The Diamond Pin Part 28

"It would only be a temptation to thieves," he a.s.serted, "and the price of it could be much better expended in some more useful way."

"Is there a crypt in your church?" asked Iris, abruptly.

"No; nothing of the sort. Or--well, that is, there is a room below the main floor that could be called a crypt, I suppose, but it is never used as a chapel, or for mortuary purposes. Why?"

Iris told him of the entry in her aunt's diary stating that the collection of jewels was in a crypt, and Dr. Stephenson smiled.

"Not in my church," he said, "of that I'm positive. The bas.e.m.e.nt I speak of has no hidden places nor has anybody ever concealed anything there.

You may search there if you choose, but it is useless. To my mind, it sounds more like a bank vault. That might be called a crypt, if one chose so to speak of it."

"Perhaps," said Iris, disappointed at this fruitless effort. "I will go to the Industrial Bank and inquire. That is the bank where my aunt kept her money when she lived here."

The people at the bank were also kind and courteous, but not so much at leisure as the rector had been. They gave Iris no encouraging information. They looked up their records, and found that Mrs. Pell had had an account with them some years ago, but that it had been closed out when she left the city. There were no properties of hers, of any sort, in their custody, and no one of their vaults was rented in her name.

They seemed uninterested in Iris' story, and after their a.s.surances the girl went away.

Next she went to the firm of Craig, Marsden & Co., to see if she could trace the receipt that was mentioned in Mrs. Pell's will as being of importance to Winston Bannard.

A Mr. Reed attended to her errand.

"A vague description," he said, smiling, as she told him of the will.

"To be sure, our books will show the name, but it will take some time to look it up."

However, he agreed to investigate the records, and Iris was told to return the next day to learn results.

It was a mere chance that the record of the sale, whatever it might be, would be of any definite importance, but Iris was determined to try every possible way of finding out anything concerning the matter.

The firm of Craig, Marsden & Co. was a large jewelry concern, and probably the receipt in question was for some precious stones or their settings.

Iris boarded a street car to return to her hotel. She sat, deeply engrossed in thought over the various difficulties that beset her path, when the man who sat next her drew a handkerchief from his pocket.

Abstractedly, she noticed the handkerchief. It was of silk, and had a few lines of blue as a border. Then, suddenly, she realized that it was the exact counterpart of the one with which the midnight marauder had tied up her mouth the time he came to get the pin.

Furtively she glanced at the man. The burglar had been masked, but the size and general appearance of this man were not unlike him. Then, another surrept.i.tious look revealed his features to her, and to her surprise she recognized her caller named Pollock!

Quickly she turned her own face aside (the man had not noticed her) and wondered what to do. Without a doubt it was Pollock, she was sure of that, and the peculiar handkerchief gave her an idea it was the midnight intruder also--that they were one and the same! She had surmised this before, and she now began to join the threads of the story.

She felt sure that Pollock and the burglar and the kidnapper were all one, and that Pollock was determined to get the pin at any cost; and she couldn't believe it was for the reason he had a.s.serted, merely as a memento of the dramatic tragedy.

It had not been this man who drove the little car that carried her away on Sunday, but the driver, as well as the girl called Flossie, were probably Pollock's tools.

At any rate, she concluded to trace Pollock and find out something about him.

When he left the car, as he did shortly, she rose and followed him. He had not glanced at her, and was apparently absorbed in thought, so she had no difficulty in walking, unnoticed, behind him.

She smiled at herself, as she realized she was really "shadowing," and felt quite like a detective.

Pollock went into a small restaurant, and Iris, through the wide window, saw him take a seat at a table. The deliberation with which he unfolded his napkin, and looked over the menu, made her a.s.sume that he would be there some time.

Acting on the impulse of the moment, Iris ran to the nearest telephone she could find, and called up a detective agency.

Over the wire she stated her desire to employ a detective at once, and asked to have him sent to her, where she was, which was in a drug shop.

There was a maddening delay, and as Iris waited, she began to fear she had done a foolish thing. She suddenly realized that she had acted too quickly and perhaps unadvisedly. But she must stand by it now.

It was half an hour before a man arrived and met her at the door of the drug shop.

"I am Mr. Dayton," he said, "from the agency. Is this Miss Clyde?"

"Yes," said Iris, "and please hurry! I've just got on the track of a man who is a--a burglar----"

"Ma'am?" and the detective looked sharply at this young girl who had called him to her.

"Yes," and Iris grew impatient at his doubtful interest, "now, don't stop to parley, but catch him."

"Where is he?"

"He's in the restaurant, half a block away. I don't mean for you to arrest him, but trail him, shadow him, or whatever you call it, and find out who he is, and what sort of a character he bears. If he's a correct and decent citizen, all right; if he's a man who might be a burglar, I want to know it! Now, fly!"

"Wait a minute, Miss Clyde. Tell me more. How shall I know him?"

"Oh, he's at the table by the first front window, as you go from here.

He's a tall man, and a strong-looking one. Come on, I'll point him out."

They went toward the restaurant, and cautiously Iris looked in at the window. But her quarry had fled. There was no one at the table at all.

"Come on in," she cried to the bewildered Dayton. "No, that won't do, he mustn't see me. You go in, and get the waiter who served him, or the proprietor or somebody, and find out who the man was who ate at that table just now. Maybe he's still in the coat room."

Iris stepped around a corner, and Dayton went in on his errand.

But the waiter had no knowledge of the patron's name. He said he had never seen him before, to his knowledge, but he was a new waiter there, and the captain might know.

However, neither the head waiter nor the cas.h.i.+er, nor indeed anyone about the place, knew the man. A few remembered seeing him, but the waiters at nearby tables, if they had noticed him, didn't know his name.

One waiter said he thought he had seen him before, but wasn't sure. The man was gone, and no one knew which direction he had taken from the restaurant.

Iris was disheartened at the report of her emissary.

"If you'd only got here sooner!" she reproached the detective.

"Did my best," he a.s.sured her. "Describe your man more accurately."

But Iris couldn't seem to think of any very distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics that fitted him.

"His name is Pollock," she said, "and he's a collector. Oh, wait, I do know something more. He's in the hardware business."

"For himself, or with a firm?"