THE Apthorpe estate ran parallel to the main street of the town but the house itself was perched on a hill almost a mile distant from it. A long winding ascent led to a big stone, turreted mansion commanding an extensive view of the country that lay about it. A well kept lawn three hundred yards in width surrounded the house.

“The place was built,” Mr. Westward explained, “by Colonel Crofton, the railroad man. On this lawn were great beds of rhododendrons which cost a great deal of money. When Apthorpe bought it he had them torn up and sown in grass. He said the flower beds and shrubberies were places where burglars might conceal themselves by day to break in by night.”

“He was certainly suspicious,” Trent commented.

Westward pointed to the house which rose like a fortress above them.

“When Crofton had it there were windows on the ground level and several entrances. Apthorpe had them filled with granite all except that big doorway opposite.”

By this time Trent was near enough to see that the house was not remote from buildings such as the stables and garages which are adjacent to most such residences. He remarked on the peculiarity.

“The automobiles are kept in the basement of the house,” Westward explained. “The big doors I pointed out to you cannot be opened by the chauffeurs. When they want to go out or come in they have to phone for permission. Then Mr. Apthorpe or some one else would touch a button in his big living room and the gates would swing open. He had a searchlight on the tower until the Federal authorities forbade it.”

“It seems to me he must have lived in dread of violence,” Trent observed, “and yet why should he? He was a well known Boston broker of an old New England family, not the kind one would think involved in crime. In fiction it is the man who comes home after spending half his life in the mysterious East that one suspects of robbing gods of their jeweled eyes and incurring the sworn vengeances of their priests.”

“All men who collect precious stones live in dread,” Charles Westward said. “I’ve never seen any of his things. I’m not interested in them particularly. I’ve always talked about fishing when I’ve been there, but it’s common knowledge that he was going to leave his valuables to the Museum of Fine Arts. One of the things which incensed his wife was that he wouldn’t give her or her daughter any of the jewels but preferred to keep them locked away.”

A flight of twenty granite steps led to the main entrance, two heavily built, metal studded doors. A lofty hall was disclosed with a circular stairway around it. Leading from the hall to what seemed the main room on that floor was a flight of six steps. The chestnut doors had been shattered. Obviously it was the room in which Apthorpe had met his death. For the rest it looked in no way different from half a hundred other rooms in big houses which Trent had investigated professionally. Bookshelves not more than four feet in height lined three sides of the apartment. Making a pretense of reading the titles Trent looked to see whether they were indeed volumes or mere blinds. The policeman in charge, knowing Mr. Westward well, was only too willing to show him and his friend what was to be seen. The body, he explained, was in an upper chamber.

One peculiarity Trent noted in the book cases. Apparently there was no way to open them. They were of metal painted over. If keyholes existed they were hidden from view. Fearing that the policeman in charge would notice his scrutiny, he walked over to the open window and looked out. It was from this that the murderer made his escape. Twelve feet below the green closely cropped turf touched the granite foundation of the walls.

When Mr. Westward offered him a cigar he took out his pipe instead and knocked out the ashes against the window ledge. Mr. Westward heard an exclamation of annoyance and asked its cause. Then he saw that while the stem of the pipe remained in its owner’s hand the bowl had fallen to the lawn below.

“I won’t be a minute,” Trent said, and went down the main steps to the grounds. It was no accident that led him to drop his favorite briar. His keen eyes had seen footprints in the grass as he looked down. They might well be the marks of him who had stolen the famous emerald and Trent had decreed a private vendetta against one who might have robbed him for what he came into Massachusetts. Searching for the pipe bowl which he had instantly detected he made a rapid examination of the ground.

There were indeed footprints made undoubtedly by some one dropping from the end of the portiere to the soft turf. And as he gazed, the mysterious man whom he had suspected faded into thin air. They were the imprints of the high heels that only women wear! Carefully he followed them as far as the big gates of the garage. They were not distinct to any but a trained observer. They were single tracks leading from the grass beneath the window to the garage. Not an unnecessary step had been taken. Apparently the local police had pulled in the portiere from the window and had made no examination of the grass below.

Trent noticed that a man, evidently a gardener, was approaching him. Quickly he dropped the bowl of his pipe again among some clover. The man was eager and obliging. Furthermore he had heavily shod feet which were already making their impression on the turf to the undoing of any who might seek, as Anthony Trent had done, to make a careful examination. Already the high heeled imprints were obliterated.

When the pipe was found the man insisted on speaking of the murder. He declared that for an hour on the fatal night a big touring car had been drawn up near his cottage in a lane nearby and that two men got out of it leaving another in charge.

Trent shook him off as soon as he could and returned to the house, his previously held theories wholly upset. He had built them in the facts or falsities carefully supplied by Miss Thompson and he was anxious to see the lady. It was most likely that the woman who had lowered herself from the window was the woman who had committed the murder. And for what could the crimes have been committed so readily as the Takowaja emerald?

He recalled now that there had been a certain reserve in the Westwards’ manner when they had spoken of Miss Thompson. Might they not have suspected her and yet feared to voice these suspicions to a stranger?

As he thought it over he came to the conclusion that it was not of the crime of murder they suspected her but perhaps because of her relations with so notorious a man as the late Andrew Apthorpe. He remembered that the dead man’s family was alienated from him, possibly for this very reason.

He was given an opportunity very shortly to see the nurse. She came along the hall, not seeing him as he stood in the entrance, and made her way toward Mr. Westward. She was a tall woman, quietly dressed and not in nurses’ uniform. Her walk was studied and her gestures exaggerated. She was that hard, blond type overladen with affectation to one who observed carelessly. But Trent could see she had a jaw like a prize fighter and her carefully pencilled eyes were intrinsically bellicose. She had a big frame and was, he judged, muscularly strong. And of course nurses must have good nerves. If she had the emerald he was determined to obtain, it would not be an easy conquest.

Her greeting of Mr. Westward was effusive. Indeed it seemed too effusive to please him. He was courteous and expressed sympathy. She talked volubly. She related in detail the events of the previous night and the listener noticed that she was letter perfect. The only new angle he got was a description of the supposed murderer. According to Nurse Thompson he was about fifty, wore a short grizzled moustache, was of medium height but very broad, and dressed in a dark gray suit. In accent she judged him to be a Westerner. She would recognize him, she declared dramatically, among ten million.

Trent had no wish to meet her – yet. He had seen her, recognized a predacious and formidable type and had observed she wore expensive shoes with fashionably high heels.

Presently Charles Westward joined him.

“I’ve been talking to Miss Thompson,” he volunteered.

“I saw you,” Trent said, “but supposed it was one of the family. She wasn’t dressed as a nurse.”

“She doesn’t act like one,” Westward answered. “Richmond was right. That woman drinks. I don’t like her, Mr. Trent.”

“I suppose she needs sympathy now that her position is lost?”

The more Anthony Trent thought over the matter the more thoroughly he became convinced that the mysterious stranger of whom the nurse spoke had no existence. If she had killed her employer she would not have done so unless it were to her advantage. And what better reason could there be, were she criminally minded, than some of his famous jewels? Trent determined to follow the thing up. He chuckled to think that he was now on the opposite side of the fence, the hunter instead of the hunted. But that was no reason that he should aid his enemy the law. If he devoted his talents to the running down of the murderer he wanted the reward for himself.

Supposing that she had planned the crime, the opportunity was hers when she had the old man alone in the house. She would have been far too clever to use her knowledge of drugs to poison him. By such a ruse she would inevitably have incurred suspicion. If his assumption were correct she had been very clever. At eight o’clock she had started the ball rolling. At nine she had strengthened her position by some acting clever enough to deceive Mrs. Westward. And when they had reached her primed by her story of the threatening stranger they had found her waiting hysterically for their aid. No doubt she had been drinking. Most women hate using firearms for violent purposes unless the act is one of suddenly inspired fury when the deed almost synchronizes with the impelling thought.

She had planned the thing carefully. She had, if his theory held, probably shot the old man as he sat reading. Then she had locked and barred the great doors and lowered herself to the ground and entered by the garage door which she could have opened from above. Thus the men coming to her aid found a scene prepared which her ingenuity had led them to expect as entirely reasonable.

“By the way,” he demanded suddenly, “how long was the doctor or coroner in getting to Mr. Apthorpe?”

“He didn’t get there until midnight. His motor broke down.”

It was thus impossible to fix accurately the time of Apthorpe’s death.

As they turned from the drive into Groton’s main street a big limousine passed them. To its occupants Mr. Westward raised his hat.

“Mrs. Apthorpe,” he explained, “her daughter and son-in-law, Hugh Fanwood. The other man was Wilkinson the lawyer who acts for Mrs. Apthorpe.” He paused as another car turned into the drive. “Look like detectives,” he commented. “We are well out of it.”

That night Anthony Trent went back to New York. Twenty-four hours later his fast runabout drew up at the Westward’s hospitable home.

“I brought my car over from Boston,” he explained untruthfully, “on my way back to New York by way of the Berkshires and dropped in to see if there was any news in the Apthorpe murder case. The Boston papers had very little I didn’t already know.”

He learned a great deal that interested him. First that Nurse Thompson had been left fifty thousand dollars in the Apthorpe will. This, on the advice of counsel, would not be contested, as the widow desired, on the ground of undue influence. Her daughter Mrs. Hugh Fanwood was not desirous of publicity.

Secondly one of the most famous jewels in the world had been stolen.

“Imagine it,” Mrs. Westward exclaimed, “for five years an emerald that was once in a Tsarina’s crown has been within a mile of us and not a soul in Groton knew of it. It was worth a fortune. Now we know why the poor man was done to death.”

“Have they any clue?” he demanded.

“They have offered a reward of ten thousand dollars. Miss Thompson’s description of the man has been circulated widely and caused arrests in every town in the state. The house is being searched by a detective agency but we all believe it’s useless. I don’t think Amelia Apthorpe behaved at all well. She insisted on having everybody searched who was in the house. Not Charles of course but every one she didn’t know and some whom she did.”

“I was in the house,” Trent reminded them, “perhaps I ought to offer myself.”

“No, no,” Westward exclaimed, “I told Mrs. Apthorpe who you were. I said you bought the Stanley camp on Kennebago and that I could vouch for you.”

“That’s mighty nice of you,” Trent responded warmly. It was at a moment like this when he realized he was deceiving a good sportsman that he hated the life he had chosen. It was one of the reasons that he denied himself friends. “Did she have any sort of scrap with Miss Thompson?”

“It’s too mild a word,” said Westward. “After the nurse’s things were searched she was told to go. Then she said she should bring an action against Mrs. Apthorpe for defamation of character and illegal search. She promised that there would be enough scandal unearthed to satisfy even the yellow press. I don’t suppose poor Amelia Apthorpe knew there were such lurid words in or out of the dictionary until the Thompson woman flung them at her.”

“Will she bring action, do you think?”

“I think she’s too shrewd. From what Hugh Fanwood told me they had looked up her record and found it shady. She was a graduate nurse once. Her diploma is genuine and the doctor here tells me she knew her business, but there are other things that she wouldn’t want in print. I think we’ve seen the last of her. She’ll get her fifty thousand dollars and when she’s gone through that she’ll find some other old fool to fall for her.”

So far, Trent’s conjecture as to her character had been accurate. The death of Apthorpe meant a large sum of money to her while the legacy remained unrevoked. He could not marry her since he was not divorced from his wife. Perhaps he had believed in her sufficiently to show her his peerless emerald. Or perhaps he had only hinted at its glories and she had become possessed of the secret of its whereabouts. In any case Anthony Trent firmly believed she had it. It was quite likely that she had secreted it somewhere in the grounds of the mansion to retrieve it without risk later on. What woman except Nurse Thompson would have lowered herself from the room to the turf below on the night of the murder? And was it not likely that the emerald was the cause of the tragedy? The whole history of precious stones could be written in blood. In any case it was a working hypothesis sound enough for Trent to have faith in.

In accordance with the advice of lawyers and relatives Mrs. Andrew Apthorpe decided to place no obstacle in the way of the departure of Nurse Thompson. She told Mrs. Westward she was certain the woman had taken the diamond ring she flaunted and that it had not been a gift, as she claimed, from her employer. Furthermore it was evident that she had made a good deal of money in padding the household expenses.

Detectives, meanwhile, clinging faithfully to the description so generously amplified by Miss Thompson of the thief in the night, were hunting everywhere for him and his loot.

The West Groton Gazette supplied Anthony Trent with some much needed information. It printed in its social columns the news that Miss Norah Thompson was to make an extended stay in the West, making her first long stop at San Francisco. Until then she was staying with a married sister in East Boston. Since the name was given in full Anthony Trent had little difficulty in finding what he needed. An operative from a Boston detective agency gleaned the facts while Trent made a pleasant stay at the Touraine. To the operative he was a Mr. Graham Maltby of Chicago.

When he went West on the same train as the now resplendent Miss Norah Thompson he was possessed of a vast amount of information concerning her. In St. Louis six years before she had badly beaten a man whom she declared had broken his engagement to marry her. She was a singularly violent disposition and had figured in half a dozen cases which wound up in police courts.

CHAPTER XXI
A THIEF TO CATCH A THIEF

IT was not a matter of much difficulty for Trent, still Mr. Maltby, to become acquainted with male members of the set in San Francisco which Miss Thompson affected. He knew that she dined each night at a café which attracted many motion picture people. And he learned that there was a producer from Los Angeles now looking for easy money in San Francisco who was very friendly with her. Since this man Weiller was easy of approach to such as seemed prosperous it was not difficult for Trent to strike up an acquaintance one day at the St Charles. Weiller first of all, as became a loyal native son, spoke of climate. Then with even greater enthusiasm he spoke of the movies as money-makers. He wanted to get a little money together, put on a feature and sell it. He arranged all the details on the back of a St. Charles menu card. He had an idea which, if William Reynard of New York could learn of it, would bring that eminent producer of features a cool million.

Anthony Trent hung back with the lack of interest a man with money to invest may properly exhibit. Weiller was sure he had money. He lived at a first class hotel, he dined well and he was a “dresser” to be admired. Also Weiller had seen a sizeable roll of bills on occasion.

There came a night when at Anthony Trent’s expense, Miss Norah Thompson, Weiller and a svelte girl called by Weiller California’s leading “anjenou,” partook of a sumptuous repast. Had it not been that Trent was out for business the whole thing would have disgusted him. Weiller and Norah were blatantly vulgar and intent on impressing their host. The “anjenou” said a hundred times that he was like one of her dearest “gentlemen friends” now being featured by the Jewbird Film company. Her friend was handsome but she liked Anthony’s nose better.

With coffee came the great scheme. Weiller wanted to make a five reel feature of the Andrew Apthorpe murder. Norah Thompson was to play the lead!

“It’ll knock ’em dead!” cried Weiller. “Gee! What press agent stuff!” He helped himself with a hand trembling from excitement to another gulp of wine. “My boy, you’re in luck. We’ll go into this thing on equal shares. I’m putting up fifty thousand dollars and you shall put up a like sum. We’ll clear up five hundred per cent.”

“You’ve put up fifty thousand in actual cash?” Trent demanded.

“That’s what I capitalize my knowledge of pictures at,” Weiller explained.

“George is one of the best known producers in the game,” Miss Thompson said, a trifle nettled at what she thought was a smile of contempt on the other’s face. “He don’t need your money. I’ve got enough in this bag right here to produce it.” She waived a black moiré bag before Trent’s eyes.

George Weiller looked at her and frowned. What a foolish project, he thought, to spend one’s own money when here was a victim.

“You keep that, little one,” he said generously. “We’re gentlemen; we don’t want to take a lady’s money. We’ll talk it over later.”

A keen salesman, he noted Trent was growing restive. If the matter were persisted in he might either take a fright or take offence. All this he explained later. “You see, Norah,” he remarked, “that guy has a chin on him that means you can’t drive him.”

“He’s got a cold, nasty eye,” said Norah who was not without her just fears of strangers.

“I’m going to play the game so he’ll beg me to let him in on it,” Weiller boasted. “I know the way to play that sort of bird.”

The negotiations resulted in Trent’s seeing a great deal more of this precious couple than he cared for. The “anjenou” finding her charms made no impression on him was rarely included in the little dinners and excursions.

It was when Trent had met Miss Thompson a dozen times that he consulted the notes he had made on each occasion. It was a method of working unique so far as he could learn. It might yield no results in a thousand cases. In the thousand and first it might be the clue. It was nothing more than a list of the costumes he had seen the ex-nurse wear.

On going through the list he saw that whereas Miss Thompson had worn a new dress on each occasion of the dinners in public restaurants with shoes and hosiery to harmonize or match the color scheme of her gown she had always carried the black moiré bag. And since it was a fashion of the moment for women to own many and elaborate bags of this sort to match or harmonize with the color scheme or details of their costumes, it seemed odd that Norah Thompson, who had been buying everything that seemed modish, should fail to follow the way of the well dressed.

The bag as he remembered it was about seven inches wide and perhaps ten inches long. It was closed by a silver buckle and a pendant of some sort swung at each corner. Concentrating upon it he remembered they were not beads but made of the same material as the bag itself and in size about that of an English walnut. He called to mind the fact that he had never seen her without this bag. Why should she cling so closely to what was already demodé? Were he a genuine detective the problem had been an easy one. He could seize the bag, search it and denounce her. But that would entail giving up a priceless stone for a few thousand dollars of reward.

On the pretext of having to buy a present for a Chicago cousin, Anthony Trent led the willing Weiller into one of the city’s exclusive department stores. Weiller was anxious to do anything and everything for his new friend. That night he, Norah and some other friends were to be Trent’s guests at a very recherché dinner. He felt, as the born salesman senses these things, that he would get his answer that night and that it would be favorable. And with fifty thousand dollars to play with he might do anything. Probably the last project would be to make a picture himself.

Trent asked to be shown the very latest thing in bags. The counter was presently laden with what the salesgirl claimed to be direct importations from Paris. Trent selected one which he said would suit his cousin.

“You ought to get one for Norah,” he said. “What color is she going to wear to-night?”

“Light blue,” Weiller returned almost sulkily. He had been with her when she purchased the gown and resented the extravagance. If she went on at that rate there would be nothing left for him. “What they call gentian blue.”

The salesgirl picked out an exquisite blue bag on which the lilies of France had been painted daintily by hand. It was further decorated with a border of fleur-de-lis in seed pearls.

“This is the biggest bargain we have,” the girl assured them. “The government won’t allow any more to be brought over. It’s marked down to a hundred dollars.” She looked at George Weiller, “Will you take it?”

“I’m not sure it’s the shade my friend wants,” he prevaricated. In reality he cursed Trent for dragging him into a proposition which could cost such a sum. He had not a tenth of the amount upon him.

“I’ll take it,” Trent said carelessly, pushing a hundred dollar bill over the counter, “I’ve plenty of cousins and girls always like these things.”

Weiller sighed enviously. He often remarked if he could capitalize his brains he would pay an income tax of a million dollars; but that did not prevent him from being invariably short of ready money.

He was looking forward to the dinner Trent was to give him and his friends that night. Besides Norah there were five other moving picture people who were to be used to impress Trent with their knowledge of the game and the money he could make out of it. They would be amply repaid by the dinner; for there are those who serve the screened drama whose salaries are small. These ancilliary salesmen and women were to meet at half past six in the furnished flat Norah Thompson had rented. There they were to be drilled.

It was while they were receiving the finishing touches that Anthony Trent knocked upon the door, blandly announcing that he had brought an automobile to take Norah and George to the hotel where he was staying.

Instantly the gathering registered impatience to start. Weiller, always suspicious, feared that Trent might think it curious that so many were engaged in earnest conversation, and he wondered if their voices had carried to the hall where Trent had waited.

Suave and courteous, Trent made himself at home among the crowd of people who were, so they informed him, world famous in a screen sense.

Trent, as usual, had timed things accurately. It was part of his scheme that Norah should want to banish from his mind the idea that there had been any collusion. She was bright and vivacious in her manner toward him.

“You are a sweet man,” she exclaimed, “I’m dreadfully hungry – and thirsty. Come on boys and girls.”

He noticed that although arrayed in a new costume of blue, she clung to her back moiré bag. He called Weiller aside while Norah mixed a last cocktail for the men.

“George,” he whispered, “that blue bag I bought is just the thing to give Norah.” George felt a parcel thrust into his hand. “It’s a little present from me to you and she mustn’t know I bought it.”

“She shan’t from me,” Weiller said almost tremulously. Nothing could have happened more delightfully. Not ten minutes ago in the presence of his even less prosperous motion picture colleagues, Norah had called him a tightwad who didn’t think enough of the woman he was to marry to buy her a ring. He explained that easily enough by saying nothing in San Francisco was good enough for her and that he was ordering one from New York. This present from a rich and careless spender would prove affluence no less than affection. “Thanks, old man, a million times.”

Norah was at the door when he presented it. She was genuinely affected by the gift. Perhaps her thanks were even warmer when one of her friends picked up the sales slip which had fluttered to the ground and read aloud the price. “I’m tired of that black bag,” George complained.

“Norah’s never going to carry that when she’s got this,” one of the other women cried. “It matches her gown exactly.”

“I took care of that,” George said complacently. “I told the saleswoman to get me the best she had but it must be gentian blue.”

There seemed a momentary hesitation before the black bag was discarded. To cling to it at such a moment would be to court suspicion. This was Trent’s strategy. Her manner was not lost upon one of the others, a character woman named Richards.

“Why, George,” she laughed, “I believe a former lover gave Norah that bag and she hates to part with it. I was in a picture once where the heroine carried the ashes of her first sweetheart around with her. I’d look into it if I was you.”

Nonchalantly Norah emptied the contents of the black bag into the new one. Then she pitched the old one onto a chair.

“Now for the eats,” she said cheerily.