"You go too fast, Mr. Tracey. We don't know yet that the criminal has stolen your car. Is the house you were visiting far from here?"
"Oh, I guess not. Mrs. Baldwin hangs out No. 20------"
"Yes," interrupted Derrick, "you told me. That's no distance. Meadow Lane--to be sure--part of Old Troy."
"No," contradicted Tracey. "The village is called Cloverhead."
"And round the village Troy has been built, so the lesser name is merged in the larger."
"Sounds legal, and not quite right, Mr. Inspector. Say, your name's------"
"Derrick. Inspector Derrick. I am in charge of the Troy police, and this is the first crime of any sort I have stumbled across here."
"Slow lot," commented the American. "In our country we'd have filled the boneyard in six months."
"We don't murder on that gigantic scale here, Mr. Tracey," Derrick answered, somewhat dryly. Then he looked steadily and keenly at the man. "I'm going to trust you," he declared.
Tracey whistled, and stared doubtfully at the body. "Shouldn't if I were you, sir. Here's a crime, and I know a lot------"
"Oh, you do! What do you know?"
"What I've told you. I might be an accomplice too, you see, along with the other man."
"The murderer?"
"No. The rooster who skipped with my car. He didn't stick that poor girl there. Not he. Guess he kept your copper employed in jaw while the real murderer polished off the female. That's how I size up things. Well, sir, and what do you want me to do?"
"Fetch a doctor."
"Don't know any hereabouts My knowledge of this township is limited to Meadow Lane, and Miss Baldwin's favourite walk across the fields. 'Sides"--he cast a quizzical look at the officer--"I might not come back."
"Oh yes, you will. I shouldn't let you go if I wasn't sure you'd return, if only for the sake of your car and the advertisement."
Tracey laughed. "Well, where's the medicine man?"
Derrick scribbled a few lines on his card, and passed it along. "Go there, and ask Dr. Geason to come here--the sooner the better."
"Right, sir!" Tracey rose and looked wistfully down at the dead. "I guess the man who did that would be lynched in our country."
"He'll be hanged in this when found," retorted Derrick. "Go, please."
When the American was out of the room the inspector resumed his examination. Mulligan returned when he was in the middle of a brown study. "There's nothing to be seen, sir," he reported. "No one in the house. Doors and windows all bolted and barred. Not a sign."
"Strange," mused Derrick. "You are sure that the man who came out of the house was speaking with you while the singing was going on?"
"I'll take my oath on it, sir. He can't be guilty."
"Did he strike you as being confused?"
"Not very, sir. He didn't want his face to be seen, though, and kept his hat down on his eyes. He said the lady who was singing was his sister, and that he often came to see her."
"H'm! Why should he come to a house which is shut up?"
"He had the latch-key."
"Hand it over to me," said Derrick, and when in possession of it, took a long look at the size and shape. "New," said he, rapping it on his knuckles. "Hasn't been used much."
"Might be polished from too much use, sir," ventured Mulligan.
"The edges wouldn't be so rough if it wasn't new." Derrick pointed this fact out. "You don't know the man's name?"
"No, sir."
"Nor where he lives?"
"No, sir; I had no reason to ask him anything."
"Well, I suppose you couldn't foresee that we should want him. I don't expect he'll turn up in this neighbourhood again."
"What's your theory, sir?"
"It's early to form one, Mulligan. I fancy two men killed this woman. The one you saw kept you in conversation, while the other murdered the woman, and then cleared, while his accomplice led you away. Did you hear a scream?"
"No, sir. The song ended as we left the gate, and in a few minutes we were too far away to hear any cry."
"As I thought. The man was an accomplice sent out to lure you away."
"It might be, sir," confessed Mulligan. "I was leaning over the gate when the young gentleman came out."
"The men saw you from the window, and as they couldn't kill the woman while you were there, Number One went out to draw you away, while Number Two remained behind to commit the crime. At what hour did you part with Number One?"
"Half-past eleven, sir. I was with him thirty minutes."
"Time enough for Number Two to murder the woman and make off. He escaped by the front door, since you say the back premises are locked up. Ah! there's the doctor. Go to the station and send on----" Here Derrick named two of his most trusted subordinates.
When Mulligan left, the inspector resumed his examination. Already he had looked over the clothing of the deceased. She was plainly but tastefully dressed in black, but wore no ornaments. Everything was of good quality, but made without trimmings. The under-linen was equally fine, but on it the inspector could find no mark or initials likely to indicate the name. Apparently she had been seated at the piano when stabbed, and had fallen dead on the bearskin almost without a cry. The assassin had assured himself that she was dead, then had turned her face downward, so as to avoid the horrified stare of those wide-open eyes. At least this was the inspector's view.
"A pretty woman," said Derrick musingly. "Fair, slender, blue eyes, delicate hands. I should think she was a lady. Married"--he touched the ring--"but not rich, since she wears no ornaments. Careful in her dress, but, not mean, and not fashionable either. Hullo!"
This exclamation was drawn from him by the sight of a hat and cloak thrown over a chair on the further side of the piano. These were also fine, but neat and unpretentious. The woman must have come to the house on a visit, since she certainly would not have placed her out-of-door things in such a place and have sat down had she a bedroom in the house. But what was she doing in a mansion, the owner of which was at the seaside? Had the first man let her in with his latch-key, and if so, how did he come to be in possession of the latch-key? These were questions which the inspector was trying to answer when the doctor arrived.
Geason was an ambitious young medical man who had set up in Troy a year previously, and was trying hard to scrape a practice together. He was well aware that such a case as this would give him a much-desired publicity, and consequently expressed himself profoundly grateful to Derrick for the job. Then he knelt beside the body and made an examination, while Tracey, who had returned, questioned the inspector. "Found out anything?" he asked.
