A picture of Chief Hartigan was captioned “Girl Will Turn Up, Says Police Chief Hartigan.”
Chief Hartigan, well-fed, thinking more of his dinner; it wasn’t his daughter.
A picture, a camera study, of Miss Rachel Staines, forty, blonde and fairly worldly. Captioned “Aunt Fears Human Traffickers.”
Father, mother, aunt. I looked at the pictured faces carefully. I thought over the people concerned in Mrs. Garr’s death. I couldn’t see any trace of resemblance anywhere. But 1919 was eighteen years ago; a face could change with age and grief by that time. Father, mother, aunt—was one of them living in Mrs. Garr’s house now—a murderer?
The story had two columns on the right.
ROSE LIBERRY NOW MISSING FOUR DAYS
Mother in State of Collapse;
Father Pushes Hunt for Daughter; Attacks Police
Miss Rachel Staines, 1128 Cleveland Avenue, aunt of the missing Rose Liberry, created a sensation in Police Chief Hartigan’s office today when, in ringing tones, she stated her belief that her niece was being held in some house of vice for immoral purposes.
Chief Hartigan, holding to his theory that the girl left her aunt’s residence for purposes of her own, pointed out the greater likelihood of his elopement theory.
“Gilling City is a clean city,” Chief Hartigan declared to reporters during the interview. “Statistics show that a certain number of girls are always reported missing each year. Great numbers of those girls are quietly found. Usually it is discovered that some man is involved. Miss Liberry is sixteen, a romantic age, and I think it will be found the usual thing has happened.”
On hearing this statement, John G. Liberry, father of the missing girl, appeared greatly enraged. “It is like Chief Hartigan to cast reflections on my daughter’s character,” he said. “I have found the police of this city not only incompetent but curiously unwilling to make any but the most routine search. The police force of this city is rotten from the heart out, and you’re the heart, Chief Hartigan.”
Chief Replies to Attack
Chief Hartigan greeted Mr. Liberry’s attack with a tolerant laugh. “Just like a father,” he said. “Parents always know their own children less than anyone else. I can’t stand having my administration maligned; every citizen of this city knows how well-policed Gilling City has been under my rule. I respect order, but I also respect liberty. In Gilling we have both. You may quote me.”
“Uh-huh. Exactly as I thought!” A voice, a living voice, said loudly in my ear.
I jumped and turned.
Hodge Kistler.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked stupidly, still in the past. I would rather have expected Chief Hartigan to appear beside me than Hodge Kistler.
“Me? I’m the Good Samaritan; you just don’t recognize me in this snappy American getup. Have you, might I ask, had enough regard for your own well-being to get yourself a little lunch?”
“Lunch? My goodness, it isn’t—”
“Just as I thought again. It is one thirty. Perhaps a bit after. You come with me.”
“But she’s lost. Rose Liberry’s missing, and I haven’t found out yet what—”
“She’ll keep. Come on along.”
I went, resisting, my mind still hitched to the past.
“You’re too dirty to eat with me or anyone else. Here, go in here and wash up. I’ll wait.”
I was turned neatly into a washroom. Even the washroom was inky, I noticed, beginning to become perceptive again, under the influence of water and soap.
“You certainly know your way around!” I commented, rejoining Mr. Kistler in the corridor outside.
“Didn’t I serve my term of purgatory in this joint? Let’s go to the Dutch Moon.”
Tucked into a corner booth—Hodge always picks out corners—I found I was trembling with weakness and excitement. Hot soup helped the first; I allayed the second by pouring out the morning’s discoveries.
Mr. Kistler listened soberly.
“One thing you can certainly say for this case,” he said. “The more you look into it, the worse it smells. Well, I have a little incident to relate, myself.”
“Don’t tell me anything more has happened!”
“Nothing much, but I noticed it. Me, you understand, not the detective in the hall. Though of course, what with his being so occupied with you—”
“Don’t meander. What was it?”
“Oh, nothing, really; just a bit more of the same. It seems that, after you, I was the third one up this morning, I having to foregather with the carriers for a few last parting instructions. Mr. B. was in our joint possession, so I toddled down the hall to the bathroom. During my occupancy it strikes me I am slightly dizzy. Looking into the matter, I find I am not dizzy, but the floor is. You know how the floor is—black-and-white tile pattern, half the tiles loose. Probably was saving money when she had it done. I investigate, on my knees, and it is immediately apparent that someone has taken out the loose tiles and then did not put them back in the right pattern. What do you think of that for sleuthing?”
“You’re wonderful.”
“Thank you. The gentleman in the hall below was not so honest, but he whistled and phoned Strom.”
“I wonder if he’s found it now.”
“Oh, sure, he called me to say he’d been out, but couldn’t make anything of it.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Why, Strom. He went out to look at the bathroom—”
“Silly, I wasn’t thinking about him. I mean the prowler. Did he find what he was after under the tiles, do you think?”
“Not if I’m a good guesser. Nothing under ’em but the old worn-out board flooring and crumbly cement.”
“Then he doesn’t have it yet. He’ll still be hunting. Wouldn’t you think, when there’s a detective in the house all the time, that he’d sometime get caught at it?”
“God help us every one,” Hodge prayed cheerfully. “I think I’ll petition for a
