CHAPTER II.
OLD SPICER VISITS THE SCENE OF THE MURDER

The conversation related in the preceding chapter had occurred in the back parlor of Old Spicer's residence in Home Place.

The great detective, who had now owned and occupied this house for some time, had fitted it up to suit his own fancy and convenience.

He resided there alone – that is, so far as family was concerned, for Mrs. Hettie Catlin, the widow of Frederic Catlin, was still his housekeeper, and they kept one servant-of-all-work, a middle-aged woman, upon whom the detective could thoroughly rely.

The back parlor looked out upon a small garden, and this room Old Spicer had chosen for his sanctum sanctorum, and furnished it accordingly.

It would have been a feast, even for the great Lecoq, to have been able to pay a visit to this retreat. The wonders and trophies it contained were legion, and furnished a history in epitome of all the cases Old Spicer had ever had a hand in.

Naturally the old man loved this room, and spent as much of his time in it as possible.

He had many friends, but few intimates. Those few, however, he delighted to receive within the sacred precincts of the back parlor, and for this reason George Morgan, his adopted son, had recently purchased a beautiful residence on Academy Street, the garden of which ran down to and adjoined the old detective's little yard, and between which the means of communication was a gate in the garden fence.

Seth Stricket, too, had taken up his residence in the neighborhood, having moved into a pretty cottage on Green Street, and thus Old Spicer had his two most reliable assistants close at hand.

On reaching the sidewalk the trio passed out of Home Place, crossed Olive Street, entered Court, and keeping on, soon arrived at the police building.

Here they stopped, and entering the office, made such inquiries of the officer in charge as Spicer deemed expedient.

Chief Bollmann was not there, neither were any of the prominent members of the detective force; they were over in Spruce Street and otherwheres, working on the new murder case.

Old Spicer determined to lose no more time; so, leaving the headquarters of the police, he and his friends walked to Church Street, where they hailed a carriage, and were swiftly driven to the dead woman's house.

George Morgan led the way down the blue stone steps to the basement, where the murder had been committed, and Old Spicer at once began to examine the place where the widow had made her home for so many years.

The building was quite a large one, and, as he knew, had been, in the early history of the Turn Verein in the city, a meeting place for that body.

It was two stories high above the basement, and divided into six tenements, all of which were occupied.

But it was the basement itself that interested Old Spicer most, and as he wandered about it he was forced to admit that it was a veritable Chinese puzzle.

The main apartment was, of course, the barroom, where for years Mrs. Ernst, and two of her three husbands before her, had sold beer and liquor.

The chief informed Spicer that up to the present year the widow had carried on the saloon business there under the usual authority. She had not, however, he said, renewed her license for the present year, although she expected to do so before the summer season set in. She was a dispenser, since her license expired, of temperance drinks ostensibly.

Old Spicer and those with him, in looking over the premises, soon discovered conclusive proof that she did not strictly interpret the license law. Ale barrels, beer kegs, and demijohns for whisky and other fiery liquors were scattered through the basement.

In the rear of the barroom was the bedroom. There were many more rooms in the basement. Fourteen inside doors led into the little rooms, each of which was furnished with one or two chairs, a lounge, table, and a stove. Most of these rooms could be reached from two or three different sides.

In the rear were two doors leading to the back yard, and a covered passage leading to a little alley through which York Street could be reached. Four doors opened out of the room where the body of Mrs. Ernst was discovered by the milkman.

No one who was unfamiliar with the premises had any idea that there were more than two rooms in the basement. The officials, Chief Bollmann, Coroner Mix, and all the detectives, including Spicer, Stricket and Morgan, who had a pretty good knowledge of the various haunts of vice in the city, were surprised to find such a thoroughly mixed-up piece of underground architecture.

Old Spicer, while inspecting the apartments and the several dark passages by which the rooms were reached, compared the surroundings, because of the abrupt and unexpected halls and turns, the scanty furnishings, and the like, to some of the celebrated structures that carried notoriety to the old Five Points in New York years ago.

In the southeast corner of the basement, where the uninitiated might expect to find a coal bin or a hole in the ground to store away wood, they discovered a room with three or four chairs and a lounge. Even the tenants on the floor above had no idea that there was such a room in existence.

One of the passages from the bedroom opened into what must have been a sort of social apartment for the patrons of the widow. It might also answer the purpose of a card or smoking-room. A cheap stove, a couple of tables, and three or four chairs comprised the furniture of this room.

Then there was discovered another apartment which was probably used as a storehouse for ale and beer barrels. Besides these there were found a woodshed and tool-room, and a suspicious looking trap-door that covered what Old Spicer was privately informed was a secret underground tunnel that extended far in the rear of the building.

He raised the heavy door and looked in; the entrance was nearly choked up with ashes.

He removed some of the rubbish with his foot, and peered eagerly into the black darkness. The hole had a mysterious look about it, and he could not but regard it with strong suspicion.

One of the tenants of the house approached, pointed to the black opening, mysteriously shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and then mumbled, in what he meant to be a confidential tone:

"That there underground passage leads clear across the back-yard, Mister Detective; and just let me tell you it'll be a mighty interesting thoroughfare for you to inspect."

"Thoroughfare, eh?" questioned Old Spicer, thoughtfully.

"That's what I said, sir."

"Thank you for the hint, my friend; most likely I shall act upon it later." Then he closed the trap-door, and once more turned toward the bar-room.

This apartment was of comfortable dimensions, and was the principal room in the basement. It was furnished on the same scale of poverty as the rest, and the first glimpse into it would not have been very reassuring to the spectator. The bar resembled those that bloom in cheap groggeries.

There was an evident purpose on the part of the owner to keep the public from sharing the brilliancy of the interior, for a paper screen two and a half feet high and two feet wide stood at the end of the bar as a barrier to the glow of an oil lamp that shed its exclusive light through the gloomy apartment.

A dilapidated, small-sized looking-glass adorned the partition wall back of the bar. In the tool-room were a hatchet and a butcher's knife, besides a bunch of rusty keys.

Suspended from the bar-room wall and right over the dead woman's head, was a picture of Napoleon Bonaparte surveying a battlefield with his generals. A picture of Richard Wagner looked down on the corpse from another part of the interior.

"When I first came in here this morning with the milkman," said Morgan, "there were bottles and half-filled glasses on the bar."

"What was in the glasses?" asked Stricket.

"In one there was nothing but soda-water. The other contained claret."

"How long was it after you got here before the police arrived?" asked Old Spicer.

"I had had hardly time enough to take a good look at the murdered woman when Policeman Cannon, who resides in the brick block next south of this, came in. He had only just returned from his night patrol and lain down. His wife heard the outcry in the street and aroused him."

"I suppose he assumed authority at once?"

"Why, he found the place pretty well filled by an excited throng, and men, women and boys making excursions through the several apartments; but before he could clear out the people, Detective Reilly arrived."

"Ah! somebody telephoned to headquarters, I suppose?"

"I suppose so, for very soon the coroner came rushing in, then Detective Brewer made his appearance in hot haste; and finally Chief Bollmann, Policeman Hyde and other officers."

"By that time there was a scattering, I fancy," said Stricket, with a smile.

"Yes," assented George, "everybody was hunted from the basement except those you see here now."

At this moment Coroner Mix joined them.

"Going to look into this case a little, Old Spicer?" he asked.

"I have some thoughts of doing so," was the reply.

"I hope you will," said the coroner. "If there is any information I can give you, I will impart it gladly."

"Are there any clews to work on as yet?" asked Old Spicer.

"Very few, so far as I have been able to learn."

"What do you know about the woman, anyway?"

"Very little indeed. The fact is, Spicer, there seems to be a blissful ignorance on every hand, even regarding the history of the victim and her family affairs."

"Ah-ha! she kept her family affairs to herself, did she?"

"It seems so. A mystery looms up at the very outset of the case. But of that hereafter."

"All right, the mystery can wait, if you say so. But with regard to her relatives, surely something is known about them. What have you been able to find out?"

"In the first place, I have ascertained that Mrs. Ernst had been in this country between thirty and forty years, coming from Germany; and that her financial manager, for a long time past, was Maier Zunder."

"She was a widow, I believe?"

"Yes, a good deal of a widow. She had been married three times, and her three husbands are dead."

"Indeed?"

"Yes; the first died in Germany."

"What was his name?"

"George Pfaff. After his death she came to the United States and met her second husband, Franz Natolph, in New York."

"He came to New Haven with her, didn't he?" asked Stricket.

"Yes," was the reply, "and they started in the saloon-business in this very place."

"There was a pretty serious row, wasn't there, in which Natolph got hurt?"

"Yes, one night, in this very room, Natolph was struck in the head with a bottle, nearly cracking his skull. Typhoid fever set in, and that and the injuries from the bottle soon after caused his death."

"How long is it since Ernst, her third husband, died?" asked Old Spicer.

"Less than ten years," was the reply.

"She left no children, I believe?"

"No – never had any, so far as I have been able to learn."

"She has kept up the business, married or single?"

"Yes: to the very hour of her death."

Old Spicer glanced at the dead body on the sofa.

"She was a very stout woman," he remarked, "but, I believe, was not in good health."

"No," answered the coroner, "she has been troubled of late years with a severe asthmatic attack. She was rarely seen outside of this basement, for a flight of stairs was a terror to her."

"She suffered from rheumatism, I have been told."

"Yes, fearfully; it settled in her limbs, and caused a lameness, which was relieved somewhat by the assistance of the black walking-stick you see by her side."

"But she did go out sometimes?"

"Only at rare intervals, and then always in a carriage."

"She was quite well off – rich, in fact?"

"Of late years she has been increasing her wealth pretty fast. She owns this house, and the large brick block directly back of it, which fronts on York Street."

"She was mighty close-fisted," observed Stricket.

"Yes," assented the coroner, "she was of a parsimonious disposition, and by some in this neighborhood was called very grasping and miserly."

"It seems to me the chief ought to know something about her affairs," remarked Stricket, in a musing tone; "for, if I remember rightly, he was employed by her years ago, when he was practicing law."

"You are right, Mr. Stricket," assented the coroner, "years ago he was her counsel, but only, as he informs me, on two or three occasions."

At that moment the chief and several other officials joined them. As they seemed very willing to talk, Old Spicer determined to be a listener, and very sparing of his own words.