A WONDERFUL DETECTIVE STORY
The Fatal Chord,
or the Baffling Mystery of the Carnegie Hall Murder.
By Albert Payson Terhune.
To Be Completed in Twelve Dally Instalments.
SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS
Cyril Ballard, a young New Yorker, is killed during a musicale at Paul Craddock’s apartments in Carnegie Hall. Several apparently supernatural events attend his death. Poison tablets, also, are found in his pocket, but the autopsy reveals no trace of poison in his system. As Gresham and Beckwith, two detectives, are discussing the affair, they are joined by a tall, thin Englishman, whom Beckwith introduces to Gresham as the “ideal detective.” To which Gresham replies: “Do you mean to tell me this is SHERLOCK HOLMES?”
This other makes an evasive reply and tells Gresham that the latter may refer to him merely as “The Englishman.” The Englishman undertakes to solve the Ballard mystery.
The Englishman's suspicions fall on Royce Ballard, brother of the murdered man, owing to an overheard conversation between Royce an Bona Pittani, an Italian girl.
CHAPTER IV.
On the Trail.
For a full minute Royce Ballard sat as though paralyzed by the news he had just heard.
When he spoke it was in so low a tone that the unseen listener could not catch the words.
But a few moments later his voice rose somewhat.
“Don’t you suppose I’ve thought of that?” he was saying. “I knew that any ne who suspected might try to search my rooms for it when I was absent. I carry it with me all the time. There’s no evidence that will let them arrest me and search my clothes. But any third-rate detective – yes, or any woman with a grudge against me, for that matter - might gain access to my rooms in my absence and find it. That’s where I was wise.”
“You say no one had evidence against you that could warrant your arrest? How about me?”
“I didn’t know till tonight that you had any knowledge of the” –
“You know it now. My dear Royce, with me for an enemy you are lost. With me for an ally you are safe and a millionaire. The price of my alliance is a plain gold ring. A wife can not testify against” –
“You have conquered,” he growled, sullenly. “I’ll marry you. But,” with a snarl of irrepressible rage, “I’ll lead you a dog’s life. I’ll make you curse the day you forced me into this hateful union. I” –
“I’ll take my chances on that, Royce. The woman who can make you cringe before her and agree to marry her can take pretty good care of herself afterward. They’re applauding. I’m really sorry to have missed Herr von Rickerl’s music, but the talk we’ve just had is worth it. Shall we join the crowd that arc congratulating him? Eh?”
Bona had stepped through the half drawn portieres, but shrank back with a little gasp.
“What’s the matter?” asked Royce uneasily.
“Why, a man’s leaning against the wall right by the edge of the bay window, within two yards of us! How much do you suppose he heard? I thought every one was across the room nearer the piano.
Royce lifted a corner of the portiere in the direction she indicated and took a long look at the man. Then he dropped the curtain with a sigh of relief.
“It’s only that stupid Englishman, Dr. Joseph Watts, Beckwith’s friend,” he said contemptuously’. He’s leaning there with his eyes shut and his mouth open and his silly head nodding. Music’s charms seem to have ‘soothed his savage breast’ to slumber.
Even if he’d been awake he hasn’t enough sense to understand us.”
“Can he have been listening while he pretended to be asleep?”
“If he was, he’d have moved away the second we discovered he was there. No, Watts is ‘a negligible quantity.’ ”
“You’re sure? He gave me a scare. Who is he anyway?”
“An Englishman who scraped acquaintance with Beckwith on the other side. Beckwith seems to think he owes him something for he takes him everywhere, even in his researches into the cause of Cyril’s death.”
“Is Mr. Beckwith on that case?”
“Yes. He is always meddling in other people’s affairs. To Justify his idiotic nickname of ‘The Millionaire Detective,’ I suppose. There’s nothing to fear from him. No more than from this stupid Watts fellow.”
The “stupid Watts fellow” meanwhile gradually awoke from his doze and strolled over to where Von Rickerl stood by the piano. While seemingly deeply absorbed in the musical discussion going on there, he did not fail to note that Bora Pittani and Royce had emerged from the bay window and had joined the other guests. Taking an envelope from his pocket, The Englishman quietly tore off the superscription and, stepping near to Royce, let the envelope fall to the floor.
“Excuse me, Mr. Ballard,” he said, stooping to pick it up, “but I think you have dropped something.”
Royce made an involuntary upward movement of the right hand toward his own breast pocket; then, seeing that what The Englishman had picked up was merely a torn envelope, he glanced carelessly at it and said:
“No. It isn’t mine.”
“Good!” murmured The Englishman to himself. This ‘something’ that he ‘carries with him all the time’ for fear of its being discovered is in the left breast pocket of his coat or his waistcoat. But how to get at it? And what is it? Whatever it is it has bearing on his brother’s murder. If I were back in London there are a dozen of my assistants who could help me get possession of it. As it is “this stupid Watts fellow” may possibly outwit the clever Mr. Royce Ballard after all.”
For some time past The Englishman had been quietly but intensely busy. Introduced by Beckwith as an English friend who was interested in watching American methods of detective work, he had accompanied the Millionaire Detective on the latter’s investigation of the Ballard case; had examined carefully the body, and, as far as Craddock would permit, the surroundings in the latter’s apartment at Carnegie Hall, where the crime had been committed. Here, however, he had encountered an unexpected and irritable obstacle.
Craddock had calmly refused to have “a gang of thief-takers prowling about his rooms,” as he termed it. Any reasonable investigation, he said, he would permit with pleasure. But he saw no reason why measurements, microscopic examinations, &c., should be made. The law did not demand them and he refused to permit such intrusions.
The Englishman, by admitting that he was a detective, might, of course, have obtained the necessary permission from the authorities. But he did not choose to jeopardize his future success on the case by throwing off the incognito of “Dr. Joseph Watts” unnecessarily. He knew that dozens of persons had tramped about Craddock’s rooms since Ballard had fallen dead there, and that their careless footprints had doubtless blotted out all significant traces of the crime’s origin and originator.
Moreover, them seemed, in view of such probable obliteration, no absolute necessity for such a search. Yet The Englishman was resolved at the first good opportunity to make it. Though realizing that each passing day made the chance of a “find” there more and more unlikely, he was determined to make, some time, such a thorough microscopic investigation of the apartment as his soul craved.
With this object in view he had sedulously cultivated Craddock’s acquaintance. To most of the people who had met him through Beckwith The Englishman seemed uninteresting, self-absorbed and somewhat stupid. Craddock, however, who saw far deeper Into human nature than did those about him, read “Dr. Watts” differently. He saw the tremendous energy, the keen, analytical mind beneath the diffident exterior, and he felt an unwonted attraction toward the famous sleuth. He and The Englishman were much together.
The great detective, on his part, was keenly interested in Craddock. Here was a man who, with all his great powers of deduction, The Englishman could not make out. Subtle, brilliant, honorable, contemptuous of his fellow men, secure in the knowledge of his own [word missing]. Thus he had sized up Craddock’s complicated character.
Thus indeed, he described him to Beckwith as the two detectives walked homeward down Fifth avenue late that night.
“He’s the sort of man who stands head and shoulders above the average,” answered Beckwith. “In times of panic or trouble the rest flock to him like frightened children to a father. He has good nerves too, to sleep in that place after the awful tragedy that happened there. Especially after the seemingly superhuman events that accompanied it. By the way, have you formed any theory to account for that instant of utter darkness and the crashing out of that one loud chord from the piano?”
“Not yet,” answered The Englishman, “but if I were not hot on another trail I should have formed a theory to account for that and for certain conditions I noted about Ballard’s body and which the police and the doctors alike seem to have overlooked. But that theory was so wild so utterly improbable - and besides, I had no chance to verify it by proper examination of the room, and” –
“Would you mind telling me the nature of this ‘wild theory’ you at first formed?”
“No - yes, on second thoughts, I’d rather not, until the affair is solved. Then I’ll tell you of any of my false clues that may interest you. In the mean time, the probabilities are in favor of our fixing the crime on our friend Royce Ballard, as you expected.”
Briefly he recounted the events of the evening.
“This Pittani girl,” he finished, “has some strong hold over Ballard. As I take it, she - and she alone - has proof that he killed his brother. The secret of that crime he carries in his breast - not figuratively - but in his breast pocket. I found that out to-night. My next move is to search Royce Ballard and find what this secret is. It may be the chemical formula for the poison. It may be some of the poison itself. It may be some incriminating document. In any case” –
“But the analysis failed to show any marks of poison in the body, and those mysterious brown tablets, when analyzed, contained no known poison.”
“None known to local chemists, you mean. I have sent to my laboratory in London for certain tests of my own invention which I mean to apply to those tablets. The tests should be here in a few days. I flatter myself that they will lay bare the most subtle poison. When I find the nature of the poison I will also know its effects. Then it will be an easy matter to have the body exhumed and see if our suspicions are correct. But a surer and far simpler course will be to obtain the paper or whatever it is that Royce Ballard says he carries night and day. And that is what I am going to get.”
“But how?”
“Gresham, can get me a blank warrant, and I fancy I can make up sufficiently well as a detective to” –
“You mean you’d arrest him on some trumped-up, fake charge and go through his clothes?”
“No, no! I wouldn’t go through his clothes. They’d do that at the nearest station-house to which I brought him. I’d examine the papers, find I had the wrong man and let him go. That’s all!”
“But it’s Illegal. It’s” –
“When you’re dealing with a criminal you must meet him on his own ground if you hope to win. To-morrow I shall get the warrant and put my little plan into execution. May I count on your help?”
“If any other man asked it I’d say ‘no.’ But you can count on me in everything. I’m with you; though it will involve queer work before we’re done.
(To Be Continued.)
The Evening World, 7 April 1904
