Part 53

Craig had already risen from the bench and we were walking up the Avenue.

The establishment of Mademoiselle Violette consisted of a three-story and basement brownstone house in which the basement and first floor had been remodelled for business purposes. Mademoiselle's place, which was on the first floor, was announced to the world by a neat little oval gilt sign on the hand railing of the steps.

We ascended and rang the bell. As we waited I noticed that there were several other modistes on the same street, while almost directly across was a sign which proclaimed that on September 15 Mademoiselle Gabrielle would open with a high class exhibition of imported gowns from Paris.

We entered. The coroner and an undertaker were already there, and the former was expecting Herndon. Kennedy and I had already met him and he shook hands cordially.

Mademoiselle Violette, it seemed, had rented the entire house and then had sublet the basement to a milliner, using the first floor herself, the second as a workroom for the girls whom she employed, while she lived on the top floor, which had been fitted for light housekeeping with a kitchenette. It was in the back room of the shop itself on the first floor that her body had been discovered, lying on a davenport.

"The newspaper reports were very indefinite," began Herndon, endeavouring to take in the situation. "I suppose they told nearly all the story, but what caused her death? Have you found that out yet? Was it poison or violence?

The coroner said nothing, but with a significant glance at Kennedy he drew a peculiar contrivance from his pocket. It had four round holes in it and through each hole he slipped a finger, then closed his hand, and exhibited his clenched fist. It looked as if he wore a series of four metal rings on his fingers.

"Brass knuckles?" suggested Herndon, looking hastily at the body, which showed not a sign of violence on the stony face.

The coroner shook his head knowingly. Suddenly he raised his fist. I saw him press hard with his thumb on the upper end of the metal contrivance. From the other end, just concealed under his little linger, there shot out as if released by a magic spring a thin keen little blade of the brightest and toughest steel. He was holding, instead of a meaningless contrivance of four rings, a most dangerous kind of stiletto or dagger upraised. He lifted his thumb and the blade sprang back into its sheath like an extinguished spark of light.

"An Apache dagger, such as is used in the underworld of Paris," broke out Kennedy, his eyes gleaming with interest.

The coroner nodded. "We found it," he said, "clasped loosely in her hand. But it is only by expert medical testimony that we can determine whether it was placed on her fingers before or after this happened. We have photographed it, and the prints are being developed."

He had now uncovered the slight figure of the little French modiste. On the dress, instead of the profuse flow of blood which we had expected to see, there was a single round spot. And in the white marble skin of her breast was a little, nearly microscopic puncture, directly over the heart.

"She must have died almost instantly," commented Kennedy, glancing from the Apache weapon to the dead woman and back again. "Internal hemorrhage. I suppose you have searched her effects. Have you found anything that gives a hint among them?"

"No," replied the coroner doubtfully, "I can't say we have - unless it is the bundle of letters from Pierre, the jeweller. They seem to have been engaged, and yet the letters stopped abruptly, and, well, from the tone of the last one from him I should say there was a quarrel brewing."

An exclamation from Herndon followed. "The same notepaper and the same handwriting as the anonymous letters," he cried.

But that was all. Go over the ground as Kennedy might he could find nothing further than the coroner and Herndon had already revealed.

"About these people, Lang & Pierre," asked Craig thoughtfully when we had left Mademoiselle's and were riding downtown to the customs house with Herndon. "What do you know about them? I presume that Lang is in America, if his partner is abroad."

"Yes, he is here in New York. I believe the firm has a rather unsavoury reputation; they have to be watched, I am told. Then, too, one or the other of the partners makes frequent trips abroad, mostly Pierre. Pierre, as you see, was very intimate with Mademoiselle, and the letters simply confirm what the girls told my detective. He was believed to be engaged to her and I see no reason now to doubt that. The fact is, Kennedy, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that it was he who engineered the smuggling for her as well as himself."

"What about the partner? What role does he play in your suspicions?"

"That's another curious feature. Lang doesn't seem to bother much with the business. He is a sort of silent partner, although nominally the head of the firm. Still, they both seem always to be plentifully supplied with money and to have a good trade. Lang lives most of the time up on the west shore of the Hudson, and seems to be more interested in his position as commodore of the Riverledge Yacht Club than in his business down here. He is quite a sport, a great motor-boat enthusiast, and has lately taken to hydroplanes."

"I meant," repeated Kennedy, "what about Lang and Mademoiselle Violette. Were they - ah - friendly?"

"Oh," replied Herndon, seeming to catch the idea. "I see. Of course - Pierre abroad and Lang here. I see what you mean. Why, the girl told my man that Mademoiselle Violette used to go motor-boating with Lang, but only when her fianc=82, Pierre, was along. No, I don't think she ever had anything to do with Lang, if that's what you are driving at. He may have paid attentions to her, but Pierre was her lover, and I haven't a doubt but that if Lang made any advances she repelled them. She seems to have thought everything of Pierre."

We had reached Herndon's office by this time. Leaving word with his stenographer to get the very latest reports from La Montaigne, he continued talking to us about his work.

Dressmakers, milliners, and jewellers are our worst offenders now," he remarked as we stood gazing out of the window at the panorama of the bay off the sea-wall of the Battery. "Why, time and again we unearth what looks for all the world like a 'dressmakers' syndicate,' though this case is the first I've had that involved a death. Really, I've come to look on smuggling as one of the fine arts among crimes. Once the smuggler, like the pirate and the highwayman, was a sort of gentleman-rogue. But now it has become a very ladylike art. The extent of it is almost beyond belief, too. It begins with the steerage and runs right up to the absolute unblushing cynicism of the first cabin. I suppose you know that women, particularly a certain brand of society women, are the worst and most persistent offenders. Why, they even boast of it. Smuggling isn't merely popular, it's aristocratic. But we're going to take some of the flavour out of it before we finish."

He tore open a cable message which a boy had brought in. "Now, take this, for instance," he continued. "You remember the sign across the street from Mademoiselle Violette's, announcing that a Mademoiselle Gabrielle was going to open a salon or whatever they call it? Well, here's another cable from our Paris Secret Service with a belated tip. They tell us to look out for a Mademoiselle Gabrielle on La Montaigne, too. That's another interesting thing. You know the various lines are all ranked, at least in our estimation, according to the likelihood of such offences being perpetrated by their passengers. We watch ships from London, Liverpool, and Paris most carefully. Scandinavian ships are the least likely to need watching. Well, Miss Roberts?"

"We have just had a wireless about La Montaigne," reported his stenographer, who had entered while he was speaking, " and she is three hundred miles east of Sandy Hook. She won't dock until tomorrow."

"Thank you. Well, fellows, it is getting late and that means nothing more doing to-night. Can you be here early in the morning? We'll go down the bay and 'bring in the ship,' as our men call it when the deputy surveyor and his acting deputies go down to meet it at Quarantine. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your kindness in helping me. If my men get anything connecting Lang with Mademoiselle Violette's case I'll let you know immediately."

It was a bright clear snappy morning, in contrast with the heat of the day before, when we boarded the revenue tug at the Barge Office. The waters of the harbour never looked more blue as they danced in the early sunlight, flecked here and there by a foaming whitecap as the conflicting tides eddied about. The shores of Staten Island were almost as green as in the spring, and even the haze over the Brooklyn factories had lifted. It looked almost like a stage scene, clear and sharp, new and brightly coloured.