“She hit her head—sir—really—I think you’d better come along at once. It’s a party—a masquerade party——”
“Are you crazy? My wife isn’t at any masquerade party!”
“Yes, she is—come on, please.”
“I will. Wait a minute—must I face the whole crowd of revelers?”
“I understand. No, Mr. Barham. Come—let me see—come to the front door but ask the man in charge to bring you up the back stairway.”
“Oh, it needn’t be as secret as that—but—I can’t seem to think coherently. Washington Square! I’ll be there in record time.”
With his usual efficiency and avoidance of all waste motion, Andrew Barham had summoned his valet, and his chauffeur, and had ordered his car while he was getting into his clothes.
Prall, the valet, came in to find him already almost entirely dressed.
With a few quick, somewhat jerky words, he explained the situation to his trusted servant, saying, “Come with me, Prall, I think it’s very serious.”
Awed by the look on his master’s face, Prall bowed a silent assent, and in the shortest possible time, they were speeding down the Avenue, careful only to avoid a hold up by the traffic squad.
“Did you ever know of Mrs. Barham’s going to any place on Washington Square, Prall?”
“Never, sir.”
And Andrew Barham wondered.
Madeleine had said he was always wondering, but surely he had never before had such occasion for wonderment. Madeleine, at a fancy dress ball—in Washington Square, and—hurt—didn’t that man say fatally hurt?
To be sure, Madeleine went where she chose—she had her own friends—but Barham knew who they were, if he didn’t know them personally; and they were of her own circles, most certainly not of a Washington Square type.
So he wondered, blindly, and at last they were there.
Barham hurried up the steps, quite forgetting to ask for the back staircase.
In fact, the sight of several policemen about, so took away his wits, he thought of little else for the instant.
Before Barham arrived, Hutchins had arranged things to give the least possible shock. Henry Post had been put on duty downstairs to see that no one took advantage of the detective’s absence to get away. Pearl Jane had been ensconced in Locke’s bedroom with Kate Vallon to look after her.
In the room with Mrs. Barham’s body were only the members of the Police Force, Doctor Gannett and Rodman Jarvis, who still expressed his willingness to act for Locke in any way he could.
Chinese Charley was still missing, and the officer who admitted Barham took him at once to the back stairs.
“It’s very bad, sir, and there’s a horde of curiosity seekers in the studio. This way, sir.”
Barham had directed Prall to accompany him, as he might need service of some sort.
The officer stumbled a little on the narrow dark stairs, and Barham impatiently passed him, exclaiming, “Hurry, man—I must see for myself!”
The first time, Prall observed to himself, he had ever seen the master excited. “And small wonder,” he added, as he himself began to feel a sense of horror.
Knowing better than to try to break such news slowly, Hutchins merely greeted Andrew Barham with a grave nod, and said, “There she is, sir.”
And Andrew Barham looked down on the body of his wife—whom he had seen last at dinner that same night—now, in gaudy array, and cold in death.
The man seemed turned to stone. At first his face showed incredulity, stark unbelief—then as he realized the truth of what his eyes told him he seemed to paralyze—he was utterly incapable of speech or action.
A fine looking man, the detective saw. Straight, strong, vital. His hair was light brown—almost golden—and had a curly wave in it that gave charm to an otherwise stern cast of features.
His eyes were gray-blue, and now they were so blank, so dazed, as to have almost no expression whatever.
It was the man, Prall, who moved first.
He had stood beside his master, wondering, staring, and then all at once he broke into deep sobs and turned away to hide his face.
It seemed to galvanize the other, and Andrew Barham gave a strong shudder as he tried to pull himself together.
“It is my wife,” he said, turning to the detective. “What do you know about it? How came she here? We do not know this place.”
“Mrs. Barham must have known, sir. She came in her own car, with her own chauffeur.”
“Louis! Is he here?”
“Yes, Mr. Barham.”
“It is a mystery. I do not understand at all. But this is my wife—and—she is dead. Was she—was it an accident?”
“We do not think so.”
And then Doctor Gannett gave his account of the finding of the body on the floor——
“On the floor?” Barham interrupted. “Just where?”
He was shown, and he wondered more than ever.
“With this book-end,” he mused, “this bronze Sphinx. You say it is not possible that it was an accident? That she fell on it—she was on the floor——”
“No”; and Doctor Babcock added his own testimony to Gannett’s.
Barham drew a long sigh, and brushed his hand across his eyes.
“Then,” he said, and he looked at the policemen in turn, as if arraigning them, “then you conclude it was—murder?”
“We do, sir,” Dickson answered.
“Then move heaven and earth to find out who did it! Spare no time, pains or expense. Who would—who could have reason to kill a woman like that? But, strangest of all is her presence in this place, that has yet to be ex plained. Everything has yet to be explained. Are any of her friends here—in the other room?”
“No, Mr. Barham, everybody in the other room declares he or she never saw Mrs. Barham before.”
Again the man seemed so blankly bewildered as to be on the verge of losing his mind.
But he wasn’t. Andrew Barham was unutterably amazed, astounded—but he wasn’t yet dazed. His mind was thinking with lightning quickness.
“Who did it?” he demanded again. “You must have some suspicion—some slight clue!”
“We have no suspicion, Mr. Barham,” Hutchins told him, “and as to clues or evidence, we’ve not been able to go into those things yet. Think, it only happened less than two hours ago.”
“Less than two hours ago! Then why wasn’t I told sooner?”
“Because nobody knew who she was.”
“Nobody knew my wife! In a house where she had come as a guest!”
“No, nobody knew her.”
“The host? Didn’t he know her?”
“The host—Mr. Locke, cannot be found.”
Andrew Barham dropped into a chair.
“Do