"You are aware, I suppose, Marshall, that there have been considerably over a million dollars' worth of automobiles stolen in this city during the past few months?" asked Guy Garrick one night when I had dropped into his office.
"I wasn't aware of the exact extent of the thefts, though of course I knew of their existence," I replied. "What's the matter?"
"If you can wait a few moments," he went on, "I think I can promise you a most interesting case--the first big case I've had to test my new knowledge of crime science since I returned from abroad. Have you time for it?"
"Time for it?" I echoed. "Garrick, I'd make time for it, if necessary."
We sat for several moments, in silence, waiting.
I picked up an evening paper. I had already read it, but I looked through it again, to kill time, even reading the society notes.
"By Jove, Garrick," I exclaimed as my eye travelled over the page, "newspaper pictures don't usually flatter people, but just look at those eyes! You can fairly see them dance even in the halftone."
The picture which had attracted my attention was of Miss Violet Winslow, an heiress to a moderate fortune, a debutante well known in New York and at Tuxedo that season.
As Garrick looked over my shoulder his mere tone set me wondering.
"She IS stunning," he agreed simply. "Half the younger set are crazy over her."
The buzzer on his door recalled us to the case in hand. One of our visitors was a sandy-haired, red-mustached, stocky man, with everything but the name detective written on him from his face to his mannerisms.
He was accompanied by an athletically inclined, fresh-faced young fellow, whose clothes proclaimed him to be practically the last word in imported goods from London.
I was not surprised at reading the name of James McBirney on the detective's card, underneath which was the title of the Automobile Underwriters' Association. But I was more than surprised when the younger of the visitors handed us a card with the simple name, Mortimer Warrington.
For, Mortimer Warrington, I may say, was at that time one of the celebrities of the city, at least as far as the newspapers were concerned. He was one of the richest young men in the country, and good for a "story" almost every day.
Warrington was not exactly a wild youth, in spite of the fact that his name appeared so frequently in the headlines. As a matter of fact, the worst that could be said of him with any degree of truth was that he was gifted with a large inheritance of good, red, restless blood, as well as considerable holdings of real estate in various active sections of the metropolis.
More than that, it was scarcely his fault if the society columns had been busy in a concerted effort to marry him off--no doubt with a cynical eye on possible blacktype headlines of future domestic discord. Among those mentioned by the enterprising society reporters of the papers had been the same Miss Violet Winslow whose picture I had admired. Evidently Garrick had recognized the coincidence.
Miss Winslow, by the way, was rather closely guarded by a duenna- like aunt, Mrs. Beekman de Lancey, who at that time had achieved a certain amount of notoriety by a crusade which she had organized against gambling in society. She had reached that age when some women naturally turn toward righting the wrongs of humanity, and, in this instance, as in many others, humanity did not exactly appreciate it.
"How are you, McBirney?" greeted Garrick, as he met his old friend, then, turning to young Warrington, added: "Have you had a car stolen?"
"Have I?" chimed in the youth eagerly, and with just a trace of nervousness. "Worse than that. I can stand losing a big nine- thousand-dollar Mercedes, but-but--you tell it, McBirney. You have the facts at your tongue's end."
Garrick looked questioningly at the detective.
"I'm very much afraid," responded McBirney slowly, "that this theft about caps the climax of motor-car stealing in this city. Of course, you realize that the automobile as a means of committing crime and of escape has rendered detection much more difficult to- day than it ever was before." He paused. "There's been a murder done in or with or by that car of Mr. Warrington's, or I'm ready to resign from the profession!"
McBirney had risen in the excitement of his revelation, and had handed Garrick what looked like a discharged shell of a cartridge.
Garrick took it without a word, and turned it over and over critically, examining every side of it, and waiting for McBirney to resume. McBirney, however, said nothing.
"Where did you find the car?" asked Garrick at length, still examining the cartridge. "We haven't found it," replied the detective with a discouraged sigh.
"Haven't found it?" repeated Garrick. "Then how did you get this cartridge--or, at least why do you connect it with the disappearance of the car?"
"Well," explained McBirney, getting down to the story, "you understand Mr. Warrington's car was insured against theft in a company which is a member of our association. When it was stolen we immediately put in motion the usual machinery for tracing stolen cars."
"How about the police?" I queried.
McBirney looked at me a moment--I thought pityingly. "With all deference to the police," he answered indulgently, "it is the insurance companies and not the police who get cars back--usually. I suppose it's natural. The man who loses a car notifies us first, and, as we are likely to lose money by it, we don't waste any time getting after the thief."
"You have some clew, then?" persisted Garrick.
McBirney nodded.
"Late this afternoon word came to me that a man, all alone in a car, which, in some respects tallied with the description of Warrington's, although, of course, the license number and color had been altered, had stopped early this morning at a little garage over in the northern part of New Jersey."
Warrington, excited, leaned forward and interrupted. "And, Garrick," he exclaimed, horrified, "the car was all stained with blood!"