CHAPTER IV
DETECTIVE AND DOCTOR
As already intimated, Adam Adams, in his career as an investigator and detective, had solved many difficult criminal problems, yet this somewhat remarkable individual realized that the mystery before him was as difficult of solution as any he had yet encountered.
The most tantalizing thing about the whole affair was its simplicity. Two people had been murdered in their own home in broad daylight. No one had been seen around the place, and even the manner in which the foul deed had been committed was a secret.
A score of possibilities presented themselves to his mind when he left Margaret Langmore and Raymond Case to begin the task he had set before himself—to clear the fair name of the beautiful girl who had placed her faith in him and his ability.
"I'll take a look around the house first," he reasoned. "Then I'll find out a little more about these dead folks and their connections."
Thinking that he must be some noted lawyer from New York, Mrs. Morse was very gracious to him, and readily consented to show him around.
"Here is the spot where Mrs. Langmore's body was found," said the woman, leading the way to a bend in the upper hallway. "The servant girl tripped over it in her hurry, and went sprawling. She was about scared out of her wits."
"Naturally enough. Do you know how the body was lying?"
"At full length, they say, face downward, and with the fists clenched."
"Was that window open?"
"Yes, but not the blinds."
"Where does that door lead to?"
"Mrs. Langmore's dressing room. The door was open when they found her—as if she had come out and was trying to get downstairs."
"Humph!" The detective pushed the blinds of the window open and began to examine the carpet on the floor.
"We've looked around, but we couldn't see a thing," pursued the woman.
"We? Who?"
"The coroner and the police officers."
"Oh! You say the body was lying right here?"
"Yes—the head there, and the feet there. I suppose you are going to try to clear Miss Langmore, aren't you?" went on Mrs. Morse curiously.
"I am—if she is innocent."
"You'll have a task doing it. Everybody around here thinks her guilty."
To this Adam Adams did not reply. He was down on his hands and knees, close to where the head of the murdered woman had rested. He placed his nose to the carpet and drew in a long breath. His olfactory nerves were sensitive, and detected a certain pungent, stinging odor, of a sort not easily forgotten.
"You must be pretty short-sighted," was the woman's comment. The sight of the man on his hands and knees amused her.
"Well, I might have a better pair of eyes, I admit."
From his examination of the carpet, the detective turned to the window. Outside was the roof to the side piazza of the mansion. On the tin roof were some dried-up spots of mud. He looked them over carefully, and came to the conclusion that they were footprints, but how old was a question.
"When did it rain last around here?" he asked.
"We haven't had a real storm for ten days or two weeks. We have had several showers, though."
He took a glance into Mrs. Langmore's dressing room. Everything was in perfect order, even to the powder-box and the cologne bottles on the dresser.
"That is all I wish to see up here," he said, and passed below, where he encountered the policeman in charge. Like the woman, this officer had taken him to be a lawyer, and he readily consented to let the detective inspect the library.
"Mr. Langmore was found in that chair," said he. "He looked as if he had suffered great pain before he died. I think he was strangled, although he didn't show the marks of it."
The library was a richly-furnished apartment. Along two walls were rows of costly volumes, many relating to modern inventions. On the walls hung some rare steel engravings, including one of Fulton and his first steamboat. There was a large library table, with a student's lamp, a mahogany roller-top desk, half a dozen comfortable chairs, and a small, but well-built safe, which, as said before, was closed and locked.
"The coroner locked and sealed the desk, and put all the loose papers in it," said the policeman.
There were two windows to the library, and one was close to the side porch, the roof of which the detective had examined from above. A person dropping from above could easily have entered the library by the window, thus saving himself the trouble of walking through the halls and down the stairs. Adam Adams looked outside, and saw on the ground a number of footprints, some running to a gravel path but a few feet away.
"Where are the bodies?" he asked, as he continued his examination of the room.
"At Camboin's morgue. The doctors have been looking for poison, but they can't find any."
The detective got down in front of the safe and examined it critically. Had it been opened after the murder and then closed again? That was an important question, but he was unable to answer it.
More by instinct than anything else, he got down and peered under the safe. A crumpled-up bit of paper caught his eye, and he picked it up and slipped it into his pocket without the policeman being the wiser.
"Has anybody else been here?" he asked. "I mean any outsiders."
"A good many folks from the village."
"Anybody else?"
"Yes, a detective from Brooklyn. He thought there might be a job for him, but there wasn't, so he went away," and the policeman smiled grimly.
"What was his name?"
"I think he said it was Peterson."
"Is that the Bardon house yonder?" And Adam Adams pointed through the window and across the side lawn.
"Yes. Doctor Bardon was the first to come over—he and his mother."
"So I heard. I think I'll step over and speak to them a moment."
"So you are working for Miss Langmore?"
"Yes, in a way."
"You'll have an uphill job clearing her. The coroner thinks he has a clear case against her."
"Do you know what evidence he possesses?"
"Not exactly. He isn't telling all he knows," returned the officer of the law. "There is the doctor now."
A buggy was coming down the road. It turned in at the next house, and a young man, carrying a small case, leaped out and disappeared into the dwelling.
In a few minutes more, Adam Adams made his way next door. An elderly servant admitted him and ushered him into the doctor's office, where the young physician sat marking down some calls in his notebook.
"This is Doctor Bardon, I believe. I just came over from the Langmore house. I am working on this mystery, and I understand you were the physician who tried to bring Mr. and Mrs. Langmore to life after they were found."
"I worked over Mr. Langmore, yes," was the young physician's answer. "I saw at once that it was impossible to do anything for his wife. She had a weak heart naturally, and was stone dead some time before I got there."
"You thought you saw a spark of life in Mr. Langmore?"
"Not exactly a spark, but I thought there might be hope. But I was mistaken, although I did everything I could."
"I have been told that working over the corpse made you sick."
At these words, the face of the young physician showed his annoyance.
He drew himself up.
"Excuse me, but you are—" and he paused inquiringly.
"I am working on this case in the interests of Miss Langmore. My name is Adams."
"Oh!"
"What I would like to know is, What made you sick? Was it merely that a crime had been committed—something you were not accustomed to?"
"No, it was not, Mr. Adams. I am young, I know, but I have had a good hospital experience, and such things do not unnerve me. To be sure, Mr. Langmore was a good neighbor, and I thought much of him. But it was not that."
"Then what was it?"
"It was something about the corpse. As I worked I had to sneeze—something seemed to get into my nose and throat, and in a minute more I began to have cramps and grew deathly sick. It was the queerest sensation I ever experienced in my life. I haven't gotten over it yet."
"You had to go out to get some fresh air?"
"I did. If I had not, I think I should have suffered much more."
"And you found no trace of any poison, or anything of that sort?"
"Not the slightest. Another doctor was called in, and then I went back. The peculiar odor, or whatever it was, was gone, and I could find no further trace of it."
"You think it must have evaporated?"
"What else is there to think? The windows and blinds had been thrown wide open, and the sun was shining into the room."
This was all the young doctor could tell, and as he was in a hurry to get away on more business, the detective did not detain him further. He ascertained that Mrs. Bardon was also away, and then left the house.
In his pocket he still carried the bit of paper which he had picked up from under the safe. It had evidently been part of the wrapper around some small object, and bore the following, printed in blue ink:
nder & Co., ley Street, ter, N. Y. ark.
The paper might be valuable, and it might be worthless. It had evidently been around a small box or bottle. The address was evidently that of some firm doing business in some town in New York State. What the "ark" could stand for, he could not surmise.
As the detective left the Bardon house, he saw a middle-aged man entering the Langmore mansion. The man was well dressed and carried a dress-suit case.
"A visitor of some sort," he mused. "Perhaps a relative."
When he stepped up on the piazza Raymond Case came out to meet him.
The young man wished to know if he had learned anything from the doctor.
"Not a great deal," answered Adam Adams. "Who was that man who just came in?"
"Thomas Ostrello, one of Mrs. Langmore's sons by her first husband."
"Is he a frequent visitor here?"
"I believe not. He is a commercial traveler, and on the road nearly all the time."
"Has he been here since the tragedy?"
"No. He was here the day before it occurred, but went away in the evening. I suppose his mother's death has shocked him a good deal."
"I believe you said the Ostrellos are not well off?"
"No; they are poor, so Margaret told me. Both of the sons are on the road, one for a paint house and this one for a drug house. By the way, I am going to town, to see the coroner. Do you want to come along?"
"No, I'll see him later. I want to take a walk around this place first. I may pick up a stray clue."
Left to himself, Adam Adams walked slowly around the mansion, noting the several approaches. He looked in at the stable and the automobile shed, and strolled down to the brook. He made no noise, for it was his practice to move about as silently as possible and without attracting attention.
Suddenly he halted and stepped out of sight behind some bushes not far away from the brook. He heard a splashing, which told him that somebody was near.