CHAPTER IV.
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.
Mr. Barnes, after discovering the cameo button, immediately left the apartment. With little loss of time he reached the Fifth Avenue Hotel. He found Wilson sitting in the lobby, and learned from him that Mr. Mitchel had not yet come down-stairs. He made his subordinate happy, by complimenting him upon his work, and exonerating him from blame because of his having lost his man for a few hours the day before. With the button in his pocket, Mr. Barnes found it easy to be good-natured. If the truth were known, he was chuckling to himself. The thought which proved such a fund of merriment was the idea that his man up-stairs had proven himself just as human as ordinary criminals, since he had left behind him the very tell-tale mark which he had boasted would not be found after he had committed his crime. Externally, however, there was no sign to show that Mr. Barnes was in any way excited. He calmly asked at the desk for Mr. Mitchel, and sent up his card just as any ordinary visitor might have done. In a few moments the hall-boy returned with the curt message, "Come up."
Mr. Barnes was shown up one flight of stairs into a suite of two rooms and a bath, overlooking Twenty-third Street. The room which he passed into from the hall was fitted up like a bachelor's parlor. Comfortable stuffed chairs and two sofas, a folding reading-chair, an upright piano in mahogany case with handsome piano-lamp beside it, a carved centre-table on which stood a reading-lamp, cigar case in bronze, photo-albums, handsome pictures on the walls in gold frames, elegant vases on the mantel, an onyx clock, a full-sized figure of a Moor carved in wood serving as a card-receiver,—in fact everything about the place was significant of wealth, luxury, and refinement. Could this be the den of a murderer? It seemed not, unless there might be some powerful hidden motive, which would make a man who was evidently a gentleman, stoop to such a crime. According to Mr. Barnes's experience such a motive must involve a woman. As yet there was no woman in this case, save the corpse which he had just left. All this flashed through the detective's mind as he noted his surroundings in a few swift glances. Then he heard a voice from the next room say:
"Come in, Mr. Barnes: we must not stand upon ceremony with one another."
Mr. Barnes in answer to the invitation crossed into the adjoining room and noticed at once that the sleeping apartment was as luxurious as the parlor. Mr. Mitchel was standing in front of a mirror shaving himself, being robed in a silk morning wrapper.
"Pardon this intrusion," began Mr. Barnes. "But you told me I might call at any time, and——"
"No excuses necessary, except from me. But I must finish shaving, you know. A man can't talk with lather on one side of his face."
"Certainly not. Don't hurry, I can wait."