Nick Carter Detective Library, No. 1 | Page 2

had allowed him quietly to depart after the deed was done.
But that theory was also abandoned, as being even more absurd than the others that had been advanced. Delia was conscious to the last, during her sickness, at the hospital, and just before her death she devised all her savings-a sum amounting to nearly ten thousand dollars-to her lawyer, in trust for the person who should succeed in bringing the murderer of Eugenie La Verde to justice. The house in Forty-seventh street, where Eugenie had been killed, was, at the time, occupied solely by herself and the maid Delia, and the basement was never used by them at all. Once a month the man who examined the gas-meter came to attend to his duty, and upon such occasions he passed through the basement hall on his way to the cellar. But when his work was done, Delia always locked and chained the door which communicated between the basement and the parlor floor, and it was never again disturbed until the same necessity arose during the following month.
Eugenie never dined at home, and her maid never left her. Her breakfast, which consisted only of coffee and a roll, was always prepared by the maid over an alcoholic lamp in the room where Eugenie slept.
After the discovery of the crime, a careful examination was made of every window and door in the house which communicated by any possibility with the outside world.
All were found securely locked, and every door was provided with the additional security afforded by a chain.
Even the scuttle had an intricate padlock:
Nothing had been molested.
Window-fastenings, door-locks, chain-bolts, scuttle and sky-light were alike undisturbed.
From the circumstances of the case as they were discovered after the commission of the crime, it was absolutely impossible for the murderer to have gained access to the house without leaving some evidence of the fact. Again, supposing the assassin to have been already concealed therein, it was equally impossible that he could have gotten out without furnishing some clew.
Delia Dent, as has been said, had fainted when she discovered the dead body of her young mistress. Upon reviving, she had staggered to a messenger call in the hallway, having barely strength to ring for the police. Then, still half-fainting, she had managed to reach the foot of the stairs, but had not yet unchained the front door when her call was answered. She believed that she fainted twice, or that site was in a state of semi-consciousness during the interval that elapsed between the discovery of the crime and the arrival of the police.
The more thorough the investigation, the deeper grew the mystery.
Old and tried detectives were put upon the case. At first they looked wise and assured everybody of the speedy apprehension of the fiend who had committed the deed. Then they became puzzled, and finally utterly confounded. The bravest of them at last confessed that they were no nearer the truth than at the beginning, and one of them, the shrewdest of all, boldly stated that the only way in which the assassin would ever be discovered would be by his voluntary confession, which was not likely to ensue.
Thus matters drifted on until the public mind found other things to think of. The papers at first devoted pages to the event; then a few columns. In a week, one column sufficed. Finally the reports dwindled down to a single comment, and then to nothing, and the mysterious murder was practically relegated to history and forgotten.
There was one, however, who had not forgotten it, and that one was the Inspector in Chief, at Police Headquarters.
Every resource at his command had been exhausted. His best men had taken the case in hand and failed. He had personally given all the time he could spare from his other duties to the murder of Eugenie La Verde, and was yet as greatly mystified as ever. There was no palpable or reasonable solution to the problem.
Her jewels, of great value, were found untouched upon the dressing-case. A roll of bills amounting to several hundred dollars was in the top drawer, where it had evidently been carelessly thrown by the murdered girl that very night.
The murderer had doubtless approached stealthily, giving her no warning. He had seized her in his vise-like grip, choked her to death, and left her as stealthily as he had come. Her body was undefiled by bruises, contusions, or other marks, showing that he had given his attention solely to the work of killing. It was even evident that he had not sought to put a stop to her struggles by the exercise of physical violence, other than that of choking his Victim.
The marks upon her throat were peculiar and very striking.
Some of the detectives thought that the assassin had used both hands simultaneously; others