“No. Haywood is an Englishman by birth and Miss Simpson says this scoundrel had an English accent, but Harry’s face is rather round and chubby.”
“Nothing to do here,” said Dan impatiently. “I’m going to get a car and go after this murderer myself. Want to come with me, Billings?”
Billings nodded. “You bet.”
Cynthia looked frightened. “Don’t go, Mr. Smith,” she said and then she turned crimson and dropped her eyes.
Jack gazed at her tenderly, and O’Hara, who saw everything, grinned appreciatively.
“It’s my duty to help the officer catch this fiend, Miss Simpson,” Jack said in a low tone.
“Of course it is,” she responded. “I didn’t think.”
O’Hara and the man whom so recently he had accused of being the author of a quadruple murder found a hotel guest about to climb into his Ford and immediately deputized him, to his alarm and indignation. A minute’s drive brought them into the village, which was teeming with excitement.
A minute later the Ford, whose owner had gladly loaned it to the state detective in exchange for his own release from service, started down the state road.
“Old Amos Plympton and his cops will be blocking the end of this road, and Bide Parker, the constable, is on his tail,” said O’Hara. “Ten to one he took a side road, and that’s what we’ll do.”
“There is a road opening off to the left which leads to Tom Nevers Head,” Jack informed him.
“What’s over there?”
“Nothing much. A small inn and a few cottages and some isolated shacks on the moors.”
“This will probably be an all night job. We’ll stop at every house and when we’ve exhausted that possibility we’ll come back here and try another by-road.”
“I’m just as eager to catch him as you are.”
“Now, let’s see,” commented the detective. “Things are dovetailing on this case. It was Conlin who told Moriaty about ’Sconset and who secured the Rapidan-Sears house as a hideaway for Haywood. Conlin disappeared the night Haywood was murdered. Conlin’s firm went broke, which means that he was broke. Haywood had twenty thousand dollars. Aside from you and Moriaty, Conlin was the only person who knew that Haywood would be there Thursday night. And it was Mrs. Conlin who has had her throat cut.”
“But Conlin left the island in company with another woman.”
“Yeah? Who had any reason for killing Mrs. Conlin?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t this woman have a lot of jewels?”
“Yes. She was wearing three or four diamond bracelets the morning she moved into the hotel.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Dan O’Hara. “Well, her jewel case was empty and she didn’t have a ring on her finger tonight.”
“She was wearing a huge diamond solitaire and several other valuable rings when I saw her early this afternoon.”
O’Hara braked the car suddenly, turned around and started back for ’Sconset.
“What’s the idea?” demanded Billings.
“If what I think is right,” replied O’Hara, “this killer didn’t go to Tom Nevers Head. He went to Sankaty.”
“But he started toward Nantucket Town.”
“He could have turned off.”
“Why Sankaty?”
“Because that’s where Conlin lives. Jack, it might have been Conlin that killed his wife. If it was, he would make for his house. It’s closed up and a perfect hideway.”
“Conlin went to New York.”
“He could have come back.”
“Why should he rob his own wife?”
“Jack, that guy was broke. If he killed Haywood for twenty grand, he might have killed his wife for forty or fifty thousands worth of jewels.”
“But she would have given them to him if he was in trouble.”
“I only met that dame once, but she don’t look like the kind that would give up anything.”
Jack nodded. “From what I have seen of Stella, I am inclined to agree with you.”
“He had another woman, remember that. Twenty thousand dollars wouldn’t last a high flier like Conlin long. This feller knew his firm was going broke. Probably he was half crazy. He might have asked his wife for her jewelry and she wouldn’t give up. He knew Haywood, didn’t he?”
“I can’t tell you that. I didn’t know that Conlin was friendly with Moriaty. I only learned that today.”
“He could have dropped in on Haywood and Haywood wouldn’t have been suspicious.”
“You’ve gone over to my theory bag and baggage,” commented Billings.
“I look facts in the face. He left ’Sconset on the bus. He didn’t take the boat but he sneaked away from the steamship pier, swiped a car or a motor boat and came back to ’Sconset. He killed Haywood, drove the servants into the car, took them out on the moor and shot them and chucked them in the pool. After that he went to New Bedford by motor boat, met the woman there and spent the night with her in the New Bedford House. That established his alibi.
“On Friday they went on to New York, and then decided to come back and get Mrs. Conlin’s jewels. He expected to find her at her cottage, but she had closed it up and come to the hotel. That made it harder and he had to hang around waiting for a chance to get at her. If we have luck we’ll find him at the Conlin House.”
“I have no reason to like the man, but I can’t believe all that.”
Dan chuckled. “Don’t know as I do, but it’s something to work on.”
They had already driven through the village and now swung left upon the road to Sankaty. The fog had come in and their progress had to be slow, but they encountered no cars on the road and in ten or twelve minutes they rumbled over the wooden bridge which Dan had crossed upon his first visit to the Conlin domicile.
After proceeding a short distance along the shore of the inlet, Dan stopped the car.
“We’ll walk the rest of the way,” he said.
They trudged in silence along the dirt road until they came to the gate posts, and then they climbed the steep driveway to Conlin’s. The house, of course, was dark, but it hadn’t yet been boarded up. O’Hara led his companion around to the rear, produced a diamond glass cutter and proceeded to cut out a pane of glass from one of the windows of the side. He laid it carefully upon the grass, thrust his arm through the opening and slipped the catch upon the sash.
“Give me a boost,” he requested. Billings complied and he crawled through the window. He then extended his hands to Billings, who clambered up, and in a few seconds both men were standing in the dining room. O’Hara produced a flash light and guided by it the pair made a careful survey of the ground floor. No effort had been made to cover and pile up the furniture or to protect the rugs for a long period of unoccupancy. Mrs. Conlin, apparently, had walked out the front door and slammed it behind her.
Nor was there any indication that the house had been occupied since. Dan, finally, began to mount the stairs and grunted as he saw an object upon one of the steps.
He picked it up and turned the flash full upon it. It was a small suede glove, a woman’s, and it was incredibly dirty. The detective put it in his pocket and continued up the stairs.
Jack sniffed. “Something wrong with the drainage,” he commented. “A curious odor.”
“Noticed it,” said O’Hara.
He led the way into a front bedroom, which was empty.
“Wrong hunch,” he said in a low tone. “I’ve had lots of them.”
He pushed open the door of a chamber on the opposite side of the house. The smell, which both had noticed, was almost overpowering and came from that chamber. O’Hara moved his flash around until it rested upon the bed.
“Glory be to God!” he exclaimed.
Lying in the bed was a body without a face, the sheets drawn up to the neck. And it was this body which had been giving off the odor of putrefaction.