XXI FLEMING STONE'S THEORY
Alone in the library, Fleming Stone and Detective Hardy were in counsel.
"I'm going to show you this thing as I see it, Mr. Hardy," said Stone. "Ifrankly admit it's all theory, I haven't a particle of human testimony toback it, but it seems to me the _only_ solution that will fit all pointsof the mystery. And I shall ask you to consider it confidential for thepresent, until I can corroborate it by unmistakable proofs."
Hardy nodded assent, his eyes fixed on the speaker in a sort offascination.
This young detective had not been at all idle of late, but his work hadamounted to nothing definite, and though he was himself convinced thatPauline Stuart was responsible for her aunt's death, he seldom exploitedthat view before Stone, having learned that it was an unwelcome subject.
"Here's the theory in a very small nutshell," said Stone, "but remember,you're not to mention it to any one until I give you permission. MissLucy Carrington took that powder, thinking it a drug that would make herbeautiful."
"A charm? a philter?" Hardy's eyes seemed to bulge in his excitement.
"I'm not sure whether it was a fake magic affair, say, from a clairvoyantor fortune-teller, or whether it was a plain swindle from a beauty doctoror something of that sort. You know such people play on the credulity ofrich patrons and get enormous sums and a promise of secrecy for aso-called beauty producer."
"But why would the beauty doctor or the clairvoyant person give a patientpoison?"
"They didn't. They gave a harmless powder, and some evil-minded personadded the aconite, secretly, knowing of the beauty scheme."
"Who did it?"
"That's yet to be discovered, but it will be easier if we can trace theone who sold her the nostrum. Now, listen while I reconstruct the scene.Miss Carrington, having dismissed her maid, goes to her bath-room, andtakes the powder dissolved in water. These powder papers, which I foundin her bath-room waste-basket, carry out that idea."
Hardy stared at the papers, but did not interrupt the speaker.
"Then, joyfully waiting the effect of the charm, she sits in front of themirror to watch her features become beautiful. This is why she said toher own reflection, 'To-morrow I shall be freed forever from this homelyface!' She gazed at the picture of Cleopatra above her dressing-table,and said 'Yours is the most beautiful face I have ever seen. I wish minewere as beautiful.' The remarks concerning Count Charlier were addressedto the glove which she held in her hand, a sentimental part of the wholeperformance."
"Mighty interesting, Mr. Stone, but pretty fantastic, so far."
Fleming Stone gave his slow, grave smile, that always betokened a suretyof his own statements. "Wait a bit, Hardy, before you condemn thisnotion. I haven't finished yet. Now Cleopatra figures pretty strongly inthis scheme. Look at these photographs taken after death. They show thelady exactly as she looked when she sat there. See, she is gazing at thepicture of Cleopatra, too intently to be merely a casual glance. And,what do you think of this? She gazed at Cleopatra, and, holding theCount's glove, her mind and heart full of the Count, who would adore herwhen she achieved this looked-for beauty, she said, 'You are the Mark Iaim at!' meaning, as Cleopatra had her Mark Antony, she, Lucy Carrington,aimed at the Mark of her choice,--the Count."
"If that's true, Mr. Stone, you are the wizard of the ages! How did youdope it out? What----"
"Now, wait a minute. This isn't the pipe dream you think it. But listenwhile I tell the rest in my own way."
"Listen! I should think I would! Go on."
"You know, these fakers give out these charms with all sorts of fooldirections to impress the duped customer. As I say, I'm not sure yetwhether it was a professional of the clairvoyant type, or a regularbeauty doctor. But in either case, I've no doubt that Miss Carringtonpaid him enough to compensate for giving up his practice and leaving forparts unknown. For after the charm failed to work, of course she wouldexpose the fraud."
"But the poison----"
"Never mind that for the moment, Mr. Hardy. Surely, if we can discoverfor certain how and why the dose was taken, it will go far to help ustrace the criminal who added the deadly element to the powder. Now,continuing the Cleopatra idea, I am sure that the cleverclairvoyante,--we'll assume that's what she was,----"
"She?"
"Merely to designate this faker person. Somehow I seem to see her as oneof those crystal-gazing, frowsy-headed kimonoed females, who prey on thecredulity of rich and foolish women,--well, let's call her that for thepresent, this clever clairvoyante somehow conceived the idea of offeringto make Miss Carrington as beautiful as Cleopatra. Perhaps she had beenhere to see Miss Carrington on the subject, and that beautiful picture ofCleopatra put it into her head. But, assuming something of this sort,assume further that she directed Miss Carrington to robe herself, in ageneral way, like the queen in the picture. Note the pearls! Wouldn'tthis explain Miss Carrington's getting her pearls from the bank for thisoccasion? And wouldn't it explain her speech, 'You love pearls,' as beingaddressed to Cleopatra, to whom she was talking!"
"Go on, Mr. Stone! _Go_ on!"
"I will go on! Wouldn't that explain, as nothing else on this green earthcan, the purchase of a paper snake by the woman who feared and abhorredthe reptiles! Supposing the fool clairvoyante had told her that to becomelike Cleopatra she must have a semblance of a snake at her throat, asCleopatra had the asp!"
"Good Heavens!"
"I tell you, Mr. Hardy, nothing else would account for that snake! Andany one of these things might seem the result of a lunatic imagination byitself, but taken all together, the theory holds water! Why think of theOriental scarf, the embroidered robe, the mass of jewels in addition tothe significant pearls, and the scarabs! All point to the type ofCleopatra. If there had been a picture on the wall, say, of Helen ofTroy, and Miss Carrington had been rigged up in a Greek costume, with afillet in her hair, and sandals on her feet,--or if the picture had shownthe Goddess of Liberty, and we had found Miss Carrington draped in anAmerican flag, could any one have denied the significance? There can beno doubt,--no doubt in this world, Hardy, that the costume, the jewelsand the snake all point to a connection with the picture of Cleopatra,and if so, what other connection is possible than the one I've blockedout? Answer me that! And, finally, the speech to the Count, whose gloveshe fondled, 'You are the Mark I aim at.' A pleasantry of wordinginevitably suggested by the thought of the man Cleopatra charmed and theman Miss Carrington desired to charm. And a play on words too, not at allunnatural to her, for I'm told she was both witty and clever inconversation."
"Mr. Stone, I am carried away by your arguments. I can't deny theirplausibility, but I am bewildered. How did you fathom this remarkableplan?"
"Simply because there is no other plan that will fit the facts. I believeMiss Carrington did say all those things Miss Frayne relates. I believeshe was alone in the room when she said them. Therefore, they must havehad some meaning, and the meanings I have just ascribed to them must bethe true ones."
"They must be----"
"And I will further satisfy you that they are. Here is a memorandum Ifound in Miss Carrington's desk. It is, as you see, a list of items. Readit."
Hardy's eyes stared more widely than ever as he read:
Green and gold boudoir robe. Jewels, especially pearls. Scarabs. Scarf. Snake. Something belonging to H.
"Now, that," and Fleming Stone spoke in low, even tones, without a hintof boasting or pride in his achievement, "is a list in Miss Carrington'sown writing, and is undeniably a list of things to be worn on theoccasion which she hoped would mean a delightful change to the beauty sheso desired to be, but which, instead, was a change to the cold stillnessof death. I found that, after reaching my own conclusions about theCleopatra business. If I had found it before, I would have known it mustrefer to her costume, but I couldn't have gleaned from it the conclusionsI had already come to. Now, Hardy, are you convinced?"
"I am, Mr. Stone. And I am also puzzled. From all this knowledge, westart fresh, as it were, and we----"
"Wait a minute, Hardy. Let's go slowly. Now, here are two ways to look atthis thing. I told you about the clairvoyante first, because that firstcame to my mind as the inevitable explanation. But, suppose, instead of aprofessional clairvoyante or beauty doctor, some friend or--" Stone sethis teeth, but went on steadily, "or some one in the household, plannedall this scheme, and pretended to get a powder that would accomplish thistransformation, gave it to the unsuspecting lady to take by herself, andin reality this powder was the aconite."
Hardy jumped. "Then Miss Stuart----" he began.
"Ah," and Stone's face was white and his voice like cutting steel, "_Why_Miss Stuart? Why not Miss Frayne, who listened at the door? Why notEstelle, who knew all her mistress' secrets? Why not Haviland, who isopenly enjoying his present responsible position as man of affairs? Whynot Count Charlier, whose crafty cunning shows on his face? Of course,_also_, why not Miss Stuart, but why _necessarily_ Miss Stuart?"
"Well, she has run away, you know----"
"So she has, because of unjust and unfounded suspicions! When clues pointdirectly to her, I shall admit them, but when they may equally well pointto half a dozen others, I shall patiently investigate them and learn thetruth. Now, I ask of you, Hardy, as man to man, _not_ to favor MissStuart unduly, but to give her a fair show, and remember her lonelyposition and her timid nature."
Hardy looked furtively at Fleming Stone, whose eyes were downcast andfastened on some papers he was holding.
"Count on me, Mr. Stone. I am at your orders. I subscribe to yourtheories, and I will do exactly what you tell me, and no more or less."
"Good, Hardy, and thank you. Now, look at these papers. They are the onesthat contained the fatal powder. See, this paraffin one was inside; thenone of tin-foil, then one of rather heavy writing-paper."
"That doesn't look altogether like a clairvoyante's work."
"Why not? It does to me. They are mighty careful to do up their goods inan elaborate manner to impress their customers. But, mind you, I don'tfor a moment suspect this clairvoyante individual of intended murder.Either the aconite was added to the parcel from the clairvoyante, or thewhole affair was concocted by the murderer and under pretense of itshaving come from the clairvoyante."
"H'm," Hardy was clearly beyond his depth.
"So," went on Stone, "we must deduce what we can from these papers. Whatdo you see peculiar about them?"
"Just plain little old nothing," Hardy declared after a good scrutiny. "Isee, as you remarked, three papers, folded similarly, and of nearly thesame size. What do you see?"
"Not much more," confessed Stone, gazing discontentedly at the papers."And yet, there must be something to notice. Here's one point. Thesepapers, if tampered with, I mean if anything was added to their contents,were manipulated very carefully. You know how difficult it is to unfoldand refold a powder-paper without making it look messy. These, I would bewilling to assert, have never been refolded, or, as I say, if they were,it was done very carefully."
"That isn't much of a clue," and Hardy smiled.
"It may be," returned Stone. "It at least indicates a possibleelimination of the clairvoyante and an indication of the murdererpreparing the powder alone. At any rate, Hardy, I've told you all this inorder to ask your help. Will you go and see what you can round up in theway of the clairvoyante of our dreams? Go to all you can find in New YorkCity. That is the prominent ones. Get a line on beauty doctors, andgenerally look up this sort of thing. And keep it all under your hat."
"All right, Mr. Stone," and Hardy was off at once.
Fleming Stone put away the papers, and sat for more than an hour in abrown study. It must be admitted that a photograph of Pauline Stuart,which stood on a near-by table, held his eyes much of the time. And hisgaze, as it rested on the lovely face, was now tender and now sad.
At last he rang for a servant. To the footman who replied, he made arequest that a chamber-maid be sent to him.
The girl came, wondering.
"Mary?" said Fleming Stone, inquiringly.
"Jane, sir," returned the maid, quietly.
"Good," said Stone. "You have intelligence, Jane, as shown by your calmrejoinder. Now, I want you to go to the various bedrooms ordressing-rooms of all the members of the family and of all the servants,and bring me all the manicure scissors you can find. I assume that someof the servants might possibly have them?"
"Yes, sir, some of them."
"Very well. Get all you can possibly find, and be very, _very_ careful toremember which ones are whose. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then go. If anybody questions you, say Mr. Stone ordered it."
Jane returned with many pairs of the kind of scissors asked for by theDetective. Absorbedly, Stone took them from her, and one by one he usedthem to snip at a sheet of paper from the library desk.
At each test, he asked Jane whose the scissors were, and sometimes hewrote the name beside the cut and sometimes not. One pair in especialseemed to interest him. "Whose are these?" he asked.
"Those, sir, I took from Miss Carrington's dressing-table." Jane gave aslight shudder as if at the recollection of the tragedy of that table.
"But these are of a different patterned handle from the rest of thatdressing-table's silver."
"I don't know, sir, as to that. They were there and I brought them."
"Very well, Jane. Take them all back to their places. Mind now, don't mixthem."
"No, sir. Thank you, sir."
A strange excitement seemed to seize upon Fleming Stone. Abruptly he leftthe room, and, flinging on his overcoat in the hall, he snatched his hatand went away, almost on a run. His steps took him to the garage and in afew moments he was in a swift little runabout being driven to thesanatorium where Estelle was still staying.
After a call there, he hurried to Police Headquarters. Thence, after arather long call, to a telegraph office, to one or two shops and thenback to Garden Steps.
Here he put several servants at work for him, packing his effects andsuch matters, then summoning Gray Haviland to the library, he said; "I'msailing for Egypt this afternoon. May I ask you to make no furtherinvestigations till my return?"
"Egypt!" gasped Gray. "Good Heavens, man! what for?"
"In the interest of my work for you," returned Stone, gravely.
"Rubbish! You're chasing Pauline! We'll never see either of you again!"
Fleming Stone smiled. "I do love her, Haviland, I make no denial of thatfact. And I do hate to have her alone in a strange land. So, if I can beof any help to her, an ocean or two to cross shall not keep me from her."
"And your detective work?"
"Will not suffer by my absence. I've been to the Police and to theDistrict Attorney and they approve my plans as I've outlined them so far.The rest must wait my return."
"Ah, and when will you be back?"
"I don't know exactly, but I will keep you informed of my whereabouts.Say good-by to Miss Frayne for me, and please excuse me now, as I'veheaps to do. By the way, where is that record of Miss Carrington's songthat I have heard of? Play it for me, will you?"
"Thought you were in such a hurry!" laughed Haviland, but granted therequest.
"Wonderful!" commented the Detective, as he heard it on the phonograph."It is a perfectly-made record. If you don't mind, I'll take possessionof it."
"All right," said Gray, carelessly, and in another half hour FlemingStone was on his way to the pier where the _Macedonia_ was making readyto sail.