“Whoa! You trying to tell me that Conlin murdered Haywood? That’s ridiculous!”
“Why? Suppose he had to have cash and knew Haywood had twenty thousand on his person.”
“But Conlin was a big business man. He wouldn’t commit a murder.”
Billings laughed harshly. “Wouldn’t he? Dan, I honestly believe that Conlin killed the man for whose murder I stood trial. Stella Crane was having an affair with Conlin and used me as a cloak. And Conlin married her.”
Dan sat silent and stunned. “It’s as good a theory as that it was Conlin who was killed,” he said at length. “But it’s got a lot of holes in it. Let’s see. I figured it out that the murderer laid that trail of Conlin’s to New York so we would not think it was Conlin that was killed, but he could have done it himself. There was a woman in it — the one who telephoned from New Bedford. And if he and the dame had left the island, who stole the body?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Conlin certainly knew — what’s that?”
“That” was a blood curdling scream — the voice of a woman lifted in mortal terror, and it came from a room not far from the chamber in which the two men were sitting.
As Dan threw open the door it was repeated, and ended in a piercing shriek which broke off abruptly.
Doors flew open. Two women and a man rushed into the hall and stood there turning their heads in alarm and bewilderment.
“Down at the end of the corridor,” cried O’Hara. “Come on, Jack.”
The two men ran twenty or thirty feet and Dan began to open doors. It was the dinner hour at the hotel and most of the guests were in the dining room. And, as was the custom in this primitive hostelry, most of the doors were unlocked. The fourth door which the detective tried was locked. He laid his head against the panel but heard nothing.
“Try the other doors,” he commanded of Billings, who proceeded to glance into the remaining rooms on the corridor. They were all empty.
“It must be in here,” said Dan. “I’m going to break down the door.”
Meanwhile a dozen persons rushed up from below, among them Cynthia Simpson.
“Whose room is this?” demanded the detective of the hotel clerk.
“It is Mrs. Conlin’s,” Cynthia replied with an affrighted glance at Jack Billings. “Wait, I’ll send for a key.”
“Can’t wait,” replied the detective. He drew back, lunged with his shoulder against the ancient door and immediately the lock gave way and it flew open. The room was dark. Dan fumbled for and found the light switch and turned it on.
Lying on the bed, partially dressed, was the beautiful Mrs. Conlin. Upon her face was an expression of mortal agony, and there was a huge gash across her throat from which blood was pouring.
“Stand back,” bellowed O’Hara. “Billings, don’t let anybody in here.”
He had observed that the window was open and he rushed to it and looked out. Two feet below the windowsill was the piazza roof. From the roof of the porch to the ground was a drop of only fifteen feet. And as he listened he heard the whir of an electric starter and a motor car at the back of the hotel drove away. O’Hara went through the window and off the edge of the porch roof like a flash. Billings approached the bed and gazed with horror at the horrid spectacle. The wound was wide and deep and the young woman was already dead, though the blood still gushed forcibly from her throat.
“Get a doctor, one of you, quick,” he cried. “Out of the room everybody. There may be something here which will help catch the murderer.”
He pushed the gaping spectators who had crowded into the room out into the corridor and pulled the broken door to. Immediately the guests rushed downstairs to be in on the pursuit and Cynthia and Jack Billings were alone in the corridor.
“You… you loved her once, didn’t you?” the girl said softly and sympathetically. Tears were rolling down the young man’s cheeks.
“I thought I hated her,” he said, “but this — she didn’t deserve this. Nobody could.”
“I’ll make sure they send for a doctor,” she said, turning away, her face working with emotion.
“She is dead already,” he said.
“Who could have done it? Who—”
“The same fiend who killed the others, I suppose,” he said slowly. Billings was ill and shaking and having great difficulty in preserving his composure. “Go, please,” he pleaded.
Understandingly she nodded and hastened downstairs. Billings went into his own room and fell on the bed and lay there for a few moments.
Five minutes later Dr. Blake, who happened to be calling at a house a few rods down the beach, arrived and entered the death chamber. Fifteen minutes later Dan O’Hara returned and joined the doctor.
Shortly afterwards he came into Billings’ room and threw himself with a grunt into a chair.
“I wasted a lot of time finding a car that was unlocked,” he said. “By the time I got started he was through the village and out on the highroad to Nantucket. I sent the constable after him in the car I had requisitioned and I phoned over to Nantucket to have the police nab him if he drove into town, but there are half a dozen side roads and he probably took one of those. Most likely he will abandon the car and hit across the moors to his hideaway.”
“It was the most awful thing I ever heard of,” said Jack in a low tone. “We were sitting right here when he was killing her.”
“You’ve a perfect alibi on this one,” Dan replied with a sigh. “This has something to do with the other killings, of course. The same man killed ’em all.”
“Any evidence in the room?”
“He came in through the window, pushed in the screen, caught her as she was sitting in front of the bureau fixing her face, threw her on the bed and cut her throat. He carried off the weapon with him. A razor, judging by the gash. It muddles everything up just as we were getting somewhere.”
“Poor Stella.”
“What’s it all about?” demanded the bewildered detective.
“By God I’m going to find out! O’Hara, I forgot — the way you greeted me when I came in drove it from my mind. I was fired upon tonight by a man who was assaulting Miss Simpson, the hotel clerk, on the bluff path. She can give you a description of him because she was struggling in his arms when I came running up. We both went over the bluff and the brute got away.”
“Come on, we’ll find her. Billings, this is the man who stole the body. He’s still on the island. Let me get his description and I’ll nab him.”
“All right,” said Billings with a wan smile. “I feel pretty groggy.”
“You got nothing on me, but we can’t waste a minute. Come on!”
Chapter XIX
O’Hara Finds the Faceless Man
They found Cynthia behind her counter and she described her assailant on the bluff as well as she could. O’Hara drew the photograph of Conlin from his pocket and showed it to her.
“Does it look anything like this feller?” he demanded.
“No,” she replied. “This man had a horrid face. He is quite different.”
“Then it wasn’t Conlin,” declared the detective
“How could it be?” asked Billings. “We know he wouldn’t be loitering on this island.”
“The woman upstairs. More women are killed by their husbands than by men they’re not married to. Does it sound like Haywood?”