The Secret Toll

  CHAPTER XVIII--TRIANGULATION

  Green's sudden departure, following the enforced and trying separationfrom Mary Sturtevant, depressed Forrester and left him with a sense ofhelpless loneliness. He ate dinner that night in a morose silence thatcalled forth several cutting remarks from Josephine. After dinnerForrester sought the seclusion of his room in preference to the library.He wanted to be isolated in order to work out his problem, for Green'swords, coupled with the afternoon visit to Lucy, had aroused adetermination to end the suspense quickly and finally. He hadinformation that was unknown to the police--information which Greenclaimed to be vital--and he wanted to decide how to use it to the bestadvantage.

  Green's intimation that Mary Sturtevant might not be an actual criminalgave a different twist to the situation. To conceive of her being abandit queen had seemed preposterous, yet what other construction couldbe placed on her actions?

  But Forrester also recalled Prentice's vague reference to a new angle inthe case--a phase that had hitherto not been thought of. "Something ofworld-wide significance," were his words. What connection could there bebetween these local, cold-blooded murders and the rest of the world?

  Unexpectedly a great light seemed to come--swift, overwhelming, terrificin its magnitude. Forrester caught his breath.

  _Red interests!_

  Why not? Was not the long arm of Bolshevism reaching out everywhere inan effort to destroy nations and bring about a new order of things;could not some master mind have devised, with grim humor, a plan to makeso-called Capitalism pay the cost of its own destruction? Forrester'shead swam with these thoughts. He saw now that the savage reprisals forrefusal to pay could not possibly be the work of ordinary men. Not eventhe most desperate criminal would take the risk of so arousing publicwrath. On the other hand, would not the wholesale fear aroused amongwealthy men by this method be part of Red propaganda?

  How many perplexing things seemed to assume a new and easily explainedmeaning. "Friend of the POOR"--an appropriate title seen from theviewpoint of Red schemers. Lucy, a woman close to the soil, her color abar to progress, despite her education, would be an easy convert.Forrester was sure the mystery embraced her at some point, yet Green hadsaid she could not resist the temptation of displaying her prosperity.But working fanatically for what she believed a great cause, wouldexplain it. It was possible that she was the one who collected the moneyand passed it on.

  And Mary Sturtevant's part became less blameworthy. Many women of herclass had dabbled in amateur Bolshevism. In her case she had, perhaps,gone a little too far, and the Red tentacles were reaching out andseeking to draw her closer. Probably she was making a brave struggle tofree herself and hoping at any moment to win.

  But at what point could he begin his attack in the light of this newdevelopment? There must be something more tangible than theories andfanciful ideas to lay before the police. The responsibility must be laidupon some one, with facts to back up the accusation. Forrester thoughtof Humphrey and his triangulation theory. It seemed as whimsical astossing a coin, but Forrester decided to try.

  Taking a pad and pencil he first placed a small circle for the oak tree.His recent speculative conclusions led him to draw a small square forLucy's cottage in its approximate position near the tree. Obviously,Mary Sturtevant was the next most prominent figure in the case, and witha mental measurement of the probable location of the house she occupied,he drew another square. The connecting of these three points with linesastounded Forrester. He saw that he had an obtuse-angled triangle, _withLucy occupying the controlling point_.

  However, there must be one or more additional triangles that wouldoverlap, for Humphrey, in explaining his theory, had said: "At somepoint the lines will _cross_."

  Forrester mused over this for a time. He could not decide on otherpoints which would be near enough to these to form an overlappingtriangle. He tried several ideas without result. His own home was toofar away. But how about other victims? Suddenly it came to him. Thefirst and last victims, so far as he knew, were Prentice and Melville,and the homes of these were reasonably near. So Forrester placed asquare for each of these men's homes on his sketch. That still left athird point for his triangle. He finally decided to use the tree againfor this point. The lines did not cross, at least in the way he imaginedHumphrey had in mind, but they did serve to increase the size of hisoriginal triangle and bring it to a perfect form of the isoscelestriangle. It was significant, moreover, that the line from Prentice, the_first_ victim, led directly through Lucy's cottage to the tree, and henoted with a start that the line from the Melville home, where the girlhad been deeply involved, led through Mary Sturtevant's house.

  This is the rough sketch as Forrester completed it:

  The way to a solution unquestionably led through Lucy and MarySturtevant, if there were anything at all to Humphrey's idea. Greenpointed at the girl. Forrester's inclinations led him to the negress,and the odd working out of the triangle theory seemed to confirm him inhis impressions. Forrester decided to investigate Lucy at once. Hisreference to the police had amused instead of angered her. She hadpithily expressed her disdain of them. Was it not possible that thesefeelings arose from a sense of victory? In searching her house, thepolice had failed to find something that she knew was there! Whatever itwas, Forrester intended to locate it, and use his information for whatit might be worth.

  Forrester took an electric pocket lamp from the top of his chiffonier,and a dark muffler from a drawer. These he placed in his pocket. Then heselected a cap of an unobtrusive shade and went down to the laundry.There he cut off a short length of clothesline, wound it around his bodyand buttoned up his coat.

  Unlocking the laundry door, which opened at the southern end of thehouse, Forrester looked carefully around. He could hear Williamwhistling at his work in the garage, while above him his sister wasplaying the piano in the music room. No other sound reached him and noone was in sight. Forrester closed the laundry door softly and stoleacross the lawn to the road.