The Blue Lights Part 10

In fifteen minutes the party, consisting of Mr. Stapleton, Duvall, and Mary Lanahan, were leaving the car at the spot in the Bois de Boulogne which had been the scene of the kidnapping. Francois was ordered to drive his machine to the exact spot, as nearly as he could tell, that it had occupied on the previous occasion. Mary Lanahan led the others to the place on the gra.s.s where she had sat.

It was evident at once that the distances she had named in telling her story were less, if anything, than the actual facts. It was quite impossible to see how, in any way, the child could have been taken from the spot she indicated, to the woods, without consuming a considerable period of time--five minutes, at least. To believe that the nurse could have turned away her head for a moment, and then looked around to find the boy gone seemed the sheerest fabric of the imagination; yet the woman, in repeating her story, stuck to it with a grim pertinacity which, it seemed, could come only from the knowledge that she was telling the truth.

Ten days had elapsed since the boy had been kidnapped. It seemed almost useless to search the spot for any evidences of the crime. Yet Duvall began to go over the ground where the nurse testified that she had sat, with the most minute care. Inch by inch, he examined the turf, subjecting almost every blade of gra.s.s to a separate examination. The operation required over half an hour, and both Mr. Stapleton and the nurse grew tired of watching him, and strolled about aimlessly.

Hence they did not see him pick up a tiny object from the gra.s.s. It was a half-smoked cigarette, dirty and almost falling to pieces from the action of the weather, yet held together by a slender tip of gold.

He placed it carefully within his pocketbook, and rose. "Nothing more to be done here," he called to Mr. Stapleton, and in a moment the three were proceeding toward the waiting automobile.

Upon the return to the house, Mr. Stapleton drew the detective into his library. "Have you discovered anything, Mr. Duvall?" he inquired, making an effort to conceal his almost frantic anxiety.

"I do not know--yet. I may have a clue; but I am not sure."

"What do you think of the woman's story?"

"It seems impossible to believe it."

"You think, then, that she had a hand in the matter--she and this fellow Valentin?"

"It begins to look like it."

"On what do you base your conclusions, Mr. Duvall? I cannot bring myself to believe that Mary Lanahan is lying, ready as I am to suspect this fellow Valentin."

"First, Mr. Stapleton, on the facts themselves. The boy could not have been taken away without her knowledge. Secondly, upon some minor matters--her error of half an hour, in telling her story, for instance."

"I am sorry, Mr. Duvall, but I cannot believe that you are right. I'd suspect Valentin, at once; but if Mary Lanahan is not telling the truth, then my experience of twenty years in judging human nature has been wasted."

"Yet you yourself heard her admit that she was with Valentin only last Friday, the day she was taken ill."

"Yes. That is true." Mr. Stapleton pa.s.sed his hand uncertainly across his forehead. "It's too much for me."

"Let me have a word with the nurse, alone, before I go," asked Duvall.

"Certainly," replied the banker. "I'll send her in to you."

When Mary Lanahan entered the room, the detective went up to her and eyed her sternly. "Was Alphonse Valentin with you at any time, in the Bois, that day?"

"No," replied the girl, steadily.

"Does he smoke gold-tipped cigarettes?" asked Duvall, suddenly.

The effect of this question upon the nurse was startling. She recoiled as though the detective had struck her. "He--he does not smoke at all,"

she gasped, her face gray with fear.

"Don't lie to me!"

"He does not smoke at all," repeated the girl, almost mechanically, and stood confronting him with a defiant air.

"Very well. That is all." The detective turned from the room and left the house.

He did not, however, go very far. It was rapidly becoming dark. He pa.s.sed down the street until he judged he was out of sight of the house, then slowly retraced his steps upon the other side, until he had reached a point nearly opposite the small iron gateway which served as the servants' entrance to Mr. Stapleton's house. Here, hidden behind a tree, he watched for perhaps half an hour.

At the expiration of this period, he was rewarded by seeing a young man, evidently an under servant, emerge from the gateway. Duvall watched him as he proceeded down the street, then began to follow him.

The young man seemed in no great hurry, and at the junction of the avenue with the Champs elysees, Duvall accosted him, speaking in French.

"Do you want to earn twenty francs, my friend?" he asked pleasantly.

The boy regarded him with a quizzical smile. "Who does not, Monsieur?"

he replied.

"Let me see the note you have in your hand."

The boy drew back suddenly, and made as though to thrust the letter into his pocket. "It is impossible, Monsieur," he began.

Duvall took out a gold twenty-franc piece. "I intend to have the letter, my man. If you will give it to me peaceably, here are the twenty francs; if not, I shall be obliged to take it from you by force."

The boy regarded the detective for a moment, as though contemplating flight. Duvall seized him by the collar. "Give me the note," he cried, "or I'll call a gendarme and have you placed under arrest!"

The boy allowed the letter to drop to the pavement, seized the twenty-franc piece, and took to his heels.

Duvall picked it up. As he had expected, it was addressed to Alphonse Valentin, ---- Boulevard St. Michel. He had waited, on the chance that Mary Lanahan would lose no time in warning her probable confederate.

The letter gave him the man's address. That was so much accomplished, at least. Then he tore it open, and read the contents. They proved more mystifying than anything that he had yet encountered in this mysterious affair.

"Destroy the cigarettes!" These three words comprised the entire contents of the note.

CHAPTER VI

Alphonse Valentin came up to Grace and took her roughly by the arm.

"Come with me," he said, and started up the street.

At first she felt inclined to resist him. A signal to a pa.s.sing gendarme, and she could have had the man placed under arrest. Monsieur Lefevre had taken care to provide her with credentials that would insure her obtaining instant a.s.sistance from any member of the police.

Then another thought came to her. This man Valentin she very much desired to see. His position, clinging to the rear of the automobile, indicated that he was in all probability not a confederate of the kidnappers. Just what he was, she could not imagine. She determined to go along with him, and hear what he had to say.

A few minutes' walk brought them to the man's lodgings. For some reason, which she did not understand, the automobile in which she had been a prisoner had stopped on the Boulevard St. Michel within a short distance of Valentin's rooms.

When they reached the house, Valentin, instead of opening the door with a key, rang the bell. The woman who had previously admitted Grace came to the door. Valentin nodded.

"Is this the woman?" he asked.

"Yes," said the landlady, recognizing her at once. "This is the one."