CHAPTER I✦

THE WOMAN IN THE LIMOUSINE

Standing in the dark doorway of a delicatessen shop, Kingdon Cole gazed, through the fog and drizzle of the October night, at a second-story window across the street. The brim of a slouch hat shaded his eyes and most of his face. His lean figure was draped in a mackintosh that reached almost to his feet. The upward slant of the cigar, clamped between his teeth, hinted at total absorption in what he saw.

The building that claimed his attention was an ordinary three-story structure of murky brick. Flanked by a warehouse on one side and a secondhand clothing store on the other, it presented a sullen and gloomy aspect to the watcher across the street. Yet there was something in the very drabness of the house and the chill atmosphere which hung over it that might have appealed to the imagination of a man like Kingdon Cole.

A man’s head and shoulders were dimly silhouetted against the lighted window shade at which he was looking so fixedly. For half an hour or longer the figure had not stirred. The rigid poise of the head and the stiff set of the shoulders suggested that the man at the window was engaged in a task that occupied his whole mind.

Cole struck a match and, holding it in his cupped hands, lighted his dead cigar. The flickering light shone for an instant on fingers that were long, slim, and finely tapering, the fingers of a man of great mental energy and a compelling personality.

“Wonder what the learned Professor Carmody finds so interesting,” he mumbled. “Some scientific treatise, very likely, or perhaps it is——”

He lowered his gaze, as he vaguely sensed that a pair of eyes was trying to pierce the gloom in which he stood. What with the wet night and the lateness of the hour that dreary section of Bleecker Street was all but deserted. Now and then a crosstown car jogged along at a lumbering pace; occasionally a taxicab passed on its way.

Cole looked up and down the block. The impression was more distinct now. Some one was watching him, just as he was watching the solitary figure in the window. His senses, sharpened by long training, told him he was under observation even before he could trace the impression to its source. Now he saw a limousine drawn up at the corner, less than twenty paces from where he stood. Its sides of burnt sienna gleamed in the blurred lights. It seemed to lend a touch of affluence to the squalor and dreariness of the scene. How long the car had been there he did not know, for the window across the street had claimed all his attention.

The car began to move, crawling, snaillike and silent toward the point where Cole stood. It stopped opposite the doorway that sheltered him. He fancied that he saw the flicker of a face behind the curtains. Then the door opened a few inches, and he caught a glimpse of a beckoning hand.

His eyes narrowed under their puckering brows. The monotony of his vigil was being broken in a strange way, and the slow twisting of his lips signified that the interruption was not altogether displeasing. Once more he glanced up at the window across the street, noticing that the shadowy figure had not stirred. Then he crossed the sidewalk, and instantly the door of the limousine was flung wide.

“Won’t you step in, Mr. Cole?” asked a voice.

Though his life had inured him to surprises, Cole started a little. It was odd that the occupant of the car should address him by name. The interior was dark, but in the shadows he saw the figure of a woman.

“You are very patient, Mr. Cole,” the voice continued. “You are wasting your time, however. It isn’t likely that Professor Carmody will go out to-night, so you might as well jump in.”

A sharp hunching of Cole’s shoulders registered surprise number two. It was all very mystifying. Not only did the occupant of the car know his name, but she seemed familiar with his business as well. He liked her voice, a deep soprano with a faintly playful undertone. For a moment he studied the long, slender lines of her figure, faintly discernible in the dusk and melting, here and there, into a background of saffron-hued cushions.

“You hesitate? I happen to know that Professor Carmody is in for the night and that your vigilance is useless.”

Cole looked at her intently. The mist, the drizzle, and the blurred sheen from the street lamps seemed to lend a touch of unreality to what he saw and heard.

“What do you know about Professor Carmody,” he demanded.

“A great deal more than you do. It’s quite possible that I am in a position to give you some valuable information. At any rate my car is more comfortable than a dark doorway.”

She leaned forward slightly, and there was a trace of mockery on her faintly parted lips. “Not afraid, are you, Mr. Cole?”

He gave a low laugh at the implied dare. With a shrug he stepped inside the car and sat down beside her. She picked up the speaking tube and, turning her head away from Cole, said something which he could not hear. In an instant the car was in motion.

“You seem to know a great deal,” he observed, trying to obtain a glimpse of her face under the billowing brim that shaded it.

“And you are anxious to learn how much more I know. Isn’t it so, Mr. Cole? It was neither vulgar curiosity nor adventurousness that prompted you to accept my invitation to ride with me. You accepted only because you hoped to learn something. Having heard me speak your name and mention Professor Carmody you naturally thought it might be profitable to cultivate my acquaintance.”

“Perhaps so,” said Cole dryly. “What do you know about me aside from my name and my interest in the estimable professor?”

“A great deal,” was the surprisingly prompt reply. “You are a student of criminology, a follower in the footsteps of Lombroso, Pinel, and Prichard, though you by no means accept their theories. You have written two books on crime and criminals. They are too scientific for the general reader, I have been told, but experts on the subject regard them as authoritative. Perhaps some day I shall try to read them.”

“I fear you won’t find them very interesting,” replied Cole. “What else?”

“You live in a small apartment in Gramercy Park, which also serves as your office. Two years ago you did a very brilliant piece of work on the Wilmerding murder case, though you magnanimously, or for reasons of your own, let the police claim the credit for the results. You follow criminal investigations largely as a scientific pursuit. If you cared to devote all your time to it you could make a great success, but you accept only such cases as happen to interest you personally. As a result you lead a quiet and somewhat precarious existence, deriving your sole pleasure from your work and such inexpensive amusements as books, music, and, on rare occasions, the theater.”

“You seem to have taken considerable pains looking me up,” he remarked.

“Oh, I haven’t told you all I know yet. I have learned a number of things about your private life and personal habits, but we needn’t go into those things now.”

“Are you equally well informed in regard to Professor Carmody?”

“Not quite. The professor is a riddle. To all outward appearances he is interested in nothing but his experiments and his musty old books. He seems to be living in that kind of neighborhood by preference, because he isn’t so apt to be bothered by meddling neighbors. His house is said to contain one of the best-equipped laboratories of its kind in the world. That’s only a rumor, of course. The professor doesn’t encourage visitors. To the few people who have talked with him he is what the novelists call a man of mystery. He comes and goes without speaking to any one, and his life is a closed book. As far as I know, only one person has been inside his house in a year, and that person never came out.”

“Oh, you know that!”

“Yes, I am one of the very few who are aware of the fact. Let me see, it’s about three weeks since Malcolm Reeves disappeared. His relatives, your clients, in other words, have reason to believe that he visited Professor Carmody on the night of his disappearance. No wonder the case fascinates you, Mr. Cole. Disappearances are always interesting, but especially so when a mysterious person like Professor Carmody is involved.”

Cole regarded her in frank amazement, but her head was now slightly bowed, and all he could see of her face was the curve of the chin.

“The relatives did well to put the case in your hands,” she went on. “You are both capable and discreet and, as I presume you know, there were excellent reasons for not reporting Reeves’ disappearance to the police. Are you making satisfactory progress?”

“My clients seem satisfied.”

“You have not yet paid the professor a visit?”

“What would be the use?”

“You are right, of course. It would only put him on his guard. You prefer not to let him know that he is under suspicion.” She laughed gently, as if amused at something. “Besides, it is doubtful whether a search of Carmody’s house would reveal any clews to Reeves’ fate. The professor is a chemist, and I understand there are certain chemical processes by which bodies can be made to disappear completely, leaving no trace.”