I
From North Bay to Winnipeg on the run to Banff, Clement was occupied mainly by monotony and his own anxious thoughts regarding Heloise. But at Winnipeg they picked up the trail again. Gatineau heard news from Montreal, and both saw the man with his arm in a sling—Siwash Mike.
There was actually nothing fresh concerning the ladies, it was obvious that they had doubled on their tracks in the tangle of railways south of North Bay; that was the first item Gatineau offered as they sat at lunch in the Alexandra Hotel.
“Is that bad news?” asked Clement.
“Well, no,” said the little detective. “They’re coming along here all right.”
“I like the positive sound of that,” smiled Clement. “You are positive?”
“Sure. They’ll follow this big rough neck Neuburg, an’ Gunning.”
“And Neuburg and Gunning?”
“Gone through to Banff.”
“Well, that’s as we expected. Miss Reys will join them there—or rather all of us. We’ll be of the pleasant company, too.”
“Sure,” said Gatineau reflectively.
“Well, then,” said Clement, “all this being as we thought, would you mind telling me what the bad news is?”
“Hey?” cried the little detective, looking up from the soup that is called gumbo.
“You have the ‘how-can-I-break-it-gently’ air. Out with it.”
“It’s Neuburg,” said Gatineau quietly.
“Neuburg?”
“He is the murderer.”
“Well, we’ve always felt fairly certain of that,” said Clement, after the first twinge of horror had run through him. “You mean, the matter is now decided?”
“As certain as we can be from the facts on hand. I’ve just read a message from The Chief. He’s sure. He’s been looking at those old descriptions provided by the Oregon police. Adolf Neuburg is Albrecht Nachbar, wanted for murder by U. S. A.”
“Queer that he should be alliterative in alias,” said Clement. “Arthur Newman.... Why has he used those initials again, I wonder?”
“Criminals do strange things,” said the detective. “It’s a kink in him, I suppose. P’raps Neuburg has a fancy those initials bring luck—that’s the sort of thing one finds in rogues. Or, it may be an easy way to keep his gang together; his A and N may be so characteristic as to guard against forgery.”
“And it may, after all, be mere cleverness. Many people would not credit him with the daring of using names so similar, and be put off the trail.... But the fact is that Neuburg is Nachbar.”
“The Chief is sure; he sends along warning to be mighty spry in dealing with the feller. He’s a tough nut, is Neuburg.”
“I’ve already learned it,” said Clement dryly. “Was the crime a bad one?”
“Real bad. I kept my mouth shut about it until we could be sure—but it was real bad. The feller he killed was a rich dude in Oregon. There was some sort of crazy bucket-shop deal that this feller—his name was Roberts—was interested in.”
“Did Nachbar or Neuburg appear in the deal?”
“He did not.... I see what you mean. His tactics appear to have been the same as now. He didn’t show up in the open, he merely played the part of a disinterested adviser to this rich man’s orphan. Fact is, nobody noticed Neuburg, or Nachbar as he was then, until Roberts died.”
“And he died—how?” Gatineau looked at him quickly.
“He went out on a shooting trip——”
“Yep,” said Gatineau. “That appears to be his method in these things.... Gets people into the wilds. Well, Roberts goes shooting into the wilds and there is a hell of an accident. His gun bursts and he is killed outright.”
“And was it an accident?”
“At the inquest it was. That was the verdict. But when people began poking round they found it wasn’t. I needn’t go into it all, and, in fact, I have only the outline of the business, but the things that came out were these. First, a big, solid block of cash was missing. Second, Nachbar was linked up with that missing cash. Then people began to hunt for things.
“First, they got no change out of Nachbar. He produced letters and papers by the boxful to show that his dealings with Roberts were straight—forgeries, no doubt, but good ones, especially since the victim was a dead ’un—you can bettcher life Nachbar was sound on this. He’s the real brainy bad man, all right, all right. Things were kind of tied up until a fellow from the American Department of Justice began to find the trail of the murder. He found out that Nachbar had been in the district where Roberts was shooting, at the very time of the murder.”
Clement was rather startled. “That sounds rather crude for a criminal of Neuburg’s propensities,” he said.
“Nope, it wasn’t crude. He traveled by a different railway system to a different valley. He didn’t even go near Roberts’s camp. But this detective, who was nosing round, found that he had stayed at a hotel in a neighboring valley for a week end shoot, that he had gone off, early in the morning of Saturday, the day of Roberts’ death, that he went out shooting without a guide, and though nobody could tell the direction he went, he had time to go somewhere close to where Roberts’s body was found.”
“There were other clues of course?”
“They began to come down in a blizzard, once they started. Roberts’s actions had been unusual on that day. First, he had made his plans to go out shooting to the west with a couple of guides. Then, early, he had got a special delivery letter. After reading that letter, he changed his plans, went out shooting alone, and went east—that is, towards the hotel where Nachbar was staying. His body was found about half-way between.”
“But didn’t all this come out at the inquest?”
“The inquest was on a man accidentally killed. These points were passed over as interesting, but not relevant.”
“But the letter—if it made an appointment——?”
“That letter was never found. It wasn’t on him when his body was brought in. Everything on him down to his bootlaces was impounded by the Court, but no special delivery letter was found. Some one had taken that letter from his body after his—apparently—lonely death.”
“It must have been signed for? Didn’t the postoffice know anything about it?”
“Nachbar wasn’t the one to slip-up over a detail like that. It had been sent from Roberts’s home district in a faked name—couldn’t be connected with Nachbar or the hotel where he was staying for his shoot. Still, it was a link. And on top of that it was found the gun that killed Roberts—wasn’t his.”
“What!” cried Clement in a startled tone.
“No, it wasn’t his. It looked like his. It was just the sort of Winchester magazine rifle he used, but the dealer found the number and proved it wasn’t his. Some one must have swopped guns with him—while he was out, apparently, alone. And the gun he got in exchange for his own was a gun meant to burst and kill, an’ did burst an’ kill.”
“Devilish!” cried Clement. “And his own gun—was that traced?”
“Did you think it would be? No, it wasn’t. It was proved that Neuburg had also left his hotel carrying a Winchester magazine—easy to effect a change, you see, an’ when he came back with the same sort of gun on his shoulder nobody had reason to suspect it was Roberts’s gun—then. Moreover, when Neuburg’s rooms were searched, it was found that he had kindly left an identical Winchester rifle behind—an’ it wasn’t Roberts’s.”
“An alibi. He could swear that this gun was the gun he used on that murderous weekend.—Has the burst gun been traced?”
“No. But, of course, it is only a detail. It is obvious that Neuburg or Nachbar did that murder, though full facts have to be proved.”
For a moment they sat silent, and Clement, anyhow, was appreciating the full meaning of this revelation. Roberts’s murder, Heloise Reys’ case—how they ran parallel. Roberts was a victim because of his wealth—Heloise Reys was possessed of a million pounds. Nachbar kept in the background as far as Roberts was concerned. He was an advising friend; Neuburg played the same rôle to Heloise Reys. Roberts had been lured into the wilds; Heloise Reys was, even now, being lured into the wilds. Roberts was killed by a secret, brilliant “accident;” Heloise Reys ... Clement shivered. He stared at Gatineau.
“I told you,” said the little detective, “because I think it best to know exactly the ways and methods of this brute.”
“I understand,” said Clement. “And then there is the brighter side, too. It is certain that Neuburg is Nachbar. He’ll be arrested. When?”
“The Chief tells me he is getting a move on already,” said the little detective, and Clement caught a hint of hesitation.
“Does that mean that Nachbar won’t be arrested at once?”
“Not at once.”
“But—but that’s incredible. He’s a murderer, and you can arrest murderers without warrant, surely?”
“We can—if we’re dead positive they’re murderers.”
Clement gave vent to a gesture and an exclamation of despair.
“See here, Mr. Seadon,” broke in Gatineau. “Don’t you condemn the police in a hurry. Recollect that, keen as we may be, we can’t go about arresting folk off-hand. We’ve got to be sure we ain’t running innocent men into jail—an’ disgrace. This is complicated. It’s an old crime. We don’t know whether the American police have dropped it, or caught their man, or have definite news that proves Neuburg isn’t the feller we think he is. Until we can be sure we daren’t move. We’ve got to get in touch with the U. S. A. before we can hold him.”
“That’s logical, I suppose, but it is also rather terrible. And it will take—how long?”
“A few days at least.”
A few days! Clement stared at the little detective: what might not happen in a few days?
“She’s got us anyhow,” said Gatineau, reading his thoughts.
“Yes, she’s got us, and it lies with us to keep Neuburg or Nachbar so that he won’t have time to do anything—critical. But I confess I’m rather fearful, Gatineau.”
And a little later in the day, things appeared even more disturbing.