Library 
CONFLICTING EVIDENCE.
The library was a square room of moderate size, comfortably, though simply furnished. An open desk stood against one of the walls, with a rise of shelves on each side, partly filled with books. In the middle of the room was a square, cloth-topped table, on which were several books and newspapers, also an oil lamp with a green porcelain shade.
A large leather-covered armchair stood near the table, between it and a swivel chair in front of the desk. A smaller chair near a window, the roller shade of which was partly drawn down, was overturned on the floor.
To the right of the window hung a portière consisting of two heavy tapestry curtains, suspended from a black walnut rod. They were drawn nearly together, but between them could be seen a double door with small, leaded glass windows. It opened upon a side veranda overlooking the tree-shaded grounds east of and to the rear of the dwelling.
Nick noticed that one of the curtains was awry, and, glancing up, he saw that it had been torn from one of the pins that fastened it to the transverse rod above the door.
On the floor between this door and the table lay the body of the murdered priest. He was a man of middle size, wearing the conventional black garments of his calling. He was lying on his back, with his arms extended, his head nearly touching a leg of the table, and with his smooth-shaved face upturned in plain view of the detectives, a face on which the pallor and peace of death long since had fallen.
Father Cleary had been stabbed twice in the breast, nearly in a line with his heart, and his garments and the rug on which he was lying were saturated with blood, then dark and congealed.
Nick Carter saw at a glance that the priest had been dead for several hours.
“The scene is suggestive, Fallon; very suggestive,” he said, after a few moments. “We will proceed deliberately, however, since nothing can be done for this man. It’s a case of murder, pure and simple, if that can be. Let Grady wait in the hall. I will study the evidence in detail.”
Fallon nodded and glanced significantly at the policeman.
Nick crossed the room and raised the window curtain. In the brighter light that entered, the scene was even more vividly tragic and gruesome.
“No weapon is here,” said he, with searching gaze while he crouched to examine the corpse. “The assassin took
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care not to leave it. It evidently was a dagger, or a knife with a broad blade. Note the two gashes in the garments. Either thrust would have been fatal. This man has been dead since last evening, probably as early as nine o’clock.”
Nick had lifted one stiffened arm while speaking and dropped it to the floor.
“Surely,” Fallon said simply.
“Here are stains of ink on his middle finger. He evidently was writing when——”
Nick did not finish the remark. He arose and turned to the open desk, then approached it. A sheet of paper was lying on it, also a pen that evidently had been abruptly dropped.
“Ah, here is proof of it,” said Nick.
He bent forward and read from the sheet of paper merely the following lines:
“
To the Right Reverend Bishop Cassidy, Washington, D. C.
“
My Dear Bishop
: I feel compelled to ask your consideration of a matter of which I have just become informed. Though the sacred secrecy of the confessional forbids——”
That was all, written with a firm and flowing hand, and Nick straightened up and turned to his companion.
“Yes, this settles it, Fallon,” said he. “Father Cleary was writing when his assassin entered. Observe that he quickly dropped his pen, instead of placing it in this tray with the others.”
“Yes, obviously,” Fallon agreed.
“Plainly, then, he was startled, or even alarmed by some unexpected noise. That would not have been the case, Fallon, if his bell had rung, either that of the front or the side door.”
“But he may not have been alone at that time,” suggested Fallon. “The person by whom he was killed may have been here.”
“That is not probable,” Nick quickly objected. “This letter which he began to write denotes that he was alone, also that some person had just left him, or only a short time before, and by whom serious information of some kind had been imparted to him, so serious that he felt compelled to write about it to Bishop Cassidy.”
“It must in that case have been something relating to the church.”
“Not necessarily. I do not, in fact, think that it was.”
“Why so?”
“Notice the next line: ‘Though the sacred secrecy of the confessional forbids,’” Nick pointed out. “There he stopped and dropped his pen. Forbids what? We know that it forbids his revealing what is imparted in confession. That seems to have been the source of the information about which he intended to write, judging from the beginning of the letter. It may not, of course, have been part of a penitent’s confession. It may have been something indirectly related with it, or referring to a confession.”
“I see,” Fallon nodded. “There seems to be no way to definitely determine.”
“Not at present,” Nick replied, folding the sheet of paper and putting it in his pocket. “Let’s go a step farther.”
Nick turned and took up the lamp on the table, shaking it gently and peering into the chimney.
“Empty,” said he tersely. “The wick is turned up and charred. The lamp burned until the oil was exhausted.
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The assassin did not extinguish the light. He left in a hurry, no doubt.”
“He remained long enough to close the door leading into the hall,” said Fallon. “The housekeeper found it closed this morning.”
“Father Cleary may have closed it when he received his first visitor.”
“You think there were two?”
“I do,” said Nick.
“Here together?”
“No. One came after the other had departed.”
“But why did he close the hall door after letting them out?” questioned Fallon, a bit doubtfully. “Mrs. Kane’s statements imply that she usually found it open in the morning.”
“I don’t think that he let them out, not both of them at least,” said Nick. “Here is another door.”
“Ah, I see.”
Nick pointed to the portière hanging across it.
“He may have let the first visitor out this way, instead of by the front or side door,” said he. “This door leading into the hall, in that case, still would have been closed.”
“I see the point.”
“He may have admitted his second visitor through this curtained door, or perhaps have left it open a little for ventilation after letting out the other,” Nick continued to reason. “It may have been violently forced from outside, on the other hand, alarming him while he was writing.”
“I follow you,” nodded Fallon.
“Notice that one side of the curtain is awry and torn from one of the pins supporting it. The location of the body, too, between the window and this table, shows that Father Cleary probably was approaching the window when he was assaulted and stabbed. There is no evidence of a struggle. His assailant evidently flung aside those curtains so violently that one was partly torn from its fastening, and he then sprang at the priest and stabbed him before he could defend himself.”
“That certainly seems, Nick, to be a reasonable reconstruction of the murder itself,” said Fallon, noting the points mentioned.
“Let’s see what more we can find in support of it,” said Nick.
He now approached the portière and examined it. On the edge of one of the curtains, where a hand evidently had grasped it, was a plainly discernible red stain, obviously a bloodstain.
Nick called Fallon’s attention to it, then gazed at it with a puzzled expression on his earnest face.
“The miscreant’s hand was soiled with blood after the stabbing,” said Fallon. “He tore the curtain from the pin when leaving, instead of when he entered, as you were led to infer. What are you thinking about?” he added, noting Nick’s look of perplexity.
Nick parted the curtains before replying. He then found that the door was set in a narrow casement, just wide enough to permit the two sections of the door to open inward.
Nick opened both and found on the woodwork of the right-hand section, or that to the right of a person standing on the veranda and looking into the room, four stains of blood, evidently from parts of the fingers of a man’s hand that had grasped that section of the door. Though they were too smeared to be of value as finger prints, in
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so far as revealing the tissues of the skin was concerned, they showed plainly the size and shape of the fingers, which could only have been those of a man.
“By Jove, I don’t quite fathom this,” Nick remarked, after a moment.
“Fathom what, Nick?” questioned Fallon.
“These bloodstains.”
“Why do they mystify you? I see nothing strange in them. The murderer evidently drew the portière and closed this door with a bloodstained hand.”
“I am not so sure of it.”
“How can you reason otherwise?”
“You overlook something,” said Nick. “It may be a very important point.”
“What is that? Explain.”
“Notice that it was the man’s right hand that grasped this section of the window,” said Nick. “The relative size and position of the finger marks show that, also that he must have been facing toward the room, not coming out of it.”
“By gracious, that’s so!” said Fallon, gazing.
“That part of the portière which is stained and torn from the pin, moreover, is on the same side of the window.”
“True.”
“To have grasped them with his right hand, therefore, the man must have been backing out of the room, if leaving it.”
“True again.”
“There is one alternative,” said Nick.
“Namely?”
“That instead of backing out of the room—he was entering it.”
“But that is hardly tenable, Carter.”
“Why?”
“Because his hand was stained with blood. He must have been leaving the room after the murder,” Fallon argued.
“Unless——”
“Unless what?”
“Unless his hand was soiled with blood before he entered and killed the priest.”
“But——”
“Stop a moment,” Nick interrupted. “I now am convinced that this murder was committed in just the manner that I have described. Father Cleary heard some one back of the portière, or forcing the window, and he sprang up to see who was here. The intruder flung aside the portière and stabbed him.”
“Well?”
“Notice this point,” said Nick. “The murderer evidently did not remain to accomplish anything more. He did not go to the desk to see what the priest had been writing, or he would, if my previous reasoning is correct, have taken away the letter Father Cleary had begun.”
“Surely,” Fallon quickly allowed.
“We can safely assume, then, that the assassin got out as quickly as possible,” Nick proceeded. “Surely, then, he would not have backed out. He would have hurried straight out, drawing the portière and closing the double door.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“The side of the curtain which is stained, also the same section of the door, would have been to his left, there
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fore, and naturally would have been grasped with his left hand.”
“Certainly.”
“That gives rise to a very pertinent question,” said Nick. “Why was his left hand stained with blood?”
“You mean?”
“Most men wield a knife with the right hand,” Nick went on. “That is the hand that should have been covered with blood from the knife used, not the left, which naturally would have been raised to seize his victim by the throat or shoulder to prevent resistance.”
“By Jove, there’s no getting around that, Nick, as far as it goes,” Fallon thoughtfully admitted, more deeply impressed and now more mystified. “But these prints on the door show plainly enough that it was the right hand that was soiled.”
“They also show that he must have been facing the room,” said Nick. “In other words, Fallon, that he was backing out of it, which you admit is improbable—or that he was entering it with blood on his hand, which you also think is untenable.”
Fallon shook his head and frowned.
“Hang it, Nick, you’re mixing me all up,” he declared. “I won’t know in another minute whether I’m afoot or horseback. You tell me what you think. Never mind what I think. Your head is worth two of mine—yes, half a dozen.”
“No, I think not,” said Nick, smiling faintly. “Plainly, nevertheless, these bloodstains present inconsistencies not easily explained at this moment.”
“They do so, for fair.”
“We will look a little farther. You saw that I found this door unlocked?”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“It was secured only by the latch, which can be lifted from either side. It is safe to assume, since the lock is not damaged, that the assassin found the door unlocked. Either that, or, as I have said, it was opened a little for ventilation.”
“The latter seems quite probable,” said Fallon. “It was unseasonably warm last evening.”
Nick stepped out on the veranda, instead of replying, Fallon following.
It extended from the side door, where two low steps led down to a gravel walk running out to the street. The veranda was about twelve feet in length, with a vine-covered trellis at the rear end of it, and with the outer side protected with a scroll railing.
Near the trellis stood a large willow armchair, in which Father Cleary had been accustomed to sit and read at times on warm, pleasant days.
Nick glanced in that direction and made another strange discovery.
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