CHAPTER III.
THE WOMAN WHO FAINTED.
The incidents depicted had transpired quickly. Only about half an hour had passed since the extraordinary crime was discovered, assuming it to have been a crime, rather than the irresponsible act of a man mentally unbalanced, as Detective Webber suspected.
Nick Carter did not have any faith in that theory, however, though he deferred forming any definite theory of his own until he had looked a little deeper into the circumstances. The startling news had spread through the house by that time, as appeared in the numerous guests who had gathered in the corridors, engaged in earnest discussions of the case, and observed by the detective while the elevator sped up to the fourth floor.
Nick was promptly admitted to the magnificent suite occupied by Mademoiselle Falloni and her two maids, and the scene in her apartments was about what he was expecting.
He found Mademoiselle Falloni completely prostrated by her loss. She was lying faint and pale on a luxurious couch in the parlor, in the care of her maids and a physician living in the house.
Madame Escobar, who had been called into the suite, was nearly as deeply distressed, but she had greater command of her feelings. She was in tears in an armchair.
Mr. Clayton, whom Nick had not seen since their dinner of a week before, now appeared to have gained his composure, and evidently was remaining there to do what he could to calm and encourage the two celebrated vocalists, both of whom had been guests of the hotel during the previous month of the opera season.
The only other person present was a stately, graceful girl in the twenties, as beautiful as the ideal of an old master. She was very pale, however, with such manifest anxiety for Clayton that Nick immediately identified her as Clara Langham, the young lady to whom he was engaged.
“Ah, here is Mr. Carter, now,” cried Clayton, hastening to greet the detective. “We have been waiting for you, Nick. I have been trying to calm the ladies, and have succeeded only by predicting the speedy recovery of their jewels through your prompt work in this terrible case. Let me introduce you and tell you about it, that no time may be lost.”
“I already am informed of most of the known circumstances,” Nick replied, shaking hands with him. “Detective Webber and Mr. Vernon have told me. Time, as you say, may be of value.”
Clayton hastened to introduce the three ladies. The two victims of the crime brightened up perceptibly upon seeing the famous detective, though still with irrepressible sobs Mademoiselle Falloni begged him to restore her lost treasures, which Nick assured her that he would leave no stone unturned to do.
Miss Langham greeted him more calmly, saying, with girlish earnestness, nevertheless:
“I heard of the dreadful circumstances and that Chester was here, so I came to comfort him. Oh, please, Mr. Carter, don’t think for a moment that he is guilty of anything wrong. He is incapable of it. This is the outcome, I am sure of that terrible experience of three months ago, of which he has told you.”
“I think so, too, Miss Langham,” Nick replied.
“I am so glad to hear you say so. I felt sure of it the moment I heard of the terrible crime.”
“I will do all that is possible, Miss Langham, I assure you.”
Clayton then introduced the physician.
“Doctor David Guelpa,” said he. “Shake hands with Mr. Carter, doctor. He is the Hungarian specialist, Nick, who has quarters in Fifth Avenue. Luckily he was in his suite on this floor, however, when Mademoiselle Falloni was informed of the robbery. For she fainted dead away, and since has been in hysterics. I sent for Doctor Guelpa, and he came immediately.”
“I am pleased to know you, Mr. Carter, very pleased,” said the physician, while they shook hands. “I long have known you by name. Very pleased, sir, I am sure.”
Nick bowed and responded in conventional terms, at the same time viewing the Hungarian specialist a bit curiously.
Doctor Guelpa was a man of medium build and apparently about forty years old. He looked like a foreigner. His complexion was medium, also, and his head was crowned with a bushy growth of reddish-brown hair, while his lower features were covered with a mustache and a profuse crinkly beard of the same obtrusive hue.
He wore spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and bows, the lenses of which were unusually thick, and he blinked frequently in a way denoting near-sightedness and a slight nervous affection. He spoke with a slight foreign accent, moreover, but was a man of pleasing address and evident gentility.
Nick turned almost immediately to Clayton, however, saying while he took a chair:
“That we may lose no time, as you say, we will get right at this matter. I have sent for two of my assistants. While waiting for them, Clayton, I wish to hear your side of the story.”
“There is no side of it, Nick,” Clayton earnestly answered. “I am outside of the whole business, barring the assertions of others that I figure in the case, I deny that emphatically. I know nothing about the crime, for such it is, of course.”
“You were in your private office when it was committed?” questioned Nick, intently regarding him.
“Yes, certainly, as I have stated.”
“In company with——”
“I don’t know with whom,” Clayton interrupted. “I entered my office about half past ten, intending to write several personal letters. I had been there only a few moments when the door was opened, that leading into the hall corridor, and an elderly, well-dressed man stepped in and asked me to spare him a few minutes upon important business.”
“A stranger?”
“Yes. He mentioned his name, but I did not note it carefully and I cannot now recall it.”
“What did he want?”
“I asked him of what his business consisted, and he said that he wanted to confer with me about special hotel rates and accommodations for a wealthy Persian prince, for whom he stated he was acting as an agent, and who is coming to America incognito with his wife and a retinue of servants.”
“You then consented to talk with him?”
“Yes. I suspected nothing, of course, and the proposition appealed to me,” Clayton explained. “I invited him to be seated, and we entered into a discussion on the matter. He appeared well informed and questioned me along various lines bearing upon the subject, at the same time making numerous entries in a notebook of the terms and other details that I mentioned.”
“I see.”
“I anticipated that I might obtain a desirable and profitable patron,” Clayton added. “Our interview lasted about twenty minutes, I should say, and he then thanked me and departed, stating that he would see me again.”
“And then?”
“I then returned to my desk and began my letters. Unable to recall the precise address of the man I was about to write, however, I stepped into the general office to get it from the bookkeeper. I then learned from Vernon what had occurred, Nick, and that was the first I knew of it, and all that I know of it.”
“You attempted, I understand, to find the stranger with whom you had been talking.”
“Yes, naturally,” nodded Clayton. “When told so positively that I had taken the jewel cases, it quickly occurred to me that I might find it necessary to establish an alibi. The stranger is the only person who can corroborate my assertions. I rushed out of the office to find him, therefore, but he had disappeared.”
“That is unfortunate,” said Nick. “Not that I personally doubt your statements, Clayton, but because his corroboration of them would dispel misgivings from the minds of others, some quite closely associated with you.”
“I realize that, Nick, most keenly,” Clayton said gravely.
“It seems utterly incredible to me, nevertheless, that Mr. Clayton has misrepresented anything, or is capable of such a crime,” Doctor Guelpa remarked, quite forcibly. “I really will never believe it.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Clayton said quickly, bowing.
“Describe the man with whom you talked, Clayton,” Nick directed.
“He is an ordinary type of man, Nick, apparently about sixty years old. He has dark hair and a full beard, sprinkled with gray. He is quite tall and of rather slender build. He talked and appeared like a gentleman.”
“He wore a full beard, did he?”
“Yes.”
“It’s ten to one, then, that he was disguised.”
Doctor Guelpa laughed audibly.
“I hope you don’t imply, Mr. Carter, that one in every ten men that wear a full beard is in disguise,” said he jestingly. “I have, as you see, quite a profuse growth of whiskers.”
“Not at all, doctor,” Nick replied, smiling. “Under the circumstances involved, however, I always distrust bearded men.”
“Yes, yes, to be sure,” nodded the physician. “I appreciate the point, of course.”
“Can you recall in the stranger, Clayton, as you now remember him, any characteristic in voice, figure, or manner of speech, resembling that of either of the masked men whom you encountered three months ago?” Nick inquired.
“I cannot say that I do, Nick.”
“Well, one fact is obvious,” said the detective. “If you are not mentally wrong, Clayton, and I see no indications of it, and if your statements are true, of which I personally have not the slightest doubt, this crime was committed by a man closely resembling——”
Nick was interrupted by a quick, insistent knock on the hall door.
Mademoiselle Falloni’s maid, who then was standing near by, hastened to open it.
Madame Escobar uttered a cry, with countenance lighting, and started up from her chair.
“Courage!” she cried, addressing Mademoiselle Falloni. “Some one brings news—good news, perhaps! Courage, Helena!”
Instead, however, a stately woman in black swept into the room, a remarkably handsome woman in the fifties, but whose hair was prematurely gray, and the gravity of whose refined, almost classical face denoted that her life had not been one of all sunshine. She was fashionably clad and in street attire.
Clayton sprang up to meet her, crying impulsively:
“My mother! I did not dream it was you.”
The woman stopped short, gazing at him with wide eyes and an expression of dread on her white face.
“What is this I hear, Chester?” she cried, as if oblivious to the presence of others. “Tell me quickly. Tell me quickly, my son! You suspected of crime, of——”
“No, no; nothing of the kind,” Clayton hurriedly cried, both hands uplifted. “A crime has been committed, but I know nothing about it. The criminal was a man so like me that——”
Clayton caught his breath and stopped short.
The woman had reeled as if struck a blow, and every vestige of color had left her face.
“Like you!” she echoed, gasping. “So like you that—that——”
Doctor Guelpa started toward her.
“Careful, madame!” he cried, with hands outstretched. “Be calm, or you will——”
His warning came too late.
The woman’s eyes suddenly rolled upward. Her arms dropped lax at each side. Before any observer could reach her, she fell unconscious upon the floor, as ghastly as if the hand of death had suddenly claimed her.