# Unseen Hands/Chapter 21
### CHAPTER XXI
#### THE THIRD GENERATION

“YOU know, then?" The woman who had been called "Gerda" placed both thin hands to her breast and bowed her head. "I do not know how you discovered the truth, but it doesn't matter now; the purpose for my presence here has been taken out of my hands."
"The family have all retired?" Odell drew her toward the library. "Sit down here, please; I shall not detain you long, Mrs. Gael, I think I know your motive for masquerading here, but I should like to hear it confirmed by your own lips. It was in order that you might be revenged in some way upon Farley Drew, was it not?"
Again she bowed her head.
"Do you know all that this man has done to me? For my own folly and unfaithfulness to my husband, I blame no one but myself; and I have paid for it in the loss of all that makes life worth living. He had promised me that if I were divorced he would make me his wife, and I believed him; later he refused to keep that promise, and he was my only refuge, my one hope of even a partial rehabilitation in the estimation of my world." She lifted her tragic eyes and rested them upon the detective's face. "I admit that I was desperate, that I pleaded with him, followed him, lost all sense of pride in my terror of a future ​without him; and—he had made other plans in which I would have no part. I was a menace to those plans, a menace to his whole future career; and he conspired with a crooked physician to railroad me to an insane asylum. I was never an attendant in one as I told you. Sergeant Odell, but an inmate—I, who was as absolutely sane as you see me now!"
"You escaped?"
"After three months of purgatory! With the help of an old servant who was faithful to me I concealed myself until I had learned Farley Drew's plans; and then I came here to frustrate them. I meant to wait until his hour of complete triumph, and then expose him—not alone in regard to his treatment of me, but other things which I had learned concerning him, criminal things. I felt no compunction in regard to Cissie Chalmers. My revenge on him would save her from wrecking her future; and she is not the type who can suffer very deeply."
"Did anyone in this house suspect your identity?" Odell asked.
"Only Rannie; and he also hated Farley Drew. He told me only yesterday that he would not give me away because he wanted to see what he called the fun." She shivered. There is something inhuman about that boy."
"Was it he whose eyes you advised me to watch, Mrs. Gael?" He shot the question suddenly at her; but she merely shook her head in a noncommittal fashion.
"I cannot speak of that again, Sergeant Odell. No power can make me; for, as I told you, I have no proof, and even you would think me truly insane if I dared to voice my suspicions. I swear that I have had nothing to do with ​what has been going on in this house; that I actually know nothing; and my testimony would be valueless, besides leaving me open to the danger of being sent back to that awful place." She wrung her hands. "I will kill myself before they take me again!"
Odell saw that in the face of the morbid fear which obsessed her no argument of his would avail; but he did not yet despair of winning her confidence. Abruptly he switched the topic back to its original trend.
"Why do you say that your purpose has been taken out of your hands?"
She smiled faintly.
"You have anticipated me, have you not? One look at Cissie Chalmers's face just now told me that the net must have closed about Farley Drew without any help from me; and my masquerade here is at an end." She rose and held out her hands appealingly. "You will not subject me to further humiliation? I have hurt no one in this family by my presence here. I have performed my ostensible duties as faithfully as any real servant could have done. Let me go quietly before morning; and keep my secret. Further notoriety and shame will kill me; and I swear that I have done no harm! Please, Sergeant Odell, instruct your men to let me go in peace; and I will return to the home of my old servant and not leave it until you tell me that I may. I will give you the address, and you can have one of your men follow me if you don't believe me; but for Heaven's sake let me leave this house of hideous memories!"
"But, Mrs. Gael, what is it that you know of Farley Drew? You spoke of criminal things. Have you always been aware of them?"
​"No. In my blind infatuation I thought of him as a veritable god; but later, after my husband divorced me and Farley Drew began to show himself in his true colors, I learned that he depended for a livelihood upon fleecing and blackmailing young men whose weaknesses for vice he had encouraged. Then once I overheard a conversation between him and his valet which revealed to me that he was actually in league with recognized criminals. Even that did not kill the last spark of my love for him, and I was still determined that his moral obligation to me should be paid. No matter how sullied his name was, I demanded that he give it to me; for he had dragged my own in the dust." She paused and then asked: "What I have told you is no news, is it? You know of the swindles and blackmail?"
"Yes, Mrs. Gael. Farley Drew has just been taken into custody; and one at least of his accomplices has confessed."
"And that poor little fool upstairs ran away to-night to go to him? I should not have waited so long; I should have told you before." She raised her eyes once more supplicatingly to his. "Oh, Sergeant Odell, you will let me go? I could not bear the reproach in her eyes if she knew the truth, even though I am not responsible for her infatuation."
"Yes," agreed Odell after a moment's reflection. "You may go, Mrs. Gael; but I want you to think well over the stand you have taken in regard to withholding the help you are in a position to give me. Remember, if another death occurs in this family you may be indirectly responsible."
"I—I cannot help that," she cried; and the hunted expression came once more into her face. "These people are nothing to me; and what little I could tell you would ​be too utterly preposterous and incredible for you to believe that it was not the figment of a crazed brain. You do not know what I endured in those fearful three months; I dare not face a possibility of the repetition of such suffering. I will leave the house at once, within the hour; and I can- not thank you enough. If—if you should suspect what I believe to be the truth, come to me; prove that you have the same person in mind, and I will tell you the idea which I have formed."
With that Odell was forced for the time being to be content; and accepting the address of her servant, he saw her depart with one of the plainsclothesmen who were on duty outside in tow.
He had had a long day after the sleepless night and the effects of the blow which Tony had dealt him, and he plodded wearily homeward in an unaccustomed state of mental depression. Much had been accomplished in the last few hours; but it had been of a purely negative nature, save only that portion of the investigation which had related to Richard Lorne; and his possible guilt was still merely a matter of the wildest speculation. Granted the existence of a conceivable motive, there still remained vast difficulties in the way of fastening the series of revolting crimes upon him; and not the least of them in the detective's mind was the hint of insanity which Mrs. Gael had attempted to convey to him.
In his own modest rooms once more, he slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, and awakened to the discordant jangle of the telephone bell trying to vie with those of a nearby church. Sunday morning! Four days had elapsed since he was first called in upon the mystery of the Meade house, ​and he was no nearer its solution than when he had been summoned.
He dragged himself out of bed and picked up the telephone receiver.
"Is that you, Barry? This is Jim Dilke speaking. I'm sending you around by messenger a report on that matter we were discussing yesterday."
"Yes?" The haze of sleep cleared like magic from Odell's brain. "Did you find any dope on how that party managed to recoup his losses and keep his head above water?"
"Surest thing you know. He's been working through a dummy company and simply cleaned up in the past three weeks; got back all he lost in the last year and then some. I had him doped all wrong." Dilke's cheerful, brisk tones fell leadenly on the detective's ears. "He had nerve, all right; took the remainder of his holdings, got on the right side of the market at last, and tripled his capital the first day. Since then there has been no holding him. He has been speculating a little on the side under his own name to keep his connection with the new company under cover—perfectly legitimate, you know—and lost consistently, but not enough to even make a dent in what he has rolled up through the dummy concern. There is a certain clique of big men who have been out after him for a year or more, since he broke up a corner they were engineering; but when they get on to this new move of his they are going to be a pretty sick bunch."
"Thanks, old man." Odell tried to make his voice cordial. "It was mighty good of you to take all this trouble."
​"No trouble; the messenger's on the way. Don't forget that little reunion we are going to have as soon as you get a breathing-spell. So long."
The receiver clicked, and Odell sat down on the side of his bed. The motive which he had so carefully built up had dissipated into thin air; and despite the suspicions expressed by Miss Risby, the detective felt that he was back once more at the starting-point of his investigation. The fact of the two murders had been proved to his own satisfaction at least, and the evidence of the two other attempted ones was incontrovertible; but of the identity of the slayer no slightest trace had been gained, save that he must be a person of extraordinary physical strength, great ingenuity, and a capacity for carelessness in each case which savored of insane recklessness.
Insane! Why had that word formed itself in his mind? Had the conversation of the previous night with the woman who had first warned him made a still more profound impression upon his subconsciousness than he had been aware of? If this series of crimes were indeed the work of one with an unsound mind no motive need be looked for. Could the seemingly astute but erratic speculator be guilty after all of the death of his wife and her son?
The report arrived while he was dressing, and a cursory glance through it sufficed to convince the detective that his friend had stated the situation correctly. The new company had been phenomenally successful since its incorporation; and Lorne's speculations of the past few weeks had evidently netted him no mean fortune.
Breakfasting at a small restaurant near his rooms, Odell went immediately to the Meade house, where he encountered ​the attorney Samuel Titheredge in the hall in earnest consultation with Doctor Adams.
"Nothing to be concerned about," the latter was saying. "She has evidently been crying most of the night, even if she does deny it; that accounts for her swollen eyes and flushed face; and as for the nausea and pain—well, it would be a frightful insult to her dignity if I were to suggest that she was suffering from a plain, old-fashioned stomachache! Anyone who stuffs candy and sweets as Cissie does is bound to be upset once in a while."
He greeted the detective cordially, and with a reference to the autopsy on the following day he took his leave.
"Is Miss Cissie ill?" asked Odell.
"She seems to be a bit out of sorts, and Mr. Lorne insisted that the doctor look her over," Titheredge responded. "After the events of the past month he is naturally alarmed at the slightest trouble in the household; but Adams says she is all right. How is the case coming on, Sergeant?"
"We've made some progress, but I can't talk about it, sir; rules of the Department, you know." Odell repeated the time-worn professional prevarication almost mechanically. A sentence or two which Smith had uttered in his report of the previous night had returned suddenly to his mind.—"Miss Cissie had come down to dinner all flushed up and her eyelids were puffed. … At the table she complained of feeling ill. … I don't believe she ate very much, for I could hear her aunt urging her to try just a little soup."
What if Doctor Adams had made a second mistake, and the human fiend at work in this house had selected another victim? The next instant, however, he put the thought from him with an inward smile at his own apprehension. ​The affair must be getting on his nerves as well as those of the family!
"We owe you a debt of gratitude aside from the case." The attorney smiled. "Gene came down to me yesterday and made a clean breast of his association with Farley Drew and what it led him into; and he said you sent him. He is going to make full reparation from his estate; and his stepfather and I have consented to keep the whole matter a secret. They cannot either of them be thankful enough to you."
"At least they may be sure of one thing: Farley Drew will never trouble anyone in this household again; and Miss Cissie has had a very lucky escape, as she will learn shortly." Odell hesitated and then added deliberately: "Mr. Titheredge, may I have a word with you in the strictest professional confidence?"
The attorney darted a keen glance at him.
"Certainly, Sergeant. Come right into the drawing-room. Nan and Gene are with Mr. Lorne, and Miss Meade with Cissie. I suppose you know that there has been another disappearance among the servants? Gerda is gone."
"I know." Odell nodded. "Mr. Titheredge, I am going to ask you this under the seal of professional secrecy; and I must request that you tell me the absolute truth, for much may depend on it. Have you ever heard a suggestion of insanity connected in any way with the family?"
"Good heavens!" The attorney started back and sank into a chair. "This is preposterous, Sergeant; absurd! You surely cannot have conceived the idea—"
"You have not answered my question, Mr. Titheredge." Odell smiled. "Of course, if you prefer not to do so I can ​obtain the information elsewhere; but I should not at this stage of the game care to have the press get hold of the fact that such inquiries were being instituted."
"I should hope not!" Titheredge exclaimed fervently. "You horrify me! I don't know why you should have entertained such a thought, nor who could have suggested it to you; but I can assure you most solemnly that no insanity has manifested itself in the family in this or the last generation."
"But before that?" Odell had sensed the mental reservation. "In what branch of the family was there insanity, Mr. Titheredge?"
"You haven't heard, then, about old Joshua P. Meade?" The attorney had lowered his tones, and he glanced over his shoulder as if fearful of an eavesdropper. "He was the father of Mrs. Lorne and Miss Effie, you know; the children's grandfather. They have never been told, although their mother and aunt knew; and the secret was carefully kept from the world. The old gentleman was always considered eccentric, and possessed of an ungovernable temper; and in his later years it was given out that he had suffered a stroke and become a chronic invalid. He was kept in strict seclusion, and in that seclusion he finally died."
"He had lost his mind?"
"Yes. Not gradually; nor could age nor any mental strain account for it. He became suddenly violent, a raving maniac in fact, and was kept in a room up on the top floor here for seven years. Every effort was made to effect a cure, and the best specialists and alienists were consulted; but with no result. However, he has been dead these many years, and, thank God, no trace of his terrible malady has ​asserted itself in either the second or the third generation."
"I have been told that Mrs. Lorne possessed an almost maniacal temper," Odell observed. "I am quoting the exact words used. One or two of her children have inherited it from her to a certain extent, have they not?"
"Stuff and nonsense!" the attorney responded testily. "They are merely high-spirited, like their mother; and she was an exceptionally brilliant woman. I was reluctant to mention the old gentleman to you or discuss the matter in any way. Sergeant, for I feared you might fly off at this tangent. Old Mr. Meade's malady was not of the sort which is transmitted."
"Just what form did his mania take, Mr. Titheredge?"
"It was intermittent. For weeks he would be as seemingly sane as anyone and even played a remarkably good game of chess; I spent many an evening with him. Then wholly without warning he would become violent, and physical restraint would be necessary to prevent his doing harm to himself and others. Remember, however, that this trouble did not come upon him until late in life, many years after his children were born. If you try, Sergeant, to account for this terrible sequence of events by any inherited taint in the family, you will not only be wasting your time but fostering a totally unjust suspicion upon these innocent children. I can assure you that no curse has descended upon the third generation in this case."
Titheredge rose with an air of finality, and the detective walked with him to the door.
"Doubtless you are right, Mr. Titheredge; but in an affair of this sort where there seems to be no possible motive, no ​sane purpose, we must consider every contingency, no matter how remote."
Closing the front door after the attorney, he started thoughtfully for the stairs, when a young man who had been standing in the shadow of the library doorway stepped forward.
"Sergeant Odell, I hope you will forgive my flare-up yesterday; but I was very anxious about Miss Chalmers's safety. Have you discovered anything yet?"
"Several things, Mr. Traymore." Odell regarded the young man pleasantly. "Your anxiety was natural, and under the circumstances your suggestion was not ill-timed. Miss Chalmers is in no danger; but I think it would be a relief to her stepfather's mind if she were to go away until this investigation is over. Did I understand you to say that your mother wished her to come for a little visit?"
The boy's face flushed and then paled.
"My God!" he whispered. "Then there is danger. I knew it, I felt it. My mother will be more than glad to receive her and take care of her as long as she can stay. Sergeant; I'll run back and tell her at once and return for Nan. For God's sake see that no harm comes to her."
"None shall, my boy," the detective responded. "Nor will it be necessary for your mother to extend her hospitality for very long; for I think the end of the case is in sight."