Part 26 (1/2)

At last she had found an officer who recollected ”something of such a young man as she described.” He ”couldn't swear to it,” but ”had an idea he noticed him.” In fact, his recollection grew vaguer and vaguer the more they tried to make it specific, and to Emily's chagrin, when they brought him to the jail, he a.s.serted positively that Robert was not the man. This disappointment was sharpened tenfold by her meeting Inspector McCausland, pa.s.sing out of the corridor, arm in arm with a car conductor.

”I am certain that was my pa.s.senger,” the conductor was saying. To have her own failure and McCausland's success thus brought into contact accentuated both and gave Emily a miserable day.

The case of the old chemist was not so bad, and besides, was none of Emily's doing. John Davidson, the marshal, had taken up s.h.a.garach's theory of Harry Arnold's guilt with remarkable zeal and had borrowed one of the photographs, so as to see if he could be of use. One day he came in, greatly excited, and asked for the lawyer.

”Got some evidence that'll surprise you, brother,” said the marshal.

”Then it must be extraordinary,” answered s.h.a.garach.

”What do you think that young rascal did?”

”Who?”

”Arnold. Went to a chemist, a friend of mine, fellow-townsman, too, Phineas Fowler, and bought a big heap of combustible powder, a day or two before the fire. Sprinkled it over the whole room, probably.”

”He wasn't so foolish as to leave his name, however?”

”Oh, Phineas knew the photograph. Spotted him right away when I fetched her out. Lucky I took it now, wan't it? 'That's the man,' says Phineas.”

”I believe I have your friend's address already,” said s.h.a.garach, and in two or three days he was paying a long-delayed visit to Phineas Fowler.

Amid the compound odor of chemicals sat a shriveled pantaloon, with a long, thin beard whose two forks he kept pulling and stroking. s.h.a.garach was about to state his business, when a stranger at the window came forward and interrupted him.

”The young man who bought the combustion powder was identified in jail yesterday,” said Inspector McCausland, smiling. ”It was only Floyd, on that matter of the bomb.”

That matter of the bomb! Perhaps it would be harder to explain than Emily thought.

But McCausland was not always out beating the bush for evidence. Occasionally the mountain went to Mahomet. The reward of $5,000, which Harry Arnold had advertised, drew a dribbling stream of callers to the inspector's office. There was the veiled lady, who had seen the crime with the eyes of her soul, and would accept a small fee for a clairvoyant seance, and the lady with green gla.s.ses, whose card announced her as ”Phoebe Isingla.s.s, metaphysician.” The moderation of her terms could only be accounted for by her scientific interest in the matter. She asked only $1,000 if she proved Floyd insane, $500 if she proved him sane, and $100 (merely as a compensation for her time) if the case baffled her skill.

Prof. I. Noah Little, the conchologist, paid McCausland the honor of a call and even brought his whelk-sh.e.l.l with him. With this occult instrument at his ear he had been known to make the most remarkable prophecies, declaring to gullible girls the names of their future spouses, and even portending the great snowfall of May 21 in the year 1880.

As for suggestions by mail, the office porter's spine grew bent with emptying the waste-basket which received them. Hypnotism was the favorite explanation with a large majority of the correspondents, followed by a somnambulism and various ingenious theories of accident. The pope and the czar were named as authors, and the freemasons were accused in one epistle of a plot to burn up the ocean with some diabolical explosive, to procure which they had all sold their souls to the devil, though what this had to do with the Floyd case was a greater mystery than the fire itself.

Out of all this chaff the inspector sifted a solitary grain. One morning he was joking in the office with Hardy, Johnson and Smith, three of his brothers-in-b.u.t.tons. Hardy handled sneak-thieves and shoplifters, Johnson swindlers of a higher order, such as confidence men, and Smith the gangs of forgers and counterfeiters. They were all, like McCausland, common-looking men. This enabled them to slouch through life quietly, taking observations by the way.

”Well, d.i.c.k,” said Johnson, ”I hear you've been appointed confessor-general to Col. Mainwaring's sinners.”

This was received with a hearty laugh, for they were a jolly four, these men of iron.

”That arson case is a puzzler,” put in Smith. ”Why didn't you send a bottle of the smoke to Sherlock Holmes?”

”With a blank label,” added Johnson, ”for the incendiary's name.”

”Would he notice such an A B C riddle?” laughed Hardy.

”A lady for Mr. McCausland,” announced the mulatto policeman, and the brothers-in-b.u.t.tons quickly found other business.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

HONEY, NOT WITHOUT STING.

She looked so timid and demure, with the blue straw bonnet which framed her sweet face, the red band lettered in gold, ”Salvation Army.”

Eyes, lifted slowly, of deep, dark blue, and the level brows laid over them for a foil. Beautiful eyes, we male observers say in our rough, generic fas.h.i.+on, but the finer perception of our sisters discriminates more closely. Not the iris alone makes the beauty of eyes. Lashes long and thick, lids of bewitching droop, brows penciled in the bow curve, any of these may be the true feature that starts our exclamation of delight. But in Miss Serena Lamb (as the girl gave her name) nearly all these marks were blended, and they overhung a feature which used to be fas.h.i.+onable and is still, when perfect, divine--the rosebud mouth.

She might well be timid in those surroundings--revolvers and handcuffs to right of her, medals and canes to left; shutter-cutters, winches, chisels, diamond drills, skeleton keys, wax molds, jimmies, screws, in the gla.s.s case in front--an elaborate outfit of burglar's tools, the trophies of McCausland's hunting expeditions, for the inspector's specialty was burglary. On one side the portrait of the true Bill Dobbs looked out from the center of a congenial group, and a tiny plush case kept the file made from a watch-spring with which the famous Barney Pease had cut his way to liberty. All this was formidable enough in itself, to say nothing of the huge bloodhound that lay half-asleep, with his jowl on the hearthstone.

”I thought I ought to tell you,” said Miss Lamb, modestly, ”although it may not be of importance.”

”And yet it may,” said the inspector, politely. ”We often work from the merest trifles.”

”It concerns the fire in Prof. Arnold's house.”

”Ah!”

”You know our labors often bring sinners back to the fold and many of them insist on unburdening their past misdeeds to us. It is very distressing to hear, but it seems to ease their consciences.”

McCausland mentally registered a great broad mark in her favor. She had not begun by asking for the reward.

”One day a young convert of ours came to my house and spent an hour with me. We sung hymns and conversed, and I truly believe he has heard the word. Hosanna! Alleluia!”

McCausland fidgeted a little at these transports, but the sweet face in the blue bonnet kept him respectful.

”I am young,” she hardly looked 18, ”but I strove earnestly with him that night. Moved by the spirit, he told me a guilty story, which I put aside until reading about your case stirred my memory, and I felt in duty bound to relate it. Alleluia!”

”Proceed, Miss Lamb.”

”The young convert had been in his early days a locksmith and a great sinner before the world. One day a stranger proposed to him a reward if he should enter a certain room and open a safe which it contained. The temptation was great and he yielded, for he was poor in the riches of earth, and knew not then of the treasures of heaven. Alleluia! Praise!

”Weakly he consented to accompany the stranger, and on a certain Sunday, during the early hours of evening, suffered himself to be led into the room, where he found himself alone with the stranger. It was the name of this man and the description he gave me of the room which led me afterward to think that his action might have a connection with your case.”

”What name?”

”Robert Floyd.”

McCausland took a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end.

”And how did he describe the room?”

”A library, he said, with a bird cage before one window and a desk in the corner.”

”And the safe?”