Part 10 (1/2)
In fifteen minutes the party, consisting of Mr. Stapleton, Duvall, and Mary Lanahan, were leaving the car at the spot in the Bois de Boulogne which had been the scene of the kidnapping. Francois was ordered to drive his machine to the exact spot, as nearly as he could tell, that it had occupied on the previous occasion. Mary Lanahan led the others to the place on the gra.s.s where she had sat.
It was evident at once that the distances she had named in telling her story were less, if anything, than the actual facts. It was quite impossible to see how, in any way, the child could have been taken from the spot she indicated, to the woods, without consuming a considerable period of time--five minutes, at least. To believe that the nurse could have turned away her head for a moment, and then looked around to find the boy gone seemed the sheerest fabric of the imagination; yet the woman, in repeating her story, stuck to it with a grim pertinacity which, it seemed, could come only from the knowledge that she was telling the truth.
Ten days had elapsed since the boy had been kidnapped. It seemed almost useless to search the spot for any evidences of the crime. Yet Duvall began to go over the ground where the nurse testified that she had sat, with the most minute care. Inch by inch, he examined the turf, subjecting almost every blade of gra.s.s to a separate examination. The operation required over half an hour, and both Mr. Stapleton and the nurse grew tired of watching him, and strolled about aimlessly.
Hence they did not see him pick up a tiny object from the gra.s.s. It was a half-smoked cigarette, dirty and almost falling to pieces from the action of the weather, yet held together by a slender tip of gold.
He placed it carefully within his pocketbook, and rose. ”Nothing more to be done here,” he called to Mr. Stapleton, and in a moment the three were proceeding toward the waiting automobile.
Upon the return to the house, Mr. Stapleton drew the detective into his library. ”Have you discovered anything, Mr. Duvall?” he inquired, making an effort to conceal his almost frantic anxiety.
”I do not know--yet. I may have a clue; but I am not sure.”
”What do you think of the woman's story?”
”It seems impossible to believe it.”
”You think, then, that she had a hand in the matter--she and this fellow Valentin?”
”It begins to look like it.”
”On what do you base your conclusions, Mr. Duvall? I cannot bring myself to believe that Mary Lanahan is lying, ready as I am to suspect this fellow Valentin.”
”First, Mr. Stapleton, on the facts themselves. The boy could not have been taken away without her knowledge. Secondly, upon some minor matters--her error of half an hour, in telling her story, for instance.”
”I am sorry, Mr. Duvall, but I cannot believe that you are right. I'd suspect Valentin, at once; but if Mary Lanahan is not telling the truth, then my experience of twenty years in judging human nature has been wasted.”
”Yet you yourself heard her admit that she was with Valentin only last Friday, the day she was taken ill.”
”Yes. That is true.” Mr. Stapleton pa.s.sed his hand uncertainly across his forehead. ”It's too much for me.”
”Let me have a word with the nurse, alone, before I go,” asked Duvall.
”Certainly,” replied the banker. ”I'll send her in to you.”
When Mary Lanahan entered the room, the detective went up to her and eyed her sternly. ”Was Alphonse Valentin with you at any time, in the Bois, that day?”
”No,” replied the girl, steadily.
”Does he smoke gold-tipped cigarettes?” asked Duvall, suddenly.
The effect of this question upon the nurse was startling. She recoiled as though the detective had struck her. ”He--he does not smoke at all,”
she gasped, her face gray with fear.
”Don't lie to me!”
”He does not smoke at all,” repeated the girl, almost mechanically, and stood confronting him with a defiant air.