Guy Garrick | Page 2

various active sections of the
metropolis.
More than that, it was scarcely his fault if the society columns had been
busy in a concerted effort to marry him off--no doubt with a cynical eye
on possible black-type headlines of future domestic discord. Among
those mentioned by the enterprising society reporters of the papers had
been the same Miss Violet Winslow whose picture I had admired.
Evidently Garrick had recognized the coincidence.

Miss Winslow, by the way, was rather closely guarded by a duenna-
like aunt, Mrs. Beekman de Lancey, who at that time had achieved a
certain amount of notoriety by a crusade which she had organized
against gambling in society. She had reached that age when some
women naturally turn toward righting the wrongs of humanity, and, in
this instance, as in many others, humanity did not exactly appreciate it.
"How are you, McBirney?" greeted Garrick, as he met his old friend,
then, turning to young Warrington, added: "Have you had a car stolen?"
"Have I?" chimed in the youth eagerly, and with just a trace of
nervousness. "Worse than that. I can stand losing a big nine-
thousand-dollar Mercedes, but--but--you tell it, McBirney. You have
the facts at your tongue's end."
Garrick looked questioningly at the detective.
"I'm very much afraid," responded McBirney slowly, "that this theft
about caps the climax of motor-car stealing in this city. Of course, you
realize that the automobile as a means of committing crime and of
escape has rendered detection much more difficult to- day than it ever
was before." He paused. "There's been a murder done in or with or by
that car of Mr. Warrington's, or I'm ready to resign from the
profession!"
McBirney had risen in the excitement of his revelation, and had handed
Garrick what looked like a discharged shell of a cartridge.
Garrick took it without a word, and turned it over and over critically,
examining every side of it, and waiting for McBirney to resume.
McBirney, however, said nothing.
"Where did you find the car?" asked Garrick at length, still examining
the cartridge. "We haven't found it," replied the detective with a
discouraged sigh.
"Haven't found it?" repeated Garrick. "Then how did you get this
cartridge--or, at least why do you connect it with the disappearance of

the car?"
"Well," explained McBirney, getting down to the story, "you
understand Mr. Warrington's car was insured against theft in a
company which is a member of our association. When it was stolen we
immediately put in motion the usual machinery for tracing stolen cars."
"How about the police?" I queried.
McBirney looked at me a moment--I thought pityingly. "With all
deference to the police," he answered indulgently, "it is the insurance
companies and not the police who get cars back--usually. I suppose it's
natural. The man who loses a car notifies us first, and, as we are likely
to lose money by it, we don't waste any time getting after the thief."
"You have some clew, then?" persisted Garrick.
McBirney nodded.
"Late this afternoon word came to me that a man, all alone in a car,
which, in some respects tallied with the description of Warrington's,
although, of course, the license number and color had been altered, had
stopped early this morning at a little garage over in the northern part of
New Jersey."
Warrington, excited, leaned forward and interrupted.
"And, Garrick," he exclaimed, horrified, "the car was all stained with
blood!"

CHAPTER II
THE MURDER CAR
Garrick looked from one to the other of his visitors intently. Here was
an entirely unexpected development in the case which stamped it as set
apart from the ordinary.

"How did the driver manage to explain it and get away?" he asked
quickly.
McBirney shook his head in evident disgust at the affair.
"He must be a clever one," he pursued thoughtfully. "When he came
into the garage they say he was in a rather jovial mood. He said that he
had run into a cow a few miles back on the road, and then began to cuss
the farmer, who had stung him a hundred dollars for the animal."
"And they believed it?" prompted Garrick.
"Yes, the garage keeper's assistant swallowed the story and cleaned the
car. There was some blood on the radiator and hood, but the strange
part was that it was spattered even over the rear seat--in fact, was
mostly in the rear."
"How did he explain that?"
"Said that he guessed the farmer who stung him wouldn't get much for
the carcass, for it had been pretty well cut up and a part of it flung right
back into the tonneau."
"And the man believed that, too?"
"Yes; but afterward the garage keeper himself was told. He met the
farmer in town later, and the farmer denied that