Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931

Tom glanced about the handsome study into which, after great effort and patience, he had been admitted. He did his best to curb the boyish eagerness and excitement he was feeling.

“You understand, of course. Miss Waldmar, that the matter is a gravely important one,” he said quietly. “And everything you tell me, unless it cannot be helped, will be regarded as confidential. You would wish to avenge this poor girl’s death. If you had seen her slender body strapped to that wheel—”

Miss Walmar flung up shocked hands.

“Mr. Grant — I beg of you!” She shuddered. “I knew Enid Clark well. I assure you that the entire faculty has been grieved and horrified by this thing. I also knew Mr. Nicolay very well.”

“You did?”

“Why, yes. Mr. Nicolay paid for Enid’s schooling here.”

“He... he what?”

“Certainly. He entered Enid at our school when she was ten. She boarded here until her graduation, when she was eighteen. During her summers she was at our summer camp. Naturally we knew her well. She was a girl of great charm and ability. When she left, I believe, she took a position as French instructress in the Harbison School. She was only there for one season, when she married Walter Cleet. That is all that I can tell you about Enid.”

“But... but why did Nicolay pay for her?” asked Tom, stunned.

“He told us simply that she was a child of a dear friend of his, and that she came from a splendid family,” said Miss Waldmar stiffly. “Of course, Mr. Nicolay himself was enough reference for any one. No one questions the standing of the Nicolays. Years past his wife, Mabel Malliett, graduated from this school.”

“I see,” said Tom slowly. “And when he put Enid here, it was how many years ago?”

“The child was ten. She graduated when she was eighteen, that is, in 1925. Fourteen years ago, Mr. Grant, Paul Nicolay brought the little girl to us. Enid must have been twenty-four at the time of her death.”

“Yes,” said Tom, still feeling dazed. “Of course, Mr. Nicolay did not tell you the child was any relative of his family?”

“Not at all. He said she was an orphan, the daughter of his best friend, and that he had been left in charge of her affairs and her. It was quite usual. Those things often happen. We have a girl here now who—”

Tom committed the dreadful blunder of rising while Miss Waldmar was speaking. But he felt that he had no time to waste. He was through with this fishy-eyed, haughty woman, and with a few muttered words of gratitude and apology, he got away.

At the Harbison School, twenty miles away along the river, he learned little more, save that Enid Clark had met Walter Cleet at a dance, and had soon become engaged to him, and that twice Paul Nicolay had driven out to see her while she taught at the school.

Always the shadow of this man across her life. What did it mean? Did Cleet know what it meant? Did any one in that strange Nicolay household know?

“I bet I can talk to a man who does,” Tom told himself, as he hurried to his date with Maida Strathwyn.

Maida was waiting for him, sweeter than ever, in a smart little blue suit and little close hat, and Tom brightened at sight of her.

Over a table in a corner of Jake’s they talked.

“You haven’t a minute to lose,” she told him. “Carson is the man. I bet he knows. Make him talk! Don’t sit here while I eat this ice cream. I’ve been to headquarters and I feel like a wreck. If you could have seen Bill Brasson look at me! But that’s all in the work. I’ve got to rest a while. You go on, Tom. I’m eating my three meals a day right here now, and if you want to see me or we have anything to tell each other, we can meet here.”

As Tom went out into the blazing sunshine he thanked the fortune that had brought Maida across his path in this strange case. If he ever got time to stop, he would make love to her as she deserved to be made love to.

Seymor Carson was in his private office when Tom went up in the elevator to the top floor of the towering Wallace Building.

The detective had to wait a short time until a man emerged from the lawyer’s office, but he possessed his soul in patience. He felt that Carson and the city police would respect him now, and he was making strides in the case.

“Why, Mr. Grant,” said Carson as Tom approached him, “I’ve been anxious to see you. A horrible scandal, this affair of Malliett’s.”

“Yes,” said Tom casually. “He has retained you?”

“I should say not!” snapped Carson. “I would not take his case, the little crook! He has another lawyer.”

“We have a long list of robberies against that bunch,” said Tom. “You didn’t, by chance, have a suspicion that they were in that underground cellar when you called at the farm last night?”

“Certainly not! I saw no indication of any one else being there.” Carson looked indignant. “And they say they never knew that I was there. It is quite possible. None of us made any noise.”