THE TREVOR CASE

By Natalie Sumner Lincoln

Author of “C. O. D.,” “The Man Outside,” Etc.

With Frontispiece by EDMUND FREDERICK

A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS - - NEW YORK

Published by Arrangement with D. Appleton & Company

Copyright, 1912, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published February, 1912

Printed in the United States of America

TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FATHER AND TO MY KINDEST CRITIC MY MOTHER

CONTENTS

[Pg 1]

THE TREVOR CASE

CHAPTER I FACE TO FACE

A faint, very faint scratching noise broke the stillness. Then a hand was thrust through the hole in the window pane; deftly the burglar alarm was disconnected, and the fingers fumbled with the catch of the window. The sash was pushed gently up, and a man’s figure was outlined for a second against the star-lit sky as he dropped noiselessly through the window to the stair landing.

For a few moments he crouched behind the heavy curtains, but his entry had been too noiseless to awaken the sleeping household. Gathering courage from the stillness around him, the intruder stole down the steps, through the broad hall, and stopped before a door on his left. Cautiously he turned the knob and entered the room.

[Pg 2]

He could hear his own breathing in the heavy silence, as he pushed to the door, and then flashed the light of his electric torch on his surroundings. The room, save for the massive office furniture, was empty. Satisfied on that point, the intruder wasted no time, but with noiseless tread and cat-like quickness, he darted across the room to the door of what was apparently a closet. It was not locked, and as it swung back at his touch the front of a large safe was revealed.

Placing his light where it would do the most good, the intruder tried the lock of the safe. Backwards and forwards the wards fell under the skillful fingers of the cracksman. His keen ear, attuned to the work, at last solved the combination. With a sigh of relief he stopped to mop his perspiring face and readjust his mask.

“Lucky for me,” he muttered, “the safe’s an old-fashioned one. As it is, it’s taken three quarters of an hour, and time’s precious.”

The big door moved noiselessly back on its oiled hinges, and the intruder, catching up his electric torch, turned its rays full on the interior[Pg 3] of the safe. For one second it burned brilliantly; then went dark in his nerveless hand.

God in Heaven! He was mad! It was some fantasy conjured up by his excited brain. With desperate effort his strong will conquered his shrinking senses. Slowly, slowly the light was raised to that fearful thing which crouched just inside the entrance.

Eye to eye they gazed at each other—the quick and the dead! The intruder’s breath came in panting gasps behind his mask. Again the light went out. In his abject state of terror, instinct did for him what reason could not. His hand groped blindly for the safe door; but not until it closed did he regain his benumbed wits.

Silently, mysteriously as he had come, so he vanished.

[Pg 4]

CHAPTER II THE SECRET OF THE SAFE

“Help! Murder! Murder!”

The sinister cry rang through the house.

Seated at the breakfast table, his daughter opposite him, the daily papers at his elbow, the Attorney General, hardly realizing the tragical interruption, sprang from his chair as the cry came nearer and the door burst open admitting his confidential secretary.

“In God’s name, Clark, what is the matter?” he demanded, seizing the distraught man.

“Father, Father, give him time, he is dreadfully upset,” begged Beatrice, coming around the breakfast table and laying a restraining hand on his arm.

Wilkins, the impassive butler, for once shaken out of his calm, hastened to assist his master in helping Alfred Clark to a chair, and [Pg 5]then he gave the half-fainting man a stiff drink of whisky.

“It’s the safe, sir,” gasped Clark, struggling to regain his self-control.

“The safe?” questioned the Attorney General.

“Yes; she’s there—dead!”

“She—who?”

“Mrs. Trevor.”

“My wife! Nonsense, man; she is breakfasting in her own room!”

“Beg pardon, sir,” Wilkins interrupted. “Mary has just brought the tray downstairs again. She says she knocked and knocked, and couldn’t get an answer.”

The Attorney General and his daughter exchanged glances. It was impossible to tell which was the paler. Without a word he turned and hastened out of the room. He hardly noticed the excited servants who, attracted by the cry, had already gathered in the spacious hall outside the door of his private office. With swift, decisive step he crossed the room and stood in front of the two opened [Pg 6]doors. A cry of unutterable horror escaped him. For one dreadful moment the room swam around him, and there was a roaring in his ears of a thousand Niagaras.

“Father?”

With a violent effort he pulled himself together. “Do not enter,” he said, sternly, to the shrinking girl who had remained by the hall door. “This is no sight for you. Wilkins, send at once for Doctor Davis. Clark, close that door, and see that no one comes in except the doctor. Then telephone the Department that I shall not be there to-day.” His orders were obeyed instantly.

The Attorney General turned back to the safe; to that still figure which was keeping vigil over his belongings. The pitiless light of a sunny morning shone full on the beautiful face. The wonderful Titian hair, her greatest glory, was coiled around the shapely head, and her low-cut evening dress was scarcely disarranged as she crouched on one knee leaning her weight on her left arm, which was pressed against the door-jamb of the safe. Her lips were slightly [Pg 7]parted, and her blue eyes were wide open, the pupils much dilated. No need to feel pulse or heart; to the most casual observer it was apparent that she was dead.

His beautiful young wife! Edmund Trevor groaned aloud and buried his face in his hands. Clark watched him for a moment in unhappy silence; then moved quietly over to the window and looked out with unseeing eyes into the garden.

The large mottled brick- and stone-trimmed house was situated on one of Washington’s most fashionable corners, Massachusetts Avenue and Dupont Circle. On being appointed Attorney General, Trevor had taken it on a long lease. He had selected it from the many offered because it was very deep on the 20th Street side, thus allowing the drawing-room, library, and dining-room to open out of each other.

On the right of the large entrance hall was a small reception room, and back of it the big octagonal-shaped room, with its long French windows opening into the enclosed garden, that [Pg 8]had appealed to him for his own private use, as a den, or office. And he was particularly pleased with the huge safe, more like a vault, which had been built in one of the large old-fashioned closets by the owner. It had been useful to the Attorney General on many occasions.

The silence was broken by a tap at the door.

“Doctor Davis, sir,” announced Wilkins.

“I came at once,” said the doctor, advancing quickly to the Attorney General’s side. A horrified exclamation escaped him as his eyes fell on the tragic figure, and he recoiled a few steps. Then his professional instincts returned to him, and he made a cursory examination of Mrs. Trevor. As he rose from his knees, the eyes of the two men met. He silently shook his head.

“Life has been extinct for hours,” he said. “Rigor mortis has set in.”

The Attorney General gulped back a sob. Reason had told him the same thing when he first found her; but he had hoped blindly against hope.

[Pg 9]

“Can she be removed to her room?” he asked, as soon as he could control his voice.

The doctor nodded his acquiescence, and with the assistance of Clark, Wilkins, and the chauffeur, they carried all that was mortal of the beautiful young wife to her chamber.

Shortly afterwards, the Attorney General returned to his office, and together he and Clark went over the contents of the safe. They had just finished their task when Beatrice came into the room.

Beatrice Trevor was a well-known figure in the society life of New York, Paris, and Washington. Taller than most women, with a superb figure, she carried herself with regal grace. She was not, strictly speaking, a beauty; her features were not regular enough. But there were men, and women, too, who were her adoring slaves.

Her mother had died when she was five years old, and up to the time of her eighteenth year she had lived alone with her father. Then he met, wooed, and won the beautiful foreigner, [Pg 10]whose butterfly career had come to so untimely an end.

“Father, I must know just what has happened.”

“Why, my dearest—” there was deep tenderness in the Attorney General’s usually impassive voice—“I thought you had been told. Hélène evidently went into the safe to put away her jewelry; and in some mysterious way she must have pulled the heavy door to behind her. Thus locked in, she was smothered. It is terrible—terrible—” His voice shook with the intensity of his emotion. “But—well, Wilkins, what is it?”

“A detective, sir, from headquarters.”

“A detective! What on earth—did you telephone them, Clark?” The secretary shook his head. “No? Well, show him in, Wilkins.”

There was nothing about the man who entered to suggest a detective; he was quietly dressed, middle aged, and carried himself with military erectness. He had spent five years as a member of the Canadian Northwest [Pg 11]mounted police, and that service had left its mark in his appearance.

“Good morning, Mr. Attorney General.” His bow included all in the room. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but my errand won’t take long.”

“Be seated, Mr. ——”

“Hardy—James Hardy, sir. Just before dawn this morning, O’Grady, who patrols this beat, noticed a man sneak out of your back yard. O’Grady promptly gave chase and caught his man just as he was boarding a train for New York. He took him to the station and had him locked up on suspicion. As the fellow had a full kit of burglar’s tools with him, including mask and sneakers, the Chief sent me round here to ask if you’d been robbed?”

“Oh, no,” replied the Attorney General. “I have just been through my safe and everything is intact. There’s nothing missing in your quarters, Wilkins?” he added, turning to the white-faced butler.

“No, sir; nothing, sir.” Wilkins’ voice [Pg 12]trembled, and he looked at the detective with frightened eyes.

“Perhaps he tried, and finding all the windows barred gave it up as a bad job. I am—” continued the Attorney General, but his speech was cut short by the entrance of Doctor Davis.

“I am told there is a detective here.” The Attorney General bowed and motioned to Hardy. “You are properly accredited?” went on the physician. Hardy threw back his coat and displayed his badge. “Have you told him of Mrs. Trevor’s death?”

“No. Why speak of that terrible accident—”

“It was no accident.” The physician’s voice, though low pitched, vibrated with feeling.

The Attorney General half rose from his chair; then sank back again.

“Davis,” he said, almost fiercely, “you know that by some fearful mischance Hélène locked herself in the air-tight safe and was suffocated.”

[Pg 13]

The detective glanced with quickened interest at the two men.

“On closer examination upstairs,” said the doctor, slowly, “I found a small wound under the left breast. The wound was concealed by the lace bertha of her evening dress. The weapon penetrated to the heart, and she bled internally. Mrs. Trevor was dead before she was put in that safe.”

The detective broke the appalling silence with an exclamation:

“Murdered!”

Without one word Beatrice Trevor fell fainting at her father’s feet.

[Pg 14]

CHAPTER III AT THE MACALLISTERS’

Many called, but few were invited to attend Mrs. Van Zandt Macallister’s stately entertainments. Possibly for that reason alone her invitations were eagerly sought and highly prized by social aspirants.

For more years than she cared to remember, official, residential, and diplomatic Washington had gathered on an equal footing in her hospitable mansion on F Street. So strictly did she draw social distinctions that one disgruntled climber spoke of her evening receptions as “Resurrection Parties,” and the name clung. But all Washingtonians took a deep interest in “Madam” Macallister, as they affectionately called her. She was grande dame to her fingertips.

On the occasion of her daughter’s marriage to the Duke of Middlesex she gave a beautiful [Pg 15]wedding breakfast. The wedding was of international importance. The President, his Cabinet, and the Diplomatic Corps were among the guests.

Mrs. Macallister was standing in the drawing-room with her back to the dining-room door talking to the President. As the butler drew apart the folding doors, the long table, covered with massive silver, china, and glass, gave way under the weight. The crash was resounding. The terrified guests glanced at each other. Mrs. Macallister never even turned her head, but went on conversing placidly with the President.

The doors were instantly closed; the guests, taking their cue from their hostess, resumed their light chatter and laughter; and in a remarkably short time the table was cleared and reset, and the breakfast announced. As the President, with a look of deep admiration, offered his arm to Mrs. Macallister, he murmured in her ear:

“‘And mistress of herself though china fall.’”

[Pg 16]

Washington society had never forgotten the incident.

Mrs. Macallister had rather a caustic tongue, but a warm, generous heart beat under her somewhat frosty exterior. Her charities were never aired in public. Only the clergymen knew how many families she kept supplied with coal in winter and ice in summer. And many an erring sister had cause to bless her name.

Mrs. Macallister glanced impatiently at the clock—twenty minutes past five. She leaned forward and touched the electric bell beside the large open fireplace. There were two things she abominated—to be kept waiting—and midday dinners; the former upset her nerves; the latter her digestion.

“Has Miss Margaret returned?” she asked, as Hurley entered with the tea tray.

Before the butler could answer there was the sound of a quick, light footstep in the hall, and then the portières were pushed aside.

Mrs. Macallister looked approvingly at her granddaughter. Peggy was more like her father’s people, and her grandmother’s heart had [Pg 17]warmed to her from the moment the motherless little baby had been placed in her tender care. The young father, never very strong, had not long outlived his girl-wife. Since then Peggy and her grandmother had lived alone in the old-fashioned residence, which her grandfather Macallister had bought years before when coming to live in Washington on the expiration of his third term as Governor of Pennsylvania.

“Well, Granny, am I very late?” giving Mrs. Macallister a warm hug. She had never stood in awe of her formidable grandmother, but with all the passionate feeling of her loving nature, she looked up to and adored her.

“My dear, five o’clock is five o’clock, not twenty minutes past,” retorted Mrs. Macallister, smoothing her silvery hair, which had been decidedly ruffled by Peggy’s precipitancy.

“I declare, Granny, you are as bad as Nana; if it is three minutes past five she says its ‘hard on six o’clock.’ I had an awfully good time at the luncheon, and stayed to talk things over with Maud. She has asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, you know.”

[Pg 18]

“Did you hear the news there?”

“News? What news?”

“Mrs. Trevor has been murdered!”

“Mrs. Trevor—murdered!” Peggy nearly dropped her teacup on the floor.

“I really wish, Peggy, you would stop your habit of repeating my words. It’s very uncomfortable living with an echo under one’s nose.”

“Oh, Granny, please tell me all about it right away.”

“Well, according to the Evening Star— What is it, Hurley?” as that solemn individual entered the room.

“Mr. Tillinghast, to see you and Miss Margaret, ma’am.”

“Show him in. Now, Peggy, we will probably get the news at first hand. Good evening, Dick.”

The young fellow bowed with old-fashioned courtesy over her beautifully shaped, blue-veined hand. Clean living and plenty of outdoor sports could be read in his clear skin and splendid physique. He was a particular favorite of Mrs. Macallister’s.

[Pg 19]

“I suppose you are discussing the all-absorbing topic,” he said after greeting Peggy.

“I have been reading this.” Mrs. Macallister held up the paper with its flaring headlines:

MURDER MOST FOUL MRS. TREVOR KILLED BY BURGLAR CRIMINAL IN THE TOILS

“The police acted very promptly, and deserve a lot of praise,” said Dick.

“Well,” remarked Mrs. Macallister, slowly, “they have caught the burglar, but whether he is also the murderer is yet to be proved.”

“That’s true; but there is hardly any doubt. Nothing was stolen, therefore it is a fairly easy deduction that Mrs. Trevor, disturbed by some noise, went down into the office to investigate and was killed. He had the safe already open, stabbed her, then locked her in. Probably his nerve forsook him, and he fled without stopping to steal what he came for.”

[Pg 20]

“My dear Dick! Your theory might answer if any other woman was in question; but Mrs. Trevor—she wouldn’t have troubled herself if there had been a cloud-burst in the office. She was simply a human mollusk. And as for—” Mrs. Macallister’s feelings were beyond expression.

“I say, aren’t you a little hard on her? I don’t know when I’ve seen a more beautiful woman, and one so popular—”

“With men,” supplemented Mrs. Macallister, dryly.

Dick laughed outright. “Anyway,” he said, “the police have found that the burglar entered the house by the window on the stair landing, which looks out on the roof of the butler’s pantry. It is an easy climb for an active man. All the windows on the first floor are heavily barred. They found one of the small panes of glass had been cut out, and the window unfastened, although closed. I’m afraid our friend, the burglar, will have a hard time proving his innocence.”

“It is terrible, terrible,” groaned Peggy, [Pg 21]who had been reading the paper’s account of the tragedy. “I must go at once and leave a note for Beatrice,” and she started to rise.

“Sit still, child; I have just returned from the Trevors, and left your card and mine with messages.”

“Did you see Beatrice, Granny?”

“No, only that odious Alfred Clark. I cannot bear the man, he is so—so specious—” hunting about for a word. “He told me that Beatrice and the Attorney General would see no one.”

“Beatrice must be terribly upset, poor darling.”

“I didn’t know there was much love lost between them?”

“There wasn’t,” confessed Peggy. “Mrs. Trevor was perfectly horrid to her.”

“That’s news to me,” said Dick, helping himself to another sandwich.

“Beatrice is not the kind to air her troubles in public,” answered Peggy, “and she never talked much to me, either; but I couldn’t help [Pg 22]noticing lots of things. I’ve got eyes in my head.”

“That you have,” thought Dick, who had long since fallen a victim.

“Why, last night Beatrice and I went to the Bachelors’ together. I stopped for her, and she just broke down and cried right there in the carriage. She had had an awful scene with her stepmother just before I got there. We had to drive around for half an hour before she was composed enough to enter the ballroom.”

“What did they quarrel about?” asked Mrs. Macallister, deeply interested.

“She didn’t tell me.”

“By Jove! what actresses women are,” ejaculated Dick. “I danced with her several times, and I thought she was enjoying herself immensely.”