The Blue Lights: A Detective Story

  CHAPTER XII

  When Richard Duvall returned to consciousness, an hour later, he layupon a couch in Mr. Stapleton's library. A doctor, hastily summoned, wasbending over him. Mr. Stapleton sat grimly in an arm chair. There was noone else in the room.

  "My wife! Is she here?" the detective cried, as he tried to rise.

  The doctor pushed him gently back. "Compose yourself, Monsieur," he saidin a soothing voice. "You are not badly hurt. Merely stunned for themoment. A slight cut--that is all. You will be quite yourself again inhalf an hour."

  "But my wife!" He gazed eagerly about the room.

  "What do you mean, Duvall?" inquired Mr. Stapleton, calmly. "Why do youthink your wife is here?"

  "A trace of delirium. He will be all right in a few moments. Very usualin such cases," the doctor whispered.

  "I heard her voice. She called to me by name, just as that fellow struckme."

  "My dear sir, your mind is wandering. Compose yourself, I beg." Thedoctor attempted to press his patient back upon the pillows.

  Duvall passed his hand over his forehead, completely bewildered. "Icould have sworn I heard her voice," he cried.

  "It was Miss Goncourt, the young woman from the Prefecture, that youheard, Duvall," remarked Mr. Stapleton quietly. He did not tell thedetective that Grace, on recovering from her faint, and learning fromthe doctor that Richard's wound was a superficial one only, and not atall serious, had sworn them both to secrecy, on the plea that the matterwas a purely private one, and likely to cause her great unhappiness ifdivulged. Mr. Stapleton had agreed, but had done so only upon heragreeing not to acquaint the police with his plans for the followingnight.

  She had suddenly conceived a violent animosity toward these fellows whohad not only baffled both her husband and herself, but had made theformer a victim of a dangerous assault. She was determined to go towork in desperate earnest, to capture them, or locate the child, beforethe following evening. She had promised Mr. Stapleton not to acquaintMonsieur Lefevre with the plan for returning the child which the manwith the black beard had proposed. The situation put her on her mettle.She determined to get at the bottom of the whole affair before anothertwenty-four hours had passed. Upon leaving the house she called ataxicab, and at once ordered the chauffeur to drive her to the point onthe Versailles road where, according to Valentin, she had been placed inthe automobile after her interview with the kidnappers. Here, shebelieved, lay the starting point of the whole mysterious affair.

  Duvall, his consciousness returning, insisted upon getting up from thecouch, and going to work with equal determination. The way in which hehad been checkmated, in the whole affair, roused him, as well, todesperation. His professional skill, upon which the banker had set suchgreat store, seemed to have deserted him. He felt humiliated, ashamed.In three days, he had accomplished nothing whatever. It was galling inthe extreme.

  Mr. Stapleton's explanations of his hallucination regarding his wife heaccepted as true. The resemblance which Miss Goncourt bore to Grace,together with his constant thoughts of her, were, he argued, no doubtresponsible for it. The blow upon the head made his recollections of themoments immediately preceding and following the assault extremely hazy.He put the matter out of his mind, and set to work with renewed energy.

  So far, it seemed, he had met with but a single clue of anyimportance,--the cigarette with the gold tip which he had found in theBois de Boulogne. He determined to follow this clue until he arrived atsome definite result.

  As soon as the doctor had departed after dressing the wound in his head,Duvall took a stiff drink of brandy, and, sitting down with Mr.Stapleton at the latter's desk, began to reconstruct, as far as hecould, all the details of the kidnapping. He spoke his thoughts aloud,taking Mr. Stapleton into his confidence, since in this way he couldmost readily get his ideas into concrete form.

  "Mr. Stapleton, I am, I confess, greatly humiliated at the progress, orlack of progress, which I have made in this case so far. I have made upmy mind, however, to get these fellows, if it takes me the rest of thesummer."

  "You will have to work more quickly than that, Mr. Duvall," observed thebanker coldly. "I have made arrangements to recover my child by tomorrownight."

  "You are going to buy these rascals off, then?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  "I decline to say. I've had enough interference with my plans already.Neither you nor the police have accomplished anything. Miss Goncourtknows what I propose to do; but she has given me her word not tointerfere. If you are to accomplish anything, it must be before eighto'clock tomorrow night."

  "Very well. I will make my plans accordingly."

  "What do you propose to do?"

  "That I cannot say, at the moment. I think, however, that I shall firsttry to find out who it is that smokes these gold-tipped cigarettes." Hedrew the fragment of cigarette which he had found from his pocket, andplacing it on the desk before him regarded it critically.

  Mr. Stapleton gave a grunt. "What are they, Exquisites?"

  "Yes. How did you know?"

  The banker laughed. "Easy enough. My wife smokes them."

  The detective looked up quickly. "Indeed! Brings them from America withher, I suppose."

  "Yes."

  Duvall began mentally to check off, in his mind, the various persons whomight have used the cigarette which lay before him. Valentin, he nowbelieved, was out of the question. His presence in the automobile, withGrace, the night before, indicated that he had nothing to do with thekidnappers.

  There remained Mrs. Stapleton. Duvall had talked with her--seen hergrief. He was too shrewd a judge of human nature to think for a momentthat it was assumed.

  Who else? Suddenly an idea flashed into his mind. He wondered that hehad not thought of it before. The nurse! He recalled vividly the markshe had observed on the dresser in the woman's room in New York.

  "Is Mary Lanahan in the house?" he inquired of Stapleton.

  "Yes. Why?"

  "Kindly have her come here."

  Mr. Stapleton pressed a button on his desk in silence. In a few moments,the nurse had been brought to the room by one of the other servants. Shewas haggard with grief and fear.

  Duvall requested her to be seated, and began to ask her a number ofapparently unimportant questions regarding the kidnapping.

  She answered them frankly enough, although it was clear that she wasvery ill at ease.

  Presently Duvall got up, and, calling Mr. Stapleton to one side, askedhim, in a low tone, to detain the nurse in the library for a fewmoments. He wished to search her room.

  "But it has already been thoroughly searched by the police."

  "I know. But I must search it again. It will require but a few moments."

  Stapleton nodded. "I will wait for you here, Mr. Duvall," he said."Mary, you will wait, as well."

  The nurse's room was on the third floor, in a rear building. Duvallfound it, after some slight difficulty, with the assistance of one ofthe other servants.

  He seemed, on entering the room, to have but one object in view. He wentat once to the mantel, and, taking from it the two small bottle-shapedvases which stood upon it, shook them both vigorously. A faint rattlingsound came from the second. He turned it upside down upon the palm ofhis hand, and there tumbled out a quantity of ashes, and the butts ofseveral partly smoked cigarettes. With a quiet smile he replaced them inthe vase, and returned to the library.

  "Mary, you may go now," he said.

  When the woman had gone, he turned to Mr. Stapleton. "It was MaryLanahan herself who smoked the cigarette which I found in the grass," hesaid.

  "Well, what of it?" The matter seemed to the banker to be utterlywithout significance.

  "She had, no doubt, stolen them from Mrs. Stapleton."

  "Very likely. Not a very serious matter, however."

  "No. But the question now arises, Why did she turn the box over toValentin, and subsequently ask him to destroy it?"

  "I cannot imagine."

&n
bsp; "And why, later, were these cigarettes stolen from Valentin, as Iunderstand they were?"

  "It's too much for me. What do you make of it?"

  "I have a theory, Mr. Stapleton; but I cannot say just what it is--yet.By the way, where is your man, Francois, tonight?"

  "He is visiting his people, somewhere in the suburbs."

  "Ah! Then I would like to search his room, as well."

  "Go ahead. You will find nothing, I fear. The police have gone over itwith a fine-tooth comb." He rose. "Come along, I'll go with you."

  The room occupied by the chauffeur was at the very top of the house,with two windows opening through the slanting mansard roof. One ofthese, Duvall noted, commanded a view over the houses adjoining towardthe north, beyond which could be seen the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. Asecond window, toward the south, commanded an extensive view towardPassy.

  Mr. Stapleton, puffing because of the unaccustomed stairs, sat down uponthe bed. "I cannot imagine what you hope to find here, Duvall," hegrumbled.

  The detective made no reply, but began a systematic inspection of theroom. One of the first objects which attracted his attention was anordinary electric searchlight, of the pocket variety, lying on the man'sdresser. He picked it up, and examined it carefully.

  "I got it for Francois," observed Mr. Stapleton, "so that he couldexamine the car, at night, in case of any accident or repair."

  "Of course. Very useful, too. But why, I wonder, does he keep it here inhis room, instead of in the garage?"

  "Possibly to light himself up the stairs, at night," said Stapleton.

  "Then I should think he would have it with him," remarked Duvall, dryly."Wouldn't be of much use to him tonight, for instance." He was about toput the thing down, when his attention was attracted by two objects,hanging one on each side of the dresser, from its two uprights. Theywere apparently Christmas tree ornaments, made of thin glass, and theyhung from the back of the dresser by means of two bits of ribbon.

  They seemed at first glance to be merely souvenirs of some party, someentertainment, which the chauffeur had preserved as mementos of theoccasion. They were shaped like little cups, with a paper fringe aboutthe top, to which the gay ribbons were attached. Duvall had seen suchornaments often before, at Christmas time. They were intended to be hungfrom the tree by their ribbons, and were filled with small candies orbonbons. He had almost passed them by, when something in their colorscaused him to pause. One was a deep blue, the other an equally deep red.He examined the wooden uprights of the dresser with great care. Allalong the top of the dresser at its back was a heavy coating of dust.The top of the uprights, over which the loops of ribbon which supportedthe little baskets had been passed, contained no dust whatever.

  Evidently the baskets had been taken down, and that too quite recently.For what purpose? he wondered. Suddenly he had an inspiration. He tookdown the little blue basket, and quickly placed it over the end of thesearchlight. It fitted perfectly, the paper collar at its top holdingthe glass hemisphere snugly in place.

  Mr. Stapleton was watching Duvall without particular interest. Suddenlythe detective pointed the searchlight toward him and pressed the buttonwhich threw on the current. Mr. Stapleton started back, as his face wasflooded with a beam of brilliant blue light.

  Duvall replaced the little basket in the same position in which he hadfound it, and laid the searchlight upon the dresser. "Rather neat, isn'tit?" he exclaimed.

  "What do you make of it?" asked the banker.

  "Your man Francois evidently is in the habit of making signals," thedetective replied, laughing. He was beginning to feel hopeful. Thesearch of the two rooms was bearing fruit.

  For the next half-hour, Duvall went over the contents of the chauffeur'sroom with the utmost care. He removed and replaced, just as he foundthem, the contents of the dresser drawers. He opened a small woodentrunk which stood at one side of the room, and examined its contentsminutely. He explored the closet, looked behind the pictures, soundedthe walls. Nothing further of an unusual nature rewarded his efforts.Still he seemed unsatisfied.

  "What more can you hope to find, Mr. Duvall?" inquired the banker, whohad begun to find the proceedings tiresome.

  The detective stood in the center of the room, and glanced about in someperplexity. "I had hoped to find one thing more," he said; "but I amafraid it isn't here."

  Suddenly he strode over to the mantel, upon which stood a smallnickel-plated alarm clock of American make.

  "This clock doesn't seem to be going," he remarked, then whipped out hismagnifying glass and carefully studied the brass handle which projectedfrom the back, by which it was wound up. "It hasn't been wound forseveral days, either. The back is covered with dust." He picked up theclock and tried to wind it; but the handle resisted his efforts.

  In an instant he took out his knife, and a moment later was removing thescrews which held the metal back of the clock in place.

  Mr. Stapleton watched him curiously. Duvall's methods savored, to him,of the accepted sleuth of fiction. He took little stock in the tinyclues upon which the whole modern science of criminology is built.

  In a few moments the detective had removed the screws and lifted out therear plate of the clock. As he did so, he gave a grunt of satisfaction.A small pasteboard box fell out upon the mantel.

  "What is it?" asked Stapleton.

  "The box of cigarettes," remarked Duvall, as he opened it. "There arethree missing. I shall take a fourth." He selected one of thepaper-covered tubes, placed it within his pocketbook, then thrust thebox back into the clock, and rapidly replaced the metal plate.

  "I don't think there is anything further to be done here, Mr.Stapleton," he remarked. "I think I'll be getting along to my room.Tomorrow I shall be quite busy."

  He stopped for a moment, on his way out, to glance from the window whichfaced toward the north. Between the buildings and trees ran the Avenuedu Bois de Boulogne, its course illuminated by many street lamps, andthe flashing lights of passing motor cars. Duvall gazed intently at thescene before him for a few moments, then turned to the door, and,accompanied by Mr. Stapleton, descended the stairs.

  As he was about to leave the house, the banker, who evidently hadsomething on his mind, stopped him.

  "Mr. Duvall," he said, earnestly, "I would like very much to know whatyou intend to do."

  "I'm going to catch these fellows, if I possibly can," the detectivereplied, earnestly.

  "What steps do you propose to take?"

  "I cannot exactly say--yet. Why do you ask?"

  "I'll tell you. The fellow who was here tonight, the one with the blackbeard, is coming to see me tomorrow night, at eight o'clock. I cannottell you more than that. I did not intend to tell you that much--but Iam obliged to do so."

  "Obliged! Why?"

  "Because I want your promise that you will make no attempt to stop him.If I had said nothing, you might have watched the house, and, uponrecognizing the fellow as the one who was here tonight, have placed himunder arrest. I want you to do nothing to interfere with either hiscoming or his going. He will be safe, after he once leaves the Arc deTriomphe in his automobile."

  "But the police?"

  "They know nothing of the matter. Miss Goncourt has given me her word toremain silent. She has even agreed to have the men on watch about thehouse withdrawn. Both you and the police may do your best to catch thisman, after I have carried out my compact with him; but until then Iwant you to keep your hands off."

  Duvall was silent for a moment. "Very well, Mr. Stapleton, I shall do asyou say. In fact, to assure you that I am carrying out your wishes, Iwill agree to remain here with you, at the house, throughout theevening."

  "Good! I shall expect you. Good night."

  "Good night." Duvall left the house, and went at once to his hotel.

  Here, a few moments later, he seated himself in an easy chair, andtaking from his pocket the cigarette which he had secured in thechauffeur's room, regarded it critically.

  After some little
time, he took a match from a box upon a nearby table,and, placing the gold tip of the cigarette between his lips, carefullylit it.

  He drew the smoke into his lungs, inhaling it deeply. Once--twice--threetimes he repeated the operation, then threw himself back into his chair,and, closing his eyes, sat buried in thought. In his preoccupation, heallowed the end of the cigarette to fall unheeded to the floor.

  After many minutes he opened his eyes and started up. "I've got it!" hecried, and, picking up the half-burned cigarette from the floor, threwit carelessly into the fireplace.

  Then he sat down at his table, drew out a sheet of paper and a map ofthe city of Paris, and began to make a series of drawings andcalculations that occupied him far into the night.