Leaving the house, Mr Barnes called at the nearest telegraph office and asked whether a messenger summons had reached them during the week, from Mr Mitchel’s house. The record slips showed that the last call had been received at twelve-thirty a.m. on Friday. A cab had been demanded, and was sent, reaching the house at one o’clock. At the stables, Mr Barnes questioned the cab-driver, and learned that Mr Mitchel alighted at Madison Square.
‘But he got right into another cab,’ added the driver. ‘It was just a chance I seen him, ’cause he made as if he was goin’ into the Fifth Avenoo; but luck was again him, for I’d scarcely gone two blocks back, when I had to get down to fix my harness, and while I was doin’ that, who should I see but my fare go by in another cab.’
‘You did not happen to know the driver of that vehicle?’ suggested Mr Barnes.
‘That’s just what I did happen to know. He’s always by the Square, along the curb by the Park. His name’s Jerry. You’ll find him easy enough, and he’ll tell you where he took that fly bird.’
Mr Barnes went down town again, and did find Jerry, who remembered driving a man at the stated time, as far as the Imperial Hotel; but beyond that the detective learned nothing, for at the hotel no one knew Mr Mitchel, and none recollected his arrival early Friday morning.
From the fact that Mr Mitchel had changed cabs, and doubled on his track, Mr Barnes concluded that he was after all merely hiding away for the pleasure of baffling him, and he felt much relieved to divest the case of its alarming aspect. However, he was not long permitted to hold this opinion. At the telegraph office he found a cable dispatch awaiting him, which read as follows:
‘Montezuma Emerald forwarded Mitchel tenth. Previous owner murdered London eleventh. Mexican suspected. Warned Mitchel.’
This assuredly looked very serious. Casting aside all thought of a practical joke, Mr Barnes now threw himself heart and soul into the task of finding Mitchel, dead or alive. From the telegraph office he hastened to the Custom House, where he learned that an emerald, the invoiced value of which was no less than twenty thousand dollars, had been delivered to Mr Mitchel in person, upon payment of the custom duties, at noon of the previous Thursday. Mr Barnes, with this knowledge, thought he knew why Mr Mitchel had been careful to have a friend accompany him to his home on that night. But why had he gone out again? Perhaps he felt safer at a hotel than at home, and, having reached the Imperial, taking two cabs to mystify the villain who might be tracking him, he might have registered under an alias. What a fool he had been not to examine the registry, as he could certainly recognise Mr Mitchel’s handwriting, though the name signed would of course be a false one.
Back, therefore, he hastened to the Imperial, where, however, his search for familiar chirography was fruitless. Then an idea occurred to him. Mr Mitchel was so shrewd that it would not be unlikely that, meditating a disappearance to baffle the men on his track, he had registered at the hotel several days prior to his permanently stopping there. Turning the page over, Mr Barnes still failed to find what he sought, but a curious name caught his eye.
‘Miguel Palma – City of Mexico.’
Could this be the London murderer? Was this the suspected Mexican? If so, here was a bold and therefore dangerous criminal who openly put up at one of the most prominent hostelries.
Mr Barnes was turning this over in his mind, when a diminutive newsboy rushed into the corridor, shouting:
‘Extra Sun! Extra Sun! All about the horrible murder. Extra!’
Mr Barnes purchased a paper and was stupefied at the headlines.
ROBERT LEROY MITCHEL DROWNED! His Body Found Floating in the East River. A DAGGER IN HIS BACK INDICATES MURDER.
Mr Barnes rushed out of the hotel, and, quickly finding a cab, instructed the man to drive rapidly to the morgue. On the way, he read the details of the crime as recounted in the newspaper. From this he gathered that the body had been discovered early that morning by two boatmen, who towed it to shore and handed it over to the police. An examination at the morgue had established the identity by letters found on the corpse and the initials marked on the clothing. Mr Barnes was sad at heart, and inwardly fretted because his friend had not asked his aid when in danger.
Jumping from the cab almost before it had fully stopped in front of the morgue, he stumbled and nearly fell over a decrepit-looking beggar, upon whose breast was a printed card soliciting alms for the blind. Mr Barnes dropped a coin, a silver quarter, into his outstretched palm, and hurried into the building. As he did so he was jostled by a tall man who was coming out, and who seemed to have lost his temper, as he muttered an imprecation under his breath in Spanish. As the detective’s keen ear noted the foreign tongue an idea occurred to him which made him turn and follow the stranger. When he reached the street again he received a double surprise. The stranger had already signalled the cab which Mr Barnes had but just left, and was entering it, so that he had only a moment in which to observe him. Then the door was slammed, and the driver whipped up his horses and drove rapidly away. At the same moment the
