PART III
CHAPTER XII
The announcement, made by Mr. Baker, that Miss Marcia Ford, the film cutter, had reported for work, filled Duvall with astonishment. He had expected nothing of the sort, so convinced was he that the girl in question was the one they were looking for, the one who had been persecuting Ruth Morton, the motion picture star, with her threats.
He rose from his seat, in Mr. Baker's office at the studio, and turned toward the door. "If Miss Ford has reported for work," he said, "I had better take a look at her at once. If she is the woman who escaped from the cab, last night, I shall have no difficulty in recognizing her. But I am afraid it is out of the question. Knowing that both you and I had seen her, when she fainted at the theater, she would not dare to put in an appearance here to-day. The thing is utterly incomprehensible.
"Still, she might suppose that we would not suspect her, that she could carry on her work in the studio without anyone being the wiser. I seldom go into that part of the building, myself, and she would certainly not expect to see you. In fact, it may not have occurred to her that we suspect one of our employees, in spite of the stolen photograph or the fake telegram."
"Suppose we take a look at her at once. That will settle the whole question," Duvall urged.
"Very well." Mr. Baker closed his desk and the two men crossed the corridor and made their way into that part of the studio building devoted to the developing and finishing of the films.
Mr. Emmett, the head of the department, was seated at his desk when they arrived.
"So the Ford girl is here," Baker said at once.
"Yes, sir. She came in about ten minutes ago, explaining her lateness by saying that she was ill, when she got up this morning, and was not sure that she could get here at all. Shall I send for her?"
"No," Duvall interposed quickly. "Pardon me, Mr. Baker," he turned to the latter, "but if we send for this girl, it will arouse her suspicions. Of course I do not think she is the woman we are looking for, but she may be in league with her. Would it not be better to have Mr. Emmett and yourself conduct me through the room in which she works, as though I were a visitor to the studio? You can readily point her out to me as we pass, and that will give me ample opportunity to recognize her, in case I have ever seen her before."
"I think that a very good idea," returned Baker. He said a few words to Mr. Emmett, and the three men set out to go through the rooms in which the film cutting and pasting were done.
At one of the tables a girl of about twenty was at work. As they passed, Mr. Emmett turned his head and nodded. The girl did not look up, and the three men continued their way through the room.
When they again reached the hall, Mr. Baker turned to Duvall.
"Well?" he questioned.
"It is not the woman," the detective said. "I did not suppose it would be. There is some slight resemblance, of course. The color of the eyes and hair is the same, and the features are somewhat alike. However, I am very much afraid, Mr. Baker, that I have wasted both your time and mine. And yet, I cannot get over my original impression, that the person responsible for these threats is connected, in some way, with your company."
Baker, puzzled and disappointed as well, led the way back to his office. Duvall, however, when they reached it, did not enter.
"I shall not remain any longer, at present," he said. "I have an idea that I can accomplish more in town. Perhaps I may discover something there – some clue, that will enable us to make progress. I have a plan that may result in something."
"What is it?" Mr. Baker asked.
"I prefer not to say yet. If anything develops, I will let you know. Good day."
The taxicab in which he had made the trip down was still waiting for him. An hour later he had reached his hotel.
The disguise of the night before he had discarded. The woman in the cab had penetrated it. His presence, and that of Mrs. Morton, at the uptown hotel, was known. There seemed to be no further purpose, for the present, in attempting to preserve his incognito. He went to his room at once, and knocked on the door which separated it from the apartment of Mrs. Morton and her daughter. The door was opened by the maid, who ushered him into the little parlor.
"I will tell Mrs. Morton that you are here," the girl said, and went into the next room.
Mrs. Morton came out presently, her face pale and drawn. Duvall knew at once that she had been up all night, watching, no doubt, beside her daughter.
"How is Miss Ruth?" he asked.
"She is better. She had a fairly good night's rest, and her fever has left her."
"I am glad to hear that. I hope there have been no further threats."
"No. Not yet. But I never know at what moment something may happen. It is terrible – terrible, living under a shadow like this."
As she spoke, the telephone bell rang.
"You answer it, Mr. Duvall," she said, turning quickly to the door by which she had entered, and closing it. "I do not think I can stand anything more at present."
Duvall took down the receiver. Someone was asking for Mr. John Bradley.
"This is Mr. Bradley," he said, then suddenly recognized his wife's voice. "Is this you, Richard?" she asked.
"Yes. What is it?"
"If you have time, to-day, come down and see me. I have something I want to tell you. Something important."
"Very well. I will be there in half an hour. Good-by." He hung up the receiver.
"Was it anything – anything more, Mr. Duvall?" asked Mrs. Morton.
"No. Nothing of that sort. Well, I must go along now. I merely looked in to ask after your daughter. There is one thing I want you to do, however, and that is, let me have a key to your apartment on 57th Street."
Mrs. Morton took the key from her purse, and handed it to him.
"Haven't you any good news, yet?" she asked, somewhat pathetically.
"Not yet – at least nothing very definite. I know the woman who is annoying your daughter by sight, however, and I think I can safely assure you that she will be under arrest before very long. Matters of this sort take time, Mrs. Morton. Remember that I have had charge of the case but three days, and these people we are looking for are shrewd, leaving few clues. But I feel that I shall have something definite to report very soon now."
"I hope so, I'm sure. Good day."
"Good day." Duvall left the room, and taking a taxi, drove down to see Grace.
He found her sitting at the writing desk, in the reception room of their suite, apparently busy over a letter. She pushed the sheet of paper aside, when her husband entered, and threw her arms about his neck.
"Richard!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad to see you. It has been ages. What's the matter with you? You look dreadfully blue."
Duvall threw himself into a chair.
"I'm a bit disgusted with myself," he said.
"What about? I may ask you now, may I not? Is it about that wretched Morton case? I must talk to you about that. May I? You see, you rather got me into it, last night, and I got myself into it, too, by coming up to your hotel to see you, and now you've got to tell me how things turned out, after you left the theater, or I shall not know just what to do."
"About what?"
"I'll tell you that, after I hear about last night."
Duvall laughed, although a trifle grimly.
"I'm not particularly proud of last night," he said.
"Wasn't the woman who fainted the one you were after?" asked Grace.
"Yes. I'm sure she was. But unfortunately, she got away from me." He outlined to Grace the circumstances which led up to the woman's escape from the cab.
"You say she was a small, slight woman, with light hair?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Then I may know something about her."
"What?"
"I'll tell you. You remember that, when I came up to see you at the hotel yesterday afternoon, you were greatly put out, because you were afraid that I might have been followed, thus disclosing the name of your hotel to these people you are trying to avoid?"
"Yes. I was afraid of it. And the people in question did find out in some way where I had taken Miss Morton and her mother, as I discovered last night."
"They did not discover it through me."
"How do you know?"
"It came about in a curious way. After you told me, over the telephone, that you feared I might have been followed, I looked up the taxi driver who took me uptown, and asked him if anyone had tried to question him. I thought that possibly this hotel might have been watched, and, if so, the person who was watching it might have noticed the number of my car, or the driver, and later, applied to him for information. I saw him as soon as I returned. No one had done so."
"That is all very well, but they might have asked him, and found out where he drove you, later."
"They did ask him, later. Why is it, Richard, that you seem to forget that I have done detective work before, too? I suspected that he might be approached, and I subsidized him – gave him ten dollars, and instructed him to let me know, in case anyone questioned him about me."
"Well, late yesterday afternoon, a woman, answering the description you give, did apply to the cabman to find out where he had driven me. Naturally he told her nothing. Then, thinking, I suppose, that I might repeat my visit, she gave him five dollars, and told him to let her know in case I drove from here to any other hotel. She figured, no doubt, that being your wife, I was certain to go and see you."
Duvall sat forward in his chair, an eager look upon his face.
"You did splendidly, Grace," he said. "Much better than I have done. But the important point is this. How was the cabman to let her know, and where? Did she give him her name and address?"
"She gave him a name and address. It is about that, that I wanted to see you."
"What was it?"
"Alice Watson. General Delivery. He was to write her a letter."
Duvall sank back in his chair with a disappointed look.
"An assumed name, of course," he said. "I'm afraid it won't be of much service to us."
"But why? I was going to write this woman a letter, giving her the name of some other hotel – any one would do. Then, she would come there to find you, we could have the cabman, Leary, on watch to point her out, and in that way identify her and perhaps follow her to her home." Duvall shook his head.
"It would have worked splendidly, my dear," he said, "except for the fact that in some way the woman has already discovered the name of my hotel. She will not go to the general delivery window at the post office to get it, now, for she already knows it. And if she did, she would realize as soon as she read your letter that you were not telling her the truth. Is that what you have been so busy about?" He glanced at the half-finished letter that lay on his wife's desk.
"Yes." Grace looked at him rather sheepishly. "I am terribly disappointed," she said. "I really hoped that I had discovered something that would help you." She took from the desk the piece of paper that contained Alice Watson's address, and tearing it into bits, dropped them slowly into the waste basket.
Duvall observed her action.
"What are you tearing up?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing. Merely the bit of paper that contained the woman's assumed name and address. It is of no use any longer." She glanced at a scrap of the paper, about half an inch square, that remained between her fingers, then started. "There must have been something on the other side," she exclaimed. "There's a part of a name here – printed or engraved. It looks like 'Ford.'"
Duvall sprang from his chair and made a dive for the scrap basket.
"Ford!" he exclaimed. "That's queer! We must get every scrap of that card at once."
It took the two of them several minutes to gather from the basket the tiny pieces into which Grace had torn the bit of paper. Then they fitted them together. Duvall saw at once, as soon as he picked up the first scrap, that the address had been written on a card. When the several pieces had at last been assembled upon the top of the desk, it became quite clear that the Watson name and address had been hastily scrawled upon the torn half of a visiting card. Slowly and carefully Duvall turned the bits over. The words engraved upon the opposite side filled him with delight.
There were first the letters "cia," followed by the name "Ford." Beneath were two figures, a "6" and a "2," and after them, West 57th Street.
Duvall gazed at the result in surprise, then taking from his pocketbook the torn half of the card he had found the night before in the cab, he laid it beside the fragments on the desk. The two fitted exactly. The name and address were both plain. Evidently the woman who had interviewed the cabman, Leary, and the woman who had escaped from the cab were one and the same. She had taken a card from her purse, torn it in half, written the "Alice Watson" address that she gave the cabman on one half, and thrust the other back into her handbag. Later, when Duvall had attempted to examine the contents of the bag, the bit of card had fallen to the floor. All that was sufficiently clear.
Grace, looking over her husband's shoulder, read the completed name and address.
"Miss Marcia Ford," she exclaimed. "162 West 57th Street. Why, Richard, there is the name and address of the woman you want."
"It may be her address," her husband remarked, gloomily, "but it certainly isn't her name."
"But – Why not?"
"Because I saw Marcia Ford this morning, and she isn't the woman!"
Grace looked at him in astonishment. "Are you sure?" she cried.
"Perfectly. Marcia Ford is not the one we are after."
"Then how do you explain the woman having a card with that name on it?"
"I don't explain it – unless," he paused for a moment in thought. "Unless this Ford woman, and the other one, are in league with each other, which might account for the latter having her card in her purse."
"And the address! Is that where Marcia Ford lives?"
"I don't know. It may be where they both live, for all I can tell. I only hope it is." He rose and took up his hat.
"Where are you going?" Grace asked.
"To 162 West 57th Street." Suddenly he took his wallet from his pocket, snatched a second card from it, and after looking at it for a moment, gave an exclamation of delighted surprise.
"What is it?" Grace asked quickly.
He thrust the card into her hand. Grace glanced at it, without quite understanding what it meant.
"I don't see what you mean," she exclaimed. "The thing is clear enough. The card I have just given you belongs to Miss Ruth Morton."
"I see that, but – "
"Then surely you must see that Miss Morton's apartment also is on Fifty-seventh Street, and just two doors from the address of Miss Marcia Ford!"
CHAPTER XIII
Duvall, upon discovering that the address of Miss Marcia Ford was on West 57th Street, but two doors from the building in which the Morton apartment was located, began to feel that he was on the right track. He had known, ever since his first day upon the case, that the mysterious messages found in Ruth Morton's bedroom had been placed there by some ingenious but perfectly natural means. The apparition that had so startled the girl upon her last night at the flat was capable, of course, of some reasonable explanation. When he left Mr. Baker in the morning his plan had been to go to Mrs. Morton's apartment and once more investigate all possible means of entrance, hoping that, by finding out how the messages were delivered, he might also be able to find out by whom. It was for this reason that he had asked Mrs. Morton for the key to the apartment.
Now the question seemed in a fair way to being answered for him. The fact that this girl's room was located so near to the Mortons' apartment could not be a mere coincidence. There must be, between her room and the Morton flat some means of communication, although of what nature he could not now surmise. Fully convinced, however, that he might very soon find out, he hurried up to Fifty-seventh Street and walked along until he reached No. 162.
The house was, like that which immediately adjoined the apartment building, an old-fashioned one, of brown stone, with a high front stoop. It presented an appearance which, if not exactly dilapidated, was yet in strong contrast to the neat appearance of its neighbors. A printed card in one of the lower front windows indicated that roomers were wanted.
It was just the sort of place that Duvall had expected to find – just the sort of place in which a working girl like Marcia Ford would live. Located in a very excellent neighborhood, surrounded by apartment buildings and houses of the best type, it still could afford to rent rooms at the moderate figure that one of her class could pay. He went up the front steps and rang the bell. "Is Miss Ford in? Miss Marcia Ford?" he asked.
The servant who came to the door, a neatly dressed German girl, shook her head.
"No, Miss Ford is not in. She usually gets back about half past six."
Duvall glanced at his watch. It was not yet three o'clock. He realized that he had a long wait before him.
"Will you leave any message?" the girl asked.
"No. It is not important. I will come back." Descending the steps he walked slowly in the direction of the apartment building, two doors away.
Entering, he made his way to Mrs. Morton's apartment. The place was just as they had left it, two days before. The windows had all been tightly closed and fastened, and there were no further mysterious messages lying about. Once more Duvall went to Ruth Morton's room, and opening the two windows looked out.
His investigations, however, told him no more than he had learned before. The three dormer windows in the home next door gazed vacantly down at him, their windows covered with cobwebs and dust. The impossibility of anyone making their way from even the nearest of them, to the window where he stood, was manifest. And that a long rod or pole could have been utilized to introduce the letters into the girl's room was even more impossible. He shook his head, then turned to the other window, that facing upon the fire escape.
Here, as on the occasion of his previous examination, the smooth glossy surface of the freshly dried paint showed no marks, except those he had himself made during his former visit. And yet, as his eyes searched the grated surface, he saw that there was something there, something that had not been there before. He reached out and picked it up.
It was a woman's handkerchief, a tiny square of lace-edged linen, of an inexpensive variety. But it was not the mere presence of the handkerchief that so interested him. It might readily have belonged to Miss Morton herself, and have been accidentally dropped from the window. There were two things about this particular handkerchief, however, that marked it as a clue of the utmost value. One was the fact that in its corner was embroidered an initial, the letter "F." The other was that two of the corners of the handkerchief were knotted together, as though it had been tied about someone's wrist, for what reason, he could not imagine.
The latter feature puzzled the detective greatly. He could not form any hypothesis to account for it. If the Ford woman, as indicated by the presence of the handkerchief, marked with an "F," had been on the fire-escape, why were there no tell-tale marks to indicate it? And if she had not been there, why was her handkerchief found there, knotted in this peculiar way? Had it formed part of some apparatus, some device, made of a pole and a cord, for inserting the threatening letters through the window? If so, it might, of course, have become detached while the device was being used. Duvall remembered that he had not examined the fire escape on the night when the astonishing apparition had appeared beside Ruth Morton's bed, because the window opening on the fire escape had been closed and locked. Had the handkerchief been left there then? He sat for a long time in the deserted library, trying to hit upon some reasonable theory to explain the matter, but his efforts resulted in failure. Not the least confusing feature of the affair was the fact that the woman, Marcia Ford, was not the woman he was seeking. He had seen her at the studio that morning, and knew that she was not the one who had escaped from the cab the night before. Were there then two working together? If so, he would, through the Ford girl, in all probability be able to trace her confederate. He waited patiently until the waning afternoon light told him that it was time to begin his watch before the house at number 162.
Across the street a residence, closed for the summer, its front entrance boarded up, afforded him a convenient place to wait. He sat down upon the steps, and pretended to be occupied with a newspaper. His eyes, however, sought constantly the doorway opposite.
A number of persons entered the place, during the next two hours, but Marcia Ford was not amongst them. As the darkness began to approach, and lights in the streets and houses flared up, Duvall rose, crossed the street, and stationed himself at a nearer point, from which he might the more certainly identify anyone entering the house. Miss Ford, however, failed to appear.
From the sign in the window, to the effect that roomers were wanted, Duvall concluded that the Ford girl did not take her meals in the house. His watch showed him that it was nearly seven. Doubtless she had arranged to dine before returning home. In a flash it came to him that his opportunity to make an examination of her room was now at hand.
To secure entrance to the room by the usual channels was clearly out of the question. The people at the boarding house would, of course, not permit it. But could he discover the means of communication, whatever they were, between Miss Morton's apartment and the girl's room, he might be able to enter the latter unknown and unobserved. He had thought of attempting this during the afternoon, but realized that he could not hope to accomplish it, in broad daylight, without being seen by the occupants of the neighboring buildings, and perhaps arrested as a burglar or sneak thief.
With a last glance down the street, he hastened back to the apartment building and made his way to Mrs. Morton's flat. Passing quickly through Ruth Morton's bedroom, he climbed out upon the fire escape and looked about.
Below him were the rear yards of the houses fronting on the next street. To the right he could see the bulk of the apartment building, blocking his view of the avenue beyond. To the left were the rear buildings of the adjoining houses. It was quite dark, the sky was starless, but all about him gleamed the lights in the windows of the neighboring buildings.
Neither to the right, nor to the left was there any possible way by which access to the point where he now stood could be gained. From below, it was possible, although his previous examination had showed him both the fact that the newly painted surface of the fire escape was unmarred, and that the ladder at the lower floor was drawn up some nine or ten feet from the ground. He felt certain that Miss Ford had not reached Ruth's room in that way.
He glanced upward. The fire escaped stopped at the level of the floor above. To ascend from it to the roof was impossible.
Remembering that the top apartment was vacant, Duvall re-entered the building and hunting up the janitor, told him that he desired to get out on the roof.
The man remembered him, from his first visit, and the inquiries he had then made about the tenants of the apartment above.
"I am making some special inquiries on Mrs. Morton's behalf," he explained. "You can go with me, if you like, to see that I do nothing I shouldn't."
The janitor joined in his laugh.
"I'm not worrying," he rejoined, "but I'll go along, just the same, to show you the way." He led the detective up one flight of stairs and, going to the end of the outer hall, unlocked and opened a small door beside the elevator shaft. A short spiral staircase was disclosed.
Snapping on an electric light, the man ascended the steps, and, after fumbling for a moment with the catch, threw open a trapdoor leading to the roof. In a moment both he and Duvall had climbed out upon the tiled surface. Duvall went to the edge which overlooked the house adjoining, and peered down. He at once saw something that interested him.
The house with the dormer windows consisted, as has been previously mentioned, of four stories and an attic. Its roof rose several feet above the level of the window of Ruth's room, which was on the fourth floor of the apartment building. But Duvall saw at once that this elevation of the adjoining house did not extend all the way back, but, in fact, stopped a little beyond the point where it joined the apartment. From here to the rear of the lot the building had no attic, its rear extension being but four stories high. In this position on the apartment-house roof, the roof of the back building was at least fifteen feet below him.
Another thing that he noticed at once was the fact that the second house, No. 162, was of almost the same design as the first, that is, it consisted of a main building with an attic, and a rear extension, reaching to the same level as that of the house between. It was clear that if anyone living in the second house could obtain access to the roof of the back building, he would be able to walk across that of the first or adjoining house, and reach a point directly beneath where he stood.
But, granting the possibility of this, of what use would it be? A person on the roof below him would in no conceivable way be able to reach either of the windows of Ruth Morton's room. Was it possible that an opening had been made through the wall of the apartment building itself? He thought it unlikely, but determined to investigate.
"I must get down on that roof below," he informed his companion. The janitor grinned.
"How are you going to do it?" he asked.
"Haven't you a ladder – a rope?"
The man thought a moment.
"I've got a short ladder in the cellar, only about eight feet long, I guess. I'm afraid it would not do."
"Yes it would," replied Duvall, pointing to the roof of the attic portion of the house below. "I'll get down to the roof of the main part of the house first, and from there to the roof of the back building. An eight-foot ladder will be long enough for that. Bring it up, will you?"
The man hesitated.
"I don't just like this idea of going on other people's roofs," he said.
"You don't need to go. I've got to. I'm a detective, and I'm working for Mrs. Morton on a most important case." As he spoke, he took a bill from his pocket and pressed it into the man's hand.
The janitor responded at once.
"I'll fetch it up, sir," he said. "Wait for me here."
Duvall occupied the few moments consumed by the janitor's absence in examining, by means of his pocket electric torch, the surface of the roof on which he stood. The smooth flat terra cotta tiles showed no distinguishing marks. Here and there spots of paint, marred by footprints, indicated where the painters at work on the building had set their buckets, no doubt while painting the wooden portions of the trapdoor, and the metal chimney-pots on the roof.
The man returned in a few moments with the ladder, and Duvall, lowering it to the level of the main portion of the adjoining house, saw that it was of sufficient length to permit his descent. In a moment he had slipped off his shoes, and was cautiously descending the ladder.
Once on the surface of the main roof of the house, he had intended to take down the ladder and, by means of it, descend the remaining six or seven feet to the roof of the back building, but he found that means for this descent already existed. A rough but permanent wooden ladder led from the higher level to the lower. Duvall judged that it had been placed there to provide easy communication between the upper roof and the lower. Leaving the ladder where it stood, he made his way down to the roof of the back building. It was covered with tin, and he walked softly in his stockinged feet to avoid being overheard.
His first act was to go to the wall of the apartment house which faced him, and make a thorough examination of it by the light of his electric torch. He judged that in the position in which he now stood he was about on a level with the floor of Ruth's room. The brick wall of the apartment building facing him was blank, that is, it contained no windows. After a minute examination, Duvall was forced to the conclusion that no entrance to the girl's bedroom had been made through it. The bricks were solid, immovable, the cemented joints firm and unbroken. A moment later he turned to the left.
Here the rising wall of the attic story of the house faced him, reaching to a point above his head. Two dusty and long unopened dormer windows, similar to those facing on the court, confronted him. He remembered that the servant of the house next door had informed him, earlier in the week, that the attic was, and long had been, unoccupied.
Whether the attic was tenanted or not, however, had no bearing on the problem which confronted him. The windows might serve as a means whereby anyone could reach the roof of the back building from the house proper, but they did not suggest any means whereby anyone might reach the windows of Ruth's bedroom. And by ascending to the point on the attic roof where his ladder stood, the problem was no nearer a solution, for a person standing there was on the edge of the court between the buildings, seven feet or more above the girl's bedroom window, and as many away from it. He turned away, and approaching the rear edge of the back building, looked over.
To his left, some eight feet away, was the fire escape before the rear window of the girl's bedroom. Standing on that sharp edge, he realized that in no way could he reach the railing of the fire escape, except by jumping, a feat that an expert gymnast might have hesitated to attempt, at that height above the ground. And could it be done successfully, what about the crash, the noise which must inevitably result from such a performance? What about the damage to the paint upon the fire escape's iron surface? And yet it would seem that a young girl had accomplished this feat, without noise, without making the least mark to register her passage. He thought of the tell-tale handkerchief, which he had found on the fire escape earlier in the evening, then turned back with a feeling of annoyance. The thing was, he realized, an impossibility.