unfortunate Jones, their implica-
tions were obvious. If Jones had been killed, then
they were plainly trying to convey the idea that
the Texan was the murderer. They acted like people
who were playing parts that had been rehearsed.
She resented the sly winding of the meshes of a
dirty conspiracy about her, as if she were a stupid
little fly and they, three cunning spiders.
Then her attention was caught by an incident
which for the time being drove all thought of these
people from her mind. At a little distance the elder
Strang, the old man whom she had heard shuffling
down the car in the dead of night, was demonstrat-
ing something to a couple of passengers. In his hand
he held a magazine, a thick magazine, Miss Town-
send noticed. Grasping it in both hands, with one
wrench he tore it in two as easily, to all appearance,
[68]


A HOLLYWOOD STAR SHUNS PUBLICITY
as if it were a single sheet of paper.
“It’s easy, if you got the strength,” she heard him
declare, in an old man's high-pitched cackle.
The big ring on his hand flashed in the sunlight.
[69]


CHAPTER V
MISSING PERSON
Miss Townsend made her way along the observa-
tion car toward the rear platform. Whenever Miss
Townsend walked she moved with a quick, springy
step, as if her spirit were eager to reach her destina-
tion far sooner than her feet could carry her ninety-
pound, five-feet-high slip of a body. She was
quietly dressed in black; skirt unfashionably long,
hat undoubtedly old-fashioned, perched on top of
gray hair which was rolled up. She moved with the
rather mincing gait of ladies who grew up when
dresses hampered the action of their limbs. But
while it was evident that Miss Townsend's habits of
dress had crystallized at a period twenty-five years
back, a close observer who noticed the bright, sharp,
quick-glancing eyes that lighted up her rather sal-
low and wrinkled face would be inclined to think
that her mind was fresh, alert, and up to the min-
ute, and would remain so should she live to be
ninety.
With a sigh of relief at finding the observation
platform deserted, she sank into a chair where she
[7o]


MISSING PERSON
º
was out of the wind and the dust. This was the
phase of traveling by train that Miss Townsend en-
joyed most. From this vantage point the click-click
of the wheels came muffled to her ears, mingled
with a steady hum that seemed to rise up from the
roadbed. Fainter hum, slower click, as the train
climbed a grade; louder hum, faster click, as it
plunged downward, or sped along the level. These
train sounds are part of a seasoned traveler's treas-
ured and remembered sensations, like the thrill that
comes when the pier begins to slip by, to the ac-
companiment of a deep roar from the siren of one's
outgoing steamer; or the last, faint glimpse of land
from the tossing deck of an outward-bound ship.
All these things mean that you are traveling, are
out of the everyday rut, are bound for new scenes
and different faces—in short, that you are going
somewhere. All her life Miss Townsend had de-
lighted in going somewhere.
Behind her the rails spun away in glistening
curves. The desert growth along the tracks flut-
tered wildly from the suction of the train, then
disappeared in a cloud of dust. The smell of the
sun-drenched desert rose to her nostrils. And all
about lay a vast plain, blazing in the morning sun,
broken with craggy hills and steep-sided plateaus,
and culminating, far away, in mountains—beauti-
[71]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
ful mountains, saw-toothed, turreted, needle-spired,
of violet and topaz and blue.
Through the car window she could see the com-
mercial traveler, Durkin, chatting with Miss Le
Grand. What an amusing little fellow he was, nerv-
ous, quick, self-confident, like a perky sparrow.
Undoubtedly he was entertaining the Hollywood
star, for her beautiful teeth were exposed in what
her press agent would have called a delightful smile,
and a less prejudiced observer would have termed a
wide grin.
The door opened and slammed, and Durkin
dropped into a seat beside her.
“Enjoying this fine farming country?” he asked.
“I am enjoying this clean, out-of-doors air, where
such things as suicides and robberies and murders
are not suggested,” she answered.
“Yes, of course,” he returned, rather thought-
fully. “A nasty business.”
Presently Miss Townsend remarked, mischie-
vously:
“I saw you talking to Miss Le Grand. Better be
careful. She tells me she knows men from the
ground up.”
“Oh yeah? Well, she can see through me all
right; I’m a simple soul.”
He lit a cigarette and settled himself comfortably
[72]


| MISSING PERSON
in his chair.
| “Miss Townsend,” he asked, “do you come from
New York?”
“Yes, I live there when I’m at home.”
º “Ever run across some people named Leland?”
“Leland?” she repeated. “I don’t remember
- them.”
“There were two brothers: one named Pierre and
the other Barclay.”
“No,” said Miss Townsend decisively. “I’ve an
excellent memory, and I’m sure I’ve never met
them.”
. “Well,” said Durkin slowly, “you may have read
in the papers about this Pierre Leland. He was a
high hat, belonged to lots of clubs, old family, rich,
and all that sort of thing. About a week ago he was
found in his apartment at the Hotel St. Ritz, struck
on the head with some sort of blunt instrument,
º and dead as a doornail. There were no particular
. clues; the weapon that killed him was missing; and
although that's one of the big hotels, with plenty
of people coming and going and a staff on duty day
and night, nobody had been noticed going into this
Pierre Leland’s apartment or leaving it.
“But the police got one lead. When you're in the
army and anything happens to you, like trying to
2. stop a German bullet—I was in the A.E.F.—Uncle
--
[73]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Sam always notifies the next of kin. Well, this
man's only kin were a wife, divorced, and living in
Europe, who didn’t count, and a brother. Name of
this brother, Barclay Leland. He lived on a farm
up in Columbia County, where he was a kind of
gentleman farmer. But it turned out he wasn't at
home. A couple of people who stayed on the place,
a housekeeper and her husband, said he'd packed a
bag and gone away the day before the murder,
without saying where he was going or when he
would be back. As he did that sort of thing once in
a while, they thought nothing of it.
“Well, that was that. Then, after some smart
police work, his car was found in a garage in Hud-
son, the nearest town to this man's farm. But he
hadn't told the garage people where he was going.
The next step, though, was easy. How do you get
out of Hudson? Mostly by train. And sure enough,
this Barclay Leland had bought a round-trip ticket
to New York the afternoon before his brother was
murdered. But there the trail ended. Whether he
got to New York; whether he stayed in New York;
whether he went to some place beyond, you just
couldn’t tell. You know New York is a grand little
place for hiding, or getting lost. A needle in a hay-
stack is nothing to it.”
Miss Townsend nodded.
[74]


MISSING PERSON
“It seemed reasonable,” Durkin continued, “that
if he was in New York, or near it, he would turn
up, because the afternoon papers certainly played
up his brother's murder big. But he didn’t turn up.
That looked just a mite queer—not incriminating,
you know, but just a little funny. So men were
posted at the railroad stations, the docks of out-
going steamers, and so forth. And a flash was sent
out to watch for a man five feet ten and a half inches
high; weight about one hundred and fifty-five
pounds; age forty years; sandy hair, blue eyes,
sandy moustache, wearing a brown soft hat, brown
suit, tan camel's hair overcoat, and tan shoes.
Say—” Durkin interrupted himself suddenly—
“does that description remind you of anyone?”
Miss Townsend's eyes narrowed.
“Let me think,” she murmured. “I have it,” she
exclaimed. “It fits that man who has the berth op-
posite you—Davidson. But he has no moustache.”
“Sharp eyes,” said Durkin approvingly. “I’m
coming to that. Well, that evening a 'phone call
came through to police headquarters from the man
on duty at the Penn Station that a guy answering
the description of this Barclay Leland had just
bought a ticket and got on the 7:05 train for Wash-
ington. It was then 6:50, and the man who had
been detailed to trail Leland had just time to catch
*N
[75]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
that train.”
Durkin paused for breath.
“Stop,” cried Miss Townsend, “I want to say
something.”
“Shoot,” Durkin replied.
“You are the man,” said Miss Townsend softly,
“who followed Barclay Leland.”
He grinned.
“I thought you were smart enough to get that,”
he remarked, admiringly.
“Oh, but I guessed before that you were a detec-
tive,” Miss Townsend protested.
“Great Scott! You did? When and how?”
“I have never met a real detective,” she replied,
“but I’ve read about them in fiction. And it seemed
to me, right at the beginning, that the way you
peered and pried and poked around like a terrier on
a scent when you first came into that poor dead
man's room was the way a detective would have
acted.”
Durkin slapped his thigh with delight.
“I knew it,” he cried. “I said to myself, that little
lady is just as smart as a steel trap. But keep my
secret quiet. I’m s'posed to be a drummer traveling
out of Saint Louis with a line of ladies’ shoes. That
explains this terrible shirt, and the line of talk I
spill.” r
[76]


MISSING PERSON
“So you are a real New York detective?”
“Sure thing. I used to run a private agency of
my own, but the depression busted that, and I got a
place on the force. I was mixed up once with that
murder in a penthouse, where a very rich man
named Carrington was killed.”
“I know some of the people who were there, the
Tomlinsons,” said Miss Townsend.
“Well, that's another story,” remarked Durkin.
“But to go on. The man I was following put up at
the Raleigh, in Washington, and so did I. After a
day he checked out and took a through train to
New Orleans with me at his heels. It was on that
trip, as I was passing through one of the Pullmans,
that I first saw this Sidney Jones. What attracted
my attention was the fact that he does look some-
thing like the man I was shadowing. But the re-
semblance isn't close when you see them together.
I’d left my friend in another car, and I checked
up right away and found he was still there.
“C. Milton Davidson, as he registered in hotels,
went to the Roosevelt, in New Orleans, and I
trailed along. I admit I lost sight of him once or
twice, but when he came down to the station to
take this train, Dan Durkin was right close be-
hind.”
“As I gather it,” said Miss Townsend thought-
[77]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
fully, “you are satisfied that the man you are fol-
lowing is this missing Barclay Leland?”
“Absolutely. The description fits, and the initials
in his hatband are B. L. They don't stand for
C. Milton Davidson, do they? Besides, look at this.”
From his pocket Durkin fished out a letter, and
read:—
Dear Old Bark:—
How long are you going to play the hermit on
your Columbia County farm? Do be nice and
come and see me—
“Well, the rest is of no importance. But Bark
stands for Barclay, and the reference to the Co-
lumbia County farm makes it a cinch that David-
son is the man I want. For he took this letter out of
his pocket, read it, tore it up and dropped it in a
waste-basket right here in the observation car. I
saw him. And when I had a chance, I copped the
letter.”
“You are certainly building up a case,” Miss
Townsend murmured. “The moustache he could
easily get rid of.”
“Of course,” Durkin replied. “Yes, Davidson is
my man, Barclay Leland, all right. My job is to
shadow him, and when I get a flash from Police
d
[78]


MISSING PERSON
Headquarters in New York that they have some-
thing on him, I'll just step up and tap him on the
shoulder.”
“Then,” Miss Townsend declared emphatically,
“if I understand the situation, our ill-omened Pull-
man is carrying a man who has been murdered,
someone who has killed him, and in addition a man
whom you suspect of having killed his brother.”
“That's it,” Durkin replied.
Miss Townsend threw up her hands.
[79]


CHAPTER VI
UNWANTED PAJAMAS
“I Don’t know that I can do much about this case
of Sidney Jones,” said Durkin slowly.
Miss Townsend noticed that the breezy, rather
vulgar manner which had been part of his rôle as a
commercial traveler had disappeared. He now
seemed to her quiet, shrewd and forceful.
“You see,” he continued, “I know nothing about
this Sidney Jones, his past, his friends. I have no
clues that amount to anything. I have none of the
tools or helps that a modern detective expects. Still,
I'm a police officer, and it's my duty to work on
the case as well as I can.”
He lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke
with a meditative air.
“As I’ve told you, I noticed him on the train
from Washington to New Orleans, but if my man
Leland had anything to do with him, it was when
I wasn't looking. And I was looking, pretty sharply
too, about all the time. I lost sight of Jones in New
Orleans, but of course I recognized him when he
turned up on this train. But so far as I can find out,
-
:
[80]


UNWANTED PAJAMAS
and I’ve done a little quiet investigation, none of
the people in our car admit ever having seen him
before we left New Orleans.”
“Have you any theory?” asked Miss Townsend.
“Not a theory; I’m in the dark. One thing is
certain, however—the motive wasn’t robbery. I
found the man's watch ticking away in his vest
pocket, and a wallet with several hundred dollars
in bills. And that’s a funny thing, too,” Durkin
exclaimed. “A wallet usually holds something that
will help to identify a man: cards, letters, bills,
automobile license. But there isn’t a single blessed
thing in that man's belongings with his name, or
address, or any information about him. If he had
tried to hide his identity he couldn’t have made a
better job of it.”
“Poor fellow,” said Miss Townsend, “he may be
one of those pathetic missing persons.”
“I doubt very much,” Durkin went on, some-
what as if he were thinking aloud, “whether this
is what is called a premeditated murder. If you
want to get rid of somebody, a train is a poor place
to pull off the killing. There are people crowded
together all around you; you're easily identified;
you can’t get off the minute you want to; and if
you do get off, your absence will be noticed. No,
my guess is that this killing is the result of some
[81]


UNWANTED PAJAMAS
Jones out of the way for fear Holt would shoot
him. Later Holt went to bed, probably drunk and
ugly, and then, about two o'clock in the morning
he got up and went somewhere. Well, where did he
go? No one, so far as I can find out, knows. He was
sitting in the washroom this morning in what I
suppose he'd call full dress: shirt, no collar, and
stocking feet. Porter said he came in very early.
But where was he between two o'clock in the morn-
ing and six? That's something for Mr. Holt to
explain.
“My man, Davidson as he calls himself, or Leland
as I call him, came from Miss Le Grand’s party
about half-past one o'clock and turned in. I know
that, because I was watching him from my berth.
After that I went sound asleep, feeling sure he was
not going to drop off the train anywhere in this
desert country. Now, he was one of the party at
Miss Le Grand's, and one of three persons who, so
far as we know, last saw Sidney Jones alive. Miss Le
Grand and young Strang were the others.
“What do I know about the movements of young
Strang last night, except that he was at the party?
Not a thing, not a blessed thing. I think he has a
mean look, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. And
about that party,” Durkin continued reflectively,
“you were near it, and awake; there did seem to be
[83]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
quarreling going on?”
“There was a rather drunken hubbub,” Miss
Townsend replied, “and toward the end the voices
were distinctly angry.”
“Well,” said Durkin quietly, “that's something
to look into. Who was angry? What about? Might
have some bearing on what happened to Jones.
Then finally we come to the other Strang, the old
fellow you heard shuffling along the aisle long after
he ought to have been in bed and asleep.”
“I have an antipathy to that old man,” Miss
Townsend declared. “He’s uncanny.”
“I know,” replied Durkin sympathetically.
“Gives you the creeps to hear that shuffle coming
along, scuff-scuff, scuff-scuff—slow and soft, and
getting nearer and louder. And what was he up to
at your end of the car?”
Durkin tossed his cigarette over the rail and lit
another.
“Miss Townsend,” he said impressively, “you
heard two people moving about at somewhere near
the time that murder was committed. They were
the Texan and old Strang. But I’m here to tell you
there was a third person in that dark aisle last
night.” -
Miss Townsend gazed at him with round eyes.
“What makes you think that?” she asked.
[84]


UNWANTED PAJAMAS
l
.
“Someone who moved quietly, like a cat. Why,
think of it—you couldn't hear that person come
near your berth, or go away from it. There wasn’t,
if I understand you, a footstep, or the sound of
breathing. You accidentally put your hand against
the curtain, and without a bit of warning felt
something hard and solid like a human body on the
other side. A little later you tried again, and who-
ever was there had crept away without a sound.
Isn’t that the way it was?”
She nodded.
“Holt, the Texan, is as light and graceful as one
of his steers, and besides, he was drunk. No, I don’t
believe Mr. Holt can move about like a shadow.
And as for old Strang, I’ve watched him, and I’d
bet his paralysis is genuine. Besides, if he can get
around without a sound, why should he go shuffling
up the aisle and advertise the fact that he was mov-
ing around in the dark, and then sneak back like a
pussy cat? No, take it from me, there was a third
person went past your berth.”
“I shall sit up all night; I won’t sleep a wink,
after all the horrors of last night,” Miss Townsend
cried.
“You don’t need to worry about tonight,” said
Durkin gloomily.
“Why?”
[85]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Because quite a few of our best passengers are
getting off at El Paso, where we’re due this after-
noon. The Strangs, my man Leland, and one who
will be carried off, Jones, leave the train there.”
“We can’t reach El Paso soon enough to suit me,”
Miss Townsend exclaimed.
“I wish it was twelve hours away, instead of three
or four,” Durkin declared. “I’m just getting inter-
ested in this case. Give me a little time, and I might
find out some things. I’m not in a bit of a hurry,
though, to get to El Paso, and I’ll tell you why. If
I had committed a crime and wanted to get away
and hide where it would be hard to find me, I don’t
know a better place to head for than El Paso. Just
look at the situation. It's six or seven hundred miles
from the nearest big town; it's six or seven hundred
miles from anywhere. It's right on the Border. Of
course, you can’t walk across the bridge from there
into Mexico with no questions asked, or without a
passport. But that border runs east and west from
El Paso for more than a thousand miles, most of the
way through wild country. Do you mean to tell
me there aren't places where a man can slip across
without being stopped, fix things up with some
local Mexican alcalde, and stay hidden as long as
he likes? And all around El Paso, in every direction,
is country like this we're passing through—sparsely
[86]


UNWANTED PAJAMAS
settled, where a fellow could pay his board at some
lonely ranch and live, and no questions asked. Why,
this whole Southwestern part of the United States
is full of possible hide-outs. I know of a range of
mountains, a whole range mind you, called the Lost
Mountains. There's a name for you.”
Durkin shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I’m not looking forward to El
Paso, for I'm afraid some of our birds will scatter
when we get there.”
“But, Mr. Durkin,” Miss Townsend protested,
“when we reach El Paso the police will take charge
and make an investigation.”
Durkin snorted contemptuously.
“Ah, now, Miss Townsend,” he said, “I’m a New
Yorker. We New Yorkers, you know, think all the
rest of the people in the U. S. A. are hicks.”
An object somersaulted along the ground beside
the track. Durkin was on his feet in a flash.
“Came out of a rear car,” he muttered, “or it
would have stopped rolling before we got to it.”
He leaned far out over the brass railing.
“By cricky, we're coming to a station; going to
stop,” he exclaimed.
With a movement so quick and deft that Miss
Townsend could hardly follow it, he sent his hat
sailing into the air. Then, to her intense alarm, he
[87]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
climbed outside the rail.
“As soon as the train slows down enough,” he
explained, “I’m going to drop off and go back—
to pick up my hat, of course. Incidentally I’m going
to see what that bundle was that stopped, where I
marked it, by a culvert. Now, will you ask the
conductor to hold the train, while I get my hat?
And if he acts nasty, just whisper in his ear that
there's been a murder on this train, and he'd better
be careful.”
When the speed of the train had diminished suf-
ficiently, he dropped lightly to the ground, turned,
and, walking briskly, soon disappeared round a
bend. Miss Townsend made her way rapidly—and
she could on occasion move very rapidly—to the
platform of the little station, where the conductor
was talking with the station-master. She delivered
her message. -
“What,” the conductor exclaimed, “hold up the
Limited!” Indignation rendered him speechless.
“May I have a further word with you, apart?”
asked Miss Townsend.
Together the Goliath in blue uniform and the
diminutive David in a woman's traveling suit moved
out of earshot of the bystanders.
“He asked me to remind you that a murder has
been committed on your train,” she said, “and that
[88]


UNWANTED PAJAMAS
it is necessary to be careful. Something was dropped
or thrown from the train that may turn out to be
a clue.” -
“There'd be another murder committed when he
gets back, if I had my way,” growled the con-
ductor. “Oh, I know he's a New York detective.
Well, I’ll have a word with him when I see him.”
He continued his remarks, but fortunately, so
Miss Townsend thought, under his breath, so that
they did not reach her ears.
The long train, travel-stained from its journey
of hundreds of miles, lay at rest. From the engine
came measured and rhythmical puffs, like a giant
panting gently after a race. Along the Pullmans,
the porters in their smart blue uniforms stood by
the steps. And up and down in the cool shadow of
the cars the passengers promenaded.
Behind the station was the town: a handful of
weather-beaten, one-storied stores; a few dusty
and ramshackle automobiles; a scanty population,
for the most part men sitting immovable on the
porches in front of the buildings.
Presently Durkin appeared, warm, dapper and
smiling.
“Look here,” said the conductor, crimson with
indignation, “what do you mean, holding up the
Limited?”
[89]


* MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Aw, go chase yourself,” Durkin replied. “Your
Limited is three hours late, already. Besides, I’ve got
my hat. And anyway,” he added in a low voice,
“you know what I'm after.”
The whistle tooted; the passengers clambered up
the steps; there were cries of “all aboard” and the
train rolled away.
A few minutes later Durkin dropped down be-
side Miss Townsend in the Placidia. The high-
backed seats in front and behind gave them a meas-
ure of privacy, as if they were in an alcove.
“Well,” he said mysteriously, “I found some-
thing.”
Looking carefully about to see if he were ob-
served, he drew from under his coat two pieces of
tea-rose silk.
“Contents of the package somebody dropped
overboard,” he remarked.
“What are they?” asked Miss Townsend.
Durkin slowly unfolded one of the pieces.
“I would say,” he declared slowly, “they were
pajamas—a woman's pajamas. Got a nice little
monogram on the collar.”
He displayed it—S. L. G., embroidered in jade-
green silk.
“Know anyone whose initials are S. L. G.?”
[90]


UNWANTED PAJAMAS *
“Sybil Le Grand,” answered Miss Townsend in a
low voice.
“Of course. Now look at this.”
He displayed the bottom of one trouser leg where
there was a rent, and from which a small triangular
piece had been torn.
“Do you remember,” he asked impressively,
“when I was nosing about in that dead man's com-
partment this morning, you saw me pick up a little
piece of cloth’” -
She nodded.
From his pocket he drew out a fragment of silk,
and smoothed it in his palm.
“Not much bigger than a postage stamp, but it
tells a lot,” he said reflectively.
He laid the bit of silk on the torn pajama. In
color and in shape it fitted exactly.
“What do you think of that?” he asked.
“I can’t think. It's overwhelming,” Miss Town-
send added.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” said Durkin
slowly. “This little piece of silk was caught under
the door. When the porter opened the door this
was pushed along over the floor; but when I started
to close the door, I found this piece lying on the
carpet. I noticed it the minute I moved the door.
Well, what does that mean? It means that Miss Le
[91]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Grand was the last to come out of that room; that
she caught her pajama as the door was shut, tore
it, and was afraid to go back.”
Miss Townsend stared at Durkin, and he in turn
stared back at her.
[92]


CHAPTER VII
OFF THE TRACK
Miss Townsend set her lips firmly.
“It’s incredible,” she declared. “I simply don’t
believe she did it.”
Durkin pursed his lips.
“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But anyway,
she was in that man's room, unless some other lady
was wearing her pajamas. And I don’t think that's
likely; I’d hate to think of Mrs. Goldstein going
around in these things,” he added with a grin.
He turned the fragment of cloth over and over
in his hands.
“Maybe she killed him; maybe she didn't. Perhaps
she was there when somebody else killed him. She
might even have gone into his room after he was
bumped off and be afraid to say so for fear of get-
ting mixed up in this business. This little piece of
cloth tells a lot, but it doesn’t tell everything. Any-
way, it shows me that Miss Le Grand knows some-
thing, and, by heck, when I get a chance I’m going
to sweat it out of her,” he concluded with a hard
glint in his eye.
[93]


* MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
The cry, “First call for luncheon in the dining-
car” resounded, as a waiter made his way along the
aisle of the Placidia.
“Will you eat now, Miss Townsend?” asked Dur-
kin.
“Not just yet,” she replied. “I had a late break-
fast.
Durkin scurried away—the word scurry best ex-
pressing his method of locomotion. People drifted
through the car on their leisurely way to the diner.
Presently, as Miss Townsend glanced about, she
realized from the absence of heads above the backs
of the seats that she was alone. She found herself
absent-mindedly drumming with the fingers of one
hand on the window-pane, and, with a curious sense
of detachment, as if she were looking at something
that was part of another person, she noticed the
thin, small fingers, and the veins, which, as age
progresses, stand out like blue cords. Last night she
had gazed through this same window at the desert
flying by, dimly revealed in the moonlight, and
speculated about her fellow passengers, and won-
dered if the lives, which for various reasons had
been brought together for a brief time under the
roof of this one car, could possibly have any effect
upon one another, or would fly apart again, un-
influenced and unchanged. Now, as she idly
[94]


OFF THE TRACK
watched the plains and hills, mesas and mountains,
she realized how tragically the courses of some of
these lives impinged upon others. Here, in the same
car with her, was a man who had perhaps killed
his brother, and was fleeing from his crime. Right
beside him was another man, following the fugitive
as a bloodhound follows the scent. In the little,
closet-like compartment lay the body of one who
had been alive a few hours ago, and now was dead.
And in this very car, in all probability, rode the
man, or woman, who had killed him.
A murmur of voices somewhere behind attracted
her attention. After listening a moment, she rose
and trotted forth to make an investigation. In the
vestibule she came upon Theophilus and another
porter, engaged in a lively dispute. -
“Ah tells yo’,” declared Theophilus, “dat paper's
mine. Ah found it, and ah wants it. Yo' give it back
right quick, or somep'n gwine to happen.”
“Go 'long, Theophilus,” replied the other. “Dat's
a dead man's paper. Bad luck fo yo’ to find it and
keep it; it’ll ha’nt yo’, sho’.”
“No, it won’t ha’nt me,” Theophilus asserted
stoutly. “Ah ain’t 'fraid of no ha'nts.”
“What's the trouble?” asked Miss Townsend.
Both men looked a little sheepish.
“Dis yere Joe done approprated some of my
[95]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
prop’ty,” said Theophilus finally, with a show of
dignity.
“”Taint prop’ty; jes a ole scrap of paper,” the
other retorted.
“You said it was a dead man's paper,” said Miss
Townsend softly. “Did it come from that room?”
She made a slight gesture toward the closed com-
partment.
Theophilus nodded.
“Yas'm, ah done picked it off de flo’, under de
berth.”
“But surely, Theophilus,” said Miss Townsend
gravely, “you understand that anything in that
room should be left untouched, until the police have
been there. Even a scrap of paper might turn out
to be a bit of important evidence. What use is the
paper to you, or your friend here, anyway?”
“Jes’ wanted to pick off some numbers to play
policy,” muttered Theophilus.
Miss Townsend looked mystified.
“Policy’s a game, like a lottery,” Joe explained.
“Us cullud folks is always lookin’ fo' lucky num-
bers to play policy.”
“Will you let me see this scrap of paper?” Miss
Townsend asked. -
Joe handed her the piece of paper. It was a leaf
from a contract score-pad. On one side were the
[96]


OFF THE TRACK
taste or breeding.”
Davidson—or was he Leland?—to her way of
thinking, was the sort of man at whom one would
rarely look twice. He was not handsome, nor was
he bad-looking; his expression was not particularly
open, nor on the other hand was it unpleasant or
forbidding. In a crowd he would be just another
cipher. But Strang, at whom from time to time she
shot surreptitious glances, supplied the individuality
which the other man seemed to lack. He had a thin,
pointed nose, like a hawk's beak, the tip of which
pointed downward toward his rather cruel-looking
lips. He was beautifully groomed from his glossy
black hair to the pearl-gray spats and glistening
shoes which she could see under the table. His
hands, she noted, were large and white and
muscular-looking. They reminded her of that
dreadful-looking father, and that idea suggested
another, still worse.
“Could he be the third person who passed my
berth?” she wondered, with an inward shudder.
Then, just as her waiter was approaching with
that graceful, swooping motion with which waiters
bear loaded trays shoulder-high through lurching
diners, something happened. Without warning the
brakes were applied with a grinding scrunch. Miss
Townsend’s lunch cascaded off the tray. Dishes
[99]


OFF THE TRACK
vert. Weren’t going more ºn twenty an hour. If
we'd been going forty, the whole train would have
piled up in a heap.”
“Well—” ejaculated the conductor, and stopped,
as if words were too pitifully inadequate.
The engineer, with smudges of oil and grease on
his face, regarded him solemnly; and from the lofty
cab of the engine the fireman, likewise smudged
with oil and dirt, peered silently down.
“The couplings held,” remarked the engineer,
“else the mail car would have turned over.”
At last the conductor was able to draw a full
breath.
“Goramighty!” he shouted, “what do I care about
the couplings? Here we are laid out in the desert a
hundred miles from El Paso. It’ll take three hours to
get the wrecking train here, and another hour or
two to get these cars back and the track straight-
ened up. We’re three hours late already, and what
with murder and robbery and this, I’ve enough on
me this trip to put me in the crazy house. Here,”
he cried suddenly to a brakeman who was standing
in the front rank of bystanders, “get to hell out of
here. Go on up the track to Sierra Blanca and wire
to El Paso for the wrecker.”
“Wait a minute,” exclaimed the engineer, “I’ll
uncouple the engine and run up to Sierra Blanca.
[IoI]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Save time and a walk for somebody.”
He disappeared between the engine and the ten-
der. A series of metallic clangs of a hammer on iron
followed. Finally he reappeared.
“Nope, it won’t work,” he said. “The tender is
slung so far over that the coupling is jammed.”
“All right,” said the conductor to the brakeman,
“you walk, then.”
Steaming and muttering he watched the figure of
the brakeman slowly recede between the shimmer-
ing rails. The passengers, after gazing their fill at
the scene of the accident, dispersed.
“Finished your lunch?” Durkin asked Miss
Townsend.
“I’m going to try another,” she answered. “My
first one fell on the floor.”
Across the table in the dining-car, Durkin shot
this remark, in a low voice:
“This wreck is one lucky break for me.”
“It gives you the time you wanted, I suppose,”
Miss Townsend replied.
“That's it—time: six or seven or eight hours of
good old time. Time to watch some of our friends;
time for some of them to get suspicious, to get
scared, to make a slip, maybe. Oh, I certainly bless
this nice little wreck. I’ve started something, too;
you’ll see when the wrecking train gets here.”
[Io2]


OFF THE TRACK
“What is it? Do tell me,” she asked.
Before he could reply, a shadow fell across the
table and seemed to hover there for an instant. Both
Durkin and Miss Townsend looked up quickly, and
the former laid his finger on his lips. The younger
Strang was passing along the aisle. He picked up
something from the table where he had been lunch-
ing and, with the same easy, noiseless step with
which he had entered the car, he left it.
“That fellow walks like a cat,” Durkin com-
plained. “Somehow I don’t like his looks.”
“Nor I,” said Miss Townsend. “Well, here's what
I’ve found.”
She pushed the contract score across the table.
“What's this?” asked Durkin.
“Plainly the score of the game that went on in
Miss Le Grand’s room last night. If that lady's state-
ment is correct and they played for ten cents a
point, then Mr. Jones won five hundred and fifty
dollars.”
He pursed his lips in a noiseless whistle.
“Wasn't as much as that in Jones's wallet,” he
declared.
He consulted a little memorandum book.
“Two hundred and ninety-four dollars is all I
found.”
“Well!” Miss Townsend exclaimed.
[Io9]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Well,” Durkin echoed, “if I can read figures,
Strang was out five hundred and fifty dollars.”
Miss Townsend nodded.
Miss Townsend was not one of those women
who are addicted to the use of a mirror in public
places to see if an eyebrow or a lip needs redecorat-
ing. Being old-fashioned and elderly, she accepted
her features as Nature gave them to her. But as she
rested in her seat in the Placidia, feeling that her
hair might have been disarranged by her trip to
view the wreck, she took a little hand mirror from
her bag and proceeded to make an examination.
And the fact that the mirror was in her hand gave
her the opportunity to observe a peculiar incident.
Her attention was attracted first by a couple who
came strolling along beside the track, and stopped
almost underneath her window. Sybil Le Grand
and the younger Strang seemed to be in serious con-
versation. But as the windows were closed, whatever
they said was inaudible to Miss Townsend. Feeling,
however, in view of the suspicious circumstances of
the past hours, that a little detective work was per-
missible even to a well-bred lady, she kept herself
as much in the background as possible, and settled
down to watch the dumb show. Presently Miss Le
Grand produced a cigarette case—one that gleamed
[IO4]


OFF THE TRACK
like gold—and offered it to her companion. He took
not only the proffered cigarette but the case as
well, and proceeded to examine it carefully. Then,
so far as Miss Townsend could judge, he seemed to
be remonstrating with the Hollywood star, or
warning her. While he talked, he held the case in
his hand. Finally he looked up and down along the
train, and then his glance traveled in the direction
of Miss Townsend's window. Whereupon that
lady's head was withdrawn in undignified haste.
When next she ventured a peep, Miss Le Grand
was still in sight, while Strang had disappeared. But
Miss Le Grand did not move, and was gazing down-
ward. Then the mirror became a very useful aux-
iliary. By holding it an angle above her head, Miss
Townsend was able to see what the movie actress
was looking at, and she beheld the extraordinary
sight of the immaculately dressed Mr. Strang, bent
double, covering something with handfuls of the
loose desert sand. What on earth could he be hiding,
thought Miss Townsend, agog with excitement?
Presently he straightened up, dusting his hands, and
Miss Townsend shifted discreetly away from the
window.
But her mind was made up. After trying, with-
out success, for fifteen or twenty minutes to focus
her attention on a book, she rose, and with her
[Io; I


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
energetic, determined gait, made her way to the
vestibule. Theophilus was on guard at the steps,
leaning wearily against the side of the car.
“Ah done tole yo’,” he remarked with the mourn-
ful pleasure of a Jeremiah whose prophecy has come
true, “somep'n else gwine to happen. Misfawchuns
always comes in threes. Fust, a gemman done gets
hisself killed; next, a gemman is robbed of all his
joolry; and las’ comes dis yere wreck.”
“You seem to be all done up by it,” replied Miss
Townsend. “What's the matter?”
“Ah jes finished a long and exhaustin' walk,”
Theophilus answered, wiping his forehead. “Mistah
Durkin, he done send me all the way to Sierra
Blanca to send a telegram.”
“A telegram?”
“Yas’m ‘bout some samples, he say. I went right
off behind the brakeman, and got to the station
soon as he did. But, land sakes, I sho walked mah
laigs off fo' the dollah he gave me.” *-
The steps were down on the side of the train
opposite from the place where Strang and Miss
Le Grand had appeared. So much the better,
thought Miss Townsend, and to camouflage her
purpose she made her way the length of the train
up to the engine; loitered there awhile; and then
returned at a leisurely pace on the opposite side.
[Ioé]


OFF THE TRACK
When she reached the Placidia, she looked carefully
around and upward to see if she was observed. Then
she counted the windows from the rear of the
car: the women's washroom; the compartment
where the dead man lay; Miss Le Grand’s drawing-
room; the windows of vacant Section Eleven; then,
her windows, Section Nine. Miss Townsend shrank
down almost under the high body of the Pullman,
and began to scan the ground. After several false
starts, she discovered a spot where the sand looked
as if it might have been smoothed with a foot. Dig-
ging with her hands, she presently unearthed a
gold cigarette case. It was heavy, it was handsome;
but what made Miss Townsend gasp with astonish-
ment was the elaborately engraved monogram, B. L.
Those letters certainly did not stand for Sybil
Le Grand, nor for James Strang. But they could
stand for Barclay Leland. Now why, in heaven's
name, should those two people do something so
extraordinary as to bury a valuable cigarette case,
expecially if it belonged to Barclay Leland?
Very carefully Miss Townsend replaced the sand
and patted it down. Then, with the prize hidden in
her hand-bag, she made her way thoughtfully back
to her car.
[Io.7]


CHAPTER VIII
FILLING IN THE PICTURE
A LANGUID game of contract was in progress in the
observation car: Miss Townsend and the Southern
widow being pitted against the Big and the Little
Bores.
“Who did this?” drawled the Southern widow.
“You did,” snapped Mrs. Gray, the Big Bore, a
positive sort of woman, drumming impatiently on
the table.
“I make it—” the widow hesitated—“one club.”
Mrs. Gray gave a snort of disgust and proceeded
to overwhelm her opponents with a bid of three
spades.
The game dragged along, interspersed with
sharp, incisive lectures from Mrs. Gray on the way
contract should be played, and long-winded ex-
planations of the hands she had played by Mrs.
Mason, Small Bore, a thin, dried-up woman.
The afternoon sun beat down pitilessly on the
train stranded in the desert; there was no breeze;
the car was hot, and the players were uncomfort-
able.
[108]


FILLING IN THE PICTURE
Finally, the Southern widow, who began a new
reminiscence every time the cards were dealt, a
practice which seemed to madden Mrs. Gray, re-
marked:
“I just can’t help thinking about that Mr.
Jones.”
“Mrs. Henderson,” said Mrs. Gray, in an omi-
nous tone, “you dealt.”
“Of co’se,” returned Mrs. Henderson, “but a
murder right in your own car is so thrilling. Aren’t
you interested in murders, Mrs. Gray?” she added
plaintively.
Mrs. Gray shot her a glance which seemed to im-
ply she might take a personal interest in a certain
murder, but contented herself with the brusque
question:
“What do you do?”
But Mrs. Henderson was oblivious.
“It’s all so mysterious,” she declared. “Here we
are, strangers to each other, some from the No'th
and some from the South. And Mr. Jones was so
alone, so friendless. Why, nobody I’ve talked to has
ever seen him before. Now, who could have killed
him, when we're all strangers to him and to each
other? It's all so strange and dreadful.”
Here Mrs. Mason, who had been waiting, as
ladies do, until a second's breathlessness or a frac-
[Io9]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
tion of a pause on the part of the others offered a
chance to enter the field, broke in. Mrs. Gray laid
down her cards with a shrug of resignation.
Mrs. Mason's story was long, detailed and pre-
cise. It was to the effect that at a certain restaurant
in the French quarter of New Orleans, known to
bon vivants for a generation, she and Mrs. Gray,
dining together the night before their departure,
had observed the two Strangs, father and son, to-
gether with Mr. Davidson. They were dining and,
as the Bible phrases it, making merry, to such an
extent that Davidson presently became unpleas-
antly drunk. Undoubtedly it was Davidson—
brown suit, brown hat, camel's hair coat and all.
She appealed to Mrs. Gray on this point.
“Of course,” returned that lady shortly. “What
of it?”
“It shows that all the people in our car were not
strangers to each other,” Mrs. Mason persisted.
“And again I say—what of it?” replied Mrs.
Gray in the bullying tone she sometimes adopted
toward her milder companion.
The game dragged along. Presently, with a slow
shuffle, the elder Strang drew near. He passed the
ladies with a grimace which might have been in-
tended for a smile, and kept scuffling along to the
platform at the end of the car. -
[IIo]


FILLING IN THE PICTURE
.
“I do declare,” whispered Mrs. Henderson, “that
dreadful-looking old man just gives me the creeps.”
“Did you pass?” hissed Mrs. Gray.
But Mrs. Mason seemed to have caught the
reminiscing habit.
“There's something weird about that shuffle of
his,” she declared. “You hear it sort of creeping
along, getting slowly louder and nearer. You just
listen to it at night, and it makes you think of a
corpse walking.”
“Oh dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Henderson, shudder-
ing.
“Have you heard it at night?” inquired Miss
Townsend.
“Indeed yes, last night, right in our car, too. I'm
a very light sleeper, you know.” Mrs. Mason then
went into details as to why she slept lightly, how
lightly she slept, and why various members of her
family were light sleepers. Mrs. Gray, with an ex-
pression on her face suggesting a bottled-up vol-
cano, leaned back in her chair. But Mrs. Mason,
encouraged by Miss Townsend's evident interest,
kept bravely on.
*Very late in the night, I heard him,” said Mrs.
Mason, in her dry monotone. “He was passing my
berth, going toward the rear of the car—scuff-
scuff, scuff-scuff.”
[III]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Oh, good gracious, weren't you scared?” ex-
claimed Mrs. Henderson, round-eyed.
“Nonsense, why should she be?” interposed
Mrs. Gray. “Nobody would hurt her.”
Mrs. Mason took this somewhat equivocal com-
pliment in silence.
“Did you hear anything else?” asked Miss Town-
send.
“Yes, I did. I may have dropped off to sleep, be-
cause I did not hear him coming back until suddenly
right beside my berth, I heard that shuffle. Then I
heard whispers.”
“Whispers?”
“Yes. His berth is diagonally across the aisle
from mine, and I heard, just for a second or two,
faint whispers from that direction. I have very
sharp ears, you know.”
“Did you see anyone?” asked Miss Townsend.
“No, I didn’t try.”
“Whispers,” thought Miss Townsend. “That's
significant. Someone else knew he was prowling
about in the dark.”
The tall and slender figure of Davidson appeared
at the end of the car. He passed the group of ladies
with a smile, and settled down in an easy chair.
“Mrs. Gray,” said Miss Townsend, “aren’t you
from New York?”
[II2]


FILLING IN THE PICTURE
“Yes,” replied that lady, with an air which
seemed to imply that she was not only from New
York, but of New York, of one of the innermost
social circles of the metropolis, in fact.
“I was wondering if you knew a man named
Barclay Leland, or his brother, Pierre?” said Miss
Townsend softly.
“I know Pierre's former wife, who is now di-
vorced from him; but I knew the husband only by
reputation,” replied Mrs. Gray with an air of
august disapproval. “He was found dead in his
apartment, you know, barely a week ago. The
papers hinted at murder.”
“Dear me,” exclaimed Mrs. Henderson, “an-
other murder!”
“And his brother?” Miss Townsend persisted.
“There is a brother, Barclay, who owns a farm
somewhere and leads the life of a country gentle-
man,” replied Mrs. Gray, with a manner which
indicated that she was familiar with her Social
Register, “but I have never met him.”
“Oh,” remarked Miss Townsend in a disap-
pointed tone.
“And now,” said Mrs. Gray, firmly but gra-
ciously, “as we seem to be more interested in
reminiscences and murders than in cards, I suggest
that we postpone our game until another time.”
[II3]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
She rose, as if her suggestion decided the matter.
For a long time Miss Townsend had been shame-
lessly and craftily trying to draw this man David-
son out. Her wiles began when, having seated her-
self in the chair next to his, her magazine slipped
from her lap to the floor. Of course he picked it
up, which gave Miss Townsend the opening she
wanted.
She began the conversation, and, as she soon dis-
covered, it was up to her to keep it going. In a de-
sultory way they discussed impersonal topics; the
weather, travel, cities, hotels. The longer they
talked the less Miss Townsend could make him out.
He was very noncommittal, very reserved. What
kind of person he was, what he had done, what his
interests were—all these things remained mysteries
so far as Miss Townsend was concerned. She tried
to picture him as a man who had settled down to
the quiet life of a gentleman farmer, and she led
the conversation in that direction. He was not
horsy, but he did like dogs and knew something
about them. But about country life in general he
seemed apathetic. Finally, when the conversation
was languishing and gave signs of coming to an
end, she shot her bolt. Pointing to a line of blue
and jagged peaks in the distance, she said:
[II4]


FILLING IN THE PICTURE
“How different they are from the softly rounded
outlines of the Catskills.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Some years ago I used to visit friends of mine
named Squires, who had a place near the town of
Hudson. Do you know them?”
“No, Miss Townsend.”
“It is beautiful there in Columbia County, espe-
cially where the land slopes down to the river, and
one gets a view of the blue peaks of the Catskills
beyond.”
“Columbia County,” he said. “I have never
been there.”
He turned and looked squarely at her.
She returned his gaze. Where, oh, where had she
seen that face before—sparse, sandy hair, pale blue
eyes, long face, thin nose, high color beginning to
show the streaked, venous look of increasing years?
It was a standing joke among Miss Townsend's
intimate friends to call her the woman with the
camera eye, or to assert that she must have royal
blood in her veins because she never forgot a face.
Suddenly she remembered. As if she were look-
ing at a picture she saw a vine-covered arbor in
Central Park, and, sitting side by side in sun-
dappled shadows, two men. One was like this fel-
low beside her; the other was shabbily dressed.
[115]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
With an uneasy smile the man whose face she
was studying said, “You look as if you thought you
had seen me before.”
“I apologize,” she replied briskly. “Staring is
dreadfully rude. But, curiously enough, I do have
the impression of having seen you before.”
A muscle in his jaw began to twitch nervously.
It was an involuntary movement, Miss Townsend
was sure of that; something he could not control.
“Well,” he said, “I’m sure I’ve never had the
pleasure of meeting you.”
“We’ve never met; but I think I’ve seen you.”
“Where?”
“In Central Park, about a week ago.”
Again that spasmodic twitching. But he faced
her calmly enough.
“Central Park? I never go there. At least, I
haven’t been in the place for months.”
He prolonged the conversation, made talk. But
it was plainly evident to Miss Townsend that he
stayed because he was afraid to leave too suddenly.
Presently he rose.
“I’ve enjoyed talking to you very much,” he
said.
She forgave him the polite lie with a pleasant
smile.
“Oh wait,” she cried, as he started to walk away,
[116]


CALL FOR THE POLICE
isn’t it?”
“There are so many queer angles,” sighed Miss
Townsend. “I had no idea crime was such a compli-
cated affair.”
“Well, this is a mess so far,” Durkin admitted.
“Plenty of leads, but they get you nowhere. What's
the other bit of information?” he asked abruptly.
She told him about her conversation with David-
son and her sudden impression, clear and definite,
that she had seen him in Central Park.
“It’s my habit,” she said, “to walk in Central
Park in the morning, and I take my constitutional
there nearly every day when I am in town. As a
girl I used to ride there; but now that I am too old
for riding, and not so well off as I once was, I walk.
The place has associations for me, and memories;
besides, it is the nearest approach to the real out-
doors one can find in the heart of New York. Re-
cently, during these depression years, the Park has
not been so peaceful and pleasant as in the old days,
for it is haunted by the poor, pitiful men who are
out of work. They wring my heart, Mr. Durkin,
they really do—their plight is so pitiable, and what
little one can do to help them is utterly trivial and
temporary. However, I have made some friends
among them, and that is why my attention was at-
tracted toward the man I think may have been
[I 191


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Davidson.”
“How was that?” asked Durkin.
“He was seated close by a typical down-and-
outer, a very shabbily dressed man. It struck me
as such a friendly, kindly act. Plenty of people give
the poor loiterers in the Park a dime, and go on
their way. But to sit down and talk to one—that
really warmed my heart.”
“So he was talking to a down-and-outer?” asked
Durkin. “Did you notice the other man?”
“Indeed, yes; that really riveted the thing in my
mind. For this second person, the shabbily dressed
man, bore some resemblance to the well-dressed
man. They were not twins, you know, or anything
like it; but in build and coloring and the shape of
their faces they were alike.”
“They were alike?” exclaimed Durkin suddenly.
“They resembled each other,” said Miss Town-
send, “about in the same way that Davidson and
the man who is dead—Mr. Jones—resemble each
other.”
“What!” cried Durkin.
“Which has led me to wonder,” Miss Townsend
continued quietly, “if those two men I saw in the
Park are the same we have known in this train as
Davidson and Jones. After all, Nature doesn’t pour
many faces into the same mould. If I am correct in
[I2O]


CALL FOR THE POLICE
thinking that I saw Davidson in Central Park, and
there was a man beside him who looked like him, is
it unreasonable to think that Sidney Jones, who
also looks like Davidson, is the second person I saw,
who by some means is—or rather was—on this
train?”
“Unreasonable?” ejaculated Durkin. “I should
say not.”
He walked up and down with his eyes on the
ground.
“Do you remember what day it was you saw
those two?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “it was a week ago yesterday
—let me see—October twenty-third.”
“And that was the morning after Pierre Leland
was killed,” said Davidson. “By heck, do you see
how this is working out?”
He paused impressively.
“In the first place, I think this Davidson is Bar-
clay Leland. I’ve got too many things on him to
doubt that. Then, I think he killed his brother and
is running away. And finally, he met another man
in Central Park the morning after the murder.
This other man, first dressed like a tramp, turns up
in good clothes on the way to New Orleans, and
again on this train. He even has the money to get
a private compartment. How did he get the
[I21]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
money? He has something on Barclay Leland; he
is following him. This other man is Jones. Leland
paid him blackmail, was in terror of him, and
killed him.”
Miss Townsend drew a long breath.
“How utterly horrible!” she gasped.
“Mind you,” Durkin continued, “this is only a
theory, and it's got to be proved. But it's a theory
that seems to click.”
A long-drawn whistle sounded far out on the
desert.
“The wrecking train,” Durkin exclaimed.
A dark object appeared far away on the track.
Without seeming to draw nearer it grew steadily
larger, until at last the wrecking train rolled into
view and came to a stop, the engine almost touch-
ing the locomotive of the stranded Transcontinen-
tal. Among the group of railway men and laborers
who hurried forward, Miss Townsend noticed with
a thrill several police officers. -
“My samples,” Durkin explained. “I tele-
graphed for them, but for the benefit of listeners
I told Theophilus, who took my message up to the
station, that I was sending for samples. Now, if
these birds are any good, things will begin to be on
the up-and-up.”
A tall, gray-haired man stepped forward.
[I22]


CALL FOR THE POLICE
“Mr. Durkin?” he asked.
The detective smiled and nodded.
“I’m Captain Holcombe of the El Paso Detec-
tive Bureau,” the newcomer explained.
During the low-voiced conversation that fol-
lowed, Miss Townsend had an opportunity to study
this Captain Holcombe. He was not at all like her
idea of a police officer. He was a handsome man of
middle age, with a pleasant face and a quiet man-
1mer.
“Captain,” Durkin exclaimed, turning suddenly,
“I want you to meet Miss Townsend. This little
lady is a pretty good detective herself, and she has
dug up some clues that are going to help us a lot.
In fact, I wouldn't have gone very far without
her.”
“That's good enough praise, coming from a New
York detective,” said the Captain with a smile.
Durkin and Holcombe, with the three police-
men who accompanied the latter, tramped along-
side the train, followed by such of the passengers
as happened to be loitering about. When Miss
Townsend entered the Placidia the police had dis-
appeared inside Jones's compartment. A crowd of
people chattering excitedly filled the car. Presently
the police reappeared. Captain Holcombe, tall and
commanding, stepped out in front.
[I23]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“All the passengers in this car are to stay here,”
he announced in a loud voice. “The rest will have
to go outside.”
There was a noisy shifting about in the crowded
aisle for some minutes.
“All here?” Holcombe asked, consulting a list
and glancing at Durkin.
Miss Townsend looked about her. They were all
there: Miss Le Grand, the Strangs, the Goldsteins,
the Bunyards, and the others, grouped together
toward the end of the car in which the dead man
lay, and gazing fixedly at the police. She noticed
the anxious countenance of Theophilus in the
background, and the red-faced conductor. And
suddenly it occurred to her how familiar all these
faces seemed, how woven together these people
were, although forty-eight hours earlier they had
been utter strangers to her.
Durkin, after a careful check-up, nodded.
“Most of you can guess,” said Holcombe, “why
the police are here. A murder was committed on
this train, in this car, last night while the train was
passing through desert country. Since the time the
murder occurred no one has got on the train or left
it. There was an attempt to make the thing look
like suicide, but whoever tried that made some
slips. So it's murder, all right, and that's the un-
[I24]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“It’s him,” Goldstein persisted. “He says he's a
drummer. He ain't no drummer. I know drum-
mers; I been on the road. They drink and gamble
and run after girls; he don’t do none of those
things. And he says his line is ladies’ shoes. Why,
he don’t know as much about the shoe business as
a baby. I been in that line myself, and I asked him
about the Palace Shoe Store in Beaumont, and
Greenfield Brothers in San Antone, and a dozen
others. And he don’t know nothing about them.
He’s a fake, that feller is.”
Durkin grinned sheepishly.
“Well,” said Holcombe, “you’ve got the wrong
sow by the ear this time. Mr. Durkin, here, is a
detective on the New York police force.”
“A detective!” exclaimed Goldstein.
“No doubt about that. Now, have you anything
against him outside of a general suspicion?”
Goldstein, murmuring “A detective!” subsided.
The police then made a careful and systematic
search of the car. When this was completed the
Captain made another announcement.
“I’m sorry to cause you folks inconvenience,” he
said, “but all of you will have to remain in this car
until further notice. In fact, I’ve posted an officer
at each end to see that you don’t go out. We’ll hold
an investigation in the observation car, and as your
[126]


Observaſion Car
Rear Vestibule
Compartment
L Sidney Jones
Drawing-Room
Sybille Grand
Women's Washroom
J
* ; Mrs.
©
Vacant S Shenderson
AMiss º § º Benry
Townsends S//o/f
AMrs. # *e r Mrs.
Gray S < *Mason
- T & -
Davidson # * : Durkin
* * >
The : ?
Strangs & § Văcant
Mr."Mrs. § #Mr.”Arr.
Goldsheim S * Bunyard
/Me was
Washroom
Theophilus ſnow
*
Forward Westibule
Diogram of* Puſhman Pacidº
on he might of October 30”


CALL FOR THE POLICE
lasted until well after half-past two in the morn-
ing; the cessation of snores from the berth of Holt,
the rancher, and sounds as if he had risen and gone
away; the stealthy shuffle of old Strang up the
aisle, past her berth; and finally, her sudden reali-
zation, when she threw her hand against the cur-
tain, that on the other side was something that was
silent and hard and unyielding, like a human body.
The two men listened in silence.
“You saw nothing?” asked Holcombe.
“Not a thing. When I looked out, the car was in
total darkness.”
“Now tell the Captain about the other little
things you dug up,” said Durkin encouragingly.
She described her recovery of the contract score,
and the inference she drew from Miss Le Grand’s
unguarded remark that Jones had won and
Strang, Jr. had lost five hundred and fifty dollars;
the peculiar action of this same Strang and Miss
Le Grand in burying the cigarette case; and her
very definite impression while talking with the
man called Davidson that she had seen him before,
talking with a man who resembled the murdered
Jones.
“Of course,” she added, “this last is based on
hasty observation and recollection. Memory is such
an elusive thing that I should not want you to
[I29]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
attach too much importance to mine. I may be
mistaken.”
“You might,” said the Captain with a smile, “but
I'll bet you make fewer mistakes than most people.”
He conferred with Durkin.
“Well, let's get on with it,” exclaimed the latter.
“Now, Miss Townsend, we may need your sharp
wits before we get through, so, if you like, just sit
in on this little game. Take a chair, in the back-
ground if you’d rather, in case you think your
being conspicuous might worry some of your fel-
low passengers.”
Miss Townsend hesitated. It did not seem exactly
ladylike to take even a silent part in the police in-
vestigation of a murder. But, on the other hand,
here she was offered a front seat at a drama more
thrilling, more in deadly earnest than any she had
ever seen on the stage. Among the actors who would
come before her there might well be one or more
who were not acting parts, but were resorting to
all the cleverness, all the resourcefulness, boldness,
shrewdness they possessed in a game the stakes of
which were life or death. Accordingly, she with-
drew a little behind the police officers, and settled
down as unobtrusively as she could.
Theophilus Snow, the next person to be called,
entered in such a state of embarrassment that he
[130]


CALL FOR THE POLICE
*
º
literally fell over his own feet.
“Now, Theophilus,” said Durkin, “I want you to
tell us where you were and what you did last night
from, say, twelve o’clock on.”
“Yassir,” Theophilus replied nervously. “Ah was
on duty till 'bout half-past one o'clock. Den ah
made me up a bed in de men's smokin'-room.
Company rules allows us porters to get some sleep.
But ah only gits fo' or five hours in the twenty-fo'
when ah'm on a trip. Besides, goin’ troo dat West
Texas country dere’s all mos’ly flag stations where
de train don't often stop. So ah stayed in bed and
slept till long 'bout six o'clock this mawnin'. An’
that's Gawd's truf, gemmen.”
“Anyone come into the smoking-room while you
were there?”
“Nobody as ah knows about while ah was
sleepin’; but dis mawnin’ dat Texas gemman, he
come in 'bout six o'clock.”
“You didn’t see anyone moving around then be-
tween half-past one o'clock and six except Holt?”
“No, suh, ah sut’nly didn't.” Theophilus fingered
his cap nervously.
“Where are the electric light switches in your
car?”
“In a li'l closet right near de do” to de smokin'-
room, suh.”
[131]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Is the closet locked?”
“No, suh.”
“When you went to bed were the lights burning
in your car?”
“Yes suh, every othah one of de ceiling lights,
like we always does.”
“And in the morning?”
“Dey was all turned out. Wasn't yet daylight
when ah got up, and de car was all dark. Seemed to
me 'at it was mighty funny.”
“Could anybody have turned them off?”
“Anybody dat knew where de switch was.”
“Did you turn them off?” asked the Captain sud-
denly.
“No, suh,” Theophilus protested. “‘Deed ah
didn't.”
“Now tell us,” Durkin continued, “how you
came to go into Mr. Jones's compartment.”
“Well, suh, it was gettin’ late, 'mos' ten o’clock,
an’ ah thought Mistah Jones might want some
breakfus’ befo' de diner closed, so ah tapped on his
do’. No answer!” Theophilus became dramatic.
“Tapped again, and again, an’ still no answer. So
ah puts mah key in de do’—”
“Was it locked?” asked Durkin quickly.
Theophilus scratched his head.
“Ah don’ rightly know,” he answered. “Ah was
.
[I32]


CALL FOR THE POLICE
so kerflummuxed by Mistah Jones hangin' from
his berth an' twistin’ roun', ah jes disremembers.”
“Another thing,” said Durkin. “The lights in
Mr. Jones's room—were they on or off?”
Theophilus grappled with his memory.
“Off!” he exclaimed at last. “Yas, suh, ah's posi-
tive. Dey was off!”
Durkin and Holcombe conferred in low tones.
“All right, Theophilus,” said the latter. “That's
all now. You can go.”
Theophilus departed hastily and with evident re-
lief.
The conductor was next examined. He had not
set foot in the Placidia the previous night from
twelve o'clock on. No, he knew nothing whatever
about the murdered passenger. Jones, to him, was
simply a person who had presented tickets entitling
him to ride on this train from New Orleans to
El Paso. If the conductor thought of Jones at all,
before his death, Miss Townsend reflected, it was
probably as the bearer of a ticket with a certain
number, and not as a human being.
The conductor could throw no light, nor could
the Pullman conductor who followed him. A brake-
man, a smart-looking Southern lad, said that he
had been on duty as rear flagman from twelve
o'clock on, and, until after four, when he was
[I33]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
relieved, had been alone in the empty observation
Caſ.
“Did anyone come into it while you were there?”
asked Holcombe.
“No, sir.”
“Could you have seen if someone had entered?”
“Yes, sir. There were lights enough for that.”
“Did you sleep any of the time?”
The brakeman was positive that he had not.
“All right,” exclaimed Durkin, after the train-
man had left. “Now we’ll put on the real show.
Ask Miss Le Grand,” he said, to the policeman at
the door, “to step in.”
Miss Townsend drew a long breath.
[I34]


CHAPTER X
A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
SYBILLE GRAND entered the observation car ex-
actly as if she were stepping into a scene in one of
her plays. The illusion was so perfect that for an
instant Miss Townsend half expected a glossy-
haired young man to appear beside her, and to hear
Miss Le Grand's voice in the impersonal, mechanical
tones and staccato sentences of the talkies.
The screen actress sank gracefully into a chair
with a “Well, here I am” air.
“Now, Miss Le Grand,” Holcombe began, with
a gentleness that surprised Miss Townsend, “we
know who you are, and have admired you in your
pictures.”
Miss Le Grand rewarded him with a flashing
smile.
“Did you know this Mr. Sidney Jones, who is
dead?”
“Before last night I never set eyes on him,” she
replied emphatically.
“Just met him as a casual acquaintance?”
“The way you do when you're traveling alone.
[I35]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
First I met Mr. Strang, and he introduced Mr.
Davidson to me, and they introduced Mr. Jones
to me. I got on this train at San Antone, I want to
make that plain; and they were all three on the
train from New Orleans.”
“Of course. And they were all three in your
room last night?”
“They were, worse luck. Seemed like three pretty
nice men, so I threw a party for them. Wish I
hadn't now. Wish I’d gone to bed early like a good
little gur’rl.”
“You played cards?” the Captain continued, in
his gentle, insinuating manner.
“Oh, yes, we settled down to contract after a
while. Just a little friendly game, you know.”
“Do you remember what you played for?”
Miss Le Grand seemed to have an answer on the
tip of her tongue when her roving eye caught sight
of Miss Townsend.
“My God!” she exclaimed. “What's she doing
here?”
“Never mind her,” said Durkin shortly. “What
were the stakes?”
“Oh, just a trifle. I really forget.”
“Didn't you tell Miss Townsend they were for
ten cents a point?”
“Well, maybe I did.”
[136]


A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
Durkin rose and showed her a piece of paper.
“Is that your score?”
Miss Le Grand examined it.
“Looks like it,” she replied defiantly.
“I guess it is,” said Durkin coldly. “Has all your
names on it. Well, Jones must have won five hun-
dred and fifty dollars, and Strang lost as much.”
For a minute the screen actress seemed slightly at
a loss. Then she recovered her composure.
“There was some money changed hands,” she
replied, “but there was no hard feeling about it. In
fact, we'd arranged to have another game this
morning, so Mr. Strang could get a chance to win
his money back.”
“Some of the passengers have stated,” said the
Captain, in his quiet voice, “that there was quarrel-
ing at your party.”
“Well, there was plenty of bath-tub gin, and
that means noise,” she replied. “But there wasn’t
any quarrel except a little squabble between Jones
and Davidson about one hand. That didn't amount
to anything, and we all parted the best of friends.”
“Did anyone say anything to Jones that sounded
like a threat?”
“No,” replied Miss Le Grand emphatically.
“Or that seemed to show there was bad feeling?”
“No.”
[137]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“What time did the party break up?”
“Oh, I should say about one o'clock.”
“And they all left?”
“Yes.”
“Including Jones.”
“Yes—” very definitely.
“And that's the last time you saw him alive.”
“The very last,” cried Miss Le Grand.
“Now, Miss Le Grand,” said the Captain gently,
“an attempt was made to give the impression that
Jones committed suicide. But he didn't. He was
murdered, and that's a fact we can’t get away
from. He was brutally murdered, too, by someone
who grabbed him by the throat and strangled him.
Now, murder isn’t a pleasant business, and the way
Jones was killed is a particularly unpleasant kind of
murder. But it's hard to believe that a man could
have been put to death that way without some
sound—a scuffle, or an outcry, or a fall. You were
in the next room, separated only by a thin partition.
Did you hear anything?”
“I swear,” she replied earnestly, “after the party
I went right off sound asleep. I didn’t hear a thing.”
“There's been a lot of talk going around that
Jones was murdered,” said Durkin. “As you’re a
pretty wide-awake sort of young lady, I guess
you’ve heard some of it. And you've no idea at all
[I38]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
scandal. That's why I was just crazy when that
poor guy Jones was killed, and I made up my mind
I’d get just as far away from any connection with
the thing as I possibly could. So Mr. Strang, he ad-
vised me to hide this cigarette case.”
She paused.
“How did you come into possession of it?” asked
the Captain.
“Well, you see, at the party, I ran out of ciga-
rettes, and Jones gave me his case and told me to
help myself.”
“Jones!” exclaimed Durkin. “Why, this case has
the initials B. L. on it. They don't stand for Sidney
Jones.”
“I noticed that,” Miss Le Grand replied. “But
that's Jones's case, all right.”
“Wasn’t it Davidson's case?” asked Durkin
abruptly.
“That I don’t know. But Jones pulled it out of his
pocket.”
“When?”
“Last night, at the party.”
“And he left it with you?”
“Yes.”
Durkin shook his head impatiently with an ex-
pression of unbelief.
“Now, Miss Le Grand,” he said with a sour ex-
[14ol


A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
º
pression, “you remarked just now that this is a sur-
prise party. Well, here's a funny thing—a little
surprise that somebody chucked out of one of the
windows of this train a while ago.”
Slowly he unwrapped the paper from a parcel in
his lap, and with calculated deliberation spread the
tea-rose silk pajamas on the floor.
This time the shot went home. Even Miss Town-
send, sitting at a little distance, could see the pallor
under the screen actress's make-up.
“Yours?” Durkin asked curtly.
No answer.
“Got initials on them,” he continued.
Still no answer.
“Seems rather extravagant,” Durkin went on
pitilessly, “to throw away a suit like that. I bet it
couldn't be bought for thirty bucks. But maybe
there was a reason for throwing it away. Maybe
this little piece torn out of the bottom of one leg
is the reason for throwing this expensive suit away.”
He rose and stood before her threateningly.
“Here's the piece that's torn out of those paja-
mas,” he said sternly. “And where do you think I
found it? Where do you think I found that piece
of cloth’ I’ll tell you. Under the door in Jones's
room—that’s where I found it. What do you say
to that?”
[141]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
Slowly and with a great effort Miss Le Grand
began to regain her self-control. It was as if she
had taken a very deep dive and were coming to the
top bursting with the desire to draw a long breath.
At last she sprang to her feet.
“Looka here, Mister detective!” she shouted.
“This thing has gone far enough. You can’t bull-
doze me. I know my rights. I’ve worked my way
up in the movies from a hanger-on and a super to a
screen star, and you can’t do that, let me tell you,
without learning how to take care of yourself. And
I can take care of myself—yes, sirree, as sure as my
name is Mamie Connolly.”
“What do you mean, ‘Mamie Connolly’?” Durkin
exclaimed. “Thought your name was Sybil Le
Grand.”
“My stage name,” she explained shortly. “Now,
just as soon as I get to El Paso I’ll put my case in
the hands of a lawyer, and we’ll see how he’ll
handle a couple of bluffing, bulldozing policemen
like you.”
An angry retort was on Durkin's lips, but the
calm voice of Captain Holcombe broke in:
“If that’s as far as you want to go now, Miss Le
Grand, we're satisfied. You're intelligent enough to
understand that this business of the scrap of cloth
in Jones's room will need some explaining. If you
[142]


A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
you,” exclaimed Holcombe. “Now, you’ve heard
about the murder on this train?”
“I’ve heard some talk about it,” Holt admitted.
“Your berth is toward the end of the car nearest
Jones's room. Before you left your berth, did you
hear anyone moving around?”
“No, suh. When I’m asleep I don’t hear nothing.”
Miss Townsend smiled, remembering the snorts,
gurgles, and trumpetings that had come from his
berth.
“I hear you quarreled with Jones last night,” said
Holcombe, casually.
“We had a little ruckus, because he wouldn't
drink with me. But shucks, it wan’t nothin'. I
plumb forgot all about it in five minutes.”
“Ever kill a man?” asked the Captain softly.
“No suh, not rightly. I did have trouble with a
man once, and he was killed. But I acted in self-
defence; the jury acquitted me right away.”
Holt leaned forward with his hands on a chair
and regarded the two men in front of him earnestly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I do hope you’re not as-
sociating me in your minds with this here murder.
I’m a peaceful, law-abiding citizen. Why, at home
I’m a deacon in the Methodist Church. Once in a
while I feels one of these here back-slidin’ fits
comin' on, and I gathers me in some corn liquor
[I45]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
and gets on a train and lets her rip. That's all.”
“Well,” Holcombe replied, “I think we can let
you go for the present.”
After Holt had slouched away, Holcombe turned
to Durkin with a quizzical expression.
“He’s out,” said the latter. “I’ve checked him on
the smoking-car story. He was there. Besides,
strangling isn't Holt's way of killing. And when it
comes to trying to make the murder look like sui-
cide, why, that idea is away beyond that simple-
minded farmer and deacon.”
Either because her attention had wandered, or
because the succeeding conversation between the
police officers was carried on in a low tone, Miss
Townsend did not know who was called next. But
even before he appeared, she recognized the slow,
halting shuffle of the elder Strang. As he advanced
into the car, she noticed that his infirmity—some
form of partial paralysis—not only prevented him
from lifting his feet as he walked, but bent his body
forward sharply at the waist. As a result he had a
trick of peering upward from small, bright, close-
set eyes.
“Sit down, Mr. Strang,” said Holcombe, genially.
“We’re investigating this murder that occurred on
the train last night.”
Strang rolled an unlighted cigar in his mouth and
[146]


A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
made no reply.
“Know the man who was killed?”
“No,” replied Strang, without removing the
cigar.
“Well,” said Holcombe, “without beating about
the bush, I’m going to ask you a straight question.
Did you leave your berth last night?”
Miss Townsend leaned forward intently. But the
reply was as casual and unconcerned as if old Strang
were giving his name.
“Yes.”
“Why?” asked the captain.
“Couldn’t sleep, and wanted a smoke.”
“What did you do?”
“Put on my bathrobe and went to the vestibule
between this car and the one forward and smoked
a cigar.”
“Seems a funny place to go for a smoke,” re-
marked Holcombe thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you
smoke in bed? Lots of people do.”
“I’ve done it myself,” returned Strang quietly,
“until once I went to sleep and my cigar set the
bedclothes afire.”
“Why didn’t you go to the smoking-room?”
“Porter was asleep in there, and I didn’t want to
bother him.”
“What time did you get up?”
[147]


A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
“Vestibule's a noisy place; full of rattles and
squeaks.”
Here Durkin, who had been leaning forward
impatiently, burst in.
“Did you go into Jones's room?”
“No,” replied Strang unemotionally. “Why
should I?”
“Did you see anyone go into that room?”
Strang removed his cigar and examined it criti-
cally.
“No,” he replied deliberately, “I didn’t see any-
one go into Jones's room. But I did see somebody
come out of it.”
Both officers leaned forward in their chairs.
“How could you see?” exclaimed Durkin. “You
were in the vestibule. Well, the aisle curves from
the door round the women's washroom. You can’t
stand in the vestibule and see Jones's door.”
“You said the car was dark,” added Holcombe.
“Both the things you gentlemen say are true,”
returned Strang imperturbably. “But it was like
this: First I saw a beam of light on the wall of the
passage-way opposite Jones's room, although I
didn’t know then that it was his room. Well, that
sort of roused my curiosity, so I moved round the
curve of the passage-way where I could see what
[149]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
was going on. The patch of light on the wall grew
wider as the closed door was opened very slowly.
Then I saw a man's head poked out. He looked up
and down the aisle, but he couldn’t see me where
I was standing in the dark. After that the light
went out. Then I heard the sound of the door shut
softly, and someone moved quietly away into the
>>
Car.
“Who was it?” asked Durkin.
Again Strang removed and examined that well-
chewed cigar.
“Well,” he said at last, “I hate to give a feller
away, but I guess it will have to come out. The man
I saw peeping out of Jones's door was—Davidson.”
Miss Townsend gasped audibly.
“Didn't you think that was queer, at that time
of night?” asked Durkin.
“No,” replied Strang calmly. “People do slip out
of staterooms on trains at night, sometimes.”
“Why didn't you report it sooner, when word of
the murder got round?”
“Who’d I report it to? Tell that boob of a con-
ductor? Not me. I didn't know then that you were
a detective, so I just saved my breath until some
smart policeman like you got after me.”
“Well,” said Holcombe, “can you tell us any-
thing more?”
[I5ol


A SCREEN ACTRESS IS UNSCREENED
“Not a thing. That's all I know.”
“All right. Then we’ll excuse you for the pres-
ent.”
Strang, leaning forward from the hips, shuffled
slowly away.
[I51]


CALL FOR MR. LELAND
r
With some apprehension Miss Townsend sank
into her seat as Davidson entered. He was nervous;
he looked worried.
Without an instant's delay, Durkin began:—
“Name?”
“C. Milton Davidson.”
“What's the C. stand for?”
“Charles.”
“Address?”
“Well,” replied Davidson, with some hesitation,
“you see I have no permanent address. I travel a
great deal.”
“What do you travel for?”
“Pleasure. I just like to tour around.”
“Haven't you got a home? A family?”
“No.”
“Where'd you stay before you got on this train?”
“At New Orleans; the Roosevelt, for a few
days.”
“Before that?”
“The Raleigh, in Washington.”
“Before that?”
“I was in New York.”
“Where in New York?”
Davidson hesitated.
“I was at the Imperial,” he said finally.
“Got that?” asked Durkin gruffly of the police-
[I53]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
man whom he had installed beside him, and who
was taking notes. “Wire the Imperial the first
chance you get, and check on that. Now,” he
added, sharply, turning to Davidson, “when did
you leave New York?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Put that down,” said Durkin, significantly. “Go
straight to Washington?” he continued, looking
hard at Davidson.
“Yes,” replied the latter.
He was nervous, he was terribly frightened,
thought Miss Townsend. He had a trick of drop-
ping his gaze, or looking away, that, even had he
been at his ease, would have put him in an un-
favorable light. Perhaps Durkin's cold, unrelenting
stare, never for a moment relaxed, added to his em-
barrassment.
“Now,” said Durkin, “how long have you known
this man Jones, who was killed?”
“I met him on the train, yesterday.”
“Ever see him before?”
“No.”
“In New Orleans?”
“No.”
“On the train from Washington to New Or-
leans?”
“No.”
[I54]


CALL FOR MR. LELAND
“He was there,” Durkin remarked darkly. “Ever
meet him in New York?”
“I’ve told you,” cried Davidson, “I never saw
him before I got on this train.”
“In Central Park?”
Davidson wet his lips with his tongue.
“No,” he said desperately. “I don’t know what
you're driving at.”
“You’ll know, soon enough,” was Durkin's cool
comment. “Now, what did you fight about, you
and Jones, last night?”
Davidson pulled out a handkerchief and wiped
his face.
“We didn’t fight; that's nonsense,” he protested.
“You quarreled.”
“We did have a little squabble about the cards;
Jones claimed I’d failed to follow suit. It was noth-
ing. Both of us forgot it in a minute.”
“Didn't you quarrel about that girl?”
“What girl?”
“Miss Le Grand,” Durkin thundered. “That's
what men fight about—girls, women.”
“I never saw Miss Le Grand before last night in
my life,” declared Davidson.
“All right, we'll let it go at that, for the present,”
replied Durkin. “When did you last see Jones?”
“When the party broke up.”
[I55]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“What did you do?”
“I went to my berth and went to bed.”
“Where did Jones go?”
“I suppose he went to his room, I don’t know.”
“Did you get up and visit him later?”
“No, of course not,” Davidson protested. Miss
Townsend noticed with pity that his hands were
shaking.
“I’d like to see your hat,” said Durkin abruptly.
Davidson had not brought his hat with him.
However, a policeman was sent to fetch it, and it
was quickly produced.
“Now here's a funny thing,” remarked Durkin,
examining it. “Initials in the hat band are B. L.
Thought your initials were C. M. D. They stand
for C. Milton Davidson, don’t they?”
Davidson swallowed.
“I must have picked up the wrong hat some-
where,” he faltered.
Durkin's reaction to this was a cold stare.
“Now here,” he said with emphasis, “is some-
thing where the answer isn't so easy.”
He drew from his pocket the letter which began:
Dear Old Bark:
How long are you going to play the hermit on
your Columbia County farm?
[156]


CALL FOR MR. LELAND
“I saw you with my own eyes,” thundered
Durkin, “pull that letter out of your pocket, tear
it to pieces, and drop them into a waste-basket
right in this car. And don’t you tell me any lies
about it, either. I picked the pieces up myself and
stuck them together. Who's Bark?” The question
sounded like a dog's bark, sudden and threatening.
“I’m not Bark, if that’s what you’re driving at,”
Davidson protested. “That was a letter a man gave
me to read. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Mr. Davidson,” said Durkin wearily, “you don’t
put up any kind of a fight at all. Here, take a look
at this,” he added, holding out the cigarette case.
“Ever see it?”
“I think I saw it at Miss Le Grand's. Jones of-
fered us cigarettes, and this looks like his case.”
“His case,” Durkin jeered. “Why, it's got the
initials B. L. on it. Maybe they stand for C. Milton
Davidson too. Really, Davidson, if you give me
any more of your funny answers you'll have us
police all looking for fairies under the car, and say-
ing we believe in Santa Claus.”
“But it isn’t my case,” Davidson persisted.
“Now, Davidson, you pay attention to me,” said
Durkin sternly. “I’ll tell you a few things. Just
now you said you left New York two weeks ago.
That's a lie. You left a week ago yesterday, October

[157]


CALL FOR MR. LELAND
.
r
“The Evening Journal, the World-Telegram, the
Sun, the Post, etc. Pretty complete collection of
New York evening papers, all of October 23rd, the
day after the murder. Where did they come from?
Out of your bag—that’s where they came from,
when we searched the car. Now, if you didn’t know
Pierre Leland, why are you so interested in his
murder?”
“I can explain—” Davidson began, but Durkin
interrupted.
“Don’t trouble yourself, for I’ve an explanation
that will fit. This man Pierre Leland had a brother
who disappeared at the time of the murder. He was
a man five feet ten and a half inches tall, weight
about one hundred and fifty-five pounds, forty
years old, sandy hair, blue eyes, wore a brown suit,
a tan camel's hair overcoat, tan shoes. Know any-
one who fits that picture? If not, take a look in a
looking-glass, Mr. Barclay Leland.”
The other gazed at him in speechless stupefac-
tion.
“Seems a queer thing,” said Durkin, reflectively,
“that a man would run off and disappear when he
knew his brother was dead.”
Davidson made a sound as if he were choking.
“I’m not Barclay Leland,” he gasped.
Durkin emitted a snort of contempt.
[I59]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“The real Barclay Leland,” he cried, “is Sidney
Jones.” -
His statement fell flat. The police stared at him
with cold, unbelieving eyes.
“That's the bunk,” said Durkin. “Well, if you
know so much about Jones, why did you go into
his room last night?”
Davidson looked about him like a trapped ani-
mal, swallowed several times, gripped the arms of
his chair, and at last spoke.
“Well, I did go in there.”
“Thought you said a while ago that you didn't
see him after you left Miss Le Grand’s.”
“You’re setting traps for me; trying to pin his
murder on me. I have to protect myself,” Davidson
stammered.
“What time did you go to Jones's room?”
“Somewhere about half-past one.”
“Why did you go?”
“I went to ask him for some money.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Durkin impatiently.
“Do you just walk around in the middle of the
night and ask people for money?”
“Davidson,” said Holcombe gravely, “did Jones
give you any money?”
“No.”
“What did you do then?”
[16ol


CALL FOR MR. LELAND
“I went away. I went back to bed. I’m telling the
truth, I tell you,” cried Davidson, hysterically.
“Don’t keep looking at me like that. I didn't hurt
him. I didn’t touch him. You’ve got to believe me.”
To Miss Townsend's intense distress, the man's
face was working as if he were going to burst into
sobs. She turned her head away.
“You’ve got to believe me,” Davidson repeated.
Suddenly he lifted his head. “Send for young
Strang,” he cried. “He knows. He'll bear me out.
Send for him.”
The two officers withdrew to the end of the car
and conferred in low tones.
“All right,” said Holcombe presently to the po-
liceman at the door. “Call young Strang.”
Young Strang came in noiselessly, every glossy
hair on his head in place, clean shaven so that the
skin about his jaw was blue but smooth, not a speck
of dust on him, not a wrinkle in his clothes.
“Strang—Jim,” cried Davidson pleadingly, “these
people are trying to make out that I–’”
“Just a minute, just a minute,” Durkin inter-
rupted. “You wait your turn. I’ve got something
to say. Now, Mr. Strang, you were one of the party
in Miss Le Grand's drawing-room last night, along
with Davidson here and Jones?”
“Yes.”
[161]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Well, there was some sort of a squabble, I hear,
between Davidson and Jones.”
Strang hesitated.
“There was some bad feeling shown,” he ad-
mitted.
“Tell us about it.”
“Well, it really amounted to very little. Davidson
was playing, and Jones claimed he failed to follow
suit. Davidson denied it. There's a penalty, you
know, so Davidson was set back two tricks, which
lost him the game and his chance to win the rub-
ber.”
, He stopped.
“That's not all, I bet,” said Durkin sharply.
“Well, really,” Strang answered, “this puts me in
an embarrassing position. Do I have to answer
these questions?”
“You certainly do,” Durkin insisted. “This is an
investigation into a murder. You'll have to answer
questions at El Paso, too, when you go before the
district attorney.”
“Well,” said Strang slowly, “as I remember it,
when Jones got his way, Davidson looked at him and
said: ‘You’ll handle me with gloves if you know
what is good for you.’”
“And then what?”
“The remark seemed to hit Jones pretty hard. He
[162]


CALL FOR MR. LELAND
turned white, and said: ‘I don't know what you
mean.” To which Davidson, who was partly tight,
replied: ‘Yes, you do. You know damned well what
I mean.” Then Miss Le Grand and I jumped in and
patched things up. After all, the quarrel didn't
seem very serious.”
“There was a quarrel, then, and bad feeling be-
tween the two men,” Durkin remarked. “Now,
Davidson, you may go ahead.”
“Strang,” cried Davidson eagerly, “you remem-
ber that night in New Orleans when I told you
about Jones, and what I had on him, don’t you?”
“Not very well, I'm afraid.”
“At the dinner we had at Antoine’s.”
Strang hesitated. “Well,” he said, “you know you
got pretty drunk that night. I didn't attach much
importance to what you said.”
Davidson stared at him. “You lost money last
night to Jones, over five hundred dollars. You re-
member that, don’t you?”
“That,” replied Strang sadly, “is the sort of thing
I don’t easily forget.”
“All right, after the party, do you remember say-
ing to me: ‘You go get me some of that money.
You hold a club over Jones's head; he'll give it to
you’?”
Strang stared in turn.
[163]


CHAPTER XII
FITTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
“Now, Strang,” Holcombe began, “do you know
anything about this business?”
“Only what I’ve heard,” Strang replied. “Plenty
of talk going around.”
“Know Jones before you met him on this train?”
“Never heard of him or saw him before.”
“Or Davidson?”
“Ran into him in New Orleans—a chance ac-
quaintance.”
“Do you know that your father was walking
around in the Pullman at the time—or about the
time, as we place it—when Jones was killed?”
“I know it,” Strang replied readily. “Father
doesn’t sleep well, and often gets up for a smoke
in the middle of the night. Someone heard him
moving about. Well—probably someone could have
heard him the night before, too, if he had happened
to be awake.”
“How do you know he was up last night?”
“He spoke to me when he came back.”
“What time was that?”
[167]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Really, Captain, I have no idea. Father waked
me up out of a sound sleep, and I dropped right off
again.”
Holcombe consulted a list of names, and said:
“I see you and your father are traveling from
New Orleans to El Paso. Do you live in New
Orleans?”
“No, we travel around a lot. Just spent a few
weeks in New Orleans, stopping at the St. Charles.”
“Where is your home?”
“We have an apartment in New York, 141 East
31st Street.”
“I have an idea,” said Holcombe reflectively,
“that you came from New England originally.
You pronounce father with a flat a, almost like fat
for instance, which is a common pronunciation in
Eastern Massachusetts.”
“I was raised in New England, as a boy,” Strang
replied. “You don’t outgrow some of the things you
learn then.”
“Well, I guess that's all we want from Mr. Strang,
hey, Durkin?”
But Durkin evidently had something on his
mind.
“Are you a friend of Miss Le Grand’s?” he asked
abruptly.
“I could hardly claim that,” Strang replied, “as
[168]


FITTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
I met her only last night.”
“You seem to know her well enough to give her
advice,” Durkin remarked.
He pulled the gold cigarette case from his pocket
and handed it to Strang.
“Ever see that?” he asked.
Strang examined it calmly, and with no sign of
surprise.
“Possibly,” he replied.
“You buried one like it in the dirt alongside the
train, didn’t you?” said Durkin.
“It may have been this one,” Strang answered
quietly.
“Well, why did you want to get rid of it?”
“Miss Le Grand had it, and when the idea that a
murder had been committed began to get around,
she was anxious to keep herself out of the mess. So
she asked me what she should do, and I advised her
to hide it.”
“Why should she want to hide it? What's it got
to do with the murder?”
“Why, it belonged to Jones, didn’t it?”
“What makes you think it belonged to Jones?”
“She told me so. Said that she ran out of cigarettes
at her party, and Jones offered her his case. When
he went away, he left the case in her room.”
“Did you see him give her the case?”
[169]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Well, no, I can’t say that I did. But there was
a lot of drinking and noise going on, so the fact
that I didn't notice the incident means nothing.”
Durkin returned the case to his pocket with the
remark:
“All right, Mr. Strang. You can go.”
“He’s a cool customer,” he said to Holcombe,
after Strang with his cat-like tread had left the
room. “But that fellow who calls himself David-
son, by golly, he didn’t know whether he was stand-
ing on his feet or his head. Just scared stiff. I told
you he has no guts.”
The other occupants of the Placidia were called
in and questioned one after another, but no in-
formation was forthcoming. To be sure Mrs. Mason
had heard the elder Strang moving about, but she
was not only voluble and tedious, but vague. Still,
her evidence did bring to light the fact that she had
not only heard the old man's shuffle proceeding
toward the rear of the car, but later, had noticed it
right beside her berth, a plain indication of the
cripple's return. Goldstein remarked pithily that if
he had been awake listening to a murder he would
not have been robbed. Bunyard contributed a flow
of words and a stream of theories to which the police
officers listened with ill-concealed impatience.
“Well, Durkin,” said Holcombe, when at last the
[17ol


FITTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
investigation was over, “what do we know so far?”
“The movie actress, Le Grand, knows more than
she has told. She was in his room, for one thing,
sure.”
“Yes,” said Holcombe thoughtfully, “it’s a fair
guess she was there. Whether alone or with some-
body, and whether or not she had any part in the
murder, well—that's all in the dark so far. We’ll
call her suspect number one.”
“Holt is out of it, we'll agree on that,” said
Durkin. “Next is the old man Strang, who was
heard moving up to the end of the car near Jones's
room somewhere about two o'clock this morning.
But he tells a pretty clean story, and besides, there's
no question of motive, so far as I can see.”
“That's true,” replied the other. “Now young
Strang might have a motive—to get back the
money he had lost; but he doesn’t seem to come into
the picture.”
“This man Jones,” said Durkin impatiently,
“certainly left darned little information about him-
self. I picked up what I could find, but what does
it amount to? Receipted hotel bill made out to
Sidney Jones, a few Pullman car stubs. But nothing
to tell who he was or where he came from—not a
letter, not a card, not even an automobile license.
But say, I’ve been watching our suspects to see
[171]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
which of them wears a ring.”
“Why?”
“Somebody dropped a diamond in Jones's room,
unless it belonged to him.”
“A diamond!” exclaimed Holcombe.
For answer Durkin drew from his pocket an en-
velope, opened it, and displayed on the flat of his
palm, first to Miss Townsend and then to Hol-
combe, a medium-sized white diamond. In the rays
of the late afternoon sun it sparkled, so it seemed
to Miss Townsend, with a sinister brilliance. Who
had owned it? What had happened to it last night?
“When we took the flashlight pictures in Jones's
room” Durkin explained, “this thing sparkled and
I saw it. It was on the floor, right beside the berth.”
“That's a find,” exclaimed Holcombe heartily.
“We didn’t get far with our search for finger-prints,
because Jones and the porter and probably others
had been messing about. Even the marks on the
throat weren't finger-prints, so far as we could see,
although they would probably fade out anyway.
And they might have been made by a man wearing
gloves.”
“All the arrows,” said Durkin, “are pointing
toward this fellow who calls himself Davidson.
Well, who is he? I say he is Barclay Leland. In the
first place he answers the description so closely that
[172]


FITTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
•
the man on duty at the Pennsylvania Station
spotted him the minute he came up to the ticket
window. The initials in his hatband and on his
cigarette case, and that letter he tried to destroy,
all give him away. He left New York the night
after his brother was killed, and he knew about the
murder, for the newspapers we took out of his bag
show that. He's traveling under an assumed name;
he tries to hide his identity—why? Because he is
Barclay Leland. And what is Barclay Leland run-
ning away for? Because he killed his brother.”
Durkin paused and lit a cigarette.
“You heard him tell us,” he continued, “that he
didn’t know Jones, never saw him before they met
on this train. But Strang tells us—and I’ll check
on that the next time I see the movie actress—
that he said to Jones: ‘You’ll handle me with
gloves, if you know what is good for you.’ And
when Jones asked him what he meant, he said: “You
know damn well what I mean.” That shows he knew
Jones before. And Miss Townsend, here, saw two
men who she is pretty sure were Jones and Leland
in Central Park the morning after the murder of
Pierre Leland. Well, my theory is that Jones knew
about the murder and was following Leland, so
Leland got rid of him. And then, there's the testi-
mony of old Strang, who saw this fellow come out
[173]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
was personal—nothing that in any way disclosed
the identity of the deceased Sidney Jones. As she
laid the coat across the chair, and gave it a final
pat to arrange the folds, her hand felt something
inside the soft cloth. Whatever it was, it couldn’t
be in any of the pockets; it must be inside the lin-
ing. Having gone thus far, she decided to go
further, in spite of a guilty feeling at prying into
a dead man's effects. With a pair of scissors from
her handbag she snipped open the lining and drew
out the object which had attracted her attention.
At first she was disappointed. It was nothing but
a bit of pasteboard, a check from a parcel room.
But as she studied it, and considered the place where
it had been issued, the date and the hour stamped on
it, and the fact that its owner for some very definite
reason had concealed this innocent-looking piece
of pasteboard, she became more and more inter-
ested. Finally, when Durkin happened to look up,
she said:—
“Has this overcoat of Mr. Jones's been ex-
amined?”
“Yes,” Durkin replied, “I turned the pockets
inside out myself, and found nothing that might
not belong to any one of a thousand men.”
“Well, I’ve discovered something,” said Miss
Townsend, “hidden away in the lining of this coat.”
[176]


FITTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
She displayed her find.
Durkin studied it carefully, turning it over and
OWer.
MA-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-º-º-º-º-º/
GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL
PARCEL ROOM
Time º
Recº Oct. 22-840*32
NOTICE ±E
“What do you make of it?” he said at last.
“It may throw some light on the identity of
Mr. Jones,” she replied.
“Yes,” he agreed, “it may. But I think you have
something more in your mind.”
“What's in my mind is probably the silly fancy
º of an old woman. But I’ll tell it to you, neverthe-
less. Didn't you say that your last definite knowl-
edge of the real Barclay Leland was that he took a
train from Hudson for New York?”
“Yes.”
º “What was the date?”
[177]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“The day Pierre Leland was murdered, October
22nd.”
“Do you know when that train arrived in New
York?”
Durkin consulted his note-book.
“He left Hudson at 5:1o on a train due in the
Grand Central at 8:30 P.M.”
“Well, this check was issued at 8:40 on October
22nd.”
Durkin scratched his head thoughtfully.
“That's a big station, you know,” he said doubt-
fully. “A dozen different people might have
checked their baggage at about that time. Still, the
fact that Jones took the trouble to hide this check
is worth looking into. I’ll wire to New York at
once and have the bag, or whatever it is, examined,
and ask them to telegraph me.”
Durkin gathered his papers and hurried away,
while Miss Townsend stepped through the door of
the observation platform into a desert sunset at the
height of its glory. Along the mountains to the
north and the east the canyons showed like slashes
of purple and violet, and all the ridges were lines
of glittering fire. Far to the south rose, like a wall,
a giant range in Mexico, grim, jagged, with saw-
toothed backbones, or needle-like peaks, some in the
shape of cathedral spires, some like Moslem mina-
[178]


FITTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER
rets. They were dark, wild and forbidding moun-
tains, suggesting vast lonely spaces, where few men
eVer Went.
The feathery clouds across the sky were edged
with salmon, with orange, with crimson, until the
sun sank and all the mountains and the clouds were
a riotous mass of blues, scarlets, yellow like beaten
brass, and orange like pure gold. And for a short
time Miss Townsend was transported right away
out of a world where murder and murderers ex-
isted; where there was fear and greed and falsehood
and cruelty.
[179]


CHAPTER XIII
MISS LE GRAND RECONSIDERS
DARKNEss came on. The stranded train glowed
with lighted windows; the workers about the wreck
toiled in the glare of searchlights; while the flag-
man in the rear kept his solitary vigil beside a red
lantern. To the two police officers chatting in the
observation car came a policeman who saluted
smartly.
“The passengers in the car ahead want to know
what they’ll do about dinner,” he said.
“Tell them to go into the diner,” Holcombe re-
plied, “all of them except Miss Le Grand and
Davidson. I’ll see about their dinners.”
He departed, and, lo, in no time at all Sybil
Le Grand appeared. As Miss Townsend surveyed
her with that lynx-eyed attention which is one
woman's tribute to the appearance of another, she
was filled with admiration. Miss Le Grand was
toned down, subdued: lips, mascara-tinted eye-
lashes, apparel. She had discarded her smart travel-
ing suit, her collar of silver foxes, her ring with a
pearl as big as a pea, her necklace that rivaled
[18o]


MISS LE GRAND RECONSIDERS
Mrs. Goldstein's. She was quietly dressed in black
georgette crêpe with white trimmings, and wore a
little tuft of a hat perched over one eye. Here was
no Sybil Le Grand of the movies, beloved of “big
shot” gangsters, darling of elderly rounders, heroine
of Bad Broadway and She Led Him On. Sybil was
coy, demure, appealing. She had dressed for a part,
thought Miss Townsend with approval, and taken
as her model that coquettish little widow, Mrs. Hen-
derson.
“Well,” she remarked, sinking nonchalantly into
a chair, “I guess I must be one of the bad ones.”
“How so, Miss Le Grand?” inquired Holcombe.
“Stopped in my rush for the diner,” she replied.
“‘Captain's orders,” said your good-looking cop.
Say, Captain, what are you going to do to me, make
me fast, like that guy what's-his-name—Gandhi?”
“Nothing like that,” replied the Captain gal-
lantly; “nothing that will hurt your looks.”
Miss Le Grand took this with the air of one to
whom compliments are all in the day's work. Set-
tling herself comfortably and lighting a cigarette,
she remarked: “Well, I wanted to see you anyway,
so this time is as good as another.”
Both men looked at her inquiringly.
“Some of my friends in Hollywood,” she said,
“call me Dumbbell Syb, and I guess I have pulled
[181]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
a boner this time. You understand, I don’t want to
get any publicity about this murder, and espe-
cially I don't want to get held up in El Paso or any-
where along the line, as a material witness or what-
ever you call it. For if I ain’t in Hollywood in three
days, someone else is going to get the contract I’m
after. And if she gets it, I hope she chokes on it.
Besides,” Miss Le Grand added, leaning forward
confidentially, “I understand that poor guy, David-
son, is the Big Suspect.”
“Who told you that?” asked Durkin.
“Oh, little birds. There's always little birds,” she
replied airily. “Well, one of the maxims that has
brought Sybil Le Grand to the place where she is
now in the screen world, like Honesty Is the Best
Policy except under certain circumstances, is, al-
ways lend a helping hand if you can do it without
getting your fingers yanked off. Now, this fellow
Davidson is in trouble, and I’m going to tell you
gentlemen the honest-to-God truth about last
night, as I know it.”
Both officers eyed her attentively.
“You see,” said Miss Le Grand, “after the party,
what with the cocktails and my nerves, I wasn’t a
bit sleepy, and I settled down to read a magazine.
Well, after a while—we must have been stopping
at one of these hick towns along the line—I could
[182]


MISS LE GRAND RECONSIDERS
window I could see something black that moved
just a little, back and forth, back and forth. Well,
I thought that was funny, so after a few more
whispers I stepped into the room, felt around for
the switch, and turned it on.”
Miss Townsend's opinion of the screen actress's
dramatic ability grew rapidly. She was not merely
telling her story; she was “putting it over,” and she
knew how to “put it over.”
“My God!” exclaimed Miss Le Grand. “He was
there all right. With his legs trailing on the floor,
and his head on one side, and his tongue sticking
out—there was Sidney Jones, dead.”
“How did you know he was dead?” asked Dur-
kin.
“Well, I’m no doctor, nor an undertaker,” she
replied, “but one look was enough for me. If you'd a
seen him like I did. If I’d been the screaming kind,
I’d have screamed. As it was, I was just frozen
stiff. Finally, I turned off the light, backed out of
the room, and shut the door in such a hurry that
I caught the bottom of my pajamas in it. I felt the
cloth tear, but I was too scared to worry about it
at the time.
“So I went back to my room and tried to get
myself together. Should I raise an alarm? Wake peo-
ple up? But, no, I told myself, what good would it
[185]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
murder story was spread around, was anyone men-
tioned as the possible murderer?”
“Well, there was talk about that big, rough guy
from Texas; Mrs. Henderson mentioned him. And
that story-writer, Bunyard, had a burst of ideas.
But he's nuts, that fellow.”
“Did Davidson, or Strang, say anything to you
about the possible murderer?”
“Well, they mentioned the Texan, in connection
with the row he and Jones had had the night be-
fore.”
“Have you any idea who the murderer could be?”
“Not an idea,” she replied steadily. “But I have
other ideas, a couple of them,” she added, with the
sort of glance at Holcombe at which, in her pic-
tures, “Big Shots” would crumble and melt. “One
is this, and I want to get it over to you straight:
while I stepped into this mess through being a big-
hearted damn fool, I know nothing about the in-
side of it. I don’t know why anybody would want
to kill Sidney Jones; I don’t know who killed him;
and I know I didn't kill him.”
“All right, what's the other idea?” asked Hol-
combe with a smile.
“It’s partly the reason I came back here to see
you, and it’s more of this big-hearted stuff. You
see, you suspect this man Davidson. Well, maybe
[188]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
out that while he was on this train he spoke to only
five people. We've questioned all of them, and I
think we agree that two—Holt and the motion-
picture actress—don't look suspicious. That leaves
Davidson and the two Strangs. Well, I can’t for the
life of me see how old Strang could get back to his
berth without making a noise that Miss Townsend
would have heard. I’ve watched him, and he doesn’t
walk, he shuffles; just scuffs his feet along as if he
were skating. He got off the train once, and the
porter had to hoist him up the steps. As a matter of
fact Mrs. Mason did hear him coming back. Young
Strang is a dark horse, but so far as we know he met
Jones for the first time on this train. And he had no
motive, apparently, except that he had lost some
money at cards. But Davidson—”
He blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Davidson,” he continued. “Just look at what
we've got against him. For one thing he knew Jones
before they met on this train. For another, he an-
swers the description of Barclay Leland, whose
brother, a prominent man, has been murdered. I
say he is Barclay Leland, and that Jones knew about
the murder and was following him for blackmail.
That’s why Davidson went to Jones's room last
night, where two people saw him, and that’s why
he murdered Jones.”
[192] .


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“About half-past one.”
“Why did you go?”
“Well, it was this way: after the party at Miss
Le Grand’s broke up, young Strang took me by the
arm and led me down to the passage-way by the
smoking-room. “Say, he whispered, ‘that—’ well,
never mind what he called him, 'Jones has cleaned
me out. When I get to El Paso I won’t have enough
for taxi fare for me and my old man.' I said that
was too bad; but that didn't satisfy Strang. He
kept insisting: ‘You go to Jones and get some of
that money. You've got a club over his head. I don’t
care how you get it, but get it.” Do you know
Strang?” Davidson asked suddenly.
“No,” Holcombe replied.
“I’ve been thinking about him for the last hour,”
said Davidson bitterly, “and he's a snake, a poison-
ous snake. But he's ruthless, he makes people do
things. I didn't want to go back to Jones, I was tired
and sleepy, but I went.”
“Do you mean to tell us,” Holcombe exclaimed,
“that just because this Strang influenced you, you
would go into a man's room in the dead of night to
get money for the man who sent you?”
“I told you,” Davidson replied, “that Strang is
hard-boiled. You can’t refuse a fellow like that
easily.”
[194]


PLIGHT OF A BLACKMAILER
“You don’t get my point. Did you expect to give
all the money you got from Jones, supposing he let
you have any, to Strang? Weren't you going to keep
some of it for yourself?”
“I suppose so,” replied Davidson with a hang-dog
look, “but really I didn’t think much about it.”
“Were you drunk?” asked Holcombe.
“Just a little dizzy, but I knew what I was about.
So I went to Jones's room and knocked on the door.
He was in bed, but he let me in, and right there on
the top of his suitcase was the wad of bills he'd won
from Strang. I didn't have much heart for my job,
but I told him how Strang was busted, and that
under the circumstances I thought he'd better let
me have some of the money. Well, he was pale, but
very quiet and very firm. He told me he wouldn’t
give me even one dollar on any consideration. He
said if I pressed him too far he'd commit suicide be-
fore he’d give me anything.”
“What did he say?” exclaimed Holcombe.
“He said he'd commit suicide before he’d give me
any of his money.”
“Did you tell Strang that?”
Davidson pondered. “No,” he replied, “I went
back and told him I couldn’t get that money.”
“What did he do?”
“He cursed.”
[195]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Where was he?”
“In his berth, an upper. The plan was that I was
to hand the bills to him there.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I undressed, and tumbled into my berth, and
went to sleep right away.”
“Can you prove that?”
“No,” replied Davidson helplessly. “How can I?”
“Very well,” said Holcombe briskly, “now
that's what happened last night so far as you were
concerned, according to your own story. But what
was this club you held over Jones's head? Why was
he afraid of you?”
“I knew he had committed a crime,” Davidson
answered in a low voice.
“What crime?”
“Murder.”
Miss Townsend, who had been watching eagerly,
leaned forward with quickened breath.
“How did you know that?” asked Holcombe
sharply.
“It’s a long story,” Davidson began.
“All right, begin at the beginning.”
Davidson clasped and unclasped his hands, shot a
furtive, frightened glance at the police officers, and
looked away.
“It sounds like a fairy story,” he began, timidly,
[196]


PLIGHT OF A BLACKMAILER
------------ - --------------
“but it's true. I hope I can make you believe it.
Well, a little more than a week ago I was sitting on
a bench in Central Park, out of a job, in rags, and
hungry. And I’d give anything I have to give if I
was back there this minute in the same condition.
I hadn’t done a stroke of work for over a year; I'd
slept in flop-houses and the City lodging house and
in alleys; I'd pan-handled; I’d been half sick and
near starved. No worse though, I guess, than thou-
sands of others who are out of work. Well, as I was
sitting on a park bench eating my breakfast—
some pieces of dry bread that I’d begged from a
baker—along came this man whom you call Jones.
He sat down near me, and I noticed right away he
was terribly nervous. Kept twitching, and looking
around, and glancing over his shoulder as if he was
afraid something was coming up behind him. He
was well dressed though, and looked prosperous, so
after a while I moved over and asked him for a
cigarette. Well, then he gave me a quarter. And one
thing led to another, so we fell into a conversation.
He asked me about myself, and wanted to know if I
didn't like good food, and soft beds, and the com-
forts of life. Imagine asking a man who'd been
through the hell I had if he liked such things!
Finally, he told me a queer story, and made me the
strangest proposition I’d ever heard of. He said he
[197]


PLIGHT OF A BLACKMAILER
remarked.
“She was right. Well, after I left him—Barclay
Leland I mean—I got a shave and a haircut; then
I went to the nearest Ritzy-looking hotel I could
find and I ordered lunch. What a lunch! Every-
thing I wanted, regardless of expense, and all I
could eat. Then I lit a fifty-cent cigar, bought a
paper, and sat down in the lobby. Pretty soon I
noticed a headline about the murder of a promi-
nent society man named Pierre Leland. Well, news-
paper stories of murders are usually good reading,
so I read, suspecting nothing, until away down
near the end of the article I came to the statement
that the only near relative of the dead man was his
brother, Barclay Leland! Why that was the name
of the man who had given me the clothes and the
thousand dollars. That was the name I was mas-
querading under.
“At first I didn’t know what to do. But I soon
made up my mind to give up the Bermuda trip.
To act as a kind of decoy for a man who was dodg-
ing alimony, or was a defaulter or something like
that, was one thing; to take a risk for a man who
was a murderer was another.”
“How do you know he was a murderer?” asked
Holcombe.
“On the face of it he must have been,” Davidson
[199]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
new suit, hat, shoes, bag and that overcoat you see
lying on the chair. I kept him more or less in sight,
and thanks to that fellow I had tipped, I caught up
to him at the Union Station. He got on the through
train to New Orleans, and so did I.”
“Did he see you on that train?” asked Durkin.
“It’s a long ride—thirty-six hours.”
“Not once,” Davidson replied. “I covered my
face with a paper a couple of times when he passed
through my car. But I’m sure he had no more idea
I was following him than I had that Mr. Durkin
was following me.”
“How do you know that?” asked Durkin gruffly.
“Because at the hotel in New Orleans where he
went I met him in an empty corridor. He looked at
me as if I was a ghost or someone risen from the
dead. He turned so white and trembled so I thought
he was going to faint. Finally, he asked me in a
whisper what right I had to be there, following
him. “Well,” I said, ‘when it comes to that, what
right had you, by telling me a cock-and-bull story,
to put me in danger of being arrested for murder?”
“He said he didn’t know what I meant. Then I
asked him if he had heard that Pierre Leland had
been killed, and that the name of his brother was
Barclay Leland. He hung on to a door knob to keep
from falling. Finally he said I was mistaken, and
[2O2]


PLIGHT OF A BLACKMAILER
he would talk to me later when he was feeling bet-
ter. With that he walked away, popped into his
room, and I heard him lock the door. The next day
he got on this train for El Paso and so did I.”
“Where did you meet young Strang?” asked Hol-
combe.
“At the hotel in New Orleans. We had dinner to-
gether, with his father. Well, I was a fool that time
and got pretty drunk. That's my trouble, gentle-
men—liquor. I talked too much, and I told about
the game Leland had worked on me, and what I
thought he had been up to. Young Strang said it
sounded like a good racket.”
“Did he say anything about taking this train?”
asked Holcombe.
“Not a word. I was surprised to meet him here.”
“Oh, you were?” said Durkin with a sneer.
“See much of the Strangs?” Holcombe inquired.
“Just that one evening. It was expensive, though,
for we played poker and they just about cleaned me
out.”
“Do you think Jones got some of your money
from Strang?”
“I suppose so,” replied Davidson with a sigh.
“Davidson,” said Holcombe, “when you told
Strang you couldn't get the money from Jones,
where was his father?”
[2O3]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“I couldn't say. He might have been in the lower
berth underneath his son, or he might not. I don't
know.”
“Well,” remarked Holcombe rising, “that's quite
a story of yours.”
“It’s a queer one, but it's true,” Davidson replied
anxiously.
“All right. Want some dinner?”
“I would like it, Captain.”
“You can go along to the dining-car.”
But after Davidson had departed, Holcombe said
to the officer at the door: “Keep an eye on that man
Davidson.”
“How about some dinner for ourselves?” in-
quired Durkin, rising and stretching.
“Good idea,” Holcombe replied. “Well, Durkin,
if this fellow Davidson's story is true, the theory
that he is Leland, and his motive for killing Jones—
they both fall to pieces, don’t they?”
“Aw, applesauce,” exclaimed Durkin. “I don't
take any stock in that yarn. This fellow is a ro-
mancer, like that writer, Bunyard. Both of them
can think up stories faster than they can talk.”
[204]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
was up; a patch of light from the vestibule traveled
across the ground as the train gathered way. Some-
one pulled the emergency lever, and after an instant
there was a sound of grinding brakes, and the
Limited came to a stop.
A crowd surrounded the hysterical Mrs. Gold-
stein.
“I was just going to look for Solly,” she sobbed,
“when I seen him rush out of the smoking-room.
I yelled “Solly, what's the matter?' But he didn’t
answer me, and when I got here there he was on the
bottom step, and before I knew it, he jumped off.”
The conductor arrived with the air of one to
whom mere expletives were utterly inadequate.
“Well, what's the matter now?” he inquired
wearily.
“One of your passengers jumped off,” someone
replied.
“Why don’t you all jump off?” cried the con-
ductor. “You can walk to the Coast quicker than
this train will get there. Now, one thing I’d like to
know is, why was this door left open? Where's the
porter of this car?”
“Hyah ah is, suh.” The voice of Theophilus
sounded from somewhere in the press.
“Well, what have you got to say about leaving
this door open?” roared the conductor.
[206]


GOLDSTEIN CHASES A THIEF
“Deed ah didn't. Ah done shut de do' tight befo'
de train started.”
“Where did you go then?”
“Lady in de drawing-room rung fo' me, suh.”
“You’re supposed to stay at the door until the
train starts,” the conductor insisted.
“Only at stations, suh; not out in a desert like
dis,” Theophilus replied in an aggrieved tone.
The conductor snorted, but pressed the matter
no further.
A knot of people gathered at the foot of the
steps, discussing and disputing. And then, from far
out on the dark and silent desert came a cry, a
single cry, faint, thin, distant, but carrying a note
of urgency and terror.
“Something's gone wrong,” said the calm voice
of Captain Holcombe. “Here, Durkin, we’ll organ-
ize a searching party; you, two of my men from El
Paso, and a couple of trainmen with lanterns.
That’ll be enough; we don’t want a mob. The rest
of you might as well get back aboard the train.”
One who did not go back aboard the train was
Miss Matilda Townsend. Her fighting blood was up.
Into her calm and well-ordered life had come this
day crowded with excitement and crime, and hav-
ing lived with the mystery and the tragedy in the
Placidia for nearly twenty-four hours, she was in
[207]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
this affair, as she told herself, “up to the neck” and
would see it through.
She marched along, following the bobbing lan-
terns ahead, and smiling to think how amused her
friends would be if they could see her. Suddenly
there was a flash and a report.
“Put out those lights,” cried a voice.
Miss Townsend looked back to the long vista of
lighted windows of the train, forward into the
dark and lonely waste of the desert, and marched
forward. Why, she asked herself. In all her shel-
tered, comfortable life not once had she ever been
in great danger; never once experienced real ad-
venture. Here was her chance, and she would take
it. There was a volley of shots, and with a noise like
the buzz of a wasp something whizzed past her.
Miss Townsend marched on. She tore her stockings
dreadfully on prickly desert plants, and once she
lost her balance and rolled down the steep and
pebbly side of a small arroyo. She struggled for-
ward sadly disarrayed, her hat, which had fallen
off, in her hand. And suddenly she arrived in front
of something—an object, a figure, a man, who rose
to his feet with a muttered curse. To Miss Townsend
he seemed to keep rising until he was ten feet high.
She bowed her head and waited in suspense for what
was to happen. There came another volley of shots,
[208]


GOLDSTEIN CHASES A THIEF
and with a yell the figure in front of her fell over.
“I got him,” cried Durkin's voice, as that person
came charging up. He turned his flashlight first on
the contorted face and writhing figure of young
Strang; then on Miss Townsend.
“What—?” he exclaimed in speechless astonish-
Inent.
“I’m just determined to see this thing through,”
she explained.
“You ran a good chance of being shot.”
“The danger made it all the more exciting,” she
replied.
“Well,” was his comment, “nobody will deny
that you have nerve.”
“Is he badly hurt?” she asked, with a gesture
toward the prostrate Strang.
“I don’t know; probably not,” Durkin answered,
“or he wouldn’t curse so. I’ll look him over.”
Durkin blew a whistle and then busied himself
with the wounded man. Soon three figures ap-
proached through the darkness.
“Hey, Miss Townsend, do you go in for fighting
as well as sleuthing?” exclaimed Holcombe's voice.
“I’m not fighting; just an active spectator,” she
replied.
Holcombe turned the beam of his flashlight on
the dusty and disheveled little figure. Her hair was
---
[209]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
partly down; her dress was torn; she was bare-
headed. Holcombe grinned at her and then turned
to Durkin.
“This fellow hurt much?” he inquired.
“Shot in the leg,” the other replied. “Bled quite
a lot, but I’ve fixed that.”
“Quite a casualty list,” said Holcombe. “Gold-
stein's lying over there, knocked cuckoo with a
bang on the head. And what do you think? The old
Strang is out here in the bushes, too. But he can't
walk, you know.”
“He can crawl, though,” Durkin replied. “He
was going through the bushes at a great rate when
I stopped him.”
“Bill,” said Holcombe to one of his men, “go over
to the train and tell them to back up as near as they
can get to us, and send some porters to help carry
these men in.”
Goldstein, propped up on his seat in the Pullman
with a bandage round his head, was a hero. Crowded
about him were the police officers, the passengers of
the Placidia, trainmen, and passengers from other
cars—as many as could get within hearing distance.
“I got a soft heart but a hard head,” he asserted.
“Two bangs on the cocoanut I got this night.”
“Tell us how it all happened,” urged Durkin.
[2 Iol


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
I find always there the young Strang or the old
Strang. Never both together, but always one. I go
to lunch, and one of them is there. I come back
from lunch, and one of them is here. The train runs
off the track, and one of them is there. All through
the afternoon it goes on, and finally I says to my-
self: “Solly, what game is these birds up to?” But I
didn’t find out, not for a long time, though I did
quite a little snooping.
“Well, at last, when the train was ready to start,
and they were blowing the whistle and shutting the
doors and yelling ‘all aboard,” I looked over to the
Strangs' seat, and neither of them was there. So I
tiptoed into the passage-way and peeped around
the curtain of the smoking-room, and what did I
see?”
Goldstein paused impressively.
“What did I see, ladies and gentlemen? There,
standing up on the wash-basins, with his hand
stretched away above his head, was the young
Strang. And out of the ventilator in the roof of the
car he pulled something. What was it? My chamois
bag!”
He gazed with round eyes at the circle of faces.
“I didn’t yell; I didn’t holler for the police. I just
made one dive through the curtain for that fellow
as he jumped to the floor. And whango! He hit me
[212]


GOLDSTEIN CHASES A THIEF
on the head with something and almost knocked me
silly. But not quite. I ran after him into the vesti-
bule and saw him drop off the train.”
Goldstein lifted his bandaged head proudly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I don’t want to
get hurt any more than the next man. Usually I'm
a man of peace. But, when it comes to fighting for
my property, I’m a Lion of Judah.”
“And then, what?” asked Durkin.
“It was dark on the ground and I couldn’t see
anybody moving about. But I figured if young
Strang had jumped off to get away he wouldn't go
the way the train was going. And I thought he
wouldn't strike out into this desert, which is ter-
ribly big and wild. So I went back along the track.
After a while I heard voices, but I could see nobody.
Someone, though, must have seen me, for all of a
sudden a man rose up out of the bushes right beside
me. I gave one yell, and bang, I felt nothing. But I
feel plenty now, ladies and gentlemen. Such a head.”
“Goldstein,” said Holcombe, “what time did you
go to bed last night?”
“Oh, about eleven o’clock.”
“And you had the jewels then?”
“Sure I had them then. I put the bag under the
pillow.”
“Whose pillow, yours or Mrs. Goldstein’s?”
[213]


A TRAPPED WOLF
CONTAINS MAN’S CLOTHING AND LETTERS
ADDRESSED BARCLAY LELAND FAIRACRES
WALATIE NEW YORK.
HEADQUARTERS N. Y. POLICE DEPT.
“Valatie is in Columbia County,” he concluded.
“Then,” said Miss Townsend, in an awed tone,
“Sidney Jones really was Barclay Leland.”
“Practically certain,” Durkin replied. “We can
easily establish his identity beyond a question after
we get to El Paso. But there isn’t much doubt in
my mind, anyway. And you certainly beat me at
my own game, Miss Townsend. I take my hat off to
you.”
“This puts a different light on Davidson's story,”
said Holcombe.
“Yes, it does,” returned Durkin. “Sounded to me
like a crazy yarn; all that stuff about a man chang-
ing clothes with him and giving him a thousand dol-
lars. I just didn’t believe it. But now, things look
different.”
He drummed on the table with his fingers.
“That Barclay killed his brother may never be
proved,” he continued. “The circumstantial evi-
dence all points that way. He was in New York the
night before the murder, and he left there the next
day, in disguise, trying to conceal his identity.
[217]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
That's all pretty conclusive. But he's beyond the
reach of the law now, and the question before us
is, who killed Barclay Leland?”
“This telegram puts Davidson in a different
light,” Holcombe repeated.
“In what way?” asked Miss Townsend.
“As long as we suspected that he was the real
Barclay Leland, and that the man who went by the
name of Jones was someone who knew he had com-
mitted a crime and was following him, probably for
blackmail, there was a definite motive chalked up
against Davidson. Under those circumstances it
would have been to his interest to kill this fellow
Jones. But since Davidson is the blackmailer, Leland
is a possible gold mine to him while he is alive, and
worth nothing to him dead.”
“Of course,” was Miss Townsend's comment.
“Our job now,” said Holcombe, “is to find out
who killed Leland. Well, the hunt is narrowing
down.”
He unwrapped a small parcel and placed the con-
tents on a desk.
“Dear me, what dreadful-looking money!” Miss
Townsend exclaimed.
“Young Strang had a roll of bills wrapped around
his leg inside his sock,” Durkin explained, “and the
blood from the place where I hit him ran down and
[218]


A TRAPPED WOLF
“You may remember,” he said quietly, “that I
asked you to give me your address? You told me that
you lived in New York and had been in New Or-
leans recently. I asked you further, because I no-
ticed a slight New England twang in your speech,
and I have a very sharp ear for such things, if you
hadn’t at some time lived in that part of the coun-
try. Well, I sent telegrams to New Orleans, New
York and, on a hunch, to Boston, and I have replies
from all three places. They will interest you.”
Miss Townsend noticed a tightening of the mask-
like features.
“From New Orleans,” Holcombe continued,
reading a telegram:
PARTIES DESCRIBED UNKNOWN HERE.
“From the Police Department in New York,” he
Went On:
NO RECORD OF PERSONS YOU DESCRIBED
STOP ONE FORTY-ONE EAST THIRTY-FIRST
STREET GARAGE STOP NO RESIDENCES.
“Seems funny,” said Holcombe musingly, “that
a man wouldn’t know his correct address. Maybe
you underrated the police. Well, this is what Boston
says:
[223]


A TRAPPED WOLF
son you were dead broke, and then you turn up
with five hundred dollars in your sock.”
“Davidson is a liar. Besides, he was drunk,” re-
plied Strang angrily.
“You wouldn't say that Davidson changed his
mind, after all, and went back and got that money
for you later?” asked Holcombe quietly.
“What I’m going to say, I’ll say when I see a
lawyer,” Strang replied, with a touch of bravado.
“Because,” Holcombe continued quietly and re-
lentlessly, “your father says he saw Davidson com-
ing out of Jones's room after two o'clock. But you
have denied that Davidson gave you any money.
You remember that, don’t you?”
No answer.
“The man that your father saw coming out of
that room,” Holcombe continued, in his even, im-
placable tone, “wasn't Davidson—it was you.”
“You can’t prove it,” Strang burst out defiantly.
“With all your damned smart police work, and
fingerprints and photographs, you can't prove it.
Why? Because I wasn’t there.”
“You were there; you turned out the lights in
the car; you set your father to watch for you.”
“I wasn’t there. You can’t prove I was.”
“Right here on the table,” Holcombe continued,
[225]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“is a hundred-dollar bank note of the Citizens’
National Bank of Quincy, Illinois. Miss Le Grand
gave it to the man we called Jones. How does it
turn up here, taken out of your sock and stained
with your blood?”
“Is that bill of Miss Le Grand's the only bank
note that bank ever issued?” said Strang, with
marvelous coolness. “Yah, you can't prove a thing.
One bill is like another, except for the numbers.”
“You’re a smart criminal type,” said Holcombe
coldly. “You must have begun young, about four-
teen or fifteen I should say, when you were ar-
rested for picking pockets. You’ve had plenty of
experience, and have probably broken the law
oftener than you have been arrested. This is some-
thing worse than picking pockets or breaking into
a bank. This is murder, cold-blooded murder in the
first degree. You know what that means, don't
you?”
No answer.
“Well, Strang, what do you think?” asked Hol-
combe patiently.
“I think,” Strang replied, “that when my time
comes you'll be fooled. I didn't kill that fellow,
Jones, and you can’t prove that I did.”
“We shall try,” was Holcombe's quiet retort.
[226]


A TRAPPED WOLF
“Now,” he said, to the policeman at the door, “put
the handcuffs on this man and take him up front in
the smoker. Passengers in the Pullmans don’t like to
have a convict traveling with them.”
[227]


CHAPTER XVII
who KILLED THE PASSENGER IN THE PULLMANP
“SMART police work, Captain,” said Durkin, “send-
ing that telegram to Boston.”
“Oh, it was just a shot in the dark,” Holcombe
replied modestly. “I have a sharp ear, though, for
the way people talk, their accent and all that sort
of thing. For example, it's a common idea that all
Southerners talk pretty much alike. That is not
so. It is easy to distinguish a Virginian from a
South Carolinian, or even a man from Tennessee
from a Kentuckian. And many New Englanders
have a twang that marks them as belonging to that
part of the country.”
“Well, your shot in the dark hit the bull's-eye,”
Durkin declared. “I’d bet a month's salary that
when we check up on fingerprints, the Strangs will
turn out to be those two Baxters from Boston.”
“Looks that way,” Holcombe replied. “That tele-
gram plainly worried young Strang. He'd have
acted differently if he hadn’t known we had some-
thing on him.”
“I wonder,” said Durkin, “why the Strangs made
[228]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
seen the body; we’ve photographed it; and I agree
with you that it is a plain case of murder. More than
that it is a peculiarly brutal case, for it would take
a pretty cold-blooded person to kill a man first, and
then rig his body up to look like self-destruction.
So much for that.
“Then we come to a peculiar feature of the case,
which was that this Sidney Jones seemed to have
taken great pains to conceal his identity. There
were no cards, letters, travelers’ checks, initials on
his clothes—none of the marks that people usually
carry about with them. Why? In view of the parcel
room check, linked with Davidson's story, I am
ready to believe that this so-called Jones was really
Barclay Leland.
“Now, let's take a look at the people who, so
far as we know, had anything to do with the dead
man. There are five of them. First, is the rancher,
Holt, who picked a drunken quarrel with him. But
Holt can show a good alibi; and besides, he is not
the sort of man who would have killed Leland in
the way he was murdered. Holt isn’t cold-blooded
enough; he lacks the brains. Next, there's Miss
Le Grand. She was in the dead man's room; denied
it at first and admitted it later. Well, unless my
judgment of human nature is all wrong, she simply
isn’t the kind of lady who could do what the mur-
[23o]


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGERP
derer of Leland did. Besides, we haven’t a particle
of evidence to show that she had any motive. Then,
we come to Davidson. He admits that he went to
Leland's room to get money. Miss Le Grand says
that she saw him walking away from the direction
of that room. But an hour later she heard a noise
in Leland's room. Who was there then? Had
Davidson gone back a second time? Possibly,” said
Holcombe, drawing a peculiarly neat geometric
design.
“Now we’ll take Jim Strang,” he continued.
“Here's a hard-boiled criminal, or I miss my guess.
He’d stolen the Goldstein jewelry, but what good
was it if he was without money? He couldn’t put
up a ring or a necklace in El Paso, for a taxi or a
hotel bill, with all the hue and cry Goldstein would
have raised. He had lost money at cards; he told
Davidson he was broke; and he knew where cash
—cold, hard cash—was to be obtained. Did he put
out the lights; slip down the aisle; enter Leland's
room; perhaps have a struggle with him, kill him,
and take the money?”
“It looks pretty clear,” Durkin agreed. “Still, we
haven’t quite clinched the case. We have no wit-
nesses to show that he did go into that room, nor
any traces, so far as I’ve been able to find, that he
was there.”
[2.31]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“Exactly what I think,” exclaimed Holcombe.
“Well, the fifth person who may be connected with
this business is old Strang. He admits he was near
the scene of the murder at about the time it was
committed. Let's talk to him.”
The elder Strang shuffled slowly into the car,
bent forward at the hips, peering with an upward
glance from sharp, beady eyes, an unlighted cigar
in his mouth.
“Sit down, Mr. Strang,” said Holcombe quietly.
Strang lowered himself into a chair.
“We’ve been talking to your son,” Holcombe be-
gan. “Among other things, I made some inquiries
by telegraph about you two people, and have some
interesting replies. Here's a wire from Boston. Shall
I read it to you?”
“If you like,” Strang answered.
Holcombe read the telegram about the two Bax-
ters. Not a muscle of the old man's face moved.
“What do you think of it?” asked Holcombe.
“Doesn't interest me. I never heard of Baxter.”
“Possibly not, but we’ll prove that when we
reach El Paso.”
“How?”
“Send your fingerprints to Boston.”
Strang rolled the cigar from one side of his
[232]


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGER2
mouth to the other.
“All right,” he said calmly.
Holcombe picked up some of the discolored bills
and handed them to the old man.
“Ever see these?” he asked.
Strang looked at them indifferently.
“Can't say,” he replied. “Money all looks alike.”
“Know where they came from?”
“No.”
“They were found inside your son's sock, and
they came from the room of the man who was
murdered.”
Strang's reaction created a sensation.
“I’m not surprised,” he replied calmly.
“What!” exclaimed Holcombe.
Both officers leaned forward.
“I told you,” said Strang deliberately, “about the
man I saw coming out of that room. It was David-
son. He brought the money all right.”
“Your son has denied that Davidson gave him
any money,” Holcombe insisted.
“Jim's a fool; he was afraid of getting into this
thing too deep, and lied about it. I heard him tell
Davidson to get the money. I saw Davidson come
out of the room of that fellow who is dead after
two o'clock this morning. If there was any killing
done, then Davidson is your man.”
[233]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
“You’re lying,” exclaimed Durkin. “You saw
Jim coming out of that room.”
“I saw Davidson,” replied the old man impas-
sively.
And there matters were—at an impasse. Strang
removed the cigar from his mouth, as if nothing
else on earth mattered, and replaced it.
Suddenly Miss Townsend plucked Durkin's
sleeve.
“The ring,” she whispered excitedly. “Ask him
what he's done with his ring.”
“What ring?”
“The heavy ring with an emerald and diamonds
he used to wear. I just noticed his hand when he
lifted it to remove his cigar, and the ring is miss-
ing.”
Durkin nodded.
“Strang,” he said abruptly, “what's become of
that handsome ring you were wearing?”
The angle of the cigar shifted slightly but per-
ceptibly, as if the man whose jaws gripped it had
experienced a shock. But Strang took his time
about replying.
“It’s lost,” he said at length.
“Lost? Where?”
“Out in the desert in the dark. It fell off my fin-
ger.”
[234]


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGERP
Durkin glowered at him suspiciously, but said
nothing. And then Miss Townsend felt that her
moment had come.
“Do come here,” she urged both of the officers.
“Please come. I want to tell you something.”
She led them to the far end of the car, out of
earshot of the squat figure in the chair, and burst
forth: “Yesterday he wore that big, expensive-
looking ring, and this morning too. I noticed it
when I saw him tear a magazine in two with those
great gorilla-like hands. He seemed to be inordi-
nately proud of it. Now it is gone. Why? There
may be a reason why he is afraid now to display
that ring.”
“What reason?” asked Durkin.
“Suppose the diamond you picked up came out
of that ring, wouldn’t he be afraid to show it?”
“By heck!” exclaimed Durkin.
“A grand idea,” declared Holcombe.
They returned to their places in front of the
silent old man.
“Simpson,” said Holcombe to the man at the
door, “bring in this man's hand baggage.”
Simpson returned with a suitcase, the contents
of which were rapidly unpacked. Clothes, shoes,
underclothing were strewn about, and Miss Town-
send noticed that Holcombe examined several
* [235]


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGERP
expert.”
Holcombe nodded assent.
Goldstein, when he arrived, had the bearing of a
man who was at peace with the world.
“Goldstein,” Durkin asked, “do you know any-
thing about jewelry?”
“Anything? Me! Just try to pass off something
phony on me,” Goldstein replied modestly.
“Just take a look at this ring, and see if you think
this loose diamond belongs to it.”
Goldstein made a careful examination.
“Sure,” he asserted at length. “These diamonds
are graduated in size from the two next to the cen-
tral stone down to the smallest ones at each end.
The pairs ought to match. Well, this loose diamond
is about as close as you could get to the one that's
set next to the emerald.”
“Would you say that this stone belongs in the
ring?”
“I sure would. It matches, and it fits in the set-
ting. I’d say it was made for this ring, and I know
something about jewelry. If you don’t believe me,
see Mrs. Goldstein.”
“We believe you,” said Durkin, “and thank
you.”
After Goldstein had strutted away, Holcombe
turned to the bent and watchful figure of the
[237]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
wº-
“No,” he growled.
“All right, then; Jim did it.”
“Jim?”
“Yes, he got the money that was in the dead
man's room. And there was someone besides you
went down the aisle of the Pullman late last night.”
“Jim!” the old man repeated in a whisper.
“Yes, Jim; your son,” Holcombe insisted relent-
lessly.
Suddenly the squat figure slumped down in his
chair. In the querulous voice of an old man, he
whined: “I’m old and sick, and life ain’t worth
anything to me. I never had a fair break, anyway.
Leave Jim out of it; he wasn’t there.”
“He wasn’t there? How do you know?”
“Aw, how do I know?” he muttered, in such a
low tone that it was difficult to catch his words.
Holcombe nodded to the policeman at the door.
“Put the handcuffs on him, and take him up
front to the smoker, with his son,” he said.
On his way to the door the old man stopped sud-
denly.
“The damn fool,” he cried, in a high-pitched
voice, “he fought me. He tried to give me away.”
Then he resumed his painful progress—scuff-
scuff, scuff-scuff. Miss Townsend, with tears in her
eyes, watched the bent figure shuffle out of sight.
[24ol


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGERP
To what grisly end were those slow and laborious
steps tending?
“Well,” exclaimed Durkin at last, “he admit-
ted it.”
“Yes,” Holcombe replied. “The situation,
plainly, is like this: Jim stole the jewels, but needed
cash, having lost his in the card game. As Davidson
failed in his attempt, the old man shuffled through
the car, slipped into the room of the man we now
believe was Barclay Leland, and tried to steal the
money his son had lost. Evidently Leland saw him,
and there was a struggle. Then old Strang, a man
with what criminologists would call a homicidal
tendency, killed him, and then tried to make the
death look like suicide.”
“I cannot understand, though,” said Miss Town-
send, “how he could have returned to his berth
without attracting attention. His gait is so labored
and so noisy.”
“I have it,” exclaimed Durkin suddenly, “he
didn't walk back, he crawled. That's what he was
doing when I caught him out in the desert, crawl-
ing through the bushes at a great rate. Just think
a minute, Miss Townsend: when you threw your
hand against the curtain, was it high up, or low
down near the edge of the berth?”
[241]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
She reflected a moment.
“My hand was resting on the edge of the berth,”
she replied.
“It was probably his head you felt, or his back,”
Durkin declared. “He was creeping back from the
murder he had committed.”
Miss Townsend shuddered.
“That doesn’t explain the fact,” said Holcombe,
“that Mrs. Mason heard the old man's shuffle, or
thought she heard it, going back towards his berth.”
“I questioned her about that pretty sharply,”
Durkin replied. “She was clear that she had heard
him going toward the rear of the car, and some time
later, right beside her berth, without any prelimi-
nary warning, she noticed that shuffle again.”
“Well,” asked Holcombe, “how do you explain
that?”
“Strang must have crept down the aisle, until he
was near home, or thought he was, and then got on
his feet. That's when Mrs. Mason heard him.”
“When you come to think of it,” said Holcombe
thoughtfully, “this is a queer case. The man lying
in the compartment yonder is, we believe, Bar-
clay Leland. We have good ground for believing so.
In fact, I'd say it’s a moral certainty that he is
Barclay Leland. That being the case, why was he
traveling on this train? The answer is, because he
[242.]


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGERP
had killed his brother and was running away. As
Durkin has said, that fact may never be proved. But
this dead man's careful attempt to conceal his iden-
tity, with one slip—the parcel-room check that gave
him away, and Davidson's story, all these things lead
me to the opinion that Barclay Leland was a mur-
derer. And the queer thing is the fact that in run-
ning away from one crime he stumbled into and fell
a victim to another one. There's some kind of lit-
erary term for that sort of thing; what is it, Miss
Townsend?”
“Irony of fate,” she replied.
“That's it,” said Holcombe musingly, “the irony
of fate. Well, life plays some queer tricks on us.”
“He did not look like a murderer,” Miss Town-
send exclaimed after a pause.
“Who? Leland? No, he wasn’t the criminal
type,” Holcombe answered.
“He seemed to me a sensitive, refined, probably
gentle sort of man,” Miss Townsend continued.
“Don’t you think, Captain, if he did commit a
crime, it would have been on the impulse of the mo-
ment, and perhaps under great provocation?”
The Captain smiled.
“There's no telling,” he answered. “But we do
know one thing, and that is that you are a good
guesser.”
[243]


MURDER OF A MISSING MAN
The east-bound express thundered past, shaking
the ground, raising a small whirlwind of dust.
Then the oft-delayed Limited pulled slowly off the
siding, clattered over the switches and straightened
out for its journey to El Paso and to the Pacific far
beyond. As the smoking-car passed the station a
little group of loungers there pointed at two
figures, facing each other, slouched down by a win-
dow.
“That's them,” said the station agent, impor-
tantly.
With gathering speed the train rumbled past.
Near the end came the Placidia. In the smoking-
room, Theophilus, exchanging his blue coat for his
white jacket, was explaining to those who might
listen that “never in all his bawn days had he seed
such a trip. Seemed like somebody had put a cunjur
on it.”
His audience was inattentive. Durkin and Hol-
combe smoked contentedly, with the air of men
who had done the job they set out to do. Near
them, Holt, the Texan, regarded a whiskey bottle
solemnly. It was empty; he knew, because he had
tried it.
In section two, Bunyard was producing fiction
for the “pulps” at a furious rate. Murder, robbery,
mystery—plots and ideas had descended on him
[244]


WHO KILLED THE PASSENGERP
prodigiously, and his typewriter was hard put to it
to keep up with the ideas that surged through his
brain. In the seats opposite, the Goldsteins were en-
gaged in a quiet game of pinochle, presenting a pic-
ture of domestic bliss. In the aisle Mrs. Gray, in the
attitude—if such a simile may be permitted of
such a lady—of an old gander herding a file of
geese, was marshaling three ladies toward a bridge
table. In a seat nearby, Mrs. Henderson listened
with limpid and soulful eyes to Davidson. Miss
Townsend, trim, erect, lady-like, gazed thought-
fully from her window. In the drawing-room,
Sybil Le Grand, gorgeously arrayed in pajamas of
black and gold, was engrossed in a romance—
“What Would Your Lover Have Done?” And only
a few feet distant, in his compartment, journeyed
Barclay Leland. He was stretched out on his berth,
and covered from head to foot with a sheet.
The sound of the moving train increased to a
roar; diminished to a rumble, a murmur, a hum.
The red lights at the rear glowed for a while,
twinkled, and then, far out on the moonlit desert,
they disappeared.
Doºl
RedBodgeBooks
MYSTERY
DETECTIVE
[245]








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