The Mysteries of Detective Ashton-Kirk (Complete Series). John T. McIntyre

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      "I see,"said he. "While Edyth stood listening on the stairs someone opened this door!"

      "Yes; someone unacquainted with the place. Otherwise he would have known of the bell."

      "But how did you know that Edyth heard a door close?"

      "Whoever rang the bell closed the door after him. It has a spring lock like the street door; and was locked when Miss Vale tried it a few moments later."

      "You say that the ringing of the bell shows the person who rang the bell to have been unacquainted with the place. I think you must be wrong here. Spatola is acquainted with the place; he was here at the time. This is proven by the scream of the frightened cockatoo which followed the ringing of the bell."

      "It was not a cockatoo that made the sound,"said Ashton-Kirk. "Give me a moment and I think I can convince you of that."

      The gas in the hall was lighted; the investigator stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to the fourth floor.

      "Persons,"he continued, "who secretly enter buildings, as a rule never trust to the lighting apparatus of the buildings. One reason for this is that it is not under their control—another that they cannot carry their light about with them."

      He pointed to the lowermost step of the flight; there, as before, were the stump of candle, the burnt matches, the traces of tallow upon the wood.

      "There were two or more men concerned in this crime,"proceeded Ashton-Kirk, "and that is the method of lighting that they chose—a candle."

      "Two men! How do you know that?"asked Pendleton.

      "You shall see in a moment,"replied the investigator. Then he continued: "And the candle was used not only for illumination—it served another purpose, and so supplied me with the first definite information that my searching had given me up to that time."

      Pendleton looked at the discouraged little candle end, with its long black wick, the two charred splinters of pine wood and the eccentric trail of tallow droppings. Then he shook his head.

      "How you could get enlightenment from those things is beyond me,"he said. "But tell me what they indicated."

      "The candle and the match-sticks count for little,"said Ashton-Kirk. "It is the tracings of melted tallow that possess the secret. Look closely at them. At first glance they may seem the random drippings of a carelessly held light. But a little study will show you a clearly defined system contained in them."

      "Well, you might say there were three lines of it,"said Pendleton, after a moment's inspection.

      "Right,"said Ashton-Kirk. "Three lines there are, and each follows a row of tack heads. These latter were, apparently, once driven in to hold down a step-protector of some sort which has since become worn out and been removed."

      The speaker took a pad of paper and a pencil from his pocket. Across the pad he drew three lines one under the other. Then with another glance at the candle droppings upon the step, he made a copy of them that looked like this:

      Pendleton bent over the result under the flare of the gas light; and as he looked his eyes widened.

      "Why,"cried he, "they look like a stenographer's word-signs."

      "Good!"said Ashton-Kirk. "And that, my dear fellow, is exactly what they are. There, scrawled erratically in dripping tallow, is a three word sentence in Benn Pitman's phonetic characters. It is roughly done, and may have occupied some minutes; but it is well done, and in excellent German. I'll write it out for you."

      Then he wrote on the pad in big, plain Roman letters:

      HINTER

       WAYNE'S

       BILDNISSE

      "There it is,"said the investigator, "done into the German language, line for line. Brush up your knowledge now; let me see you turn it into English."

      Pendleton, whose German was rusty from long disuse, pondered over the three words. Suddenly a light shot across his face; then his eyes were in a blaze.

      "Behind Wayne's Portrait!"

      He fairly shouted the words. Astonishment filled him; he was trembling with excitement.

      "By Heaven,"he gasped, "you have it, Kirk. Now I understand the smashing of the portraits of General Wayne. There was something of value hidden behind one of them—between the picture and the back! But what?"

      "It was nothing of any great bulk; the hiding place indicated points that out, surely,"said Ashton-Kirk, composedly. "A document of some sort, perhaps."

      Pendleton stood for a moment, lost in the wonder of the revelation; then his mind began to work once more.

      "But I can't understand the writing of the thing upon the step,"said he.

      "It was the fact that it was written that proved to me that there were at least two men concerned. One knew the hiding place of the coveted object; and this is how he conveyed the information to his companion,"pointing to the step.

      "But,"protested Pendleton, "why did he not put it into words? Surely it would have been much easier?"

      "Not for this particular person. As it happens, he was a mute."

      Again Pendleton's eyes opened widely; then recollection came to him and he said:

      "It was Locke—the man concerning whom you were making inquiries of the railroad conductor!"

      Ashton-Kirk nodded, and replied.

      "And it was he who shrieked when the door of the showroom opened. The out-cry of a deaf-mute, if you have ever heard one, has the same squawking, senseless sound as that of a psittaceous bird like the parrot or cockatoo."

      "But,"said Pendleton, "the fact that the man who scrawled these signs upon the step was a deaf-mute, scarcely justifies the eccentricity of the thing. Why did he not use a pencil, as you have done?"

      "I can't say exactly, of course. But did it never happen that you were without a pencil at a time when you needed one rather urgently?"

      "This thing has sort of knocked me off my balance, I suppose,"said Pendleton, rather bewildered. "Don't expect too much of me, Kirk."He stuffed his hands in his pockets dejectedly and continued: "You now tell me that this man was a mute. Yesterday you said he was small, that he was near-sighted, that he was well dressed and knew something of the modern German dramatists. You also told the conductor that he wore thick glasses and a silk hat. Now, I suppose I'm all kinds of an idiot for not understanding how you know these things about a man you never saw. But I confess it candidly; I don't understand."

      "It all belongs to my method of work,"said Ashton-Kirk. "It's simple enough when you go about it the right way. I have already given you my reasons for thinking the man who did this,"pointing to the step, "to be a mute. I judged that he was of small stature because he chose the bottom step upon which to trace his word signs. Even an ordinary sized man would have selected one higher up."

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