XII. Mr. GRYCE FINDS AN ANTIDOTE FOR OLD AGE
"I thought I should make you sit up. I really calculated upon doing so,sir. Yes, I have established the plain fact that this Brotherson wasnear to, if not in the exact line of the scene of crime in each of theseextraordinary and baffling cases. A very odd coincidence, is it not?"was the dry conclusion of our eager young detective.
"Odd enough if you are correct in your statement. But I thought it wasconceded that the man Brotherson was not personally near,--was not evenin the building at the time of the woman's death in Hicks Street; thathe was out and had been out for hours, according to the janitor."
"And so the janitor thought, but he didn't quite know his man. I'mnot sure that I do. But I mean to make his acquaintance and make itthoroughly before I let him go. The hero--well, I will say the possiblehero of two such adventures--deserves some attention from one sointerested in the abnormal as myself."
"Sweetwater, how came you to discover that Mr. Dunn of this ramshackletenement in Hicks Street was identical with the elegantly equippedadmirer of Miss Challoner?"
"Just this way. The night before Miss Challoner's death I was broodingvery deeply over the Hicks Street case. It had so possessed me that Ihad taken this street in on my way from Flatbush; as if staring at thehouse and its swarming courtyard was going to settle any such questionas that! I walked by the place and I looked up at the windows. Noinspiration. Then I sauntered back and entered the house with the foolintention of crossing the courtyard and wandering into the rear buildingwhere the crime had occurred. But my attention was diverted and my mindchanged by seeing a man coming down the stairs before me, of so finea figure that I involuntarily stopped to look at him. Had he moved alittle less carelessly, had he worn his workman's clothes a little lessnaturally, I should have thought him some college bred man out on aslumming expedition. But he was entirely too much at home where he was,and too unconscious of his jeans for any such conclusion on my part, andwhen he had passed out I had enough curiosity to ask who he was.
"My interest, you may believe, was in no wise abated when I learned thathe was that highly respectable tenant whose window had been open at thetime when half the inmates of the two buildings had rushed up to hisdoor, only to find a paper on it displaying these words: Gone to NewYork; will be back at 6:30. Had he returned at that hour? I don't thinkanybody had ever asked; and what reason had I for such interference now?But an idea once planted in my brain sticks tight, and I kept thinkingof this man all the way to the Bridge. Instinctively and quite againstmy will, I found myself connecting him with some previous remembrance inwhich I seemed to see his tall form and strong features under the stressof some great excitement. But there my memory stopped, till suddenly asI was entering the subway, it all came back to me. I had met him theday I went with the boys to investigate the case in Hicks Street. He wascoming down the staircase of the rear tenement then, very much as Ihad just seen him coming down the one in front. Only the Dunn of to-dayseemed to have all his wits about him, while the huge fellow whobrushed so rudely by me on that occasion had the peculiar look of aman struggling with horror or some other grave agitation. This was notsurprising, of course, under the circumstances. I had met more than oneman and woman in those halls who had worn the same look; but none ofthem had put up a sign on his door that he had left for New York andwould not be back till 6:30, and then changed his mind so suddenly thathe was back in the tenement at three, sharing the curiosity and theterrors of its horrified inmates.
"But the discovery, while possibly suggestive, was not of so pressing anature as to demand instant action; and more immediate duties coming up,I let the matter slip from my mind, to be brought up again the next day,you may well believe, when all the circumstances of the death at theClermont came to light and I found myself confronted by a problem verynearly the counterpart of the one then occupying me.
"But I did not see any real connection between the two cases, until, inmy hunt for Mr. Brotherson, I came upon the following facts: that he wasnot always the gentleman he appeared: that the apartment in which he wassupposed to live was not his own but a friend's; and that he was onlythere by spells. When he was there, he dressed like a prince and it waswhile so clothed he ate his meals in the cafe of the Hotel Clermont.
"But there were times when he had been seen to leave this apartment in avery different garb, and while there was no one to insinuate that he wasslack in paying his debts or was given to dissipation or any overt vice,it was generally conceded by such as casually knew him, that there wasa mysterious side to his life which no one understood. His friend--aseemingly candid and open-minded gentleman--explained thesecontradictions by saying that Mr. Brotherson was a humanitarian andspent much of his time in the slums. That while so engaged he naturallydressed to suit the occasion, and if he was to be criticised at all,it was for his zeal which often led him to extremes and kept him to histask for days, during which time none of his up-town friends saw him.Then this enthusiastic gentleman called him the great intellectual lightof the day, and--well, if ever I want a character I shall take pains toinsinuate myself into the good graces of this Mr. Conway.
"Of Brotherson himself I saw nothing. He had come to Mr. Conway'sapartment the night before--the night of Miss Challoner's death, youunderstand but had remained only long enough to change his clothes.Where he went afterwards is unknown to Mr. Conway, nor can he tell uswhen to look for his return. When he does show up, my message will begiven him, etc., etc. I have no fault to find with Mr. Conway.
"But I had an idea in regard to this elusive Brotherson. I had heardenough about him to be mighty sure that together with his otheraccomplishments he possessed the golden tongue and easy speech of anorator. Also, that his tendencies were revolutionary and that for allhis fine clothes and hankering after table luxuries and the like, hecherished a spite against wealth which made his words under certainmoods cut like a knife. But there was another man, known to us of the---- Precinct, who had very nearly these same gifts, and this man wasgoing to speak at a secret meeting that very evening. This we had beentold by a disgruntled member of the Associated Brotherhood. SuspectingBrotherson, I had this prospective speaker described, and thought Irecognised my man. But I wanted to be positive in my identification, soI took Anderson with me, and--but I'll cut that short. We didn't see theorator and that 'go' went for nothing; but I had another string tomy bow in the shape of the workman Dunn who also answered to thedescription which had been given me; so I lugged poor Anderson over intoHicks Street.
"It was late for the visit I proposed, but not too late, if Dunn wasalso the orator who, surprised by a raid I had not been let into, wouldbe making for his home, if only to establish an alibi. The subway wasnear, and I calculated on his using it, but we took a taxicab and soarrived in Hicks Street some few minutes before him. The result youknow. Anderson recognised the man as the one whom he saw washing hishands in the snow outside of the Clermont, and the man, seeing himselfdiscovered, owned himself to be Brotherson and made no difficulty aboutaccompanying us the next day to the coroner's office.
"You have heard how he bore himself; what his explanations were and howcompletely they fitted in with the preconceived notions of the Inspectorand the District Attorney. In consequence, Miss Challoner's death islooked upon as a suicide--the impulsive act of a woman who sees the manshe may have scouted but whom she secretly loves, turn away from her inall probability forever. A weapon was in her hand--she impulsively usedit, and another deplorable suicide was added to the melancholy list. HadI put in my oar at the conference held in the coroner's office; hadI recalled to Dr. Heath the curious case of Mrs. Spotts, and thenidentified Brotherson as the man whose window fronted hers from theopposite tenement, a diversion might have been created and the outcomebeen different. But I feared the experiment. I'm not sufficiently inwith the Chief as yet, nor yet with the Inspector. They might not havecalled me a fool--you may; but that's different--and they might havelistened, but it would doubtless have been with an air I c
ould not haveheld up against, with that fellow's eyes fixed mockingly on mine. Forhe and I are pitted for a struggle, and I do not want to give him theadvantage of even a momentary triumph. He's the most complete masterof himself of any man I ever met, and it will take the united brainand resolution of the whole force to bring him to book--if he ever isbrought to book, which I doubt. What do you think about it?"
"That you have given me an antidote against old age," was the ringingand unexpected reply, as the thoughtful, half-puzzled aspect of the oldman yielded impulsively to a burst of his early enthusiasm. "If we canget a good grip on the thread you speak of, and can work ourselves alongby it, though it be by no more than an inch at a time, we shall yet makeour way through this labyrinth of undoubted crime and earn for ourselvesa triumph which will make some of these raw and inexperienced youngfellows about us stare. Sweetwater, coincidences are possible. We runupon them every day. But coincidence in crime! that should make work fora detective, and we are not afraid of work. There's my hand for my endof the business."
"And here's mine."
Next minute the two heads were closer than ever together, and thebusiness had begun.