Chapter XXXVII Two Sheets of Paper
There was no reply in words, but the boy moved uneasily and twisted one foot around the bench leg.
“You went to the Merton House a little after six to-night,” Lawrence went on, in the same low, even voice, “and got a letter there, which you took to Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding on Fifth Avenue. Do you remember anything about the man who gave it to you?”
The boy squirmed a little, and seemed intent on poking a minute pebble into a crack in the floor.
“Nothin’ special,” he mumbled at last.
Barry laughed. “Oh, come now!” he returned. “You must remember what he looked like.”
The youngster thrust both chapped and freckled hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, and scowled.
“Well,” he muttered slowly, his eyes still on the floor, “he was sort o’ short, an’ fat, an’—an’ had a—a squint in one eye. His hair was—light. That’s all I know about him.”
For a moment Barry sat regarding the small face screwed up into a fearsome scowl, noted the twitching eyebrows, and the clenched fists visible through the cloth of the blue trousers. Then he shook his head.
“I’m afraid, Jimmy,” he murmured, “that your bump of observation isn’t very well developed. Are you sure the man wasn’t tall and slim and dark, and rather good looking?”
The red-headed youngster gasped, and, flinging back his head, met Lawrence’s eyes squarely for the first time.
“How in blazes did you——” he stammered; and then broke off abruptly, a vivid flush staining his freckled face.
“I guessed,” Barry returned quietly. “Look here, Jimmy,” he went on, in a low, vibrant tone. “I’m going to tell you something which I haven’t spoken of to a soul to-night. I’m doing this because I need your help—badly. A young girl is in trouble. She’s been carried off by some men whom she’s never harmed in any way, and I’ve got to get her back—I’ve simply got to! That fellow who gave you the letter at the Merton House is one of the gang. That’s why I want to know what he looks like. That’s why I’m sure you’re going to tell me everything you can, for he’s a scoundrel, Jimmy, nothing less; and no decent man would try to shield him once he knew how bad he was.”
For the second time the boy looked straight into Barry’s eyes. His face was still flushed, but there was upon it an expression of intense, overpowering interest.
“Is that straight, mister?” he demanded excitedly. Jimmy had always pined to be mixed up in some really big crime, but this was the nearest he had come to realizing his dream. “You ain’t stringin’ me?”
“I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Lawrence returned seriously. “If the reporters got on to it, there’d be the biggest kind of excitement in the newspapers. She’s the niece of Mrs. Wilmerding; one of the richest women in New York, you know.”
The youngster’s eyes were popping out by this time, but he still seemed to hesitate.
“He gimme a dollar,” he explained doubtfully, “an’ I promised——”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Lawrence interposed. “He had no right to make you promise to keep still about a crime.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” the boy burst out impulsively; and, with a long breath, he plunged into a recital which Barry had no doubt was the truth this time.
He had been called to the desk at six-five, and told to report to Mr. George Brown in the lobby of the Merton House. On arriving, he had not even had to inquire at the desk for that person. A man had hurried up to him as he entered the door, and, drawing him to one side, handed him a sealed letter addressed to Mrs. Ogden Wilmerding on Fifth Avenue. It must be delivered at once, the stranger said; then, when he had paid the boy and Jimmy was turning to leave, he produced a dollar bill, and told the messenger that, if any inquiries were made, he was not to tell anything. The man was tall and slim, with dark hair and eyes, and wore a silk hat. Jimmy pronounced him altogether a decided swell.
“He told me it was a joke, an’ he didn’t want the parties to get wise to him,” the boy concluded; “but I kinda thought it was something different from that.”
“It was—very different,” Barry said thoughtfully. He was searching his memory for any possible recollection of such an individual, but in vain. “You’re all to the good, Jimmy, and I can’t tell you how much obliged I am. I’d like to give you——”
“I don’t want nothin’,” the youngster broke in decidedly. “You jest give my name right to the reporters, that’s all.”
“I will,” Lawrence returned seriously, “if they get on to the case. What is it?”
“Donovan—James F. Donovan.”
Barry noted it on a bit of paper with the inward determination to reward the boy in some way; then, after another word of thanks and a quick handshake, he sprang to his feet and made his way hastily to the door.
Three minutes later he was interviewing the telephone girl at the Merton House concerning the tall, slim man with the top hat who had called a certain number earlier in the evening.
The young woman remembered the incident perfectly, and was able to add one or two particulars which had escaped the messenger boy, but which only made certain Barry’s impression that he had never set eyes on the unknown.
On his way out he scrutinized the hotel stationery, but without any real hope that it would prove identical with that on which the letter, was written.
In the doorway he paused undecided. The fact that the man had sent his message from the Merton House showed absolutely nothing. He might have come from a totally different part of town in order to divert suspicion and throw possible pursuers off the track. That would be a natural move, anyway, and Lawrence hesitated a long time before an idea came to him.
Then suddenly his eyes brightened and he glanced swiftly up Fourth Avenue. He knew the neighborhood very well, and could recall no stationery shop near it. Nevertheless, he told the chauffeur to drive slowly around the square, and to stop if he rapped on the glass.
The circuit was of no avail. The taxi reached the southwest corner without the signal having been made, and Barry told the man to proceed on down University Place at the same slow speed. A block passed, then another; but before the third corner had been reached Lawrence struck the glass with such force as nearly to shatter it, and, leaping out of the still-moving machine, darted into a narrow little shop bearing a sign above the door to the effect that stationery and cigars could be had within.
As the girl came forward, he fumbled in his pocket and produced the letter.
“Have you any writing paper like this?” he asked, extending it to her, but still retaining a hold upon one corner.
She bent forward to glance at the texture, and at that instant Barry realized with a start that he had handed her the letter which had come from the little man in black, inclosing the five one-hundred-dollar bills.
“I beg pardon,” he said hastily. “I’ve made a mistake. This is the kind I want.”
He drew forth the other letter; then, with a swift catching of the breath, stood staring stupidly from one to the other. For a second he did not move. He could not believe this odd coincidence. He held the two sheets to the light. The watermarks were identical. He lowered the sheets and examined them intently. In size, color, texture, quality they could not have been more alike had they come from the same box.
What did it mean?