“No; I’ll fix it myself. Go down and get me a paper. I’m rather curious to know what it is all about.�
“Yes, sir; at once, Mr. Carter.�
Joseph departed, and the detective repaired to his bath. When he came out of it he discovered the paper that Joseph had brought to him, on the table in his sleeping room.
One glance at the headlines riveted his attention instantly, and, naked as he was, he seized upon the paper and seated himself upon the edge of the bed to read the account of the double tragedy it partly described.
The word that had attracted his attention was the name, in large type, of the same apartment house at which he had met with his adventure during the preceding night—the Creotoria.
We won’t attempt to give the headlines as they were printed, but in substance they were something like this:
“Murder. A Double Tragedy at the Cretoria Apartments in Upper Broadway. Another Babbington Mystery. Woman lately tried for murder and acquitted is found unconscious beside the two victims of New York’s latest murder mystery. Triple crime intended. Bullet intended for the third victim went astray and her life was spared, although a slight wound was inflicted where it plowed its way along the side of her head just over the left temple. Only clew is mysterious late caller. A man giving the name of Parsons inquired for Colonel Grafton after eleven o’clock, but remained with that gentleman less than half an hour, and was seen by the night clerk to leave the building after three in the morning.�
The detective paused right there long enough to utter a low whistle of astonishment; and then he skipped down from the headlines to the article itself, for he was amazed to find that there had been three persons in that apartment when he left it. He had supposed there were only two—Madge Babbington and Nora McQueen.
We will not attempt to give more than the substance of the article, sufficient for the purposes of this story, but the account of the tragedy, briefly, was about this:
Mrs. Babbington, who occupied the apartment in question, kept two servants. One of them, the cook, had been given a night off to attend a wake in a distant part of the city, but had returned to the apartment shortly after four o’clock in the morning.