The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories Part 34

Instantly Millie Stevens appeared upon the threshold of the parlor.

"Horace!" she cried. "Tell me it is not true. You have not done this."

"Certainly not," he exclaimed. "It is an absurd slander. Carter, you'll be sorry for this."

The girl looked straight into Horace's face for an instant.

Then she uttered a moan.

"He is guilty!" she cried; "I can read it in his eyes. And I loved him so."

She sank upon the floor at her mother's feet.

"Oh, mother," she said, "this is a just punishment for me. You told me I must give him up. You read his heart.

"But I secretly accepted his love. I received letters in which he begged me to keep our love a secret, and in which I should have read a confession of guilt.

"And all the time he loved me only because he thought that I should have a fortune in gold and diamonds."

"You have stated the case exactly," said Nick. "When he thought you would inherit all those jewels, he made love to you. Heaven knows that your own attractions should have been enough, but they were not for him.

"When the jewels went elsewhere, he was probably on the point of giving you up. I judge that from certain letters of yours in that telegraph cipher which I found in his room.

"Then he wormed his plan for making you rich. He managed the robberies at the house with the aid of John Gilder and one or two of that spiritualistic gang whom he smuggled into the house.

"He did everything to increase his uncle's delusion. It was he who put Colonel Richmond again in the hands of that medium."

"I supposed that that affair was all over," said Mrs. Stevens; "both the colonel and I had disapproved of it."

"Annie O'Neil," said Nick, turning to the servant, "a full confession from you is what we now require. It may save you from prison.

"We know that you managed the affair from this end. It was you who put the jewels where they were found, after they had been given you by Horace. It was you--catch her!"

This last exclamation was addressed to Patsy. The girl was wavering as if she would fall.

Before Patsy could reach her she sank sobbing to the floor. She proceeded to pour out an incoherent confession, in which little was clear but the name of Horace Richmond, and the fact that the girl "loved him still."

"I've been waiting for this," said Horace, with a brutal sneer. "Trust a woman and lose the game. Well, it's all up. I loved you, Millie, but not enough to marry you without the jewels. So I schemed for the transfer, and I have failed."

"It was Annie O'Neil whom you followed last night, Patsy," said Nick.

"Who was the men?"

"John Gilder," gasped the terrified girl.

"And you played ghost?"

"Yes, sir."

"But how about my shooting?" asked Patsy. "How does Annie O'Neil happen to be alive?"

"Read that from Chick," said Nick, producing a paper. "He's made some discoveries in the colonel's house to-day while we were all away.

"He's found the ghost. It seems that this girl was inside of a hollow dummy.

"She stood over a trap door. Just as soon as she had shown her face, she dropped the veil, and went through the trap."

"The dummy still continued to stand there, and you shot at it. Two of your bullets flattened on its steel braces. The rest went through.

"John Gilder flashed the light. When he turned it off, the dummy was hauled down through the trap, and hidden in a place that neither you nor I found, Patsy."

Colonel Richmond seemed to be in a trance.

"But the mysterious force," he said, at last. "The injury to yourself and your a.s.sistant. How do you explain that?"

"It was done by John Gilder swinging a sand-bag on a string at the end of a pole which he poked through one of those panels.

"It couldn't be seen in that dim light, and it made a fearful weapon.

It's a wonder that he didn't knock our heads off."

"I thought that I heard something whiz," muttered Patsy.

"And yet I heard her voice this morning," said the colonel. "She said 'consent.'"

"No, she didn't; I said it," rejoined Nick. "I'm something of a ventriloquist."

"How was the affair managed at the safe deposit vault?" asked the colonel, after a pause.

"Why, Horace took the clasp out of the box and put it into your pocket.

You really saw it, only he made you think afterward that you didn't.

"After I had searched him he picked your pocket and got the clasp. Then he wrapped it in paper.

"I picked his pocket to make matters even, and subst.i.tuted my knife similarly wrapped up.

"When we got to this house he gave the knife to Annie O'Neil, who put it on Miss Stevens' pillow when she went upstairs to call Mrs. Stevens."

"You have not explained the robberies at my house," said Colonel Richmond.

"I'll do that over there. Is the rest of it clear? Has anybody a question to ask?"

n.o.body spoke.

"Annie O'Neil," said Nick, "I'll leave here in Patsy's charge. Horace Richmond, come with us."

Horace looked ugly for a moment, and then he calmed down and sullenly complied with Nick's order.

Judge Lorrimer begged to be of the party in order to see the explanation of the mysterious robberies of which he had heard.