Part 35 (1/2)

”I do.”

”Then may I ask that you will be good enough to explain it at once?”

Duvall laughed. ”Monsieur Lefevre,” he said, ”I have a splitting headache, a bad wound in my cheek, and a burning desire to spend the next two hours talking to my wife.” He drew Grace toward him, and put his arm through hers. ”I am very much afraid that the explanation of the disappearance of Mr. Stapleton's boy will have to be put off until tomorrow.”

Monsieur Lefevre watched the two as they went, arm in arm, up the stairs.

”Mon Dieu!” he said softly to himself. ”They are just as much in love with each other as ever.”

CHAPTER XX

”I must confess,” remarked Monsieur Lefevre, as he sat with Mr.

Stapleton and Duvall over their after dinner cigars the following evening, ”that while the case as a whole appears simple enough to me, there are one or two points that I fail to understand.”

”There are a great many that _I_ fail to understand,” exclaimed the banker, chewing reflectively on his cigar. ”However, now that the boy is safe at home, it really makes very little difference.”

”On the contrary, Mr. Stapleton,” remarked Duvall, ”it makes a great deal of difference. For instance, I understand that you have discharged the nurse, Mary Lanahan.”

”Yes. You say that she is quite innocent of any part in the kidnapping of my boy; but the fact remains that I don't trust her. I am informed that she was married to that fellow, Valentin, this afternoon.”

Duvall smiled. ”That was quite to be expected.”

”At one time,” said Mr. Stapleton, ”you believed this fellow Valentin to have been concerned in the plot.”

”Yes. That is true. My early investigations of the matter showed me at once that there was some understanding between these two, something which they were endeavoring to conceal. I did not at first understand the motive which actuated them. I thought it was guilt. In reality, it was love. Therefore I am not surprised to learn of their marriage.” He gazed critically at his cigar for a time, in silence.

”As matters have turned out, gentlemen,” he resumed, after a few moments, ”there is no cause for anything but congratulation on all hands. The child is recovered, the criminals are under arrest, the money--the hundred thousand dollars you paid out, Mr. Stapleton--was found on the kidnapper's person and returned to you.”

”Exactly. Nothing could be more satisfactory all around.”

”And yet,” went on the detective, ”I have never before taken part in a case in which I have done so little, in which I have been so uniformly unsuccessful.”

Mr. Stapleton raised his hand. ”My dear Duvall,” he began, ”but for you, we should have been nowhere.”

”You are wrong, my friend. Had I kept out of the case altogether, your son would have been returned to you just the same. It is true that the men who kidnapped him would not have been caught, and your money would not have been returned to you; but the prime object which you sought, the recovery of your child, would have been realized in any event.”

”That is true,” remarked the Prefect; ”but, from the standpoint of the police, it is the detection and capture of the criminal that is desired, not the buying of him off. By insisting on that, Mr. Stapleton, you rendered our work extremely difficult.”

”So difficult, indeed,” said Duvall, earnestly, ”that but for the energy, the courage, the wit of a woman, all our plans would have failed. I refer to my wife. It is to her that all the credit in this affair is due.”

”By all means!” said Mr. Stapleton. ”I could not fail to realize, when she told her story at dinner tonight, how much Mrs. Stapleton and myself owe her. I shall have something to say on the subject of our debt, as soon as the ladies rejoin us. But tell us, Mr. Duvall, a little more about the case, as you now understand it. I confess that I am becoming more and more interested. What, for instance, was the mystery, if indeed there was any, connected with the box of gold-tipped cigarettes?”

Duvall smiled. ”That, my dear sir, is in fact the crux, the starting point, of the whole affair.” He settled back in his chair comfortably.

”Otherwise the case was simple enough. Certain scoundrels steal a child, hold it for ransom, and frighten the parents into paying over a large sum. Nothing unusual in that. A clever scheme or two for turning the money over, and returning the child--simple, yet perfect enough to defy all attempts to foil them.

”The real mystery lay in the utter absence of any clues which would throw light on the actual stealing of the child. In this respect the case was unique. A trusted nurse swears that the child has disappeared in broad daylight, without the slightest knowledge of how it was accomplished. Here we have a case so simple, so devoid of incident of any sort, that we are baffled at the very start by the impossibility of the thing. Yet the nurse is a woman of good reputation, honest, clearly telling what she believes to be the truth.