The Diamond Coterie Part 74

"The handkerchief was precisely like the mutilated one used with the chloroform. This might be a coincidence--plain white handkerchiefs with wide borders were not uncommon, but this handkerchief was _marked_!

"I could scarcely wait until Sir Clifford should show me to my room, so anxious was I to compare the two pieces of linen.

"The whole one bore the initials F. L., and on the raw, torn edge of the half square was a black dot that was undoubtedly the fragment of a letter, or name, that had been torn hastily off. It corresponded exactly with the lower end of the letter L. upon the whole handkerchief given me by Sir Clifford.

"This might be a coincidence, but it is one of my rules to suspect two coincidences coming close together; and I had already discovered three remarkable ones in this case.

"Sitting alone in my room, I reflected thus:

"Take it for granted that this robbery was perpetrated by the Diamond Coterie, what are the facts?

"The robbers knew where to enter, and where to look for plunder; _ergo_, they must have known the premises.

"They administered the deadly chloroform with nicest calculation; _ergo_, they must have known Miss Wardour.

"One of them was something of a dandy,--witness the superfine bit of cambric, and the print of jaunty boots where he leaped the garden fence.

"The next morning I took unceremonious leave of my host, and set out on my explorations. As I approached Wardour Place I met a man, who immediately drew my interest to himself.

"This man was Jerry Belknap. He wore a disguise quite familiar to me, and I recognized him easily. He entered at the Wardour gate, and I sauntered on, having found new food for thought.

"Now, a word concerning this man Belknap.

"At one time he was an honorable member of the best detective force in the city; but he had too much cupidity, and not enough moral firmness.

Twice he allowed himself to be bribed into letting a case fall through, and finally I caught him in secret conclave with a gang of bank burglars, who were conspiring to raise a fortune for each, and escape with their booty through the connivance of our false detective.

"I exploded this little scheme, and compelled Belknap to withdraw from the force. Imagine my surprise when, a little later, Miss Wardour told me that _Mr. Belknap_ was the detective sent down from the city by Mr.

Lamotte!

"Well, Mr. Belknap went to work upon the case, and Miss Wardour concealed me near her dining room so that I might have the pleasure of listening to his first report.

"That was a fortunate ambush for me. Mr. Belknap's deductions were as diametrically opposite to mine as if he had purposely studied out the contrast; and I was shaking my sides with the thought of how all this plausibility must be puzzling Miss Wardour and her aunt, when a new element was introduced into the programme.

"Mr. Frank Lamotte, fresh from an amateur robber hunt, came into the room. It had been arranged that Mrs. Aliston should break to this young man the news that his sister had that day eloped with John Burrill; but first, he was to relate his adventures, and this he did.

"If I can hear a voice, before seeing the face, I can usually measure its truth or falsity. Now, I had not seen Mr. Frank Lamotte, but his voice told me that he was rehearsing a well studied part; and, furthermore, I was a.s.sured that Belknap knew this, and purposely helped him on.

"By and by Miss Wardour withdrew, and Mrs. Aliston fulfilled her mission. Then I was more than ever convinced of the fellow's insincerity. I heard how he received the news of his sister's flight; and when Mrs. Aliston went, in a panic, to call her niece, I heard him, when he fancied himself alone.

"It seems he had been the bearer of a note from his sister to Miss Wardour, and he was now intent upon learning if that note had contained any thing damaging to himself. This much I learned from his solitary mutterings, and then Miss Wardour re-entered the room. He was half wild, until she had a.s.sured him that the note contained nothing that could injure him; and then he became calmer, and went out into the air to recover his breath.

"Miss Wardour made haste to release me, and I came out of my concealment congratulating myself that I had been so lucky.

"And now I found myself compelled to leave W---- just as things were growing very interesting; I had made my flying visit in a moment of leisure, but my vacation had run out; duty, honor and interest, alike impelled me in another direction.

"I left my address with Miss Wardour, and I promised myself that at the first opportunity I would return to W---- and take up my abode here for a time.

"I had been in W---- not quite three days. I had not seen Jasper Lamotte, I had barely seen Frank, and I had added to my deductions made on the night of my arrival, until the case stood like this in my mind:

"1st. The robbers were familiar with Wardour, outside and in.

"2d. They knew Miss Wardour, and her sensitiveness to the effects of chloroform.

"3d. One of them was a man of gentlemanly propensities, and probably young.

"4th. They or a part of their number approached by the river, using a boat with m.u.f.fled oars.

"So much for my deductions. Now for some coincidences.

"It was a coincidence that the handkerchief I got from Sir Clifford should bear Frank Lamotte's initials, and should be precisely like the one left behind by the robbers.

"It was a coincidence that Frank Lamotte should be a student of medicine, who might have been quite as capable of administering chloroform as was the burglar himself.

"It was a coincidence that Miss Sybil Lamotte should have eloped on the very day when her best friend was robbed, and that father, mother, and brother were all absent in behalf of the robbed friend, thus leaving the way open to the fugitives, and giving them plenty of time to escape.

"Now for some _facts_ that looked strange.

"It was strange that Sybil Lamotte should leave her home to marry a man like John Burrill, when she was known to have bestowed her heart elsewhere.

"It was strange that Jasper Lamotte, going to the city to employ a detective, should so soon have stumbled upon Jerry Belknap, who was identified with no agency, and could only be reached through private means.

"It was strange that Frank Lamotte should set himself up as an amateur detective, and should bring back a report that tallied so perfectly with the deductions of Jerry Belknap.

"It was strange that Miss Wardour, having just been robbed of jewels to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, should be so little distressed, so little agitated by her loss.

"From deductions, coincidences and strange facts, I evolved the following theory, which certainly looked well from my standpoint, but might not hold water. You will see, that from the first I connected the Wardour robbery and the Lamotte elopement.

"Now, Sybil Lamotte's strange flight gave proof that there was a skeleton in the Lamotte closet. I said:

"If this unseen Mr. Lamotte had planned this robbery, and if for some reason it seemed good that his daughter should elope, how well all was arranged.

"His son a.s.sisting him, they could drop down from Mapleton in their row boat; come up from the river, and, with their plans all laid, and knowing their ground, could make quick headway. Frank Lamotte's boot heel would leave just such a print, as one of the robbers left in the loose dirt beside the garden fence. Frank Lamotte would know just how to administer the chloroform. Then, Mr. Lamotte, in going to the city, ostensibly to procure the services of a detective, could easily take the spoils along; and his wife also, that she might be well out of his daughter's way. Such a man would naturally select a fellow like Jerry Belknap, who would keep up a farce of investigation, and keep away all who might, perhaps, stumble upon the truth. Frank's eagerness to be absent on this day of his sister's flight, and to a.s.sist in the search for the robbers, would be thus explained; and his anxiety concerning the contents of his sister's letter might be easily traced to a guilty conscience.

"But my theories were doomed to be laid aside for a time. Other duties claimed me and it was four weeks before I could turn so much as a thought toward W----.

"Before leaving the city, however, I had placed my wax cast of the chloroform bottle in the hands of one of my best men, and had also given him a clue upon which to work.

"My agent was wonderfully successful. He found the counterparts to the chloroform bottle, and then he began shadowing the owner of said vials.

It proved to be a young woman who had formerly lived in W----, as a factory hand, but who had been transplanted to the city by Frank Lamotte.

"It is not necessary to enlarge upon the story of this girl as connected with Lamotte; but this must be borne in mind. During the time that my agent had this girl under surveillance, Frank Lamotte visited her, and, it is supposed that he removed the remaining bottles of the set, for one was afterward exhumed, in fragments, from Doctor Heath's ash heap, by the industrious Jerry Belknap, and the others have disappeared."

At the mention of this factory girl Mrs. Aliston turned her face toward Constance, its expression saying as plainly as any language could, "I told you so." But Mr. Bathurst took no notice of this, and hurried on with his story.

CHAPTER XLVI.