The Bartlett Mystery Part 34

"If I tell you where the Senator is, you are sure Rex will not follow you?"

"Quite certain."

"His address is the Marlborough-Blenheim, Atlantic City."

"Helen, you're a dear! I shall go there to-morrow, if necessary. But it will be best to write him first."

"Don't say I told you."

"Above all things, Helen, I am discreet."

"I fear he cannot do much. Your son is so wilful."

"Don't you understand? Rex is quite unmanageable. I depend wholly on the girl--and Senator Meiklejohn is just the man to deal with her."

They kissed farewell--alas, those Judas kisses of women! Both were satisfied, each believing she had hoodwinked the other. Mrs. Carshaw returned to her flat to await her son's arrival. If the trail at East Orange proved difficult he promised to be home for dinner.

"There will be a row if Rex meets Meiklejohn," she communed. "Helen will be furious with me. What do I care? I have won back my son's love. I have not many years to live. What else have I to work for if not for his happiness?"

So one woman in New York that night was fairly well _content_. There may be, as the Chinese proverb has it, thirty-six different kinds of mothers-in-law, but there is only one mother.

CHAPTER XXII

THE HUNT

Steingall, not Clancy, presented his bulk at Carshaw's apartment next morning. He contrived to have a few minutes' private talk with Mrs.

Carshaw while her son was dressing. Early as it was, he lighted a second cigar as he stepped into the automobile, for Carshaw thought it an economy to retain a car.

"Surprised to see me?" he began. "Well, it's this way. We may drop in for a rough-house to-day. Between them, Voles and 'Mick the Wolf,' own three sound legs and three strong arms. I can't risk Clancy. He's too precious. He kicked like a mule, of course, but I made it an order."

"What of the local police?" said Carshaw.

"Nix on the cops," laughed the chief. "You share the popular delusion that a policeman can arrest any one at sight. He can do nothing of the sort, unless he and his superior officers care to face a whacking demand for damages. And what charge can we bring against Voles and company?

Winifred bolted of her own accord. We must tread lightly, Mr. Carshaw.

Really, I shouldn't be here at all. I came only to help, to put you on the right trail, to see that Winifred is not detained by force if she wishes to accompany you. Do you get me?"

"I believe there is good authority for the statement that the law is an a.s.s," grumbled the other.

"Not the law. Personal liberty has to be safeguarded by the law.

Millions of men have died to uphold that principle. Remember, too, that I may have to explain in court why I did so-and-so. Strange as it may sound, I've been taught wisdom by legal adversity. Now, let's talk of the business in hand. It's an odd thing, but people who wish to do evil deeds often select secluded country places to live in. I don't mind betting a box of cigars that 'East Orange' means a quiet, old-fas.h.i.+oned locality where there isn't a crime once in a generation."

"Some spot one would never suspect, eh?"

"Yes, in a sense. But if ever I set up as a crook--which is unlikely, as my pension is due in eighteen months--I'll live in a Broadway flat."

"I thought the city police kept a very close eye on evil-doers."

"Yes, when we know them. But your real expert is not known; once held he's done for. Of course he tries again, but he is a marked man--he has lost his confidence. Nevertheless, he will always try to be with the crowd. There is safety in numbers."

"Do you mean that East Orange is a place favorable to our search?"

"Of course it is. The police, the letter-carriers, and the storekeepers, know everybody. They can tell us at once of several hundred people who certainly had nothing to do with the abduction of a young lady.

There will remain a few dozens who might possibly be concerned in such an affair. Inquiry will soon whittle them down to three or four individuals. What a different job it would be if we had to search a New York precinct, which, I take it, is about as populous as East Orange."

This was a new point of view to Carshaw, and it cheered him proportionately. He stepped on the gas, and a traffic policeman at Forty-second Street and Seventh Avenue c.o.c.ked an eye at him.

"Steady," laughed Steingall. "It would be a sad blow for mother if we were held for furious driving. These blessed machines jump from twelve to forty miles an hour before you can wink twice."

Carshaw abated his ardor. Nevertheless, they were in East Orange forty minutes after crossing the ferry.

Unhappily, from that hour, the pace slackened. Gateway House had been rented from a New York agent for "Mr. and Mrs. Forest," Westerners who wished to reside in New Jersey a year or so.

Its occupants had driven thither from New York. Rachel Craik, heavily veiled and quietly attired, did her shopping in the nearest suburb, and had choice of more than one line of rail. So East Orange knew them not, nor had it even seen them.

In nowise discouraged, the man from the Bureau set about his inquiry methodically. He interviewed policemen, railway officials, postmen, and cabmen. Although the day was Sunday, he tracked men to their homes and led them to talk. Empty houses, recently let houses, houses tenanted by people who were "not particular" as to their means of getting a living, divided his attention with persons who answered to the description of Voles, Fowle, Rachel, or even the broken-armed Mick the Wolf; while he plied every man with a minutely accurate picture of Winifred.

Hither and thither darted the motor till East Orange was scoured and noted, and among twenty habitations jotted in the detective's notebook the name of Gateway House figured. It was slow work, this task of elimination, but they persisted, meeting rebuff after rebuff, especially in the one or two instances where a couple of sharp-looking strangers in a car were distinctly not welcome. They had luncheon at a local hotel, and, by idle chance, were not pleased by the way in which the meal was served.

So, when hungry again, and perhaps a trifle dispirited as the day waned to darkness with no result, they went to another inn to procure a meal.

This time they were better looked after. Instead of a jaded German waiter they were served by the landlord's daughter, a neat, befrilled young damsel, who cheered them by her smile; though, to be candid, she was anxious to get out for a walk with her young man.

"Have you traveled far?" she asked, by way of talk while laying the table.

"From New York," said Steingall.

"At this hour--in a car?"

"Yes. Is that a remarkable thing here?"

"Not the car; but people in motors either whizz through of a morning going away down the coast, or whizz back again of an evening returning to New York."

"Ah!" put in Carshaw, "here is a pretty head which holds brains. It goes in for ratiocinative reasoning. Now, I'll be bound to say that this pretty head, which thinks, can help us."

A good deal of this was lost on the girl, but she caught the compliment and smiled.

"It all depends on what you want to know," she said.

"I really want to find a private prison of some sort," he said. "The sort of place where a nice-looking young lady like you might be kept in against her will by nasty, ill-disposed people."

"There is only one house of that kind in the town, and that is out of it, as an Irishman might say."

"And where is it?"

"It's called Gateway House--about a mile along the road from the depot."