The Holladay Case (Detective Story Magazine)/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
Two Heads are Better Than One.
I understood in a flash what had happened, and sprang up the stair to the upper deck. I searched it over thoroughly, looking in and under the boats and behind funnels and ventilators, but could discover no sign of any one. When I got back to the promenade a little crowd had gathered, attracted by the noise of the falling spar, which a dozen members of the crew were busy hoisting back into place.
“I do not see how those lashings could have worked loose,” said the officer in charge. “We lashed that extra spar there just before we sailed, and I know it was well fastened.”
I took a look at the lashings. They had not been cut, as I expected to find them, but had been untied. Martigny had doubtless worked at them while we sat there talking—he was too clever an artist in crime to do anything so clumsy as to cut the ropes.
“Well, luckily, there's no damage done,” observed Mr. Royce with affected lightness, “though it was a close shave. If Miss. Kemball hadn't called to us, the spar would have struck us squarely.”
Mrs. Kemball closed her eyes with a giddy little gesture, at the vision the words called up, and the officer frowned in chagrin and perplexity. Just then the captain came up, and the two stepped aside for a consultation in voices so low that only an excited word of French was now and then audible. I turned to Miss Kemball, who was leaning against the rail with white face and eyes large with terror.
“But it was not an accident, Mr. Lester!” she whispered. “I saw a man leaning over the spar—a mere shadowy figure—but I know I could not be mistaken.”
I nodded. “I don't doubt it in the least. But don't tell your mother. It will only alarm her needlessly. We'll talk it over in the morning.”
She said good night, and led her mother away toward their stateroom. I went at once in search of the ship's doctor, and met him at the foot of the saloon staircase.
“How is Martigny, doctor?” I asked.
“Worse, I fear,” he answered hurriedly. “He has just sent for me.”
“Which room has he?”
“He's in 375; an outside room on the upper deck,” and he ran on up the stair.
I went forward to the smoking room, and looked over the colored plan of the ship posted there. A moment's inspection of it showed me how easily Martigny had eluded pursit—he had only to walk twenty feet, open a door, and get into bed again. But, evidently, even that small exertion had been too much for him, and I turned away with the grim thought that perhaps our enemy would kill himself yet.
When I sat down next morning beside Miss Kemball, she closed her book, and turned to me with a very determined air.
“Of course, Mr. Lester,” she began, “if you think any harm can come from telling me, I don't want you to say a word; but I really think I'm entitled to an explanation.”
“So do I,” I agreed. “You've proved yourself a better guard than I. I'd forgotten all about Martigny—I was thinking, well, of something very different—I had no thought of danger.”
“Nor had I,” she said quickly. “But I chanced to look up and see that dark figure bending over them, and I cried out before I had time to think—involuntarily.”
“It was just that which saved them. If you'd stopped to think, it would have been too late.”
“Yes—but, oh, I could think afterward! I'd only to close my eyes last night to see him there yet, peering down at us, waiting his opportunity. Of course I puzzled, more or less, over the whole thing.”
“You shan't puzzle any more,” I said, and looked about to make certain that there was no one near. Beginning with the death of Hiram Holladay, I laid the case before her, step by step. She listened with clasped hands and intent face, not speaking till I had finished. Then she leaned back in her chair with a long sigh.
“Why, it's horrible!” she declared. “Horrible and dreadfully puzzling. You haven't told me your explanation yet, Mr. Lester.”
“I haven't any explanation,” I said helplessly. “I've built up half a dozen theories, but they've all been knocked to pieces, one after the other. I don't know what to think, unless Miss Holladay is a victim of hypnotism or dementia of some kind, and that seems absurd.”
“Sometimes she's nice and at other times she's horrid.”
She sat for a moment with eyes inwardly intent.
“There's one theory which might explain it—part of it. Perhaps it wasn't Miss Holladay at all who returned from Washington Square with the new maid. Perhaps it was the other woman, and the barred windows were really to keep Miss Holladay a prisoner. Think of her there, in that place, with Martigny for her jailer!”
“But she wasn't there!” I protested. “We saw her when we gave her the money. Royce and I both saw her.”
“Yes—in a darkened room, with a bandage about her forehead; so hoarse she could scarcely speak. No wonder Mr. Royce hardly knew her!”
I stopped a moment to consider.
“Remember, that would explain something which admits of no other reasonable explanation,” went on my companion; “the barred windows and the behavior of the prisoner.”
“It would explain that, certainly,” I admitted. “You believe, then, that Miss Holladay was forcibly abducted?”
“Undoubtedly. If her mind was going to give way at all, it would have done so at once, and not two weeks after the tragedy.”
“But if she had brooded over it,” I objected.
“She wasn't brooding—she had ceased to brood. You have Mr. Royce's word and the butler's word that she was getting better, brighter, quite like her old self again. Why should she relapse?”
“I don't know,” I said helplessly. “The more I reason about it, the more unreasonable it all seems. That affair last night has upset me so that I can't think clearly. I feel that I was careless—that I wasn't doing my duty.”
“I shouldn't worry about it; though, of course,” she added a little severely, “you've realized by this time that you alone are to blame for Martigny's presence on the boat.”
“But I had to go to the Jourdains',” I protested, “and I couldn't help their going to him—to have asked them not to go would have made them suspect me at once.”
“On the contrary it was because they were not suspicious of you, because they wished to please you, to air your room for you; because, in a word, you asked them to go—they went after the key to those padlocks on the window shutters. Of course, Martigny had it.”
For a moment, I was too nonplused to speak; I could only stare at her. Then I found my tongue.
“I was a fool, wasn't I?” I demanded bitterly, “To think that I shouldn't have foreseen that! I was so worked up over my discovery that night that I coouldn't think of anything else. Of course when they asked for the key, the whole story came out.”
“I shouldn't blame myself too severely,” laughed Miss Kemball, as she looked at my rueful countenance. “I myself think it's rather fortunate that he's on the boat.”
“Fortunate? You don't mean that!”
“Precisely that. Suppose the Jourdains hadn't gone to him; he'd have left the hospital anyway in two or three days—he isn't the man to lie inactive when he knew you were searching for the fugitives. He'd have returned to his apartment next to yours; your landlady would have told him that you had sailed for Europe, and he had only to examine this boat's passenger list to discover your name. So you see there wasn't so much lost after all.”
“But, at any rate,' I pointed out, “he would still have been in America. He couldn't have caught us. We'd have had a good start of him.”
“He couldn't have caught you, but a cablegram would have passed you in mid-ocean, warning his confederates. If they have time to conceal their prisoner, you'll never find her—your only hope is in catching them unprepared. And there's another reason—since he's on the boat, you've another opportunity—why not go and have a talk with him—that battle of wits you were looking forward to?”
“I'd thought of that,” I said; “but I'm afraid I couldn't play the part.”
“The part?”
“I'm afraid he'd see through me in the first moment and catch me tripping. It's too great a risk.”
“The advantage would be on your side,” she pointed out; “you could tell him so many things which he already knows, and which he has no reason to suspect you know he knows—it sounds terribly involved, doesn't it? But you understand?”
“I understand.”
“And then, it would be the natural thing for you to look him up as soon as you learned he was ill. To avoid him will be to confess that you suspect him.”
“But his name isn't on the passenger list. If I hadn't happened to see him as he came on board, I'd probably not have known it at all.”
“Perhaps he saw you at the same time.”
“Then the fat's in the fire,” I, said. “If he knows I know he's on board, then he also knows that I suspect him; if he doesn't know, there's no reason for him to think that I'll find it out, unless he appears in the cabin; which doesn't seem probable.”
She sat silent for a moment, looking out across the water.
“Perhaps you're right,” she said at last; “there's no use taking any unnecessary risks, The thing appealed to me—I think I should enjoy a half hour's talk with him, matching my wits against his.”
“But yours are brighter than mine,” I pointed out. “You've proved it pretty effectually in the last few minutes.”
“No I haven't; I've simply shown you that you overlooked one little thing. And I think you're right about the danger of going to Martigny. Our first duty is to Miss Holladay; we must rescue her before he can warn his confederates to place her out of our reach.”
The unstudied way in which she said “our” filled me with an unreasoning happiness.
“But why should they bother with a prisoner at all? They didn't shrink from striking down her father?”
“And they may not shrink from striking her down at a favorable moment,” she answered calmly. “It will be easier in France than in New York—they perhaps have the necessary preparations already made—they may be only hesitating—a warning from Martigny may turn the scale.”
My hands were trembling at the thought of it. If we should really be too late!
“But I don't believe they'll go to such extremes, Mr. Lester,” continued my companion. “I believe you're going to find her and solve the mystery. My theory doesn't solve it, you know; it only makes it deeper. The mystery, after all, is—who are these people?—why did they kill Mr. Holladay?—why have they abducted his daughter?—what is their plot?”
“Yes,” I assented; and again I had a moment of confused perplexity, as of a man staring down into a black abyss.
“But after you find her,” she asked, “what will you do with her?”
“Do with her? Why, take her home, of course.”
“But she'll very probably be broken down, perhaps even on the verge of hysteria. Such an experience would upset any woman, I don't care how robust she may have been. She'll need rest and care. You must bring her to us at Paris, Mr. Lester.”
In a moment I was on my feet—but, no—to surprise him would be to make him suspect! I called a steward.
“Take this card up to Monsieur Martigny,” I said, “in 375, and ask if he is well enough to see me.”
As he hurried away, a sudden doubt seized me. Was it wise to tempt Providence? Would I prove a match for my enemy?
“Monsieur Martigny,” said the steward's voice at my elbow, “answers that he will be most pleased to see Monsieur Lester at once.”