Guy Garrick | Page 2

had recognized the coincidence.
Miss Winslow, by the way, was rather closely guarded by a duenna- like aunt, Mrs. Beekman de Lancey, who at that time had achieved a certain amount of notoriety by a crusade which she had organized against gambling in society. She had reached that age when some women naturally turn toward righting the wrongs of humanity, and, in this instance, as in many others, humanity did not exactly appreciate it.
"How are you, McBirney?" greeted Garrick, as he met his old friend, then, turning to young Warrington, added: "Have you had a car stolen?"
"Have I?" chimed in the youth eagerly, and with just a trace of nervousness. "Worse than that. I can stand losing a big nine- thousand-dollar Mercedes, but--but--you tell it, McBirney. You have the facts at your tongue's end."
Garrick looked questioningly at the detective.
"I'm very much afraid," responded McBirney slowly, "that this theft about caps the climax of motor-car stealing in this city. Of course, you realize that the automobile as a means of committing crime and of escape has rendered detection much more difficult to- day than it ever was before." He paused. "There's been a murder done in or with or by that car of Mr. Warrington's, or I'm ready to resign from the profession!"
McBirney had risen in the excitement of his revelation, and had handed Garrick what looked like a discharged shell of a cartridge.
Garrick took it without a word, and turned it over and over critically, examining every side of it, and waiting for McBirney to resume. McBirney, however, said nothing.
"Where did you find the car?" asked Garrick at length, still examining the cartridge. "We haven't found it," replied the detective with a discouraged sigh.
"Haven't found it?" repeated Garrick. "Then how did you get this cartridge--or, at least why do you connect it with the disappearance of the car?"
"Well," explained McBirney, getting down to the story, "you understand Mr. Warrington's car was insured against theft in a company which is a member of our association. When it was stolen we immediately put in motion the usual machinery for tracing stolen cars."
"How about the police?" I queried.
McBirney looked at me a moment--I thought pityingly. "With all deference to the police," he answered indulgently, "it is the insurance companies and not the police who get cars back--usually. I suppose it's natural. The man who loses a car notifies us first, and, as we are likely to lose money by it, we don't waste any time getting after the thief."
"You have some clew, then?" persisted Garrick.
McBirney nodded.
"Late this afternoon word came to me that a man, all alone in a car, which, in some respects tallied with the description of Warrington's, although, of course, the license number and color had been altered, had stopped early this morning at a little garage over in the northern part of New Jersey."
Warrington, excited, leaned forward and interrupted.
"And, Garrick," he exclaimed, horrified, "the car was all stained with blood!"

CHAPTER II
THE MURDER CAR
Garrick looked from one to the other of his visitors intently. Here was an entirely unexpected development in the case which stamped it as set apart from the ordinary.
"How did the driver manage to explain it and get away?" he asked quickly.
McBirney shook his head in evident disgust at the affair.
"He must be a clever one," he pursued thoughtfully. "When he came into the garage they say he was in a rather jovial mood. He said that he had run into a cow a few miles back on the road, and then began to cuss the farmer, who had stung him a hundred dollars for the animal."
"And they believed it?" prompted Garrick.
"Yes, the garage keeper's assistant swallowed the story and cleaned the car. There was some blood on the radiator and hood, but the strange part was that it was spattered even over the rear seat--in fact, was mostly in the rear."
"How did he explain that?"
"Said that he guessed the farmer who stung him wouldn't get much for the carcass, for it had been pretty well cut up and a part of it flung right back into the tonneau."
"And the man believed that, too?"
"Yes; but afterward the garage keeper himself was told. He met the farmer in town later, and the farmer denied that he had lost a cow. That set the garage keeper thinking. And then, while they were cleaning up the garage later in the day, they found that cartridge where the car had been washed down and swept out. We had already advertised a reward for information about the stolen car, and, when he heard of the reward, for there are plenty of people about looking for money in that way, he telephoned in, thinking the story might interest us. It did, for I am convinced that his description of the machine tallies closely with