An Artist in Crime. Ottolengui Rodrigues
farther end of the hall, showed him that it was a furnished parlor. He hesitated a moment, then walked stealthily towards that room and looking in saw no one. He tip-toed back to the hall-door, turned the key, took it from the lock and dropped it into his pocket. Again he passed forward to the parlor, this time entering it. It was elegantly and tastily furnished. The windows opened on the street. Between them stood a cabinet writing-desk, open, as though recently used. Beside it was an enamel piano-lamp, possibly the same which had furnished the light which Wilson had suddenly missed several hours before. Opposite the windows a pair of folding glass doors communicated with an apartment beyond. These were closed. Peeping through a part of the pattern cut in the glass, Mr. Barnes could just distinguish the form of a woman in bed, her long hair hanging down from the pillow. This sight made him uncertain as to the next move. This was possibly Mrs. Rose Mitchel, as she had announced herself. She was asleep, and he had entered her apartment without any warrant for doing so. True he looked upon her with some suspicion, but the most innocent frequently suffer in this way, and without better reason than he had, he knew that he could not account legally for what he was doing. As he stood by the glass doors cogitating, he chanced to look down. Instantly his eye was attracted by that which made him shiver, as accustomed as he was to strange sights. It was a tiny red stream, which had managed to pass under the door and had then run along the edge of the carpet for the space of a few inches. Instantly he stooped, dipped his finger into it, and then ejaculated under his breath:
"Blood, and clotted."
Standing upright, he once more peered into the room. The figure in bed had not moved. Without further hesitation he slowly slid the doors apart. One glance within, and murmuring the single word "Murder," Mr. Barnes was no longer slow in his actions. Stepping across a big pool of blood which stained the carpet, he stood at the side of the bed. He recognized the features of the woman who had claimed that she had been robbed of her diamonds. She seemed sleeping, save that there was an expression of pain on the features, a contraction of the skin between the eyebrows, and one corner of the mouth drawn aside, the whole kept in this position by the rigidity of death. The manner of her death was as simple as it was cruel. Her throat had been cut as she slept. This seemed indicated by the fact that she was clad in her night-dress. One thing that puzzled Mr. Barnes at once, was the pool of blood near the door. It was fully six feet from the head of the bed, and whilst there was another just by the bedstead, formed by blood which had trickled from the wound, running down the sheets and so dropping to the floor, the two pools did not communicate.
"Well," thought Mr. Barnes, "I am first on the scene this time, and no busybodies shall tumble things about till I have studied their significance."
This room had not been designed for a sleeping apartment but rather as a dining-room, which, upon occasion, could be opened into the parlor, converting the two into one. There was one window upon an air-shaft, and in an angle was a handsome carved oak mantel with fireplace below. Mr. Barnes raised the curtain over the window, letting in more light. Looking around he noticed almost immediately two things: first, that a basin stood on a washstand half filled with water, the color of which plainly indicated that the murderer had washed off tell-tale marks before taking his departure. Second, that in the fireplace was a pile of ashes.
"The scoundrel has burned evidence against him, and deliberately washed the blood from his person before going away. Let me see, what was it that Mitchel said: 'I should have stopped to wash the stain from the carpet whilst fresh, and also from the dog's mouth.' That is what he told his friend he would do if bitten whilst committing a crime. In this instance the 'stain on the carpet' was too much for him, but he washed it from himself. Can it be that a man lives who, contemplating a deed of this character, would make a wager that he would not be detected. Bah. It is impossible." Thus thought Mr. Barnes as he studied the evidence before him. He next turned to the woman's clothing which lay on a chair. He rummaged through the pocket, but found nothing. In handling the petticoat he noticed that a piece had been cut from the band. Examining the other garments he soon saw that the same had been done to them all. Like a flash an idea struck him. Going over to the bed he searched for some mark on the garments which were on the corpse. He could find none until he lifted the body up and turned it over, when he found that a piece had been cut from the night-dress.
"That accounts for the blood by the door," thought Mr. Barnes. "He took her out of the bed to get her nearer to the light, so that he could find the initials marked on the clothing. Whilst she lay by the door the blood flowed and accumulated. Then he put her back in bed so that he would not need to step over her in walking about the room. What a calculating villain. There is one significant fact here. Her name cannot have been Rose Mitchel, or there would have been no reason for destroying these marks, since she had given that name to several."
Mr. Barnes next brushed the charred ashes from the grate upon a newspaper, and carried them to the window in the front room. His examination satisfied him of two things; the murderer had burned the bits of cloth cut from the various garments, and also a number of letters. That the fellow was studiously careful was plain from the fact that the burning had been thoroughly done; nothing had escaped the flame save two buttons with a bit of cloth attached, and various corners of envelopes. With disgust Mr. Barnes threw the ashes back where he had found them.
Next he paid his attention to the cabinet desk which stood open. He pulled out all the drawers, and peered into every nook and cranny, but his search was fruitless. He found nothing but blank paper and envelopes, and these of common kind.
Once more returning to the room where the corpse lay, he noticed a trunk from which protruded a part of a garment. Raising the lid he found everything within in a promiscuous pile. Evidently it had been hastily searched and carelessly repacked. Mr. Barnes took each article out and examined it closely. Everything upon which a name might have been written showed a place where a piece had been cut out. "There must be some good reason for hiding this woman's identity, or the scoundrel would not have been so thorough in his work," thought Mr. Barnes. Just then in replacing the clothing he heard a crinkling sound which indicated that a bit of paper was in the pocket of the garment. Hastily he withdrew it, and was delighted to observe writing. "A clue at last," he murmured, hurrying to the front-room window to read it. For what he found see p. 44.
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