The Blue Lights Part 35

"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.

"But a single clue existed upon which I could build the least semblance of a case. I refer to the half-smoked cigarette with the gold tip, which I discovered in the gra.s.s at the scene of the crime. Without that apparently trivial clue, the criminals would in all probability never have been captured at all."

"But," exclaimed Mr. Stapleton, "I don't see how you make that out."

"Nor I," observed the Prefect.

"No. I suppose not. And yet, it is simple enough. That half-smoked cigarette and nothing else is the basic reason for the arrest of the three men now in your hands."

Monsieur Lefevre smiled. "Be good enough," he said, "to explain."

"Very well, I will. But first, let me indicate to you my course of reasoning. When I originally found the cigarette, I regarded it as of very small value, from the standpoint of evidence. It happened to be lying in the gra.s.s at the point where the crime occurred; but during the week or more which had elapsed between the stealing of the boy and my examination of the ground, a hundred people might have walked over the spot. I took it, because I realized that it _might_ have a bearing on the case, and I have learned to discard no clue, however trifling it may appear, until it has been proven valueless.

"Now to go back to the cigarette, I observed at once that it was of American make, yet of such small size as to have been either used by a woman, or by a man of rather effeminate taste.

"Now if the cigarette had been used by a woman, it meant one of two things. Either it was used by Mary Lanahan herself, in which case it apparently proved nothing, or by some other woman who was there with her, and who might have had a hand in the kidnapping.

"On the other hand, if used by a man, it pointed clearly to the chauffeur, Valentin, for several reasons. He was a friend, a former lover, of the nurse. He had been discharged by Mr. Stapleton for dishonesty. He was, I had reason to know, of rather a weak and effeminate type. The cigarette was of American make, and he had but recently come from America. These things pointed to Valentin. The fact that the nurse was in love with him would cause her to s.h.i.+eld him. I determined to try the matter out at once.

"As soon as I returned to the house, therefore, I confronted her, and asked her if Valentin smoked gold-tipped cigarettes. I did this, not because I expected to get any reply of value, but because I wished to observe her manner, her face, when I flung the question at her.

"She was greatly startled. She denied that Valentin smoked. Fifteen minutes later, she sent him a message to destroy the cigarettes.

"I at once concluded that they were working together, and were both guilty, a conclusion in which, however much I was justified by the evidence, I was quite wrong.

"Then came the attempt on the part of someone--the man with the black beard, I am told--to steal the cigarettes from Valentin. I learned that the man was followed to Mr. Stapleton's house.

"This at once threw a new light upon the matter, although I will admit a confusing one. Someone else, besides the nurse, desired the box of cigarettes removed as evidence; someone, in fact, who belonged to, or had friends in, the house. Who could this be? I could think of no one, outside of Mary Lanahan herself, but the chauffeur, Francois."

"Why did you first suspect him?" asked Mr. Stapleton.

"Because he was the only person, besides the nurse, who was present at the time of the kidnapping. I did not abandon my suspicions of either the nurse or Valentin. I fully believed that they knew a great deal more about the affair than they admitted. But I became convinced that Francois, too, was in the thing. He had testified that he was asleep when the affair occurred. I concluded at once that he was lying.

"At the first opportunity, therefore, I made a thorough search of his room, and found the box of cigarettes hidden in a clock on his mantel."

"Ha! I did not know that," exclaimed the Prefect. "What were they doing there?"

"I concluded that the fellow with the black beard who stole them from Valentin, in order to prevent their use as evidence against him, turned them over to Francois for a definite purpose."

"And that purpose was?"

"Their use in subsequent crimes of a similar nature."

Mr. Stapleton and the Prefect gazed at Duvall in bewilderment. "Explain yourself, my friend," exclaimed the latter. "I confess I do not understand what you are talking about. Who, may I ask, really smoked the cigarette, the remains of which you found in the gra.s.s?"

"Mary Lanahan," said the detective, with a smile.

"The nurse! Name of a dog! Then I fail to see that the matter is of the slightest importance one way or the other."