CHAPTER XV

THE DUPLICATE KEY

It was a dark night, hot and close, with a feel of thunder in the air. The big arc lights near the arch in Washington Square made spots of copperas green on the close-trimmed grass and flecks of emerald on the full summer foliage of the trees. Above, the sky was velvet black, thick and solid, like a pall, except for the faint, pulsating glow of heat lightning over in the west.

In the short length of Waverly Place the shadows lay deep, like those at the bottom of a cañon. At the far end shone the lights of Broadway, dim here in comparison with its upper reaches of flashing electricity. An occasional car banged and rumbled on its way north or south, serving to accentuate the silence of the short cross street.

It was nearing midnight when Peter Clancy alighted from the stage at Fifth Avenue and made his way eastward. When he reached the corner of University Place, he whistled softly, five notes in a minor key. That simple little call was as familiar to every man on his staff as the notes of a robin to a country-bred boy.

Immediately a shadow, among the shadows on the south side of the street, moved toward him. Peter advanced quietly.

"That you, Mr. Clancy?" A voice from the moving shadow, and as it came closer, Peter could just distinguish Rawlins's face.

"Anything stirring, Rawlins?"

"Not a damn thing," the man replied, disgustedly. "This is a hell of a job to put a live man on, Mr. Clancy. Been hangin' around here for weeks, and not a soul to speak to but Sullivan and the dago over there----"

"Angelo swallowed the story of your being a plain-clothes watchman for the bank here all right, didn't he? He hasn't any suspicion----"

"Not a suspish," said Rawlins, confidently. "He and I are good friends, all righty--and I can't help being sorry for the poor devil. He's such a fool, and he's up against it, sure enough. He ought to send that wife of his to a hospital."

"Those people haven't any sense about that sort of thing," commented Peter. "But never mind that now, Rawlins. Just slip over and see if the coast is clear. I'm going up to the apartment for a bit, and I'm not looking for an excited audience. Beat it over, and give me the high sign if he's out of the way."

Peter waited in the dark entrance next to the American Bank, which was directly opposite number Ninety-nine. He saw Rawlins's short, wiry figure silhouetted against the dim light which burned in the hallway of the house across the way; saw him disappear in the darkness at the other end of the passage.

It seemed a long time to Peter's impatience before Rawlins again appeared and, like a shadow, flitted across the street. He was out of breath when he reached Peter, and chuckling softly to himself.

"What's up?" asked Peter, sharply. "What are you laughing at, Rawlins? Let me in on the joke."

"Gee!" exclaimed Rawlins under his breath. "I'll bet the Federal authorities would give a good deal to have heard what I just did. Say, Clancy, did you ever hear that the dagoes in this old burg have got a real, honest-to-God lottery going strong under cover somewhere?"

"Oh, there are always rumours like that going around," said Peter, carelessly. "The Chinese and the French and the Italians. What's that got to do with the price of cheese?"

"Why," said Rawlins, still chuckling, "there's a man over there with Angelo in his little front room--I gum-shoed through the hall and part way down the stairs, and I heard 'em talking. Angelo is crazy because he's lost some money on the thing, poor devil, and he talked louder than I guess he knew. They both spoke Italian, but you know I'm a shark at lingoes, Clancy," with evident pride.

"Yes, I know," said Peter, impatiently, "but we aren't here to sleuth out things for the Government. I'd have been interested awhile back, but I've got something else on my chest now. D'you think Angelo is likely to come up in the next few minutes? That's all I want to know."

"I should say, from the start he's got, that he'd go on cussin' his friend for some time," answered Rawlins, grinning in the dark at his recollection of the little Italian's language. "If you chase over right away, you'll make it without any trouble. Angelo is what you might call occupied just about now."

"All right," said Peter, softly.

Swift and quiet as a cat, he crossed the street, passed through the gas-lighted hall, and up the stairs.

There was no gas burning on the third landing, from which he deduced that the apartment was still unoccupied. The fourth floor also was perfectly dark and Peter had to flash his electric hand-light upon the door to fit his duplicate key.

The lock grated with an uneasy sound and the door swung slowly inward. Still, black darkness, which could almost be felt, confronted him. Peter stepped across the threshold, and without a sound, carefully shut the door.

The closed rooms, after the oppressive heat of the outer world, seemed damp and cold, and Peter shivered slightly. In his rubber-soled shoes he made no sound as he advanced into the living room, flashing his light carefully about to avoid colliding with anything.

There was little fear of being seen from the outside, since the buildings opposite were used for business purposes, and empty at this time of night, but Peter was taking no chances. His first move was to pull down the dark shades at the windows.

Remembering the way the outer halls were lighted, he struck a match to light the gas, and found, to his surprise, that the apartment was equipped with electricity. He had not noticed it before, or if he had, it had made no impression on his then preoccupied mind. He saw nothing significant in it now--was glad of the more brilliant light in which to make his investigation--that was all. There was a candle lamp over on the desk and a big, shaded lamp upon the table. Peter switched on the smaller lamp.

In the quiet light which illumined the room he could see that it was just as he had left it over three weeks before. A little dust had drifted in through the chinks of the windows, filming the polished mahogany of table, chairs, and couch, but otherwise there was no change, except that the scarf, which had proved an open sesame to a world of anxiety, had been removed. But Peter knew all about that. He, himself, had taken it to VanDorn and Sawyer to have the stain upon it analyzed. They found it to be, what he felt sure from the first it was, human blood. The scarf lay, now, in the safe at his office.

Peter went into the bedroom and pulled down the shade, lest some wakeful person in the houses on the street above might catch a gleam from the light which he had left burning in the living room, and become curious. Then, softly, he crept into the dining room and lowered the blinds there, then into the kitchen, where he noted that the broken pane of glass had been replaced according to Morris's careful instructions to Angelo on the day it was discovered. He had felt, with Morris, that it was an unnecessary risk to leave it in a condition in which any sneak thief might have entered from the fire-escape with perfect ease.

Peter drew the dark blue blind down to the sill, and flashed the cold eye of his hand-torch about, looking for a light fixture. He found it in the shape of an old-fashioned gas chandelier with two burners, suspended from the ceiling. He lit them both. The gas burned high, with a soft, secret hiss. It sounded loud in the remote stillness of the place, and automatically Peter lowered it to the point of silence.

Then, supplementing the light from above with the clear gleam of his torch, he searched the kitchen with microscopic thoroughness, but found nothing which could be supposed, in any remote way, to have a bearing on his problem. The two significant details, the fallen glass upon the outside of the sill and the sliver of ice in the sink, which he had noted on that perplexing Monday, having disappeared, the kitchen had no other revelations to offer.

He proceeded to the dining room, with a like result. Except for the disarrangement of the side-board already noted, the room was evidently just as it ordinarily appeared when tenanted. Again he noticed that there was but one chair drawn up to the small round mahogany dining table. The rest were standing tidily against the walls, and he wondered if only one person had partaken of the last meal which was eaten in that room.

Passing into the hall, he sent the brilliant eye of his flash back and forth across the dark waxed floor. It was thinly covered now with a light, feathery dust. It would blow into the little gray rolls that the hospital nurses call "kittens" if the air was let in.

"Gad, I wish I could open the windows," thought Peter. "The air's as dead as----"

He paused before the open door of the small storeroom, still looking at the floor. There was one spot here where the dust had collected thickly. A big round clot of it lay there and several smaller spots. Peter, with a slight faint creeping of the flesh, stepped carefully across this part of the floor and entered the storeroom.

The only window here gave upon a narrow light-shaft across which was the window of the bath adjoining. There were only thin muslin curtains at these windows, but at this midnight hour probably no one would notice the light at the top of the shaft.

"Anyhow, I'll have to risk it," said Peter, half aloud, "I've got to make sure about this room."

There was only gas here, as in all the rear of the apartment, but the flow was good and the light fairly strong. Again Peter noted the slight abrasions of the wall where he concluded the other trunk had stood, the trunk which Bill, the taxi driver, had found so heavy, the trunk which Anne Blake had taken away with her to a destination which still remained veiled in mystery.

The size of the trunk was--Peter measured from one little sharp indentation in the wall to another--three feet four or five inches--and from the floor, approximately twenty-four inches.

"Big enough," Peter muttered to himself. "Big enough for--almost anything."

He folded up his pocket rule and turned to the large brass-bound trunk which had been left standing against the wall.

"Makes me feel a bit like a burglar, but it's all in the day's work," thought Peter, as he knelt beside it and inspected the lock. "I guess I've got you," his thought ran on, "you're easy," and he took a large bunch of small keys from his pocket, and after a few minutes' work, found one that fitted.

A sharp crack of the lock, and Peter lifted the lid. The odour of camphor, in a great whiff, filled his nostrils, almost choking him. He drew back and took a long breath.

"Gosh, they've used plenty of it," he exclaimed, half aloud. "I'd be sorry for the poor devil of a moth that took a chance with that!"

Carefully he lifted up the ends of the various articles in the trunk, in such a way as not to disarrange them. Except for a pair of woollen blankets at the bottom, there was nothing there but winter clothing of various sorts. Extremely various sorts, Peter saw, for first there was a magnificent evening wrap trimmed with almost priceless fur. Beneath it lay a plain, rough, dark, heavy winter cloak rubbed a little at the cuffs and collar, as with constant wear. There were carriage boots, satin, lined with fur, and next them, wrapped in newspaper, was a pair of high, fleece-lined goloshes, old and shabby. Peter looked at the date on the newspaper.

"The _Planet_, May 25," he read. "Somebody packed this trunk not more than three days before----Well, I don't see where that gets you, old top. Come get a move on."

In replacing the bundle of goloshes, he noticed that an article had been cut from the paper, not torn out, but cut with sharp scissors. The fact merely caught his attention in passing.

"Probably a notice of 'Dark Roads,'" he thought, and dismissing the subject from his mind, he went on with his task. It proved somewhat trying, owing to the camphor fumes, which became more overpowering as he delved deeper into the trunk, and once they became so strong that he sneezed.

He tried to choke it back, but it would come, a loud "Atchi!" which resounded horribly in the stillness.

Peter held his breath and listened. Nothing stirred. Far away he could hear the faint "whir--ee--ee" of a passing street car, over on Broadway, and the low murmuring of thunder overhead, but within was the silence of the tomb.

"Cheerful, I calls it," said Peter, to himself, drawing a long breath. "Well, I guess that'll be about all here."

He closed and locked the trunk, flashed his light inside the open drawers of the small white chiffonier, and found nothing that could give him any help. Not a letter, not a card. No piece of writing of any sort. The very few articles of clothing which remained were old and worn. A pair of gray leather gloves, shabby with wear, still held the shape of slender, long hands. There was something almost pathetic about them as they lay there, palms upward, an appeal--but Peter was in no mood for sympathy.

"Anne Blake's things, without a doubt," he thought, "and too worn out to bother with.... And her winter stuff packed away with her sister's.... I wonder if Sherlock Holmes would make anything out of that. Does it mean that she plans to come back in the fall? Or are they all things she has no further use for? And, if so, why pack 'em away so carefully?... And just a few days before--she--quit. Was the whole business 'sudden at the last,' as they say of people who are a long time dying?" He shook his red head in perplexity. "Well, no use trying to think it out now, Peter. Let's get all the dope and then patch it together the best we can."

So saying, he slipped softly down the hall, throwing his brilliant light over every inch of the floor and walls. Almost without sound he drifted from the hall into the bedroom and stood still, looking about him. There was electricity here, and he boldly switched on the lights in the ceiling. The resulting illumination was so bright that it made him blink.

Then he proceeded with his investigation.

Nothing in the waste basket, nothing, not even ashes, in the small, old-fashioned grate; nothing left in the few pockets he discovered with exceeding difficulty, in the various rich articles of women's apparel which hung in the two closets. Nothing of any interest in the rifled drawers of the big highboy, nor in the empty drawers of the dressing table. A little drift of pink toilet powder still clung in the corner of one of them and there was a tiny smear of red on the inner side of the same drawer. Peter touched it and found that it was a trifle greasy and made his finger-tip rosy-red.

"Rouge. Aha, my lady," he chuckled, with a little grimace, "beauty isn't always even skin deep." And for the hundredth time he wondered if Mary Blake was all that Morris thought her. "Not that a little paint and powder is anything against a girl these days, when every flapper, from fifteen to fifty, makes up for the street, and some of 'em pile it on so thick you'd think they must have put it on with a trowel--in the dark. Well," he looked about him, "there's no excuse for her if she didn't do it right." He reached out and switched on the lights on both sides of the mirror, at the back of the dressing table. His pleasant, homely freckled face appeared in the glass, dazzlingly illuminated. "Humph! Mary took no chances of not looking her best, I'll say that for her," he thought. "But I wish to God she'd left me some real light on the problem she's stacked me up against, instead of all this spotlight stuff.... Well--I guess there's nothing here. Now for the living room."

He turned off all the lights, and went through into the room at the front. Here the little candle lamp on the desk threw a gentle, intimate glow over the rather austere old furniture and neutral-tinted walls. There was nothing here that even remotely suggested the theatrical; none of the customary signed photographs, and but few pictures. Over the mantel, the Mona Lisa smiled her enigmatic smile, there were a few fine old Japanese prints, and that was all. In front of the centre window, on a slender pedestal, was an exquisite little plaster cast of an Andromeda, chained to a rock. Scratched in the base was the signature, D.V.L. Morris.

All these generalities Peter could see in the quiet light, but they did not appear to have any particular significance. He felt that he needed all the light, both mental and material, that he could get, so without wasting any precious moments he took off the shade of the lamp which stood on the table and turned on both its high-powered bulbs.

Again, as on that first day, he stirred the dead, cold ashes in the fireplace. No, there was nothing. Every particle of the paper was consumed. He could not even tell what sort of papers had been burned. Sighing, he rose and looked again about the room. On each side of the fireplace were built-in shelves laden with books and magazines. There was a good deal of fiction which Peter had never read. Thackeray, George Meredith (Stevenson, Peter knew, and heartily approved), Henry James, Edith Wharton, and many others, including the novels and plays of Bernard Shaw. There was a good deal of poetry, and many plays, old and new. On the top shelf stood a worn set of Shakespeare, in a quaint, old-fashioned leather binding. Without knowing just why he did it, Peter took down one of the volumes at random. It chanced to be "Julius Cæsar," and on the fly leaf, in a bold, flowing hand, was the name, "Winthrop Curwood."

"Winthrop Curwood," Peter repeated, half aloud. "I've heard that name before somewhere.... Winthrop Curwood.... No, dammit, I can't place it.... And anyway, it may not mean a thing. The books are old enough to have been bought second-hand. I'll just see----" He ran rapidly through a number of the older books. The name did not occur again. "However, I'll just make a note of it. There doesn't seem to be any other owner's name written in any of 'em," he thought, and in a little pocket memorandum book he copied the name "Winthrop Curwood," in his clear, microscopic hand.

In returning "Julius Cæsar" to his place on the top shelf Peter's hand struck a pile of magazines which were closely stacked at the end. One of the slippery pamphlets loosened, and in a rush the whole lot came cascading down.

Peter caught his breath, and thanked his lucky stars that there was no one in the apartment below. As he carefully returned them to their place he noted with some surprise that besides the more popular magazines of the day there were a number of scientific and medical journals, and several copies of a publication called _Beauty_. He had never even heard of this latter, and glanced through one or two copies curiously, smiling a little, in spite of the seriousness of his quest. There appeared to be no end of ways in which one could heighten one's beauty, and no practical limit to the absurdities which were recommended for the purpose. That someone had taken the suggestions seriously there could be little doubt, for in several cases articles had been carefully clipped from the body of the magazine. This had also happened, in one or two cases, in the medical journals. Peter wondered, in passing, what the subjects treated had been, but could form no idea, since the entire article, in each case, had been cut away.

Peter had always been fascinated by people's books, their selection was a matter so strongly indicative of character. But in this instance the evidence was distinctly contradictory. "A lot of high-brow books," he thought, "and some of the rest of the stuff so low-brow it makes even me feel intellectual. Did Anne pick out one kind, and Mary the other--and if so, which? Oh, well, it's no use to speculate now. Better get on." He resumed his painstaking inspection.

He had saved the desk till the last. Here, if anywhere, he was sure he would find what he so ardently sought. And yet, never in his life had he found so non-committal a lot of papers as were in the drawers and scattered on the floor. A great mass of press notices, with the little yellow slip of the clipping bureau still attached, were mixed up with plain white letter paper and envelopes. There were a few business letters from Frederick Jones, but not one from Mary's old manager, Arthur Quinn. In fact, there were no strictly private letters to either of the sisters, and he could find none at all addressed to Anne.

To avoid the smallest chance of missing anything, Peter had seated himself beside the desk and had drawn out, one by one, each of the four drawers, placing them upon his knees while he minutely examined the contents.

Satisfied, at last, that there was nothing to his purpose in any of them, with a feeling of deep discouragement he slid them back into their places. They all ran in with the ease which one encounters only in very good old American-made furniture--all but the bottom drawer on the right. This slipped in smoothly until it was nearly shut, and then stuck.

"Oh, damn," said Peter, and pushed it hard.

It would not move. He pulled it out and pushed it in again, but it would not close completely. It did not really matter in the least. He had found the drawers open and there was no reason why this one should not remain so, but any one who has ever started to shut a drawer knows precisely how Peter felt. That drawer simply had to yield before he could go on with anything else ... and perhaps....

Peter jerked the drawer out, and dropped to his knees, while his right hand sought and found the flashlight in his pocket. There was a slight click, and a brilliant glare lit up the recess into which the drawer should have gone.

Peter uttered a forcible exclamation, and stooping low, groped with his long fingers in the back of the recess, and drew out a small rectangle of stiff pasteboard. At some time it must have fallen from the upper drawer and remained, perhaps for years, undiscovered. It had evidently fallen slantwise across the corner of the back when the drawer was pulled out, and had been slightly damaged by Peter's efforts to close it.

He automatically straightened a bent corner as he hastily took it over to the table where the bright light from the lamp could fall full upon it.

Apparently, it was not an especially valuable treasure-trove. Just a small old carte-de-visite photograph of a little girl in a plain, somewhat countrified "best" dress of the last of the Nineties. She appeared to be about seven or eight years old, and the childish face, which looked up at Peter, was one of such transcendent loveliness that he, always a lover of children, caught his breath.

Peter took an unmounted photograph from the breast pocket of his coat, and laid the two portraits, side by side, upon the table.

There could be no doubt. They were the same, they must be the same. The gay, laughing, exquisite child's face had developed into that of a wonderful, sad, but equally beautiful woman. The great eyes, with their long, dark lashes, the small, straight nose, the curving lips, were the same. Only the expression was different, an unfathomable difference. The spirit behind the eyes must have undergone a complete metamorphosis to have made the apparent change.

"It's Mary Blake, all right, all right. I'll bet my life on that," muttered Peter to himself. "Mary Blake----"

Quickly he turned the little photograph over. There was no writing on the back, as he had hoped, instead, in elaborate, filigreed lettering was printed the words--

WALTER LORD, Photographer Hobart Falls, New York.

"By gad," exclaimed Peter under his breath, bringing his closed fist softly but with emphasis down upon the table. "The first look-in we've had. The very first! Hobart Falls, New York. That's where she must have come from--or somewhere near there, at least.... And Walter Lord.... Who can tell what Walter Lord may know ... if he's still there--and alive."

With a rapid motion he slipped the two portraits into an inner pocket and buttoned his coat over them.

"I'll find out something about her, at last! My hunch about coming here wasn't all to the bad. In this way I'll bet I find out something about the secret past of Mary Blake--and Anne----"

With eyes alight with the first hope he had known for many a day, Peter put back the shade upon the table lamp, readjusted various things about the room so that they should be, as near as possible, in the order--or disorder--in which he had found them, switched off the lights, and crept softly to the door.

Gently, gently, with one hand on the latch and the other on the lock, he turned the two knobs and drew open the door. As he did so a clock somewhere outside in the darkness boomed "One, Two."

"Two o'clock," thought Peter, as he sped noiselessly down the stairs. "Not much sleep for me to-night. I must find out where Hobart Falls is and beat it for the first train in the morning. I've got a feeling in my bones that I've struck something at last. A little light thrown on the past may reflect on the future. Who knows? Anyhow, it's up to me not to leave a stone unturned.... And I'm curious ... damn curious.... I'd like to know...."

A street door closed, with a faint, soft creak, and the lean figure of the young detective slipped away into the hot darkness.