Rodrigues Ottolengui - An Artist in Crime

Mr. Barnes had immediately after his arrival obtained the requisition papers for which he had telegraphed, and which he found awaiting him. With these he had returned to Boston the same day, and obtaining his prisoner succeeded in catching the midnight train once more, arriving in New York with the loss of but a single day from the new case which so absorbed all his interest.

Thus the morning after that on which the jewel robbery had been discovered he entered his offices quite early, having delivered his prisoner at police head-quarters.

When he read Wilson's letter, the only sign which he gave of dissatisfaction was a nervous pull at one corner of his moustache. He read the paper through three times, then tore it carefully into tiny pieces, doing it so accurately that they were all nearly of the same size and shape. Any one who should attempt to piece together a note which Mr. Barnes had thus destroyed, would have a task. Standing by the window he tossed them high in the air and saw them scattered by the wind.

At half past eight o'clock he stood before the apartment-house in East Thirtieth Street. The janitor was sweeping from the pavement a light snow which had fallen in the early hours of the morning.

Mr. Barnes without speaking to the man walked into the vestibule and scanned the names over the letter-boxes. None of them contained the one which he sought, but there was no card in No. 5. Recalling that in Wilson's report a light had disappeared from a window on the fifth floor, he knew that it could not be unoccupied. To get in, he resorted to a trick often practised by sneak thieves. He rang the bell of No. 1, and when the door silently swung open he walked in, apologizing to the servant on the first landing for having "rung the wrong bell," and proceeded up to the fifth floor. Here he rang the bell of the private hall belonging to that special apartment. He could have rung the lower bell of this apartment at the outset, but he wished to make it impossible for anyone to leave after his signal announced visitors. He stood several minutes and heard no sound from within. A second pull at the bell produced no better results. Taking a firm hold of the door-knob, he slowly turned it, making not the slightest noise. To his surprise the door yielded when he pressed, and in a moment he had passed in and closed it behind him. His first idea was, that after all he had entered an empty apartment, but a glance into the room at the farther end of the hall, showed him that it was a furnished parlor. He hesitated a moment, then walked stealthily towards that room and looking in saw no one. He tip-toed back to the hall-door, turned the key, took it from the lock and dropped it into his pocket. Again he passed forward to the parlor, this time entering it. It was elegantly and tastily furnished. The windows opened on the street. Between them stood a cabinet writing-desk, open, as though recently used. Beside it was an enamel piano-lamp, possibly the same which had furnished the light which Wilson had suddenly missed several hours before. Opposite the windows a pair of folding glass doors communicated with an apartment beyond. These were closed. Peeping through a part of the pattern cut in the glass, Mr. Barnes could just distinguish the form of a woman in bed, her long hair hanging down from the pillow. This sight made him uncertain as to the next move. This was possibly Mrs. Rose Mitchel, as she had announced herself. She was asleep, and he had entered her apartment without any warrant for doing so. True he looked upon her with some suspicion, but the most innocent frequently suffer in this way, and without better reason than he had, he knew that he could not account legally for what he was doing. As he stood by the glass doors cogitating, he chanced to look down. Instantly his eye was attracted by that which made him shiver, as accustomed as he was to strange sights. It was a tiny red stream, which had managed to pass under the door and had then run along the edge of the carpet for the space of a few inches. Instantly he stooped, dipped his finger into it, and then ejaculated under his breath:

"Blood, and clotted."

Standing upright, he once more peered into the room. The figure in bed had not moved. Without further hesitation he slowly slid the doors apart. One glance within, and murmuring the single word "Murder," Mr. Barnes was no longer slow in his actions. Stepping across a big pool of blood which stained the carpet, he stood at the side of the bed. He recognized the features of the woman who had claimed that she had been robbed of her diamonds. She seemed sleeping, save that there was an expression of pain on the features, a contraction of the skin between the eyebrows, and one corner of the mouth drawn aside, the whole kept in this position by the rigidity of death. The manner of her death was as simple as it was cruel. Her throat had been cut as she slept. This seemed indicated by the fact that she was clad in her night-dress. One thing that puzzled Mr. Barnes at once, was the pool of blood near the door. It was fully six feet from the head of the bed, and whilst there was another just by the bedstead, formed by blood which had trickled from the wound, running down the sheets and so dropping to the floor, the two pools did not communicate.

"Well," thought Mr. Barnes, "I am first on the scene this time, and no busybodies shall tumble things about till I have studied their significance."

This room had not been designed for a sleeping apartment but rather as a dining-room, which, upon occasion, could be opened into the parlor, converting the two into one. There was one window upon an air-shaft, and in an angle was a handsome carved oak mantel with fireplace below. Mr. Barnes raised the curtain over the window, letting in more light. Looking around he noticed almost immediately two things: first, that a basin stood on a washstand half filled with water, the color of which plainly indicated that the murderer had washed off tell-tale marks before taking his departure. Second, that in the fireplace was a pile of ashes.

"The scoundrel has burned evidence against him, and deliberately washed the blood from his person before going away. Let me see, what was it that Mitchel said: 'I should have stopped to wash the stain from the carpet whilst fresh, and also from the dog's mouth.' That is what he told his friend he would do if bitten whilst committing a crime. In this instance the 'stain on the carpet' was too much for him, but he washed it from himself. Can it be that a man lives who, contemplating a deed of this character, would make a wager that he would not be detected. Bah. It is impossible." Thus thought Mr. Barnes as he studied the evidence before him. He next turned to the woman's clothing which lay on a chair. He rummaged through the pocket, but found nothing. In handling the petticoat he noticed that a piece had been cut from the band. Examining the other garments he soon saw that the same had been done to them all. Like a flash an idea struck him. Going over to the bed he searched for some mark on the garments which were on the corpse. He could find none until he lifted the body up and turned it over, when he found that a piece had been cut from the night-dress.

"That accounts for the blood by the door," thought Mr. Barnes. "He took her out of the bed to get her nearer to the light, so that he could find the initials marked on the clothing. Whilst she lay by the door the blood flowed and accumulated. Then he put her back in bed so that he would not need to step over her in walking about the room. What a calculating villain. There is one significant fact here. Her name cannot have been Rose Mitchel, or there would have been no reason for destroying these marks, since she had given that name to several."

Mr. Barnes next brushed the charred ashes from the grate upon a newspaper, and carried them to the window in the front room. His examination satisfied him of two things; the murderer had burned the bits of cloth cut from the various garments, and also a number of letters. That the fellow was studiously careful was plain from the fact that the burning had been thoroughly done; nothing had escaped the flame save two buttons with a bit of cloth attached, and various corners of envelopes. With disgust Mr. Barnes threw the ashes back where he had found them.