Tragedy Trail | Page 7

the chauffeur to have Terry Trimble's big limousine in front immediately. Then, as Trimble turned around, his secretary advanced with the coat.
"Um!" Terry Trimble said. "All ready for me, are you?" One of these times, Billings, you'll guess wrong. Some day I'll turn around, see you with my coat ready, and, just for spite, will refuse to answer the call."
Billings continued to grin as he helped Trimble on with his things and handed him his gloves.
"I am to accompany you, sir?" Billings asked.
"No, Billings. I'll telephone if I need you. It is your good fortune, Billings, to remain before the fire. Take a look at that book and see if you find merit in it."
Terry Trimble hurried down in the elevator, gave his chauffeur the address of Mrs. Burke's boarding house, sprang into the limousine, and lighted a cigarette. The commissioner had told him a great deal about the case, but Terry Trimble had forgotten it as soon as he had decided to answer the call. Trimble always liked to gain his first impressions on the scene of a crime. Other men might have an incorrect idea, pass it on to him, and set him off on a wrong trail.
The big machine skidded along the streets. The rain pelted the windows. Terry Trimble, glancing out, saw that there were few vehicles and fewer pedestrians abroad.
"I trust this is an easy case, that can be solved indoors," he told himself. "This is no night for chasing criminals, interesting or otherwise."
The limousine stopped at the curb before Mrs. Burke's, and Terry Trimble got out, shielded his face against the raging storm, and darted up the steps. He did not even speak to the chauffeur, who had been in his employ for some time and knew what to do. The chauffeur would get inside the limousine and remain there, smoking and watching the storm, until Terry Trimble put in an appearance again and issued orders. From experience the chauffeur knew that this might be in fifteen minutes or twenty-four hours.
Trimble was met at the door by the city detective who first had been sent out on the case.
"Well, Darter, we meet again!" Trimble said.
He removed his coat and hat and gloves, rearranged his cravat, rubbed his hands, and scowled at the water on his shoes. Instead of reporting to solve the mystery of a crime Terry Trimble might have been calling as a guest at a reception, except that he was not in evening clothes. Then Trimble adjusted his monocle, glared at Darter through it, and cleared his throat.
"The commissioner told me something of this case, but I have forgotten it," he said.
Detective Darter grinned. He knew Trimble's methods, because he had worked with him before.
"Two girls are dead," Darter said. "The doctor--he is in the rear parlor treating half a dozen cases of hysteria--says they both died of poison, a peculiar poison that is hard to obtain and seems to kill a person as quick as a shot through the heart."
"Well, well!" Trimble said. "And why call me?"
Darter scratched his head a moment before he replied. He never knew quite how to speak to Terry Trimble.
"Well, we don't see how they could get the stuff," he admitted. "Neither girl seems to have had an enemy and----"
"That'll do!" Trimble said. "I'm asking for facts, not conjectures, my dear Darter. Let me attack this problem with an open mind. Where are the dead girls?"
"Undertaking establishment. The coroner's assistant ordered the bodies removed."
"Let us hope that he has not caused us a lot of unnecessary work," Trimble said.
"I'll take you up to the room where----"
"I fancy the front parlor at present," Trimble said, walking into it and beckoning the detective to follow. "Sit down, Darter, and make yourself comfortable. Two girls have died of poison, have they? Then we may safely assume that the case is either suicide, accident, or foul play."
"Naturally," said Darter.
Trimble glared at him.
"The workings of a nimble mind," he said, as if to nobody in particular. "I have stated the case, however. No doubt that the girls are dead?"
"Not the slightest. I'll call the doctor."
"One moment. I want to hear your story first," Terry Trimble told him. "Let us consider the suicide theory. Did these girls die at the same time?"
"No. The body of the first had been removed before the second died."
"We'll talk about the first."
"Her name was Alice Patton. She didn't commit suicide. Mrs. Burke and the girls here say that would be the last thing she would do."
"You seem to be certain of it, so we'll pass the suicide theory for the time being. How about accident?"
"Exactly what I think it was," Darter declared.
"I think I'll let you talk."
Detective Darter talked. He told Terry Trimble what Mabel Higgins had said before she died, how Alice Patton had gone