Guy Garrick | Page 6

the case, especially as to the manner in which the
unfortunate girl met her death.
"Until a late hour the body, which is of a girl perhaps twenty- three or
four, of medium height, fair, good looking, and stylishly dressed, was
still unidentified. She was unknown in this part of the country."
Almost before I had finished reading, Garrick had his hat and coat on
and had shoved into his pocket a little detective camera.
"Strange about the bullet," I ruminated. "I wonder who she can be?"
"Very strange," agreed Garrick, urging me on. "I think we ought to
investigate the case."
As we hurried along to a restaurant for a bite of breakfast, he remarked,
"The circumstances of the thing, coming so closely after the report
about Warrington's car, are very suspicious--very. I feel sure that we
shall find some connection between the two affairs."
Accordingly, we caught an early train and at the nearest railroad station
to the town mentioned in the despatch engaged a hackman who knew
the coroner, a local doctor.
The coroner was glad to assist us, though we were careful not to tell
him too much of our own connection with the case. On the way over to
the village undertaker's where the body had been moved, he
volunteered the information that the New York police, whom he had
notified immediately, had already sent a man up there, who had taken a
description of the girl and finger prints, but had not, so far at least,
succeeded in identifying the girl, at any rate on any of the lists of those
reported missing.
"You see," remarked Garrick to me, "that is where the police have us at

a disadvantage. They have organization on their side. A good many
detectives make the mistake of antagonizing the police. But if you want
results, that's fatal."
"Yes," I agreed, "it's impossible, just as it is to antagonize the
newspapers."
"Exactly," returned Garrick. "My idea of the thing, Marshall, is that I
should work with, not against, the regular detectives. They are all right,
in fact indispensable. Half the secret of success nowadays is efficiency
and organization. What I do believe is that organization plus science is
what is necessary."
The local undertaking establishment was rather poorly equipped to take
the place of a morgue and the authorities were making preparations to
move the body to the nearest large city pending the disposal of the case.
Local detectives had set to work, but so far had turned up nothing, not
even the report which we had already received from McBirney
regarding the blood-stained car that resembled Warrington's.
We arrived with the coroner fortunately just before the removal of the
body to the city and by his courtesy were able to see it without any
trouble.
Death, and especially violent death, are at best grewsome subjects, but
when to that are added the sordid surroundings of a country
undertaker's and the fact that the victim is a woman, it all becomes
doubly tragic.
She was a rather flashily dressed girl, but remarkably good looking, in
spite of the rouge and powder which had long since spoiled what might
otherwise have been a clear and fine complexion. The roots of her hair
showed plainly that it had been bleached.
Garrick examined the body closely, and more especially the jagged
wound in the breast. I bent over also. It seemed utterly inexplicable.
There was, he soon discovered, a sort of greasy, oleaginous deposit in
the clotted blood of the huge cavity in the flesh. It interested him, and

he studied it carefully for a long time, without saying a word.
"Some have said she was wounded by some kind of blunt instrument,"
put in the coroner. "Others that she was struck by a car. But it's my
opinion that she was killed by a rifle bullet of some kind, although what
could have become of the bullet is beyond me. I've probed for it, but it
isn't there."
Garrick finished his minute examination of the wound without passing
any comment on it of his own.
"Now, if you will be kind enough to take us around to the place where
the body was discovered," he concluded, "I think we shall not trespass
on your time further."
In his own car, the coroner drove us up the road in the direction of the
New York state boundary to the spot where the body had been found. It
was a fine, well-oiled road and I noticed the number and high quality of
the cars which passed us.
When we arrived at the spot where the body of the unfortunate girl had
been discovered, Garrick began a minute search. I do not think for a
moment that he expected to find any weapon, or even the