Old Spicer, while inspecting the apartments and the several dark passages by which the rooms were reached, compared the surroundings, because of the abrupt and unexpected halls and turns, the scanty furnishings, and the like, to some of the celebrated structures that carried notoriety to the old Five Points in New York years ago.
In the southeast corner of the basement, where the uninitiated might expect to find a coal bin or a hole in the ground to store away wood, they discovered a room with three or four chairs and a lounge. Even the tenants on the floor above had no idea that there was such a room in existence.
One of the passages from the bedroom opened into what must have been a sort of social apartment for the patrons of the widow. It might also answer the purpose of a card or smoking-room. A cheap stove, a couple of tables, and three or four chairs comprised the furniture of this room.
Then there was discovered another apartment which was probably used as a storehouse for ale and beer barrels. Besides these there were found a woodshed and tool-room, and a suspicious looking trap-door that covered what Old Spicer was privately informed was a secret underground tunnel that extended far in the rear of the building.
He raised the heavy door and looked in; the entrance was nearly choked up with ashes.
He removed some of the rubbish with his foot, and peered eagerly into the black darkness. The hole had a mysterious look about it, and he could not but regard it with strong suspicion.
One of the tenants of the house approached, pointed to the black opening, mysteriously shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and then mumbled, in what he meant to be a confidential tone:
"That there underground passage leads clear across the back-yard, Mister Detective; and just let me tell you it'll be a mighty interesting thoroughfare for you to inspect."
"Thoroughfare, eh?" questioned Old Spicer, thoughtfully.
"That's what I said, sir."
"Thank you for the hint, my friend; most likely I shall act upon it later." Then he closed the trap-door, and once more turned toward the bar-room.
This apartment was of comfortable dimensions, and was the principal room in the basement. It was furnished on the same scale of poverty as the rest, and the first glimpse into it would not have been very reassuring to the spectator. The bar resembled those that bloom in cheap groggeries.
There was an evident purpose on the part of the owner to keep the public from sharing the brilliancy of the interior, for a paper screen two and a half feet high and two feet wide stood at the end of the bar as a barrier to the glow of an oil lamp that shed its exclusive light through the gloomy apartment.
A dilapidated, small-sized looking-glass adorned the partition wall back of the bar. In the tool-room were a hatchet and a butcher's knife, besides a bunch of rusty keys.
Suspended from the bar-room wall and right over the dead woman's head, was a picture of Napoleon Bonaparte surveying a battlefield with his generals. A picture of Richard Wagner looked down on the corpse from another part of the interior.
"When I first came in here this morning with the milkman," said Morgan, "there were bottles and half-filled glasses on the bar."
"What was in the glasses?" asked Stricket.
"In one there was nothing but soda-water. The other contained claret."
"How long was it after you got here before the police arrived?" asked Old Spicer.
"I had had hardly time enough to take a good look at the murdered woman when Policeman Cannon, who resides in the brick block next south of this, came in. He had only just returned from his night patrol and lain down. His wife heard the outcry in the street and aroused him."
"I suppose he assumed authority at once?"
"Why, he found the place pretty well filled by an excited throng, and men, women and boys making excursions through the several apartments; but before he could clear out the people, Detective Reilly arrived."
"Ah! somebody telephoned to headquarters, I suppose?"
"I suppose so, for very soon the coroner came rushing in, then Detective Brewer made his appearance in hot haste; and finally Chief Bollmann, Policeman Hyde and other officers."
"By that time there was a scattering, I fancy," said Stricket, with a smile.
"Yes," assented George, "everybody was hunted from the basement except those you see here now."
At this moment Coroner Mix joined them.
"Going to look into this case a little, Old Spicer?" he asked.
"I have some thoughts of doing so," was the reply.
"I hope you will," said the coroner. "If there is any information I can give you, I will impart it gladly."
"Are there any clews to work on as yet?" asked Old Spicer.
"Very few, so far as I have been able to learn."
"What do you know about the woman, anyway?"
"Very little indeed. The fact is, Spicer, there seems to be a blissful ignorance on every hand, even regarding the history of the victim and her family affairs."
"Ah-ha! she kept her family affairs to herself, did she?"
"It seems so. A mystery looms up at the very outset of the case. But of that hereafter."
"All right, the mystery can wait, if you say so. But with regard to her relatives, surely something is known about them. What have you been able to find out?"
"In the first place, I have ascertained that Mrs. Ernst had been in this country between thirty and forty years, coming from Germany; and that her financial manager, for a long time past, was Maier Zunder."
"She was a widow, I believe?"
"Yes, a good deal of a widow. She had been married three times, and her three husbands are dead."
"Indeed?"
"Yes; the first died in Germany."
"What was his name?"
"George Pfaff. After his death she came to the United States and met her second husband, Franz Natolph, in New York."
"He came to New Haven with her, didn't he?" asked Stricket.
"Yes," was the reply, "and they started in the saloon-business in this very place."
"There was a pretty serious row, wasn't there, in which Natolph got hurt?"
"Yes, one night, in this very room, Natolph was struck in the head with a bottle, nearly cracking his skull. Typhoid fever set in, and that and the injuries from the bottle soon after caused his death."
"How long is it since Ernst, her third husband, died?" asked Old Spicer.
"Less than ten years," was the reply.
"She left no children, I believe?"
"No never had any, so far as I have been able to learn."
"She has kept up the business, married or single?"
"Yes: to the very hour of her death."
Old Spicer glanced at the dead body on the sofa.
"She was a very stout woman," he remarked, "but, I believe, was not in good health."
"No," answered the coroner, "she has been troubled of late years with a severe asthmatic attack. She was rarely seen outside of this basement, for a flight of stairs was a terror to her."
"She suffered from rheumatism, I have been told."
"Yes, fearfully; it settled in her limbs, and caused a lameness, which was relieved somewhat by the assistance of the black walking-stick you see by her side."
"But she did go out sometimes?"
"Only at rare intervals, and then always in a carriage."
"She was quite well off rich, in fact?"
"Of late years she has been increasing her wealth pretty fast. She owns this house, and the large brick block directly back of it, which fronts on York Street."
"She was mighty close-fisted," observed Stricket.
"Yes," assented the coroner, "she was of a parsimonious disposition, and by some in this neighborhood was called very grasping and miserly."
"It seems to me the chief ought to know something about her affairs," remarked Stricket, in a musing tone; "for, if I remember rightly, he was employed by her years ago, when he was practicing law."
"Yes," assented the coroner, "she was of a parsimonious disposition, and by some in this neighborhood was called very grasping and miserly."
"It seems to me the chief ought to know something about her affairs," remarked Stricket, in a musing tone; "for, if I remember rightly, he was employed by her years ago, when he was practicing law."
"You are right, Mr. Stricket," assented the coroner, "years ago he was her counsel, but only, as he informs me, on two or three occasions."
At that moment the chief and several other officials joined them. As they seemed very willing to talk, Old Spicer determined to be a listener, and very sparing of his own words.
CHAPTER III.
OLD SPICER BEGINS AN INVESTIGATION
"What do you think of the case, Spicer?" asked the chief, carelessly.
"I have formed no decided opinion as yet," was the reply, "have you?"
"Well," rejoined the chief, "I am beginning to map out a theory."
"I should like to hear it," said Spicer.
"I have no objection to giving you my ideas," returned Bollmann, "you see of late, the old woman had become more grasping than ever. She didn't care who came here so long as they left plenty of money behind them, and there's no doubt of it, the greater part of those who frequented the place were a pretty tough set."
"That's evident, I think."
"Yes, young men and young women have been frequently seen in this basement, whose hilarity was so violent at times during the night that the upper tenants were more or less disturbed. We infer, too, from what we have seen of the series of rooms we have stumbled upon, that they were not for the accommodation of the most law-abiding of our citizens."
"You think, then, this murder was committed by some of the dead woman's patrons?"
"I think that may be the case."
"And you will shape your investigation accordingly?"
"Yes; and our first move will be to find out who was here last night."
"Have you made any progress in that direction?"
"One of the tenants of the house Otto Webber who will remove from here in a day or two, came into the basement last night, about 8.30, to tell Mrs. Ernst he was about to vacate his apartments. He had with him Alexander Lane and Andrew Lane, brothers, who live on Congress Avenue. Andrew is to rent the tenement to be vacated by Webber. The latter introduced the widow to him. While they were talking, the sound of female voices and those of a couple of men reached them, from one of the little back rooms."
"Ah-ha! did Webber catch a glimpse of them?"
"No, he did not see any of the party; neither did his companions. But, Spicer, my men are hunting for that quartet."
"So?"
"Yes, just so."
"What else have you to go by?"
"A woman in the brick block which the widow owned, just back of this and fronting on York Street, looked from a rear window, last night, and saw a light burning here until nearly eleven o'clock."
"The quartet probably kept it up pretty late."
"Then Mrs. John Newstrum, who lives directly over this room, just told me that she heard persons down here as late as ten o'clock, and after."
"Did she hear anything like a quarrel?"
"Nobody in the house heard any quarreling or loud words during the night."
"Is it thought the murderers got away with much wealth?"
"When we searched the house, a little while ago, and talked with Mr. Zunder here, we concluded that they probably got away with between four and five hundred dollars. She was known to have about that amount by her, as she was intending to pay certain bills that were due."
"Not a very big haul, if that's all they got."
"I am confident they got no more than five hundred dollars at the most," said Mr. Zunder, emphatically.
"I'll bet they had good reasons for believing that they were going to get more," observed Detective Reilly, confidently.
"There's no doubt about that," said the chief, quickly; "they supposed the old woman kept her pile right here in this basement."
"My theory," remarked Brewer, "is that the murderer or murderers were very familiar with the premises, and that they came here with the intention of robbing the old woman of a big stake. In order to carry out their villainous work, they first bound and gagged her, and then got her onto the sofa there."
"You don't think, then, Phil, that they intended to murder her?" said Old Spicer, inquiringly.
"I do not," was the reply. "You see, after they got that gag in her mouth, they probably began to go through the several rooms, and left her tied where she is now lying. The fact that she was such a sufferer from asthma may not have been known to the criminals. With a handkerchief stuck in her mouth, and her asthmatic difficulty, you can readily see that an old woman like her could not live long."
"I believe you're right, Phil," said one of the other detectives. "I don't believe they intended to kill her."
"Have you questioned everybody in the house?" asked Old Spicer of the chief.
"Yes," was the answer, "we have had something to say to every one who lives here."
"You learned nothing more, I suppose?"
"Nothing more of any consequence."
"Have you heard what this young man has to say, chief?" asked Officer Cannon, indicating a person of about twenty-five who was standing by his side.
"No," answered the chief; "what is it?"
"Speak up for yourself, young man," said the officer, encouragingly.
The young man, thus admonished, advanced and said:
"I was returning from a whist party with a friend about one o'clock this morning. Just before we reached Spruce Street, on Oak, we heard the loud talk of three men in a buggy. They acted as if they might be partially intoxicated. The team was going as rapidly as it could. Just before they came up to where we were they spied us, and we heard one of them say, 'hush!' Not a word more came from their lips until long after they had passed us, then we could hear them talking again."
"Hum! Did they come from this way?" asked the chief.
"Yes, sir; they were not far from this house when we first saw them."
"Which way did they go after they had passed you?"
"Toward Howe Street."
"Did you notice anything in the buggy?"
"Yes, sir; we both noticed it."
"What was it?"
"An ordinary packing box."
"In front?"
"No, sir; fastened in the rear, behind the seat."
"You are sure they didn't drive out Oak Street?"
"I am not quite sure; but I think they turned into Howe."
"I have heard something of this story before," said the chief, aside to Old Spicer.
"It may be worth while looking those fellows up," returned the old detective.
"I think so."
"What was it you had heard before?"
"Why, one of the women in the house here peered from her front window down on the sidewalk, somewhere about midnight, she thinks, and saw three suspicious-looking characters talking in subdued tones, near the steps leading to the saloon below."
"Ah, I see; and joining our young friend's story of the three men dashing toward Howe Street at one o'clock, or through Oak Street, as you think, with the woman's story of the whispering trio on the sidewalk, you think there may be a clew that will lead to important revelations?"
"It seems so to me Well, what is it, Woodford?"
"I've just found this handkerchief, sir," and Officer Woodford handed a very fine embroidered handkerchief to the chief.
"Where did you find it?" asked Bollmann, curiously, as he carefully examined the delicate piece of cambric.
"By the side of a chair in the next room. I fancy it may have belonged to some one who was with the murderer or murderers."
"'S. S.'" mused the chief, as he caught sight of those initials in one corner of the handkerchief; "I'd give something handsome to know what those two letters stand for."