Now Murgatroyd's men were handicapped in one respect: Murgatroyd never trained detectives to be servants; he trained servants to be detectives. Hawkins, the valet, and Watson, Jeffries' successor, were born to yellow plush, and had acquired the detective polish later. Their handicap was, that they must maintain their character as servants. They must obey, must efface themselves, must serve ... otherwise the game was spoiled. When Wilkinson roared a command which sent them off for half an hour, they had to go. But the intervention of the family now helped them out: it became an unwritten rule that Peter V. must never be left alone, save in the night-time when he slept in an apartment stripped of everything save a bed and chair. This last arrangement he consented to only after Wetherell had threatened him with sanatorium confinement.
It happened, therefore, that one day, Wilkinson, weary of this close surveillance, remarked to Leslie:
"Let's go back to the Drive, child. I'm sick of the still nights up here."
And indeed Leslie was not sorry of the opportunity to go. There was one reason in particular for this: Cobblestone was but a quarter of a mile away from the Ilingsworth place; and Ilingsworth's place, like its former owner, had become a wreck. It was overgrown with weeds, was falling gradually to pieces; upon it had been laid the heavy hand of disuse and decay. The heavy mortgage on the place had been foreclosed; the property laid vacant, idle; it had become an eye-sore to Leslie. Besides, vague rumour had it that the place was haunted—lights, even, having been seen in the rooms at night. It was none of these things, however, that had disquieted Leslie, but the fact that one night at dusk as she tripped along the road, a man had darted from the road-side, and laying a detaining hand upon her arm, had said to her:
"I wish you could help me find my daughter. I've tried to beg, borrow, steal even, to get enough to find her, but——" he had stopped to search her face, "but you're a Wilkinson, I see; you wouldn't help;" and letting her go, he suddenly disappeared in the shadows.
Naturally, the girl had been frightened. Afterwards, however, she regretted that she had not tried to detain Ilingsworth, for he it was, since there were mysteries about him which she could not understand. If he had lost his daughter, why did he not use the money that he had stowed away—the millions that her father had told her about,—and why was the mortgage on his place foreclosed? The mortgage on her own father's place had not been foreclosed, she was sure of that. And so insistent became the pressure of these doubts that one night just before they returned to town, she sent a servant over with a note to Ilingsworth. Leslie knew him for a murderer, a forger, a perjurer, a thief, and yet some instinct drove her to this act.
" ... Some time," she wrote, "when we are out of our own trouble, if there is anything that I can do—for Elinor—believe me I shall do it—the very best I can."
It now became known throughout the Wilkinson household on-the-Drive—and, likewise, to the inner sanctum of District Attorney Murgatroyd's office—that Peter V. Wilkinson contemplated a trip to Maine. There was reason for it: the city sweltered in mid-August heat. Peter V. had no house or shooting-box in Maine—his game being men, not beasts,—and accordingly a suite of rooms at a hotel was engaged by wire. Railroad tickets were purchased; trunks were packed; appointments made with his nearest and dearest friends to meet him there for a three-weeks' jaunt. Every essential detail was attended to; nothing was overlooked. But there was one strange thing about it all: Leslie, who usually accompanied him, was to be left behind; Wilkinson was going alone with Hawkins. It was his frolic; he did not want to be hampered by anyone. But Hawkins and the District Attorney knew that Wilkinson would not be lonely: a chambermaid to have charge of his suite of rooms at the hotel in Maine was despatched from the Borough of Manhattan; two bell-boys were installed; from the instant that Wilkinson should reach the East Side pier in New York he would be attended by a drove of sleuths.
But did Wilkinson have any suspicion of all this? If he did, not by word or look did he betray as much.
On the day of his departure, Peter V., with a matter-of-fact air, handed to Hawkins a small, oblong, heavy, cold, metallic package, saying: