LITMIR.BIZ

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friend Harrigan on the box. The way people keep bobbing up in this case is something wonderful.”

      “Perhaps the woman’s in the cab,” whispered Patsy.

      On the contrary, the cab was empty.

      Harrigan got off the box and rang the bell.

      Nick heard him ask for Gaspard Lebeau. Gaspard was summoned.

      “I’ve two trunks for you,” said Harrigan.

      “For me?” asked Gaspard.

      “Yes; a young woman hired me to bring them, and she said it would be all right. You’d pay the price.”

      “What sort of a woman?”

      “A very gallus French siren with a big white hat and a black plume as long as the tail of me horse.”

      “All right,” said Gaspard, promptly; “bring in the trunks.”

      They were carried up the stairs to Gaspard’s room.

      Harrigan mounted the box and drove away.

      “Follow him,” said Nick. “Bring him back here in about half an hour.”

      Patsy darted away in pursuit of the cab.

      Nick walked up to the door of Gaspard’s house and rang the bell.

      He was directed to the Frenchman’s room.

      Gaspard was examining the two trunks. He looked very much embarrassed at the sight of Nick.

      “What’s all this, Gaspard?” asked the detective. “I hear you’re going back to France.”

      “I? Oh, no. New York suits me much better.”

      “But what are these trunks doing here?”

      Gaspard looked particularly foolish.

      “They are the property of a friend—a lady. To tell the truth, I hope to marry her. A charming girl, monsieur; and innocent as a dove.”

      “Why does she send her trunks here?”

      “Ah, that I do not know. It was not agreed upon.”

      “Have you any idea what is in them?”

      “Her wardrobe. Ah, she is extravagant. She buys many dresses. But then, what would you have? When one is young and beautiful—”

      Gaspard finished his sentence with a sweep of the arms.

      “They are heavy,” said Nick, lifting one of the trunks and setting it crosswise on a lounge.

      He took a bunch of keys from his pocket. Gaspard seemed aghast.

      “You would not open it?” he cried.

      “Perhaps it won’t be necessary,” said Nick. “This may answer.”

      He drew a knife from his pocket and opened one of the blades, which was sharpened like a very large nut-pick.

      With a sudden movement, he struck this into the bottom of the trunk, and then withdrew it.

      A dark red stream followed the blade when it was withdrawn. The end of the trunk projected over the side of the couch, and the red fluid dripped upon the carpet.

      “My God!” exclaimed Gaspard. “It is blood!”

      “So it would seem,” said Nick, quietly.

      He set the trunk upon the floor and snapped back the lock with a skeleton key.

      Then he threw open the lid and revealed a mass of excelsior and scraps of newspapers.

      This being torn away disclosed a dead and ghastly face—the face of unfortunate Corbut, the waiter.

Chapter VIII.

       Tracing the Trunks

       Table of Contents

      Corbut’s body had been cut in two. Only half was in the trunk which Nick had opened.

      The other half was not, however, far away. It was in the other trunk.

      Both trunks contained considerable blood, but they had been neatly lined with rubber cloth, apparently taken from a rubber blanket and a man’s heavy waterproof coat.

      It was so fitted that the trunks, when closed, were water-tight.

      “The neatest job I ever saw,” said Nick. “Come, Gaspard, tell the story.”

      “I swear to you,” cried Gaspard, “that I know nothing about it.”

      At this moment Patsy rapped on the door. He had brought back Harrigan.

      “Come in!” said Nick; and they both entered.

      “Holy mother!” shrieked Harrigan, when he saw the open trunks. “So help me, gentlemen, I don’t know nothing about this business. I ain’t in it. I’m tellin’ yer straight. Youse don’t believe I had anything to do wid this, do yer?”

      “You brought the trunks here,” said Nick.

      “Lemme tell youse all about it,” cried Harrigan, who was so anxious to tell that he couldn’t talk fast enough. “De French leddy struck me on me old place. You know. Where I was de odder night.

      “She talked a kind o’ dago, but I tumbled to what she was a-givin’ me. This was about half-past seven o’clock.

      “‘Meet me,’ says she, ‘in an hour.’ An’ she give me street an’ number.

      “It was West Fifty-seventh street; but dere ain’t no such number. Dere’s nuttin’ but a high board fence.

      “But that didn’t make no difference, ‘cause when I got dere, her jiblets was a-standing on der sidewalk, waitin’ for me.

      “‘Drive over ter de corner,’ says she, ‘and’ turn round an’ come back.’

      “I did it, an’ when I got dare, she showed me dese two trunks. I hadn’t seen ‘em before.

      “Den she give me dis mug’s address, an’ two bones for me fare, an’ tole me ter come down here, which I did, an’ I wish ter —— I hadn’t; see?”

      “That’s a pretty good story, Harrigan,” said Nick. “Patsy, get a policeman to stay here with Gaspard.”

      Patsy brought the blue-coat in a few minutes.

      “Now, we’ll go up to Fifty-seventh street,” said Nick.

      Half an hour later they had found the place where, as Harrigan claimed, “de French leddy” had delivered the trunks to him.

      “I t’ought o’ course she’d been fired out o’ some boardin’-house,” said Harrigan. “Dere’s a hash-mill dere on der right. I had an idea she’d been trun out o’ dere.”

      Nick meanwhile had been examining the sidewalk with the aid of his dark lantern.

      “Clever work,” he said. “There are no marks on the sidewalk. The trunks were not dragged. That woman must be pretty strong. You say you didn’t see the trunks when you first drove up?”

      “No.”

      “Then they couldn’t have been here. Where were they? Not in any of these houses. She couldn’t have got them out quick enough. Then they must have been behind that fence.”

      There was a little gate in the fence, which Nick opened as he spoke.

      “Ah, here we have tracks,” he said. “It’s all clear enough now. The trunks were brought across this vacant lot from one of the houses facing the other

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