THE STOLEN MOTOR

“You are aware, I suppose, Marshall, that there have been considerably over a million dollars’ worth of automobiles stolen in this city during the past few months?” asked Guy Garrick one night when I had dropped into his office.

“I wasn’t aware of the exact extent of the thefts, though of course I knew of their existence,” I replied.  “What’s the matter?”

“If you can wait a few moments,” he went on, “I think I can promise you a most interesting case—­the first big case I’ve had to test my new knowledge of crime science since I returned from abroad.  Have you time for it?”

“Time for it?” I echoed.  “Garrick, I’d make time for it, if necessary.”

We sat for several moments, in silence, waiting.

I picked up an evening paper.  I had already read it, but I looked through it again, to kill time, even reading the society notes.

“By Jove, Garrick,” I exclaimed as my eye travelled over the page, “newspaper pictures don’t usually flatter people, but just look at those eyes!  You can fairly see them dance even in the halftone.”

The picture which had attracted my attention was of Miss Violet Winslow, an heiress to a moderate fortune, a debutante well known in New York and at Tuxedo that season.

As Garrick looked over my shoulder his mere tone set me wondering.

“She is stunning,” he agreed simply.  “Half the younger set are crazy over her.”

The buzzer on his door recalled us to the case in hand.

One of our visitors was a sandy-haired, red-mustached, stocky man, with everything but the name detective written on him from his face to his mannerisms.

He was accompanied by an athletically inclined, fresh-faced young fellow, whose clothes proclaimed him to be practically the last word in imported goods from London.

I was not surprised at reading the name of James McBirney on the detective’s card, underneath which was the title of the Automobile Underwriters’ Association.  But I was more than surprised when the younger of the visitors handed us a card with the simple name, Mortimer Warrington.

For, Mortimer Warrington, I may say, was at that time one of the celebrities of the city, at least as far as the newspapers were concerned.  He was one of the richest young men in the country, and good for a “story” almost every day.

Warrington was not exactly a wild youth, in spite of the fact that his name appeared so frequently in the headlines.  As a matter of fact, the worst that could be said of him with any degree of truth was that he was gifted with a large inheritance of good, red, restless blood, as well as considerable holdings of real estate in 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.