Cardona turned his eyes toward the curve. He was just in time. A train of red cars was sliding into view, approaching with the stealthy speed typical of electric locomotion.
Cardona counted eight cars as each one swung around the bend; the rails were clicking, and the train was coming to a sharp stop. The fake trackwalker was swinging his arms in a signal that nothing had occurred.
Cardona, quickly noting the train, and then observing the commuters as they stepped aboard, could testify that nothing was amiss here. The detective glanced toward the parking lot. The two men at the roadster indicated that all was well in their field of observation.
Cardona grunted. He had hoped that something would happen at this station — some unusual incident that would serve as a clew to the strange accidents of the two preceding days. He watched the train, anxious for it to start so that he could observe what happened after the departure and get the report from the man waiting beyond. The train, however, did not start.
THE uniformed conductor, his face bewildered, came from one of the vestibules. With him was a man whom Cardona recognized instantly — Detective Sergeant Mayhew.
This police officer had been stationed on the third car of the train — the car in which both deaths had occurred. Mayhew’s face was excited. It became even more so when the detective sergeant spied Cardona. Mayhew beckoned wildly. Cardona hurried forward.
Mayhew stopped Cardona and pointed to an open window in the car. Staring in astonishment, Cardona saw the form of a man slumped in the seat by the window. The upturned face was ghastly. It was scarred and puckered with red marks. The eyes were bulging.
The man was dead.
“I was looking back through the car,” explained Mayhew. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this to happen. Just watching for whatever might be unusual. Then — I saw him here. It must have gotten him just before the train stopped.”
Joe Cardona grimly took charge of the situation. This mysterious death brooked extreme measures.
There were other detectives aboard the train. None reported any untoward events in the cars where they had been riding.
With all his men assembled, Cardona quarantined the death car. Detectives took names and addresses of commuters, quizzing all as they worked.
Cardona demanded the cooperation of the train crew, and he received it. The seriousness of the killing was highly impressive. A man slain, for the third consecutive day; this time while thorough vigil had been kept! It seemed unbelievable.
Railroad orders were received over the station telephone. A supervisor was riding on this train, and he arranged to have the death car detached. The train was broken; the one car was shunted to a siding; and the rest of the train went on. The delay tied up traffic back along the line.
The passengers from the car in which the man had died were herded into the little Felswood station.
There, one by one, they were allowed to leave, after being searched and quizzed.
Cardona was in charge; Mayhew remained in the sidetracked car. The car became Cardona’s destination as soon as he had made certain that the examination of the passengers was being properly handled by his carefully selected subordinates.
Mayhew had learned the identity of the dead man. A search of his pockets had brought forth papers that showed him to be Danby Grayson, a public accountant with a Broadway firm. Identification cards gave his address as the town of Duxbury, several stations east of Felswood.
Grayson was a man of about fifty years of age. Cardona stared solemnly at the body. The appearance of the face, with its scarred cheek, was identical with the others that the detective had observed on the two preceding days.
“It looks like another useless death,” volunteered Mayhew. “This man — by appearance and occupation — doesn’t look like somebody a murderer would be out to get.”
“We’ll find out about that later,” growled Cardona. “Have you searched the car?”
“Yes,” responded Mayhew. “Nothing here.”
Cardona went to work. He looked everywhere for clews. He could discover none. Leaving Mayhew in charge, the detective went out to the roadbed to talk with the subordinates who were searching there.
They, too, reported no trace of any missile.
Commuters’ trains, delayed by the hold-up which the death had caused, were coming into the station at close intervals; and Cardona watched the passengers from the death car continue their trip to Manhattan as rapidly as the police released them. There had not been a shred of evidence sufficient to hold a single person.
After ordering one of his men to obtain a complete report on Danby Grayson, Joe Cardona went over to the parking lot to confer with the men who had been watching from that point. They had made a thorough search of the premises, but had not found any one hiding there. Every automobile had been entered, to no avail.
THE events of the next few hours were trying to Joe Cardona.
A report received concerning Danby Grayson served to back up Mayhew’s belief. The accountant was described as a widower who lived with two sons at Duxbury. News of his death had come as a great shock both to his employers and his family. There seemed no possible reason why Grayson should have been the victim of a murderer.
On top of that, Inspector Timothy Klein arrived with a police surgeon. In their wake came a tribe of newspaper reporters seeking details of the new death. Photographers aimed their cameras at the sidetracked car; and throngs of curious bystanders began to assemble.
Cardona put a curb to these activities. The reporters received terse, begrudged details. The camera men wisely cleared out, and the curiosity seekers were dispersed. Detectives saw to it that only persons who were prospective train passengers could approach and leave the station.
What was the menace that lay at this spot? Why had death struck only when a certain train approached, always killing a person in the same car?
Cardona, grim-faced and low-voiced, discussed the important problem with Inspector Klein. Although he growled of a hidden murder, Cardona was forced to admit that the deaths might be the result of some amazing accident. Until clews were gained, that must be accepted as the natural theory. Nevertheless, both mystery and menace remained as great as ever.
While Cardona was discoursing thus, a powerful roadster coasted up to the parking lot, and a tall man alighted. With a long, easy stride, this arrival walked toward the station platform. There he stood, apparently waiting for a train.
Cardona became suddenly aware of the man’s presence, and turned to stare at him. The man’s eyes met those of the detective. Cardona found himself gazing at a firm, calm face that was almost masklike in its expression. From the sides of a sharp, hawkish nose, gleaming optics sparkled with strange, uncanny gaze.
The appearance of the stranger was impressive. Cardona sensed a hypnotic power in those eyes.
Instinctively, the detective was sure that this man had overheard his remarks to Inspector Klein.
But the detective was loath to make a move. This man was here to take a train; he had come hours after the death aboard the eight thirty-eight. Cardona could see no connection between this individual and the case at hand.
Inspector Klein did not notice the man toward whom Cardona was looking. The inspector was watching up the track; and now, at a moment when the stranger could hear, Klein made definite remarks without turning his head in Cardona’s direction.
“Stick here until three o’clock, Joe,” ordered the inspector. “If you haven’t landed anything by then, there’s no use wasting your time. You can leave a couple of men on duty; let them stay all night and watch for the same train in the morning.”