The Holladay Case (Detective Story Magazine)/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
I Unmask My Enemy.
I felt like another man when I left left the house next morning, and I was eager to grapple anew with the mystery.
When I opened the office door I found Brooks waiting for me. I had only a few questions to ask him.
“When your mistress left the car the day you drove her to Washington Square, did you notice which street she took aiter she left the square?”
“Yes, sir; she went on down West Broadway.”
“On which side?”
“Th' left-hand side, sir; th' east side.”
“She must have crossed the street to get to that side.”
“Yes, sir; she did. I noticed pertic'lar, for I thought it funny she shouldn't 've let me drive her on down th' street to whereve she was goin'. It's a dirty place along there, sir.”
“When you drove her out on the 28th—the day she brought back the maid—where did she go?”
“To Washington Square again, sir.
“And left you waiting for her?”
“Yes, sir; just th' same.”
“And went down the same street?”
“Yes, sir; crossed to th' east side just th' same as th' time before.”
“How long was she gone?”
“Over an hour, sir; an hour an' a half, I should say.”
“Did you notice anything unusual in her appearance when she came back?”
“No, sir; she was wearin' a heavy veil. She had th' other woman with her, an' she just said 'Home!' in a kind hoarse voice, as I helped them into th' car.”
That was all that he could tell me, and yet I felt that it would help me greatly. In the first place it narrowed my investigations to the district lying to the east of West Broadway; I knew that there was a number of French people living in that section. And again it gave me a point to insist on in my inquiries—I knew the date upon which the mysterious woman had left her lodging. Or, at least, I knew that it must be one of two dates. The lodging had been vacated, then, either on the twenty-eighth of March or the third of April. As a last resource, I had the photograph. I was ready to begin my search, and dismissed Brooks, warning him to say nothing to any one about the mystery.
As I passed out the door to the pavement, I happened to glance across the way, and there, in the crowd of brokers which always lines the street, I perceived Martigny.
I turned west toward Broadway. A few moments later some irresistible impulse caused me to glance around. And there he was, walking after me, on the opposite side of the street! In a flash I understood. He was following me!
Here at last was something definite, tangible, a clew ready to my hand, if only I were clever enough to follow it up; a ray of light in the darkness!
But what had been his part in the affair? For a moment I groped blindly in the dark, but only for a moment. Whatever his share in the tragedy, he had plainly been left behind to watch us; to make sure that we did not follow the fugitives.
I had reached Broadway, and at the corner I paused to look at a display of men's furnishings in a window.
I entered the store and spent ten minutes looking at some neckties. When I came out again, Martigny was just getting down from a bootblack's chair across the street. His back was toward me, and I watched him get out his little purse and drop a dime into the bootblack's hand. I went on up Broadway, loitering sometimes, sometimes walking straight ahead; always, behind me, lost in the crowd, was my pursuer. It could not longer be doubted. He was really following me, though he did it so adroitly, with such consummate cunning, that I should never have seen him, never have suspected him, but for that fortunate intuition at the start.
I could doubt no longer that there was a plot, whose depths I had not before even suspected; and I drew back from the thought with a little shiver. What was the plot? What intricate, dreadful crime was this which he was planning? The murder of the father, then, had been only the first step. The abduction of Frances Holladay was the second. What would the third be? He had all the threads in his fingers, he con-controlled the situation; we were struggling blindly, snarled in a net of mystery from which there seemed no escape. For a moment a wild desire possessed me to turn upon him, to confront him, to accuse him, to confound him with the very certainty of my knowledge, to surprise his secret, to trample him down!
But the frenzy passed. He must not discover that I suspected him; I must not yield up that advantage. I might yet surprise him, mislead him, set a trap for him, get him,to say more than he wished to say.
My plan was soon made. I crossed Broadway and turned into Cortlandt Street, sauntering along it until the elevated loomed just ahead; I heard the roar of an approaching train, and stopped to purchase some fruit at the corner stand. My pursuer was some distance behind, closely inspecting the bric-à-brac in a peddler's cart. The train rumbled into the station, and, starting as though I had just perceived it, I bounded up the stair, slammed my ticket into the chopper, and dived across the platform. The guard at the rear of the train held the gate open for me an instant, and then clanged it shut. We were off with a jerk; as I looked back, I saw Martigny rush out upon the platform. He stood staring after me for an instant; then, with a sudden grasping at his breast, staggered and seemed to fall. A crowd closed about him, the train whisked around a corner, and I could see no more.
I got off at Bleecker Street, walked to Washington Square, and began my search. My plan was very simple. Beginning on the east side of West Broadway, I went from house to house; stumbling over dirty children, climbing grimy stairs, peering into all sort of holes called rooms by courtesy. Sometimes I began to hope that at last I was on the right track; but further inquiry would prove my mistake. So the morning passed, and the afternoon. I had covered two blocks to no purpose, and at last I turned eastward to Broadway, and took a car downtown to the office. My assistants had reported again—they had met with no better success than I.
After a discussion with Mr. Graham, who told me Royce had been ordered on a long vacation, I left the office to go home. On the street I bought a paper.
Shortly after ten o'clock this morning, a man ran up the steps of the Cortlandt Street station of the Sixth Avenue Elevated, in an effort to catch an uptown train just pulling out, and dropped over on the platform with heart disease. An ambulance was called from the Hudson Street Hospital and the man taken there. At noon, it was said he would recover. He was still too weak to talk, but among other things, a card of the Café Jourdain, 54 West Houston Street, was found in his pocketbook. An inquiry there developed the fact that his name is Pierre Bethune, that he is recently from France, and has no relatives m this country.
In a moment I was running westward to the elevated. I felt that I held in my hand the address I needed.