Louis Tracy - The Bartlett Mystery

“Oh, no. Didn’t mean that, of course.”

The detective thought he might do more harm than good by pressing for a definition of the firm’s annoyance. He turned to Winifred.

“Are you ready, Miss Bartlett?” he said. “The only reason the Bureau has for troubling you is the accident of your address.”

Almost before the girl realized the new and astounding conditions which had come into her life she was seated in a closed automobile and speeding swiftly down-town.

She was feminine enough, however, to ply Clancy with questions, and he had to fence with her, as it was all-important that such information as she might be able to give should be imparted when he and Steingall could observe her closely. The Bureau hugged no delusions. Its vast experience of the criminal world rendered misplaced sympathy with erring mortals almost impossible. Young or old, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, the strange procession which passes in unending review before the police authorities is subjected to impartial yet searching analysis. Few of the guilty ones escape suspicion, no matter how slight the connecting clue or scanty the evidence. On the other hand, Steingall and his trusty aid seldom made a mistake when they decided, as Clancy had already done in Winifred’s case, that real innocence had come under the shadow of crime.

Steingall shared Clancy’s opinion the instant he set eyes on the new witness. He gazed at her with a humorous dismay that was wholly genuine.

“Sit there, Miss Bartlett,” he said, rising to place a chair for her. “Please don’t feel nervous. I am sure you understand that only those who have broken the law need fear it. Now, you haven’t killed anybody, have you?”

Winifred smiled. She liked this big man’s kindly manner. Really, the police were not such terrifying ogres when you came to close quarters with them.

“No, indeed,” she said, little guessing that Clancy had indulged in a Japanese grimace behind her back, thereby informing his chief that “The Yacht Mystery” was still maintaining its claim to figure as one of the most sensational crimes the Bureau had investigated during many a year.

Steingall, wishing to put the girl wholly at ease, affected to consult some notes on his desk, but Winifred was too wrought up to keep silent.

“The gentleman who brought me here told me that I would be required to give evidence concerning the murder of Mr. Ronald Tower,” she said. “Believe me, sir, that unfortunate gentleman’s name was unknown to me before I read it in this morning’s paper. I have no knowledge of the manner of his death other than is contained in the account printed here in this newspaper.”

She proffered the newspaper purchased before lunch, which she still held in her left hand. The impulsive action broadened Steingall’s smile. He was still utterly at a loss to account for this well-mannered girl’s queer environment.

“Why,” he cried, “I quite understand that. Mr. Clancy didn’t tell you we regarded you as a desperate crook, did he?”

Winifred yielded to the chief’s obvious desire to lift their talk out of the rut of formality. She could not help being interested in these two men, so dissimilar in their characteristics, yet each so utterly unlike the somewhat awesome personage she would have sketched if asked to define her idea of a “detective.” Clancy, who had taken a chair at the side of the table, sat on it as though he were an automaton built of steel springs and ready to bounce instantly in any given direction. Steingall’s huge bulk lolled back indolently. He had been smoking when the others entered, and a half-consumed cigar lay on an ash-tray. Winifred thought it would be rather amusing if she, in turn, made things comfortable.

“Please don’t put away your cigar on my account,” she said. “I like the smell of good tobacco.”

“Ha!” cackled Clancy.

“Thank you,” said Steingall, tucking the Havana into a corner of his mouth. The two men exchanged glances, and Winifred smiled. Steingall’s look of tolerant contempt at his assistant was distinctly amusing.

“That little shrimp can’t smoke, Miss Bartlett,” he explained, “so he is an anti-tobacco maniac.”

“You wouldn’t care to take poison, would you?” and Clancy shot the words at Winifred so sharply that she was almost startled.

“No. Of course not,” she agreed.

“Yet that is what that mountain of brawn does during fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. Nicotine is one of the deadliest poisons known to science. Even when absorbed into the tissues in minute doses it corrodes the brain and atrophies the intellect. Did you see how he grinned when you described that vile weed as ‘good tobacco’? Now, you don’t know good, meaning real, tobacco from bad, do you?”

“I know whether or not I like the scent of it,” persisted Winifred. She began to think that officialdom in Mulberry Street affected the methods of the court circles frequented by Alice and the Mad Hatter.

“Don’t mind him,” put in Steingall genially. “He’s a living example of the close alliance between insanity and genius. On the tobacco question he’s simply cracked, and that is all there is to it. Now we’re wasting your time by this chatter. I’ll come to serious business by asking a question which you will not find embarrassing for a good many years yet to come. How old are you?”

“Nineteen last birthday.”

“When were you born?”

“On June 6, 1894.”

“And where?”

Winifred reddened slightly.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What?”

Steingall seemed to be immensely surprised, and Winifred proceeded forthwith to throw light on this singular admission, which was exactly what he meant her to do.

“That is a very odd statement, but it is quite true,” she said earnestly. “My aunt would never tell me where I was born. I believe it was somewhere in the New England States, but I have only the vaguest grounds for the opinion. What I mean is that aunty occasionally reveals a close familiarity with Boston and Vermont.”

“What is her full name?”

“Rachel Craik.”

“She has never been married?”

Winifred’s sense of humor was keen. She laughed at the idea of “Aunt Rachel” having a husband.

“I don’t think aunty will ever marry anybody now,” she said. “She holds the opposite sex in detestation. No man is ever admitted to our house.”

“It is a small, old-fashioned residence, but very large for the requirements of two women?” continued Steingall. He took no notes, and might have been discussing the weather, now that the first whiff of wonderment as to Winifred’s lack of information about her birth-place had passed.

“Yes. We have several rooms unoccupied.”

“And unfurnished?”

“Say partly furnished.”

“Ever had any boarders?”

“No.”

“No servants, of course?”

“No.”

“And how long have you been employed in Messrs. Brown, Son & Brown’s bookbinding department?”

“About six months.”

“What do you earn?”

“Eight dollars a week.”

“Is that the average amount paid to the other girls?”

“Slightly above the average. I am supposed to be quick and accurate.”

“Well now, Miss Bartlett, you seem to be a very intelligent and well-educated young woman. How comes it that you are employed in such work?”

“It was the best I could find,” she volunteered.

“No doubt. But you must be well aware that few, if any, among the girls in the bookbinding business can be your equal in education, and, may I add, in refinement. Now, if you were a bookkeeper, a cashier or a typist, I could understand it; but it does seem odd to me that you should be engaged in this kind of job.”