THE STURGIS WAGER

A Detective Story

BY EDGAR MORETTE

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1899
By Frederick A. Stokes Company

CONTENTS

The Sturgis Wager.

CHAPTER I.

THE CABMAN'S FARE.

It was bitterly cold. The keen December wind swept down the crowded thoroughfare, nipping the noses and ears of the gay pedestrians, comfortably muffled in their warm wraps.

Broadway was thronged with the usual holiday shoppers and pleasure-seekers. Cabs with their jaded steeds driven by weatherbeaten jehus, and private carriages behind well-groomed horses handled by liveried coachmen, deftly made their way through the crowds and deposited their fares at the entrances of the brightly lighted theaters or fashionable restaurants. A wizened hag, seated on the curbstone at the corner, seemed to shrink into herself with the cold as she turned the crank of her tiny barrel-organ and ground out a dismal and scarcely audible cacophony; while an anxious-eyed newsboy, not yet in his teens, shivered on the opposite side of the way, as, with tremulous lips, he solicited a purchaser for his unsold stock. One could hardly be expected to open a warm overcoat on such a night, at the risk of taking cold, for the sake of throwing a cent to an old beggar woman, or of buying a newspaper from a ragged urchin. Even the gaily decorated shop windows failed to arrest the idle passers-by; for it required perpetual motion to keep the blood in circulation.

The giant policeman on the crossing, representing the majesty of the law, swayed the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians with the authoritative gestures of his ponderous hands, and gallantly escorted bands of timid women through the inextricable moving maze.

And withal, the cable cars, with their discordant clangor, rumbled rapidly to and fro, like noisy shuttles, shooting the woof of the many-hued fabric which is the life of a great city.

Presently from one of the side streets there came a cab, which started leisurely to cross Broadway. The big policeman, with his eyes fixed upon an approaching car, held up a warning hand, to which the driver seemed to pay no attention, for the reins remained slack and the listless horse continued to move slowly across the avenue.

Several people turned to look with mild curiosity at the bold cabman who dared thus to disregard the authority of blue cloth and brass buttons. Their surprise changed quickly to amazement and dismay when their eyes rested upon him; for his head had fallen forward upon his chest and his limp body swayed upon the box with every motion of the cab. He seemed unconscious of his surroundings, like one drunk or in a stupor.

At his side sat a young man closely muffled in his overcoat, and with a sealskin cap pulled well down over his ears. His face was deathly pale. Those who caught sight of his features saw that his bloodless lips were firmly set, and that his eyes glittered with a feverish light. He carried one hand in the lapel of his coat. With the other he shook the inert form of the unconscious cabman, in a vain effort to arouse him to a sense of the impending danger.

The situation flashed upon the gripman on the car. Instantly he threw his weight upon the brakewheel, at the same time loudly sounding his gong. The policeman, too, understood in a twinkling what was about to happen, and rushed for the horse's head. But it was too late. The cab was fairly across the track when the car, with slackened speed, crashed into it.

Just before the collision, the young man in the sealskin cap sprang from the box to the street. He landed upon his feet; but, losing his balance, he fell forward upon his left arm, which still remained in the lapel of his coat. He must have hurt himself; for those standing near him heard him groan. But the center of interest was elsewhere, and no one paid much attention to the young man, who, arising quickly, disappeared in the crowd.

The cab, after tottering for an instant on two wheels, fell over upon its side, with a loud noise of splintering wood and breaking glass. The driver rolled off the box in a heap. At the same time, the panic-stricken passengers on the car rushed madly for the doors, fighting like wild beasts in their haste to reach a place of safety.

After the first frenzied moment, it became evident that, although badly shaken up, the passengers had received no injuries, except such bruises as they had inflicted upon each other in their mad struggle to escape. By this time a crowd had collected about the overturned cab, and several more policemen had come to the assistance of the first one, who was now seated serenely upon the head of the cab-horse, a precaution seemingly superfluous, for the poor beast, though uninjured, appeared to be quite satisfied to rest where he lay until he should be forced once more to resume the grind of his unhappy existence.

The cabman had been rudely shaken by his fall. He had lain as though unconscious for the space of a few seconds; then, with assistance, he had managed to struggle to his feet. He stood now as though dazed by the shock, trying to understand what had happened.

"Are you hurt?" inquired one of the policemen.

The man, mumbling an unintelligible reply, raised his hand to a scalp wound from which the blood was flowing rather freely.

At that moment two men forced their way through the crowd which a circle of policemen had some difficulty in keeping at a distance from the wounded cabman. One was a middle-aged individual, who gave his name as Doctor Thurston and offered his services as a physician; the other was a young man with keen gray eyes, who said nothing, but exhibited a reporter's badge.

The physician at once turned his attention to the cabman; felt him, thumped him, pinched him; smelt his breath; and then delivered his verdict:

"No bones broken. The slight scalp wound doesn't amount to anything. The man has been drinking heavily. He is simply drunk."

The horse had by this time been unharnessed and the cab had been lifted upon its wheels again.

The reporter stood by a silent and apparently listless spectator of the scene.

Doctor Thurston turned to him:

"Come along, Sturgis; neither you nor I are needed here; and if we do not hurry, Sprague's dinner will have to wait for us. It is a quarter to eight now."

The reporter seemed about to follow his friend, but he stood for an instant irresolute.

"I say, Doctor," he inquired at last, "are you sure the man is drunk?"

"He has certainly been drinking heavily. Why?"

"Because it seems to me——Hello, we cannot go yet; the passenger is more badly hurt than the driver."

"The passenger?" queried the physician, turning in surprise to the policeman.

"What passenger?" asked the policeman, looking at the cabman. "Have you a passenger inside, young feller?"

"Naw," replied the cabman, who seemed to be partially sobered by the shock and loss of blood. "Naw, I aint got no fare, barrin' the man wot was on the box."

The reporter observed the man closely as he spoke; and then, pointing to the step of the cab, which was plainly visible in the glare of a neighboring electric lamp:

"I mean the passenger whose blood is trickling there," he said quietly.

Every eye was turned in the direction of his outstretched hand.

A few drops of a thick dark liquid had oozed from under the door, and was dripping upon the iron step. The cab door was closed and the curtain was drawn down over the sash, the glass of which had been shattered by the fall.

One of the policemen tried to open the door. It stuck in the jamb. Then he exerted upon it the whole of his brute strength; and, of a sudden, it yielded. As it flew open, the body of a man lurched from the inside of the cab, and before any one could catch it, tumbled in a heap upon the pavement.

A low cry of horror escaped from the crowd.

The cabman's passenger was a man past middle age, neatly but plainly dressed.

As Doctor Thurston and a policeman bent over the prostrate form, the reporter shot a keen glance in the direction of the cabman, who stood staring at the body with a look of ghastly terror in his bulging eyes.

Presently the physician started to his feet with a low exclamation of surprise.

"Is he dead, Doctor?" asked the policeman.

"He has been dead for some time," replied the physician, impressively; "the body is almost cold."

"Been dead for some time?" echoed the policeman.

"Yes; this man was shot. See there!"

As he spoke, he pointed to a red streak which, starting from the left side of the dead man's coat, extended downward and marked the course of the tiny stream in which the life blood had flowed to a little pool on the floor of the cab.

"Shot!" exclaimed the policeman, who turned immediately to one of his brother officers. "Keep your eye on the cabman, Jim. We'll have to take him in. And look out for the other man, quick!"

Then, addressing the cabman, upon each of whose shoulders a policeman's hand was immediately placed, he asked roughly:

"Who is this man?"

The cabman was completely sober now. He stood, pale and trembling, between his two captors, as he replied solemnly:

"Before God, I don't know, boss. I never saw him before."

The policeman looked at the man in blank amazement for an instant. Then he turned away contemptuously:

"All right, young feller," he said, "you don't have to confess to me. But I guess you'll have a chance to tell that story to a judge and jury."

Then he proceeded to examine the dead man's pockets. They were empty.

"Looks like robbery," he murmured. "What is it, Jim? Haven't you got the other man?"

Jim had not found the other man; for the pale young fellow in the sealskin cap had disappeared.

The reporter was stooping over the body, while Doctor Thurston cut through the clothing and laid bare a small round wound.

"Here is another bullet wound," said Sturgis, turning over the body slightly, and pointing out a second round hole in the back of the dead man.

He seemed to take great interest in this discovery. He whipped out a steel tape and rapidly but carefully took a number of measurements, as if to locate the positions of the two wounds. Then he stepped into the cab; and, striking match after match, he spent several minutes apparently in eager search for something which he could not find.

"That is strange," he muttered to himself, as he came out at last.

"What is it?" inquired Thurston, who alone had caught the words.

But the reporter either did not hear or did not care to answer. He at once renewed his search on the brilliantly lighted pavement in the immediate vicinity of the cab; examining every stone, investigating every joint and every rut, prodding with his cane every lump of frozen mud, turning every stray scrap of paper.

"Well, Doctor," he said, when at length he rejoined his companion, "if you have done all that you can we may as well go. It is one of the prettiest problems I have met; but there is nothing more for me to learn here for the present. By the way, as I was saying when I interrupted myself a little while ago; are you sure the cabman is drunk? I wish you would take another good look at him. The question may be more important than it seemed at first."

A few minutes later, the physician and the reporter were hurrying along to make up for the time they had lost; the cab and the cabman had disappeared in the custody of the police, and the cabman's grewsome fare was jolting through Twenty-sixth Street, in the direction of a small building which stands near the East River, and in which the stranded waifs of the new-world metropolis can find rest at last, upon a stone slab, in the beginning of their eternal sleep.

Broadway had resumed its holiday aspect; the wizened hag at the corner still patiently ground out her plaintive discords; the tearful newsboy, with his slowly diminishing armful of newspapers, continued to shiver in the cold wind, as he offered his stock to the hurrying pedestrians; the big policeman again piloted his fair charges through the mass of moving vehicles, and the clanging cable cars started once more on their rumbling course, as if the snapping of a thread in the fabric of the city's life were a thing of constant occurrence and of no moment.

A few tiny dark red stains upon the pavement were all that remained to tell the story of the scene which had so recently been enacted in the busy thoroughfare. Presently even these were obliterated by the random stroke of a horse's hoof.

The ripple had disappeared from the surface. The stream of life was flowing steadily once more through the arteries of the metropolis.

CHAPTER II.

THE WAGER.

"What I mean to assert," said Ralph Sturgis, with quiet conviction, "is that every crime is its own historian; that all its minutest details are written in circumstantial evidence as completely as an eye-witness could see them,—aye, more fully and more truly than they could be described by the criminal himself."

The reporter was a man of about thirty, whose regular features bore the unmistakable stamp of intelligence and refinement. In repose, they wore an habitual expression of introspective concentration, which might have led a careless observer to class Ralph Sturgis in the category of aimless dreamers. But a single flash of the piercing gray eyes generally sufficed to dispel any such impression; and told of keen perception and underlying power. The mouth was firm and kind; the bearing that of a gentleman and a man of education.

"But," objected the host, "you surely do not mean to express a belief in the infallibility of circumstantial evidence?"

"Why not?"

"Because you must know as well as any one how misleading uncorroborated circumstantial evidence is. I do not forget what remarkable results you have often accomplished for the Daily Tempest in detecting and following up clues to which the official detectives were blind. But, frankly, were not your conclusions usually the result of lucky guesses, which would have remained comparatively useless as evidence had they not been subsequently proved correct by direct testimony?"

"Let me reply to your question by another, Sprague," answered Sturgis. "When you draw a check, does the paying teller at the bank require the testimony of witnesses to your signature before admitting its genuineness?"

"No; of course not."

"Precisely. He probably knows the signature of Harvey M. Sprague, the depositor, better than he does the face of Sprague, the artist. And yet the evidence here is purely circumstantial. I know of at least one recent instance in which the officials of a New York bank placed their implicit reliance upon circumstantial evidence of this sort, in spite of the direct testimony of the depositor, who was willing to acknowledge the genuineness of a check to which his name had been forged."

"I suppose you refer to the Forsyth case," said Sprague; "but you must remember that Colonel Forsyth was actuated by the desire to shield the forger, who was his own scapegrace son."

"That is just the point," replied Sturgis; "another witness will be biased by his interests or prejudices, blinded by jealousy, love or hatred, or handicapped by overzealousness, stupidity, lack of memory, or what not. Circumstantial evidence is always impartial, truthful, absolute. When the geologist reads the history of the earth, as it is written in its crust; when a Kepler or a Newton formulates the immutable laws of the universe, as they are recorded in the motions of the heavenly bodies, they draw their conclusions from evidence which is entirely circumstantial."

"Yes; but you forget that science has often been mistaken in its conclusions," interrupted Sprague, "so that it has constantly been necessary to alter theories to fit newly acquired or better understood facts."

"Granted," rejoined Sturgis, "but that is because the interpreters of the evidence are fallible; not because the evidence itself is incomplete. The same cause will always produce the same effect; the same chain of events will invariably terminate in one and the same catastrophe. The apparent deviations from this law are due to unrecognized differences in the producing causes, to additional or missing links in the chain of evidence. Therefore I hold that a criminal, however clever he may be, leaves behind him a complete trace of his every act, from which his crime may be reconstructed with absolute certainty by a competent detective."

"In short, 'Murder will out!'" said a man who had been a silent listener to the conversation up to this point. He spoke with a quiet smile, which barely escaped being a polite sneer.

Sturgis's keen eyes met his interlocutor's as he replied gravely:

"I should hardly care to make so sweeping an affirmation, Doctor Murdock. I have merely stated that the history of every crime is indelibly written in tangible evidence. The writing is on the wall, but of course a blind man cannot see it, nor can an illiterate man understand it. Every event, however trivial, owes its occurrence to a natural cause, and leaves its indelible impress upon nature. The Indian on the trail reads with an experienced eye the story of his enemy's passage, as it has been recorded in trodden turf and broken twigs; while the bloodhound follows, with unerring judgment, a still surer though less tangible trail. The latter's quarry has left behind, at every step, an invisible, imponderable, and yet unmistakable part of itself. Perhaps my meaning can be made clear by an illustration. When a photographer in his dark room takes an exposed plate from his camera, it is apparently a blank; but in reality there is upon this plate the minutely detailed history of an event, which, in proper hands, can be brought before the least competent of observers as irrefutable evidence. Here, the actinic rays of the sunlight are the authors of the evidence; but every natural force, in one way or another, conspires with the detective to run the criminal to earth."

"Unless," suggested Murdock, "the ability happens to be on the side of the quarry; in which case, the conspiracy of Nature's forces turns against the hunter."

"Ah!" retorted the reporter, "the game is not an equal one. The dice are loaded. For while on the one hand, the detective, if he falls into an error, has a lifetime in which to correct it, any misstep on the part of the criminal is fatal. And who is infallible?"

"Not the detective, at any rate," answered Murdock with suave irony. "It has always seemed to me that the halo which has been conferred upon him, chiefly through the efforts of imaginative writers of sensational fiction, is entirely undeserved. In the first place, most of the crimes of which we hear are committed either by men of a low order of intelligence or else by madmen, in which latter category I include all criminals acting under the impulse of any of the passions—hatred, love, jealousy, anger. And then, while the detective takes good care that his successes shall be proclaimed from the house-tops, he is equally careful to smother all accounts, or to suppress every detail, of his failures, whenever there is any possibility of so doing. You can cite, I know, plenty of cases in which, even after the lapse of years, the crime has been discovered and the criminal has been confronted with his guilt, but——"

"In my opinion," piped the shrill voice of an elderly man of clerical aspect, "conscience is the surest detective, after all."

"Conscience!" retorted Murdock calmly; "the word is a euphemism. Man gives the name of conscience to his fear of discovery and punishment. There is no such thing as conscience in the criminal who has absolute confidence in his power to escape detection."

"But where is the man who can have that superb confidence in himself?" asked Sprague.

"His name is probably legion," answered Murdock quickly. "He is the author of every crime whose history remains forever unwritten."

"And are these really so numerous?"

"Let us see how the case stands in one single class of crime—say, for instance, murder. Whenever the solution of a sensational murder mystery is effected by the detectives, or by their allies, the gentlemen of the press, like our friend Mr. Sturgis, we, the gullible public, vociferously applaud the achievements of these guardians of the public safety, and forthwith proceed to award them a niche in the temple of Fame. So far, so good. But what of the dark mysteries which remain forever unsolved? What of the numerous crimes of which no one ever even knows?"

"Oh! come now, Doctor," laughed Sprague, "isn't it rather paradoxical to base your argument on the assumption of crimes of whose very existence you admit you have no knowledge?"

Murdock smiled grimly as he replied:

"Go to the morgue of any large city, where the unrecognized dead are exposed for identification. Aside from the morbid crowd which is drawn to such a place by uncanny curiosity, you will find that each corpse is anxiously scanned by numbers of people, each of whom is seeking a missing friend or relative. At the most, each body can furnish the key to only one mystery. Then what of the scores, ay, the hundreds of others?"

After a short pause, he continued:

"No; murder will not out——at least not when the criminal is what I might call a professional, a man of genius in his vocation, educated, intelligent, dispassionate, scientific. Fortunately for the reputation of the detective, amateur and professional, the genius in the criminal line is necessarily of a modest and retiring disposition. He cannot call the public attention to his ingenuity and skill; he cannot puff his achievements in the daily press. Not only are his masterpieces unsigned, but they remain forever unheard of. The detective is known only by his successes; the criminal's reputation is based solely upon his failures."

Doctor Murdock delivered this parting shot with the cool deliberateness which was characteristic of the man. The insolent irony of his words was emphasized by the calmness of his bearing.

"I say, Doctor," laughed Sprague, "you have missed your vocation. You should have adopted the profession of scientific criminal yourself. You seem to possess the theory of the science as it is, and a little experience would no doubt have made you an adept in the practice as well."

A look of mild amusement passed over Murdock's countenance.

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Sprague. At any rate, I think I may affirm, without overweening conceit, that if I had followed the course you suggest, I could have prepared for your friend Mr. Sturgis some pretty little problems on which to sharpen his wits. I feel that I could have been an artist as well as a scientist in that line."

"You might console yourself by writing an interesting and valuable book, under some such title as 'Hints to the Young Criminal,' or 'Crime as a Fine Art.' At all events, your criminals of genius have a stanch advocate in you. But what on earth have the detectives done to you to call forth this wholesale vituperation?"

"Nothing. But, as a disinterested observer, I like to see fair play. If I am mistaken in my estimate of the modern detective, I am open to conviction. I have five thousand dollars to wager against one hundred that I can pick up any daily paper and from its columns select an unsolved riddle, to which no detective on the face of the earth can give the answer. Have I any taker, gentlemen?"

As he spoke, his eyes met Sturgis's and suddenly seemed to flash with an earnest defiance, which instantly melted into the calm, cynical smile of the man of the world.

"Done," said Sturgis, quietly.

"Very well, Mr. Sturgis," observed Doctor Murdock indifferently. "I shall confine myself to the columns of your own newspaper for the selection of the problem upon which you are to work.

"And," he added, with a supercilious smile, "you are at liberty to fix the limit of time in which the wager must be decided."

"Hear! hear!" exclaimed a young broker. "This is becoming interesting, and promises some sport for those of us who are giddy enough to enjoy staking something on this novel contest. I, for one, am willing to lay reasonable odds on the side of law and order, as represented by the enlightened press, in the person of our clever friend Sturgis. Come, Chadwick, will two to one against the scientific criminal tempt you to champion the cause of that apparently unappreciated individual?"

"Very well, Fred," answered the man addressed; "I'll take you for a hundred."

A few similar bets were laughingly arranged, and a copy of the Evening Tempest was sent for.

CHAPTER III.

DOCTOR MURDOCK'S PROBLEM.

Sprague's stag dinner was virtually over when a servant brought in a copy of the Evening Tempest. The dessert had been removed, the coffee and liqueurs had been served, and the guests had lighted their cigars. The host passed the newspaper to Doctor Murdock, who proceeded to glance leisurely through its columns.

"Ah! this will do," he exclaimed, at last. "Here is something which will, I think, answer our purpose—

"MYSTERIOUS SHOTS IN WALL STREET.

WHO FIRED THEM?

STORY OF A STRAY SATCHEL.

THE POLICE PUZZLED.

"While on his beat, at a quarter past five o'clock this afternoon, Policeman John Flynn, hearing the report of a pistol from the direction of the Knickerbocker bank——"

"The Knickerbocker bank!" interrupted the young broker. "Mr. Dunlap, that interests you. Do your directors indulge in pistol practice at the board meetings?"

"What is that about the Knickerbocker bank?" asked the man to whom this speech was addressed. Having been engaged with his neighbor in an earnest discussion on financial questions, he had not been listening to the general conversation.

Murdock adjusted his eyeglasses, and quietly resumed:

"Policeman John Flynn, hearing the report of a pistol from the direction of the Knickerbocker bank, in Wall Street, started at the top of his speed toward that building. When he was within about twenty yards of the bank another shot rang out, and at the same instant a man darted down the steps and ran toward Broadway."

Richard Dunlap, president of the Knickerbocker bank, was listening attentively enough now. Behind the calm mask of the financier there was the evident anxiety of the bank president. For the stability of a bank, like the honor of a woman, is at the mercy of every passing rumor.

"He carried in his hand a small satchel, which he dropped as soon as he saw that he was pursued. After an exciting chase, Flynn overtook his man, whom he recognized as Michael Quinlan, alias Shorty Duff, a well-known sneak thief. On the way back to the bank the policeman questioned his prisoner about the pistol shots. Quinlan vehemently denied having fired them; but admitted that he had stolen the satchel. His story is that, as he was passing the bank, the outer door was ajar. Seeing the satchel in the vestibule, he entered, crouching low in order to avoid being seen through the inner door, the upper portion of which is of plate glass. Scarcely had he laid his hand upon the satchel when he was startled by the report of a pistol. For a moment he was dazed and undecided how to act. Then, as no one seemed to take any notice of his presence, he was quietly slipping off, when a second shot was fired. Panic-stricken, he took to his heels, only to be captured by Flynn.

"On reaching the bank Flynn found the outer door closed but not fastened. The heavy iron gate between it and the inner door was securely locked, however, so that it was impossible to enter. The Knickerbocker bank has a second entrance on Exchange Place. But this, too, is protected by a massive iron gate, which also was found locked. Flynn rapped for assistance, and the call having been answered by Policemen Kirkpatrick and O'Donnell, he left the former to watch the Exchange Place door, and the latter to guard the entrance on Wall Street, while he took his prisoner to the police station.

"Messengers were at once despatched to the house of Mr. Richard Dunlap, the president of the bank, and to that of Mr. George S. Rutherford, the cashier. The former was not at home, and the family being out of town, there was no one who knew where he was spending the evening."

Every eye turned toward Richard Dunlap as this paragraph was read. His features remained impassive, under the full control of the veteran financier; but to an observant eye like Sturgis's, the man's real anxiety was betrayed by the unconscious action of his right hand, which lay upon the table and played nervously with a fork.

"Yes," said the banker, carelessly, feeling the curious gaze of the other guests upon him, and answering their unspoken questions, "yes, that is true; I did not tell my housekeeper that I was invited to dine by our friend Sprague this evening. There was, of course, no reason why I should. Well, Doctor Murdock, did they find Rutherford?"

Murdock had looked up while the banker was speaking. He now leisurely found his place and continued the reading of the article in the Tempest:

"The cashier fortunately was at home, and he hurried down town at once with his set of the bank keys. Two detectives from the Central Office accompanied him, and the three men carefully searched the premises. They found nothing out of the way there, except that three gas jets were lighted and turned on full blaze. At first the detectives were inclined to think that bank robbers had gained an entrance to the building; and that one of them, having caught sight of Shorty Duff as he reached in to steal the satchel from the vestibule, had fired upon him. This would explain the pistol shots heard by Flynn. A careful examination of the bank, however, failed to reveal any trace of a bullet.

"The valise, when opened, proved to contain only a change of linen for a man and a few toilet articles of but slight intrinsic value. The satchel itself is an ordinary cheap leather handbag, stamped in imitation of alligator skin.

"The police are now looking for its owner in the hope that he will be able to throw some light on the mystery of the pistol shots."

When Doctor Murdock had finished reading, everybody, except Dunlap and Sturgis, looked disappointed. The former settled back in his chair, the muscles of his face relaxed, and the anxious bank president once more became the genial and polished man of the world. The reporter sat gazing thoughtfully at his wineglass.

"Well, Mr. Sturgis," said Murdock, "what do you think of my little problem?"

"I have already been assigned to work up this case for the Tempest," answered the reporter quietly.

"Indeed? Perhaps you are the author of this very article? No? Then are you willing to make the solution of this little mystery the subject of our wager and the test of your theories?"

"Hold on, Doctor," exclaimed Sprague; "you are doing Sturgis an injustice. Why pick out, as a test of his ability, a problem which, to all intents and purposes, has already been solved by the police? Give him some truly knotty question and he will be in his element; and then, at least, some interest will attach to your wager."

"Ah! you think the problem has already been solved?"

"To be sure. The article you have read us started out as if it were going to prove interesting; but, instead of that, it ends in an anti-climax. What is the crime here? The confessed theft, by a petty sneak thief, of a satchel worth, with its contents, perhaps eight or ten dollars. And where is the mystery? The ownership of a few pieces of unmarked linen of so little value that the owner does not care to take the trouble to claim them."

"I cannot agree with you, Mr. Sprague. While the crime in this case may be a petty theft, it contains, to my mind, interesting features, which you appear to lose sight of in your disdainful summary. The problem, it seems to me, involves a suitable explanation of two rather mysterious pistol shots, to say nothing of such minor details as lighted gas jets behind securely locked gates. As Mr. Sturgis has informed us, in his earnest and lucid way, every effect has a cause. I should like to know the cause that lighted the gas in the Knickerbocker bank."

"I shall probably find out that cause the day after to-morrow," said Mr. Dunlap smiling, "and I shall give the fellow a talking to for his carelessness in forgetting to turn out the gas when he locked up."

"Mr. Dunlap's suggestion," continued Murdock, "is plausible in itself, and we might even assume that the same careless employé, after locking up the bank, forgot to close the outer door on the Wall Street side. But even then, we have not disposed of the ownership of the satchel nor of the two pistol shots. The police theory that these shots were fired by bank robbers seems, I admit, very far-fetched. Professional cracksmen would hardly be likely to fire, unless cornered; and then they would fire to kill, or at least to disable. If their bullets failed to hit the mark, they would at any rate leave some trace."

"I beg to suggest," remarked Dunlap, "that the shots heard by the policeman and his prisoner were not fired from the inside of the bank."

"That appears quite likely," admitted Murdock; "but they must at any rate have been fired in close proximity to the bank, since the witnesses agree that they appeared to come from inside. In that case, whence were they fired? By whom? And why? On the whole, my little puzzle does not seem to me so ill chosen. What is your own opinion, Mr. Sturgis?"

"I quite agree with you that the problem is probably not so simple as it seemed at first blush to Sprague."

"Very well. Then doubtless you are willing to undertake the task of supplying whatever data may be required to complete the chain of evidence against Quinlan?"

"By no means," replied Sturgis decidedly.

"Indeed? Ah! well, of course, if Mr. Sturgis wishes to withdraw his bet——"

"I do not wish to withdraw my bet," said Sturgis; "I will agree to solve your problem within thirty days or to forfeit my stakes; but I cannot undertake to prove the truth or falsity of any a priori theory. I have no personal knowledge of the matter as yet, and therefore no theory."

"Quite so," observed Murdock ironically. "I had forgotten your scientific methods. Of course, it may turn out that it was the policeman who stole the satchel from Shorty Duff."

"Perhaps," answered Sturgis, imperturbably.

Murdock smiled.

"Well, gentlemen," said he, "I accept Mr. Sturgis's conditions. If you are willing," he continued, turning to the reporter, "our host will hold the stakes and decide the wager."

"I, for one, agree with Sprague," said Doctor Thurston. "I am disappointed in the problem. I have seen Sturgis unravel some extremely puzzling tangles in my day; and such a case would not be hard to find. Why, no longer ago than this evening, on our way here, we stumbled upon a most peculiar case——eh?——oh!——er——please pass the cognac, Sprague. I wish I had some like it in my cellar; it is worth its weight in gold."

Doctor Thurston had met Sturgis's steady gaze and had understood that, for some reason or other, the reporter did not wish him to relate their adventure of the afternoon.

Only one person appeared to notice the abrupt termination of his story. This was Murdock, who had looked up at the speaker with mild curiosity, and who had also intercepted the reporter's warning glance at his friend. He observed Doctor Thurston narrowly for a full minute, appeared to enjoy his clumsy effort to cover his retreat, and then quietly sipped his coffee.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BANK PRESIDENT.

Sprague's dinner party was over, and among the first to take their leave, shortly after midnight, were Dunlap, Sturgis and Doctor Thurston.

The reporter did not often spend an evening in worldly dissipation. He was a man of action, a hard worker and an enthusiastic student. Almost all of the time which was not actually spent in the pursuit of his profession, was devoted to study in many widely different fields of art and science. For Sturgis's ideal of his profession was high; he held that almost every form of knowledge was essential to success in his line of work. It was seldom, therefore, that he allowed himself to spend a precious evening in social intercourse, unless as a more or less direct means to some end. He had made an exception in favor of Sprague's dinner, and his meeting with Dunlap, whom he had not previously known, had been entirely accidental.

Dunlap was, however, a man whom Sturgis needed to see in the course of his study of the Knickerbocker bank mystery, and he had not lost the opportunity which chance had placed in his way. After obtaining an introduction to the bank president, the reporter had sought an occasion to speak with him in private; and, as this did not present itself during the course of the evening, he had timed his departure so that it should coincide with that of Dunlap. Doctor Thurston had followed his friend's lead.

"Are you going down to the bank this evening, Mr. Dunlap?" asked Sturgis, as the trio faced the bleak wind.

"I? No. Why should I?" inquired the banker in apparent surprise.

"I see no particular reason why you should," replied the reporter. "If to-day were a banking day, there would be no time to lose. But since it is New Year's day, there is little, if any, chance of the trail being disturbed; and it will be much easier to find it in broad daylight than by gaslight. Our friends of the Central Office are usually pretty clever in discovering at least the more evident clues in a case of this sort, even when they have not the ability to correctly interpret them. And since they have completely failed in their search to-night, we must anticipate a more than ordinarily difficult puzzle."

"Why, Mr. Sturgis," said Dunlap somewhat anxiously. "You talk as though you really believed that some mysterious crime has been committed at the bank."

"I do not know enough about the case as yet to advance any positive belief in the matter," said Sturgis; "but if we assume as correct the circumstances related in the article which Doctor Murdock read to us this evening, they certainly present an extraordinary aspect."

Dunlap reflected for an instant.

"Still, the fact that our cashier found everything in good order at the bank is in itself completely reassuring," he said musingly.

"Very likely," assented Sturgis. "It is quite possible that from a banker's point of view the problem is wholly devoid of interest; but from a detective's standpoint it appears to be full of promising features. Therefore, whether or not you intend to look farther into the matter yourself, I beg you will at least authorize me to make a survey of the field by daylight in the morning."

Dunlap looked anything but pleased as the reporter spoke these words. He thought before replying.

"Frankly, Mr. Sturgis," he said at length with studied courtesy, "I will not conceal the fact that what you ask places me in a rather awkward position. You are a friend of my friend Sprague, and my personal intercourse with you this evening has been pleasant enough to make me hope that, in the future, I may be so fortunate as to include you in my own circle of acquaintances. Therefore, on personal grounds, it would give me great pleasure to grant your request. But, on the other hand, you are a journalist and I am a banker; and it is with banks as with nations—happy that which has no history. Capital is proverbially timid, you know."

"I see," said Sturgis; "you fear that the reputation of the Knickerbocker bank may suffer if the mystery of the pistol shots is solved."

"No, no, my dear sir; not at all, not at all. You quite misunderstand me," replied the banker, with just a shade of warmth. "It is not a question of the bank's credit exactly, since there has been neither robbery nor defalcation; but depositors do not like to see the name of their bank mentioned in the newspapers; they take fright at once. Depositors are most unreasonable beings, Mr. Sturgis; they are liable to become panic-stricken on the most insignificant provocation; and then they run amuck like mad sheep. The Knickerbocker bank does not fear any run that might ever be made upon it. Its credit stands on too secure a foundation for that. But nevertheless a run on a bank is expensive, Mr. Sturgis, very expensive."

"The bank's affairs being in so satisfactory a condition," observed the reporter, "it seems to me that whatever harm publicity is likely to do has already been done. The imaginations of your depositors are now at work sapping the foundation of the Knickerbocker bank. If the truth cannot injure its credit, it can only strengthen it; and to withhold the truth under the circumstances, is to invite suspicion."

Dunlap did not appear to like the turn the conversation was taking. He walked along in silence for a few minutes, irresolute. At length he seemed to make up his mind.

"Perhaps you are right after all, Mr. Sturgis. At any rate we have nothing to conceal from the public. If you will be at the bank to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, I shall be pleased to meet you there."

Sturgis nodded his acquiescence.

"Well, gentlemen, here is my street," continued the banker. "Good evening, good evening."

And he was off.

"Whither are you bound now, Thurston?" asked the reporter, as the two friends resumed their walk.

"Home and to bed like a sensible fellow," replied the physician.

"Don't you do anything of the sort. Come along with me to my rooms. I must arrange the data so far collected in the two interesting cases that I have taken up to-day; and in the cab mystery, at least, you can probably be of assistance to me, if you will."

"Very well, old man; lead on. I am curious to know what theories you have adopted in these two cases."

"Theories!" replied Sturgis; "I never adopt theories. I simply ascertain facts and arrange them in their proper sequence, as far as possible. When this arrangement is successfully accomplished, the history of the crime is practically completed. Detection of crime is an exact science. Here, as in all other sciences, the imagination has an important part to play, but that part consists only in co-ordinating and interpreting facts. The solid foundation of facts must invariably come first."

CHAPTER V.

A FOUNDATION OF FACTS.

When the two men were comfortably settled in the reporter's study, Sturgis produced pipes, tobacco and writing materials.

"There now," said he, as he prepared to write, "I shall begin with what I shall call the Cab Mystery. The data in this case are already plentiful and curious. I shall read as I write, and you can interrupt for suggestions and criticisms, as the points occur to you. In the first place, then, the dead man is about fifty years old, and was employed in some commercial house or financial institution, probably as bookkeeper, at a fairly good salary."

"Hold on there, Sturgis," laughed Thurston. "I thought you were going to build up a solid foundation of facts before you allowed your imagination to run riot!"

"Well?" inquired the reporter in apparent surprise.

"Well, the only fact you have mentioned is the approximate age of the dead man. The rest is pure assumption. How can you know anything certain about his occupation and the amount of his salary?"

"True; I forgot you had not followed the steps in the process of induction. Here they are: the dead man's sleeves, on the under side below the elbow, were worn shiny. This shows that his occupation is at a desk of some kind."

"Or behind a counter," suggested Thurston quizzically.

"No. Your hypothesis is untenable. A clerk behind a counter does occasionally, it is true, lean upon his forearms. But incessant contact with the counter leaves across the front of his trousers an unmistakable line of wear, at a level varying according to the height of the individual. This line was not present in the case of the man in the cab. On the other hand, his waistcoat is frayed and worn at the level of the fourth button from the top. Therefore I maintain that he was in the habit of working at a desk. Now the trousers, although not new, are not baggy at the knees, though free from the seams which would suggest the effect of pressing or of a trousers stretcher. Conclusion, the desk is a high one; for the man stood at his work. Most men who work standing at high desks are bookkeepers of one kind or another. Therefore, as I said before, this man was probably a bookkeeper. Now, as to his salary; I do not pretend to know the exact amount of it, of course. But when a man, who was evidently not a dude, has his clothes made to order, of imported material, and when his linen, his hat and his shoes are of good quality, it is fair to infer that the man's income was comfortable.

"I proceed with the arrangement of my data:

"Secondly: the man in the cab died of a wound caused by a bullet fired at very close quarters. Indeed, the weapon must have been held either against the victim's body, or, at any rate, very near to it; for the coat is badly burned by the powder."

"On these points at least," assented Doctor Thurston, "I can agree with you. The bullet probably penetrated the upper lobe of the left lung."

"Yes," added Sturgis, "and it passed out at the back, far below where it went in."

"What makes you think it passed out? The wound in the back may have been caused by another bullet fired from the rear."

"That hypothesis might be tenable, were it not for this."

With these words, the reporter pulled out his watch, opened the case, and with the blade of a penknife took from the surface of the crystal a minute object, which he handed to the physician.

"Look at it," said he, pushing over a magnifying glass.

Doctor Thurston examined the tiny object carefully.

"A splinter of bone," he said at last.

"Yes. I found it on the surface of the wound in the back. How did it get there?"

"You are right," admitted the physician; "it must have come from within, chipped from a rib and carried out by the bullet which entered from the front."

"I think there can be no doubt as to that. Now, the bullet does not seem to have been deflected in its course by its contact with the rib, for, as far as I have been able to judge by probing the two wounds with my pencil, their direction is the same. This is important and brings me to point three, which is illustrated by these diagrams, drawn to scale from the measurements I took this afternoon."

As he said these words, the reporter handed his friend a sheet of paper upon which he had drawn some geometrical figures.

"The first of these diagrams shows the angle which the course of the bullet made with a horizontal plane; the second represents the inclination from right to left. The former of these angles is nearly sixty, and the latter not far from forty-five degrees. The inclination from right to left shows that the shot was fired from the right side of the dead man. Now then, one of two things: Either it was fired by the man himself, the weapon being held in his right hand; or else it was fired by an assassin who stood close to the victim's right side. The first of these hypotheses, considered by itself, is admissible; but it involves the assumption of an extremely awkward and unusual position of the suicide's hand while firing. On the other hand, the dead man is tall—six feet one inch—and to fire down, at an angle of sixty degrees, upon a man of his height, his assailant would have to be a colossus, or else to stand upon a chair or in some other equally elevated position, unless the victim happened to be seated when the shot was fired."

"Happened to be seated!" exclaimed Thurston astounded, "why, of course he was seated, since he was in the cab."

"That brings up point four, which is not the least puzzling of this interesting case," said Sturgis impressively; "the shooting was not done in the cab."

"Not done in the cab!"

"No; otherwise the bullet would have remained in the cushions; and it was not there."

"It might have fallen out into the street at the time of the collision," suggested Thurston.

"No; I searched every inch of the space in which it might have fallen. If it had been there I should have found it, for the spot was brilliantly lighted by an electric light, as you remember."

The physician pondered in silence for a few minutes.

"With all due respect for the accuracy of your observations, and for the rigorous logic of your inductions, Sturgis," he asserted at last with decision, "I am positive that the man died seated, for his limbs stiffened in that position."

"Yes," assented Sturgis, "and, for that matter, I grant you that he breathed his last in the cab; for in his death struggles he clutched in his left hand the curtain of the cab window, a piece of which remained in his dying grasp. I merely said that he was not shot in the cab."

"Then how did he get there?" asked the physician.

"Your question is premature, my dear fellow," replied Sturgis, smiling; "it must remain unanswered for the present. All we have established as yet is that he did get there. And that being the case, he must have been assisted; for, wounded as he was, he could not, I take it, have climbed into the cab by himself."

"Certainly not," agreed Thurston.

"Point five," resumed Sturgis, "the right arm was broken just above the wrist."

"Yes," said the physician, "I thought at first that the arm might have been broken in the collision with the cable car; but the discoloration of the flesh proves conclusively that the fracture occurred before death."

"Precisely. Now, it is possible that the man broke his arm when he fell, after being shot; but the contused wound looks to me as if it had been made by a severe blow with some blunt instrument."

"Possibly," admitted Thurston.

"This broken arm, if we can place it in its proper chronological position, may prove to be of some importance in the chain of evidence," mused Sturgis. "If the fracture occurred before the man was shot, that, of course, excludes the possibility of suicide; but, on the other hand, it also brings in an obstacle to the hypothesis of murder."

"How so?"

"Because we have settled, you will remember, that the shot was fired from the right of the victim, and close to him. Now, if he did not fire the shot himself, the person who did must have reached over his right arm to do so. In that case, unless the victim was asleep or stupefied, would he not instinctively have raised his arm in self-defence, and thus deflected the weapon upward?"

"Evidently."

"Well, it is idle to speculate on this line for the present. Let us come to point six. You remember I called your particular attention to the cabman. Do you still think he was only drunk?"

"No," replied Thurston; "while he had unquestionably been drinking heavily, he also showed symptoms of narcotic poisoning."

"Then the presumption is that he had been drugged by those who wished to place the wounded man in his cab. I observed him closely and I am satisfied that he knows as little about his dead passenger as we do. He probably knows less about him, at all events, than the young man in the sealskin cap who gave the police the slip during the excitement which followed the overturning of the cab."

Sturgis paused a moment.

"This, I think," he continued, "covers all the evidence we have thus far collected in the Cab Mystery. It is quite satisfactory, as far as it goes, for it is circumstantial evidence, and, therefore, absolutely truthful. In the Knickerbocker Bank Mystery, we have as yet no satisfactory data whatever; for everything we have heard concerning it has its origin in the fallible evidence of witnesses, and has, moreover, reached us third or fourth hand. There is, however, one fact that may, or may not, prove to be important. Have you noticed that these two mysteries are contemporaneous, and, therefore, that they may be related?"

"Do you think there is any connection between the two?" inquired Thurston, interested.

"I do not allow myself to think about it at all as yet," replied Sturgis; "I simply note the fact, that, so far as time is concerned, the Cab Mystery could be the sequel to the Knickerbocker Bank Mystery—that is all. Facts, my dear boy, are like words. A word is only an assemblage of meaningless letters until it becomes pregnant with sense by context. So, a fact, which, standing by itself, has no meaning, may, when correlated with other facts, become fraught with deep significance."

"And now," he continued, after a pause, "I think our work is concluded for the present. I shall be able to lay it aside for the night. Let me offer you a glass of sherry. Pleasant evening we spent at Sprague's to-night. I have a great admiration for him as an artist, and a great fondness for him as a man. Most of his friends are strangers to me, though. You know I have very little time to indulge in social dissipation. By the way, who is that Doctor Murdock with whom I have made this bet?"

"Oh! he is a physician, though now retired from practice. He devotes himself entirely to scientific research, especially in the domain of chemistry. He has made some important discoveries in organic chemistry, and they say he has succeeded in proving some of the supposed elementary metals to be compounds. He has quite an enviable reputation in the scientific world. I understand he is a remarkable man."

"That is evident at a glance. He showed himself this evening to be a clear thinker and a brilliant speaker. I should say he was something of a genius, and I should judge, moreover, that he was a man of magnificent nerve, capable of the most heroic actions, or——"

Sturgis hesitated.

"Or——?" asked Thurston.

"Or of the most infamous cruelty and crime. It all depends upon whether or not his great mental attributes are under the control of a heart; a point upon which I am somewhat in doubt."

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARTIST.

Sprague was a dilettante in art as he was in life. If he had not been rich, he might perhaps have become a great artist. But, lacking the spur of poverty, he seemed incapable of sustained effort. Occasionally he was seized with a frenzy for labor; and, for weeks at a time, he would shut himself up in his studio, until he had creditably accomplished some bit of work. But the fever was soon spent, and a reaction invariably followed, during which palette and brush were taken up only in desultory fashion. Thus it was that at the age of eight and twenty, Sprague had painted a few pictures which had attracted favorable attention at the annual exhibitions of the Academy of Design, and which the critics had spoken of as "promising"; and thus it was that the promise was as yet unfulfilled, and that Sprague, though a man of undoubted talent, was not likely ever to rank as a genius in his profession.

Sturgis, with his keen insight into human nature, fully realized the potential capacities of the artist, and at times he could not control his impatience at his friend's inert drifting through life. But, with all their differences, these two men held each other in the highest esteem, each admiring in the other those very qualities which were lacking in himself.

The artist lived in a fashionable quarter of the city, in a bachelor apartment which included a large and commodious studio fitted up according to the latest canons of artistic taste.

On this particular New Year's morning, after waking and observing, by the filtering of a few bright sunbeams through the closely drawn blinds, that it was broad daylight, he stretched himself with a voluptuous yawn and prepared to relapse into the sensuous enjoyment of that semi-somnolent state which succeeds a night of calm and refreshing sleep.

Just as he was settling himself comfortably, however, he was startled by a knock at the bedroom door. Most men, under the circumstances, would have betrayed some vexation at being thus unceremoniously disturbed. But there was no suspicion of annoyance in Sprague's cheery voice, as he exclaimed:

"You cannot come in yet, Mrs. O'Meagher. I am asleep, and I shall be asleep for another hour at the least. Surely you cannot have forgotten that to-day is a holiday. Happy New Year! You have time to go to several masses before——"

"Get up, old lazybones; and don't keep a man waiting at your door in this inhospitable way, when he is in a hurry," interrupted a voice whose timbre was not that of the housekeeper, Mrs. O'Meagher.

"Oh! is that you, Sturgis?" laughed the artist. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself to come routing honest men out of bed at this unseemly hour? Wait a minute, till I put on my court costume, that I may receive you with the honors and ceremonies due to your rank and station."

A couple of minutes later, the artist, picturesquely attired in a loose oriental dressing gown and fez, opened the door to his friend, Ralph Sturgis.

"Come in, old man," he said, cordially extending his hand to the reporter; "you are welcome at any hour of the day or night. What is it now? This is not your digestion call, I presume."

"No," replied Sturgis, "I merely dropped in to say that I should be unable to take our projected bicycle trip this afternoon, I shall probably be busy with the Knickerbocker bank case all day. By the way, if you would like to come to the bank with me, I shall be glad of your company. I am on my way there now."

"I should like nothing better," said Sprague, "but I have made an appointment for this morning with a——er——er——with a sitter."

"What, on New Year's day, you heathen!"

Sturgis observed the artist closely, and then added quizzically:

"Accept my congratulations, old man."

"Your congratulations?" inquired Sprague, coloring slightly.

"Yes; my congratulations and my condolence. My congratulations on the fact that she is young and beautiful, and possessed of all those qualities of mind and heart which——and so on and so forth. My condolence because I fear you are hit, at last."

"What do you mean?" stammered the artist sheepishly; "do you know her? What do you know about her?"

"Nothing whatever," replied Sturgis laughing, "except what you are telling me by your hesitations, your reticence and your confusion."

The artist spoke after a moment of thoughtful silence:

"Your inductions in this case are premature, to say the least. My sitter is a young lady, so much is undeniably true. And there is no doubt in my mind as to her possession of all the qualities you jocularly attribute to her; but my interest in her is only that of the artist in a beautiful and charming woman.

"At any rate," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "I hope so; for I have heard that she is as good as betrothed to another man."

The reporter's keen ear detected in his friend's tones a touch of genuine sadness of which the artist himself was probably unconscious. Laying his hand gently upon Sprague's shoulder, he said gravely:

"I hope so too, old man; for you are one of those foolish men whose lives can be ruined by an unhappy love affair. I suppose it is useless to preach to you;—more's the pity—but, in my humble opinion, no woman's love is worth the sacrifice of a good man's life."

"Yes, I know your opinion on that subject, you old cynic," replied Sprague, "but you need not worry on my account; not yet, at all events. I am still safe; the portrait is almost finished; and I should be a fool to walk into such a scrape with my eyes wide open."

"Humph!" ejaculated Sturgis skeptically, "when a man makes a fool of himself for a woman, it matters little whether his eyes be open or shut; the result is the same."

Sprague laughed somewhat uneasily; and then, as if to change the subject:

"Come and see the picture," he said. "I should like your opinion of it."

The reporter consulted his watch.

"I shall have to come back some other time for that," he replied; "I must hurry off now to keep my appointment with Mr. Dunlap."

He started toward the door; but suddenly facing Sprague again, he held out his hand to the artist, who pressed it cordially.

"Good-bye, old man," he said affectionately; "be as sensible as you can, and don't wantonly play with the fire."

And before Sprague could frame an answer, the reporter was gone.

The artist remained thoughtfully standing until his friend's footsteps had died away in the distance. Then he turned and walked slowly into the studio. Here, in the middle of the room, stood an easel, upon which was the portrait of a beautiful young girl.

Sprague gazed at it long and earnestly. Then he heaved an almost inaudible sigh.

"Sturgis is right," he said to himself, turning away at last, "and——and I am a confounded idiot!"

CHAPTER VII.

AGNES MURDOCK.

In a quarter of the city which is rapidly surrendering to the relentless encroachments of trade, there still stand a few old-fashioned houses, the sole survivors of what was once an aristocratic settlement.