Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 44, No. 5, September 28, 1929

Trent’s Talk With the Former Insane Asylum Head Reveals an Amazing Clew to the Addison Case

John Addison, Wall Street financier, tells his daughter Cynthia to send the servants to bed and stay indoors. Later that night Cynthia and Roger Ellis, Addison’s secretary and her fiancé, hear the dragging step of Hubbard, the lame butler.

Ellis investigates at once, but finds Hubbard in his room, at least the butler’s voice answers his knock.

The next morning Addison is found on the floor of the library, his face horribly battered. He is not dead, and explains it was an accident. Hubbard has a black eye which he sullenly refuses to discuss. Inspector Edwards, who has been called, arrests and releases both Ellis and Hubbard. Mr. Jessup, an invalid; Nurse Gregory, Mrs. Addison and the other servants are all questioned. It was learned that Ellis had received a mysterious blackmail call from a woman the day before the attack, a call which he declines to explain.

Anthony Trent, millionaire sportsman, takes an interest in the case. Addison hires a corps of private detectives to guard his place. Trent smuggles his way into the house to continue his investigations. Addison and his wife quarrel, she accuses him of hitting the faithful Hubbard, and then replacing him with a detective-butler. He denies hitting the butler, saying it was the same person who attacked him. Night before Addison planned to return to New York he is again attacked and kidnaped from the locked library room. Trent visits a Robert Camplyn to run down a new clew.

Ellis tells Trent that he believes foreign powers are after financial secrets held by Addison, to use in swaying the stock market. Trent confides in Ellis, confessing that he was the fake Mr. Jessup outside the door of the library the night Addison disappeared, and he then demonstrates to all in the house that he can escape from the locked library. Trent learns from Mrs. Colton, Addison’s first wife, that John Addison’s cousin, Marcus North, is insane and his whereabouts unknown. Trent also learns from Hubbard that a fist greeted his queries at the library door the night of the first attack.

Chapter XII Marcus North’s “Past”

When Anthony Trent left Dartmouth for New York and the newspaper game he was fortunate in having as city editor a famous journalist named Clarke, who in those Park Row days was used to imbibe constant stimulant in the alluring bars of the neighborhood.

It was as a cub reporter under Clarke that Trent covered police headquarters and came into touch with crime. Later, when Clarke fell from his position he and his wife lived in the same boarding house as Trent. Just before the war, when Trent sailed on the Leviathan for France, he bought an old house in the Chelsea district and installed Mrs. Clarke and the boarding house proprietress as joint owners. It was a gift from one who did not expect to return.

Trent had a definite use for Clarke. He had an extraordinarily retentive memory for sensational front page cases. More than once Clarke’s card-index system had saved him months of research. Trent had not seen him since the Deal Beach case. At that time Clarke, raving at prohibition, was engaged in distilling his own poisons. But all the toxins that live in imaged alcohol had taken their toll of him and for a time he was near death. Thereafter he dared not try strong drink, and Trent, on his way to see him after leaving Mrs. Colton, wondered in what condition he would find him.

The exterior of the house surprised him. Where there had been one quiet red-brick house there were two united by a basement restaurant that seemed to be doing good business.

The small upper room in which he had last seen Clarke was now as large again. The wall between his room and the corresponding chamber in the new house had been removed. Clarke was no longer thin. He seemed to be better than he had been for years. He looked at his visitor with affection. He used to say Trent could have been managing editor of any paper in the world if he had stuck to it. But Trent had adventured into fiction instead.

Mr. Clarke, who had formerly sung so loudly the praises of the Demon Rum now chanted pastorals that had to do with milk. He liked to think that two cows passed contented lives so that their lacteal fluid should be his.

“My boy,” he said, “if you want a real nightcap, try a pint of hot milk before you go to bed with a pinch of salt in it and ten drops of Worcester sauce. Look at me.” He tapped his head, “And the old brain still functions. I keep up with my card-index. It was mighty good of you to have all those out-of-town papers sent me. I’m working on a big thing. I’m getting up an annual so that you’ll be able to see what New York, or Detroit or Kansas City or any big town were interested in on any day of the year you like to mention. Front page stuff is all I’ve time for. Take February 15 for example. Chicago is talking about the assassination of the Moran gang in a garage by rivals pretending to be police officers.” He picked up another card. “Los Angeles is still interested in the Keyes expose.

But why the happy occasion? It wasn’t to look at your old milk-fed city editor. You only come when you want something.” But there was no reproach in his tone. He knew of Trent’s innumerable activities and his infrequent visits to New York.

“It’s the Addison case,” Trent told him. “It was one of those things that didn’t ring true to me and as I had friends near their summer place I took the opportunity to meet the Addisons.”

“A fine man, Addison,” Clarke commented. “I’ve no dirt on him.”

“He never would meet me,” Trent said, “although at first when he heard I wanted to make sketches of his house he sent cordial messages. In the end I felt I was being asked to go.”

Clarke was again the astute city editor. “What have you found out?” he demanded.

“Practically nothing. I’ve just left his first wife. Mrs. Sidney Colton.”

“Messalina,” Clarke cried, “Faustina, Catherine of Russia, Cleopatra and what have you. My boy, she’s high voltage danger.”

“I felt it,” Trent admitted. “In the end I permitted myself to offend her. She has emerald eyes, Clarke, and a caressing voice and not a shred of conscience. It is better to be her enemy than her friend.”

“She gets that way honestly,” Clarke said. “Her father was about the gayest rip this old town had in the mauve decade. I could have told you all about her — and him. I remember now that Addison did marry her.” Clarke closed his eyes. His old pupil knew that in a few moments the front page of some forgotten paper would be called into being for Clarke to glance at. After that all the details would be clear. “I wonder how I forgot that,” Clarke said. “Sometimes I think milk is too soothing.”

“What I want to know about is Marcus North, whose divorced wife Addison married.”

“Sure I remember Marcus,” Clarke said. “Funny how the vicious remain in the memory when the good sort of fade out. There was a rip-snorter for you,” Clarke cried. “A handsome devil and if he had any good in him nothing ever brought it out. The divorce case was a famous one. Weren’t you on the Leader then?”

“Before my time. Why was he found insane?”

“To keep him from the chair. In those days we didn’t know how to pull the Remus stuff successfully. He tried to kill John Addison for the beating he took from him and actually did beat up a valet, who testified against him, so badly that he died from the effects.”

“How did I miss that?” Trent cried eagerly. “It must have happened while I was in Europe on my first trip and didn’t take any interest at all in crime.” He frowned. “Why didn’t that fool butler tell me?”

“I guess Marcus is dead by now,” Clarke said, “and people have too much to attend to without rattling skeletons. My files don’t go back that far, but you can read about it in the public library, Forty-second Street and the Avenue. You can bet the Addisons and Norths don’t want it known. Not that they have anything to fear, but it wouldn’t soothe the second Mrs. Addison.”

“Was Marcus North mad?”

“Not then,” Clarke said. “Very likely he got that way before he died. They say it’s catching if you live long enough with nuts.”

“Didn’t his family try to have him adjudged sane so he could get out?”

“They did not. Having him proved mad salved their honor in a way and they didn’t want that revengeful, extravagant devil out again. They administered the estate and there wouldn’t have been any to administer if he’d lived another couple of years outside of a psychopathic establishment. He’d been getting away with too much.”

“But the authorities are the people to decide that. They don’t want to keep people who don’t need them.”

Clarke shrugged his shoulders. “It may be a question of money. The North family could afford to pay big fees. That I couldn’t say. It ought not to be difficult for you to get particulars.”

“I’ll put David More on the case. I think I’ll run out to Fort Lee now. I’ll be in to-morrow to talk it over again.”

David More was a small melancholy looking man whom Trent had often employed in the more pedestrian tasks of obtaining facts. He was a shrewder judge of men than he looked. Since much of his life had been spent as collector for installment houses, there were no excuses or human evasions foreign to him. He was indebted to Anthony Trent for the little store which enabled him to live comfortably and had a great but silent admiration for the younger man.

More never asked unnecessary questions and his reports were concise and to the point. In adventuring for information he rarely antagonized. It was his custom to sell things at the door so cheaply that the help at the house where he needed information welcomed him gladly. His silk stockings, often sold below cost price, insured him a pleasant reception. More was not without pride in his work. He had been far more valuable to the installment house than he had ever known and he was delighted to see his patron again. One of his younger daughters just returned from High School was given charge of the store and More drove back to New York in Trent’s car.

He purchased an extensive supply of silken hosiery and rejoiced that it was a day when Judith O’Grady enveloped her calves in the same shade and material as the colonel’s lady. David More thought of the day when his excuse had been no more compelling than the offering of an accident policy. David More went to a hundred per cent talkie for the first time while Trent busied himself in the newsroom at the Public Library. They met at dinner later.

When Trent left the library he was in possession of many facts concerning Marcus North. Trent was struck by the comparative reserve of the newspapers of that period in dealing with a story that offered so many opportunities. In tabloid times it was different. But he learned the name of the State institution to which North had been committed. It was not in New York. David More would be the one to get him the more intimate knowledge he required.

At his hotel there was a wire from Roger Ellis to the effect that no new developments had occurred. The unfortunate Hubbard was now engaging Edwards’s attention and was proving an obstinate and unwilling witness. Edwards’s men had taken him only late yesterday afternoon. Within an hour, so Trent reckoned it, of his departure from Fairhaven.

When More had set out on his journey next day, Trent went to the office of the agency which had supplied Mr. Addison with his operatives. Trent encountered Evans as he went up in the elevator. It amused Trent to remember that the last remark Evans had addressed him was of a singularly biting nature. Now he was glad to remind the other of his existence. Evans felt he needed influential friends since his chief was not pleased with his work. Trent drew him aside.

“I think you had a rough deal in the Addison case,” he observed.

“That’s gospel truth,” Evans returned. “I wish you’d tell the boss that.”

“I want to see him. Can you arrange it?”

“You bet,” said Evans. “He’s in his private office right now I expect. I’ll get you in all right and I’d be mighty grateful if you’d say a good word for me.”

The agency manager contrived to know a great deal of what was going on in the world. He knew that Anthony Trent was a rich sportsman, a player of polo and the friend of some of New York’s important people. He therefore displayed extreme courtesy and offered, when Trent informed him he came at Mrs. Addison’s request, to put what information he had at his service. But he was a shrewd man and had to show a good balance.

“We haven’t had any answer to our request for payment of our account,” he said. “I suppose Mrs. Addison didn’t ask you to say anything about it?”

Trent took out his fountain pen and his check book. There could be no better way of gaining the man’s confidence.

“Mrs. Addison didn’t mention it, but she would want me to pay. Just now you will understand she is terribly upset.” Trent looked at the bill and wrote his check. The agency rates were high.

“That man Evans you sent down,” he said, “seemed always on the job. He even suspected me.”

“It was my impression he had bungled things, Mr. Trent.

“The breaks were against him, that’s all. The police haven’t found anything either. Mrs. Addison hoped,” and here Trent considered himself justified in stretching a point, “that you could tell me what your relations were with her husband. He kept her and his secretary completely in the dark.”

“We’ve had the police ask about it, too,” said the manager, “but we have no information. Mr. Addison wrote to us for men who could fill certain positions. We supplied them and when he disappeared our operatives were dismissed by Mrs. Addison at the request of the police.”

“A man with your vast experience,” Trent suggested, “must have some theories about the case. Why should a man of his peculiarly high type want all those husky men to guard him?”

“Mr. Trent,” said the manager, “I used to be a policeman before I took this up and I guess I know as much about men as most, but I’m learning more every day about ’em and it don’t make me think any the better. I guess Addison got into a jam and thought he’d be safer down there with our men than he would have been in his town house.”

“What sort of a jam?” Trent asked.

“Women I guess,” said the other. “My experience is that men of his age have a mushy spell for a bit when they’re the easiest things on earth. Maybe he fell for some tabasco baby. Then there was the war. Lots of men lost their moral bearings there, Mr. Trent.” He smiled tolerantly. A wholly virtuous world would have found him out of his job and he had his own expenses. “You were in the big war?” Trent nodded. “Then you get me.” There were few things the manager liked better to discuss than the less proper diversions of the high and mighty. “I read a piece in a magazine that said it was the chemicals and explosives that made men act that way. Interesting idea and it may be true. In my work it’s hard to believe in anyone. I may be all wet about Mr. Addison, but it looks like trouble with a woman or rather with the men that the woman has sicced on to him. You wouldn’t believe the time and trouble some crooks go to land a big fish like Addison. Mr. Trent, some of the high-grade crooks would make fortunes on the stage the way they can act. My guess is that one evening when his wife was away Addison went to a roof show and thought he had his youth back.”

Not a grain of comfort did Anthony Trent get from the agency manager. Indeed the man’s disbelief in the integrity of Addison was a blow, for it chanced that Trent had been very favorably impressed and he did not like to be proved wrong. He had merely paid out several hundred dollars to be told that all men were base.

Evans stopped him as he waited for the elevator. “Did you say anything for me, sir?”

“Yes. I told him I thought you were on the job the whole time.” Trent smiled a little, “I had greater opportunity to observe your work than you will ever know.”

Chapter XIII The Hidden Exit

The Addison women in their vast and quiet house were tasting to the full all those unpleasantnesses inseparable from a cause célèbre. It was impossible to keep those people away whose newspapers demanded intimate particulars. But it was Cynthia and Roger Ellis who bore the brunt of these interviews. Mrs. Addison seemed to grow weaker with her despondency. It was as though the strength that had been hers had been derived from the stronger partner who had gone.

The hope she cherished that the police would find John Addison, at first vivid and sanguine, died down when not a trace of him was found. The innumerable false alarms when it was found that rumors of Addison’s presence in distant towns were no more than that, discouraged her so that her health suffered.

“Mother,” Cynthia said one evening, “Why was it that when you heard that Dad had been murdered you seemed not to be surprised?”

“In the excitement I may have said anything. We were all of us unstrung, Cynthia. I’m tired enough to sleep tonight.”

Cynthia had been put off several times, but it was not in Mrs. Addison’s power to stop her now. The girl had puzzled over the matter a great deal and now when there seemed to be no probability that Edwards’s clews would amount to anything, she determined to see if she could not find one in what had been wrung from her mother in that moment of agony.

“You said,” Cynthia returned, “ ‘If it had happened before I could have understood, but now—’ What did you mean by that?”

“What does one mean by things torn out of one in a moment of that sort?” Mrs. Addison had recovered her calm admirably. Cynthia felt she was again a little girl asking impossible questions. But she remembered she was twenty and great responsibilities devolved upon her. She was not again to be side-tracked.

“In moments like that,” she answered, “the truth comes out. It is only now when one is alarmed at having said such a thing that one tries to explain it away. Muvvie, dear, don’t look at me like that. You did say it and I feel I must know why.”

Mrs. Addison did not answer. Cynthia could see that she was wondering whether or not to give her confidence.

“Dear,” she said, “you have often wondered why I did not love this place as much as you do or your father did. It is because I am by nature timorous and I have been afraid here. Until some years ago I feared something dreadful might happen to your father. There used to be trees that touched the roof and made strange noises when there was rain or wind. Your father loved them, but he had them cut down because he wanted me to like being here. When you were a little girl I hated it but tried to pretend I did not.”

“You don’t mind it now, though, do you?” Cynthia asked.

“No, but it takes a lot to wipe out some memories. I’m not fearless as you are.”

“What did you mean by saying that if father had been murdered once you wouldn’t have been surprised?”

“There was a man who threatened to kill him.”

“But mother,” the girl cried, “you ought to have told that to Inspector Edwards. When he asked you if you had ever heard of any one who had a grievance against dad you said ‘No.’ ”

“My dear, it was true. The man who hated us both died five years ago. You were at school in Paris when it happened and when you came home you said ‘Muvvie, what has made you grow so young and pretty?’ Do you remember?” Cynthia nodded. “The reason I looked so well was that the haunting dread had been removed.”

Cynthia recalled the incident. It was at a time when the family was disturbed about Mrs. Addison’s health. She seemed likely to develop into a chronic invalid when suddenly the miracle happened.

“And you kept on living here all the time you were so afraid?”

“It didn’t much matter where I lived so long as he was alive. He seemed nearer to me here, somehow, so perhaps that is why I dreaded the summer.”

“Mother, who was it? I ought to know.”

“My dear, I shall never tell you. If you have any love for me let me forget that nightmare. Please, please, don’t talk of it again. It would do you no good to know and it would only bring back things I want buried.”

“The best way to rid yourself of fears like those is to talk about them. Uncover them, the psychoanalysts call it.”

“For moderns like you, perhaps. Not for me.” Cynthia knew her mother’s obstinate look. The matter was closed. And since Mrs. Addison was in a highly nervous condition the girl had to abide by her decision. Knowing her mother’s imaginative nature she could picture to herself the horror she must have experienced. And while Cynthia had played joyously about this great lonely house, her mother had been anticipating a tragedy. This explained so much. Contritely she kissed the wan lips. “Poor muvvie,” she whispered. “Forgive me. I only wanted to help you.”

Roger met her in the hall, “What luck!” he said. “Anthony Trent’s back. Phyllis phoned from the Mill House where he’s staying. They’re coming over. I said it wasn’t too late. You don’t mind?”

“I’m delighted,” she cried. “I simply adore Anthony Trent.” She patted his arm affectionately. “Why shouldn’t I? Didn’t he give us back to one another?”

Directly the first greetings were over, Trent drew Cynthia aside.

“Did you do what I asked you to?” he demanded. “You know, about your mother. You told me she has said things that puzzled you.”

“I did, and the poor dear explained everything satisfactorily.”

“Satisfactorily to you, perhaps, but how am I to accept that?”

The girl hesitated. The interview was so near still and she was not yet recovered from the emotion communicated to her by her mother that she felt it was too private a matter to discuss.

“You are going to disappoint me,” he said, rebuke in his tone. “In a matter like this it isn’t your province to decide that you’ll tell me as much as you like of one thing and nothing at all of another. I am quite certain that your mother knows more than she has let the police believe. Edwards seems to think she is just a woman broken down by grief who knows nothing.”

“In a way you are right,” Cynthia answered. “Mother did know something. Years ago there was a man who swore to kill dad.”

She saw Anthony Trent’s eyes light up.

“What man?”

“I didn’t even ask her. I know she wouldn’t tell anyhow. Don’t look so distressed. The man died five years ago. I remember it well. Mother seemed a new woman from that moment.”

“Where is Mrs. Addison?” he demanded.

“In bed. She is not a bit well. What I told you is in confidence.” There was alarm in the girl’s manner.

“She’ll never know- you told me anything,” he said.

Cynthia looked at Trent curiously. “I don’t understand why you look suddenly as if you’d find something out.”

“I’ve found out nothing definite,” he answered. “Hello, what’s that?” He turned to see Inspector Edwards and Mallon, his chief of detectives. Nor was there any longer on the faces of these officers any sign of good feeling.

“What do you mean,” Edwards said, not returning Trent’s greeting, “by running away like that?”

“Running away?” Trent replied. “Success and public flattery have turned your brain. I do not run away. You had every opportunity to ask me what you wanted, but you couldn’t bring yourself to admit defeat. I even demonstrated that an amateur could find the way the crook escaped.” Deep concern was in his manner. “You are not going to tell me that you and the truculent Mallon are still in the dark?”

“It was your duty to show us,” Mallon cried. He did not recognize the adjective Trent had applied to him but he felt it was something unflattering.

Trent shook his head. “Only when your superior requests my aid.”

It was a heritage of those past and regretted days, when Trent worked outside the law, that he retained a concealed dislike of the police. Inspector McWalsh of the New York Department, although he flattered himself that Trent, the millionaire sportsman, liked him was far from the truth. It had amused Trent when he was a master criminal to outwit the police. He enjoyed now bewildering them. Edwards was a sound professional as they went, and he had not neglected the usual conventional things. He had regarded the maidservants with suspicious eyes and had become a nuisance to Nurse Gregory and Mr. Jessup. He had rounded up all the questionable characters in the county and had a large collection of finger-prints, none of which were identified at headquarters.

His fault was too great a dependence on tradition and traditional ways of crime. He had once arrested the members of a mob of gangsters which had invaded his city and broken up their racket by excellent work. But these men had no new methods of crime except in so far as death at the muzzle of a machine gun differs from death at the mouth of an automatic pistol. It worried Edwards not to be able to find by what means the Addison abductor had fled. Not, he admitted, that it would clear up the mystery, but it would relieve him of the gibes of the newspaper boys, and keep him from becoming the subject of irritating cartoons.

His manner toward Anthony Trent changed. It was again the suave Edwards who spoke. “I should have thought,” he said, “that considering your personal feelings toward the family you would be more than glad to help me.” He looked at Cynthia and smiled with benevolence. “If I could help a young lady like her I don’t think I would hold back.” Edwards shook his head. It was gathered that he considered Mr. Trent’s action something less than was to be expected from a gentleman, something beneath the dignity of a man.

“Then why hold back?” Trent retorted. “All you have to do is to admit yourself beaten. Your own terms, Edwards, your own ingenious suggestion.”

“You ought to be put under arrest,” Mr. Mallon boomed.

“That’ll do,” Edwards called sharply. There were few things he would like better to do than to put this Anthony Trent in a private room and administer the good old, discredited, third degree; but Edwards found it unwise to antagonize wealth and influence. Trent had too many highly-placed friends. He made an appointment to see him early next morning. Trent knew he would capitulate.

And Edwards did. But he made it a private matter and Mallon was not with him.

Cynthia, Roger and Edwards walked through the library. Trent opened the long window that led to the porch. It was thirty feet in length and ten wide. Under it, cars or carriages were sheltered as they reached the front 6 D door. The drive was twenty feet beneath. At each corner it was supported by white fluted Corinthian pillars. The wooden floor of the porch was covered with lead, as was the roof above. In each corner stood a pedestal of wood painted white, as were the railings on which at some time or another vases had stood holding potted plants.

Mallon puffed into the scene just as Trent was set to stage his triumph. He bore on his florid face the marks of resentment at having been ignored. Those watching saw Trent lift up one of the wooden pedestals. He did not remove it, but pushed it on its side. Then he raised more slowly the lead sheeting, which bent easily.

“These pillars are hollow,” he said. “Most pillars are to-day, even if they are made of stone or cement. This one leads down to a bin of egg coal. Obviously egg coal reveals little disturbance. I don’t propose to descend again, but Mr. Mallon is burning to show I’m wrong.”

“Why Mallon?” Edwards asked almost angrily. Why had he not thought of this simple solution? “Why Mallon?” Asperity was in his voice.

“Because it narrows somewhat at the base and Mallon’s paunch would hold him there until the world had forgotten him. You’re about Mr. Addison’s build, inspector, and you’ll only just make it.”

They saw the inspector prepare for the descent. Then they saw him disappear with great swiftness.

Later he came from the cellar limping. He had sprained an ankle and bitten his tongue. He was in a flaming temper. His pose as that of a superior intelligence was shaken.

“I might have broken my neck,” he cried passionately. He felt he had been made a laughing stock of.

“Haven’t you any ingenuity?” Trent demanded. “I expected you knew how to brake yourself with knees and elbows. Must I help you all the time?”

Cynthia’s face was troubled. If her father had been dropped down this tunnel unconscious, what injuries might he not have received. She felt this way of escape would worry her mother even more than by having the thing remain a mystery. Inspector Edwards’s asperities brought her mind back to the present. Plainly he was bruised in body as well as spirit. He refused comfort and announced his intention of going again to the porch.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” he said and scowled at Anthony Trent.

“You wrong yourself,” Trent answered.

“It’s this,” the inspector said. “There must have been confederates in the house. I don’t deny that Mr. Addison’s body was slid down there.” Cynthia shuddered, but he paid no attention to her. He looked still at Trent. “You said you had proof. What was it?”

“A shred of Harris tweed from the arm of the suit that Mr. Addison wore. Hubbard identified it.”

“Hubbard,” the inspector said grimly. “I’m mighty glad I sent a hurry call for him. We’ll need Mr. Hubbard.”

“You are wasting time,” Trent declared. “He is innocent.”

“Then some one else isn’t,” Edwards snapped. “Listen. I admit the body was shot down that tube and later disposed of, but the man who threw it down didn’t follow. I’ll tell you why. How could he put that lead sheeting back and then lift that pedestal in place so nobody saw anything wrong?”

Mallon snorted. He tried to give the impression that this problem had occupied his brain, too. “What wise crack will do for that one?” he asked. Trent thought his manner impertinent. Nor was Mallon alone in thinking he had discovered a weakness in this reasoning. Roger Ellis, heart and soul for Trent and with his own grievances against the police for excess of zeal, was troubled. And he was strengthened in his discomfort by the look of dismay on Trent’s face.

“Well done, Edwards,” Anthony Trent said. “You have begun to observe things. Perhaps I was unduly thrilled with my discovery.”

Without protest he mounted the stairs. Mallon gave his arm to his chief, who frowned at Trent’s suggestion that he use Mr. Jessup’s elevator. “That’s another mystery you’ve no doubt cleared up while I was attacking it in my timid amateur fashion. I forgot you picked up the fake Jessup on Tremont Street, didn’t you, Mallon?”

Mallon disdained to answer. The fake collector of charities had air-tight alibis given by the police of Boston themselves.

When once they were in the library and Edwards had seated himself a moment, and was massaging his swelling ankle, Trent’s manner changed. He was again the professor lecturing his pupils.

“Talking of observation, Edwards,” he began. “It amazes me that you and Mallon did not see how that trick was worked. I did not expect Mr. Ellis to observe it, because that isn’t his profession. But you two!” Trent shook his head.

“What are you giving us?” Mallon growled.

“Elementary instruction,” Trent retorted. “You will note when you go out there that a piece of piano wire is thrust through the lead flooring and attached to a nail in the inside of the hollow pedestal. The other end of the wire is attached to the north side of the pillar’s interior by a nail. The shred of cloth I spoke of was caught by that same nail. All that is needed to conceal the exit is for this very strong wire to be pulled. The pedestal itself is hinged to the roof so that it cannot get out of place.”

Feverishly the two officials examined it. What Trent had said was true. It was plain to Edwards that the work of affixing hinges was new. The man who had probably killed Addison was, in all likelihood, the man who had run the wire through the lead. Careful preparation had been made. There had been leisure and opportunity to work here. And it could hardly have been done except at night, when the marauder would be undisturbed. Edwards knew very well that this would be unlikely during the time that the private detectives were in charge. By this strange route the assailant had come during the Hubbard incumbency. How long had this plot been maturing?

It was stupid to show enmity to Anthony Trent. Edwards had been foolish to allow his professional pride to spur him to rivalry, in the first place. McWalsh had been right. Perhaps it was not too late to make amends. More than ever Inspector Edwards needed his aid now.

“A fine bit of work, Mr. Trent,” he said, “and I guess Mallon and I know when we are licked. You are absolutely right, but how in the world could anybody climb up? I’m a proof how easy it is to go down, but how could any one climb up? No space for a ladder there.”

“Perhaps some one on the top lowered a rope,” Trent suggested.

“He’d have to be there first, and how could he make it? I understood you to say this bird climbed up and fixed things.” Edwards had noted in his descent that there were no projecting pieces of wood for a man’s foot to use in the ascent. He had been stopped in his fall by nothing.

“That was merely a suggestion,” Trent explained. “If you say it’s impossible, why then we’ll eliminate it; my address, if you want me, is the Mill House, Elm Falls.” He nodded. “Good hunting.”

“A good riddance,” Mallon growled. He was amazed to see the sudden look of anger on his chief’s face.

“Damn him,” said Edwards. “He knows, but he won’t say.”

“Knows what?” Mallon asked with tremendous interest.

“How that bird climbed up,” Edwards answered. He was examining the orifice carefully.

In the hall where Trent was talking things over with Roger, Cynthia said: “For a moment I really thought you did know how one could climb up the pillar. Edwards looked so disappointed.”

Trent smiled. “Cynthia, keep my secret. I do know and I’ve climbed up it myself. No, I will not tell you yet. My present aim is to pass the time of day with Mr. Jessup. Please persuade Nurse Gregory to let me see him.”

A few minutes later he was talking to the old man he had so successfully impersonated. Mr. Jessup was delighted at an excuse to talk, and his nurse was pleased at the opportunity to take a little air. She promised to be back in half an hour. Trent allowed Mr. Jessup to rid himself of all his ingenious theories. Then he asked casually: “But you liked Marcus North, didn’t you?”

“We weren’t talking about Marcus,” the old man said. “Or were we?” His memory was not what it had been, he knew, and it was quite likely that he had made some mention of Marcus North. “Yes, I liked him. That type appealed to me. What a life he led John Addison, from all I hear, when they were kids in this house. Brought up together, you know. What a contrast! There was John, who wouldn’t tell a lie, and Marcus, who wouldn’t tell the truth. It wasn’t that I liked him for that though. There was something about him that just got me. I knew he was no damned good just as well as I knew John was too damned good. I told my niece.” The old man broke off. “There was a girl for you! She’s one of a thousand.”

“Loves?” Trent asked.

“You must have met her,” the uncle returned, not at all offended. “A marvel. She was taken by John’s good looks. He was as handsome as Marcus in his way. Evelyn used to say he was an unawakened Antinous. She soon grew tired of him.”

Mr. Jessup tried to get back to his favorite topic, the identity of the man who had successfully impersonated him, but he found himself led again to the subject of Marcus North.

“He was bad all through,” Jessup conceded, “and when he murdered that valet of his the family thought it about time to call a halt. Their influence kept most of the evidence out of the papers. There was a National Convention meeting at the same time, and that helped. I’ve always thought that the beating John gave him affected his brain. That was certainly some beating. I never saw Evelyn so interested in anything. She wouldn’t let me stop it. Not that I wanted to, but I could have made a stab at it.

“John got back all he had suffered from his cousin’s bullying when he was smaller, but to do John justice it wasn’t that. He was crazy over Edith and he fought for her. Never think John couldn’t fight. He’d have been heavyweight champion if he had put his mind to it. In the beginning I’d have bet all I had on Marcus, but not after the first minute. I remember saying to him: ‘You’ve killed him.’ John looked at Marcus on the ground and said, ‘I hope I have.’ ”

“How long after the divorce did he kill his valet?”

“Two years, I imagine.” Mr. Jessup went back to the trial at which he was a witness. “His family certainly put one over on Marcus. There was no ‘temporary maniacal insanity’ alibis then. Just plain paranoia was good enough to get him sent to Deerfarm. His money was administered by his people and the idea was that in a few years, when the public had forgotten, he was to be let out. That’s where they put it over on him. They kept him there. They were afraid of him, and they didn’t want the North name disgraced again. They were wise at that. I’m told that when Marcus found out he was in for life he actually went mad.”

“You think he was sane when he killed the man?”

“Who is sane?” old Jessup retorted. “They say I’m not, and you don’t look normal to me. You have strange eyes, Mr. Trent. I believe the only sane man I ever knew was John Addison. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like him.”

“Not many parents,” Trent said, dismissing this suspicion of his mental health, “would be content to let their son remain in a psychopathic institution when he might have been removed.”

“Marcus was an orphan. That’s why he was brought up here with John. His uncle and aunt benefited materially by administering the estate. They hadn’t much and their nephew had. They came in for a lot of criticism.”

“When did he die?” Trent asked.

“Before I came here to live, and I’ve been here almost five years.”

“Was it in the papers?”

“Very likely, but I didn’t see it. Edith told me, and I never saw a woman change for the better as she did when she knew. She was in deadly fear he’d get out and kill John. John knew it too. He told his wife that the time he spent in the trenches was the only time for years that he felt he could relax. Relax in the trenches! I guess that was the truth. John will not tell a lie.”

“Would he for his wife?”

“He might, but not for any one else. John was one of those men who were made for fidelity to one woman, and my niece wasn’t the woman. So you know Evelyn. How is she getting along with Sid Colton?”

“I gather that she is disappointed with captains of industry.”

Trent was glad to see Nurse Gregory. He had obtained the information for which he had come and was now anxious to see Hubbard who was even now in the house, but in bed with the after effects of influenza.

Hubbard was glad to see him. Now that John Addison was gone, the old man needed some strong man from whom to derive comfort. And he felt that his blameless senescence was being vilified by the police. Especially by Mallon who licked his lips every time he saw him and sought to entangle him in long cross-examinations.

“I’ve been through a lot, sir,” he said, tears in his faded eyes, “since you left me at Fairhaven. I used to think Mr. Roger’s teasing was bad enough, but he’s an angel compared with Mallon and I am bound to say he’s behaving very well now. I guess it’s Miss Cynthia’s influence.”

“I suppose,” Trent said, wasting no time in arriving at his point, “that you disliked Marcus North principally because he used to bully Mr. Addison?”

“And,” Hubbard cried with a touch of his old acidity, “because he used to play practical jokes on me. I never saw a boy who had so many ways of bothering you. I’ve always had this room since I took service with Mr. John’s father and you’d think nobody could get in here when the door was locked, but that Marcus, he got in one time and sawed the wooden legs of my bed nearly off so that when I climbed in they collapsed. And I got blamed for it. I had a Yale lock put on the door so I could keep my room to myself and Marcus couldn’t get in. I was the only one who had a key. Marcus swung himself on to the roof from a tree. There were trees all around the house then. Tall trees. I don’t know what sort. I’m not interested in trees and I wasn’t the one to raise a holler when Mrs. Addison had them cut down. I felt safer. That boy could get in anywhere, no matter whether the windows were barred or the doors locked.”

“And Mr. Addison followed suit?”

“In the early days he fairly worshiped his cousin. Yes, he tried everything Marcus did and nearly broke his neck doing it, but he wouldn’t give in and Marcus was always trying stunts that he hoped Mr. John would fail in. A lot he cared if any one broke their necks.”

“Well.” Trent said, “death got him at last. Did any of the family go to the funeral?”

“Mr. John did, I think, but it wasn’t a subject to talk about. The North’s and the Addisons hold their heads high and they didn’t want any publicity of that sort. A pretty penny it cost Mr. John to buy silence, I’ve heard. It’ll be six years on my birthday that he died, and I was born the same day Washington was. Mr. Roger used to say it was the same year, but that was his exaggeration.”

“What I came to see you about,” Trent said, and spoke only half a truth, “was about the necessity to employ a good lawyer.”

Hubbard’s obstinate jaw was thrust out. He was conscious of his innocence and did not think truth needed any assistance. Trent pooh-poohed this naive theory. “You, more than any one else, need a good lawyer. Nothing convinces the ordinary jury less than bare truth. It is so unreasonable as a rule, whereas the clever lie carries conviction with it. I’ve already arranged for a good man to look after your interests. I don’t anticipate any trouble, but the police have to have some one to exhibit and you made a mistake in attacking Mr. Ellis.”

“I know,” the old man admitted, “but I was out of my mind with worry at the time. I’ve apologized to him, Mr. Trent, and I will say he showed himself the gentleman. Shook my hand and said the whole family were grateful to me for my loyalty. It was after that, feeling good, you understand that this Mallon said I insulted him. Perhaps I did.” Hubbard smiled as he thought of his splendid sarcasm toward authority as exemplified by Detective Mallon. “I guess what I said was a bit above him.”

Trent did not stay long at the Mill House. After the first cold snap and snow the weather became mild and the meteorological bureau — that faithful and unjustly abused public servant — promised a continuance of it.

“Golf calls me,” said Trent to Barton Dayne, “and as my wife won’t be back until Christmas I am going to see what those new links at Hillsbro are like. They’ve been chosen for the National next year so they’re certain to be first class. I may be down here at any moment.”

“Your bed and board awaits you,” Dayne said, “and you’ll be the most welcome guest in the world.” He hesitated a moment. “Does this mean you’re giving up the Addison case?”

“I have allowed Inspector Edwards to think I am retiring, vanquished. It has done a lot to restore his self-confidence. But, my dear Barton, privately, do you think I’m the sort to give up things?”

Dayne looked into the keen face and shook his head. “No.”

“Golfing with me is often a way of getting information. I’ve asked Roger to keep me posted as to what happens. Just now the police are doing good work and work that I couldn’t hope to equal them at. Their theory is that Addison was killed and is buried in the woods or old quarries somewhere near the house. Naturally that search takes a lot of time and men. It may very well be that they find the body. That will be their triumph.”

“And what will yours be?”

“I should like to find the man who killed him.”

“Edwards says if they find the body they’ll get the murderer.”

Anthony Trent was not inclined to be communicative. “Edwards has his moments,” he said, “but that was not one of them. It’s a cliche to say that dead men tell no tales, but it’s worth remembering if Edwards has another burst of hope.”

“It beats me,” Dayne said, reverting to golf, “why you don’t go in for the big tournaments. You’d land in the first six, I’d bet.” He was not to guess those reasons which drove Anthony Trent to remain little known and wholly unphotographed. In the early, wild days he had met men who might still be able to identify him if his photographs stared from the papers and magazines. And since, in these days, we pay so much more homage to supremacy in sport than to any intellectual achievement, his decision was wise. But what Dayne had said was true. It would take one of the celebrated golfers to beat him.

“I haven’t energy to keep perpetually in trim,” he answered, “and I’m getting more and more interested in aviation. I’ve got three hundred flying hours to my credit already.”

Thomas Perkins was not forgotten. Trent drove into the paved yard where he left his car before taking his farewell of the Addisons. “I want you to report to me on what you personally observe the police to be doing,” he said. “Here’s my address.”

“They’re still searching the quarries,” the chauffeur told him “and they’ve dragged every pond in the county. There won’t be much to tell.”

“They may find the body,” Trent answered. “They probably will if it’s anywhere near. Edwards is thorough, though uninspired.”

“I’ve got the letter from the Zodiac people,” Perkins said. “I don’t know how to thank you. They offer me a splendid position from the first of the year. I’m afraid you exaggerated my abilities.”

“It’s up to you to preserve my reputation,” Trent retorted. “I’m not worrying about that. I haven’t made many mistakes in the men I’ve picked. I’ve just come from Elm Falls. Dayne is turning out to be a business genius who would, but for a little luck, have tried to be a college professor. I’m cashing in on him already and I shall on Captain Evvyndike, too. I’m at heart a rapacious and mercenary type.”

Thomas Perkins, soon to cease the driving and cleaning of other men’s cars, looked after him with gratitude in his heart. It was still inexplicable why this Anthony Trent should have given him this opportunity, but it had nothing to do with mercenary motives. So long as one played fair with this man with the keen eyes and the hawk profile one had nothing to fear. That his tongue could be sharp Perkins had found when he heard him talk to Mallon. Perkins turned again to the polishing of a panel of the big limousine. It was hard work to make its luster match that other panel upon which his former helper had spent so many hours.

At Hillsbro, Trent registered at the new hotel which had sprung up for the convenience of golfers, a hostelry which called itself an “Inn” and, consequently, charged high rates. He was now a golfer come for a few weeks’ play. In reality he had come to meet and become friendly with a certain Dr. Lang who had found time from his work to become runner-up for the State championship two years in succession. Dr. Lang’s handicap was two, and his position that of superintendent of the Deerfarm Asylum four miles away.

Deerfarm Asylum was behind the times in its buildings and equipment and for a long while there had been dissatisfaction with it. In the southern part of the State there were splendidly-appointed psychopathic institutions, but these were always filled owing to the large increase in insanity, which is one of the warning signs of the rush era. No man had fought for better conditions more consistently than this same golfing physician. Indeed his published articles in professional magazines had occasioned some annoyance to those who administered such institutions and he had been warned that it was disloyal of him to malign his State and State establishments.

When Trent learned that Dr. Lang played almost every day and there were no local golfers fit to give him a game he saw that ere long he would be on friendly terms. A two handicap. This meant that Trent must be on the top of his game. His putting was not too good and when he had joined the club and become acquainted with the professional he putted until dusk and then drove into the old city of Hillsbro.

It was here that More, now president of the Fort Lee, New Jersey, Hosiery Company, had established headquarters. He was living at the Hillsbro House. One of his points of value to Trent was that More never wanted to know anything beyond his instructions. He had been sent to Hillsbro to peddle his wares. After hours he was told to play pool in the principal pool rooms in the town and get in touch with the men who worked at the asylum. Mr. More’s not to reason why. He sold his silk stockings and he played pool. He was an earnest player, slow and cautious, but the recreation cost him twenty dollars a week. He lacked dash and his safety play was not of the modern school.

His bona fides were established. Letters and packages came to him from the More home in Fort Lee and the hotel clerk could see by the labels that he was the president of the concern. He said he was engaged in preparing routes and assigning territories for the salesmen he was to engage when he went home. More went out of his way to be friendly with the attendants from Deerfarm and listened in what was almost horror at the stories they had to tell. When they offered to show him around he rejected the offer. In truth David More had a normal horror of the insane and the stories the attendants told made it deeper. The incredible cunning of these madmen shocked him. Some of them would wait for years until the moment came when they could inflict the vengeance they desired. And all this time they seemed ordinary people reacting apparently to normal stimuli in a way that was calculated to deceive even experts.

More had never played pool so badly as that night when one of the younger men had told him how last night he had occasioned to take an old patient back to the bed from which he was constantly escaping. The attendant, careful not to inflict bruises or injuries which the doctors would detect, took the old man by the ear, and the ear came off in his fingers! Mr. More used to dream of it at night. He was astounded at the courage of his kind. Rather starvation, he told himself, than such a life as these attendants led.

“The pool cost more than I expected,” he said rather timidly, as he laid his expense account before his employer.

“That’s all right,” Trent said, writing a check. “I suppose you know the place pretty well now?”

“I’ve specialized on the Deerfarm people mostly as you told me to. They seem a friendly bunch. That may be because they’re all new here.”

“What do you mean?” Trent demanded.

“There was a big shake-up a few weeks ago and the whole staff got fired and practically every attendant, male and female, is new.”

“Did Dr. Lang go?”

“Yes, him first of all. Politics they say. Lang never would kowtow to the bunch at the State House and they got him at last, and put in a staff that would keep quiet.”

“That’s bad news for me,” Trent said slowly. “At least it seems so for the moment. I had a definite use for Lang. Who is the new man?”

“Dr. Humphries. He’s a politician and once was a State Senator, a good machine man, but they say he isn’t fitted to succeed Dr. Lang.”

“Have you ever been over the asylum?” Trent asked.

“No, but I could any time I want to. I’m afraid of those folks in there, Mr. Trent. A penitentiary ain’t so bad. A crook in them knows it’s no good pulling rough stuff if he wants to get out. He tries to make a good impression, but not them Deerfarm people. It’s the epileptics that are the worse,” More went on retailing his newly acquired knowledge. “You never can trust them especially when there’s a change in the moon.” More described the incident of the ear and was gratified to find that even his listener shuddered. “He was an epileptic, too, and that feller I played pool with has to sit there all alone with a hundred of ’em around him. And he daren’t hit ’em when they begin to act up. The doctors see to that. Those fellers have their own way of protecting themselves. They get soap and knead it so it’s kind of soft and then put it in a sock. It knocks the lunatics out, but it don’t leave a wound. They have to, Mr. Trent. I used to think there was a lot of cruelty in them places, but I was wrong. They’ve just got to protect themselves.”

“You’ve done good work,” Trent said commendingly. He was silent for a little. Presently he began to tell More what he had not yet confided to any one. Trent had implicit faith in the little man.

“More,” he said, “I may have wasted a lot of time and a good bit of money on a hunch that is worthless. I’m here — and you, too — because I have eliminated everybody in the Addison case except one man.”

“Fine,” said More approvingly. He had unbounded faith in the other. “Trust you, Mr. Trent, to find out anything you go after.”

“You may not think so when I tell you that the man I suspect has, I have been told by three distinct persons, been dead these six years.”

“How could that be?” More asked.

“I’m here to find out. Do your friends, the attendants, talk about the people they have in charge?”

“When they get together they do,” More said. “There’s not so many in Deerfarm as in the other asylums, but they’ve got Mrs. Pate who killed her husband by taking him into the garage when he was drunk and then running the motor while she went into a picture show to alibi herself. They’ve got the Hersey brothers who made enough money out of bootlegging to have their murders made out like as if they was crazy when they committed ’em.”

Trent scribbled a name on a piece of paper. “Memorize that,” he said, “and start inquiries about him.”

“Marcus North,” More read, “I never heard of him, Mr. Trent, but I’ll find out about it as soon as I can.”

“I am informed Marcus North died six years ago. If he did I shall have to own myself beaten on the Addison case.”

“But the bureau of vital statistics,” More said. He had often worked on such tables at his employer’s request. “What’s the matter with them?”

“The name Marcus North does not occur. Naturally I had that looked up at once. But the omission may be accidental. I was fooled that way before. Vital statistics figures lie like all others. In itself it is no proof that Marcus North is alive. The only way to find out is to see him.”

“Mr. Trent, sir,” More cried, “I’d be scared to, honest.”

Anxiety was reflected on the little man’s round face. He felt he was behaving very badly to his benefactor, but he could not shake off the terror he experienced at the suggestion. He expected to be reprimanded.

“I don’t understand,” he went on, “how those fellers can face that crowd and have authority over them.”

“It’s largely a matter of when you were born,” Trent said. “I can say with certainty that your birthday doesn’t come between the third week of January and the third week of February.”

“It’s May,” More said, “but I don’t understand how that makes it any different.”

“Nor I. But it’s almost universally true that men born under the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius have a strange influence on the insane and make the best attendants for them. I’m an Aquarian and I have it. You’ll find probably that your friend who makes light of epileptics and straying ears was born under the same sign as I am. Be reassured, More, you shall not be delivered to the lions yet, but I want all particulars about this Marcus North. He murdered his manservant and should have been hanged. Instead the family wealth got him to Deerfarm.”

“I’d rather have been hanged,” More cried.

“He was sent there just seventeen years ago. Not a word of the Addison case to any one. If you hear it discussed just listen. Offer no suggestions at all. That’s all for the present. I suppose if any one asks about me you’ll say I’m the money behind the Fort Lee Hosiery Company? Good. That’s a perfectly good reason for your seeing me. You want more capital. Is business good?”

“Too good,” said Mr. More, “I don’t have any time to myself. I’ve got to raise prices.”

Chapter XIV A Maniac at Large

Dr. Stephen Lang was a big, gray-haired man of fifty. He had learned his golf when a student at Saint Andrew’s University and because of the correctness of his form, he was still a first-class player when most men of his years had begun to drop behind. He had been offered the Deerfarm superintendency after one of the periodical scandals when the politically appointed head had allowed the institution to become a byword. He was to find that there were many in the State more important than its new superintendent and much of his long tenure of office had been embittered by strife. The relief he felt at his freedom was tinctured with regret that his successor seemed to forget that he was a physician and began at once to appoint inefficients at the dictation of his party.

More than ever Dr. Lang was in favor of divorcing psychopathic establishments from lay control, but his influence was now very small. Rumors were circulated that he had been dismissed for incompetency and Trent met him in a bitter mood. The professional offered the new temporary member, whose approaching on the practice hole he admired, as a victim to the club’s best player.

In the beginning Dr. Lang disapproved of Trent. Lang addressed the ball with great deliberation and drove it two hundred and thirty yards. Trent stepped up to it and without a preliminary waggle outdrove the doctor by twenty yards. A fluke, the older man told himself and waited for the second drive. In the end Trent was beaten by a hole, but this was mainly because the links were strange to him. Even Dr. Lang conceded that and looked forward to some excellent golf. After all, he admitted, Duncan, too, had this absence of the protracted waggle and a man who could play as well as this stranger need make no apology for style, stance or speed. And there was something he might learn in putting from the new member. Perhaps he was over-deliberate himself on the green.

The two men dined at the same table and Lang’s Caledonian reserve dropped away from him. He referred to his long connection with Deer farm. Trent did not think it would be long before the doctor would talk freely. “I should think golf must be a great relief in work of that sort,” he said.

“I should have gone mad without it,” Lang answered. “I created the old nine-hole course that this is built on, almost single handed. Golf wasn’t the proletarian thing it is to-day and the natives thought I must be one of my own charges. I’m inclined to be sorry to see it so popular. Golfers’ manners aren’t what they were.”

In the two weeks that were to follow, Anthony Trent managed to beat Dr. Lang three matches out of four. The friendship that ripens so quickly among devotees of sport, a growth impossible under ordinary conditions, found the two men seeking one another’s company in the evening. It was a bond between them that Trent was the son of a distinguished physician who had turned his uncommon talents to the hard work of a country physician in a mountainous locality and had died of it in the end.

There was much of the reformer about Stephen Lang. Prison abuses stirred his ire no less than those of the psychopathic institutions.

“We are too prosperous here,” he contended, “to investigate the conditions of prisoners and lunatics. Because they are housed in fine buildings, and cost a lot of money to maintain, we assume everything is all right. Take prisons for example.” Trent did not yet dare turn his mind to the discussion of Deerfarm. That had to come as an outcome of this allied subject. “How many Americans know that nearly ninety per cent of commitments are made to local institutions such as county and municipal jails, workhouses, farms, chain gangs and camps where there is filth, indescribable filth and overcrowding disease. Innocent are herded with the guilty, the well with the foully diseased. How many of these club women who prattle loyally know the prevailing practice of subjecting female prisoners to the oversight of male attendants?

“And then, too, that pernicious system of paying jailers a daily sum for boarding prisoners without specifying how much food is to be given. Great Britain is more than half a century ahead of us there. That’s a chance for the professional jingo, Trent. Let them stop battleship rivalry and cleanse their own Augean stables.” Dr. Lang smiled a little. “I apologize,” he said. “I have made many enemies by talking that way. Truth is not always pleasant. What time shall we tee-off tomorrow morning?”

“What you say interests me very much, doctor. I can only say that our women don’t know about those things.”

“They ought to,” Lang said, “I’ve lectured and written about it enough to get thrown out of Deerfarm.”

“Are places like Deerfarm run as badly as prisons?”

“Deerfarm wasn’t in my day. This new man who is using it as a step to something more paying will set it back a generation. There can always be abuses when politics run things. You know that. I had a fairly good set of men with me, but the new bunch will probably take its tone from the men higher up. The State doesn’t worry much about Deerfarm. The buildings are old and ought to be condemned. It isn’t light enough and it isn’t warm enough.”

“You had some famous patients there I’ve heard,” Trent said. “Mrs. Pate, for example. I suppose she was undoubtedly mad.”

“No more than you or I. She planned her crime very carefully. She made her husband so drunk she had almost to carry him into the garage. Her watchdog could be depended on to warn her of the approach of any one to her remote farm, but he hadn’t the habit of barking at airplanes and it happened that a passing flier saw that Pate was intoxicated and that she was helping him to the garage where carbon-monoxide finished him. His evidence convicted her. It was death for Mrs. Pate, or Deerfarm, and she chose a spell of the latter. She’ll be out before long. The term shyster lawyer is often used, but no one speaks of shyster alienists. I tell you they are a peril to civilization.”

Dr. Lang thought of the patients to whom he had tried to be just and kind. He saw that Anthony Trent was interested and since Lang liked to discuss things with men of intelligence, he spoke of many of the Deerfarm inhabitants whose names had once flared across the newspapers of the country. Trent thought he would never come to the only one in which he was interested, but did not deem wise to mention.

“One of the men I never could establish sympathetic contact with was Marcus North. I expect you have heard of him. Most of the Deerfarm people are of the poorer classes. He on the contrary was a man of fashion and wealth. Yet he killed two people.”

“Two?” Trent cried.

“His valet first and years later the night attendant in his ward. North had a room to himself, mainly because there were several in the old wing and he was well behaved. The new night attendant didn’t like North. Class hatred I imagine in its origin and North was put in the general ward. So he bided his time and strangled the night attendant.”

“Then he is mad, of course?”

“When I took charge I was told he was a paranoiac. He may be. They can be sane on all subjects but one. He spends his time in reading and sketching. He has no intimates. Yes, I suppose his is a paranoiac. There is no record of violent outbursts except in the case of the attendant he killed. He seems so sane and reasonable that a night attendant used to slip off to play poker with men off duty and leave him in charge. I found it out and dismissed the man.”

“I suppose even those fellows can be reached?”

“Do you suppose in this age when lavish spending is the rule, and every laborer has his car and radio, that an attendant is immune to bribery? Do you know what they get at Deerfarm? The men are paid forty dollars a month with no possible increase. The women get thirty-five after a year. They start at twenty-five. Attendants are on duty sixty hours a week and have one full day off each week with a fortnight vacation of full pay. Deerfarm is popular because uniform is not compulsory for males. I ask you whether or not in a group of men who earn four hundred and eighty dollars per annum there will not be some who refuse to turn down the chance to make more if there isn’t much risk. And yet I firmly believe that prison guards have many more opportunities to graft. I should like very much to believe in men as I did when I was an idealist at Saint Andrew’s, but I’m suspicious now. They’ll demand proof to know it is Saint Peter who guards the gate if ever they get up there.”

Dr. Lang, once started, rambled on, pausing only now and again to light his pipe or refill it. Trent’s expression was one of deferential interest and the exclamations that fell from his lips were admirable. But he heard no word of the Scot’s commentaries on life.

Marcus North was not dead! The belief that John Addison had lied to his wife in order to relieve her mind of the haunting fear of the paranoiac, was justified. That others had accepted this statement was perfectly reasonable. For what cause would they investigate? No doubt Jessup had informed his niece and as the news could not be unexpected why should she doubt it?

Trent’s investigation of the Addison mystery showed him clearly that the man who was responsible knew the house inside and out. Further that Addison recognized his visitor that first night and did not wish his wife or family to discover that he had lied. What, Trent wondered, must have been poor Addison’s state of mind when he found the man in his library who had threatened to kill him? Had he, perhaps, hoped to be able to reason with him, or, if that failed, to silence him for ever?

Marcus North, if Trent’s theory was correct, had broken out of Deerfarm on that October night and had reached the Addison house unseen. He could not have walked the thirty-five miles nor have taken a train. The automobile might be eliminated insofar as considering North to be its driver. Seventeen years or more had made so great a difference in automobiles that to one who had not kept up with their gradual evolution would probably be wholly at sea in undertaking to drive one. Probably North was driven there.

The problem immediately before Trent was to discover if North had made a known break. And if there was none reported against him it would mean one of two things: either that he had the backing of a Deerfarm attendant or else that Trent’s deductions were wrong. The name of North recurred in Dr. Lang’s talk.

“I wonder a man of his sort sane enough to stand out among the rest, didn’t try to escape.”

“He did,” Dr. Lang replied. “After killing the night attendant he got away. We found him twenty miles distant. That wasn’t the first time. Apparently he has some fixed idea as to his route, for he is always headed in the same direction.”

Trent knew fairly well in what direction it was. John Addison must have known, too. What obstinacy was it that made him come back year after year to this old home whose childhood memories were common to Marcus and he? Psychologists called by the name of Phobophobia that emotion which is fear of fear, or fear of being afraid. Possibly John Addison had been spurred to particularly gallant feats in the war by the same motives which made him ashamed to admit to himself that he dared not live near Deerfarm.

“The paranoiac,” Dr. Lang went on, “is the most deceiving and dangerous type of madman and the clever criminal has only to persuade a jury that he is paranoid and he will escape the gallows. I have often talked to this man North and I find it very difficult to make a decision about him. The Joseph G. Robin case should be a lesson to all alienists. Ten of our most eminent psychiatrists testified that he was insane; and when the judge complimented the jurors for disregarding this mass of expert evidence and convicting him, the New York Academy of Medicine held a mass meeting at which Jerome spoke contemptuously of him as a half-baked judge holding office through grace of Charlie Murphy. I was just as indignant as Jerome until Robin admitted he had been shamming insanity in the hope of evading conviction. I don’t wonder intelligent laymen suspect expert evidence when it can botch a case so horribly. If those experts were honest they were ignorant. If they were not ignorant — what were they? It’s a bad business, Trent, and thinking of it will put me off my drive if I’m not careful.”

The doctor paced the floor, frowning. “Thinking of North brings the two Haggertys to my mind and that scoundrelly little Dr. Gross who married Dr. Humphries’ daughter. I firmly believe they were all engaged in trying to get evidence on me. I dismissed all three, but they were reinstated. I said it was either them or me. So they let me go after my years of service.”

“Why should North bring them to your mind?” Trent demanded.

“He was in Haggerty’s ward and Gross showed a favoritism to North which was unwarranted and bad for discipline. I would have no ‘trusty’ system in Deerfarm when I was there.”

The question Trent asked seemed innocent enough, but on its answer a great deal hinged. “You mean that of all the men in Deerfarm Haggerty and this Dr. Gross alone survived your reign?”

Trent smoked a pipe or two as he pondered upon what he had just learned. By some fortunate array of circumstances, Marcus North was under the control of people inimical to Lang. These men were the venal types which the fallen head had tried to eradicate. Had North escaped but once, it might be supposed that the break had been discovered and he had been taken back. But on the second occasion there was probably collusion. It would be well to find out what information More had about these attendants. He determined to drive over to the Hillsbro House and see More.

More remembered a great deal about the Haggertys. He had lost money to them at pool and poker and they regarded him almost with affection as a source of income. “I went driving with Big Haggerty this evening,” More said. “He certainly has a swell new coupe. They’ve both been left money. Not before they needed it, the pool room owner said. They’re drinking quite a bit now. Big Haggerty says there’s no one big enough to fire him now, Dr. Gross is in charge. Humphries’ son-in-law.” More explained. “Humphries is too busy campaigning to spend much time here now.”

“You’ve done good work,” Trent said commendingly, “and it’s time to talk about Marcus North. You remember his trial and you’d like to see some of the famous patients. Suppose you summon up enough courage to see Mrs. Pate and North. They are under restraint.”

Trent saw More squirm at the prospect, but he did not propose to allow this fear to defeat his plans. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist, More. Get as friendly as you can with Big Haggerty. The bootlegger at the Inn comes to me with splendidly inspiring analyses of his goods and I’ll see you have something to offer Haggerty when he visits you. You must seem no more curious about North than you do about Mrs. Pate. Haggerty is a boasting type. Get him to talk about Lang who tried to get him fired and how he put things over on him. Haggerty is just the sort who can be readily induced to brag especially when he’s drinking.”

“He’s got something on Dr. Gross,” More said, “and that’s bad for discipline. All right, Mr. Trent, I’ll do it. I’m sort of getting used to the idea now. It was at first I was so scared. Haggerty says all hell looks out of some of their eyes, but there’s nobody sane or insane that can frighten him.”

“Call me up at the Inn,” Trent said. “I’m having a debauch of golf and I imagine Lang will think he talked too much. I’ve got all I need from him.”

Dr. Stephen Lang did, indeed, think he had said more than was wise. He feared he had betrayed almost vindictiveness. And, too, there was the feeling that he should not take sides with a layman against his own profession. Lang was glad that during the next week Trent made no reference to Deerfarm or its prisoned guests. Probably he had bored Trent with his talk of reform.

More did not report to his employer for eight days. Then he suggested a visit.

“Mr. Trent, sir,” More said in his slow, mild voice as he smoked one of the cigars that Trent sometimes gave him, “there’s something wrong about Marcus North. I give Haggerty some of that liqueur Scotch of yours and he’s been to my rooms several times. Very friendly. No, he don’t need my money although he’s a great one for gambling. He’s got a big wad and I’ve seen it. One night he began to laugh at me for being afraid to go to Deerfarm. I told him I’d been there and most of the women were wearing my stockings — the nurses I mean — but he said that wasn’t what he meant. So I said I’d like to show I wasn’t a coward and I’d see Mrs. Pate.” More shivered a little. “I seen her, Mr. Trent. A good looking woman in her way but she scared me stiff. I couldn’t believe she was a murderess and a homicidal maniac. Then I went back to the ward where Marcus North was. I asked Haggerty suddenly where he was and I did what you told me and looked at his hands. They clenched like hands do when you’re going to sock some one. I couldn’t tell a thing from his voice or his eyes when I looked up. He asked me what I knew about Marcus North. I said some one down at the Hillsbro House said he killed an attendant.”

“Haggerty said he’d show me him. He took me to a room and made me look through a little grating with a shutter across it. It was too dark to see much at first but he turned up a light in the ceiling and there in the corner on a mattress was Marcus North. He was in one of his bad spells and they put him in there and pushed his food under the door until he gets less violent. No furniture in the room and the mattress is on the floor so he shouldn’t have a bed to break and use as a weapon.”

Trent thought a moment over what More had said. Haggerty did not welcome questions about North, whereas he did not mind what was said about another inmate, Mrs. Pate. He had displayed this emotion before he showed More the cell where violent maniacs were put. That was worth a thought. Why, if he did not wish More, a person of no importance in so far as influence was concerned, to see North or ask about him, did he take him to the cell when he need not have offered more than an excuse?

“You have no proof that the man lying there was Marcus North.”

“Nothing except his word and I’ve proved him a liar. I made a note of it because I thought it might be worth investigating. I was in his place last night. He has bought a house outside Deerfarm by the depot and the gang meets there for poker. I had a bottle of your Scotch and he said to wait and not open it until the bunch was gone. You know me, Mr. Trent, I’m no drinker so that meant pretty well the whole quart for him. He can drink, believe me. While he was getting ice the phone rang and I answered it. It was long distance from Worcester and the girl at this end wanted to be sure it was Big Haggerty. While I was saying I’d fetch him he came in. It’s my belief he’s a maniac.”

More rubbed his arm where Haggerty had gripped him. “He just threw me away from the phone and your bottle was knocked off the table. That made him madder than ever. I tell you, sir, he put me through the third degree and wanted to know if I knew who’d called and the number. I was mighty glad I didn’t know. Then the way he talked to the operator was a scandal. Then he got my hat and coat and fairly threw me out. This morning he apologized and said he was drunk and that a man at Worcester who owed him money had called him up. All the time he was apologizing he was looking hard at me. I wouldn’t like to be a patient under him.”

“When a man behaves that way to me,” Trent observed, “I don’t accept an apology very readily.”

“That’s because you are a scrapper,” More said. “I wasn’t very well pleased considering the money I’d dropped to him and the three quarts he’d had from me of real stuff.” More smiled a little. “I found the operator Haggerty had called down and she’s had my special gift box of six pairs of stockings. A pleasant-spoken sensible young lady.” More took out a scrap of paper. “That’s the number that was trying to get Haggerty. He calls up every night. May be nothing in it, but I knew you like to know everything. It’s a man.”

Trent smiled.

“Fine,” he cried.

More was always to be depended on to remember things more brilliant men overlooked. “I’d like to meet Haggerty. I want particularly to hear him talk.”

“I’m playing pool with him at seven,” More said. “If you drop around and watch the tables the voice you hear above all others will be Big Haggerty. His brother don’t say much and he’ll be on duty.”

“All right,” Trent said. “You won’t recognize me, of course. I’d like to know one other thing. When does he have this nightly conversation with the man in Worcester?”

“Always at one a.m. It’s over in a few words.”

“I shall be passing Haggerty’s house at one to-night. I want you to signal me when Haggerty hangs up. Promise him another bottle.”

More never raised difficulties. “That ought to be easy. I’ll come out on the porch and light a match. As a matter of precaution I’ll light three at once so you’ll see my face. That means okeh, he’s through.” More hesitated a moment. “If there’s likely to be a mix-up with Haggerty you’d better watch out. He was telling me some of the tricks he has of subduing them poor devils in there when they get violent. It made me sick to the stomach just listening to him.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Trent said. “I may never have to speak to him. I am working on the flimsiest of ideas. I may be all wrong.” He looked at More and the smaller man saw that adventure light in Trent’s eyes. Trent knew more than he said. Well, More was not inquisitive. In due time he would be told. “If I do have occasion to talk with your friend Big Haggerty I don’t think there’ll be a great deal of risk involved.”