The four of them live today, in Virginia, quiet, law abiding, industrious citizens, saddened and broken by their experience.
And no longer there echoes through the beautiful hills of matchless Carroll County the fateful war cry:
“The Allens Is All Fighters!”
The Man Without a Face
by Fred MacIsaac
O’Hara things he has his man at last — and then a woman’s scream tells him the killer has struck once more.
Cynthia Simpson, desk clerk in the Sippiconsett House, Siasconset, Nantucket Island, falls in a bad fog close to a house in which a “John Smith” is supposed to be hiding. She is helped by a young man whom she does not see.
That night “John Smith” is murdered, and his face so beaten that he is unrecognizable.
His three servants have completely vanished.
Next day Cynthia is astounded when a young man registers at the hotel, signs himself John Smith — and she recognizes him from his voice as the man she had met in the fog near the murdered man’s house.
Dan O’Hara, a state detective, is on the case. He is called at night to the house of a Mrs. Conlin, whose husband has disappeared.
O’Hara thinks the murdered man may be Conlin. The dead man’s three servants have been found — dead also, at the bottom of a pool. The four bodies have been taken to an undertaking establishment. O’Hara goes to check up his guess that the murdered “Smith” is Conlin — and finds the body gone.
Mrs. Conlin comes to the Sippiconsett House and meets the “John Smith” registered there — really Jack Billings, former football star, tried and acquitted for a murder in Chicago several years before. It was Mrs. Conlin’s former husband whom Billings was accused of murdering. Billings charges Mrs. Conlin with that murder, in collaboration with her present husband, Conlin.
Chapter XII
The Trail of R. J. Conlin
Arriving in New Bedford shortly after noon, state officer O’Hara went first to police headquarters, where he was well and favorably known, and sat down with Chief of Police Flynn. He told him in full detail everything which had happened in Nantucket, including his theory regarding R. J. Conlin — the theory which had been blasted by the discovery that Conlin had arrived in New Bedford with a blond woman some hours after Dan had calculated that he had been murdered and mutilated. Dan admitted he still clung to the hope that it was a false Conlin who had passed Thursday night at the New Bedford Hotel.
The police chief, who was a little gray man with sharp, foxy eyes, a pointed nose and a wisp of a gray mustache, chewed reflectively upon an unlighted cigar for several minutes before he expressed an opinion.
“The Nantucket call, at six Friday morning,” he said, “was made from a drug store opposite the New Bedford Hotel. The clerk on duty remembers the woman. She was above medium height. She wore a gray coat with a collar turned up and a straw hat with a brim on it so he didn’t get a good look at her face. He thinks her hair was either blond or brown — he is sure it wasn’t black. He only remembers her because he had just opened up and was rather surprised to have a woman patron so early.
“Looks as though she might have come across from the hotel,” said Dan hopefully. “I got a photograph of Conlin. Somebody in the hotel, the clerk or one of the bellboys or a chambermaid ought to remember what the man looked like, and maybe someone got a good look at the dame. What time did they check in?”
“Between twelve and one,” replied the chief. “They gave New York as their address. Want me to stroll down there with you?”
“Don’t bother, chief,” replied O’Hara. “I can do this job myself. What do you make out of this mess?”
“Well, it’s a sure thing that the face was smashed in to prevent identification of the victim. It was hoped he would pass for John Smith. They fell down in not showing a John Smith in ’Sconset who would be the same coloring and height and weight as the man they intended to murder. If they had done that, you’d have made a few inquiries, you’d have got no line on the past and associations of this Smith and it would have gone into history as an unsolved mystery. Another mistake was killing the servants and leaving the bodies where they could be found. If he had a plane and they were going to escape in it, he could have killed them when over the ocean and dropped them overboard.
“Then it would be assumed that Smith was killed and robbed by the servants. Of course it would take a big plane able to carry four of five passengers and crew, and such planes are hard to get.
“Crooks can get hold of a two-seater easy enough, but a bigger plane could be traced. Probably kidded the servants that he would carry them away by air and, not being able to make good, this murderer bumped them off. Cold blooded cuss.”
“And he came back and carried off the dead body. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah. Wonder if he knew you might think the corpse was Conlin?”
Dan shook his head. “Pretty far fetched. I never thought it myself until I had left the Conlin house. In half an hour after that I was at the undertaking rooms.”
“It sure is a puzzle,” said Chief Flynn. “Look here, a man who had a wife on Nantucket and faked an excuse to go to New York so he could meet another woman, wouldn’t be fool enough to go to a hotel right at the end of the Nantucket boat line and sign his own name on a hotel register. Of course it’s a crime in this state to sign a fake name, but nobody pays any attention to the law, and a big business man like Conlin would be the last to bother about that.”
Dan nodded. “That’s why I came over,” he stated.
“They want to establish as a fact that Conlin left Nantucket,” said Flynn excitedly. “He certainly went on the bus to the boat landing, unless this bus driver is lying.”
“No. He don’t know enough to lie.”
“But it doesn’t follow that he took the boat. He could have been nabbed before he went on board the steamer and taken back to ’Sconset. A fake message from his wife might do it.”
“And I thought of that,” declared Dan.
“So, in case of inquiry, they registered at the hotel here. It’s going to be damned hard to prove that he didn’t leave Nantucket, Dan.”
“Unless his wife swears the signature on the register is a forgery and unless the hotel people testify that the R. J. Conlin who registered there doesn’t look like the photograph.”
“If this is a frame, they would have a fellow who bears a general resemblance to Conlin and they would be familiar with his signature and make a fair forgery.”
“They made a couple of mistakes,” replied O’Hara. “Maybe they made another at the hotel here.”
“If they didn’t, you can’t ever prove that Conlin was murdered in ’Sconset. There is apparently conclusive evidence that he was in New Bedford many hours after the killing of Smith. Since the corpse has disappeared, you can’t possibly establish his identity with that of Conlin. That notion that there is a slight protuberance of the ears of both Conlin and Smith doesn’t go far enough.”
“And suppose Conlin is never heard of again?”
“Well, you have got a plausible theory, which isn’t evidence. You know that.”
Dan nodded. “O.K.,” he said. “There wasn’t any Smith, so it must have been Conlin that was killed.”