



Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer





THE GOLD BAG

By Carolyn Wells



CONTENTS



CHAPTER


I. THE CRIME IN WEST SEDGWICK

II. THE CRAWFORD HOUSE

III. THE CORONER'S JURY

IV. THE INQUEST

V. FLORENCE LLOYD

VI. THE GOLD BAG

VII. YELLOW ROSES

VIII. FURTHER INQUIRY

IX. THE TWELFTH ROSE

X. THE WILL

XI. LOUIS'S STORY

XII. LOUIS'S CONFESSION

XIII. MISS LLOYD'S CONFIDENCE

XIV. MR. PORTER'S VIEWS.

XV. THE PHOTOGRAPH EXPLAINED

XVI. A CALL ON MRS. PURVIS

XVII. THE OWNER OF THE GOLD BAG

XVIII. IN MR. GOODRICH'S OFFICE

XIX. THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN

XX. FLEMING STONE

XXI. THE DISCLOSURE





THE GOLD BAG




I. THE CRIME IN WEST SEDGWICK


Though a young detective, I am not entirely an inexperienced one, and
I have several fairly successful investigations to my credit on the
records of the Central Office.

The Chief said to me one day: "Burroughs, if there's a mystery to be
unravelled; I'd rather put it in your hands than to trust it to any
other man on the force.

"Because," he went on, "you go about it scientifically, and you
never jump at conclusions, or accept them, until they're indubitably
warranted."

I declared myself duly grateful for the Chief's kind words, but I was
secretly a bit chagrined. A detective's ambition is to be, considered
capable of jumping at conclusions, only the conclusions must always
prove to be correct ones.

But though I am an earnest and painstaking worker, though my habits are
methodical and systematic, and though I am indefatigably patient and
persevering, I can never make those brilliant deductions from seemingly
unimportant clues that Fleming Stone can. He holds that it is nothing
but observation and logical inference, but to me it is little short of
clairvoyance.

The smallest detail in the way of evidence immediately connotes in his
mind some important fact that is indisputable, but which would never
have occurred to me. I suppose this is largely a natural bent of his
brain, for I have not yet been able to achieve it, either by study or
experience.

Of course I can deduce some facts, and my colleagues often say I am
rather clever at it, but they don't know Fleming Stone as well as I
do, and don't realize that by comparison with his talent mine is
insignificant.

And so, it is both by way of entertainment, and in hope of learning from
him, that I am with him whenever possible, and often ask him to "deduce"
for me, even at risk of boring him, as, unless he is in the right mood,
my requests sometimes do.

I met him accidentally one morning when we both chanced to go into a
basement of the Metropolis Hotel in New York to have our shoes shined.

It was about half-past nine, and as I like to get to my office by ten
o'clock, I looked forward to a pleasant half-hour's chat with him. While
waiting our turn to get a chair, we stood talking, and, seeing a pair
of shoes standing on a table, evidently there to be cleaned, I said
banteringly:

"Now, I suppose, Stone, from looking at those shoes, you can deduce all
there is to know about the owner of them."

I remember that Sherlock Holmes wrote once, "From a drop of water, a
logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without
having seen or heard of one or the other," but when I heard Fleming
Stone's reply to my half-laughing challenge, I felt that he had outdone
the mythical logician. With a mild twinkle in his eye, but with a
perfectly grave face, he said slowly,

"Those shoes belong to a young man, five feet eight inches high. He does
not live in New York, but is here to visit his sweetheart. She lives in
Brooklyn, is five feet nine inches tall, and is deaf in her left ear.
They went to the theatre last night, and neither was in evening dress."

"Oh, pshaw!" said I, "as you are acquainted with this man, and know how
he spent last evening, your relation of the story doesn't interest me."

"I don't know him," Stone returned; "I've no idea what his name is,
I've never seen him, and except what I can read from these shoes I know
nothing about him."

I stared at him incredulously, as I always did when confronted by his
astonishing "deductions," and simply said,

"Tell this little Missourian all about it."

"It did sound well, reeled off like that, didn't it?" he observed,
chuckling more at my air of eager curiosity than at his own achievement.
"But it's absurdly easy, after all. He is a young man because his shoes
are in the very latest, extreme, not exclusive style. He is five feet
eight, because the size of his foot goes with that height of man, which,
by the way, is the height of nine out of ten men, any way. He doesn't
live in New York or he wouldn't be stopping at a hotel. Besides, he
would be down-town at this hour, attending to business."

"Unless he has freak business hours, as you and I do," I put in.

"Yes, that might be. But I still hold that he doesn't live in New York,
or he couldn't be staying at this Broadway hotel overnight, and sending
his shoes down to be shined at half-past nine in the morning. His
sweetheart is five feet nine, for that is the height of a tall girl.
I know she is tall, for she