The Window at the White Cat

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XVI

  ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN

  Burton's idea of exploiting Miss Jane's disappearance began to bearfruit the next morning. I went to the office early, anxious to get mymore pressing business out of the way, to have the afternoon with Burtonto inspect the warehouse. At nine o'clock came a call from the morgue.

  "Small woman, well dressed, gray hair?" I repeated. "I think I'll go upand see. Where was the body found?"

  "In the river at Monica Station," was the reply. "There is a scardiagonally across the cheek to the corner of the mouth."

  "A fresh injury?"

  "No, an old scar."

  With a breath of relief I said it was not the person we were seeking andtried to get down to work again. But Burton's prophecy had been right.Miss Jane had been seen in a hundred different places: one perhaps wasright; which one?

  A reporter for the _Eagle_ had been working on the case all night: hecame in for a more detailed description of the missing woman, and he hada theory, to fit which he was quite ready to cut and trim the facts.

  "It's Rowe," he said confidently. "You can see his hand in it rightthrough. I was put on the Benson kidnapping case, you remember, the boywho was kept for three months in a deserted lumber camp in themountains? Well, sir, every person in the Benson house swore thatyoungster was in bed at midnight, when the house was closed for thenight. Every door and window bolted in the morning, and the boy gone.When we found Rowe--after the mother had put on mourning--and found thekid, ten pounds heavier than he had been before he was abducted, andstrutting around like a turkey cock, Rowe told us that he and the boytook in the theater that night, and were there for the first act. Howdid he do it? He offered to take the boy to the show if he would pretendto go to bed, and then slide down a porch pillar and meet him. The boydidn't want to go home when we found him."

  "There can't be any mistake about the time in this case," I commented."I saw her myself after eleven, and said good night."

  The _Eagle_ man consulted his note-book. "Oh, yes," he asked; "did shehave a diagonal cut across her cheek?"

  "No," I said for the second time.

  My next visitor was a cabman. On the night in question he had taken asmall and a very nervous old woman to the Omega ferry. She appearedexcited and almost forgot to pay him. She carried a small satchel, andwore a black veil. What did she look like? She had gray hair, and sheseemed to have a scar on her face that drew the corner of her mouth.

  At ten o'clock I telephoned Burton: "For Heaven's sake," I said, "ifanybody has lost a little old lady in a black dress, wearing a blackveil, carrying a satchel, and with a scar diagonally across her cheekfrom her eye to her mouth, I can tell them all about her, and where sheis now."

  "That's funny," he said. "We're stirring up the pool and bringing upthings we didn't expect. The police have been looking for that womanquietly for a week: she's the widow of a coal baron, and herson-in-law's under suspicion of making away with her."

  "Well, he didn't," I affirmed. "She committed suicide from an Omegaferry boat and she's at the morgue this morning."

  "Bully," he returned. "Keep on; you'll get lots of clues, and rememberone will be right."

  It was not until noon, however, that anything concrete developed. In thetwo hours between, I had interviewed seven more people. I had followedthe depressing last hours of the coal baron's widow, and jumped withher, mentally, into the black river that night. I had learned of a smallfairish-haired girl who had tried to buy cyanide of potassium at threedrug-stores on the same street, and of a tall light woman who had takena room for three days at a hotel and was apparently demented.

  At twelve, however, my reward came. Two men walked in, almost at thesame time: one was a motorman, in his official clothes, brass buttonsand patches around the pockets. The other was a taxicab driver. Bothhad the uncertain gait of men who by occupation are unused to anythingstationary under them, and each eyed the other suspiciously.

  The motorman claimed priority by a nose, so I took him first into myprivate office. His story, shorn of his own opinions at the time andlater, was as follows:

  On the night in question, Thursday of the week before, he took his carout of the barn for the eleven o'clock run. Barney was his conductor.They went from the barn, at Hays Street, down-town, and then started outfor Wynton. The controller blew out, and two or three things went wrong:all told they lost forty minutes. They got to Wynton at five minutesafter two; their time there was one-twenty-five.

  The car went to the bad again at Wynton, and he and Barney tinkered withit until two-forty. They got it in shape to go back to the barn, butthat was all. Just as they were ready to start, a passenger got on, awoman, alone: a small woman with a brown veil. She wore a black dress ora suit--he was vague about everything but the color, and he noticed herespecially because she was fidgety and excited. Half a block farther aman boarded the car, and sat across from the woman. Barney saidafterward that the man tried twice to speak to the woman, but she lookedaway each time. No, he hadn't heard what he said.

  The man got out when the car went into the barn, but the woman stayedon. He and Barney got another car and took it out, and the woman wentwith them. She made a complete round trip this time, going out to Wyntonand back to the end of the line down-town. It was just daylight when shegot off at last, at First and Day Streets.

  Asked if he had thought at the time that the veiled woman was young orold, he said he had thought she was probably middle-aged. Very young orvery old women would not put in the night riding in a street-car. Yes,he had had men who rode around a couple of times at night, mostly tosober up before they went home. But he never saw a woman do it before.

  I took his name and address and thanked him. The chauffeur came next,and his story was equally pertinent.

  On the night of the previous Thursday he had been engaged to take a sickwoman from a down-town hotel to a house at Bellwood. The woman's husbandwas with her, and they went slowly to avoid jolting. It was after twelvewhen he drove away from the house and started home. At a corner--he didnot know the names of the streets--a woman hailed the cab and asked himif he belonged in Bellwood or was going to the city. She had missed thelast train. When he told her he was going into town, she promptlyengaged him, and showed him where to wait for her, a narrow road off themain street.

  "I waited an hour," he finished, "before she came; I dropped to sleep orI would have gone without her. About half-past one she came along, and agentleman with her. He put her in the cab, and I took her to the city.When I saw in the paper that a lady had disappeared from Bellwood thatnight, I knew right off that it was my party."

  "Would you know the man again?"

  "I would know his voice, I expect, sir; I could not see much: he wore aslouch hat and had a traveling-bag of some kind."

  "What did he say to the woman?" I asked.

  "He didn't say much. Before he closed the door, he said, 'You have putme in a terrible position,' or something like that. From thetraveling-bag and all, I thought perhaps it was an elopement, and thelady had decided to throw him down."

  "Was it a young woman or an old one," I asked again. This time thecabby's tone was assured.

  "Young," he asserted, "slim and quick: dressed in black, with a blackveil. Soft voice. She got out at Market Square, and I have an idea shetook a cross-town car there."

  "I hardly think it was Miss Maitland," I said. "She was past sixty, andbesides--I don't think she went that way. Still it is worth followingup. Is that all?"

  He fumbled in his pocket, and after a minute brought up a small blackpocket-book and held it out to me. It was the small coin purse out of aleather hand-bag.

  "She dropped this in the cab, sir," he said. "I took it home to themissus--not knowing what else to do with it. It had no money in it--onlythat bit of paper."

  I opened the purse and took out a small white card, without engraving.On it was written in a pencil the figures:

  C 1122