The Substitute Prisoner Part 17

"But when and where was the subst.i.tution made?" asked the chief.

"On board the train to Atlanta," Britz informed him. "Whitmore was handcuffed to the marshal when they left the Tombs. They occupied a stateroom on one of the through parlor cars. It is unusual for a deputy to engage a stateroom, or to permit his prisoner to engage one, but no law is violated by doing so. All that is required of the deputy is to deliver his prisoner at the jail and obtain a receipt for him.

"The subst.i.tute followed the deputy and the prisoner into the compartment, the handcuffs were slipped from Whitmore's wrist to Timson's, and, at Philadelphia, Whitmore left the train. It is now up to us to trace his movements from the time he alighted at Philadelphia until he walked to his death in his office."

A long interval of silence followed, in which the three men tried to appraise the precise value of the subst.i.tution of prisoners in its relation to Whitmore's untimely death. Whitmore had escaped prison only to meet a worse fate, and in less than twenty-four hours after his wrist was freed from the cold pressure of the steel bracelet.

"It was Beard who engineered the subst.i.tution," observed the chief.

"Yes," replied Britz.

"And to save Whitmore from prison he took a chance of going to jail."

"Evidently he stood ready with the deputy and the subst.i.tute to forfeit his liberty for the sake of his employer."

"But was he actuated by loyalty to Whitmore or did he have a sinister design of his own?" questioned Manning.

"That's for us to ascertain."

"And how are we going to do it?"

"By means of the man he hired as a subst.i.tute," declared Britz in positive tone.

"But how--how?" demanded Manning.

"That will depend on circ.u.mstances. Now I'm ready to hear the developments at this end."

Manning settled back in his chair with the relieved air of one about to discard an irksome burden. From a drawer of his desk he produced half a dozen long envelopes which he tossed to Britz.

"They contain all the reports of the men," said he. "You'd better go through them at your leisure to-night or to-morrow morning. It's useless to discuss the case further until you've familiarized yourself with them."

As they left Headquarters for their homes, the three men realized that despite the many developments of the case, they had, as yet, barely penetrated the surface. Every new discovery had only succeeded in adding further complications to the mystery. The evidence thus far was fragmentary, disconnected, throwing an uncertain light on the crime. The subst.i.tution of prisoners tended to involve Beard, yet it gave not the least hint of the motive that actuated the killing of Whitmore. Nor did it reveal how the crime was committed. That it would prove of importance, of vital significance in solving the crime, Britz believed implicitly. But, such are the complexities in all human things, that the possibility of error is never eliminated. And in a criminal investigation a single error may destroy every chance of success, just as a single error on the part of the criminal may destroy all the safeguards which he has so carefully thrown around him.

At the Seventy-second street station of the subway Britz bade his companions good night. Dismissing the Whitmore case and all other police business from his mind, he headed straight for his home, retired at once and fell into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER XI

Fresh as the early morning dew that hung, a gentle, swaying silver mantle above the ceaseless currents of the North River, Britz awoke and for a long time permitted his eyes to feast on the restful picture offered by the now deserted Riverside Drive. Reluctantly he withdrew his gaze from the alluring vista that spread from his window--the graveled walks, the well-kept lawns sloping down to the stream, the wide stretch of s.h.i.+mmering water sending slanting shafts of silver against the rocky base of the opposite Palisades, and, in the dim distance, the softly undulating Jersey hills meeting the sky line in a wavy gray thread indistinctly outlined in the clearing mist.

Britz's salary was inadequate for an entire apartment on the Drive. But he could afford a large square room overlooking the Hudson in the apartment of a small family that understood the ways of their lodger and ministered to his comfort.

A cold shower shook the last vestige of la.s.situde out of the detective's system, and, after an ample breakfast prepared and served by the single servant of the house, Britz devoted himself to the reports which Manning had delivered to him the previous night.

For three hours he sat absorbed in silent study of the doc.u.ments, occasionally jotting down a brief note on a pad of paper or inter-lining a paragraph which he regarded as having especial significance.

When he finished reading, he indulged in an additional hour of thoughtful contemplation, arranging in their proper sequence the meager facts which his men had discovered, and trying to draw from each bit of new evidence its true relation to the crime.

Meager, indeed, was the helpful knowledge contained in the voluminous reports of the men. Mrs. Collins had remained secluded in her home most of the time; Collins had forsaken his customary haunts and also clung desperately to the solitude of his Delmore Park mansion. Ward spent his days at his business and his nights at his home. But around Beard things were transpiring, although the detectives spying on him in the Tombs had been unable to acquaint themselves with the precise nature of the moves he was making to accomplish his release from prison.

No trace had been obtained of the butler who vanished with the doc.u.ments which Britz had gathered in Beard's home. But of the servant's eventual capture Britz had not the slightest doubt. It was a safe guess that he would endeavor soon to communicate with Beard either in person or by letter, and the moment he did so he would reveal himself to the authorities.

Of the utmost importance, however, was the report of the Coroner's physician. The autopsy on Whitmore's body disclosed that the bullet which killed the merchant had entered the abdomen at the right side, traveled upward through the abdominal cavity, escaping the vital organs in its path until it reached the spleen, which it perforated. The bullet did not pa.s.s out of the body and was held by the Coroner as a gruesome exhibit, to be used against whomever might be accused of Whitmore's murder.

It was the path which the bullet had traveled that interested Britz. The absence of powder marks, the disappearance of the pistol with which the mortal shot was fired, effectually eliminated the theory of suicide.

Yet, a man seated in a chair, and bent on self-destruction, might easily have inflicted the wound described by the Coroner's physician. Before arriving at any definite conclusion, however, as to the position of the a.s.sa.s.sin when he sent the bullet into Whitmore's body, the detective decided to study the enlarged photograph of the wound which he had ordered the official photographer to make.

He found the picture on his desk at Police Headquarters. Greig had preceded him by two hours to the building in Mulberry street, and was deep in the intricacies of the case when Britz summoned him. He entered the room, followed a moment or two later, by Manning.

"What do you make of it?" asked Britz, holding up the picture.

"Pretty jagged wound," commented Manning.

Britz produced a magnifying gla.s.s through which the three men examined the wound more critically.

"There are two perforations of the skin where the bullet entered," Britz pointed out. "Undoubtedly they were made by the needle which I picked off the floor of Whitmore's office."

"Well, what of that?" asked the chief.

"It confirms my belief that I have solved the mystery of how Whitmore was killed."

"I don't see it," snapped the chief. "If you do, why don't you enlighten us?"

"Because I can't be positive until I have more evidence," answered Britz, unmoved by the other's irritation. "However, I believe that before many days we shall have solved the entire case."

The conversation was interrupted at this juncture by the telephone bell.

Britz lifted the receiver to his ear, made several replies in monosyllables, then returned the receiver to the hook.

"That was Watson up at Delmore Park," he informed the chief. "Says Josephine Burden is on her way to the Tombs to visit Beard."

"Josephine Burden!" echoed Manning in undisguised surprise. "The cotton king's daughter! Why, she's engaged to Lester Ward."

"She may be a messenger for Mrs. Collins, Ward's sister," suggested Greig.

"Whatever her mission, I'll soon know all about it," a.s.serted Britz.

"I'm going to the Tombs."

On the way to the big, gray City Prison, the detective tried vainly to account for Josephine Burden's appearance in the case. That only the most urgent reason would bring her to the Tombs at this critical stage of the case, was self-evident. The newspapers were devoting columns to it. The more enterprising yellow journals, whose investigations were conducted independent of the police, were hinting openly that George Collins ought to exchange places with Beard in prison. Every new figure in the mystery, every new development, was being exploited frantically in the press. Surely Josephine Burden was not braving the danger of unwelcome notoriety merely to deliver a message from Mrs. Collins, or Collins, or Ward. A less conspicuous messenger would have served them equally well. No. Josephine Burden was on her way to the prison for a reason intimately a.s.sociated with herself, a compelling reason, one that conquered her innate dislike for the newspaper prominence which she was braving.

At the Tombs Britz held a brief conversation with the warden, after which he was conducted to a cell at the end of a tier, behind the barred door of which Beard must receive all his visitors save his lawyer. The detective seated himself on a small, round wooden stool, hidden from view by the heavy iron door of the cell. But every word of what was said by anyone standing in the corridor, would come to Britz's ears through the grating.

Half an hour after Britz was locked in the cell, an automobile drew up at the curb on the Center street side of the prison and a young woman alighted. Her slim figure was concealed beneath a long fur coat, her face s.h.i.+elded by a heavy automobile veil. She approached the guard behind the barred entrance to the jail with the timorous manner of persons making their first visit to such an inst.i.tution.

"May I see Mr. Horace Beard?" she inquired weakly.

"Sure, if he'll see you," answered the doorman, unlocking and swinging open the broad portal.