The Mystery & Suspense Novella

by Fletcher Flora

  “The testimony of the third person—Miss Hendricks—is far the most damaging against my wife. Miss Hendricks makes a direct and inevasive charge; it is practical proof. For I must tell you truthfully, Mr. Trant, that Miss Hendricks is far the best educated and capable witness of all. She saw the whole affair much nearer than any of the others. She is a person of irreproachable character, a rich old maid, living with her married sister on the street corner where the kidnapping occurred. Moreover, her testimony, though more elaborate, is substantiated in every important particular by both Morris and Lucy Carew.”

  Eldredge handed over the first pages.

  “Against these, Mr. Trant, is this statement of—my wife’s. My home faces the park, and is the second house from the street corner. There is, however, no driveway entrance into the park at this intersecting street. There are entrances a long block and a half away in one direction and more than two blocks in the other. But the winding drive inside the park approaches the front of the house within four hundred feet, and is separated from it by the park greensward.”

  “I understand.” Trant took the pages of evidence eagerly. Eldredge went to the window and stood knotting the curtain cord in suspense. But Murray crossed his legs, and, lighting a cigarette, watched Trant attentively. Trant read the testimony of the chauffeur, which was dated by Eldredge as taken Tuesday afternoon at five o’clock. It read thus:

  Mrs. Eldredge herself called to me about one o’clock to have the motor ready at half-past two. Mrs. Eldredge and her maid and Master Edward came down and got in. We went through the park, then down the Lake Shore Drive almost to the river and turned back. Mrs. Eldredge told me to return more slowly; we were almost forty minutes returning where we had been less than twenty coming down. Reaching the park, she wanted to go slower yet. She was very nervous and undecided. She stopped the machine three or four times while she pointed out things to Master Edward. She kept me winding in and out the different roads. Suddenly she asked me the time, and I told her it was just four; and she told me to go home at once. But on the curved park road in front of the house and about four hundred feet away from it, I “killed “my engine. I was some minutes starting it. Mrs. Eldredge kept asking how soon we could go on; but I could not tell her. After she had asked me three or four times, she opened the door and let Master Edward down. I thought he was coming around to watch me—a number of other boys had been standing about me just before. But she sent him across the park lawn toward the house. I was busy with my engine. Half a minute later the maid screamed. She jumped down and grabbed me. A woman was making off with Master Edward, running with him up the cross street toward the car line. Master Edward was crying and fighting. Just then my engines started. The maid and I jumped into the machine and went around by the park driveway as fast as we could to the place where the woman had picked up Master Edward. This did not take more than two minutes, but the woman and Master Edward had disappeared. Mrs. Eldredge pointed out a boy to me who was running up the street, but when we got to him it was not Master Edward. We went all over the neighborhood at high speed, but we did not find him. I think we might have found him if Mrs. Eldredge had not first sent us after the other boy. I did not see the woman who carried off Master Edward very plainly. She was small.

  Eldredge swung about and fixed on the young psychologist a look of anxious inquiry. But without comment, Trant picked up the testimony of the maid. It read:

  Mrs. Eldredge told me after luncheon that we were going out in the automobile with Master Edward. Master Edward did not want to go, because it was his birthday and he had received presents from his grandmother with which he wanted to play. Mrs. Eldredge—who was excited—made him come. We went through the park and down the Lake Shore Drive and came back again. It seemed to me that Mrs. Eldredge was getting more excited, but I thought that it was because this was the first time she had been out with Master Edward. But when we had got back almost to the house the automobile broke down, and she became more excited still. Finally she said to Master Edward that he would better get out and run home, and she helped him out of the car and he started. We could see him all the way, and could see right up to the front steps of the house. But before he got there a woman came running around the corner and started to run away with him. He screamed, and I screamed, too, and took hold of Mrs. Eldredge’s arm and pointed. But Mrs. Eldredge just sat still and watched. Then I jumped up, and Mrs. Eldredge, who was shaking all over, put out her hand. But I got past her and jumped out of the automobile. I screamed again, and grabbed the chauffeur, and pointed. Just then the engine started. We both got back into the automobile and went around by the driveway in the park. All this happened as fast as you can think, but we did not see either Master Edward or the woman. Mrs. Eldredge did not cry or take on at all. I am sure she did not scream when the woman picked up Master Edward, but she kept on being very much excited. I saw the woman who carried Master Edward off very plainly. She was a small blond, and wore a hat with violet-colored flowers in it and a violet-colored tailor-made dress. She looked like a lady.

  Trant laid the maid’s testimony aside and looked up quickly.

  “There is one extremely important thing, Mr. Eldredge,” he said. “Were the witnesses examined separately?—that is, none of them heard the testimony given by any other?”

  “None of them, Mr. Trant.”

  Then Trant picked up the testimony of Miss Hendricks which read as follows:

  It so happened that I was looking out of the library window—though I do not often look out at the window for fear people will think I am watching them—when I saw the automobile containing Mrs. Eldredge, Edward, the maid, and the chauffeur stop at the edge of the park driveway opposite the Eldredge home. The chauffeur descended and began doing something to the front of the car. But Mrs. Eldredge looked eagerly around in all directions, and finally toward the street corner on which our house stands; and almost immediately I noticed a woman hurrying down the cross street toward the corner. She had evidently just descended from a street car, for she came from the direction of the car line; and her haste made me understand at once that she was late for some appointment. As soon as Mrs. Eldredge caught sight of the woman she lifted Edward from the automobile to the ground, and pushed him in the woman’s direction. She sent him across the grass toward her. At first, however, the woman did not catch sight of Edward. Then she saw the automobile, raised her hand and made a signal. The signal was returned by Mrs. Eldredge, who pointed to the child. Immediately the woman ran forward, pulled Edward along in spite of his struggles, and ran toward the car line. It all happened very quickly. I am confident the kidnapping was prearranged between Mrs. Eldredge and the woman. I saw the woman plainly. She was small and dark. Her face was marked by smallpox and she looked like an Italian She wore a flat hat with white feathers, a gray coat, and a black skirt.

  “You say you can have no doubt of Miss Hendricks’ veracity?” asked Trant.

  Eldredge shook his head, miserably. “I have known Miss Hendricks for a number of years, and I should as soon accuse myself of falsehood. She came running over to the house as soon as this had happened, and it was from her account that I first learned, through Mrs. Murray, that something had occurred.”

  Trant’s glance fell to the remaining sheets in his hand, the testimony of Mrs. Eldredge; and the psychologist’s slightly mismated eyes—blue and gray—flashed suddenly as he read the following:

  I had gone with Edward for a ride in the park to celebrate his birthday. It was the first time we had been out together. We stopped to look at the flowers and the animals. My husband had not told me that he expected to be home from the store early, but Edward reminded me that on his birthday his father always came home in the middle of the afternoon and brought him presents. The time passed quickly, and I was surprised when I learned that it was already four o’clock. I was greatly troubled to think that Edward’s father might be awaiting him, and we hurried back as rapidly as possi
ble. We had almost reached the house when the engine of the automobile stopped. It took a very long time to fix it, and Edward was all the time growing more excited and impatient to see his father. It was only a short distance across the park to the house, which we could see plainly. Finally I lifted Edward out of the machine and told him to run across the grass to the house. He did so, but he went very slowly. I motioned to him to hurry. Then suddenly I saw the woman coming toward Edward, and the minute I saw her I was frightened. She came toward him slowly, stopped, and talked with him for quite a long time. She spoke loudly—I could hear her voice but I could not make out what she said. Then she took his hand—it must have been ten minutes after she had first spoken to him. He struggled with her, but she pulled him after her. She went rather slowly. But it took a very long time, perhaps fifteen minutes, for the motor to go around by the drive; and when we got to the spot Edward and the woman had disappeared. We looked everywhere, but could not find any trace of them, and she would have had time to go a considerable distance—

  Trant looked up suddenly at Eldredge who had left his position by the window and over Trant’s shoulder was reading the testimony. His face was gray.

  “I asked Mrs. Eldredge,” the husband said, pitifully, “why, if she suspected the woman from the first, and so much time elapsed, she did not try to prevent the kidnapping, and—she would not answer me!”

  Trant nodded, and read the final paragraph of Mrs. Eldredge’s testimony:

  The woman who took Edward was unusually large—a very big woman, not stout, but tall and big. She was very dark, with black hair, and she wore a red dress and a hat with red flowers in it.

  The psychologist laid down the papers and looked from one to the other of his companions reflectively. “What had happened that afternoon before Mrs. Eldredge and the boy went motoring?” he asked abruptly.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary, Mr. Trant,” said Eldredge. “Why do you ask that?”

  Trant’s fingertip followed on the table the last words of the evidence. “And what woman does Mrs. Eldredge know that answers that description—‘unusually large, not stout, but tall and big, very dark, with black hair?’”

  “No one,” said Eldredge. “No one except,” young Murray laughed frankly, “my mother. Trant,” he said, contemptuously, “don’t start any false leads of that sort! My mother was with Walter at the time the kidnapping took place!”

  “Mrs. Murray was with me,” Eldredge assented, “from four till five o’clock that afternoon. She has nothing to do with the matter. But, Trant, if you see in this mass of accusation one ray of hope that Mrs. Eldredge is not guilty, for God’s sake give it to me, for I need it!”

  The psychologist ran his fingers through his red hair and arose, strongly affected by the appeal of the white-lipped man who faced him. “I can give you more than a ray of hope, Mr. Eldredge,” he said. “I am almost certain that Mrs. Eldredge not only did not cause your son’s disappearance, but that she knows absolutely nothing about the matter. And I am nearly, though not quite, so sure that this is not a case of kidnapping at all!”

  “What, Trant? Man, you can’t tell me that from that evidence?”

  “I do, Mr. Eldredge!” Trant returned a little defiantly. “Just from this evidence!”

  “But, Trant,” the husband cried, trying to grasp the hope this stranger gave him against all his better reason, “if you can think that, why did she describe everything—the time, the circumstance, the size and appearance of the woman and even the color of her dress—so differently from all the rest? Why did she lie when she told me this, Mr. Trant?”

  “I do not think she lied, Mr. Eldredge.”

  “Then the rest lied and it is a conspiracy of the witnesses against her?”

  “No; no one lied, I think. And there was no conspiracy. That is my inference from the testimony and the one other fact we have—that there had been no demand for ransom.”

  Eldredge stared at him almost wildly. His brother-in-law moved up beside him.

  “Then where is my son, and who has taken him?”

  “I cannot say yet,” Trant answered. There was a knock on the door.

  “You asked to have everything personal brought to you at once, Mr. Eldredge,” said Miss Webster, holding out a note. “This just came in the ten o’clock delivery.” Eldredge snatched it from her—a soiled, creased envelope bearing a postmark of the Lake View substation just west of his home. It was addressed in a scrawling, illiterate hand, and conspicuously marked personal. He tore it open, caught the import of it almost at a glance; then with a smothered cry threw it on the desk in front of Murray, who read it aloud.

  Yure son E. is safe, and we have him where he is not in dangir. Your wife has not payed us the money she promised us for taking him away, and we do not consider we are bound any longer by our bargain with her. If you will put the money she promised (one hund. dollars) on the seat behind Lincoln’s statue in the Park tonight at ten thurty (be exact) you will get yure son E. back. Look out for trubble to the boy if you notify the police.

  N. B.—If you try to make any investigation about this case our above promiss will not be kept.

  “Well, Trant, what do you say now?” asked Murray.

  “That it was the only thing needed,” Trant answered, triumphantly, “to complete my case. Now, I am sure I need only go to your house to make a short examination of Mrs. Eldredge and the case against her!”

  He swung about suddenly at a stifled exclamation behind him, and found himself looking into the white face of the private secretary; but she turned at once and left the office. Trant swung back to Murray. “No, thank you,” he said, refusing the proffer of the paper. “I read from the marks made upon minds by a crime, not from scrawls and thumbprints upon paper. And my means of reading those marks are fortunately in my possession this morning. No, I do not mean that I have other evidence upon this case than that you have just given me, Mr. Eldredge,” Trant explained. “I refer to my psychological apparatus which, the express company notified me, arrived from New York this morning. If you will let me have my appliance delivered direct to your house it will save much time.”

  “I will order it myself!” Eldredge took up the telephone and quickly arranged the delivery.

  “Thank you,” Trant acknowledged. “And if you will also see that I have a photograph, a souvenir postal, or some sort of a picture of every possible locality within a few blocks of your house you will probably help in my examination greatly. Also,” he checked himself and stood thoughtfully a moment, “will you have these words”—he wrote “Armenia, invitation, inviolate, sedate” and “pioseer” upon a paper—“carefully lettered for me and brought to your house?”

  “What?” Eldredge stared at the list in astonishment. He looked up at Trant’s direct, intelligent features and checked himself. “Is there not some mistake in that last word, Mr. Trant? ‘Pioseer’ is not a word at all.”

  “I don’t wish it to be,” Trant replied. His glance fell suddenly on a gaudily lithographed card—an advertisement showing the interior of a room. He took it from the desk.

  “This will be very helpful, Mr. Eldredge,” he said. “If you will have this brought with the other cards I think that will be all. At three o’clock, then, at your house?”

  He left them, looking at each other in perplexity. He stopped a moment at a newspaper office, and then returned to the University Club thoughtfully. By the authority of all precedent procedure of the world, he recognized how hopelessly the case stood against the stepmother of the missing child. But by the authority of the new science—the new knowledge of humanity—which he was laboring to establish, he felt certain he could save her.

  Yet he fully appreciated that he could accomplish nothing until his experimental instruments were delivered. He must be content to wait until he could test his belief in Mrs. Eldredge’s innocence for himself, and at the same time convince Eldr
edge conclusively. So he played billiards, and lunched, and was waiting for the hour he had set with Eldredge, when he was summoned to the telephone. A man who said he was Mrs. Eldredge’s chauffeur, informed him that Mrs. Eldredge was in the motor before the club and she wished to speak with him at once.

  Trant immediately went down to the motor. The single woman in the curtained limousine had drawn back into the farthest corner to avoid the glances of passersby. But as Trant came toward the car she leaned forward and searched his face anxiously. She was a wonderfully beautiful woman, though her frail face bore evidences of long continued anxiety and of present excitement. Her hair was unusually rich in color; the dilated, defiant eyes were deep and flawless; the pale cheeks were clear and soft, and the trembling lips were curved and perfect. Trant, before a word had been exchanged between them, recognized the ineffable appeal of her personality.

  “I must speak with you, Mr. Trant,” she said, as the chauffeur at her nod, opened the door of the car. “I cannot leave the motor. You must get in.”

  Trant stepped quietly into the limousine, filled with the soft perfume of her presence. The chauffeur closed the door behind him, and at once started the car.

  “My husband has consulted you, Mr. Trant, regarding the—the trouble that has come upon us, the—the disappearance of his son, Edward,” she asked.

  “Why do you not say at once, Mrs. Eldredge, that you know he has consulted me and asked me to come and examine you this afternoon? You must have learned it through his secretary.”

  The woman hesitated. “It is true,” she said nervously. “Miss Webster telephoned me. I see that you have not forgotten that I was once my husband’s stenographer, and—I still have friends in his office.”