IV
The three men went into the private sitting room in the manager’s office. The first thing Clement did was to take his left hand from the pocket in which it had reposed since he escaped from the house in the Sault Algonquin, pull up his sleeve, shake his arm, and so expose to The Chief the handcuff still clasping his left wrist.
That redoubtable man looked at it calmly, fingered it, sat upright slowly, and turned on Captain Heavy a dry, genial smile. His eyes scrutinized the puzzled face of the captain for but a moment, then he turned back to Clement. With the same movement his hand came out of his pocket, and in the hand was a handcuff key.
In a moment, and with free hands, Clement was rolling down his socks, exposing the handcuffs on his ankles.
The smile of The Chief became broader. “Is your friend quite as honest as you think, Heavy?” he asked genially.
“Ab-solutely,” said Heavy in a perplexed tone. “Though he does seem to have been trying to do Houdini stunts, and failing.”
“Not altogether failing,” smiled Clement, as The Chief’s key got to work. “I managed to get out of this trap, just as I managed to get out of the one on the Empress—the diamond tiara trap.”
“Ah,” said The Chief, looking up, smiling with his lips, but his eyes keen. “There is something behind it all?”
“There is; but first, how soon can I get to Montreal?”
“Talking to us won’t hold you up,” said The Chief with unexpected penetration. “You can’t go before the night train.”
“Isn’t there something before that—any means?”
“No,” said The Chief. He looked at Clement steadily. That look was a request for information.
“Well, as I said, I want your help; but it’s going to be a tale, even a sort of ‘shocker,’ a strange, unbelievable crime and mystery story.”
“I’ll be able to appreciate it,” smiled The Chief. “Go on, Mr. Seadon.”
So Seadon told the whole story from the beginning. He told everything, indeed, except one thing. That thing was the little lawyer’s suggestion that he should make love to and marry Heloise, and the fact that he had himself arrived at the conclusion that the little lawyer had talked wisdom. He did not talk of it, but perhaps the men who listened were not unaware of his condition. The Chief smiled even more humanly. Heavy, with a seaman’s bluntness, cried, “I remember Miss Reys, a beautiful woman. To think that a pack of scoundrels.... Still, old man, you’ve got The Chief with you now.”
Clement thought of Canada and its vastness. Even the most astute chief of police would find it difficult to track a girl through that immensity—and do it in time.
“Mr. Seadon is not quite sure about The Chief,” smiled the head of the railway police.
“Well ... Canada’s such a huge place. It’s easy to vanish without trace in such a country.”
“Oh, our system compares with the country,” said The Chief genially. “That porter told you he’d checked Miss Reys’ baggage through to Montreal? We’ll begin by confirming that.” He pressed a bell. A girl came in. “How do, Miss Jeannette. I wonder whether you’d mind asking Mr. Labage—he’s still at the rail reservation desk, isn’t he?—to step along. Say, that’s real nice of you.”
Mr. Labage came in. The Chief said to him immediately, “How are you keeping, Mr. Labage? That’s good. Now, I’m wondering if you can tell me if a lady from this hotel and her companion, a Miss Heloise Reys and a Miss Méduse Smythe, took reservations on any train pulling out to-day?”
“Sure she did. Both ladies reserved on the Imperial, leaving at 1:15 for Montreal.”
“That confirms it, then,” said Clement. The Chief only smiled, he was after full proof.
“And say, did another feller, a big feller by name of Neuburg, go out to-day?”
“He certainly did,” said the efficient Mr. Labage. “He, an’ a feller with him, some one outside, had reservations on the morning train.”
“To Montreal?”
“To Montreal.”
That finished the clerk.
“And the next move, Chief?” asked Clement, for he knew that there would be another move. He saw that The Chief had made it certain that Heloise—and the gang—were going straight through to Montreal, and were not leaving the train before. He was beginning to appreciate the calm ability and keenness, yes, and the immense resources, lying behind the genial smile of this man.
The Chief put out his hand to the telephone. “I want Montreal, Miss,” he said into the receiver. “Get me Windsor Station, the Department of Investigation.” He hung up and turned to Clement. “This feller Neuburg is new to me. I’ve been thinking about him, but I can’t place him. He must have come up from the States, or, he may have worked behind others. The one class of life I am thoroughly acquainted with is bad men. I know all the leading lights, but I don’t get him.... This Gunning feller—we’ll get news of easy. And we’ll find out about this Joe Wandersun. He’s Neuburg’s traveling companion on this trip, since Siwash stayed, hey? P’raps we’ll trail up Siwash Mike, too. But this Neuburg.... Give me an idea of him, Mr. Seadon.”
Clement described Neuburg as pointedly as he could, while The Chief listened with his smile, as though it were but a good story, but his level and capable eyes proved his keenness.
Clement had just finished his picture of the master rogue when the telephone bell rang. The Chief picked up the receiver, “That Mac speaking? This is The Chief. Who’s about?... Ah, Gatineau’s there. Call him.... Oh, Xavier, it’s The Chief speaking. I’m in Quebec on the Empress robbery case.... See here, there is a lady stopping off at Montreal on Imperial No. 1. She is a Miss Heloise Reys, she has a companion with her, a Miss Méduse Smythe. I want her trailed. Find out where she’s stopping, if she stays in Montreal. If she isn’t staying, find out where she’s going and by what train she goes.—No, don’t interfere with her, just find out what she’s doing. Got that? Next, I want you to find out all you can about a feller called Henry Gunning, and another called Joe Wandersun, both of Sicamous.” He gave the few details Clement had been able to give of these men. “If you can’t find out anything about ’em in Records, or from the Dominion police, just flash through to Sicamous or Revelstoke. Got that? Next isn’t so easy. I want to hear somethin’ about a man who calls himself Adolf Neuburg.” He spelled it out. Then he described him with an accuracy which was amazing, considering he had only had Clement’s not very expert description. “This feller Neuburg seems to be an out-size bad hat, but I can’t place him. We haven’t come across him, I know. But just find out if there’s anything known. You might trace him through mining, or you might pick up something about him in connection with British Columbia. He pulled out of here for Montreal on the morning train, see if that helps.... You’ve got all that? Well, if it’s possible, long-distance me here at the Frontenac about Miss Heloise Reys. The other stuff can keep. I’m pulling out myself by the night train.”
As The Chief put down the instrument Clement said enthusiastically, “That’s splendid, it draws a noose round them. We’re bound to trace them now.”
“Yes, there are possibilities in my job,” smiled The Chief. “We’ve got many means of heading off rogues and finding out things about them.”
“And I’m going to give you another,” said Clement. “This Sherlock Holmes business is contagious. Miss Heloise went because she had reason to go. Yes, I know they must have persuaded her, but, and this is my point, they wouldn’t have persuaded her unless they had something to persuade with. At the bottom of this journey there must have been a message.”
The Chief stood up, reached for his soft hat. “That’s it. She got the message she was expecting about this Gunning man. You said she had letters addressed to her at the post office. Come along, we’ll look at that message.”
They went down the hill to the post office—where most of the notices were in French. The Chief’s authority took them at once to a superintendent, who had no difficulty in finding the duplicate of a wire which Heloise Reys must have received late the night before. The wire had come from Sicamous. It was signed by Wandersun—that meant Joe’s wife had sent it. It said tersely:
“Henry Gunning is present working at Cobalt.”
“Cobalt,” said Clement, staring down at the flimsy slip. “That’s the famous silver mining town, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and this Gunning is a miner,” said The Chief. “Well, that’s all natural enough. You see what’s happened. When Gunning broke loose from those toughs he came east, meaning probably to hit the high spots. Somewhere this side of Winnipeg his money ran dry. Being on his uppers, and being a miner, he’d just naturally think of Cobalt, for Cobalt’d be the place where he would find his own job and at good money.”
“And I see how they persuaded Heloise—Miss Reys. They made her feel that if she did not start for Cobalt at once there’d be every chance of her missing him again. Gunning would wander off again directly he got money into his pocket.”
“Yes, and they got her to go by that train because she’d be able to catch a connection out of Montreal,” capped The Chief. “She’ll go out by No. 17. It’s one of the few direct trains. She’ll get a through sleeper on that. Cobalt it is, Mr. Seadon.”
“But Cobalt is an unhandy place to get at.”
“It’s just as unhandy a place to get out of, too. But it’s Cobalt she’s gone to, take that as fixed, Mr. Seadon.”
Before they boarded the night train for Montreal they learned over the long-distance ’phone that the girl and her companion had taken reservations for Cobalt on the night train.
They also learned that a large man, answering unmistakably to the description of Mr. Neuburg, with a companion, had left Montreal earlier in the day.
He, too, had booked through to Cobalt.